HVK Archives: Indo-Pak dialogue: Even Punjabi has failed
Indo-Pak dialogue: Even Punjabi has failed - The Asian Age
M.J. Akbar
()
28 September 1997
Title: Indo-Pak dialogue: Even Punjabi has failed
Author: M.J. Akbar
Publication: The Asian Age
Date: September 28, 1997
Conclusive evidence has now reached us in that relations between India and
Pakistan cannot he sorted out in Punjabi. Efforts have been made during
the last 50 years in other languages, with varying degrees of success, but
Punjabi was given its opportunity in the last few months. It too has failed.
The first language in which a dialogue took place was the Urdu of Uttar
Pradesh. Jawaharlal Nehru and Liaquat Ali Khan might have been as
comfortable in English as in the language of their soil, but the spirit of
the environment was indisputably controlled by the sentiments surrounding
Urdu. Needless to say, the attempt got nowhere because by 1947 and 1949,
Urdu had become the language of war, rather than an exquisite window for
the poetry of love. If any language could be said to have created Pakistan
it was surely Urdu, burdening the new nation with yet another paradox. In
Pakistan Urdu became the lingua fratica of people who breathed Bengali,
Punjabi, Sindbi, Pushto and Baloch; and in India Urdu was punished for
displaying the temerity to partition a subcontinent. When Pakistan was born
Jawaharlal Nehru seriously believed that the prodigal child was so
fundamentally illogical that it would have to return to the larger family.
Being Jawaharlal he voiced such feelings, thereby ensuring that the one per
cent chance of such a reversal was also lost. A few historians have,
unjustifiably in the opinion of this columnist, convinced themselves that
Pakistan was born out of the press conferences of Nehru., a few statements
less, and partition may have been avoided.
The next Prime Minister of India, Lal Bahadur Shastri, was a Hindi man;
while across the border the tortured politics of power had thrown up into
eminence the Colonel's English. General Ayub Khan, who promoted himself to
the status of Field Marshal without going through the trouble of winning
any battle, preferred English of course, but it was Sandhurst rather than
Oxbridge that we are talking about. No wonder Shastriji of Allahabad could
not quite read the signals, although when push came to shove the
scholar-politician proved that size was a notional advantage.
Oxbridge dominated for the next decade, until Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was
hanged and Indira Gandhi was defeated. Between them they first settled the
fate of the Pakistani generals, and then more or less left each other alone
as they attempted to manage life after war. With General Zia ul Haq,
Pakistan got its first real taste of Punjabi power. Is it surprising that
General Zia's India policy was more Punjabcentric than even Kashmircentric?
He established his bridges with the militants in Punjab through Punjabi,
and converted what would never have been more than anger into an
unprecedented insurrection. India's Gangetic plain brahmins felt for the
first time what the whiplash from Punjab could mean. And there is a
possible cultural explanation for the warmth of the Zia-Morarji Desai
relationship: the distance from Jullunder to Ahmedabad is shorter than the
distance from Jullunder to high society.
English returned to the forefront with the arrival of Oxbridge children:
Benazir Bhutto and Rajiv Gandhi. Their problem, however. could legitimately
be construed as unfamiliarity with any other language of the subcontinent;
both were uncertain when cruel politics forced them to speak in anything
other than English. Benazir sublimated this uncertainty through excess;
Rajiv through charm. For a brief moment, in the late Eighties, it seemed
that the bonds of English might just prove strong enough to bring the two
countries near to each other. Alas, those who did not speak English
accounted for both.
The Nineties saw politics in both countries enter a phase of complete
distraction: in truth. no one was speaking any language at all, other than
the desperate language of survival. P.V. Narasimha Rao's Urdu, forcefed to
him by a Muslim feudalism, which he despised, was too artificial an asset
for him; in any case he had no intention of wasting it on Pakistan, or even
Kashmir. Pakistan, on its part, was in such turbulence that the only
policy, which found support, was the export of terror. Pakistan was the
first to regain its composure, when a general election finally brought a
strong government into power headed by Mian Namaz Sharif, tiger of Lahore
and lion of Pakistan. India continued its journey on the edge of a knife;
destiny used that knife to cut one Prime Minister, H.D. Deve Gowda, to
shreds, and then placed Inder Kumar Gujral on the road. For the first time
in the history of the subcontinent, a vast stretch of territory from the
Frontier to Bengal and the Northeast was ruled by Punjabis. In the old
days they might have even been called co-emperors.
It was probably the elder emperor who made the more serious mistake, which
was to believe that goodwill was good enough. All the body language that
was flaunted before the cameras after any interaction between the Prime
Ministers from Punjab suggested that peace was just a conversation away (a
conversation with the Americans that is, although this could never have
been said in so many words). The essential fact about the essential problem
between the two countries was ignored behind a sheet of smiles.
There has been a subtle but critical change in the nature of this problem,
as far as India is concerned, it is not Kashmir which is on the agenda but
the status quo. India has surrendered her claim to the whole of Jammu and
Kashmir, being now quite content to let Pakistan retain what her forces
took in the first war in perpetuity. India is ready to settle on the basis
of the territorial status quo and throw in supplementary concessions to
give this the binding force of a treaty. Pakistan is not; for Pakistan the
whole of the Kashmir Valley is the issue, not the bits it took by force.
India changed her attitude in 1972, during the Shimla discussions when she
opted for a partitioned Kashmir, Pakistan has not accepted the partition of
Kashmir.
The Nawaz Sharif Government began throwing bucketsful of water on brotherly
aspirations much, before the New York meeting, making it quite clear that
if there were no forward movement on Kashmir there would not be much moment
on anything else. Mian Nawaz Sharif broadcast his position from the
rooftops and then waited for an answer. Instead of an answer he only heard
an echo; Delhi had become a barren hill. Nawaz Sharif was content when
nothing emerged from the talks with Inder Gujral in New York; Mr Gujral was
silent, while his officials suddenly discovered that there was so much to
do apart from worry about Kashmir.
The difficulty is that Delhi is giving the impression that it wants to walk
out of a game begun by mutual consultation, halfway through. Thus we have
the President of the United States announcing that he will visit Pakistan
early next Year, but India refusing to confirm a co-terminus visit to
Delhi, unsure about the implications of any answer, yes or no.
The Pakistan initiative was at the top of the Gujral agenda; in fact. now
that it has been punctured, does Mr Gujral have any agenda left? The
answer clearly is no. In which case there is very little for him to do
except make way for a majority Government, preferably one which emerges
through general election. There is genuine regret at such a denouement for
if anyone ever had a chance of creating that elusive peace with Pakistan
then it was surely Mr Gujral. If he has failed, then it is only because
history is more powerful than he is.
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