Independent India and Pakistan have turned 75. The hard-earned independence from the clutches of the British rule that lasted for more than three hundred years came with a cost as India had to suffer its bitter division, with Islamic State of Pakistan carved out of the newborn nation-state. The partition was followed by the trail of horror as millions were killed, and displaced from their roots.
The sordid affairs in Pakistan and the growing intolerance in India are the result of scornful defiance of both Jinnah and Nehru to a great extent. When Jinnah addressed the people of Pakistan in his historical speech, he believed the Partition was inevitable. But for him, each Pakistani needed to correct the wrongs of the past without religious or ethnic prejudice. For Jinnah, corruption, bribery, black-marketing and the ills of nepotism were the real enemies of the citizens of Pakistan. On the other hand, when Nehru addressed the famous “Tryst with Destiny”, he urged the fellow Indians to defeat poverty, ignorance and inequality that had spread like cancer all over the country. For him, the new India must follow Gandhi’s vision of “wiping every single tear from every single eye”. For Nehru, the challenge was big which would not have been overcome as long as there were tears of suffering in the eyes of Indians.
After 75 years, there are mixed emotions. The idea of “Naya Pakistan” or “riyasat-e-Medina” evoking a sense of beautiful dream is far from the reality as the political class capitalised on the growing idea of Islamist philosophy. India, despite long strides in all spheres of life, has failed to fulfill the dream of the common man with poverty refusing to go away. Both India and Pakistan have defeated a few ills but have embraced new enemies. The will to be a nuclear state was long fulfilled; but corruption, communalism, bigotry and hatred have found new safe-havens.
Pakistan never allowed the civilian governments to be the true representative of the masses, and the legitimacy to the Pakistan Army has remained intact as the country has failed to get rid of its siege mentality towards “Hindu India”, which has more Muslims as her citizens.
The Pakistan Army is the de-facto state in the name of securing its sovereignty and seeks more power to sustain its legitimacy. It will never help Pakistan grow in its full potential until it eschews its dogmatic ideological goals, including its obsession with India.
Jinnah died early and Nehru followed him in 1964. India and Pakistan fought four major wars that didn’t solve the purpose of co-existence as civilised nations. Zia-ul-Haq’s Pakistan lingers on and the culture of religious and ethnic violence has taken deep roots. Pakistan still struggles to embody a sense of resilient state with an identity of its own. The draconian blasphemy laws and the rise of non-state actors have given birth to many Frankensteins there.
For India, much before the rise of the Hindutva nationalism, Nehruvian vision was failed by his own family; first by Indira Gandhi in her role in Punjab that aggravated the Khalistan movement hurting many generations, and later by Rajiv Gandhi who succumbed to religious fundamentalists in the Shah Bano case and Salman Rushdie case to please “Muslim fear mongers”, and later by allowing to open gates of Ram Janmabhumi in Ayodhya to compensate Hindu feelings. He failed not only Nehru and Gandhi’s India, but the hallmark that India always took pride in its secular credentials was also challenged. The political growth for religious nationalism started growing from that point in Indian political history.
The current phase is a testimony to how both nations have failed their founding fathers. The causality in both Pakistan and India has been society and people. The wrath of fanatics and phony nationalism has resurfaced in different avatars in both India and Pakistan. Frankenstein has now become more powerful and the backyard is no safer. Places in Pakistan have become a mirror image of fire and fury. It is no surprise that Pakistan has lost thousands in terrorism but still it uses Islamic terrorism as a policy for its own madness. In India, while we are proud of the achievements in science and technology with glowing examples like ISRO, mistrust and religious hate are thriving in its underbelly.
The consequences are abominable. India and Pakistan can’t cope with the major challenges they face. Education and health are gasping for better treatment. Modern challenges need a progressive political mindset, unfortunately both India and Pakistan are still rooted in past. Both nations have become the republics of fear. While Pakistan secretly espouses the cause of “Gazba-e-Hind”, BJP’s dream of “Akhand Bharat” has become stumbling blocks in the progress of the nation.
Long back Jinnah responded to the question, “Whether partition was wrong”. He replied, “Maybe that view is correct; maybe it is not; that remains to be seen”. Jinnah must be feeling sorry about what his ‘Citizen Elites’ have done to his vision.
In “Tryst with Destiny”, Nehru said, “We are citizens of a great country, on the verge of bold advance, and we have to live up to that high standard. All of us, to whatever religion we may belong, are equally the children of India with equal rights, privileges and obligations. We cannot encourage communalism or narrow-mindedness, for no nation can be great whose people are narrow in thought or action.” Today’s India is the worst nightmare of Nehruvian vision.
(The writer is an expert on India-Pak relations)
