'Bibi, aap Pakistan se ayi ho?'the waiter enquired from my friend at a local restaurant in New Delhi. She braced herself for more trouble, following the distasteful hassle with immigration at the airport and then the police reporting. On a tight schedule, she had almost missed all the fun at the wedding she had come to attend. Getting a visa had been no less frustrating. 'This is my first and last trip to India', she had promised herself. 'Yes. Why do you want to know that?' she asked, not sure what answer she might get. Her bitterness melted as she saw tears welling up in his eyes. 'I am from Punjab, too. Before partition I had a small business there. I had a number of Muslim friends. We met everyday. I still remember those wonderful winter evenings when we chatted for hours, listening to Noor Jehan's magical melodies over endless cups of tea and dry fruits'. His eyes had that far away misty look and his voice choked with repressed nostalgia. 'Those were good days. Now I am scared to travel to the other side of the border, but the memory of my childhood in Pakistan is still alive and reverberates in my mind whenever I see a Pakistani. Bibi, as long as you are here, you are our special guest'. My friend experienced shades of the same sentiments throughout her five day stay at the hotel. The treatment she received from ordinary Indians wherever she went was in stark contrast to the treatment she had received from government functionaries.
Pakistan and India have remained daggers drawn for over 60 years, prisoners, somehow, of a shared past. The people who lived together for centuries could not live in peaceful co-existence after the departure of the British and were separated by the inexorable force of events. Functionalists like Durkheim believe that in a pre-industrial society, people feel a very strong sense of solidarity because they are very similar to one another. But when societies evolve, division of labour becomes more specialised. Though people are no longer similar, they depend on each other. The pre-partition situation was quite similar. With the decline of the Mughal Empire, the Muslims and the Hindus emerged as two different cultures. Due to a variety of reasons, the Muslims were still living in the pre-industrialised society whereas the Hindus were ready to step into the modern era. All of a sudden, people who shared a common culture, had different identities. They needed to confront the fact that they were different from each other in many ways. How they did that, is another matter.
The creation of Pakistan, in fact, afforded an excellent opportunity to both the countries to flourish; to accept, reassure and prove their distinctive identities as two separate cultures and develop interdependence which is the very essence of shared societies. Durkheim gives an interesting example of interdependence; a teacher needs a farmer to produce food, while a farmer needs a teacher to educate his children. Unfortunately, religion, race and ethnicity led to politicised and polarised identities and the pre partition baggage ruled out any possibility of positive interdependence. Furthermore, text books on each side preached hate as they were filled with the atrocities and injustices of partition. This helped fuel the hatred and enmity that had already taken root due to the real or perceived injustices that had been committed. This changed the priorities of the two nations and shifted their attention from more important issues such as nation building, health and education that a new nation should have focused on. Generation after generation is held hostage by accusations and counter accusations hurled out by both sides. The frenetic attempt to guard boundaries has rather made them more vulnerable. Hundreds of children die of hunger and diseases everyday, generation after generation is being deprived of education because our reserves are exhausted and the funds that trickle out of our budgets are woefully inadequate to address the burning issues faced by both countries. The cost of not having peace is paid dearly by the people of both countries.
Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous. � George Bernard Shaw[/i]
In a rhetorical attempt to evaluate the Indianness of the Indian people, V. Raghunathan in his book, 'Games Indians Play', uses game theory and behavioural economics to answer some less than philosophical questions about the way of thinking of the Indians. The very basic questions include the porcine sense of hygiene, our Lilliputian sense of quality, running the water at full blast while brushing and shaving, jumping out of our seats despite the cabin crew's announcement to remain seated, our zest for jumping queues, breaking signals, hardly ever stopping a car for a child or an old person, the endless time taken in construction of roads and bridges, and last but not the least, our amazing ability to litter in parks and public places. According to him, the questions arising in his mind are mundane and he therefore 'pigeonholed' them into twelve 'canons' of Indianness discussed throughout the course of the book. Lack of trustworthiness, being privately smart and publically dumb, being too smart for our own good, abysmal sense of public hygiene, reluctance to penalise wrong conduct in others, a propensity of self worth that is massaged only if we have the 'authority' to break rules and the propensity to look for loop holes in law, are only a few of them. If one substitutes the nationality from Indian to Pakistani, there would be no change at all. The description fits the Indians as much as it fits the Pakistanis.
The book doesn't give a feeling of an exposition or an excursion into a foreign culture; it rather takes a Pakistani on an incursion that is outside in. It is not very surprising that the two countries which appear on the map as two separate nations constantly at war with each other, where a dialogue between the officials is an insurmountable task, could be so similar. The two cultures have lived together for so long that it is quite natural that each has passed on some traits to the other. The question in every sane mind is: was it only negativity that bred after living together for so many years? Have the two nations crossed all the limits of sanity and have not sowed any seed that would produce harmony, peace and friendship? Is it not possible that the two neighbours can be friends while maintaining their distinctive identities and preserving their geographical boundaries without constant fear of 'invasion'?
I do not want the peace that passeth understanding. I want the understanding which bringeth peace. � Helen Keller
South Asia has been the land of peace; where Sufis and saints were born, where poets preached love and farmers sang near Ravi and Jamna. The burning desire for peace is in the heart of every person. No one in either country wants fishermen incarcerated over the slightest inadvertent trespass. The people are tired of blames and controversies. Let the candle of peace burn and leave a better world behind us for our future generations. Our musicians and authors had taken the first hesitant steps, now the two largest media groups have boldly taken up the cause of peace. Bravo Jang group. Bravo Times of IndiaPeace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of creative alternatives for responding to conflict -- alternatives to passive or aggressive responses, alternatives to violence. � Dorothy Thompson
Some times it is nice to read some good stuff..
Topic: Some Good news from Across the Border.. Yes peoples to People talk..