Pakistan & India

If there are any two nations with enriched common interests overriding the gruesome perpetuated animosity cluster, those are Pakistan and India. What went wrong with these poverty-stricken emerging nations that they could not cleanse glued hatred of the past and fear of the unknown future?

The problem rests with breaking from the past and opening up new avenues for creative manifestation, and encouraging educated generations on both sides to assume leadership with new imagination and vision. India had the political capacity to enhance its progressive image under stable leadership of Mr Jawahar Lal Nehru and. However, Pakistanis were not fortunate to have the continuity after Jinnah’s untimely death, and assassination of its first Premier Liaquat Ali Khan. This overshadowed the continuity of political movement for change and development of the new nation.

The egoistic politicians had always articulated a favourite perversion discarding the originality of progressive nationalism to instil an underdeveloped sense of purpose to the succeeding generations of Pakistanis. They have to face the problems which are only the outcome of ‘ and corrupt political dominance of the few. The net outcome of such a scheme of things continues to emerge in shape of individualistic absolutism as the powerhouse to conduct ongoing disdained moral, social, political and intellectual cultural paralysis across the mainstream of  Pakistani nation.  The people who wilfully undermined the progressive interests and aspirations for change and development were the few Generals and complacent feudal lords of the neo-colonial age.

The doctrine of newly-emerged nationalism was not a transitory credence but a sacred flourishing symbol of norm for future-making’ a progressive democratic nation of Pakistan to encompass a brilliant future with new public institutions to serve the people, new proactive political imagination and new educated visionary leaders. National freedom was not just claimed by the Muslim League under Quaid-e-Azam, but earned with passion and commitment to ensure sanctity of human rights and obligations to protect the citizenry from manipulation and mismanagement, and equality before law to all people wanting to be part of Pakistan. The tragic disconnect with the movement of Pakistan’s national freedom lingers on to this day as none of the political rulers could ever face the reality and ultimate accountability as to how they have dismantled the fabric of a progressive democratic nation by political conspiracies and backdoor intrigues, and how they darkened the future of the nation.

The contemporary history identifies them as ‘hangmen’ of the new Pakistani generations aspiring for a sustainable future. Most were political gangsters with no sense of moral, intellectual and political enlightenment for making the progressive nation. The indoctrination of collective sense of values giving birth to Pakistan’s national independence from the yoke of British imperialism itself gained logical recognition across the globe in 1947. But those who chased the narrow self-geared follies to enter political powerhouses hardly knew what made Pakistan a reality out of the unthinkable regional and international affairs at a critical juncture in modern history. This was not unusual rather it reflects a historical pattern how foreigners come to rule, and leave the occupied nations in ruins and unending bloodbaths for generations to come.

Those who had little knowledge and intellectual foresight used the same strategy of animosity to conduct relations between India and Pakistan within the scope of the British Commonwealth of Nations. How much time, resources and opportunities were lost in this fluid struggle? Take a moment and reflect on how many leaders of besieged mentality have ignored the enlightened interests of the people of both nations to articulate harmonious and friendly future-making geography as linkage and history to follow for change and good neighbourly relations. People of the new and educated generation on both sides do possess individual conscience as a powerful weapon to be forward looking but lack force for political manoeuvrability and capacity to influence the political governance.
Pakistan and India both appear to be victims of their own weaknesses and strengths and continue to operate from a position of domestic policy agenda, not necessarily impacting the future-making in any rational sense of political manifestation. While both have manufactured nuclear arsenals and gained nuclear power status to ensure mutual destruction, the need is rethink and redraw the strategic priorities to envisage preference for peacemaking and conflict resolution.

Pakistan ushers its own weaknesses, both in strategic domains and political and intellectual leadership, to maintain a rational perspective in its outlook for relations on equal terms with India. There appears to be a deep mistrust and frightening trend what if there is another war between the two rivals, and what if nuclear option is used to manage political madness and cruelty to the larger interests of the people of the Subcontinent? One wonders, if intelligent policymakers and politicians ever consider people’s interest as the supreme value in global relationships? While India had progressed enormously in developing public institutions, educational development, trade and military-industrial growth and advancements, Pakistan is plagued with its own political gangsterism, jumping from one casual allusion to another political blunder.

Across the global horizon of relationships between the two nations, animosity syndrome has darkened the obvious confrontational image of both societies to the point of becoming hotbeds for external impulse, weapons trades and rivalries. Such sadistic and incorporated trends serve as a device’ a mental microscope for lack of proactive imagination for the future and to overwhelm a sense of unreality that people of reason could make the difference on both sides of the political spectra. No wonder for more than six decades how political tensions, communal violence and unwanted upheaval of wars have drained out positive thinking, proactive energies and commitment to change and good neighbourly relationships between India and Pakistan.

What needs to be done to break the historical impasse?

Foremost, to realize the need for change ‘from hostility to understanding being different in psyche, moral and cultural values and tolerance for difference in perspectives and forward looking aims of normalization and optimism to make it happen. Often different impulse is a source of healthy force to balance the competing challenges. Be it the war in Afghanistan or the Middle East or international affairs of the industrialized West, India and Pakistan will not be speaking the same language of political unanimity of their respective interests and standing in global affairs.

The essence of normalization of relations requires open-mindedness and new rational stance. If India allows the Kashmiris to exercise their right to self’ “determination and to decide their own future, it will boost its stability and image as a democratic nation. Whether they join India or Pakistan or come up with their own solution, it should be only their choice. Pakistani politicians also have used the Kashmir issue to mislead the nation. In truth, they manufactured a self-centred culture of ‘ thinking, complete disconnect with the prevalent realities of the world and imposed moral and intellectual curse over the nation. This political curse had made Pakistan vulnerable to disastrous social upheavals, loss of trade and commerce, unpaid IMF foreign debts and incapacitated political governance. To undo these wrongs, Pakistan needs people of new age, educated and intelligent to inspire the masses for change and new political visions for global harmony and peaceful relations.

A renowned poet and philosopher, Schiller, once observed: ‘Hunger and love are what moves the world.’ India and Pakistan both share common miseries of hunger, stricken natural disasters, flooding and starvation but both hubs of the thinking people have inborn love of humanity and must aspire to move beyond the animosity and hostility syndromes and ‘ imagination of survival of the fittest, onward to an enlightened outlook for problem solving, friendly relations, free trade, free movement of people, goods and services to the deprived masses and to facilitate plausible future-making as an optimistic attainable aim.