Abhyuday Pratap Singh
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Pakistan: The Anti-Indian Identity
By RSN Singh
Jinnah's full encouragement to the vicious anti-Hindu rhetoric in the campaign for Pakistan raises serious doubts about his much -touted stature as a visionary. More importantly, it reveals a streak in his character that argues strongly against his ability to forge a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-cultural and to an extent multi-religious Pakistan into a nation-state. Mrs. K.L. Rallia Ram, an Indian Christian and founder secretary of Indian Social Congress, who supported the cause of Pakistan, had written to Jinnah on 22 September 1946 from Lahore: "I wish you can also win over Sikhs. But the difficulty is that the Hindus are trying their level best to keep the Sikhs to themselves to fight their battles with Muslims. Hindus are morally and physically a coward race and so they want Sikhs to act as their militia. Do you know that 4000 Hindus left Murree two days before, when somebody gave out that Muslims would create trouble?"1
The mohajirs who migrated to Pakistan should be considered as most patriotic and the Hindus who took the risk to stay in Pakistan, as ultra-patriotic.
In the 1950s, the then Director of Centre for the Study of American Foreign Policy at University of Chicago, Hans J Morgenthau, in his book 'The New Republic', observed: "Pakistan is not a nation and hardly a state. It has no justification, ethnic origin, language, civilisation or the consciousness of those who make up its population. They have no interests in common, save one: fear of Hindu domination. It is to that fear and nothing else that Pakistan possess its existence and thus for survival as an independent state." During the same period, another American scholar Keith Callard in his book 'Pakistan, a Political Study' commented: ""¦the force behind the establishment of Pakistan was largely the feeling of insecurity".
The Cabinet Secretary of Pakistan, Mohd Ali, when asked by a top Indian bureaucrat, B.K. Nehru, regarding the persistent use of abusive language against India and Hindus by the Pakistani Newspaper 'Dawn' (Muslim League's mouthpiece), replied that, though he knew that it was wrong, but such fabrications about an enemy was necessary for building Pakistan. When Nehru retorted by asking what would happen if India was also to conjure up the bogey of "Hinduism in danger", Ali quickly enounced that Hinduism was incapable of fanaticism.2
Military and civilian rulers in Pakistan have used the anti-Hindu rhetoric for mobilising the people against India both during war and peace. On 29 August, just before the 1965 War, President Ayub Khan in a directive to the Commander in Chief, (General Mohammad Musa), wrote: ""¦"¦ as a general rule, Hindu morale would not stand more than a couple of hard blows delivered at the right time and place. Such opportunities should therefore be sought and exploited."3
Z.A. Bhutto was as anti-India centric like any military ruler in Pakistan. In his book "From My Death Cell", he takes credit for some of the major achievements which are the prevention of Iran from funding Rajasthan Canal; the revival of Kashmir dispute and; preventing India and China to be closer any more. He also boasts that: "In my time, I took the Indians for a walk".
Jean Luc Racine, a French scholar on South Asia gave his view that "the doubts expressed now and then in India (outside official circles) on the viability of Pakistan and the hypotheses foretelling its breaking up into independent provinces give rise to added rancour, even though some Pakistanis themselves also conjure up the danger of the implosion of their country."
Pakistanis who had opposed the idea of Pakistan are labeled by a section of the leadership as lacking in nationalism, thus making the process of national reconciliation quite difficult. Bhutto's book comments on some leading figures of Pakistan at that time. "Maududi (head of Jamaat-e-Islami), who called the Quaid-e-Azam, Kaffer-i-Azam and opposed Pakistan, is the Pope of the Marital Law Regime and his party is the de facto partner of Martial Law" and adds, ""¦.. most of the PNA Leaders, who opposed the creation of Pakistan, are the 'B Team' of Martial Law". ""¦"¦.. Ghaffar Khan and Wali Khan who were the stalwarts of Congress and until this day have not given up their hatred for Quaid-e-Azam, have been called patriots by the Chief Martial Law Administrator(Gen Zia) and are being projected as the true leaders of Pakistan." says the book.4 By this logic, the mohajirs who migrated to Pakistan should be considered as most patriotic and the Hindus who took the risk to stay in Pakistan, as ultra-patriotic. But then, such logic, going by the book of Bhutto, would be highly unpatriotic.
Economic wisdom can be a hostage to military and strategic imperatives, and such proclivities, are best illustrated in the case of Pakistan. Its hugely beneficial prospects of trade and economic cooperation with two of its important neighbours, (India and Afghanistan), have suffered because of its strategic agendas. Both the countries offer natural economic complementarities. While Afghanistan can provide the much-needed maritime access to Central Asian Republics, which can generate enormous revenues, Pakistan can benefit hugely by means of trade and commerce in agricultural and industrial products with contiguous India. Given India's current economic growth, this imperative weighs heavier on Pakistan.
In 1947, when the first US Ambassador quizzed Jinnah on the future of Indo-Pak relations, Jinnah was quite sanguine that relations between the two countries would acquire the character of US-Canada relations, which is characterised by soft borders and brisk trade. Jinnah had probably chosen to ignore the fact that there were not less than nine territorial disputes between the two countries. And today, after 60 troubled years, the Indo-Pak relationship stands hostage to the Kashmir issue. Many of those who are in position or power in Pakistan, ignore the significance of the economic complementarities between the two countries. The eminent Pakistani journalist Najam Sethi maintains: "The dividend from peace and trade with India was spurned in favour of sponsoring jihad in Kashmir. The dividend from oil and gas pipelines from Iran and Central Asia was wrecked on the altar of the Taliban in Afghanistan."5
The anti-India and anti-Hindu rhetoric may temporally galvanise the Pakistan military and some segments of the population in times of war, but for the jihad in Kashmir, it has little endurance and is counter-productive.
Noted analyst B Raman, a former Additional Secretary at Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), has pointed out that the Sindhis, Mohajirs and Balochs do not share the negative perceptions about India and its peoples, as do the FATA tribal, Punjabis and the Punjabi speaking populace of the POK. Even the Pashtuns, the Seraikis of southern Punjab and the Shias and Ismailis of Northern Areas are found to be moderate in their views. The rural areas of central and northern Punjab, some areas of NWFP, and FATA (where the anti-India feeling is most pronounced) – contribute 75 percent of the recruits to the Pakistan Army. These areas are also the major source of 'jihadis' because of the strong presence and influence of Islamic organisations and clerics. In respect of to the pattern of jihadi casualties in J&K between 1989 and 2005, Raman quotes a study by Ms. Rubina Saigol: that "About 8000 Pakistani Punjabis, 3000 from the NWFP and about 500 from Sindh are estimated to have died in J&K". whereas only 112 Balochis have died in jihad. In the various Indo-Pak wars, the maximum number of causalities belonged to these areas.6
During the campaign for a Pakistan, the Muslim League had to contend with the Indian National Congress, whom it accused of being pro-Hindu and pseudo-secular. Throughout the four decades of Congress rule, it attracted the same condemnations from the Pakistani ruling elite. In this regard, they do not draw any distinction between the Congress and the rightwing parties like the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP). Therefore, the anti-Hindu and anti-India rhetoric is not predicated upon the type of dispensation in New Delhi and India-Pakistan peace process have similar prospects. Both Nawaz Sharif and Musharraf did active diplomatic business with A.B. Vajpayee and there has been no major change in Islamabad's stance after the Congress came back to power.
The anti-India and anti-Hindu rhetoric may temporally galvanise the Pakistan military and some segments of the population in times of war, but for the jihad in Kashmir, it has little endurance and is counter-productive. Pakistan has geopolitical and strategic interface not only with India, but with Afghanistan, Iran and China too. Besides narrowing down, the vision of the leaders and the people, it becomes a resource and psychological handicap when responding to the challenges posed by other countries (especially Islamic), and its own ethnic groups. This has been reflected in the establishment's failure in dealing with insurgencies and Islamic terrorists in Balochistan, NWFP and FATA.
The still persisting doubts among a significant number of Indians about the logic of partition is resented by many in Pakistan. This questions the very legitimacy of the country's existence. The military exploits this sentiment simply by painting it as a part of India's aggressive designs. The so called theme gained prominence after Pakistan's split and, in fact serves as a robust logic for the military to perpetuate its primacy on the specious ground of preserving the country from further balkanization attempts by India. Jean Luc Racine, a French scholar on South Asia gave his view that "the doubts expressed now and then in India (outside official circles) on the viability of Pakistan and the hypotheses foretelling its breaking up into independent provinces give rise to added rancour, even though some Pakistanis themselves also conjure up the danger of the implosion of their country."
Notes
Amarjeet Singh (ed.), Jinnah and Punjab, Shamsul Hasan, Collection and Other Documents 1944-1947, (New Delhi: Kanishka Publishers, 2007), p.275.
B K Nehru, Nice Guys Finish Second, (New Delhi: Penguin Books), pp.204-205.
Brian Cloughley, A History of the Pakistan Army: Wars and Insurrections, (Oxford University Press, 2006), Second Edition, p.71.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, From My Death Cell, (New Delhi: Orient Paperbacks), p.53
Najam Sethi, "Does the Political Economy Needed?," Friday Times, Vol. 14, No. 12, May 17-23, 2002 (Internet Edition).
B.Raman, India and Pakistan 'Can Mindsets Change', Paper No. 2057, December 16, 2006.
About the Author:-
RSN Singh is a former military intelligence officer who later served in the Research and Analysis Wing, or R&AW and author of books Asian Strategic and Military Perspective and The Military Factor in Pakistan. His latest book is The Unmaking of Nepal.
