Adil Najam
Mohammed Hanif, the brilliant author of the engrossing book “The Case of Exploding Mangoes†(I have been planning to write about it ever since I first read it many months ago; and I will) – known to many for his stint at Herald before he joined BBC’s Urdu Service – has just written a most cogent and readable op-ed in The Times of India which is wroth reading; whether you agree with it or not. It is a good argument as well as a good read. And I say that even thought there are more than one points here that I might quibble with. But before we quibble, lets give Mohammed Hanif the floor – and a full and proper hearing. Here is the op-ed he wrote in The Times of India, in full:
Ten Myths About Pakistan
Living in Pakistan and reading about it in the Indian press can sometimes be quite a disorienting experience: one wonders what place on earth they’re talking about? I wouldn’t be surprised if an Indian reader going through Pakistani papers has asked the same question in recent days. Here are some common assumptions about Pakistan and its citizens that I have come across in the Indian media.
1. Pakistan controls the jihadis: Or Pakistan’s government controls the jihadis. Or Pakistan Army controls the jihadis. Or ISI controls the jihadis. Or some rogue elements from the ISI control the Jihadis. Nobody knows the whole truth but increasingly it’s the tail that wags the dog. We must remember that the ISI-Jihadi alliance was a marriage of convenience, which has broken down irrevocably. Pakistan army has lost more soldiers at the hands of these jihadis than it ever did fighting India.
2. Musharraf was in control, Zardari is not: Let’s not forget that General Musharraf seized power after he was fired from his job as the army chief by an elected prime minister. Musharraf first appeased jihadis, then bombed them, and then appeased them again. The country he left behind has become a very dangerous place, above all for its own citizens. There is a latent hankering in sections of the Indian middle class for a strongman. Give Manmohan Singh a military uniform, put all the armed forces under his direct command, make his word the law of the land, and he too will go around thumping his chest saying that it’s his destiny to save India from Indians. Zardari will never have the kind of control that Musharraf had. But Pakistanis do not want another Musharraf.
3. Pakistan, which Pakistan? For a small country, Pakistan is very diverse, not only ethnically but politically as well. General Musharraf’s government bombed Pashtuns in the north for being Islamists and close to the Taliban and at the same time it bombed Balochs in the South for NOT being Islamists and for subscribing to some kind of retro-socialist, anti Taliban ethos. You have probably heard the joke about other countries having armies but Pakistan’s army having a country. Nobody in Pakistan finds it funny.
4. Pakistan and its loose nukes: Pakistan’s nuclear programme is under a sophisticated command and control system, no more under threat than India or Israel’s nuclear assets are threatened by Hindu or Jewish extremists. For a long time Pakistan’s security establishment’s other strategic asset was jihadi organisations, which in the last couple of years have become its biggest liability.
5. Pakistan is a failed state: If it is, then Pakistanis have not noticed. Or they have lived in it for such a long time that they have become used to its dysfunctional aspects. Trains are late but they turn up, there are more VJs, DJs, theatre festivals, melas, and fashion models than a failed state can accommodate. To borrow a phrase from President Zardari, there are lots of non-state actors like Abdul Sattar Edhi who provide emergency health services, orphanages and shelters for sick animals.
6. It is a deeply religious country: Every half-decent election in this country has proved otherwise. Religious parties have never won more than a fraction of popular vote. Last year Pakistan witnessed the largest civil rights movements in the history of this region. It was spontaneous, secular and entirely peaceful. But since people weren’t raising anti-India or anti-America slogans, nobody outside Pakistan took much notice.
7. All Pakistanis hate India: Three out of four provinces in Pakistan – Sindh, Baluchistan, NWFP – have never had any popular anti-India sentiment ever. Punjabis who did impose India as enemy-in-chief on Pakistan are now more interested in selling potatoes to India than destroying it. There is a new breed of al-Qaida inspired jihadis who hate a woman walking on the streets of Karachi as much as they hate a woman driving a car on the streets of Delhi. In fact there is not much that they do not hate: they hate America, Denmark, China CDs, barbers, DVDs , television, even football. Imran Khan recently said that these jihadis will never attack a cricket match but nobody takes him seriously.
8. Training camps: There are militant sanctuaries in the tribal areas of Pakistan but definitely not in Muzaffarabad or Muridke, two favourite targets for Indian journalists, probably because those are the cities they have ever been allowed to visit. After all how much training do you need if you are going to shoot at random civilians or blow yourself up in a crowded bazaar? So if anyone thinks a few missiles targeted at Muzaffarabad will teach anyone a lesson, they should switch off their TV and try to locate it on the map.
9. RAW would never do what ISI does: Both the agencies have had a brilliant record of creating mayhem in the neighbouring countries. Both have a dismal record when it comes to protecting their own people. There is a simple reason that ISI is a bigger, more notorious brand name: It was CIA’s franchise during the jihad against the Soviets. And now it’s busy doing jihad against those very jihadis.
10. Pakistan is poor, India is rich: Pakistanis visiting India till the mid-eighties came back very smug. They told us about India’s slums, and that there was nothing to buy except handicrafts and saris. Then Pakistanis could say with justifiable pride that nobody slept hungry in their country. But now, not only do people sleep hungry in both the countries, they also commit suicide because they see nothing but a lifetime of hunger ahead. A debt-ridden farmer contemplating suicide in Maharashtra and a mother who abandons her children in Karachi because she can’t feed them: this is what we have achieved in our mutual desire to teach each other a lesson.
So, quibble if you will. But do tell us what you think about the argument that Hanif is making.
I think the most important discussions regarding India-Pakistan relations have to be held WITHIN Pakistan and WITHIN India and not between the two. Once each side learns to respect the other and not concoct crazy ideas about who the other is and why they act as they do, then maybe things will have a chance for improvement.
Very honest and well written article. The problem is that in both countries we let a few loud mouths on TV define the discourse. Most people are far more sensible than they are.
@ Baykar Badshah
You bring up a very important point in the following paragraph:
India is a democracy, no matter how flawed. at least they
@kosar
when you say you are right and the rest of the world says you are wrong, there are, usually, only two possibilities (we shall NOT talk of probabilities): either you are wrong or the rest of the world is wrong. of course, as an individual, you have the same 1/7.5billionth right to insist that you are right as any of the other 7.5 billion.
what is pakistan’s research output? how much of it is junk? what is the reference count of whatever little scholarly output from pakistan? how big is our media? how professional and how competent? what message do we give when we shut down the media on the whim of one man (not that it being a ‘democratic’ decision would have been any imporvement)? how does it help our ‘image’ when one man sends 60 senior most judges home and puts them under house arrest along with their families? how big is our economy and our attractiveness to the rest of the world as a market?
india is only better than pakistan instead of being in any position to form or influence world opinion. hardly a cause for celebeation. it has nothing that comes close to being comapared with CNN (watched in 170+ countries) or BBCWorld. nor an equivalent to Harvard, Berkley, or Oxford, London School of Economics. it has nothing to compare even remotely to the huge scholarly, critical and ultimately world opinion forming activitity that goes on in the west (scholarship no doubt follows the money).
with islamist terrorism being the biggest issue in the world today, how do pictures and news of forced beard growing, bombing of schools, flogging and beheadings in som eparts of our country enhance our ability to influence world opinion? not to speak of our history, e.g. supporting the taliban (and we supported them agains the NA who are the partners that America wants to see succeed in the interest of American prestige).
India is a democracy, no matter how flawed. at least they’ve regular elections, free and fair enough for governments to change, frequently. their constitution, at least, (thanks to men like Dr Ambedkar) is totally secular. what about pakistan’s (and not ignoring how it is trampled upon by military dictators every so many years)? no wonder the whole world is up in arms about mumbai when it took little notice, if any, of marriott. despite the total innocence of those who died there, we cannot even convince the world that we too are victims. the reply usually is the not very helpful (to the innocent victims atleast): it’s your own fault.
@kosar
The dazzling vision of a master-plan in India, and a media campaign in the service of this master plan may cause a great deal of unexpected and untimely mirth; I’ve just sprayed most of a mouthful of cheese and tomato sandwich over my keyboard and am writing in a justly indignant mood.
When you wrote ‘India is a master of media manipulation’, what did you have in mind? Is there a department of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry dedicated to these things? Perhaps a secret section within RAW (this vision can occur only to those who haven’t actually met a member of RAW – unfortunately for me, I have, and the vision doesn’t last very long under the burden of that lingering memory).
Or do you mean it is due to the media mafia, Prannoy Roy, Dileep Sardesai and Arnab Goswami? There was an outburst of excess after the events at Mumbai, but this outburst has attracted a storm of criticism within India, to the point where the Government, mistakenly, thought it had a mandate to take action. It found out quickly enough that it hadn’t, and we discovered how many reverse gears the ship of state has.
Your use of the subordinate clause, ‘esp. after the world saw how the USA manipulated the media after 9/11’ implies that there is a causal relationship somewhere. Is it that in the last seven years, this media management capability has been built up within some obscure Indian office to the extent that it influences world opinion?
If you have specific information, I wish you would share it with me (off line, of course, and a suitable financial arrangement can be discussed); I have a resume that urgently requires dissemination, and a favourable reception to boot. No, no, that came out badly; what was intended to be conveyed was ‘a favourable reception as well’. Please ignore the other wording.
I have to agree with you wholeheartedly when you say that Indian media is on a roller-coaster ride, although we may not have precisely the same situation in mind, perhaps not even the same simile. But that sickening feeling of having left one’s stomach forty feet behind is familiar; happens to me every morning when I read the headlines. Gets worse when I read the employment pages.
I am relieved to learn that this whole business of the success of India is highly exaggerated, and is merely a matter of perception. It was never very clear where all those statisticians and mathematicians were finding employment.