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COVER STORY: PAKISTAN
Misconceptions About India
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VOICE OVER: Activists of religious groups seek Musharraf's
help in promotion of Islamic laws, including a ban on obscenity
in the country, during a demonstration in Islamabad recently
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When I mention to
my friends that I detect more Islamic fundamentalism around than ever
before they tell me that I am probably encountering it more than they
do because I am Indian. There is indeed a kind of defensiveness about
Pakistan that comes out as aggression. I notice it on my first morning
in Lahore in my dealings with a man who is supposed to have arranged a
local TV crew for me. It should have been with me the evening before but
was not and then I was told through the morning "they have left the
office and will be with you in 10 minutes". Two hours later when
I was still being told they would be with me in 10 minutes I spoke to
the boss, Sattar Habib, and was slightly curt when he said languidly,
"Hello ji, how are you?" Not good at all, I said, since there
was no sign of his crew. Instead of apologising or coming up with at least
one plausible explanation he took offence: "You are a guest in my
country and I was just trying to be nice to you and this is how you respond.
Well, I will not work with you." It seemed to me that I should have
been the one losing my temper but the lack of professionalism is another
thing Pakistanis are defensive about. It also seems to hurt that India
has in the past 10 years got ahead economically and that the decline in
Pakistan is visible. And I met people who said, "We want peace with
India and a solution to the Kashmir problem so that we can also become
rich like India."
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There
is a kind of defensiveness about Pakistan that comes out as aggression.
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Rich like India! I wanted to tell them that India
was a desperately poor country with terrible economic problems but there
seemed no point because it makes no sense at all to say it in a Pakistani
context. I will say, though, that Karachi Airport is the most modern airport
in south Asia. It is as good as the best in Thailand or Malaysia and makes
Indian airports look antiquated and inadequate. But, a kind of mayoosi
hangs over the city of Karachi so its fine roads and modern airport have
an incongruity about them. My Bihari taxi driver tells me that unemployment
is a serious problem in the city. "And, ever since this military
government came to power it has increased because they have taken this
loan from the International Monetary Fund and to meet the conditions are
kicking people out of public-sector jobs. I used to work for a government
company. Now I have no choice but to drive a taxi. It makes me barely
enough to feed my family." I asked if there were no unions to contend
with and he said, "Which unions can do anything in a military government?"
Misconceptions about India abound and seem to
have grown. Bal Thackeray is talked about as if he represented all Hindus.
I try explaining that his influence does not exist beyond the city limits
of Mumbai but nobody believes me. Not even Imran Khan, who knows India
well and should know better. Not even the Jamaat-e-Islami would dare talk
about Hindus in the way Thackeray does about Muslims, he tells me. He
does not matter, I say, does not really matter at all but he remains unconvinced.
What about the BJP, he asks, they are worse than the Jamaat because they
tore down a mosque, did they not? The BJP is a political party, I point
out, whereas the Jamaat is an Islamic fundamentalist outfit but again
he is unconvinced. He is also concerned, he tells me, about the evil influences
of MTV and Zee TV on Pakistani culture. Look at the skimpy clothes your
models and VJs wear on television? Is that not going to have a bad effect
on our youth? On our culture? Has it not had a bad effect on your own
culture? Sushma Swaraj would be a huge hit in Pakistan.
Nowhere are the misconceptions about India more
serious than on the issue of Kashmir. Among ordinary people these misconceptions
acquire dangerous overtones. Kashmir, they tell you over and over, was
a part of Pakistan. If you try pointing out that this is not true, they
look at you with disbelief. In the same breath they talk of the plebiscite
that never happened, and if you try pointing out that it may have happened
if Pakistani troops had withdrawn from the territory they occupied they
tell you they know nothing of this. It is generally young men who are
the most aggressive about Kashmir and the most ignorant. In Lahore one
morning, I found myself surrounded by angry, young men who spewed venom
against India. It was not just Kashmir they were angry about but Hindus
in general as I discovered when I asked what they thought of India. "It's
all right," they said, "but the majority community, the Hindus,
they are not good people." Once more Bal Thackeray and the Babri
Masjid were thrown at me and then one young man, who said he was a journalist,
produced a newspaper called Din which had on its front page a story that
said the Indian Government was recruiting children as young as 11-years-old
to fight in Kashmir. There was a photograph with the story and I pointed
out that the uniforms the so-called policemen were wearing were not the
uniforms of Indian policemen. "You are lying," the young man
yelled, "I know you are lying because I've heard it on BBC."
It was a disturbing exchange, which left me feeling that peace did not
stand a chance if ordinary people could be so hostile and so misinformed.
In civilised circles in Lahore and Karachi,however, you do get quite a
different view. The people, they say, want peace, it is the governments
that do not. Young girls in these circles wear western clothes and those
who have come to India speak of how much they liked it as a country. I
ask if the restrictions that Islamisation has brought to their country
affect their lives in any way and they say they do not except, of course,
that social mingling among the sexes is something that can only happen
in homes.
There is no nightlife to speak of in Lahore
and although Karachi has one nightclub it does not have a permit to serve
liquor. Nobody does. At the Sheraton Hotel in Karachi, I dine one night
at La Mamma, their Italian restaurant. There is pasta of all kinds and
pizza and a delicious selection of Italian food but no wine. I am offered
non-alcoholic beer and non-alcoholic wine to choose from and when I ask
why foreigners should not be allowed to drink the manager tells me that
they can but only in their rooms. The choice is between Pakistani whisky
and Murree beer and it surprises me that liquor should be made in a country
that forbids it from being sold or drunk.
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