May 24, 1999

Understand the Pakistani establishment, not its fringe

By Swapan Dasgupta

The arrest of Friday Times editor Najam Sethi in Pakistan on the patently ridiculous charge of being a raw agent has produced a schizoid response this side of the border. There is, naturally, a sense of complete outrage that anyone should be harassed and persecuted for speaking his mind at an innocuous seminar in Delhi. Simultaneously, there is a great deal of collective gloating that the fragility of the Pakistani state has been well and truly exposed. Sethi merely described Pakistan as a "failing state" but many now think Sir V.S. Naipaul's reference to our neighbour as a "criminal enterprise" is more prescient. "Thank God we're different", is the smug refrain.

Of course we are different. If the Pakistani high commissioner in Delhi is angered by Sethi's display of "contemptible treachery", our establishment errs on the side of permissiveness. Our government bodies compete to facilitate intellectuals who have made a livelihood from running India down in foreign lands. Our NGOs conduct themselves like modern-day Katherine Mayos. Never mind organised tax raids of dissenters -- as was feared by one celebrated novelist with a fertile imagination -- our anti-nuke wallahs have collected more air miles this past year than at any time before. Being contrarian in India, far from being hazardous, is fashionably rewarding.

That's the way we've chosen to be. That's the way our democracy has evolved. But that's not the way we always were. The Emergency was a particularly horrifying chapter of intolerance. But even before 1975, the Indian state often acted like a petty tyrant. Freedom was an untrammelled luxury for those who operated within the left-liberal consensus. The rest were actively disfavoured. Remember the shoddy treatment of Nirad C. Chaudhuri for his controversial dedication in The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian? And remember the draconian restrictions on academic freedom put in place by that noble feudal-communist S. Nurul Hasan? Even a guest lecturer from overseas couldn't be invited without prior government clearance.

After 51 years India has evolved into a reasonably enlightened democracy. Yet, there are limits. Last year when Rajya Sabha member Kuldip Nayyar charged Indian forces of organising massacres in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, his remarks were expunged from the proceedings. Pakistan, on the other hand, is still maturing. It is still grappling with fundamental questions of nationhood and carries a monumental chip on its shoulder about India. This warrants sympathetic treatment. It doesn't serve Indian self-interest to encourage Pakistan's self-doubts and certainly not on Indian soil. It may delight the Lahore Club and other agonised believers of the Partition-was-wrong school to see their own existential dilemmas being mirrored in Pakistan. For India, Pakistan's descent to "hell" -- Sethi's carping description of his country -- is positively dangerous. Experience has shown that a nervous neighbour is inevitably prone to adventurism.

Realism demands that India enhance Pakistan's own self-esteem. When Atal Bihari Vajpayee visited the Minar-i-Pakistan in Lahore, he buried the ghost of akhand Bharat and raised Pakistan's collective comfort level. His initiative may yet come to nought but there is no faulting his approach. India has to parley with Pakistan's establishment, not its rarefied fringe. Track-II needs to address the authentic Pakistan without judgmental disdain.

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