The climax of the movie border
always leaves a warm fuzzy hangover. Though it’s about a war, the song at the
end does make you feel that the war was a mistake and both of us have so much
more to worry about than fighting over boundaries or anything for that matter.
I was always interested in Pakistan, and writing about Pakistan. Any Indian or
Pakistani of the Present day or at least the youth would have strong feelings
about the whole partition of India episode. Some objective and some
perspective, but all of us have views, bends, feelings and a stance.
India was one of the founding
members of the Non-Aligned Movement in
the 50s and 60s while the USA and the USSR were busy making pacts and treaties
to make their respective power blocs bigger and stronger. Now one might say the
Non-Aligned Movement was started by poor or the then 3rd world
nations because they just couldn’t risk supporting one and be the target of the
other’s fury. As it is, the Non-Aligned
Movement is based on a bigger idea. Its about Believing that it is possible to
remain neutral at any time by anyone. And being an advocate of being objective
I support this theory and hence have always held an objective view over
Pakistan.
A few months ago, say 2 or 3 maybe I picked up Shashi Tharoor’s Pax
Indica. It basically talks about India’s foreign policies, foreign relations
and India’s place on a global setup. He spoke extensively about Pakistan and
India. The chapter was rightly caller Brother Enemy. Pakistan is after all born
out of India and the people are more or less Indian. They always have.
Mr. Tharoor speaks of partition, Kashmir, the different wars we’ve had
and finally talks emphatically about terrorism. His points are straight and
precise, and so yet sensitively carved live the curves of Megan fox. (Sorry
whenever someone says curve I think of her :D)
He talks at length about the gaps between the INTELLIGENCE and the
civilian government of Pakistan. Its a known fact that the INTELLIGENCE is
sitting on tones of cash. In fact the INTELLIGENCE gets almost or more than
half the total budget of 1 fiscal year. So in a situation where there is a
serious lack of schools, hospitals, or in general amenities of life the army
and INTELLIGENCE suck all the money out of the people of Pakistan. The army isn’t
too keen on listening to the will of the civilian govt. and caters to its own
goals, which may not always be intended at the best of India, and in turn
resulting in the bad of Pakistan it self.
I was torn in half when I read these. Of course I knew that the army or
Pakistan and the civilian govt. don’t always see eye to eye, but the revelation
of the fact that the govt has limited hold on the army did raise my brows, like
my eye brows was one with my hair.
Another question boiled into me was who’s gonna tend to the people? The politicians made a lot of noise and
puffed up the people that theres a need to end Musharraf’s rein as president
and there a need for proper democracy and what not. So the people did get
excited and come out on streets and after a lot of crazy things (beyond my
comprehension) there were elections and Muhammad Mian Soomro was
elected president. And after Benazir Bhutto’s murder, the PPP was
elected to power and Asif Ali Zardari became the President. All this is fine
but what are these people doing?
Pakistani people are still struggling against the terrorists, there are
criminals hiding in Pakistan thanks to the INTELLIGENCE’s invitation and
reformers and socially responsible civilians are killed in broad day
light. And if you’ve been complaining
about the raise of fuel prices in India, the fuel price is way over a hundred
rupees in Pakistan, and its gets worse, price determination happens every week!
So is the democracy drama and all the things these politicians did to
overthrow Musharraf an eye wash? I asked my Pakistani Orkut friend of 3 years.
Yes!
The one answer with an exclamation mark was like a gun shot at point
black.
He went on to say,
Things were very good in
Musharraf regime, call him a dictator or whatever you want to but he is the man
who supported freedom of media. Even pak's economy was boosting. And now things
are pathetic. You know, he was the one who set Pak before Islam. That’s what a
country needs.
It felt nice
to listen to him. I probed more and asked,
Ok what do
see for Pakistan in the Future?
I can not say anything here. If
you see the history of pak, there have been some good times. But when they
start building up they falter somewhere. so I can only hope that future is
bright; which is only possible by imparting proper education. There is a dearth of rationality among masses and one simply CANNOT
understand religion without education. Thats my opinion yours can differ
obviously.
I definitely
had no reason to differ there. I was also stunned at his strong emphasis on
improving education. I liked that. I had never spoken much about national
politics with this guy. It had always been about Harry Potter and cricket.
Except one odd day when he’d told me he wanted to be a computer engineer.
So I bit the
bullet and finally threw a tough ball at him.
Me:
cool... one big question thats really been
eating me
your cool right?
He:
haha
yeah
Me:
yeah.. so
the question is
how does one remain patriotic and try
not to be ashamed of his country and not choose to make rash decisions
when there are so many figures pointing mistakes from outside and so little
action been taken from those responsible?
He:
thats a tough one
and mature people here in pak do think
about that
Me:
but good question right? ive been
thinking a lot
He:
yeah good question!
but majority satisfies itself by
conspiracy theories
it may sound weird to you
but majority here thinks that all these
nations are anti Islam
anti pakistan
Me:
some ppl get high on substance.. some
on religion
He:
true
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It was
really something. It gives a lot for the Brain and Heart when there are people
thinking and acting like this guy. The teenager Malala is a example. She’s
another example of the youth wanting rights and education for their people. She
was a strong, neutral voice talking of the truth and that offended many a bad
man. Too bad the system just won’t let such people run the country. It also
reminds me of a beautiful video featuring mid/high school girls from Pakistan
talking about how they really feel and how they are made to feel about the
Indo-Pak relations.
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