Well written article Mr Tharoor. It is not just about the Pakistan's liberals but it is about their thought and so called "Ideology of Pakistan" is actually is equal to "Ideology of anti-India." When India broke up in 1947, they took the path of anti-India as their national identity to combine Punjabi, Baloch, Sindhi, Pakhtun and Bengali under Punjabi dominance. Islam was not enough, as there were large number of Muslims in India and outside the subcontinent. Those who did not accept Pakistan created under mass killings, riots under Jinnah's direct action day.
Mr Tharoor, unfortunately for the common folk of Pakistan, the military, political leaders, bureaucracy and the religious right wing in that country chose to follow a particular path soon after Independence that has as its central pillar the idea of Pakistan being a mirror image of India. However, the Pakistani mirror was also supposed to not only transpose the image as other mirrors do but also grotesquely manipulate it in other ways such that it would fit their narrow definition of what Pakistan was meant to be as a nation-state.
The effort to cut the shoe to fit the leg has been hijacked since the early 80s. The attempt nowadays in Pakistan is to cut the leg to fit a particular pair of shoes. This has necessitated fabricating history, constantly perpetuating lies, punching far above the weight, devising reckless policies just so that India can be harassed or humiliated, acting as a 'rentier state' just to get tactical benefits even though it may bring strategic doom etc.
Your reference to Pakistan living in a 'tough neighbourhood' is therefore not entirely accurate because it is Pakistan that has made the neighbourhood so tough for other countries of the region. Your advice on the Pakistani Army, especially from an Indian, would now invite another round of articles from across the border because of the firm belief that but for the Pakistani Army, India would have devoured that nation a long time back.
Pakistan clutches at straws in the wind to depict India as an enemy country and the fear of 'Akhand Bharat' was one such. A fringe Indian group certainly voiced this in the nascent days after Partition, but Pakistan had deliberately blown it way out of proportion. The Pakistan Army has often used this paranoia of ‘existential threat’ from India to justify its acts of omissions and commissions. It drafted the politico-religious right-wing parties into its fold to perpetuate the myth and establish it as a reality.
Of course many Indian leaders during the nascent and intoxicating days of independence, felt that Pakistan may not be able to survive as an entity for too long. Moreover, there was no clear idea, at the time of Partition, of the future relationship between these two newly created countries. People had relatives and assets across the borders, including Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Pakistani litteretaeurs of great fame like Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Saadat Hasan Manto or Mohammad Saeed have captured the confusion of division and the ambiguity thereon. One of the prominent Muslim League politicians of that time, Ghulam Hussain, was not only completely against Pakistan but also said that Jinnah himself was not completely convinced about that. Individual families also were confused to such an extent that some in the family migrated to Pakistan while others remained in India.
Opinions and assessments expressed, therefore, during this time of great confusion could not be taken as deterministic foreign policies of a nation. No doubt, some leaders, including Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, thought that the partition was only temporary and Pakistan would be re-united with India on its own volition, not through force by India. In the early years after Partition, the various disastrous events within Pakistan itself lent credence to the Indian assessment that Pakistan may not survive as an independent entity for long. The paranoia about India in the minds of the Pakistanis was a deliberate creation of the State of Pakistan. The well known Pakistani historian, Ms Ayesha Jalal speaks of Pakistan as ‘Paranoidistan’ caught in a mindset ‘heavily influenced by fear of India’ and consequently ‘conspiracy theories’. It is therefore an exception to find people with open mind like Ms Sirmed while those like Mr. Ejaz Haider are the rule.
While I respect the experience of the author I fail to understand what he means. Let us be rather frank. The present generation are people who grew up during the Zia era where Goebbelsian propaganda shaped the thinking of the average Pakistani. India was the devil and the enemy. Untill that ghost is exorcised even the so-called "educated Pakistani" cannot think about any accommodation with India. He cannot see Kashmir as anything other than an apple for the Punjabi elites to pluck and feed on (like PoK where the locan Kashmiri is already a second class citizen).
No thinking taking into account these basic facts and inding solutions thereto will get us anywhere.
Tharoor sir, when the enemy is making mistakes , it should not be interrupted. Pakistan is going downhill faster on its own. But if good ideas come from across the border, these guys will never take it up.
Knowing that you are unintentionally hastening the process of demise of Pakistan as a civilised nation state because they will never do what is good for them if it's suggested by an Indian.
Sadly Mr Tharoor, the reason why Pakistani commentator after Pakistani commentator insists that the opposite of India obsession is India submission is because of decades of indoctrination in Pakistan that have insisted on the fundamental superiority of being Pakistani are shaken by any demonstration of Pakistani weakness, or possibility that Pakistan might be second to India in any parameter.
Pakistan exists because it is better than India. A Pakistan that is not better than India causes Pakistan to cease to exist. Hence, to be Pakistani, is not to countenance "submission" to India on any count.
Pathetic but true. It the karma of the India nation to have a nuclear armed cartoon for a neighbour.
I just loved reading this especially the tease in the tone and the wit (might bring displeasure to some,enjoyable to others). Another thing worth mentioning is the excellent usage of the term "Akhand Bharat" and what context to use it. Mr. Shashi Tharoor, please take a bow.
A fitting end to an epic battle between the finest minds. Why Mr Tharoor did you not avoid IPL? Otherwise we would have loved to have you as foreign minister of India instead of our current FM S.M. Krishna.
Shashi Tharoor sir, do you agree with Aatish Taseer that Salman Taseer hated India?