Pakistan Ideology to Territory

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EPW Commentary March 02, 2002
From Ideology- to Territory-Based Nation
Pakistan's Transition and Lessons for India
General Musharraf's declared resolve to make Pakistan a non-theocratic state is a step towards Pakistan's transformation from an ideology-based to a territory-based nation. Unfortunately there is a growing trend among some sections in India to give a Pakistan-type ideological orientation to India's nationhood. But the tendency to purify Indian culture from 'alien' accretions poses a threat to the security of the country by weakening national unity and the unique civilisational experiment that is India.
Balraj Puri
One of the typical reactions to general Musharraf’s much-talked-about speech on January 12 was that of the BJP spokesperson who expressed the fear that the general may behave like Mahmud Ghauri. The reference is to Ghauri’s invasion of India in 1192 AD when he was defeated by the then Delhi ruler Prithvi Raj Chauhan, but was forgiven. Next year he again attacked and was victorious. But he did not forgive Prithvi Raj, who was taken prisoner and put to death. Does this analogy imply that India should conquer Pakistan lest it should be conquered later by Pakistan? Apart from the irrelevance of the analogy to the present situation, it overlooks the fact that Mahmud Ghauri was not a Pakistani but an Afghan. At a time when India’s cordial relations with Afghanistan have been restored and the present Afghan regime is far from friendly with Pakistan, the reference to an Afghan invasion 800 years ago is singularly inopportune. Moreover, Mahmud Ghauri had conquered and enslaved areas now part of Pakistan before marching eastward. In a similar distortion of history, Bhutto had once boasted that “we had ruled over India for 800 years”. Who were `we’? For nobody from the present Pakistan ever ruled India during this period. It was always the other way round. Even Bhutto’s family had migrated from India. In fact, in the initial period of Pakistan’s existence, India supplied its pioneering leaders like Jinnah and Liaqat. Even Musharraf is a migrant from Delhi. Moreover the Islamic ideology that is dominant in Pakistan was evolved by Sufi saints like Chishti and Amir Khusro and ulema of institutions like Deoband. The writings of Indian ulema, including Maulana Azad, are standard textbooks of religious teaching in Pakistan. Whatever has been added to concepts and interpretations of Indian Islam in Pakistan can hardly be called a positive improvement. Again, the official language of Pakistan, Urdu, is not a spoken language in any part of Pakistan, but is the mother tongue of tens of millions in India. Again, from classical music and dances to modern films, India supplies a large part of Pakistan’s cultural needs. Thus Pakistan came into being with leadership, ideology and official language imported from India. Not that India has not borrowed from what Pakistan can legitimately claim to be its heritage – from Mohanjodaro to Iqbal’s song ‘Sare Jahan Se Achha Hindustan Hamara’. In fact India’s list of sources of import of cultures, ideas and institutions is very long – from Iran, central Asia, the Greeks and the British, for instance. But as Gandhi said, India kept its windows open for winds from all sides to blow but refused to be swept off by them. The concept of nationalism which leaders of the freedom movement and independent India accepted – despite its many inadequacies – enabled it to grow as a historical continuity of thousands of years including what is often called the Muslim period. Thus Taj, Red Fort, Ajmer Sharif and Mughal art are as integral a part of India’s heritage as, say, Ajanta and Ellora, Sankaracharya Dhams, the Golden Temple, Bodh Gaya and the St Thomas Church at Chennai. The process of synthesis between a multitude of diverse linguistic, racial and religious streams has continued for ages. Despite the strains to which it was subjected in the 20th century, the concept of secular territorial nationalism kept the cohesion of independent India broadly in tact. It was thus able to transplant British institutions of parliamentary democracy and rule of law without much disruption. Even English, which is still the country’s official language, far from eroding a sense of nationhood is being used as a further integrating force and medium of communication between its various communities. Pakistan shared the same historical and civilisational background with India. But its biggest handicap was its ideological basis. First, it had to grow out of its original concept of homeland of all subcontinental Muslims to Pakistani nationalism, confined to the territory that now comprises Pakistan. But the new nation was born with a number of question marks about its historical identity. Is it a continuation of history of the people living in the territories of the country? It means starting from the Indus Valley civilisation, one of the oldest civilisations of the world. But then it will have to include Vedic and Buddhist civilisations that followed it and flourished in the area of Pakistan. Or should Pakistan begin its history from the beginning of Muslim rule in India – to keep its ideological purity in tact – say, from the invasion of Mohd Bin Qasim of Sindh or Mahmud Ghauri of Delhi? Were they invaders of Pakistan as well or its heroes? Should Pakistan disown its ancestors who resisted the invasions? Or should the history of Pakistan begin from August 14, 1947, the day it was born? A nation without a history, heroes and civilisation. How could east and west Pakistan have any commonalities? So they inevitably separated. Should then the date of birth of Pakistan coincide with the trauma of its partition in December 1971?This gives Pakistan an opportunity to transform itself from an ideology-based to a territory-based nation. In that case its civilisational age will be as long as that of India. It could then aspire to be a stable and viable state. Otherwise it would remain dwarfed in the shadow of its eastern big brother. India’s enlightened self-interest also demands that Pakistan discovers its true identity in harmony with broad Indian values. Musharraf’s resolve to make Pakistan a non-theocratic state is a step towards that. However, an emulative interest is growing in some sections of India in Pakistan-type ideological orientation to its nationhood. Haunted by real or imaginary historical wrongs of what they call Muslim invasions and rule, these sections are ever frightened of a lurking threat from Pakistan as also from their co-religionists within India and elsewhere in the world, thus magnifying the threat and writing off present and potential allies. True, Pakistan is the only country with which India’s relations have always been strained and with which most of this country’s wars have been fought. Without going into the causes of Indo-Pak tensions and wars, the fact remains that every time Pakistan has been a heavy loser. India’s success did not lie merely in superiority of size and arms but also in the aspects mentioned above; plural democracy, a syncretic culture and its civilisational strength. Any tendency to replace plurality with uniformity and to purify Indian culture from ‘alien’ accretions is, in fact, a greater threat to the security of the country than any posed by Pakistan. For it would isolate the “uniform and pure Indians” from the rest of the nation and thus weaken national unity and the unique civilisational experiment that is India.