The unravelling of India?

By C. Raja Mohan

ISLAMABAD, FEB. 11. Is India falling apart? While the Indian political class revels in the million mutinies going on in the country, many among the intelligentsia here see the unravelling of India.

A long-standing friend here counted more than 20 ongoing conflicts within India, and wondered how any state could hope to survive the depth and intensity of such turmoil across a vast populous land.

In many ways, the expectation or wishful thinking about a disintegrating India is a mirror image of the perceptions in New Delhi about a ``failing state in Pakistan''. With very little interaction between their civil societies, and a declining intellectual capacity in both sides to assess political developments across the border, there is a big danger that false perceptions in both countries might take root and drive policy.

There is a view in New Delhi that by turning its back on Islamabad, we could let Pakistan stew in its own juice. Equally strong is the view in Pakistan that it could pull India down by exploiting the many political faultlines in its neighbour, which is seen as being some what oversized and inconvenient.

Some in Pakistan also believe that the recent Indian peace initiative in Kashmir might be driven by political fatigue and the bleeding of security forces there.

To be sure, there are saner voices on each side which believe policies based on an early collapse of the other side are not rooted in reality and end up costing both nations dearly. Many in Pakistan see the inherent strengths of Indian democracy, and the fact that New Delhi is racing ahead on the economic and technological fronts. They also acknowledge the impossibility of wresting Kashmir from India by use of force and proxy wars. Some of them also acknowledge the impossibility of maintaining the much-vaunted political parity with India in the future.

These voices hope for some kind of a peace with honour. If New Delhi wants to sustain the current fledgling peace process with Islamabad, it must find a way to strengthen the voices of sanity and reason there. Policies aimed at avoiding all political contact with Pakistan and denying a substantive interaction between the two societies ends up boosting those in Islamabad calling for a permanent confrontation with India.

The issue at stake is not just the question of a dialogue between the two governments and the appropriate conditions for it. It is more about self-confidence in India to allow a broader interaction between the two societies. What New Delhi needs is a strategy for engagement with Pakistan at multiple levels. And quite a bit of that can be done through unilateral measures on the part of New Delhi. This would involve, among others, allowing political leaders, religious figures and intelligentsia from Pakistan to visit India, travel across the land and find for themselves where its neighbour is headed.

***

Thanks to the deep distrust and the lack of enough interaction, extremist voices from one side get magnified on the other. Just as the sentiments of `jehadi' groups get big play in the Indian media, crazy voices in India get huge political attention here. There are very few who do not ask visitors from India about the statement of the Shiv Sena leader, Mr. Bal Thackeray, about ``disenfranchising'' Muslims. Or the proclamation of the RSS chief, Mr. K. Sudarshan, that it was a bomb that brought down the Babri Masjid.

Travelling within the subcontinental neighbourhood is always a productive exercise. Conversations with academics, journalists and political figures here serves to hold up a mirror that brings into sharp view all the warts on India's face. It reveals how deep the suspicion of India is among her neighbours, and the kind of weight they attach to marginal trends in Indian politics.

Self-righteousness on India's part is unlikely to end unbelievable misperceptions about it and the misreading of New Delhi's intentions in Pakistan. Only a sustained and multiple engagement of the neighbours can turn the situation around. Does India have the patience, self-control and smartness in policy- making to cope with the challenge?

***

There is spring in the air in Islamabad. But if you want to celebrate the end of a long and cold winter, the place you should be in is Lahore. Marking `basant' is a great tradition in Punjab that has survived the Partition.

Lahoris turn their city into a fabulous carnival, and not even the religious fundamentalists can stop them from enjoying `basant'. In recent years, extremist mullahs have questioned the celebrations of the secular spring festival in Lahore. But with little effect on Lahoris.

Gen. Pervez Musharraf himself is said to be a great enthusiast for celebrating it. Last year, he is believed to have travelled to Lahore to be among friends during the festival.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Opinion
Previous : Racial discrimination?