Understanding Pakistan Project

iFaqeer June 11th, 2007

Athar’s second piece–related to the actual process of the transfer of power is rather well-written and, comprehensive, so my own comments will be short.

However, it is interesting that the grip of the official mythology is so strong that when discussing the June 3 Plan, Athar slips up and gives the critical date defined therein as “August 14th”. It reminded me of a piece done on the “Chronicle of Pakistan” website (by Khurram Ali Shafique) that does some serious myth-busting on the topic. It might sound trivial, but it is a good illustration of how history is transformed as nations choose how to build their stories. [That whole website is a good place to go for the nitty-gritty of events on a year-by-year basis.]

The other discordant note I wanted to strike was that while the official story often has words like the following from Athar’s piece:

“[the] efforts [of the British] to find a solution to the India’s ‘intractable communal problem’ had come to a naught and many in the British Government had become sympathetic to the validity of the demands of the Muslims of India.“

Again, somehow, the unblemished picture of the benign British Raj carrying The White Man’s Burden of the intractable unreasonableness of brown people just doesn’t settle in my paranoid Third World heart without creating some suspicion. And while I don’t completely agree with them, I know there are those out there that put a lot more blame for the impasse between the communities–if not the creation of the whole divide–on British conspiracies. I’d like to hear from contributors to this site that can flesh that out.

But on to the parts of Athar’s write-up that I found resonating with me.

The first was the description Athar relates of the mechanics of The Quaid’s response to the June 3 plan and its contrast to Nehru’s. While the latter, so often held up unquestioningly as the father of the world’s largest democracy, is happy to use his own opinions, decisions, and feelings as a surrogate for those of his constituency and party’s, while Mr. Jinnah is one arguing that he needs to get buy-in from his base.

The formulation of the plan–specifically that the choice was actually “to decide whether they wished to have a future constitution framed by the existing Constituent Assembly (that is for a united India) or by a ‘new and separate Constituent Assembly’ (i.e. join Pakistan).”–is in a form that we don’t hear much about when discussing the history of the period. Those details are worth repeating. And when you think about it, the way the assemblies of Punjab and Balochistan were to meet in two parts each, it was almost a given what they would decide…no?

At least from everything I have seen; the acceptance of the June 3 Plan by Nehru and the Congress was done in a cynical “mood”; as something that was transient and doomed to failure, and there not worth getting into the details of–and it is this half-hearted, one is tempted to say “Machiavellian”, attitude to the Plan that, it seems to me, to blame for fine minds like theirs not trying to help fix the obvious ticking timebombs built into it. Or maybe that’s the charitable view and the view that says that they were more than happy to have those flaws be there precisely because they wanted the project of Pakistan to fail.

If there is one “What if” this writer has come to really agonise about over the last two decades of thinking about Pakistani history it is what the texture, fabric and form of Pakistani society and the nation might have been if we had major minorities in two of the largest provinces. Would the tilt towards obscurantist interpretations of Islam becoming dominant not have been so great? Would the cultural and intellectual landscape be richer? What would today’s Pakistan look like? Would it, as some have said, be a more stable society, less-prone to extremism? More like Malaysia, one dares to wonder?

But moving on chronologically, with the date of independence came the Radcliffe Award. “Aapkay Jinnah Saahab nay rishwath dhanay say inkaar kardhiya,” was how my grandfather, Joint Secretary Lucknow District for the Muslim League, dismissed that discussion. He never emigrated to Pakistan. [And yes, that’s the word a lot of the better-placed Muslims preferred; “emigrate” or “hijrat“, as opposed to becoming a “refugee” or “panaahgeer“. And it is that distinction that leads us to the “Muhajir” identity that developed later on.]

But coming back to the details of the Radcliffe Award and the details of the “batwara”. We Pakistanis often don’t think of much of the way the Bengal was divide. But it is its details might be where one can see how the factors of economics and demographics played out. And, for some reason, the word “Sylhet” resonates. One district that had a special fate. Again something to read up further on–and maybe something for a contributor here to drill down on.

And in closing two things.

Firstly, I think the last four paragraphs (including the quote about Nawab Ismail Khan) of Athar’s piece are a master stroke. I’d like to request the reader to go back and read them. They form a very important reminder of the bigger picture in South Asia, especially for Pakistanis and non-Muslim Indians.

Secondly, to me, the thing that seems to come through from looking at the period in the run-up to August 1947 and the immediatte aftermath is that the bad blood, excuse the cruel pun, created during the Partition had more to do with the way the division was made more than the fact that it was done–in fact, the fact of the division was, after all, negotiated and accepted by all parties, wasn’t it?

And on the carnage itself. For a long time, or you could say, for those who do not, can not, or are not willing to go beyond their parochial view, the view has always been that their “side” was brutalized, genocided, if you will excuse the expression, and thrown out. But the fact remains, that atrocities happened. And on all sides. And people from other communities went through a lot; but it was The Punjab that had the most visceral tragedy. After all, it was The Punjab that was being torn asunder in and of itself. The quotation from Campell-Johnson via Sir Ian Stephens–a writer that Pakistanis, in particular, but anyone with an interest in South Asia must read–is trenchant “the partition of India means irrevocably the partition of the Sikhs, and they feel themselves sacrificed on the altars of Moslem ambition and Hindu opportunism.”

And, it has become my opinion, that it is the Punjab where the work of reconciliation must most viscerally be done. Or you could say that it is The Punjab that holds the key to peace in South Asia. Between neighbours. Independent and sovereign states, as the resolution of 1940 put it, live as siblings next door to each other.

• Commentaries