The Great Turn-On

Britney Spears was thrusting her pierced navel at the audience and her mouth at the microphone just above the banner headlines. At the other end of the page was the Pakistani information minister giving the Indian prime minister a come-hither look. Attending the Saarc information ministers’ conference currently in New Delhi, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed had whispered the two words that were to set Mr. Vajpayee’s heart afire. “Let’s talk.” His pulse racing, Atalji could only manage a weak, “yes…er…” Mr. Ahmed seems to be a seasoned wooer. He believes that the affirmative word uttered hesitatingly was from the “core of his heart” and might well reflect good times ahead. About as much as Britney’s breathless pauses would do.

Picture this. During the Agra Summit, India and Pakistan were about to sign a joint declaration. President Pervez Musharraf got so terribly excited that he broke into a sweat and had to rush in to change his clothes. When he returned, it was all over. This is the coitus interruptus version of his minister. With such an errand boy, Pakistan can stake its claim to monarchy – it has its own royal butler with a taste for truth, telling us that he has not lied in the past six or seven years. This silly stance has taken away from the larger accepted truth that it was political pressure from one group within the Indian government that stalled the effort. This had prompted Laloo Prasad Yadav to remark that such had Indian hospitality turned out to be that a guest was forced to leave at midnight.

Mr. Ahmed is either terribly canny or just cuckoo. He said at a meeting, “If you talk Kargil, I will talk Siachen.” Is it any wonder that most of the top-ranking militant leaders in Kashmir have either taken ill or left on important business before the iftaar party at the Pakistani High Commission? Does he know that he sounds like a percussionist without drums when he says that Article 370, the Ram Mandir and the uniform civil code affect Pakistan? How? “They have to do with Muslims.” Is it any wonder that I think it is best for India and Pakistan to remain political enemies and do so honourably? Legitimacy anyway is always only on paper, where parchments flake and sepia tones blur the very history that was written on them.

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India and Pakistan can talk peace, sign peace accords and even promise not to nuke each other, but they can never be at peace. There is unlikely to be an Indo-Pakistani bhai-bhai slogan. I do not have to reiterate the political machinations at work here.

The Indian PM wants to “resolve some unfinished business” before his term ends. And getting a few more buses and a train to operate is not too tough a task; we have roads, we have railway tracks. But this does not constitute peace; this is called transportation. Mr. Vajpayee has the fortune of being able to speak two things almost simultaneously. He has spoken about the need to encourage those “who recognise the folly of permanent hostility towards India”. Besides being a terribly cheeky thing to say (considering he does not have the courage to pull up his own party cadres for this very attitude), he ends up sounding like a mafia don – humse dushmani theek nahin – who wants to be godfather.

He talks paternally about people-to-people contact, cultural exchanges and economic co-operation. This is indeed wonderful. But what would this achieve towards lasting peace? We can send model-item girl Yana Gupta, a Czech married to an Indian, to dance on a glass top table at the Marriott in Islamabad, lip-synching “Babuji, zaraa dheere chalo…” and shaking her booty – this will tell those feudal Pakistanis how democratic and forward-looking we are. You bet we are. We even let Adnan Sami shake his booty in our faces. Does this mean anything?

We have students visiting each other’s countries on exchange programmes and talking about similarities, but the kids of today can identify even with an X from the ‘X Files’ and the characters from ‘Friends’ and every ‘Paki786’ or ‘Indianchicknee’ from the chat rooms. So if a Dilli dude strikes a chord with a Lahore ki ladki it is no big deal. Teenagers are in Ecstasy or on it.

What about cricket, then? What about it? There is money involved. Excitement. And this is one thing that gives the now-limp Shiv Sena what the Chinese would call, “a vely good election”. Seriously, do we believe that Imran Khan lounging in the seaside baroque bungalow of an almost burlesque Sikh socialite married to a Parsi is people-to-people contact? In fact, it was Khan looking like a tribesman who made the most politically savvy statement in a television interview on a recent visit to Mumbai. He said that as captain he always wanted his team to play against India because it was a great way to test the mettle of his players. “If they could play India, then they could play anyone.”

It is not because we are a great team, but he understood the psychology of the people. Pakistan needs to be at war with India. Any kind of war. And even after all those losses (perhaps because of them) the sentiments remain. As they do here. Mr. Vajpayee, after talking about peace initiatives, said immediately, “We will continue to deal firmly with cross-border terrorism, a meaningful dialogue with Pakistan is only possible when we see sincerity in their efforts to stop cross-border infiltration and to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism.”

Of course, we must remember that these statements were made when addressing the combined armed forces commanders’ conference. It is important to speak like a warrior when you are setting up people to freeze in the snow. Just light a little fire to keep them warm.

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I know a lot of people find this tough talk essential. External Affairs minister, Yashwant Sinha, who has been finding flaws in every Pakistani statement, was at it again. He found Islamabad’s offer of a scholarship for 100 Kashmiri students offensive. “India has never said, for instance, only 20 children from Baluchistan or Sindh or NWFP will be given free medical treatment. All our measures are applicable to all Pakistanis.” This is sweet, but no one stopped India from putting those conditions. (It might be prudent to point out here that when Pakistan wanted to send aid during the earthquake in Gujarat, a non-communal calamity, our government refused.) If this reveals, as the minister states, an obsession with Jammu and Kashmir, then what is new? Surely, if we already believe that Pakistan runs training camps for militants and there is large-scale infiltration, then they would be crazy to openly give credence to such an accusation that they have till date refused to acknowledge. Besides, a hundred students will not help an already-entrenched movement.

In diplomacy there is no room for cock-teasing. All coquetry must begin and end before you reach the table. Pakistan has every right to make Kashmir into an issue simply because Kashmir is an issue. Ask Farooq Abdulla, ask Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, ask the Hurriyat, ask the JKLF, and ask the Kashmiri Pandits. Ask the Dogras, the Buddhists, the Ladakhis. Ask the people. Those who are killed by militants. Those tortured by our jawans. Ask the military establishment that is not reducing its cadres even as winter comes along. Ask Madam Condi too, if you must. Prez Musharraf is only speaking what needs to be spoken. He is being pragmatic. There is no point trying to lay out a banquet when you know that one worm can spoil the whole meal. And if we do believe that we are not as obsessed with Kashmir as Pakistan is, then why are we afraid to talk about it? If we are confident of our position and our hold over the Valley, if we know that for the Kashmiri India rocks, then why are we shying away from flaunting our dreadlocks and funkiness?

Just how pugnacious we are will be evident from a letter in ‘The Asian Age’ against an article – “Hindus and Muslims: Home Truths” -- by Pakistani writer Hafizur Rahman. We were told that a Pakistani has no moral right to write about what Indian Hindus think. Mr. Rahman had talked about North and South India as ethnic entities. No, screeched the respondent, they are not, the differences are cultural. Profound. But the letter writer was not through yet. He stated, “I will humbly suggest that after the ethnic cleansing of the Hindus and the Sikhs from the land of their forefathers in present Pakistan, Mr. Rahman and his compatriots should forget the Hindus of India, and allow them to live in peace.”

Amnesia is a great weapon. Who wants to remember 1984? That was Indian Sikhs. But I would humbly request Pakistan to leave the Hindus alone lest the minorities are saddled with them suffering from a persecution complex and then if someone comes to their rescue we might want to call them traitors, just as Indian Muslims are whenever some Pakistani talks about minority persecution in India.

The majority community being left in peace is the need of the hour. Not peace with an enemy. As I said, that will not happen. Just don’t waste time over it. Senior citizens can saunter through Wagah. Children can play in each other’s lawns. We can live happily with designer clothes from across the border that are both filched from ‘Vogue’ ideas and adapted to look like Indian and Pakistani tents respectively. The camels can go across the sandy dunes and make love and produce babies. I am all for it.

But let us not confuse this with political peace. And on a personal note, I see it as a good thing. If Pakistan were not forbidden, would it have been so tempting? If it were merely about our similar scents, silks and sensibility, then would we expend so much energy on a mirror? No one has ever succeeded in restoring a crack on it. Let us not become pawns in the political game. If we try to mend the glass, we just might break it further. And end up bloodying our innocent hands.