Daily Times

When I say we are very ritualistic people it offends a lot of people. The Independence Day celebration just passed, and people were in the momentary joy of being proud of “being free.” Paint yourself green, wear green, have green flags, green confetti and the list goes on. Shower some praises on Mohammad Ali Jinnah, renew some old, clichéd promises, and endure platitudes of a bright future from our ruling elite. Come August 15, and the ritual ends, and it is back to usual business. It is a momentary escape from the bitter yet very harsh reality.

Daunting it may be, cruel it may sound or read, but the job of an honest opinion writer is not to parrot popular lines that resonate with the fantasies of the masses. Our job is to evoke a response in the readers so that they pause and think. We are all victims of our self-created cocoons that keep us in our comfort zones. It is comfortable to live in our zones, and very uncomfortable to step out and think and assess where we truly are, and where we are headed.

A very few people would like to revisit a historical fact: that it was the Indian Independence Act of 1947 that granted us independence. Cyril Radcliffe’s stroke of pen abruptly partitioned Punjab and Bengal, and what ensued was utterly shameful. Without repeating my personal thesis that I have posted repeatedly on social media, and on this forum on a few occasions, I would like to ask the readers to ponder, and ponder very deeply into some painful facts.

The wedge that divided the people who had lived with each other for hundreds of years has gotten bigger and bigger in the last 69 years, although Mr Jinnah had envisioned that both Pakistan and India would co-exist with one another, much like the US and Canada, in relative harmony. I wish Mr Jinnah were around to witness what actually happened. In my humble and usually flawed opinion, it was rather too simplistic of a wish that our leader had expressed. Especially after the very bloody riots of Calcutta in 1946, which was a horrific preview of what was about to unfold in the near future.

The aftermath of partition and its brutal wrath engulfs both sides to this day. No matter how much each side denies, but even after 69 years we are living in the shadows of that particular event. Every time you touch on this subject, both sides with their daggers drawn tend to charge with venom who was wrong, who did this and who did that. Rarely do people stop for a minute and think where we are headed.

The post-partition generation was raised by sceptical parents who instilled acrimony, negativity and fear, on both sides. We have experienced meaningless diplomatic efforts for a few decades. There are so many secretaries of this and that who get to meet their counterparts on both sides. This process has been dragging on for a long time with different names but a seemingly meaningless outcome.

The typical person on both sides has so much venom against the other that it would put pythons in complete extinction. The babus on both sides exchange pleasantries, enjoy the chai and samosas, mark something in their respective diplomatic manuals, and issue a vague communique, which prolongs the so-called “dialogue process.” At this pace, another 69 years and my children will read on their timeline that some additional secretary is hosting his/her counterpart on some Track 12 diplomacy event in Lahore or New Delhi to “move the dialogue process” forward.

We can enjoy each other’s food, music, poetry, fashion and movies, but this is as far as it goes. Both sides, at the level of diplomatic and power establishments, want this act to continue until perhaps the end of time. It gives them the reason for their existence. Independent we both are, undoubtedly, independent in our rather vague positions. Every now and then, this stale and meaningless phrase of “composite dialogue” is thrown in the mix to revive the process on life alert.

Both sides spend an enormous amount of money on preparing for each other’s potential destruction. Media on both sides churns more and more items and scoops to keep the environment of fear and spite thriving. After all, they have to live too, and if the hate-thy-neighbour mix sells the most, as astute business entities they do what they are supposed to. Whether it is media persons or politicians on both sides, they never fail to outdo one another when it comes to the juvenile tit-for-tat game.

Rarely does anyone ponder: where has this bitterness, this animosity, this hatred, this acrimony brought us? In a rare and remote possibility, if one side conquers the other, then what? How many people will have to die and for what? As if death and destruction that followed the partition was not enough.

The basic premise behind the movement of Indian independence was to drive the occupiers out of the motherland. The occupiers were cruel and violated the dignity of the natives. While sipping your tea and enjoying your samosa, let your “independent” minds allow this thought. This is an “equal opportunity thought” and meant for both sides. If being cocooned within our respective biases, doubts and fear is called “independence” then we have many years to go, before we are truly set free. Enslaved by our bitter hatred and endless animosity for one another, we are not much different from our former masters.

The writer is a Pakistani-US mortgage banker. He can be reached at dasghar@aol.com. He tweets at http://twitter.com/dasghar