During her recent visit to the United States of America, Pakistan’s foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar in her talk to a prominent American think tank said that there was a need to change the “mindset” and “negative narratives” to resolve bilateral problems between India and Pakistan. This sounds encouraging and is a positive gesture by a cabinet minister who is in-charge of the foreign affairs in Pakistan and has been actively engaged with her Indian counterpart, S M Krishna, to improve the bilateral relationship between the two archrivals from South Asia.
Academically, the issue of construction of negative narratives and how through their indoctrination the benefactors had created hatred among the people from India and Pakistan has been discussed by many scholars from both sides of the border. Zian Mian, in his chapter in his book Pakistan and the Bomb, edited by Samina Ahmad and David Cortwright, has talked about how textbooks in Pakistan indoctrinate schoolchildren with anti-India feelings. Then, Aparna Pande in her latest book, Pakistan’s Foreign Policy: Escaping India has talked about the construction of the anti-’Hindu’ India imagination in Pakistan. In India, the rightwing groups had carried out their missionary duty by successfully injecting anti-Pakistan feelings through their literature. Even this author in his articles and research papers has talked about how negative narratives have helped in generating chauvinistic nationalism, successfully derailing all efforts to make peace between the two countries.
Well aware of the impact of negative narratives, the question arises how these can be replaced, transformed or contested. This is a big issue because without doing that, peace between the two countries is not possible no matter how many border outposts open for trade or how many bilateral treaties they sign between them. Evidence of this is that since the 1950s, the two countries have taken many steps to settle their conflicts peacefully; they had also signed a few treaties, had mutually agreed many times to not go to war and live peacefully; but despite all that, the result is before us, which needs no introduction or elaboration.
To replace, change or contest the embedded negative narratives, the first thing one has to do is to popularise people’s version of the partition instead of institutional or interest-based versions. Genocide carried out during the partition had its impact on common people, whose only fault was that they were from a certain religious group and compelled to choose one out of the two countries in 1947. For that barbaric act, all of us should be collectively ashamed because we are carrying out or living with such a shameful legacy. The genocide and partition had not affected religion because even after the deaths of millions of people who were Hindus, Muslims or Sikhs, their religion remained in good shape.
Even the perpetrators had nothing to do with religion; they were criminals who used religion as a tool to fulfil their nefarious agendas because, as far as I can understand, no religion teaches to kill innocent and helpless people. Those who promoted patriarchal values by engaging in inhuman activities like raping of women from other communities were not just male chauvinists but monsters. Unfortunately, the acts carried out by criminals were glorified by the ringleaders of the communities at that time. Later on, the same groups presented themselves as ‘victims’ to justify their actions against the manifested ‘others’. Since then the poison of hatred has been encouraged by those who gained a lot from popularising group suffering.
Amidst the hate-based narratives, the silver lining of the partition-related narration has been ignored. Real stories of people who saved lives of people from other communities have not been popularised by the benefactors of hatred. The pain of someone like Ghulam Ali who was a soldier in the British army and after the partition became unwanted in his parent country, India, and in his forcefully adopted country, Pakistan, has never been publicly discussed. This and painful stories of many other victims have been well depicted by Vazira Zamindar in her book The long Partition of India and Pakistan.
To conclude, as a prisoner of history the Indian and Pakistani still lives under the shadow of these popular and dominant negative narratives. Unless these change, peace between the two countries is not possible. The policy makers from the two countries are fully aware of the fact that in order to resolve their bilateral conflicts, compromises and adjustments have to be made; but with this popular mindset, they do not want to take political risks. In case people from the two countries want to have a good relationship, they have to start with a new ‘imagination’ about each other. This is easy because they share similar cultural and behavioural traits and tastes. Of course, this process will take its own time to mature but this is the only way to improve decades-old negative perceptions about each other.
The writer is an assistant professor (guest) at the Delhi University, New Delhi. He can be reached at [email protected]