Daily Times

Robert Green Ingersoll says, “What light is to the eyes – what air is to the lungs – what love is to the heart, liberty is to the soul of man.” There is no denying the fact that throughout human history, human beings have always strived for freedom. According to the Social Contract Theory, for readers’ convenience, the theory talks about why primitive individuals went for a State, human beings, by nature, are freedom lovers. They, in their ‘state of nature’, prior to the State, were pre-social and pre-political, relished because that was the state in which they lived according to their own accords, but then as the theories of social contractualists comprising Thomas Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau guide us that humans, when left to their whims in their state of nature, though, established individual freedom as per their strength, but it ended in chaos as the weakest lot could not fend off against the power of the strongest lot. This precarious situation prompted humans to think an alternative to their predicament with respect to ensuring individual freedom while living in harmony with other fellow humans. Through deep introspection, they came at the idea of forming an organised community which they termed as a State. State, which humans now currently inhibit and almost there are at present 193 states across the globe, actually was contract made by people together for ensuring freedom to Tom, Dick and Harry in the community of which they were part. It was, for the then human beings, as dream come true as they had always aspired for such type of existence where they could live with fellow human beings in harmony without compromising over their individual freedom. Though they gave up on some of their rights to the State while making contract for mutual existence, currently that contract is epitomised by constitutions in all states, but it was only done because in it there was a surety for every individual to enjoy a certain level of freedom.

But once the State was formed, things did not go the way they had been envisaged. Earlier, where individuals were competing with each other for attaining freedom, now the parties to the competition were individual and the State, which tried to make sure that individuals played according to its whims. The game of influencing each other has been going on since then and somehow both parties, though at times, are at each other’s neck and spy on each other – case in point here is surveillance system sometimes applied by the state to monitor its citizens – but still they sort out their differences and help keep the political system running.

But the problem lies with the obsession of a state for ensuring freedom for its citizens by spying on other states. This obsession has pitted the state against resorting to some foul overt and covert means. Overt foul means, through which state ensures freedom for its citizens, include war with other states, while covert foul means, through which the state ensures freedom for its citizens, include spying. The latter mean has come again into spotlight, keeping in view the detainment of Indian spy, Kulbushan Yadav, in Balochistan which has vindicated Pakistan’s early claims of India’s interference in Balochistan which India had so far denied by saying that Pakistan had provided no evidence so far.

But all things apart, the pressing question at the moment which intrigues me to write this blog is whether the states can ensure freedom for their citizens by spying on each other? Let’s try to find an answer to this question in the perspective of Pakistan-India relations so far.

Pakistan and India, though born from the same womb, British coloniser, right after independence, have left no stone unturned in knocking each other down for ensuring their citizens’ freedom through overt and covert means. They have talked to each other through barrel of guns four times, the wars of 1948, 1965, 1971 and the Kargil war, and they are still calling shots at each other at the Siachen, which is nothing but a wild goose chase for both the states. In their obsession to ensure freedom for their respective citizens, both of them have equipped themselves with atomic bombs and through never ending belligerence they have made the part of the world which they inhibit, known as South Asia, as the most dangerous part through mutual animosity. Both of them in their bountiful animosity fed by jingoism are feeding their arms cache day in day out and turning the region more precarious with each passing day.

Not only that, both of them have not left a single opportunity to spy on each other. In their espionage against each other, both of them have been robbed of all the ethics of how to, at least, put up a decent fight against each other. To what extent, India has degraded itself through foul means like spying and to what extent it has gone off the track from the essence of spying that is made for defence to ensure people’s freedom can be substantiated in the best possible manner through confessions on the part of Indian spy, Kul Yadav Bushan, who is in the custody of Pakistan intelligence agencies. It has been reported that the spy has confessed to being the mastermind behind destabilizing the law and order situation in Karachi and Balochistan.

Last but not the least, just have a once-over of the code that the Indian spy gave to Pakistan intelligence agencies for sending to their Indian counterparts, especially RAW, to let them know that their spy had been nabbed. The code which Yadav gave to ISI is: “YOUR MONKEY IS WITH US.” How degrading is it that we, in an attempt to hunt each other, have demeaned our agents’ role to that of a ‘monkey’.

Moreover, espionage, all over the world, takes place. States do keep an eye on each other for their defence. This Machiavellian approach is still in vogue. As a state, at present, one cannot afford to have happy-go-lucky type of approach in policy making with respect to other states when so many states believe in Machiavelli’s refrains, so I think it is kosher for any state to spy for defensive purpose. This is what we see how intensively the United States spies on its friends. The US National Security Agency (NSA) was routinely snooping on German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.

What’s really shocking, though, is the lack of any grace attached to spying in the subcontinent. Elsewhere in the world, it’s respected as a tough profession and valued as a special art. India and Pakistan have generally resorted to foul spying. Not only that, they have generally tended to disown spies who get caught. It would be more sensible for India and Pakistan to acknowledge, at least in private, their respective spooks and bring as many of them home through spy swaps. That’s what Russia and America did at the height of Cold War.

According to Tommy Douglas, “setting people to spy on one another is not the way to protect freedom”. There is a dire need to reveal the essence of the above quote on those who are at the helm in Pakistan and India and are, with every passing day, trying to make the relation between the two countries a military centric, paving the way for more spying. A realisation should be impressed upon both the states that through spying they are not ensuring freedom for those in their camp rather they are enslaving them in a state in which their citizens can hardly tap to their full potential.

So far, in our jingoism to ensure freedom at the cost of snatching each others’ freedom through spying has given us nothing, but has always stopped us from tapping into those development goals which we might have achieved in peaceful mutual existence. Moreover, those at the helm in either state should know that they through their tunneled vision approach are trampling on the essence of the state which was to ensure freedom to its citizens but that freedom can hardly last long if it is catered at the cost of other state’s freedom.

The blogger is a graduate in Social Sciences from Government College University, Lahore. He can be reached at uinam39@gmail.com