According to media reports in India, Bihar’s chief-minister, Nitish Kumar along with a few members of his party and government will be paying a visit to Pakistan in November 2012. Prior to him, Lalu Prasad Yadav, the former chief minister of Bihar and political rival of Nitish Kumar, visited Pakistan in 2003. As usual, he, through his attire and talks, attracted the crowds. Personality wise, Nitish Kumar is different. He is very calculating and a no nonsense man and his visit will definitely give a different taste of Bihar to his hosts.
Since Mr Kumar disclosed his plan, rumours have been in the air establish the reason why he is paying a visit to Pakistan. Nobody knows the answer but many have asked the question. One conspiracy theory that is passing from one ear to the other is that he is going to Pakistan in order to consolidate Muslim votes in his favour. This reason is being cited and spread by not only the rightwing Hindu nationalists but also by what sociologist Amita Baviskar calls the everyman. If Mr Kumar thinks what is being suggested or those holding this view think they are right in their assessment, they have to re-think their knowledge of politics. Although mohajirs (those who migrated to Pakistan due to partition in 1947) are culturally similar to Indian Muslims, their problems are different from those of the Indian Muslims. In addition, this thinking is illogical because even after publicly accepting that M A Jinnah was a secular leader, which was denied by his mother-organisation RSS, L K Advani, the NDA’s projected prime ministerial candidate in the last general election, could not attract Muslim votes for his political alliance group. In case Mr Kumar is also aiming for that, it could be said with certainty that he would also meet the same fate. To seek votes from Muslims of Bihar it is better if he implements the Sacchar Committee plan at least in Bihar where he is at the helm of affairs, or stop the central and state authorities from witch-hunting the innocent Muslim youths.
Moving from political predictions and rumours about the reasons for Mr Kumar’s visit to Pakistan, it is not an exaggeration if one says that Bihar is the only Indian state that attracts attention and is being publicly discussed in all South Asian states. The reasons for this are different. It is the Bihar-dominated cultural zone in British India where a demand for a separate cultural and territorial state for Muslims was made vociferously. The Muslims from this cultural zone made the dream of Pakistan came true. Once the dream turned into a reality, others occupied the seats of power with the mohajir elite. Millions of economically weak mohajirs were treated as unwanted guests and to date, they are scornfully addressed as Biharis in Pakistan and Bangladesh. The reason for the degradation of their status was that after migration to Pakistan they became merely a part of a different cultural zone, while in British India they were representative of a dominant region.
In India, it is this cultural zone that represents or carries the burden of the ‘idea’ of India. It decides what the Indian nation is, who is a ‘nationalist’, and it manufactures ‘enemies’. In Bendict Anderson and other constructionists’ words, manufacturing of alien ‘others’ is the most important task carried out by the dominant group. As a dominant representative of this cultural zone, the Hindus (including upper castes, other backward castes, and scheduled castes also thought to be communist but having faith in Hinduism) have decided about the above-mentioned discourse and are ‘ideologically’ responsible for everything that happens in India. This is not a new phenomenon; rather, it has dominated the territorial boundary of India since ancient times. The first empire in India was set up by the Maurya king, Ashoka. According to Professor Romila Thapar, Ashoka’s kingdom extended to almost all parts of the present India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. His capital was Patliputra (present Patna, capital of Bihar). Then, the Mughal emperor Akbar and later on, the British colonial rulers gave the idea of India to Indians. After independence, this zone took ‘moral’ responsibility to build or re-build the nation; since then it is busy in the ‘nation-building’ process in India.
In case India and Pakistan wish to improve their bilateral relationship, the willingness for it has to emerge in the cultural zone. In addition, those who are engaged continuously and consistently in the act of improving bilateral ties between India and Pakistan must engage with the people from the region. Through their acts, they have to generate a consensus among the dominant group of the region to either deconstruct their obliterated idea or re-visit their ‘construction’ about the alien others. Unless this happens, the relationship between the two countries cannot improve.
In the light of all that, Nitish Kumar’s visit to Pakistan, as the chief minister of Bihar and the representative of the discussed cultural zone, is a welcome development. He can lead the others to change their perception about Pakistan. Good luck to him.
The writer is an assistant professor (guest) at the Delhi University, New Delhi. He can be reached at [email protected]