Pakistan - News and Discussion -7

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FT
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>On India and Pakistan </b>
Courtesy Tehelka
<b>Author of Moth Smoke Mohsin Hamid tells Indian journalist Shoma Chaudhury how Pakistanis see India  </b>
   
<b>Q: Does Pakistan’s conception of itself as an Islamic state bother you?</b>
A: I’m not sure what you mean. Pakistan is a very diverse country. I’m not sure how much it does define itself as a religious state. Official speak might seem to say it is a religious state, but for me that’s just one facet of the place.

<b>Q: What idea of India do you and people from your world hold?</b>
A: Well, it’s mixed. Certainly, there are a lot of positive things. We all have Indian friends; people who’ve married across the border, who travel across borders. There are television shows, films, music we all like. At the same time, there’s a fairly pervasive feeling that India is a rather arrogant, uncompromising neighbour. There’s also a sense that India is a country that is a lot about hype.

All this talk of India Shining and what not – a lot of mainstream Indian media will portray India as this flourishing super power doing wonderfully well, when the truth is most Indians are desperately poor. Pakistanis seem to be much less jingoistic and nationalistic about themselves. I think as a smaller and more cynical country, Pakistanis find this nationalistic aspect of India pretty off-putting.

<b>Q: What would the self-criticisms of your generation of Pakistanis be? </b>
A: There are many. We’ve failed to evolve a lasting democratic set-up. Failed to find a peaceful resolution with India, failed to educate a majority of our people.

<b>Q: Are there versions of Pakistan that make you blanch? </b>
A: Your question is more interesting than the answer. Let me turn this around. How would you respond to a Pakistani periodical calling you up and saying, what are things about your country that make you blanch? It’s like a neighbour you don’t have nice relations with saying, what about your mother don’t you like? Certainly, there are things about Pakistan I don’t like, but to make that a topic of enquiry is problematic. Just look at headlines related to Pakistan in the mainstream Indian press and you’ll find a very jingoistic, distorted view of Pakistan.

Even in Tehelka, which might be a very liberal paper otherwise, the tone is very hawkish. As a Pakistani, I find Indian media prone to exaggerating the threat posed by Pakistan, and the differences between the two countries, as opposed to highlighting similarities. In some ways, I think the biggest threat Pakistan poses to India is the threat to the Indian ego, as opposed to anything more substantive. So in that context, this is a very odd question. With that caveat in place, I’d say, I have enormous love for Pakistan, though I’m frequently frustrated by it.

<b>Q: The media war is equal. Here the focus is on the ISI, Dawood Ibrahim, terror camps. [...] The talk is of jihadi groups within Pakistan </b>
A: I think India is terrified of looking inside itself because if a home grown Indian Muslim group has done this in Bombay, you’d have massacres. India is a tinderbox so it’s forced to look outside. Who’s backing the Naxalites? People out of Nepal? Who’s backing the Muslim groups? Pakistan and Bangladesh? There are a billion Indians, many of whom are very upset with the government and could certainly be involved. In Pakistan, we have sectarian bombings all the time. Certainly one could say these are the work of Indian intelligence agencies. Perhaps they are. But I think it’s a mistake to look at these problems in this way and ignore what is often a very strong domestic component.

Pakistan is desperate for a peace deal on Kashmir. Musharraf – like him or not – is bending over to find some compromise. But India is completely uncompromising. It prefers the status quo, so any time there’s a bomb in India, it can be blamed on Pakistan.

<b>Q: Indians would throw Kargil and terror camps and infiltration at you... </b>
A: They would, but Kargil was at one time. At one time Musharraf wanted to have this tactical invasion of India. Now he doesn’t. People change. I think the Kargil war is really more an issue of Indian ego – which I think is a very fragile thing and the biggest barrier to normalising relations with Pakistan.

<b>Q: If the Indian press demonises Pakistan, isn’t it the same in the Pakistani press? </b>
A: Absolutely, particularly in the Urdu language press. But, you know, I think the demonisation of Pakistan in India is more than here because Pakistan has no substantial Hindu community. So the average Pakistani deals with India only as a concept. There is not much entrenched actual bigotry. India, on the other hand, has over 100 million Muslims. [...] Pakistan gets lumped along with that, so the resentment towards it in India is much more.

<b>Q: How’s Pakistan negotiated modernity?</b>
A: In remarkably complex ways.<b> You have everything in Pakistan – mini zones of talibanisation, fashion shows with girls wearing next to nothing in Lahore, parties in Karachi where people are doing cocaine and ecstasy, villages where people don’t have education or electricity.</b> It’s a huge collage. The thing people often forget about Pakistan is that it’s enormous. It’s the sixth biggest country in the world. China, India, US, Indonesia, Brazil, then Pakistan. It’s only when you compare it with something even more galactically vast like India that it seems anything but huge. [...]

<b>Q: Despite themselves, people across the globe are becoming wary of the dominant face of Islam. </b>
A: I don’t think there is any homogeneous Islam. As a novelist, I negotiate these things by breaking them down to the personal. Even if some basic principles are the same, there are huge variations in outlook. And religion is only one facet of what makes us human. There are cultural identities, gender, race. . .

For me, Islam is a word that includes an incredible multiplicity. The notion of a strong, politicised, unitary Islam which is either a threat or a transformative force is for me an artificial construct. Analogous to the movement trying to make Hinduism a monolithic identity. That said, within the world of Islam, certainly there are many who are deeply reactionary, who are moving towards some frightening utopia which for someone like me is terrifying.

But I don’t characterise those people as typical of Islam. Look at Pakistan: Islamic parties never get more than 10-15 percent of the vote. They are significant, but the vast majority would rather vote for schools, jobs, food than some utopia.

<b>Q: What do you think of Musharraf? </b>
A: I am deeply ambiguous. First, on the negative count, how can the political system he’s building be sustainable? Second, there’s his willingness to use force to settle disputes within Pakistan. Third, one just doesn’t know what Pakistan foreign policy is! Are we really anti-Taliban and fully pushing for peace with India? It’s unclear. There is no transparency. We seem broadly positive, but there’s no way of knowing what the intelligence agencies or army or state actors are doing.

On the positive side, there’s been dramatic economic growth in Pakistan – almost as fast as India since 2001. There’s freedom in the media, an explosion of TV channels, kids doing things I couldn’t dream of. Lahore, Karachi – the cities have a new vibe. There also appears to be a relative desire to disengage from the affairs of our neighbours, and a relative check on the non-state violent actors within Pakistan. I’d put a question mark on that last one though.

But the trouble is there are enough sycophants in the Pakistani government to warp your sense of how right you might be. That warping process which eventually leads to monomaniacal figures has begun with Musharraf. Yet, I also think he is also sincere, not corrupt, and trying to do the best he can
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