As I had mentioned in yesterday’s post, I was eagerly awaiting this evening’s live broadcast of the Intelligence Squared debate on Pakistan. You would be forgiven if you’re not especially enamoured of such events because they have become something of a dreary staple in Western policy circles. People who had never heard of Pakistan before confidently make policy pronouncements on “Af-Pak”, Swat, the “tribal areas” and rattle off a gaggle of Muslim names all in a misplaced effort to garner some form of intellectual capital.
Although this particular panel discussion suffered from some of those traits it was sufficiently stimulating for the most part. I was particularly impressed with Dr. Farzana Shaikh’s deposition. Dr Shaikh, a fellow with the Asia Programme at Chatham House put forth a thesis that seeks to view Pakistani affairs from the old-fashioned prism of Indo-Pak relations and Pakistan’s testy relationship with its founding faith. Her basic contention was that the Pakistani quagmire is a direct result of the attempt to gain strategic parity with India. There were audible gasps of discomfort from (presumably) the Pakistani members of the audience as Shaikh implied that it is time that Pakistan abandons this attempt. A gentleman in the Q&A session afterwards even questioned her “representativeness” as she wrote in English and worked for a Western organisation. Evidently, the irony of speaking in the English language escaped him.
Shaikh then, if I may be permitted the usage of the term falls in the camp of the old school pragmatic secularists who wish to see Pakistan emerge as a developed member of international civil society. I would argue that the time for this Jinnahesque political project has passed and a radical re-imagination is required to foster a new and more sustainable political order on the Subcontinent for the benefit of all the populations involved.
One panelist whose speech I was eager to hear before the debate began was William Dalrymple. Dalrymple’s deposition convinced me that although he might have talents as a travel writer and as a chronicler of Mughal history he has serious deficiencies as an analyst of politics. His speech was a collection of clichés that seemed to have been gleaned from the pulp fiction that passes for political opinion in some newspapers. His basic aim seemed to be to reassure the audience that Pakistan hasn’t lagged behind India to the extent that the Western press made it out to be even attesting to the superiority of Pakistani roads and the high penetration of mobile phones. While no doubt true, it didn’t add much insight to the proceedings.
All in all though, it was a stimulating affair. I even had the opportunity to pose a question to Farzana Shaikh via Twitter that went something like this:
Re-integration with India is a utopian notion but is it not the most rational course forward?
This question simply aimed to take Dr Shaikh’s line of thought one step further. If Pakistan is to be a secular state in the classical Western sense as she envisions it then what is the rationale for its existence as a separate Islamic Republic? This of course draws attention to that rather large gorilla in the room that everybody would rather leave alone – the botched Partition of India.
Shaikh dismissed the proposition but to do so is understandable. Talking of Indo-Pak reunification or indulging in revisionist historical scholarship is to commit professional and political suicide as Mr Jaswant Singh, her fellow panellist knows well. He was quick to offer a palatable and politically correct response when the moderator posed my question to him.
Singh is infamous for his book on Jinnah that sought to emancipate the Quaid-e-Azam’s legacy and establish his secular credentials. However, Singh, now a full-time public intellectual free from the exigencies of Indian party politics seems unwilling to embrace the logical corollary of his thesis – If Partition was a bad idea to begin with, why shirk from advocating its reversal now?
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