History has been made, now overcome it

Until the British partitioned India into two countries in 1947, the two cities had been known as 8216;8216;Hyderabad, Deccan8217;8217; and 8216;8216;Hyderabad, Sind8217;8217; to distinguish them from each other. But the drawing of the hard lines of partition on a map had made this unnecessary; it was enough to know which side of the border you were on to know which Hyderabad was referred to. The other was simply out of reach.

The Indian Hyderabad is a good place to look at the subcontinent8217;s past, and its future. Exquisite Muslim architecture abounds, especially palaces and mosques, including the famous Mecca Masjid where the faithful congregate in the thousands every Friday. But at the foot of the city8217;s most famous monument, the four-turreted Charminar, sits a Hindu temple to the goddess Mahalakshmi where the priests have been chanting their mantras for centuries under the celebrated Muslim minarets. And beyond the old city gleams the high-tech crucible of 8216;8216;Cyberabad8217;8217;, a pet project of the state8217;s laptop-toting Chief Minister, Chandrababu Naidu, where Indian software engineers of all faiths click their country8217;s way into the 21st century. In this city, the past poses no impediment to the future.

But that has not been quite as true for the subcontinent as a whole, which has for more than five decades seemed a prisoner of the past, handcuffed to a pessimist8217;s reading of history. In reality, history has not always been as grim as the pessimists believe. Muslims and Hindus as well as followers of other creeds have shared the same civilisational space on the subcontinent for more than 1,000 years. Islam came to India as early as the 8th century, to Sind in the north with the Arab armies and to Kerala in the south with traders and travellers across the Arabian Sea.

For the most part, the two big faiths co-existed for centuries; though persecution and violence were not unknown, few saw religion as the primary determinant of their loyalties. In the great revolt of 1857 against the British, Hindus and Muslims rose as one, rallying under the banner of the last Mughal king. But the Hindu-Muslim unity seen in that revolt led the alarmed British to adopt a policy of 8216;8216;divide and rule8217;8217; that sowed mutual suspicions and hatreds. In Indian eyes, the policy found its culmination, 90 years later, in partition.

The tragic flashpoint of Kashmir, which has twice brought the two countries to war and several times to the brink of it, is described by some in Pakistan as the 8216;8216;unfinished business of partition8217;8217;. When a student at Cambridge, Chaudhury Rehmat Ali, invented the name 8216;8216;Pakistan8217;8217; land of the pure for the country he hoped would be created for his co-religionists, the 8216;8216;k8217;8217; in his neologism stood for Kashmir, a mountainous, predominantly Muslim state in northern India. But when partition finally took place, the maharajah of Kashmir, who was Hindu and facing an invasion from Pakistan, acceded to India instead. War ensued, leaving both countries with a portion of the state and a dotted line the Line of Control across the maps.

Pakistan argues that the Muslim-majority state should have always been part of the Muslim country; India points to Kashmir8217;s Muslim majority as proof of the pluralism of its secular democracy. So for years the talk has been of war, militancy, terrorism and now the nuclear threat. And yet history entwines the two countries together with bonds of paradox. India derives its name from the river Indus, which flows in Pakistan. The partition of 1947 created a state for India8217;s Muslims, but today there are more Muslims in secular India than in Islamic Pakistan. The two countries share common languages, costumes, customs and cuisines; when their citizens meet abroad, they slip easily into camaraderie. Indian films, music and clothes remain wildly popular across the border, and Pakistani cricketers and musicians are lionised in India.

Strikingly, as part of his peace overture, Vajpayee suggested that the two countries and their sibling, Bangladesh once East Pakistan, jointly commemorate the 150th anniversary three years from now of the great revolt of 1857. His proposal was received warily; history has so far been a force for division on the subcontinent, not of unity.

But Vajpayee himself, once a leading member of a Hindu nationalist party whose platform called for the undoing of partition and the re-creation of an 8216;8216;undivided India8217;8217;, had proved he could transcend the past by paying tribute at the Minar-e-Pakistan in Lahore, a shrine to that country8217;s founding. And Musharraf, a trained man of war whose own family left India for Pakistan upon partition, has shown signs of his determination to reinvent himself as a man of peace.

So there is hope. 8216;8216;History has been made,8217;8217; Musharraf told a news conference after his meeting with Vajpayee. The challenge for both countries is now to demonstrate that history has also been overcome.

LAT-WP