In fact and in fiction

For India and Pakistan, mid-August brings with it thoughts of the Other. In Independence Day flag unfurling and homage paying, memories of division are never too far away. It is not that August 14-15 elicits pangs of betrayal. It is more that the two-day affair offers a peg to situate a larger inquiry. An inquiry to understand what it could have been in Partition 8212; and anything else thereafter 8212; that keeps the two countries mired in suspicion and rivalry. It is an investigation that requires introspection, and dialogue. It is one that must be sustained by constant exposure to each other8217;s narratives.

It is fortuitous that the two countries appear to be initiating a textual change in confidence building measures. Moves are afoot to open the two countries to each other8217;s books. Pakistan will be at the Delhi book fair this month. The External Affairs Minister is pitching for an Indian book fair in Lahore next year. The very fact of border trade in books would mark a defining moment in this season of peace-making. Both countries live in such fear of propaganda and subversion that what little printed material finds its way to either side inevitably invited the censor8217;s interest. Brisk book exchanges would thus signal a qualitative lowering of suspicion and distrust.

However, books themselves are instruments to battle distrust. Take histories of the freedom movement. Krishna Kumar, who studied Indian and Pakistani narratives, says he was struck by how each seemed to be a soliloquy to the other. This broken conversation can be found in popular literature too. For example, Mumtaz Nawaz8217;s novel The Heart Divided and Attia Hosain8217;s Sunlight on a Broken Column are defences of the ideas of Pakistan and India. These records of difference are, in any case, more than balanced by proofs of commonality. In Urdu poetry, Punjabi prose and common history, for instance, readers of both countries are bound to be enriched by enlarged bookshelves. 57 years after 1947, we owe this to ourselves, and each other.