As an extra in Laloo’s roadshow to Pakistan, I watched with fascinated interest the media focus at the New Delhi railway station turn to media frenzy as we crossed the border at Attari-Wagah, Pakistani cameramen and anchors elbowing out each other to gain a ringside seat at the huge public theatre the 60-person delegation had become, with Laloo right out there in front, the cynosure of all eyes, everyone else reduced to a side-show whom only Pakistan’s legendary courtesy kept from being pushed completely off-stage.After Laloo left for India, I stayed on in Lahore and then journeyed south to Karachi before taking a turn through Upper Sindh — Mohenjodaro, Larkana, Sukkur, Rohri and Alore. Everywhere, I asked the same question of Pakistani friends and acquaintances, old and new: Why is Laloo such a hit? Is he being set up only to pull him down? Is he a figure of fun? Is it his chutzpah that amazes you? Is it his wit? His rustic ways?I think I can report from a wider swathe of Pakistan than my colleagues that the Laloo phenomenon has much wider ramifications than has hitherto been reported in our press. Not one among my scores of disparate Pakistani interlocutors limited himself or herself to remarking on Laloo’s entertainment value — though clearly they enjoyed this too. Of course, long before we got to Wagah, Laloo’s was easily the most familiar face of the Indian delegation, widely seen on the tele in Pakistan — tribute to the cross-border pervasiveness of our satellite channels and BBC. Thwarting all attempts by intrepid newshounds to trip him up, Laloo never said one wrong word, never embarrassed himself or his hosts, and hewed a straight furrow about not being in Pakistan to negotiate anything, only to get to know each other. He eschewed all sermonising. He deftly deflected awkward questions. He spoke straight and true. And the Pakistanis loved him.But surely, I asked, there was more to his rousing reception than his heartwarming ability to serve nothing new as something refreshingly novel? Yes, everyone agreed, there was nothing he said that constituted a breakthrough; and, yes, they were aware that his party had no more than a handful of members in Parliament. And, yes, indeed, they were more than aware of the investigations against him, his remand to judicial custody, and his placing Rabri Devi on the throne, a bit like Bharat standing in for Lord Ram. Then, said I, if he is taken seriously for not saying anything particularly serious, what is it that has made him the public sensation he evidently is?They answered variously, but summing up all I heard, it seems to me that, unlike all previous and extant authorities on India-Pakistan relations, and more than any establishment figure on either side of the border, Laloo comes through as achingly sincere. He sounds, they said, as if he means every word he says. He never seems to dissemble. He speaks from his heart, and his mind, they believe, is where his heart is. The Pakistanis, therefore, view him as a genuine man of peace, and see his hand as a genuine hand of friendship. Why? Why does Laloo have a level of credibility among the Pakistani people that is unrivalled by other more authoritative voices, Indian or Pakistani? I suspect it is that a vast segment of Pakistani public opinion is simply fed up with the arcane arguments and arch sophistry of the professionals — diplomats, politicians and commentators — that have led nowhere. They see much of the verbiage which passes between the spokespersons and scholars of both sides as just that — so much verbiage; shrouding, not revealing, the truth; proving the cleverness of those who make the argument but not resolving disputes or making peace.The English of the sophisticates is, of course, impressive — but to the bulk of Pakistan quite incomprehensible. The vernacular articulation, in which Laloo now is the master (as Vajpayee once was but, alas, no longer is), has overtaken the usual idiom of policy and the usual language of diplomacy. Ordinary people — on both sides of the border, I suspect, but most certainly in Pakistan — have lost their faith in the ability of those who talk in riddles to deliver. They do not think the Aitcheson College-Doon School Haw-Haws know any of the answers although it is they who raise the most convoluted of questions. The political establishment is looked down upon in Pakistan with a scorn exceeding even the ordinary Indian’s contempt for the Indian politician. And, of course, the army in Pakistan is an object of undisguised disgust, so Pervez Musharraf has about as much credibility as George Fernandes on Tehelka. The foreign services of both countries are seen as feathering their nests, not contributing constructively to the solution of anything. And the media, particularly pontificating columnists and pompous editorialists, are seen as clever-clever but hardly capable of delivering.So, the Pakistani yearning for an end to confrontation — or, at any rate, the yearning of that section of Pakistani public opinion which yearns for an end to empty confrontation and the beginnings of normalcy — have simply ceased to trust the official line, Indian or Pakistani. To them, Laloo offers a last ray of hope.It is tempting to dismiss the Laloofest as simplistic. For Laloo said nothing substantive. But the mere tone of his vice, his evident enjoyment of the attention he was receiving, his sure touch for the responsive nerve, his almost Kiplingesque ability “to walk among Kings nor lose the common touch”, above all the sincerity of his demeanour, much more than the earthy veneer, was what made him the superstar he was in Pakistan. I think there is a lesson — the most important lesson — for negotiators from India and Pakistan, and particularly their political masters, to learn from this: That there is a huge and burgeoning constituency for peace in Pakistan (as, one hopes, there is India) and it is by addressing this constituency in the language and idiom which reaches right into their hearts that professional diplomats and professional politicians and diplomats might find their way out of the India-Pakistan tangle.
