Opinion Atal,Advani,Singh: A common quest
Should history be allowed to determine the course of human destiny?
Should history be allowed to determine the course of human destiny? Or can we,through the power of our collective will,change history and determine our own destiny? Should we forever remain prisoners of the past? Or can we summon the courage and the vision to break free from its chains and write a new script of our own choice for the future?
Both Indianot the Eternal India,but the truncated India that came into being in 1947and Pakistan are creations of recent history. The events that created them as two separate nations did not really conform to the will of the people. This is because the united will of the people,Hindu or Muslim,did not really come into full play during undivided Indias freedom movement,and failed to determine its final denouement. Partition is not what a majority of Hindus or Muslims wanted. And they certainly didnt want a blood-soaked vivisection of our ancient nation. However,Indias division could not be prevented due to certain critical weaknesses in our national movement. The communal holocaust that accompanied it was,of course,certainly more preventable. But Partition took a tragic turn due to the combined effect of a communal-minded Muslim Leagues obduracy,an insensitive and scheming British regimes costly bungling (read Stanley Wolperts Shameful Flight: The Last Years of the British Empire in India) and the tactical errors of the Congress leadership,sans Mahatma Gandhi (read Dr Rammanohar Lohias The Guilty Men of Indias Partition).
If India-Pakistan relations in the last 65 years are marked by enmity and mutual mistrust,the reasons clearly lie both in the mindset that created Partition and the horrific manner in which it happened. However,the moot question is: do our two nations have the vision and the will to liberate ourselves from its constraints and create a new relationship that is rooted in the oldindeed,eternalideals of our shared civilisation?
When Pakistans president,Asif Ali Zardari,accompanied by his son Bilawal Bhutto,came to India last week primarily to pay obeisance at the holy shrine of Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti at Ajmer,the event cast a flashlight on what is eternal about our common civilisation. Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh deserves kudos for fulfilling Zardaris personal wish and also for using the occasion for a non-summit meeting with him in Delhi. It would be a mistake to think that all this is mere symbolism,bereft of any substance in resolving contentious issues that our two countries have inherited from the past. After all,the more sincere we are in heeding the call of the Eternal,the surer and quicker will we succeed in our efforts to turn mistrust into trust,which will then solve all problems,including the one related to Kashmir.
To me,Zardaris pilgrimage to Ajmer brought alive memories of a similar spiritual pilgrimage by L K Advani,in 2005,to two holy places near Lahore in PakistanKatas Raj Temple of the Mahabharata era,and Nankana Sahib Gurdwara,both symbols of the Eternal India. As one who accompanied Advaniji on this visit,I was witness to his sincere wish to contribute to the efforts to normalise relations between India and Pakistan.
One of the unforgettable memories associated with his visit to the Katas Raj Temple complexhe was invited by the Pakistan government to lay the foundation stone for its restorationbrings Dr Manmohan Singh into the narrative. At a reception in a nearby village,an old man named Raja Ali Muhammad came to Advaniji with a painting and said,I studied with your prime minister in the primary school in Gah,our native village. Please give him this present and say its from his old friend. In that little gesture of a simple villager was a mighty message of what the common people of both India and Pakistan want from their leaders. And since both Advaniji and Dr Singh are victims of Indias Partition,they bear a special responsibility to respond to this message. They both have tried to do so,against heavy odds.
Another leader who responded to the call of history is Atal Bihari Vajpayee. His courageous bus yatra to Lahore in February 1999 was also a peace pilgrimageand I was privileged to have been a fellow pilgrim on the same bus. Despite the betrayal by Pakistan in the form of the Kargil war,Atalji never swerved from his determination to follow his own chosen agenda for peace with Pakistan. Indeed,he had started his earnest efforts in this direction when he was Indias external affairs minister in the short-lived Janata Party government in the late 1970s.
True,the obvious political differences between the Atal-Advani party and the party to which Dr Singh belongs have often pitted them in an adversarial relationship. Though avoidable to some extent,it is natural in the kind of democracy we have in India. However,what is undeniable is their common and conviction-based quest for peace and normalcy with Pakistan. The leaders on the other side of the border have rarely reciprocated with the same conviction,whatever the private thoughts of some of some of them. This too is natural,given the lack of genuine democracy in Pakistan.
Despite the slow pace and occasional setbacks,India and Pakistan must move forward to leave the divisive past behind. Success in this effort rests on two pre-requisites: one,the people of our two countries (rather three,Bangladesh included) must assert their will more and more; and two,both the people and their leaders must submit themselves to the command of the Eternal India to achieve reconciliation.
sudheenkulkarni@gmail.com
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