Another South Asia—a wishful
thinking?
Mohammad Shehzad
IS;AMABAD:
The people of India and Pakistan face enormous problems that are
similar in nature. They need food, education, health facilities,
justice, shelter and clean drinking water. It is the responsibility
of the state to provide them these basic necessities of life.
If
the state fails to do so, it is the collective responsibility of
the people and particularly the civil society to stand up, raise
a voice and fight for these rights. It is the responsibility of
the middle class, the rich and the privileged class to fight for
the rights of the poor. The civil society in India is quite wary
of all these facts and on every front, where there is injustice,
is fighting for the justice. To what extent, this struggle is strong,
is a different issue. But there is a lot of cognition amongst people
of their democratic rights.
The
civil society of India is a role model for the civil society of
Pakistan. The latter could learn a lot of lessons from the former.
Therefore, the Pakistani civil society should follow the footsteps
This
was one of the messages amongst numerous that one could have construed
from an abstract talk on whether another South Asia was possible
by Smitu Kothari, an Indian social scientist and a visiting professor
of development traditions at Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy
at the Princeton University, USA. The event was jointly organized
by SDPI and Islamabad Social Sciences Forum here in Islamabad.
Mr
Kothari spoke with enormous digression. He avoided speaking directly
and said things in a very discreet and hidden manner. His presentation
was loaded with a number of messages and one of them was, the purpose
of partition was that both the Muslim and the Hindus would co-exist
peacefully in their separate homeland and have opportunities to
improve the economic status. This had not been achieved since 1947.
So, there was an urgent need to work towards the welfare of the
people. Making bombs was a denial of humanity. What was its purpose?
Whom are we afraid of? Human beings!
Mr
Kothari urged the establishment of both the countries to destroy
all the weapons and make the region free of arms and ammunition.
The point was, this was not the South Asia that its people had envisioned
after the demise of colonialism. Now the people of the region had
become the slaves of the US! So, there was a need to make another
South Asia where human life and dignity was respected and people
had access to their basis rights. Such a world was not possible
in the presence of hawks, fundamentalists, and huge armies.
Cleanse
the region from such fear. Become masters of your own destiny. Break
your silence. Sacrifice your life for the truth. These were the
keys to build the foundation of a new South Asia.
Most
of the participants did not buy Mr Kothari’s argument. In
their opinion, his views were giving support to the Indian claim
on Kashmir. When a senior citizen reminded him that India by not
holding plebiscite in Kashmir was giving Pakistan army a chance
to strengthen itself and become a permanent danger to India, the
scholar said: “I don’t work on Kashmir.” But the
very next moment he contradicted himself commenting: “The
division of Kashmir has weakened the plebiscite case.” The
senior citizen struck back saying: “Kashmir had already been
divided when India promised to hold a plebiscite.” And Mr
Kothari was not in a position to defend his previous stance.
Mr
Kothari’s speech was also self-contradictory in the sense
that he said it was very easy to criticize the US or the colonial
powers. But he started off with excoriating the US and all the big
powers putting on them the blame of enslaving the people of the
world.
Mr
Kothari’s lecture had offended a few Pakistanis. In their
opinion, he was acting like an unofficial foreign minister of Vajpayee’s
government. He emphasized on the importance of people to people
contact but he did not say that it was India who had snapped the
air and road links. He focussed on the same cliché that one
hears almost everyday from the Indian leadership. He tried to focus
on too many things but failed to discuss each issue cogently. He
jumped from one conclusion to another. It would have been much better
had he restricted him on a few issues in which he had a good command.
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