When I accepted the Jinnah Institute Distinguished Lecture for 2015 in Islamabad, I could have chosen a boring and meaningless topic. But that would have been a wasted opportunity, though a small one, in a saga of wasted opportunities between India and Pakistan.
As External Affairs Minister (my term during UPA-II), one is too bound by policy and protocol to explore innovative ideas. Now was the chance to try it. At the same time I was conscious that there are people in India (as indeed in Pakistan) who do not want peace or believe that they have a birth right over ideas about India-Pakistan relations. So if we want peace with Pakistan, or perhaps whether we should seek peace, we have no business to talk to Pakistan, but must pay court to these worthies of the idiot box. When they want peace, we must seek peace, and when they declare war, we should go into battle without seeking reason. "Into the valley of death...".
I told my Pakistani audience that five hours of interaction with the intellectual elite of the country to add some confidence would be hopelessly demolished at home by Arnab Goswami in ten minutes. Perhaps, that was greater impudence than giving the Pakistan PM credit for having tried! I might be faulted for anything but not for predicting the reaction of India's No. 1 'prosecutor, judge and executioner' package. I would have added ''grave-digger" but then he would accuse me of communalism in being partial to grave-diggers over pyre lighters. I found it strange that he still wanted action from my party; does he not have confidence in own ability?
Not surprisingly, the
text of my lecture was discarded by friends and foes alike. One leading paper toyed with carrying it on their OPED page, only to apologetically surrender to growing right-wing opposition (their phrase). One Ms Lekhi of the BJP put me in the league of ISIS, mouth frothing with indignation! Surely, there is a difference between someone who rapes women of other faiths, takes sex slaves, enjoys slitting throats, threatens to destroy civilisation - and someone who happens to disagree with you. In confusing the two, the ''lady doth protest too much, methinks'' as Macbeth would say and indeed is showing signs of something called fascism. The Hafiz Saeed school on venality and violence, not to mention the perversity personified in ISIS, are the common enemy of humanity and would like nothing better than humanity beginning to fight amongst itself so that they continue with their destruction. I wonder if Ms Lekhi has received her bouquet of blood-stained thorns with a "
tashakkur" from the forces of evil.
Meanwhile, I am still unclear whether inviting Nawaz Sharif to the PM's oath-taking ceremony, exchanging shawls and sarees with him, offering him biryani meals are fine, but giving him credit for trying to help is not; Atalji taking a bus trip to Lahore is fine, but addressing the Jinnah Institute is unacceptable.
My theme of the lecture was carefully chosen: ''Separated at birth or separated by birth: the story of South Asian Twins''. The main thrust was to question Pakistan's unwarranted claim regarding Kashmir. I did that by separating two conceivable elements of their claim: (1) ideology, and (2) political tactics. On ideology (concern with Muslims), I told them India has more Muslims than Pakistan, and they not only oppose Pakistan's claim, but have also sacrificed their lives for the nation as Brigadier Usman and Havaldar Abdul Hameed did. On political tactics, I suggested that three generations down the road from 1947, they needed to re-look at tactics. India and Pakistan have much to gain by going beyond the decades-old dispute.
If the BJP has a better idea, I will be happy to consider it. But if they do not, and the PM is stuck on some self-centered idea, what can the world do? Preaching to the converted is not diplomacy. Screaming at opinions is not democracy. The cheerleaders of the BJP are turning us away from the enemy of humanity to becoming enemies of the world of ideas. Humanity survives massacres, but the death of ideas is the death of humanity. We need the peace of homes, schools, streets, work places, not the silence of a grave yard or the quietude of lobotomy.
(
Salman Khurshid is India's Former External Affairs Minister and senior Congress leader)
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