DOWN BUT NOT OUT

 

 

Dr Faiza Rasheed belies any notions that Pakistan might generally evoke. She is a dyed-in-the-wool Leftist. With her typical Soviet-era hairdo, she does not look anything like a Member of Provincial Assembly from the conservative North West Frontier Province. But that is what she is. The lady breaks several stereotypes about Pakistan in one go.

But it is quite possible that she might not be aware about what we regard as her unique status. For her, it is an everyday thing. She is more focused on implementing development projects and investment proposals in her constituency. She is thus also the face of an emergent and emboldened civil society in Pakistan.

Through my entire stay in Pakistan, where I met hundreds of people from varied backgrounds, one phenomenon emerged solidly: Pakistan, like India, is not a monolith. In fact, it can be safely said that if people of these two nations only start treating each other as a heterogeneous group of ideas and ideologies, a substantial portion of the trust deficit can easily be covered.

For example, take Kashmir. It is as much an Islamabad discourse in Pakistan as it is the New Delhi discourse here. The farther one moves from these cities, Kashmir’s imprint on the psyche loosens considerably. While Pakistan still considers it a core issue, it has started to focus on other problems and their possible solution. Civil society now refuses to be swayed by emotional issues. They mean business now. And the greatest tool they have is a confident media.

Among the elite and the intelligentsia, General Pervez Musharraf still enjoys a considerable, albeit concealed, fan following. And one reason for this liking that all of them give without failing is his contribution in bringing the independent media to the fore. It cost him dearly personally, but it became an epic event for the nation. It was thus heart-warming to see journalists take on establishment there. Journalism here has more zeal because journalists have seen bleak times. Their everyday work is a crusade in itself. It is difficult to understand this here in Delhi, as a substantial chunk of journalists here have not seen tough times. Emergency has faded from memory. The new breed, having enjoyed decades of stability, has inadvertently or voluntarily been co-opted by the state. But it’s a different story in Pakistan. Almost everyday, without fail, we came across news about journalists being manhandled, threatened or “advised” by different individuals or institutions. But it only emboldened the journalists to put up a more scathing attack the next day.

There are other positive developments as well. A large section of civil society has started to shift its focus to issues that were left on the backburner for decades. Increasingly, people are willing to talk about issues like poverty, health and education. Although Pakistan fares better than India on several indices of health, hunger and poverty, and is visibly ahead in infrastructure, there is still a long way to go. Civil society is coming up with innovative ideas to deal with these issues. And they are questioning authority like never before. The way civil society and media has been hounding the power minister and the power supply authorities for the painfully long outages is worth taking note of. It does not mean that emotive issues are dead. In almost every meeting, somebody or the other will raise the issue of Kashmir or for that matter, increasingly, water. But in every meeting a substantial section is willing to look through such individuals and talk about other matters. A classic example was our meeting with the Vice Chancellor and faculty members of the University of Punjab, Lahore. It was heartening to see how much effort academia was making to improve higher education in the country. In the middle of the discussion, a long retired army man now doubling up as a researcher, started taking a hawkish position on Kashmir. The other faculty members not only snubbed him and but also started talking about the more pressing issue of how history is being taught in South Asia. The academicians were putting in lots of labour while trying to write history textbooks with a fresh perspective, free from partition era hangover. For these academicians more pressing issues lay somewhere else.

The head of the Centre of South Asian Studies lamented that he has not got access to the Persian manuscripts of an old history book that was lying somewhere in India. Half of the same manuscripts are in Lahore. But he needed the entire thing to write the authentic history of the period. Similarly, other academicians were more concerned about a lull in academic exchange and non-availability of visas to India than they were with Kashmir.

Similarly, there are lots of concerns about how their country is presented in the international media, particularly in India. Questions after questions were thrown at us about Bollywood’s stereotyping of everything Pakistani. It appears the masses there want to detach themselves from the state and want to be treated as an independent entity. The selection of news is an issue. For example, two days in a row, there were items about a Hindu feudal lord kidnapping a Muslim girl and violating her. However, the Indian media only carries the news when there is a role reversal. Also, the siege mentality one would have expected to see on the roads was missing. Average Pakistanis are the fiercest critics of fundamentalist forces. They snub rightist elements. They question everyone: the state, the army and ISI.

The visit also coincided with perhaps the greatest event in Pakistan’s democratic history: the 18th amendment. The way all political parties came on board to introduce political reforms was unprecedented. Who would have imagined Asif Ali Zardari of all people would let go of his extra-constitutional powers so easily. Democracy is indeed trying to find its feet in Pakistan and the 18th amendment, with the restoration of legislative power, will go a long way to strengthen it.