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HomeOpinionAatish Taseer’s father Salman Taseer was a proud Pakistani and defender of...

Aatish Taseer’s father Salman Taseer was a proud Pakistani and defender of 2-nation theory

As Modi govt revokes Aatish Taseer’s OCI card over his Pakistani roots, here’s what Shekhar Gupta wrote in January 2011 about his politician father Salman Taseer after he was assassinated.

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The number of obituaries written ruing the terrible loss of Salman Taseer tells how popular he was among his fellow liberals on both sides of the border. In his death, Pakistan has lost one of its most articulate, modern and fearless liberal leaders. But as somebody who knew Salman more than a bit, particularly in his street-fighting years (and my pavement-thumping years as a reporter), I am surprised by how little is said of him as a genuine Pakistani patriot and a proud Muslim. Also, while he had the Pakistani liberal’s usual respect for India’s democracy, his belief in the two-nation theory, the ideology of Pakistan was unshakeable. He would pamper silly a friend visiting from India but if you so much as mentioned Kashmir, he would pounce on it as if somebody had bowled one short outside Inzamam ul-Haq’s off-stump.

By remembering him merely as a Pakistani liberal, as if that would disqualify one from being a staunch Pakistani nationalist and Muslim, we are not only being unfair to a most fascinating, brave and charming politician, but also missing a most significant and scary developing story in Pakistan. Pakistani anti-Indianism can broadly be divided into two categories. One is its liberal elite’s intellectual dislike/suspicion/distrust of India based purely on our contrasting national ideologies, further coloured by an almost unanimously shared outrage over the injustice” in Kashmir.

The other stream is more simplistic, represented by some in the religious Right, particularly in Pakistani Punjab, who detest India on purely religious grounds: How seriously can you take a country run by infidels?” Until a decade ago, this was a tiny minority you could ridicule or ignore. It is no longer so. And Taseer’s death has further shifted the balance in favour of these India-hating lunatics, and weakened those not exactly friends of India, the more rational, India-baiting, modern Pakistani nationalists.

This fundamental complexity in Pakistan needs some explaining. Just being a liberal in Pakistan does not mean being pro-India. Jinnah, for example, has been the most liberal Pakistani leader so far. You wouldn’t call him pro-India. The original Pakistani distrust even fear and hatred of India has been rooted in its new nationalism that Jinnah founded. The English-speaking Pakistani military-bureaucratic-political-intellectual leadership may have viewed India as a rival, a threat, an expansionist, arrogant, militaristic hegemon, whatever. But all this was rooted entirely in their own faith in the two-nation theory and Jinnah’s idea of nationhood as against that of Nehru’s India. For the first 50 years since Partition, this was the dominant, in fact, mostly the only anti-Indianism.

Sometimes we merely argued with it intellectually, and sometimes we fought wars. But even our wars were fought quite cleanly, not like communal riots. Since this phenomenon was more about competitive nationalism, there was also a cute, sort of sporty side to it, laced with nostalgia, and even some shared ideals. At the extreme right of this “Ideology of Pakistan” were those that questioned the legitimacy of the Indian state and believed in its ultimate self-destruction, thinking it too unwieldy, large, diverse or chaotic to survive. Taseer, actually, belonged to the very left of this nationalistic stream.


Also read: Modi govt revokes author Aatish Taseer’s OCI card for ‘hiding’ father’s Pakistan origin


The other thought is the one we earlier laughed at; for these five decades it was only believed by a small group of Right-wing clerics or the extreme Right-wingers in the Pakistani army (mostly of lower ranks). They believed that India was not just an unviable or unmanageable state, but an immoral, illegitimate and even an infidel one. Their dislike for India was pure hatred, and their belief in the inevitability of “Hindu” India’s destruction was rooted in faith. How could a country of India’s size be run successfully by infidels?

For far too long this was such a marginal view that it was seen as good comic relief by policy-making elites on both sides. That is why, when a prominent Pakistani cleric declared in a public speech that he was leading a jihad that would unfurl the green flag of Islam on Delhi’s Red Fort, the late S.K. Singh, then our high commissioner in Islamabad, made a (very gently) mocking statement that Maulana Sahib was most welcome to visit India and should he come to his mission for a visa, he would be welcomed with folded hands, a bouquet and a fruit-basket. You cannot laugh it away in the same manner when the cleric says something similar now.

Let’s try to simplify it further. In the older, gentler and more reasonable, ideological nationalist view, Kashmir was, and is, the core” issue between our two countries. You settle this, and we can live peacefully, even like the US and Canada. For the now rising wave of Islamic nationalists, Kashmir is merely a small symptom: The very existence of India, or to put it more brutally, and correctly, Hindu” India is the problem.

You can no longer dismiss these people as mere nutcases. This last post-9/11 decade has seen this lunatic, religious and fundamentalist version of Islamic nationalism increasingly marginalise the modern nationalists. It started slowly with Zia-ul-Haq’s infiltration of Pakistan’s institutions with the religious right. In fact, Pakistani writer Shuja Nawaz describes this lot of recruits to the Pakistan army as “Zia bharti” in his brilliant Crossed Swords: Pakistan, its Army and the Wars Within. They have also spread into the ISI and have nonchalantly run rogue operations in India including, as is now becoming clearer, 26/11. You will also find their fingerprints on the first (post-Babri) serial bombings in Mumbai in 1993. Salman’s death is one more shot, their biggest victory after Benazir’s. It will stun the modern nationalists. It will further shake the elected government’s already minimal resolve to take on the violent Right. And it will narrow India’s options and ideas on how to respond to this new reality in Pakistan.

Postscript: Here is my favourite Salman Taseer story. Sometime in 1993, I took him out to lunch on one of his visits to Delhi, and we talked the usual stuff for a couple of hours. He came back with me to my office (at India Today) for some more gossip, and as we were climbing the narrow Connaught Place steps to the second floor, he asked me what would be the problem if a plebiscite was held and Kashmiris opted for Pakistan. I said, it would be a mortal blow to the secular nationalism we are building as, thereon, all other Muslims will be seen as suspect, and may even be victimised. His jaw tightened, he made a mock gesture to roll up his sleeve, and said, if you victimise your Muslims, you think the 14 crore Muslims of Pakistan will sit like cowards and do nothing?” (His exact expression: “Hum 14 crore Pakistani Mussalman bhi chudiya pehen ke nahin baithe rahenge.”) Now how would you describe Salman? In my book, a liberal Pakistani nationalist, a proud Muslim, and of course so bluntly Punjabi.

(This article was first published in January 2011.)


Also read: Stop targetting Aatish Taseer, Committee to Protect Journalists tells Modi govt


 

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16 COMMENTS

  1. This is just a recount of a Punjabi talk that one gets to indulge in when talking to a Pakistani cab driver in Dubai, London or New York. Civil. Brotherly.

    These liberals of Pakistan are the ones who have failed their country miserably. Of what use is living room liberalism that couldn’t make sure that the army retreated to the barracks and a proper, functional democracy was established? Whiskey swigging elites for sure, who cared more about owning an apartment in London than course correcting on their own internal governance and external relations. An echo chamber of more than 150 million India hating Muslims, that’s what Pakistan was yesterday and is today.

  2. The author is indulging in intellectual gymnastics. 3 million East Pakistanis were killed by the liberal English speaking, whiskey swigging elite of West Pakistan. The only difference between them and the “lunatic religious and fundamentalist right wing ” is that the latter is less sophisticated about expressing their hatred. Make no mistake, Pakistan’s present condition is because of this liberal English speaking elite starting with Jinnah himself. The author is only fooling himself with these arguments.

  3. Here is another and simpler way to think about Pakistan. Those who you call ‘liberals’ aren’t liberal at all. The educated Muslims like Taseer nurture a deep and abiding hatred for Hinduism and consider themselves superior to Hindus. At the same time, they have a strong inferiority complex towards the west. The doctoring of history and text books started long before the right wing version of Muslims had any power. The mass murders of 1971 were rooted in both religious and racial hatred, that puts your ‘modern nationalists’ in the company of Nazis. This article is an example of endless theorizing that ignores evidence in favor or personal biases. And, yes, a person can be likable and bigoted at the same time. Salman Taseer is such an example.

      • Actually I cited concrete facts about the conduct of Pakistani ‘liberals’ who were in full control until General Zia. To go further back, Muslim League Direct Action Day was a call for violence based on the belief of Muslim superiority. Do they sound like liberals to anybody? People like Shekhar Gupta (and I respect his opinions) need to base their theories on actual evidence instead of what they wish to see.

        • You still haven’t given any indication on how you arrived at these conclusions, except your own affirmations. At least Shekhar Gupta met him. I doubt if you met him ;).

          Don’t tell me that you’re against all liberals irrespective of nationality.

          • I am a liberal in the real sense of the word. It grates me when Shehkar Gupta bestows the ‘liberal’ word on Pakistanis who preceded the current Islamists, who rule their society today. These were the same ‘liberals’ who were responsible for genocide in Bangladesh, who ethnically cleansed Pakistan of all minorities and whose history of crimes goes back to the partition and before. Imran Khan himself had legions of supporters in India who raised crores for his charities. Yet, we now know from his wife’s book that he hated Hindus. It is a common fallacy for Indians to discover English speaking Pakistanis who aren’t overtly religious,and to confuse them for liberals. As many Indians will remind you that Jinnah himself wasn’t religious. Yet, he didn’t hesitate to use religion to divide people and use violence for his political ends. Does any of this sound liberal to you?

          • After reading the comments of you, Rajiv and Gopal Vaidya, it is heartening to see that a debate can be conducted in a civilized manner. Bravo!

  4. Surprising that the present government which introduced the OCI card, suddenly realized who Taseer’s father was. Now indulging in such vindictive reprisals only serves to exhibit the government’s pettiness. I did not see a single sentence in the Time article that was critical of India and if a writer chooses to be critical of a party’s ideology then the party should be able to defend it. Now it seems that they are unable to defend the indefensible.

    • The previous UPA government introduced the OCI and PIO cards, not the present government. The present government only scrapped the PIO card.

  5. anyone likes to live with like minded people. same with modi or with anyone. Mr Aatish Taseer not decent in his writing. See in any part of world nationalist leaders are strict and bounded with like minded people.

  6. I will be blunt and not mince my words. Look at this article published by dawn https://www.dawn.com/news/1515604/india-to-revoke-journalist-aatish-taseers-overseas-id

    In this article Taseer says that his father never married his mother. This is the justification Taseer has for not disclosing where he comes from while applying for OCI card. So for an OCI card Taseer is willing to disown his father and his ancestry. Why is an OCI card so important for Taseer?

    According to rules, if any a person has non Indian subcontinent roots, he is not eligible for OCI card, shouldn’t the same rule apply to illegals as well?

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