My younger brother, who lives in the US, read my blog posts and accused me of having a bias against Pakistan.  He said that he had very nice Pakistani colleagues and neighbours who were very friendly, intelligent and hardly belong to the category of 'jihadis'.  And the other day, a fellow ilander accused me of being too soft on Pakistan.  Now that I have been accused of being too soft and too hard on Pakistan - I thought I should do some introspection. 

Is anybody surprised that there are nice Pakistanis?  I dont think so.  We all know that there are nice people in Pakistan.  Actually, only 60 years ago, we were one people united in fighting the British for our freedom.  Frontier Gandhi is revered in India.  I recall reading about Jinnah's skills as a lawyer when he was defending freedom fighters who were being prosecuted by the British.  Just freedom fighters - not Muslim freedom fighters - just freedom fighters.  We all admire Imran Khan.  And there was the Pakistani actor, Meera, who was making waves in Bollywood.  Not just my brother - most people who know Pakistanis in the US or England - would find them as nice people. Our cricket boards, BCCI and PCB, routinely gang up against Australia and England - there is a proposal to organise cricket matches next year to celeberate the 1857 first war of Independence - to build fellow feelings in India, Pakistan and Bangaladesh. The Pakistani people love Bollywood movies, admire Sachin Tendulkar - so individually there is respect and admiration on both sides. 

Collectively there is a problem.  Children in both countries are taught that the partitioned countries of India and Pakistan are enemies.  Actually, children all over the world are taught that India and Pakistan are enemies. What is the source of enimity? This is not sibling rivalry gone wrong - the enimity is based on hundreds of years of Indian history about Hindu - Muslim enimity that gives rise to a firm belief that Hindus and Muslims cant live together in peace. That is the basis for the founding of Pakistan - we cant accept that because India survives as a united secular country with Muslim population larger than Pakistan's. And this is the source of the tension.  Not Kashmir.  

There are right wing organisations in India who are the mirror image of Jinnah's philosophy for founding of Pakistan. These organisations believe that Indian Muslims have to become Hindutva Muslims - otherwise Hindus and Muslims cant live in peace. The success of Hindu right wing organisation fuels the sections of Pakistanis who want India to fail as a secular country.  Massive genocide and exodus of Muslims from our country would please them no end - they would be able to say to the refugees - I told you so 50+ years ago - you fools continued to live in India. And of course, such a scenario will completely destory the integrity of this country and any chances we would have of eradicating poverty and economic success.  Look at Africa - genocide and exodus leads to decades of poverty, war, malnutrition and hunger.

I have always maintained that Pakistan was founded on a lie.  But if I wanted to argue the other side, the following questions become relevant. Is it possible that our success in keeping this country secular was helped by the Partition?  But for the Partition, may be we would not have tried this hard to build a secular state.  May be Nehru's success as a unifying force for a secular India was partly because we wanted to prove to the Pakistanis that they were wrong in breaking up our country.  May be in that sense, Pakistan's founding is  not on a lie - its founding helped stabilise Hindu Muslim equations in India.  I think this argument is a stretch but it is quite possible that the ISI type of Pakistanis believe in this.  Which is why they wanted to finance Dawood's retaliatory bomb blasts in Mumbai 1993. 

So where does this leave us.  Can we fight a war to the finish with Pakistan and find a solution.  No - we gave up our military superiority when we went Nuclear and gave Pakistan an excuse to go Nuclear.  A fight to the finish will finish both our countries.  Yes, terrorists are killing our people in bomb blasts with heart rending regularity but to say that killing a few hundred million people in a mad war is better is completely stupid. 

Can we cave in - a fellow ilander said - let us give up Kashmir and live in peace.  As I explained earlier, giving up Kashmir will not give us peace. The problem is that ISI and other elements in Pakistan that are fighting this psuedo war on Kashmir dont really want Kashmir.  They want destruction of India as a secular state. They wont stop at Kashmir. Doing a deal with Pakistan has to involve castrating the ISI and other such elements in Pakistan.

I wish the world was black and white - unfortunately it is in shades of grey.  We have to be tough on ISI and the jihadi elements in Pakistan but there is a non-vocal majority in Pakistan that will happily settle for peace with India that we have to woo, empower and make friends with.  And we have to use the current international climate that abhors terrorism to put pressure on Pakistan to dismantle its terrorist strategies and institutions that have pursued these strategies.  It is a very tough job.  But it can be done.