| Published on 31-12-2007 In World | | Viewed 1845 times | | Benazir's killing highlights the difference between India and Pakistan |
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| Written by
Girish Nikam | 
The saga of year-end tragedies continues. While it was the Tsunami, a word till then unknown to most in this country, which struck two years back, last year it was the horrors of Nithari which unfolded as the year came to an end, and this time we have the horrific assassination of Benazir Bhutto, in our neighbourhood.
Reams and reams have been written and spoken about Benazir, including several interesting kiss and tell stories about her as a person, in these last three days, that one cant blame anyone for even getting a little exhausted by all of this. But Benazir being Benazir and the circumstances of her death and the promise of Pakistan returning to some form of democracy keeps the issue on boil and will continue to for quite some time.
One reason why we as Indians should be concerned is the enormous impact it has on our country. We have had this very difficult relationship with this country that was part of us, not too long back. And Benazir's killing once again forces one to question what is it that India has that Pakistan does not, despite so much similarity in our looks, clothing, attitude, behaviour and landscape. Why is Pakistan being now dubbed as a failed State and India as the impending giant of the 21 st century?
Parallels have been drawn and rightly so about the troubling similarity between the Gandhis and the Bhuttos. But what has escaped many a commentator's attention is how our country handled the two tragedies, Indira's and Rajiv's. Of course, Indira's death led to mayhem, but it was soon under control and the march of democracy continued, and within hours after Rajiv, we had another leader leading Congress.
And there lies the big difference between India and Pakistan. After 60 years of being independent nations, one thing India has done and Pakistan has been unable to in all these years, is build sound, solid, democratic structures. It is these structures, be it the judiciary, legislature, our electoral system or the media, with all their faults, have ensured that we don't stray from the path of democracy amid tremendous challenges we have faced.
Pakistan on the other hand, which has had a few flings with democracy, mostly sham ones, have repeatedly reverted to military dictatorships, when the democratic experiment failed. No wonder even after sixty years that country is yet to inculcate the democratic ethos and has allowed no democratic institution to flourish.
What flourishes there are intrigues, deception, skullduggery, plottings and machinations in the name of governance, which has resulted in it becoming a virtual vassal state of the Americans. When Mohammed Ali Jinnah won the hard-won battle for an independent nation for the Muslims, what he had dreamed was not an Islamic state, though he got his Pakistan in the guise of protecting the Muslims. An atheist, he really had no beliefs in the constrictive theories of Islam, and used it only to unite Muslims----- L.K.Advani is a mirror image of Jinnah to that extent.
However his early death virtually sealed the hopes of Pakistan emerging as a democratic nation, and ever since we have witnessed the nation flinging from military dictatorship to Islamic extremism, with a few failed democratic experiments in between. And at this time, we find Pakistan caught up between various forces----the Islamic extremists on the one hand, a military dictator with pretensions of being a democrat on the other, failed democrats like late Benazir and Nawaz Sherif, a plotting intelligence machinery both of the civil and military variety unwilling to let go its hold on the country and an America posing as the saviour and in turn arm twisting the rulers.
A lethal combination it is for any country to deal with.
That it is all happening so close to us and still we as a nation has managed to escape from being in Pakistan's company, is a true tribute to our pre-independence ethos which was carried forward faithfully post-independence, and which Pakistan leaders failed to. But there are several warning signals emanating from all over even in India, and if we fail to take note of it and act, it wont be too long before we face similar problems.
To come back to the question, why is India different from Pakistan? The most glaring difference is the secular ethos, which we have managed to adopt and nourish, while Pakistan degenerated with every generation into a deeper and deeper abyss of a religious State. And that is why many are apprehensive when one hears of the determination of some forces in this country to convert India also into a Hindu state. If it ever happens, one can be sure that it wont take long for us also to fall into the same abyss that Pakistan now finds itself in.
A secular ethos is the most fundamental basis for a democracy to flourish, and all those who pooh pooh secularism with newly coined words like pseudo-secularism is only playing with the country's future. Unlike in Pakistan, in India secularism is a concept and a reality, which is not defined by the practitioners of real politik, but practiced by the very very ordinary people in this country, which has sustained us a democracy.
When some political leaders and parties attack the established pillars of democratic structure like the election commission, judiciary or even the President, one should remember what is happening in Pakistan. Should we allow these structures to be weakened for purely partisan short-term political advantage and allow it to degenerate like the ones in Pakistan? These are the warning signals.
Coming back to Benazir, she has been as guilty of weakening the spirit of democracy as anyone else in her country, and also immature and sometimes dangerous in her behaviour as a Prime Minister. She is known to have smuggled nuclear technology secrets to North Korea and handed over list of ISI agents operating in Punjab in India. She encouraged Taliban and even Osama Bin Laden. She used hate words against India at every available opportunity in those days of her Prime Ministership. She declared herself life time President of her Party, the Pakistan People's Party. Yet some say she would have been different if she had come back as Prime Minister.
Maybe. But would she have been able to dismantle the destructive structures, which has impaired the growth of democracy in Pakistan? A difficult question to answer. But to end on an optimistic note amid all this gloom as the year ends, many commentators and analysts feel, what she did not achieve in her life, she may just have given the fillip for it to happen after her brutal death. Let us hope, that real democracy starts taking root in Pakistan, in the interest of India as well. |
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