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India moves beyond slogans
By Irfan Husain
LAST year, I was in Lahore to cover the national elections, and ran into the Delhi-based correspondent of a major western publication. He was in town for the same purpose, and told me he was a regular visitor.
To make conversation, I remarked that he must find his frequent trips to Pakistan a bit tedious after India. Not at all, he replied. In fact, I look forward to them because when I do a negative piece about India, all my Indian friends attack me. But when I write a critical article about Pakistan, my friends here all agree with me.
There is a great deal of truth in this casual observation. Indians are proud to the point of being prickly about their country. We are utterly cynical about ours. Years ago, I was in New Delhi, and was invited by the Times of India to talk to the editorial staff. The point I made to them was that in India I found a great deal of support for core government policies like the nuclear programme and Kashmir in the mainstream media. In Pakistan, however, journalists often questioned and criticised our rulers for their approach to these and other important areas like Afghanistan.
One reason for these differing attitudes on the two sides of the border is that Indians genuinely have much to be proud of: from the performance of their cricket team to their economy, there is much to boast about. In Pakistan, unfortunately, success stories have been few and far between these last few years as the country has lurched from one crisis to another.
The main reason for this roller coaster ride is that in over six decades, we have been unable to develop a stable system of government. India, as it has just demonstrated, is a working democracy where power genuinely resides with the people. The impressive electoral exercise we have just witnessed proves that for all its imperfections, the system works.
The emphatic re-election of Congress holds important lessons for us in Pakistan. Here is a liberal, secular party that has been able to retain power despite a powerful challenge from right-wing Hindu nationalists and a large number of small, regional parties. By its decisive victory, Congress showed that it is still in touch with the people. But above all, it proved that India remains a largely secular country.
After the terrorist attacks in Mumbai last November, there were fears that they would prompt voters to elect a jingoistic BJP. The Congress government was pilloried by a hysterical media for not being aggressive enough as it confronted Pakistan. But the expected backlash did not develop, and Indian Muslims closed ranks with Hindus in condemning the attacks.
These developments all point towards a maturing society where voters are not easily swayed by momentary crises and popular slogans. The Congress coalition has paid heed to its core constituency, and has been rewarded with rich electoral dividends as a result. The Singh government launched a number of uplift programmes aimed at the rural poor, a section of the population generally ignored by the BJP.
A friend recently sent me a very perceptive article titled Congress won as it moved back to ideological centre by Sanjaya Beru. The author makes the point that a country as vast and diverse as India can only be ruled from the centre, and not from the left or the right. And whenever Congress has lurched to either extreme, it has been punished at the polls. According to Beru, states can be governed by communists and communalists, but to pull the country together, centrist policies are essential.
There is much wisdom in this view of Indian politics. Given the size and diversity of the country, extremist ideologies are too divisive for them to bind the nation. Only an inclusive, centrist government can command allegiance across the country.
In Pakistan, repeated military interventions have not allowed political parties to grasp this simple truth. Our politics has swung like a pendulum from the socialist policies of the PPP under Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the 1970s to the disastrous Islamisation carried out by Zia in the 1980s. Even a pragmatic politician like Nawaz Sharif tried to impose Sharia law, and proclaim himself the amir-ul-momineen by attempting to ram though the 15th Amendment.
And while demagogues in India do try and seduce voters by raising all kinds of extremist slogans, the recent elections show that by and large, Indians are sophisticated enough to judge for themselves who will deliver and who is just hot air. In the 21st century, ordinary people struggling to make ends meet are not interested in ideologies: they want decent governance.
None of this is to say that India has turned the corner: out of a population of over a billion, nearly 400 million are still below the poverty line. This is a huge number, but at least Congress is addressing this problem rather than pretending it does not exist.
One way Manmohan Singhs government can take a giant step towards reducing poverty not just in India but the whole region is to reduce defence spending. And this can only be done by making peace with Pakistan. I have been heavily criticised by Indian readers whenever I have suggested that as the far more powerful neighbour, India can afford to take unilateral steps to reduce tensions with its neighbour. But given the paranoia that exists among the Pakistani establishment where India is concerned, New Delhi will have to take the initiative if there is to be any qualitative change.
Indian voters have shown that they are confident in the Congress leadership, and Manmohan Singh is in a position to move beyond Mumbai and reactivate the peace process. In Pakistan, both Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif would like to have normal relations with India. And for the first time, the Pakistan Army sees that the real threat to its borders does not come from the east. But it needs some solid assurances that India will not take advantage of its preoccupation with the Taliban.
So we have a situation where all concerned would like a resolution to the festering Kashmir problem, and a normalisation of relations. Leaders in both countries would be guilty of neglecting their duty if they were to waste this opportunity.
irfan.husain@gmail.com
By Irfan Husain
LAST year, I was in Lahore to cover the national elections, and ran into the Delhi-based correspondent of a major western publication. He was in town for the same purpose, and told me he was a regular visitor.
To make conversation, I remarked that he must find his frequent trips to Pakistan a bit tedious after India. Not at all, he replied. In fact, I look forward to them because when I do a negative piece about India, all my Indian friends attack me. But when I write a critical article about Pakistan, my friends here all agree with me.
There is a great deal of truth in this casual observation. Indians are proud to the point of being prickly about their country. We are utterly cynical about ours. Years ago, I was in New Delhi, and was invited by the Times of India to talk to the editorial staff. The point I made to them was that in India I found a great deal of support for core government policies like the nuclear programme and Kashmir in the mainstream media. In Pakistan, however, journalists often questioned and criticised our rulers for their approach to these and other important areas like Afghanistan.
One reason for these differing attitudes on the two sides of the border is that Indians genuinely have much to be proud of: from the performance of their cricket team to their economy, there is much to boast about. In Pakistan, unfortunately, success stories have been few and far between these last few years as the country has lurched from one crisis to another.
The main reason for this roller coaster ride is that in over six decades, we have been unable to develop a stable system of government. India, as it has just demonstrated, is a working democracy where power genuinely resides with the people. The impressive electoral exercise we have just witnessed proves that for all its imperfections, the system works.
The emphatic re-election of Congress holds important lessons for us in Pakistan. Here is a liberal, secular party that has been able to retain power despite a powerful challenge from right-wing Hindu nationalists and a large number of small, regional parties. By its decisive victory, Congress showed that it is still in touch with the people. But above all, it proved that India remains a largely secular country.
After the terrorist attacks in Mumbai last November, there were fears that they would prompt voters to elect a jingoistic BJP. The Congress government was pilloried by a hysterical media for not being aggressive enough as it confronted Pakistan. But the expected backlash did not develop, and Indian Muslims closed ranks with Hindus in condemning the attacks.
These developments all point towards a maturing society where voters are not easily swayed by momentary crises and popular slogans. The Congress coalition has paid heed to its core constituency, and has been rewarded with rich electoral dividends as a result. The Singh government launched a number of uplift programmes aimed at the rural poor, a section of the population generally ignored by the BJP.
A friend recently sent me a very perceptive article titled Congress won as it moved back to ideological centre by Sanjaya Beru. The author makes the point that a country as vast and diverse as India can only be ruled from the centre, and not from the left or the right. And whenever Congress has lurched to either extreme, it has been punished at the polls. According to Beru, states can be governed by communists and communalists, but to pull the country together, centrist policies are essential.
There is much wisdom in this view of Indian politics. Given the size and diversity of the country, extremist ideologies are too divisive for them to bind the nation. Only an inclusive, centrist government can command allegiance across the country.
In Pakistan, repeated military interventions have not allowed political parties to grasp this simple truth. Our politics has swung like a pendulum from the socialist policies of the PPP under Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the 1970s to the disastrous Islamisation carried out by Zia in the 1980s. Even a pragmatic politician like Nawaz Sharif tried to impose Sharia law, and proclaim himself the amir-ul-momineen by attempting to ram though the 15th Amendment.
And while demagogues in India do try and seduce voters by raising all kinds of extremist slogans, the recent elections show that by and large, Indians are sophisticated enough to judge for themselves who will deliver and who is just hot air. In the 21st century, ordinary people struggling to make ends meet are not interested in ideologies: they want decent governance.
None of this is to say that India has turned the corner: out of a population of over a billion, nearly 400 million are still below the poverty line. This is a huge number, but at least Congress is addressing this problem rather than pretending it does not exist.
One way Manmohan Singhs government can take a giant step towards reducing poverty not just in India but the whole region is to reduce defence spending. And this can only be done by making peace with Pakistan. I have been heavily criticised by Indian readers whenever I have suggested that as the far more powerful neighbour, India can afford to take unilateral steps to reduce tensions with its neighbour. But given the paranoia that exists among the Pakistani establishment where India is concerned, New Delhi will have to take the initiative if there is to be any qualitative change.
Indian voters have shown that they are confident in the Congress leadership, and Manmohan Singh is in a position to move beyond Mumbai and reactivate the peace process. In Pakistan, both Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif would like to have normal relations with India. And for the first time, the Pakistan Army sees that the real threat to its borders does not come from the east. But it needs some solid assurances that India will not take advantage of its preoccupation with the Taliban.
So we have a situation where all concerned would like a resolution to the festering Kashmir problem, and a normalisation of relations. Leaders in both countries would be guilty of neglecting their duty if they were to waste this opportunity.
irfan.husain@gmail.com
