Cruel to be kind

Express Tribune

04-07-2025

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As with any old animosity, the 'Tom & Jerry' show between Pakistan and India has continued since independence. Call it competition, identity clash or animosity, it has certainly inflicted severe damage, but often felt like a sibling rivalry in a sitcom. If I wrote something critical about India at a given moment, somebody on the other side would write a rebuttal, have a private laugh with me when we met personally, and be done with the whole episode.
It was eleven years ago that it all changed. One oddity was the hate mail's nature. When you write something critical, you can expect a degree of pushback. Still, a part of the new normal was that even when you praised India, you received an inbox full of hate mail trying to put you in your place - a citizen of a badly broken nation, a beggar state, India was out of your league. You should not besmirch its name by getting it out of your filthy mouth.
I would have heeded the advice, but you realise, since I have been writing almost my entire adult life, one runs out of things to write. It is not possible to ignore a nation of 1.45 billion. In my defence, every word I write is a product of care. If I talk to you, it's because I value your judgement. While others feel flattered by the attention, this was the first time one encountered people threatening to gouge your eyes out for just looking at them.
So, what was behind this weapons-grade hubris? The realisation that India has finally arrived? If yes, why police Pakistani media's online assets then? If you are so powerful, successful and rich, why worry about what a Pakistani says about you? America is so rich and powerful, yet all sorts of things are published about it. Do you think such websites and email addresses are swamped by American trolls? Absolutely not. You attack and police when either you are unconvinced of your own success or want to create an environment of fear with a clear outcome in mind.
You can see this from the methods that were employed. Nawaz Sharif was invited to Narendra Modi's swearing-in ceremony. Still, India's foreign office quickly clarified: he was just one of six SAARC leaders, and the visit should not be seen as bilateral. They also objected to his meeting with Hurriyat leaders. Let's decode that. Their message was clear: we are somebody, you are nobody. These ceremonial invitations to our "court" are acts of generosity; be grateful, obey protocol, and never presume equality.
And what was the expectation? When we berate you, do not fight back. When we stare at you, make a point of being seen as cowering. And when we raise our hand, fall down and pretend to writhe in pain. This will please our people, and as long as we are in power, we will ensure you get some morsels off our table. You guessed it. The we in the above statement is royal we. And this imagery creates a global superstructure echoing India's caste system.
Islam, according to this worldview, is synonymous with terrorism, and Pakistan is a Muslim country, so Pakistan gets a station lower than Dalits. This brings to mind the forgotten image of young BR Ambedkar sitting on a sack outside his classroom's door despite his brilliant mind, while his dull-witted classmates sat inside with standard desks and benches. Why? Because he was a Dalit and they were of the upper castes. He was not allowed to drink from the common water pot. Most teachers wouldn't even listen to him. America hasn't been able to shake off the ghost of Jim Crow Laws despite becoming one of the most tolerant societies today. A country which still sustains a fivefold Jim Crow system on acid as the present reality is unlikely to perpetuate anything different.
Sadly, I would be remiss if I failed to acknowledge that many Pakistanis fell for this scheme. The Indian media needed a certain archetypal Pakistan to represent the country's caricature. Many individuals lined up to volunteer. Those who refused were told that they would have no role among the emerging media elite of the country. Many policymakers and notables showed readiness to pretend to speak from a position of weakness whenever they spoke of India. As Indian politicians publicly tried to paddle Pakistan, there was no dearth of those shouting, stop, their voices, "thank you, sir, may I have another"? An economy has flourished since then.
People like me were duped by another phenomenon. Whenever dramatic developments occur, I imagine how it would impact me if I were there. So when I see suffering, I immediately empathise. We looked at Indian seculars and thought they must be going through hell. But we ignored that had it not been for the latent bigotry and active connivance of the secular elite, a party with so much history of bloodsport could not control a nation as diverse and populous for the past eleven years. Scratch an Indian secular, and a Nathuram Godse with a good accent comes out. They all want Akhand Bharat. Only they don't want the blame. Why not deal with the real deal then? Modi then wasn't the problem. He was India's elected leader. One should have put up or shut up. My bad.
But a direct consequence of India's carefully manufactured self-image was the demand for incremental aggression towards Pakistan in 2016, 2019, and now. This time, they misjudged the situation and are still licking their wounds. For the first time in eleven years, they have encountered a reset. While I do not condone war or violence, sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.
Frankly, the mutual hostility of these nations has made them engines of poverty in this neck of the woods. There is no excuse for this to go on indefinitely. If this lesson does not sink in, more shocks may come.
While the jury is still out on the future of peace in South Asia, the economy mentioned above, which emerged in the past eleven years in Pakistan, hasn't gone away. From the 2014 sit-in to destabilising the Sharif government in 2017, the reelection of Modi in 2019, and many others, it has left behind indelible fingerprints on every crisis. Sadly, politicians who became its victims blame others for their plight. But I kept all the receipts. About time you knew who did what. I have faced attempts to deplatform and financially ruin me before, like between 2019 and 2022. I didn't enjoy it, but I survived. What is the worst they can do now? Kill me?