Why India and Pakistan need to get over their innate urge to pull each other down

Imran Khan made a highly-effective speech last week after his political party came out on top in the general elections in Pakistan. But Indians, in general, were an unhappy lot even after he expressed a keen desire to work for peace in the subcontinent. Goaded by their media, mostly the hyper news channels, most Indians voiced disgust, even anger at IK having won; preferring to side with the Pakistani crowd on social media (that included prominent journalists) that is vehemently and permanently anti-Imran Khan.

That there is a big trust deficit between people of both sides is well known. But in the recent past, both ordinary Pakistanis and Indians have perfected this deficit by preferring to read online material, and authors, that further strengthens their belief in the two-nation theory, or in the case of Indians prove Pakistan to be a failed state.

The Pakistani media, on its part, highlights mob attacks in India mostly when Indian Muslims are involved. Ankit Saxena, a Hindu lover of a Muslim girl from Delhi, who was murdered earlier this year by the girl’s relatives in broad daylight, hardly made it to the headlines on our TV screens. You see it hurts us Pakistanis more when Indian Muslims are in distress, not when they are in the wrong.

In the same vein, now among the educated Indian population is a substantial audience that is only interested in reading up on minority persecution in Sindh, Imran Khan’s supposed love for the Taliban and so on, which gets published from Pakistan. These Indians seem to know more about Pakistan than Pakistanis themselves without ever having set foot in their neighbouring country. They are your social media Pakistan analysts working for free. Indians and Pakistanis are merely a reflection of each other when it comes to being grumpy, sceptical about their neighbour’s potential and promise, so as a rule, we don’t clap for each other.

When Sushma Swaraj decided to grant medical visas to ailing Pakistani patients- who don’t have the funds required to get treated in England unlike Pakistan’s ruling elite — most Pakistanis including senior journalists adopted a thankless attitude. Free ilaaj toh nahin hota, our patients pay their hospital fees in India, was their defence because Allah forbid if we ever thanked a minister from the Modi government, our entire ideological pulao would then come down tumbling on us.

People on both sides are also stingy when it comes to appreciating one another freely — preferring to stick to soft and sort of passé spheres. For us, it is Bollywood that we love most from India mainly because of the three ruling Khans. For Indians, Pakistani women, fashion and food are harmless areas that can be complimented once in a while. This oldness is what needs to vanish. Both sides need to deeply reflect and be realistic about learning from each other in areas where the other may be lacking. Naya Pakistan, for instance, can learn a thing or two from India about building up its tourism industry. India, despite its recent troubling image, continues to attract more than 10 million foreign tourists each year because of an efficient network that makes exploring India easy.

Let us also be honest, the scars of Partition have never really been given a chance to heal, for 70 years they’ve been kept alive by subcontinental politicians and our own subconscious as well. Most people have grown up listening to terrible tragedies of 1947 from their grandparents. The other side is not to be fully trusted was the central theme in these stories. Yet, the very same older generation has, in passing, also narrated to us incidents of being sheltered or saved by good Hindus or Muslims during riots. In that lies our confusion, and the activated hurt that needs salving and a lot of forgetting.

Indians and Pakistanis are not only selective when it comes to choosing articles to read or retweeting columnists from across the border (that suit their prejudice), but we are also a set of people that have barely looked beyond their own kind. What ails both Pakistan and India besides poverty is also class-based discrimination, which is our own construct. In a real sense, upper-middle-class Indians and Pakistanis have never indeed protested against the dire conditions of government-run hospitals and schools just because our loved ones don’t go there. The most we do about them is consume news reports, vent a bit and go back to further our ambitions. Imran Khan for one has contributed philanthropically to his society, in a way that few others have, and that must not be overlooked when labelling him a mere Army puppet. It is one of the prime reasons, besides his anti-corruption campaign, that people came out in droves to vote for him. Both nations now also face a social problem of frequent child sexual abuse cases that can no longer be swept under the rug. Besides amending the laws that will punish the perpetrators we also need to identify why such rapes have gone up in number.

As the Prime Minister-elect of Pakistan Imran Khan has a gigantic task ahead of himself, a lot of people will be eagerly waiting for him to stumble, but no progress will ever be achieved until South Asians dilute their inner poison with an antidote that is manufactured in 2018, not in 1965 or 1971. Imran Khan must also be held morally accountable if at the end of his tenure Indo-Pak relationship fails to bloom from his end. It never hurts to give someone a fair chance at trying to mend an area that needs complete overhauling. The path to real peace will only come with patience, understanding and also by dislodging our online guns for a change.