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“India-Pakistan bhai bhai” in both Hindi (the official language
of India) and Urdu (the national language of Pakistan) means
“India-Pakistan are brothers.” Despite some bitter and bloody
episodes in the history of both countries, they are veritable twin
offsprings of British colonization in the subcontinent. There are
more arguments to prove the “Hindi-Pakistani bhai bhai”
statement to be true rather than false.
And there many mutually beneficial reasons for
every Indian and Pakistani to work together and make that a happy
reality. Why don’t they? Because of distrust and fear based on
past wrongs committed against each other under the impulse of
religious fanaticism, economic competition and politics.
The recent Mumbai carnage perpetrated by Muslim
jihadi terrorists has come as yet another reason to put the brakes
on the efforts of some top leaders of both countries to make
“Hindi-Pakistani bhai-bhai” a reality. Their dreams of brotherly
partnership in business, tourism, regional development and forming a
prosperous subcontinental economy would hasten the passage towards
First World status for Pakistan and India. For economic and social
advancement would also, no doubt, reduce tensions in Kashmir and
other areas where Muslim-Hindu relations are being subjected to
stress.
Twice in 2002, following a Muslim terrorist
attack on India’s Lok Sabha (the national parliament in Delhi),
these two nuclear-armed neighbors were very close to breaking out
into open war.
Today, some Indians—mostly nationalist Hindus
and some relatives of the victims of the three days of horror in
India’s financial capital—are chanting “War with Pakistan!”
This must not happen. The spirit of
“Hindi-Pakistani bhai-bhai” must prevail for only the terrorists
will benefit from war between the two countries. The efforts to
unite the two into a common market and become the leaders of a
subcontinental economic force that will, first of all, vanquish
poverty among the peoples of the region and then raise each country
in all aspects of human development must not cease.
Politics, which is the cause of much militancy,
is unfortunately the reason why some Indian local leaders are
whipping up an anti-Pakistan frenzy. By law, general elections must
be held by May 2009. There must be a general election in the
world’s most populous electoral democracy every five years. The
last general elections were held in 2004. The Hindu nationalist
parties, opposed to the more liberal and Western-leaning Congress
Party that is in power now, are of course hoping to defeat Congress
and its allies.
They are the parties that have been unashamedly
anti-Muslim and anti-Christian. It is in places where they hold the
power in the state and lower governments that Hindu mobs have
brutally treated Muslims and Christians—burning mosques and
churches, beating up and killing non-Muslims and raping nuns.
India’s national leaders are being held back
from pointedly speaking against and suppressing popular sentiment
that “Pakistan” is to blame for the Mumbai carnage. They could
lose votes in the May 2009 elections if they did.
And India’s Congress Party leaders have to
sound angry towards Pakistan and make demands for the latter to take
“strong action” against Pakistanis who could have indeed been
the bosses of the Indian Muslims who carried out the murders and
hostage-taking and set fire to rooms in the Taj and the Oberoi and
in other ways terrorized Mumbai.
Pakistan really wants to help
The fact, however, is that Pakistan is really
willing to help the administration of India to get to the bottom of
the Mumbai attacks and catch their masterminds and organizers,
including jihadist Pakistanis. From Islamabad on Tuesday, Pakistani
Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said, “The government of
Pakistan has offered a joint investigation mechanism and we are
ready to compose such a team which will help the investigation.”
Qureshi assured India that his government was ready to extend all
possible cooperation and assistance.
Speaking in Urdu he said both the Indian and
Pakistani governments needed to show “maturity, seriousness and
patience” amid rising tension in India which is flooded with media
commentaries about Pakistanis being the organizers and gunmen who
killed 188 people in Mumbai.
In the same way that India’s leaders must show
angry faces toward Pakistan for political purposes, Pakistan’s
leaders cannot just surrender Pakistanis the Indian government
identifies as terrorists, such as the founder of the
Lashkar-e-Taiba, which Indian intelligence has pinpointed as being
the group behind the Munbai attacks. Lashkar-e-Taiba is the jihadist
group carrying on the anti-Indian operations in Kashmir.
It seems true that at some point elements in the
Pakistani armed forces were supporting Islamist militants and
terrorists in Kashmir. That has apparently been stopped for some
years—by former president and army chief Pervez Musharaff when he
decided in earnest to cooperate with US President George Bush in the
global war on terrorism and saw that normal relations with India and
forming an economic unity with it was good for his country and
people.
To accuse the democratically elected government
of Pakistan now of harboring Muslim terrorists is like accusing
President Bush of being an ally of the heirs of Saddam Hussein and
the Taliban (both of which were in fact really supported by America
when the enemy was the Soviet Empire).
We Filipinos could play a role in encouraging
both Pakistan and India to be cool. We are rather close friends of
both countries.
We can at least remind the people and leaders of
both countries that conflict between them, war especially, is what
the jihadist terrorists desire. They want chaos, death and
destruction to reign in the subcontinent.
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