Over the past month or so, in the wake of attacks on Indian Army camps and a “surgical strike” across the border from the Indian Army in retaliation, an atmosphere has been generated that seeks to create perpetual mutual antagonism between the people of India and Pakistan.
It is not only right wing groups (who can no longer be called fringe elements in this country), but also relatively liberal public personalities such as actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui – who advised all Pakistani actors in India to go back to their country (and ultimately, be made to look like they’ve taken sides even if they haven’t).
The same man was made to pull out of a Ramleela play in his own home district of Muzaffarnagar, despite having aggressively touted his “patriotic” credentials just a few days before.
The Cinema Owners’ and Exhibitors Association then cancelled any movie with Pakistani artistes, directors or technicians participating. What we are witnessing here is an escalation of the invention of cultural conflict, a pet project of both the Indian and Pakistani state since 1947.
While boycotts, threats and political action against Pakistani actors, musicians and literary figures is made on the pretext of the foreign income earned by them in India subsidising terror - it should be obvious to anyone that there is no “terror tax” paid by Pakistani artistes.
Taxes are paid to the state to do what they please - sometimes when the tax is first imposed it has an original purpose and headers - the original focus gets later dispersed in later budgets. The flipside of the demand is - if Pakistani artistes want to perform or earn in India - they must become tax fugitives in their own country.
If we are to act moral with states as well as equate the individual with the state, let us boycott all business dealings with Saudi Arabia and Israel – both have funded terror globally – and let Nepal boycott everything Indian. Let us cancel business deals with Pakistan, including those of Ambani. Are we to make the individual pay for the actions of a state, or a state pay for its own actions?
In fact, the closing of economic relations (and India has previously demonstrated it has no problem with that, when the erstwhile Congress government squandered the Iran-India pipeline deal over the head of then-Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar, simply because the pipeline would go through Pakistan), would make far more sense than military aggression.
“Surgical strikes” from either or both sides rather than concrete economic action end up only using the lives of jawans as pawns in larger rivalries.
Taxes
And the taxes we pay go into what lovely duties discharged by the Indian state? Corporate tax cuts for Adani and Ambani? Subsidising AFSPA? The Vyapam or Coal scams? Fake Re 1 bank accounts to make the government look better? Defence budgets to use disproportionately and primarily against Indian citizens? Into strong-arming Nepal before, during and after the earthquake, till the blockade destroyed the country and whatever diplomatic ties we had with it?
Entertainment
Do we really want to go back to the era of Anu Malik’s ‘I Love You’, ripped-off from Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s ‘Allah Hu’? Pakistan is a huge consumer of our film industry, and featuring Pakistani actors is only a symptom of that. Ultimately, the shared cultural heritage would be the only means of ever making Pakistan an ally, not our historical rivalry.
Economic Growth
All violations of international boundaries come under UN ambit – Russia, US, China would be keen to intervene. There will be zero territorial gain, only economic expenditure and huge casualties on both sides. If war were to be passed off as an excuse for the sorry state of economic growth in India and Pakistan, then war would make sense.
What Led to the Kargil War
The last time there was a BJP and Nawaz Sharif government combo in power, we were forced to witness the Kargil War. While the bottled-up military aggression may grant electoral dividends to the ruling party in India in the 2019 elections, and in the upcoming assembly elections in Punjab and UP – the stand-off doesn’t really appear to help Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif one bit, who is unpopular everywhere but in Punjab, and whose main adversary, the PPP, is known for its corruption.
The last time Sharif attempted this path, he was soon replaced by and with Pervez Musharraf. Would a civilian ruled India be able to handle a military-ruled Pakistan, especially without compromising the social and economic justice priorities than the Indian people demand, or the enfranchisement principles this nation is based on? The balance of power would be based on whether the next US President would prefer to control Pakistan through the Saudis (a civilian Sharif government), or through the Pakistani military in a geopolitical quid pro quo.
Impact on Economy, Military and Civilians
In case one is led to believe that the economy would boom as did inter-war Italy and Germany due to militaristic state demand, it would be wise to recall that the present government, after gently booting out Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan, immediately allowed 100 percent FDI in key sectors such as defence and civil aviation.
The state shenanigans of both India and Pakistan, and the losses of civilian and military lives that accompanied them clearly show that both governments are relatively unpopular back home, both are failing to provide the economic development long promised, neither ruling party can see a guaranteed pathway to winning the next elections, and military aggression seems the only way fathomable to them that goes beyond the long-term historical paradigms set by the Congress and Pakistani military respectively. The question is, will it be tragedy, or will it be a farce?
(The author is a research scholar in modern and contemporary history at Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. This is a blog and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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