Small is beautiful on India-Pakistan front

Unspoken charge against Hina in Delhi was that at 34 years of age, she couldn’t possibly be anything but lightweight.

Pakistan’s foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar was always in danger of being miscast as an up-at-heel Cinderella by the Indian media during her visit to Delhi this week — and I plead guilty.

The lady’s fury is totally in order, too. Back in Lahore, when asked by waiting reporters to react to the Indian media’s description of her as a style icon, Hina snapped back. “There is paparazzi everywhere,” she said, implying that the Indian journalist’s obsession with her oversized Birkin bag (at Rs1.7 million, said the Times of India), her Roberto Cavalli sunshades and her coloured pearls (South Sea or Mikimoto?) was directly proportional to the limited attention it paid to all serious issues.

Now that’s a serious charge, and regretfully I must admit the beautiful Hina may be right again. The Indian media was so swept off its feet by the trappings of the vision from across the border, it failed to adequately note the path-breaking nature of the joint statement in which, for the first time in several decades, “the people” from both countries were put on top of the bilateral agenda.

In fact, the Pakistani media returned the compliment in some ways. The obsession with the Great Game in both countries abounds: Indian spies are found on sundry street corners in the big and small cities of Balochistan, the return to ‘strategic depth’ in Afghanistan is accompanied by a rush of adrenalin whether or not Kabul is interested in such a relationship with Islamabad in the first place, and Siachen and Sir Creek become coveted markers from where spheres of influence can be enhanced.

But look at what happened this time. The Pakistani side couldn’t possibly object to Delhi’s initiatives to increase interaction between Kashmiris on both sides of the Line of Control, or across the international border. The offer of “non-discriminatory trade” is  hidden deep inside the joint statement, an alias for most-favoured nation status. Let’s see how that pans out when Pakistan’s commerce secretary Zafar Mehmood comes to Delhi to talk to his counterpart Rahul Khullar. (And yes, both are Punjabi).

Actually, it may be a good thing that Hina Rabbani Khar stole the show last week. Pakistan’s “weapon of mass distraction”, as a fully paid-up member of India’s Twitterati set described her, has thrown such a cloud of stardust in the eyes of both medias that it allows both governments — and dare I say, Pakistan’s army, which takes a serious interest in foreign policy, especially with India — to underwrite the small-is-beautiful measures that hawks mostly misunderstand.

The unspoken charge against Hina in Delhi was that at 34 years of age, she couldn’t possibly be anything but a lightweight. She has very little experience, she belongs to Pakistan’s upper-class and is therefore as feudal as they come, and may be a front for the real powers that runs foreign policy, whether Ashfaq Kayani, Asif Zardari, Yousaf Raza Gilani or Rehman Malik.

Thing about Hina is, she’s stunning. There are so few men and women in public life who are so good-looking that the attention is natural. But instead of getting perturbed by the publicity, she would do well to remember that Indira Gandhi was also called a goongi gudiya when she first entered politics — within five years, the country was calling her Durga, the mother goddess.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 31^st, 2011.