India, a bit farther

Whatever you do, don't order a non-veg meal on an Air India flight. This is the regular advice I give to anyone who is about to go to India and asks for some cliff notes. Of course, this was before it was privatised or I would have recommended that they pack a parachute with them. Don't get me wrong. My advice for anyone travelling on a pre-privatisation Pakistan International Airlines was hardly any different. I have not travelled on either since privatisation, which is precisely why you have been warned.

My peculiar experience arose from a flight between Delhi and Mumbai. It was midday but they were serving breakfast. I generally don't like rabbit food. So, I ordered halal non-veg.

When this habit of ordering non-vegetarian food pays off, it pays off big. On a recent Thai Airways flight to Shanghai I ordered non-veg and received a customised dinner prepared by a Michelin-star chef. It was something of an out-of-body experience. I don't recommend an out-of-body experience that high in the sky.

On our Air India flight, what they brought back must have once been an egg but had long forgotten its true identity. Accompanying it was something that I would have called a dull version of poutine. Only it had something meaty in it which was, to put it mildly, not very agreeable. What I did to that meal or what it did to me, and continues to do so, is my trauma to keep. But the mention of halal seemed to have produced some mild interest in the uncleji sitting next to me.

I was in the aisle seat. I know I am now old enough to be called an uncleji myself. But fifteen years ago life was a bit kinder. So, the gentleman asked me if I lived in Mumbai. I said no. Then another question. If I lived in New Delhi. Bored of the journey, I decided to make a game of it. I would say a bit farther, and he would guess again. Bit by bit we kept moving towards the border until he reached a border town. But when I said a bit farther once more, he bravely decided to skip a country. "Are you from Afghanistan?" he asked. I smiled and brought him to Pakistan. But this had a dramatic effect on his demeanour. He turned his back towards me and stayed in that posture until we landed in Mumbai. I cut him some slack because the bitterness generated by the Mumbai attack was still fresh.

Other than these twin disasters, my experience of Mumbai and India was very nice. For a Pakistani, going to India is like stepping into an alternative reality. It is recognisable enough not to distress you but strange enough to make you want to keep exploring.

Ordinary people were very friendly. However, the media was downright hostile. Which was strange because we were there to interact with the same lot and we were there to build peace. It did not make any sense. If the purpose was to only denigrate each other it could be done from across the border through our respective screens. Why have us there?

One newspaper editor pulled me aside after a particularly rough interaction and explained the reason. He told me we shouldn't take the TV anchors seriously. The purpose of this grandstanding was to generate soundbites for their shows. Pakistan bashing was already a ratings magnet. Instead of reassurance I found it alarming. Back then, judging by their content and general air of hostility, I should have surmised that the elevation of someone like Narendra Modi to the national stage was something of an inevitability. I understand there is no dearth of triggers of hostility towards Pakistan. One of them I have mentioned in passing already. But having a rather actively hostile media component obsessed with one subject and rewarded for the display of intolerance was nothing short of a recipe for disaster. We had our private media too. I worked for news channels. But there was no unprompted desire to attack India on air.

But my host was in an indulgent mood. I learned that while, as the finance minister, Dr Manmohan Singh had done many good things for the country, his push to liberalise the media had come at a steep cost. The Indian billionaires had thus far silently carried their respective ideological baggage. Most saw disproportionate growth in their wealth during the licence raj. But now they wanted direct control. And media power was the sharpest tool in their toolshed. They were using this to compete with others, condition the public mind and dominate.

He then dropped a name. So far, I was aware of communal tensions in India and the mutual hostility of our two nations. But I wasn't well versed in India's caste complications. The name he mentioned rang a bell. In college, a professor had assigned me to write a research essay on Dr BR Ambedkar. I thought I was being punished. I knew of too many Indian freedom fighters but this name had never made an impact on my mind. But this editor was telling me to read up on him. And on India's caste problem. With this homework assignment our trip ended and I returned home.

Within a couple of months the Anna Andolan emerged and then in 2014 Modi won with a clear majority and we saw the DNA of the Indian republic being rewritten before our eyes. I kept reading up on Ambedkar, Indian constitutional history, the caste system and how communalism was a lever to distract people from the caste-related pains. Ambedkar's critique of the Indian system and prescient observation that a constitutional democracy was a poor substitute for the systematic, if painful, reform of the rigid caste system have proven correct. He already bore the scars of being a Dalit in modern India.

Meanwhile, I left the private media and came to PTV. This was before the emergence of the Modi fanbase in our state apparatus. So, India bashing was part of the job description. But unlike criticising Dr Singh, critiquing Modi began to cost me friends and connections. I lost friends, I lost cordial relations with the Indian state and after seeing what was happening in India I lost hope. Then emerged his fan base in our own system and I started getting punished for doing my job. What I resented was not what India did at home. But the fact that our copycats wanted to eulogise it and do similar things here. I have told you about a petition in our superior courts requesting a ban on beef before.

Right when I thought the country was beyond repair, its youth at Jantar Mantar taught me the perils of giving up on a nation as diverse as India. This Gen Z crowd exposed the Indian media's toxicity for the clown show it is. More importantly, they are reading Babasaheb Ambedkar, realising that his warnings about a democracy built on social inequality have come true, and using that knowledge to make the entire system cower. So we hope again. Otherwise, I may not even be able to tell you to avoid non-veg food on airplanes.