India’s cheering for you

India’s people are aware of the courage on display in the ongoing confrontation between the Pakistan govt and army.

In the winter of India’s political discontent, all eyes are on a brand, new spring unfolding in Pakistan these days.

In Delhi — in many ways still a refugee city, although the multilingual capitalist class has burrowed away at the edges — everyone is an expert on Pakistan, of course, and much of it is driven by the black-and-white shrieking about a neighbour which it believes is really run by the army and the civilian government is only a ‘mukhauta’ or a mask.

But as we have seen in past weeks, the united colours of Pakistan are so much more varied and interesting. Whether or not Pakistan’s army chief has threatened the ruling class to operate within prescribed limits, it’s clear that the Zardari-Gilani government has decided to create a few rules of its own.

In Delhi, a sneaking admiration for the people shoring up the fort and refusing to let the rulers buckle, is fast gaining ground. It doesn’t matter that Nawaz Sharif’s petition in the courts actually helps the military, his implacable enemy, skewers the PPP, or that the courts have taken on a political role that far exceeds their jurisdiction or that both Mansoor Ijaz and former president Pervez Musharraf are planning a comeback to add to this chaos.

It’s clear in Delhi too that a coup, like in 1999, is hardly possible. In fact, quite the contrary. Both Gilani and Zardari may yet go down fighting, but to witness the courage with which they have tested themselves and their country’s all-consuming fear of the army by refusing to buckle so far is testimony to the people’s overwhelming yearning for democratic normalcy.

What is unfolding in Pakistan, really, is the stuff of which novels are made of. In authoritarian societies like the former Soviet Union or the former Czechoslovakia, it was easy to distinguish the extremes: The establishment that declared its writ with vigour and the tiny-but-rebellious underclass which sought to undermine the state from within.

But somewhere in that vast, faceless, majority were men and women who went about earning their daily bread but refused to succumb to the grey, enveloping fear. They were never important enough for the gulag nor for the sweet imprisonment of privilege. But imagine how they battled their fears within, on a daily basis and kept the flame alive. Right versus wrong. Personal choice versus collective good. It was their accumulated tiny victories that shored up people like Andrei Sakharov.

In our part of the world, the similarities end quickly. India accepted former prime minister Indira Gandhi’s emergency from 1975-1977 because of middle-class obsessions like trains running on time or, cleanliness is next to godliness. Just like in Pakistan, when the people hardly resisted the peremptory bundling out of Nawaz Sharif in 1999 because they were fed up with the all-consuming corruption during his era.

Both countries have learnt quickly. India will no longer accept an Anna Hazare-like figure, despite his apparent fondness for a Gandhian simplicity, because we know of his authoritarian streak that dismisses dissent.

As for Pakistan, you can’t but admire President Zardari’s panache as he recently flew to Dubai for a day and returned home, dismissing rumours that he was opting for a sinecure. Then there was Gilani, joking about Imran Khan and sacking the defence secretary in the same breath.

Whatever happens in Pakistan in the coming days, one thing is for sure: India’s people are keenly aware of the sophisticated courage on display in the ongoing eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation between the government and the army. And you must know that we’re cheering for you.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 23^rd,  2012.