Opinion

Advice India and Pakistan should heed

August 16, 2018
Advice India and Pakistan should heed

Mohammed Azhar Ali Khan

August 14 ended the British Raj in the subcontinent in 1947. To me it brings back memories both painful and pleasant.

The British had come to Moghul India as traders. But Moghul rule was crumbling and its breakaway states were fighting. The British sided with some, the French traders with others and the British won.

I was living in Bhopal state, central India, where Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs remained friendly even when they were killing each other elsewhere. Muslims from nearby states sought safety in Bhopal. My father opened our house to refugees.

The frenzied killings – with trains passing through Bhopal with corpses - were traumatic.

Muslim leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah came to Bhopal before independence as a lawyer in a case. A relative who managed the guesthouse invited me to see the Quaid-e-Azam (great leader). Grow up fast, he told me, and serve Muslims. I was thrilled. I also wanted to meet Mahatma Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who fought for India’s independence, unity between Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs and equality for the lowest caste Hindus, the untouchables, whom he called Harijans, or children of God. But I did not get the chance.

I did meet Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru later as a journalist. Nehru visited Karachi to sign the Indus Waters agreement. President Ayub Khan arranged a reception for Nehru where I met him. But Nehru was no Gandhi. In fact Nehru and Indian Interior Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel had refused to give Pakistan its share of British India assets. Only Gandhi’s fast unto death made them relent.

Gandhi urged the Maharajah (ruler) of Kashmir, a Hindu, to be guided by the wishes of the people, mostly Muslim, on whether to join India or Pakistan. But Nehru flew to Kashmir to press the ruler to join India. The maharajah’s oppression of Muslims in Jammu led Afridi tribesmen to invade Kashmir, instigating the war in Kashmir.

So the two sister countries, which should have had excellent relations, became adversaries.

I had learned about Islam through my father and his books. He taught us that the One God created every living being and that He loves His creations. Whether one is born as a Hindu or Muslim, or even as a human, is solely decided by the Creator. So all living beings are one family. I went to a Christian and a secular school. My teachers were Muslim, Hindu and Christian. So were our neighbors, friends and servants.

Our house was partly on a lake. Adjacent to our house was a Hindu mandir (temple). Hindu and Muslim fishermen paddled close to our house as they fished. Anybody could enter by boating up to the stairs leading to our house. They could also enter through the garden which was adjacent to the lake.

Our Hindu servants knew our house intimately. They also saw we had no protection. But they remained loyal. Our sole guard at night was an old man whose only weapon was a walking stick. When I moved to Pakistan my parents and siblings lived alone till they shifted to Pakistan.

Even at the height of Hindu-Muslim tensions their Hindu neighbors never sought to harm them. I visited them from Pakistan occasionally. When returning from the Philippines, where I had gone to study, I disembarked at Calcutta and took the two-day train to Bhopal. Then I took the two-day train to Amritsar for Lahore and Karachi. I identified myself as a Muslim and a Pakistani to fellow passengers. They remained friendly.

Of course there was tension between Hindus and Muslims and between India and Pakistan. Even so most Muslims and Hindus lived in peace. One of the most admired poets in India was Muhammad Iqbal, who wrote about Mother India and the need for brotherly relations between Hindus and Muslims. He is now considered the national poet of Pakistan.

Common people still remember their shared heritage. When Indians visit Pakistan to see their religious sites or cricket matches, Pakistanis often offer them free food, hotels and taxis. Bollywood movies and music are widely popular in Pakistan while many Indians love classy Pakistani dramas. There are about as many Muslims in India as are in Pakistan. Indians and Pakistanis remain tied with common past and similar cultures.

Now extremists are ascendant in India and Pakistan. They are comparatively few but are persistent in sowing hate and violence. Pakistan’s new leader Imran Khan has rejected them and pledged a new beginning for Pakistan, including serving the common man, serving justice, stamping out corruption and improving relations with all neighbors, including India.

As I look back at my life, and enjoy the humanity, compassion, diversity, acceptance and the rule of law in Canada, and the best of relations with my fellow countrymen of all backgrounds, I hope that the leaders of India and Pakistan will follow this example both in the way they treat their citizens and in how they deal with their neighbors.

As Islam teaches us he is not a Muslim whose neighbor is not safe from his mischief.

— Mohammed Azhar Ali Khan is a retired Canadian journalist, civil servant and refugee judge.


August 16, 2018
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