The reunification of India and Pakistan

This article was written in February 2004, just when it appeared that the old shibboleths that had hitherto governed Indo-Pak relations may be on the retreat. Much has changed since then, and the progress has been slower than expected (or perhaps faster, depending on your point of view). I'm reposting the article to coincide with the independence days of India and Pakistan, with the hope that some people may still find the ideas in the article, which depart significantly from the prevailing discourse, to be stimulating.

The article is also available on www.prasanna.org and on this site.
Status Quo Ante as an Agent of Change, or Consolidate or Fragment, that is the Question

By Prasanna Lal Das

So the Indo-Pak cricket series is finally on, and the world is filled once again with images of joint flags, people hugging on the streets, airwaves bursting with talks of bonhomie, and what-if musings about the cricket superpower a united India-Pakistan team will be. Meanwhile, in the back-room, bureaucrats conduct another round of timorous baby-stepping aimed at 'normalizing' Indo-Pak relations, but unfortunately, if past experience is any indication, the patter of these steps will soon prove as futile as their well-intentioned predecessors did. Very little in terms of long-term vision actually accompanies daily announcements about cricket visas, new trains, planes, and buses except vague, undefined notions of 'peace' and it is not unreasonable to suspect that the baby-steps will soon be smothered by immovable paradigms borne out of memories of partition that have hitherto governed the politics of the sub-continent. The current burst of goodwill is just history playing itself out all over again, and the portents are farcical as ever.

It is my contention that the key to breaking this impasse can only be found by changing the rules of engagement, and the time may well have come to step out of the thrall of partition and, heretical as it sounds, seriously reconsider the reunification of India and Pakistan (and by extension, Bangladesh). The three countries have outlived their historical value, it may be time to revivify a plural nation (without going the 'Akhand Bharat' or the 'fundamentalist nationalist' way at all). It is not going to happen in a hurry but the time to start thinking about it is now.

The division has been sustained long enough to expose all its holes - externally, it has reduced the international stature of the sub-continent, created misplaced notions of friend and foe, and festered wounds over territories that should rightfully belong to both but do so adequately to neither; and internally, it has encouraged a polity based on deflecting attention from real issues, dragged ordinary people to the bottom of almost all social indicators, and brought out the worst in (at least) two great religions. Reunification is no guarantee against these malaise, but it can set the agenda for governance based on a potent mixture of morality, principles, and pragmatism, rather than the hurtful pettiness that passes for realpolitik right now. More critically, it can also serve as a blow for the forces of consolidation against the votaries of fragmentation that rule the roost today.

The greatest opportunities for reunification lie precisely in the challenges that confront the idea. The countries are sworn enemies (but their enmity lies in estrangement rather than self-interest which may have made the hostility worthwhile), the political systems are intrinsically different (and both close to collapsing under their own weight unless there is radical and structural intervention), mutual hatred has seeped into the pores of the people (yet we see only warmth in interactions at the personal level, the anger seems to be directed solely towards each other's symbols), our legal and civil norms are vastly different (yes, but they are unimaginatively derived from an imperial model which must be cast off), our economies are on different trajectories (but there is great interest from business on both sides), and our religious and social mores have been irreparably bifurcated (the greatest challenge but our faith in diversity as a glue must overcome this aberration).

Unfortunately however, reunification as a historical force is still far away. Externally, the reunification of Germany and the growing trend towards economic union (even within South Asia) may be considered an augury, but the trend is offset by the growing acceptance of political fragmentation as a valid ideological force - in the Balkans peace seems to lie only in the hardening of boundaries, the UN seems to be going through a population explosion of sorts as new countries spill out of the woodwork, and even within India, opinion polls (and mainstream economists riding on their coat-tails) suggest that states must become smaller by dividing and sub-dividing to maximize administrative efficiency. There is even speculation at the moment that south India should break away from the 'north' and thus cut out excessive baggage in its march towards ever growing prosperity.

The trend is fueled by the fact that the idea of fragmentation is a catchy one, and promises of a rupture are the surest way to capture the imagination of the marginalized and the ambitious everywhere. Plus, pretexts for fragmentation are never difficult to come by - religion, region, culture, identity, and economy unfailingly fuel the passions of the disenfranchised, the privileged, and the intelligentsia alike, and create a cycle of fragmentation, each feeding off the other, so that you start with one state, make it two, then three, and then start to prepare the ground for the fourth. It may probably be premature to wonder whether we are headed inexorably towards future partitions and whether we may soon break apart into several republics, principalities, and fiefdoms with indeterminate and unstable boundaries; it is however not completely fallacious to believe that the ideology of partition is a self-sustaining one and unless we can find a counter-weight to it, we will soon find ourselves overtaken by history.

The portents of fragmentation, as mentioned earlier, exist equally in both countries - India is riven by internal wars all across the country, Pakistan is riddled with provinces with visions of grandeur, and Kashmir straddles the polity of both countries like a yoke they dare not cast off. The countries have hitherto found ostrich like refuge in escalating hostilities at great mutual cost and negligible benefit, but this is an impasse that is unlikely to go away as long as our terms of engagement do not question the foundation of this dispute -the partition of India and its ostensible irrevocability? The question isn't whether Kashmir should be a part of India or not, or the culpability of India in the formation of Bangladesh; the real question instead is what do we want to choose now - one country, or none at all?

The seeds of Indian partition were sowed with the classic brew of fear, uncertainty, lure, and gullibility. Fear of a competing religion becoming dominant, uncertainty about the potentially destabilizing role of democracy, the lure of independence (from both the master and the rival), and gullibility (the master knew best). The same factors continue to hold true even today and are dominant themes in the ideology of fragmentation. They may in fact have been strengthened further by crude and misguided attempts at uniformity that tend to view our diversity either as an inconvenience or as a cloak concealing an underlying unity in need of overt (and common) expression. Fragmentation gains every time an attempt is made to deny its logic.

The India-Pakistan reunification must therefore be achieved under a framework that recognizes and facilitates the principles of democracy, diversity, pluralism, and federalism, and uses them as pillars of consolidation rather than succumb to the temptations of fragmentation. This means enabling multiple government systems, different legal codes, varying bureaucratic procedures, localized economic terms, and distinct cultural practices to co-exist; this however also assumes that the unified country will not give in to the dubious logic of relativism but hold certain basic principles, especially governing equality and freedom, and the integrity of the state, to be fundamental and unquestionable. The unified state must consider the political, social, religious, and economic differences that may have cropped up or been accentuated by and after partition - the differences must be allowed to persist, flourish, or decline organically unless they challenge the fundamental rubric of the state.

Many logistic barriers to reunification diminish in significance when viewed under this prism. The reunification need not call for common laws, a centrally agreed mode of governance, a common civil service, uniform economic laws, and other trappings of monolithic nations. It does however call for a common constitution outlining the unified character of the country and institutions common to all of it. This constitution must reinforce the points above and sedulously resist the temptation of creating central institutions likely to hinder local and state governance, perhaps even during emergencies, perhaps ever (with the sole exception of threats to the character and integrity of the state as a whole).

Practical barriers however remain and cannot be wished away. Reunification would entail changes that would call for tremendous devolution of power, and unfortunately significant changes generally have greater chance of success when there is opportunity to seize power than to give it away. For reunification to be successful, the central governments in both the countries must be prepared to lose much of their control over states and provinces, the states and provinces in turn must be willing to confer much greater authority to local bodies, and local bodies must allow power to dissolve within the general populace. This is all of course easier said than done and both our governments may prefer our long standing tradition of a fractious neighborhood to loss of power and the impetus for change is unlikely to come from them. The old chestnut about the ability of our people to assume responsibility for the qualitatively changed nature of power in a unified state too is likely to come to the fore again (as it did right after independence), as perhaps will questions about tolerance without which such a change is doomed, and more mundane but vital doubts about pre-partition property rights.

And then there are more immediate problems. The political and cultural climate in both the countries seems to have little appetite for constructive change and it may be a long time before Musharraf and Vajpayee can trust each other. And even if they do, the establishments in both the countries have vested considerably in enmity and will certainly be unfavorably inclined towards any paradigm shift. The section likely to be the most sanguine about the change is the person on the street and perhaps the urge for change will come from them or even be driven by them. It may however be a bit early to hope for that - the key at this point is to build an intellectual case for reunification, to demonstrate as conclusively as possible the implications of the changed nature of governmental power, the possibility of greater role on the international stage compensating for the wane in domestic authority, and the feasibility of pooling resources to improve social indicators. Build a rigorous case (much like the leaders of our freedom movement did), that is the first challenge.

Unlikely as it sounds, the India-Pakistan impasse may yet provide the ideal template to create and demonstrate an ideological counterpoint to the dominant fragmentary proclivities of our time. Status quo ante (with a few differences) may be an unappealing and quaint idea in our new-fangled obsessed culture and polity, but there probably is more change inherent in it than in many putative radical ideas. It is time for us to reclaim our tradition of assimilation rather than subjugation - one world may be far away, but one sub-continent will be a good start.

February 2004

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