Why Are Indians So Obsessed With Pakistan?

“Unless we call him Quaid e Azam we are not satisfied, we are not contended” — Jogendra Nath Mandal (Jinnah: A Life by Yasser Latif Hamdani)

I am not a diehard fan of the Marvel Universe, as I stopped watching Marvel movies after Avengers: Endgame. However, when Ms. Marvel made news because of the partition dialogue, I browsed through the social media comments to figure out the kerfuffle. Apart from the usual crowd that brands the casting of ethnic and female characters as “woke”, there were many comments by young Indians who were incensed that Marvel featured a Pakistani Muslim character. Since Marvel has a huge fan following in India with its giant market and Hindi dubbing, perhaps they wanted an Indian Marvel hero. Indeed, they did not withhold their disdain with “worst series ever” claims.

Generally, Pakistanis mind their own business and focus on their own issues of which there is no dearth. It is a poor country, one-seventh the size of India, with much smaller economic and financial resources. Yet, many have noted time and again how Indian trolls flood Pakistani sites to provide their unsolicited two cents on the latest Pakistani news along with their contempt that is projected by branding Pakistan as a “beggar nation” or as a “failed state”.

This necessitates the question that why are Indians so obsessed with Pakistan.

Maybe this has to do with the wars of 1948, 1965, 1971, and 1999 fought between the two nations. But then people who have seen the horrors of war may have PTSD or generally try to avoid negativity, as they have seen enough to envelop the rest of their lives in misery. This older generation of Indians and Pakistanis has been mellowed by age and the understanding that life is too short to dwell on past grievances.

In contrast, the firebrand responses online often emanate from the younger Indian crowd that has been fed an anti-Pakistani and Islamophobic narrative stoked by the right-wing Indian government in power. It is this demonisation of the Pakistani or the Muslim other that lies behind the seething Indian hatred witnessed in online spaces.

However, Pakistanis of all people should know how narratives lead to bigotry and prejudice, as they have been fed with the Islamisation narrative over the years that has instigated the persecution of religious minorities, including Pakistani Hindus.

Indeed, online Indians comment how the Pakistani Hindu population dwindled from 14 to about 2 percent as the country was made on the basis of religion. Others point out that Jinnah and the Muslim League simply did not want to live in United India, as if the situation prior to Indian Partition or Pakistani Independence (based on the respective narratives) was based on some serene ‘kumbaya’ type co-existence.

Such brash statements require further scrutiny. Dr Vikas Divyakirti elaborates in detail in a YouTube video that the Pakistani Hindu population dwindled because of Hindu migration to India just as many Muslims migrated to Pakistan. The Indian Muslim population reduced from 25 to 14 percent. Additionally, despite clamouring by Indian trolls, Pew Research graphically shows how the Hindu population increased exponentially and far outstripped that of Muslims from 1951–2011 in India.

Just as one cannot speak sense with rogues from the TLP and the TTP, so too can one not reason with the fascists from the RSS and the BJP. This paints a bleak picture for the Indian subcontinent.

This of course is not to discount the systemic discrimination against Hindus in Pakistan (through forced conversions of girls) and Muslims in India (through mob lynchings). However, Indians will have to acknowledge that while they disdainfully state that Pakistan was based on religion, fascism arose in a much better educated “secular” India.

So far as the Muslim League members are concerned, it must be noted that under Jinnah’s leadership, they formed the modern, progressive Muslims of their times that pressed for greater rights and parity in United India, failing which they opted for an independent Pakistan. The issue for them was of greater autonomy and higher representation in the legislature.

In contrast, the most conservative and regressive elements of Muslims bitterly opposed Jinnah and instead sided with the Congress. Indians should note that Maulana Azad was a cleric and so was the Jamiat Ulema Hind that strongly opposed Pakistan. In short, Pakistan was not based on religion but on modern Muslim nationalism.

Religion was stoked by Gandhi and the Congress, not Jinnah. This much should have been clear even from the scene from Sir Richard Attenborough’s (1982) movie where the Congress leaders are involved in prayer in contrast to a much secular Jinnah. In short, the differences were based on legal safeguards not religion, which is often a convenient scapegoat for people who eschew critical thinking.

The Pakistani narrative is different from the Indian, as land is an Amanah (trust) from Allah for the Muslims, but it is construed as Mata (mother) for Hindus. Thus, the Independence of one is the vivisection of another. Though, the Pakistani position can perhaps be better understood by Indians through the movie Sansar (1987) with Rekha and Anupam Kher, where Rekha’s character decides to separate from the joint family system and the common household, as it had become too suffocating. She decides that it would be far more cordial to meet every Sunday instead of being embroiled in constant quarrels. This helps understand Jinnah’s position post-Independence.

Returning to the strong Indian response to Ms. Marvel, it becomes clear that Indian trolls cannot be reasoned with – for they justify mob lynchings by dehumanising Muslims as “jihadis” and “madrassachaps” with the approval of their own conscience. Indeed, just as one cannot speak sense with rogues from the TLP and the TTP, so too can one not reason with the fascists from the RSS and the BJP. This paints a bleak picture for the Indian subcontinent.

Whatever India decides is their business. Pakistanis are wise to focus on their own domestic affairs and to mercilessly ignore the rampant Indian trolls. But what they can do is to engage in a process of discovery and reach out to the figure of one of the founding fathers of Pakistan – Jogendra Nath Mandal, who stood by Jinnah when the “undesirable” maulvis and maulanas were bent against him. Against the ire of the Congress in Pakistan, he raised his voice to honour Jinnah as the Quaid-e-Azam.

In some sense, he reminds me of Jinnah. Just as Jinnah was devalued and under-appreciated by the Congress, so too was Mandal by the Muslim League. He represented the white in Pakistan’s flag and was a source of considerable strength for Pakistan. Here was a way, Pakistan could have shown how to truly respect and honour a Dalit leader.

It is a great misfortune that Pakistan never honoured him as such. So based on the Marvel Universe, “What if…?” Pakistanis reclaim him and chart a new path on providing unstinted support to Pakistani Hindus and offering them such hope that a Pakistani Hindu youth could aspire to become the prime minister of Pakistan. That would truly make Jinnah’s Pakistan into one of the greatest nations of the world. Indeed, what if…?