India bearing gifts - Zafar Hilaly

The question arose whether Pakistan should accept the Indian offer in view of public outrage. One is not aware of the intensity of the debate in government but outside the portals of power it was heated

A gift regardless of its value should, as a norm, be gracefully received. However, the timing of the gift and the manner of the giving is also important, often more than the worth of the gift. However, when states are the recipients and disasters the reason, the amount donated becomes significant.

The amount that Manmohan Singh offered Pakistan’s 20 million displaced was $ 5 million, widely regarded as negligible, actually a pittance, considering it was the worst flood in living memory anywhere in the world. And, in view of the destruction wrought, estimated in billions, many considered Mr Singh’s offer niggardly, almost heartless. More so when they learnt how well the Indian economy is performing. Rwanda Burundi, some say, could do better. One solitary Arab sheikh boasted that he donated more than the whole of ‘shining’ India.

If, then, the amount was outrageously small, what of the timing? In some respects that was even worse. It came in the midst of yet another murderous assault on Kashmiris by India’s occupation forces. It was accompanied by the lie that Kashmiris were being put up to it by Pakistan. Indian leaders may have mastered the oily art of deception but, if the truth were told, Kashmiris have exposed the liars amongst Indians.

The question arose whether Pakistan should accept the Indian offer in view of public outrage. One is not aware of the intensity of the debate in government but outside the portals of power it was heated. “Personally,” said a friend, himself a contributor to several well-known international publications, and hardly an Indophobe, “I would have rejected it. It shows India’s insensitivity towards Pakistan, by that I mean not the state but also the people, and only confirms India’s hatred.”

His take on the offer was very similar to other missives one has received. One in particular noted, “We knew that a bania will always remain a bania, but now a Sikh has become a bania.” Another wrote, “Remember we will owe India nothing, not even sympathy in death.”

As it happened, the government rightly, in one’s view, accepted the Indian offer. Not because killing unarmed and innocent Kashmiris does not hurt, and true it shows up India as India is, but because it would be counter to the etiquette of inter-state dealings to reject what is offered, however paltry the amount. There is another reason: either Pakistan should not have asked for aid, or having done so must now accept whatever is offered. This was done and sensibly so, although many are upset that the government withstood considerable pressure to the contrary.

M J Akbar, a well-known Indian journalist, felt that in case Pakistan had refused the assistance it would demonstrate Pakistan’s “visceral animosity” and that Mr Singh’s best response would have been a civilised handshake “even if he has to count the fingers after the hand has been shaken”. Whether Mr Singh would have acted thus, we do not know, but what he says does provide a revealing insight of M J Akbar’s own visceral animus towards Pakistan.

But then, Indian Muslim journalists, with one or two notable exceptions, seem to believe that the only way to assure the majority community of India that their loyalties should remain beyond suspicion is by heaping abuse on Pakistan. Possibly also because it helps them boast, as much to themselves as to other Indian Muslims, that at the time of independence their fathers made the right choice by staying on in India.

Such self-insurance is understandable, given the massive discrimination, especially in north and central India, against Muslims in general, which is borne out in a number of statistics concerning the employment of Muslims in government departments and was also reflected in an admirably candid parliamentary report on the plight of the Indian Muslims today. But to go off the edge whenever Pakistan is mentioned seems excessive. Sometimes the devil is not as black as he is painted.

As for counting one’s fingers after shaking hands with Pakistanis, that is certainly one view of the precautions which need to be taken by Indians although the last time Hanif Mohammed accepted the extended hand of an irate Indian spectator, after his magnificent effort in the 1960 Kanpur Test, he had his wrist slashed, rendering him unfit for the next test.

There is the view, which M J Akbar endorses, that Pakistan would have refused Singh’s offer had it not been for getting “rapped on its knuckles by America” and told to accept. There is no doubt that being an ally Pakistan does lend an ear to the US’s counsel, and Mr Zardari lends a bit more than that, perhaps both his ears, but that is far from saying that this is the only voice that counts. Pakistan listens to the US only when Pakistan wants to, or else we would have forsaken nuclear weapons, decommissioned the missiles pointing at Delhi and Mumbai, settled on Kashmir belonging to India and, more pertinently, not kept as many forces as we do on the border with India. A wise man, it is said, believes nothing of what he hears and only half of what he sees. The likes of M J Akbar, alas, have a penchant to believe only what they want to hear and see, which is not there. Vain are the surmises that move such men, worthless as withered reeds.

Mr Singh has miscalculated badly unless his gesture was made to cause affront. It would have been far better and more economical to send a team of doctors to Pakistan on a two-week trip to care for the sick. However, it seems that he preferred to go out of his way to give offence that will prove unhelpful. There will be no magnanimity on either side if and when negotiations resume.

(The writer is a former Ambassador).
NOTE:This is a cross post.