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Reclaiming shared cultures could resist the clamping of boundaries
and challenge the mutually destructive paths that Indian and Pakistani
states have imposed upon us as our destinies:
1947 was not just
about India’s Independence, it was an initiator of identities imposed
from ‘above’. The new postcolonial states ventured to redefine their
status through a mix of jingoism, the rewriting of history and the
whipping up of the nation-state mantra – essentially Western in concept
and practice. The journey of South Asian people therefore, has been
fraught with wars, hysteria and state diktat articulating itself
through prejudiced educational curricula and state-sponsored historical
half-truths.
The shadows of hostility and war have refused to leave South Asia. For
sixty years, the spectre of Partition and the Bangladeshi war of
liberation continue to fill the public imagination with fear,
skepticism and futile xenophobia. What is surprising is that the
official worldview has been continuously contested and challenged by
the people. A case in point is that, notwithstanding the misgivings and
memories of violence during Partition, the people of India and of
Pakistan have been warm and friendly to each other. Transnationalism
has been articulated by people-to-people contact initiatives, and more
importantly, by popular culture that has been shared for centuries, and
continues to contain common strands even today.
The bureaucracies have undoubtedly resisted: twisting the arms of peace
efforts by imposing visa regimes, building real and imagined iron
curtains, and unleashing vicious propaganda now vociferously
disseminated by the corporate media. In line with their popular leaders
Mahatma Gandhi – who was killed by a Hindu fanatic due to his overtures
to Muslims and Pakistan – and Mohammed Ali Jinnah – who is on record as
having planned to go on vacation to India and perhaps retire there as
well – the people have yearned for peace and friendship.
The relations between India and Pakistan have been aptly described as
“a minefield of mutual recriminations, communal antagonisms, and
military confrontations.” The policy priorities of each country also
display tendencies to counter each other, or to be xenophobic in
relation to ‘the other’. Public policy choices have inadequately
responded to people’s aspirations and the paramount importance of
establishing peace in the region.
It might not be useful to assess the perceptual direction of either
government here. Postcolonial states operate in a security-obsessed
frame, and focus more on the use of violence rather than on the compact
they need to draw with the citizenry. This is where cultural
interaction and cross-border initiatives assume immense importance.
When the cricket visas were issued after a hiatus of decades in 2005,
the exceptional warmth in Lahore astounded visitors from India. In so
many ways, formal identities were challenged and shifted around in
those days, as thousands thronged the streets and the cricket stadiums
of Lahore. Track II diplomacy in the past has also been a favourite
among the liberal intelligentsia of the two countries. However,
cynicism in view of the failure of that mode of informal diplomacy has
also been a part of public discourse.
The interaction of the two countries’ populations has been limited
since the past six decades. Today, a miniscule number of families have
relatives across the border. Despite aggressive posturing from their
inception, India and Pakistan could not stop families from travelling
to and fro, meeting relatives, friends and other associates. Wars in
1965 and 1971 exacerbated the divide between Indians and Pakistanis,
and such ties were not restored even in the 1980s, when small
skirmishes in adverse regions (Siachen, for instance) and tactical
posturing (especially Operation Brass Tacks of 2002) were launched.
Prior to the 1965 war, Indian cinema was a major cultural force; since
the banning of Indian films,television and later video technologies
filled the gap. In Pakistan, General Zia’s oppressive rendition of
Islam spelt doom for Pakistan’s previously vibrant and socially
representative cinematic industry. While some actors and actresses were
outbound for India in search of better opportunity, cultural ties with
India were put on the backburner and the only relationship that was
promoted was of a competitive kind, mostly in sports such as cricket.
Such interactions served the designs of both governments well,
especially for the winning team in cases where the stakes of pride and
perception remain high. Indeed, if cricket and the rivalry with India
were not hyped-up as the only regional interaction with India,
Pakistani cricketers would not have to face a storm of smelly
vegetables on their arrival from a defeat handed down by Indian teams.
Thus, the experiment of SAARC and its twenty-something years of
existence has been limited and has been held hostage to chauvinism.
Politics and history continue to dominate discussions on how culture
can transcend national boundaries and mutual hostilities. As a spin-off
of official inter-governmental agreements, the SAARC processes have
unleashed a large number of unofficial interactions and contacts among
various sets of people and institutions, including NGOs, professionals,
academics, the media and civil society.
Amid the shifting sands of our globalised life, it is evident that
cultural cooperation across imagined and real borders is imminently
possible. Cultural exchange, therefore, is not only a lived reality but
also an endless, ever-expanding possibility shaping new spaces of
resistance against officialdom. It is almost a parallel reality of
composite and truncated ‘talks’ that are neither routine nor
result-oriented.
***
Perhaps the greatest metaphor for Foundation of South Asian Writers and
Literature FOSWAL is its moving spirit, the eminent Indian writer Ajeet
Caur, who was once a Lahoreite, and left her beloved city in the
aftermath of Partition. There is no question that she is an Indian, a
Punjabi woman and a creative writer, all layers of multifaceted
identities. However, her single-minded pursuit of setting up a South
Asian forum and focus on India and Pakistan undermines the
compartmentalized nation-state mentality too familiar to us.
The FOSWAL arranged the first ever India-Pakistan writer’s conference
in 1987. In fact, most of the participants of Track-II diplomacy
recognized FOSWAL as an important component of the dialogue process.
Culture has become an important component of the overall potential for
any dialogue in South Asia; such is the power of cultural identity, and
the specific dynamic supporting regional cohesion that exists in South
Asia today. Over time, FOSWAL has created a sizable fraternity of
writers, poets, scholars, diplomats, academics and intellectuals
through its multifaceted initiatives. It has consistently advocated the
ideals of SAARC, particularly in the areas of literature, art and
culture as per its mandate. In doing so, FOSWAL has contributed
significantly to the overarching objective of peace and prosperity in
South Asia, as well as the development of a common and cohesive
regional identity. Would it really be that difficult to connect the
dots between cultural interaction, agreement and assimilation, and then
broad-based recognition and acceptance thereon? Suffice it to say,
progressive culture may indeed serve as a prerequisite to the
achievement of a collective identity.
My own association with FOSWAL has brought me closer to a nuanced
reality of literary exchange. Attending the SAARC Writer’s Festival
earlier this year in Agra was reassuring. The festival’s theme related
to the role of writers and literature against terrorism. The backdrop
was the Mumbai carnage of November 2008 that accentuated hostilities
and the traditional blame-game between the partitioned neighbours.
Cultural expression in the form of festivals and ‘breaking boundaries’
is forceful enough to raise questions about the legitimacy of a
particular identity. The history of ‘cultural commonalities’ is
pervasive and transcends officially sanctioned borders. Otherwise, why
would a Tamil poem make sense to a Punjabi, and a Bengali short story
connect with the reality of another distant South Asian location? It is
sad to see that conflictual, power-obsessed politics of South Asian
nation states undermine the cultural heritage of the South Asian region.
FOSWAL, by facilitating discourse on truncated identities and
splintered communities, reminds us that we are continuously shaping a
South Asian identity , howsoever daunting the task may be.
***
Identity formation is a multifarious and complex – sometimes convoluted
– process. For instance, what is the resultant identity arrangement
between, let’s say, a Pakistani Muslim, an Indian Hindu, an Indian
Muslim, and a Pakistani Hindu from Karachi? Cultural exchanges,
products and commerce around it – have the transitive effect of shaping
a broader and transnational reality of existence. Increasingly,
globalisation and regional interaction have swelled into the enhanced
exchange of ideas, of people, of resources, and have ultimately
generated a more common and shared perception of the world. For
instance, the widespread use of the Internet and mobile telephones has
diversified the range of information, entertainment and knowledge of
South Asians.
The KaraFilm Festival is the epitome of modern cinematic revival in
Pakistan. But categorizing and simplifying KaraFilm just like that –
like words that can be bound by meaning – is constrictive and
ultimately redundant. Hasan Zaidi, the director of the festival, has
rightfully asserted that “Kara is significant because in a society
where … we were told to shun filmmaking as a profession, and where the
state abdicated its role in promoting cinema, Kara stood up and made a
difference.” As Kara has proved, even in a society as closed and as
confused as Pakistan, cultural activity has a niche, and a huge one at
that.
The essence of KaraFilm points to the emergence of Karachi as a modern
South Asian cosmopolitan and cultural centre amidst the
quickly-developing economies and polities of the region. Kara is
stepping beyond ‘traditional’ self-constructed boundaries, reducing
these constructs of fear, jingoism and xenophobia that are so easily
constructed from the flimsiest of materials. It is promoting an
environment of amity that deepens cultural development and heals the
wounds that hurt to this day.
****
The Jaipur Writers’ Festival – celebrating its third year in January
2009 – is a seminal South Asian literary congregation. It symbolizes
the need for South Asian culture to be collectively celebrated while
dialoguing with the global literati.
Hosted at the Diggi Palace Hotel in the pink city of Jaipur in January
every year, the festival is a vibrant celebration of national and
international writers, encompassing a range of activities including
film, music and theatre. The festival programme includes readings,
talks, literary lunches, debates, performance, and a multitude of other
interactive forums where both prominent and budding personalities of
South Asian culture develop and stoke a unique ‘melting pot’ of an
exciting new regional identity.
Nothing can be more revealing of the vanguard element that the Jaipur
Literature Festival has provided to the quest for a South Asian
identity than the fact that in 2007, at the first celebration of this
cultural festival, notable authors like Salman Rushdie and Kiran Desai
were in attendance. The quality and cast only got better in 2008; Ian
McEwan, Christopher Hampton, Manil Suri, Aparna Sen and Kamila Shamsie
were part of the world-class cultural ensemble at this festival. The
Bollywood superstar actor/director Aamir Khan and Pakistan’s Fatima
Bhutto were also part of the programme, signifying the important
strides made in acknowledging the cornerstones of South Asia’s young
and modern identity.
At Jaipur in 2009, new Pakistani writing was well represented along
with other world writers. The festival explores multiple genres such as
travel writing, fiction, history, and even children’s literature. The
theme of writing that transcends borders emerges repeatedly at the
event.
***
It would be naïve to state that the nuclear armed states with roving
fundamentalists of Hindu and Muslim variety could be tamed and put on
an alternative trajectory by cross-border exchanges. Having said that,
amicably negotiated cultural exchanges demonstrate how peace can be
secured even when there are acrimonies embedded in our collective
experiences.
Cultural exchange reveals how a tentative South Asian identity is in
the proverbial ‘pipeline’, and it is in the process of formulation.
There is a long journey ahead amid hatreds which are not uncommon
either. But then, rediscovering and reclaiming shared cultures could
resist the clamping of boundaries and challenge the mutually
destructive paths that Indian and Pakistani states have imposed as our
destinies. There is no alternative to fostering institutions that let
writers, thinkers, artists and musicians accelerate educational
interaction and cultural production beyond the bounds of nation states.
Published with the permission of author.
Source : http://www.razarumi.com
(Raza Rumi is a freelance writer from Lahore, Pakistan. He regularly writes for the Pakistani weekly The Friday Times, The News and Daily DAWN on myriad topics such as history, arts, literatue and society.)
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