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Elite liberals should have no say in India-Pakistan peace building

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Omair Ahmad
Omair AhmadNov 12, 2016 | 15:50

Elite liberals should have no say in India-Pakistan peace building

There is a legal concept called “homo sacer”. A part of ancient Roman law, this means “sacred” or “accursed” man, who can be killed by anyone without legal consequences, a person who has no rights.

There is no community that exemplifies this so much in India and Pakistan as the self-described “liberals”.

These are people who are determined to take on the vast illiterate hordes in their own country, who “know better”, and are willing to talk with the “enemy”.

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They talk of the people they know – their little bubble of those educated at elite institutions, quite often in the US and the UK – who might be Indian or Pakistan by passport, but whose citizenship is really to the land of the privileged. The wine with which they toast each other is named “disconnectedness”.

It is not that these people are bad, or have bad ideas, but they are not perceived by the vast majority of their co-citizens as people who have had similar opportunities, or face similar threats. Because a large number of them have studied at elite institutions, and have achieved positions of status, they are admired at times of peace, but that admiration turns very quickly to a sense of envy and resentment at times of crisis.

The first accusation against liberals of this kind when things get rough is, “What do you know? When have you suffered like a common man or woman?”

As Karan Johar was humiliated and blackmailed as his film, Ae Dil Hai Mushkil was about to be released, there was a profound lack of sympathy for him.

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Few displayed any sympathy for Karan Johar.

As he released his video of “apology” for casting a Pakistani actor in his film, we were witness to the destruction of his rights (a destruction that was facilitated, to his eternal shame, by Devendra Fadnavis) as a homo sacer.

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People were appalled by his behaviour, some blamed him, others blamed the MNS, while still others blamed Devendra Fadnavis and Narendra Modi, who personally chose Fadnavis as chief minister of Maharashtra.

Very few displayed any sympathy for Karan Johar – he was too rich, too well-attired, too privileged, therefore his rights did not matter.

In Johar’s humiliation we saw also the powerlessness of the peace-building community, who thought that with a few good movies featuring a good-looking star or two, we could all go whistling to the horizons of peace.

Peace is not a joke, nor can it be won by ignoring the serious problems that exist between the two countries.

I remember speaking to a young man from India’s new start-up tech communities who said, “Given all that we have suffered from Pakistan, why should we have peace?”

This is the question that has to be answered, and it cannot be answered by saying, “Hey, I know, and sympathise with other elite people in the other country, and they are just like us, suffering from fools and bigots in government that they dislike, just as we dislike our own.”

Even if this is true – and it is verifiably not true for at least a strong section of the community that are fools and bigots who hate each other – of what interest is that to a common Indian? Why do we need peace, what does it get us, just some pretty actor in a film?

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Peace has to mean more than that. It has to be shown that it is in the interest of the common Indian, of the vast majority of Indians, and that argument is one that many liberals fail to make.

It is the argument of the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline which would lead to a huge profits for Pakistan and Iran, and cheap fuel for Indians.

It is the argument of trans-boundary trade to Afghanistan, which would benefit not just Afghanistan and Pakistan, but would allow India to access minerals and dry fruits from Afghanistan and Central Asia.

It is the argument of the thousands of soldiers and civilians who have died on the notional line after the 1947-48 war in Jammu and Kashmir, who continue to die and be injured every single day while that line moves not an inch.

It is the argument that – as India tries to do the difficult dance between a rising China and a retreating US – that hostility with Pakistan fatally undercuts our freedom of movement.

It is the argument that while both India and Pakistan call themselves the bridge between east and west, while they are in conflict the bridge is broken. The road leads to a dead end.

We make peace when it is in our self-interest, not because it is the nice thing to do with people we like. Unfortunately too much of the argument by peace building remains that it is about India being “nice”, being “a great civilisation”, living up to being a country that won Independence by non-violent means.

This is irrelevant. India is a country of the poor, desperately struggling to provide hundreds of millions of its citizens a life of minimal dignity, located in a complex neighbourhood and handling a very challenging international environment while climate change degrades our economy, our society and our security.

We cannot afford “nice” in such circumstances, we need self-interest.

Unless peace building helps us in this, it will never succeed, our elite liberals will remain admired and reviled in equal measure, but with no rights, and everything they touch will be easily sacrificed the moment we have a moment of crisis.

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Last updated: November 13, 2016 | 20:34
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