India and Pakistan are perhaps the unruliest of neighbours. Despite
being practically identical in every sense of the word (The spoken Urdu of
Pakistan is practically indistinguishable from the spoken Hindi of India and as
was often repeated at the Institute of South Asian Studies in Singapore – Delhi
and Lahore have more in common than Delhi and Chennai), India and Pakistan can’t
seem to get along. The inability of the South Asian nations is at best, fun for
an outsider to watch (I confess to being glued to the Beating the Retreat
ceremony at Wagah on Youtube, which can be found at:
This is easily the best display of macho-marching that is
beautifully synchronized despite the fact that both sides are trained to kill
each other rather than work together, and you have to consider this a
compliment as I’m from Singapore where all our military does is to train to
march.
Then, I should not forget that both these nations are cricket
mad and a match between these was more entertaining than an England vs Germany
football match (where the English would inevitably bring up World War II or the
1966 World Cup, being the last two events where they beat the Germans at). Funnily
enough, the Indians that I used to get work from actually respected the fact
that one of my cricket heroes was “Wasim Akram, one of the greatest fast
bowlers around (it also helped that I openly support the great Sachin
Tandulkar). You can see the great Wasim Akram and equally great Sachin
Tendulkar at:
Unfortunately, the South Asian rivalry has a nasty twist to it.
As one Indian Expat said, “Singapore and Malaysia have constructive competition
– you build a port, I build a better one – you have an F1 race, I’ll make a
better one, unlike India and Pakistan, where it’s a case of you have a nuclear
bomb, I build a bigger one.” Ever since the South Asian nations got it into
their minds to build nuclear bombs, the world has crapped in its pants at the
thought of these two engaging in an all-out war.
The saving grace to this nasty aspect of their rivalry has
been the fact that the Pakistanis are smart enough to know that they’d probably
lose in an all-out war. In South Asia, India is by far and away the big elephant
and everyone else in the region pays tribute to the biggest creature in the
jungle. While the Pakistani Military wields considerably more power in Pakistan
than the Indian military in India, the Pakistanis have lost miserably in every
war they’ve fought with their much larger neighbor. At the time of writing, India
spends five times more on its military than Pakistan and has four times more
people in its military. A comparison of military strength can be found at:
To put it bluntly, Pakistan has better odds in beating in
India on the cricket pitch than it does in a head-to-head military
confrontation and the Pakistani Generals know that. So, what do they do? The
answer has been to play a dangerous game of supporting terrorist groups who
have it in for India. These groups have a way of making India uncomfortable but
it gives Pakistan deniability. The Generals in Pakistan have also made friends
with the only nation bigger than their rival – China (while China uses Pakistan
to undermine India, the Chinese are also great capitalist and know where the
bigger and more prosperous market is).
In the past, the South Asian neighbours have managed to find
a way of pulling back from an all-out war. The international community has
worked tirelessly to pull both sides back from the brink and the Indian side
has usually shown the greater ability to control itself.
The latest one was slightly different for the simple reason
that the Indian Prime Minister, Nahrendra Modi is facing an upcoming election.
Mr. Modi, who won an election based on being a tough-no-nonsense competent
doer. Mr. Modi is under pressure to get tough on Pakistan and the Jihadis who
attacked Kashmir in mid-February of this year. Mr. Modi ordered the Indian
Airforce to retaliate and sent jets to bomb parts of Pakistan proper. The Pakistanis
did put up a fight and a plane was shot down. Anyone who remembered the Israeli
shelling of Lebanon of 2006 over the capture of two members of the IDF would
have thought that war was about to break out.
It didn’t and ironically, the person to thank is Pakistan’s newly
elected Prime Minister, Imran Khan. Mr. Khan was Pakistan’s former cricket
captain (lead them to a world cup victory against England – School stopped for
the day) and a former playboy turned religious devotee, whose political career
has been all about dealing with the awful corruption in Pakistan.
Mr. Khan declared that he would release the Indian pilot,
Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman and he did so, but not after the Pakistanis
managed to get a video of the Wing Commander praising his Pakistani captors for
being professional. The Wing Commander’s release is documented at:
The move was brilliant. Mr. Khan, who is in some sectors of
the Western media accused of being in the pocket of the Generals, showed himself
to be an independent minded statesman, who was trying to avert a nuclear war.
In short Mr. Khan, a “newbie” in the realm of international politics had, in a single
stroke put the heat back on his more experienced Indian counterpart to show
that he too was capable of doing the right thing.
What incident shows is that India suddenly has a different
opponent to deal with. While, previous Pakistani leaders were either “corrupt”
civilians (Both the late Benazir Bhutto and the previous Prime Minister, Nawaz
Sharief had careers marred by corruption charges) or military men who were
obsessed with fighting India. While politics in India is not known for being
clean either, India has basked in the glow of being “the world’s largest
democracy” and thanks to its IT boom, India is seen to have grown its economy
into the modern ages while Pakistan languished in the feudal.
Not only was India in the stronger position militarily and
economically but it had the better press, which only seemed to enhance its economic
and military superiority.
However, things may change with Khan. Unlike his predecessors,
he’s developed a reputation for honesty with the people and to a certain
extent, his image is that of competence. His gesture of freeing the Wing Commander
has given him a massive PR victory over his Indian counterpart.
The Indians are a little upset as can be seen in this news
clip from the Indian media:
But it needs to look at other ways to deal with the issue
rather than be “sour” about it. The world knows that India is the bigger power
and so the world expects more of India than it does of Pakistan. The trick in
dealing with Mr. Khan, is perhaps to make an appearance of trying to help Mr.
Khan out in trying to make Pakistan a more prosperous place. Mr. Khan has even
gotten better in his PR by declaring that he is “not worthy of the Nobel Prize”
when the media in Pakistan declared that he should get one.
What can Mr. Khan do? Perhaps the trick is to somehow do
something about what he’s promised. Mr. Khan has played the PR game masterfully
but as every PR consultant will tell you – you need to have something to back
up the message
Perhaps the area that Mr. Khan can make the most of things
is to return back to his old career – cricket. It’s the one thing that both sides
can agree on and what could be a better place to start by creating more
opportunities for both sides to meet and play cricket. When people play
together, the less likely they are to end up going to war. Sport helps people
relive their rivalries without actually getting nasty (though English football
has examples where this isn’t necessarily true).
I believe the cricketeer, could do wonders if he managed to build
an entire relationship with the rest of the world around his old job.
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