(Part 5)
A Requiem to Pakistan
Pakistan to me was East Punjab. An enigmatic place from where my grandparents came. They felt betrayed. They could not understand why they had to move. My grandfather would ask “Kings Change Not the Population. Why we were replaced?” Apparently, he had not read about population exchange between Turkey and Greece. But he did know about Gandhi’s promise. Gandhi had said that Pakistan would be built on his dead body. He lied.
Gandhi made no protest. He did not fast for atonement of his lie and Pakistan was created by Partition of India. India’s wheat bowl became west Pakistan, and rice bowl became east Pakistan. India had to import wheat from USA which sent the wheat meant for cattle feed. It was called PL 480.
The ancestors in the family never talked about the loss. Rarely about anything in the past. No detailed memories of streets or houses. No tales of what was left behind. Just the knowledge that they came from a place near Lahore, and occasional mention about the wealth and opulence that was left behind.
There was a conscious effort, not to transfer grief. Their silence was its own kind of grief. The choice not to speak, not to burden the next generation with loss they couldn’t fix or understand.
The life had to be built from scratch. And it was built. We built it. Today India is in position to export wheat and it does export to UAE and perhaps other gulf countries. Recently India exported rice to Bangladesh. Reversal is complete.
The inheritance that ancestors left behind is not missed by this generation. They have created their own wealth to pass on to their children. The life had been busy. There was never a dull moment. Not until 2020.
Partition of India is a subject matter of many authors. Seervai analysed it with ‘Partition Papers’ and reached to one conclusion. Wali Khan came to opposite conclusion. On closer analysis it appears that both were right. A suspicious man finds what he suspects.
Hussain Haqqani and Tariq Fateh have written about Pakistan and its Islamic version but not about every day life in it. Tariq Fateh had left Pakistan several decades ago and may not know about its ‘progress’. The truth is that Pakistan is discussed in abstract. It is not discussed as a society. It is discussed for its governance but not about the governed.
2008 Mumbai which displayed live terror attack removed any ambiguity about hostile intentions of Pakistan. No amount of narrative to distinguish civil society of Pakistan and its Army could erase the memories created on live TV. Picture of a 20 year old boy called Ajmal Kasab would hound Pakistan for ever. But Pakistan doubled down on its efforts to cause pain in India.
The killing of 26 persons in Pahalgam, Kashmir on 22 April 2025, after checking their religion is not brutality, it is a brazen declaration of continuing intent of Pakistan to inflict injury on India. Provocative speeches by Asim Munir after the suspension of Operation Sindoor are a reflection on the perceptive power of the general population we discussed in part 4.
Pandemic in 2020 was something that was not seen in last 3 generations. Suddenly we had TV, Internet, and Time. Lots of time. We could do anything we liked but inside our home. There was one condition that we could not go back to our routine we had so carefully built over the years if not decades.
YouTube unleashed its power to disseminate raw, unedited content. There was no Priest editing its content. The most interesting content was from Pakistan praising India. It does not matter if the praise was genuine or not. The important thing was the background on the streets of Lahore. The other important thing was their diction and vocabulary. The issues they raised were not important, how they did it was important.
The shock was in the background and it was neither the poverty nor the squalor. It was complete absence of women in the streets. No women shop keepers. Every Pakistani Television channel has women anchors but that was it. Women are apparently not encouraged to be independent. Most YouTubers were themselves women. Yet they called them ‘female’ not women. Choice of anatomical word was interesting. It reduces a person to an object and here women were doing it themselves, every day. But this was Pakistani English.
Rarely did these YouTubers find other women to talk to without their husband or mehram lurking in the dark. Then there were incidents in which a woman wearing a dress on which something was written in Arabic, was considered as blasphemous. She was about to be lynched and was saved by a woman police officer.
Then there were YouTubers from India who were showing clippings from Pakistani YouTubers and television which they found humorous. Today I saw that Md, Arfaq, a student in Pakistan, had built a model of fighter aircraft in the shape of a tortoise. A teenager with little beard and a skull cap demonstrated it. He is studying in alim class of madarsa in Pakistan proves the point about cognitive disorder. He has two missiles in aircraft under its tortoiseshell. But he gives no details of engine which will power it or the metal with which it will be forged.
Then there are preachers with confused beards, who tell stories of paradise (jannat). They taught that Al Kausar is the best in all classes of jannat. They were telling all kinds of everyday “do and do not” when they were not describing houris. Men have liberties and women have duties. That is the sum of it all. Many of the grotesque dictates of Moulvis are not worth documentation. These border on depravity if not predatory absurdity.
The most hilarious is the TV channels of Pakistan. The confidence on their faces while spreading gossip is amazing. It appears they actually believe in the gossip. It is unfair to dignify their gossip as propaganda which is a serious business.
The YouTubers from India have found a perpetual source of amusement in videos from Pakistan. For me it was an interesting subject for analysis. The details of the analysis have been already documented earlier in 4 parts.
This was reverse engineering. Pakistani media carefully frames what to show. Women anchors on TV. Praise for India in YouTube videos. But the camera cannot lie about everything. The background reveals what the foreground hides. The absence of women in streets. The vocabulary that reduces them to anatomy. The cognitive failures presented as achievements. What was carefully excluded from the narrative appeared accidentally in the frame.
What I have experienced is an archaeological grief for a civilization which is no more. A civilization I could claim as my own. A civilization I never knew if it existed. Yet I think it did, if Parchaiyan and Kabacha had any semblance of truth. For the record now this TV show has nothing special anymore. But in 1980’s, it was something far superior than anything shown on State run TV in India. It was an adaptation from “A Portrait of Lady.” That explains it.
Now an entire population is reduced to comedy arising from their own acts.
References:
- Red wheat from USA: https://www.bhaskarenglish.in/originals/news/us-once-sent-animal-grade-red-wheat-to-india-136637999.html
- Surah Al-Kausar: https://mishkahacademy.com/surah-kausar-transliteration-and-translation/
- Husband marrying four times is a sacrifice: https://youtube.com/shorts/CdehS6MgQj0?si=7ll9JlvbCCApKlwc
- Parchaiyan Episode 3 &4:
More articles on Pakistan:
Part 1: https://sandeepbhalla.in/pakistan-a-land-that-was-india/
Part 2: https://sandeepbhalla.in/what-is-the-future-of-pakistan/
Part 3: https://sandeepbhalla.in/it-sectors-negligible-contribution-in-pakistan/
Part 4: https://sandeepbhalla.in/cognitive-decline-in-pakistan-is-shocking/