In­ter­faith re­la­tion­ship ac­tivist and au­thor Dr Tarun­jit Singh Bu­talia de­scribes his first-hand ex­pe­ri­ence of the hate nar­ra­tive be­tween the two South Asian neigh­bours In­dia and Pak­istan dur­ing his trip to the re­gion. He fears the threat of nu­clear dis­as­ter over Pun­jab and his Pun­jabi blood yearns for peace be­tween the two war­ring coun­tries.

I just re­turned from a visit to South Asia. Right be­fore my visit, the ten­sions be­tween nu­clear ri­vals In­dia and Pak­istan were at an all-time high, with each side por­tray­ing the other as evil and the en­emy of its peo­ple.

Dur­ing my visit, I had the op­por­tu­nity to visit the In­dia-Pak­istan bor­der in Pun­jab, In­dia at Wa­gah, to watch the evening cer­e­mony of the low­er­ing flags by both coun­tries at the bor­der cross­ing. I ex­pected it to be a solemn event – but boy was I in for a sur­prise! It was a full-fledged Bol­ly­wood style ex­trav­a­ganza of loud­speak­ers and live pa­tri­o­tism, full-blast, be­ing led on both sides by the bor­der pro­tec­tion forces of each coun­try.

Every call from Pak­ista­nis sit­ting on the other side of the fence of “Pak­istan Zind­abad” (Long live Pak­istan) had to be an­swered with an even louder “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” (Glory to Mother In­dia) from the In­dian side – back and forth, equally dra­matic. In be­tween groups of in­di­vid­u­als would scream ob­scen­i­ties at those sit­ting across the bor­der, with oth­ers on the same side cheer­ing on proudly and laugh­ing. Each side had to drown out the voices of the other.

The armed forces per­son­nel lead­ing the cer­e­mony on both sides in­ter­acted with pre-re­hearsed vis­i­bly con­fronta­tional pos­tures and screams as if they were ready to at­tack the other side. No won­der the crowd was em­bold­ened into a pas­sion of hate­ful pa­tri­o­tism.

As I sat among the fren­zied In­dian crowd, the per­son sit­ting next to me in­quired why I was not be­ing a pa­tri­otic In­dian by join­ing in the fun. My re­sponse had him dumb­founded: “My an­ces­tors lived on the other side for cen­turies be­fore they mi­grated to In­dia through these very gates about 70 years ago. My an­ces­tral home still stands on the land on the other side, the same blood flows in us as in the Pak­ista­nis. I am a cit­i­zen of the USA, so want both coun­tries to live in peace and the land of my an­ces­tors can be healed.”

“My an­ces­tors lived on the other side for cen­turies be­fore they mi­grated to In­dia through these very gates about 70 years ago. My an­ces­tral home still stands on the land on the other side, the same blood flows in us as in the Pak­ista­nis. I am a cit­i­zen of the USA, so want both coun­tries to live in peace and the land of my an­ces­tors can be healed.”

His re­sponse was a loud an­nounce­ment that a Pak­istani agent was sit­ting next to him. As a Sikh who wears a tur­ban, I was clearly outed by my neigh­bour as an al­leged Pak­istani agent. The cho­rus around me grew an­grier, and I de­cided to leave the event for my own per­sonal safety. As I shuf­fled out from the crowd, I heard sev­eral peo­ple telling me to go to Pak­istan so when In­dia drops a nu­clear bomb on Pak­istan I can en­joy it. As I walked back to the park­ing lot, I imag­ined the same treat­ment be­ing meted out to some­one on the other side of the bor­der – go to In­dia and wait till we nuke them.

This was shock­ing – peo­ple are so an­gry and up­set at those on the other side that drop­ping nu­clear bombs on the other side of a man-made line of de­mar­ca­tion has be­come a joke, a way to de­mo­nize those on the other side. I have never seen such hate­ful pa­tri­o­tism in my life, al­though I have read of the be­hav­iour of some Trump sup­port­ers who ex­hibit sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments.

I can never for­get that my own coun­try – the United States of Amer­ica – is the only one to have used a nu­clear bomb ever in the his­tory of hu­mankind. And this is some­thing that we as Amer­i­cans still seem to be proud of – ut­terly dis­gust­ing.

While in Delhi be­fore re­turn­ing to Amer­ica, I vis­ited a street mar­ket for sou­venirs for my kids. On the way out, I no­ticed a mu­seum ded­i­cated to the for­mer Pres­i­dent of In­dia Ab­dul Kalam. I im­me­di­ately rec­og­nized his name, as he is con­sid­ered to be the pi­o­neer of In­di­a’s nu­clear arms pro­gram. Walk­ing through the mu­seum I no­ticed that his de­vel­op­ment of nu­clear weapons for In­dia was given spe­cial fo­cus. How ironic that the land of Gand­hi’s non-vi­o­lence was now so proud of nu­clear weapons!

Nu­clear war­fare be­tween the two na­tions would dec­i­mate Pun­jab – the Land of the Five Rivers and its peo­ple.

There is a sil­ver lin­ing. While ex­tremes in both In­dia and Pak­istan have the sup­port of the gov­ern­ment and the re­li­gious right, the vast ma­jor­ity on South Asians have a com­mon fu­ture. When the wind blows, it does not mat­ter which di­rec­tion it blows in. We are all in it to­gether.

It is well known that many of the nu­clear weapons of In­dia and Pak­istan are placed in the South Asian re­gion on Pun­jab – which is cur­rently di­vided be­tween the two coun­tries. Nu­clear war­fare be­tween the two na­tions would dec­i­mate Pun­jab – the Land of the Five Rivers and its peo­ple.

It is time for civil so­ci­ety in South Asia to work to­gether to­wards a se­cure com­mon in­ter­de­pen­dent fu­ture based on mu­tual trust rather than hate­ful pa­tri­o­tism.

       Dr Tarun­jit Singh Bu­talia is a board trustee of Sikh Coun­cil for In­ter­faith Re­la­tions, Par­lia­ment of the World’s Re­li­gions, and North Amer­i­can In­ter­faith Net­work and serves as Spe­cial Ad­vi­sor with Re­li­gions for Peace – USA. He has served on board of Na­tional Re­li­gious Coali­tion Against Tor­ture and World Sikh Coun­cil – Amer­ica Re­gion. Lo­cally he has worked with In­ter­faith As­so­ci­a­tion for Cen­tral Ohio for over 20 years and cur­rently is Mod­er­a­tor of its Pro­gram Com­mit­tee. He is co-ed­i­tor of land­mark book Re­li­gion in Ohio: Pro­files of Faith Com­mu­ni­ties and re­ceived the 2016 Lu­mi­nosa Award for Unity from Fo­co­lare Move­ment.

Cour­tesy: https:/​in­ter­faith-ob­server.square­space.com
Photo cour­tesy: Dr Tarun­jit Singh Bu­talia
Ti­tle Graphic: WSN De­sign Team