Maria Sartaj
The 2016 social media Pakistan-India war of words, memes and expletives was a stupefying sight on its own. In the last two weeks, citizens of both sides demonstrated that they are indeed related to each other — in blood, in history and in jingoism. On the Indian frontline was a very loud TV anchor, Arnab Goswami, leading the charge for his people, along with his defence analyst, Maroof Raza. On our side, the veteran columnist Nadeem Farooq Paracha and his ilk fell from grace, and succumbed to the pressure of showing their middle finger to their Indian readership online.
The inner extremist, unfortunately, came alive in most people disproving the oft-held belief that the common people of Pakistan and India want peace. The wounds of the partition are still kept alive, and the latest events were just fodder to that prejudice and distrust towards the other. Within us are deep lines of Hindu-Muslim demarcation that are often shrouded with civility to get by hence showing that our toxic waste is similar in nature too. They kill for beef, we kill for blasphemy. For every Yogi Adityanath they possess we have a Zaid Hamid or two. If Balochistan worries New Delhi, Islamabad concerns herself with Srinagar and the Naxalites. Now if we only had our own version of celebrated hate-monger Tarek Fateh to rattle them as much.
Peace lovers were a minority and nowhere to be seen during the did-it-happen-or-not ‘surgical strike’ days. You know what else was missing? On social media and elsewhere one could not spot a Pakistani who was willing to accept the possibility of a surgical strike, or an Indian who dismissed the narrative of Hindustani boots on our soil. It was a war of egos, of blind submission to one’s establishment.
Pakistanis treated the surgical strike as a comic film, for the Indians it belonged to the genre of melodrama. Return Dawood Ibrahim, they also demanded. Stop blinding innocent Kashmiris with pellet guns, our online army roared back. Your military regime hid Osama bin Laden in its backyard, why would you trust the picture it paints, mocked some Indians. You have elected a Gujarati man who oversaw the genocide of many Muslims, the Pakistanis reminded them. It was an endless game of tu-tu-main-main (blaming the other).
If Saadat Hasan Manto were alive today he would have laughed at the insanity that pursued the educated desis. Late novelist Khushwant Singh would have perhaps used a befitting expletive, in his nonpartisan and stout-hearted style, to describe the warmongers. Those who witnessed and wrote about the heartache and madness of 1947 would have easily identified the lurking murderer and rioting mob mentality in people who had a field day shooting online missiles at each other. Talk-to-them-in-a-language-they-understand ruled the day, so most people spoke rubbish. It was too tempting for Pakistanis to not repost a cheap joke about Indians being ugly and likewise, Indian parody accounts took pleasure in sharing their stereotypical mullah memes. Everyone had tuned in to their inner Sunny Deol to combat the sworn enemy through the Internet.
Then suddenly everything evolved into a battle about curbing Fawad Khan and his rising fortune. The ban on him would have surely delighted his jealous relatives and contemporaries. A few words of solace by him and others working in India to the families of the Uri attack victims — on humanitarian grounds — would have been a nice gesture but that never happened. A ban, however, on artists, sportspersons and creative content is a volatile arm-twisting at its regressive best.
In a few weeks when tensions simmer down, as they always have, the same anchors, politicians, citizens will talk of bhaichara (brotherhood) with their neighbouring country. This chameleon-like, hypocritical attitude prevents the two sisterly nations from writing new chapters in friendship; calls for peace ought to be made especially during times of conflict and not just when it is convenient. It becomes imperative then for the true peacenik to be more aggressive about his or her beliefs when everyone around him or her is losing their minds.
I have the ‘privilege’ of watching both Pakistani and Indian news channels at home, and in all fairness, the Indian media went overboard this time around. Some of their anchors routinely called in Pakistani guests on their shows to disrespect, mute and lecture them. It is a good way to earn ratings, but bad, of course, for general good will amongst people.
In conclusion, since everyone was being silly about war and displaying their bias, I have come up with a sillier yet pragmatic solution to years of Pakistan-India animosity. It will appease the people in the electronic media on both sides who have already aimed their guns at each other, and are secretly growing impatient with their respective government’s sluggish action towards an all-out nuclear bombardment.
So here’s my plan: let’s evacuate an entire city, somewhere by the border; we shall call it Jung-pur for now. Then all hate-mongers, TV anchors, analysts, politicos and keyboard warriors from both sides demanding war or glamourising an armed confrontation shall set a time and date for clash at Jung-pur. War enthusiasts will be allowed to bring weapons of their choice — homemade bombs, knives, high decibels, red chilli powder etc — and finish each other. They will be required to undertake a pledge to wipe out their enemy in Jung-pur, taking out all their frustration from past wars and recent almost-war moments. This way the rest of us in Pakistan and India will get to live in peace and carry on with making ends meet after our fanatics have been taken care of completely.
