The death, last week, of Christopher Lee—a famous Hollywood icon—at the ripe old age of 93 touched off a hectic cyber debate in—of all the places—Pakistan.
Lee had been famous, universally, for his portrayal of Count Dracula in a number of Hollywood flicks. However, the Pakistani interest in Lee was vested entirely because of the lead role of Mohammad Ali Jinnah played by him in the 1998 biographical film, Jinnah.
The debate was triggered by some quick-witted hacks taking a pot shot at the aficionados of Jinnah, played on the silver screen by an actor whose name was synonymous with Dracula in most minds. Understandably, it didn’t sit well with the fans of Jinnah.
Legions of them unleashed their fury on the mealy-mouthed pranksters, who then paid back in kind. A full blown war of words, typical of the low threshold of patience and tolerance that we, South Asians, are known for, was on.
The movie, Jinnah, was itself, typically, a half-hearted Pakistani attempt to catch on with the worldwide acclaim that the 1982 film, Gandhi, had earned for everyone associated with it. Sir Richard Attenborough’s masterpiece wasn’t only a blockbuster at the box office but it also cashed in heavily on its artistic merit with a number of Oscars. Ben Kingsley, the little-known actor (before he played Gandhi on screen), became an instant celebrity and a household name internationally.
The point missed by those cyberspace sabre-rattlers in the Christopher Lee/Jinnah debate was that an actor doesn’t become the character he plays on screen. Nor, by the same stroke, should a historical figure—Gandhi or Jinnah or anybody else, for that matter—be juxtaposed on the actor or evaluated through him or her.
Cool minds—of which colonial Britons thought there was a conspicuous dearth if not absence in the subcontinent—should’ve reasoned like this: It was an honour for Ben Kingsley to have played Gandhi, just as it was a feather in “Dracula Lee’s” cap that he portrayed Jinnah. That should’ve clinched the argument and ended the controversy.
But cool mind still isn’t cool in the sub-continental paradigm, and the long shadows of this glaring deficiency extend as far as politics and leadership. In fact, it seems sadly more conspicuous by its absence in the current leadership cadres of India and Pakistan.
But, wait; don’t forget to include the third leg of the South Asian subcontinent, Bangladesh, in the list, too.
A dangerously escalating war of words seems to have been kicked off—if inadvertently, to give the benefit of doubt to its proponents and participants.
PM Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Bangladesh, in the first week of June, was the starting point of the fencing game going on in earnest between India and Pakistan on its heels.
Modi went to Dhaka to sign a historic land agreement with Bangladesh. But he also availed of his presence there to accept an award on behalf of former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The award from Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina Wajid, was in recognition of Vajpayee’s persuasive advocacy of the cause of the then East Pakistan’s liberation. Vajpayee was, then, an opposition member of the Lok Sabha.
What got the Pakistanis’ goat was that Hasina Wajid also presented Modi, on that occasion, a framed photograph of the historic and ignominious surrender by General “Tiger” Niazi, then in command of the Pakistani military in East Pakistan, to his Indian counterpart, General Aurora, at Dhaka’s Paltan Maidan on December 16, 1971.
The Pakistani debacle in Dhaka, and the rise of a sovereign Bangladesh from its ashes, is a very sore point in the Pakistani psyche. The nation, on the whole, isn’t yet prepared to accept that Bangladesh was the result of its own shortcomings and poor policies in regard to then Pakistan’s majority Bengali populace.
India’s active military intervention in East Pakistan, on behalf of those fighting Pakistan for liberation, is the heavy overlay in the official narrative of what sundered Pakistan and spawned Bangladesh. To buttress the narrative, it’s a common refrain to allude to Indira Gandhi’s affirmation, after Dhaka’s fall, that it had dealt a mortal blow to the two-nation theory (the raison d’être of Pakistan’s birth) and buried it for good.
Hasina Wajid has been stoking the Pakistani ire with her decision to go after those who’d “collaborated” with Pakistan army. Several of those have been hung in recent months. Pakistanis have called it a crude witch-hunt and vendetta.
Modi, too, got the Pakistani tails up with his remarks, in his address at Dhaka University, in which he pointedly accused Pakistan of creating “nuisance” and promoting “terrorism”.
Tempers in Pakistan had been flared up, earlier, by Indian defence minister Manohar Parrikar’s assertion to use terrorism to check terrorism. His words, “Kante se kanta nikalna” (removing a thorn with a thorn) was seen in Pakistan as a blatant declaration by India to “sponsor” its own terrorism. Manohar’s Pakistani counterpart, Khwaja Asif, decried it as proof of “Indian involvement in terrorist activities on Pakistani soil”.
Pakistani hackles have been raised, in the latest incident, by the Indian junior minister for information and broadcasting, Colonel (retired) R S Rathore’s bellicose statement—in the wake of India air force’s surgical strikes against militants inside the Myanmar territory—that “western disturbances will also be equally dealt with”. That was seen in Pakistan as a direct threat. Interior minister Nisar blurted in anger that Pakistan was not Myanmar.
The Pakistani rhetoric has touched a feverish pitch in the wake of these provocative remarks from members of the Modi government. The chorus of condemnation of Indian “jingoism: has been joined by cabinet ministers, media gurus and pundits who couldn’t afford to be left out of the national narrative when it comes to trading fire with fire with Pakistan’s “enemy number one”.
The Pakistani senate has passed a resolution of condemnation of India; leaders and opinion-makers of all shades and flavours have joined the chorus calling upon the government to launch a campaign of informing the United Nations and the world of India’s “hostile designs” against Pakistan.
Of course, the rising crescendo blends well with the military brass’ accusation that Indian intelligence was “whipping up terrorism” in Pakistan. As on most previous occasions, the tone of the national rhetoric has been set by the military’s take on India.
All this verbal sabre-rattling could just be storm in a tea cup, a typical rehash of periodic war of words between peoples who think later but speak first. But it could also spin out of control and escalate into something more menacing. Nuclear powers—that both India and Pakistan are—need to deploy far more caution and restraint than has been in evidence between the two adversaries.
One would’ve thought that the “balance of nuclear terror” would also be a check against verbal duels. Apparently it isn’t; at least not so far.
Karamatullah K Ghori is a former Pakistani diplomat. Email: k_k_ghori@yahoo.com
