Kargil's New Legacy

Just a few days after the Kargil crisis erupted, two of my Pakistani friends whom I'd met during my bus ride to Lahore in that hope-filled month of February were in New Delhi on a business visit. Ordinary businessmen, selling dates and badam in India and taking back goods like chillies, they were sincerely apologetic. Said one: 'Very few people in Pakistan support what the so-called mujahideen have done in Kargil. This is against the spirit of what our two PMs tried to do in Lahore. Many people honestly believe that your wazir-e-azam alone is capable of taking forward the Lahore peace process.' My friend then added: 'We know many Muslims in India who think the same way.'

One of the millions of such Indian Muslims is Syed Mohammed Nur-ur-Rahman Barkati, Imam of the Tipu Sultan Masjid one of the biggest mosques in Calcutta. Another personal acquaintance, he rang me up a few days ago to repeat what he'd said at a religious congregation: 'We Muslims in India are fully behind our prime minister and the armed forces. India extended the hand of friendship, but Pakistan betrayed our trust. Nawaz Sharif and the intruders have pursued a path that has no sanction in Islam.'

These are just two examples of how Kargil has changed many assumptions, perceptions and beliefs. Of deep social and political significance is the new strength these changes have imparted to our national unity especially Hindu-Muslim unity. For the first time since independence and partition, India is relatively free of communal tension during an armed conflict with Pakistan. There is, by and large, no suspicion and finger-pointing anywhere. Even the ugly incident involving actor Dilip Kumar perhaps occurred as an exception to prove the rule that all the people of India Muslims as much as Hindus are united in mind, heart and soul in beating back Pakistan's naked aggression.

This rock-like unity has been evident throughout India ever since the Kargil conflict began. The essential Indianness of our national personality has revealed itself in many inspiring sounds and sights in the past few weeks. The brave words of martyr Lt Haneefuddin's mother have had the same effect on Hindus as the picture of Captain Jayashree saluting the coffin of her slain husband, Major Vivek Gupta, has had on the mind of the Indian Muslim.

Hindus and Muslims have marched together in town after town, in village after village, wherever the bodies of our martyred jawans arrived for cremation or burial. All-faith prayer meetings have taken place all over the country. In fact, a few days ago, staying up late to watch the Brazil-Argentina match in the Copa America tournament, I was thrilled to see my cable operator run the full proceedings of a meeting of Muslims in the Jama Masjid area in Old Delhi. Speaker after fiery speaker lambasted Pakistan's gaddaari and called the actions of the self-styled mujahideen anti-Islamic.

For many Indians, one of the most elevating moments a moment when my belief about the need to work for Hindu-Muslim unity was reinforced came during the cricketers vs filmstars football match played at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium for Sahara's Kargil Fund. It was when poet Javed Akhtar recited his new song Deewarein bhi hum hain Maa, Talwaare bhi hum hain Maa, and topped it off with a roaring salutation of Vande Mataram. Having travelled with Javed Akhtar to Lahore in February, I know how popular indeed, instantly recognisable he is in Pakistan, as are our Shahrukh Khans and Salman Khans who played in the same match. Pakistanis who saw the match on TV must have contrasted this display of Hindu-Muslim unity in an hour of national crisis with the mood of sullenness and confusion in their own country.

It's not just the military and diplomatic defeat that has created this simmering discontent in Pakistani society. It is, rather, the realisation that what their rulers and so-called 'freedom fighters' did was not only wrong but has also had a costly boomerang effect. One only has to read the internet editions of Pakistani papers like The Dawn and The News to get an idea of the depth of this mood of despair and disaffection over Kargil in Pakistani society.

This sense, that what the Pakistani establishment did is wrong and unjustifiable by the yardstick of both nationalism and Islamic principles, is what has like never before united Indian Muslims with the country's angry mood. Of course, a majority of Muslims were one with the national mood even at the time of the '65 and '71 wars. Kargil, however, has brought about both a quantitative and qualitative change in Indian Muslims' perception towards Pakistan, especially its ruling establishment. It is as if, after five long decades, Indian Muslims have finally and fully come out of the shadow of Partition. Hindus in India have also begun to perceive this new reality, which is why there is no communal suspicion in the air. These changes in perception augur well for our national unity in the coming years.

That these happy changes are taking place when India is being governed by a bjp-led coalition is a significant fact. Under Atal Behari Vajpayee's short rule, India's been remarkably free of communal tension and riots, a sad legacy of the past whose worst victims were innocent Muslims.

After Kargil, therefore, Indian Muslims are likely more than at any time in the past to ignore the call of divisive politics. These calls are usually given at election time by vote-bank politicians who, in Nur-ur-Rahman Barkati's words, 'have created a bogey of secularism'. Muslims will become more and more vocal in demanding, along with ordinary Hindus, rightful representation in running the affairs of the nation. And who can deny them, and the cause of national unity, this just demand?

(The author is an aide to the Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee)