Pakistan: Now or Never?
Perspectives on Pakistan
Wagah – The tragicomedy of India-Pakistan
Most people who follow South Asia have either watched the Beating the Retreat ceremony at Wagah on the India-Pakistan border on video or been there in person. The farcical and choreographed display by goose-stepping soldiers from India and Pakistan as they slam shut the gates on the border crossing is such a staple for Western journalists that it has almost become too cliched to write about.
But having been there myself for the first time last week, after 10 years of following India and Pakistan, I can’t resist throwing in my own two cents’ worth.
The mood is already riotously cheerful as we arrive from Lahore, “Jai Ho” blasting out from loudspeakers on the Indian side, soon to be drowned out by loud music on the Pakistani side, accompanied by much banging of drums, clapping, flag-waving and dancing. The goose-stepping soldiers with their turbans appear and dance out their quadrilles to cries of ”Pakistan Zindabad” on our side of the gate, “Bharat Mata ki” on the other. The white gates with the Pakistani flag and the name of the country in both English and Urdu are still shut, so that my first impression of a country that I once lived in for four years is that I can hear India rather than see it.
Then the gates open and for the briefest of moments you imagine what it would be like if the crowds on either side could simply walk up to each other, hug and talk; perhaps even pass each other on their way along the Grand Trunk Road as it once was before partition in 1947. The day that happens, if and when it does, you would have to be a very hard person not to shed a tear. For me, at that moment, the fun of the ceremony was lost.
A spectacle that had initially seemed colourful and amusing became farce. Gone was the suspension of disbelief that allowed you to watch soldiers from two very professional armies perform in a way which would make even talent judge Simon Cowell blanche.
I’m not sure the mood in the crowd really changed. The women opposite us in the back row of the women-only benches continued to dance. The men kept yelling for Pakistan while the crowd on the other side chanted for India. It was impossible to tell whether they too had felt the same hollowness when the gates opened and were simply hiding it better. Or maybe they were just enjoying a fun day out. Tragicomedy is not unusual in South Asia, although the word is rather too decorous for the many thousands of deaths it has witnessed over the years.
The overly costumed soldiers in the ceremony faced off against each other while buglers sounded the retreat – traditionally played to signal the end of battle at sunset. Slowly, with much reeling and flicking of ropes, the Indian and Pakistani flags were lowered. The gates were slammed shut.
India, Pakistan back to their aggressive ways at Wagah
One of the oddities of the troubled India-Pakistan relationship is a theatrical flag-lowering ceremony that the border guards of the two countries together enact every day at sunset at the Wagah checkpoint in the Punjab – for long the only road crossing.
Tall, very tall, guards from the Pakistani Rangers and men from India’s Border Security Force (BSF) with twirling moustaches goose-march up to the zero point, stamping their feet on the ground till the knees reach the chin, scowling at each other and shouting their way in a choreographed routine that ends in the lowering of the flags and the slamming of huge gates to the two countries.
Watched by baying crowds seated on grandstands on either side, the guards, wearing huge fan-shaped headresses, come within inches of each other, the hostility unmistakable, the gestures avowedly aggressive. The flags are lowered in clockwork precison; the soldiers exchange the briefest of handshakes, and the borders between India and Pakistan are sealed once more as they have been for most of the past 60 years.
For the last two years, the two sides had chosen to tone down some of the posturing during this retreat ceremony at the border, in keeping with the spirit of rapprochement that began with a peace process in 2004.
The people of BHAKKAR district have elected a chief minister of Punjab and a prime minister of Pakistan in different elections. Although a goup of local leaders sponcer the occasion and personally benefited by this gesture but basically the people of Bhakkar elected these leaders in hope of a better Bhakkar. It’s requested to the prime minister of Pakistan and chief minister of Punjab to please consider upgrading Bhakkar as a divisional head quarter by appointing a commissioner to provide better governance, extra facilities and security in the area. There are news that religious violence and drug smuggling is increased in the area recently.Bhakkar has been head quarters of divisional level organization of Thal Development Authority since 1952. TDA was abolish in 1971 on corruption charges against it’s high officials. Bhakkar is also a border district to Dera Ismail Khan and a capital city of Thal desert area-spread in six districts in Punjab. Thanking you, Khwaja Aftab Shah, U.S.A
Pakistan has been manipulated by the cold war powers in order to keep their geo-strategic goals active. Cold war is over and these power no longer need Pakistan. But they have caused so much damage to the Af-Pak region that they are unable to get out of it easily. They have been forced to come back and shake their hands vigorously to drop Pakistan off and it is not happening. A small country like Pakistan has been brainwashed into believing that they are superior to a much bigger country like India, engage it in three major wars, arm it to the teeth at the expense of its stability and development, radicalize it and turn it into a global terrorist hub. If you watch their moves, they pay lip service to Pakistan’s civilian government once in a while and make all deals with its military. It is they who have amplified the arrogance of the Pakistani military elite and its supporters. China has added more fuel to this for its own reasons. When the US went to war with Iraq for WMDs and has been working hard to isolate North Korea and Iran for building WMDs, they allowed Pakistan to build their nukes right in front of their eyes, because they needed Pakistan to settle scores with the USSR. They allowed Musharraf to airlift hundreds of Pakistani military personnel from Kunduz, knowing well that these were the guys controlling Afghanistan with Taliban providing the facade as a government.
Britain created Pakistan knowing well how the future for the region would be. The US created the conditions in Pakistan and Afghanistan that would give rise to Al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist organizations in the world. Now the British created Pakistan is made to fight the US created Al Qaeda and Pakistan’s own creation, the Taliban. What a parody? The parties are on both sides staging a chicken fight. And this lady sheds crocodile tears about unity between India and Pakistan at the Wagah border. And the imbeciles on this forum do not see the truth that they are all being manipulated by the media and governments of the Western powers. They are arguing with each other instead of seeing the bigger picture.
I hope sincerely that some day the US and its allies fight each other to the bitter end and self destruct for what they have done to the rest of the world.