The Times of India, Saturday 10 July 1999 / Editorial
Patriot Games
Like all wars everywhere and at all times, the Kargil conflict has
brought out the best in some people and the worst in others. If gallant
young men with giant hearts are giving their all on craggy uninhabited
peaks thousands of kilometres away from their homes, others with small
hearts and smaller minds have been wallowing in an excess of jingoistic
zeal. In the process, they are squandering away on the moral and ethical
plain what our brave jawans have secured on the battlefield. The call by
some sections of the sangh parivar for a nuclear strike on Pakistan, the
demand for an end to cricketing contests and cultural exchanges with
that country, the banning of Pakistan Television and the blocking of
Dawn's website by VSNL have all done incalculable damage to India's
image as an open and mature society. The latest manifestation of this
Dutch auction in chauvinism is the campaign that politicians from the
Shiv Sena, BJP, Congress and Nationalist Congress Party have launched
against the veteran actor Dilip Kumar. Last year --- after due
consultations with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee -- the actor
travelled to Islamabad to accept the Nishan-e-Pakistan award from the
Pakistani government. Today, Dilip Kumar is being bullied in an attempt
to make him return the award. The Nishan-e-Pakistan was given to him in
recognition for his immense contribution to cinema and popular culture
in the subcontinent. At the time, Mr Vajpayee's view was that the honour
would help foster amity and goodwill between India and Pakistan. That
belief may have been optimistic, just as the belief that a bus ride from
Delhi to Lahore would bring about a sea-change in bilateral relations
proved to be. But to conclude that Dilip Kumar was wrong to accept the
award -- or that the Prime Minister was wrong to board the bus -- would
be to draw an entirely unwarranted conclusion.
In giving Dilip Kumar the Nishan-e-Pakistan, Islamabad was not endorsing
the Indianness that runs through the veteran thespian's films like
Shaheed, Naya Daur, Leader and Ram aur Shyam any more than his
acceptance represented an endorsement of Pakistan's stand on Kashmir. In
any case, Dilip Kumar was not the first Indian to be given that award.
The late Morarji Desai was also a recipient for his contribution to
Indo-Pakistani friendship when he was Prime Minister of a coalition
government in which the sangh parivar was an important constituent. As
far as Dilip Kumar's case is concerned, three points are in order.
First, no political party should be allowed to take the law into their
own hands and intimidate citizens. Second, cultural, sporting, social
and familial links between the people of India and Pakistan should not
be politicised and linked to Kargil. Third, and most important of all,
nobody has the right to dictate to an Indian citizen what it means to be
patriotic. A citizen must abide by her or his own conscience -- and the
law -- and not by McCarthyite fatwas of the kind Dilip Kumar is being
subjected to. Pakistani soldiers have entered Indian territory and they
must be repulsed. But this does not mean that Indians should sever their
attachment to the people and culture of Pakistan. If Dilip Kumar is
forced to return his award, it will not be long before we are told that
it is unpatriotic to read Faiz and Manto, listen to Abida Parveen and
Ustad Salamat Ali Khan, and may be even to speak Sindhi.
Go to: Citizens Against India Pakistan War in Kargil, Kashmir