1971: an initial and haphazard wondering

In the midst of doing my dissertation work, which looks at, among other things, the emergence of a sense of Pakistani-ness over the decades there is one thing to which I keep returning. A neglect of the importance of 1971 that seems to have been carefully cultivated to the point where its significance, especially in the post-war era, has only been reduced to little more than a mere mention of the fact that part of what was Pakistan was lost. This is not to say that this event hasn't been engaged with at all but that we remain woefully detached.

I don't mean the traditional revisiting of the two-nation theory that some scholars have suggested. [To shorthand it for those of you not in the know, questions continue to be raised about the legitimacy of the state of Pakistan by this contingent given that what was originally part of its territory is no more. Hence, the two-nation theory on which the claim to Pakistan is based is presumed falsified since East Pakistan broke away from its Western counterpart to form present-day Bangladesh.] What I mean is processing the violence that took place amongst ourselves so that we can begin to reinterpret and navigate what it means to be Pakistani. 1971, as far as I know about it beyond traditional historical narratives and largely through oral histories, was about discrimination. Nothing new there. But what these oral histories also point us to are the actual contours of the debates over authenticity and how the boundaries between 'inside' and 'outside' are continually redrawn. "Who is (more?) Pakistani?" is a question that keeps coming up in everyday political life in Pakistan. Instances like the riots between Muhajirs and Pathans in Karachi in the late 80s are constant, more stark reminders of this struggle over defining Pakistani identity - i.e. who belongs and who doesn't? The brewing and mounting sense of unrest in Pakistan today over issues such as the rights of women, the rights of minorities, the place of Sharia including the recent standoff at the Lal Masjid, increasing economic disparity, the violence at the Pak-Afghan border, lack of social unity, and so on and so forth all pose that question.

Why 1971? In recent years, authors like Sorayya Khan ("Noor) and Kamila Shamsie (Kartography) have ventured into a territory that remains flattened in Pakistani memory: the everyday experience of living through 1971 and being shaped by the goings-on of that time. We remember facts that we're quizzed about in our exams but know next to nothing about the relevance of this period in (re)forming Pakistani identity and the country's trajectory...the grand narrative as it were. The silence makes sense. After all, it requires confronting our own inhumanity and brutality. I'm not quite sure where I'm going with this yet - hence a blog post to begin talking about it in the hopes that some of you might have questions that press me in more fruitful directions to develop my thoughts on this and articulate them so that they're clearer. I can't help but feel that paying attention to 1971 will provide us with some answers only if we have the courage to ask 3 simple yet important questions: who are we? where are we going? how will we get there?

For now, three passages from Kamila Shamsie's "Kartography" that might communicate to you what I mean more clearly than the words above:

Passage #1:
"Between our birth in 1947 and 1995, dead bang between our beginning and our present, is 1971, of which I know next to nothing except there was a war and East Pakistan became Bangladesh, and what terrible things we must have done then to remain so silent about it. Is it shame at losing the war, or guilt about what we did to try to win that mutes us?" (270).

Passage #2:
"When we do refer to those [speaking of the 1971 war and the time leading up to it] events, it's as personalized stories. ... We tell these stories and make war personal - but not in the way it should be; not in a way that makes it touch us personally. We make it personal in a way that excludes everything and everyone who was not part of that four-line story about the war days we tell over tea and biscuits. ... What happens when you work so hard to forget a horror is that you also forget you have forgotten it? It doesn't disappear - the canker turns inwards and mutates into something else. ... I am terrified, Maheen, because this country has seen what it is capable of, and we should all be spared that on a personal and a collective basis. It has seen what it is capable of, yet not paused to take account, to reach inwards towards that swirling darkness and hold it up to the light. ... We act as though history can be erased. Who can blame us? The cost of remembering may break our wilted spirits. But if we allow for erasure we tell ourselves that things can be forgotten, put in the dustbin. We tell ourselves it is possible to have acts without consequences" (311-313).

Passage #3:
"Karachi at its worst is a Karachi unconcerned with people who exist outside the storyteller's circle, a Karachi oblivious to people and places who aren't familiar enough for nicknames. What I've sometimes mistaken for intimacy is really just exclusion. But Karachi is always dual. Houses are alleys; car thieves are the people to help you when your car won't start; pollution simultaneously chokes you and makes you gasp at the beauty of unnatural sunsets; a violent, fractured place dismissiveof everyone outside its boundaries is vibrant, embracing, accepting of outsiders; and yes, selfishness is the consequence of love.
No simple answers in Karachi. Just when we decide that intimacy is exclusionary, a man at the airport turns round and gives us his car-keys, a motia-seller calls us his 'sister' and adorns our wrists with flowers, families fling open their doors and avert their eyes and help us make our way to places of worship; at its best, Karim, Karachi is intimate with strangers.
If I am truly to call myself a product of this city, how can I not find it in me to learn that much easier lesson: how to be intimate with my intimates.
This is not just an epiphany, it's just the start of an attempt to be brave enough to think about certain things that terrify me. There's a letter that we've both read which urges me to face the terror. What my father said and what he wrote were part of both our pasts, and to pretend the matter can be easily discussed and resolved is to deny how deep in our marrow consequences are lodged. We have to every day live with the truth and every day find a way towards unblinking, unsentimental compassion that renders forgiveness irrelevant." (331-332).

[PS: What is it about literature that doesn't shy away from confronting uncomfortable facts? That is to say, beyond the literary license that this mode of expression affords.]