Reality and Illusion

Written by Kinza Mujeeb • February 2011

Praying for betterment, peace and prosperity is essential considering the conditions of contemporary societies. But believing that the mere piling up of problems and complications would help find solutions is nothing more than wishful thinking. Those who make an effort to get rid of the bewildering darkness, are blessed enough to see the light at the end of the tunnel. But Pakistanis and Indians, with a huge number of hardened criminals, corrupt politicians, irresponsible and unrepresentative media and a silent majority, confuse reality with an illusion. It is an illusion that we create to remain oblivious of the harsh realities that surround us.

These two countries which were divided on lines of differing concepts of nationality, still experience identical forms of crimes. Interestingly they often suffer victimization by other countries and at times, they themselves are victimized by each other. The crimes committed include terrorism, extremism, cyber crimes and violation of security laws.

Very often certain activities are taken up in the name of glorifying the name of the country. But actually these activities, at the one hand, bring bad name to the country and on the other, result in unearned benefits for some individuals. A recent example was the 2010 Commonwealth Games, or better described as Corruption Games. The corruption in construction projects and illegal cash transfers submerged the reputation of India into a swamp of allegations and criticisms. Fake certificates were issued for substandard work and material used in various constructions. The Games organizers thus misappropriated a total amount of 450,000 pounds. Instead of attaining the claim of superseding the grandeur of Beijing Olympics, India received bad publicity for a high level of corruption and an incompetent capability for organizing international events.

The previous year proved to be a year of scam for the Indians. The chief of Indian Premier League (IPL), Lalit Modi, faced serious charges of favoring friends and family members during the biding process and sale of broadcast and marketing rights, for which he was replaced and suspended.

Another instance of gross corruption was the case of Adarsh Society scam. The society was set up apparently for the construction of apartments for Kargil heroes and widows. But the majority of these apartments were allocated and occupied by politicians, bureaucrats and defense officials who helped the Society to acquire the land and other necessary facilities. Rules were bent to favor them unjustifiably.

To add to the crimes of the Indians, WikiLeaks revealed that India’s claims of being a secular state were false. The WikiLeaks has exposed India as having broken all records of violence, genocide and massacre perpetrated on various ethnic and religious groups. India is engaged in a highly unjust social behavior towards its large population of ‘Dalits’ or lowest caste Hindus. Hindu extremism has resulted in the emergence of Hindutva under the leadership of the Sangh Parivaar. This is a far more serious threat to regional and global peace than Taliban, Al-Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

Pakistan is also at the same level as India as far as crimes and violation of laws is concerned. Although the Sindh Home Minister had banned carrying and displaying of arms by imposing Section 144, New Year eve brought sufferings for many. The euphorically wild crowd welcomed the New Year with aerial firing that injured more than 70 people in Karachi alone. The police and rangers had to behave like helpless onlookers when some influential political workers headed towards the coast to greet the New Year with their deadly weapons.

Cyber crimes are being committed in both India and Pakistan, mainly because of the ineffective laws and lack of awareness. Reports of website hacking, illegal and lewd photo morphing, cyber stalking and email scams are daily occurrences.

Unrepresentative and irresponsible media are the features that one can primarily associate with South Asia. In the race for scoops and larger audiences, different media are seen sensationalizing news, which highlights their level of irresponsibility. Many like to believe that media has gained its freedom, people are expressing their views and voices are being raised against the army of corrupt politicians and those who are abusing their authority. However, all this has led to no specific results.

Many controversial issues are raised in the media but nothing concrete comes out of that. Apart from the external pressures that hinder deeper levels of investigation, the early deaths of these controversial issues are due to the avalanche of ever increasing new conflicts that the media feeds upon. The effect is that our nation seems to have a very limited range of retaining incidences, which proliferates the rate crime.

Not even the most patriotic Pakistani can deny the fact that his country especially its northern areas, have served as a breeding ground for brain-washed ‘jihadis’ or ‘terrorists’. There are numerous madrassas systematically forcing to inculcate distorted images and teachings of Islam. The students are merely children mostly as young as 6-13 years old. It is easier to corrupt a young mind and to make them believe of an illusion of heaven in return for blowing up several other innocent lives.

But those who are willing to jump to conclusions and wish to connect violence with Islam alone, should also look at the systematic torture of Kashmiri citizens by the Indian army. A fact known for long but popularized by WikiLeaks, which disclosed that Indian security forces used some of the most inhumane modes of torture, which includes electrocution, physical beating and sexual assault.

Besides crimes, cases of victimization are also very common in respect of South Asians, either perpetrated by themselves on their own people or by others on their nationals. In 2009, Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian received death sentence for allegedly uttering blasphemous remarks. Even though there were no conclusive or valid evidences against her, she was sentenced to death. It is generally believed that she has been victimized, the real offense being something other than blasphemy.

Whenever there is mention of victimization and injustice, the name of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui will always be painfully remembered. A Pakistani housewife was captured along with her three children and physically and sexually tortured in Bagram Prison, even though the American Intelligence failed to provide any evidences against her.

Moreover, Pakistan is unfortunate in being victimized by a neighboring country. India was quick to falsely implicate Pakistan in the Mumbai attacks. However, the court proceedings in India indicate that some Indians were mainly involved in the attack.

India has also been a victim of intellectual victimization when Nirander Modi, Chief Minister of Gujrat, banned Jaswant Singh’s book, ‘India-Partition-Independence’, which did not hold Jinnah responsible for partition of India.

Keeping these events in mind, it does not take a scholar or a fortune teller to predict as to which way the graph of crime and victimization in these two countries would head.