How do you form an opinion on Pakistan?
By: Pranav Jagdish
Tags: War, Pakistan, Kargil, India

I was born during the year of the Kargil war. Now, this doesn’t signify anything personal to me. Although stories of bravery and posts about the death anniversaries of soldiers who gave their life during battle always crop up annually, I treated this like an event outside my own echo chamber with no personal stake. There are only so many things you can empathize about and this didn’t feel like it.

I grew up reading and studying very little about Pakistan, just like any other high school student in India. I don’t think the omission is intentional by the educational boards, most history books are sparse post ‘47. The last chapter you read is about the Quit India movement and a small blurb that Jinnah led the All India Muslim League to the creation of Pakistan. With this little context and no inclination to form an opinion, I moved on with my life.

Jinnah

Then during my fifth grade, I moved to Saudi Arabia for two years. It was definitely a change, moving from my Hindu-dominated country to a Muslim-dominated one. Apart from all the differences observed, I lived and interacted with Pakistanis who were my neighbours. I was too young to harbour any kind of embodied resentment and the family gave me no reason to believe that I should have one.

It is my firm belief that the general public doesn’t adopt the struggles of a government that makes it decisions under portraits of hard faced nationalists who fought battles 70 years ago. The Pakistani neighbours treated me like I was just another kid and we didn’t constantly fight about Kargil,1971 or even the Kashmiri Pandit exodus. The topics of conversation were often about the similarities: Bollywood, Food and a curiosity as to what lies beyond each other’s border.

Then I came back home and with puberty, I felt my ideologies mould into something concrete. It didn’t feel like I couldn’t have an opinion of what’s happening in the world today. I tried to adopt a stance, one aligned to what my parents thought or one opposed to it. However, I never felt connected to either side of the political struggle back home, on both sides. I kept floating, as friends posted their snarky comments on social media about something that hits headlines.

I keep thinking that it would be much easier if I was a staunch right-wing nationalist or a left-wing liberal. There would be a path for my emotions to flow through and I wouldn’t be so engrossed in constantly reading about political issues and trying to figure out my stance on those issues.

So I started following Instagram accounts related to Pakistani culture, like Bilal Hassan’s @mystapaki.I read up more on their history and I picked up a biography on Jinnah by Yasser Latif Hamdani. Reading more about our shared past really makes it seem like our countries are estranged siblings who parted ways a long time ago. There are constant inner struggles, times when I feel that as a society, we’re too harsh on Pakistan and others when our opinions are truly justified and valid.

Mystapaki

As I read more, the map gets blurrier with no real sense of direction. Maybe that’s not how it’s supposed to be but that’s fine by me. I think it’s better to not have an opinion on things than have an ill-informed, emotionally charged one. I’d like for my thoughts on these politically supercharged topics to change with the hope that I’m growing as they are.