As the news of Osama bin Laden’s death spread around the world, the jubilation in India had as much to do with where he was found as the fact he had been dispatched.
The headline in The Times of India read: “US Kills Osama, Blows Pak Cover.” Mail Today announced: “Osama Killed, Pak Wounded.” India Today described Pakistan on its cover as “Terroristan.”
Many Indians relished the fact that Bin Laden was found in Pakistan, in a large mansion, in the company of a wife U.S. officials described as “young.”
That he maintained such a life in a garrison town two hours from the Pakistani capital appeared to confirm India’s official position that it is in Pakistan’s nature to protect terrorists. In the world according to Indians, the myth of Pakistan as an ally in the war against terror died that night with Bin Laden. The chalk outlines on the floor of the Abbottabad mansion would include, besides the contours of Bin Laden’s last pose, the map of Pakistan.
Bin Laden’s death in Pakistan was particularly satisfying for those Indians who have resented what they took to be the world’s propensity to lump India and Pakistan together.
Modern India, despite its horrible flaws, they would say, is a product of democracy, new capitalism and the unambiguous moral values of Hinduism, which does not define humanity as Hindus and so could not be bothered to call anybody infidels or try to convert them. (There are zealots among Hindus, but their numbers are comparatively few, and their influence has been diminished by the Indian preoccupation with prosperity, whose currency is peace.)
By contrast, they would point out, in Pakistan this year, a woman was sentenced to death for blasphemy. A liberal who protested the country’s blasphemy law was killed and the killer greeted by his supporters with rose petals.
The attacks in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, did suggest crucial cultural and political differences between India and Pakistan, but in the Indian view, America’s circumstances led it to reward Pakistan. With both the United States and China wooing Pakistan and heavily arming it in their own interests, Indians could only watch as their neighbor reaped the benefits.
Bin Laden’s death in Abbottabad need not mean that the United States will distance itself from Pakistan, or that India would want that. But many here believe that at least now, the outside world is viewing Pakistan’s chaotic political and military leadership and its intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, much the way Indians have long viewed them. That is why they relish Bin Laden’s death.
When Pakistan’s former president and military chief, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, appeared on Indian television, his interviewer, Karan Thapar, told him that the fact that the C.I.A. did not share the intelligence about Bin Laden with Pakistan was “a slap on the face of Pakistan.” General Musharraf nodded reluctantly.
Mr. Thapar then said Pakistan had been “caught with its pants down.” General Musharraf, who had once led Pakistan to war against India, wryly responded, “Well, aren’t you enjoying using these terms?”
Mr. Thapar then insisted that the Bin Laden episode was not an embarrassment, but a “humiliation” for Pakistan. General Musharraf let out a sad chuckle.
Setbacks are nothing new for Pakistan’s military. It fought three disastrous wars with India. According to India, its neighbor has since the 1980s sought vengeance by unleashing terrorists on Indian soil. Pakistan has consistently denied this and accuses India of killing its own civilians through terror.
When Mr. Thapar asked General Musharraf why the Pakistani military could not detect U.S. choppers as they flew in from the west and remained in the country’s airspace for more than two hours, General Musharraf said, matter-of-factly, that most of Pakistan’s radars “are focused more towards your side.”
On the streets of Pakistan, among ordinary people, India provides less cause for concern.
Mohammed Hanif, a Pakistani journalist and the author of the novel “A Case of Exploding Mangoes,” a satire of Pakistan’s military, said in an interview: “People of Pakistan don’t wake up in the morning fearing an Indian attack. They wake up fearing a bomb going off in a mosque or a bazaar. But Pakistan’s army’s reason for existence is India. Even after fighting its own Muslim brothers on its own turf for 10 years, and losing more soldiers than it ever has in a confrontation with India, Pakistan’s army remains India-centric.”
The Indian government understands the complexities of Pakistan, but the average Indian sees no distinction between those who control Pakistan and its people. He imagines a nation that blasts Indians to bits. That is unfortunate, because Indians who travel there are struck by the aspiration of ordinary Pakistanis to be warm to Indians. And Pakistan is a vastly different country from what most Indians imagine.
For instance, most Indians might find it hard to believe that there are Hindu temples in Pakistan and that they are not apologetic shrines where persecuted minorities hide and pray. They are as vibrant as temples in India and are sustained by Hindus who have prospered in Pakistan. In fact, outside one temple in Karachi, a man stood at the door and refused to let in Muslims who had begged him for a quick peek. He was unmoved, but he let me in because I was Indian.
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