Frank Islam speaks with Prof Ishtiaq Ahmed, Pakistani-Swedish political scientist and author | Washington Calling
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00:10 This is Frank Islam, Chairman and CEO of FY Investment Group and
00:20 your host of Washington Calling, where we interview leading voices from business and
00:25 politics that impact you the way we work.
00:28 Today we are fortunate to have a distinguished guest and
00:32 his name is Professor Ishtiaq Ahmed.
00:34 He's a Swedish political scientist and author of Pakistani descent.
00:39 He obtained a PhD in political science from Stockholm University.
00:43 He's currently Professor Emeritus, I guess, at Stockholm University.
00:49 He was also visiting professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies at
00:53 the National University of Singapore.
00:56 He's written a great deal on the partition of India and
01:01 Jinnah's role and his success and failures.
01:05 Thank you, Professor Ishtiaq Ahmed for coming to our show, and we welcome you.
01:11 >> Thank you very much.
01:12 I'm greatly honored to be invited, and
01:16 I'm looking forward to this conversation with you and with Shehzad Saheb here.
01:23 >> So Professor Ahmed, you are a Swedish political scientist and
01:26 author of Pakistani descent.
01:27 Please tell our global audience about your journey and
01:33 how you came to live in Sweden from Pakistan.
01:35 >> Well, it- >> And it has been a remarkable journey.
01:40 >> Yeah, it is a remarkable journey.
01:42 It's like this that in 1971,
01:46 the MA Political Science results were announced and
01:54 I was first class first.
01:58 At that time, people of my sort of background,
02:02 ordinary middle class would sit in the Central Superior Services exam.
02:08 And many of them qualified, but I had opted for education career.
02:15 I had a idealistic view that one should serve the people
02:21 rather than be an agent of the state.
02:24 It was one of those idealist periods in my life.
02:27 And then from that onwards, I was teaching at
02:33 Gordon College, Rawalpindi for a year and a half.
02:38 When I noticed that there was a lot of repression taking place in Pakistan,
02:45 trade union leaders were being rounded up.
02:49 And generally, there was a pessimistic sort of atmosphere in Pakistan.
02:55 Although Mr. Bhutto had come to power and people expected a lot from him.
03:00 But then this sort of feeling descended upon us.
03:05 And my elder brother was settled in Stockholm for a long time.
03:11 He visited Pakistan and then like the family says, take him to the other.
03:19 So that's how I landed up in Stockholm on the 26th of September 1973.
03:26 The original idea was that I'll stay for about three, four months and
03:34 wait for things to calm down in Pakistan or
03:39 alternatively try to emigrate to Canada.
03:45 But a friend of my brother, Riaz Shima, he's deceased now.
03:51 He said, why don't you show your papers to Stockholm University?
03:55 You have excellent credentials, which I did.
03:59 And they were kind enough to say that we are willing to admit you to the PhD classes.
04:07 You must first learn Swedish and then we can even consider giving you a scholarship.
04:14 So all that worked out and I stayed on in Sweden.
04:21 So that's the background.
04:23 Okay.
04:24 Yeah.
04:25 So let's talk about my next question.
04:28 You are a globally recognized person in South Asian studies and author of many books.
04:33 Would you be kind enough to tell our viewers about your two books, which is very engaging
04:39 books, the Punjab, the bloody partition and cleanse and Jinnah, his success and failure?
04:47 Well, these are two books.
04:53 I work very hard on whatever book I'm writing.
04:56 The first book in a sort of academic intellectual sense was the biggest, bigger challenge.
05:07 The reason was that whatever was written about the partition of Punjab and why Punjab, because
05:14 the figures are like this, that in the partition of India, if 1 million people were killed,
05:22 Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs, and 12 to 14 million were forced to leave their homes to seek refuge
05:33 on the other side, depending on whether you were a Hindu, Sikh or a Muslim, the figures
05:39 for Punjab were extremely startling.
05:43 800,000 fatalities, deaths were in Punjab and 10 million people of its 34 million population
05:54 had to run for their lives across the border drawn by the Red Cliff Award at the time of
06:03 partition.
06:04 So I wanted to know why the Punjab suffered so much, why so much violence transpired in
06:13 Punjab, where I also come from.
06:17 And from my childhood, I had been hearing stories of some of the violent acts which
06:22 had taken place on Temple Road, Lahore, where I was born and grew up.
06:29 You were born in the part of the Pakistan, part of Lahore?
06:34 In Lahore on the 24th of February, 1947.
06:38 Long time ago.
06:39 Just before the partition.
06:44 So partition, violence, partition, savagery, butchery, whatever you want to call, stories
06:54 about them were told all the time in our area, in our family.
06:59 And then so this became a concern of mine to find out what has happened.
07:04 But when I was at Stockholm University and before our eyes, Yugoslavia had disintegrated
07:14 and the ethnic violence which had taken place, again, sort of reminded me of my duty to look
07:21 at what had happened in the Punjab.
07:24 The problem was that whatever material existed at that time was up to the 14th of August,
07:34 1947, when the British transferred power to India and Pakistan.
07:41 Up until then, you could find the weekly secret reports of the governors.
07:47 You could find many other sources, but official documents ended on that day.
07:55 But the evidence seemed to suggest that most of the killing, the spiraling of violence
08:04 took place after power had been transferred to the Pakistani and Indian Punjab.
08:11 I got you.
08:12 So that's the story.
08:15 So that's the story.
08:16 And so I wanted to find out how can I tell this story.
08:21 I got a grant from the Stockholm, from the Swedish Research Council to do research for
08:26 three years.
08:27 But actually it took me 11 years to finally come up with an explanation, not just a narrative,
08:35 but an explanation of what happened, how and why.
08:39 And that book was very well received in both India and Pakistan.
08:45 In Pakistan, to my very great surprise, it won two best nonfiction book awards, one at
08:52 Karachi and one at Lahore.
08:56 So what I did was I would come to Pakistan and India during winters.
09:04 At that time, getting a visa to travel to India was not a problem.
09:11 At that time, that is from 2002 to 2005.
09:18 So that was the time of, who was the prime minister of India at that time?
09:25 I don't remember now, but I think it was Rajiv Gandhi.
09:29 Whosoever it was, no, Rajiv Gandhi had been assassinated by that time.
09:35 But things were still not so bad, you know.
09:38 The 26th November 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai had not taken place.
09:48 So I could get the visa to go to the Indian Punjab, going to the Pakistani Punjab, of
09:56 course, was not a problem.
09:58 And so I started tracing people, sometimes who came from the same place and could give
10:06 evidence of exactly the same incident that I was researching in.
10:11 So the book then is based on about 262 oral histories, which I collected.
10:22 And the transfer of power, 12 volumes of the British, the fortnightly reports of the British
10:28 governors, two newspapers, the Tribune, which was pro-Congress and the Pakistan Time, which
10:35 was pro-Muslim League.
10:38 And then, of course, many other sources as well.
10:43 And that book has become like a reference for anybody who wants to do, to study the
10:52 partition of Punjab.
10:55 Before that, only a pilot study of some women who were uprooted was done by Urvashi Battalia
11:02 and some other women in India.
11:04 But it was a pilot study, just maybe 20, 30 women who were, I wanted to do it for the
11:11 whole of Punjab and do it in a chronological order.
11:14 And all that is presented in the book.
11:16 Very nice.
11:17 You're the academic who enjoys equal access in both sides of the border in Pakistan and
11:22 India.
11:23 Yeah.
11:24 What has been your experience in India, especially on your recent visits?
11:29 And what lessons have you learned from India that you want to copy and you want to make
11:33 sure that you can propagate and promote that in Pakistan?
11:37 Well, I think India represented, the original India, represented the founding principles
11:47 of the freedom movement, that it will be a secular state.
11:51 It will be an inclusive, pluralist democracy.
11:55 And this they instituted in their constitution.
11:59 And fortunately for India, they had Jawaharlal Nehru at the helm of affairs as prime minister,
12:05 who was a very enlightened man, a statesman, I would call him, not too much of a politician,
12:13 but a statesman.
12:15 And I think his leadership during the first 17 years was formative to India becoming a
12:26 democracy.
12:27 Now, of course, we have trends in India, which remind us of what we have done in Pakistan
12:35 by using religion as the basis of nationalism.
12:40 So current India is a worrisome thing for me.
12:46 But in Pakistan, since we founded a state on the basis of religion, and all Hindus and
12:54 Sikhs were literally forced to flee from Pakistan, what remained of West Pakistan, which is today's
13:02 Pakistan, are just Muslims.
13:05 But then we realized, to the chagrin of all perhaps, that among Muslims, there were all
13:12 these divisions of sect and sub-sect, and linguistic nationalities had their problems
13:21 with one another.
13:23 So using religion or any such marker to found a nation in the hope that it is a homogeneous
13:31 nation, I think is very problematic.
13:35 Okay.
13:36 I think Khurram has mentioned to you, you gave a talk in Washington, D.C. in October
13:42 2022, based on your books.
13:45 Has anything changed in Pakistan as far as the civil-military relationship is concerned?
13:50 Do you think that Pakistan needs a new direction, new ideas, and new thoughts?
13:58 Insofar as the first part of the question is concerned, my theory of the garrison state
14:05 is confirmed over and over again.
14:09 The military now has a hold over Pakistan, which in the past was not all that obvious
14:15 to people.
14:16 Now, even in Punjab, people are protesting against it.
14:21 The only hope Pakistan has is to become a normal state, give up its idea of becoming
14:37 an ideological state.
14:39 My argument is that ideological states of both right and left ultimately become dictatorships
14:48 and autocracies.
14:50 And so Pakistan, in addition to that, that it became an ideological state, had an ideology
14:57 which was backward looking.
15:00 They wanted to bring the 7th century into the 20th, 21st century, and that is impossible.
15:07 So Pakistan has complicated its own future by all these extreme ideas they have been
15:20 promoting.
15:22 And so now Pakistan is in a very bad shape.
15:25 If they want to become a normal state, they have to, of course, establish the rule of
15:33 law in Pakistan and in this region, they need to sort out their relations with Afghanistan,
15:43 with India, with Iran, all these countries.
15:47 You can't live in a region and have a conflict with all your neighbors.
15:52 So that's Pakistan's tragedy.
15:55 As we understand, you say in February that Pakistan's election may have been rigged because
15:59 of Imran Khan's PTI, and he had more members of the parliament than the current government,
16:05 which is led by Shahbaz Sharif, is in power right now, as I understand.
16:10 And how do you see meeting the challenges, what you call a broken economy, and relationship
16:16 with its neighbor in India?
16:18 Especially you mentioned Pakistan.
16:20 Do you think that India needs to work with Pakistan in terms of the trade?
16:25 Do you think that Pakistan is in a desperate condition?
16:28 Well, let me attend to the various aspects of your question.
16:35 The first part was what?
16:36 Can you repeat it?
16:37 There were many questions in one question.
16:40 You said that the Pakistan election may have been rigged.
16:44 Yes.
16:45 Well, there is absolutely no doubt that they were massively rigged.
16:50 They were massively rigged.
16:51 There is absolutely no doubt.
16:53 I have consulted my friends from childhood who are responsible people, and without any
17:00 exception, they all say that this was too blatant, too obvious that the election was
17:09 rigged.
17:11 But they got away with it as far as we can understand.
17:15 But we also know that negotiations are now being arranged between Imran Khan and the
17:27 establishment.
17:29 And I think President Ali has been given this task to do the negotiation so that something
17:37 can be sorted out.
17:40 I think the current government, well, it has its hands tied down because the Pakistan economy
17:48 is in a very bad shape.
17:50 What can they do?
17:53 We have the IMF compelling us to make changes, which if they do carry out and they have done
18:01 it means that the burden of the crunch is transferred to the common people.
18:11 So Pakistan is in a bad shape and this government, even with its best intentions, has very little
18:18 leeway to find a way out.
18:21 So I have been arguing and I've been arguing it for a very long time that Pakistan's best
18:27 bet is to work out some sort of normal relations with India, which should include the resumption
18:39 of trade and trust building.
18:43 I've even gone to the extent of saying that the line of control should be accepted as
18:48 the international border between India and Pakistan.
18:52 So this is a proposal which I have been presenting in many interviews and talks.
19:01 So short range, immediately normalized relations with India, open trade.
19:08 And then in the long run, if you want to stabilize this region, I have a theory that countries
19:14 which have unrecognized borders or disputed borders always have a great sense of insecurity.
19:25 I've even said to the Indians, you say that you are an old civilization of 7000 years.
19:33 The Chinese claim they are a civilization of 5000 years.
19:37 Why can't you both sit down and work out your international borders?
19:41 They're not going to do that.
19:43 They are not going to do that.
19:45 The same then applies to Pakistan and to the Pakistanis I've been saying, you want the
19:50 Durian line to be declared the international border, whereas Afghanistan is not a green.
19:57 But you don't want the line of control to be the international border with India.
20:02 So as long as these problems exist.
20:07 Kashmir issue is still prevalent in the discussion.
20:10 I don't think that they want to get away from that and move on with the trade.
20:14 I hope they do.
20:15 I hope they do.
20:16 One way is to start the trade and normalize relations, generally speaking.
20:21 And then the Kashmir issue can be on the back burner.
20:26 Or I would say at some point, I hope we have statesmen on both sides who can understand
20:32 that four wars have not delivered any major.
20:37 That is true.
20:38 India.
20:39 So why not agree to the line of control and the line of control can become porous.
20:44 Like let's say the European Union, you know, they have fought two terrible, horrible wars
20:50 and now they live in peace.
20:52 Why can't we do it?
20:54 Why can't we do that?
20:55 That's a good way to put it.
20:56 Do you think that the both countries, India and Pakistan, can live in peace and harmony
21:00 as they move forward?
21:02 I hope they can because.
21:05 I hope they should and they will.
21:07 And they should and they must.
21:08 I would say that the choice that especially Pakistan must give up its, you know, this
21:15 terrorism, which was nurtured in Pakistan post the Afghan Jihad was directed towards
21:23 the Indian Kashmir and finally into Indian territory as well.
21:27 So the Indians have a big, big question mark.
21:33 How can we trust Pakistan?
21:35 And if we, and I said the only thing you can, the way the trust can be built is by
21:40 trying to do it.
21:42 Let's start with trade, which is mutually beneficial and then go forward because war
21:48 is not the option.
21:49 War is not the option.
21:52 Both sides have nuclear weapons, which I hope they never, never use.
21:56 But if they do, that will be catastrophic.
21:58 I agree with you.
22:01 So Professor Rahmat, is there anything else that we need to talk before we close our conversation?
22:07 Right?
22:08 Well, actually, I leave it to your discretion if there are any questions.
22:12 No, I don't have any questions.
22:14 OK, then we end here.
22:17 Thank you so much.
22:18 This is Frank Islam, Chairman of the FY Investment Group and saying goodbye and thank you for
22:23 watching.
22:24 Goodbye.
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