WITHIN the space of six months, Dhurandhar and Main Vaapas Aaunga have exploded on our cinema screens, and apart from the fact that both are as different as chalk from cheese, the question that continues to stir the mind is, Why does Pakistan remain a central obsession in the minds of the average North Indian person?
To borrow a title — not a leaf — from India’s best-known psychologist, Ashis Nandy, Pakistan can be described as the perfect “intimate enemy.” Separated at birth in 1947, a division so violent and so brutal that it naturally coloured everything that came after, there could have been only two ways for the two countries to come to terms with each other’s existence — a mutual forgiveness or a defiant hostility. Both ideas have been considered at various points of time, as India enters the 80th year of its existence. Imtiaz Ali attempts to explore the former with his film, Main…, while Aditya Dhar does the latter with both his Dhurandhars. Both succeed in parts, but never quite.
It was more or less alright these past many decades when India won the wars, the proxy wars and the conflicts with Pakistan — both on and off the field. India paid a big price each time, losing civilians and soldiers in terror acts, especially in border states like Punjab and Jammu & Kashmir — acts that cut deep every time, because they reopened wounds that had never fully closed. That’s why the national catharsis that came with defeating Pakistan, including in cricket, was so worth it.
India would bounce back, we knew. We were the bigger country, with the better GDP, the IT companies and, of course, Bollywood. Unlike the Islamic Republic, we were a functioning democracy, warts and all, and definitely not as Fahmida Riaz claimed, “like each other.” Tum bilkul hum jaise nikle, bhai, she once said, back in 1992, in the wake of the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Not at all, behen.
Ashis Nandy may, at this point, metaphorically ask why we care so much whether we are, or not, like each other. Or why it matters so much if Pakistan’s Army Chief Asim Munir is Donald Trump’s “favourite Field Marshal”; or whether the Memorandum of Understanding between the US and Iran is called the Islamabad MoU (the Iranians do and the Americans don’t); or that Pakistan is officially described as a “mediator” in the US-Iran crisis.
Fact is, Pakistan has superbly used the West Asia crisis to expand its influence abroad. It has smartly leveraged its intimacy with China, Saudi Arabia and Iran to broker a global agreement — even if it needed Qatar in the last few weeks to push the agreement over the finishing line. Pakistan called upon all its relationships to deliver — it represented Iran in Washington DC, which it has done since the Revolution in 1979, and extracted every bit of juice from that tie. It drew upon its client state status with China to oil the wheels all around, including with Russia. And it curried favour with Saudi Arabia, a key US ally, with whom it shares a similar “iron brother” relationship, to tighten the screws when they needed to be.
The Pakistanis played it perfectly — it’s what weak states with everything to lose, do. This means that India must acknowledge the role Rawalpindi played — because, make no mistake it was Field Marshal Munir who ran the operation, along with the well-trained diplomats in his Foreign Office — and move on. It’s what strong states with everything to gain, do.
There are several lessons we can all draw from this West Asia crisis. The first is an obvious one — nations must talk to all sides if they want to exercise leverage, like Pakistan did. Second, leaders must have the courage, like Trump, to cut loose the losing side (Israel), especially if it was discolouring the larger picture, and cut a deal with the winner (Iran). Trump understood that his own economy was beginning to bruise and with midterm elections coming up in November, he was running out of time.
Trump understood he could not allow his ego to come in the way of his national interest — it takes a brave man to do that.
Third, as the sixth largest economy in the world, India mustn’t bristle if Pakistan wants to crow from the rooftops — its fine, every rooster has its day. India measures itself with its own unique yardsticks — its science establishments that have sent the Vikram Lander into space, its ability to feed its 1.4 billion people, its IT companies and of course, Bollywood. Why compare yourself to a tiny country on one side of your border, when you are really two different countries, as different as the chalk-cheese Dhurandhar-Main Vaapas Aaunga comparison?
The wonderful thing about movies, is that they don’t only reflect what the director wants, but that you can see yourself reflected in them. In Dhurandhar we saw how Lyari looks, having never been to Lyari (even the Pakistanis watching on illegal cable TV were taken aback, it was so realistic). In the touching love story that is Main…, Imtiaz Ali allows us a peek into the rear-view mirror, so that some 80-year-old memories of what Punjabi refugee families once went through can finally achieve some closure. (It helps that Diljit Dosanjh’s acting is so poor, you’re never allowed to suspend disbelief and forget you’re watching a movie.)
Pakistan is surely a lovely country to visit. Many of us have friends and family there. We would like to take our children to gaze at the ruins of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, a first-class history lesson, and wash our feet in the warm waters of the Arabian Sea off Clifton. But let’s not forget that the nation is ruled by the barely disguised fist of its military establishment, whose Field Marshal is just not Trump’s favourite pet this week, but has kept former Prime Minister Imran Khan in Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail since 2023 on what are likely trumped-up charges of corruption. So watch both Dhurandhar and Main…, but know that neither will tell you the full story.
One more thing. On the night after the signing of the US-Iran deal, the Afghan Taliban used its higgledy-piggledy air force to bomb terror training camps inside Pakistan. You see the jigsaw puzzle pieces falling into place? Now this is where the great game takes over.
