When a Pak scribe said Modi has 'proved' Jinnah’s two nation theory right... | Zafar Agha

counterview, 4 June 2019

It was around nine in the morning on May 24, 2019, a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi stormed the Lok Sabha with 300-plus MPs. It was a call from a journalist friend, Muzamal Suhrawardy, from Lahore, Pakistan. I ignored the call. We liberals had a depressing day the previous evening as the opposition to Modi and BJP collapsed. The results belied reports from the ground and even assessments made by colleagues.
I was in no mood to take yet another call and explain what had happened and why. But Muzamal was persistent. He called again a few hours later. Again, I didn’t pick up the phone. Muzamal, I sensed, wanted to speak on the Indian elections. But I was in no mood to oblige a Pakistani journalist and listen to him having a dig at the rise of the Right in India as has been the case with Pakistan for decades.
We, liberal Indians, had looked down upon them for being citizens of an “Islamic” state in modern times. How could I explain the rise of a ‘Hindu Pakistan’? So, I again ignored the call. But a veteran, he was in no mood to let it go. He called yet again around 1 pm. There was little option left but to take the call. I took it with a sense of resignation and, I must confess, trepidation.
My worst nightmare began unfolding. He began by taunting me: “Agha sahib, why are you avoiding me today?” Even before I could respond, he continued in Urdu: “Arey, ghabraiye nahi. Hum aap ko Pakistan mein political asylum dilwa denge”. I was agitated and reacted rudely by asking what gave him the idea that I would be migrating to Pakistan, a country which I have not visited even once.
Muzamal was now sarcastic: “Well, we established the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and announced it right away in 1947. You pretended to be secular and gloated about it. But now you are finally the Hindu Republic of India”.
He didn’t stop at that and turned the knife in. He had done a TV programme in Pakistan the previous evening in which he focused on how “Modi has proved Jinnah’s two nation theory right”. I felt as if someone had stabbed me at the back. I felt numb. Our conversation ended within seconds. But as I put down the phone, tears rolled down my cheeks.  [ . . . ]

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