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| Tuesday, 28 September 2004 |
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Overcoming citizenship hurdles to regional amity "Love triumphed over red tape and diplomatic rivalry", said the caption to a picture taken by Reuters recently, showing an Indian woman, her Pakistani husband and their days - old infant in a touching family reunion in the village of Hoti, 120 km Northwest of Islamabad.
The caption went on to say that the Pakistani government had granted Pakistani citizenship to the Indian woman from Kerala, who had entered into wedlock with a Pakistani from across the hitherto tense border separating India and Pakistan. Love had certainly triumphed and brought together three human beings who would have otherwise suffered the cruel agonies of estrangement - a condition brought about by the cold hostilities which until recently invariably accompanied Indo-Pakistani relations. It is, perhaps, a pointer to gradually defrosting Indo-Pakistani ties that the Indian woman from Kerala and her infant have been granted Pakistani citizenship and enabled to live together with their Pakistani husband and father, respectively. A triumph in the mere personal lives of an Indian and a Pakistani, one may say, but which is of profound symbolic significance in the Indo-Pakistani detente or reconciliation process currently underway. The news from the sidelines of the current UN General Assembly sessions is that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani President Pervaiz Musharraf have met for informal talks and have proclaimed their coming together even briefly as of profound significance for the Indo-Pakistani equation. "I sincerely believe that today is an historic day. We have made a new beginning," the Indian Prime Minister was quoted saying. A Western news agency report said, though, that the meeting of the Indian and Pakistani Heads of Government "produced no apparent breakthroughs but there was considerable upbeat rhetoric." While, quick, sensational "breakthroughs" may be all what news - hungry transnational news agencies may be after, such happenings may just not be on the cards in tortuously unfolding Indo-Pakistani ties, given their deeply troubled history. Quick-fix solutions are the last thing realistic observers would expect in this relationship but symbolic acts - such as the granting of citizenship to estranged spouses by either state - could be of special significance and help in bringing a degree of warmth to inter-state as well as people-to-people contacts across the Indo-Pakistani border. It is hoped that there is more than meets the eye in the granting of Pakistani citizenship to 25 year old Hafsu Khan from Kerala. Citizenship laws rigidly conceived and implemented have been a principal factor in perpetuating Iron Curtain like boundaries among South Asia's nation states. Narrowly-defined citizenship is a product of the hegemonic ambitions of the majority communities in many of these South Asian states. For instance, the Sri Lankan Citizenship Act of 1948 was aimed at preventing the country's Indian plantation worker community from enjoying its inalienable rights. However, it helped the majority community of Sri Lanka to bolster its power over other communities of the land. Flexibly conceived citizenship, on the other hand, could help in building bridges of friendship among communities. It needs to be considered by States that the inhabitants of a country have multiple identities - religious, cultural, linguistic etc. These factors must be taken into consideration while conceiving citizenship laws. They need to be crafted in broadly inclusive terms which would enable the citizen to exercise and enjoy all these identities, besides matching the standards of citizenship laid down by the State. |
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