Pakistan, Hindustan and the Land of the Blind

When I was in secondary school I remember quite well to this day the day Indira Gandhi paid Stravaraland an official visit. I remember it quite well because all secondary school students, from both private and public schools, were taken out on the streets and given little Cypriot flags to wave for the split second Gandhi’s motorcade went through. The event made an impression on me because we rarely gave such honor to visiting heads of state (admittedly not many were willing to come by anyway, not even the Greek Prime Ministers at the time). But why were such honors bestowed to Indira? India at the time was neither a superpower nor an aspiring one (thanks to the “Indian socialist”, or self-sufficient, policies followed at the time). India was not part of the UN Security Council and Kyprianou at the time did not have such close relationships with India (his wife was from mainland Greece unlike the wife of Glafcos who hailed from India).

A recent documentary by Channel 4 provided the answer to those official government actions back in the 80s.

India, before independence, had mixed villages in which Muslims, Hindus and Shikhs lived together. There was no geographical location for any other country than India. Or so Gandhi and Nehru thought. Until Jinnah, an Indian Muslim from Bombay, had the idea/dream that Muslims should create their own country, in which they would be treated as equals, rather than been looked down upon (according to his view). Independence would result in two different states, Pakistan and Hindustan. Partition became the rallying cry for the Muslims, while Independence with Unity was the solution offered by Gandhi.

Two arguments or efforts were made by Gandhi to avert Partition. At first he argued that the policy of partition will lead to a policy of “an eye for an eye” and such a policy will leave everyone in the land BLIND. Once this moral argument failed to sway the Muslims, he offered the leadership of the whole of India to Jinnah. But Jinnah was adamant that the solution had to be the creation of two nation states, partition. In the end, partition did take place with 20 million people moving to and from what is now India and Pakistan and one million people died in the process.

Now, these events were being witnessed at the time by Denktas, Makarios and the rest of the socio-economic and political elite in Stravaraland. Are we really surprised with the course of events that then followed in Stravaraland? And are we really surprised that India is the honored friend and beacon of hope for the Greek Cypriot leadership through time, while the same role is reserved for Pakistan in the heart of the Turkish Cypriot leadership?