Patriot games at Attari-Wagah

Patriot games at Attari-Wagah

Context

• Over the past 70 years, the display of respective nationalisms at the border has become far more aggressive, dramatic, and hateful. The well-choreographed hurling of the slogans “Bharat Mata ki Jai” and “Jio jio Pakistan” at each other not only reduces the India-Pakistan relationship to a juvenile shouting match but, more importantly, encourages people to belittle and disrespect each other’s sense of nationhood in praise of one’s own.

The retreat ceremony at the Attari-Wagah border over the years

• The retreat ceremony currently is less of a celebration and more about condescending the other.
• Following Partition, and the creation of the two states in 1947, the Wagah-Attari border, a short drive from Lahore and Amritsar, remained a trade and transit point between the two countries.
• During the heydays of India-Pakistan relations in the mid-2000s, it was decided to allow trucks to go to designated points on either side of the border for unloading cargo.
• Today, there is more formalized trade between the two countries than there is transit thanks to severe visa restrictions.
• The Attari border was managed by the Indian Army in the first few years after Independence and later managed by the Punjab Armed Police before the BSF eventually took over after its creation in 1965.
• When the retreat ceremony began in 1959, the joint Check Post was marked by a few painted drums, two flag masts and a rubble of stones astride the Grand Truck Road that stretches from Calcutta to Peshawar.
• During the early decades, the flag-lowering ritual was a low-key affair that had an almost negligible audience and spartan seating arrangements, a far cry from the grand infrastructure and pavilions that can accommodate as many as 10,000 people today.

Scenario post Kargil war

• India’s 1999 victory over Pakistan in Kargil made all the difference, as well as the opening up of the Indian media space in the preceding years.
• Since Kargil, the Attari-Wagah border has become a tourist destination and consequently led to the expansion of infrastructure on both sides.
• Unlike the India-Pakistan wars of 1965 and 1971, when the ceremony was temporarily halted during the conflicts, it continued during the duration of Kargil.
• Given that Kargil was India’s ‘first televised war’, it also brought about several changes in the way we relate to war, peace and of course the ‘enemy’, Pakistan.
• Post-Kargil, the ceremony started reflecting carefully choreographed elements of hostility and resentment towards the enemy ‘other’ across the white line at Attari.
• A quick glance at post-Kargil films such as Gadar:Ek Prem Katha (2001), The Hero: Love Story of a Spy (2003), and LOC Kargil (2003) demonstrate how Kargil has influenced our notions of nationalism and the sources and definitions of national security threats.
• Over the years, the ceremony has become hostile and dramatized with the guards displaying intimidating gestures, stomping their feet and exchanging angry glares across the large iron gates, much to the delight of the cheering crowds.
• In 2010, BSF and Pakistan Rangers agreed to do away with some of the overt aggression, yet the angry gestures of stomping, thumping and glaring nonetheless remain an integral part of this theatrical ceremony.
• There are ritualistic exchanges of sweets and occasional hugs between the BSF and Pakistani Rangers on special days such as August 14-15 and Diwali/Eid. During times of tensions, this practice is often suspended.
• Behind the stomping and angry glares then, there is a certain cordiality that exists on the Attari-Wagah border, and that in a sense is what makes it even more ironical, and a theatre of the absurd.

Display of nationalism turning into Bollywood music

• The retreat ceremony today is not just a daily exercise in the display of nationalism and military vigour.
• Over the years, it has become a heady cocktail of Bollywood music, businesses flashing their tri-coloured advertisements, souvenir shops selling patriotic memorabilia, and LCD screens displaying the sponsors of the event. Nationalism is good business too.
• Popular film actors are often seen at the venue promoting their films and connecting with the crowds, besides adding to the nationalistic atmosphere.
• The retreat ceremony at the Attari-Wagah border, a well-rehearsed exchange of insults, is a constant, daily, reminder of our hostility towards each other as against the idea of each other’s nationhood, and the inhabitants of the two nations.
• Seventy years may not be a long time in the lives of two post-colonial nations, but the 70th anniversary of freedom is a good time to start accepting each other’s existence as sovereign independent entities.
• India needs to accept Pakistan’s tryst with its destiny and what it does with it, and vice-versa.