Online NewsHour: Celebrating 50 Years -- August 13, 1997

PAKISTAN CELEBRATES

AUGUST 13, 1997

TRANSCRIPT

Pakistan celebrated the 50th anniversary of its independence from Britain this week. 50 years later, the country still keeps close ties with India, its neighbor to the East--but differences between the two nations are more than geographic. After this background report David Gergen talks with Shashi Tharoor, about Indian views on independence.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now, the 50th anniversary of the birth of two independent nations--India and Pakistan. At midnight tomorrow both countries will celebrate the end of British colonial rule on the Indian subcontinent. Once part of India, Pakistan was the product of a partition demanded by many of the subcontinent's Muslims, who wanted their own state. We start with a report from the India-Pakistan border by James Mates of Independent Television News.
JAMES MATES, ITN: On the Grand Trunk Road between Lahore and Amritsar the armies of Pakistan and India strut and pose in ritual hostility. It is here that the British Raj was divided, where once Rudyard Kipling's boy, Kim, could walk unhindered, a border post now stands, dividing Muslim Pakistan from Hindu India. The evening flag ceremonies are ritual. The nearby watchtowers and razor-wire fences that adorn more than a thousand miles of border are not.
It is Pakistan's 50th birthday, but still families separated by the partition of the subcontinent must stand at the border and wave, hoping for a rare glimpse of a relative on the other side. There will, of course, be celebrations here, but the anniversary is not entirely a joyous one, because while it marks 50 years since the birth of a nation, it is also 50 years since one of the great tragedies of the 20th century, the communal massacres that took place between Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs.
NEWSREEL SPOKESMAN: Throughout this vast land the Hindus and Muslims seek safety in new surroundings. Peace-loving people, theirs is the real tragedy.
FATIMA SURAIYA, Playwright: Fear of hatred, was that big. Nobody had ever thought of this migration will take place in such a manner.
JAMES MATES: Fatima Suraiya still reads her grandfather's diaries chronicling their train journey from India to the newly-created Pakistan.
FATIMA SURAIYA: We had to close the windows, doors, and lock inside, and I heard that they were killing people. People were killing each other.
JAMES MATES: The country they came to was a homeland for the Muslims of the subcontinent, but religion alone was not enough. As a country, Pakistan started from scratch. Fifty years later, progress has been painfully slow: grinding poverty, illiteracy, almost non-existent health care. Pakistan has conspicuously missed out on the Asian economic miracle. For almost half those 50 years the army, most recently General Zia, had grabbed power for themselves. Even former generals now recognize how damaging that was.
GEN. MIRZA ASLAM BEG, Former Army Chief of Staff: That has very badly damaged the process of development of a political culture and development of a democratic order in the country.
JAMES MATES: It's a culture that may have suffered too from comparing itself solely with India, rather than with the rest of the world.
MUSHAHIO HUSSAIN, Minister of Information: The Muslims of Pakistan are better off than the Muslims of India. I think that is the bottom line, and that was the basis of Pakistan's existence and as a sovereign Muslim state.
JAMES MATES: At the one rail crossing with India, customs and immigration procedures take the best part of a day. It is no surprise only two trainloads a week make the journey. When the British agreed to partition India, they expected the two countries to live together as brothers. That wasn't to be. In Karachi, children's bands are already rehearsing at the tomb of the founder of Pakistan. India has, of course, existed for centuries. For Pakistan, this is genuinely a 50th birthday party. And they'll celebrate it as such.

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