Pakistan and Myanmar are classic case studies of how a single assassination can change the destiny of a nation. The pork eating Muhammad Ali Jinnah became an ‘Islamist’ in the later years of his life to successfully carve Pakistan out of India. In his first address to the new nation, Jinnah grandly announced that Pakistan will be a ‘secular’ state. He died before he could implement his ‘secular’ vision. After him, there was only one towering political personality – Liaquat Ali Khan – left to take Pakistan on a shaky journey. But he was assassinated and Pakistan’s brief flirtation with ‘secularism’ was forever condemned to a graveyard of blind hopes and lost opportunities. Into this vacuum stepped in the military; it is yet to step out even as the nation confronts an existential civil war. Something similar has happened in Myanmaar, formerly Burma. Aung San was the father figure and, unlike Mahatma Gandhi, a military strongman who won independence for Burma from the British in 1947. He was assassinated the same year and the military junta of the nation has never let go of the levers of power after that one tragedy. His daughter, Nobel Peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi has been jailed by the military for the last 20 years. Even die hard optimists don’t think the military will quietly fade away into oblivion and history.
For most of its history as an independent country, Nepal had muddled along as a feudal society coming to terms with the democratic aspirations of its people. But just one single assassination has plunged the country into such a downward spiral that no one knows what the future holds for this Himalayan and only ‘Hindu’ Kingdom. In 2001, virtually the entire royal family of the country led by King Birendra was massacred in a bizarre and ghastly manner by his own son Prince Dipendra. It is almost ten years since then and it looks as if that assassination clawed through the glue that held the nation together.
India too has suffered through three devastating assassinations: Mahatma Gandhi in 1948, Indira Gandhi in 1984 and Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. The killings have shaken up the nation and led many pundits to forecast that the nation will disintegrate. But grant this to India; it has somehow transcended the trauma of these assassinations and survived their horrible aftermaths. So let us pay tribute to Indira Gandhi on the 25th year of her assassination. But more importantly, let us pay tribute to the very idea of India that survives against all odds.
For most of its history as an independent country, Nepal had muddled along as a feudal society coming to terms with the democratic aspirations of its people. But just one single assassination has plunged the country into such a downward spiral that no one knows what the future holds for this Himalayan and only ‘Hindu’ Kingdom. In 2001, virtually the entire royal family of the country led by King Birendra was massacred in a bizarre and ghastly manner by his own son Prince Dipendra. It is almost ten years since then and it looks as if that assassination clawed through the glue that held the nation together.
India too has suffered through three devastating assassinations: Mahatma Gandhi in 1948, Indira Gandhi in 1984 and Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. The killings have shaken up the nation and led many pundits to forecast that the nation will disintegrate. But grant this to India; it has somehow transcended the trauma of these assassinations and survived their horrible aftermaths. So let us pay tribute to Indira Gandhi on the 25th year of her assassination. But more importantly, let us pay tribute to the very idea of India that survives against all odds.
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