“Life isn’t about finding yourself, it is about creating yourself.” This is true of individuals as well as communities and nations. Cultivating desirable perceptions about oneself and sustaining them is a serious business. Internationally, as a nation mired in a myriad of problems of almost every kind, Pakistan and Pakistanis signify negativity.

The brand image (or public image) of our country and the people inhabiting it is in dire need of good public relations. An effective strategy should inform the conduct of our diplomats and the members of our intelligentsia, circulating internationally.

For now, let us confess that we have failed to create ourselves as responsible people who care for the essential norms of civilised behaviour.

I was sensitised about this when I read an excerpt from Christophe Jaffrelot’s recent book, Modi’s India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy (the book which must be translated into Urdu). In the 7^th chapter of the book - A de facto Hindu Rashtra: Indian style vigilantism - there is a sub-section titled The Rise of a Parallel State: Law and Order as Moral Order, Digital Vigilantism and Physical Violence against “Sickularists.” An incident is related that caught my attention. I am paraphrasing the context for brevity’s sake.

When Narendra Modi commenced his election campaign, his populist slogan – Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas Achhay din aanay waalay hain – had a wide resonance. People from the Indian diaspora drew inspiration and several of them came back to India to realise Modi’s much-trumpeted dream. For many, he was a personification of Hegel’s world spirit or Yug Purush, which carries the same meaning in shudh (pure) Hindi.

In this context, an enterprising young woman, Sadhvi Khosla, a US citizen with expertise in the IT, decided to volunteer to further Modi’s cause in 2014. She became a foot soldier in the BJP’s army of trolls and took part in a sort of cyber war. In the end she was disenchanted, and observed “a never-ending drip feed of hate and bigotry against minorities, the Gandhi family, the journalists on the hit list, liberals… any one perceived as anti-Modi”.

In her letter of resignation, she says something that should open our eyes to a harsh reality. I am quoting a part of Khosla’s resignation letter to make my point in the latter part of this write-up.

“I am a believer in Hinduism. In my Hinduism, there is no room for such hate. If they (trolls) go on like this, they will destroy Hinduism. After winning (the 2014 election), they are focused only on polarising and hate. I can’t understand why we need to keep demonising Muslims and photoshop incendiary pictures. I have a young son. I don’t want him to grow up in an India which is a mirror of Pakistan.”

Here, she is projecting Pakistan as a place ‘infected with the virus of bigotry’ and she says she does not want her son to grow up at such a place (an India that is a mirror of Pakistan). That is not an isolated projection of Pakistan as the demonised Other. This calls for serious introspection on our part.

The Indian parliament passed the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 on December 11, 2019. It amended the Citizenship Act, 1955 by providing a pathway to Indian citizenship for the persecuted religious minorities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who are Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis or Christians, and arrived in India before the end of December 2014.

The law does not grant such eligibility to Muslims coming from these Muslim-majority countries. The passage of the Act was the first time that religion was overtly used as a criterion for citizenship under Indian law. This attracted global criticism. The legislation incurred trenchant criticism from secular minded Indians.

In the same sort of condemnatory conversation on The Wire, Karan Thapar and Talvin Singh showed their concern about their country descending to the ‘lowly’ level typical of Pakistan. After the Act was promulgated, they said, Pakistanis could say, “you, too, are exactly like us”.

What is really worrying is total complaisance on our part. There was no rejoinder ever to such insinuations against Pakistan either in Pakistani media or from the government. Pakistan’s literati should have some clarity as to why the religious right can never win an election and form a government here while in India, a dispensation with the RSS constituting its core, can dominate politics for an apparently indefinite period.

For the first fifty years since its independence, India had a state apparatus that signified liberalism punctuated with the Nehruvian tradition. However, the society at large had been overwhelmingly conservative with people like Vallabhbhai Patel, Govind Ballabh Pant and others of their ilk wielding a great deal of influence.

The caste system acted as a bulwark against deeper permeation of liberal values into the Indian society. The conservative socio-cultural ethos remained tangible in India. The BJP under Modi just galvanised it into electoral gains. Pakistan has been diametrically opposite. Its society has been plural in its essence and resisted ultra-rightist outfits.

I plead that analysis along these lines should draw the attention of scholars and academics. Demonising your own country and its people will keep on sending negative signals to the world abroad. We must not succumb to cynicism as a nation or as individuals.

Young Pakistanis must be sensitive to the need to cultivate their image at the individual level. That aspect ought to be made part of our system of instruction. Here is what I want to say to the young folks:

You should be mindful of building a good image. Don’t forget to be yourself, yet be conscious of yourself. What you say and what your body language is in the presence of others counts for a lot. The keyword here is authenticity. Be who you are in whatever you do. A positive image reflects a sense of integrity, trust and credibility. These are valuable assets. You never know when you’ll need these to fall back on.

In today’s world, with social networks having emerged as indispensable means to communicate, how you project yourself online becomes very important, considering people can judge you more easily.

The author is a professor of history and a writer. He can be reached at tahir.kamran@bnu.edu.pk