IDENTITY CRISIS.(symbolism of Gandhi in India-Pakistan conflict)

Last Monday, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the Prime Minister of India, and his host, Nursultan Nazarbayev, the President of Kazakhstan, took an hour out of their busy schedules to participate in a ceremony. Their schedules were busy because they, along with fourteen other Presidents and Prime Ministers, were taking part in something called the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia. The purpose of the ceremony was to mark the renaming of Panfilov Street, in Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city. The old name honored Ivan Panfilov, a Red Army hero. The new name is--wait for it--Mahatma Gandhi Street.

Although the twentieth century's greatest advocate of nonviolence had a pretty good sense of humor (asked once what he thought of Western civilization, he replied that he thought it would be a good idea), this was one joke he might have found a bit forced. And although Mohandas K. Gandhi knew all about paradoxes (he turned a homespun loincloth into a raiment more commanding than any bemedalled uniform), this particular ceremony might have been a little too fraught with paradox even for him. Never mind that the President of Kazakhstan is known for corruption and bullying, two of Gandhi's least favorite vices. The other speaker at the renaming ceremony, Prime Minister Vajpayee, is the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., the political ancestors of which include the Hindu-nationalist fanatics who conspired in Gandhi's assassination, on January 30, 1948. What's more, this nice tribute to a man who lived and died for peace and brotherhood came at a moment when India was mobilizing for war over Kashmir, while India's estranged younger brother, Pakistan, was hinting that its own options, should things get bad enough, would include the use of nuclear weapons. As for Gandhi, he might have preferred to be honored by some actual Confidence-Building Measures, and maybe by some actual Interaction, too. Instead, he got a street sign, while Vajpayee and his Pakistani opposite number, President Pervez Musharraf, managed to spend the better part of two days in the same room without speaking to each other, or even shaking hands.

Gandhi's ideas are largely ignored on the subcontinent nowadays, but he was right about many things, including the two great historical mistakes that are at the root of the current crisis. He was right in his opposition to the partition of the British Raj into India and Pakistan. In 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru and the other leaders of the Indian National Congress reluctantly accepted the division, thinking that the alternative was bloodshed. But the carnage that followed anyway was greater than anyone except Gandhi had imagined, and it has continued sporadically down to the present. (A million died in 1947 and 1948, and by 1949 Nehru was bitterly regretting his acquiescence.) The other mistake was the disposition of Kashmir, which, given the brutal logic of partition, ought to have been part of Pakistan. The majority of its population was, and is, Muslim, but its maharaja was Hindu, and the maharaja dithered, and there was fighting, and Kashmir ended up divided but mostly in Indian hands--a partition within the partition, a wound within the wound.

Like the Israeli-Palestinian dispute in the Middle East, the Indian-Pakistani dispute over Kashmir is one of overlapping rights and wrongs, religious and ethnic hatreds, and existential fears. Pakistan sees itself as defending the principles of self-determination and ...