Pakistani Rangers and Indian Border Security Force personnel perform the daily retreat ceremony at the India-Pakistan Border at Wagah. Narinder Naru—AFP
The latest insult to Pakistan’s foolish nationalist pride is not that India offered $5 million in flood relief, but that the offer was actually accepted. It took a week before officials came to the realization on Aug. 21 that the situation requires sucking it up and receiving funds—even from longstanding enemies.
Some Pakistanis view Indian aid with the same suspicion that some Western observers reserve for the relief work being undertaken by Islamist organizations like Jamat-ud-Dawah. In either case, those who are being helped are not being recruited to some unholy cause. Ideology is irrelevant in this difficult hour.
Disaster diplomacy between Pakistan and India is not new. Pakistan provided assistance after the 2001 Gujarat earthquake, and India pledged $25 million after the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan. To those few who may have been surprised by Islamabad’s initial hesitance to admit India’s savvy offer need only think back a few months ago to understand just how deep the trust deficit between both countries runs.
On May 27, Indian police in a border village near Lahore detained a white pigeon on the charge of spying for Pakistan. The arrest was made at the behest of concerned citizens. But India treated the accused well: the pigeon was held in air-conditioned, armed custody at Ramdass Police Station, and underwent medical and other tests. Press reports from India quoted police officials as saying that the pigeon had a Pakistani phone number and address stamped on its body in red, as well as a rubber ring that could be used to carry notes. Authorities did not rule out the involvement of Pakistan’s top spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, with some speculating that the bird could have been carrying a message for some sleeper cell in India.
Pigeons are well known for their homing instincts and have over the centuries often served as messengers in times of war and peace. There are even Punjabi folk songs about pigeons relaying messages between lovers. Was this the work of Pakistan’s hardly-luddite intelligence agencies, or a pair of cross-border romantics? The ISI has its toys, and cross-border romances have the Internet. Jihadists, too, are more tech savvy than they used to be.
No chirpings on Pakistan-India relations are ever complete without the obligatory conspiracy theories. So, was this even our pigeon, people in Pakistan asked. Perhaps this was an Indian-born, India-trained pigeon presented as a Pakistani pigeon to malign the Muslim country in the esteem of other Muslim and non-Muslim nations. Perhaps the episode was going to be used as pretext for Predator strikes on pigeon sanctuaries in Pakistan. Or was this part of some Pakistani plan to create a new breed of pro-Pakistan pigeons in India that could be used in times of war?
This bird may be a symbol of peace, but, as the Quran tells us, Divinity has deployed avian warriors before. Abraha the Pagan’s bid to destroy the Kaaba around 570 A.D. was foiled by bomber-birds equipped with stones. Thus inspired, it is possible that some true believer might have actually contemplated such a scenario in a future confrontation between these nuclear-armed neighbors and perpetual enemies.
But the truth was simpler. Times of India quoted a pigeon enthusiast as saying that the information stamped on the pigeon’s body was simply for verification purposes. Trainers on both sides of the border mark their birds with source information as well as the breed. For what it’s worth, the enthusiast said Pakistani-trained pigeons fetch a good price for traders in India because they are better trained and have longer flying range. Sometimes pigeons on either side stray into enemy territory, and get captured. The Pakistan-India border may be fortified like the Maginot Line, but villagers on both sides seem to have found a trade that is not hampered by border forces and customs officials. Finding nothing curious, Indian police handed over the Pakistan’s alleged spy bird to Indian wildlife authorities after a day’s detention.
Whether it comes from the Islamists or the Indians or the Americans, aid is aid. There are at least 17 million Pakistanis whose lives have been turned upside down by the country’s worst-ever floods. None of them cares where help is coming from, as long as it keeps coming in. Everyone’s money should be good here. Who cares where it’s from.
Hussain is a cardiac surgeon who has been practicing in Pakistan for six years.