A Personal Appeal Beyond Borders
The Decision to Help: Professional Networks and Human Response
“Every Pakistani is an Indian”: A Controversial Assertion
Revisiting the Legacy of the Partition of India
The Idea of Reunification: Vision or Idealism?
Secularism and the Influence of Akbar’s “Sulh-e-Kul”
Immigration, Opportunity, and Global Mobility
Humanity Beyond National Boundaries
Why did Justice Markandey Katju help a Pakistani student in the US? Explore his views on India-Pakistan relations, Partition, secularism, and the idea of reunification in this thought-provoking analysis.
Why I helped a Pakistani
By Justice Markandey Katju
Recently, a young Pakistani Muslim man living in America, with whom I have interacted on WhatsApp for some time, called me on WhatsApp seeking my help. His problem was that he is doing a Master's course in a US University, and that course is shortly coming to an end. With the expiry of that course, his US visa will also expire. He wants to continue staying in America, and for doing so he needs a job in America, and he asked me whether I can help him in this, by asking someone in America who can get him a job.
I immediately contacted a friend of Indian origin who has been living in America for about 20 years and is a US citizen, and holds a high position in an American company. He readily agreed to help, and said he will shortly arrange a job for that Pakistani young man.
Now, some people may ask me why I helped a Pakistani ?
My answer is that I regard every Pakistani as an Indian.
I believe that Pakistan is a fake, artificial country, created in 1947 by a British swindle on the basis of the bogus 2 nation theory, so that Hindus and Muslims should keep fighting each other, thereby wasting our precious resources, and disunited India remains weak and backward, engrossed in casteism and communalism, and not emerge as a united modern industrial giant, like China ( for which it has all the potential ) and thus not become a big rival to Western industry, as China has become.
India and Pakistan are really one country, sharing the same culture, and were one for 500 years, since the time of Mughal Emperor Akbar. We are bound to reunite one day under a secular government, but that will take time, since those who divided us will not let us easily reunite
It is because I regard all Pakistanis as Indians that as a Judge of Allahabad High Court I passed orders converting 1 month visas given by the Indian government to 5 years visas
It is because I am convinced that India and Pakistan ( and Bangladesh ) are one country and will reunite one day under a secular government that with some like-minded people, we have formed an organization called the Indian Reunification Association ( IRA ) to spread the idea of Indian reunification. Once the idea is widely spread ( as it is bound to, since it is based on truth ), people will find ways and means to peacedully reunite.
As regards that young Pakistani who sought my help being a Muslim, I make no distinction between Hindus and Muslims, as both are my countrymen. If it had been a Hindu seeking similar help, I would have done the same. I am a humble disciple of the great Mughal Emperor Akbar who proclaimed the doctrine of 'suleh-e-kul' or giving equal respect to all religions
(Justice Markandey Katju is a former Judge of the Supreme Court of India, and former Chairman of the Press Council of India. The views expressed are his own.)
