An Indian in Pakistan: A Review

Some of the greatest friendships have had the most unusual of origins. A box of mangoes intended for a friend of debutant author, Navnit Talwar’s ends up with Navnit instead, at his London home in the early ‘70s. Thus began an incredible journey which one would customarily read in fiction.

This is the story of not just an Indian in Pakistan but the story of a warm and glowing friendship between Navnit and Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, who would one day become the Prime Minister of Pakistan. The beauty of this book lies in its meticulous account of the author’s travels interspersed with the history of the Indian sub-continent and the rocky road of Indo-Pakistan relations.

This account, dwelling largely on events around the turn of the millennium, takes the reader to Navnit’s ancestral hometown of Peshawar, — where most Indian nationals are rarely given a visitor’s visa — the temple complex of Katasraj in Punjab, as well as Islamabad and Lahore. The author offers nuanced and balanced perspectives on the Kashmir imbroglio, the menace of jihadi networks, the genesis of the Kargil war and the coup that led to the overthrow of then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. He provides a first-hand account of his meeting with General Musharraf as well as the diplomatic parleys that led to the General’s Agra summit and the unrest in Balochistan, Gilgit-Baltistan and Waziristan. The book also captures what made the former Deputy Prime Minister of India, L.K. Advani’s visit to Pakistan compelling and the real reasons for his ouster as the President of India’s currently ruling BJP party.

There are passages in the book which capture impromptu but sensitive and monumental discussions like when Navnit discloses to Chaudhry Shujaat (aka Chaudhry Sahib) and Balbir Punj, BJP leader and member of parliament, the view of some Pakistanis he met at a reception for the cricket teams in Lahore the previous night that India and Pakistan ought to be one country. Some of the conversations, that take place in the living room of Chaudhry Shujaat, reveal the closeness of their relationship and gives hope that personal friendships can help transcend the bitterness that exists between political identities.

This is a book written with great sincerity and authenticity. The only drawback is that the author stops at events that happened in 2004-2005. A lot of water has flown under the bridge since then and if you have an interest in getting a birds-eye view of Indo-Pakistan relations, one can’t help feeling incomplete. Yet, if you have an interest in understanding the world of back-channel diplomacy, this is a must-read book, a book whose contents are usually hidden from view in the public domain.

The book, ‘An Indian in Pakistan’, by Navnit Talwar, is available as an ebook on Amazon

Shakti Saran is a systems thinker, writer, consultant, and the Founder of Shaktify, an initiative to power social and environmental change