Passing For Pakistani And The Two-Nation Theory

I often pass for Pakistani. In my zipcode, 11218, once supposedly the most ethnically diverse in the US, it isn’t too hard. I speak Urdu, but perhaps more importantly, given Pakistan’s linguistic and ethnic demography, Punjabi; I am brown-skinned (but not all brown folk are alike for I, given my linguistic capacities, cannot pass for Bangladeshi); I can converse, comfortably, about cricket; I slip into stores and buy spices and condiments, asking for them by name, with practiced ease; I order food in restaurants like a seasoned gourmand, entirely willing and able to consume those that include beef in their list of ingredients. I could, with some sleight of hand, even claim I am ‘from Pakistan’; for after all, my father’s side of the family hails from a little village–now a middling town–called Dilawar Cheema, now in Pakistan, in Gujranwala District, Tehsil Wazirabad, in the former West Punjab. I do not lie or dissemble; when asked if I am Pakistani, I say I am not. On one occasion though, on my hearing my response to his question about my origins, my young interlocutor burst out, in some surprise, ‘But you speak Punjabi like a Pakistani!’ Well, I did hone my spoken Punjabi in this city by speaking to Pakistanis.

On most occasions, my passing is not deliberate; I do not intend to deceive. But sometimes I do. Most notably, I did so during a cricket game, the T20 cricket World Cup final in 2007–between India and Pakistan. That day, I had been watching at home, content to cheer on the Indian team in splendid isolation. But thanks to a rare power failure in Brooklyn, the telecast failed. I went looking for relief and succor. I found it in a Pakistani restaurant with a large screen television. Being the solitary Indian fan in a Pakistani stronghold during a cricket world cup final did not suggest itself as a pleasant activity at that moment; I decided to go undercover. I asked for the score in Punjabi; I might even have introduced a tone of solicitousness in my queries about Pakistan’s prospects as they chased the Indian total. When Pakistan lost, I did not celebrate overtly or loudly; I quickly left before texting some jubilant messages to friends in distant locations and time zones.

My passing earns me some easy acceptance in these ‘venues of deception,’ but otherwise no great advantage accrues to me. Neither am I seeking any. I do not think I will be charged more, or refused service, if the fact of my national origin were to be common knowledge. Pakistan and India might have an edgy geopolitical relationship, but the micro interactions that take place in the great subcontinental diaspora tend to be regulated by far more mundane matters. I am not a solitary offender in the passing business. I presume that, just like me, many Pakistanis pass for Indians, and see no reason to loudly and explicitly clarify their nationality or national origin in their otherwise anonymous interactions with Indians and Indian establishments.

Perhaps these easy passages–back and forth–between one supposed identity and the other suggest other zones of contestation of the two-nation theory.