Where's Pakistan? Mandela asked Pak journo; India helped him place it on mental map

The India and Pakistan hyphenation ended at least two decades ago, but there was a time when major Western powers placed the two in the same geopolitical frame. Even during that time, one of the world's tallest leaders, Nelson Mandela, found it difficult to place Pakistan on his mental map. This was revealed in a podcast by Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir, who interviewed Mandela, who was then the President of South Africa, in 1995.

Hamid Mir has claimed that when he sat down to interview Nelson Mandela in 1995 in Auckland, New Zealand. The first South African President did not know where Pakistan was. Mir said he had to locate Pakistan for Mandela by placing it next to India, a country Mandela immediately recognised.

What's more interesting is that, according to Mir, Pakistan's then-President Farooq Leghari had personally helped arrange the interview the previous evening, but Mandela still asked which country Leghari was president of.

Mir is a veteran Pakistani journalist and longtime host of Geo News' political programme Capital Talk. Mandela, the anti-apartheid icon who spent 27 years in prison, became South Africa's first democratically elected President in May 1994 and served until 1999.

Mir's recollection comes even as South Africa on Thursday marks its 32nd Heritage Day on September 24, a public holiday created under the country's first democratically elected government led by Mandela to celebrate its diverse cultural heritage.

Explaining the day's purpose in 1996, Mandela said South Africa's "rich and varied cultural heritage has a profound power to help build our new nation." Here, we tell you about the incident from 1995 that Mir recalled speaking to journalist Waseem Abbas's YouTube channel.

HOW DID HAMID MIR GET AN INTERVIEW WITH MANDELA?

The physical setting of the incident was the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in New Zealand's Auckland in November 1995.

Official Commonwealth records confirm that both Mandela and then-Pakistan President Farooq Ahmed Khan Leghari were at the summit. South Africa had only returned to the Commonwealth in 1994 following the end of apartheid, and Mandela received a special welcome at Auckland.

Mir recalled that he travelled as part of Leghari's delegation and desperately wanted to interview 77-year-old Mandela. He approached Leghari after learning that the heads of state would attend a separate dinner.

"Sir, you will go there and meet Nelson Mandela. If you can get me sometime, 10-15 minutes, I want to interview him," Mir recalled telling the Pakistani President.

Leghari agreed to try. According to Mir, Mandela accepted, and the Pakistani President's military secretary later informed him that he had an appointment with the South African President at 9 am the following morning.

WHAT MANDELA ASKED HAMID MIR ABOUT PAKISTAN?

Mir said he arrived the next morning and sat across from Mandela. Then came the exchange that surprised him.

"Where are you from?" Mandela asked, according to Mir.

"From Pakistan," Mir replied.

Mandela then referred to Leghari, saying, "So the guy who fixed this interview last night, he is your President?"

"Yes sir, he is my President," replied Mir.

"Which country?"

"Sir, Pakistan."

Mandela's next question, Mir recalled, was "Where is Pakistan?"

Mir said, he was stunned.

"Nelson Mandela doesn't know about Pakistan," he recalled thinking in the podcast with Waseem Abbas's YouTube channel.

HOW DID INDIA HELP MANDELA PLACE PAKISTAN?

Mir then tried to give Mandela a mental map of South Asia. "Sir, Pakistan is next to India and Iran and this is Afghanistan," Mir recalled telling him, saying he gestured with his hands to explain the geography of the region.

That was when a familiar name appeared to click for Mandela.

"Okay, okay, India, India, India. Okay, I know India," Mandela said, according to Mir.

Mir then asked him directly. "Sir, you don't know anything about Pakistan?"

Mandela's purported response was characteristically disarming. "Oh boy, I spent 28 years in jail. So I lost my geography. I lost my memory. I don't know what is going on in this world," Mandela replied, according to Mir.

Mandela actually spent just over 27 years in prison, from 1962 until his release on February 11, 1990, so his "28 years" remark, if recalled accurately, was evidently a rounded figure.

GANDHI, NEHRU WERE INSPIRATIONS. FOR MANDELA INDIA WAS FAMILIAR

The India part of Mir's account is hardly surprising. India had a long association with the anti-Apartheid struggle in South Africa, and Mandela himself had visited the country in October 1990, months after walking free from prison. India conferred its highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna, on him that year.

Mandela returned to India in 1995 as President of South Africa. An official Rashtrapati Bhawan account later recalled the "unprecedented public welcome" he had received during his 1990 visit and linked Mandela's struggle with Mahatma Gandhi's legacy.

Mandela has explicitly acknowledged Mohandas K Gandhi's influence on him. He said Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru's values had a "profound and lasting influence on our [South African] liberation movement, and on my own thinking." During his 1995 India visit, Mandela went to Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad and described the visit as "a homecoming, a pilgrimage".

So, Mir's recollection gives something contrary to the India-Pakistan hyphen. Mandela, he claimed, needed India to place Pakistan on his mental map. That's understandable for a 77-year-old Mandela, who has spent almost three decades in a prison. And for a leader familiar with India and influenced by Gandhi and Nehru, India was instantly recognisable. Its neighbour, apparently, was not.