“According to the Pentagon today, secret surrender negotiations are now underway with key Iraqi military officials. That’s what the Pentagon said: We’re in secret negotiations, so for God sakes, don’t tell anyone. … What we’re doing basically is giving these key Iraqi military officials instructions on how to surrender. See, this is where we could have used the French.” —Jay Leno
In India, we don’t need the French.Esteemed columnists like Swaminathan Aiyar and Vir Sanghvi have called upon the nation to wave the white flag and kneel before the secessionists. We should thank our stars (or Richard Dawkins if you are an atheist) that such people did not exist in 1947.
On August 15, 1947, when India became Independent, the Maharajah of Kashmir signed a standstill agreement with the government of Pakistan, a precursor to accession. The Pakistanis also took over charge of Jammu and Kashmir’s post and telegraph system, food supplies and essential commodities. But in September armed groups from Pakistan came from West Punjab and started looting and raping the the Muslims in Kashmir valley, the same people whom they had come to liberate.
A desperate Maharajah turned to India. Even though Chacha Nehru and Lord Mountabatten were running the show, they got the Maharajah to sign the Instrument of Accession and Kashmir joined the Indian Union. If these columnists were around at that time, they would have taken umbrage at the Maharajah for not letting his people be murdered.
In 1965 several thousand armed men — mainly professional Pakistani soldiers and non-Kashmiris — crossed the Line Of Control to liberate Kashmir. The Kashmirs stood by India but our columnists would have encouraged them to surrender.
In the 80s Sikh separatism was a major problem in India. Delhi was a fortress and Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale used to run the show from the Golden Temple. Our columnists would have written op-eds praising him and would have flown the Khalistan flag in their homes.
These are your regular columnists. Then there the award winning types – the Booker and the like. They missed the 1947 and 1971 genocides. The ones they saw in 1984 and 2002 were not up to their standards. They now want a Balkanization of Jammu and Kashmir so that they will get fodder for some books, columns and lucrative speeches on the speaking circuit.
These grandees are not confined by the parochial boundaries of nations. They are mobile republics who unfortunately were born in India. Instead of floating in international waters like true mobile republics, they live prosperously in the comforts of the Indian state carrying out the ISI agenda of a death by thousand cuts.
All of them — the regular and award winning ones — claim they are drinking the liberalism Kool-Aid. It is time they checked the contents of the bottle because this drink tastes like communalism. They encourage communalism and want the division of India along communal lines and call others communal. As Plato once said to Aristotle: If it walks like a duck…
Instead let me suggest a new drink. Liberal Nationalism. Neither shaken nor stirred.
You forgot Bastiat, because of friendship, eh 😉
Well said.
Kashmir – the same Kashmir which was the heaven on earth will soon be hell if these demands are met. The same hell as the PoK and P have become. Surely grandees like these know that? or do they think that giving up Kashmir will suddenly create Buddhas out of terrorists?
Kashmir will just be the beginning – of the end.
I still object to calling 2002 a genocide. One side was numerically stronger, so more casualties were on the other side. Police occasionally siding with rioters only betrays lack of professionalism ( the true colors of the individual policemen coming out ) and not necessarily active interference from Government towards effecting that.
Gaurav,
How can I be the friend of someone whom I have not met, not talked and whose blog I don’t read?
Ok, I am sorry for the snark it was uncalled for. It is just that I am pissed off that no one excoriated Bastiat winner.
“They are mobile republics who unfortunately were born in India. ”
What use of words! 🙂
Let us kick out Kashmir
For for the sake of sanity please let me know why we are keeping it- is it because it offers us some strategic advantages, against Pakistan, and in the absence of that the rag tag army of Pakistan is going to run over us. OR is it just that we are still living in the medieval feudal mindset which evokes the responses of most territorial animals, like Duryodhana where we can wage the whole Mahabharat and would not give up land equal to proverbial “point of needle”? Is there any self respect left among us? We are trying to woo Kashmiris with immense wealth. Can any one justify that we are spending far more money on “these India hating as well secular democracy hating, foaming at mouth and going to street whenever Islam is even slightly rationally treated anywhere in the world, and are not ready to lease even 40 acres of land to the infidels, while they have successfully ethnically cleansed the non muslims from the valley, and even when Indian government is bribing them to all its capacity, still even the most educated ones among them, those getting professional education in medical colleges or engineering colleges across India wants either to go with Pakistan or to be free of us, and many of them wants to revert to seventh century way of living outlined in Koran” then those starving still being proud and loyal Indians living on our footpaths and our severely malnourished children.
Why we are paying billions to protect Kashmiris and forcing our military to do Police’s jobs while in the same amount we can not only radically develop our outdated antiquated Police force and secure our cities, which Islamic Mujahideens have shown in July, 2008, that they can strike at their pleasure.
http://www.geocities.com/akhandbharat1947/indianciv/jandkpampered.html
Let us face this. More than 90 % of us population of Kashmir is Muslim and this is the state which borders with Pakistan. Islam is a political religion and it would never reconcile in the country which is being ruled by infidels or secular constitution. For them Koran is the word of God and there can not be any compromise on that. While most of us might choose to delude with the government propaganda, the fact remains that separative tendencies are very strong in Islam and Kashmir being no exception, most of them are for freedom, and even those who are slightly Pro India, like Abdullas, they too want a special case of autonomous Kashmir.
Let us not fall for that farce of “Kashmiriyat” propagated by government and mainstream media. The fact is that valley is almost “ethnically cleansed”, thousands have been murdered by terrorists and there have been gross abuses of human rights in the name of counter terrorism efforts.
Instead why not divide J&K in three divisions, and have referendum there. I am sure Jammu and Ladakh, would chose to be with India. Why not leave Kashmir, and let them live the way they want to live; and spend the same amount on millions of starving poor children of India, who wants to be educated, who wants to question everything-from religion to God, to society and create an intellectual force who can be an asset to not only India but the whole humanity.
I am sure there would be many reasons to oppose my view, but let us discuss whether they are valid or not instead of accepting what our mass hysteria tells us.
Indian Blooger, what you have said is 100% truth. But to have this materialised we needs leaders with commonsense and guts, not the present ones who have spourted from filth.
Probably a tad too late to comment. Here’s my two cents. India, historically, has been a regionally divided nation. But since the British and then as the Republic of India, it has presented a single face. However, this has been mainly courtesy of a strong government at the center. However, with the advent of coalition politics, the center has weakened and the regions have strengthened. It is in a way similar to Rome after Nero, Commodus and during Crisis of the Third Century. The Emperor was weak and the provinces, especially the peripheral ones, became strong and broke off from the empire. The political situation, as they stand, will further antagonize the regions against each other and soon India may face a Yugoslavia like scenario or a post WWII Great Britain scenario. To avoid either, we need to strengthen the center and hope for the best.