In the wake of Pulwama terrorist attack, here we reproduce the Abracadabra published on Aug. 25, 2015:
It started at Ufa, Russia, where Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif met on the sidelines of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit they were attending on July 10, 2015. Prime Minister of India Modi and the Prime Minister of Pakistan Sharif agreed for talks between the National Security Advisors (NSA) of India and Pakistan at Delhi primarily to discuss Cross-border firing across Line of Control (LoC) and International Border (IB) between the two countries. Talks are cancelled primarily for two reasons:
1. Pakistan wanted Kashmir issues to be included which was not there, according to our Home Minister Rajnath Singh, when Prime Minister Modi had a meeting with Nawaz Sharif. 2. India wanted incidents of terrorism in J&K and other parts of the country to be included in the talks.
Rightly, the Chief Minister of J&K Mufti Mohammad Sayeed has endorsed India’s view saying, “Escalation of firing along the LoC, coupled with incidents of terrorism, are matter of serious concern to us here (J&K) as much as they are in the rest of the country.”
According to social, print and electronic media, since Modi took over office the LoC and IB firing is challenged effectively on the principle of ‘an eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth’ and also two heads for one. In countering terror, it has been not as much a chess-board challenge as it is a Snake and Ladder game.
As for talks that have been cancelled with egg on the faces of both Sharif and Modi, people in both countries are left wondering whether there was agreement on only one agenda about the issue of cross-border firing along LoC and the IB without any condition or whether these new conditions were brought in with the sole objective of “sabotaging” the NSA talks as Pakistan is accusing India. Similarly, India is blaming Pakistan of sabotaging the talks by bringing in the “Kashmir issue” to be included in the talks.
According to India, this NSA level talk with only LoC and IB cross-firing and terrorism on the agenda was the “Red-Line” drawn by Pakistan.
Once these talks get over, this was to be followed by two other meetings — one between DGMOs and another between Chiefs of India’s BSF and Pakistan’s Rangers.
The third and final meeting in this initiative would be at the land of the world’s Super Policeman, US, when these two leaders meet on the sidelines of UN Meet in New York next month.
I have a gut feeling that US is an unlucky land for both Pakistan and India or even UN (which is located on American soil) for holding Peace-talks or talks on settlement of India’s complaint against Pakistan. UN, however, cleverly converted our complaint to a dispute with the support of partisan UK and USA when our then Prime Minister Nehru unwittingly and unwisely took the internal war of newly divided country to UN.
To recap India’s poor leadership quality in the matter of settling internal war declared against it by its newly-born neighbour, Muslim Pakistan, one must read the book “Tower of Babble” by Dore Gold, the former Ambassador to the United Nations, then a puppet of Allied Power of World War II with Veto Powers resting with US and Russia. Indeed some similarities are there in the division of India and Palestine that happened immediately after World War II ended in 1945. India was divided between Muslims and the rest with Hindu majority while Palestine was divided in 1948 between Jews and Arabs.
It is significant to note here that UN did not have any role in dividing India. It was the British who divided India.
But as for Palestine, it was UN which had a role in the partition of British Mandatory Palestine.
Why then did Nehru go to UN with a complaint, instead of going to England, to the Privy Council or British Parliament? This is my question. If any of my readers has an answer to this, I shall be happy. Was it because Lord Mountbatten was wiser than Nehru? Indeed, Lord Mountbatten was clever by half. The book mentions, “The Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin wrote to Prime Minister Attlee that London had to be very careful about siding with India at the UN, given the tension that had arisen in Islamic world over Palestine.”
Most ungrateful colonial ruler who, to use Shashi Tharoor’s words, exploited India in many ways making Indian people “Pay to England for their own oppression.” Appeasing Muslims all over the world, including India, at the cost of a truncated Hindu majority Secular India without any moral compunction was the idea of a fair and just rule for the British. No wonder, the clarion call of a British patriot is ‘Right or wrong, my country’; damn India.
If Nehru committed the first blunder with regard to J&K policy, his daughter Indira Gandhi, who went with the sobriquet “Empress of India,” thanks to cartoonist R.K. Laxman, committed the second blunder on July 2, 1972 when Simla Agreement was signed by victorious India after the Bangladesh war that severed Pakistan like its soldiers severing the heads of our Jawans on the border. Dom Moraes, the well-known columnist wrote, “Indira Gandhi created not only history but also geography.” A beautiful phrase with all its rhetorics. Let it be.
India could have settled the J&K problem under Simla Agreement, but it again succumbed to a crafty Prime Minister of Pakistan Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and merely got a leash in hand to keep Pakistan out of UN and the UN out of any post-war diplomacy with regard to Kashmir issue. If anything, these two countries are to settle their own differences by peaceful means “through bilateral negotiations or by any other peaceful means MUTUALLY agreed upon between them.”
Despite suffering bitter wars declared against India from the days of Dictator Field Marshal Ayub Khan to the days of another Dictator Yahya Khan with his belligerent, haughty, Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who called us “Indian dogs in Kashmir” and Yahya Khan who humiliated our “Empress of India” by calling her “that woman,” India signed that Simla Agreement, which Pakistan had treated as a dead-letter even before the ink on the paper had dried.
I think, as long as US and China are supportive of Pakistan, no purpose will be served in hoping to talk with this Rogue State at all. If we cannot change our neighbour, then we will have to resign ourselves to our fate and learn to manage the demon.
I may only suggest to the rulers, BJP or Congress or any Kichadi Party that may rule India, to use our western border with Pakistan as a Godsend ground for simulated military exercises permanently. I know Pakistan may do the same, but so be it. We can’t build a ‘Berlin Wall’ like someone suggested on NDTV 24×7 last evening. We may also grow roses along the border or LoC so that the symbol of love and affection that Nehru wore on his jacket may also be seen on the berets of both Indian and Pakistan soldiers. After all, love has no boundaries, except for nations built purely on religion. Should I explain?
And finally, Pakistan, like many Muslim countries, can survive as a stable nation only under dictatorship or Sheikhdom. Hence, Pak Military is the key to solve Kashmir problem. Even now it is on the Army’s shoulder Pakistan’s sham democracy is resting with its namkavasta Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif [now Imran Khan] sitting pretty like a Utsava Murthy!
India should have known this at Ufa, in Russia, and asked Nawaz Sharif if he has Army’s permission for the NSA talks and for its agenda. Apparently, he did not. As for India no problem. Our country is firmly rooted in Democracy, Secular Democracy for the security of our minority communities as well unlike in Islamic Pakistan where law of blasphemy is giving hell to minorities. Indian people are the masters of our Prime Minister, not the Army General. For this reason alone I feel, no matter when, it is the Pakistan Army that can talk to India and settle the Kashmir issue. For protocol purpose, let Army Generals of both the countries hold talks, like the aborted NSA talks. Then the Prime Ministers may talk. With this the cross-border firing and terrorism will naturally stop once and for all. I am sure, the educated new generation of Pakistanis will put behind the tragic history and move forward to peace and economic prosperity paving way for Hindu-Muslim brotherhood as good neighbours. It is possible. It is the rulers and the Army (in Pakistan) that have made the majority of wonderful, affectionate Pakistani Muslims IRRELEVANT.
While in US twice I was a recipient of Pakistan Muslim citizen’s hospitality in restaurants. Once a girl medical student recognised us as Indians from our looks and approached us at our table as a part-time waitress. Had a small talk with my sister-in-law who is a practising senior doctor. We had our dinner with beer. And when we asked for the bill, she smiled and said, “Bill is on me.” This was in New York.
I am sure, though talks may have failed for now, the hearts of Pakistan and India will not fail. No heart failure! It can’t be a case of ‘Pakistan is Pakistan and Hindustan is Hindustan. The twain shall never talk.’
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This piece of writing is at best confusing and at worst a rant, riddled with contradictions, and misunderstanding of historical facts. It was the Father of this Nation whose obstinacy to keep the then India together which was threatening to derail the chance of independence , by insisting that Jinnah should be the PM of the undivided country, which was unpalatable even to his staunchest supporters and disciples, that ended in partition of the then united India. Jinnah delivered a slap to him saying , there should be a separate Muslim country; there was no other option but to divide the country into Pakistan and India, and give independence to both
About the UN. When it was proposed in the immediate post-WII period, no country would foot the bill of housing the organisation and meeting most of the running costs. Thus the US has to step in, otherwise, the UN would not have emerged then. The majority of UN members voted to create Israel, Gandhi the ever supporter of Muslims opposing it. He argued Jews cannot claim a land as their own ( idiocy looking at the land where so many places there were associated with Jewish footprints). Palestine was not divided by the UN, if it did , we would have seen the emergence of Palestinian State at the same time . What we see today is pieces of land around Israel, occupied by Palestinians, when the Muslim countries around Israel went to war with the newly created Israel, and acquired pieces of it.
When some one starts quoting Shashi Tharoor, one can surmise that the outcome will be a muddled discussion! Tharoor, a self-opinionated ranter has been prone to observations which were at best suspect. One can see him today trying to wriggle out from a criminal case using such creative arguments.
Nehru with his so called Non-Alignment movement, biased towards Soviet interest and against the West, and in collusion with the Marxist Menon, singularly united the West against the J and K arguments of his government. He was the one, who against the wise advice of his generals, appealed to the UN, and thus engineered the J and K quagmire which lasts today. Trying to find other bogeymen outside the country is an exercise in futility and represents typical Indian psyche- blame always others outside the country, preferably the West. Just look at how his dalliance with Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai delirium ended, when China made incursions into India and held territories. How, pathetic Nehru howled and begged Western countries to listen, when his Soviet friends turned away their faces!
Finally, the SOM carries articles begging to restore Lansdowne building , arguing that it is a heritage edifice, like the Dufferin Clock, even though , it was built by Wadiyars to commemorate the visit of the then Viceroy of India, ,and to please the British rulers!
India , since the medieval times was not a united country with regions, languages and cultures separating one another. There were hundreds of war lords controlling patches of the regions. Every Hindu war lord hated the other Hind war lord. This made it easy for the Muslim invaders like the Mughals, play them against each other dividing them for conquer. There is nothing to be proud of their period as they converted croes of Hindus into Muslims, thus forcing allegiance. Even the great Tansen born a Hindu was converted to Islam by Akbar.
One may hate the British rulers, but it was they who united India through a common language and civil service.
So, arguing about partitioning India is a bit rich, given India has always been a mass of divided regions.
Muslims who were reality a minority at the time of partition: we should have exchanged the population then as Greece and Turkey did, are now through the insane personal laws where polygamy is allowed in that community and no wonder they have multiplied . Despite many Muslim Presidents of India, their massive increase in population and privileges like course and job reservations, they always howl discrimination, and many support Pakistan. One example, was a Muslim doctor in the VV Market area in the last Indo-Pakistan war was caught spying for Pakistan, and the case was suppressed from public scrutiny, fearing there may me many more.
J and K issue was mishandled by Nehru. He was just a socialist dreamer, who when becoming the first PM played his cards badly. Pakistan as an independent country, bordering Soviet Union and Afghanistan, was always attractive territory to US, in the post-WWII period when US and Soviet Union became sworn enemies. John Foster Dulles, the US Secretary of State under Eisenhower, offered pacts to Nehru, which he rejected reacting that India was a non-aligned nation, which was a lie, as India sides with Soviet Union. This Pakistan exploited , joined the SEATO and CENTO pacts, and from there was able to influence the US by allowing US to station its observation posts inside it. Deluded Nehru was cheated by China, who in turn also supported Pakistan, partly because China has a sizeable Muslim population. Now China is a superpower, and permanent member of the UN, where as India has substantially less influence. Unlike the IT sweatshops, IT coolies who do the outsourced software work, China has become the technological all rounder, with impressive scientific advancement; high speed trains in cities like Shanghai , their satellite and mobile communication advancement, their rocket technology are examples why it is a superpower, and India is not.
If you want to apportion blame Indian politicians starting from the Nehru dynasty. Indians did not want British rulers, arguing they do not want to be ruled by foreigners, yet, now, the CMs of Indian states are happy to prostrate in front of an Italian woman, and take orders from her!
I have no sympathies for BJP. But I laugh from a distance whilst Congress MPs mock Modi as Chai wallah, they are prepared to be subjugated by a former Italian bar maid, in front of who they crawl!!