Can’t we too break the wall?

I am an Indian and a hindu and I believe that the partition of the subcontinent was absolutely necessary. A united India would have led to large scale chaos and civil war conditions. It would be completely ungovernable. A balkanized India would have been an equally bad idea. History shows that the presence of a number of princely kingdoms always led to more conflicts and resulted in foreign occupation.

It is necessary to realize that while there is overwhelming diversity in the subcontinent, there are some divisions that are too severe for nationhood but others are manageable. We Indians need to be honest and accept the reality that the hindu-muslim division is simply too much to overcome. Religion is not just a way to refer to God, as suggested by someone. Instead it is an entire way of life. Hindus and Muslims have totally different ways of life, different social structure, food habits etc. We have coexisted for a thousand years, yet we hesitate to share a meal together.

Partition has been quite beneficial for hindus while satisfying the muslim demand. The present day India is one of the largest sized nations that hindus have ever ruled as a nation if you consider the deep south and the north-east. With a 80% plus population, hindus have unchallenged control over India. This has restored their self-confidence as a people. The presence of Pakistan has resulted in something that 800 years of muslim rule did not - unity among hindus. Hindus have been forced to overlook their caste, regional and linguistic differences in the fear of losing their nation to Pakistan. None of this would have happenned in a united India. Therefore, the status quo is just fine because neither side can dominate the other.

While it is unlikely that hindus and muslims can be friends, at least they can develop a reasonable working relationship to solve Kashmir and other problems.

Re: All those who believe that muslim problems in india are imagined in the Muslim mind
Honey!
What about the Sikhs who dont get along with the Hindu majority. Are they also (in your hyperactive imagination) under a spell of a beautiful city, perchance in Greece somewhere?
What about kashmir? HELLOOOO!!!! It under indian occupation, not pakistani! Get it!
You appear to be really impressed by Alice in wonder land. Its a good book, only to read--not to live in!

People want to read what they already believe.

In my earlier post I had NOT stated that a union is something to work towards. I had commented mainly on the interesting switching of positions that Pakistanis undergo when talking of the seperation of Bangladesh and the partition of `47.

I believe that there is no need for effacing national boundaries. Indeed I dont think that that should even be an issue.

But skewering Low IQ hate-mongers is a priority.

Continuing my mail below...
the groups mentioned below ARE LIVING in India. Lets solve their issues/massacres first.

Zain, the poeple you are addressing are lost in Alice`s Wonderland. Have no clue what they are talking about. thus are using nonsensical rhetoric, long winding arguments that in the nend make very little sense given the PRESENT STATE OF AFFAIRS and ``halaaT`/happenings both in India & Pakistan & Kashmir & Bangladesh.. not to forget this planet. Earth to Mars!!!! Helloooo!
Any suggestions for Kashmiri muslims/sikhs first.. talk about Pakistan later.

Humans try very hard to make everlasting changes. They do not realise that most creations exist for a very short time, all things considered. Be it nations or walls. This much is understood by everyone once attention has been brought to it. Simulataneously the other side of it is somehow ignored in similar human attempts at eternity. What I mean to say is that just as today certain groups of humanity stand apart, similarly at a later time they will stand together and at a still later time they will stand apart. These are just cycles that need to happen. All of our devices could prolong a certain period or delay a change for a while but thats all. In the end such things dont matter.

In other words, equilibrium is a lower dimensional space than nonequilibrium. This is an essential fact of existence. This is just because there are more ways to be not in equilibrium. Hence such cycles will go on for ever with probability 1.

On the other hand, your life is somthing that you can change. As long as you dont marginalise anybody intentionally and as long as you do not become overly sensitive to actions/thoughts/comments of other people there is really no need for unity/national spirits etc. Such concepts are merely devices of false leaders. What is important is that you treat someone as you would like to be treated yourself. This is deeper than it sounds. You should interact with people as if you are interacting with another copy of yourself. The day you can do that,
terms like hindu/muslim/indian/pakistani hold no value any more. Also as long as you dont follow that one commandment, no amount of good wishes is going to solve any of our perceived troubles. As you might have noticed, all our problems stem with existence of one and its other.

What will uniting a region of land do?
If each person thinks of himself as one,
What will creating a 100 nations from that land do?
If people do not forgive.

In summary, just as partition did not achieve any goals, so also this proposed union will not achieve any goals. Goals are not achieved by external movements of borders but by internal reorientation of your minds.

Finally the discussion seems to make sense. Pleez continue to concentrate on Current EVENTS, NOW.
PRACTICAL! (to all those rhetoric, khyaali lovers out there)
The plight of kashmiris, muslims and Sikhs in India! Good work Farrukh Azfar and Zia!

It is sad to see a potentially good dialogue go to pieces because of a few low IQ hate-mongers.

Those who love Chowk and live it (at it?) MUST interact here. That morons are a vocal minority is what has ruined my country. The rest of you had better stop giving your lungs a rest (and praying for a good leader and a better tomorrow) and start shouting sense NOW.

Back to the article. There are interesting threads developing. A fairly typical point of view from across the border is that the national boundaries set up in `47 were a mistake and that mistake should be redressed. Interestingly several of my Pakistani friends feel somewhat the same about 1971 and openly claim that Bangladesh would have been better off had it not sought independence. The answer that my Bangladeshi friends give is fairly similar to the ones we give when confronted by a similar argument from Indians.

There are major issues to be discussed here. Minority rights protection. Religious intolerance.
Economic prosperity. The fact that the culture and identity of both Pakistan and Bangladesh are strongly-defined and independent enough by now to make the question of erasing national boundaries moot (or are they).

There are no easy answers; although each side is probably convinced that there are and they have it.

This article could be a starting point to understand why each side thinks as it does. Ridiculing the way the other side prays and to whom it prays is pathetic.

I hope that the chowkwalas return to salvage this discussion ,picking up on the many threads that are so enticing.

Why are peopel so ``bliND`` to whatever is going on in India right now AGAINST muslims. Why is the majority on this page so wrapped in some unreal Utopiac world. The people of the subcontinent living together in peace with some `baansree` sounding in the background. Reality CHECK, please!
I wrote this in my earler reply so i am not going to repeat myself but...

Babri Masjid

Muslim Genocide

Pakistan melding with india and not the other way round

Muslims pretending to appear less muslim on REsumes and higher eduction applications

Why do the Sikhs want khalistan? I guess its their first hand experience in India that drove them to it? or is that also some kind of madness leveld against the poor mother India?

Why are the Kashmimirs so bent on thoer independence form india? Why arent UN age old resolutions bieng carried out? Maybe because india `s word has no value in its own as well as others eyes.

Why are bangladesh-india relations so sour?

It seems to me every NATION that is not Hindu is considered less DIFFERENTLY-the ancienbt caste system expalinms this indian mentality after all thay lived under it For 5000 years!

DO all of these, probably many more, ring a bell?

Please concentrate on what is HAPPENING rather than carrying on a philosophic rhetoric.
Indians have PROVEN by their ACTIONS, not mere replies to articles the height of their bigotry, barbarianism cloaked under nationalism, not to mention proved itself mentally and emotionally immature nation on an international level too.
Pakistanis have yet to do/or not do so.

Re Imam Din.Very pathetic the way you start abusing other religions. I dont agree at all with what Suresh said but the answer to give is against his points that religion spreads hate and that partition was a mistake. Your remarks are sick and crude as hell.

Re: BG (``...I still havent heard anything on the potential for more abuse by giant corporations?...``)MULTINATIONAL CORPORATE IMPERIALISMWe’ve discussed this theme elsewhere so I didn’t think I had much more to add to it, thus my reticence. Also, I’m away from home these days and shall return in mid-August, so my interactively is at a minimum because Internet connectivity is not as universal as we like to believe.We are living through a global revolution of unprecedented proportion. This is, what Alvin Toffler called, The Third Wave. One of the universal changes underway is the increasing irrelevance of National State entities, both big and small, in the face of the new pyramids of power typified by, what I like to call, “Gobble & Engulf International, Inc.” (All this bickering over nationalism is much like the bow-and-arrow weilding, tent-dwelling, half-clad Native America tribes fighting over herds of bison as the approaching tidal wave from Europe makes that punny dispute moot.)(Borrowing an analogy from Star Trek, this is the invasion of The Borg. The mindless, amorphous, impersonal and impervious entity called the Multinational Mega Corporation which absorbs and assimilates all that stands in its path - ‘Resistance is futile.’ In the coming decades, as budgetary constraints diminish the ability of national governments, even things like the armed forces will eventually be privatized and come directly under corporate control. Already there are three major private military corporations in the worlds and many more are coming up. Executive Outcomes, a Johannesburg based corporation, has ex-military officers from the US, USSR, UK and France and they provide “defense consultations and training” worldwide to whoever wishes to pay the price.)The mega corporation is, I believe, a ‘higher’ life-form on the evolutionary ladder than the individual. It is true that corporate entities are ultimately made up of individuals also, but only in the sense that as an animal is made up of individual cells. I am an ardent individualist so I see the growth of this life-form with the same horror as an ameba must have seen the development of the early multicellular creatures, because its development spells the end of my kind. Its your old ‘cat-people’ vs ‘dog-people’ argument again.Oversimplistically speaking, there are two interactive (and competing) components in an economic system: Capital and Labor. Their interaction, in the presence of a catalyst called “enterprise”, is what creates ‘goods and services’.In the old days both labor and capital (along with goods and services) moved at the speed of a camel caravan or an ox cart. Later this changed to the speed of sail ships and still later steam engines and then airplanes.However, since the SWIFT system ( the worldwide electronic money transfer grid between International banks) came to be established, Capital has acquired the ability of move at the speed of light. While you lay asleep at night in New York, your money is changing hands in Tokyo. This gives ‘capital’ an extreme competitive edge over ‘labor’ in any adversarial conflict. Labor does not only move at the speed of aircraft (at most), it must also cross passport-control and work-permit barriers across various market pools. Capital has no such constraints. There is no doubt as to the outcome of any conflict between Labor and Capital. As any student of Carl von Clausewitz would know, speed and the ability to concentrate in force are the two absolute essentials for victory in battle. This battle is over. Karl Marx is dead....SR

Re: M AlianiOne last question: ``It is strange you have the term `his`.......`` Are you just trying to demonstrate your wit or do you have something useful to say?

Re: M. Aliani I have the following questions: 1.Are you calling me a liar? 2. Aren`t you generalizing about the Sayyeds? 2a. Do you hate Sayyeds or any other classification of Muslims thereof? 3. Can you give any examples to support your arguments or this merely self righteous fluff? 4. Do you know my Pakistani friends? 5. Are you Afghani? 6. Do you know the 13 Afghanis that I know all of whom hate India but not Pakistan? 7. Is Punjab in the former USSR?

Hey, what`s all this Indian and India bashing? Puhleeez, gentlemen, calm down and argue on the issue.I am as offended by this kind of `we are better than you` rhetoric as by Indians assuming that South Asia=India. And, feel proud of having more in common with secular, open-minded, progressive Indians than I do with narrow-minded, intolerant Pakistanis!

Re: Usman Qazi I can only speak from my own experience, and what I have seen is this. All pakistani punjabis do not touch hindu punjabis with a yard pole! The only sikhs they come near are the ones who are rooting for khalistan. This excludes american born people. The mutual dislike is so very famous here, that even CNN remarked that it was ``visceral``. That is the nature of all the Pakistanis. A test of this is try calling a Pakistani ``Indian`` and see his response.... Fortunately, I have four or five sindhi friends on whose behalf I can speak. They feel comfortable only with the Jains of Kacch because they are unhappy with the Indian federation. Rajastanis they say, make them feel uncomfortable always trying to tell them about the freedom of Sindh etc. while when the conversation turns to freedom of Rajhastan, the subject is quickly changed. I really do not see any signs of ``unity`` in that (Alhamdolillah). The Sindhis and Punjabis like the rest of the Pakistanis, have the same general dislike for the Indians. Same is the case with Urdu speaking Pakistanis. The same for the Baluchis and the Pathans. Infact, the Afghans in the US who came through Pakistan also dislike the Indians!!! That I think is the most telling example of how many poles apart we and the Indians are. Re: Born to Be and KHWhat can I say? Bravo chaps! You make this Pakistani prouder still!!!

No thnanks! WE have NO intention/aspiration to be called `bharati` citizens, to alter our names to sound less islamic in order to get good jobs/higher education in `Mother India`, see a temple built at the babri masjid sight like a slap in the face of the muslim `citizens` of India, try for the rest of our lives trying to justify the fact that despite all the discrimination and third class status accorded to us we still `love my India`( case of `sour grapes`, i presume!). No thanks I would take pakistani `mushkils`/frustrations anytime over losing my self respect and having my religious identity used as a measure of my `incompetence`.And as for all those who do want `bharat maata`s asheervaad`, do all of us a favor, Go to India!Experience it first hand and then write all of us poor pakistani souls whether your dream really came true or did the expereince leave an ashy aftertaste! Ciao!