Let us Not be Foolish

To Harimau

The difference is that the mujahideen are only attacking soldiers whereas you attack and kill innocent civilians...but if you want jihad, insha Allah you will get it...

...and just remember that this time you wont be fighting paid soldiers who are fighting because they have been ordered to as part of their job--you`ll be fighting the Warriors of Allah who are fighting SO THAT THEY GET MARTYRED! They wish to embrace martyrdom and love it as much as you love life! How can such a force be stopped, o infidel? And remember--these are the descendents of Muhammad ibn Qasim, Timur, Babar, Aurangzeb, Abdali, Ghauri....expect pyramids of skulls...but you see, deep down I don`t think the hindus really want war...

Pakistan Zindabad!

lets see whether chowk mangles my replies again! I didnt think there was something objectionable to my post, Chowk Staff, can you please advice whether you are receiving the mail in full or part!!



Personally speaking, I have to admit that that incidence in which Indian soldiers are supposed to do the hacking business is particularly heinious and has to be condemned strongly. Furthermore, I do suspect that it was NOT carried out by the professional soldiers but rather the grey ``soldiers``. In the near state of war, truth is the first casualty.

Ummair Sadhna: Re the chinese occupation, there are two aspects to it, first is the part which was occupied by china herself (Aksai Chin) and second part is the territory ceded by Pakistan to China. The first stretch of territory is historically under dispute between India and China but if my recollection stands correctly, there were some discussions during Rajiv Gandhi

On alireza #: 124

When you ask, ``So are you then presenting a THEORY that Patel was in total disagreement with the two most brilliant men that led India?``, you are ignoring history as reported by historians. Leonard Moseley in his book ``The Last Days of the British Raj`` mentions how Mountbatten approached Patel first to broach the idea of Partition as the solution and how Patel, who already was willing to accept it pretended to be talked into it by Mountbatten. Typical bania trick, if you ask me. Rajaji suggested conceding Pakistan in 1939, 8 years before anybody else in Congress reconciled himself to the idea.

When you say,``Jinnah was too smart for Gandhi and Nehru``, he was not smart enough for Mountbatten who would not give him an undivided Punjab or Bengal.

I have no hatred for Jinnah as you assume I do. He was dead by the time I was born. If mere criticism of a person can only be due to hatred, I am then guilty of hating all of India`s political leaders too.

When you quote Beverley Nichols as saying, ``Jinnah is the most important man in Asia because he can sway the battle this way or that way as he chooses...If Gandhi goes, there is always Nehru, or Patel or a dozen others. But if Jinnah goes, who is there?``, isn`t that the problem of Pakistan? That it had no capable leaders; or, rather, Jinnah wouldn`t allow anyone else to have any authority in either the Muslim League or in the government of Pakistan? He told Mountbatten that as Governor-General of Pakistan, he would give the orders and others would carry it out... as opposed to the tradition of the Prime Minister being the head of government and the Governor-General being the ceremonial head of state. He proved his autocracy further by appointing Nazimuddin as head of the party in East Pakistan over Suhrawardy who was the Chief Minister of Bengal. By continuing to rely on toadies, Jinnah ensured there was no rival to him. Unfortunately for Pakistan, he also ensured that there was no capable leader after him.

I understand it is difficult for someone like you to hear the least bit of criticism about Jinnah, the father of Pakistan. So you can ignore history and pretend that Jinnah was the ideal politician.

You seem not to understand that personal rectitude does not necessarily make a man a great politician or vice versa. Bill Clinton is a perfect example.

TRUE NATURE

Pakistan in recent times has tried to adorn the grab of civility by restricting the public display of weapons, muzzling the Asghars on jihad, and in general trying to present an image of a nation under a central rule, with some sense of law and order.

One incident in POK and the true nature of the Pak society is out, fifteen jihadic organisations in the length and breadth of Pakistan has vowed to avenge India.

What is CE doing, has he got any control. Sorry again, only 1% of the population support Islamic views, that makes a more than a million jihadists.

Re: haramiau # 97

Firstly, a `THEORY` is essentialy a system of assumptions, or simply a procedure devised to analyze, or even put simpler: abstract reasoning / speculation. Ayesha Jalal`s theory is just that - a theory. Put against the reality of a country with 130 million people that Jinnah founded, it amounts to very little significance. In any case, to begin with, Jinnah ultimately wanted Hindu/Muslim unity (this is common knowledge), but as history shows us, the introduction of religion into politics by Gandhi, Congress` refusal to form coalition governments with the Muslim League, and the overlying threat of Hindu Raj, drove him to his rigid stand for a seperate homeland for the Muslims.

You`ll notice that I never mentioned Sardar Patel in my post. And understandably, you avoided commenting on Nehru or Gandhi. Mr.Patel`s statements -historically speaking - seem like the perfect helpless case of sour grapes. And ironically, the comment of `Pakistan being a limb that needed to be amputated`, seems to be in complete contradiction to Nehru and Gandhi`s decade-long struggle to keep India together. So are you then presenting a THEORY that Patel was in total disagreement with the two most brilliant men that led India? Also, whether Pakistan has a game plan at the moment or not does not have anything to do with my earlier comment that you traced a tangent from, and which I`ll repeat: Jinnah was too smart for Gandhi and Nehru.

It still saddens me to see that apparently your lack of knowledge on Jinnah exceeds even the amount of hatred you might have for him. I quote from British Author Beverly Nichols (1943):

``Jinnah is the most important man in Asia because he can sway the battle this way or that way as he chooses...If Gandhi goes, there is always Nehru, or Patel or a dozen others. But if Jinnah goes, who is there?``

Whether one is Indian or Pakistani, and however one may try to defend oneself, it cannot be denied that Kashmir is an unmitigated tragedy. It is fatal for the Kashmiris (caught as they are in this deadly cross-fire), it is destroying Pakistan, and it is a disaster for India. We can keep making claims and counterclaims: most of them have some element of truth in them, but that is going to get us nowhere. Ultimately we are both partially right, at the same time we are both mostly wrong.

India keeps hoping that it can defeat Pakistani intentions, and that somehow Kashmir will turn into another Punjab, and we will all live happily ever after. Pakistan keeps hoping that it will ultimately be able to bring India down to its knees. Who knows, either of these may happen. But it is true that a peace obtained in either case can only be temporary and ephemeral... and that it will be very harmful for the sub-continent in the long run given what is at stake.

I know how hard it is to give up the belief that India will somehow ``win``, and that this ``victory`` will be on our terms. For myself, I cannot completely give up that hope. For the Pakistanis, I am sure the thought of not having a ``complete`` victory is equally hard to give up, especially after coming so close. But a permanent solution to Kashmir is possible only through genuine compromise and a lot of sacrifice by both India and Pakistan. We both have to accept that we have lost. Stop our current policies. Then start again from the beginning.

But the way we are both positioning ourselves, the chances of this happening are diminishing fast. Both countries have no confidence in the others intentions, and totally lack the mature statesmanship and far-sightedness which is essential for a just and honourable solution.

-narain

Feature - Mohammed Ayoob - The Washington Quarterly

India Matters

Excerpt:

Mohammed Ayoob is a distinguished professor of international relations at Michigan State University and a specialist on conflict and security in the Third World. The East-West Center, Honolulu, Hawaii, provided funding for the project from which this paper is derived.

There are recent reports that President Clinton plans to visit India on his own initiative early in the new year. This seems to indicate that the U.S. administration has finally awakened to its folly in canceling the president`s scheduled visit to New Delhi in the fall of 1998 in the wake of India`s nuclear tests that year. At least three lengthy telephone calls from President Clinton to Prime Minister Vajpayee to discuss the Kargil crisis; the general state of Indian-U.S. relations, including his desire to visit India; and the military coup in Pakistan indicate that Washington has been reevaluating India`s position in U.S. foreign policy. There is, however, a continuing propensity among analysts to underestimate India`s importance to the achievement of U.S. foreign policy goals, especially those relating to Asia. India in fact matters more than many in Washington are willing to admit.

I would like to make this case primarily in the context of U.S. political and strategic concerns, particularly in Asia. In doing so, I assume that in the 1990s there has been growing awareness in the United States of India`s economic potential both as a market for foreign goods and services and as a producer of goods and services for the international market. Even at the relatively modest and sustainable growth rate of around 6 percent, India`s gross national product can be expected to double in 12 years. Trade and investment data already bear out India`s growing importance to the United States. Moreover, given its advantages in terms of both technically skilled manpower and command over the English language by a substantial section of the working population, India has the capacity to play an increasingly important role in the sphere of service industries. The Indian share of the global market is, therefore, likely to grow rapidly as the share of services -- especially in the information and related fields -- in the global economy expands further during the next decade.1 All this is obviously significant to U.S. policy toward India. However, while taking into account the importance of the economic realm, I shall restrict my argument for the sake of brevity and precision to the political and security arenas.

During the Cold War years, India was politically underrated for two interrelated reasons: First, U.S. policymakers were obsessed with the Soviet Union and secondarily with China. These obsessions were dictated by ideological, military, and political rivalries that together constituted the Cold War. Every other foreign policy concern was either relegated to a subsidiary level or perceived and tackled within the Cold War framework. Second, India`s policy of nonalignment and later its tilt toward the Soviet Union following the U.S. embrace of Pakistan in the mid-1950s alienated U.S. opinion to such an extent that the policymaking elite became either hostile toward, or dismissive of, India. The widely divergent postures adopted by New Delhi and Washington on the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan in the 1980s added to U.S., and more generally Western, mistrust of India.

Unfortunately, to a substantial extent this mind-set survived the Cold War. India`s greater openness to the world economy from 1991 made a qualitative difference in terms of the perception of U.S. business. However, the political and the bureaucratic elite continued to view India for quite some time with the same hostile or dismissive lenses they had become used to in earlier decades. Differences over nuclear nonproliferation issues, especially India`s opposition to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) at the Geneva Conference on Disarmament in 1995-1996, further augmented the traditional U.S. image of India as a major ``spoiler`` intent on obstructing America`s ``benign`` designs to make the world safe from weapons of mass destruction.

Paradoxically, it took the Indian nuclear tests of May 1998 to make U.S. policymakers sit up and seriously note India`s security concerns and its capabilities. . . .

Entire Article in Acrobat Format http://www.twq.com/winter00/231Ayoob.pdf http://www.twq.com/ http://www.twq.com/winter00/231Ayoob.html

krashid #112

Mass graves? Kindly give me references. If Pakistanis abhor violence so much, they had better stop supplying arms across the border. Also it would be more sincere if you could restrain your own citizens from getting trained in militant camps.

Do let us see all this in proper perspective. Nowhere in the AI report does it say that the Indian Army crossed the LOC last week. I thought Pakistanis were sticklers for proof, for many-many years during militancy in J&K and for the many-many months after Kargil and the Indian Airlines hijacking. Remember the soldier`s diary, the masks on hijackers, the repudiation of `freedom fighters` in Kargil?

Modus-operandi of the Pakistani Army:

How about the report on atrocities in ertswhile East Bengal, where is the report of that? How about Pakistan being ruled by the military for 25+ years, does that put something in perspective for you?

Sadhana

Umairr #113

If you read my post you would notice that I declared mistreatment of innocents by armed instruments of the state to be something not to be easily forgotten. Your concern for some innocents while ignoring the effects of your Government`s policy in killing other innocents does not strike me as sincere.

Your concern for Kashmiris` freedom also emboldens me to ask, what was Pakistani Army policy on JKLF? Also, do you consider it right that the Pakistani Government should be percieved to hold out the prospect of providing Kashmir as an ideological playground to homegrown armed fundamentalists?

About the issue being getting the better of India, not the interests of Kashmir: According to me, the Kashmiris cause has been harmed and sullied by actions of Pakistan over the years. The current use of homegrown jehadis only underlines this.

Sadhana

A dozen people are killed in Azad Kashmir and the Pakistanis raise a hue and cry. But when thousands of Pandits have been kiled in the Kashmir Valley since 1989, we never heard anything except that the rights of the Kashmiri Muslims are denied by India.

Now Pervez Musharraf knows what the BJP government is capable of: retaliation in the only coin that is understood by and acceptable to Pakistan. He also recognizes that India means it when it says that we will retaliate with nukes if you guys so much as reach for yours. The sooner the rest of you learn that, the better it is for you.

When you guys recognize that the value of a human life is the same, whether it is Kashmiri Pandit, Sikh, Bangladeshi, Pakistani Muslim, or East Timorese Christian, then you will learn to behave like civilized people. As tvarad has pointed out, a people who stayed silent when 10 million Bangladeshis were made refugees and 3 million were killed by their own army have no business preaching about human rights. When you complain about Bosnia and Chechnya, perhaps the people there realized exactly what would happen to them under a Muslim government. They already had Afghanistan to look at and if they needed additional proof, they could look at East Timor. So long as a non-Muslim has no right in any Muslim country (and this is justified by Asif Naqshbandhi on the basis that the Quran tells him to kill the infidels and take their women as concubines), Muslims should expect no rights when they are in a minority. Pakistanis should be happy they got their own country to practice their brutalities on. Indian Muslims know better than to try the Asif Naqshbandhi crap in India. The Kashmiris are practicing the Quranic injunctions and they are paying for it. What is your complaint? They are getting their well-deserved houris dripping in honey in heaven and earlier in life than you guys. Don`t be jealous of them; join them. Your local mullah is handing out tickets to heaven redeemable for 72 houris along with the kalashnikovs. Somebody up there is furiously making more houris for hamidm and his ilk. So stop buying razors already, stop drinking liquor, and bury your face inside the Quran.

Since the Muslims of Indonesia have already set an example of what should be done to anybody who secedes (forgetting the fact East Timor was initially occupied illegally), the Kashmiris and the Pakistanis should expect every single house in Kashmir burned to the ground if Kashmir votes to secede. krashid and hamidm can shed their crocodile tears for the Kashmiris but let us see what they would do for their rehabilitation.

All of you guys complaining about Hindu treachery, India`s sham secularism, etc. You don`t like it one bit when India dropped its pretence of non-violence, did you? Just think what will happen if we drop our sham secularism. Just think what would happen if India really becomes Hindustan. All your calculation of one Pak soldier equals 5 Indian soldiers will be worth nothing if you have an additional 100 million mouths to feed.

I hear three of the bodies in Azad Kashmir had their heads severed. I wonder if India sent its Naga regiment there. They are headhunters, you know. Either that or we are following Timur Leng`s practice of building pyramids of human skulls. There is a lot the Hindus can learn from the Muslims. But we are slow learners. It took us 10 years before we realized we could also send people across the border. I expect that India will ratchet up the violence inside Azad Kashmir a little bit more each time there is an attack in the Kashmir valley. Two can play the game.

Pakistan hints of Kashmir jihad

Increased cross-border fighting and President Clinton`s visit next month have tensions at a peak.

A little more than four months after taking the reins of Pakistan in a popular coup, Gen. Pervez Musharraf has quietly but quickly turned a 52-year dispute with India over Kashmir into the central rallying point of the new regime.

In trying to unify a dispirited country and appease increasingly powerful Islamic groups, chief executive Musharraf has gone further than any recent leader to legitimize jihad, or holy war, over Kashmir. Some analysts say it is the most acute nuclear flashpoint on the planet.

Signs of the new emphasis are thick. Banners proclaiming ``jihad in Kashmir!`` are displayed in parades, on beaches in Karachi in the south, and at the gateway of the Khyber Pass to Afghanistan in the north. A variety of militant groups that send mujahideen fighters to Indian-controlled Kashmir openly collect money in the markets of cities and towns.

Pakistani diplomacy no longer situates Kashmir in a ``bundle`` of issues to resolve with India. ``Kashmir must first be resolved before any normalization of relations with India,`` says assistant foreign secretary Tariq Altaf.

In recent weeks, General Musharraf has forcefully argued a distinction between ``terrorism`` against innocent civilians and the Kashmir jihad, which he says is conducted against military targets in Kashmir to liberate the 4 million Muslims who live under a 500,000-troop Indian occupation. ``I have explained [to US officials] that the Kashmir struggle is a freedom struggle that is not linked to terrorism,`` Musharraf has said in numerous interviews.

The Kashmir bid seems an appeal to Washington to push India prior to President Clinton`s arrival in South Asia on March 19. Or it may be good politics, since for Pakistanis Kashmir is the central unfinished business of the 1947 partition with India. Some argue Kashmir is the raison d`être of a regime led by military thinkers, as opposed to civilian officials who are more likely to leverage through diplomacy.

Yet the great concern is that a green light to jihad given so openly by Musharraf may be impossible to reverse. Musharraf is regarded as fairly secular and pragmatic. But passions about Kashmir run deep. Among millions of poor and rural Pakistanis attending Islamic schools and seminaries, jihad is very popular. Moreover, there is a sense among Islamic mullahs that their hour has arrived. With a sympathetic military leader in charge, it is time to finish the Kashmir claim once and for all.

``There will now be no going back on Kashmir jihad,`` says Ameer ul Azim, a senior official with the Jama`at-e-Islami, an Islamic political party with close ties to the paramilitary Hezbul Mujahideen. ``People say this is a flashpoint. That has no meaning for us. We fought against the Russians in Afghanistan. We know the risks, and are willing to take them.``

``I see Musharraf`s logic in pushing Kashmir, but this is a very dangerous game,`` says one diplomat who requests anonymity.

A number of diplomats and military analysts say that Pakistani generals feel the 1998 nuclear weapons tests are a new threshold by which to increase cross-border attacks, since they conclude India will not start a nuclear war. Pakistani generals and mullahs speak of India as unable to sustain its presence in Kashmir. In the past few weeks, attacks on Indian troops in the valley have increased. Every day brings news of another 10 or 20 killed, often by suicide bombers or land mines.

Indian officials scoff at a withdrawal. Last week Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee stated that Pakistan must return the territory it captured in 1965 before any talks can commence. Central Intelligence Agency chief George Tenet told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in January that it is ``highly possible that New Delhi may opt to crack down on Kashmiri militants ... [or] even order military strikes against militant training camps inside [Pakistan-controlled] Azad Kashmir.``

Such tension was not seen two years ago, prior to India`s nuclear weapons tests. India-Pakistan relations were supposedly in a ``thaw.`` Talk was of trade, shared power grids, confidence building measures, and back-channel diplomacy. A year ago last week, Indian Mr. Vajpayee took a bus trip to Lahore, Pakistan to sign a peace accord with then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Yet the ``thaw`` itself may explain the new policy. Pakistani generals, including Musharraf, who was born in India prior to partition, were reportedly disenchanted with the stance on Kashmir by recent civilian regimes. The short but sharp Kargil war last spring in the Himalayan aeries of Kashmir was likely the generals` effort to relocate Kashmir on the international stage, rather than on the back burner of talks between India and Pakistan.

Indeed, Kashmir is spoken of here as central to a Pakistani identity. Where the word ``Pakistan`` is a conglomeration of names of regions, the ``K`` stands for Kashmir. India`s first prime minister, Jawarharlal Nehru, once compared Its rugged and enchanting mountain valley to ``the face of the beloved that one sees in a dream and that fades away upon awakening.``

Amit re:114

`India tried to open negotiations with Pakistan last year. All it got was Kargil. `

Did I miss something or did not Vajpayee announce, as soon as he was back in Delhi, that Kashmir would never, ever be discussed? Since Pakistan has always said that Kashmir is the first thing that should be discussed, that kinda closes the door on things.

Personally speaking, I have to admit that that incidence in which Indian soldiers are supposed to do the hacking business is particularly heinious and has to be condemned strongly. Furthermore, I do suspect that it was NOT carried out by the professional soldiers but rather the grey ``soldiers``. In the near state of war, truth is the first casualty.

Ummair Sadhna: Re the chinese occupation, there are two aspects to it, first is the part which was occupied by china herself (Aksai Chin) and second part is the territory ceded by Pakistan to China. The first stretch of territory is historically under dispute between India and China but if my recollection stands correctly, there were some discussions during Rajiv Gandhi

Thank you ravi m (#4) for being honest and truthful...let my pakistanis brothers take heed that NO MATTER what good intentions you may have the indians will never GIVE the people of kashmir freedom..the gentleman has placed the suffering of the thousands of kashmiris, the rapes of innocent muslim girls, the killing and mutilation of muslim children all down to the rise of `fundamentalism`. What has the rise of `fundamentalism` got to do with kashmir...is that why half the hindu armed forces are placed in kashmir?

..the truth has come out. Kashmiris are being killed coz they are Muslims who want freedom and the hindus will never love you no matter how `secular` you become (the bosnians were as secularised as you can get, yet look whst the serbs did to them just coz they had muslim names.)...so do you not see that the ONLY way you are going to get the freedom from the kashmiris is by jihad?

sadna #108: ``The Indian Army has denied it and I can understand why you wouldnot believe its denials any more than your fellow Pakistanis can believe than India can fight corruption.`` The Indian army is denying that Indian soldiers participated in these killings, just like the Paksitan army denied that Pakistani soldiers participated in Kargil. I do not believe either. Do you actually expect the Indian army to state that they actually did it? Battles between Pakistani and Indian soldiers will continue, but civilians should not be involved. I based my views on the photographs of the victims, as well as the information on BBC. Regarding fighting corruption, I think any dedicated honest government can fight corruption; whether it is Indian, Pakistani or American is immaterial.

``Its time you stopped trying to convince Indians that the Pakistani Army and jehadis are a high-minded selfless warriors for human rights, particularly in Kashmir.`` I never stated that the jehadis have always been high-minded selfless warriors. Some of them have killed innocent Hindus, as well. This is well documented. However, at least as a human being I am willing to criticize them for it. I do not support nor try to justify the killings of innocent Hindus by anyone, regardless of the situation in Kashmir, and regardless of the actions of the Indian army; no strings attached. Even if the Indian army kills innocent Kashmiris, I still do use that as an excuse for the freedom fighters to kill innocent Hindus, or to hijack planes. However I do know for a fact that an overwhelming amount of the innocents being killed are by the Indian army, and not the freedom fighters. Otherwise the Indian govt. would not allow and encourage human rights organizations to visit Kashmir.

I hope Clinton gets a chance to visit Kashmir and see what is going on. Would you support Clinton visiting Kashmir? If the situation there is as you described, then it would only help India`s cause if foreign dignitaries visited Kashmir, because currently the rest of the world as well as human rights organizations seem to be putting almost all of the blame of killing civilians on the Indian army.

You seem to relate the killing of innocent Kashmiris by Indian soldiers to the action of the freedom fighters, as if it is alright for the Indian soldiers to kill innocent civilians as long as their are freedom fighters present in the area. Are you willing to directly state that you are also against the killing of innocent Kashmiris by the Indian army; no strings attached?

``Also, stop trying to express pious horror on Kashmiris behalf related to Siachen when your country decided to gift 1/3 of Kashmir to China. Its kind of clear to everyone this side of the border that the real issue with you is India, only India, Kashmir is only the instrument.`` First of all I support the Kashmiris cause, becuase I am a Kashmiri myself, and have relatives living there. So please do not doubt my sincerity. I also support it because it massive human rights violations are taking place there. I am very glad Pakistan was created, however I have absolutely nothing against India (apart from its actions in Kashmir). As I stated earlier, I do not care whether Pakistan gets any part of Kashmir. I am only concerned about the Kashmiris getting their right to chose. If you have that right, and I have that right, then why not other human beings.

Regarding Pakistan having an issue with India, apart from Kashmir. What issue would that be? Kindly clarify.

Sadhna #108 Where you wrote

``Indian army has denied it (crossing the border and killing innocent civilians) and I can understand why you would not believe its denial anymore then fellow Pakistanis can believe that Indian can fight corruption.``

Lets see it in proper perspective.

Amnesty International in its report regarding official Indian figures of 19866 killing of Kashmiris since 1990 says.

``The official figures CONCEAL that hunderds of victims were not killed as a legitimate targets in situation of armed conflict but were DELIBERATELY AND ARBITRARILY killed or DIED AS A RESULT OF TORTURE IN THE CUSTODY OF STATE AGENTS. The real number of such deaths is considered by many observers to be twice as the number of reported deaths (by relatives) i.e 350-400 deaths.

Also at other place, report says that mass graves of people killed by Indian soldiers in Indian Punjab and Mizoram (or Assam) is coming to light everyday.

This is the reason for believing that Indian Army can commit such heinous acts.

The question is more basic than Let us not be foolish. In my view it centers around:

A Failed State or Misaligned Vision

The beginning of one of the twins, separated at birth, is beautifully stated by Jawaharlal Nehru in the following “Tryst With Destiny” speech he delivered in the Constituent Assembly of India on August 14, 1947, on the eve of the attainment of Independence. I could not find the first speech given by Mohammad Ali Jinnah to Pakistan’s Constituent Assembly on the eve of Pakistan’s Independence. I am told it is equally powerful, and would request Chowk readers to publish it here.

“Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, find utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of India and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity.”

“At the dawn of history India started on her unending quest, and trackless centuries are filled with her striving and the grandeur of her success and her failures. Through good and ill fortune alike she has never lost sight of that quest or forgotten the ideals, which gave her strength. We end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers herself again. The achievements we celebrate today are but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us. Are we brave enough and wise enough to grasp this opportunity and accept the challenge of the future?”

“Freedom and power bring responsibility. The responsibility rests upon this Assembly, a sovereign body representing the sovereign people of India. Before the birth of freedom we have endured all the pains of labor and our hearts are heavy with the memory of this sorrow. Some of those pains continue even now. Nevertheless, the past is over and it is the future that beckons us now.”

“That future is not one of ease or resting but of incessant striving so that we may fulfill the pledges we have so often taken and the one we shall take today. The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity. The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us, but as long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over.”

“And so we have to labor and to work, and wok hard, to give reality to our dreams. Those dreams are for India, but they are also for the world, for all the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for any one of them to imagine that it can live apart. Peace has been said to be indivisible; so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and so also is disaster in this One World that can no longer be split into isolated fragments.”

“To the people of India, whose representatives we are, we make an appeal to join us with faith and confidence in this great adventure. This is no time for petty and destructive criticism, no time for ill will or blaming others. We have to build the noble mansion of free India where all her children may dwell.”

Nehru laid out the vision for the future of one of the twins; “… give reality to our dreams. … nations and peoples are too closely knit … Peace has been said to be indivisible; so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and so also is disaster in this One World that can no longer be split into isolated fragments.”. Remarkably, Nehru was on target fifty-three years ago and the world is only getting closer at ever increasing speed.

Some, including myself, may argue with Nehru that his vision “… It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity…”, unnecessarily introduced socialism in India and restrained India economically.

Yet another of his vision, “ … appeal to join us with faith and confidence in this great adventure…” laid foundation of participative democracy to build right institutions that have today made India world’s largest democracy.

Democracy Misunderstood:

Democracy is a powerful political system to assemble, manage and distribute power in a nation-state. Continuity of institutions and the evolutionary processes without disruptions are essential to building a democratic society. Something, Pakistan, the other twin separated at birth, ignored. Plurality in a society is very important for a successful evolution of democracy. Leaders of Indian Independence recognized it; while the leader of Pakistan’s Independence wrongly recognized the opposite that religious singularity is a cementing force to build a strong nation-state.

By late fifties, Indian state of Kerala already had seen the decline of Nehru’s congress party and had witnessed the rise of elected communists. Indian democratic system tolerated them, while later elected communists in Chile were thrown out. In sixties, Indian democratic system gave birth to a separate state of the Punjab, while the Dravidian movement saw evolution of Tamilnadu, all within the democratic framework.

The seventies saw Indira Gandhi’s attempt toward undemocratic emergency. The pluralism of Indian democratic system ensured a change that returned the power back to the democratic system. While eighties with the defeat of Rajiv Gandhi’s congress government and short-lived Janata government saw the beginning of devolution of power within the democratic framework through coalition of assertive regional powers. This process continued in the nineties when the economic reforms were also launched.

I remember the doomsayers of Indian democracy of the seventies, when I was a student in England. They are still waiting for their prophecies to come true while a generation of new Indians united by the “Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani”; are not only taking over Bollywood, but after succeeding in California’s Silicon Valley are readying themselves with their billions of dollars and knowledge to propel India’s Silicon Valley in Bangalore.

The GDP of global knowledge economy, the speed of globalization and the global nature of knowledge economy are so astounding, that even if India were not completely successful, it would still be propelled into the knowledge economy. The need for trained and skilled resources would make India as important in the context of knowledge-economy as Saudi Arabia is to the oil in industrial economy.

Unfortunately, the other twin separated at the birth, misunderstood the democracy in South Asia. It reprimands an actress for singing “Jan-Jan Pakistan, Dil-Dil Hindustan”; and jails an editor for expressing his personal views in the enemy territory of New Delhi. I believe, its leaders (including Jinnah) either ignored or misunderstood, the need of pluralism, and the collective power of large group of small numbers in developing democracies.

I wonder if Jinnah and other leaders of the separated twin ever imagined being possible that the richest Indian in the world today would be an India Muslim. Today, one Indian Muslim’s personal net worth is almost half of Pakistan’s GDP with almost 140-million Muslims. His Indian company is a leader in transformation to knowledge-based world economy. Indians may be accused of manipulating their system to make Indian Muslim the President, and the Chief Justice. But no India politician, or Indian financial system is big enough to manipulate the world financial system to crown someone with the glory of over $25-Billion net worth.

Indian democracy, like any other democracy, shall always be imperfect, but then perfection is not of this world.

The other twin is caught in the fusion of history and theology. This fusion will not produce the touchstone that will turn every thing into gold in the future. Pure religion and culture are fundamentalist fantasies, whether Hindu or Muslim variety. These fantasies hold back and never propel forward.

The aggressive participation in knowledge economy is the only way out for South Asia.

British trained lawyers led the last revolution in South Asia. That revolution led to the political Independence in South Asia. The next revolution shall lead to the economic renaissance of South Asia, and shall be led by Silicon Valley trained knowledge entrepreneurs, and technology.

These knowledge entrepreneurs must successfully demonstrate to the people of South Asia that knowledge and technology leads to humanism beyond religious doctrines. Only then they can hope to overcome opposition from the fundamentalists. The fundamentalists, insecure, with their unhistoric views fear alien contamination. But fundamentalism offers nothing in today’s world. It only pushes the society to accept lethal fusion of history and theology, and die.

The fundamentalism shall never succeed and shall never wall out the forces of globalization. The knowledge-based economy - a basic force of globalization, not fundamentalism, shall prepare South Asia for its own transformation. Knowledge entrepreneurs, not lawyers, shall lead this transformation. South Asia must create the necessary infrastructure and level playing fields to harness the knowledge entrepreneurship. There is urgency, because the knowledge economy based on Internet moves very rapidly, certainly much faster than any thing that South Asia has ever witnessed.

Anil Kapuria (Anil@Kapuria.COM)