An Eulogy For The Hawks

Question: Why were JKLF candidates disqualified from standing in recently-conducted PoK elections? Amanullah and his supporters took out a protest rally and courted arrest to protest.

Answer: They werenot allowed to stand for PoK elections because they refused to give in writing that they accepted that Kashmir as part of Pakistan.

Question: Who claims to support Kashmiri freedom?

Answer : Pakistanis.

Question: So is that called hypocritical, perhaps?

Answer : No they call it the Pakistani principled stand which is totally pureminded, and has nothing to do with strategic concerns nor territory nor religion, mind you.

Lets hear about these cultured Lahoris too, from the secular republic of Pakistan:

http://www.rediff.com/news/2001/jul/06jk2.htm
Another ambush on Amarnath route

Mukhtar Ahmad in Srinagar

Militants on Friday yet again ambushed an army convoy near Chamalvas, 128 kms from Srinagar on the Srinagar-Jammu National Highway, killing two soldiers on the spot while five others were critically wounded.

Police sources told rediff.com that militants hurled grenades and fired from automatic weapons on the heavily armed convoy.

The five seriously wounded soldiers were air-lifted to the hospital in Srinagar.

Sources said soldiers escorting the convoy had engaged the militants in a fierce encounter, which was on when reports last came in.

The highway is being used by thousands of pilgrims bound for the Amarnath yatra base camp at Pahalgam.
Traffic on the highway was disrupted and senior officers had rushed to the spot.

On Wednesday, Lashkar-e-Tayiba militants had ambushed an army convoy near Qazigund.

Meanwhile, police sources said that 4,236 Amarnath bound pilgrims had left Jammu early on Friday morning in 195 vehicles escorted by security forces.


http://www.hinduonnet.com/stories/01070006.htm


Ganguly, Tendulkar face Lashkar threat


MUMBAI, JULY 6.The cricket captain, Saurav Ganguly, and star batsman, Sachin Tendulkar, are among those who have been threatened by the militant outfit, Lashkar-e-Taiba.

It has threatened to kidnap and hold them hostages, DCP (Crime), Mr. Pradeep Sawant, said here today.

The threats came to light when some members of the militant outfit were apprehended by Thane police some months ago, he said.

Interrogations revealed that the group had prepared a list of persons who would be kidnapped to secure certain political benefits.

The former hockey captain, Dhanraj Pillay, had yesterday approached Mumbai police seeking protection after receiving threats from the same outfit.

correction #145: ``So my chances of entering, much less making it to the top of the military, civil services or IT circles would have been next to nill, had I been an Indian Muslim.``

should read

``So my (or the average Pakistani Muslim`s) chances of entering, much less making it to the top of the military, civil services or IT circles would have been next to nill, had I been an Indian Muslim.``

Romair,

#145

Well said, sir. Most of your posts make a heck of a lot of sense.

Let me be very blunt about India. Even though my bias is pro-India; I feel India has been nothing but a megalomaniacal BULLY of S.Asia, since independance. OK, call it a more politically correct name--India is a HEGEMON--pure & simple. Indians can conveniently cloak themselves under the garb of ``secularism`` & ``democracy``. Puncture that cloak a bit & the truth comes out--we`re a bunch of goddamned hypocrites. Just because we`re better (or think we`re better) than Pakistan in those respects is no frikking excuse.

Lets keep Pakistan out of the picture, for a minute (because pointing to Pakistan`s conduct is the biggest excuse). Why are the Kashmiri muslims unhappy? Why are they protesting? Have India`s leadership ever sat down with them & empathised with their views? Theyre feeling oppressed---pure & simple. People who are oppressed should be given a chance to be heard & differences ironed out like any democracy. If the Central govt plays ``big daddy`` & essentially tells them to go to hell because they have Farouk Abdullah types as puppets, they are not going to endear themselves with Kashmiri muslims. What the heck do you think Kashmiri muslims would do when they`re desparate?--turn to Pakistan, of course!

Dont go blaming Pakistan. Its India`s bullying attitude that disillusioned Kashmiri muslims. Heck even Bengali muslims turned to India when W.Pakistanis were oppressing them. Oh yeah! At that time we were more than happy to aid the Mukti Bahini with men & material. Payback stinks, dont it?!

Mushy & Vaju have a once in a lifetime opportunity to make peace in Kashmir. Like the man said, no Indo-Pak agreement will hold unless the Pak military & BJP signs their name to it. If Indians & Pakistanis dont support them, the whole subcontinent is screwed.

I`m hoping to God some sort of compromise will be reached. I hope those poor Kashmiris had some peace in their sad history. Nothing will be make me more happy if the whole of Kashmir (Indian & Pakistani) secede into a ``non aligned`` ,secular independant country.

As an Indian, I had the pleasure of visiting that blighted Valley many years ago. Words cannot describe its beauty. Its almost as if God has specially made this Shangrila for the blessed few. However, its beauty has become its greatest curse, because everybody covets it. IMHO, nobody except Kashmiris deserve to own it.

Maybe, just maybe, there will come a day when all of us Indian & Pakistani moderates on Chowk can have a reunion on a houseboat on Dal Lake & sip Darjeeling tea:) I`d love to meet guys like Romair, Tahmed..etc etc (there are far too many Pakistanis here who have earned my respect; to list..). But we should pray for that meeting ONLY IF KASHMIRIS ARE FREE....

Peace

RE Romair #145

You said: ``They only separate when they feel they are being exploited by the majority. The exploitation can be based on religious differences, ethnic difference, linguistic differences, geographical differences, or any other kind of difference.``

Counterpoint: If at all, the Muslims have been on top of the pyramid for nearly a thousand years. They came as looters/invaders, settled down and established dynasties. They were the dominant ruling class till the brits packed away the last of the mughals. So who`s exploiting who?

You said: ``However, people will never separate from a union just because they have a different religion or ethnicity (otherwise Muslims would demand a separate homeland in the USA). They only separate if they feel that due to their religion, ethncity etc. they are being exploited economically and physically by the majority.``

Again--the british were the rulers for the last 200 odd years and they called the shots. If at all, the muslims were not as quick to take advantage of the educational and professional opportunities offered under the british systems and instead cocooned themselves in their known professions and their neighborhoods.

If you feel you were better off in Pakistan, good for you. What happened at partition was that a lot of the educated, professional middle class muslims migrated leaving the very rich and the very poor of your community behind. With the latter being the majority of the muslim population and given the overall rejection of western education in that community, what can you expect? And if muslims were in power in India for the longest time, why were these poor muslims so behind the curve in terms of education and affluence? In comparison, that can be said of any community with a lot of poor including the backward castes and tribes.

They were way behind and are slowly catching up. It`s a factor of economic backwardness, not bigotry or intentional government discrimination. If you haven`t seen that many Indian muslims in your line of work, that`s again a factor of sampling and perhaps economics. More muslims take to the trade--either as craftsmen or businessmen. I am not too familiar with the intricacies of the socioeconomcs of muslims or any other indian community, but let someone like Nasah or B_M pick up from here.

A 3% rate of muslims in the Indian Army is a lot better than close to zero in your armed forces and bureaucracy for the minorities, right? At least those who remained weren`t chased out or forced to convert. Despite all the flaws inherent in India and her systems, Indian muslims are as Indian as the other person and it is a right they know and thankfully are starting to assert.

tahmed321 # 144

Bhai Saheb, main aapka badaa fan ho gaya hoon.

Theory ho tau asiee :)

ref: Ferozek #109

You asked if India has the political will to sustain any course of action which will bring about the dissolution of Pakistan. The answer to that is that it does not-for the present.

Right now India is going through a phase of elation: after a very long time, some things seem to be going right for us. But most Indians are well grounded in reality, and take our supposed superpower, economic tiger future with a healthy pinch of salt. At this stage most of us are more concerned with keeping the current upturn going than planning for our supposed future status. That means getting along as best we can with whatever we have.

It is however also true that in its present avatar Pakistan would pose some problems for us IF we ever became superpowers, and IF the world continued to work the way it has done in the past. It is small enough to resent India, and yet big enought to be used as a means of containing India. China has already been doing that very successfully for the past 5 decades. For this reason it would definitely be preferable for India to have smaller states around us than Pakistan.

So the score card is: yes, India would like smaller buffer states around it. But NO, India is unlikely to do anything to bring this about.

and yet it is do-able! My personal opinion counts for nothing, but I`ll inflict you with it in any case. For a long time I was convinced that breaking up Pakistan further would not be in india`s interests because of the resultant anarchy that this would bring about. However now I am coming round to the view that this may indeed be doable, if Sindh can somehow be induced to break away from the Pakistani federation, preferably with as little violence as possible. This is not that impossible a task. That would leave a paranoid Punjab facing a restive Baluchistan and NWFP, with enough problems of its own to leave India alone. With a relatively strong military government in control in Islamabad, the rest of Pakistan should survive the transition without descending into anarchy. Sindh can then be independent, and hopefully only passively hostile to India.

Of course these are purely academic exercises right now, ``khayali pulav`` really. But if the Kashmir problem continues for another year or two, I have a feeling that the Indian government will probably also start thinking along the very same lines and come to similar conclusions. One must not forget, that this is after all a hardline government of a resurgent India.

-narain

shammi #142
Its better to have 30 professions instead of two?

stuka #147
Sorry, I donot share your opinion that we have seen `enough` elections. We had `stability` for 40+ years under the Nehru-Gandhi family with oneman rule with its good and bad consequences, its time for new leaders, new groups and new ideas to emerge and and the only opportunity is with regular elections and the accompanying airing of issues.

There was a time when Mrs Gandhi(in the early `80s) wouldnot answer more than one question per reporter in press conferences, which would be held how often, can anyone remember? I think we have come a long way from those days of imperiousness, and donot need to return, thank goodness.

And its only the last 6-7 years we have seen governments changing so fast, Narasimha Rao`s minority government lasted 5 years until `95, I think. We may be currently into a semi-stable mode with coalition governments instead of one-party rule. Basically I would rather trust a collective who remain in power only because they are accountable to a diverse set of constituents, than a single person who is accountable to none once he is in power. At least US Presidents care about `legacy`, not many executive-head Presidents from elsewhere in the world do(btw, where else in the world?).

btw, there is already an anti-defection law in place to prevent at least representatives of large parties from jumping ship due to being bought retail instead of wholesale. And I am sure the law has flaws but I`ve seen it in operation even in my local panchayat.

Saad P. Aslam #129: I think you have presented an excellent idea. I have thought along those lines, as well. And I feel it to be the best solution for South Asia.

Volunteer unification of states, like in the USA, is the best and most productive solution. Ideally, the whole world should be one big country, and a member of a federation of planets, like in Star Trek. However, that would be wishing for utopia. This only works in areas with short histories like the USA, or in areas where the local population, as well as the populations of the conquered areas, was at some stage completely wiped out on enslaved (like by the US govt. of the 18th and 19th century).

In regions like South Asia and Europe, due to long rooted ethnic, religious etc. differences, forced unions have not, and will never work. Europe has fought, by far, the bloodiest battles of modern times. All of these were based on one group forcing itself on the other. Whichever state was the strongest at that point in history, would attempt to bring everyone under its borders.

However, since WWII, Western European has gone away from the idea of forced geographic unions and the corresponding terrible economic consequences, to the idea of voluntary geographic unions with a common economic base (EU).

This is what needs to happen in South Asia, and is the only thing that will work. Geographic unions should be voluntary. If Sindh, Punjab, NWFP, and Baluchistan want to voluntarily be part of a larger entity called Pakistan, they should go ahead and do so. However, none of the provinces should force the others to do so. Similar ideas should be applied to other South Asian states.

As long as alll the states are part of a joint economic union (which, most if not all of them will voluntarily want to join), geographic borders will become immaterial. Their will be no visas and free borders for trade and people, much like the EU. The whole group will act as a joint economic entity, but the people in each state will be secure within their own identity and elected political govt. It will infact be easier and more productive for an Indian (or Pakistani) to visit Kashmir in such a voluntary economic union, than in the current forced geographic union.

All the violence and freedom struggles will end and South Asians will actually become closer, even though there maybe two or three new states that are created in the process.

It took Western Europe centuries and millions of lives to figure this out (countries like Yugoslavia have still not figured it out). I don`t know how long it will take South Asia to figure this out.

Forced geographic unions are a failed concept and the source of most of the wars in the world. They are always based on the egos of the majority, and rarely based on practical issues.

Zafar Talib #137: ``The people of the subcontinent suffered terribly when an attempt was made to physically separate them by religion. Repetitions of this on the basis of language/ethnicity would result in even more violence and death. Surely that`s not a good idea. The last partition we went through was not a success - more muslims live in India today than in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.``

I think you are making blanket statements that fit more into the Indian point of view than the Pakistani point of view. I have a feeling that only a minority of the Pakistanis will agree with you, while a majority of the Indians will agree with you.

Anytime one group separates from a union, the separation is always based on a feeling of exploitation. People don`t separate just for the sake of separating, since separations require a great deal of sacrifice. They only separate when they feel they are being exploited by the majority. The exploitation can be based on religious differences, ethnic difference, linguistic differences, geographical differences, or any other kind of difference. However, people will never separate from a union just because they have a different religion or ethnicity (otherwise Muslims would demand a separate homeland in the USA). They only separate if they feel that due to their religion, ethncity etc. they are being exploited economically and physically by the majority.

The majority will alwasy support your point of view. They never appreciate the desires of the minority or the less powerful. That is why you can state, ``The people of the subcontinent suffered terribly when an attempt was made to physically separate them by religion.`` This view is not shared by people like me, and many other Pakistanis.

This is of course a subjective debate, depeding on which side of the border one belongs to. But I feel I am better off living in Pakistan as a Muslim, that I would have been living in India as a Muslim. I have had a chance to pursue a career in the military. Had I decided to continue, the highest positions of the Pakistan miltiary were open to me. This is the not the case in India for Muslims, according to India`s largest English Muslim newspaper (www.milligazzette.com). I believe only 3% of the Indian military is Muslim, and hardly any of the high command is Muslim. I had the opportunity, if I wanted to utilize it, to pursue a career in the Pakistan civil services, and would have had opportunities to reach the highest ranks, if I worked hard enough. Again, in India the percentage of Muslims in the civil services is disproportionately less than the total percentage of the Indian Muslim population. Hardly any of them reach the top ranks. I have now had the opportunity to migrate to the USA, based on the educational opportunities I had in Pakistan, and have a chance to make a successful career in the US IT industry. I can vouch for this through personal experience, that although the US IT industry is literally flooded with Indian IT professionals, hardly any of them are Muslims (Azim Premji excluded). Nearly every South Asian Muslim I have met in the US IT industry is from Pakistan, even though the IT revolution has still not hit Pakistan, while it has already hit India ten years ago (although it seems to have by-passed the Indian Muslim). Added to this is the fact that the per capita income of the avearge Pakistani, with much fewer resources, has historically been higher than that of an Indian, and much higher than that of an Indian Muslim. And all of this has occured when Pakistan has had basketcase leaderships. Imagine how the big the differences will be once Pakistan gets a good leadership.

So my chances of entering, much less making it to the top of the military, civil services or IT circles would have been next to nill, had I been an Indian Muslim. Added to this, I would have been from a poorer community being ruled by a Hindu nationalist party enthusiastically going after my place(s) of worship. So based on this how can anyone state that the partition was not a success. It definitely was as far as my life is concerned.

This is not to state that India is deliberately discriminating against its Muslims. It is quite possible that the Indian Muslims themselves are responsible for their lack of upward mobility. I don`t know since I have never lived in India. But the lack of success/opporutnity of the Indian Muslims is a fact pointed out by Indian Muslims newspapers and organizaitons themselves. And I have based my argument on information from those Indian Muslim sources.

So in the end if my parents and grandparents wanted to separate, and pursue their own lifestyle on their own land, it was their choice, not yours. I have certainly benefited from their decision.

Pakistanis, when in the majority, applied the same rules to the Bangladeshis, when they wanted to separate. Pakistanis could not figure out why anyone should separate on the basis of ethnicity. And Pakistan used the same tactics India is using in Kashmir (though for a much much shorter time).

The British could never figure out why their colonies wanted independence. They actually sincerely felt they were, ``civlizing`` the natives. Why in the world would any of the Indians refuse to be civilized?

If we apply your rule, not only should Pakistan not have gained independence, but neither should Bangladesh or India have become independent. What was wrong with remaining a part of the giant British empire? Had the British not left peacefully, they bloodshed in the Sub-Continent by the British would have been gigantic. But I think most Indians would have considered it worth the price of independence. At least that is what the Indian movies seem to indicate.

I feel it is quite unfortunate (though perhaps a part of third-world human nature) that when people are in a weaker position, they want self-determination and justifiably fight for it (Indians against British, Pakistanis against British and Indians, Jews against Germans). However, the moment these same people become the majority, they do their level best to supress any minority that feels exploited and wants to separate from the union in a similar manner (India in Kashmir, Pakistan in Bangladesh, Israelis in Palestine). They quickly turn from colonised to conlonists.

You need to apply identical principles to the freedom of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and (hopefully someday) Kashmir. You can either, like me, support all these freedom struggles. Or you can oppose all of them. I don`t see how any principled person, whether Indian or Pakistani (its hard for me to tell whether you are an Indian or a Pakistani by your reply) can support some of these struggels and oppose the others.

P.S. The, ``last partition`` you are refering to was actually the partition before the last partition. The last partition was the partition of Pakistan into Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Zafar Al-Talib #137 ``But surely we should study history and try not to repeat our mistakes vis a vis making ordinary people suffer when it is avoidable.``

Amen. Here is the Tahmed321 Theory of the Morphing of Man from Dog (with apologies to all good dogs):

STAGE I: The Dog Stage

Step 1: Fight like Dogs: with tooth and nail.

Step 2: Fight like Dogs With Apposable Thumbs: with swords and spears.

Step 3a: Fight like Trained Dogs: with maps and bombs and Geneva Conventions; OR

Step 3b: Fight like Deranged Dogs: in civil wars and disturbances as in 1947.

Step 4: Fight like Deranged Paper Dogs: exchange mindless insults. * *CURRENT STATUS FOR SOME FOLKS ON CHOWK * *

STAGE II: THE HUMAN STAGE

Step 1: Think: What am I Fighting About?

Step 2: Think: Why are we here?

Step 3: Think: What can I do to make the most of my time here?

Step 4: Stop thinking. Start living.

Step 5: Smile, smell the roses, greet your fellow beings, humans or dogs. Then do something useful with your life.

STAGE III: THE POST-HUMAN STAGE

(Steps under construction, Internet Connections, Scientific Breakthroughs, Interplanetary Exploration, being one of the first elements).

Cheers.

Interesting article on the current summit. I have always felt that Najam Sethi`s analysis of the military is usually somewhat off target. In this one, he seems to be over-emphasising the ISI (like most people, who have heard of it, but do not understand its structure). But his analysis of social issues is usually quite good.

On the whole, he seems to be indicating that Musharraf is going into this summit with a lot of strength. This is indicated by two new cards that Pakistan has just thrown on the table. The first is an offer for a no-war pact with India. India has always refused such an offer, and will refuse again. The second is a request/demand that the APHC leadership should be allowed to meet Musharraf while he is in India. India has always refused that, as well. Although this time, hopefully India will give in. I think Musharraf should make a third request of lifting the ban on international human rights organizations in Indian Kashmir.

Change the status quo

Najam Sethi`s E d i t o r i a l

General Pervez Musharraf is all thumbs-up. On June 26th he got a pat on the back from the leading editors of Pakistan to go ahead and talk to India with an open mind. Much the same response was forthcoming from the leaders of all religious groups and political parties who met him a day later. But most critically, the ISI, which destabilized both Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif when they didn’t see eye to eye with them on how to deal with India, is already in the bag. Indeed, to all intents and purposes, General Musharraf heads a military government in which former ISI big-guns hold sway — two are serving as powerful corps commanders, one is in the federal cabinet, another is defense secretary, a third heads the CE’s secretariat, a fourth is governor of a province and at least two are ambassadors in foreign lands — while the former corps commander of Pindi whose troops arrested Nawaz Sharif on 12 October 1999 is currently DG-ISI.

The irony should not be lost on us. Among the editors who are sanguine about General Musharraf’s visit to India are many who vigourously opposed Ms Bhutto and Mr Sharif when they hinted at “flexibility” — the buzzword these days. More significantly, among the religious groups and parties who are now backing General Musharraf are many with overt or covert links to the jehadi forces in Kashmir. Indeed, Qazi Hussain Ahmad of the Jama’at-i Islami, who created such a ruckus during the Lahore Summit in February 1999 and who not so long ago was urging the corps commanders to remove General Musharraf because he had allegedly become a “security risk”, has now gone all the way to Islamabad to say “yes” to the general. Similarly, the other fiery clerics who are given to castigating General Musharraf for his so-called ‘secularism’, were all too conspicuous when they prostrated themselves along with him in the namaz following the meeting. In fact, JUI leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman has actually called for a general ceasefire in Kashmir and on the LoC if the Musharraf-Vajpayee summit makes progress. The Maulana is an important leader in Pakistan because his party represents the grand Deobandi alliance behind the jehad in Kashmir. Together with Qazi Hussain Ahmad, he was until recently most given to making aggressive statements about General Musharraf’s ‘NGO-driven’ cabinet. But so soft was Fazlur Rehman’s stance the other day that the apex jehadi organization, the Mutahhida Jehad Council, could not resist denouncing him, although the very next day the Council was itself front-paged for endorsing the summit. The newspapers also carried the namaz photo of General Musharraf lining up with such jehadi panjandrums as Maulana Samiul Haq, a friend of Afghanistan’s Mulla Umar and a powerful seminary-owner of the NWFP. In fact the jehadi religious parties first formed a six-party alliance topped by an action committee, then went and met General Musharraf to lend him their support vis-à-vis India. All this, while the chief of the main religious party feeding the Deobandi jehad, Maulana Azam Tariq of Sipah-e-Sahaba, was languishing in jail. Meanwhile, an internally riven Hurriyat Conference has also endorsed General Musharraf unequivocally.

The irony is all the greater because the three political parties which wanted peace with India – PPP, MQM and PML-N – did not deem fit to meet General Musharraf and wish him good luck. In fact, they have tried to play the role of spoilers by asking India not to negotiate with a military leader. Equally interesting is the government’s disdainful attitude towards former DG-ISI, General Hameed Gul, a self-styled Islamicist hardliner, and former army chief General Aslam Beg, an avowedly trigger-happy “defiance” theorist. Neither was “invited” to meet General Musharraf. It may also be recalled that on 5 June, General Musharraf, had criticized the jehadi organisations for their lack of accountability over jehad funds and for the empty anti-India braggadocio of their leaders. Only a man squarely in control can express such sentiments and get away with it.

General Musharraf can rein in the jehadis in Kashmir if the situation so warrants. That is the message he is sending to New Delhi. And that will be his strong card at the Agra Summit. Is New Delhi going to stop playing bloody games?

India is forestalling hopes by referring to Kashmir as ang (or part of its body). Pakistan can respond by terming Kashmir its shahrag (jugular vein). But the truth is that both have to show flexibility on Kashmir. India’s view of Pakistan may be that of a deadbeat state now desperate to sign on the dotted line. But Pakistan has the bomb and General Musharraf can bleed India in Kashmir for some time to come. New Delhi should also realize that Agra is not Simla and General Musharraf is not negotiating the release of 90,000 POWs. But if “deadbeat Pakistan” actually goes under as some Indians would like, India and Pakistan will be at the receiving end of jehad like never before. Therefore neither can afford to stick to the status quo. `` (Friday Times)

I think the true colors of the MQM, PPP, and PML can be seen by their efforts to dismantle this meeting, even though it seems to be on fair and balanced terms, i.e. no outrageous demands have been made by either country, and Kashmir seems to be the core issue.

Another interesting point is historically nearly all important treaties (water, border etc.) that have been signed between India and Pakistan have occured when a military govt. was running Pakistan.

My prediction: India (after 17 years) will agree to Pakistan`s offer of a bilateral withdrawl from Siachen (Thank God!!).

India will agree to Pakistan`s offer of the Iran-India pipeline through Pakistan.

India will continue to state that the Kashmiris will not be allowed self-determination, so no major progress will be made on Kashmir. However, India will somewhat soften its atut-ang stance.

Banjaara 207/Ali1 208: ``Romair Saheb,you claim that Pakistanis know more about India than the Indians know about Pakistan,``

I still believe this.

``FYI,The Babri Masjid Action Committee has agreed to let go of the Babri Masjid``

If this is the case, then I stand corrected. I was unaware of this. I am not quite sure what the solution maybe then. If it is one mosque after another, then at some stage a line needs to be drawn.

``VHP/BJP/RSS are the acronyms and the full names are``

This one I did know. I knew what the acronyms stood for. I just didn`t know why the names were so long.

``Waiting for your next advise to theIndian Muslims.``

Based on the above, I really don`t have any furthur advice. I suppose Indian Muslims need to unite and form a national political party of their own. But that maybe hard, because they are so spread out all over India.

``You must know from their websites that there is a list of several hundred mosques which they think have been built over destroyed temples and must be demolished now. Where do you think if will end?``

I didn`t realize the list of mosques was so long.

``Do you think Pakistan was possible if Indian Muslims would have stategically retreated after every 500 casualties?``

A strategic retreat is carried out when one knows one will be defeated if one fights. It is pointless to get into any battle, regardless of the fact whether one`s stance is right or wrong, if one is sure one will lose in the end. It is better to regroup to fight another day.

At the time of partition, Pakistanis did not need to strategically retreat because they had a very good chance of winning. There were certain areas where they were in a majority. The chances of winning were at least 50% or more. Had there been no or very little chance of winning, and in the process all of the Muslims would have been killed in a losing battle, then I think a strategic retreat would have been the answer.

In the current case, although I am not an expert on India, I don`t see how the Muslims can win. They have to regroup and strengthen themselves politically first, and then attempt to take a stand.

ref: saadP Aslam #129

As an Indian, I see no benefit accruing to me from your scheme. First of all I am not so sure of your hypothesis about separate nations in India. There are separate identities for sure. But I feel a kinship with other Indians be they Tamil, Sikhs or Kashmiris. Why should separating everyone into neat little boxes help? Living in the real world means having to deal with people who may not be exactly like us. I see no merit in trying to run away from this reality. Quite the opposite, I think that diversity broadens the mind.

Overall the Indian state is doing well, and we as components of it, are doing well too. I am also all for helping south asia grow as a region, but I do not think that your solution is any way of achieving that objective. But then maybe that is not the problem you are trying to solve anyway?

-narain

Sadna:

I did read your reply. Well, its a matter of opinion, but don`t you think our country has seen enough elections. You suggest making it mandatory for the opposition party to prove its majority before unseating the incumbents. That is hardly a better alternative. It will still lead to buying and selling of Members of Parliament, and a resultant lack of stability. Secondly, political agendas get diluted to satisfy the cravings of every component of a coalition, leading to a government of inertia.

A presidential form of government may not be perfect, but at least it may lead to some form of stability where the chief executive of India (President) can spend more time governing and less time on politicking.(Hopefully)

Nasah:

My main man, where are you from India or Pakistan.

I am just a little bit confused.

If you are Pakistani, are you being sarcastic. At least that will make some sense.

If you are Indian, are you so driven by hate that you can`t make your ass out from your elbow. So what if the Pakistanis have a similar structure of their NDC. Does that make it wrong??

The procurement of military supplies is much better managed in Pakistan than in India, because there you don`t have civilians sitting on every proposal for years. Corruption exists in Defense Procurement in ever country, but at least they get the weapons whereas we don`t. Eliminating bureaucratic control (not civilian) would enhance the fighting capability of the Armed Forces. Food for thought????

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