1971: A Forgotten Story

re: anarayan # 80

Dunno about ali1 but, heck, we need ALL our muslims. Farzana is a jewel, and studebaker is certainly creative.

Mean ol` Scout, eh? Scout, you have a greater following among Indians than one would have guessed!

Tahmed, hamdim, Drumz? Kaash. May be we can kidnap them and a few others.

( *in the meanwhile, let`s start preparing to welcome them by putting the arses of Bajrang Dal and Siva Sena type fools on fire? *)

Reply #: 179 rsridhar

[``Hence, all diplomatic options will be exhausted including scrapping the Indus treaty, naval blockade etc. These are very extreme measures akin to declaring war.``]

Who told you that? Sai baba?

[``From what i hear, Musharraf may surprise us. He is supposed to address his countrymen in a few days time. Looks like our man in Khaki will be doing another somersault on the Kashmiri policy (helped by western powers, of course).``]

He will probably provide Indians with a face saver. As for the Kashmir policy, a complete defeat in `71 couldn`t change that, so I doubt a threat of war would do it now. I suggest that you worship your Sai Baba`s lingum as much as you can, `cause that alonghwith your arse is soon to be vaporized.

re: manoj # 83

Nice conspiracy theory. Now take off your stupidity hat, and learn not to believe every silly theory that fits your world view.

Reply #: 71 soundmeister

[## Mullah Ali-jee, don`t worry yourself sick over Farzana`s haal. Worry instead about your own miserable lot back in Pakistan.]

soundmeister bhosdi-ke, quit name calling or be prepared to get back what you hurl, multiplied by 100.

[``The way you talk, you`d think Pakistanis live their lives in complete freedom, lack of fear and prosperity.``]

Of course. Unlike Indians, we are free from bubonic plague and starvation deaths, not to mention that a Karachiite earns several times more than a dhoti-clad in Mumbay or Bunglore.

re: soundmeister # 87

``And while at it, stop using the Brahmin name OK?``

Why SM? Rishi Bharadwaj was a generous and charitable man who loved birds and animals. I don`t think he would have minded.

Yeah, studebaker`s use of this nick is a bit offensive to some of us; but everything is offensive to someone or the other. Certainly, we don`t need to slide into a silly censorious culture.

Reply # 72 Farzana

[``I repeat that those who fought the 1971 war were not mercenaries. People join the Army and are expected to go to battle when they are called. I don’t think they have a choice here about saying, “I smoked but did not inhale” and its military equivalent. Soldiers in our country, and I assume some others, cannot refuse to join because they do not ethically believe in the war.``]

Thanks for responding. I agree with you that not every Indian who fought the 1971 war was a mercenary. They were just doing their patriotic duty and we should all respect them for that.

However, those Indian soldiers and officers who agreed to take off their uniforms to fight alongside the Bengali terrorists and participate in the massacare of Pakistanis are mercenaries. They were a small fraction of the total Indian force, agreed, but mercenaries nevertheless.

Uniform is the key. When a soldier fights without his uniform, like some Indians did in `71 including probably some on your missing list, he forfeits his right to be treated as a POW in case of being captured.

Please understand the difference. Pakistan is obligated to return any and all POWs but not the mercenaries.

Reply # 79 sigalph235

[``Translation into English:``]

Your slick translation withstanding, the Indian soldiers fighting in civvies with the Mukti Bahini terrorists were merceneries and have been and will continue to be treated as such.

Also, like tahmed says, people vote with their feet. Bangladeshis who have left the secular republic of sonar bangla in their millions to beg and crawl their way into Karachi to take Rs. 400/- per month jobs speak louder than your translations.

Ref anarayan #: 80

[To show you our appreciation...you can pick all the rocks from our side that you can carry...add to your collection.]

If he were to use one of the rocks for a brain transplant, Ali1`s IQ will improve by 30 points.

bharadwaj #84:

It is indeed a shame that an artist of the calibre of Bismillah Khan has had to undergo such humiliation, because of the pettiness of a couple of insignificant bureaucrats indulging in stupid power games.

It speaks volumes for the greatness of the Ustad that he bore with the shabby treatment with dignity and has even agreed to perform on Necklace Road after all that has transpired.

The most amusing thing about the whole episode is that you think it`s some kind of Hindu ploy to humiliate a Muslim. Even Norman Bates wasn`t THAT paranoid.

Get a life dude. And while at it, stop using the Brahmin name OK? That only adds insult to injury....

SM

...farzana, i hope you`ll let the concerned families know the info. urstruly has posted...

HARAMI ..OU THIS IS THE FATE OF INDIAN MUSLIM WHO ARE ONE OFV A KIND IN THE WORLD ,THEN WHAT ABOUT PPL. LIKE FARZANA WHO ARE JUST A ONE OF THE JOURNALIST WHO WRITE IN ENGLISH

YES YOU WERE PROUDLY MAKING BISMILLAH KHAN OF VARANASI ,HE IS BEGGING IN BHARAT AT THE AGE OF 80

SHAME INDIA ,SHAME HINDUSTAN ,SHAME BHARAT

http://www.timesofindia.com/Articleshow.asp?art_id=1174154641



Bismillah Khan humiliated





HINA KAUSAR ALAM

TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ THURSDAY, JANUARY 10, 2002 1:48:20 AM ]



YDERABAD: Shehnai maestro Ustad Bismillah Khan was in tears as he described to The Times of India, the hardships he was put through over the last two days by the state government and the Andhra Pradesh Lalita Kala Vedika (APLKV), a private cultural organisation.

He was made to run from pillar to post for a place to stay and to claim his performance fee. ``Hamara man Hyderabad se chal gaya (I am heart-broken with Hyderabad),`` Khan Saheb said.

The 86-year-old Bharat Ratna was to perform at Necklace Road as part of the Festival of Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday. But the show was cancelled due to bad weather. He was also scheduled to play at Ravindra Bharati on Wednesday in a programme arranged by APLKV, which too did not happen. He will now perform at Necklace Road on Thursday evening.

APLKV founder R V Ramanamurthy took the initiative to invite the ustad to perform at the Festival of AP. Ramanamurthy said, ``I approached Tourism Director G Kishen Rao in December with a proposal to honour the ustad and asked him if Bismillah Khan`s performance could be included in the Festival of AP.`` He says Kishan Rao approved, but only if the maestro agreed to a Rs 3 lakh fee instead of his regular fee of Rs 5 lakh. Bismillah Khan agreed.

According to Ramanamurthy, Kishan Rao agreed to contribute Rs 2 lakh towards the fee with the APLKV pooling in Rs 1 lakh. This deal agreed, APLKV was told to make the arrangements, Ramanamurthy says.

Ramanamurthy went ahead and arranged for Khan`s travel to Hyderabad on Jan. 7, one day ahead of the Necklace Road performance. But in the meantime, the deal between APLKV and the tourism director to split the bill fell through. Ramanamurthy claims Kishan Rao backed out of his commitment to contribute Rs 2 lakh. The latter offered to give just Rs 1 lakh.

So, just a day before the performance, Ramanamurthy says he had a maestro on his hands with his accommodation not yet arranged for and no money to pay for the performance. When Bismillah Khan reached Hyderabad, he was taken to the state guest house Manjira, but had to wait in the taxi for nearly two hours.

``I pleaded with the authorities to let him stay but they refused as he was not a state guest,`` Ramanamurthy claimed. Kishan Rao denied Ramanamurthy`s allegations. ``I did not make any promises,`` he said. ``I was actually trying to rescue the deal and see to it that the maestro does not face any more trouble,`` Kishan Rao said.

After two days, Bismillah Khan was on Wednesday given the status of state guest and the state government agreed to meet all his expenses. Despite his harrowing experience, Bismillah Khan said he was finally going to perform at Necklace Road on Thursday.

bijli, as a madrissa grad you could not have done better :-)

are you from OBLU ( Osama Bin laden University)?

Well , i am sharing a important item relating to Dec 13 attack on Indian parliament. The Pakistani army finished its annual excercises on 9th Dec but did not start returning to its barracks from 9th Dec onwards. The theory is Pakis had prior knowledge of the attack , it was expected that Dec 13th attack would succeed resulting in killing of indian leaders/hostages. Indian armed forces would lead a punitive strike without adequate mobilistion of forces. This would invite a Paki military response since its forces were mobilised on account of regular excercises. A short exchange would result in capture of some Indian territory which could be the bargaining chip.

Farzana: Yeah the urdu isnt that bad I got the verse, makes sense. I think Tupac was a tad more blunt, ``Put me in hell already, I aint begging for my life/aint nuthin worse then this cursed azz hopeless life.`` Think Huxley said something like that too, about us already being in hell...

Im not sure I agree with that bit on how peace loving people dont want war. On an individual level, maybe not hurting a fly is not ALWAYS good. Maybe some folks will only learn after being slapped upside the head. Im hardly bloodthirsty but I think murdering one of those cops is the most efficient answer (and id LOVE to do it).

And all those code words between u and him are disturbing.

ali1,

``Hindus won`t let you and other Indian Muslims forget your ``auqaat``; so I hope you wont get carried away by the secular republic/Sharrukh Khan/Azeem Premji bullcrap.``

The exception proves the rule. But, tell you what Ali1...lets cut a deal.

You take Farzana and we`ll take that mean ol` Scout. She`s not your favorite person, is she ??? You can also throw in the other nasties...hamidm and tahmed. We`ll take them off your hands. Deal ??? Drumz will probably wander over the line himself (in one of his meditative spells)!

If you agree...bring your mule over to the fence...and we`ll have her all trussed up.

To show you our appreciation...you can pick all the rocks from our side that you can carry...add to your collection.

best regards,

re ali

``...unlike the Indians that you are fussing over who were caught fighting as merceneries with the Mukti Bahini terrorists. ``

Translation into English:

``...unlike the Indian soldiers, who you`re concerned about, who were allegedly captured while fighting alongside the Bangladesh Armed Forces under the Allied Command. The said Allied Command was formed as per agreement of the elected governments of India and Bangladesh to push out the Occupation forces that had been illegally occupying parts of Bangladesh since March 26, 1971 when they were asked to get out.``

WEDNESDAY JANUARY 09 2002



Cover story

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0%2C%2C7-2002013426%2C00.html



A state of war



BY TREVOR FISHLOCK



The dispute over Kashmir has brought India and Pakistan to the brink of nuclear war. But why has this beautiful state become the subcontinent`s powder keg?



Poets hymned it as a land of love and languor. In 1627 the dying emperor Jahangir, who shaped its blissful gardens, was asked to name his last desire. “Only Kashmir,” he murmured. “Only Kashmir.”

India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, promised melodramatically that its name was written upon his heart. Today, millions make the same emotive claim.

Passions for Kashmir run hot and bitter, the bayonets almost touch and the urge for war is strong. Two rivals, two ideas, two faiths stand nose to nose in one of the world’s most dangerous places. One mistake or misjudgment and the spark falls on the fuse.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars, two of them over Kashmir. The great bulk of their armies are based along the frontier that runs through Punjab and Kashmir. The border is always tense.

In Kashmir there has been an almost permanent grumbling small war of artillery bombardment. Apart from the all-out conflicts, India and Pakistan have two or three times pulled back from the brink, and now the assessments of their military power have to include their nuclear capability. There was a particularly dangerous stand-off in 1990.

It was inevitable that the terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament on December 13 would bring India and Pakistan once more to the edge of the abyss. It was an echo of the October suicide bomb attack on the Kashmir assembly. The Parliament in Delhi is the heart and emblem of what India stands for. Now India is raging.

Poor Kashmir. It lies in the Himalayan ramparts where the borders of India, Pakistan and China rub together. Reality mocks its beauty. There is no escaping the permeating melancholy of a land that lies under the gun. It is as if malevolent gods, jealous of its loveliness, placed a curse upon it.

The poison entered the garden in 1947 when the war-weary British quit their Indian empire and partitioned it. They had no wish to cut it up: one of their imperial achievements, they said, was to have united India and made it secure. They divided it to meet the demands of Muslim leaders who said that Hindus and Muslims could not live together in one country, that the communities formed two separate nations. Pakistan was therefore created as a homeland for the subcontinent’s Muslims.

Britain ruled India with the co-operation of more than 500 Indian princes, a galaxy of maharajahs, rajahs, ranas, raos, khans, mirs, jams, nizams and nawabs, loyal to the British crown, well-oiled with flattery, some fantastically rich and a few of them barmy. In the summer of 1947, these rulers had to choose whether to take their states into India or Pakistan. It was a personal decision, without referendum.

Public opinion hardly came into it. Most princes joined India. Most knew that they would be extinguishing themselves as a ruling class, but it was clear to all but a few that the game was up. On the eve of independence, all the princes had made up their minds except four.

The Maharajah of Kashmir, Sir Hari Singh, was one of the ditherers. He was vain, pompous and addicted to hunting bears and shooting ducks. As a young man he had an unfortunate scrape in London, being found in bed with a woman at the Savoy Hotel and milked for a lot of money by a blackmailer pretending to be the woman’s husband.

At Partition, Kashmir, more fully known as Jammu and Kashmir, was in a key position: a prize because it was a large state and famously beautiful, a honeymooners’ resort of lakes and cool alpine meadows.

Given its place on the map, it could have swung either to India or to Pakistan. Because of its overwhelming Muslim majority, Pakistan’s new leaders expected that it would join their Islamic entity. But the maharajah had to decide — and he was a Hindu. This was not unusual. In princely India, Muslims often ruled Hindus and vice versa. But Hari Singh dithered. He could not believe that the British would really go home. He did not want to join Pakistan because he could not bear the thought of his state being subsumed. He dreamt that Kashmir could somehow be an independent country and he could keep his power.

India and Pakistan became independent in August. Hari Singh was still dithering in October. As he fiddled, the storm broke. Thousands of Pathan warriors from the North-West Frontier, bordering Afghanistan, rushed into Kashmir, vowing to seize it for Pakistan. Although they were a rabble, they might have succeeded. They were close to Srinagar, the capital, when they were delayed by their lust for loot and women. While they pillaged towns and raped girls and nuns, the hapless Hari Singh gathered up his diamonds and Purdey shotguns and fled his palace in a motorcade.

India acted fast and decisively. In a flurry of action the maharajah agreed to join India, and Indian forces flew to save Srinagar. This was the first Kashmir war, not an all-out confrontation but a series of fights and communal conflicts. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the leader of Pakistan, wanted to send the new Pakistan regular Army into action, but did not do so when the absurdity of the situation was pointed out to him: the forces of India and Pakistan shared a commander-in-chief, Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck, while many officers on both sides were British.

Kashmir was left divided along the line where fighting stopped in 1948. A United Nations ceasefire came into force on January 1, 1949. In 1965 Pakistan tried and failed to annexe Kashmir and was defeated in brief and bitter fighting. At one stage Indian forces were almost at the gates of Lahore and could easily have taken it. Pakistan’s leaders believed that Kashmiris would welcome Pakistani troops as liberators. It was a shock that they did not. In 1971 India and Pakistan went to war again, India assisting the secession of East Pakistan, which became Bangladesh. Pakistan was left truncated and humiliated.

Yet the story of a vacillating maharajah and the ensuing bloody quarrel over territory is only the half of it.

Kashmir is a tragedy for its divided people and a continuing source of danger in a subcontinent inhabited by a fifth of the world’s population. The tragedy has deep roots. Kashmir is the offspring of bitterly divorced parents. Pakistan aches for it but will never possess it. India will never let it go: it is not negotiable. The trouble is that both sides define themselves by this feud.

Their mutual suspicions date from the 8th-century Muslim conquest of western India and the many hundreds of years of Mogul rule that were brought to an end by the British Raj. For India’s Hindu majority, independence in 1947 was a reclamation of their vast land, the end of centuries of foreign domination. Nehru and others believed passionately that this new India would be a daring concept, an embracing of all its religious, linguistic and regional diversity, a magnificent secular state.

The steely and intractable Jinnah did not believe it. His new country of Pakistan grew out of that scepticism, the belief that Muslims in India would be vulnerable, second-class citizens.

Pakistan was an invented state, a by-product of the great Indian struggle for independence. It evolved in the last few years of British rule among people who wanted to escape religious and political discrimination in the new order. Landowners especially thought they would lose out in India. Democracy barely made the journey to Pakistan.

In a sense Pakistan remains stranded in 1947. Its great debate has centred for half a century on what it is for and what it should be. Jinnah mused that it could be a secular country. But in that case, what was the point of Partition? Some of his successors said that Pakistan was nothing if not Islamic and determined to make it more so, a military theocracy.

Yet Islam proved an unreliable glue. It did not cement Pakistan and East Pakistan. Bangladesh erupted as the assertion of Bengali language and culture. Nor did it cement the disparate parts of Pakistan itself — Punjab, Baluchistan, Sindh and the North- West Frontier — or, indeed, the many shades of Islamic belief. Thus Kashmir is useful, the “unfinished business of Partition”. However much Pakistanis disagree about the nature of their society, they find common cause in Kashmir, the belief that they were robbed in 1947. This is the unifying insult. It is why Pakistan has supported Kashmiri insurgents. India’s treatment of Kashmiris during the long years of internal strife are held as proof that Jinnah was right, that Muslims needed their homeland.

It is true that India could have managed Kashmir more wisely, less roughly. But Pakistan has to live with the fact that there are more Muslims in India than in Pakistan. India has the second largest Muslim population in the world: evidently Hindus and Muslims do live together in a secular society, Nehru’s idea of India, even if it is not always easy. And Kashmir, the only Indian state with a Muslim majority, is in Indian minds the shining fact of secular India. Its existence throws the question to Pakistan again: what was Partition for? India has a powerful idea of its identity. It is the giant of South Asia, its Armed Forces are huge and it is proud of its democracy, even if this is somewhat battered. Pakistan, on the other hand, does not enjoy such a positive identity. It thinks of itself in terms of its neighbour and endures the negative of being Not India.

It means that even if the impossible were to happen, that Kashmir should somehow become part of Pakistan, the anxieties and insecurities of Pakistan would endure. There would have to be another issue by which Pakistan could seek to establish its identity and purpose.

In the meantime the two nations face each other again — and judging from what we see and hear, there are many on both sides desperate to fight. Centuries of prejudice are poured into the funnel of Kashmir.

People on both sides treasure the slights of history. There is an endless misunderstanding of each other’s beliefs and opinions. Estrangement is total. Trivial matters become huge. Hindu nationalists complain that Muslims cheer for Pakistan during Test matches. In both India and Pakistan, keen teams of monitors comb through guide books and encyclopaedias searching for maps that might contain instances of “cartographic aggression” — inaccuracies that seem to favour one side or the other.

Words are traps, and there is a sense that a comma could cause a crisis. But the opinions of outsiders are not welcome. For this is a feud between cousins, a quarrel in the family. It could hardly be more acrid and perilous.