1971: A Forgotten Story

A relevant article Farzana - so while the usual bunch of idiots will be all over you - questioning your patriotism, religious leaning and maybe some gender bashing - I hope you will keep raising these issues.

``The country stands silent. Not one political party has included the return of our POWs in its manifesto. Why? ``

The reason is simple - we do not value the lives of our soldiers, oh sure they provide a good photo-op for some politician or any number of ``VIPs`` that we have, but the respect is not there (nor the vote-bank). Just ask the families of the departed soldiers how much running around they have to do to get their dues - all those ex-gratia amounts declared by the minister and those sanctioned Petrol Pumps. The humiliation they have to bear, the palms they have to grease - all because a brave man put his country before his family.

The credo for the cadets at IMA is “The safety, honour and welfare of your country comes first, always and every time; The honour, welfare and comfort of the men you command come next; Your own ease comfort and safety come last, always and every time.” - can you ever think of a politician ascribing to this?

But let us not only blame the politicians, its our apathy that is to blame too, we just don`t care a damn - lets just glorify the soldier and restrict ourselves to lip sympathy.

-

Subroto

Soldiers are cheap. Officers are not. See how many soldiers died unloading & laying landmines in the last week? It merited no questions, no inquiries and certainly no screaming front-page headlines. (The suckers probably had to transfer the mines into a basket and carry that on their heads. Billion-dollar bullock-cart technology.) They are useful to the extent that the defence higher-ups can make $2000 per coffin. More money in their pockets, the more soldiers dead. The cannon fodder were sent up the cold mountain peaks to fight an entrenched & well-prepared force with poor rations, inadequate clothing and poor equipment. It`s like the old red army that relied on numbers.

urstruly:

Thank you. This is just wonderful. No wonder I call you my friend.

sadna:

Yes, it is possible to get a million signatures, but that might not make an impact. But I am willing to give it a try.

Razor-sharp investigation and research Farzana. This is what journalists are made of, one of your best pieces!

Your straight-forward reporting and emotional inquiries gave the document a very ``complete`` feeling. You had me praying for the families, as soon as I finished reading.

I`ve been meaning to say this for a long time, so let me take the opportunity, before I leave on my upcoming vacation:

Don`t explain yourself to every tom, dick and harry who likes to bust your chops just for the heck of it. You are a Muslim, a loyal Indian, an intelligent woman and a thinking individual, the composition is too much for too many. I think it`s wonderful that you interact with everyone on a personal level, but guess what? Not everyone deserves it.

You my dear, are far too busy for bozos who have no life and get entertainment out of bugging minds intellectually superior to them. There are only a few reasons in my opinion, why they do this:

a) You Always answer them.

b) They are simply jealous, for not being articulate and popular enough to voice their views.

c) Most are men, who are pictures of the above-mentioned reason, i.e jealous, but are also intimidated by a woman who can speak her mind with such conviction. They can`t handle it.

So dear sistuh, don`t humor them all, they certainly ain`t worth your time. :) Just my 2 cents.

Regards,

Kiran

http://www.hinduonnet.com/stories/2002010801050100.htm

Mosque gate burnt

JAIPUR, JAN. 7. A wooden gate of a mosque was today burnt by miscreants, setting off communal tension in a village in Rajasthan`s Sikar district, the State`s top police official said. Some unidentified persons threw a burning sack at the gate of the mosque damaging it, Shantanu Kumar, Director General of Rajasthan Police, told PTI here.

http://www.indian-express.com/ie20020106/cent2.html

Sunday, January 06, 2002





O what a lovely war!



ALTHOUGH war may not have actually broken out, there is plenty of action in evidence thanks to the rapid fire performances of our special battalions armed to the teeth — quite literally so — as they display their amazing military capabilities through words, words and more words.

The buff-coats who make up these squads may not have been put through the paces at Khadakvasla and Dehra Dun, neither do they sport epaulettes and uniforms, but that does not deter them in the least from being both bark- and battle-ready.

So let’s do a quick review of our brave men-out-of-uniform who never hesitate, even for a teeny-tiny moment, to get others to lay down their lives for the country.

The first, in my personal roll of honour, is our very dependable squad of NRIs or Non Resident Incendiaries, trained in the intricate weaponry of cyber-rattling. In rather well-feathered fox-holes some 10,000 km northwest of the Poonch sector (as the Boeing 747 flies), they keep a gimlet eye on the enemy and generally prepare themselves to wage relentless battle through their Compaq Pentium-4 missile delivery systems, especially designed to shoot e-mails across the world with the speed of light.

‘‘National honour demands that we teach the ENEMY a lesson it will never forget. So BOMB the bases,’’ they fire away on their laptops, ‘‘If we have to pay the ULTIMATE PRICE and engage in NUCLEAR WARFARE, so be it.’’ Such urgent instructions to countrymen and women left behind in Bharat Mata are inevitably followed by the injunction in bold lettering ‘‘LET US NOT BE COWARDS’’.

Good, soul-stirring stuff, just the thing we need here as we go about our little lives. The only problem though is that when our Non Resident Incendiaries speak of ‘‘our country’’ and ‘‘our national honour’’, one is never quite sure which country they really mean, seeing that most of them have long swapped the Tricolour for the Star Spangled Banner.

Then there is the other courageous lot who brave television lights, and selflessly give of their time and energy, night after night, screaming for the enemy’s blood. Although none of them has seen real action, they usually have an excellent war record, never hesitating for a moment to despatch the army to storm enemy lines the moment the cameras roll. I call them the Prime Time Platoon and their secret weapon is a glass of warm saline solution with which to gargle for 60 seconds once the night’s exertions are over, in order to keep the old vocal chords fitting fit for the next encounter in the studios.

The Bathetic Battalion come marching next. Don’t be fooled by the fact that this lot are mostly poets, or rather versifiers, whose verse seems to get worse and worse by the day so that one is tempted to term them ‘‘worseifiers’’. Yet they can, when the mood takes them and the desire to catch the eye of Poet-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee overwhelms them, stiffen up the sinews, summon up the blood and produce quite a blast. Secretly, they all imagine that they are Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and produce poetry to match.

So one among them says, ‘‘Padosi to naag hai’’ (our neighbour is a snake) and the rest exclaim, ‘‘Wah, wah’’ in appreciation. Which encourages the man to burst out, ‘‘Padosi to naag hia, ise chandan na chadao tum...’’(our neighbour is a snake, let us not offer him sandal wood). Read such verse aloud on a cold wintry night to the enemy lines with the aid of foghorns, and the sheer velocity of its mediocrity is guaranteed to frighten them into abject surrender.

Which brings us to our elite corps, the Trishul Troops, who simply love a war, any war, even a nuclear one, as long as it wins them Uttar Pradesh — on the presumption perhaps that if Ram doesn’t work, Radioactivity might.

You may have noticed something rather curious about this entire lot who measure patriotism by the number of shells despatched across the border. They are either old codgers who have no stake in the future, or young codgers with great lateral mobility who are unlikely to be hit by a loose nuke. But that is precisely what makes them so keen on war.

Forget about couple of men lost more than 30 yrs ago.Havent more died in Indias created conflict & more since then

Real terrorist are scott free .........

I wonder what american sheeple say when confronted with reality?

http://www.abdulmalik.net/silence.php

If you are still shaken by the horrifying scenes of September 11, please observe a moment of silence for the 5,000 civilian lives lost in the New York, Washington, DC and Pennsylvania attacks.

While we`re at it, let`s have 13 minutes of silence for the 130,000 Iraqi civilians killed in 1991 by order of President Bush Sr. Take another moment to remember how Americans celebrated and cheered in the streets.

Now another 20 minutes of silence for the 200,000 Iranians killed by Iraqi soldiers using weapons and money provided to young Saddam Hussein by the American government before the great eagle turned all its power against Iraq.

Another 15 minutes of silence for the Russians and 150,000 Afghans killed by the Taliban troups who were supported and trained by the CIA.

Plus 10 minutes of silence for 100,000 Japanese killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the Atomic bombs dropped by the USA.

We`ve just kept quiet for one hour: one minute for the Americans killed in NY, DC, and Pennsylvania, 59 minutes for their victims throughout the world.

If you are still in awe, let`s have another hour of silence for all those killed in Vietnam, which is not something Americans like to admit.

Or for the massacre in Panama in 1989, where Americans troops attacked poor villagers, leaving 20,000 Panamanians homeless and thousands more dead.

Or for the millions of children who have died because of the USA embargoes on Iraq and Cuba.

Or the hundreds of thousands brutally murdered throughout the world by USA sponsored civil wars and coups d`etat (Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Guatemala, El Salvador to name a few).

Maybe, and although the memory of Americans claims otherwise, someone may remember the USA attack on Bagdad where 18,000 civilians were killed. Did someone see it on CNN? Was justice ever served? Or was there even any retaliation?

We hope that Americans finally begin to understand their vulnerability and the cowardly attacks and other tragedies that they have caused around the world.

The dead in other places hurt as much as the dead of the Towers.

Now, let`s talk about terrorism, shall we

thanks Bijli for pointing out our weakness!!!

we are addressing them , but when will the

madrissa educated bigots address theirs :-)

JUST A MINOR CLARIFICATION

anarayan #8 is NOT temporal! (and no....nothing need be scratched from here..)

_______________________________________________

Ferz:

...we had a fine time...recuperating...before embarking on the final leg...yeah met some of them here too...more later...

love (with bspnp)

t

I would request Indian families whose loved ones are in Paksitani jails for any reason to contact Mr. Ansar Burney at:

``ANSAR BURNEY WELFARE TRUST INTERNATIONAL``
(An International Human Rights Organization)

6 - HASAN MANZIL,
ARAMBAGH ROAD.
KARACHI. PAKISTAN.

Electronic mail address
contact@ansarburney.org

Office Phone
+ 92 21 2623382, 2623383

FAX number
+ 92 21 2623384

Mobile Phone
(Important/Emergency)
(Contact Name: Sarim Burney)
+ 92 300 243459

Mr. Burney has freed 100s if not 1000s of unfortunate souls from Paksitani jails who have been rotting for years-some even without trial. Some of the prisnors whom he freed should have been released years ago after completing their sentences but it is our legal, jurisprudence, and jail system inherited from British. Mr. Burney has been helping people long before the curse of NGOs was introduced in Pakistan-he is the one homegrown NGO that every Paksitani can take pride in. Their website is at:

www.ansarburney.org

Farzana
Why depend on the govt? How about a demand to Musharraf signed by a million Indians for the return of the POWs?

``The country stands silent. Not one political party has included the return of our POWs in its manifesto. Why?``

Good question, Farzana. And one your detractors on this board seem to be happier to avoid than to attempt to answer.

IMHO it`s because our politicians prefer populism (easy) to patriotism (hard). Apparently they are not alone in this.

Zafar

Faisal: ``Thanks for bringing up the issue, but please be a little less melodramatic. Histrionics won`t substitute for sincerity; we know you care... chill out and keep on writing!``

I suppose she`s sounding too much like a human... We all know Europeans (and their admirers) value ``objective`` robotic writing.

Dear DRUMZ,

Reading about nazca lines and smoking good weed...is an agreeable way to spend time. It can also make you feel you`re a couple of inches closer to heaven than your ignorant neighbour.

Chill out!

Doing nothing, grass grows by itself.

regards,

re: prem

{Aamir bhai,}

you consider 12-head a `bhai?` wow