If Army acts like a Political Party Why not a Forward Bloc in it?

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Welcome to NWFP under MMA. All three orders by the new Chief Minister Akram Durrani were `DO NOTS`. One of them was banning music in buses.
Now if one travels from Torkham to Wagah on GT Road, the music will start after crossing the Attock bridge. There goes little bit of Hindu - kameez tehNdi kaali. Now only sound you are allowed to hear in the buses is noise of bus engines....until that one is also banned and the preferred Islamic traveling model is ordered - bull and camel carts.

Amit 38,

There are times when I wish I could be a simpleton, but there are no schools, no books, no dummies guide to simpleton. Wish you the best.

P.S. There is no misfortune for pakistan, it is not a cyclone or earth quake, it is of their own making. Read the posts by tahmed and temporal on ``little bit of hindu`` board. Here is news for you, 6 pakistanis arrested in kenya for bombing, one pakistani executed in the US, pakistanis attacked the red fort, pakistani is the terror leader in philippines... you call it misfortune.

You talk of self criticism by pakistanis, it is superficial, no substance. Have you seen any of the pakistanis say that muslims should not be killing non-innocent hindus. Ask them who decides innocense. Here is news for you, in 1990 lahore high court declared that honour killing is legal, because it is not different from the idea of jihad, killing the non-innocent.

Amit#37

IMO, you are considering only one aspect of the issue. True that Indian and Pakistani armies have same roots. But at the time of independence and even now there was at least one glaring difference between India and Pakistan. The presence of a considerably large vocal and politically active class in India and the absence of the same in Pakistan. The heavy involvement of the masses, thanks Mahatma Gandhi, in the freedom struggle ensured a politically vigilant public in India which is a precondition for the success of democracy. Democracy can not imposed from above; but is the result of a politically active citizenry. This factor was missing in Pakistan or was weak in its impact since Pakistan never underwent a secular socio-political struggle in which masses were involved. This factor combined with the presence of a good second rung leadership in Congress guaranteed democracy in India.


PS You present the ``diversity`` of India as some sort of weakness of army due to which there is ``democracy`` in India. To summarise, I believe the more important reasons for democracy in India is politically active middle class and Indian ethos. Diversity without unity at its core is bound to self-annihilate.

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harimau: One of the event of 1965 war makes an excellent story for a movie. An Indian plane was shot down somwhere over Punjab. The Sikh pilot ejcted and landed safely. The locals treated him very very well and then handed him over to Pakistani authorites. What is so special about? Actually his parachute landed in/ or nearby the village he migrated from as a young boy during 1947 partition.

Re:Pankaj#26
I think you are being a bit naive here. Both Indian and Pakistani military have the same roots, similar traditions, similar training etc. Many of the older officers attended the same schools as well. Yet we see the Pakistani army being totally involved in politics since the 50s while the Indian army is a mute spectator. Given our general similarities with Pakistani people, surely there has got to be a good reason for this. The Pakistani army is dominated by Punjabis at all levels (except for Musharraf). Hence would-be dictators have an easier time winning the loyalty of the army for his endeavors. In India, the diversity provides an automatic check and balance against adventurism. There is no issue with regular army tasks like fighting on the front, but if someone wants to do anything extra-curricular such as topple regimes, it is much more difficult to obtain consensus.
I would posit that India`s diversity also influences why we have been able to maintain democracy. Everyone realizes that it is the only way to run the place and ensure equitable participation for all sectors or else the country will fall apart.

Re:jay#31
I have personally no illusions about Pakistan and most Pakistanis I know, are well aware of their problems. After all they have lived there and have first hand experience of how difficult life is over there. On chowk I have interacted with people like SameerJB, Bilal Ahmed and Samina Shah and they have been quite vocal about their feelings about Pakistan. I have also read columnists in Dawn and The Friday Times like Irfan Hussain, Ayaz Amir, Cowasjee, Najam Sethi, Khalid Ahmed etc who are very brutal in their criticisms of Pakistani government and society. In fact, at times I have felt that Pakistani columnists are more vocal than their Indian counterparts.
The problem is that if we Indians are too vocal in our criticism of Pakistan, it actually creates a backlash rather than anything else. It is kind of like if you have an ugly baby, you can say it is ugly but you don`t want your neighbor to say so. Also it seems like we are enjoying their misfortune, which makes us look bad. My personal opinion is that the Indo-Pak conflict will get settled the day India`s per capita income catches up with the developed world and becomes several times Pakistan`s per capita income. That day every account will get settled and we will not need to argue any further.

Ref Nova (``Doesn`t go`` in Spanish) #29

[AND SINCE WHEN HARMI ou ,& JAY HAVE INTEREST OF WELL BEING PROSPERITY & SURVIVAL OF PAKISTAN ,CLOSEST TO THE BOSSOM OF THEIR HEART ??????????????????? ]

I will have no problems at all if Pakistan has a prosperous future, survives as a nation that subscribes to peace on earth and has a sense of well-being that emanates from self-assurance about its position in the comity of nations. I may not be wrong in suggesting that Jay would be happy to see such a Pakistan.

What I have a problem with is Pakistan`s inability to accept the facts of life. Such as it is and will always remain smaller than in India by any yardstick that you use. That it has the ability to surpass India not in sheer numbers but only on proportionate basis such as per capita statistics which is more important. But such gains will come about not through confrontation with India but either through cooperation with India or through indifference to India. So long as Pakistan`s fascination with India remains morbid, Pakistan is only signing its own death warrant.

[I have never seen an H Indian ever speak softly of Ayub,Jinnah,Liaqat,Bhuttoo,Zia Or Musharaff ...... ]

I don`t think even Pakistanis think highly of these people -- with the exception of Jinnah for understandable reasons. And quite a few Punjabis didn`t like Jinnah in 1947 because they opposed the Partition.

PS. You on the other hand seem to have such a problem with India. You claim to have graduated from a top medical school in India (kicking the butts of your classmates, if I remember the expression you used in another post). You have used that as your ticket to a high-paying job in the US. Sitting here, you constantly rail against India and express your ardent support for Pakistan. You remind me of another gentleman who used to do that between the 1920s and 1940s by the name of Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Fortunately, the only damage you can do is to the psyche of your own children and not to an entire country. And, more fortunately, even that may be limited because of the influence of the liberal American environment in moulding your children`s minds. We all need to get down on our knees and thank Allah for small mercies.

Time to revisit a parable and a quote from jay to enable new chowkies to put jay’s diatribes in perspective:

_______________________________


Let me share with you the story of this Keralite Brahmin.

One day when KB was three or four and playing in the courtyard a provoked rooster fought back and attacked him. KB was frightened of roosters ever since. He genuinely believed that roosters are out to swallow him.

KB comes to States, graduates, returns to marry a beautiful Keralite girl KG. She soon discovers his phobia of roosters. Reasons with him. Rationality in this respect takes her nowhere. Eventually she nudges him to seek psychiatric help. Thus enters KP in the parable.

KB has scores of sessions with KP. KP tries hard to overcome KB’s resistance. One day he tried to use simple reasoning. He brings in a rooster in a cage, points at the rooster’s mouth and asks KB, “Look at yourself and look at this mouth, how can this rooster swallow you?”

An unconvinced and adamant KB replied, “Dr. you know it, I know it, but the rooster does not know it. Given the chance he will swallow me.”


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and this admission from him


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Date Posted: Jan-28-100 -2:49:52 PST Reply #: 167
jay
Temporal,

Take it easy, I didn’t /piss/ in your coke.

There is a game called intellectual origami, I take the clean pure paper of Pakistan, fold it around to make it into a jihadic monster and my good Pakistani friends are busy for a few days, removing the folds, ironing it out.

Take it easy I didn’t….

Regards

__________________________________

blood is thicker than water. congrats to isi for aligning bangalis with the good guys again. i see that progress is being made in on another very important front.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/comp/articleshow?artid=29553659&sType=1

“Suspending their mutual hostility for a change, the government and the opposition on Wednesday shared concern over the alarming rise in the ISI activity in the eastern region and Bangladesh`s role in it”

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/comp/articleshow?artid=29716217

“The Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) was making use of Indian expatriates working in the Gulf countries for its destructive game-plan in India, home ministry sources have said”

For those Pakistani men who are currently foaming at the mouth because of the history lessons they have learned in their schools (and this includes that dear boy Yasser Latif Hamdani who claims he went to school in the Persian Gulf and that Ivy League of New Jersey and not Pakistan), here is an article from Dawn.

Read it and weep, for this is what the Pakistani Army and the fixation of being not-India have accomplished for its citizens. (And, as you read the article, don`t forget that it was that champion of the poor and the downtrodden, the great ZA Bhutto, who advised Ayub Khan to start the 1965 war.)

The final partition

By Irfan Husain

When Mr Jinnah contemplated the new country he had been pivotal in creating 55 years ago, he did not sell his property in India as he could not visualize a future in which travel between the two neighbours would become extremely difficult.

The mass killings and the vast migration that accompanied partition on both sides of the border must have been a heavy weight on his conscience.

He could not have foreseen the bloody consequences of the division of the subcontinent. Indeed, being a rational and secular person, he probably did not fathom the capacity for hatred and violence concealed in so many human hearts.

Gandhi, a leader of an altogether different mould, went on hunger strike to protest against the Congress government`s delaying tactics in transferring Pakistan`s share of the divisible cash resources, and as a result, he was assassinated by a Hindu fanatic.

Many people who fled the violence in both countries left their property and possessions in the expectation that they would be able to return to their homes once the madness had faded. Indians and Pakistanis of that generation still speak nostalgically of growing up in cities that have suddenly become enemy territory. But despite the magnitude of their loss, they are not bitter about their old friends and neighbours; indeed, they retain nothing but fond memories of their childhood. Their anger is focused on the leadership of both countries that have made travel between the two such a nightmare.

Despite the political gulf that opened up with partition and the still-festering Kashmir dispute that erupted immediately afterwards, the cultural and personal affinities between the two countries remained largely intact for some time. Until the 1965 war, travel was relatively simple and people thought little of going across the border to attend a wedding or watch a Test match.

In short, the slogans and shrill rhetoric that emanated from the leaders and propaganda machines had not infected the minds of ordinary citizens who continued to make a distinction between politicians and people. In short, the demonization of the two countries had not yet begun in the popular imagination.

During the 1965 war that began in Kashmir (where else?), pilots of both air forces took great care to avoid civilian targets. Similarly, artillery fire was directed at military targets only, and the little activity that the two navies were engaged in did not include commercial shipping. Although the propaganda war was probably more fierce than actual combat, most Pakistanis did not consider ordinary Indians to be their enemies.

Meeting Indians after the war, one did not get the impression that they felt any differently. Officers from the opposing armies who met after the end of hostilities did not harbour any personal animosity either.

Although the 1971 war evoked far greater bitterness, it was largely confined to the eastern theatre. In West Pakistan, the fighting was more of a defensive nature. But despite the air superiority the Indian air force enjoyed over Pakistani skies, it did not engage in deliberate attacks on civilian targets. I was in Lahore then and remember watching an Indian jet attacking the radar installation at the old airfield in Gulberg (which, incidentally has been taken over by our air force for officers` housing colony). Despite the target being close to so many private residences, I do not recall any reports of civilian casualties.

It was in the seventies that travel became more and more difficult. An entire generation of Pakistanis and Indians grew up with no personal knowledge of each other, their minds poisoned by jingoistic textbooks and official propaganda. More and more young people on both sides of the border began to harbour a personal animus without really knowing very much of the cultural ties that still existed. Even though Pakistanis watched (and continue to watch) Bollywood blockbusters and Indians were enthralled by Pakistani TV soap operas, the gulf between the two countries grew. Popular music, cricket and hockey supplied just about the only glue to the relationship.

Over 30 years have passed since the 1971 war, and apart from Kargil, we have not engaged in any major conflicts. But Kargil was a watershed in many ways. For the first time, there were allegations of uncivilized conduct when infiltrators from this side were accused of having mutilated the bodies of Indian soldiers.

Right or wrong, ordinary Indians were shocked and outraged that the peace moves initiated by their government had been answered by an act of perceived aggression. Being mostly unaware of the hold the military has on decision-making even when a civilian is nominally in power, they saw the infiltration as an act of treachery. More than that, they became convinced for the first time that Pakistan was not interested in peace.

Coming as it did after a decade of escalating violence in Kashmir, for many Indians, Kargil was the proverbial last straw. A hit movie was soon churned out showing Pakistanis as brutal killers; a computer game carried the same message. On our side, the official media and many private newspapers spared no effort in showing Indians in the same light.

Similarly, when General Musharraf travelled to Agra last year, many of us in Pakistan wished him to succeed, and were bitterly disappointed when the talks were broken off when they seemed so close to success. The general perception was that the hawks in India had succeeded in derailing the negotiations just when there was promise of a breakthrough.

Whatever the reality, the fact is that relations between the two nations have never been worse. Despite the economic, cultural and geographic imperatives, we are further away from normality than ever before. Whenever I have written about the urgent need for peace, I have been tauntingly reminded of Kargil by Indian readers who have also gratuitously informed me that their country is far ahead of Pakistan and does not need us. Several of them gloatingly sent me reports of the successful visit of Microsoft`s Bill Gates to India. Pakistani detractors, on the other hand, go on at length about the rights and wrongs of the Kashmir issue and advise me to return to India if I am unhappy about the state of affairs in Pakistan.

Irrespective of whose fault it is, the fact is that we have succeeded in partitioning the subcontinent far more thoroughly than was originally visualized for we have achieved a division of a shared culture and a shared past.

re: amit

{It is difficult for a South Indian general to get the loyalty of the Sikh regiment, if he tries to become a dictator.}


...which looney bin did you pick that out of?...

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