Some Burning Questions

I am literally weeping today after having read the cover story of the monthly Newsline, Karachi. Please read it and tell me where these swine are taking us to. To which depths they will push us down. Read this article to have an idea.

http://www.newsline.com.pk/ cover1jan2003.htm

rsridhar #106 and 107: You raise two issue, the nuclear explosions and economic policies.
On nuclear explosions: No matter how one slices it, the inescapable fact is that nuclearization has provided Pakistan with an effective deterrent against India. In retrospect, nuclearization has proved a strategic step forward for Pakistan, and countered Indian military. And you give too much credit to Pakistani leaders if you think that they were proactive in picking the nuclear strategy and moving it forward without any stimulus from India. For evidence, I draw your attention to the fact that it was the Indian nuclear test in Pokharan (?) under Indira that spurred Bhutto into starting up the program. And it was under BJP that Pakistan was spurred into coming out as a nuclear power.
PS: I have to go now (visitors) and continue later on the second issue.

mohar11 #109 you tell me to ``if you are not capable of arguments then keep your trap shut. ``
Charming. Having failed to draw me into a stupid india-pakistan argument, you tried to misrepresent my views. Having failed, when challenged, to back this misrepresentation (this means ``lies`` in the language you understand incidentally), you are now reduced to posting abuse.
I still wish you a nice day, and am sorry to have offended you. Bye bye.

#105 by tahmed32
//..Actually I dont care whether you try to substantiate your bs by cutting and pasting anything I wrote, or else apologize. I dont think you are capable of either, anyway...//

Sure Mian - You are the most ``capable`` one that ever crawled in chowk.

#105 by tahmed32

And also - if you are not capable of arguments then keep your trap shut. Don`t waste bandwidth with our self-fulfilling hyperboles about how ``sensible`` you are and how everybody else is so ``incapable``.

re:#93 by ali87
There is no denying that Kashmiris have a strong sense of ``Kashmiriyat`` as they call it. So do the Tamilians. When i went to do my post-graduate studies in Madras (having been a Tamilian born and brought up in Delhi), i was jokingly referred to as a Hindiwallah and from another country (mainly by the way i spoke a funny kind of Tamil which the local people had hard time figuring out). In many parts of India, people have a strong sense of their local culture. Tamilians wanted to secede in the 60s (during the Dravidian movement) but soon realised the futility of it. They had the advantage of a political process that gave them the govt they wanted. They submerged their local political aspirations in the larger national one. Today, they are a part and parcel of the national fabric.
The same can be said of the sikhs. They too wanted a seperate homeland but realised that it was not feasible as Pakistan would not let them survive and they can`t survive if they are not friendly to India. Also, it was a ruinous proposition, economically speaking. Sikhs have business interests all over India. They are a very industrious, enterprising people. Imagine them being confined to a small space between India and Pakistan. They were smart and realised the futility of Khalistan. We still hear some voices for self-determination of sikhs. Most of these people have vested interests and are rich NRIs (from Canada and US). They do not know the ground realities.
Kashmir problem has been complicated by involvement of Paksitan right from the beginning. Pak offers no solution but keeps repeating UN resolution ad nauseum. Even koffi Annan has ruled this option out. Pak has given up on the spirit of Simla and Lahore agreements and keeps sending trained terrorists into Kashmir for jehad. No country in the world will ever succumb to this tactic.
Today Kashmir has its own govt, a govt elected by fair means. It is functioning well. Soon, it will be able to fulfill the wishes of Kashmiris. Kashmir will never be left to secede from India. Such a thing would be disastrous for India. Big powers (i mean US and others and not Pakistan) would get into that area as soon as Kashmir is free. US would love to use the place as a listening post to both India and China. I do not know what Pak has to gain. It is just not reconciled to the fact that Kashmir did not fall into its lap in 1947. It has to get over it just as some Indians have to get over the trauma of partition.
Sridhar

re:#93 by ali87
Ali,
You are asking some very disturbing questions, which makes one wonder where your loyalties lie. If you are an Indian muslim (i hate to think you are), you should reconsider your position.

You ask:
``See what the nagas say.. Make a visit to Arunacal pardesh (where you still need to have a permit after 53 years of forced integration.) why do these people have to be sacrificed at the altar of Indian union.

What is the basis of this union..``
My answer is:
India is going thr` a stage of national integration, just like America did soon after its declaration of independence. Do you know how many Americans died in the civil war. It was a bloody war that claimed thousands of lives. Even today, if you go to South, some states have their own Confederacy flags and have a strong sense of freedom. This is after 2 centuries of independence!
India is still a new country. Arunachal Pradesh has had problems, with China intefering now and then. Even the North East problems have been accentuated by China training the Naga rebels.
The great thing is that Indian democracy has absorbed all shocks and is thriving well. Naga problem is on the right track of being solved. Mizos are already integrated. ULFA is now willing for talks. Soon, you will see that India`s strong tactics along with deft diplomacy will pay off.
Go to the following url and read the article written by Sekhar Gupta about the resilence of Indian democracy. If you are an Indian muslim, you can be proud of the fact that you are among the only muslims on the face of this planet who has enjoyed uninterrupted democracy in the last 50 years.

Celebrate that fact. I hope you are not one of those whose body is in Hindustan and mind in Pakistan. In that case, you should do what sadna has suggested forthwith.
http://www.sulekha.com/redirectnh.asp?cid=286984
Sridhar

re:#100 by tahmed32
Even though BJP did all that you have said ( i am no great supporter of BJP), one has to concede that exploding a nuclear bomb needed no great prodding. Narasimha Rao of Congress would have done it had not the Americans spotted activity in Thar and warned him. The nuclear scientists were more careful next time around. So, it was a matter of time and happened when BJP came to power. It was only too willing to take the credit.
National security advisers had been telling the corridors of power in Delhi for a long time to go nuclear. Nuclear ambiguity did not make sense once it was known that China was openly helping Pak to acquire nuclear technology and that Pak had reached a certain level of maturity. US and western powers did not do anything to stop this during Zia regime when zia was needed badly to fight Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Finally, by coming into open, India was able to prove it was right all along. Pakistan exploded the bomb within 2 weeks of India doing it. It could not have done so if did not already have the bomb.
BJP is not a secular party. We all know it. It stands exposed after Godhra. But, to BJP`s credit alone should go the kind of economic activity that i have hardly ever seen in India under the so called secular govt of congress.
Worthy of mention would be the building of highways connecting the entire country. Its spin offs are tremendous. It has given gainful employement to thousands, given a boost to building and cement industry, and will save the country billions of dollars in future. This kind of economic activity has never been even thought of by Congress. They were too lazy to do it.
The other dream project that BJP has announced is: to integrate the rivers of North and South. The scale of this project is gigantic. It remains to be seen how it is implemented.
However, the one black spot is the communal agenda that BJP seems to suffer from. It is always in the shadow of RSS and it has to outgrow it and change its ideology if it were to survive in the long run.
Sridhar

re:#100 by tahmed32
I want to add one more thing to my post. I am not defending BJP`s action of going nuclear. When BJP was contesting for election, among its election manifesto, it was clearly spelled out that it will go nuclear if brought to power. So, one may say that there was a public opinion in favor of India going nuclear. There was no secrecy about it. Everyone in India knew it was a matter of time. As Patrick Moynihan said after the explosions that anyone who knew how to read English would have known from BJP`s election manifesto what they intended to do.
Sridhar

mohar11 #104 ``you continue apologising for the establishment that has been singularly repsonsible the mess Pakistan finds itself in today. ``
Please cut and paste anything I have written that sounds like an apology for the establishment. Or else apologize for misrepresenting what I wrote.
PS: Actually I dont care whether you try to substantiate your bs by cutting and pasting anything I wrote, or else apologize. I dont think you are capable of either, anyway. All you seem capable of is an argument, and I am sorry I cannot oblige you with one.

#102 by tahmed32

I certainly will. In the meantime - you continue apologising for the establishment that has been singularly repsonsible the mess Pakistan finds itself in today.

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mohar11 #101 yes. have a nice day. :-)

The apologists for Paki Army will have us all believe that if you ``solve`` Kashmir tomorrow - then Paki Army is just going to fold its billion dollar empire, withdraw its tentacles tightly woven all through Paki society, forsake the power and perks and just slink away into a little rat hole and stay there. And then Pakiland will be a heaven for democracy and development and we will all live happily ever after. ( But BJP is not going to make this happen because Advani wants to ``destroy`` Pakistan.)

Well - Mushy himself has said that solving Kashmir is not going to end the enmity towards India . His view is consistent with the observations many experts on South Asian affairs. First it was Punjab - now it is Kashmir - tomorrow it will be some other conflict.

Hostility towards India is ``reason for living`` for Paki Army and to some extent its civil society. This is what keeps them together - hatred towards Hindus. Kashmir is only the symptom - not the cause of the disease. You solve Kashmir - you just treat the symptoms.

But kahmir will be solved - sooner rather than later - whether pakis like it or not. Just like Punjab was solved. This Mufti guy, as democratically elected CM of Kashmir, seems to be on right track with his ``healing touch`` programme. He must be backed up with intelligence and hard counter-insurgency measures to clear out jihadis who defeinitely want to sabotage any normalisation. Kashmir is turning around and the desperation of the Jihadis is showing. Now they are out killing girls for not wearing Burkha.

So Ahmed Mian - before you can think ``outside the box`` - get your head out of your rear** end and have some fresh air.

Stuka #99 I think that military meddling in politics and lining its pockets (as this article justly points out) is, if anything, counter to defense effectiveness for Pakistan. And I agree that in any war involving battlefield nuclear weapons (as any serious war would be, if heaven forbid we have one between India and Pakistan in future), large conventional armies of the kind both India and Pakistan possess would prove to be sitting ducks. Or sitting battleships - in WWII, it took carrier based US planes ten minutes to sink the mighty Japanese battleship Yamato I think, thus winning the Battle of Midway and turning the tide of the war, and British sea-planes made similar hash out of German battleships like the Bismarck and Tirpitz: over and over again technological change has surprised conventional wisdom of a thousand years. And I have no doubt that the large conventional forces of Pakistan and India would prove to be similarly vulnerable if (heaven forbid) there should ever be a full scale war between the two impoverished countries.
As for BJPs intentions, I think one thing is clear: they are a grandiose lot and have dreams of making India some kind of a Great Power in the 19th century mold. As evidence, look at one of the first things BJP did after taking power of the central government in India: it blasted those nukes, and then danced around the streets thinking that the whole world would now take them seriously as a Great Power in the 19th century mold. And it would be foolish not to take Advani`s routine threats to teach Pakistan a lesson.
All this, of course, does not reduce one bit the point of this article: that the pakistan military has no business getting into politics, no business meddling in India-Pakistan relations (as they did in Lahore, for example), and it is outrageous the way the generals and admirals have milked the country for their own good.

TAhmed:

``I mean nuclear weapons plus missile delivery capacity. The thought of having a nuke dropped on their heads in Delhi, rather than mere soldiers dying on the border, seems to do wonders in curbing BJP politicians warrior instincts.``

True. But this article was about the power and perks of the Pakistan Army, not mantaining a credible nuclear deterrant. The nukes are there. You do not need a huge army spending millions in defense budget for conventional weapons AND running the country to mantain a deterrance that is already there.

Yes, the Army was lined up across the border, and I am saying that the an attack, if it had happened, would be only in J&K. The point is why did India mobilize? Because of high profile incidents of terrorism beyond Kashmir.

Tell me, has India claimed any territory in Pakistan? The BJP may be hotheads, but they are that to mantain status quo, not to have the tricolor fly in Islamabad.


``Works for our generals too I am sure, btw. The MAD doctrine has finally found its natural home in the subcontinent. ``

It has to an extent. But if the Jehadi activities shoot up again, what is India`s benefit in not going for war? Low level insurgency can carry on and the Indians are content with that.

``you write ``If you are willing to accept the status quo in Kashmir``
OK dokey with me. I have always maintained that all of Kashmir is not worth the life of a single soldier, Indian or Pakistani. However, I am still waiting for Musharaff to seek my advice on this matter, and no doubt he will change his policy once he has discussed the Kashmir issue with me. :-) ``


LOL!! You are right. We are just awaam. :) Siraf chai ppekay gallan kar sakdey haan.