As the Bald Eagle Tries to Rule

>he had a chance at Agra to mend relations with India, to secure them >on a fresh basis

It is amusing that ahmadzai would be spending his time attempting to `unfreeze` Indians, supposedly `frozen` after Kargil backstabbing.

Despite Musharraf`s kargil adventure, Vajpayee invited Musharraf to Agra. For a man who had gambled for peace with Pakistan and had been stabbed in the back by Musharraf, Vajpayee was being foolhardy indeed in dealing with the same person again. India gave Musharraf a red-carpet treatment. True to form, Musharraf used the occasion to score cheap points, and returned home a hero to immature Pakistanis whose jurnail had outsmarted India.

That`s not all. While in India, Musharraf made bitter references to Siachin and Bangladesh War. So much for unfreezing of the past.

Aleph-Null #93 Concerning Romair, when I said I have a bit of fun at his expense sometimes, I was not by any means belittling him or trying to show myself to be cleverer than him. If you read carefully you will see that I was in fact complimenting Romair for not bragging about being here for ``India-bashing`` the way Harish and Jay brag about being here for ``Paki-bashing``. As for Ahmedzai, he is new to chowk and I noticed his initial posts were in fact very friendly and in a light-hearted manner towards Indians. After a month or so here, after putting up with the constant posting of hate-pakistan rhetoric from Indian posters, he seems to have hardened his attitude a bit too. Perhaps I am reading too much into all this, but this is what I observed.
And yes, I do think it is important to maintain a civilized and friendly tone on chowk. I dont see why you dont think this is important - in real life, it clearly makes a big difference in anything you do in how you approach other people (in a courteous and respectful manner or in an insulting and jeering manner).

Aleph-Null #95 Thanks for taking the time to fully explain what you meant. So, you say ``To summarise, South Indians in the main do not miss the presence of Pakistanis in their country and for the largest part of independent India’s history were oblivious to Pakistan’s existence. ``
You also discuss at length (although you miss this in the summary) that the north indians suffered from muslim rule of past centuries, and were also traumatised by partition whereas South Indians were not.

Fair enough. Your above summarization does not explain the facts that I had observed, though: I had said that the friendliest Indians I have found on chowk seem to be from north india (fellow punjabis, some of whom in fact were evicted from west panjab during partition just like my people were evicted from east panjab). And perhaps the most hate-filled individual on chowk, Jay, is from south india. Also, I may add, my own family was traumatised during partition (half the muslim families in our ancestral village were killed, and the rest fled leaving everything behind). But my family has nothing but fond memories of east panjab, and my parents talked fondly about her hindu friends till the end of her days (my late father even exchanged a couple of warm letters with people in our ancestral village). And I certainly dont bear any grudge against hindus in general.
So you above theory does not explain the facts as I see them. I know one thing for sure: some individuals are querrelsome, petty-minded and hate-filled by nature. I am not looking for any explanations for the b!astards I find on chowk who clearly are here for one reason only - to throw insults from the safety of the internet. Their problem has nothing to do with any profound historical experiences, just their own inferiority complexes and the kinds of households they were raised in. I was trying to see if this was based on some ethnic characteristics as well, but then rejected that as a generality.
So, thanks again for your patient explanation. I hope you will try to understand from what I have written above why this explanation does not relate to the clearly observable facts on chowk.

ahmedzai #90 I did go back and check your posts: and I think what you are saying is that it would be a good solution to have Kashmir as an independent nation. (btw, next time please just state your view, since I am sure you mean what you say and I dont need proof that you are being consistent with what you said earlier on post - I only ask that from Jay and one or two others AFTER I catch them deliberately misrepresenting my views and trying to present them to fit their stereotype of the evil Pakistani).
So, we are indeed on the same wave-length on this: the Kashmir dispute is basically a territorial dispute between two governments, with no great moral issues at stake despite what both sides claim.

Ralph @ # 94:

Please read my earlier posts again. What I have been saying precisely to your reasoning is:

1. Its General Musharraf who is asking Indians to forget Kargil episode and move towards peace, because if Indians remain frozen on it then Pakistanis can say why stop at Kargil. Let us go back in history and let Pakistan be frozen on EP. Then there would be no progress towards peace. What Musharraf suggested to Indian journalists was to forget about the past and move on towards peace.

I have extended the same argument (ref post # 15 and 28).

2. The current wave of extremism is because of the current Government in India (ref post # 73) that is raising the non-issues so that a dialogue on Kashmir does not take place. This is because Pakistan`s position is so principled, and you can question that, that Indians cannot face Pakistanis on the matter. I gave two examples where Indian commoners listened to Pakistani commoners` position on Kashmir and agreed with it.

Another indicator why could this be true is Indian Government`s various measures to stop people to people contact between Indians and Pakistanis, because it knows that when people will meet, Indian public may begin to listen to and agree to Pakistan`s position.

Yet another indicator why could Pakistani position be more principled - Pakistani PM Jamali while requesting Indian counter-part to hold talks on Kashmir said that let us convince each other. If you (India) is able to convince us then we will give up Kashmir issue. If we (Pakistan) is able to convince you then you will allow the UN to hold the plebiscite.

That is about all.

What I am 100% sure, and you can question that too, will happen to Kashmir in a long-term range, is expressed through my exchange of messages with Sadna in Saima Shah`s article `Tunnel Vision`.

ahmadzai #98

Does everyone in Pakistan (other than tahmed32) believe that Pakistan has a `principled` stand on Kashmir? This may be where real unfreezing needs to begin, if any progress is to be made.

The other requirement is that people learn some current facts and some history. Ignorance combined with moral delusion can be a very harmful mixture.

#102 by Ralph

Exactly my thoughts.

Ahmadzai #98

``1. Its General Musharraf who is asking Indians to forget Kargil episode and move towards peace, because if Indians remain frozen on it then Pakistanis can say why stop at Kargil. Let us go back in history and let Pakistan be frozen on EP. Then there would be no progress towards peace. What Musharraf suggested to Indian journalists was to forget about the past and move on towards peace. ``

Dear Ahmadzai, suppose that I invite you to my house, and when molest you. I than ask you to forgive my improper conduct and now get invited to your house. Again I molest you. I now ask you to forget these episodes and be friend again. Whould you agree?

Mushy is at the helm of affairs in Pakistan. He has twice proven himself to be unreliable. His asking Indians to ``forget Kargil episode`` is certainly not going to work again. Mushy has to go.

Ralph, mohar and friend:

OK since it seems like all of us have secured our place in the Subconty League of Brain-Washed Soules at the expense of a very good travel article by Veeresh Malik, lets get back to it ;

Veeresh might now be cursing his stars for posting the article and thinking, `` yar yeh logg aadmi ho ga ya pajama`` (borrowed this sentence from an Indian movie).

Going back to the article, when one now visits the middle-east, he sees tall structures and other infrastructural projects the walls of which seem to say - many million drops of sweat of Indian and Pakistani workers have dropped here to turn this dream of an Arab into reality.

Veeresh: Thanks for your article and providing me an opportunity to interact at the cost of your article. Your trip down the memory lane was a pleasant read.

More ``freedom`` from the land of the pure.....

But hey, its just a few kafirs, you will not hear a peep from these people who are still openly funding these killers in their country. They are too busy explaining how USA, Israel and India are ruining the world. Talk about shameless hypocrisy...

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/25/international/asia/25KASH.html
Attack on Hindus in Kashmir May Signal Increase in Violence There
By AMY WALDMAN


EW DELHI, March 24 — When an Islamic insurgency began in Indian Kashmir in 1989, the area`s Hindus became an early target. Muslim militants directed a systematic campaign of assassinations and intimidation against Kashmiri Pandits, as the area`s Hindu Brahmins were known, and most of them were forced out of Kashmir.

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Around 40 Pandit families had fled the mountain hamlet of Nadimarg, about 35 miles south of the summer capital, Srinagar. But 11 families had stayed on, counting on the assurances of their Muslim neighbors that they would be safe.

Until early this morning, they were.

Ahmadzai,
We are all pajamas. This is indeed a very good article. It would have stayed on its own track had it not been ``why I now indians too much`` track initiated by you.

I would perhaps have added my own experiences with different nationalities during my mountaineering career and othe travel but that has to now wait for another time.

Regards

#100 by tahmed32 on March 26, 2003 6:25am PT

[I am not looking for any explanations for the b!astards I find on chowk who clearly are here for one reason only - to throw insults from the safety of the internet.]

Ummm...sure, you were being very polite when you called Jay`s ancestors monkeys and said Arjun`s screws were loose. That`s by no means throwing insults, isn`t it? Or, are you calling yourself a b!stard?

friend/ahmadzai . . . others . . . thanks . . . no cursing stars on account of interact moving off elsewhere, luckily it did not go back to Jinnah/Gandhi so I guess we have made some progress . . . yes, we are all not just pajamas but loose pajamas without starh if yu get my meaning . . . it is my fervent hope that the next generation atleast will move forward aided by more information media tv the works . . . thanks again/veeresh

Tahmed #100

{Thanks for taking the time to fully explain what you meant. …Your above summarization does not explain the facts that I had observed, though: I had said that the friendliest Indians I have found on chowk seem to be from north india (fellow punjabis, some of whom in fact were evicted from west panjab during partition just like my people were evicted from east panjab). …}

You’ve misunderstood me. I did not in fact fully explain myself - I just provided you with the necessary clues and left it to you to fill in the dots on your own. However, it seems necessary for me to spell it out. What you have observed completely contradicts your preferred explanations of ‘hatred of Muslims as outsiders’ and ‘resentment on being stood up at partition’ as causing hostility to Pakistan. Nor is it consistent with ‘Hindutva fanaticism’ and ‘inferiority complex towards Pakistan’ and sundry other risible theories advanced by Pakistani ideologues and on occasion by you. Resentment of Islam and Persianate culture as foreign imports inextricably linked (in North India at least) with invading Central Asian thugs, is a very real phenomenon, and certainly plays a role in forming attitudes towards Pakistan. There may also be lingering anger about partition among some obvious groups (I wouldn’t know about its true extent, being from the other end of the country). Moreover the VHP and their ilk lose no opportunity to posture as the ultimate and definitive Indian superpatriots, for which hostility to Pakistan provides an excellent platform. But had you been paying any attention, you would have realized that the people who cause you the most distress are anything but Hindutvavadis. In brief, none of the above explanations can account for the divergence you noticed.

Here is my take on what you have observed. Many Indian Punjabis, despite partition trauma, see Punjabi-speaking Pakistanis as cousins with whom they share distant kinship, a common language and a great deal of culture, far outweighing differences of religion. Something similar may be true for some Urdu-aficionado UP-ites. Further, there is a large group of North Indian Muslims, a fair number of whom have relations in Pakistan, who despite the continuous embarrassment Pakistan causes them might wish Pakistan well. So some (not all) members of these major groups and a few smaller ones (I am using a really broad brush here) may be predisposed to mending fences with Pakistan and wishing to see it prosper and be at peace within and without.

This still leaves a huge majority of Indians who have no deep organic connection to Pakistan, no emotional stake in it one way or another, and who for most of the last fifty years couldn’t have cared less either way. This is actually a matter of gradation rather than a sharp divide, with people like me being at the extreme, but I think my description is a good first approximation to reality. When such people are roused - from their slumbers in which Pakistan did not figure - and made to face the reality of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism and the prospect of perennial confrontation with a nation of neurotic malcontents, they are likely to view Pakistan in cold anger, without warmth or sympathy, as a practical problem to be dealt with in the most cold-bloodedly efficacious way possible. They are unlikely to be receptive to inane peacenik platitudes about ‘India-Pakistan same-same’, ‘brothers under the skin’, ‘two small-minded governments equally responsible for current enmity’ not to mention Pakistani agitprop such as ‘Kashmir is the core issue’ ‘India, Pakistan stand to benefit equally from peace if Kashmir is solved’, ‘whole of South Asia suffers from poverty due to the arms race initiated by India’ etc. etc. repeated ad nauseam. For these people, the preferred long-range solutions to the Pakistan issue range from LOC=IB followed by minimal interaction, at one extreme, to delendam esse at the other.

There is, moreover, a difference in mores. I note that you (together with many Pakistanis who maintain a civil veneer) have some curious notions about civility and respect for all religions and tolerance vs. hatemongering, which I completely reject. I surmise that your notions are partly derived from a particular interpretation of Islam, largely from Persianate norms of politeness and civility, combined with some elements of personal and family idiosyncrasy. Indians from completely un-Persianate backgrounds, such as most South Indians, are unlikely to share this part of your outlook. It is significant that in so many cases you label the Indians you disagree with as hate-mongers, Hindutvavadi fanatics and the like. In practically every one of these cases I find myself disagreeing with your assessment. Your adversaries are outspoken for sure, rude very often, even cruel, but I don’t see their manner of expression as disproportionate to what has aroused their ire. If they are hate-mongers then hate-mongering is no great offense.

So there you have my explanation in the most excruciating detail. You are welcome to reject it. You could for instance maintain that Indians have been mass-brainwashed into unreasonable hatred of Pakistan, that the Pakistan-hating extremist Hindutvavadi fanatic Vajpayee government manipulates Indian public opinion instead of trailing it, that Pakistani government actions are not the prime cause, etc. etc. This explanation may be immune to my criticisms of your other explanations. There are no doubt other possibilities for creative fiction. Your choice …

Friend at # 107:

``I would perhaps have added my own experiences with different nationalities during my mountaineering career and othe travel but that has to now wait for another time.``

I would be anxiously looking forward to reading account of your adventure travel and your personal observations about different nationalities.

Veeresh:

Let us pray for our future generation. At a personal level, when I see my kids play with Indian kids on a regular basis, I remain very hopeful.

Tahmed #101

You misunderstand me once again. I was not claiming that my attitude to those two delusionists was anything like yours. On the contrary; on the contrary. And to put it bluntly, I’ve no intention of following your ludicrous prescriptions for Chowk behaviour. Not bragging about being here for India-bashing means nothing when one does it at every opportunity (not that it damages India – it provides great insight into Pakistani mentality and is also good for a hearty belly-laugh.) Nor do I buy that fairy-tale about poor innocent Ahmedzai coming to Chowk just overflowing with the milk of human kindness towards Indians, only to have it turn into black bile on discovering the hate-filled nature of the Eastern neighbour. These attitudes tend to be more deep-seated and to develop over time. They are imbibed in mother’s milk, learnt through bedtime stories, in remarks from elders and conversations with peers, k for kafir education, Nazria-e-Pakistan, PTV, etc. etc. I think you know all this. So why keep up a pretense?

More generally, you grossly exaggerate the importance of civility on a forum for ideas. A while back Jay had a neat post about politeness being a minor virtue and honesty being a major virtue. He was right about this, as he is in essence about most things. It would have profited you had you read it. It is more important to speak your mind without fear or favour than to bother about superficialities like politeness. I think one should let it all hang out, not repress oneself. Short of threats of violence, invasions of privacy, and outright obscenity, everything should be permitted. Of course it helps to make your posts readable, preferably brief – perhaps I need help in that department. But a sharp edge, a twist of the knife, is always a bracing experience. Goody-goody posts are boring.