The Truth About Karachi

Alephnull: sorry i missed you again, and now i must relinquish control of the keyboard to someone else who needs to write ems to some that person actually KNOWS...rather than shadow boxing with strangers as i too often end up doing on chowk. :-)

tahmed32:
``And if what you say is right, then certainly the policies of BJP in kashmir can also be credited with the continued violence during the past 15 years, and with pakistan playing no more than a ``helping hand``.``
The BJP has been in power only since 1998.[you should really improve your basic knowledge about Indian politics.:-)]
BTW the ``helping hand`` was by no means marginal, especially after the Pakistan govt. decided to use the Kashmiri insurgency to adopt the policy of bleeding India thru` a thousand cuts. In recent years, the cross-border element has been the dominant one and even ensured that any separatist seeking a negotiated settlement with the Indians was immediately dispatched to his maker.

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InYourFace #108 ``BJP did not rule for 15 years. In fact, BJP was an insignificant party 15 years back. Know your enemy. ``

I know my enemy. It is not India. It is poverty and miserable living conditions for the vast majority of people in south asia. Maybe you need to reconsider what you have been taught about pakistan being the enemy.

You are wrong on BJP. It was the second largest party in the Lok Sabha after Congress for years before it came to power (the communist parties were split). Know your own country!! :-)


As for your sacred Indian borders, I must have repeated ad nauseum my view that the entire issue (and therefore the issue of borders) is not worth a single life on either side of the border.

You obviously hold borders to be more sacred than life. That is fine, as long as the life in question is your own and not of some young man from some poor family who joined the Indian army and is putting his life on the line in kashmir or some poor kashmiri villagers (hindu, muslim, sikh, it doesnt matter - a life is a life). But I dont think you are planning to do any fighting in Kashmir yourself and putting your life on the line, and in fact are being patriotic sitting at a safe distance from the sacred borders.

AlephNull #110 I ran out of chowk time just now (responding to two other posters) and will try to read your posts and get back later. Thanks for writing though and hopefully these are more thoughtfully written than the first two.

Harish #107 you ask ``If the Indian Army cannot be credited with the reduction in violence, then is it Musharraf who is to be credited?``
Please read my post carefully and you will know the answer to this question. There is no point in having a discussion if you are not going to read what I have written.

Nor would you be trying to convince me about the advantages of peace between india and pakistan if you had paid any attention to any of my posts on the subject.

arjun_m @ 101:

English? hmmmmm!

If you please take time off daily News (an evening newspaper equivalent of a British tabloid in the seriousness of the content), then check out the following URL:

http://www.rediff.com/news/1999/dec/03us.htm

It says:

``Among Indians in America it has become fashionable to say that one`s child can speak English whereas ignorance and illiteracy in one`s own mother tongue is tolerated. In this zeitgeist, it is hardly surprising that most Indian American children cannot read, write, or speak any Indian language. ``

and

``It seems that our inferiority complex has not only outlasted colonialism but also survived our transatlantic voyage. Its stench is ubiquitous, what with the teeming accent reduction courses and all the Rakeshs and Muralis running around as Rockys and Morleys. When those we emulate out of false prestige are themselves sounding a clarion call for a return to traditional values, such mimicry is both self-defeating and self-deceiving. Only when we take pride in our traditions can we truly realize the best of both worlds. ``

#112 Delusional_er


Yup, you are absolutely right. Indians should feel very warm and friendly towards Pakistan after episodes like Kargil. Who wouldn`t want their country to be invaded by a neighbor, just a few months after their PM has visited the neigbor and signed his name to a statement ``India desires peace with Pakistan..``. The whole world marvels at the aggressive and ugly-minded indians!!!

These stupid indians !! Just because some jihiadis kill people in Delhi`s Red Fort or some bevakoof attacks the Parliament, they get all upset and worked up. After all kafirs should be used to being killed suddenly by now, no??

I share your disgust at the war-mongering indians. The whole world today knows the peace-loving, pacific nature of Pakistan and its peoples. This is the reason it is a preferred destination for tourists, businessmen and students from all countries. The great democrat Musharraf is famous everywhere for his new and innovative definitions of democracy and freedom struggle. What more could one ask of a neighbor ???

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re: Arjun # 104

``The Indians know that the BJP’s boast of compelling Pakistan to cough up Azad Kashmir is quite empty while no one in the world thinks that Pakistan’s reference to the UN Security Council resolutions is realistic.``

You quoted that from Daily Times.

Arjun, this ably illustrates my problem. I have no idea what you meant by posting that quote! I would have a better idea had you also posted an opinion along side that quote. However, since you did not, I have no idea what you meant and I am not going to even speculate what you meant! This is the reason, why I wish people would interact in a meaningful way with opinions and with not ``cut n paste``!

I hope you will clearly state what you meant, because I can not read your mind as to what you mean without saying anything! :) When you do, I will post a response.

As to the quote itself, I agree with it and hope that this reality translates into the LoC becoming an international border. For that to work, there has to be reciprocity and only partial acceptance of that quote will not solve the problem. That quote has to be accepted by sides in its totality as the reality.

Thanks!

Ciao

#108....no offence....though i have many friends across the border....but the general impression the indian media and a significant proportion of the indian population portray is that they havent really gotten over ` 1947-Partition`.... to them pakistan`s existence as an independent state is still unreal.....the ideology of acceptance and `moving on` has not really set in!....the reason behind decades of hostility...wars...and failed diplomacy between the 2 countries is a stagnation of the mindset!!!

tahmed #71 writes:

{{I think you should ask yourself why you are so eager to see peace result in Kashmir as a result of killings done by the Indian military rather than as a result of a thaw in relations as the article clearly indicates seems to be the case.}}

The original WSJ article does not attribute - in a causal sense - any improvement in the situation in Kashmir to an alleged `thaw in relations`, contrary to your claim. The reaction of the local quoted in response to the question of India`s relations with Pakistan is one of cynicism.

I think you willy-nilly allow your preconceived notions and wishful thinking to over-ride what your eyes and brain should have told you in reading the article. But then this is hardly the first time I have found you deficient in reading comprehension, so I`m not surprised.

Moving on - The following two preconditions are necessary in order to permanently defeat terrorism:

(1) Those who through sincere conviction, criminality, lack of better opportunities, or simple stupidity have become the committed agents of the terrorist enterprise, have to be taken out of circulation. The most economical and uncomplicated way to do it is to kill them.

(2) The ideology that lies behind the terrorist enterprise is to be intellectually defeated, shown to be foolish and unrealistic in its essence, held up to widespread public ridicule and execration.

Only when both preconditions have been met is it is possible to offer moderates a political package.

In the case of Kashmir, the originally indigenous violent movement for secession has long ago been taken over by an insurgency trained, supported and provisioned by Pakistan and now largely manned by Pakistani jehadis from Punjab and elsewhere. Given Pakistan`s demographics and its parlous economy, it has an endless supply of young men who its ruling elites deem good only to be force-fed into the Indian Army`s meat-grinder. Any hope that the Indian Army will stem this flood in the short term is futile, but they nevertheless have to keep the meat-grinder whirring away to maintain a state of dynamic equilibrium. In the medium term there is some hope that technology may provide India with more efficient mincing machines that operate at lower cost to its own army. That is the best for which one can reasonably hope.

As to the ideology behind violent separatism in Kashmir, it is in its essence the same as the ideology that gave rise to Pakistan. Its core is the notion that religion is the primary basis of civic identity; that adherents - real or notional - of one particular religion, Islam, cannot live on terms of civic equality with non-adherents, and need not try. This ideology, foolish and pernicious though it is, has the whole-hearted support of a struggling and dysfunctional state. A defeat of this ideology in Kashmir will be seen quite correctly as a major defeat for the Pakistani state and regime and thus a mortal threat to its elite. There is no way that India can make peace with this ideology; while on the other hand the Pakistani regime is desperate that it prevail. The prospects of permanently crushing the ideological roots of terrorism in Kashmir are bleak as long as Pakistan continues to exist in its present form. This war will be with us for as long as Pakistan continues to be our neighbour.

tahmed #92

{{I was merely pointing out that it is not the Indian army that can claim credit for the lowering of jehadi violence in Kashmir, but the thaw in Indo-Pak relations (initiated by Vajpayee).}}

You are wrong as usual.

Clearly jehadi violence requires jehadis to execute it. Fewer active jehadis ought to result in less jehadi violence. No jehadis, no jehadi violence.

So the Indian army by continually eliminating jehadis (as in the recently concluded Operation Sarp Vinash at Hillkaka in Surankote, where more than 60 reptiles were cornered in their well-provisioned snakepits and exterminated) has been performing yeoman service to lower the level of jehadic violence in Kashmir, for which it deserves the heartfelt gratitude of all Indians. The very presence of large numbers of these repulsive creatures in Surankote indicates that the Pakistani establishment continues to sponsor jihad in Kashmir as usual, thaw or no thaw. I can understand that members of the Pakistani elite might be loath to face up to these realities.

{{An arrogant, hawkish policy has been tried by India over the past 15 years, with a huge army of 700,000 sitting in a relatively small area populated by relatively few people, and has failed to curb violence.}}

The ``huge army of 700,000`` is a staple of Pakistani propaganda. I wonder where India found an additional 1 million men to place on the border last year to your very public discomfiture.

{{Kashmir has becomes India`s Vietnam.}}

Here is where your Pakistanis of your ilk lose their ever-tenuous grip on reality. `Low-cost option`, `Proxy war`, `India`s Afghanistan` and now `India`s Vietnam`. Vietnam was 6000 miles from the US mainland and a land that meant nothing to the population of the US at large. The US involvement in Vietnam cost the lives of more than 55,000 Americans servicemen from all parts of the country, ruined the lives of an even larger number, lead to a stagnant economy, the premature political retirement of one president, widespread public acrimony, massive anti-war protests, huge marches on Washington DC, strife on college campuses throughout the nation culminating in firings at Kent State, and the psychic scarring of a nation and a generation. At its height the war was consuming more than a quarter of the nation`s budget.

Indians by contrast are simply holding on to territory, less than 400 miles from the capital of their republic, historically Indic in culture, that is coveted by a much weaker though desperate neighbour to which Indians` attitudes range from indifference to crushing contempt. India loses enough of its soldiers every year - a few hundred - to enrage the population at large against the Pakistani sponsors of Kashmir terror, without in any way lessening its resolve to fight this scourge to the end. The Indian economy has grown at any average of 6% through the very period of the 90s when terrorism was most active and ought to have been bleeding it to death. Facing up to the reality of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism and especially Kargil has lead to exceptional unity in an otherwise fractious populace. There is no sign that India cannot sustain the current level of violence indefinitely, while relentlessly increasing its comparative advantages over Pakistan year after year.

So your risible belief that Kashmir has become India`s Vietnam is sheer pathetic delusion and wishful thinking.

tahmed #102

{{The bottom line I think remains: the policy of trying to browbeat pakistan, to get it declared an outcast in the international community and to suppress kashmiris has not worked after 15 years or something of BJP rule.}}

For starters, 15 years ago, India was ruled by the Congress led by Rajiv Gandhi. Successors included the governments of Chandra Shekhar, V.P Singh (during whose tenure the Kashmir separatist violence really began, Narasimha Rao, I.K.Gujral, and Deve Gowda. Excluding the 13-day Vajpayee interregnum in 1996 which left no mark on national policy, the first BJP led NDA government took office in March 1998, i.e. a little more than 5 years ago.

Professor Ahmed`s rank ignorance of contemporary politics in India ought to be plain. Given that he recently claimed that

{{... the current round of violence in kashmir was triggered by the BJP govt when it came to power a decade or so ago and changed the constitutional status of Kashmir. …. }}

the latest howler comes as no surprise. The remainder of his assessment of Indian realities is at roughly the same level of accuracy.

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#92 by tahmed32 on June 17, 2003 10:35am PT

If the Indian Army cannot be credited with the reduction in violence, then is it Musharraf who is to be credited? And if that is indeed the case, isn`t that a tacit admission of Pakistan`s role in fomenting the violence and it`s control over the Jihadis?

You guys have to realize that the miseries of Kashmiris began when you started arming them in 1989. Until then, the movement in Kashmir was largely a peaceful one and the place was never known to have had a gun culture. You further compounded it by bringing in Pakistani, Afghan, and Arab mercenaries and the Kashmiris are now caught between these aliens and the security forces.

More than for India, Kashmir has been Pakistan`s Vietnam. Look at what the policy of using violence as an instrument of state policy has done to Pakistan. From being the only economy in the world that consistently grew at a rate of 5 or more % for nearly three decades to a basket case in 10 years (also referred to by some commentators in Pakistan as the Kashmir decade). It is the only country in South Asia where the per-capita income has declined in the last 5 years. The human development index has also come down drastically and poverty has registered a significant increase. You nearly defualted on your commitments. Compare this with the progress achieved by India in just a decade.

In the last 5 years, it has been India that has taken the initiative every time. You call that arrogant and hawkish? Continue to delude yourself.