India a prisoner of history

The Frontier Post
The Post

"Of course the people do not want war. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it is a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, a parliament or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism." – Hermann Goering.

India's animosity towards Pakistan is rooted in history. Hindu extremists have, as those in Washington had on President Bush, a dominating influence on their governments. They emphatically state that Bharat Varsha, the entire Indian sub-continent was Hindu land till Muhammad bin Qasim's attack in 711. After repeated invasions, Hindus lost Gandhaar (Afghanistan) to Muslims in 987, followed by the deepest cut of all - the creation of Pakistan.

History shows that multinational states such as India are doomed to breakup and failure. Countries like the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and others prove this point. India is not one country; it is a polyglot like those countries, doomed to break up as they did. It was bound together forcibly for the convenience of the British colonialists and the present Indian rulers still desperately try to hold it together.

The likes of Bal Thackeray, head of the Shiv Sena of Maharashtra, openly spews hate and enforces terror against Muslims, Christians and all other religous minorities in India. The right wing group, founded in 1966, draws on Hindutva, an ideology that views India as "not only the Hindu fatherland but also their punyabhumi - their holy land." To Hindu extremists, all others on this land are viewed as "aliens" who do not belong there. ("The Struggle for India's Soul," World Policy Journal, 2002).

In the Mumbai incident aftermath, economist turned Premier; Manmohan Singh rushed to make common cause with the always shrill on rhetoric BJP. The Congress has long been accused of being "soft" on terrorism. This is the same BJP, architect of the demolition of Babri Masjid and the pogroms which saw thousands of Muslims massacred in Gujrat and elsewhere, which is now furiously defending the Hindu extremists who carried out a campaign of terrorist bombings causing widespread fatalities in India.

Meanwhile the strategic thinkers have come up with a new doctrine vis-à-vis Pakistan. Named "Cold Start" it tends to transform Delhi's traditional focus on the lumbering mobilization of hundreds of thousands of troops to one of nimble (surgical) strikes inside Pakistan and Azad Kashmir. The strategy assumes that surgical strikes or occupation of limited Pakistani territory would be the bargaining chip to force Islamabad to heel. It also assumes that it could do this without crossing the nuclear threshold. This, on its part, is an assumption destined to evoke calamity.

India has war-gamed this strategy since 2004. The strategy seeks to intimidate Pakistan to constrain militants or suffer the consequences. It could backfire terribly with any such strike lending credence and strengthening the hardliners. It can also put militants firmly in the driver's seat. We have seen the fallout of the drone/predator attacks on our western borders, where the US is loath to understand ground realities. By shamefully accepting these strikes as fate accompli we have given India the sense it can copy-cat the same from our Eastern border.

War-games may seem hugely satisfying in the smugness of well-secured ops-rooms over tea-breaks and banter. What India fails to understand, as has the United States in these recent years, that wars never bring peace. If anything, they precipitate the factors which they were supposed to eliminate. Afghanistan, Iraq, Kashmir and Palestine are tragic bloody testaments of this fact.

India has taken up to demonize Pakistan for each attack it suffers in Occupied Kashmir or its own soil. It tends to overlook the fact that it has had its share of home-grown "terrorists" throughout its history. A hindu Nathuram Godse murdered Mahatma Gandhi, Beant Singh and Satwant Singh (Sikhs) assassinated Indira Gandhi and Dhanu, an activist of Liberation Tigers of Sri Lanka murdered Rajiv Gandhi. All of them were tied by a common string of trying to right (what they saw as) a committed wrong even at the cost of their own lives. It is also recent history that Pakistan was dismembered after the most blatant cross-border terrorism when the Indian forces crossed over into East Pakistan and fought side-by-side with the Mukti Bahani. It was none other than the then Indian Premier Indira Gandhi who exulted: "Today we have avenged a thousand years of our dark history".

The Mumbai attacks were timed superbly to the "elections" in Occupied Kashmir and President (elect) Obama, whose statement about trying to resolve the Kashmir issue sent Delhi into a tail-spin, taking over. We saw a hysterical resurgence of rhetoric and vitriol against Pakistan and India's phantasmal demon, the ISI. BJP, ably assisted by legal Hindutva outfits like the VHP, RSS, Bajrang Dal and Shiv Sena, wanted nothing less than their pound of flesh.

In the furor the death of Hemant Karkare, who had begun to unravel the thread of Hindutva terror was gunned down. This was the same Karkare who exposed the Hindutva outfit which carried out the Malegaon and Samjhauta Express blasts initially blamed on the ISI. For his pains Karkare was branded a traitor not only by Hindu militant outfits but the mainstream BJP too. Reportedly Col. Purohit and co-conspirators now in custody celebrated the news of Karkare's death.

What also could be more damning in the world's largest 'secular democracy' than the resignation of India's Minister of Minority Affairs, Abdul Rehman Antulay? He was forced to resign after he voiced his suspicion in the Lok Sabha about the circumstances in which Karkare had been murdered. He too was branded a traitor and a crony of Pakistan.

The time has come for India to resolve the most critical incendiary, the dispute of Occupied Kashmir. It remains the eye of the ever threatening Pak-India vortex. It is the core issue which can never, until resolved, bring peace to this region. Improving trade relations, exchanging acting and singing troupes, running bus and train services will lead us nowhere. Years of CBMs vanish with a single shot fired in India or Occupied Kashmir. Confidence is built when you go for the root of the problem not by nipping at the buds whenever politically expedient on both sides of the divide.

India has always viewed Pakistan as an existential threat. The need of the hour for Pakistan is to do the same. With India actively trying to destabilize Baluchistan and our tribal and settled areas, at least a reciprocal forceful stand on the diplomatic front is merited.

India never accepted the creation of Pakistan always terming the partition a "historical blunder". What they should be given to understand, sans our ever-changing apologetic murmurings, is that the divide is irreversible and Pakistan is here to stay. It is in a bellicose India's interest that Pakistan performs as a stable, prosperous state. Only when India sheds its obsessive hostility towards Pakistan can we see an atmosphere conducive for peace in this region and the world at large.