Pakistan, Kashmir, etc...

[Kumar]

What does this imply for india?

Pakistan's Musharraf resigns

- Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf quit office on Monday to avoid impeachment charges, nearly nine years after the key U.S. ally in its campaign against terrorism took power in a coup.

[PKBasu]

I think it is bad news for India. Had this happened in 2000 or 2001 (before 9/11), Musharraf's departure would have been generally good for India -- as mistrust of him was justifiably high after Kargil. Now, however, I think his departure will increase the likelihood of heightened anti-India rhetoric from Pakistan's leaders (even if many of them were nurtured in India itself!), and a general heating-up of tensions in Kashmir (as we have seen there over the past 7 days). Remember it was only after Zia was assassinated (around this time 20 years ago), the Kashmir agitation really got going only in the following year (1989) with the kidnapping of Rubaiya Syed (daughter of then-Union Home minister Mufti Md Syed).

[suresh]

Whipping up anti-India sentiment is a sure way to win popularity in Pakistan (by the way, role reversal also works) and hide one's inadequacies. Both Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto are/were masters at this political tactic. The role of the army in the resignation of Musharraf i.e.,  its implicit approval is also another key to stability in Pakistan and implies a better chance for peaceful relations with India.

[jayakris]

The army being quiet is actually implying only that there are guys out there who are done with Musharaff - not that they are planning to listen to the civilian givernment for ever.  There surely are the next Ayub Khan or Zia-Ul Haq or Musharaff waiting in the wings to pounce on a democratic government in a few years.  The elected leaders out there will become more and more corrupt, and they will become less and less popular once people find that they are only good at anti-India rhetoric but are unable to win anything over India.  At some point, when they are all unpopular, it will be time for the next Musharaff to take over.  Once again the Pakistanis will welcome army taking over .. The cycle will keep on going.

For us, this current Kashmir problem is a real headache though.  Something tells me that this time we are handling Kashmir much worse than we have in the past.  The civilian government in Pakistan will try their level best to take advantage of the situation.  We do need to do something about Kashmir.

Jay

[prasen9]

what?

[jayakris]

What do you mean "what?"

Actually what I wrote above is in line with what rediff had today - "History repeats in Pakistan" .. I was simply agreeing with rediff.

The Kashmir part is just a feeling I get, that this current agitation in the valley is different.  It feels different.

Jay

[PKBasu]

Actually, in some ways Musharraf's resignation gives India a bit of a reprieve from a disastrous situation unfolding in Kashmir. I don't quite understand what governor NN Vohra (himself a former top intelligence official, former Home Secretary of India with extensive experience of Kashmir as "special interlocutor" for the past 5 years) is up to, but he has taken some disastrous steps in the last few days. (I was really sleepy when I wrote my first response in this thread, to what Kumar had written: sorry for the incoherence!).
First he fired on the mob that was marching toward Muzaffarabad, and killed one of the 10 leaders of the Hurriyat (and a relatively moderate one), Sheikh Abdul Aziz (a bit like the British lathi-charge that killed Lala Lajpat Rai and set Punjab alight...). Further heavy-handed repression (with scores of deaths) followed during the mourning processions for the Sheikh. Now, there is talk that a huge procession to the UN Monitor Group for India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP), which has been based in Kashmir since 1948, would be allowed unimpeded, followed by an unimpeded massive public rally of the secessionists and possible renewed march to Muzaffarabad. After heavy and inept repression, Vohra seems to have ceded the ground completely to the secessionists and largely withdrawn security forces (including police), which could result in large-scale looting of homes of nominally pro-India politicians like the Abdullah family. As far as I understand, this rally was supposed to happen yesterday, but was overtaken by the Musharraf news -- giving India a bit of a reprieve. But the Kashmir situation has definitely taken a very dangerous turn in the past one week (after 2 months of massive protests over the Amarnath shrine land issue, first by Muslims in the Valley then by Hindus in Jammu, that have basically rent the state in two). 

[jayakris]

I believe that rally did happen ..
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080819/j ... 711875.jsp

Vohra has screwed this up badly and our PM as usual is sleeping or something when these things happen.  I don't have a good feeling right now.

Jay

[Rajiv]

preposterous and lunatic statements from arundhati roy.
however hard she has tried to be ambiguous and mix her words  but the very thought which are nothing but senile  just gives enough ammo to the paki's and their cahoots in srinagar and makes me wonder what moral right she has to call herself an indian.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Kash ... 378687.cms

[PKBasu]

Arundhati Roy is an extreme communist (and a second-generation communist at that), and she is instinctively anti-India.

The Indian communists have never realized what Mohit Sen (among others) pointed out about successful communist movements in China, Russia, Vietnam, etc.: those nations' communist parties were successful because they were at their core fundamentally nationalistic. Lenin (and the Georgian Stalin) were stalwart Russian nationalists (even imperialists) -- defining the Soviet Union to include every inch of Tsarist territory and more. Similarly, China's communists claim every territory that was ever ruled by the (non-Han Chinese) Manchu Qing dynasty, the Mongol Yuan dynasty as well as the Ming dynasty -- and are unwavering in these quasi-imperialist and ultra-nationalist claims.

By contrast, communists in India are uncompromisingly anti-national -- adhering instead to "ideals of international brotherhood" and other such airy-fairy notions that successful, pragmatic communist parties never bother about (except in paying lip-service to them, and using as fodder for propaganda). 

[PKBasu]

In light of what is now happening in Kashmir, I am astounded at this piece of diplomatic gobbledygook:

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080819/j ... 709623.jsp

Particularly befuddling is this piece of diplomatic wishful-thinking:

"The redeployment of 100,000 Pakistani troops to its Afghan border shows that the Pakistani army has enough confidence in bilateral relations with India to move men away from the Indian border and from Kashmir. Tensions have been replaced by a degree of confidence in bilateral affairs that hostilities will not break out. On India’s part, a quote from an Indian army officer after Kargil is pertinent: “We found as we expected that the trigger for war does not lie on the Kashmir border.” From one point of view, the civilizational unity between India and Pakistan has ensured that cross-border threats have been more theatrical than real, more like ‘communal riots with tanks’. Realistic Pakistanis have perhaps recognized that significant numbers of Kashmiris do not want to join Pakistan because a number of vested interests have developed over the years for remaining with India. If Pakistan took over the Muslim part of Indian Kashmir, its domestic turbulence would only increase. "

Please show me anyone from the Pakistani elite (and political leadership) who is even willing to acknowledge the existence of the "civilizational unity between India and Pakistan" that this former foreign secretary seems to believe in. If this sort of wishful thinking drives our foreign policy, it is no wonder that we have had such a series of disasters on our borders over the past 46 years.

[Rajiv]

thanks pkb for the insight on the chameleon ways of arundhati roy
and noticed she is the neice of brodcaster pronav roy , so pronov roy and the karat commie connection
ahhh the plot thickens

[prasen9]

What do you mean "what?"

I was asking what do you think we should do (and perhaps to address what in/wrt Kashmir)?

As a general principle, I believe if people want a separate state it should be given a separate nation state.  Because of my biases, I do not apply this to Kashmir.  So, if I were a Moldovan, say, I would tend to agree with Roy's premise that Kashmir needs freedom.  The reasons I do not advocate that is because of a few issues.  First, would it end at Kashmir?  After Kashmir, will we see a Himachal problem and another small state formed in the next 50 years?  Is this merely a ploy by external forces to create unrest and instability in our country? Second, would a small nation state of Kashmir be viable?  This is my major objection.  I do not think that a small state of Kashmir would be a solid nation given the nature of the region.  So, instead of creating another terrorist breeding ground without any control on it, I think we are stuck with keeping Kashmir in the state it is generally in.

I was arguing the other day with my wife that our strong notions of nation states are the cause of a lot of grief in this world.  Being brought up the way I was, I am not bereft of such a strong association myself, but, sometimes I think it would be better if we did not teach our kids so much jingoism.  Maybe I am naive and if we did not have nation states or religion to fight on, man would have found other excuses to fight for.

-pm

[Kumar]

I have had the exact same thoughts you have had, especially w.r.t to separate state...

  Maybe I am naive and if we did not have nation states or religion to fight on, man would have found other excuses to fight for.

-pm

Unfortunately, I believe that man would definitely have found some other excuses to fight for. If it is not religion, it would have been language... if not language, it will be for water and land...or women... somehow or other we always find excuses to fight... is this something programmed in our genes from trying to survive?

[x_y_Z_a]

Why are they not putting Arundathi Roy behind bars for encouraging secession ? Her statement is disgusting