Pervez Musharraf Ko Peace Do

HP,

interesting posts. apparently you have some ``insider knowledge`` about indian nuke program (and offcourse mushys glowing appendage ;-) )

can you elaborate the argument for how the indian nuke program will-is in ferner hands?

it is so weird, two old countries go nuke, india and iran, and the approach and world response is spectacularly different.

i think that indian nuke and weapons programs are bouund to be more globalized in the future. it is likely to form much stronger relationships with the western, and specifically american and israeli munitions industries than ever before, in addition to the long time-tested ties with the soviets..indian taxpayer is one of the largest funder of soviet munition industry. in time, india will definately displace s. arabia in us munition sales, with a difference. you are likley to see much more of indian industrial participation as a supplier of components, support, training, test and QA, software, assembly. heck, within 10 years, the primary tech support for lockheed will be out of bangalore ;-)

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/HA12Df01.html

US turns against Musharraf
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

.......According to sources close to the power corridors in Washington who spoke to Asia Times Online, the administration of US President George W Bush is now convinced that a weaker Pakistani army is as necessary now as a powerful one was when Islamabad did a U-turn on its support for the Taliban soon after September 11, 2001. ...
....

---

Don`t know how much reliable this article is.. But this is interesting coupled with the air-attack of a target 40 km within Pakistan.. Anyhow it looks like US support of Musharaff would soon be gone. I`d like the writer of this article`s comments on this..

Realpolitik
Does India represent Hindus?
By Balbir K. Punj

After celebrity conversion of Yusuf Youhana it was the turn of three young and non-descript Hindu girls in Pakistan to ‘embrace’ Islam. Three Hindu girls viz. Reena (21), Usha (19) and Rima (17) went missing from their Punjab colony residence in Karachi, Pakistan on October 18 last. Their father Sanno Amra, a chauffer and mother Champa, a cook were understandably people of humble means. After searching frantically they went to police station where the SHO refused to register a case. But fortunately they had a patent hearing from DSP Raza Shah who got the FIR of abduction registered on the fourth day. The needle of suspicion pointed towards three young men, obviously Muslims, in that locality. But now the sole Hindu family in that neighbourhood began to receive threats.

Within a few days the family received a courier containing three identical affidavits apparently dictated by the same person. The girls, in those signed affidavits, said that they had accepted Islam voluntarily. The declaration concluded “That since my parents are Hindu and after conversion of my conversion of my religion, it is not possible for me to live and pass my life in Hindu system/society and therefore I have decided to live separately…”. The girls were finally located in a hostel of madrasa Taleem-ul-Quran and a court directive facilitated their parent to meet those girls. The parents were shocked to find that Afshan, Anam and Nida, as they were called post-conversion were clad in burqa from head to toe leaving only their eyes uncovered. The eye of the youngest daughter was blood red from weeping. The only thing the parents could learn from their daughters was that they should be left where they are.

Cases of abduction of Hindu girls and their forced conversion to Islam is nothing new in Pakistan and Bangladesh. In fact, fugitive Bangladeshi author Salam Azad lamented what kind of ‘Renaissance’ is possible in Islamic world where madrasas teach that if a Muslim converts a non-Muslim, marries a non-Muslim even kill or rape a non-Muslim he will go to paradise! Such poignant stories of abduction of women by Islamist touch a raw nerve of Hindus. Immediately, they conjure up images of medieval Islamic rule, where slave taking was an established practice. Islam has not changed the wee bit (it will even be a blasphemy to expect it should change) rather going on rampage on its medievalist drive.

Post-conversion Yusuf Youhana had said that if all inhabitants of Pakistan accepted Islam then the country would become ‘land of the pure’ in the literal sense of the term.

Forget about Indian government doing something about the ‘Karachi episode’ it is unlikely the government can say something. What can Indian government do in Pakistan and Bangladesh when it failed to save its minority Hindus in Kashmir? Such Islamic abductions and conversion take place in India by thousands, in Muslim majority areas, that people commonly identify as ‘Mini-Pakistans’. But the Indian government is bound by its creed even to say something against such acts of persecution. It is because the government of India is secular and not Hindu! So while Hindus might think that India is their only country, the country for which they can lay down their lives, India ‘constitutionally’ doesn’t think it has any obligation towards Hindus. Thus Nehru could abandon ten million Hindus of East Pakistan by Nehru-Liaquat and Nehru-Noon Pacts of 1950.

This sad state of affairs is actually an offshoot of the creed of Indian National Congress from the beginning. Congress, by its creed was a secular platform, although most of its members were Hindus. From Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan to Jinnah Muslims identified Congress a ‘Hindu Party’, although Congress was avid to welcome Muslims to its fold. Jinnah said Muslim League stood for Muslims, and Congress for Hindus, and India should be divided on Hindu-Muslim lines with attending exchange of population like the one took place between Christian Greece and Muslim Turkey in 1923.

But Congress persisted it represented everybody (which actually means no body). But did not save the Congress from being wiped out from those parts of India where Pakistan/East Pakistan came up. The biggest refugee from Pakistan in 1947 was not Hindus or Sikhs but the ‘concept’ called Congress. But Congress did not come out of confusion rather infused that confusion about whom it represents. That confusion has proved contiguous to other parties of India as well.

Forget about Indian government doing something about the ‘Karachi episode’ it is unlikely the government can say something. What can Indian government do in Pakistan and Bangladesh when it failed to save its minority Hindus in Kashmir?

The feminist organisations of India, to whom secularism is an article of faith, and jumps bandwagon whether it is Bilkis Bano or Ishrat Jahan case are also silent. But they were silent in Imarana episode. Don’t they think that a lady being clad in burqa by customs whereby she looks like ‘a walking ghost’ is utterly discomfiture to the very concept of freedom they are trying to promote? This is certainly not modesty, but graveyard of humanity.

Post-conversion Yusuf Youhana had said that if all inhabitants of Pakistan accepted Islam then the country would become ‘land of the pure’ in the literal sense of the term. He also expressed the hope that Islam would become the dominant religion of the world. The affidavits of these girls, notwithstanding they might have been dictated by a Mufti, says contact with Hindu (read Kafir) parents in not tenable. These utterances should not be dismissed as merely coincidental. In fact, they are rooted in Islamic credo. Prophet Mohammed did not pray at his mother’s grave because she was not a Muslim. A Muslim will have to distance, dissociate, and disown his non-Islamic past. This is as true for a converted individual as for a converted civilization. In fact, this is the creed of Tablighi Jamat, started as an apolitical movement in India in 1926 by Maulana Mohammed Ilyas. Its mission is to gain new converts to Islam, and purify the non-Islamic vestiges by making them more and more devout. The other is Islam’s urge to ‘dominate’ the world, which is missed by whisker between 7th and 16th century. Maulanas still lament that world had ‘almost’ become Islamic were it not for a few vital reverses the army of Islam faced at most critical hours.

(The writer, a Rajya Sabha MP and Convenor of BJP’s Think Tank can be contacted at bpunj@email.com)

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shishapa: as i said in my original post `` But that is what you need to do in India if you dont want more partitions or (which is worse) a communal-strife ridden existence. (similar lessons for us in Pakistan too of course). ``

So, i am not saying india will necessarily come apart - but you will have communal strife. and i am not saying that things are any different for pakistan. So the concerns you expressed were in fact already addressed in my earlier post. i wish people would read what i take so much trouble writing!! (just kidding).

one more thing: india and pakistan are BOTH primitive societies, with communal (or sectarian, in Pakistan) strife. so no point at pointing fingers at one another. The example to look at is the US or UK - those people are centuries (not years, not decades) ahead of BOTH indians and pakistanis. So, if you must look to another country for an example, look at these people.

Let me illustrate with one simple example: When Clive was busy taking over real estate in bengal, Ahmed Shah Abdali was busy killing people in Delhi. Clive was even then (in the 18th century!!) held accountable for his actions in the UK, and I still remember the impassioned speech that was made condemning him by a fellow englishman back then that was then reprinted in our english literature book in class 8. It goes something like this: ``In the name of the people of India whose rights he has trampled underfoot, I condemn this man. In the name of the people of England whose ancient honor he has sullied, I condemn this man. In the name of every race and every age, I condemn this man as the common enemy and oppressor or all``.

I relate the above because it is very revealing - while Clive was being passionately condemned in UK even back then, Abdali remains to this day a great hero to many muslims. And yet, what Clive did was nothing compared to the wanton looting and rape of delhi that Abdali carried out.

And dont think hindus are free from such wanton destruction - while Mahmud Ghazni was destroying and looting hindu temples north india in the 11th century (as of course is well known to all hindus, and given as a reason for their hatred for muslims), the hindu Cholas in the south were destroying and looting hindu temples and also killing women and children and raping ``upper caste women`` (as the history book from Keay notes, whatever that signifies) in the south - the great hindu temple of Tanjore was built on this loot by the Cholas (in today`s tamil nadu) of the ``fellow hindu`` western chalukya (in today`s maharashtra/kennada area) and of buddhist temples in sri lanka.

So - while both india and pakistan are technologically ``nuclear powers``, socially they remain the two most primitive societies on earth. Rather than pointing fingers at one another, they need to learn something from the brits and the americans about tolerance for minorities and so forth. Only then will you get respite from communal strife in both india and pakistan.

Lengthy post. But needed to be written. :-)

jang: BJP did not trigger the current round of violence, and I take that back. It was in fact team work - starting with the indian government reneging on the plebiscite and then later on the autonomy agreements it had signed under artile 370. so on and so forth. the pakistan government doesnt look to good either, fighting ``proxy wars`` that cause only bloodshed and cannot achieve anything.

The entire dispute has gone on way too long, and the sufferers are the ordinary people of kashmir, not the politicians and military men cutting deals over champagne or tea or whatever it is they have.

rsridhar #405 If you wish Pakistan no ill, then you dont need to keep bringing up dire predictions from ``experts`` about its demise. While Pakistan is much in the news, I dont see its very existence being an issue in the mainstream press. One can drag an ``expert`` in from the internet to speak for any side of any issue, real or unreal. But that doesnt mean anything.

I am just glad that most Pakistanis are blissfully unaware of the level of ill-will Indians on chowk demonstrate towards Pakistan. And so am sure that Indian fans and cricket players visiting Pakistan will be welcomed with the same warm hospitality that was given last year, while chowk remains by and large well short of its ambitious aims (``the cross-roads for indians and pakistanis``!!).

``Suggesting a new formula for peace in Kashmir, the General had asked its nuclear-armed neighbour to pull out troops from three districts of Kashmir -- Srinagar, Kupwara and Baramulla - in exchange for Pak`s help to root out terror.

And like his previous proposals in past, the recent one too hasn`t raised eyebrows in India. The latter outrightly rejected the offer and interestingly, this time, it has got support from the Pak media too.

An editorial in leading Pak daily Daily Times has called Musharraf`s three-city formula a `predictable non-starter`.

``…We can say that General Musharraf has simply used another occasion to chide India. Chiding will not help. If it had helped the peace process the matter of Kashmir would have long been put to rest.``

In the past also, India rejected the General`s proposals without batting an eyelid.

Musharraf took the whole country by surprise in 2004 when he said that plebiscite was not a solution to the Kashmir problem. He suggested that India and Pakistan should consider the option of identifying some ``regions`` of Kashmir on both sides of LoC (Line of Control), demilitarise them and grant them the status of independence or joint control or under UN mandate.

The editorial goes on to say that the suggested idea may be right but the way in which it has been presented could be wrong.

The Indians, as the paper says, have time and again said that bilateral proposals in the interim should be presented officially and an answer should be awaited before going public.

``But, President Musharraf, they say, has made it a habit of treating India to all sorts of new ideas on Kashmir in his public meetings and interviews…

By now one should be quite used to the pantomime: Musharraf presents a new idea, India rejects the new idea the same day using the same channel. Therefore a good idea may be rejected because of the way it has been presented,`` the Daily Times said.

The editorial also explains why there was an angry edge to India`s response to the proposal this time.

``The Indian side has repeatedly complained that President Musharraf shoots off his ``important proposals`` for the resolution of half-a-century old dispute with India in a most off-the-cuff fashion…``(HT)

now what did I say.....

.....like his bladder Mushrraf has to control his mouth in public places....and use the diplomatic channels...... and may be Kashmir could start to see the light at the end of the tunnel.....

Breaking news:

From CNN


Sources: Airstrike may have killed bin Laden`s No. 2
From David Ensor
CNN

(CNN) -- A CIA airstrike on a building in Pakistan may have killed Osama bin Laden`s most-trusted aide, sources said.
..


What do you guys think??.. Is this true? or just a ploy to divert the anger of US strikes??
Anyways, it is good news..

#413 by bongdongs on January 13, 2006 2:52pm PT

they pakis have deluded themselves into seeing straws that aren`t there..and they`re clutching at the imaginary straws...

so the pakis are self-deluded and are clutching at imaginary straws...

I wonder what ``explanation`` he has for pakis being looked upon as terrorism suspects and being made to register...It`s a US government program to keep Pakistanis safe and get their documentation in order?

p.s. I`ll bet our cab driver from california doesn`t know Kerry is going to be in Islamabad tomorrow.

#401 by tahmed32

tahmed..why, why do yo do this?

1. bjp WAS NOT IN POWER in 1989.
2. indian communal problem is between indian muslims and hindus, not kashmiris...kashmir is not a electoral issue in india. we all pretty mush agree on kashmir more or less.

#412

That is the Paki`s and US working in concert. They will lull India into a false sense of complacency by Pakistan asking for the deal and US refusing.

This will cause India to purse the deal with vigor hence falling into the US trap.

man, HP here has been educating you time and again, aren`t you ever going to learn?

#398 by HP on January 13, 2006 12:39pm PT




That is called PR


Still clutching at imaginary straws?

BTW, if the nuclear deal means giving up the nuclear option, why is Pakiland begging for a similar deal...and being turned down...

No Indian-style nuclear deal for Pakistan

Asked if Pakistan would accept the emerging relationship between the US and India, he replied he could not say if Pakistan is happy about it or Gen Musharraf is happy about it, but some Pakistani officials have stated that they would like the US to have a similar relationship with their country. He called the deal with India a “unique arrangement”.

re: Terrorism in South Asia
This Congressional Research paper (PDF format) talks about terrorism in South Asia. Much of the paper is devoted to terrorism in Pak and Al Qaida.
Here is the link
Sridhar

re:#402 by ahmadzai
That link is dated WEDNESDAY, JULY 21, 1999.
Much has happened since then. India and US are forging a stretegic link.
And, now-a-days Mr Doolittle, the Congressman who sponsored the bill on the rights of Sikhs, Kashmiris etc back in 1999, is busy debating on Internet security and how to strengthen US borders from illegal immigrants.
Anyway, good try.
Sridhar

ahmadzai:

My reason for ROFL.. was the ``embarassment`` of HP in admitting that killing of Pakistani villagers was a ``joint`` operation.. and the protest was a ``PR operation``.

I can ROFL at the ``dalitstan`` links too. I have ``dalit`` relatives and close ``dalit`` friends. I am in a better position to know what`s really happening..

Anyplace you have an army with not so much accountability, atrocities can happen as in Manipur/Kashmir. But we are trying to overcome that and there are efforts in the right direction. But we never claim, it is a ``PR exercise``..

But In Pakistan, the whole country is under a ``military dictator``... The funny thing is When the people are ``freedom fighters``/``mujahideen`` for the US, they are ``mujahideen`` to you, but when they are ``terrrorists`` for the US, they automatically become ``terrorists`` for you guys too. Nevermind they are the same guys in both cases..

That`s why I called your army as a ``mercenary army``.. Now contradict me if you think otherwise.. :-))