Is Thackeray a Terrorist?

YLH,

[[[[[Mahesh G,

Looks to me that you are either the son or a grandson of some communal murderer whose constant guilt is now making you lash out at Pakistan`s founder...]]]]]

AnNy behan, YLH mujhe gaali de raha hai. Aap YLH sahib ko zara sambhaliye. Ek thaapad quafi hai.

[[[[ Let me tell you the standard for guilt `I took the Gun, and I shot my wife`.

Jinnah`s crime was only asking for the right of self determination for his constituents and his group. The result of that right of self determination was unfavorable to certain elements particularly Hindus and Sikhs and they started killing everyone. ]]]]]

Oh yeah. Please explain to me what rights was Jinnah fighting for that have been denied to the minorities in post independent India? Name one. If Hindus were going to be such villians then why is that they are the ones who have suffered at the hands of Muslim victims in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Jinnah cared two hoots for minority rights. All he wanted was power and he didn`t care who he sacrificed to achieve that. He was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, Muslims and Hindus alike.

Please show me proof for you statement that Hindus and Sikhs were responsible for the massacre during partition. Don`t just pull stuff out of thin air like you do with that number 7.



Dost-Mittar,

Please don`t say things like one person`s hero is another person`s villian. Show me one thing that Jinnah did that could be considered heroic. It`s okay to appear unbiased but it should be done with reason.

Harimau,

Harimau... you didn`t quote anything from Hodson which proves any of your claims... you said Mandal was appointed as a counter move, but what of his appointment after partition, what was Jinnah countering then. You know that you selectively quote Hodson, and none of your nonsense makes any sense far from proving your point. Hodson`s view of Jinnah is clear... an eminently rational man who was selfless, honest and a man of integrity. Nothing that you have quoted proves otherwise. You know it very well. And you know that you have lost the debate.

By the way ... you still haven`t answered the Question ... how does it feel to lose to someone half your age?



Rsaxena,

You are such a pathetic little creature with your pathetic little notions that you are not beyond stating lies: `Pakistan has mostly been a dictatorship`... Try counting the years... Pakistan has been a democracy for 31 years and a dictatorship for 24 (which includes the reformist pseudo-dictatorship of Musharraf). Please don`t inform us of your doubts. Like I said you are just not important...

As for my debate... I think I got the endorsement of some of the most rational people of chowk for example Sigalph, who thought my arguments were masterly. So I just don`t care what a little fool like yourself who claims to have been educated at Ivy League (Highly Doubt) thinks... what did you do there? were you the jamadar?



Dost Mittar,



``in saying this I do not want to take away from the fact that you have undoubtedly broadened the knowledge of many of us regarding the multi-faceted personality of Jinnah, both directly by providing several incidents and quotations from and about him and indirectly by the reaction to those quotes by your adversaries who have produced their own plethora of quotations and incidents``

Thankyou :)

``In India, Gandhi is nothing more than a statutory holiday and Jinnah a fading memory. In the rest of the world, Gandhi has become a symbol of non-violent civil disobedience against oppression and, to those who know, Jinnah is the creator of Pakistan. In Pakistan, of course, Jinnah is obviously held in much greater esteem than Gandhi.``

Agreed. Now here is the point. A man`s greatness is judged by his impact on his own peoples` conscience. So you see to me Gandhi`s popularity all around the world is irrelevant, what are the people of Gandhi doing? testing Agni 3? is that nonviolence? So Gandhi is indeed irrelevant to me since, his positive legacy has been forgotten by India, the neighbor of my country, which has made India into an arrogant and raging bull. Jinnah on the other hand is making a come back in Pakistan, for he too was over the past 20 odd years merely a picture on the wall and name. His vision for Pakistan has become relevant again.

``(in this case though, the ``jews``, i.e., the Hindus were not that innocent and exacted their own revenge by killing and throwing out million of Muslims from India)``

I am afraid I have to disagree. Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan by all genuine Historical accounts became the target of persecution after harrowing stories of massacres came from India... this is not to say that what happened with Hindus in Pakistan was justified because that was not what Pakistan was all about. In any event it is a well known fact which community lost more people.. but such facts are cruel and heartless to bring up. So I don`t want to re-open any old wounds.

``This does not mean that secularism has no relevance for Pakistan. It does, and so your fight is worthwhile; but its import is in the separation of religion from statecraft; the rights of minorities are merely symbolic in this fight.``

Agreed. Kind of like post 1922 Turkey, where it was a homogenously Muslim society yet it became secular. However, to say minorities in Pakistan are like daal mein namak is little too much.. unlike you like your daal too salty.

The last census that happened in pakistan and whose results were revealed was in 1981. So no one, not even President Musharraf, knows what the real figures are... but according to my own estimate which I have come up with... Pakistan has close to 4 Million Christians (earlier estimate of 3 was based on a different figure), 1.5 Million Hindus, half a million sikhs, close to hundred thousand parsis, and a Hundred thousand Buddhists.

Furthermore, secularism is necessary simply because even in Islam there are 73 sects with very different interpretations of Islam, and almost all of these sects are present in Pakistan in some number.

Sincerely

Yasser Latif Hamdani

Sigalph #482,

Please explain to me Jinnah`s greatness. I am all ears. I promise I will listen carefully and not dismiss anything you say offhand.

Pakistan shifts proxy war to India`s east

By Sultan Shahin

http://atimes.com/ind-pak/DB06Df01.html

Map

NEW DELHI - The Indian government is gradually coming round to the view that the attack on policemen guarding the American Center in Kolkata on January 22 marks the shifting of the theater of Pakistan`s proxy war.

Though official spokespeople continue to claim that militant infiltration in Kashmir is continuing on the previous scale, a feeling is growing that the focus of Pakistan-sponsored terrorist activities is now moving to India`s east and northeast, as Pakistan may not be able to defy strong international pressure to close shop in Kashmir.

A realization is gradually dawning upon India`s security officials that Pakistan`s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency has been preparing for such an eventuality for a long time. As well-informed analyst Hiranmay Karlekar writes in his column in the Pioneer newspaper (January 25): ``The ISI, in collaboration with sections of Bangladesh`s intelligence outfits and fundamentalist Islamic organizations, has been training and supporting northeast Indian insurgent outfits like the United Liberation Front of Asom [Assam] (ULFA), both Khaplang and the Isaac Swu-Thuingaleng Muivah groups of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN), Bodo rebels in Assam and tribal insurgents in Tripura for years.

``Its plans include the separation of the whole of northeastern India from the rest of the country and the creation of an autonomous Islamic state in the northeast comprising parts of Assam, Nagaland and Myanmar. Should it ever come close to success in implementing its plans, trouble in the Siliguri-Islampur corridor, hampering movement of troops and supplies to the northeastern states, would be of critical advantage to it.``

According to Indian government sources, the basic objective of the ISI in Bangladesh is intelligence encirclement of India. It uses the strategy of supporting and fomenting insurgency in India`s northeast and encouraging militants of various shades in different parts of India. It makes direct use of Bangladesh territory to infiltrate its agents and saboteurs across the border.

Of particular advantage to the ISI is the long and porous India-Bangladesh border which makes crossings either way easy, particularly when there are elements all along it to facilitate the process. According to reports in the Pakistani media, India has recently moved more forces to the India-Bangladesh border. This may be part of an effort to stop or at least reduce infiltration of militants from this border.

The recent incident in Kolkata is not the first of its kind in West Bengal. On December 22, 1994, two boys in Domkal in West Bengal`s Murshidabad district discovered several bombs very near a temporary dais from which Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, now chief minister of West Bengal and then an important minister, was to address a public meeting on December 24 along with other functionaries of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M).

This may explain why Bhattacharjee has gone out of his way in condemning and acting against the latest terrorist outrage, though his colleagues in the party were not inclined initially to implicate Pakistan or the ISI. CPI-M politburo member Sitaram Yechury had indeed accused Home Minister Lal Krishan Advani as having ``jumped the gun`` in pointing fingers at the ISI without adequate information.

Having investigated the Domkal incident, reports Karlekar, India`s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) concluded that an organization called Ahl-e-Hadith (AeH) was involved. The same organization, it further believed, was behind five explosions that occurred on trains in different parts of India on December 6, 1993, the first anniversary of the demolition of the Babri Mosque, and 42 others - not including the serial bomb blasts in Bombay on March 12, 1993 - in various parts of the country from 1988 to 1993.

One reason for this conclusion was that the explosives used in the Domkal bombs were the same as in the five train and 42 other blasts. The Domkal bombs also had the same kind of timers the five railway bombs had. Besides, the other 42 blasts had occurred in areas marked by acute communal tension where they could have triggered riots. Murshidabad district had been such an area for quite some time then. The CBI also believed that three of the five people sought for questioning in connection with the blasts were hiding in West Bengal.

The CBI was convinced that the ISI was behind the bombs. The conculsion is corroborated by Yossef Bodansky in his book Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America. ``The ISI actively assists bin Laden in the establishment of an Islamic infrastructure in India ... The primary venues for the distribution of Islamic literature and incitement material are the institutions run by the Ahl-i-Hadith religious charity which is associated with Lashkar-i-Toiba, an Islamist Kashmiri organization.`` Under the command of Abdul Karim Tunda, the Lashkar-i-Toiba is already responsible ``for several bomb explosions``.

Thus by the end of 1994, according to Karlekar`s information, the ISI, which had started operating with the utmost freedom in Bangladesh after Begum Khaleda Zia became prime minister in 1991, had already established a significant presence in West Bengal and was even in a position to shelter wanted persons from other parts of India in the state. Using Bangladesh as its springboard and aided by West Bengal state government`s complacency, it extended its network far and wide in the state in the next few years, using it as a staging area for its agents entering from Bangladesh to carry out terrorist acts in other parts of India and for sending people from different parts of India to Bangladesh for onward journey to Pakistan and Afghanistan for training as agents. It established ``safe houses``, planted ``sleepers`` - agents who merged with the local people and remained dormant for long periods before acting - and centers for recruiting agents.

The ISI built up a substantial presence in several areas of Kolkata and almost all districts of the state bordering Bangladesh - with the Siliguri subdivision of Darjeeling district in the north receiving particular attention. All this was dramatically brought to light in January 1999, when Delhi police arrested Syed Abu Nasir, a Bangladeshi who had crossed over from Bangladesh to bomb the US Embassy in Delhi and the US Consulate General in Chennai. He reportedly revealed during interrogation that he and his team of nine had gathered in Kolkata in December 1998. From there, the three Indian members had been sent to Siliguri to establish a support base in collaboration with ISI agents stationed there, while the six ``Afghans`` - a generic term used to signify Afghans as well as various Arab and other terrorists trained in Afghanistan by al-Qaeda - went to Chennai. The three Indians who went to Siliguri were subsequently arrested while the six ``Afghans`` managed to disappear.

The ISI`s activities in the area attracted further attention during the Kargil war when a blast in a train in North Jalpaiguri station on June 24, 1999, directed at a group of soldiers traveling to Kashmir, killed two of them and injured 16. There were several other attempts to sabotage the movement of troops and equipment from northeastern to northwestern India. These incidents clearly underlined the reason for the ISI`s activities in Siliguri. Northeastern India`s sole direct land link with the rest of the country passes through the subdivision, particularly the narrow Siliguri-Islampur corridor.

Indeed, according to Indian intelligence sources, the ISI has long been providing assistance to insurgents in the northeast in a variety of ways, including helping them run their training camps in Bangladesh. After the installation of the Awami League government in Bangladesh in 1996, the Indian insurgent groups were asked to leave Bangladeshi soil. But dominant groups such as the National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isaac Swu/Muivah (NSCN-I/M), ULFA, All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF) and National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) continued to function in that country in a more covert manner by forging local-level links with Bangladeshi security forces.

Initially, in March/April 1997, Indian intelligence sources perceived some decline in insurgent activities and the militants, mainly belonging to ULFA and NSCN-I/M, had started winding up their overt activities and shifting their camps temporarily to Myanmar. But through support from such parties as the Bangladesh National Party (BNP), Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) and Freedom Party (FP), the militants started reorganizing themselves and re-established their camps in Bangladesh.

The ISI has managed to establish a rather intricate network in Bangladesh, thanks to the presence of the residue of pro-Pakistan sympathizers after 1971 and the influence it wielded between 1975 and 1996 when the Awami League was out of power. The period from 1991 to 1996, when Khaleda Zia was prime minister of the BNP government, proved particularly fruitful. During this period the ISI was not only able to subvert various local agencies, including the army, but also ran training camps for northeast Indian insurgents with the consent of the government.

After the Awami League government took power in June 1996, there was a review of government policy and official patronage of such anti-India activities was withdrawn. However, on account of loyalties built up over the years, and religious indoctrination and rampant corruption in the ranks of both Indian and Bangladeshi security forces, networks continued to facilitate movement of Indian insurgent leaders and also supply these groups with arms.

The ISI obviously realizes the importance of mobilizing anti-India and pro-Pakistan political elements in Bangladesh and bringing them to power with a view to securing state patronage. It has therefore nurtured the BNP while in and out of power, shoring it up up politically and financially. It has done the same with various rightist parties such as the FP and JEI. More recently the ISI has been playing a leading role in patching together an alliance between these rightist parties and assisting them in devising and launching a strategy to dislodge the Awami League from power.

After June 1996, on account of an unfriendly party being in power in Bagladesh, the ISI has had to give up its earlier brazenness and work covertly through various channels. While some operations are still controlled from the local Pakistani mission - where the ISI unit was said to be headed by A H Qureshi, a minister-rank official - a larger part of anti-Indian activities are conducted through various mosques, madrasas (seminaries) and attached training camps across the country, and through Pakistani agents and facilitators placed in various private organizations and political parties. There has also been liberal use of the country`s press for anti-India propaganda with communal overtones. The aim is to keep anti-India feelings high so that no government is ever in a position to accede to Indian requests for information about northeastern militants, and to stalemate Indian influence in Bangladesh.

The ISI makes use of prominent Bangladeshi names and institutions for its purposes. Indian officials cite the example of the Beximco Group - which employs about 600 Pakistanis and whose owners, Sohel and Solman Rahman, are alleged to have pro-Pakistan sympathies. Beximco Group has been allegedly used as conduit for funds to the BNP. Prominent local politicians Salauddin Qader Chowdhury, Syed Iskander (brother of Khaleda Zia) and Anwar Zahed, who are ensconced in the BNP, are alleged to have a well-documented history of indulging in arms trafficking into India`s northeast.

A number of other commercial establishments, namely Ibnesina, Islami Bank, Habib Bank, Pak Land and Lever Brothers, with known Pakistani links, and front organizations of fundamentalist parties like the JEI, Tablighi Jamaat, Jamaat-e-Tulaba and Jamaat-ul-Mudarreseen, allegedly serve the interests of the ISI. Moreover, Pakistan sympathizers within the army, various intelligence agencies and the bureaucracy continue to aid the ISI.

Indian officials allege that apart from intelligence operations conducted by Pakistan`s mission in Dhaka, agents are being sent directly from Pakistan for specific tasks such as training, briefing, supervising, providing funds, and meeting with militants. Some people collaborate with the ISI for political and religious reasons. Salahuddin Qader Choudhary and his brother Giasuddin Choudhary - both BNP leaders and alleged arms smugglers - are actively involved in abetting fundamentalists, militant groups such as Harkat-ul-Jihad, and rightist political parties such as JEI and IOJ. Notorious terrorist Abdul Karim Tunda from Chittagong, and Pakistan-trained alleged terrorist Asif Khan, who visited India to foment trouble during the last general elections, fall into this category.

The ISI is also said to have connections with non-governmental organizations such as Islamic Relief Organization and Junudul Muqawat Al Islamiya, as well as with madrasas such as Rabeta in Ramu, Cox`s Bazaar. The latter is a nerve center of all ISI operations in Greater Chittagong. Pakistani agents regularly visit and hold meetings there with Indian outfits like ULFA, NSCN-I/M, NLFT, and All Tripura Tiger Force.

The ISI`s intelligence operations include provision of funds to political parties - Gholam Azam of JEI and Salahuddin Qader Choudhary of BNP are allegedly to have received huge amounts for fomenting agitations - and militant outfits on Bangladesh, India and Myanmar. It also organizes recruitment and dispatch of potential mujahideen from madrasas and the youth wings of JEI, Shibir, IOJ etc, for induction into Indian territory to create disturbances.

If Indian apprehensions are correct, the east and northeast may present even greater challenges for Indian security agencies than does insurgency in Kashmir. If reports of India having increased its strength along the border with Bangladesh are correct, it may mean that India is already conscious of the dangers represented by ISI networks and its ambitions in the area. Since Pakistan does not have a border with India in the east, India may not even be able to denounce this in the familiar terminology of cross-border terrorism.

Ref bong_dongs #: 488

[#483

Oh, the article is by Praful Bidwai (our very own wanna-be Chomsky)! should have guessed :-) ]

And published in Frontline, the magazine of the ``Hindu`` group of publications. N. Ram is famous for going to China after May 1998 and publishing an entire issue devoted to why India should give up its nuclear arms and kiss the Chinese arse.

Ref ylh #: 479

[That is exactly what Harimau`s supporters notable Rsaxena, Akash and MaheshG are doing. Harimau knows well that he is bs-ing out of his rear orifice, but he is taking advantage of the naivety of the people.]

Not only have I quoted Hodson accurately, I have even given you the numbers of the pages from which I have quoted Hodson on Jinnah. So you cannot accuse ME of BS-ing.

You may choose to quote Hodson on Jinnah from a different page. I don`t have a problem with that. But I do have a problem when you argue that Hodson`s analysis of Jinnah`s motives for certain actions is wrong because Hodson`s overall opinion of Jinnah is different. The fact is Jinnah was a good -- not brilliant -- tactician who knew how to outlast those opposing him but that doesn`t absolve him of the crimes committed by him or in his name. As for ``brilliant`` lawyer, the man had no answer when every single argument he advanced for partitioning the country was used by Nehru, Patel and Mountbatten for partitioning the provinces and giving him a ``moth-eaten`` Pakistan.

As for not wanting to deal with me anymore, I remember you saying triumphantly ``End of debate`` quite a few posts back and then coming back into the fray. You will be back for more.

re: ylh

your broken record never stops, does it? anyway, go ponder on reality...pakistan is and mostly has been a dictatorship for much of its existence..the number of religious minorities has plummeted...so much for jinnah`s dreams, even if they were real (highly doubt)...

re: shankar

{1) I WILL include Kashmiri hindus, sikhs & buddhists in my movement.

2) My vision for an independant Kashmir should be a secular, democratic country, FREE of meddling from either India, Pakistan or China.

3) My message should be; We are KASHMIRIS...muslims, hindus, sikhs or buddhist..DOESNT MATTER...We want to be INDEPENDANT..}

...there are two HUGE problems with that...first, most hindu and buddhist kashmiris have been driven out of their homes by the jehadis...second, no hindu or buddhist kashmiri would ever support such BS, and that is why they have never been asked to...

RE: Reply #: 483 cutandpaste

``Nationalism gone berserk

...This is the story of two boys, Pinku (10) and Rinku (17), who wanted to become the ``heroes of the nation`` by avenging the December 13 attack on Parliament House - by assassinating Pervez Musharraf, no less.``

Actually, I find the story more amusing than serious. I am sure there are plenty of folks in Pakistan itself with magnitudes more firepower than Bollywood inspired imaginations who would love to have a go at Musharaff. Like the numerous lovers that he and his coterie jilted at the altar - the Taliban, JEM, LET, Al Qaeda.

But not to worry. If the Pakistani Military leadership is known for anything, it`s for survival instinct. As someone said, Pakistan is a cat on it`s fifth or sixth life.

This story is being highlighted to give the great Islamic emancipator a tinge of vulnerability in his newly anointed role of statesman.

#483

Oh, the article is by Praful Bidwai (our very own wanna-be Chomsky)! should have guessed :-)

re tahmed

``Agent YLH is specially trained to confuse people like you!!``

ha ha. And trained to confuse people with enormously winded postings that`s enough to cause narcolepsy. Trained to inflict death by boredom!

re tahmed

``Agent YLH is specially trained to confuse people like you!!``

ha ha. And trained to confuse people with enormously winded postings that`s enough to cause narcolepsy. Trained to inflict death by boredom!

MaheshG #481 to ylh ``YLH, tell me what fascination does the number 7 ``

This is a Pakistani conspiracy to cause cross-border confusion, and YLH is Agent 007 of ISI who has been licensed to confuse you. That`s right, you MaheshG.

And what is the significance of the letter 7 in all this, you may ask. I cannot reveal state secrets, but you may wish to count the letters in your nick, MaheshG, which is also 7! Be afraid, MaheshG! Be verry afraid!! Agent YLH is specially trained to confuse people like you!!

Sigalph,

Thankyou sir. It is compliment enough coming from you. A long time ago, when I was debating Bhutto and I had made a comparison, you had written to me telling me how insulting it is for the Quaid e Azam to be compared to Bhutto. That is precisely when my fascination with Quaid e Azam started and when I came to realize how much more Quaid e Azam is.

You are absolutely right. Quaid e Azam was nononsense type of guy... it takes character to be not-a-likeable individual and not care. Like Campbell Johnson said `he couln`t afford to be charming`.

Sincerely :)

Yasser

Nationalism gone berserk

http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl1903/19031200.htm

The growing hubris-driven, illiberal, intolerant nationalism in India falsifies and glorifies the country`s ``Hindu`` past. It is viscerally hostile to Pakistan, but servile to the United States.

HAVE Indians reached such a point of moral degeneration and self-brutalisation that plotting to assassinate Pakistan`s leaders becomes the ultimate test of ``patriotism`` for the country`s youth? A terrible story from Shivpuri in Madhya Pradesh, not far from Gwalior, suggests that this may be actually happening. This is the story of two boys, Pinku (10) and Rinku (17), who wanted to become the ``heroes of the nation`` by avenging the December 13 attack on Parliament House - by assassinating Pervez Musharraf, no less.

Brought up on a daily diet of Bollywood-style ``patriotism``, and hero-worship of the Knights in Shining Armour who take on the mighty with their macho strength, Pinku and Rinku decided that India must wage war on Pakistan, or else they would become good ``patriotic`` terrorists, buy arms, smuggle themselves into Pakistan, and go and kill Musharraf.

On January 11, they kidnapped Shanu, the eight-year-old son of a businessman, for ransom, with which to procure the weapons for the Great and Holy Deed of killing Musharraf the Monster. Driven as they were by the role-models offered in films such as Gadar and Indian, and Fiza and Mission Kashmir, they hatched a plot to hold the boy, Shanu, hostage and collect the money they needed to execute their plan.

But once they abducted Shanu, they realised they could not really hide him anywhere. Nor could they invent credible alibis, nor even ways of collecting the ransom. They panicked and strangled him to death with a shoelace. According to The Telegraph (January 21), the boys confessed to their crime, but the district authorities believe that their motivation was indeed ``patriotic``.

It is tempting to discount this gory incident as a mere aberration, a rare case of ``juvenile delinquency`` coupled with ``misguided patriotism``, as exposure to ``too much Bollywood``, and so on. But it warrants serious, sober, reflection on the kind of values we are imparting to a whole generation of young people - through textbooks, through extremely competitive merit-ranking at school, through cinema and television, through accepted but aggressive patterns of behaviour in the street, and more generally, through our general social and political discourse.

These values have long glorified maleness, raw power, violence, aggression and war, and ``normalised`` or routinised cruelty. For years, India`s ``popular`` cinema and television have shamelessly promoted negative, hate-driven images of heroes as well as vamps and villains. This phenomenon has recently got even more perverse as the hero and the villain have merged, and the vamp has become the quintessential bride-dancer whom wedding parties emulate, especially in northern India. The cynical depiction of violence and aggressive behaviour has kept pace with sex and sleaze in the mass media.

Take education. Many of our schools, cast in the post-colonial ``nation-building`` tradition, valorise military-style discipline and a stressfully competitive view of ``achievement`` and excellence. The typical child grows up believing that hubris and pride in India`s ``inherent`` greatness and moral-cultural superiority is a ``normal`` characteristic of the good citizen. The tone and tenor of school and college debates has become increasingly raucous under the influence of the same kind of aggressive nationalism.

This nationalism is self-aggrandising. It pits itself against reason, logic and truth. It constructs indefinitely continuous communities (for example, ``Hindus``, from the Vedic period, followed by the rise of Buddhism, through the Brahminical-caste consolidation phase, and the Bhakti movement, to the late medieval period), where none existed. This nationalism validates aggressive and militarist notions of power relations as part of ``human nature``. Thus, India is ``naturally`` great. It has always been. Millions of Indians are being drilled and coached into believing `Mera Bharat Mahan`!

HUMAN Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi and his people in the National Council for Educational Research and Training, and numerous other institutions, have added a particularly toxic ingredient to this already foul cocktail of values and prejudices by saffronising education and rewriting history. This enterprise, a veritable cultural counter-revolution in itself, has been subjected to so much incisive criticism that it is unnecessary to recall the factual inaccuracies, the lies and half-truths, the indelible ethnic-religious prejudices, and the sophistry and irrationality that suffuse it.

The larger, central, overwhelming, purpose of Joshi and Co`s project is to ``prove`` that India is the greatest civilisation and culture in world history, that virtually everything valuable in the ``ancient`` world was derived from India. This ``ancient`` periodisation can be arbitrarily stretched to the 10th or even the 13th century, as in the case of the Konark or Lingaraja temples of Orissa or the Nataraja temple of Chidambaram. Joshi claims that it is now ``proved`` that the river Saraswati actually existed. The other day he proudly announced the discovery of a 7,500 year-old ``civilisation`` in the Gulf of Cambay - a strange thing for a Minister to do in the absence of an academic paper, and when the ``finds`` there are still under interpretation and in need of corroboration.

The concept of nationalism involved here is ethnic-religious and cultural. It conceives of India as a quintessentially traditional society. It cannot accommodate modernist notions of universal values, political identity or citizenship. It demands total, blind, loyalty to the woolly concept of an ``Eternal India``, which is further mystified and deified as ``Bharat Mata``.

In this view, respect, or rather reverence, for the nation is based on unquestioning devotion to the abstract notion of India`s ``inherent`` greatness and its unique superiority, its spectacular, unmatched achievements in all fields. These are grossly exaggerated and mystified. (For instance, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh sarsanghchalak K.S. Sudarshan claimed in his last Vijayadashami address that an Indian had built and flown an airplane in Baroda years before the Wright Brothers did so - a ludicrous assertion!)

In this scheme, pride in one`s nation is premised upon disdain for, or hatred of, other nations or identities. Islam and Muslims have functioned as the Other longest of all within this ethnic-nationalist demonology. Everything that is ``Eastern``, but other than Indian, is trivialised, minimised, parodied or reviled. This could be Persian or Chinese, or from Sumer or Sri Lankan. These cultures are considered at best derivative (and unimportant) in relation to India. The ``true``, essential, authentic, subject of the Nation is one particular community. ``Others`` can be accommodated on its fringes. But that is because `We` are tolerant, not because India is plural.

In the contemporary context, this hatred of the Other gets focussed upon Pakistan, which is demonised as a country, society, state and regime which is inherently inimical to India and with which peaceful co-existence is virtually impossible. Pakistan is credited with virtually mystical powers to subvert and destabilise India and create havoc. As in the classical Savarkar formulation, Pakistan is the external manifestation of the eternal ``internal`` threat embodied by Muslims - just as Indian Muslims represent Pakistan`s Fifth Column.

India`s sheer size allows the votaries of this nationalism to look at our other neighbours (barring China) as dwarfs, midgets and non-entities compared to the Indian giant. India is unique, India is exceptional, India is unmatched, India is eternal. This is precisely the kind of nationalism that Rabindranath Tagore described as a ``great menace``. As he put it: ``It is the particular thing which for years has been at the bottom of India`s troubles``.

This toxic, aggressive, exclusive, competitive, belligerent nationalism is the very opposite of a relaxed, self-confident, inclusive view of the nation and the world. It binds and encloses. It does not liberate. In fact, it lacks a progressive character. It is not anti-imperialist. At least no longer. It does not question the skewed distribution of power in the world. It accepts the dominant-dominated duality as the ``natural`` order, but wants India to be the co ck of the walk.

This nationalism kowtows to the powerful, the dominant, the hegemonic. In its present form, it is servile to ``the West``, in particular to the United States, just as it is arrogant towards ``the East`` (minus India, of course, which being Aryan, ``really`` belongs to the West). Nothing illustrates this better than the Indian official reception to Musharraf`s landmark address of January 12, and the growing intimacy between the Vajpayee government and President George W. Bush, now leading to dangerous liaisons in intelligence-sharing and even ground-level operations.

MUSHARRAF in his speech set out to do something exceptionally bold: undermine a major part of the foundation of his own state (namely extremist political Islam). This is the sharpest and most comprehensive criticism of ethnic-religious fundamentalism voiced by the head of any South Asian state in the past half-century. Musharraf minced no words in laying out Pakistan`s pathology, marked by its mix of Islam and politics, the military and the mullahs, the Taliban and terrorism. He posed the choice for Pakistan clearly: between a ``theocratic state`` and a modern, moderate, liberal, tolerant society.

Musharraf also told jehadi militants not to mess around with other countries, whatever the offence to Islam there. Implicit here is the view that Pakistan has paid dearly by pandering to pan-Islamic ideas. Musharraf has since cracked down on jehadi militants, arresting 2,500 of them. He may have started cutting the umbilical cord between the Pakistani state and political Islam, and proceeded to dismantle communal electorates.

Musharraf has launched only ``half a revolution``. His reform agenda lacks a ``perspective from below``, one that arises from the struggles of the working people. It has no economic content worth the name. Musharraf`s chosen agency for his reform ``from above`` is none other than the Pakistani state, a thoroughly corrupt, compromised and unreliable entity. He may not succeed. Formidable forces are arrayed against him.

To point this out is one thing, to term his address an exercise in ``deception`` or ``doublespeak`` is quite another. This approach ridicules the very possibility of reform in Pakistan by declaring it irredeemable. Indian leaders have at best been grudging and mean-spirited in acknowledging that Musharraf has done something remarkable. Thus, L.K. Advani called the address ``path-breaking``, but only for its domestic agenda. Vajpayee only saw some ``positive elements`` in it.

This leaves one wondering if this parsimonious response has something to do with the Bharatiya Janata Party`s general fear of secularisation and modernisation - contrasted to its own agenda of turning India into a morass of obscurantism, superstition and communal prejudice.

Contrast this with the Vajpayee government`s kowtowing to the U.S. Never before has any Indian government so pusillanimously colluded with hegemonic U.S. moves in this region or actively invited American interference in its internal affairs. Vajpayee & Co not only uncritically supported the U.S. ``war on terrorism`` with all its excesses and its devious manipulation of the United Nations. They did not let out even a squeak of protest or concern at the U.S.` current construction of four military bases in Pakistan.

It allowed an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to visit Kolkata after the recent ``terrorist`` attack just as it welcomed a whole stream of FBI, Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), ``counter-terrorism`` and other officials. According to The Telegraph (January 21 and 22), it is about to launch joint operations along with U.S. agencies to stop possible terrorist infiltration and activities in Jammu and Kashmir. The Indo-U.S. Joint Working Group, which met in New Delhi in the third week of January, has announced a broad range of ``cooperative`` activities including ``political, diplomatic, military, intelligence and financial measures``.

India has ``welcomed`` a U.S. ``pilot project`` involving equipment and technology to strengthen ``border management and surveillance``. The two sides reportedly also discussed ``forensic cooperation`` and added aviation security to their agenda, and placed ``special stress`` on ways to beef up intelligence and investigative cooperation, including the possibility of access to each other`s databases on terrorists.

This goes far beyond ``intelligence sharing``, even ``cooperative monitoring`` through agencies such as the Sandia National Laboratories of New Mexico, a well-known U.S. weapons design and production facility. On the cards are ``joint operations`` on the ground, for which the way may have been paved by the visit of DIA chief Admiral Thomas Wilson to the Kashmir Valley, including to ``sensitive`` border areas. This spells serious interference in India`s affairs and erosion of its sovereignty, with potentially dangerous consequences.

re ylh 472

Absolutely masterful dissection of the criticisms directed at the Quaid-e-Azam. The lawyer in Jinnah would have been pleased.

See, Jinnah was not a likeable or even lovable individual. That made it even easier for his contemporaries to criticize him. But none of that can take away from the fundamental greatness of a man whose very name was and is synonymous with incorrigibility.