india's mohammedans are the best-off mohammedans in the world. elsewhere, especially in mohammedan countries, the average mohammedan has few to no rights, especially if she's a female. in india, they have far more rights than anybody else, including the right to grab a disproportionate share of the nation's resources, and the right to indulge in violence with the state remaining a colluding spectator.
mohammedanism creates a class of violent jihadi thugs and this has nothing to do with deprivation or economic problems. it is a corollary to the way the ideology is structured. for instance, it is evident from empirical data that in the UK mohammedan, sikh and hindu immigrants were equally oppressed by racism and 'multiculturalism'. result? 2nd-generation sikhs and hindus are lawyers, bankers, doctors, engineers. 2nd-generation mohammedans are jihadi terrorists.
same opportunities, different outcomes. why? it is hard to conclude anything other than that it is a feature of the ideology to need to create warriors for its jihad. and it succeeds in doing so.
so even if *all* mohammedans were wealthy in india, they would be jihadi. for instance, increasing affluence has made saudis, gulf emirates dwellers, malaysians and indonesians more violently jihadi, not less. giving them more simply gives them more wherewithal to inflict damage on society. it doesn't solve any problems.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Yash
Sachar report defies logic, Muslims are better off:
Tales of backwardness and creation of political myths
There is the unique case of the Hindus of India's Kashmir: about 10 per cent of the population in 1947, they have been reduced to a tiny number (5,000). The rest numbering about 4,00,000 have been compelled to abandon their home and hearth and made refugees in their own land.
While Hindu population is falling steadily, the Muslim population is increasing. This is too well known.
While Hindu population is falling steadily, the Muslim population is increasing. This is too well known.
The series of reports on the under-representation of the Muslims in services etc (obviously being presented as a monolithic community) and their over-representation in the jails and more such disclosures through the Sachar Committee's report, are meant to portray the overall image of a deprived community while implying that the Hindus in post-Partition India have an over-representation in services and other arenas, which is neither warranted by history nor by their number.
But first, the very methodology of producing this genre of statistics and its derivatives, which leave out the context and other parameters. In this arithmetic, it is imperative to calculate what the Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Christians have lost for ever in what are now Pakistan and Bangladesh. Their losses were entirely appropriated by the Muslims. This never happened in India. The relative position of religious communities in India can never be seen in isolation: that would make sense only when the overall scenario—the political status, economic condition as well as the security concerns of both Hindus and Muslims in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and also in India's Kashmir—is taken into account. While Pakistan and Bangladesh have carried out a religious and ethnic cleansing of its minorities, the Muslim population in India continues to rise at a rate higher than that of the Hindus.
Since the Muslim community looks at itself as a part of the fraternity of the believers world-wide, they are generally concerned at the fate of the Muslims outside India. This prompted Gandhiji to take up the Khilafat issue. That justifies rallies against Bush when he visits India but red carpet for Musharraf. Hence GoI espouses the Palestinian cause while smothering the horrible plight of the Hindus, Buddhists and Christians in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Softness towards the latter are explained because of the exigencies of the vote-bank politics and the role of petro-dollar. It is because of this umbilical chord that Pakistan keeps harping on the "plight" of the Muslims in India.
The projection of the Muslims as the only losing community is unconvincing if the totality of the picture is not smothered. Historic problems can't be viewed from arbitrarily selected starting points.
Additionally, there is the unique case of the Hindus of India's Jammu and Kashmir: about 10 per cent of the population in 1947, they have been reduced to a tiny number (5000). The rest numbering about 4,00,000 have been compelled to abandon their home and hearth and made refugees in their own land. Now eking out a miserable living in the refugee camps of Jammu and elsewhere for more than 16 years, they have been resorting to distress sell-off of their ancestral properties to the Muslims of the Kashmir Valley for a pittance.
While the Jews can return to Germany now and re-establish their synagogues and claim their property back, and the Asians of Uganda can return, that option is firmly closed to the Kashmiri Hindu refugees. Even after this, a central minister from Kashmir wants a reservation for Muslims!
Muslims of India on the whole are better off, more secure than the Hindus of Kashmir Valley. The point is some minorities are different from other minorities and some majorities are different from other majorities.
A look at this chart would further clarify this enigma of the "persecuted" minorities and "pampered" majorities.
The top three positions in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh:
President, Prime Minister and Army Chief
India: Muslim, Sikh, Sikh
Pakistan: Muslim, Muslim, Muslim
Bangladesh: Muslim, Muslim, Muslim
In India's case, it needs to be noted that Sonia (nee Maino) Gandhi, an Italian-born is the Chairperson of the ruling UPA. That is, she is the de facto head of the government. Her most trusted political advisor is Ahmad Patel
So the share of Hindus (%) in what is called the Indian sub-continent for the top jobs is nil.
Additionally the Deputy Chief of the armed forces in India happens to be a Muslim and how about the comparable figures in Pakistan and Bangladesh? As for some other prestigious positions:
Chairman of the Central Public Service Commission, which recruits the elite civil services:
India: Muslim
Pakistan: Muslim
Bangladesh: Muslim
Chief of the National Planning Commission:
India: Sikh
Pakistan: Muslim
Bangladesh: Muslim
Chief of the Election Commission:
India: Muslim
Pakistan: Muslim
Bangladesh: Muslim
Here also the Hindu share (%) is nil.
Last but not the least, the cricket teams in this part of South Asia:
India: Out of 16 players currently playing there are five Muslims.
Pakistan: So far only two Hindus have played for Pakistan (in 59 years).
Bangladesh: Only two Hindus have played so far but now they are out of the team.
I am leaving out the "heroes" from the filmdom and the advertisement world in India which are conspicuously getting bereft of Hindus. If that does not mean much, as some would say, why not name the number of non-Muslims recognised in those fields in Pakistan and Bangladesh?
Population figures: While Hindu population is falling steadily, the Muslim population is increasing. This is too well known.
In all, it may be said, very definitively that Hindus as a community are losing political power and clout very rapidly in a "shrinking and shrunken India", and would lose whatever is still left in their hands. Having been victors all along, the Muslims can't claim to be hapless victims now.
Those who tend to compare the plight of the Blacks in the USA with the Muslims in India are oblivious of history and logic. The Blacks were imported by the Whites as slaves unlike the Muslims who came as invaders and converted the local people. The Black minority has neither ruled the USA nor has it partitioned its country.
Our market-savvy pundits would say that despite the steady political/demographic decline of the Hindus, some of them are very resourceful and so there is nothing to worry. History provides many examples when money-power without the backing of politico-military support just withered away. Moreover, the number of prosperous Muslims is quite substantial. It would be quite revealing to see the percentage of the Hindus in the ever-growing list of the farmers committing suicides in Vidarbha, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and even in the communist-ruled West Bengal
Their socio-economic under-development is explained by social, psychological, political, historical and demographic factors. They also suffers because of their obsessions and misplaced priorities. The Muslim under-representation is also explained by their larger families and fascination for the madrasa.
Poverty of the people (Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, neo-Buddhists, etc) is caused by the phoney policies for the underprivileged, like the "socialistic" policies enforced by the "secular" dispensations without creating jobs.
Number game can help in making identity in politics, as it did before partition, but can never become the criterion for any unfair communal entitlements now. It may be recalled that the Jews with 0.21 per cent of the world population have got 22 per cent of all Nobel Prizes. So, how about a campaign against this "anomaly" first?
(The writer teaches history at Hansraj College, University of Delhi and is a former Member of ICSSR, a former Post Doc Research Scholar, University of London, and Visiting Fellow, Dept of Politics, University of Hull.)
But first, the very methodology of producing this genre of statistics and its derivatives, which leave out the context and other parameters. In this arithmetic, it is imperative to calculate what the Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Christians have lost for ever in what are now Pakistan and Bangladesh. Their losses were entirely appropriated by the Muslims. This never happened in India. The relative position of religious communities in India can never be seen in isolation: that would make sense only when the overall scenario—the political status, economic condition as well as the security concerns of both Hindus and Muslims in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and also in India's Kashmir—is taken into account. While Pakistan and Bangladesh have carried out a religious and ethnic cleansing of its minorities, the Muslim population in India continues to rise at a rate higher than that of the Hindus.
Since the Muslim community looks at itself as a part of the fraternity of the believers world-wide, they are generally concerned at the fate of the Muslims outside India. This prompted Gandhiji to take up the Khilafat issue. That justifies rallies against Bush when he visits India but red carpet for Musharraf. Hence GoI espouses the Palestinian cause while smothering the horrible plight of the Hindus, Buddhists and Christians in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Softness towards the latter are explained because of the exigencies of the vote-bank politics and the role of petro-dollar. It is because of this umbilical chord that Pakistan keeps harping on the "plight" of the Muslims in India.
The projection of the Muslims as the only losing community is unconvincing if the totality of the picture is not smothered. Historic problems can't be viewed from arbitrarily selected starting points.
Additionally, there is the unique case of the Hindus of India's Jammu and Kashmir: about 10 per cent of the population in 1947, they have been reduced to a tiny number (5000). The rest numbering about 4,00,000 have been compelled to abandon their home and hearth and made refugees in their own land. Now eking out a miserable living in the refugee camps of Jammu and elsewhere for more than 16 years, they have been resorting to distress sell-off of their ancestral properties to the Muslims of the Kashmir Valley for a pittance.
While the Jews can return to Germany now and re-establish their synagogues and claim their property back, and the Asians of Uganda can return, that option is firmly closed to the Kashmiri Hindu refugees. Even after this, a central minister from Kashmir wants a reservation for Muslims!
Muslims of India on the whole are better off, more secure than the Hindus of Kashmir Valley. The point is some minorities are different from other minorities and some majorities are different from other majorities.
A look at this chart would further clarify this enigma of the "persecuted" minorities and "pampered" majorities.
The top three positions in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh:
President, Prime Minister and Army Chief
India: Muslim, Sikh, Sikh
Pakistan: Muslim, Muslim, Muslim
Bangladesh: Muslim, Muslim, Muslim
In India's case, it needs to be noted that Sonia (nee Maino) Gandhi, an Italian-born is the Chairperson of the ruling UPA. That is, she is the de facto head of the government. Her most trusted political advisor is Ahmad Patel
So the share of Hindus (%) in what is called the Indian sub-continent for the top jobs is nil.
Additionally the Deputy Chief of the armed forces in India happens to be a Muslim and how about the comparable figures in Pakistan and Bangladesh? As for some other prestigious positions:
Chairman of the Central Public Service Commission, which recruits the elite civil services:
India: Muslim
Pakistan: Muslim
Bangladesh: Muslim
Chief of the National Planning Commission:
India: Sikh
Pakistan: Muslim
Bangladesh: Muslim
Chief of the Election Commission:
India: Muslim
Pakistan: Muslim
Bangladesh: Muslim
Here also the Hindu share (%) is nil.
Last but not the least, the cricket teams in this part of South Asia:
India: Out of 16 players currently playing there are five Muslims.
Pakistan: So far only two Hindus have played for Pakistan (in 59 years).
Bangladesh: Only two Hindus have played so far but now they are out of the team.
I am leaving out the "heroes" from the filmdom and the advertisement world in India which are conspicuously getting bereft of Hindus. If that does not mean much, as some would say, why not name the number of non-Muslims recognised in those fields in Pakistan and Bangladesh?
Population figures: While Hindu population is falling steadily, the Muslim population is increasing. This is too well known.
In all, it may be said, very definitively that Hindus as a community are losing political power and clout very rapidly in a "shrinking and shrunken India", and would lose whatever is still left in their hands. Having been victors all along, the Muslims can't claim to be hapless victims now.
Those who tend to compare the plight of the Blacks in the USA with the Muslims in India are oblivious of history and logic. The Blacks were imported by the Whites as slaves unlike the Muslims who came as invaders and converted the local people. The Black minority has neither ruled the USA nor has it partitioned its country.
Our market-savvy pundits would say that despite the steady political/demographic decline of the Hindus, some of them are very resourceful and so there is nothing to worry. History provides many examples when money-power without the backing of politico-military support just withered away. Moreover, the number of prosperous Muslims is quite substantial. It would be quite revealing to see the percentage of the Hindus in the ever-growing list of the farmers committing suicides in Vidarbha, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and even in the communist-ruled West Bengal
Their socio-economic under-development is explained by social, psychological, political, historical and demographic factors. They also suffers because of their obsessions and misplaced priorities. The Muslim under-representation is also explained by their larger families and fascination for the madrasa.
Poverty of the people (Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, neo-Buddhists, etc) is caused by the phoney policies for the underprivileged, like the "socialistic" policies enforced by the "secular" dispensations without creating jobs.
Number game can help in making identity in politics, as it did before partition, but can never become the criterion for any unfair communal entitlements now. It may be recalled that the Jews with 0.21 per cent of the world population have got 22 per cent of all Nobel Prizes. So, how about a campaign against this "anomaly" first?
(The writer teaches history at Hansraj College, University of Delhi and is a former Member of ICSSR, a former Post Doc Research Scholar, University of London, and Visiting Fellow, Dept of Politics, University of Hull.)
---------------------------------Morebelow:-------------------- http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=163&page=11 This is how Pakistan tackles its minorities
Pakistan's Punjabi-dominated army in search of the elusive purity and to perpetuate its hold on power structures encourages the majority Punjabi Sunni population in its misadventures. In pursuit of power, the bogey of threat from India was conjured.
Pakistan, on its creation in 1947, had approximately 13 per cent minorities residing within an Islamic population of 76 million. In its unholy fervour to achieve physical instead of the spiritual purity, the minorities were reduced to 2.5 per cent even as the country's population soared to 156 million by the year 2000.
In any society, it is the minorities that play the crucial role of moderation. Their existence is a safeguard against extreme tendencies. Pakistan lost the benefit of this natural societal instrument of balance early in its history. Once the minorities, more or less, were out of the way, Pakistan's Punjabi Sunni population, which not only constituted the majority but also controlled the instruments of power in the state, turned to killing Shias, expelling Ahmadiyas from Islam, denying basic rights to the Balochis, depriving Sind of water resources, and suppressing population in the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir including Northern Areas. Under the clouds of Talibanisation, this became further skewed when the women who constitute nearly half the population were denied education and practically incarcerated in their homes—thus further impairing the societal balance. Simultaneously, Pakistan army and the ISI persisted with their destructive spree by exporting terrorism to India, SE Asia, Central Asia, EU and America—all in the name of religion! In the comity of nations, one can hardly find a parallel to this inherent self-destructive proclivity.
Pakistan's Punjabi-dominated army in search of the elusive purity and to perpetuate its hold on power structures encourages the majority Punjabi Sunni population in its misadventures. In pursuit of power, the bogey of threat from India was conjured. In schools, children were indoctrinated to hate Indians. Therefore, the genesis of the Pakistan's present fault line lies in the diabolically engineered mindset that has created multiple fault lines and which have now coalesced into one deep and divisive fault line running right across the length of the country, threatening its virtual vivisection into two halves.
The first major setback to Pakistan occurred 24 years after inception when it lost 55 per cent of its population in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and almost half of its territory. Religion could not act as effective glue due to the insatiable avarice the Pakistan's Punjabi army displayed in its refusal to share legitimate power with the eastern wing. Islamabad conveniently blames New Delhi for this separation but a closer scrutiny of facts reveals otherwise. Between 1947 and 1970, whenever Pakistan chose to attack India, the strategically simple option available to India could have been to annex East Pakistan, which Islamabad was never in a position to defend effectively due to the vast geographical distances and consequently the enormous military logistics involved. Nevertheless, New Delhi absorbed Pakistan's attacks and localised it to its western front, never extending the war to the eastern theatre. With millions of refugees pouring into India in 1971, Islamabad made its position in East Pakistan untenable, and India was compelled to initiate positive action. Since occupation of territory was not the motive, Indian Army promptly withdrew after liberating Pakistan's eastern wing from the miseries and atrocities being perpetrated by the western wing on its own people.
In 1950s, Hans J. Morgenthau, the then Director of Center for the Study of American Foreign Policy at University of Chicago, in his book The New Republic had observed, "Pakistan is not a nation and hardly a state. It has no justification, ethnic origin, language, civilisation or the consciousness of those who make up its population. They have no interest in common except one: fear of Hindu domination. It is to that fear and nothing else that Pakistan poses its existence and thus for survival as an independent state." During the same period, another American scholar Keith Callard in his book Pakistan—A Political Study commented, "The force behind the establishment of Pakistan was largely the feeling of insecurity." Both these scholars missed out on some vital aspects that can be attributed to the "fear of Hindu domination" and "insecurity". First, creation of Pakistan was an Anglo-Saxon mischief to protect their vested strategic interests. Second, the land bestowed to create Pakistan was separated amicably without war. Third, the western powers, (and China that uses Pakistan as a proxy against India) fuelled these imagined fears that only created the effect of exacerbating latter's psychological fault line. Therefore, explanations like "fear of Hindu domination" and "insecurity" and other excuses as justification are used as psywar tool to disguise Islamabad's treachery against New Delhi since 1947. Indian Political Right does not indulge in 'export of terrorism' or 'suicide bombers' as an instrument of foreign policy!
After the break-up of Pakistan in 1971, West Pakistan should have emerged as a more cohesive unit—geographically, politically, economically and in orientation. However 33 years hence, nearly 55 per cent of Pakistan's area is witnessing vicious insurgencies, which, if not controlled, could lead to further vivisection of the country. Most of the population in these areas, i.e. Waziristan, Balochistan, NWFP, and Northern Areas (Gilgit and Baltistan) in PoK has been historically difficult to control and administer. This notwithstanding, ever since Musharraf's ascension to power, these areas have slipped from peripheral disquiet to intense insurgencies. Normal governance in these areas has collapsed and is being held only by military force. These multiple fault lines as explained subsequently, if not adequately addressed, can lead to internal strife and break-up of Pakistan.
The Pakistan government has also been using money to buy the allegiance of tribal leaders. Recently, the corps commander Lt. Gen. Safdar Hussain has publicly admitted to having paid Rs. 32 million (US $ 5,40,000) to some tribal leaders for severing their links with Al-Qaeda and Taliban.
BALOCHISTAN: The Balochistan province constitutes 44 per cent (347,190 sq. km.) of Pakistan's landmass and has a population of 6.5 million, i.e. 4 per cent of Pakistan's population. Only 70 per cent of Baloch are in Pakistan, the reminder being in Iran and Afghanistan. All the 22 districts of Balochistan are currently impacted by insurgency incurring an estimated cost of Rs. 6 million every month to the Pak establishment, and also resulting in severe gas and power shortages in the country, especially in Punjab. Gas supplies from Sui, Loti and Pir Koh gas fields have been disrupted. Surface transport has been crippled. Three naval boats have so far been destroyed in Gwadar port. Railways have been compelled to operate only at night. So far, on at least a dozen occasions, railway tracks have been blown and on more than two dozens occasions gas pipelines have been targeted.
NWFP: North West Frontier Province (NWFP) with an area of 74,521 sq.km. and a population of approximately 24 million in addition to 3 million Afghan refugees, is a problem in perpetuity because of the Pashtuns, who straddle the Durand Line (2450-km-long Pakistan-Afghanistan border). The relations between the NWFP and the central government are increasingly becoming tenuous, as the majority of the population is averse to Pakistan's cooperation with the US against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. The area continues to be infested with fundamentalists and Islamic terrorists In fact, it is the fundamentalist Islamic parties that call shots in the province and lend all kinds of support to the remnants of Taliban.
PoK (NORTHERN AREAS): The Northern Areas comprising Gilgit and Baltistan have an area of 72,496 sq.km. and a population of 1.5 million, and is governed directly by the central government in Pakistan. In fact, the Northern Areas, which are actually a part of PoK, but incorporated in Pakistan, are five times of the area designated as Azad Kashmir. This area, culturally and linguistically much different from other parts of Pakistan, has been subjected to state-backed Sunni terrorism. The composition of the Northern Light Infantry Units is being re-engineered by the central government to make it Sunni dominant.
The Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), which witnessed devastating earthquake in which more than 70,000 people lost their lives, witnessed the administrative apathy of the central government in Pakistan with regard to the region. The Pakistan army unlike the Indian Army was unable to respond to the needs of the people—thus leaving much of the rescue and rehabilitation to 1000 NATO personnel and fundamentalist organisations like JuD.
Predicated on the situation in Pakistan, it can be averred that more than half the country has slipped into anarchy and the remaining may also follow if Islamabad does not carry out a drastic reassessment of its nationhood and statehood. In fact, Pakistan army is getting over- stretched owing to its commitments in internal security duties and deployment on its borders with India and Afghanistan. Internally, the anti-India catalyst that sustained Pakistan army is no longer effective. Even on the Afghanistan border the ISAF and Karzai are fiercely determined to defeat any attempt by Islamabad to re-export Taliban.
Today the internal instability within Pakistan is fast acquiring proportions that could lead to further break-up of the country—all due to sheer myopic policies pursued by its military junta. An external power today does not need to wage a war. It can simply exploit the precarious internal situation by using its intelligence agencies to attain the same objectives by fuelling the dissent through psywar and financial means. Fortunately, Pakistan has to contend with a benign power like India, which in the first instance created the former by magnanimously donating its land. Therefore, Islamabad instead of exporting hatred and destruction, should seek positive parity with India and others in terms of improving the quality of life of its citizens in an inclusive manner. Towards this Pakistan must:
In any society, it is the minorities that play the crucial role of moderation. Their existence is a safeguard against extreme tendencies. Pakistan lost the benefit of this natural societal instrument of balance early in its history. Once the minorities, more or less, were out of the way, Pakistan's Punjabi Sunni population, which not only constituted the majority but also controlled the instruments of power in the state, turned to killing Shias, expelling Ahmadiyas from Islam, denying basic rights to the Balochis, depriving Sind of water resources, and suppressing population in the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir including Northern Areas. Under the clouds of Talibanisation, this became further skewed when the women who constitute nearly half the population were denied education and practically incarcerated in their homes—thus further impairing the societal balance. Simultaneously, Pakistan army and the ISI persisted with their destructive spree by exporting terrorism to India, SE Asia, Central Asia, EU and America—all in the name of religion! In the comity of nations, one can hardly find a parallel to this inherent self-destructive proclivity.
Pakistan's Punjabi-dominated army in search of the elusive purity and to perpetuate its hold on power structures encourages the majority Punjabi Sunni population in its misadventures. In pursuit of power, the bogey of threat from India was conjured. In schools, children were indoctrinated to hate Indians. Therefore, the genesis of the Pakistan's present fault line lies in the diabolically engineered mindset that has created multiple fault lines and which have now coalesced into one deep and divisive fault line running right across the length of the country, threatening its virtual vivisection into two halves.
The first major setback to Pakistan occurred 24 years after inception when it lost 55 per cent of its population in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and almost half of its territory. Religion could not act as effective glue due to the insatiable avarice the Pakistan's Punjabi army displayed in its refusal to share legitimate power with the eastern wing. Islamabad conveniently blames New Delhi for this separation but a closer scrutiny of facts reveals otherwise. Between 1947 and 1970, whenever Pakistan chose to attack India, the strategically simple option available to India could have been to annex East Pakistan, which Islamabad was never in a position to defend effectively due to the vast geographical distances and consequently the enormous military logistics involved. Nevertheless, New Delhi absorbed Pakistan's attacks and localised it to its western front, never extending the war to the eastern theatre. With millions of refugees pouring into India in 1971, Islamabad made its position in East Pakistan untenable, and India was compelled to initiate positive action. Since occupation of territory was not the motive, Indian Army promptly withdrew after liberating Pakistan's eastern wing from the miseries and atrocities being perpetrated by the western wing on its own people.
In 1950s, Hans J. Morgenthau, the then Director of Center for the Study of American Foreign Policy at University of Chicago, in his book The New Republic had observed, "Pakistan is not a nation and hardly a state. It has no justification, ethnic origin, language, civilisation or the consciousness of those who make up its population. They have no interest in common except one: fear of Hindu domination. It is to that fear and nothing else that Pakistan poses its existence and thus for survival as an independent state." During the same period, another American scholar Keith Callard in his book Pakistan—A Political Study commented, "The force behind the establishment of Pakistan was largely the feeling of insecurity." Both these scholars missed out on some vital aspects that can be attributed to the "fear of Hindu domination" and "insecurity". First, creation of Pakistan was an Anglo-Saxon mischief to protect their vested strategic interests. Second, the land bestowed to create Pakistan was separated amicably without war. Third, the western powers, (and China that uses Pakistan as a proxy against India) fuelled these imagined fears that only created the effect of exacerbating latter's psychological fault line. Therefore, explanations like "fear of Hindu domination" and "insecurity" and other excuses as justification are used as psywar tool to disguise Islamabad's treachery against New Delhi since 1947. Indian Political Right does not indulge in 'export of terrorism' or 'suicide bombers' as an instrument of foreign policy!
After the break-up of Pakistan in 1971, West Pakistan should have emerged as a more cohesive unit—geographically, politically, economically and in orientation. However 33 years hence, nearly 55 per cent of Pakistan's area is witnessing vicious insurgencies, which, if not controlled, could lead to further vivisection of the country. Most of the population in these areas, i.e. Waziristan, Balochistan, NWFP, and Northern Areas (Gilgit and Baltistan) in PoK has been historically difficult to control and administer. This notwithstanding, ever since Musharraf's ascension to power, these areas have slipped from peripheral disquiet to intense insurgencies. Normal governance in these areas has collapsed and is being held only by military force. These multiple fault lines as explained subsequently, if not adequately addressed, can lead to internal strife and break-up of Pakistan.
The Pakistan government has also been using money to buy the allegiance of tribal leaders. Recently, the corps commander Lt. Gen. Safdar Hussain has publicly admitted to having paid Rs. 32 million (US $ 5,40,000) to some tribal leaders for severing their links with Al-Qaeda and Taliban.
BALOCHISTAN: The Balochistan province constitutes 44 per cent (347,190 sq. km.) of Pakistan's landmass and has a population of 6.5 million, i.e. 4 per cent of Pakistan's population. Only 70 per cent of Baloch are in Pakistan, the reminder being in Iran and Afghanistan. All the 22 districts of Balochistan are currently impacted by insurgency incurring an estimated cost of Rs. 6 million every month to the Pak establishment, and also resulting in severe gas and power shortages in the country, especially in Punjab. Gas supplies from Sui, Loti and Pir Koh gas fields have been disrupted. Surface transport has been crippled. Three naval boats have so far been destroyed in Gwadar port. Railways have been compelled to operate only at night. So far, on at least a dozen occasions, railway tracks have been blown and on more than two dozens occasions gas pipelines have been targeted.
NWFP: North West Frontier Province (NWFP) with an area of 74,521 sq.km. and a population of approximately 24 million in addition to 3 million Afghan refugees, is a problem in perpetuity because of the Pashtuns, who straddle the Durand Line (2450-km-long Pakistan-Afghanistan border). The relations between the NWFP and the central government are increasingly becoming tenuous, as the majority of the population is averse to Pakistan's cooperation with the US against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. The area continues to be infested with fundamentalists and Islamic terrorists In fact, it is the fundamentalist Islamic parties that call shots in the province and lend all kinds of support to the remnants of Taliban.
PoK (NORTHERN AREAS): The Northern Areas comprising Gilgit and Baltistan have an area of 72,496 sq.km. and a population of 1.5 million, and is governed directly by the central government in Pakistan. In fact, the Northern Areas, which are actually a part of PoK, but incorporated in Pakistan, are five times of the area designated as Azad Kashmir. This area, culturally and linguistically much different from other parts of Pakistan, has been subjected to state-backed Sunni terrorism. The composition of the Northern Light Infantry Units is being re-engineered by the central government to make it Sunni dominant.
The Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), which witnessed devastating earthquake in which more than 70,000 people lost their lives, witnessed the administrative apathy of the central government in Pakistan with regard to the region. The Pakistan army unlike the Indian Army was unable to respond to the needs of the people—thus leaving much of the rescue and rehabilitation to 1000 NATO personnel and fundamentalist organisations like JuD.
Predicated on the situation in Pakistan, it can be averred that more than half the country has slipped into anarchy and the remaining may also follow if Islamabad does not carry out a drastic reassessment of its nationhood and statehood. In fact, Pakistan army is getting over- stretched owing to its commitments in internal security duties and deployment on its borders with India and Afghanistan. Internally, the anti-India catalyst that sustained Pakistan army is no longer effective. Even on the Afghanistan border the ISAF and Karzai are fiercely determined to defeat any attempt by Islamabad to re-export Taliban.
Today the internal instability within Pakistan is fast acquiring proportions that could lead to further break-up of the country—all due to sheer myopic policies pursued by its military junta. An external power today does not need to wage a war. It can simply exploit the precarious internal situation by using its intelligence agencies to attain the same objectives by fuelling the dissent through psywar and financial means. Fortunately, Pakistan has to contend with a benign power like India, which in the first instance created the former by magnanimously donating its land. Therefore, Islamabad instead of exporting hatred and destruction, should seek positive parity with India and others in terms of improving the quality of life of its citizens in an inclusive manner. Towards this Pakistan must:
- Seek positive parity with India, i.e. with regard to human development. Negative parity will bleed Pakistan in human and economic terms.
- Realise that Pakistani statehood has remained vulnerable due to flawed nation-building policies, e.g. Punjabi domination, which constitutes 58 per cent of the total population.
- Realise that army can be a symbol of nationhood and an instrument and not the state itself.
- Realise that Islamic terrorists are a double-edged weapon and can never get Pakistan its illusive nationhood and statehood.
- Realise that by attempting to engineer history, the future is rendered in jeopardy.
- Realise that Pakistan has the potential to be a positive role model for other Islamic countries.
It is a well-known fact that a large number of Islamic countries are bestowed with extraordinary oil wealth that drives the world economy. If the terror factory of Pakistan and other Islamic fundamentalist institutions had used this wealth to educate and modernise their societies and to improve the quality of human resources in the early eighties, at the dawn of the 21st century, it would have emerged as a modern, powerful and positive entity in the world arena without firing a single shot! Pakistan's establishment therefore must realise that its possible vivisection, due to its flawed policies, may deal a fatal blow to the very Islamic cause, that it purports to countenance and guide. (The writer is editor, Indian Defence Review.)
No comments:
Post a Comment