I will just speak and speak and speak and you may hear me and talk back to me. So long...
India should watch her back!
Published on January 3, 2004 By olikara In Blogging
I'm not sure how many of you there are keeping tabs on this, but the Indian Prime Minister is in Pakistan from today to attend the SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation).

Pakistan was formed in 1947 when Colonial India was partitioned(overseen by the British) into secular India and an Islamic Pakistan. It was largely the congress (under Gandhi) who fought for Indian Independence. The British played the ancient game of 'Divide & Rule' by playing of sections of Islamists against the largely Hindu but secular congress. These Islamists(called the Muslim League) led by Mr. M.A. Jinnah laid the foundations of todays Pakistan.

Hindus who constituted nearly 30% of Pkistan were driven from their homes and today the only Hindus left behind are rare as museum artefacts. There was migration of Muslims( and in many cases forced migration) from India to Pakistan, but the large majority of them stayed behind. Today India has a Muslim president who also happens to be one of the architects of her space & missile defence program.

From 1947, it was drummed into the heads of 3 generations of Pakistanis that Hindus and Muslims are different. Their 1500 years of existence together was almost obliterated from Pakistani history books. Why was this done? This was done precisely because if the public asked that Hindus & Muslims have lived together for so long why did you create a separate state for us?
The Pakistani ruling elite(read the military and landowning classes) would have no answer. They were taught all along to hate India and what it stood for. It hated (& still hates) a muslim majority Kashmir remaining with India, as they have never been able to understand or tolerate the dynamics of a secular state.

Taking advantage of America's obsession with Afghanistan they started stealing and buying parts for their nuclear bomb which they now possess and harp upon, threatining to use it against India, conveniently forgetting that an Indian second strike would remove Pakistan from the world map.

I firmly believe that the present peace overtures being made by pakistan is just a ploy. Today they are in an unenviable position where the world knows them as a training ground for Jehadis of all shades. Osama is still supposed to be around near Quetta (in Balochistan, North Pakistan). Their nuclear program is under scrutiny with 3 prominent scientists being questioned for passing on weapons information to Iran.

Their economy is in dire straits too. India's earning from IT and outsourcing will exceed the total GDP of Pakistan by 2008.

The pakistanis want to cool off now. For them peace has always been an interlude between two wars. This peace move is just one. There can be NO peace between India & pakistan. Why?

The very definition of Pakistan opposes this. Pakistan was created because it's founding fathers believed that there could be no friendship ever between Hindus & Muslims. If ever these peace moves bear fruit, tell me, what happens to the Pakistan raison-d'etre.

Last time in 1999 when Vajpayee went to Lahore to meet the now deposed Nawaz Sharif, the Pakistanis were upto their necks in Kargil.

India lost over 600 men to reconquer the kargil heights.

If the Indians do not keep their powder dry this time, they will lose many more.


Comments
on Jan 03, 2004
A brief historical overview of the conquest of India by Moslems is at http://www.fsmitha.com/h3/h09ind.htm. The Moslem and Sikh peoples living in Northern India benefited from British rule. The author's conclusion, true now as in the 14th century, is that "In the coming centuries India would fall behind western Europe in industry, as well as agriculture, and what would be leaving India would be emigrants."

Both India and Pakistan suffer from overpopulation, the lack of an economic base and their leading intellectuals fleeing their respective countries. This has been so for generations. So the leadership of both countries distracts their populations by rattling sabers at their neighbors.
on Jan 05, 2004
Larry,
This is from the website you referred to:
"By the 13th century many trade guilds were disappearing, and many trade connections were coming to a close. Goods leaving India's southern shores, like other Indian overseas trading, were passing into the hands of Muslims. It added up to something less than a significant growth in India's merchant and middle class. Despite the intelligence of the Indian people, opportunities for economic advance and upward mobility were weak. Rather than India becoming a power that was to journey and extend its influence abroad, foreigners were to continue coming to it. In the coming centuries India would fall behind western Europe in industry, as well as agriculture, and what would be leaving India would be emigrants. "

Today in the 21st century India is well on the way out of this rut that it fell into(largely for faults of it's own). But today India is:
1. After China the worlds's largest single market.
2. All major corporations have R&D centers in India. The Intelligence of the Indian people is showing up here.
3. Zooming upward mobility... note the increase in penetration of mobile phones, computers, et al. Today new highways are coming up in all the 4 corners of India and moving goods from one end to another has never been easier.
4. Yes, agriculture is an area where India still largely depends on the monsoons..but admit it, Larry since the 1950s there has been NOT 1 famine in India. Today none dies of starvation here. That is important. There is a plan to link important rivers in India so that rivers draining into the sea can irrigate the arid areas before doing so.
5. Realising that to make itself heard in the world it has to have a strong economy and an equally strong army to guard that economy to ensure that outsiders do not carry away India's gold as in the past.

Indian still immigrate to the West in search of better opportunity(many of them are brilliant engineers who staff NASA and Microsoft) but this has to be seen in terms of the todays globalisation. Many of these Indians have started coming back to invest money and their experience in Indian businesses and institutions.

But it would be unwise to deny that in the next 10 years India will re-emerge as a great economic power that it once was.

Take a look at this site(one among many):-
http://in.rediff.com/money/2004/jan/03guest.htm