The India-Pakistani saga reached boiling point in the past few months, post Kargil, post Lahore, post Agra, post 9/11.
Nuclear conflict was a realistic possibility, and for the first time in human history, two nations threatened to annhilate
one another and its peoples, in blatant disregard for human life, achievement, history, and the human future. It is not
my intent to put the blame on any of the two sides. However, there have been occasions, when oe or the other side
has been at fault clearly, from my perspective anyway, and i wont hesitate to point it out, politically incorrect though
it may be. Post 9/11, the liberalist notion of political correctness has to give way to the 'no-spin' notion of American
rightwingers. Its time, as the Prez has said, to take sides...to take sides decisively.
The Indo-Pak conflict outdates the notions of 'terror', Osama, special-ops, Axis of Evil and even Saddam. Its a 50 year
conflict between 2 nations, but in reality its part of a larger conflict between 2 peoples which has lasted centuries.
It is my intention to put this conflict in proper perspective. After 9/11, there has been a tendency to start and end any
discussion related to Islamic terrorism and also terrorism supported by so called Islamic countries with 'Al-Qaida'
, indeed a very naive and outright incorrect notion. I will limit this discussion to the Indo-Pak conflict though, and leave
discussing global terrorism elsewhere. In the sections and subsections below, i lead up to what i consider key events
that lead to the stage when 2 nuclear neighbours threatened each other with annhilation. I must confess, all my comments
are based on newspaper reports, editorials, books and a few stimulating discussions with friends. Almost none of my
knowledge comes from 'inside sources', but i hope that this will be appreciated as a honest effort to achieve what i intend
achieve. I hope i'll be able to rid myself of many of the unfounded prejudices that jaundice my vision.
The land-mass east of the Indus and south of the Himalayas, stretching all the way upto the Indian ocean in the south
and the Bay of Bengal in the east consituted a separate identity of people from time immemorial. Indeed even today,
a casual observer can note the differences in culture and traits as one crosses the Khyber pass into what is now Pak
and further down into India, the Punjab, and then further south of the Vindhyas. The people who inhibit this land, in spite
of barriers of religion, language and climatic variations definitely share something more subtle, more fundamental - culture.
At various stages in the history of this land, one or the other of these regional powers has dominated 'India'. Each is guilty
of mis-rule and carrying out unsaid attrocities on the rest of the land during its reign. Even then, today there is no apparant
animosity arisng out of such previous unwelcome acts.(Shiv Sena and gujaratis). The true unifying forces in modern India
have been, in two stages, the mughal empire, and then the british empire. The Hindu kingdoms never held sufficient sway
for any reasonable period of times to instill any unifying influence in the peoples. Even under the two modern empires, there
is a distinct North-South divide. This devide is apparant in the 1857 mutiny, in the parallel moghul empire in the south
(Nizamshahi), and in modern times, it manifests itself in the progress south India has made technologically and in welfare
programs. In spite of Hyderabad, the south of India is more shielded from the moghul influence than the north is. Moghul
rule was bitterly opposed by local warlords like Shivaji, and they resisted and capitulated only to the british, not to the moghuls.
In the north however, Hindu kingdoms gave rise to Muslim kingdoms after direct conflict or takeover. The Moghul empire lasted
for more than 3 centuries in north India, and by the time it collapsed, Delhi was the de-facto capital of Moghul aspirations.
The fabric of the society was by then so modified as to accomodate both the religions, hinduism and islam, in more or less
harmonic terms. This didnt happen in the south, where Islam was and still is a minority religion, and exists in pockets on the
periphery of society. Apart from hyderabad, no big city is a 'muslim' city. On the other hand vast concentrations of Muslim
populations were established, and were part of the mainstream society in many cities and towns in north India. Due to this
lop sided distribution of a significant component of society, the seeds of partition were laid.
However this process of assimilation of muslims and hindus, or rather of the two cultures was going on, slowly but surely
in pre-british India. Wars were faught between kingdoms as they always were, even before the advent of the Moghuls,
kingdoms captured, treasuries looted. It was vintage India, absolute chaos and mayhem, with intervals of peace and
tranquility. Given time, the lopsided distrbution of two peoples would have evened out, resulting in a homogeneous mixture of
a single people. It was by this time, as Akbar established the Moghul empire, Maratha Nationalist aspirations set up the rebel
kingdom, and the Nizam took over Hyderabad, that Western civilisation set foot on Indian shores.