118 Responses to “Indian Reactions”

1. conradg, on November 11th, 2008 at 4:14 pm Said:

   Diplomatic issues aside, I’m curious as to why you seem to sympathize with India efforts to avoid the “balkanization” of their country. I thought you were all in favor of balkanization, both in the balkans and the rest of the world.

   Let’s face it, whatever one thinks of India, Kashmir is a mess. It’s 90% Muslim, no one there wants to remain part of India, and yet the Indians are in complete denial of it, and pretend the issue is a closed book. This is why I have for years felt that Kashmir is the place a nuclear war will one day break out, because there is no acknowledgment of these realities on either side. I don’t know whether putting attention on this sore spot is a good thing or not, whether Obama is approaching it correctly or not, but it seems to me that something needs to be done in Kashmir at some point, because it is only going to get worse and worse until someday it explodes in nuclear flames.

2. Daniel Larison, on November 11th, 2008 at 4:30 pm Said:

   In international relations, I am generally not in favor of revisionism. The breakup of India, were that to happen, would be the cause of many wars, refugee crises and humanitarian disasters. All things being equal, I would ideally like to see a world of smaller states, more decentralization and fewer centralized nation-states on the scale of India, but the costs that would come with the breakup of India would be far too high to justify encouraging that process. For our own interests, as well as those of the people in India and the region, we should want relative stability and peace there.

   There is no question that Kashmir’s status has to be resolved and the situation on the Indian side needs to be improved, but that is only going to happen peacefully if and when a consensus emerges inside India to come to terms with the repression of the Kashmiris and finds some way to accommodate their demands.

   U.S. mediation muddies the waters considerably. India might very readily point to U.S. backing of maximal Georgian claims on separatist regions and demand to be treated no differently; Kashmiri separatists might invoke Kosovo and demand the same recognition from Washington. U.S. involvement complicates things far too much and delays the day when a settlement will be possible. It is precisely because the situation in Kashmir cannot go unaddressed by India and Pakistan that Washington should not be trying to force the issue before both sides are prepared to come to terms. We should definitely not be trying to force a resolution as a way to buy Pakistani help to do things that their government should already be willing to do in exchange for our extensive aid.

3. nyx, on November 11th, 2008 at 4:42 pm Said:

   Like Daniel said, solutions to the Kashmiri problem can only come internally from India and Pakistan. With increased prosperity, questions are already arising in India about what to do with Kashmir, a question once considered anathema and Manmohan Singh’s government has already made good and quiet progress on this issue with Pakistan. Ironically, outsourcing has created an interest in political stability (which was why all the saber rattling in 2002 from the Indian government caused a public backlash) and economic stability would create an opportunity to change the consensus on Kashmir. The Indian government is slave to Indian public opinion so if Indian public opinion starts demanding a solution to Kashmir, the Indian government would comply. I was happy to see the consensus slowly shift but a stupid naive move from Obama would really set this shift in intellectual opinion back another 10 years.

4. Daniel Larison, on November 11th, 2008 at 4:51 pm Said:

   The thing that I find so frustrating about this idea is that it would do nothing to change Pakistani military behavior towards the Taliban even if the Indians were entirely on board with settling the dispute with our mediation. Instead of pressuring the Pakistani government to see internal causes of instability as the greatest threat to its country, this entire approach, assuming that it was feasible, would reward the Pakistani military for foot-dragging in fighting the Taliban. If the U.S. is willing to push the Indians to give concessions on Kashmir at great cost to the U.S.-Indian relationship, what else might it be willing to offer to get the Pakistanis to take action? Why not hold out for more? It’s a bad idea, and I hope for all our sakes that this has been a trial balloon that has now been very clearly shot down by the Indians.

5. conradg, on November 11th, 2008 at 5:29 pm Said:

   Well, seeing as these remarks occurred weeks ago in an offhand manner, I’m not even sure they represent a trial balloon, much less an actual policy proposal. It may just be Obama thinking out loud about various problems in the world. We will see what his actual policy becomes when he takes office. I don’t expect it to be a top priority in the near term.

   But I’m not so sure that the solution to Kashmir will come internally, at least not without some stimulus from without. It really is a destabilizing problem, more so for India, because as he says, India is advancing into the modern world much more quickly than Pakistan, and this problem is more of a drag on it than it is on Pakistan, which has far worse prospects in any case. I’m glad to hear that India is beginning to think seriously of letting go of Kashmir. I don’t really see how it can hold onto it forever. And I think the fears of this resulting in a violent balkanization of India is exagerrated, though I do respect Daniel’s respect for peaceful continuity even if it sacrifices local autonomy. Which is why I think the solution is gradual withdrawal from Kashmir and granting greater autonomy in exchange for peace with Pakistan. Not really all that impossible if one puts aside a bit of ego. India as a culture is a great and wonderful smorgasboorg, but as a country it’s more a political fiction that may not survive the century. I’m actually in favor of Daniels balkanization project, if it were to come about peacefully, which isn’t impossible. Giant nation states are not truly workable human environments for cultural growth. But that’s another issue entirely.

6. ducinaltum, on November 11th, 2008 at 7:35 pm Said:

   Last night in my Indian Economy class (I’m in the MPP programme at the Lee Kuan Yew School in Singapore) our professor, Sanjaya Baru, former media advisor to the Indian PM- told us that Joe Biden, before he got the VP nod, warned the Indian PM to pass the Nuclear treaty while Bush was in office because if/when Obama won- it would not happen.

   Most of the NRI’s in my class have been pretty ecstatic about the Obama win, most of the actual Indians however, not so much.

7. nagee76, on November 11th, 2008 at 9:57 pm Said:

   conradg,
   I wish you could stop talking about India like you were an expert or something. I got to say you reveal your ignorance.

   India is not “letting go” of Kashmir - not now, not tomorrow, not ever. The ignorance of people who comment on this issue is really remarkable.It may come as a shock to you, but the first Prime Minister of India was a Kashmiri. A Kashmiri Pandit. Yeah that guy who was called the light of Asia by Winston Churchill.

   Kashmir today is majority Muslim just like it was in 1947. How ever the land predates Islam itself. And it was a Hindu majority region until the mid 14th century when Islamic rulers invaded India.

   Ever since its Islamic conquest, its ethnic makeup has changed. It still had Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists co-existing peacefully as Kashmiri’s are more into Sufi Islam as opposed to hard edged Sunni Islam - until of course India was partitioned in 1947.

   The partition was the greatest tragedy to hit India in terms of loss of life, land, liberty and a bitterness that lingers till day. India never came grips with the loss of 2/5ths of its territory and most definitely was not going to roll over on Kashmir either.

   Every one in India knows that the Central Govt was brutal in suppressing the freedom movement. But this is so 1989. In the last 10 years, the State of Jammu and Kashmir has had peaceful and well recognized elections to its State Govt - it is perfect by no means but it stands representative of those people who are willing to give democracy a chance.

   There is still an uneasiness in the Valley over religious and ethnic differences - this is to be expected. It is not going to vanish any time soon. At the same time, the Govt of India has bent over backwards to make sure that Kashmiris get special recognition in the Union - in fact, you cannot even purchase property in this state if you are not Kashmiri yourself.

   Your comments about India not being a political fiction that wouldnt survive the end of the century are nothing more than a joke. Have you EVER lived in India? for an extended period of time ? India’s mindboggling diversity has withstood far greater challenges than mere territorial disputes. Where exactly do people get the authority to make such grandoise predictions on subject matters they know very little about ?

   If you think India should let go off Kashmir, I am pretty sure that you would have wanted Lincoln to let go off the Confederate States too. As Ron Paul pointed out the other day, ” why not just buy the slaves” and then declare them free once they got into the North?

   Or at the very least Lincoln should have called for a plebiscite to see how many Southern States wanted to be with the Union. Instead we got a bloody war that tore this nation apart, left gaping wounds that have taken centuries to come close to healing.

   And yet you are asking India to “let go off” Kashmir. Yeah, sure.

8. conradg, on November 12th, 2008 at 4:38 am Said:

   nagee,

   I appreciate your input, but it was nyx who said that India was moving towards letting Kashmir go, not me. I was just responding to his opinion. I am not an India expert, and I could be wrong about India surviving intact through the end of this century. The fact is, although Hindu culture has an extremely long history, there never existed an actual nation-state called “India” until 1947, and as you see, this came about only through much tragic violence. Previously, all of India was a hugely diverse collection of largely disparate cultures, languages, customs, religions, and people, none of whom identified themselves as “Indian”. India, in that sense, is a modern British colonial invention not native to the land. There’s no real comparison to the American system, unless the British had simply killed off or pushed out all the native Indians, and colonized the country themselves, as happened in America. Yes, our civil war was a bloody and terrible thing, and some think a big mistake, but at least the peoples of the North and South were of the same ethnic and cultural background, almost all being British or northern European immigrants, sharing the same language, the same general values, and the same religion. The same simply can’t be said of India, which has what, 14-16 offical languages, and hundreds of unofficial dialects? Sure, a country like this could hold together for a while due to simple inertia, and the lack of a consensus for what kind of change would actually improve things, but I have reason to doubt it will remain unchanged for a century or more. I understand the Indian attachment to Kashmir, but really, is it realistic? It would be like the United States trying to hold onto Puerto Rico if the vast majority who lived there wanted Independence. We simply couldn’t justify holding on to ourselves or to the Puerto Ricans. It’s not me who is asking India to let go of Kashmir, it’s the Kashmiris.

   As for Nehru coming from Kashmir, this has about as much relevance as Stalin coming from Georgia, which as you must know is now an independent state. The Hindu-dominant parts of India have a better chance of holding together than the Soviet Union did, but those that are culturally distinct perhaps not. In any case, I welcome your more informed opinion, but I also urge you to be realistic rather than pretending everything is going smoothly in Kashmir.

9. KXB, on November 12th, 2008 at 11:12 am Said:

   While C. Raja Mohan is correct that there has been a peace process between India and Pakistan, and terrorism has gone down in Kashmir, it has increased in the rest of India. Almost as soon as the seasons change, there is another attack on civilians, the most recent being 60 people killed in Assam in a series of car bombings. The problem for India, is that even if it reached a deal with Pakistan, there is no reason to believe such acts would decrease. There are too many groups within Pakistan, and also Bangladesh, which act independently of their central governments. The fear New Delhi has is a domino effect - that if they let one part of India go, soon other groups, most likely in the NE states, will be next. New Delhi is very willing to redraw internal borders, but not external ones.

10. nyx, on November 12th, 2008 at 11:46 am Said:

    nagee76, calm down! We are not Obama’s advisers so don’t get so hot and bothered. I did say that India was thinking seriously about Kashmir for once and I was not making it up - Outlook India dedicated a whole issue to the topic of Kashmir and Here are some oarticles on the Kashmiri matter that ran a while ago.

11. mkd, on November 12th, 2008 at 12:33 pm Said:

    I am an American who lived in India for eight years during the rise of the BJP and Hindutva. It surprises me not to find among the comments here any mention of Hindutva in reference to India’s desire to “hold on” to Kashmir. Almost every Hindu I met regarded the partition of 1947 as an act of unspeakable sacrilege — never to be forgotten, much less forgiven. Both old and young, emboldened by Hindutva and the drift of RSS “idealism” into mainstream political thinking, were openly critical of Mahatma Ghandi, ahimsa, Nehru, India’s “plurality” and “tolerance”, etc. Several spoke of the partition as “butchering the body of Mother India.” For these Hindus, India is Bharata Varsha, Land of Light, whole and sacred. Therefore, nagee76 is right to bring up the partition of in this context.

    I see the question of Kashmir, like the Jew’s “God-given homeland” of Israel, as more than political. Predominantly Hindu India does not want Kashmir to be “cut” from the “sacred body” of “Mother” India. This feeling in the hearts of millions of Indians won’t be legislated away, thus I can’t imagine what the “solution” might be.

    PS: I will readily admit that I am not nearly as well versed in politics as Mr. Larison and the other commenters here. My viewpoint is based merely on personal observation after living in India (as an English teacher).

12. Daniel Larison, on November 12th, 2008 at 12:54 pm Said:

    Thanks for your comment. You’re right to bring up Hindutva. Certainly within the nationalist party, which derives much of its popular following and ideology from Hindutva and RSS activism (Advani being particularly attached to the RSS), this is very important to how they see all of Indian history. As I understand it, Hindu nationalism is strongest in north-central India, and the BJP has not been able to expand its appeal beyond its core region. If I recall correctly, the only way it was able to maintain its coalition in the ’90s was through an alliance with a number of regional parties. So Hindutva is a powerful religious-cum-nationalist force in Indian politics, and it would probably be a major obstacle to any deal, but its reach inside India is also limited. I was alluding to some of this with my references to the nationalists, but it was not stated clearly how strong the opposition would be.

13. mkd, on November 12th, 2008 at 2:23 pm Said:

    You’re right, Daniel, Hindu nationalism is strongest in north-central India. Yet in the south (where I lived), I encountered much approval of the BJP — at least among Hindus I had political discussions with*. Even in the communist state of Kerala, many were attracted to the Hindutva movement.

    Sadly, I can’t imagine acts of terrorism and more communal violence to be ending any time soon.

    Will matters get worse with the effects of a U.S. recession on the new high-tech “middle class”?

    *What surprised me most was the hatred for Mahatma Gandhi I encountered among young academics and business men.

14. Daniel Larison, on November 12th, 2008 at 2:39 pm Said:

    That’s interesting. That reminds me of a conversation I had with a Bengali, who told me she greatly admired Advani. I think it was partly her disgust with the Bengali communists translating into sympathy with the nationalists, but it could have conceivably had something to do with communal tensions. I suppose the events of the last few years in Gujarat and the spate of attacks around the country may be having a radicalizing effect far beyond the BJP heartland.

    The attitude towards Gandhi seems surprising at first, but unless I am off the mark this is a classic example of how prominent compromise figures are hated as sell-outs far more than members of the other community.

15. mkd, on November 12th, 2008 at 3:28 pm Said:

    Yes, their attitude was “Gandhi allowed Mother India to be butchered to appease foreigners, i.e. the Muslims.” For their religion-fueled nationalism, it invoked a kind of rage. Their hero, the man they felt should have become the proper “father” of modern India, was Subhas Chandra Bose.

    Actually, the most ardent Bose admirers I met were in the south.

    For the most part I shied away from discussing politics with Indians, though talk of politics (and religion) is apparently the soul of life for many! In fact, there were times (as one afternoon when I passed president Clinton being burned in effigy by a group of leftist students — interestingly, it was on Mahatma Gandhi Road in Trivandrum, Kerala) I was reluctant to identify myself as an American for fear of my safety.

    By the way, your blog is one of the very best for political opinion I’ve found in the vastness of the internet. Kudos.

16. Daniel Larison, on November 12th, 2008 at 3:41 pm Said:

    Thanks very much. I’m curious about your experience in Kerala. Did you have many dealings with members of the Mar Thoma church while you were there? If so, what were their political views like?

17. mkd, on November 12th, 2008 at 4:58 pm Said:

    Yes, I knew members of the Mar Thoma church. They were friendly and out-going, though less inclined to discuss politics than Hindus. (I met few Muslims, though I saw mosques in some cities, and enjoyed walking around the Muslim — and Jewish — districts of Cochin. It fascinated me how clean the Muslim neighborhoods were.) The Mar Thoma Christians I knew were quite open-minded. In fact, I was surprised by their strong interest in traditional Hindu culture, from classical music and dance, to ayurvedic medicine. I knew one man, a Catholic, who adamantly believed Jesus “died” in Kashmir.

    To get back to your question, most Christians I knew supported the Congress Party, and were strongly, though never militantly, anti-communist. Some attributed Kerala’s high literacy rate as much to the communists as to the church! I myself wondered if the environment (less polluted than most of the country) had not unknowingly benefited from the communists in that there was less industry. (Capitalists don’t want to deal with the unions, I guess, which tended to “call” for regular strikes, some of which would shut down the entire state.) It is a fascinating place, with all kinds of historical and cultural influences.

18. nagee76, on November 12th, 2008 at 7:01 pm Said:

    conradg, nyx
    Sorry if i came across as rude or too angry. Full disclosure, i am from India and i didnt like the tone of some of the comments - especially the one that questioned the very idea of India as a political entity.

    I would also like to thank mkd for bringing up the topic of Hindutva. I will get to this later and how it affects the Kashmir issue.

    First off, for those people who think that India is only 60 years old as a political entity - you could not be more wrong. This country is more than an imperfect British mish mash of regions. When India’s freedom movement was fought, it’s support was national.

    India was always held together by its predominantly Hindu ethos and culture. Yes there are more languages than i care to count, but they either derive from Sanskrit (most North Indian languages do) or are distinct like Tamil ( my language).

    We have also had similar interest in the arts, music and literature and a realization of how important they are to civil society no matter in what language, these works are rendered in.

    Long story short, there are a lot of things that unite Indians no matter how diverse the country looks at the outset. This country has survived worse and will persevere.

    As far as Hindutva goes, there are a lot of misconceptions about its origins and what it stands for. The easy and the lazy analysis is that it is mostly a Hindu/religious movement that has a nationalist flavor to it.

    But more than anything else, it was a counter to the Muslim vote bank politics practised by the Indian National Congress ( the chief political party in India, the one that Gandhi, Nehru and all freedom fighters belonged to)

    The single biggest catalyst to the Hindutva movement was the famous Shah Bano case in the mid 80’s - you can Google this to get more infomation. This was the case of a 60 year old Muslim woman who was divorced by her husband and who subsequently refused to pay her alimony. Muslim personal law allows you to do that - or atleast thats how Muslim experts interpreted it.

    India’s Supreme Court ruled that Shah Bano deserved to be paid alimony, by invoked a section of the Constitution that provides equal protection regardless of religion - only to be over ruled by a Congress led legislature. Rajiv Gandhi was PM then. Of course he bowed down to pressure from Muslim groups who saw this as a violation of their religious freedom and threatened nation wide agitations.

    This didnt go well with the Hindu community as this was rightly construed as special law for Muslims - Hindu men would nt be able to divorce without paying alimony. In the name of diversity and keeping the peace, post Partition India decided to keep separate personal/religious laws for different religions. And it back fired badly in the Shah Bano case.

    The Congress was seen as pandering to the Muslim vote (which is reliably pro-Congress) and positively backward - how could you allow a 62 year old woman go without getting alimony in a supposedly free and democratic society ?

    This was rightly decried as pseudo secularism and coalesced Hindu support for the BJP - Bharatiya Janata Party (Indian People Party). Along came the populist issue of Babri Masjid ( a mosque that supposedly was built on the ruins of an Hindu temple destroyed by Muslim invaders) and the BJP rode this issue to victory in the polls in 89. Of course it took a good 7 years later to assemble a coalition that could form a govt at the Center - but it was Shah Bano and the 80’s that propelled the BJP to be a counter to the Indian National Congress.

    Today India has real messy coalitions - all because of the rise of the BJP and regional political parties.

    Long story short - Hindutva arose as a nationalist protest movement that was sick of the Congress pandering to the Muslim vote. There was/is a great yearning in the country for a show of unity amidst the mind boggling diversity. The BJP promised a Uniform Civil Code that would basically bring Indians under one law instead of treating them with different personal laws.

    As far as Kashmir goes, most Indians are not in a mood to give up any more territory - for starters a third of Kashmir is under Pakistani control - the war of 1948 resulted in some territorial gains for them. The 1962 war with China resulted in India losing out what is now known as Aksai Chin - this shares a border with China.

    But more importantly the Hindu minority has basically been ethnically cleansed out of Kashmir - this happened after the Partition.

    If you want my take, these are wounds that are too deep to heal too quickly. But as they say, time heals everything. I dont see any other solution to the Kashmiri problem other than India agreeing to a plebiscite. ( Pakistan will never give up on its claims on Kashmir - it has a HUGE self identity problem that may never go away. It cannot imagine a Muslim majority state in India - that would make the concept of Pakistan a lie - after all the country was created to protect “Indian Muslim” interests)

    But Kashmir also is a great source of water - that one national asset that is scarce every where else in India. The Govt is simply not going to give this away.

    Just like other intractable problems, people need to understand that the key to peace is that both sides need to feel that they arent the ones on the losing side. This is something that can only be arrived at if there is more co-operation and people to people contact between the two sides. Any external intervention, how ever well intentioned it may be is only going to be cause for irritation.

    Sorry i ve rambled on for too long - I hope that America understands that this is a very complex problem with a lot of ghosts from the past haunting both sides. Caution is there fore advised.

19. mkd, on November 12th, 2008 at 7:33 pm Said:

    “I hope that America understands that this is a very complex problem with a lot of ghosts from the past haunting both sides. Caution is therefore advised.” Well said, nagee76. Sadly, America’s behavior in the Middle East shows all too clearly that we as a nation are not inclined to understand or even pay much attention to the ghosts that haunt older civilizations. And we are anything but cautious.

    As for Hindutva, I’m sure it is politically more complex than simply a Hindu religious movement with a nationalist flavor.
    During my years in India, I was mainly aware of its radical and sometimes violent side through newspapers and conversations with persons on trains. I once met a fanatical member of Shiv Sena and had the good sense to keep my mouth shut!

20. DaveA, on November 12th, 2008 at 7:34 pm Said:

    nagee76, for what it’s worth, and I’m just another commenter here, you can ramble on all you want. I’ve learned more about India, Pakistan and Kashmir reading these India-related threads in the last day than I did in 18 years in school. What a mess. I wish all parties involved the best of luck in finding some kind of solution that doesn’t involve a lot of people getting killed.

21. conradg, on November 12th, 2008 at 7:47 pm Said:

    nagee76,

    Thanks for your observations from the inside. It’s valuable to get that kind of context. But I must still disagree with your notion that India was a unified political entity before the British came. As far as I know, it was not. I’m a big admirer of India’s vast and diverse culture, and its remarkably tolerant attitude, and I very much like much of the Vedanta and the huge religious umbrella it represents to virtually every religious tradition and sect native to the subcontinent, but I don’t see that it was ever a politically unifed nation before 1947. If it had been, it perhaps would have been able to resist the moghul invaders as well as the British colonialists. Now, it’s true that the resistance to British colonialism in the 19th and 20th centuries, in the wake of Rao and Vivekananda, took its vision from a notion of a single Indian culture, but this was in many respects a useful fiction that is still in the processing of trying to become a reality. Certainly it has not unifed muslim and hindus very successfully, as both partitiion and ongoing violence suggests. But it has indeed made great strides in trying to create some kind of workable nation-state out of what was previously a vast assortment of principalities and disconnected political entities which were only forced to function together by the British colonial system. So yes, as a political entity, “India” has only existed for the last sixty years, and that is not a very long time compared to the tremendous political differentiation that existed for thousands of years previously throughout the subcontinent. If I seem skeptical that such a union can hold it is because I tend to give weight to the notion that there is usually a regression to mean. It was necessary to unify India in order to fight off the British, and perhaps there is some need for unity in order to stave off threats from Pakistan and China, but in some respects, peace with these two countries would be more divisive for India than conflict has been. If peace ever was made with these outside forces, India might slowly break apart from within. Just a thought, and I don’t mean to offend you, I just hope to provoke some kind of thoughtful response.

22. nagee76, on November 12th, 2008 at 8:52 pm Said:

    conradg,
    No problems - what you think is a thought provoking question could end up provoking anger :-) I am just a too damned proud Indian, i suppose.

    You are right about the fact that India never put up a united front against foreign invasions. It was divided into too many kingdoms all looking out for their own interests. The first time it unified was strangely under the last Mughal Emperor against the British in 1857. of course that rebellion fell short.

    But I have to remind you again - India is more than a mish mash of cultures and sub cultures. It draws equal amounts of strength and weaknesses from its diversity.

    I speak from a personal perspective - i come from a state where Hindi the national language is barely spoken. unfortunately we can give in to language chauvinism some times rather easily.

    But at the end of the day, every one realizes that we are all in this together. This is not a nation simply because it is easier to fend off China and Pakistan . We are a country because we choose to be. Indian ethos and culture unites us like nothing else can.

    I come from Tamil Nadu, a state where secessionist feelings ran very strong in the 60’s ( whats it abt the 60s huh :-) Hindi was suddenly declared to be the official language of business and for a populace that prides itself on the Tamil language and culture, it provoked intense reactions and calls for secession from the Indian Union. There were protests, student deaths (anywhere between 50 to 100) and a gross feeling of insecurity.

    The Central Govt learnt that it made a bad move and wisely backtracked. It decided to give states the freedom to use the language of their choice - they could communicate with the Central Government using English (how strange !) or Hindi. In short, federalism came to the rescue of the Indian Union.

    India’s democracy and it’s discovery of federalism as a genuine method to deal with hot button issues, helped salvage a young and rather fragile nation state. The Central Govt is still intrusive in many ways, but there is a line in the sand that was drawn quite some time back - a line that the Center has wisely chosen not to cross.

    My grandfather was a tailor who stitched Indian flags at the risk of being arrested by the British Govt - he didnt speak the national language Hindi - but he believed in the Gandhian ideals that united the country at its toughest times and understood intrinsically what being Indian meant. As his grandson i am proud of his contribution to the country’s freedom how ever small it was.

    We ‘ve come a long way - and we arent going back.

    In our last national elections in 2004, ManMohan Singh - a Sikh ( Sikhs constitute about 5 % of Indian population) was elected the Prime Minister. He was sworn in by Abdul Kalam India’s 3rd minority President and Commander in Chief ( and 2nd Muslim Prez) - the Congress Party was lead by a Roman Catholic ( Sonia Gandhi who is Italian by birth).

    I cannot think of single country in which a minority who is the head of the legislative branch was a sworn in to power by another minority who is the head of the executive branch. ! All in a country where the two minorities combine to 18% of the Indian population.

    After Obama’s election as the first African American President, i could nt help remembering what happened in 2004 in India.

    I ve digressed a lot from the issue of Kashmir, but i thought i need to give you a picture of the strong sense of nationalism that prevails in India inspite of every thing that can and does divide it. This makes the idea of a compromise on Kashmir that much harder.

    My biggest concern is that the relation between India and the United States ( a country that i have lived in for the last 8 years and come to love with all my heart as home away from home) may worsen because of a few careless missteps. I really pray Obama is as smart as he is touted to be.

23. nagee76, on November 12th, 2008 at 9:07 pm Said:

    mkd,
    I thought you did well not to talk to those Shiv Sainiks ! some of those guys can be down right wing nutty. Unfortunately, they are what i would liken to the Al-Sadr’s of Iraq - they can sometimes provide protection for the majority community when the law fails to - but more often than not, they are lawless themselves.

    Hindu right wing nationalism existed long before Pakistan’s creation and unfortunately exists even today. It kind of acts as a useful and ugly reminder of what happens when you start pandering to minority vote banks at the risk of eroding a country’s sense of unity.

    Rest assured, they dont have the power to dictate Indian polity - there are way too many regional powers who would not like that and have no use for right wing extremism ( atleast most of the time !)

24. conradg, on November 12th, 2008 at 9:14 pm Said:

    Thanks for the thoughtful background. Nationalism aside, my guess is that what may keep India together is the rising economic infrastructure that leading business interests don’t want to see disrupted. But that kind of modern business “culture” ends up slowly wittling away the traditional cultural distinctions as we see in the US and Europe, so that India becomes more and more a “pop” culture like ours. I guess the Hindutvas are concerned about this as well.

    As for Obama, yes, he is smart, and he will probably not push India on Kashmir. He’s more concerned with Pakistan than India, and he wants to reduce Pakistani instability and reliance on terrorism, which is kept alive by the conflict over Kashmir. I don’t know how much he actually cares about India otherwise. I would prefer a friendly policy towards India, but I’m not exactly wishing to encourage India to cling to Kashmir unrealistically. A plebescite is a goo idea, and I don’t really see how India can justify refusing one. Yes, there’s bad history there, but the people of Kashmir are overwhelmingly against staying a part of India, so I don’t see how it can be kept in the fold. One way or another Kashmir is going to leave India over the next century, I just hope peacefully.

25. nyx, on November 12th, 2008 at 11:19 pm Said:

    nagee76, no problem. Glad to see a fellow Tamil here! This whole issue is incredibly complex which is why Obama should not touch this with a six foot stick. He has to *earn* trust before he starts to talk either about Kashmir or nuclear proliferation (and again, how can the US talk about Kashmir when still in Iraq and Afghanistan, two places that US has no legitimacy to be around in).
    Unlike conradg, I don’t think India is going to break into pieces as long as it remains majority Hindu. I mean the chief minister of Tamil Nadu can cry hoarse all he wants about Tamil nationalism but attachment to India as a political entity is as close to a religious belief as you can find among all classes. Indian history consists of period of unity around the gangetic plains and disunity as illustrated by the Mauryan, Gupta, Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal empires so its inaccurate to say that India has never been united before the British empire. And I am sad to say that the Indian half of Kashmir is prospering much better than the laconic Chinese Azad Kashmir or the 1/3 of kashmir that Pakistan owns which is one of the most undeveloped parts of the subcontinent.
    Conradg is right that India has to develop a solution to Kashmir soon. It has been mishandled terribly by Delhi and it could have been integrated in 1947 when the Kashmiris *wanted* to be with India just as the state of Hyderabad was if Delhi allowed it to be economically integrated with its neighboring states. Nehru (India’s PM) misused the trust Sheikh Abdullah, the leader of Kashmir in 1947 bestowed upon him and I am reminded of the anecdote that Abdullah used to recount - about a dream he often had with a bridal party waiting for the groom who never came. The groom was Nehru who never fulfilled his promise to Abdullah.

26. amar, on November 13th, 2008 at 1:07 am Said:

    1. i wonder what bearing, as to when india became a political entity, albeit, on a piece of paper has on the issue of J&K. even if we toy with that idea, how abt the time line be stretched a few 1000 years to around 300 BC, when king ashoka reigned across of most of modern day india, pakistan, afganistan, parts of iran, etc.. and probably, if he were to be asked whether, he considered his kingdom as a political entity, i wonder what he would have responded.
    2. according to this link, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India , india derives its name from the river indus, and has been around for millenia.
    3. coming to the issue of J&K, this is my understanding of it currently. (ref:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jammu_and_Kashmir) at the time of partition, J&K was ruled by a hindu king (as it was for centuries) and the princely states were given the choice of either joining either india or pakistan or remain independent. looks like, the kind initially chose to remain independent. PAKISTAN CHOSE TO INVADE THE PRINCELY STATE ON OCT 20, 1947. reading the wiki, one can see under what circumstances the kind chose to join india. so, LEGALLY, J&K is a part of India. PERIOD, whether it is 100% muslim or otherwise.

27. amar, on November 13th, 2008 at 1:14 am Said:

    how abt a lil thot experiment. say in abt a few generations, hispanics become majority population in usa. they then decide that, they want to join, say, mexico or even better spain. should they be permitted to or not?

    i’d like to see the responses of boarders on how they’d play out this thot experiment.

28. amar, on November 13th, 2008 at 1:26 am Said:

    while, we’re @ this, let’s also talk abt tibet and what obama & the US should or shouldn’t be doing.

29. amar, on November 13th, 2008 at 1:37 am Said:

    also, how abt, US first pack its bags and leave chagos islands and force UK to hand over the island to the natives, who were forced out of their homes to make way for a military base, that the US later leased from UK?

    ref:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2380013.stm

30. amar, on November 13th, 2008 at 1:40 am Said:

    nyx wrote: “Sheikh Abdullah, the leader of Kashmir in 1947″

    J&K was ruled by a hindu king as it was for centuries until the king, eventually decided to join india, 4 his own reasons.

    so, where does that leave the sheik in all of this?

31. amar, on November 13th, 2008 at 10:31 am Said:

    say what, now, why did the US go into IRAQ in the 1st place?

32. Kumar, on November 13th, 2008 at 10:37 am Said:

    Mr. Larison:

    President-elect Obama may be having second thoughts on mediating the J&K dispute already. One of his advisers, Karl Inderfurth, stated in an interview that “…too much has been read into [Obama’s words]…” In reply to a question about whether the Obama administration would “…like to mediate in the Kashmir dispute,” Mr. Inderfurth said that the focus of any dispute resolution would be the ongoing bilateral negotiations between India and Pakistan (both the formal as well as the ‘back-channel’), and that Mr. Obama would “…strongly support…” this process. While not explicitly disavowing the President-elect’s earlier ruminations about appointing a special envoy—indeed, it is not entirely clear which of Mr. Obama’s ideas he is referring to—it suggests that a ‘re-think’ on this issue has taken place. The interview is available at
    http://outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20081117&fname=Cover+Story&sid=7

    Additional supporting evidence is adduced by Pramit Pal Chaudhri (senior editor of the Hindustan Times) who writes that the Obama transition team’s talking points on South Asia state that India and Pakistan “need to solve the Kashmir problem “bilaterally” and that they will have full US “support” in this effort.” However, the document apparently does not take a stand on the appointment of a special envoy. Mr. Chaudhri’s article is available at
    http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print.aspx?Id=2973e82d-8a91-44c7-8182-44da18a37e80USelections2008_Special

    It is also relevant that Mr. Obama’s senior adviser on South Asia—Bruce Reidel—believes that America should step up pressure on India over J&K, but only do so behind the scenes (“…quiet American diplomacy…”, as he puts it in an article in ‘The ANNALS of the Am. Acad. Of Pol. & Social Sci.’). Mr. Reidel’s article is available at
    http://ann.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/618/1/31

    Taken together, this suggests that the Obama administration may not be as eager to visibly intervene in the J&K dispute as Mr. Obama’s ruminations might suggest. At most (or worst, from the Indian government’s view), Mr. Obama’s administration may try to explicitly peddle ‘solutions’ behind the scenes. I think even that is likely to be dangerous, for the reasons suggested in the C. Raja Mohan piece in Forbes (as well as your post on this matter), but I suppose one should thank heaven for small mercies.

    Regards,
    Kumar

33. conradg, on November 13th, 2008 at 10:54 am Said:

    Yes, Ashoka conquered and ruled for some 40 years over a territory that encompasses a fair amount of modern India and Pakistan, and the empire lasted 50 years more. So? This is like saying that the lands Alexander conquered, from Greece to Northern India a few centuries earlier constitute a “unified country” which we can now ressurrect as a political entity today without any objections from the residents and expect it to survive. Ashoka’s empire lasted about 100 years, and I give India about that long, maybe longer, to last as a distinct polity. You base this on India being Hindu, but of course Ashoka was a Buddhist, and much of northern India at the time was thoroughly Buddhist. Ashoka’s empire is already divided into Pakistan, Kashmir, and India, so where is this natural unification? Yes, if these territorries were of the same basic Hindu culture, they would stick together longer, but they are not, are they? Kashmir is muslim, has been since the Moghul invaders, and is not going to become Hindu again unless there is some kind of forced resettlement as in Tibet. As for the legal argument, whatever the Muslim sheik decided to do in 1947 is not binding on the people of Kashmir forever, if India is to pretend to be a democracy. The people of Kashmir never voted to become part of India, and India knows that if a vote were held, they would choose independence. The blindness of the people of India to this basic injustice is why I fear this conflict will lead to some kind of greater war in the future. It’s a very similar problem to the Palestinian problem in the Middle East, which Israel pretends it can keep unresolved forever with nuclear threats. At some point, that strategy comes back to destroy oneself.

34. Daniel Larison, on November 13th, 2008 at 10:58 am Said:

    Thanks for the comment and the links. I am partly reassured by Mr. Chaudhuri’s report, but disturbed by the apparent lack of coherence in the new administration’s thinking about India.

    I certainly hope that he didn’t mean what he did seem to say, which was that he wanted to push for a resolution of the dispute, or if he did mean it that he has reconsidered it. If he is going to do it, it would be better if it were done quietly, but I think we agree that it would be best if it were not done at all.

35. conradg, on November 13th, 2008 at 11:09 am Said:

    amar,

    If the US becomes majority latino as some point, why would it even want to join Mexico as a political entity? It would already be free to “be latino” by virtue of already being latino. Of course it could do whatever it liked by amending the constitution, by why would it need to or even want to? The better question would be what if certain border states became majority latino and wanted to seceed or join Mexico? Well, Texas has the right to do so already, but again, what would it gain? It’s not as if latinos are being politically repressed in the US and subject to some kind of military occupation as in Kashmir. The Pennsylvannia Dutch (Amish) are not trying to secede from the Union, nor are the Mormons of Utah. The US holds together precisely because it wants to. The American civil war was not fought by some oppressed people wanting to be free, it was fought over the economics and morality of slavery. The South regards itself as more “American” than most of America does, and always did. With the issue of slavery resolved, there’s been virtually no talk of southern secession since.

36. amar, on November 13th, 2008 at 11:30 am Said:

    agreed, kasmir was muslim from the moghul times, but they don’t own kasmir. it was a kingdom and was owned by a king who decided to merge with india.

    labour in a business/industry doesn’t own the business. their right r limited to working there. likewise, kasmir being muslim, doesn’t give them the right over the land. That right was with the king and he chose india. that’s the point i’m making.

    and, i brought up all that history of ashoka to say froce the debate on the issue of J&K and not on when India became an entity.

    likewise, the sheik doesn’t own kasmir. he’s analogous to an union leader. that’s it. just like, the union boss doesn’t own the business.

    if u were a landlord, u wouldn’t want to let ur tenants decide if they want to strip of ur right over the property. now, would u?

37. amar, on November 13th, 2008 at 11:33 am Said:

    the ppl of kasmir didn’t vote, nor did it matter, becoz, that choice was the king’s, not theirs. the ppl of kasmir had the choice to move across to pakistan if they wanted to live in a muslim state.

38. amar, on November 13th, 2008 at 11:48 am Said:

    the idea of the thot experiment was not to dwell on, why they’d want to, but what if they wanted to.

    also, it was pakistan that invaded a kingdom, a sovereign entity, whose king didn’t want to join pakistan. so, pakistan should be forced to vacate the land that didn’t belong to it in the 1st place.

    and why did the pakistanis want a separate muslim state? it wasn’t like they were oppressed in india b4 then.

    any comments on the ethnic purging of the hindu minorities who lived in kashmir, now driven away from their homes?

39. amar, on November 13th, 2008 at 11:53 am Said:

    that muslim sheik didn’t own J&K. so, his actions/decisions add upto 0.

40. conradg, on November 13th, 2008 at 12:03 pm Said:

    amar,

    This is a very funny argument you are making. So the king “owns” a country, and can do with it as he likes, regardless of what the people want? We Americans fought a war with the King of England over that issue once. I seem to recall that Indians once fought with the Queen of England over a similar issue. By your logic, England “owned” India, and could do with it whatever it liked, regardless of what actual Indians wanted? Well, this is an odd concept.

    The truth is, in legal terms monarchies and dictatorships have no binding power over the will of the people who live in their countries, they only have the power of guns and prisons. And that is the power India has over Kashmir right now, the power of guns and prisons, not a legal right to claim the country as its own because of what some unelected sheik did in moment of panic some 60 years ago. If India is actually a democracy, then it must let the people of Kashmir decide if they want to be a part of India or not. It can’t pretend that it has “ownership” over a country by some legal agreement with an unelected monarch who does not represent the will of those people. Unless you believe in dictatorship yourself, in which case you are part of the problem that has to be overturned.

    I do agree that Pakistan should vacate the lands it conquered, or at least hold a plebiscite among its residents as to whether they want to rejoin an independent Kashmir. And Hindus who were forced to leave should have some kind of “rights of return”, though I imagine most have long since resettled within India proper. There are plenty of issues to work out, but I really can’t see how there is any legal basis for India to “own” a people who consider themselves not to be a part of India. I feel similarly about Tibet and China, btw.

41. amar, on November 13th, 2008 at 12:13 pm Said:

    i appreciate u bringing up that point.

    the english n the moghuls were the invaders. they weren’t the ppl living in india b4 then. that’s why the india had a problem with england.

42. amar, on November 13th, 2008 at 12:17 pm Said:

    the sheik u’re talking abt, didn’t have a choice to make. he just happened to b a muslim, part of the muslim majority living in kasmir.

    the muslims weren’t the original folks living in kasmir. so, they don’t have right over the land. muslims came over only during the period of mohguls.

43. amar, on November 13th, 2008 at 12:20 pm Said:

    “some unelected sheik did in moment of panic some 60 years ago.”

    this sheik didn’t have a choice 2 make. why r we talking abt this sheik now?

44. amar, on November 13th, 2008 at 12:23 pm Said:

    i wonder how far u’d get with ur argument on the rights of monarchs/kings in their kingdoms/monarchies.

    try that in saudi arabia 4 starters.

45. amar, on November 13th, 2008 at 12:28 pm Said:

    “It can’t pretend that it has “ownership” over a country by some legal agreement with an unelected monarch who does not represent the will of those people.”

    that ruler was the ruler of entire J&K, not just Kashmir, which also happened to have a majority muslim population. the will u’re talking abt is not the will of the people of J&K. that will was that of one part of the whole. now, part is not = whole. right?

46. amar, on November 13th, 2008 at 12:35 pm Said:

    “Unless you believe in dictatorship yourself, in which case you are part of the problem that has to be overturned. ”

    i belive in the right of ppl who’ve earned ownership of resources either through birth, or through their own efforts. in this case, it happens to be the right of a king over the kingdom. it could take on other forms, like, ppl buying businesses, property etc. etc..

47. sathya, on November 13th, 2008 at 12:39 pm Said:

    “There are plenty of issues to work out, but I really can’t see how there is any legal basis for India to “own” a people who consider themselves not to be a part of India.”

    conradg,

    Sorry if I am interrupting this interesting discussion, but on what basis / proof do you say that people of Kashmir do not consider themselves to be part of India. I read some of your posts in the beginning and that seems to be the impression you are under.

    I wonder on what basis did you conclude that?

48. amar, on November 13th, 2008 at 12:44 pm Said:

    “but I really can’t see how there is any legal basis for India to “own” a people who consider themselves not to be a part of India.”

    india doesn’t own the muslim ppl in kashmir, it own the land that the muslim ppl in kasmir r living on. they can very well choose to live with their muslim brethren and move over to pakistan.

    i guess the argument between us boils down to, what r the rights of ppl who lived in a monarchy. my view is that, they don’t have the right to decide whether they could join another state/country.

49. conradg, on November 13th, 2008 at 12:47 pm Said:

    “the muslims weren’t the original folks living in kasmir. so, they don’t have right over the land.”

    This is really amusing. So European Americans have no right over the land in which we live, only Native Americans do, since they are not the original folk of this land? How are we to decide which people are “original folks” and which are the “outsiders”, especially if you are willing to go back many centuries to decide. The world would be at constant war if that were the case. Sure, I sympathize with Indian resentment at having been invaded by muslims many centuries ago. But the present inhabitants of Kashmir (I shorten it for simplicity’s sake, but include Jammu) are the people living there now, and are you really saying they have no legal rights to determine their own political destiny because their ancestors came to India through invasions, or were at least converted to Islam by invaders? This seems like nonsense.

    And my arguments about kings/dictators do indeed carry weight around the world, including in their own countries. That’s how the United States got to be a democracy. It’s also how India got to be a democracy. Are you suggesting that India should not be a democracy, but a monarchy. And I have no sympathy for the monarchies of Saudi Arabia and the like. But at least that monarchy has the general support of it’s people. But do you think that if the King of Saudi Arabia suddenly signed the country over to the United States, that such an agreement would be legally binding on the people of Saudi Arabia? You would see armed revolution in short order, which is very much the situation in Kashmir, and why it has been subject to military occupation ever since 1947.

50. amar, on November 13th, 2008 at 1:01 pm Said:

    it all boils down to whether ppl/cultures/nations have the military strength to protect their interests. whatever u & i argue abt, doesn’t matter in the end.

    ppl/cultures/nations that have it, survive and those that don’t make do with what they can.

    case in point: the native indians in america. u think, they’re dizzy with ecstasy in parting with their land?

51. amar, on November 13th, 2008 at 1:11 pm Said:

    “How are we to decide which people are “original folks” and which are the “outsiders”, especially if you are willing to go back many centuries to decide.”

    this is exactly the reason, why there’s something called legal rights of ppl/rulers/nations/ over resources.

    and like u see around the globe today, when all discussion fails, it all boils down to military showdown. that’s true among all living species, in their own capacities. struggle 4 resources is the ultimate struggle. those who succeed flourish, others perish. AMEN!

52. amar, on November 13th, 2008 at 1:27 pm Said:

    hey, i just remembered the palestine/israel issue. hey!

    conradg,

    so what do u think r the rights of palestinians and what r those of the israelis’?

53. amar, on November 13th, 2008 at 1:27 pm Said:

    hey, i just remembered the palestine/israel issue. hey!

    conradg,

    so what do u think r the rights of palestinians and those that of the israelis’?

54. amar, on November 13th, 2008 at 1:39 pm Said:

    i’ll b cheering u on from a distance, while u advance the right of ppl (read palestinians) over the land they live on with the israelis. try talking 2 bush/obama and see what they got 2 say on this.

55. conradg, on November 13th, 2008 at 1:45 pm Said:

    Amar,

    I agree, unfortunately, that these conflicts often end up boiling down to military might enforcing its will on people, regardless of what they want. That’s why democracy was invented, however, to make that solution obsolete. Elections, you know? You might recall that the British finally just left India without a fight, agreeing at last that the Indian people had the right to decide what they wanted their country to be. Which also led to the partition, since half of India didn’t want to be part of India, it turned out. The problem there was that England had not created any kind of democratic process for a transition, which led to outbreaks of horrific violence. India is repeating that mistake in Kashmir.

    But as with the palestinian issue, there is a big delusion that one can occupy a region with military force forever against the will of the people who actually live there. People tend to really resent that, and they plot to kill you over it. Sometimes they succeed. Eventually, it builds and builds until the violence becomes worse than the “benefits” that acrue from occupying that territory. As stated earlier, my fear about both Kashmir and Palestine is that eventually this is going to lead to nuclear wars. I’m generally supportive of both India and Israel, but I think both countries are making big mistakes that could severely hurt them, even destroy them, in the long run. I think the Israelis will come to regret the decision to pursue Zionism, even if at the time it seemed they had no alternative. Unless, of course, they can give up on their plans for domination of palestine, which unfortunately I think will not happen. Someone, some day, is going to unleash a nuke and bring a terrible conflict to a head. And I suspect the same may happen in Kashmir. We Americans tend to think that if muslim terrorists get ahold of a nuke, they are going to try to smuggle it into our country and nuke us. I think it is far more likely that such a weapon would be used against Israel, or India, or even Russia. And what then? How will India respond if Delhi or Bombay is nuked by terrorists linked to Pakistan and Kashmir? Don’t think it can’t happen.

56. amar, on November 13th, 2008 at 1:54 pm Said:

    funny, the british left india, not becoz they had a moment of epiphany, abt the rights of indian. but coz, they realized, that’s the best chance of leaving with their skins on their backs.

    now, just to show u some examples of that very same british epiphany. why do u think, they left USA and why they’re still around in the falkland islands off argentina and chagos islands, even till today where the ppl want their land back?

    hmmm… wonder why.

57. amar, on November 13th, 2008 at 1:57 pm Said:

    “since half of India didn’t want to be part of India, it turned out.”

    which illusory 1/2 r u referring to? do u have any idea, what is the population of pakistan, that of the muslims in pakistan and that of india?

    even if i concede the illusory 1/2, u haven’t answered, why they wanted 2 leave.

58. amar, on November 13th, 2008 at 2:03 pm Said:

    oops! read

    which illusory 1/2 r u referring to? do u have any idea, what is the population of pakistan, that of the muslims in pakistan and that of india?

    as

    which illusory 1/2 r u referring to? do u have any idea, what is the population of pakistan, that of the muslims currently in india and that of india?

59. amar, on November 13th, 2008 at 2:06 pm Said:

    i’ll give u some help on that Q. maybe, becoz, they treated the hindus very badly when they had the might under the moghuls and now, they realized that, what goes around, comes around? hmm… maybe.

60. amar, on November 13th, 2008 at 2:10 pm Said:

    maybe, becoz, they feared, they’d be marginalized since they were the minority population?

    do u think, they’d have done that if they were the majority poplation. now, common, even bush would say, that’s a NO BRAINER. ;-)

61. amar, on November 13th, 2008 at 2:42 pm Said:

    let me end my long rant (even by my standards), by posing a Q for others 2 continue.

    what is the US currently doing in countries/regions like:

    -sudan
    -zimbabwe
    -burma (myanmar)
    -north korea
    -tibet
    -uyghur

    to just name a few.

    and more importantly, why it isn’t doing more than what it’s currently doing.

62. amar, on November 13th, 2008 at 2:45 pm Said:

    i thot, it would only b fair, to leave a hint…

    strategic interests… any one, u buy that?

63. KXB, on November 13th, 2008 at 3:13 pm Said:

    If anyone wanted a reason as to why the U.S. should not get directly involved in this issue, the length and increasing level of extraneous issues being mentioned in this thread should convince them. It seems that the spirit of Krishna Menon, who believed the length of an argument was a sign of its value, is alive and well.

64. conradg, on November 13th, 2008 at 5:22 pm Said:

    KXB has it right, this thread certainly demonstrates just how thorny the matter is. Who’d have thought Kashmir would generate so much interest on a blog like this?

    Amar, my point about the British leaving peacefully was that these things don’t have to be settled by pure power and violence. A sense of democratic conscience can lead a nation to finally do the right thing without facing the worst possible consequence. And I hope India may come to the same conclusion about Kashmir some day, that its conscience will lead it to do the right thing before the conflict escalates beyond control with terrorists and nukes and so on. The British were certainly bastards, but India is very lucky it wasn’t an even worse empire, like the Moghuls, who never actually left at all. The British at least had the conscience to realize they had a responsibility to do the morally right thing. If Gandhi had tried non-violence against any other colonial power, guess how far it would have gotten him?And this is only because of Brittain’s growing democratic values and government.

    Of course, I don’t want to give the British too much credit, in that they finally left because they were exhausted and unable to continue with colonialism after WWII. But they did leave peacefully, if not leaving India in peace in the process.

    And yes, I know Pakistan (and Bangladesh) represent less than half of the total population, I was just making a rhetorical point.

65. conradg, on November 13th, 2008 at 5:25 pm Said:

    Oh, and the British didn’t leave the US. They were defeated by a seven year war they simply lost. Afterwards, they too began to realize that democracy was a better principle to govern by than monarchy. By the time the British left India, they were transformed themselves into a democracy which could no longer abide the realities of being a colonial power (though some remnants, like the Falklands, remain).

66. nagee76, on November 13th, 2008 at 6:33 pm Said:

    Conradg,
    I like to dispute the notion that the British left India peacefully, but that would be a thread in itself :-)

    You may think that the Kashmir issue would be easily resolved by India applying its conscience - i will have to remind you that this is a complex issue and it is going to take a long time for India to consider doing what the morally right thing is - order a plebiscite. My opinion is that it never will.

    First off, India is in no mood to take the high road - it would open up a pandora’s box quite simply. Hindus did not have a vote when Muslim invaders came to the country. They didnt have a vote when they were driven away from Kashmir and systematically cleansed. Kashmiri Pandits loiter around in refugee camps and in some areas near Jammu even today.

    You spoke of some sort of “right to return” for Kashmiri Hindus - you have to understand that this is impractical and simply not going to happen. Why would Hindus want to come back to a place from which they were violently thrown out of ? So that they could be a part of an independent Muslim majority Kashmir ?

    It also leaves Jammu in a pickle - they would now have to be a part of a Muslim majority nation no matter even if they want to stay with India. They are about 10% of the populace and all that is needed is for 11% of Muslims to effectively nullify their vote.

    And that is what makes a plebiscite a very undemocratic - counter intuitive as it may sound. When your candidate/party loses the election, you could atleast look forward to future victories. Your life is not drastically changed for the most part. You understand that your voice was a minority one but since you live in a country that atleast intends to protect minority voters rights, you move on. You look forward to the next election. For some one who rooted for McCain, this is how i look at it.

    But a plebiscite is a done deal - there are no future victories to look forward to - the will of the majority absolutely over rides the minority voice and does so forever ! Hindus in Jammu now have the choice of living in “Pakistan” or being refugees in India.

    There will never be an independent Kashmir - there cannot possibly be a small state that borders three nuclear powers , each one of them having their own claims to the land. So an independent Kashmir is practically the first step to acceding to Pakistan, forcibly or otherwise.

    We are also forgetting that India has more than territorial integrity invested in Kashmir. It has economic interests too - the water resources in Kashmir alone make sure that India is in no way going to give up on its territorial or historical claims to the land.

    So, what then is the solution ? India has already proceeded to do a few right things - increase people to people contacts between Indian Kashmir and Pakistani occupied Kashmir. Reduce the tensions by drawing down forces in the region. But this will happen only after India feels comfortable about the fact that violence wont return to the region - mostly through Pakistan sponsored terrorism.

    But for India to agree to a plebiscite, it has to feel that it is on the winning side. It would be better if pro independence groups in Kashmir agree to contest elections and actually win them. This would force the Indian Govt to deal with a democratically elected Government which is openly pro independent.

    For all the noise that the Hurriyat makes, it has yet to demonstrate that it commands majority support in the state. It keeps parroting that it would never contest in an election under the auspices of the Central Govt - because you know, it does not recognize the authority of the Govt !

    This is clearly a confrontational as well as counter productive apporach - i understand that there is a lack of trust here but the only way to force India’s hand is to prove your majority in a democratic way. It is not like Kashmir is an alien land that was invaded by India and the country is refusing to let go off. India has legitimate claims to Kashmiri territory and defended it from Pakistani invasion in 1948.

    The solution there fore lies in India agreeing to a plebiscite when it feels that the situation is favorable to it. In the time being it has to basically improve the economy, loosen its control and show the Kashmiri people that it can either stay with India or accede to a jihadi Pakistan that is in the process of becoming an official failed state.

    It is not the answer that you would like - but its the best answer that i can give - but i will readily admit that we are far far away from this scenario.

    The situation as you can see is an intractable conflict that requires lopsided magnanamity from one side i.e. India - you cannot expect anything else from Pakistan - as far as they are concerned, it is impossible for a Muslim majority region not to be a part of their country. it is even worse to be part of a Hindu majority country.! And it would be deja vu for the Hindus in Jammu all over again.

    I can also guarantee you that the India Pakistan conflict is not going to end if Kashmir is miraculously going to be settled - if it indeed does get settled, it would most likely leave the other side bitter and is going to happen more often than not through force and not peace. At least that is how it looks like right now. A hundred years from now, who knows ?

67. Kumar, on November 13th, 2008 at 8:25 pm Said:

    Conradg:

    Your weak grasp of the complicated ethno-politics of J&K is best exemplified by your statement that “…Hindus who were forced to leave should have some kind of “rights of return”, though I imagine most have long since resettled within India proper.”

    You imagine? As a Kashmiri Pandit, I can reliably report that your imagination is not the best guide to what happened/is happening in J&K (shocka, I know!).

    The Kashmir Valley is not the only area of J&K State claimed by the secessionists. They also stake a claim to Doda-district as well (outside the Valley, to its South), given the ethnically Kashmiri Muslims who live there. However, Doda-district has significant numbers of Hindus, especially in the urban areas (from 30% to 40% in some towns).

    It is indeed true that most—though by no means all–of the Valley’s Sunni Muslim population (especially in urban areas) is pro-secessionist. But the significant numbers of people in/of the Valley, as well as Doda-district, who are either pro-union (Kashmiri Pandits, Dogra Hindus, Sikhs, Muslim Gujjars) or have significant apprehensions about a Sunni-dominated Valley (Shia Muslims) means that the secessionists (and their allies) can’t win the argument simply by citing the numbers in the Valley on their side.

    Any secessionist movement worthy of support ought to demonstrate (and not merely give lip service when speaking in English) that it respects the rights of minorities in its midst. From the way they treat those they deem their enemies—whether the Kashmiri Pandit community as a whole (forcibly attacking and expelling our community from the Valley), or some Muslim Gujjar family they deem to be ‘pro-Indian’ (slicing off noses or ears to outright murder)—the record of the pro-secessionists is hardly reassuring on this count.

    Their vision of Kashmir is illiberal, and does not command my support. Acceding to the wishes of the secessionist camp would ratify the expulsion of Kashmiri Pandits, and likely set off a new round of expulsion of non-secessionists both from the Valley as well as from Doda (e.g., Gujjar Muslims, Sikhs, Dogra Hindus, Kashmiri Pandits).

    How facile of you to just write that Kashmiri Pandits driven out by jihadis should be given “…some kind of ‘rights of return’…” Very magnanimous of you—thank you very much. Oh, and since you’re in the business of granting wishes, please add a pony for everyone, will you? Such ‘guarantees’ from the pro-secessionist crowd are worthless—many of the people who led the drive to expel Kashmiri Pandits are alive and well, and very much in the forefront of the secessionist camp. Btw, many Kashmiri Pandits are still in refugee camps in Jammu and Delhi.

    What you or some other American (even, say, the President of the United States) thinks of the cogency of the pro-union argument is not likely to alter the political trajectory of J&K. Simply put, those of us who are for the Indian Union (whether Pandit, Gujjar, Dogra , Shia or even Sunni), are far too numerous to be set aside. More importantly yet, the vast majority of Indian voters (whatever their religion) support us. The secessionists and their allies will have to bend to this political reality, not the other way round.

    There is an honorable compromise at hand, along the lines suggested by the Indian PM (porous borders, greater autonomy, joint working groups on issues such as water resources that don’t dilute Indian sovereignty). A great deal of progress towards this goal has already been made in the current round of negotiations (as C. Raja Mohan points out): The Pakistani military is inching towards recognition of this political reality. Even better, the current civilian government is not obsessed by Kashmir. I hope that an activist Obama administration doesn’t scuttle this option.

    Kumar

68. conradg, on November 13th, 2008 at 9:13 pm Said:

    Nagee76 and Kumar,

    Wow, this is a very sensitive sore I stepped on. I don’t mean to be glib about the situation, and I’m thankful for the education you are all giving me on the subject. But really, the fact that you weigh the rights of the 10% Hindu population of Kashmir more highly than that of the 90% Muslim tells me more than you probably wished I knew about how the situation. Again, in general I’m more sympathetic to Hindus than Muslims in most every respect, but you simply cannot dominate a population like that and ever expect it to come out favorably. The idea that India would only grant a plebescite if it knew it would win is an honest confession, and I appreciate that, but all that means is that there will never be a plebescite. I also understand how ancient these resentments are, but the fact that the Moghuls invaded India hundreds of years ago really doesn’t come to bear on the rights and lives of the muslim community in India today. Nor does the fact that India came to the defense of Kashmir in 1948 mean that India now “owns” Kashmir, any more than America owns France indefinately because it liberated that country from the Nazis in 1944. Clearly there are compromises that would have to be made, and many injustices never rectified, and some people are going to lose out, but many people are already losing out. Clearly some kind of guarantee of Kashmir’s independence from Pakistan and democratic civil rights would have to be made. I’m sure there are no ponies involved, but as with the Palestinians, a compromise that makes no one hugely happy, but at least one that brings an end to the potential for major conflict.

    While I appreciate your greater sophistication about this problem, none of you are addressing the potentially devastating consequences of continuing this conflict indefinitely. What about terrorists with nukes some day striking India? Does that not give some impetus to finding a soluton to this problem sooner rather than later? Do you really think, as the Israelis seem to, that you can just outlive this problem and somehow it will resolve itself rather than just get worse over time?

69. amar, on November 13th, 2008 at 9:26 pm Said:

    conradg,

    dude, u still don’t get it, why j&k LEGALLY belongs to india. do u?

70. amar, on November 13th, 2008 at 9:36 pm Said:

    the indians didn’t force the then king @ gunpoint to transfer his legal right over J&K to themselves.

71. amar, on November 13th, 2008 at 10:15 pm Said:

    wouldn’t it be interesting to discuss, from when and for what reasons, the US is altruistically interested in helping “resolve” J&K issue? in the interests of the ppl of india & pakistan? i don’t want 2 give away the answers, even this time, too.

    now, why has the US been donating military aid to the pakistani military, for how many years now?

    and what has pakistan been using all that military aid for, all these years?

    isn’t there a list called, “state sponsors of terrorism”, somewhere that the US maintains? i wonder what criteria, gets one onto that list?

72. conradg, on November 13th, 2008 at 10:33 pm Said:

    amar,

    no, I don’t accept your explanation of why Kashmir “legally” belongs to India. It’s a pathetic excuse. The US came to Western Europe’s aid in WWII, and we didn’t get to make France, England, and the Netherlands into US states. No King has the right to give away a country to anyone. It doesn’t belong to him, it belongs to the people of that country. Unless you believe all people are rightfully slave-subjects to the rulers of their country.

    As for US foreign policy, I’m no defender of it, so I don’t see what your point is. I never liked the US tilt towards Pakistan going back to the Cold War, but I suppose it had something to do with India’s tilt towards Russia.

73. nagee76, on November 13th, 2008 at 10:59 pm Said:

    Conradg,
    Read all the statements that you just made. “Even though India has suffered from Mughal invasions, even though it’s Hindu popluation was driven out of Kashmir etc”… Life does not work that way.. You can only forget so many things and so many invasions to India’s territorial integrity.

    I am also not trying to “hide” anything here or wish you didnt know more or something - when i say that India would never allow for plebiscite unless it is sure of the outcome was not some inadvertent slip of the tounge. IF India ever decides to go for a plebiscite is a big IF.

    No one in India is ready to cry over the plight of the Muslim majority in Kashmir - they didnt exactly care when they drove Kashmiri minorities out of the Valley. And no one cares for them. As far as the Indian people are concerned, Kashmiri’s are free to wave the black flag on August 15th (Independence Day) and Jan 26th (India’s Republic day). Kashmiri Muslims are still given a free hand in shutting down life in the Valley if they so choose to with life crippling strikes.

    Besides Kashmiri terrorism has deprived what ever understanding the rest of the country had for them. This slowly spread beoynd Kashmir to other parts of India - backed by the ISI. No self respecting country is going to change its policies because it was terrorized into doing so.

    If India was really repressive, it would do what the Chinese have done with Tibet- change the ethnic complexion of the region with massive movement of Hans Chinese.

    So to clarify the perception that you have - Kashmiri’s are not exactly being held as slaves. If pro-secessionist elements think that they represent a voice of the majority let them openly compete in state wide elections come out on top and THEN force the hand of the Indian Government to talk to them.

    But they dont represent the will of the majority do they ? They dont speak for all Muslims in the state do they ? As Kumar pointed out, all that they can do is indulge in terrorism and violence. Not exactly Gandhian, are they ?

    No wonder, they have boycotted every opportunity to participate in the democratic process. Instead they DEMAND nationhood.

    Who in their right minds wants to listen to a bunch of terrorists ? Seriously, where exactly is the proof that they represent Kashmiri majority opinion ?

    You also have the impression that its either your way or the highway - plebiscite or BUST. As people in this thread have pointed out, the Indian Government has facilitated MORE people to people contact between Kashmiri’s on the Indian and Pakistani side. Thorny problems which have huge implications to national integrity and geo politics are not exactly going to be solved by calling for a plebiscite.

    As i already asked, what happens to the minority opinion in a plebiscite ? It is very easy for you to say that ” its life , they have to live with it”. It’s even easier to ignore what you say.

    Kashmir is not exactly going to explode in hell fire today or tomorrow - it is a favorite meme of the Pakistani Govt to get the US involved. I can see that with your “terrorists with nukes” concerns. Pray, WHERE exactly would these terrorists get nukes from? Should nt you be more concerned about Pakistan proliferating its nukes to terrorists ? It is kind of perverse , isnt it to say, ” do this or you risk a nuke attack by terrorists”.

    Conradg, NOBODY in India is worried about a nuke attack from terrorists - we are more worried about our economic growth and a million other problems.

    It gets really tiring to explain to outsiders the legitimate claims that India has to its own territory.It is even more tiring to hear the ” we understand that you have a terrible past but you need to consider a plebiscite anyways”

    Believe me, we are the best equipped to deal with this problem. I understand and appreciate your concerns on how long this conflict could go. But if you have noticed Kashmir has been at its most peaceful in the last 6 years - coincidentally these 6 years the Pakistan Army/ISI have been held back by US pressure to help in Afghanistan. See a pattern here ?

    Neither Obama nor any other US pol should think that they can solve this problem in a time frame that is convenient to American interests. This involves HARD WORK and a real long slog.

    What how ever can make a bad situation worse is unnecessary meddling and a change of direction by a third party like the US. Have you ever considered what Pakistan’s co-operation with US on Afghanistan has to do with Kashmir ?

    Pakistan is doing itself a favor by combating terrorism in the NWFP. How many more Lal Masjid’s do they want to face again ? How many Benazir Bhutto’s are they going to sacrifice to terrorists? How many more Marriot hotels do they want to get bombed?

    What do any of these above issues have to do with Kashmir? NOTHING. Pakistani civil society is at a cross roads - do they want to be a failed Jihadi state or do they want to tackle terrorism head on ?

    They seem to look for EVERY POSSIBLE excuse not to fight the Taliban - its Kashmir today, mountanious regions tomorrow and another excuse day after.

    When are people going to wake up to the game that is being played here ? The US ’s biggest concern should be how it can deal with a jihadi ISI which can bomb the Indian Embassy in Kabul at will and then turn around and ask for a settlement on Kashmir !

    No one is under any illusions that the situation will automatically get better - we are just asking you to not to have any illusions about this situation resolving sooner either - because of Obama’s magical touch.

    Patience is a virtue. Getting the facts straight on what the situation is in Kashmir right now and what has happened in the last 6 years are more important than any number of generalized platitudes that either of us can come up with.

    And no we arent afraid of getting nuked by terrorists either. And i am not saying this to appear brave or some thing. You have to remember that India has been the second biggest victim of terrorism after Iraq in the last 6 years - and this hasnt shaken us to our core or something.

    We will persevere - just like we have already done. We will soldier on and we are not worried about a bunch of two bit thugs terrorizing us with nukes. If you have nt heard, we have some of our own - and we will use it if we have to retaliate.

    Mutually Assured Destruction is enough to keep the Pakis from doing anything stupid.

74. amar, on November 13th, 2008 at 11:36 pm Said:

    “no, I don’t accept your explanation of why Kashmir “legally” belongs to India. It’s a pathetic excuse. The US came to Western Europe’s aid in WWII, and we didn’t get to make France, England, and the Netherlands into US states. No King has the right to give away a country to anyone. It doesn’t belong to him, it belongs to the people of that country. Unless you believe all people are rightfully slave-subjects to the rulers of their country.”

    1. legality and legal rights r above the opinions of individuals like u n me. we’ve got 2 live by them, unless, we have the resources to make the world go with our opinions.

    2. dude, US didn’t get into WWII out of altruism 4 the european nations. it got into the war, since it was attacked by japan and perceived germany would attack it (remember the U boats coming off the coast of US). and let me tell u this, even it wanted to take over all those european countries, it might not have succeeded and it didn’t have any INTERESTS doing that either.

    3. whether u want to call ppl living in monarchies subjects or slaves, it’s ur choice of words. it doesn’t alter the reality of their limited rights in that monarchy. unless, they’re able to overthrow the monarch, like in france, china (maybe, i’ve got 2 check my facts on this one) and probably others that might exist out there.

75. amar, on November 13th, 2008 at 11:42 pm Said:

    “no, I don’t accept your explanation of why Kashmir “legally” belongs to India. It’s a pathetic excuse. The US came to Western Europe’s aid in WWII, and we didn’t get to make France, England, and the Netherlands into US states. No King has the right to give away a country to anyone. It doesn’t belong to him, it belongs to the people of that country. Unless you believe all people are rightfully slave-subjects to the rulers of their country.”

    -oh, btw, the europeans didn’t offer that/agree to that [even if the US had asked 4 that in return 4 their help]. now, that’s a huge DIFFERENCE.

    disclosure: india asked 4 that in return 4 the help it rendered in preventing pakistan occupying whole of J&K.

    -please check out the role of the soviet in helping end WWII

76. conradg, on November 14th, 2008 at 12:54 am Said:

    Yeah, since France surrendered willingly to Hitler, the country actually belongs to Germany now. And Soviet occupation of eastern Europe up until 1991was, like, totally lawful, since the leaders of those nations invited the Soviets in to push out the Nazis. Those damn dissidents had no right to overturn such lawful regimes. The Soviets just wanted to help.

    And you are totally right about the Soviet Union liberating France, England, and the Netherlands. Their troops are still there, right?

    I’m so glad someone here is facing reality.

77. conradg, on November 14th, 2008 at 12:58 am Said:

    I guess if George Bush signs over the United States to Dick Cheney before he leaves office, the country is his to do with what he wants. Maybe they’ll put it up on Ebay?

78. Kumar, on November 14th, 2008 at 1:02 am Said:

    Conradg:

    Your complaint that I ignore the rights of the (majority) secessionists is puzzling. Far from ignoring the ‘rights’ of secessionists, my earlier post revolved around the question of when it is appropriate to support secession. Moreover, I mentioned various proposals by the Indian government to partially satisfy the aspirations of secessionists.

    You seem to think the ‘majority rules’, everywhere and always: To argue otherwise, is to be guilty of trampling on the rights of the majority. I do not agree with such an illiberal position, one which slights the rights of minorities.

    If this is indeed your belief, you owe me an argument (or, at least a sketch of an argument) about why such an illiberal idea is just. If not, you must confront the fact that the cause of the secessionists in J&K is none-too-clean. Secessionist movements that rely on terrorizing and expelling whole communities must not be supported. Indulging in fantasies about ‘guaranteed’ rights won’t do—no one is willing to buy empty promises of that sort from people with blood on their hands. Given the direction of your posts, I expect that soon you will be peddling unicorns in addition to ponies.

    Btw, I have no hesitation in admitting that I am looking out for ‘my people’. Unlike the secessionists, ‘my people’ are not just my ‘tribe’ (the Kashmiri Pandits), but all of those in J&K who are for the accession of J&K State to India. As I stated earlier, our numbers are far from slight and they include Buddhists, Sikhs, Muslims as well as Hindus. If I do not look out for ‘my people’, who will? You? The secessionists?

    Kumar

79. conradg, on November 14th, 2008 at 7:28 am Said:

    Kumar,

    In a democracy, yes, the majority rules. India is a democracy, is it not? Well, how would you like it if India were ruled by the minority Muslim population? I suppose you would not much like that, and might even fight against the minority rulers to establish the rule of the majority. Suddenly you would switch your views about how appropriate it is for a minority to rule over the majority.

    Of course, minorities have rights too, and any kind of settlement would have to include some kinds of guarantees of minority rights. Of course, the hostility level has risen so high that this is probably difficult, as it is with the Palestinians and Israel. A democratic government would have to be put in place in J&K with some constitutional guarantees of minority rights.

    But really, is it really so difficult to see the situation? Even to call the Kashmiri movement “secessionist” is to pretend that there was ever any real and lawful union to begin with. As I mentioned to amar, it is absurd to think that some monarch can just give away his country without the permission of the people who constitute that country. A proper plebescite to determine whether the Kashmiri people want to join India or not has never occurred. As it stands, Kashmir has simply been occupied by India for the last 60 years, and that is how it will remain until there is a plebescite. I think you know this situation is not really in question. What is in question is whether India will ever allow such a vote to take place, because of so many other factors, as others have mentioned here.

    My point is simply that this kind of situation is not unique in the world. Yet everywhere it has occurred, such as Palestine, Northern Ireland, India itself under British colonial rule, etc., there has been an endless violent guerrilla confrontation that never ends well for the occupying country until they give in allow the majority to rule. The problem is even worse today with WMDs out there, and the possibility one day of terrorists getting ahold of nukes. Again, no one wants to answer the question, but what happens if muslim terrorists explode a nuke in Delhi or Bombay as retribution? Is Kashmir really worth all that destruction, and the war the will surely result? I sympathise with you for all the horrors you and your family have gone through, but isn’t it important to see that this kind of policy leads to even worse horrors down the road? I would tell the Israelis the same thing, of course.

80. nagee76, on November 14th, 2008 at 6:40 pm Said:

    Conradg,
    if a majority rules in a democracy, then the Indian majority must rule. Is it not? Well - the majority has ruled and we don’t want any nonsensical discussions on whether Kashmir is a legitimate part of India or not.

    I dont want to open a discussion on illiberal democracies but your whole “majority rules every time” argument is frankly disconcerting. Thankfully the founding fathers of your country thought along more liberal and understanding lines.

    You keep going back to the US invasion of France and the Soviet invasion of Germany in the 2nd World war and you keep asking us, does this mean that the US “owns” France? Of course no body says anything like that - but you don’t understand/seem to understand that neither America nor Soviet Union had previous and long standing claims to French or German territory. For you to compare the situation in Kashmir to that of the 2WW is patently absurd.

    Let me remind you again- Kashmir is not some island with zero connections to India. Let me remind you again that our First Prime Minister is a Kashmiri Pundit. Strange isn’t it that a “Kashmiri” was at the forefront of the “Indian” freedom struggle along with Gandhi? What exactly made Nehru think that he was Indian ? After all according to you India was not a nation before 1947. I would suggest that you pick up a copy of “Discovery of India” - Nehru’s finest work to try and understand how he approached India’s mind boggling diversity.

    So, without being rude, let me say this to you and any one else who questions the legitimacy of India’s claim to Kashmir - your opinion how ever well intentioned simply does not matter. Kashmir has always been a part of India - and always will be. If you continue to ingnore or be ignorant of the Maharaja of Kashmir signing the Instrument of Accession to join the Indian Union in 1948, it is not my problem. India is not exactly a block party that you can hop in and out of as and when you like.

    Lucky for you, those “Californians” didn’t get a vote in 1848as to whether they wanted to remain a part of Mexico or be a part of the US when you guys annexed the state. Lucky for you, the Confederacy did not have any vote when they wanted to secede from the Union and were eventually defeated. Lucky for you the native Americans were driven out of their lands without much of a vote - oh wait, you guys gave those back casinos! Generous! not to mention you kept the Indian names for those states - very very thoughtful.

    So you see conradg, when it comes to the American Union, you agree that might is right. It’s “your country” because you defeated every one who had legitimate claims to the land (including its original inhabitants) and those who tried to secede from the Union.

    But yet, when it comes to India you get on your moral perch and say easily ” for all the things that you had to go through I feel bad for you, but you still have to roll over on Kashmir”.

    You blatantly ignore the conditions on the ground that removed the ethnic majority in the region through centuries of Islamic dominance before India’s independence and decades of religious killings after it. Now that the demographics have changed, you cry hoarse about India not listening to the majority of Kashmiri’s - where you when the “majority” in Kashmir was systematically cleansed? I wish there were people like you who had Jinnahs hear when Indians were suddenly informed that they either had a choice of living in “Pakistan” or India.

    You totally ignore the good faith efforts being made by the Indian Govt which bends over backwards to keep its minorities satisfied. Just a few months back, the Indian Govt banned the purchase of a strip of land by an organization that wanted to build a center for Hindu pilgrims who trek to Amarnath. Why ? Because the Kashmiri Muslims or at least those who claim to represent them raised a huge stink saying that it was a conspiracy to change Kashmir’s Muslim majority demographics !

    So, let’s review here - you ignore India’s historical relations to the land of Kashmir. You ignore the way the demographics there changed. You have no patience for any peace efforts carried out by the Indian Govt - you ignore the fact that Kashmiris have been electing their representatives in the last 2 elections and are about to do so again in the next few months.

    All that you want now is for India to offer a plebiscite. By the way even for that to happen, Pakistan would have to vacate the territory that they occupied during the invasion of Kashmir in 1948. That’s what the UN resolution says. Bet you didn’t know that. Your silence on Pakistan not withdrawing from Kashmir that it occupies in order to satisfy the basic pre requisite for a plebiscite is deafening.

    And yet you want Kashmiris to be guaranteed ” right to return”. Who exactly do you think is there to guarantee or enforce this ? What utopian world are you living in ? You are insulting the intelligence of people by saying that the same thugs who drove out Kashmiri minorities out of their homes should now be in charge of protecting them ! Do you have any idea of how Talibanisation has steadily creeped into the secessionist movement ? You have no idea of how uniting Kashmiri Sufi traditions are and how united Kashmiris were in a free India. I would suggest reading Salman Rushdie to be familiar with this.

    But this is what the most irritating thing is in this whole episode - this post is about why Obama should tread carefully about Kashmir and what exactly does Kashmir conflict have to do with the problems US has with Pakistan over Afghanistan.

    A majority of Pakistanis want nothing to do with war on terror. As far as they are concerned the US has invaded the sovereignty of Afghanistan and it should withdraw completely from the region. In fact the Pakistan Army WOULD BE EVEN MORE HAPPY if America recognized Afghanistan to be Pakistan’s near abroad ( kind of like what Putin likes to do with Georgia) and GOT THE HELL OUT OF Afghanistan. The Government would support the Taliban as soon as Karzai gets his asylum in Washington D.C.

    Since you seem to be very keen in respecting majority sentiment, I hope that you can persuade your fellow Americans to ask Obama NOT TO increase troops but start drawing down from Afghanistan.

    Sounds like a plan ?

    Also. I said this before and you didn’t seem to listen to what I said.

    We aren’t afraid of any nuke attack from Islamic terrorists. Heck, we have had the AQ Khan network proliferating weapons to
    sworn enemies of America (including Iran, NoKo ) and you are worried about India ? Do you think we are sweating over what these crazy lunatics would do ? We have already been living with the biggest terrorist organization that has nukes for the last twenty years - that would be the ISI and the Paki military.

    I even explicitly mentioned the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction and how it keeps the Pakis from pulling any stupid stunt. If Delhi or Bombay is bombed, India WILL RETALIATE. And just like I told you before, we do have some nukes on our side.

    Thankfully we didn’t listen to the non proliferation ayotollahs who can voice their high minded opinions safely ensconced on their moral perches half the world away with no knowledge or idea of India’s strategic concerns.

    Conradg, you should be more worried about how Obama is going to deal with a double faced terror organization that has nuclear weapons. Leave the reasoning behind whom Kashmir should belong to directly to those people who are involved in this conflict.

    Trust me when I say this. India has seen a lot more difficult threats and challenges and has persevered. We are not going to be intimidated by jihadi terrorists - it might work with millions of Americans - it doesn’t work with us. I saw the reaction here to one day of terrorism on 9/11 and i compared it to the steady and constant terrorism that we face. No comparision - you guys wouldnt last in India for a long time.

    So there you go - we have the right mental approach to terrorism - we dont allow ourselves to get psyched or terrorized by the Hirabis.

    We don’t scare easy.

81. nagee76, on November 14th, 2008 at 7:11 pm Said:

    To everyone who has become dizzy reading this thread,
    I would suggest that no matter how hoarse we talk back at each other, the fundamental equation of Kashmir is not going to change. It could have changed in 1999 during the Kargil war but India was alert enough to repel another Paki invasion.

    So the whole question of Pakistan co-operating with the US only if Kashmir is settled in its favor is patently bogus. Pakistan’s co-operation should hinge on only one thing - on whose side is it ? The United States or the Talibani terrorists ?

    If it is really interested in rooting out the Taliban, it needs to focus on its north western border - not its north eastern border. Trying to drag Kashmir into this mess is another transparent attempt to internationalize this issue.

    If Obama falls for this trap, he will be setting himself up for an unnecessary and DUMB diplomatic defeat not to mention a worsening of relations between India and the US at a time when their relationship is on solid footing.

    So, we have to be patient enough to wait and see what approach Obama would take as opposed to the mere words that he speaks - remember this is the same guy who infuriated the Pakis by saying that he would bomb Paki NWFP territory if push came to shove ?

    Patience is a virtue !

    Peace,
    Nagi

82. conradg, on November 14th, 2008 at 7:40 pm Said:

    nagee76,

    I’m really enjoying your emotion. I hope you feel better now, getting that rant off your chest. If nothing else, you’ve helped demonstrate why India hasn’t resolved this issue, and why expecting a solution to come “from within” is unlikely. To be fair, I’m sure a Pakistani would even be more partisan in his presentation.

    Yes, I understand you consider the ISI to be terrorists. I do too. I’m not very happy with my country’s buddy-buddy relationship with them. But I think you discount the likelihood that independent muslim terrorist groups who aren’t so afraid of MAD, who are mad themselves, will someday get ahold of a nuclear device (or maybe worse, a bio-designed disease weapon) and deliberately try to instigate a nuclear war over Kashmir, Palestine, Chechnia, and yes, even in the US. As far as I can see, it’s only a matter of time.

    Now, as for the Ascession document signed by the Maharaj of Kashmir, yes I’m aware of that. I’m also aware that he specifically declared that it should be ratified by the people of Kashmir by a plebescite. You are right that part of the problem has been Pakistani occupation of west Kashmir, but the general truth can be said that any plebescite would overwhelming vote against India. And India is clearly geared towards making sure that Pakistan cannot trust India if it withdraws to actually carry through with a plebescite and abide by its vote. Isn’t it obvious India has been doing everything it can to continue occupying Kashmir forever, against the known wishes of its people, who never assented to become a part of India?

    Now, I could even concede to all your arguments about what guilty assholes the US has been in its dealings with Indians and Afghanis, and all around the world, but I don’t see how that changes the situation in Kashmir. Even if you look at it purely as a “might makes right” situation, there’s a problem when the weaker side simply refuses to give up and is driven to more and more desperate acts of terrorism. Such people feel they have nothing to lose, and are willing to take down their enemies in a suicidal pact.

    I would compare the Kashmir situation to that of Tibet, in which case the Indians are far more humane and decent than the Chinese, who are practicing cultural genocide on Tibetans. At least the Indians aren’t forcibly settling millions of Hindus in the area to overwhelm the native muslims. Of course, they can’t really, or the 150 million or so Muslims of India would take up arms as well. But look at the response of the Tibetans - they are not forming suicide bomber brigades and launching attacks on the Chinese. That’s because they are Buddhists, I guess. Muslims, however, have no regard for such niceties. I don’t think that speaks well for muslims, but it does change the situation. It makes the conflict in Kashmir, and with Pakistan altogether, extremely dangerous and prone to explosive terrorism, as you have already seen. I think you will see things get a lot worse if something serious isn’t done soon.

    We may have screwed over the Native Americans in our country, but they don’t want to secede or kill us. Neither does the south. In Canada, they deal with separatist Quebec by giving them every opportunity to vote to secede if they like, but so far they vote against it.

    Btw, the Hindus have never had a majority of the population in Kashmir, though they have in Jammu. Here’s the Wikipedia listing on the religious demographics over the last century:

    “In the 1901 Census of the British Indian Empire, Muslims constituted 74.16% of the total population of the princely state of Kashmir and Jammu, Hindus, 23.72%, and Buddhists, 1.21%. The Hindus were found mainly in Jammu, where they constituted a little less than 80% of the population.[18] In the Kashmir Valley, Muslims constituted 93.6% of the population and Hindus 5.24%.[18] These percentages have remained fairly stable for the last 100 years.[19] Forty years later, in the 1941 Census of British India, Muslims accounted for 93.6% of the population of the Kashmir Valley and the Hindus for 4%.[19] In 2003, the percentage of Muslims in the Kashmir Valley was 95%[20] and those of Hindus 4%; the same year, in Jammu, the percentage of Hindus was 66% and those of Muslims 30%.[20] In the 1901 Census of the British Indian Empire, the population of the princely state of Kashmir and Jammu was 2,905,578. Of these 2,154,695 were Muslims (74.16%), 689,073 Hindus (23.72%), 25,828 Sikhs, and 35,047 Buddhists.”

    So your claim that a Hindu majority ever existed in Kashmir, but was driven out by Muslims, seems fanciful. Clearly, Kashmir has been overwhelmingly Muslim for the last century, and probably many centuries before that. Jammu is another story, and I think a separate plebescite for them would be the best thing.

    As for the “right of return” I only mentioned that because amar asked me what should be done for Hindus who had been driven out of Kashmir. I also mentioned that I doubted many would actually want to or be able to return. You are probably right that at this point tensions are so high that minority rights might not be guaranteed in any new government of Kashmir. Well, this is what happens when you occupy a country against the will of the vast majority of its people. Israel has the same problem, generations of Arabs who hate them because of their occupation.

    Now, while I do admire your determination in the face of terrorism not to give in, it also seems to have made you determined to ignore the basic injustice you are perpetuating in Kashmir. It’s unfortunate that terrorism often has the opposite effect, but that’s why the US made the mistake of invading Iraq. But sometimes what you are fighting for is simply wrong, as in Kashmir. Yes, the southerners fighting the union in America weren’t going to give into to “Yankee Imperialism”, but really, what they were fighting for, slavery, was simply evil, unjust, and plain wrong. And what you are fighting for in Kashmir, is simply wrong.

    I think the Indian ability to absorb incredible degrees of diversity into its new political structure is profoundly admirable, but that doesn’t mean that it has the right to force everyone who could be considered “Indian” by culture into that political union. It certainly can’t force muslims to accede to this, either in Pakistan or Kashmir. I for one wish the whole of those two regions would convert tomorrow to Hinduism or Buddhism, or Rastafarianism for that matter, and then this would be less of a pressing issue, but this won’t happen. History happened, the Moghuls invaded India and left a huge muslim population behind who for some reason just won’t let it go. And thus, “India” in the Vedic sense hasn’t existed for a very long time. And as you know, there has never been a political entity called India, which makes Nehru’s accomplishment all the more amazing, but also precarious and without precedent. Obviously there has been an “India” in cultural terms for many thousands of years, but that doesn’t mean all cultural Indians, especially muslims, want to be a part of the modern political union called India. Many do, of course, and that is fine. But in Kashmir they don’t and never did, and it seems very difficult to justify forcibly making Kashmir a part of the Indian union for that very reason.

    Now, as for me, I’m just interested in the issue, and I thank you for continuing to inform me about the Indian perspective on this. I don’t imagine Obama is going to doing anything overt about this. He just seems aware that it’s one of the major ongoing conflicts in the world that relates to the general political problems of Islam altogether, and it affects our relations with Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the war with muslim terrorists in an indirect way. In general, the US is quite sympathetic to India in having to endure far more muslim terrorism than we do. But there’s a reason for that, which is occupying a muslim territory. Oh, right, we’re doing that too! And we have over 4,000 dead soldiers to show for it, and not much else. At least we finally seem to be getting the idea that we shouldn’t be there, that we should get out, and let the Muslims have their own countries and do as they will in them. I hope Obama takes that tack more and more.

    As for India, I really do wish them well, and think very highly of them in spite of their problems and errors. I don’t wish to get moralistic about Kashmir, it seems to be a very difficult dilemma, because India has interests there it thinks more highly of than the political rights of the Kashmiris. It’s not as if the US has never been guilty of such things. So be aware that I’m not looking down on India self-righteosly, but I’m not trying to sugar-coat the situation either.

83. amar, on November 14th, 2008 at 8:46 pm Said:

    well, i might have learned something today, from conradg, that the instrument of ascension had the clause that it had 2 be ratified by a plebiscite [pending my verification of this].

    but then, this raises a point, that the plebiscite would have to include the whole population of J&K (including the displaced hindus) and it is, whether the entire population of J&K want to join india.

    and further, what happens to the population of the PoK (pak occupied kasmir) in this plebiscite? i mean, can anyone guarantee and verify that bus loads of non-kasmiris haven’t been bussed into that region since 1948?

    disclosure: all things considered, i’m not in favor of india letting go of J&K. simple reason, pakistani’s didn’t have a legitimate reason to ask 4 a separate state in the first place.

84. amar, on November 14th, 2008 at 8:50 pm Said:

    a bigger concern though, is would it have any meaningful outcome, since the population demographics of the different segments (hindus, buddhists, muslims) would have grown @ different rates over the last 60 years. now, i’m sure the population growth rate of the muslims far outpaces that of the hindus and obviously the buddhists. ;-)

85. amar, on November 14th, 2008 at 8:59 pm Said:

    so, i would like a plebiscite, involving the entire population of india, pakistan and bangladesh on whether pakistan and bangladesh should be merged with india.

    i’d love 2 see that day and i’m too giddy as 4 as the outcome.

    shouldn’t the entire population of undivided india have had the vote on whether the minorities (muslims) needed a separate state in the 1st place?

    so, i think the chapter is closed on kasmir and the new chapter on merging pakistan and bangladesh with india should be opened.

86. amar, on November 14th, 2008 at 10:01 pm Said:

    conradg,

    i think, u’ve got it backwards, wrt native indians in america.

    the Q is not whether, they want 2 secede [u must b kidding 2 ask this Q], rather, the Q is, whether, they want all non native indians thrown out of america.

    i’d b very interested in seeing the results of that referendum.

    regards,
    amar

87. conradg, on November 14th, 2008 at 10:50 pm Said:

    Amar,

    I’m not sure that a general plebescite of the whole of India, Pakistan, Kashmir, and Bangladesh would have been the way to do it, since they were never part of the same political union to begin with. Each consisted of many separate kingdoms, principalities, etc. The way to go about it would have been for each such entity to have its own plebescite to decide if it wanted to join India, a separate Pakistan, or become an independent country of its own.

    This would be similar to how the United States was formed. Each of the individual states voted (not by plebescite, but through their elected representatives) to join the Union, and ratify the Constitution. If any individual state had decided not to join, they would have been free to go their own way. This led to many compromises in the Constitution that were made to make every state happy. But to force a small state, such as Connecticutt say, to join the union because the majority of people in Virginia wanted them to, goes against the very principle of a democratic government of free states. Which is why doing it that way in India would have been a very stupid way to go about it, and would have created an even worse war, if that is possible to imagine.

    If India could have gone through a similar democratic process, it might have avoided much violence. It’s wishful thinking, I know, but I think the principle holds true. The way it worked in 1947, with each King or Maharaja deciding for themselves whether their kingdom would join India or Pakistan ended up working out okay in most cases because that decision reflected the general will of their people anyway, except in Kashmir’s case. (Were there others? I’m not aware of any, but you may know better). In Kashmir’s case, there were military pressures involved that apparently got the Maharaja spooked. But in any case, the decisions of these Maharajas should not be the determining factor in the political future of these people. It is their own will that matters.

    Now as to the ascession papers, I’m not entirely sure that the assurance of a plebescite is in there. (I haven’t read them) It was a request of the Maharaja that the will of his people be taken into account, and was agreed to by the British, but he was acting in great haste due to the military pressures on all sides, so I don’t know if it made it into the legal document. But that is why the UN resolution demands a plebescite to all the will of the people of Kashmir to dictate the resolution of the country’s future.

    According to the UN, the plebescite is supposed to include the whole of Kashmir, including the part occupied by Pakistan. As a compromise, there could be as many as three separate plebescites, one for Pakistani-occupied Kashmir, one for Indian-occupied Kashmir, and one for Jammu. This would allow Hindu-dominated Jammu to stay with India even if the rest did not. The others could either go with Pakistan, or become independent, which I think is actually the best solution. Who really wants to be a part of the mess that is Pakistan? Currently Kashmir has its own legislature, local government with some autonomy, etc., so it’s already set up to be a functional democracy.

88. amar, on November 15th, 2008 at 2:14 am Said:

    conradg,

    since we’re talking abt the time when india got divided, that india was @ that time under the british empire, and the boundaries of that entity called india under the british empire clearly included pakistan & bangladesh. weren’t they?

    and @ that time, the hindu majority didn’t decide on giving the muslims a separate state. that’s why, i’d like to see a referendum now, that can decide whether the majority wants to revoke the creation of those entities.

89. amar, on November 15th, 2008 at 2:21 am Said:

    “but he was acting in great haste due to the military pressures on all sides, ”

    the military pressure wasn’t from the indian side. u now know, where it came from. i bet, the raja sure wanted to have his kingdom to himself. which king want’s to give away his kingdom? i wouldn’t if i were him

90. conradg, on November 15th, 2008 at 2:42 am Said:

    amar,

    This is very cute. So, you accept the authority of the British Empire to decide India’s fate? I kinda thought you were rebelling against that? Hmmm, maybe Indians should be able to decide that? And yes, for what it’s worth, you could certainly true to impose a single Indian nation on the entire subcontinent, including what is now Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Kashmir. Go ahead, see how that works out? You think Kashmir is a mess…

    Of course the Hindu majority didn’t “decide” to give Muslims their own state. And of course they didn’t have to abide by the British decisions. They could have tried to keep India together. At what cost, however? And would that have been just, fair, democratic? Does India want to rule over massive muslim with regions with the force of military occupation forever? You think you have a problem with terrorism now. So please, bring on this referendum of yours. Revoke away. People may not wish to go along with it.

    As for military pressure, it was certainly coming from the Pakistani side. But Mountbatten apparently extorted an agreement out of the Maharaja, refusing to help unless he handed over the keys to his country to the Indians. Not exactly the kind of legal agreement that holds up in court. What if the Americans had refused to invade France and kick out the Nazis (and keep out the Soviets) unless the French leader signed over their country to them? Would that agreement really be binding forever to the French people? Of course not.

    Anyway, this is all pretty obvious, if you bother to think about it in real world terms.

91. amar, on November 15th, 2008 at 4:02 am Said:

    conradg,

    i made all these points to show that, ppl/monarchies/cultures/nations who have the military might to protect their interests, prevail over those that don’t have it.

    that is how, the history of our humankind has been written and shall continue be written.

    isn’t there a saying, “history is written by the victorious?”

    funny, it holds true 4 all life forms on this planet.

    amar

92. amar, on November 15th, 2008 at 4:18 am Said:

    and, as & when the balance of power shifts, as is often the case in history, past actions r modified and new ones committed.

93. Kumar, on November 15th, 2008 at 12:35 pm Said:

    Conradg,

    Your posts don’t address the central issue squarely: ‘Majority rules’, you say. When pressed, you back off, and write that ‘of course’ minority rights will be protected.

    How is that going to happen in the secessionist’s version of J&K state? How likely is it? To properly grapple with that question you must have detailed knowledge of the actors on the ground. Nothing in your posts leads me to think that you have the necessary depth of knowledge about J&K state. Based on my detailed knowledge of the secessionist camp—the range of beliefs, motives, actions and inactions of its leaders and followers—I think it extremely unlikely, so I don’t support secession.

    Scrutinizing the credentials of secessionist movements in this manner—case by case, based on detailed knowledge–is a necessary pre-requisite, even if you are a fan of secessionist movements. After all, the result of such scrutiny will have a bearing on how to conduct, say, a plebiscite (‘majority rules’ or ‘super-majority’ rules, etc.). You would do well to refrain from peddling arguments on J&K until you acquire the necessary depth of knowledge about the state.

    It is still unclear whether you think protection of minority rights is merely desirable, or whether you think it is necessary. I think the latter, and as a consequence I think that illiberal secessionist movements that have a record of, say, forcible expulsion of ethnic minorities, are not deserving of support. If you disagree, you need to argue to that effect.

    I’m not certain why you think your consequentialist ‘parade of horribles’ argument helps you: it renders you incoherent, since you (mostly) seem to otherwise peddle deontological grounds for secession. Bracketing that point however, the persuasiveness of such arguments of course depends not merely on the ‘horribles’ you can conjure up, but also on the probability of such ‘horribles’. The anti-secessionist side in J&K state has the better of this sort of argument, since the probability of the nearly-as-grim consequences of secession for India (and likely the rest of the subcontinent) are much greater.

    Finally, thanks for extending your sympathies to me and my family, but we consider ourselves quite fortunate. Our travails are nothing compared to the plight of those floundering in refugee camps in Jammu and Delhi.

    Kumar

94. conradg, on November 15th, 2008 at 2:31 pm Said:

    Kumar,

    You are right that I am simply not conversant enough with all the details of the players in J&K to predict an outcome for all concerned in the event of secession. I’m not sure anyone is, however. Minority rights are very important, and the sitution in those refugee camps is deplorable. What would happen to the approximately 5% of HIndus left in Kashmir after any secession is not something I could predict. It would depend, I’m sure, on the process that led to secession. If it were done in any orderly, fair, democratic way, with constitutional guarantees, UN presence and oversight, etc., well then yes, it could turn out favorably. If it were done suddenly, irresponsibly, and callously, as the orignal partition was done in 1947, then it would be a disaster for those minorities. That is why it would require a very delicate and lengthy political process, not just between Pakistan and India, but within Kashmir itself. This would not have to lead to the breakup of India, but to its strengthening, which is the general result of engaging a democratic political process rather than resorting to brute force and occupation against the will of the vast majority.

    But as you say, this is not my world, or my decision. I’m just offering a view from outside the problem itself. It is obviously up to you and your countrymen to figure out and carry out any political solution. I wish you well.

95. conradg, on November 15th, 2008 at 2:36 pm Said:

    amar,

    Your concern for minority rights is completely contradicted by your acceptance of the dictum that might makes right. The democratic process is supposed to be the solution to the endless warfare of might over rights. Which side are you really on?

96. amar, on November 15th, 2008 at 7:50 pm Said:

    conradg,

    i do have concerns 4 minority rights.

    i also believe, those who have might triumph over those who don’t.

    in any given issue, i take sides based on the facts i have @ a particular point in time. as n when new information emerges, i reserve the right to change my position.

97. amar, on November 15th, 2008 at 7:56 pm Said:

    looks like 1 or ur assumptions is that minorities r always the ones who’s rights r violated.

    it needn’t b true, in every case.

98. nagee76, on November 15th, 2008 at 11:11 pm Said:

    Conradg,
    I looked at your reading from Wikipedia about Kashmir being Muslim majority in 1901 and puked - do you think the history of Kashmir dates back to the last 100 years ?. Kashmir gets its name from Sage Kashyap .

    http://ikashmir.net/storm/chapter1.html

    You dont find it strange that Kashmir has a Hindu Maharaja. After all it is a Muslim majority region isnt it?

    So, we have to listen patiently to your ignorance on the history of the region only to finally say “well a lot of things happened in Kashmir, but you guys need to order a plebiscite any ways”.

    I see that you are feeling sorry for all the Hindu’s driven out of Kashmir - well, you can now feel sorry for the Muslims who want an independent state and wont get it. After all, feeling terrible for other people’s plight seems to come easy to you.

    You pooh poohed away my suggestion that Pakistan should withdraw from the regions it occupies claiming that India is making sure that even if Pakistan withdraws from the region, it wont abide by the promise to hold a plebiscite and abide by the vote that would happen. The sad thing is that you actually believe that Pakistan wants to abide by the UN resolutions and India would be the one not doing so - that is easily the most naive statement you have made.

    I dont want to keep beating the bush here, but why are you Americans interested in Kashmir ? Seriously - according to all the nightmare scenarios that you painted, it would be Indian cities which would bare the brunt of nuclear attacks. I suppose you are trying to tell us how we should lead our lives and conduct our domestic policy as though we do not know what we are doing or what is our own good.

    Rest easy, conradg. You dont agree with what India is doing and it is your opinion and i respectfully disagree. But it still leaves the central question of the post by Daniel Larision open - how EXACTLY does this help the US with Afghanistan ?

    From what you ve been arguing it is clear that you are recommending Pakistan’s approach to the Kashmir issue. Sorry, it is not happening.

    The US should be more worried about how it can get the Pakistani ISI and military to actively co-operate in rooting out the NWFP Talibani terrroists - you should be more worried about the Pashtun problem and how it complicates US efforts in the region. Instead we have been having a discussion on Kashmir, India and other tangential issues.

    Could you please make a coherent argument of what exactly the Kashmir issue has to do with the Pakistani co-operation with the US in Afghanistan ?

    Let’s assume that the status quo remains - by now after reading all these arguments, you should have realized what India’s position on Kashmir is and how it is not going to change, no matter what.

    Assume that Pakistan uses this as an excuse to continue its active and covert arming of the Taliban and making life more miserable for Afghani and NATO forces.

    Could you now discuss what exactly you think the Obama administration should be doing? Because in the end, that is what really matters. Your opinion on how old India is a political entity or your general ignorance on the history of Kashmir ( which predates Islam btw) does not really matter or count for anything.

    In short, you are in an intractable situation where India holds the long end of the stick and your frontline ally on terror is lead by a double faced terrorist organization (the ISI and the military) and which is slowly cracking up from within ( Pakistan is requesting the IMF for money now - they have defaulted on their obligations and face an increasingly bleak economic future). Did i mention that the civilian govt in Pakistan is practically a joke with no real power?

    It is amazing how Afghanistan is now a lesser focal point than Kashmir. But this is what happens when you dont realize what you are getting into.

99. conradg, on November 16th, 2008 at 2:12 am Said:

    nagee76,

    Can I politely say that you are stuck in the distant past? To casually dismiss the present facts, and the last 100 years of Muslim populaton dominance in Kashmir, asserting instead some kind of ancient historical claim to the region for “India”, which didn’t exist as an independent political entity even 100 years ago, much less, like, ever. You’d have to go back about 700 years to find a majority Hindu population in India. Now, I don’t condone the muslim invasions of India, but the present trumps the past. If Kashmir were predominantly Hindu at present, I would certainly support it being a part of India, but it simply is not, and appealing to some ancient myth about Kashyapa is just plain nuts as a justification for continuing to dominate a people who have their rights to independence. I simply don’t support that kind of politics anywhere in the world. I certainly don’t want to see even more violence erupt on the subcontinent, but I don’t accept that there’s no way for Kashmir to move towards independence in a relatively peaceful fashion.

    You assertion that I’m in favor of the Pakistani solution is a sign of the intense polarization of this issue in India. Anyone who does not accept the official Indian position and history on this is clearly some kind of Pakistani terrorist sympathizer. Well, no. I don’t accept the Pakistani position either. I think they should withdraw, India shoud withdraw, peacekeepers should step in, three separate plebescites should be held for Jammu, Kashmir, and Ladack, and the probably result would be an independent Kashmir, with Jammu and Ladack remaining with India. Now, neither Pakistan nor India likes that outcome, which is why I said that neither one really wants to resolve this. Pakistan doesn’t want to lose the part of Kashmir it is occupying, and India doesn’t want to either. So India is in no hurry for Pakistan to leave, and get a plebescite going. Nor is Pakistan, really. I think they both like keeping the conflict going.

    As for why I care, well, why not? My interests are human, and not confined to American borders. Are you so myopic you really don’t care what goes on in the world unless it directly affects you? I get the feeling from the various Indians here that they want everyone to stay out of their business because deep down they know they are doing something wrong. It reminds me of southerners telling everyone to stop messing with their “internal affairs” when it involves perpetuating slavery or Jim Crow discrimination. The more righteous the reaction, the more wrong the underlying policy, is the general rule of thumb.

    As for what Obama should do, I think he is simply concerned about all the various hot spots that affect the general peace of the world. Kashmir is one of those hots spots. I would recommend he keep it all very low key and behind the scenes.

    The reason Kashmir generally matters to America is that, after 9/11, American is acutely aware of how important it is to undermine muslim terrorism around the world by addressing the areas of muslim-centric conflict. This is why the Palestinian-Israeli conflict needs to be dealt with, as well as Kashmir, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Iraq, and others. As I’ve said many times, I think it’s only a matter of time before these conflicts lead to the use of nuclear weapons, and that could affect us all. The notion that I shouldn’t care if nukes destroy Delhi, but only if they strike the U.S., is a foreign sensibility to me. I’m sorry to hear that’s the way you expect people to think, but I do accept that it’s the way you and many Indians think.

    And yes, I know Pakistan is a mess. They are a mess with nukes. That’s not terribly reassuring.

100. conradg, on November 16th, 2008 at 2:15 am Said:

     Typo in the last post. First paragraph, third sentence should have read:

     “You’d have to go back about 700 years to find a majority Hindu population in Kashmir” not “in India.”

101. chunky_monkey76, on November 16th, 2008 at 9:31 am Said:

     Mr. Conradg,

     I know Mr. Amar personally, and trust me from my own experience either give up the debate or go get drunk cuz Mr. Amar never gives up on a debate.:D

     Mr. Nagee76,

     Shut your mouth on using such insults as something being “puke”. Didn’t your mom teach you any manners?

102. nagee76, on November 16th, 2008 at 11:45 am Said:

     Conradg,
     Sage Kashyap is no “myth” - you once again seem to overlook the fact that the Kashmir region has completely lost its ethnic composition steadily and over centuries now. All this is as far as concerned the “past”. And you are asking us why we are stuck in the past.??

     Let us start with your argument that we are stuck in the past. Let us forget every thing that happened in the last 50 years as the past. And what exactly do you want to do now ?

     Hold plebiscites for three different regions ? Conradg, I sincerely hope that American diplomats are not as naive as you are. Actually they arent as naive as they used to be about Kashmir.

     Specifically, you display a clear lack of knowledge and understanding of how geo-politics works in the region and how politics works in the world in general.

     Hear yourself again - Hold plebiscites for the three regions of the state ?? Ask international “peacekeepers” step in !! What’s next in store ?? Give each Kashmiri kid a pony to ride around town?

     Your overbearing sense of misguided morality makes it very hard not to outright mock you. Seriously. How could “international peacekeepers” step into the thorniest conflict in South Asia that has lasted for the last 50 years, when it stood by idly watching Rwanda, Bosnia, Iraq, Darfur, Tibet go to hell - all in the space of the last 10 years.

     Have you even kept yourself uptodate on how NATO forces are chickening out of the fight in Afghanistan ? But for British, Canadian and Polish/Dutch troops, no one else is fighting.Do you know the kind of rules of engagement that German and French troops have ? And all this in a region where there is a consensus that Islamic terrorism needs to be fought !

     Take a look at Lebanon - it is another thorny issue. It involves competing Muslim factions - Where exactly have the international peacekeepers been?

     They are’nt exactly soldiers from heaven waiting to do the bidding of dictates for world peace are they ?

     They are composed of military personnel from a pool of countries who first and foremost have an obligation to see what is in it for them that they are willing to put their soldiers at risk. This is exactly why all the UN peacekeepers around the world ARE NEVER in a region where they have the ultimate say. They are pretty much figureheads who have zero power

     But even if some magical peace keeping force can be assembled, what exactly are you smoking to say that India is going to give up on its legitimate claims to Kashmir and allow these troops to come in. I know that you question India’s claims on Kashmir - wait a minute, you actually refute those claims. But let me remind you again as politely as possible - what you think about the legitimacy of India’s claim to Kashmir counts for nothing.

     The downright delusional nature in which you deal with serious issues is breath taking.

     You also misunderstood my question about why you are bothered by the nightmare nuclear scenarios that you painted. I did not question your humanity or something - i just tried to politely point out that people who are going to be more affected by this supposed nightmare scenario have a better handle on the situation. And have a bigger stake in this issue than some one like who for all your good intentions is half the world away.

     I also addressed the point about mutually assured destruction repeatedly. And i found you repeatedly ignoring it too.

     Here is a tip - Pakistan might use “72 virgin orgy sex” dreaming jihadis to conduct terrorism and use it as an instrument of state policy to pressure India on Kashmir and in the Northeast and just about any where else it wants to. But even this strategy has its limits.

     Nuclear weapons are not exactly suicide bombs/fire crackers that can be set alight in a crowded market place. Delivering a nuclear payload involves specialized air power and fighter air craft. All of which is only possible only if the Pakistani Airforce is ready to do that.

     Pakistan knows that if it attacks India, it will face annihilation, not just mere retaliation. Once a nuclear attack is launched, there is no looking back - there is no mercy from the enemy that has been attacked - that too an enemy that you know can annihilate your entire country as retaliation, given the intense bitterness and outright hatred that has already existed and that which will only be heightened by a nuclear attack. It is a risk that Pakistan takes at its own peril.

     It is all too comfortable to send brainwashed terrorists to blow themselves up and ruin their own lives and those of innocents - it is a more sobering thought when you realize that you can be vaporized yourself. Kind of like how Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat,Nasrallah, Ayatollah Khoeimini who so ardently believe in the just nature of their jihad’s that they are always willing to send other people to their instant deaths but have never known to strap on a suicide vest to their own bodies.

     If you want to overlook all of this and continue to be in your Halloween mood spooking us into believing that we are facing mushroom clouds, you are welcome to it. But as they say here, we are not falling for this . India’s nuclear weapons are the biggest deterrent for Pakistan and that’s that.

     I read your “I get the feeling from the various Indians here that they want everyone to stay out of their business because deep down they know they are doing something wrong.” with mild amusement.

     Deep down huh? Coming from a country that outright decimated the native people to whom this land originally belonged to, you should know a lot about “deep down” feelings. We are tired of listening to the moralizing Westerner who is so unaware of his/her own moral blind spots but ready to give gratuitous moral lessons to any one who cares to listen.

     This is exactly why it is difficult to take people like you seriously, Conradg. What ever you feel about the situation, how ever well intentioned and selectively moralized it may be, it does not count for a damned thing.

     You still havent come around to giving me or anyone else a decent argument on what Kashmir has to do with fighting Pakistani supported terrorists in Afghanistan. To borrow from you, “deep down” you know that there is no connection between these two issues.Saying otherwise would be intellectually dishonest. If you have anything concrete to say about that, please do.

     Afghanistan is fighting terror and Pakistan is doing every thing in its power to continue to sabotage it and return it to being a Taliban ruled client state and its near abroad in a geostrategically important location in the world. You seem blindingly oblivious to this simple basic fact that any observer of geostrategy can see.

     Either Pakistan fights Islamic terrorism whole heartedly with all its might and roots out the Taliban OR it does not want to fight Islamic radicalism and continue to be double faced about it. Why do you think that there are now US drone attacks deep into NWFP territory with Pakistan making a hue and cry about how this is unacceptable and some times firing back at US troops.?

     You still dont understand what it takes to fight Islamic jihadism. You still cannot come to grips with the fact that all your selective moralizing counts for nothing and the enemy that you are facing seeks to weaken your resolve in this long fight by playing you. Musharaff pretty much played you guys for a fool and it took all this while to realize what was happening.

     You are now talking about how post 9/11, the US should undermine Islamic terrorism by “addressing” Muslim centric conflicts ALL OVER THE WORLD.

     Just a few minutes back, I finished watching George Stephanopoulos having a round table discussion on whether Detroit automakers need to be bailed out. Given that there are enormous economic problems in this country for the foreseeable future (at least the next 5 to 10 years) not to mention the 52 trillion dollar unfunded/under funded entitlement problems on Social Security and Medicare about to hit starting 2017, you have to ask yourself - how sane it is for the US to poke its nose in “addressing” Islamic centric conflicts ( what ever addressing is supposed to mean)

     Yet, you are also the same person who bemoans American presence in Iraq - yeah its one of those places that has had Muslim centric conflict between two major religious denominations that stretches thousands of years back. Sounds familiar ? Whether you realize it or not, you are contradicting yourself.

     There is lack of knowledge from your side on

     A. The psychology of Islamic jihad that you are seriously dealing with for the first time - and it has been 6 years only. India and Israel have been dealing with it for a long time and understand what it takes to win against ruthless terrorists. You obviously dont.

     B. Geopolitical implications of the Afghanistan-Pakistan war and

     C.Th enormous problems America is going to face with that train wreck called the entitlement crisis fast approaching.

     And yet you want the US to “address” some of the thorniest issues that involve violent Islamic jihadism. Palestine, Chechnya, Kashmir. Why dont you add Baluchistan and Chinese Uyighur Muslims to that wish list ? May be Santa Claus can make all your wishes come true.

     International diplomacy does not lend itself to the kind of luxury moralizing such as yours - nor is it well served by being alarmist about “terrorist nuclear attacks” without realizing how involved it is to carry out a nuclear attack.

     If people were half as fearful and moralizing as you are, the United States would not have had the stomach for the immense casualties it took on the first day of the Normandy invasion or for pulling the nuclear trigger on Japan or for bombing civilians in Germany. Who the hell knows how the history of this world would have been then?

     Let’s see what happens in South Asia going forward. But it is helpful to see the amount of absurd irrational fear and selective moralizing all bundled up in a web of contradictions on what the US role should be in the Islamic world post 9/11.

     Islamic terrorists can take heart though - American public opinion is easily intimidated and influenced. Keep terrorizing them and planning terrorism around the world, that sooner or later the US folds and gives into Islamic radicals and helps to settle Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya and what ever else comes up in the future in the jihadi’s favor. All in the name of peace and stability. Just give them what they want and we can all be safe again.

     It is in this context, that i am now beginning to get worried about an Obama administration. He has always considered Afghanistan to be the “good war” and the central front on the war on terror and may be tempted to do anything in order to achieve “peace”.

     After all he seems ever ready to repudiate the hard fought gains in Iraq and cannot claim any credit for the stabilization of the situation over there - remember, he opposed the surge vehemently and pooh poohed its gains until he was forced to visit Iraq in July.

     So he has to do something to “win the good war” in Afghanistan. The Pakis are now dangling a fruit for him - listen to us on Kashmir and we will deliver peace in Afghanistan - it must be tempting but for the fact that this would be the dumbest trade Obama could agree to.

103. conradg, on November 16th, 2008 at 1:58 pm Said:

     nagee76,

     You asked me what I thought should occur in Kashmir, I answered. I didn’t say this was in any sense the probable outcome. From the beginning of this thread, I’ve said that the probable outcome of this conflict is no action whatsoever on the part of India or Pakistan to resolve it, with continuing muslim terrorism and resentment until these terrorists get ahold of nuclear weapons or other WMDs, sometime in the next fifty years or so, and unleash hell, followed by a nuclear exchange that destroys most of northern India and Pakistan, tens if not hundreds of millions of casualties, and nothing good whatsoever for anyone. Good luck with convincing people that you were “right” all along, because you believe the name “Kashmir” came from some ancient Hindu sage.

     You should turn your personal contempt for me upon yourself and your fellow countrymen. I think you are headed down a very dark alley that does not have any light at the end, other than a brilliantly beautiful series of thermonuclear explosions. But please, continue in denial of where your current policies are headed. Obviously your Gods will reward you in heaven for protecting the soveriegnty of sacred India.

     As for America, I’ve opposed its intervention in Iraq, which has also turned the Afghan war into a protracted and miserable conflict which I think now has very little favorable conditions for success. Obama will probably try to turn it around, and probably meet with minimal success. In general, I’m a pessimist as far as much of the world goes. Unless people wake up to the sheer stupidity of their side’s “consensus” in places like Kashmir, Palestine, Chechnya, and all the other places (there are too many to mention), only bad things will follow. I’m much more optimistic about America’s development, technologically, economically, and diplomatically. as long as we end our involvement in Iraq and don’t start any new military involvements. I frankly see little harm in Obama’s mentioning issues like Kashmir, but no, I don’t think he will seriously persue a solution there, he will have many more fruitful diplomatic avenues to travel with much greater chances of success.

     You also are completely blowing out of proportion Obama’s remarks on Kashmir. He has made zero diplomatic gestures in this direction. He made a casual reference to the situation in a comment to a journalist weeks before the election. It isn’t even remotely on the level of a serious proposal or diplomatic initiative. What it reveals above all is the incredibly thin-skinned nature of the Indian political culture on this issue. Examine that, and I think you’ll find indeed that this thin-skinnedness comes from guilt. Pointing out that America is guilty of many similar crimes doesn’t change that. We at least are open about that (now). Criticizing America is the leading world-wide political sport, and that’s a good thing. India doesn’t seem to have a similar sense of fair play when it comes to being on the receiving end of such criticism.

     As for Islamic terrorism, I think both India and Israel have been dealing with it terribly, and it only gets worse. The delusion that you are fighting it realistically and well is simply insane, from where I sit. I think both countries have no idea how badly they are doing, and how dismal their futures are. At least India is a big country and could survive a nuclear exchange. Israel will not. I think you have no realistic understanding how technology is accelerating in such a way as to make terrible weapons increasingly feasible and available at lower and lower levels of political organization, and thus that time is not on your side. National pride can be blindingly deadly, as the history of the last century shows. You may think I am being irrationally fearful, I think not. Let’s both hope I’m wrong. But the consequences of your being wrong are much greater.

104. nagee76, on November 16th, 2008 at 3:58 pm Said:

     Conradg,
     We cannot predict what happens in the next 5 months and you are asking us to be scared of something that “could happen” in the next 50 years ? Living you life in fear is something that what cowards do - if we did, we would have already rolled over on Kashmir, Punjab and just about every other challenge that this country met.

     It is astounding how you still dont understand the concept of deterrence and mutually assured destruction. Some how you assume that you care more deeply about a nightmarish nuclear scenario than we do. Do you see how incredibly foolish that is?

     Do you really think that a parent in New Delhi or Bombay is less worried about the environment in which their children are going to grwo up than you ? You pretty much suggest that from the tone of your posts.

     And what is this foolish nonsense about how our Gods will reward us for saving the unity of India ?

     I have to ask this question flat out. Was that anti Hindu bigotry that slipped out of your mouth with out you even realizing it.? You think we are all doing this because we are waiting for some rewards in heaven ? How much more condescending can you get?

     I am no America hater - i love this country more than you’d ever know and i cannot do anything if you dont know about that. It does not matter how “open” America is about its past - it does not make the “past” go away - I was not trying to score some cheap political points here - I was trying to open your eyes as to how morally preachy any one can get while talking about the history of other countries and how this gets us nowhere.

     You were’nt exactly thick skinned when i reminded you of America’s past, were you ? What exactly gives you the moral authority to go all preachy about a situation about which you have mere superficial knowledge ? If a Mexican is going to ask you about how you can live with the annexation of California, what are you going to say to that guy ? Hey mexican dude, you are too thin skinned ?

     If thinking that we are “gulity” about our position in Kashmir satisfactorily explains to you India’s position, it then begs a question. What really are we guilty of ?

     I am telling you that we dont give a damn about Muslims who feel stifled under Indian rule in Kashmir. They can keep howling and protesting and terrorizing how much ever they want. I dont give these clowns a damn.

     They have no standing to complain about living in a democratic society that gives them the freedom to protest to their heart’s content. If they are truly popular let them compete in state wide elections and show that they are indeed the predominant voice of the population there. But they are not exactly very confident of their own standing are they ?

     All that they believe in is threats and terrorism and ethnic cleansing and gaming the demographics as much as they possibly can. If no one agrees with their vision of Kashmir, they have them killed, bombed and maimed.

     “I think you have no realistic understanding how technology is accelerating in such a way as to make terrible weapons increasingly feasible and available at lower and lower levels of political organization, and thus that time is not on your side. ”

     Really ? Assuming you know so much about how rapidly technology is accelerating and how it is available to lower levels of political organization , why is it that you opposed the Iraq war?

     After all Bush gave pretty much the exact reason that you gave - we cannot let these terrorists and non state actors lay hands on the WMD ! Do you think that the US invasion of Iraq was early by 45 years ?

     Time is not our hands it seems - so according to you, we roll over as quickly as possible on Kashmir to Islamic jihadists. Better to give in to Islamic terrorism NOW as opposed to the vague and unproven threats that will arise in 2050.

     I see the strains of an interventionist liberal in you - wanting America to be involved in Kashmir, Palestine and “address” Muslim conflicts every where in a post 9/11 world.

     Here’s a tip - you should be more worried if you will get your Social security “benefits” when you retire. At this point, your grand children dont look like they will get any.

     So lets make a deal - Allow us to live in denial, roam down the dark alleys, not be worried about any nuclear nightmare nonsense.
     while you start thinking fast as to how to paint the ensuing defeat in Afghanistan and what is going to happen after Karzai falls.

     It is just amazing how much energy that you pour into arguing about a situation that you have ZERO CONTROL over while ignoring the way you are running ragged in Afghanistan and will have to withdraw in retreat pretty soon unless you manage to get the ISI on your side. Good luck with that.

105. conradg, on November 16th, 2008 at 5:49 pm Said:

     nagee76,

     I’m not suggesting we live in fear, but only that we be realistic about the threats we face, and not pretend we can bully our way through this mess with bravado and macho self-confidence. The fact that MAD (mutually assurred destruction) somehow held off the US-Soviet conflict from destroying the world doesn’t mean it works every time. It almost didn’t work with the US countless times. JFK was urged by every single military and almost every diplomatic advisor to invade Cuba back in 1962. If he had, little did we know that Castro already had nukes which he had the authority to use in the event of an invasion. Taking the “mainstream” macho course of action would have led, basically, to the end of the world. I’m suggesting that something similar could happen in the India-Pakistan confict. One need not be a coward to see this and act to defuse the tensions, as JFK did, rather than imagine one can just bluster through it all and come out fine in the end.

     As for my being anti-Hindu, quite the contrary. I am simply anti-religious-nationalist. I have a great affection for Hinduism, the Vedantic philosophy, and even Kashmir Shaivism, which I find a wonderful religious system. Islam, by comparison, I find most of it quite shallow and unattractive, except for the Sufi sect, which as it happens is quite well represented in Kashmir. If I were to base my views entirely on my own religious or cultural affections, I would be all in favor of India remaining in control of Kashmir forever. But the same religious views that attract me to Hinduism also convince me that the occupation of Kashmir is unjust, and that it will lead to greater trouble in the future. I don’t think you can really have it both ways.

     As for the WMD arguments about Iraq, I did take them seriously, but I found the actual evidence deeply lacking. Powell’s presentation to the UN was a joke, and it was getting increasingly clear through the inspections regime that Saddam really had no active wmd programs, nor, as long as sanctions were in place, would he be a serious threat. But I did consider supporting the war for those reasons, I just felt that it was an unnecessary rush. If at some point in the future he had re-engaged his WMD programs, I might have supported an invasion. It’s just obvious to me that he was not presently a threat.

     I think there’s a great danger in fighting terrorism to presume that there is no basis behind their greviences, and to actually harden up one’s determination to continue the very policies that provoke terrorism simply because one doesn’t want to “give in terrorism”. This is a losing approach. There really is an injustice in Palestine, for example, that needs to be corrected, regardless of whether Palestinians adopt terrorist tactics or not. Similarly in Kashmir. Now, clearly you don’t give a damn about those injustices, and I can’t say I have any respect for that attitude. It has nothing to do with real Hinduism or Vedanta, at least as I am aware of those compassionate systems of ethics and morality. It’s one thing to fight for what is right, in the manner of Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, it’s entirely different to fight for what is wrong. In the case of Kashmir, India is fighting in support of an injustice, I hate to say it, just as the Israelis are in Palestine. I know the situation is more complex than that in both cases, but it remains true. What the Israelis did to the Palestinians was a violation of their own moral system, and what the Hindus are doing in Kashmir is a violation of theirs as well. I’m sure the religious nationalists of India would strongly disagree, but I don’t think they really represent the true spirit of either India or Hinduism.

     As for me, I’m surprised I’ve lasted this long in our debate as well. Perhaps I keep at it because I keep learning something about an exotic part of the world I find rather fascinating. Call me eccentric. Call me whatever you like. I don’t have much ego about such things. No hard feelings, I hope you understand.

106. nagee76, on November 16th, 2008 at 7:21 pm Said:

     Yeah, you do suprise me with your persistence. and even more with how tangential and off topic we have now gotten - i was very surprised that you are citing Arjuna in the Mahabaratha - you know, even he questioned himself if he was fighting for the “right thing” ? We would not have the Baghavad Gita but for that question ” Am I doing the right thing?”

     Kashmir is not so cut and dry - was it the right thing for Muslims to watch idly when their friends from the minority communities ( not just Hindus but Sikhs and Buddhists too) were driven out of the region ? Nope. Was it the right thing for Hindu’s to be systematically cleansed from the Valley ? Nope. Who stood for them back then ? No one.

     Life is not fair. India’s painful history reminds us of that again and again. If you think you can appeal to the average Indian’s sense of righteousness over Kashmir, you are going to - but in a way opposite to what you want - as in - why the hell should we care about what “Kashmiris” want, when the original Kashmiris of the land have been systematically cleansed from their home.? What vote did Indians have when the country was partitioned ? How fair was that ?

     We have been suckers for too long - the biggest mistake India has made is to try to be a friendly and tolerant people. No wonder we finally woke up in 1947 to suddenly realize that foreigners wanted to have a home carved out of ours - we really had no choice - either we agreed to officially become a minority in our own country or be hacked to death. Our own country was actually no longer ours.

     So, i guess we have gotten sick and tired and have started to dish out “unfairness” of our own - But we seem to be doing it in a rather strange way. We are allowing Kashmiris to participate in a democratic process that could produce a potentially pro-secessionist Government - now i dont know why any sane country would want to do that.

     OTOH Pakistan crushes the rebellion in Baluchistan. It goes so far as genocide to keep Bangladesh in its fold - and you know what ? No one gives a damn. The US stood by idly when genocide in Bangladesh was happening in 1971.

     From all these experiences, India has come to realize that “moral” and “just” are over rated - do what you need to do to protect your interests - this is exactly how India needs to proceed.

     So, you may cry hoarse about the supposed injustice in Kashmir - while we listen to it and say, ” hmm.. where were you when the Partition drove people out of their own homes” and drove Kashmiris out of their homes and loitering around in refugee camps.

     The Mahabaratha war also teaches us another story - Arjuna and the Pandavas might have fought for justice - but this was achieved by killing their own cousins - their own blood. This was achieved by Yudhishtra (the King of Dharma) lying about Aswathamma so that Drona could be killed - Hey, Justice needed to be served !

     It is very intersting to see you condoning terrorism in the name of fighting injustice. It is kind of surprising to see that - i mean after all, most Islamic countries and Europeans looked at 9/11 and said - you Americans had it coming for what you did.

     So, conradg you seem to be ok with 3000 innocent lives being lost
     because they did not side with Palestine’s idea of justice.

     Btw, your approach to Palestine begs a question - why exactly are you so furious about Palestinians losing their land when you have come to terms with Kashmiris and Indians losing theirs ?

     Either you ask Palestinians to get over it just like you are asking Kashmiri Hindus and Indians like me. Or you apply the same principle of the land being returned to its original inhabitants no matter what the conflict.

     But you know what the difference is between Palestine and Kashmir - the Arabs there raised a stink and started commiting terrorism. I guess you would support Hindu terrorists if they fought to get back Kashmir, would nt you?

     So you see, you have twisted sense of morality. Palestinians lost their land - they can commit any kind of terrorism to address their injustice. It is stupid of Israel to deny them this.

     Indians lost their land in Kashmir and the Partition - they should get over it. Or do we now start commiting sabotage in Pakistan now and start cleansing the Muslims in Kashmir just like the Serbs did in Bosnia ?

     This is what i carry away from your reasoning - some people are more justified of commiting terrorism ! If you dont get it your way, terrorize people into it.

     You finding India exotic is not eccentric - it is typically painful condescending attitude of the 1800’s British Sahib and liberal Westerners. Ahh India is so “exotic” - some mystery these Indians are !

     We will win out in the end - much to your dismay. And Injustice would have prevailed in the sub continent. Yet Again.

107. conradg, on November 16th, 2008 at 11:21 pm Said:

     nagee76,

     I’m not sure why you are twisting my words around to pretend that I condone or encourage terrorism on anyone’s part. Does it make you feel more justified in occupying Kashmir and not caring about those people if you think I’m a “furious” terrorist sympathizer? I’ve certainly said nothing that even remotely suggests that I approve of terrorism on anyone’s part.

     I do agree that the US should have forseen something like 9/11 occurring as a consequence of our constant meddling in the Middle East. Not that killing 3000 innocents was in any way justified by that, but it’s not as if we shouldn’t have expected that putting troops in Saudi Arabia and supporting Israel would have no human costs. I don’t expect the Israelis to simply lie down and submit to the terrorist demands that they give up their nation. However, what did the early Zionists expect? Ben Gurion and others knew from the start that to achieve their goals they would have to commit a crime against the Palestinians and screw them out of their land. It’s part of the record of the Zionist movement. I can understand why they decided to proceed anyway, given the history of persecution. In short, they thought they could get away with it. That’s why people commit crimes, right? Well, turns out getting away with it isn’t as easy as they thought. They imagined the Palestinians would just go away, but they haven’t. Now the Jews of Israel are in just as dangerous a situation as they were in Germany in the 1920s and 30s. Except they have nukes, and they fantasize this makes them safe. I in no way approve of the Palestinian policy of terrorism. Their leaders have been awful, and have blown every opportunity presented to them. Yet I still see the Israelis, like the Indians, as the “good guys”. But good guys commit crimes too, and they don’t always get away with them. They have to atone for their crimes, if they want to remain good. Otherwise, they undergo a slow transformation into evil.

     Likewise, India has been holding the Kashmiris’ country hostage. It’s a crime. Yes, the Pakistanis are even worse. That doesn’t make it better. The US has commited many crimes too, the fact that we’re better than the Soviets were doesn’t change that.

     As for 1947, the British had committed so many crimes against India it wanted out before the guilt overwhelmed them. Yes, they should have had 500 plebescites for the 500 kingdoms and principalities of “India”. Where was the US? Well, as I recall we had just finished fighting the biggest war in the history of the world against Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan, and were busy occupying both and trying to fend off the Soviets. Which is a shame, because we probably could have done things a helluva lot better than the British. We certainly did arrange free and fair elections for every country we occupied in the aftermath of WWII, probably could have worked something out for India too if it had been our job.

     I do hope you “win out”, but winning means more than just getting what you want. It means making yourself right with the world. I’d like to see both India and America “win”, in that sense.

108. Kumar, on November 17th, 2008 at 12:57 am Said:

     Conradg:

     Your latest post (‘three separate plebiscites should be held for Jammu, Kashmir, and Ladack’, etc.) made me chuckle. Your eagerness to dole out advice isn’t constrained in the slightest, it seems, by your lack of knowledge about J&K.

     Dude, you can’t even get the spelling right, but you have no hesitation in dispensing advice about how many plebiscites India should hold (it’s Ladakh, not Ladack, okay? That’s the currently accepted spelling of the region; don’t google in haste).

     Also, I’m sure you in your haste to post you merely forgot to stipulate a fourth plebiscite for the Kargil region (since they are a different ethnicity than those in Ladakh—Muslims, albeit non-secessionist). Oh wait, my bad: I meant to write that you forgot to include two additional plebiscites—one for Kargil Muslims, and another separate one for the Ladakhi Muslims (as opposed to the one for Ladakhi Buddhists, with whom they share ‘ethnicity’ but not religion).

     Once again, the sort of plebiscites you suggest will wreak havoc on the ground, since geography conforms to ethnicity in J&K only from the vast distance of someone living in America. If carried out it would likely be a bloody process, with grave repercussions for the subcontinent. It’s simply not a live option.

     Your use of the phrase ‘Kashmiris’—as if everyone is of the same mind–is also quite telling about your determined ignorance of the ethno-political contours of J&K. I am Kashmiri and anti-secessionist, along with a few million others in J&K State, as I’ve pointed out numerous times. Bracket the fact that eliding the differences in political opinion is offensive to those of us who don’t share the sentiments of (mostly) Sunni secessionists in the Valley. It is, nonetheless, an inconvenient problem for secessionists and their friends, one you can’t wish away. Your determined effort to ignore this fact is the reason why none of the ideas that you have proposed will ‘work’—they simply are not congruent with political reality in J&K state.

     It’s remarkable, really, the extent to which you don’t grapple with the likely consequences of your ideas in any serious manner; and you then go on to suggest even more improbable scenarios to bolster your ideas. Such wishful thinking borders on intellectual dishonesty. Perhaps it’s time for you to google less, and read more (a lot more). Your posts might then be less farcical, and the debate more interesting.

     Kumar

109. conradg, on November 17th, 2008 at 3:42 am Said:

     Kumar,

     Hey, thanks for the encouragement!

     Taking offense seems like an Indian national sport, is it not?

     My view - the more plebescites, the better. Your view - India is so fragile, it can’t possibly even contemplate having plebescites of any kind. All of which merely proves my main point, which is that India is an artificial construct, a leftover of colonization, and that it won’t survive this century.

     As I’ve said, there are real countries in this world, like Canada say, that are perfectly willing to hold plebescites for parts of the country with different ethnic territories that might want to secede - Quebec. So far, each time this has occurred, they have declined, because many actually like being a part of Canada. Now, Canada also is a colonial product of the British Empire, and came into being without taking into account minorities like the French speaking. But India isn’t like that at all. It isn’t even a real country, but a rather crazy confederation of all kinds of territories, groups, ethnicities, languages, cultures, etc., that never were a real country, and don’t really belong together. So I guess it seems only natural to you to force one more reluctant territory into the fold. But I got news for you - this doesn’t work. The only argument you’ve got going is that allowing Kashmiris to decide for themselves what kind of government they should have, would lead to the natural dissolution of “India”, but in a violent crash rather than an orderly disengagement. Which is basically letting fear and terrorism tell you what to do. Nagee76 accused me of living in fear, but now you are telling me that the whole of India is held together sheerly by fear - fear of what would happen if people really were free to live as they wished, under the government they want. Well, maybe that fear is real. If so, it’s a terrible basis for having a country. If it isn’t real, then there’s no real rationale for holding onto Kashmir.

     And yes, clearly I’m an outsider with not nearly as much familiarity with the situation on the ground as you are, or most Indians for that matter. I find your discomfort with me amusing. I find your denial of the reality of continuing things as they are rather bizarre, but not at all unexpected. Living in denial of the consequences of keeping a status quo situation going in perpetuity is common all over the world, including here in the US. Usually it doesn’t change until something goes drastically wrong. But by then its usually too late.

     And yeah, I knew how to spell Ladakh, but my mind didn’t quite agree.

     And be aware, if you can, that I’m not making the kinds of policy proposals a real diplomat would, I’m just talking about the kinds of action that needs to be considered. How a Kashmiri plebescite would actually get done is obviously subject to all kinds of negotiations, I just offered one of many possibilities as an example, not a forumula for success. But I am firm that a plebescite does need to occur, and I think most rationale people would agree. It is fine if you vote against secession, but don’t the other people have the right to vote also? Taking their vote away and dictating to them how its going to be is not exactly the sign of a free, democratic union.

     That said, you are right that there are two sides to the debate - one is the matter of democratic principles, the other is the matter of practical consequences. I can certainly see why one would compromise to some degree on principles to take into account the practical consequences, but there are also serious consequences that come from utterly compromising one’s principles. And this thing has gone on for 60 years without a plebescite, when it was supposed to occur at the beginning, not at the end. We all know why that is - neither India nor Pakistan want to give up any territory, which would happen if Kashmir voted for independence, rather than being a part of either country. That’s neither a principle nor a “compromise”, it’s just a cynical exercise of power.

     So really, when you start talking like a realist, who admits what’s going on, I’ll pay more attention to your criticism of my lack of realism.

110. nagee76, on November 17th, 2008 at 11:43 am Said:

     conradg,
     You truly have the comfort of luxury - ” I dont condone Palestenian terrorism” but ” I dont think Israel can get away with it”. Guess what? from the safe havens of the US you could have such countless worthless opinions.

     That’s how things stand - not how you wish them to be. You know, GET REAL.

     The only one who is living in denial is you - you readily admit that you dont have as “much familiarity” as people like Kumar in the know. And yet you come forth to give your moral preachings on how India is held together by “fear.” Geez, Halloween ended 17 days back, you aint scaring no one !

     When you are so ignorant of the ground realities, what makes you think that you can spout off on Kashmir ?

     Get this Yesterday India held statewide elections in Kashmir - 55% polling has been reported. Those pro secessionist Muslims that your heart so bleeds for are boycotting it - if they really are convinced that they command the majority opinion in the Valley, they would be conducting a grass roots campaign and getting candidates to speak for them. and try to win a majority.

     They wont compete in the polls because they know that theirs is a minority opinion that uses violence and terrorism. Terrorism does not win you votes other than from jihadis.

     Your comments about India being an artificial state that was a British colony left over indicate bitterness and a lack of knowledge about the country that you are talking about. For some one who has not lived a day in India, you doth protest a lot.

     No amount of your whining helps - your opinions based on your fundamental ignorance of Kashmir get what it truly deserves - contempt.

     Some how Indians have to get over Kashmir’s demographic changes while Palestine should nt. You dont agree with terrorism but you can see why it is happening !

     You dont condone terrorists but you want India and Israel and yet you want both these countries to essentially agree to their terms.

     You get irritated when I point out such twisted moralities. Why dont you just agree that 3000 innocent Americans deserved to die ? After all can you not see how America’s strong support for Israeli occupation of Palestine not come without any payback?

     Your preachings on India’s and Pakistan’s “cynical exercise of power” are a joke - look which guy from which country is talking about a cynical exercise of power !

     Seriously this is exactly why Americans get a bad rep - as Jesus said, thou who has not sinned, cast a stone.

     What moral standing do you have to talk about India granting “freedom” to a noisy minority of jihadi terrorists when you come from a country that had a war that killed half a million people to “save the Union”.? I guess half the million lives where worth it, for you.

     A mere 7% of Southerners had slaves - and this country had the bloodiest civil war in its history to settle that. Instead of giving the Confederacy a chance to secede from the Union, Lincoln ordered a war - a war that ended with Sherman torching Atlanta to rubble.

     To this day, Southerners dont forget that. One of the few plants that managed to escape Sherman’s savagery is still fondly remembered. It is cooked as a New Year dish ! Three months of living and working in Atlanta and seeing the damn confederate flag every damn day thought me about how much pain America has had to go through and how much co-oercion was used to form the oldest democracy.

     And here I am listening to your “life is black and white” sermons and fantastic theories of how India is held by fear and how it would collapse within the turn of the century. From some one who has nt lived in India for a day and knows what ever superficial knowldege that he has through text books.

     I must have done something bad in my previous janmam.

111. conradg, on November 17th, 2008 at 1:28 pm Said:

     nagee76,

     By this point I ought to mention that your “argument” has degenerated almost entirely into personal attacks on me, my country, and my “moralizing”, as if that really had any bearing on the situation. People who rely on resentment-filled personal attacks, rather than just addressing the issues, are usually desperate and unable to come up with compelling arguments in the real world. I’ve been very patient with you, I think, and I have never made any personal attacks on you in return, which I hope you appreciate, but this is really getting out of hand. I’m not here to engage in flame wars. Honestly, if you have no respect for my views, why are you even engaging me? I’m not in the habit of talking with people I don’t have at least some basic respect for, so I don’t really grasp why you would wish to talk with me about this issue if you can’t offer that basic level of respectful disagreement. I would expect you to simply ignore me and not post a reply if you really think my views are as absurd and disrespectable as you claim. Unless you are just playing some kind of sadistic game, which doesn’t speak very well for you.

     As for the American civil war, I expected you would raise this non-sequitar. As you probably know, the southern states completely and willingly, through fair elections, decided to join the United States and ratify the Constitution back in 1789. No provision was made for secession. So when the southern states decided unilaterally to secede in 1861, they had no legal basis for it. They didn’t even have any ethnic or cultural basis for it. In fact, Lincoln had not even run on a platform of freeing the slaves, so they didn’t actually have a definite economic threat against them. In any case, I’m not sure Lincoln would have fought the war if he’d known in advance how bloody it would be. In the beginning, his generals assurred him it would be over quickly. It became a growing nightmare as it escalated, and a national tragedy. The point is, however, there is no comparison to the situation in Kashmir. The people of the south don’t think of themselves as something other than Americans, in fact, they are the most “pro-American” part of our country, whatever that means.

     By way of comparison, if the Kashmiris in 1947 had a plebescite or some elected representative assembly to decide the issue, joined the Indian union, and then years later tried to renege on the deal and secede, I would fully support India in keeping them a part of India - up to a reasonable point, at least, barring some kind of massive discriminatory policy on the part of the Indian government against them.

     Now, if you feel certain that the secessionist in Kashmir are the minority, why not hold a plebescite and make that known to the world? It would be a tremendous boost to the pro-India forces, and settle any legal dispute over the issue. I guess the hard line secessionists might not give up, but it would completely undermine their cause. What is India afraid of? I would certainly have no more objections if a plebescite affirmed Kashmir’s union with India.

     You also keep accusing me of thinking that the people who died on 9/11 deserved it, which I do not. I merely stated what I think is realistically obvious, that there are consequences to American foreign policy in relation to the muslim world in general that are going to encounter this kind of action, justified or not, and we should have been better prepared for it, or modified out policies so as not to be the whipping by for Islamic terrorists when we don’t really have any interests in stoking those flames. Nor did I say that Israel or India should agree to the terms of the terrorists attacking them. I explicity do not. The terrorists in Palestine demand the dissolution of the state of Israel, and I don’t think Israel should ever agree to that. But there are some reasonable demands, such as the end to the occupation of the West Bank, with some kind of land granted to Israel for its security, that are justifiable.

     And once again, just to make it clear, I also condemn most of America’s cynical uses of power. I’m not here to say America is better than India. By some measures, we are worse. That is again irrelevant to the discussion, as much as you try to make it the main issue.

     As for India collapsing, it is you who say it is so fragile it could not survive a plebescite in Kashmir. Either you are wrong about that, or India really is that unstable. Which is it?

112. nagee76, on November 17th, 2008 at 4:05 pm Said:

     Let me break the Triple Nelson !!

     I did respond to your comments trying to be reasonable - so did the two other people who were trying to talk to you - Amar and Kumar.

     I am not indulging in any personal attacks here - i am opening your eyes to the moral blind spots that you have and your lack of understanding/knowledge of the issues on the ground - worse, your unwillingness to learn anything from the information that we gave and your persistence that in the end your opinion is not going to change, no matter what the facts are.

     I could have very well ignored you but i am not going to stand by silently when you trash around the concept of India and predict that will fall in the next 80 years or what ever. Such ignorance borne out of opinions and no knowledge, personal or otherwise of why India is one united country needs to be addressed. You may agree or disagree with that or feel its a personal attack - does not bother me in the least. If you cannot take opinions, dont dish them out - or better still dont post them on the Internet.

     Your revisionist history of the United States formation is quite amusing to hear. Southern States joined the Union because they were no longer going to put up with British taxation. Their ideas of liberty were only limited to white men. Thomas Jefferson was the only person who is known to have questioned slavery. But it didnt matter. Black people were considered 3/5th human and tradeable commodities and personal property.

     S when Southerners joined the Union, they made it very clear that the Union was based on certain conditions that were agreed upon.If Northern States had insisted upon freeing slaves, July 4th 1776 would have been just another day.

     So when Lincoln finally decided that a house divided against itself cannot stand, the Southern states were more than willing to divide the house and let it fall. There is NOTHING in the US Constitution that prevents a state from seceding from the Union. If you can point me to the specific clause that bans a state from seceding, I would be more than happy to look into it.

     But of course, there was no clause like that - for the simple reason that States joined the Union out of their own free will as well as to protect their interests. If they felt that the American Federal Government reached the tyrannical levels of King George, they were not going to limit themselves by tying themselves to the Union. This country was borne out of enlightenment values and the importance of free will - there was nothing to prevent the States from seceding, if they wanted to. Absolutely nothing. If marriage between two individuals could be dissolved, so could the union between the States.

     So whether Lincoln ran as an emanicipator or not does not really matter. The Southern States did not agree with the idea of liberty for all people regardless of color. No wonder they treated them as 3/5th humans and were more than happy with idea of an electoral college rather than a popular vote (which would have favored the North).

     There fore, when the South decided to secede, they were well within their rights. After all slavery was not banned by the US Constitution and Northerners agreed to count black people as 3/5th a human person. If anything it was the Northern states which were reneging ( and I am glad that they did) from this understanding.

     Not only did the North decide that the South had reneged, they were now ready to go to war with them to co-erce them into accepting the new terms on which the Union could exist.

     So you see Conradg, Lincoln did not exactly give Texas, Georgia and Alabama, Virginia et al a plebiscite. He did not exactly ask them if they wanted to be in the Union - you know, the popular will of the majority. He bought on a war that forced them to be a part of the United States. He knew very well that no body but the slaves would have supported the idea of free black men.

     I dont even want to get into economic reasons behind the Civil War or the fact that Northern merchants and businessmen didnt like their Southern counterparts getting things done on the cotton fields for zero dollars.

     Both Charles Dickens and Mark Twain refused to see this war as being about slavery.You can look up the fact that Twain volunteered to join the Confederacy.

     When the North won the War, what was one of the first order of business ? Adding the 14th Amendment. Now IF the South agreed to a Union in 1776 that did not recognize slavery in their states AND they reneged on it by having slavery any ways then we could say that they had no business trying to secede.

     But as the Northern States knew FULLY WELL, there would have been no USA in 1776 if they insisted on freeing slaves. And that show of disunity would have been disastrous considering that they were fighting the most formidable army in the world back then. The South held all the chips which was why a Soputherner,Washington was chosen as the Commanding General of the Union Army.

     So it is very clear even to a casual observer that Southerners wanted no part of a country where the Federal Government could openly violate their property rights - after all they considered black people, mere property. It was morally wrong of them to think that way - however they didnt renege on their side of the bargain in 1776 - the North did.

     The century falling the Civil War showed the intense bitterness that followed - Southerners may not have been able to stop the freeing of slaves, but they still considered them unworthy of being in civil society. The closest that they came to was separate but equal.I am not sure if you really want me to go on about this very very painful blot in American history.

     conradg, your country is an open book. Either you feign ignorance of the US constitution as written in 1776 or the political deals that lead to the creation of this great country or you are willfully trying to let that slide by hoping that i wouldnt know much to debate you on.

     As I told you before, I lived in Atlanta before for a good three months and learnt quite a lot. I learnt that there were race fights in schools even now. Last year’s incident of Jena 6 serves to remind that there are still hard feelings a good 150 years after the Civil War. Is it any wonder why Lincoln didnt put up the question of slavery for a vote ? He knew that it would lose massively in the South and confirm through the ballot box the deep fissures in the Union.

     So even though you seem to think that India is so fragile that it wont stand a Kashmir plebiscite going against its favor, you cannot come to acknowledge that if the will of the Southerners was followed through, there wouldnt be a Union in its present form. Hey you would not have had LBJ, Bush, Carter, Clinton as Presidents.

     The North-South differences continue even today -the Republicans have now become pretty much the Souhern Party - there are zero Republican Congressmen in New England. I guess the political re-alignment following the Civil Rights Act has been re-confirmed rather emphatically. I agree that there are different issues dividing people now but that feeling of “those bloody racist Southerners” exists still today.

     I am going to get back to the question of 9/11 and Kashmir plebiscite in my next post. Stay tuned.

113. conradg, on November 17th, 2008 at 5:21 pm Said:

     nagee76,

     All I’m asking is that you stop prefacing every argument with a declaration of what a dumb, ignorant fool I am. I have no problem with your disagreeing with me, and listing all the facts you think I’m wrong about. I can handle anything you dish out, but it’s just pointless to keep attacking me personally.

     For example, you give a “history” of America that is simply incorrect, and any American school child would know that. I could lecture you on how you have no right to talk about America, blah blah blah, but instead, I’ll just correct your misunderstandings. I don’t expect you to have that intimate a base of knowledge about American history, so maybe you can learn from me, just as I am learning from you certain native viewpoints about India. You say, for example:

     “Southern States joined the Union because they were no longer going to put up with British taxation. ”

     Well, no. They rebelled against the British on July 4th 1776 for that reason (among many others), but that rebellion did not compel them to join the United States, so whether some states were pro- or anti-slavery was irrelevant. The declaration of Independence did not create the United States in its present form, and so there was nothing to secede from. Their agreement to work together to fight the British did not bind them together in permanent way. In 1781, as the war was winding down, approved a set of “articles of confederation” while guaranteed each state’s rights to self-government, and a very weak federal body. After the British surrender, this proved unworkable. A constitutional convention was convened in 1788, and our present Constitution was drafted and then ratified in 1789. No state was bound to ratify it, and if they had not, they would have been free to have their own political independence. There is no question that this was the case, and it was the reason for many compromises, such as the agreement to leave the slavery issue unmentioned, but not to give the vote to blacks or women. (blacks did not get a 3/5 vote, that is merely how they were to be counted for the purposes of determining how many congressional representatives each state got. In this sense, the southern states were overrepresented, in that blacks were counted in the census, but unable to vote, so in effect white southerners got more voting representation than white northerners.)

     The point is, when the Constitution was ratified, there was no guarantee in it for the eternal preservation of slavery. There was always the possibility of slavery being outlawed, either by congressional action or constitutional amendment (which would require 3/4 of all states to approve, thus rendering it impossible to get through without southern states’ approval). Likewise, there was no provision for secession either. When you say there was nothing preventing the states from seceding, you are just plain wrong. It’s the opposite. The laws against treason and taking up arms against the United States government by any individual or state are quite clear in the Constitution. There was no legal basis for cessation. That was the whole point of adopting a strong federal constitution that was binding on the states. They couldn’t just leave if they disagreed with the majority, but would have to abide by it, which they were fine with given the protections the Constitution offered. The Constitution specifically outlaws rebellion, and a number of rebellions were put down by the federal government even in George Washington’s Presidency that the southern states did not object to, but fully supported. So the idea that the states were free whenever they wished to secede is just a fantasy on your part.

     Likewise, your notion that men and women had some right of divorce at that time is also false. Divorce was actually illegal in many states, or very difficult to obtain. But where it could be obtained, it was because there were laws that specifically permited it. But there were no laws or provisions granting states the right of secession. It was very much a “till death do us part” union. (With one exception: when the independent state of Texas, which had gained independence from Mexico ten years earlier, joined the union in 1845, it did so with the provision that it had the right to secede).

     So when you say that Lincoln did not give the south a plebescite, that’s because that was already done back in 1789. (Not by plebescite, actually, but by the elected representatives of those states negotiating the Constitution, and their elected state legislatures carrying out their will by approving it, which amounts to the same degree of popular support). This is why I say that if Kashmir had joined the Indian Union by a democratic process back in 1948, I would have no problem holding them to it now. But there was no such process, and thus no legitimate basis for forcing them to remain part of India without such a process.

     Likewise, Thomas Jefferson was not the only person who argued against slavery. It was very controversial even then, and the question was never actually resolved, a practical compromise was made, that’s all. There was no provision in the Constitution that, at some future point, if slavery was outlawed, that slave states could secede from the union. It was just agreed for the time being to leave it alone.

     Now, you also have the history of the Civil War backwards. Lincoln did not try to outlaw slavery. Quite the opposite, he tried to assure the southern states that this was not his intention. He didn’t put it up for a vote because he didn’t have the chance to. Before he even became President, the slave states seceded from the Union. He did not take office until after the secession had occurred, and it was therefore not because of any action on his part to ban slavery. Nor did he even run on that platform.

     There’s nothing in the Constitution that prohibts changes to it. Quite the opposite, it specifically allows amendments to be made, such as the 15th amendment (not the 14th, which guarantees equal protection under the law), that outlawed slavery. So the outlawing of slavery was a fully constitutional act, not a violation of the constitution of 1789, but the legal modification of it.

     Now, you are right that much bitterness and prejudice towards blacks continued in the south for at least a century after the Civil war, and even up to today. But what did not continue was a widespread feeling that the South should secede from the union. Quite the contrary, the South was and remains one of the most patriotic parts of the entire country, with a strong military tradition of fighting in wars for our “yankee” federal government. There’s nostalgia among some for the “old south” and a kind of pop appeal for confederate flags and so forth, but nothing anywhere near approaching an actual secessionist movement of any kind.

     I find it rather interesting that you are defending the right of states to keep slaves, and saying they have the right to secede from the Union if that “right” is infringed upon, but that Kashmir does not have the right to secede when it never even agreed to be a part of the Indian union. What does that say about your cause, that it seems on a par with preserving slavery? I can tell you, if Kashmir were wanting to secede from India so they can practice slavery, I would not be sympathetic to their cause. But you seem to have no problem with slavery at all, which I guess is why you don’t see anything wrong with occupying Kashmir against the will of the people there. The military occupation of our southern states ended fairly quickly after the war was fought, and there’s been no peep of rebellion since. So I don’t see how your arguments in any way support the notion of keeping Kashmir from voting for secession. In fact, your arguments all support the idea of secession as an innate right of any people. I don’t go that far, but since you do, how can you possibly continue to argue against the rights of Kashmiris to secede? Please, answer that question directly, if you dare.

     In other words, even if you are right that the US should have let the southern states secede, how does that help your cause in any way? I would think it would completely undermine it. So please, address that, and put aside your resentments about us American hypocrites.

114. nagee76, on November 17th, 2008 at 11:30 pm Said:

     “So there was nothing in the constitution that guaranteed the perpetuation of slavery, other than the presence of slave-holding states in the country as a whole.”

     This exactly why it is difficult to have an honest debate with you. You lack honesty. There is no other way to put it.

     It was “slavery” for you and me and anyone who believes in the fact the people are born with equal rights. It wasnt “slavery” for Southerners. Blacks were treated merely as property. And the US constitution did guarantee property rights. You dont have the intellectual honesty to agree with this. Southerners did not join the Union in 1789 only to be told that 75 years now, what constitutes “property” is subject to the whims of the States.

     We can discuss all day long about how I “accused Lincoln of trying to change the Constitution to outlaw slavery, when that is simply not true”. That is how you distort things - good, keep it up.

     My point was simply this -Why exactly did Lincoln declare war on the Southern States ? Please dont tell me that it is because of “slavery”. Let me remind you again that it was slavery for most of the North (excluding the Northern slave states of course) and a question of property rights for the South.

     The South should have never been allowed to join the Union in the first place in 1789 if the North felt so strongly about the fact that men cannot be treated as property.

     Your idea of the attack on Fort Sumter being the cause of the Civil War is what you have been taught in your politically correct history class. And it is so laughable if not so thoroughly dishonest.

     So 600,000 people lost their lives and another 400,000 were injured because the Federal Govt wanted payback for the attack on Fort Sumter? Keep deluding yourself that this is what triggered the Civil War.

     Now pray why did they make a “very stupid, rash, and illegal decision to rebel, to take up arms against the United States” ?

     Because they understood that the Union Army wanted to use war as means to co-erce them into freeing black people.

     Again it is “illegal” according to you - as far as Southerners were considered it was tyrannical for the Federal Govt to infringe on their property rights. As simple as that. The Northern States betrayed the trust that the South had in them - namely that they were not going to go back on recognizing what constitutes property.

     Like I pointed out, what was the reason for the South to ratify the Constitution in 1789 and join the Union ? Why did they join the Union if they thought that their rights to property could be infringed/re-interpreted upon by 3/4th of the rest of the United States within the next 75 years. ? Who exactly does that ?

     What exactly stopped them from saying “Thank you but we want to be no part of your Union if you are going to re-interpret what constitutes property rights according to the whims and fancies of 3/4th of states 75 years from now ?” How could they possibly predict what the size of the Union will be - knowing fully well that they were in the New World with vast areas of land.Why take the risk at all ?

     It was pretty simple - they didnt think that they were risking anything. They thought that never would come a day when the Federal Govt would say that they are re-considering what constitutes property.

     You think that their decision to secede was “rash” too ? Oh, wait a minute that would be “illegal”, would nt it ?

     For you it was “illegal taking up arms” - for the South, it was protecting their freedom - they didnt join the United States so that they could be tethered to it for ever - Even if their interpretation of what constitutes property was now subject to the whims of other states.? Even if the fundamental contract was broken.?

     Property rights were at the heart of the free society envisioned by the Founding Fathers. What was the point of being in a country that was making a frontal attack on your property rights? What’s next ? You cannot own more than one house?

     During the Civil War the South proved that they could fight the Union man to man - how difficult would it have been for them to create their own country in 1789 ? They didnt do that because they never thought it would come to .

     The South pulled the trigger on the war realizing fully well that their interpretation of what constituted property was no longer accepted by the Union - even though it was accepted in 1789 and without which they simply would not have.

     The attack on Fort Sumter was not some sudden attack.South Carolina had already seceded - the Union Army had no longer the legal authority to remain there - they were warned repeatedly to leave. But the Union kept pressing the matter, trying to resupply the fort ! What exactly do you think was meant to be ? It was an open invitation to prove if the South really thought that it seceded. And Gen Beauregard did just that.

     You seem to paint it as a “rash” “rebellion” - that is a PURELY SUBJECTIVE interpretation that completely ignores the Southern perspective and the fact that they NEVER AGREED to have their property rights interpreted and re-interpreted.

     Do you think that half a million people joined the Confederate Army to support a mere 7% who were slave owners ? And risk their lives against the might of the Union Army ? How much more deluded can you get ?

     I wont fault you at all for your perspective on the Civil War - hell, if you did it any other way, you would be contradicting the victor’s version of history.

     “Now look, if you think the majority of Kashmir wants to remain in India, fine, why not hold a plebescite? Why say it will never happen? The only reason I can think of is that you and the government are afraid the vote won’t go your way.”

     If India was in the process of granting plebiscites to every terrorist fuelled minority, why have a union at all ?

     You IGNORE the fact that democratic elections are being held in Kashmir and a majority of the people are participating - now, this is open to secessionists too. How the HELL DO YOU KNOW what the majority opinion in Kashmir is? If enough of these jihadis terrorize the region, does it make them a majority ?

     The only people who are “afraid” here are people like jihadi terrorists and people like your own IGNORANT SELF.

     Participate in elections, PROVE THAT YOU HAVE A FRICKING MAJORITY and make the Indian Govt address the question of “plebiscite”! It would have no other choice but to do so. I would readily say, ” listen to them”.

     You skirt this simple and straight forward argument - the Indian Government is under no obligation to conduct plebiscites just because of a noisy minority. It faced this exact problem in Punjab with Khalistan - do you have any idea about that ?

     Your ignorance about India and its history REPEATEDLY shows. Your dishonesty about the US Civil War is even more glaring.

     The one who needs to feel shame is you. But you have nothing like that - if you did, you wouldnt be perptuating myths about the Civil War about half a million people dying in a war that was triggered by a sudden “rash decision” made by the South to attack Fort Sempter.

     Keep fooling yourself while Kashmiris brave terrorists and jihadis and vote with their ballots.

     Answer a simple question here - since the South seceded

115. nagee76, on November 17th, 2008 at 11:39 pm Said:

     My last few lines from the post seem to come out of nowhere - plus, the post of Conradg that i was responding to has vanished all of a sudden.

     Bizzare.

116. Daniel Larison, on November 17th, 2008 at 11:50 pm Said:

     As I mentioned in another thread, I accidentally wiped out a number of comments along with some spam messages. I apologize for the inconvenience and annoyance. I will make sure that this doesn’t happen again.

117. conradg, on November 18th, 2008 at 3:12 am Said:

     Well, it’s no great loss. I was going to say that I think we’ve thoroughly exhausted ourselves here. There doesn’t seem to be much point in continuing, as we have too many disagreements about basic matters of history to have a purposeful and respectful disagreement on its meaning and interpretation. I wish you well, Nagee, and Kumar, amar, and all the rest. Thanks for all your efforts.

118. nagee76, on November 18th, 2008 at 11:11 am Said:

     Daniel , thanks for letting us know what happened to the posts. I thought you got tired of us for a minute :-) wont blame you though !

     I am sorry it had to end this way. I really am. Conradg, I hope you have no hard feelings - but is kind of tough not to have them given the passionate discussion that we have had and the harshness of the words exchanged.

     More light and less heat was what I was looking forward to. It seems to have ended with more heat instead. I will pull a McCain here - it was all on me.

     Kumar, if you still havent tired of reading our posts, I really hope that you and people in the region who face the same difficulties what ever their religious persuasion may be, get to stay SAFE, no matter how many disagreements arise.

     At the end of the day while we can have all the arguments in the world, but the basic right of Kashmiris - personal security and freedom from fear of terror still hangs in the balance.

     Good luck is all that i can wish as well.

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