India’s ‘success’ – Another Round of Hosanas to Great Britain

Indians are in love with their colonial past. Colonial buildings are getting gold-plated. Colonialists contemptuous of India are getting memorials.

Why did the Great British document not protect the Pakistanis, Patelbhai?

India romances of the Raj

It will shortly be 63 years of British departure from India. Indians seems to be in love with their colonial past. Colonial buildings are getting gold-plated. Colonialists who had contempt for India are getting memorials.

Colonial legacies like Indian railways, the biggest pile of steel scrap in the world in 1947, after modernization, renovation, expansion of 60 years is now being credited to the British. Indians are tripping over each other to account for the British contribution to Indian success.

Even where not due.

The British gift

Aakar Patel, a columnist for Mint newspaper (a JV between Hindustan Times and WSJ), a newspaper editor who has written a few books, writes,

The ritual murder of Pakistani polity by the Pakistani army. (Democracy in Pakistan By Olle Johansson, Sweden; courtesy – blackcommentator.com.). Click for larger image.

India has a constitution; Pakistan has editions. These are the various Pakistani constitutions: 1935 (secular), 1956 (federal), 1962 (dictatorial), 1973 (parliamentary), 1979 (Islamic), 1999 (presidential), 2008 (parliamentary). Why do they keep changing and searching? Muslims keep trying to hammer in Islamic bits into a set of laws that is actually quite complete. This is the Government of India Act of 1935, gifted to us by the British.

Kashmiris have it, and perhaps at some point they will learn to appreciate its beauty. (via What ails Kashmir? The Sunni idea of ‘azadi’ – Columns – livemint.com).

Aakar Patel implies that the Indian Constituent Assembly counts for nothing. The Constituent Assembly, which included at least 50% of the Indian political leadership and their work over  25,000 man-hours, amount to nothing, follows from Aakar Patel’s ‘thinking’. Or the Indian contribution to the making of the Government of India Act of 1935, itself.

Aakar Patel’s operating credo seemingly is “all credit to the British”. Deficiency in self-esteem, Mr.Patel. Or just plain, healthy contempt for all Indians? Patelbhai’s obsession with crediting the British, completely escapes my understanding.

Apart from being factually incorrect.

Documents do not make a country work! People do, Mr.Patel!! (Cartoon by Sabir Nazar; Courtesy – http://www.dailytimes.com.pk.).

Illogical hai, Patelbhai

Not just incorrect. Illogical too!

The same British, gave the same document to the Pakistan also. To India and to how many other colonies in the world, I have never counted.

This ‘gift of the British’ to us Indians is a public document. If it’s value is so apparent, why have others not been able to take advantage of it,  मान्यवर पटेल-भाई manyavar Patelbhai? The wonder is not any document. It is in making it work.

Aakar Patel cannot see the contradiction.

Talk is cheap

Not only incorrect and illogical. Immaterial too!

What matters to Indians are not declarations of belief – but hard, real actions. In the words of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, ‘what counts is conduct, not belief’. American declaration of independence talked of ‘all men are created equal’ and promptly became the biggest importer of slaves in the history of the world.

For how long will our glitterati, chatterati, papparazzi, intelligentsia, cognoscenti, continue with this bilge.

Look at the British record

For a realistic assessment of the British ‘capability’ to govern, let us look at British misrule in Britain itself – in this post.

How could super-power Britain spiral down to bankruptcy, in less than 70 years, after WWII. If their ideas of governance and administration were so good, why could they not save themselves from this slide in fortunes? British ‘capabilities’ in areas of technology, industrial management, academia stands naked and exposed.

The problem with British polity! (Cartoon by Morten Moreland; courtesy – timesonline.co.uk.).

Let us keep this aside, completely, the subject of British misrule in India in this post.

British misrule in India has been the subject of countless writers, journalists, analysts. Equally there have been numerous ‘studies’ about British ‘contribution’ to India’s progress.

It is the British mindset itself that may need examination to understand this decline!

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BMC’s dome gets a touch of gold

Gold plated offices! Our colonial heritage must be be gold plated and saved!

“During our research, we found that there were traces of gold in the original dome. We wanted to restore it to its original glory,’’ said architect and heritage conservationist Abha Narain Lambah. “The gold leaf gilding has been done by a team of craftsmen from Jaipur under the supervision of Ghanshyamdas Nimbarak, who has done gilding work for the Mumbai University’s convocation hall,’’ she said.

In 2007, the BMC floated tenders for restoring the building, pegged as the largest conservation project in India. Expected to be completed in two years, the Rs 60 crore project involves an overhaul of the main heritage building of the BMC as well as the annexe. The project is being carried out by architects Shimul Javeri Kadri, Shashi Prabhu and Lambah. The tenders for the second phase of the project—upgradation of the annexe building—have been floated and work is likely to begin soon. (via BMC’s dome gets a touch of gold).

Our colonial buildings are so important!

This is the most awesome and perverse piece of monstrosity that independent and free India could have come up with. While the ASI on one hand says that they will abandon Buddhist caves because they cannot be saved – yet the administration is gold plating colonial eye-sores – which are also their own offices.

Are there any words to describe this abuse of public office?

What benefit are Buddhist caves

But it cant hurt these architects to be ‘restoring’ the BMC offices. To have access to the BMC, which controls construction in the most expensive real estate market of India must be advantageous. Where real estate rates cross or equal Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai, Paris, London, New York!

On the other hand, what advantage can it be to be conserving Buddhist caves in Mumbai?

Pakistan and Kashmir – Regaining the narrative!

Having got their way, Jinnah and Co., Pakistan should have been a happy lot. So, goes Indian thinking.

Instinct for self-putrefaction (Cartoonist – Chip Bok).

The puzzle of Pakistan

Over the last 63 years, Indians have had to face upto either a Kashmir ‘problem’ or a Pakistani ‘threat’.

Having got their way, Jinnah and Co., Pakistan should have been a happy lot. So, goes Indian thinking. The last 25 years of ISI-Khalistan-Peshwar-Afghan-Taliban-Kashmir axis leaves an average Indian (like me) quite puzzled. What do these guys want from us? In another context, Arvind Subramanian pointed out

Narratives matter. Not just for creating and sustaining nationhood as Isaiah Berlin famously argued. They also matter critically in international negotiations. At the moment, India is not winning the battle of the narrative on climate change. And that’s a worry.

Are we losing the narrative in the case of Pakistan and Kashmir too?

A short cursory look says no. After all, America had a civil war within a 100 years after the declaration of independence. Britain had its Cromwell at the start of its imperial innings. Russia, Italy, Germany, France, China, Japan went through various upheavals when limiting monarchy or changing over from monarchy to republican governments.

But then, India is ‘different’ …

The Kashmiri conundrum

We know what Hurriyat Conference wants: azadi, freedom. But freedom from what? Freedom from Indian rule. Doesn’t an elected Kashmiri, Omar Abdullah, rule from Srinagar?

Yes, but Hurriyat rejects elections. Why? Because ballots have no azadi option. But why can’t the azadi demand be made by democratically elected leaders? Because elections are rigged through the Indian Army. Why is the Indian Army out in Srinagar and not in Surat? Because Kashmiris want azadi.

Let’s try that again.

What do Kashmiris want freedom from? India’s Constitution.

What is offensive about India’s Constitution? It is not Islamic. This is the issue, let us be clear.

The violence in Srinagar isn’t for democratic self-rule because Kashmiris have that. The discomfort Kashmiris feel is about which laws self-rule must be under, and Hurriyat rejects a secular constitution.

Hurriyat deceives the world by using a universal word, azadi, to push a narrow, religious demand. Kashmiris have no confusion about what azadi means: It means Shariah. Friday holidays, amputating thieves’ hands, abolishing interest, prohibiting alcohol (and kite-flying), stoning adulterers, lynching apostates and all the rest of it that comprises the ideal Sunni state.

Not one Shia gang terrorizes India; terrorism on the subcontinent is a Sunni monopoly.

There is a token Shia among the Hurriyat’s bearded warriors, but it is essentially a Sunni group pursuing Sunni Shariah. Its most important figure is Umar Farooq. He’s called mirwaiz, meaning head of preachers (waiz), but he inherited his title at 17 and actually is no Islamic scholar. He is English-educated, but his base is Srinagar’s sullen neighbourhood of Maisuma, at the front of the stone-pelting. His following is conservative and, since he has little scholarship, he is unable to bend his constituents to his view.

Hurriyat’s modernists are led by Sopore’s 80-year-old Ali Geelani of Jamaat-e-Islami. Jamaat was founded in 1941 by a brilliant man from Maharashtra called Maududi, who invented the structure of the modern Islamic state along the lines of a Communist one.

The Kashmiri separatist movement is actually inseparable from Sunni fundamentalism. Those on the Hurriyat’s fringes who say they are Gandhians, like Yasin Malik, are carried along by the others in the group so long as the immediate task of resisting India is in common. But the Hurriyat and its aims are ultimately poisonous, even for Muslims.

The Hurriyat Conference’s idea of freedom unfolds from a religious instinct, not a secular sentiment. This instinct is sectarian, and all the pro-azadi groups are Shia-killers. In promoting their hatred, the groups plead for the support of other Muslims …

We think Indian Muslims are different from Pakistanis and less susceptible to fanaticism. It is interesting that within Pakistan, the only group openly and violently opposed to Taliban and terrorism are UP and Bihar migrants …So what do the separatist groups want? It is wrong to see them as being only terrorist groups. They operate in an intellectual framework, and there is a higher idea that drives the violence. This is a perfect state with an executive who is pious, male and Sunni. Such a state, where all is done according to the book, will get God to shower his blessings on the citizens, who will all be Sunnis.

The current violence is a result of this. Given their boycott of politics, the Hurriyat must rally its base by urging them to violence and most of it happens in Maisuma and Sopore. The violence should also clarify the problem in the minds of neutrals: If Kashmiri rule does not solve the azadi problem, what will? (What ails Kashmir? The Sunni idea of ‘azadi’ By Aakar Patel).

Loot kill, plunder and power – No Islamic caliphate, democracy or capitalism (Cartoonist – Matt Wuerker).

Regressive numbers

A writer with a ‘helpful’ background, Aatish Taseer brings another interesting perspective.

It is one of the vanities of a war, like the war on terror, to believe that your enemy’s reasons for fighting are the same as yours. We are bringers of freedom, democracy and Western-style capitalism; they hate freedom, democracy and Western-style capitalism. It is an irresistible symmetry; and if not a way to win a war, it is certainly a way to convince yourself that you’re fighting the good war. But there is another possibility, one that the Americans, and other defenders of post-colonial thinking, are loath to admit: that a place’s problem might truly be its own; that your reasons for fighting are not your enemy’s reasons; and that you might only be a side-show in an internal war with historical implications deeper than your decade-long presence in the country.

In the case of Pakistan, the imposition of this easy West versus Islam symmetry has helped conceal what is the great theme of history in that country: the grinding down of its local syncretic culture in favour of a triumphant, global Islam full of new rigidities and intolerances. It is this war, which feels in Pakistan like a second Arab conquest, that earlier last month saw, as its latest target, the Data Sahib shrine in Lahore—among the most important of thousands of such shrines that dot the cities and countryside of Punjab and Sindh.

But there is also something else, and this has been going on in Pakistan since its inception: the wish to cleanse the Islam of that country of its cultural contact with the Indian subcontinent, a contact that is, for many in Pakistan, a contamination. For me, with my Indian upbringing, and Pakistani father, this desire to remove all trace of India was visible everywhere. It was there in the dress of a woman in Karachi, under the hem of whose black Arab abaya an inch of Indian pink was visible; it was there in the state’s desire to impose restrictions on weddings so that they would be stripped of their Indian rituals and become only Islamic; it was there in the hysteria surrounding the kite-flying festival of Basant, where public safety concerns—and this in Pakistan!—were invented so that the Indian spring festival could be put out of business once and for all.

But one cannot be too hopeful. Pakistanis have stood by and watched the decay of their society for over six decades now. It seems that once the original outrage dies down, no significant majority will be found to defend the old religion of Pakistan. They will see it go as they have seen so many things go. The reason for this is that original idea on which Pakistan was founded, the idea of the secular state for Indian Muslims, has perished and nothing has taken its place. The men who say “Pakistan was founded for Islam, more Islam is the solution”, have the force of an ugly logic on their side. Their opponents, few as they are, have nothing, no regenerative idea to combat this violent nihilistic one.

Pakistan, Nuclear Weapons, India-Pakistan Islamic fundamentalism | A declining West and supportive China can be an explosive Pakistan. (Cartoonist – Nick Anderson.).

Frozen takeout

These following ‘vatis‘ or ‘katoris‘ can safely be put in the Kashmir ‘thali‘: -

1. Currently, most of the Pakistani-Kashmiri-azadi syndrome is driven by a Sunni agenda.
2. Next, the significant level of disturbance is limited to Maisuma and Sopore.
3. Clearly, the rest of the Jammu, Ladakh, Leh regions are peaceful.

What is on the menu

Based on the agenda, actions, sounds and direction indicated by the azadi faction, Jammu and Kashmir will treat non-Muslims (non-Sunnis also as per the above two writers) as candidates fit for ethnic cleansing, fodder for religious conversions, and landless, jobless, clueless labourers – like in Pakistan. More than most, Big Industry and politics in Pakistan remain in the hands of 22 Pakistani land-owning families.

How can this be resolved?

A simple fact in history that everyone seems to forget is Sheikh Abdullah. The ‘secret’ of Sheikh Abdullah’s popularity was his agenda for land reform.

Maybe Omar Abdullah should take inspiration from his grandfather.

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We are the problem – and the West is trying is to help us!

How much we burden the West? (Cartoon by Matt Wuerker).

The conditions in this part of the world are maddeningly complex. Every country is seeking to exert influence on every other country. All the countries in the region share borders with each other. Anyone who considers Afghanistan must also consider Pakistan, because the Pakistani military and intelligence service are determined to exert their influence in Kabul when the Americans withdraw.

Anyone who considers Pakistan certainly has to take India into account, because of the mutual paranoia that the two countries share. Anyone who considers neighboring Iran cannot forget the country’s conflict with the United States over its nuclear program. Iran, for its part, suspects that the United States could use its bases in Afghanistan for conventional attacks after a nuclear strike. And if the United States decides to remain in Afghanistan for longer than anticipated, neither China nor Russia will be amused. (via The Taliban’s New Target: Losing Faith in Pakistan’s Future – SPIEGEL ONLINE – News – International).

Behind Pakistan and Kashmir is the legacy of the British and the Americans! (Cartoonist, Copyright and courtesy - Times of India, Ajit Ninan). Click for larger image.

Western intervention – benign and beneficial!

Western narratives about ‘deadly ethnic and religious tensions’ bit in the Indian region is again a case of selective amnesia.

Would they like to trace the role of US and its client, named Pakistan, in the religious tensions that India manages today?

Would they like to account for the US$ 3 billion that Indian NGOs receive each year – mostly from the West. These NGOs mostly, are a cover for proselytization or worse still, some of them are fronts for subverting or influencing Indian public agenda.

Of course, the West is only a dis-interested observer – in fact a reluctant, detached and dis-interested observer.

The ‘idea’ of Pakistan-II

Of nearly 10 crore Indian Muslims in 1941, a mere 5 lakhs voted for Jinnah, the Muslim League and Pakistan.

With time, India could see a future beyond Jinnah and Pakistan! (Cartoon – Artist: David Low (1891-1963) Published by Evening Standard, 21 Sep 1945)

Britain has often been taunted with employing “divide and rule” tactics in India, but the cleverest attempt at dividing and ruling is that of Jinnah. Moslems number only 94.5 millions according to the census of 1941. Compared with the 255 million Hindus, they will always be in a minority in any system of democratically elected bodies.

To counter this disability the Moslems, as long ago as 1909, pressed for and secured the electoral device of separate Hindu and Moslem electorates, with seats “reserved” in the legislature on a communal basis. This procedure ensured to Moslems a political representation in excess of their numerical proportions. But it did not satisfy them for long.

When Congress ministries took office in seven out of eleven provinces in 1937, Moslem Leaguers (who had polled only 4.6 per cent of the total Moslem vote) were denied any share in the spoils of office. Moslem League propagandists have represented this situation as a denial of their legitimate rights, and as proof of a Hindu determination to dominate India. Tactically, it may have been unwise of Congress, but under a party system of government it is difficult to see how it could have done otherwise. Congress did not refuse office to Moslems as such, but to Moslems who were not members of Congress.

The experience of one election convinced Jinnah that his party could never hope to enjoy a ruling majority. In 1940 he accordingly resurrected the theory of Pakistan, claiming that Hindus and Moslems are two separate nations.

Before 1940 no one outside the Moslems, and few among them, took Pakistan seriously, but by persistent advocation in season and out, Jinnah has made of it the central issue before India today. He has made of the League a real political party, and in the recent elections to the Central Legislative Assembly it won all the Mohammedan seats (30), polling 86.6 per cent of the total Moslem votes. These elections were based on the extremely restricted franchise of the 1919 Act, and the total number of votes cast was only 586,647, representing almost exclusively the propertied classes. (text highlight supplied)

The real problem starts from this point the League is pledged not to make the new Constitution work unless it starts from the basic assumption of Pakistan. There must be not one but two constitution-making bodies, says Jinnah -one for Hindustan and one for Pakistan. Hindus naturally are not willing to submit, in advance of the elections, to the dictation of a minority.

Jinnah wrecked the Simla Conference – called by the Viceroy, Lord Wavell -in July, 1945. He can wreck the elections. All he has to do is to stall, and the longer he stalls, the stronger he grows.

Jinnah’s growing power and prestige have only made him more obdurate. Would he have dared to go so far if he had not felt assured of outside backing – that is, from Britain? At all events, his attitude has caused Jawarhalal Nehru, the most modern and internationally-minded Congress leader, to declare that Congress will negotiate no further with the League under its present leadership.

Britain’s offer of August, 1940, guaranteed minorities against forcible inclusion in any future Indian Union or Federation; the undertaking was reiterated in the Cripps offer of March-April, 1942, and at the Simla Conference.

Jinnah asks the British government to guarantee his Pakistan scheme; he does not ask the people of India, and is quite oblivious to the 30 millions who would be a Hindu minority in the six provinces which he claims: Sind, Baluchistan, the North-West Frontier Province, the Punjab, Bengal, and Assam. Of these, only the first three have a decisively Moslem population.

If Britain backs Jinnah in his intransigence, she will be accused once more of utilizing the communal divisions to delay a settlement and final handing over of power. But what if Britain calls Jinnah’s bluff? What if he is bluntly told that the question of Pakistan is not for Britain or Moslems alone to decide, but must be settled by the whole Indian people through their elected assemblies?

Britain’s Labor Party … has, since it came to power, gone little further than the Tories. Current pronouncements, … have been confined to the old formulas, with emphasis on the necessity for prior agreement among Indians, and warnings against attempts to secure results by violence. They have not dealt with the fundamental question of what the British government will do to break the stalemate.

Failure to grasp this nettle firmly has already led to suspicions that the leopard has not changed its spots, and that despite the change of government, Britain is still more interested in word-spinning than in action. Even the moderate and liberal sections of the Indian press speak of an “Anglo-Moslem conspiracy to keep India in perpetual subjection.” But so long as there is doubt about Britain’s intentions, communal differences will be accentuated, simply because each community wants to secure the best possible terms far itself before Britain “quits India.”

Moslems to this day are the weaker community financially and educationally. Of male Hindus, 14.7 per cent are literate, compared with 10.7 per cent of the Moslems; for women the percentages are 2.1 and 1.5 (1931 census). Separate electorates have merely accentuated communal differences.

The rice-eating Moslem mopla of Malabar has far more in common with his Hindu neighbors than he has with the wheat-eating Punjabi Moslem. Only the most confused thinking could produce a two-nation theory in India, where there are dozens of distinct races and languages.

Jinnah, who is far from being confused in his thinking, knows all this. It is plain, therefore, that the Hindu-Moslem conflict should be seen, not as a religious one, but as a straightforward political and economic struggle for power, with the spoils of office as prizes.

The principle of self-determination, which is of the essence of democracy, applies to nations, not to the fortuitous divisions of a subcontinent conquered by an alien power. The mutinies in the Royal Indian Navy and Royal Indian Air Force are no mere protests against pay or conditions but are political mutinies directed against foreign rule. Whatever the attitude of her political leaders, the people of India are united as never before in vehement opposition to foreign rule. (via India – Magazine – The Atlantic).

Britain ‘saved’ India from Japan – with the Great Bengal Famine – 40-50 lakhs of people dead! (Cartoon – Artist: Sidney ‘George’ Strube Published: Daily Express, 07 Aug 1942).

The ‘facts’ behind the emotion

This post excerpted from The Atlantic, written in 1946, a year before India’s Independence, makes a few points that are unclear to most Indians.

The ‘innocent’ Indian Muslim

Indian Muslims did not chose the Muslim League. British policy in India made it seem that Indian Muslims had chosen the Muslim League. Of the nearly 10 crore Muslims, less than 5 lakhs voted for the Muslim League. Jinnah’s claim and bravado sprang from the backing of half a per cent of India’s Muslim Population.

Popular leaders like Sheikh Abdullah of Kashmir or the Deoband Seminary rejected emphaticallyJinnah and his Pakistan theory. The ordinary Muslim had no truck with Jinnah or Pakistan. Meanwhile, Sachar Committee report notwithstanding, the ‘ordinary’ Muslim before Independence was behind the general population.

And remains so.

A wolf in wolf’s skin

The British created (through their separate, limited electorates) the ‘idea’ of Pakistan, reiterated the role of this ‘idea’ in 1940, 1942 and the Simla conference of 1946 – and many times in between.

Had Jinnah decided not to get used by the British masters, someone else would have filled Jinnah’s shoes. It would have taken any two-bit politician, no time at all, to fill the void,  had Jinnah declined this role. The leopard has not changed its spots.

The State of Pakistan continues to be used by Western powers for their own ends.

Britain expected 20 lakh Indian soldiers to shed blood for the British Empire. The ‘disloyal’ Indian leadership did not see it that way – especially Subhash Chandra Bose. (Cartoon – Artist: Illingworth, Leslie Gilbert, 1902-1979 Published – Daily Mail, 6 April 1942).

Now that it is over …

The Congress is taking the easy way out. It demonises Pakistan, which while being counter-productive, also increases the stakes and decreases the ability to engage Pakistan. 60 years is a long time – a long enough time for the Pakistani State to deliver on its self-defined mandate.

In the meanwhile things have changed. Joseph Stiglitz, in April 2010, indicated that Bangladesh and Sri Lanka could become the next export-production centres for the US, specifically and generally the West. After China. A decade down the road, with Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh as US clients, India’s may see itself encircled by Anglo-Saxon client states.

Not a happy thought.

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A destiny superior to India

In August, 1947, Pakistan & Britain both believed that they had a future, brighter and better than India’s. Ironic, eh?

Brothers in Arms | Cartoon titled Musharraf’s Democracy by Bendib on Monday, November 12, 2007

his interesting post from Pakistan’s The Dawn captures a defeated mindset – that yet believes it has some ‘clever’ answers. Unwilling to concede its bankruptcy, it proclaims a fresh beginning.

Dear Britain,

Has anyone told you how amazing you guys are? Well let me clarify – we love you. You guys are incredible and we’re not just saying that because you are allegedly giving us close to a billion dollars in aid.

In recognition of how terrific you are, we humbly request you to take back Pakistan. Our government, as you may have noticed, is quite useless. The security situation, steadily increasing food prices and inflation, unemployment and incessant load shedding – all of this is wreaking havoc on our populace. We are tired and need respite.

We realise that you had to put up with a lot of complaining and discontent when you had previously um….occupied the subcontinent. But rest assured, with substantial evidence, we have since then developed into quite a docile bunch. Look at our politicians, we keep re-electing corrupt, ineffectual fake degree-toting candidates, which goes to show we have no standards and are as accommodating as they come.

Admittedly, we’ve done a fantastic job of messing up everything in the country with our religious infighting and blaming Israel for everything. But with your guidance (and love of desi food), we’re sure that we can do better and improve drastically. So we implore you, take over and together we can re-kindle the glory of the British Empire. Uncle Sam out, Queen in! (via The Dawn Blog » Blog Archive » Letter to Britain).

The lethal Pakistani Mix!

India’s welfare

At the time of India’s Independence, there were two parties who felt distinctly superior to  India’s future.

One were the British. Best known of British sceptics was Churchill. The pessimistic British colonial narrative feared that India was being handed over to ‘men of straw … of whom no trace will be found after a few years’. Churchill was ‘concerned’ that Indians would be sold down the river, led by ‘half naked fakir‘. Perhaps, British pessimism was an existential requirement for their polity and ideology.

British misrule in India has been the subject of countless writers, journalists, analysts. Equally there have been numerous ‘studies’ about British ‘contribution’ to India’s progress. Let us keep this subject aside, completely, in this post. Let us forget about British misrule in India in this post.

Instead, let us look at British misrule in Britain itself. British ‘capabilities’ in areas of technology, industrial management, academia stands naked and exposed. How could super-power Britain spiral down to bankruptcy, in less than 70 years, after WW2.

More, the British mindset itself may need examination!

The other party

The other set of Indo-skeptics were Muslim secessionists. Regardless of accountability, contribution or acceptance, Muslims secessionists were “much too conscious of their erstwhile political, intellectual, and cultural superiority to be able to accept their new position.” Muslim leadership saw themselves as in a position to demand an “equal share of the power which would befit and be commensurate with their status as the erstwhile rulers of India.”

A schizoid Pakistan! Torn between military, rich landlords, regressive clerics, and a cynical US. | Two Musharrafs cartoon by Bendib on Saturday, October 13, 2007

With an aggressive campaign spanning cultural, political and motivational slogans, Muslim campaigners attacked the राम भरोसे हिन्दू होटल Indian leadership. A snide description for ‘directionless, loud, confused’ Indian leadership.

As the British oppression of anti-colonial movement during during WW2 increased, Muslims ‘leadership’ saw themselves as ‘descendants of erstwhile rulers’, and  coined a new chant. चिकनी चवन्नी तेल में, बुड्ढा गाँधी जेल में (into oil went the bald coin, as quickly as Gandhi into the can (jail). The secessionist Muslim elite “conscious of their erstwhile status as the rulers of India‘ proclaimed, हंस के लिए हैं पाकिस्तान, लड़ के लेंगे हिंदुस्तान (With a contemptuous smile, we robbed them of Pakistan; Now we will battle, to conquer Hindustan.). Derisively calling Hindus as दाल (lentil-eaters), secessionist Muslims considered themselves superior.

These two effete and crumbling Desert Bloc sceptics continue to believe in their own hubris – and propaganda. They would do well to remember how deep the well-springs of the Indic nation are.

What they forget, they forget at their own risk.

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Warped Indian history – By Nehru

A mentally shackled Nehru on 15th August 1947 - could not break free of the English

The old culture managed to live through many a fierce storm and tempest, but though it kept its outer form, it lost its real content. Today it is fighting silently and desperately against a new and all-powerful opponent — the bania civilisation of the capitalist West. It will succumb to the newcomer, for the West brings science, and science brings food for the hungry millions. But the West also brings an antidote to the evils of this cut-throat civilisation — the principles of socialism, of cooperation, and service to the community for the common good. This is not so unlike the old Brahmin idea of service. (from Jawaharlal Nehru, an autobiography: with musings on recent events in India By Jawaharlal Nehru via Nehru: Man Among Men By Raja R. Mehrotra).

Bad start

India and Nehru got off to wrong start at the very first instant. When he made his ‘famous’ tryst with destiny speech, who was Nehru talking to? To the less than 5% Indians who understood English? If Free India’s first Prime Minister did not see fit to talk to Indians intelligibly, how close or how much did he care for India?

Nehru’s ideas about Indian history are possibly his biggest failing. Nehru’s puerile ignorance about India’s scientific tradition does not deserve further examination. Look at his pseudo-romantic ideas of Indian Brahminism.

Indian tradition

Jawaharlal Nehru with Girja Shankar Bajpai, the first Secretary-General, Ministry of External Affairs, at Commonwealth Prime Ministers, 1948, London. (THE HINDU PHOTO LIBRARY)

In Upanishadic times, there was the Nachiketa story, where his rich Brahman father, Uddalaka, /Vajasrava, was ‘giving’ away old, barren, unproductive cows – and keeping the best for himself. Obviously, Uddalaka, /Vajasrava did not become rich through ‘selfless’ service. Probably, Nehru was not Brahmin enough to know this lesson. Or we can blame his British school, Harrow. Why did they not teach him anything much about Upanishads?

Much after Uddalaka /Vajasrava, foreign students paid upto 1000 coins in advance to receive education at Takshashila – and there were thousands of such students. Students came from all over the world – and paid large sums of money to Indian teachers for education!

The Tibetan-Buddhist student, Marpa, the Translator (1012–1099), was warned by a co-traveller “If you go to India without lots of gold, searching for dharma will be like trying to drink water from an empty gourd.” Interestingly, Naropa, the Indian teacher forced Marpa to give up his entire stock of gold. Having extracted all of Marpa’s gold, Naropa threw all the gold dust, up in the air, exclaiming that the whole world was gold to him. Where was Nehru’s much-vaunted Brahmin idea of service then. Nehru’s ideas of Brahminical selfless service were alien to India – as were his ideas of rampant, extractive, profiteering banias.

Indian trade ethics

Indian banias were limited in their profit-taking by शुभ लाभ ‘shubh-labh’ ethics. It is शुभ लाभ shubh labh, that prevents traditional Indian merchant community, from dealing with slaves, drugs and alcohol. The ‘green’ agenda of शुभ लाभ shubl labh, also prevents traditional banias from dealing in meat products. Unlike Nehru’s British banias whose wealth was created from slave trade – apart from drugs and alcohol.

Historically, trade in India is governed by शुभ लाभ ‘shubh labh’ – and hence Indians have not been major players in drugs proliferation (unlike Japan, the West, which traded Opium in Korea and China) or in slave trade. In modern times, India is not a big player in spamming or in software virus – though a power in computing industry. In August 2008, a hoax story alleged that an Indian hacker, had broken into a credit card database, and sold it to the European underworld. Some ‘experts’ feared that this would spark of a crime wave across Europe.

On slavery, the very basis of Western dominance, in his autobiography of nearly 500 pages, Nehru mentions slavery less than 5 times. Which just goes onto to show how well the Indian colonial masters had ‘supressed’ their own real history and source of wealth.

Underneath the Western sky

Colonial India’s English push was understandable. But, Nehru’s imposition of English on India is beyond defence. What more, after 60 years of Independence, state patronage of English language is unwarranted by the Indian Republic – and illegitimate. Making sense of the newly formed Indian nation was herculean task – even for Nehru. After more than a century of propaganda, Western ‘education’, inversion of history, post-colonial Indian rulers struggled between the ‘glossy’ imported idioms and the familiar native dialogue.

Caught in this dilemma, the Nehruvian Indian State vacillates between a unique Indic inheritance and the detritus of dead-end colonialism.

Assault on Indian academia

Nehru - at his Harrowian best!

Mohammed Bakhtiar Khilji destroyed the Universities and schools of Nalanda, Vikramshila, Odantapura and Jagddala around 1200 AD. This marked the destruction, persecution and decline in Indian education, thought and structure. 600 years later, the British further damaged the Indic system of education, with State subsidies and patronage of Western education – the watershed being Bentinck’s proclamation in 1835.

Thus, the reduced (quality and quantity) output from the ‘Indian thought factory’ led to stasis and the decline that we see today – through the prism of last 800 years of violence and destruction of Indic thought. This problem gets further magnified with the existing and continued subsidy to English language /Western education by the Indian Government.

Many centuries ago, Indians (under Islamic rulers) thought that Persian was the most important language in the world. And then it became Urdu. Now there are hosannas to English. Persian and Urdu were languages that the ruling class foisted on the Indians.

As is English.

India’s Forgotten Tryst With Destiny

Forgotten heroes - inflated cut outs!

Lal, Bal and Pal Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Bipin Chandra Pal who hailed from Punjab, Maharashtra and Bengal, respectively, and adopted Swaraj as the destiny of the nation, could form the subject of yet another pavilion. Tilak’s memorable phrase, “Swaraj is my birthright and i shall have it”, his differences with the more moderate Gopal Krishna Gokhale and the split in the Congress into an ‘aggressive nationalist’ wing under him and a moderate wing under the latter may provide some of the themes for this pavilion. The Partition of Bengal and its reversal forced by the swadeshi movement, the visit of King George V and the Delhi-Lahore conspiracy are some additional events the pavilion could exhibit. (via Another Tryst With Destiny – The Times of India).

Victor’s propaganda

Post-colonial Indian history has been completely swamped by Congress propaganda. Leaders in the vanguard, the leading lights, have been have been cursorily dismissed or their names wiped clean. Those who pursued different directions, disagreed with GNP (Gandhi /Nehru /Patel) were villified, ignored or dismissed. Leaders like Lal, Bal and Pal, are completely forgotten. Subhash Chandra Bose is a vague memory today.

Subhash Chandra Bose with Jawaharlal Nehru (Image source and courtesy - im.rediff.com). Click for larger image.

Contributions of leaders like SC Bose was ignored or the importance of the February 1946 joint action by the Indian Armed Forces against the colonial forces, was minimized to the ‘Naval Ratings Mutiny.’ Leaders like VD Savarkar (the first to write a non-colonial history of the War of 1857), or Madan Mohan Malaviya, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee (the founder of the Jana Sangh-BJP) was dismissed as fascism.

A ‘victorious’ Congress, ruling for most of the 60 years of post-colonial India, had three clear propaganda imperatives. One – There is no alternative to the Congress. Two – If you don’t have an enemy create one . Like Pakistan. Three – Gain Western approval.

The threads of Indian independence

The myth of non-violent Indian freedom movement, served both colonial and Congress interests. It showed the British as ‘civilized’ colonialists – and the Congress as ‘enlightened’ leadership. Just like most Western literature caricatures African-American characters as hard-working, humble, docile, placid, obedient, gentle! Fact is, that Britain was bankrupt and could not hold onto India. Congress decided to re-write history and take all credit for the departure of the British colonialists.

Apart from the War of 1857, there were more than 75 battles, skirmishes, revolts, mutinies, involving thousands, up to lakhs of Indians, across India. And more than double that many conspiracies, plots, hold-ups, explosions, bombings, which were not organized. These more than 200 violent actions have been completely glossed over by post-colonial India’s historians. Obviously, more than 200 incidents of violent opposition to British misrule over 150 years (1800-1947) deserves better treatment by official historians. Especially, the people who were ‘behind’ this.

Fact is, that Britain was bankrupt and could not hold onto India.

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42 terror camps still active in Pakistan: Indian Army chief

Chief of Army Staff Gen Deepak Kapoor has said that there are still 42 terror camps operating across the border in Pakistan in which 2000 to 2500 terrorists are still waiting to infiltrate into Indian side. (via 42 terror camps still active in Pakistan: Army chief- Hindustan Times).

Such cross-border firings did come down for some time after the two countries agreed to a ceasefire along the 198-km International Border in J&K, the 778-km LoC and the 150-km Actual Ground Position Line in Siachen on November 26, 2003.

But Pakistan army is now back to its old strategy of actively aiding and abetting infiltration, and the ceasefire is increasingly turning fragile. Army chief General Deepak Kapoor, in fact, recently said Pakistan army was trying to push in as many militants as possible before the mountain passes get snowed under. (via Terror infrastructure in Pak still intact: Antony – India – The Times of India).

Post-colonial India

So … if we know this … what are we doing about these 42 camps?

Post-Independence India has inherited a Pakistan Fixation, which predisposes us to whine – and demonize Pakistan. Endless whining about Pakistan’s bad deeds gets us nowhere. A ‘victorious’ Congress, ruling for most of the 60 years of post-colonial India, had three clear propaganda imperatives.

1 – TINA, There is no alternative

They needed to prove that it was only the Congress which could ‘take on’ and  ‘defeat’ the ‘glorious and the mighty’ British Empire on which the sun never set. The logic went, “what could India(ns) have done without the Congress”. This thinking went deeper and dirtier, when a certain Deb Kant Barooah, declared “India is Indira and Indira is India.”

Pakistani press trying to 'even' the score

Similarly, Congress decided to re-write history and take all credit for the departure of the British colonialists. Contributions of leaders like SC Bose was ignored or the importance of the February 1946 joint action by the Indian Armed Forces against the colonial forces, was minimized to the ‘Naval Ratings Mutiny.’ Leaders like VD Savarkar (the first to write a non-colonial history of the War of 1857), or Shyama Prasad Mukherjee (the founder of the Jana Sangh-BJP) was dismissed as fascism.

Fact is, that Britain was bankrupt and could not hold onto India. Fact is, that for a 150 years – from 1797-1947, many rebellions, wars, individual hits were made against the colonial British Government. The myth of non-violent Indian freedom movement, served both colonial and Congress interests. It showed the British as ‘civilized’ colonialists – and the Congress as ‘enlightened’ leadership. Just like most Western literature caricatures African-American characters as hard-working, humble, docile, placid, obedient, gentle!

2 – If you don’t have an enemy, create one!

The Congress needed to create an enemy. A demon, who they could blame, use, abuse – and Pakistan fitted the bill perfectly. A failed state (!), a hotbed of terrorism – and to top it all, an Islamic State. What more could the West-Congress combine ask for?

Easily slipping into colonial legacy of ‘divide et impera’, the Congress went onto a disastrous foreign policy trail of Hindi-Chini bhai bhai. A solid realtionship with Pakistan would have,  arguably, saved Tibet from the Chinese maws – which Nehru’s foreign policy predicated.

3 – Craven desires

To gain Western approval, acceptance, favours, privileges et al.

Consider the English language policy of the post-colonial Congress Government. It has massively subsidized English education in India so that the children of the elite could ‘escape’ to the West. The demeaning ‘population control theory’, the English language education – all, a result of this need of the Congress Party.

The deliberate colonial distortion of Indian history continues unchecked and unhindered. You only have to read Congress Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh’s speech at Oxford, praising the Raj,  while receiving his honorary doctrate, or Chidambaram’s decision to end “abject poverty” in India that he seems to “have known for 5,000 years.”

When each of these elements are looked at in isolation, we can take benign view of these actions. When looked at collectively, it forms a clear pattern.

Poor Sri Lankan cricket team got a taste of Pakistan ...

A rather ominous pattern.

The Root Of This Problem

The state of inter-government relations in South Asia is a sign of lazy Indian diplomatic corps (the IFS) which considers all these neighbourhood postings as ‘punishment’ postings. The ‘best’ of IFS corps wants postings to Western capitals. Like the IAS, the IFS is another albatross around India’s neck.

A large part of India’s Foreign Ministry budget goes towards Western engagement (for proof, look at the dubious Festivals of India in USA, France, Russia, Britain, etc). Instead if the same money was spent in the sub-continent, it would have been better spent. The huge monies spent on Western embassies are mis directed. It would be ideal if those Western embassies were Spartan, frugal (I should actually say Gandhian) – and our the money saved was invested in the sub-continent. India’s Western engagements are at a direct cost of involving and managing the neighbourhood relationships.

If India’s problems were limited to Pakistan, possibly, there is some merit to India’s Pakistan Fixation. India’s relations with its other neighbours are also in trouble. Its relations with Bangladesh are at a historic low. Relations with Sri Lanka are back from the brink. Nepal is the new fire in the sub-continent.

What should India do?

The other issue is that Indian bureaucrats whine. They issue empty threats – and take no follow up actions.

For instance, cut off Pakistan’s supplies of paper, inks, dies, presses, spares for the currency printing. Are things changing.? India has indeed has taken the first intelligent action (that I have seen) in a long time in handling Pakistan.

Next! Send a 100 Indian agents to lob grenades into Pakistani terrorists camps – every month. Just one grenade in one terrorist camp every month. Within the next 6 months the terror infrastructure of Pakistan will evaporate.

Other options India can consider.

1. Zardari wants to export cement and sugar to India. India has a large market for both – and can easily absorb Pakistani exports. Tie these Pakistani exports to quantitative achievements in shutting down terror camps in Pakistan.
2. Pakistan precarious financial position does not allow it the luxury of an arms race with India. Pakistan has access to Western technology for – in defence for RDX, machine guns, PACs, etc. The world must withdraw all technology from Pakistan for all arms and ammunition. No RDX, no tanks, no F-16s, no APCs. Pakistan must be put on strict diet of military technology blockade by the world. No less.
3. Fake Indian currency notes are also allegedly coming out of technology supplied by Europeans. Close these channels. Pakistan’s suspected role in counterfeit currency operations must also be put under the scanner. Controlling Government’s of the 12 companies that dominate the currency printing business must be made to choose. Between India and Pakistan. If the German Government can arm twist their companies to suspend currency supply to Zimbabwe, there is no excuse for them to not to lean on dealings with Pakistan.
4. Pakistani Hindus (especially Dalits) are crucial to Pakistan. Announce a scheme for Hindu immigration from Pakistan to India. The loss of this 2% of Pakistani population can make life difficult for Pakistan. Facilitate their immigration to India.
5. Work with US, NATO, Afghan Governments to close down the Peshawar arms bazaar. This small time bazaar became the sourcing centre for terrorists all over the world. Initially, stocked up with arms from the CIA funded jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan, Peshawar, has become a problem that never ends. If required, there should be a UN mandate to send in a multinational force to surround, capture and destroy this centre for arms and armaments.
6. Pakistan is at the crossroads of a jihadi, terrorist, criminal elements who have joined together and created an incendiary mash-up. Fueled by a drugs trade worth billions, arms trade worth millions and respectability, as they are ‘carrying out a religious jihad’.
7. The leadership of these gangs has to be de-fanged. LK Advani, as the earlier Home Minister, forwarded a list of ‘Most Wanted 20′ to Pakistan nearly 7 years ago. Not one has come to India. The US has not co-operated on this one important Indian requirement.

The Pakistan problem is finally not as complex and it is made out.

Nor as easy as some may want it to be.

The idea of Pakistan!

हंस के लिए हैं पाकिस्तान, लड़ के लेंगे हिंदुस्तान

With a contemptuous smile, we robbed them off Pakistan;

Now we will battle, to conquer Hindustan

Synthesis of Pakistan

For many years, the above slogan (popular in pre-partition India amongst Muslims) summed up the idea of Pakistan. Pakistan was more about taking away from Hindustan than making and building a Pakistan. And that is no surprise.

Jinnah acted pricey with the support of half a per cent (0.5%) of India's Muslim population - and the might of the British Raj behind him! (Cartoon - Artist - Low; David (1891-1963) Published - Evening Standard, 04 Sep 1946).

Consider what Jinnah later boasted “I will tell you who made Pakistan: Myself, my secretary and his typewriter”. Many versions of the boast exist – though no one disputes the boast itself. Another writer narrates how Jinnah won “Pakistan merely with the assistance of “one Secretary and a typewriter machine”.

Yet another researcher writes how “Jinnah once claimed that “I have won Pakistan with the help of my Secretary and his typewriter”. One memoir of Khurshid, Jinnah’s Secretary, pretty much says the same thing, “I’ll tell you who made Pakistan. Myself, my secretary and his typewriter”. At yet another occasion he seems to have said, ” My dear man, I got you Pakistan with a typist and a typewriter.”

Apocryphal (as Jaswant Singh seems to suggest) or verbatim, this boast was repeated so many times and in the many versions, does capture the Pakistani mindset. The State of Pakistan was an artificial creation – and popular leaders like Sheikh Abdullah refused to even meet up with Jinnah and was deemed irrelevant.

Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn …

What partition era Indians remember most about the slogan above, was the indifference, to the fate of Pakistan by the soon-to-be Pakistanis – and their total India-centric focus. It is their reading, that the Pakistanis may not mourn away the passing away of Pakistan much – which is something that most Indians do not factor. Having got Pakistan for a song, they may soon be found snickering at its break up.

Is it this indifference which has allowed Pakistan to become a client state of the West?

Resident Non Indians

Some part of the Indian bureaucracy and English speaking media is possibly made up of RNIs (Resident Non-Indians), whose children and future, they have ’secured’ in the West – much like the indifferent Pakistanis.

And this may be the one quality, that possibly is the one thing, that the RNIs and Pakistanis share – indifference to the fate of the country.