[Reader-list] Is India Within Its Rights to Attack Pakistan?

[Ravi Agarwal]

Dear all,
I do not write on these issues. However what has happened is not something
which concerns people of one ideology or another, or without any. It
concerns all of us, even those who choose to remain quiet, but who observe,
absorb and react to everything going on around us.

It has been said before but it needs to be said again that it is not in
terms of nation states, or religious divides alone we need to think. These
may be issues which do not fit into categories of nation states. It is
futile to talk about India /Pakistan,  Hindu/ Muslim, when the situation is
far more complicated and complex. Every one of us can sense
that complexicity, even though we do not know how to grasp it.

It is not useful for those of us to hear the usual rhetoric all the time. If
people can help others understand the different aspects of this complex
story, then it will help us all. Else I think many people like me are tired
of this rhetoric, and have already moved beyond this. It does not help us
understand better, and does not clear our confusions.

Rather than rhetoric, it will be more helpful to hear stories/ narratives/
evidence etc, for example. These are the ways of understanding and knowing.
Otherwise if people want to just slug it out, it is really what they want to
do, not others.

best and thanks
ravi agarwal



On Sat, Nov 29, 2008 at 10:45 AM, Pawan Durani <pawan.durani at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hello Vivek,
>
> How long would India keep suffering like this? How long would the innocents
> keep losing their lives ? How long would the terrorists bring cities to
> halt
> ? How long would we remain spineless ?
>
> We have been taken for granted.
>
> For decades India has been telling the world that "terrorrirst training
> camps" are being run by Pak Army in POK and India claims to have proof. If
> India is so confidant , let them carry on air raids on these camps.
>
> Else , India does not have to fool all of us.
>
> It is time , WE ACT.
>
> Pawan Durani
>
>
>
> How lo
> On Fri, Nov 28, 2008 at 8:01 PM, Vivek Narayanan <vivek at sarai.net> wrote:
>
> > Dear Pawan,
> >
> > Again, you have presented this without comment.   I would like to know,
> are
> > you, in fact, advocating an attack on Pakistan in response to these
> blasts?
> >  That would be surprising, but if so, who, what and where should we
> attack?
> >  Should we just drop a  nuclear bomb on Lahore?  Or perhaps we should
> send a
> > team of twenty five commandos there to take over the major hotels and
> shoot
> > Pakistani civilians randomly on the street?
> >
> > And are you saying this would reduce the chances and possibilities for
> > further attacks on Indian cities?  How?
> >
> > Please let us proceed with great caution and think very carefully about
> > what we want to say, or more innocents will suffer at the hands of the
> > trigger-happy few (and their advocates).
> >
> > Vivek
> >
> > Pawan Durani wrote:
> >
> >> From someones Blog :-
> >>
> >> "So here's the thing: If the U.S. was almost unanimously considered as
> >> being
> >> within its legal rights to attack Afghanistan after 9/11, wouldn't an
> >> Indian
> >> attack on Pakistan be equally justified? Doesn't a country have the
> right
> >> to
> >> defend its citizens from outside aggression? What, if not an act of war,
> >> would you call 10 simultaneous terrorist
> >> strikes<
> >>
> http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=105055855763538009401.00045c9d8b16af3ad1008&ll=19.095538,72.84472&spn=0.028428,0.030341&z=15
> >in
> >>
> >> a country's financial capital? And, most importantly, does the fact
> >> that
> >> both you and your opponent possess nuclear weapons mean you cannot
> >> retaliate
> >> at all?"
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