[Reader-list] Is peace and reconciliation an illusion?

[Yousuf]

Dear Taha
I will respond to your message a little later. Right now I am forwarding the response of at least one Pakistani to Kumkum Chadha's essay.

(By the way, Taha, if we achieve your dream of the Akhand Bharat, we'd at least not have to worry about the biometric national ID-cards which you keep talking of, since we won't have any illegal migrants)

=====
To.
Ms Kumkum Chada,

Your letter was forwarded by Yousaf Saeed. What you write is not my experience. I am not a 'peacenik' but I have successful working relationships with Indians- in TIFR and in music circles. 

We are all full of conflicting desires and emotions. History is full of accounts of  brother killing brother for the usual reasons. But, for the overall progress of society, we try to keep our thirst for blood in check. 

Why can we not learn from Europeans? Must we like them go through devastating  wars to realize that there is a better option available? 

Yes, the divide is irreparable- even real brothers choose to live separately. But it does not mean that we should stop cooperating in promoting what we  find of value in our personal lives. 

This hostility and suspicion you write about is present everywhere. There are constant fights between peoples of different ethnicity in Pakistan- who all have the same religion. Making them realize that dialogue is a better option than unwarranted and continuous violence is something one should seriously strive for. And the same goes for India and Pakistan. 

The merchants of violence would certainly not want peace anywhere, but I am not going to fall for this .

I live in Saudi Arabia and I have much more in common with Indians than Arabs. At least, I understand Hindi . I have never been invited by any Arab, but many times by Indian Hindus. 

When I was a student in Notre Dame - way back in the 70s- my best friends were from South India- because of our common love of classical music . We did realize our differences but that did not mean that we should order our lives on a foundation of hatred. 

So, really, our culture does bind us. Your perception- that there is no love lost between Indians and Pakistanis- is really a reflection of your own experiences and proclivities.

Regards,
Hassan Azad

hssnazad at gmail.com
http://faculty.kfupm.edu.sa/MATH/hassanaz/



--- On Fri, 1/23/09, Taha Mehmood <2tahamehmood at googlemail.com> wrote:

> From: Taha Mehmood <2tahamehmood at googlemail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Is peace and reconciliation an illusion?
> To: ysaeed7 at yahoo.com
> Cc: "sarai list" <reader-list at sarai.net>
> Date: Friday, January 23, 2009, 5:02 PM
> Dear Yusuf,
> 
> Thank you for posting your response to Kumkum Chadha's
> HT article.
> 
> After reading Kumkum's wonderfully written piece and
> you apt response it
> seems the choice is really between either going to war or
> abstaining from
> it.
> 
> I can understand the frustration in Kumkum's point of
> view and I want to
> empathize with it. So for the sake of empathy let me for a
> moment imagine
> what will happen if India attacks Pakistan.
> 
> I present two scenarios.
> 
> Scenario-1
> 
> They Nuke us and we Nuke them. The Knickerwallahs here and
> the Salwar
> brigade there will have a field day carrying the dead and
> disposing at least
> 30-40 Million bodies. After all this is what they are all
> about, aren't
> they- to care and offer social service to the society.
> 
> Then I think  US will intervene and there will be a hue and
> cry in the UN
> and 'War' will come to an end. Then perhaps we can
> also celebrate, like
> Japan does every august, a peace day.
> 
> Scenario-2
> 
> This war is a conventional war. You know water, ground, air
>  offensive. With
> no first use policy on Nuke.
> 
> So we watch TV all day as Barkha hyperventilates  from the
> top of a tank and
> Sagarika screems EXCLUSIVE every five minutes from her
> Noida studio  and
> Arnab adjusts his glasses and Ashutosh strikes a pose and
> we are deluged
> with stories about how good our Jawans are feeling even as
> they lay their
> lives for Bharat Mata, and what  is the 'SITUATION'
>  'RIGHT NOW' !!
> 
> And after a six month long conflict we finally manage to
> capture these
> bloody Pakis.
> 
> Then what? What will we do with them? Make an entire
> country POW. Rape their
> women? Kill their Children? Murder them? Do what? What will
> we do with these
> Millions of illiterate, poor, Muslims?  Administer them
> under some sort of a
> suzerainty?
> 
> How will we tackle those stubborn Baluchs or those arrogant
> Sindhis or those
> drunk on power Punjabis? Those mad Pushtus? Even the US is
> finding them a
> hard nut to crack after all these years. What will we do?
> 
> No no no no no.......we should not let so much of
> negativity afflict our
> thinking. Even if it is shit we should go ahead and embrace
> it, you know why
> maybe because it is our shit or maybe because one man's
> shit is another
> man's manure. So we don't know, hence we have to
> think of other ways to deal
> with them.
> 
> how about making these mad mad pakis, who drunk on power,
> drunk on religion-
> Indian citizens, after we win the war ofcourse, which is
> just a formality,
> ofcourse?
> 
> May be that's a good idea!! and we can finally solve
> the root problem of all
> the conflicts in South Asia. You know what  Yousf may be 
> Kumkum is right
> after all and may be you are wrong, because what she is
> saying  is what our
> great leaders and thinkers and critical intellectuals have
> said years ago.
> 
> Consider for instance,calming thoughts of one of the
> greatest intellectuals
> that India has ever produced, Mr. K.M.Munshi. In 1965
> almost FORTY FOUR
> years ago he articulated his views on India/Pak policy,
> please allow me to
> present how his thougths are perceived-
> 
> Pakistan is every day violating the cease-fire which came
> into effect on
> September 23, 1965. Evidently, under the cloak of
> cease-fire she is
> preparing for another aggression. Our present victory
> should therefore not
> lull us into complacency. So long as Pakistan exists as at
> present she will
> continue to be hostile and aggressive towards Bharat.
> Pakistan was born in
> hatred for Bharat. It was carved out artificially by
> disrupting the natural,
> national integrity of Bharat. The K.K.M. is therefore of
> the firm opinion
> that peace and normalcy are inconceivable without the
> establishment of
> Akhand Bharat.
> 
> (you may find more jewels of his thinking here-
> http://www.rss.org:8080/New_RSS/Resolves/Resolution_1965.jsp)
> 
> May be we should go to war for the greater common good and
> establishment of
> peace and normalcy.
> 
> I think it is good idea, it will be a great opportunity to
> tell the world
> that look, even if we kill a few thousand of Muslims here
> and there every
> couple of years, at the bottom of hearts we want to
> co-exist with our Muslim
> brothers as part of one family, as part of one land, so we
> want to attack
> Pakistan now and  then later may be Bangladesh too because
> these
> Bangladeshis come to India often illegally. These poor
> bastards end up
> working as rag pickers and spreading terrorism and we do
> not want that, we
> want them to be legal rag pickers and we want them to be
> Indian citizens.
> 
> Following Obama, I can even imagine, Ms Kumkum Chaddha
> proclaiming- fellow
> citizens, we want to go to war, not because we see a green
> state or a white
> sate, or a saffron state but because we see  UNITED STATES
> OF INDIA.
> 
> As it was, so it will be.
> 
> So Gwaad help India!!
> 
> 
> Regards
> 
> Taha
> 
> PS: I think Akhand Bharat is a great idea to think about-
> Here is a link on
> its wiki entry-
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undivided_India