KASHMIR and IDPs

By K.N. Pandita - The story of the fox saying the grapes are sour was once very popular among the stories in the English text book for schoolboys.

After winning a slender majority in 2004 elections Sonia went to Rashtrapati Bhavan to claim the prized post of PM of India. Twenty minutes later she came out to tell the media persons she had made a “renunciation” (tyag) and withdrawn. How suddenly “renunciation” had dawned upon her.? For whom did she make a sacrifice? In Congress’ new lexicon “renunciation is the replacement of the adage “the grapes are sour.”

Congress ruling stalwarts maneuvered Soni’s alternate elevation as chairperson NAC. A hefty budget for this newly created organization, an appendage of PMO, a cabinet rank status and the understanding that all important files go to her for perusal saw the evaporation in thin air of much touted “renunciation”. Overnight, grapes were grapes, succulent and sweet not sour.

UPA government, looking for political crutches, had pandered to Muslim appeasement policy. Modification of history books, reservation, AMU minority status issue, ambivalence over lunacy like that of Yaqub Qureshi on cartoon episode etc. stoutly piloted by sycophants like Arjun Singh had brought not only discredit to Congress but also embarrassment to wider sections of civil society.

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By K.N. Pandita, New Delhi - This is with reference to M.J. Akbar’s Peace of justice (14 March) If he believes in India’s “positive creative enhancing of peace”, if believes in the “freedom of media in India” and if he is convinced that Gujarat Best Bakery massacre is “one of the most terrible communal riots in our country”, would he like to express himself on the selective brutal killing (including slicing under machine saw) of nearly 1200 innocent, harmless and defenseless Kashmiri Pandits by JKLF armed fundamentalist brigade in the early phase of Kashmir insurgency in 1989-90. Several formal judicial inquiries were conducted in Godhra carnage including an unusual step of shifting the case to Maharashtra HighCourt. But not a word has been said or written about five pogroms of Pandits in Kashmir valley till date and the exodus of three hundred thousand people, leave aside instituting a Commission of Inquiry into that genocide. Is the massacre of Muslims inhuman and that of Hindus human? Or is it the vote bank syndrome of democratic India?

With todays letter to the Editor, K.N.Pandita writes:

Dear Sir, With reference to your editorial ‘’Wrong Remedy’’ (ToI, 15 March) four leading Muslim Clerics who have issued fatwa saying, among other things, that “Islam does not support violence,” have rather unwittingly stirred up a perilous controversy of far-reaching consequences within Islamic society. Their fatwa is likely to be challenged by a huge host of Islamic scholastics and orthodoxy. K.N. Pandita, New Delhi.

By K.N. Pandita - President Bush’s recent Indian visit may prove a landmark event in the contemporary history of the sub-continent. Studied in historical perspective, his statements in India, Pakistan and back home in the US show a marked deviation from the traditional policy of the US towards the two important countries of the sub-continent. This is the de-hyphening of the two countries by the American administration.

Observers addicted to drawing negative conclusions of Indo-US relations may not be prepared to change their mindset. Their problem is their inability to keep pace with fast changing situation on international plane.

Undoubtedly the US is looking for partners in the orient who would be effective and positive actors in combating the menace of terrorism. Only strong and stable democracies can deliver the goods.

Considering her decades old alliance with the US a strong lever, Islamabad always hoped Washington would play a decisive role of bringing pressures on India to resolve Kashmir issue. A number of times General Musharraf even expressed it publicly.

Kashmir separatists and secessionists have been projecting themselves more loyal than the king. A secessionist leader from the valley recently said that the valley Muslims did not stage any big anti-American demonstration when Bush was in India just because they expect him to bring New Delhi under pressure for the resolution of Kashmir issue.

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By K.N. Pandita - Sankat Mochan temple in Varanasi is not the first temple attacked by the terrorists. Earlier they attacked important temples like Raghunath Temple in Jammu and Akhshardam Temple in Gujarat. Why do they attack temples?

Obviously, the attacks are made with an objective to provoke retaliation by the Hindu community and thus stoke the flames of communal clashes. However, no serious communal clashes took place in the aftermath of these attacks, thanks to the patience and sensibility of the Hindu community. Surely, their patience is not to be misunderstood either for promiscuity or for cowardice in defending their places of worship.

India is a secular state. The affected community would not like to take the law into its hands but let the state do its duty. That is a visible mark of a civil society’s maturity

In this criminal case as in any other of this nature, the law takes its course. Law enforcing agencies will try to arrest the culprits and bring them to book. If hey are arrested they will be given a fair trial in accordance with the law of the land.

It is a matter of great satisfaction that no Hindu politician or leader,– secular or non-secular — has come out with irresponsible and senseless threatening to the life of the actual culprits and their conspiratorial cohorts plus a hefty prize money for their head. Had it happened, then UP minister Qureshi’s recent statement of putting a prize of 51 crore rupees for beheading the slandering Dutch cartoonist would have been vindicated. Here much needed sanity has prevailed.

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