India vs Pakistan - The Real Battle
This NOT a blog on Indo-Pak cricket matches and definitely not on how it has improved brotherhood between us and all that Blah Blah Blah...
"Why do India and Pakistan fight?What is Pakistan’s claim to Kashmir and why did we have the wars with them?"
That’s something that we all should know, but also that many I talked to didn’t.
When we got independence from the British, it was decided that all territory with Muslim population of more than 75% would be called Pakistan and the Hindu dominated territories would go to India. However the princely states were not a part of this agreement. It was up to the rulers to decide what they wished to do. The Maharaja of Kashmir, Hari Singh Dogra decided to neither join India or Pakistan and desired an autonomous state, something similar to the Hurriyat’s stand today. However Pakistan invaded Kashmir as a reply to which Indian government sent troops to Kashmir to defend it. Rattled by the Pakistani aggression Maharaja of Kashmir decided to join India. Pakistan claims that the tribal lashkars that they sent to Kashmir were actually envoys to the Maharaja asking him to rethink his stand on the issue.
The second war of 1965 - After the Indo_China war or '62 Pakistan was under the impression that India was considerably weakened. Also the prevailing mood in Pakistan was that a single Pakistani soldier was equal to 4 on Indias side. So the Ayub Khan Government decided to attack us. India really was weakened and hence the war ended in a stalemate.
Then in 1971 Pakistan tried to placate the Bengali peasantry by annexing the Hindu lands and distributing it among the Muslims. This boisterous act created about 8 million refugees who moved into India putting a huge pressure on us. To stem this flow, Indira Gandhi declared war on Pakistan and defeated them in 2 weeks.
The Kargil war is well known and need not be recounted again.
It is after the ’71 war or around this time (I guess) that Pakistan got the idea of sponsoring terrorism. The idea was to make India bleed and when they spot a weakness; they thought they would go for the kill. The effects are there for all to see.
Pakistan’s dreaded ISI sponsors dreaded underworld dons like Dawood Ibrahim and his ilk and is also believed to have had a role to play in many of the blasts that have occurred in India.
Reams and reams of pages that can be written over this issue, an issue that is in essence very hard to resolve. So i think its best i stop here for now. I have only accounted the Indian side of the argument as that is the only side I know of. But I believe both the sides have very valid claims.
So that was short summary of the issue as I know it. It is by no means a complete picture of the issue.
My extra comments : There are numerous other blames that we throw on each other over a line that is drawn on a map. Countless people have lost lives over an issue that to me seems strikingly similar to the dogfights we see in the streets over which part of the road belongs to which dog. Just as they don’t realize that It is not theirs to fight for, we too seem to be oblivious to the fact that borders are just a line on the map. In this era of globalization when the world is slowly but surely moving toward the Utopian dream of a global community when will we realize that land is not something that we as “higher species” should be fighting over. Makes me think have we really Evolved at all????
"Why do India and Pakistan fight?What is Pakistan’s claim to Kashmir and why did we have the wars with them?"
That’s something that we all should know, but also that many I talked to didn’t.
When we got independence from the British, it was decided that all territory with Muslim population of more than 75% would be called Pakistan and the Hindu dominated territories would go to India. However the princely states were not a part of this agreement. It was up to the rulers to decide what they wished to do. The Maharaja of Kashmir, Hari Singh Dogra decided to neither join India or Pakistan and desired an autonomous state, something similar to the Hurriyat’s stand today. However Pakistan invaded Kashmir as a reply to which Indian government sent troops to Kashmir to defend it. Rattled by the Pakistani aggression Maharaja of Kashmir decided to join India. Pakistan claims that the tribal lashkars that they sent to Kashmir were actually envoys to the Maharaja asking him to rethink his stand on the issue.
The second war of 1965 - After the Indo_China war or '62 Pakistan was under the impression that India was considerably weakened. Also the prevailing mood in Pakistan was that a single Pakistani soldier was equal to 4 on Indias side. So the Ayub Khan Government decided to attack us. India really was weakened and hence the war ended in a stalemate.
Then in 1971 Pakistan tried to placate the Bengali peasantry by annexing the Hindu lands and distributing it among the Muslims. This boisterous act created about 8 million refugees who moved into India putting a huge pressure on us. To stem this flow, Indira Gandhi declared war on Pakistan and defeated them in 2 weeks.
The Kargil war is well known and need not be recounted again.
It is after the ’71 war or around this time (I guess) that Pakistan got the idea of sponsoring terrorism. The idea was to make India bleed and when they spot a weakness; they thought they would go for the kill. The effects are there for all to see.
Pakistan’s dreaded ISI sponsors dreaded underworld dons like Dawood Ibrahim and his ilk and is also believed to have had a role to play in many of the blasts that have occurred in India.
Reams and reams of pages that can be written over this issue, an issue that is in essence very hard to resolve. So i think its best i stop here for now. I have only accounted the Indian side of the argument as that is the only side I know of. But I believe both the sides have very valid claims.
So that was short summary of the issue as I know it. It is by no means a complete picture of the issue.
My extra comments : There are numerous other blames that we throw on each other over a line that is drawn on a map. Countless people have lost lives over an issue that to me seems strikingly similar to the dogfights we see in the streets over which part of the road belongs to which dog. Just as they don’t realize that It is not theirs to fight for, we too seem to be oblivious to the fact that borders are just a line on the map. In this era of globalization when the world is slowly but surely moving toward the Utopian dream of a global community when will we realize that land is not something that we as “higher species” should be fighting over. Makes me think have we really Evolved at all????
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ReplyDeleteSome of you might be wondering why did i write this..
ReplyDeleteWell these Pakistan seems to be in an unstable equilibrium these days. Their acts of aggression have increased since Mush resigned. The blasts at our Afghanistan embassy, the recent infiltration attempts, etc are all proofs to this. When I talked about this to a few of my friends I found that they hardly knew what exactly is the issue is. So I posted this