The recent killings of Indian soldiers followed by mutilating
the dead bodies have created a wave of angst in whole of India. The killings have
special significance as they have followed the recent warming up of ties of
India and Pakistan which were in frozen shape after the November 2008 Mumbai
Attacks.
Glancing through brief history of the two nations since
independence in 1947, one will observe that the relation between two neighbours
have been not so cordial and there have been wars between them in 1947, 1965,
1971 and 1999. Apart from this there have been numerous border skirmishes in
Rann of Kutch, Kashmir valley, Siachen and the terrorist activities supported
by Pakistan in Kashmir and other parts of India since 1980. There were also
brief durations of peace between them which was mostly forced by UN, US and
western countries. One peculiar feature of the Indo-Pak relation is that
whenever India has strained relations with Pakistan with tension along the
borders there is comparatively a larger degree of peace in India (both within
and at borders). The moment India decides to pursue some peace talks and
confident building measures along the border, there are some misdemeanors from
Pakistan either at the borders or inside India territory.
I know the above facts will be difficult to digest for my
brethren who believe in peace and vigorously support ‘Aman Ki Asha’, but then
there is no harm calling a spade a spade. Let me clarify my point with some
examples.
Since operation Meghdoot (1984 for Siachen Glacier), there
was relatively calm on the borders and the peace talks were going on the lines
of Simla agreement. But taking advantage of the environment of peace and trust,
Pakistan started training and inducting terrorists in Kashmir. These terrorist
activities have killed more than 1 million people, and displaced lacs of
Kashmiri Hindus. The Kashmiri Hindus have fled the valley and are compelled to
stay in Refugee camps. Though India responded to the insurgency with increased
presence of troops in valley, the evils it created are still to be sorted. The
stalemate created in relations grew and a peace was expected only when Indian
PM Atalbihari Vajpayee visited Pakistan in 1998. In response, what India got
for this noble gesture was the Kargil conflict.
India has backstabbed again and again by Pakistan with Agra
summit followed by Attacks on Indian Parliament, bomb blasts in Mumbai Local
trains, the cricket diplomacy followed by attack on Mumbai in Nov 2008. Time
and again India forwarded its hands for friendship with Pakistan it has
received bloodshed and the common Indian had to bore the brunt.
What is the solution to this and how to deal with such a neighbor?
If we are bothered by a menacing neighbor in our neighborhood, we generally
avoid interacting with them and I personally believe that this is the approach
we should have even with Pakistan. We are not going to miss some greatest
sporting action if India does not play with Pakistan or if we don’t hear songs
of Pakistani Musicians. Statistics show that the terror modules became
inactive, whenever there was tension on Indo-Pak border. In short, let’s dump this Aman ki Asha crap,
because we are neither having Aman nor Asha (only nirasha). We will have a
safer India and then we can fight with other evils like crime against women,
illiteracy, child labour etc.
(This post was penned down on 20 Jan 2013)
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