Interesting to see the names before and after 1947. Muslims are no more than 1 % before and 100% afterward.SBajwa wrote:http://www.kemu.edu.pk/KE-Graduates-1860-2010.pdf
Check this list of Graduates of King Edward Medical college Lahore from 1865 - 1996. A very interesting list!!
Not positive, but I believe the former is from Sindh/Multan, i.e. southeast of Sindhu, while the latter are reputed to be of (what-is-now-Afghanistan) origin. Many lived in the Peshawar area.Rohit_K wrote:In that list, why do a lot of Hindus have last names of Lal, Mal, Nath, Ram, Das, Chand that can be seen until 1900? Hindus in Sindh still carry those last names.
After ~1900, familiar punjabi names like Chopra, Chandra, Kapur, Suri etc start showing up. What's with the sudden change?
The Pakis being led by military leaders and by inherent war prone nature of their ancestry have internalized the Clauswitz message on hate as a necessary condition for war. What throws them for a loop is the constant WKK peace moves of India as they dont kow how to deal with it. Even ABV talked of insaaniyat or humanity as the basis of relations which is contrary to the Clauswitzian precepts of dominance by war.Hate breeds hate in an endless spiral. Clausewitz, discussing hate as the necessary fuel of war, says it is always on supply, since foes undergo a Wechselwirkung, a back-and-forth remaking of each other, one hostile act prompting a response even more violent, in a continual ratcheting up.
So what happens if the fall occurs anyway.brihaspati wrote:It is a political consensus of the Indian political class - based on the core panic need to prevent Pakistan collapsing to the extent that its populations merge with India. The fundamental drive of north Indian, UP and Delhi based post-Independence rulership has been to keep out the peripheral Muslim - the non-UP Muslim, the Punjabi and the Bengal Muslim.svenkat wrote
A political consensus seems to be emerging that the pakistani political class has to be engaged.Hopefully our leadership will get its act right.
Given that the Islamabad regime may fall anytime over the next 5-10 years, unless steps are taken to bolster it up - New Delhi will desperately fight to preserve some formal notion of the non-existent Pakistani nation.
shiv wrote:When I was a little (terror of a) boy, I would tease a cousin and make her cry and my grandmother would admonish me with a really strange sentence. The voice was one of threat and anger but the meaning was funny enough to cause cognitive dissonance and not frighten the admonished child.lakshmikanth wrote:TSPA and ISI should arrest themselves for treason.
Dr Shakil helping America to capture OBL is the same as ISI/TSPA help to America to use drones. If what Dr. Shakil did was treason, so is what ISI/TSPA are doing. Hypocricy to the highest extent.
In Kannada, she would say "Bisilalli manay kattisi mosaranna kodona", which literally means that the punishment i would receive is to have a house built for me in the sun and be fed curd-rice. Not a punishment at all of course but designed to satisfy the crying cousin and yet not needlessly punish a brainless brat.
The Pakistani army and establishment treat their Islamic terrorists in exactly the same way. They make threatening noises and use American style rhetoric like "freeze accounts" and "bring them to justice" "put them under house arrest" etc
The Pakistan army is too scared to punish Islamists and is happy to punish anyone else. The arrest and punishment of this doctor is designed to please the Islamists. But chances are not much harm will come to the doctor because the Americans will hold that against the Pakis.
The ISI and army are playing a double game - that is well known. They are running with the hares and hunting with the hounds. But they do that sccessfully only because they have the space/opportunity to do tat and no one can do anything about it.
BRF laboured under a self imposed delusion for nearly a decade in which it was assumed that "Indian pressure on the Paki amy of the type that the US applies would sort out Pakistan, but India was too spineless". The fact that the US, a country with the (fake?) reputation of a rigid spine with a gun also can do nothing about the Paki army's games should be an eye opener.
This is not about spine, brass balls, long hard penis etc. It's about a complete and utter inability to stop the Pakistan army from doing what it is doing within territory that it occupies. Neither the US nor India can do much. I think approaching the issue via that lens makes it easier to understand what we are up against.
And the fact hat the Pakistan army is scared of its own Islamists is causing even more distress in Washington and Delhi. It's Catch 22. Support the Pakistan army and they will screw you. Don't support them and the worry (in Washington/Delhi) is that the Islamists will take over.
It is for this reason that I have felt and stated for a long time that
1. Islamists without dangerous weapons are less of a threat than Islamists with dangerous weapons
2. The Pakistan army supports Islamists and their actions are often one and the same
3. Therefore the US should first stop funding and supporting the Pakistan army with dangerous weapons. It will be decades before the current new weapons will have degraded sufficiently to make the Paki army less of a threat.
But the US has got itself into a mess and may well continue following a policy of funding and fighting Islamic terrorists. India has to deal with this on its own. India's policy seems to be to befriend Pakistani civilians who are able to show some sign of being able to oppose army policy. This is a game fraught with uncertainty, but perhaps the biggest trump card that India has is that Indian citizens hate this friendship policy and any policy can be pulled back stating public opposition. If I was a politician i would use that tactic.
Sanku wrote:Shiv-ji; I think we can extend your model further. What TSPA/Paki civvys are to their more bearded cousins; so is US to TSPA etc.shiv wrote:
quote="lakshmikanth"
TSPA and ISI should arrest themselves for treason.
Dr Shakil helping America to capture OBL is the same as ISI/TSPA help to America to use drones. If what Dr. Shakil did was treason, so is what ISI/TSPA are doing. Hypocricy to the highest extent.
/quote
----------------------
The Pakistani army and establishment treat their Islamic terrorists in exactly the same way. They make threatening noises and use American style rhetoric like "freeze accounts" and "bring them to justice" "put them under house arrest" etc
......
The fact that the US, a country with the (fake?) reputation of a rigid spine with a gun also can do nothing about the Paki army's games should be an eye opener.
.......
Neither the US nor India can do much. I think approaching the issue via that lens makes it easier to understand what we are up against.
........
But the US has got itself into a mess and may well continue following a policy of funding and fighting Islamic terrorists.
I think they make threatening noises etc etc, but really have no intention whatsoever of hurting TSPA interests.
They are quite willing to lose a few dumb joes out there Afg war if the overall balance is maintained.
This is still, all posturing.
Red Jihad: Battle for South Asia Book
Price : $14.75
ISBN # : 9788129119872
Author : Sami Ahmad Khan
pages: 280
Edition : Paperback
Volumes : 1
Publisher : Rupa Publications Pvt Ltd
Published : 2012
2014: Pakistan has transitioned into a full-fledged democracy and is reconciling with India. However, there are forces working against this fragile peace. A Pakistani jihadi leader, Yaseer Basheer, travels to the Red Corridor and enlists the support of an Indian Naxalite commander, Agyaat. Their plan: to unleash Pralay, Indias experimental intercontinental ballistic missile, on the subcontinent. As the missile changes course en route, it hits Pakistan and causes collateral damage. In response, Pakistan unleashes war on India.
The battle for South Asia turns murkier as an Indo-Pak war threatens to embroil many other countries in the endgame. Have India and Pakistan sparked off the mother of all wars?
Author Bio: Sami Ahmad Khan read Literature at Hindu College and Rajdhani College, University of Delhi. He then completed his masters in English Literature at Jawaharlal Nehru University. He is a PhD Scholar at JNU, where he is working on Science Fiction and Techno-culture Studies. Currently, Sami is on a Fulbright Fellowship at The University of Iowa, USA. He has engaged in film production, teaching, theatre and writing. His short stories, plays and articles have been published in magazines and academic journals. This is his first novel.
This book was added to South Asia bookstore on Thursday 07 June, 2012.
Kanishka wrote:What's Wrong with Pakistan?
Perversity characterizes Pakistan. Only the worst African hellholes, Afghanistan, Haiti, Yemen, and Iraq rank higher on this year's Failed States Index. The country is run by a military obsessed with -- and, for decades, invested in -- the conflict with India, and by a civilian elite that steals all it can and pays almost no taxes. But despite an overbearing military, tribes "defined by a near-universal male participation in organized violence," as the late European anthropologist Ernest Gellner put it, dominate massive swaths of territory. The absence of the state makes for 20-hour daily electricity blackouts and an almost nonexistent education system in many areas.
The root cause of these manifold failures, in many minds, is the very artificiality of Pakistan itself: a cartographic puzzle piece sandwiched between India and Central Asia that splits apart what the British Empire ruled as one indivisible subcontinent. Pakistan claims to represent the Indian subcontinent's Muslims, but more Muslims live in India and Bangladesh put together than in Pakistan. In the absence of any geographical reason for its existence, Pakistan, so the assumption goes, can fall back only on Islamic extremism as an organizing principle of the state.
But this core assumption about what ails Pakistan is false. Pakistan, which presents more nightmare scenarios for American policymakers than perhaps any other country, does have geographical logic. The vision of Pakistan's founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, in the 1940s did not constitute a mere power grab at the expense of India's Hindu-dominated Congress party. There was much history and geography behind his drive to create a separate Muslim state anchored in the subcontinent's northwest, abutting southern Central Asia. Understanding this legacy properly leads to a very troubling scenario about where Pakistan -- and by extension, Afghanistan and India -- may now be headed. Pakistan's present and future, for better or worse, are still best understood through its geography.
Only TSP is now the cesspool of the sub-continent....What we know as modern-day Pakistan is far from an artificial entity; it is just the latest of the many spatial arrangements for states on the subcontinent. The map of the Harappan civilization, a complex network of centrally controlled chieftaincies in the late fourth to mid-second millennium B.C., was one of its earliest predecessors. The Harappan world stretched from Baluchistan northeast up to Kashmir and southeast down almost to both Delhi and Mumbai, nearly touching present-day Iran and Afghanistan and extending into both northwestern and western India. It was a complex geography of settlement that adhered to landscapes capable of supporting irrigation, and whose heartland was today's Pakistan.
The Mauryan Empire, which existed from the fourth to the second centuries B.C., came to envelop much of the subcontinent and thus, for the first time in history, encouraged the idea of India as a political entity. But whereas the area of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and northern India all fell under Mauryan rule, India's deep south did not. Next came the Kushan Empire, whose Indo-European rulers conquered territory from the Ferghana Valley, in the demographic heart of Central Asia, to Bihar in northeastern India. Once again, the heart of the empire that linked Central Asia and India was in Pakistan; one of the Kushan capitals was Peshawar, Pakistan's frontier city today.
On Urdu---Later on, throughout the Middle Ages and the early modern era, Muslim invaders from the west grafted India to the greater Middle East, with the Indus River valley functioning as the core of all these interactions, as close to the Middle East and Central Asia as it is to the Ganges River valley. Under the Delhi-based Mughal dynasty, which ruled from the early 1500s to 1720, central Afghanistan to northern India was all part of one polity, with Pakistan occupying the territorial heartland.
......
The Indus, much more than the Ganges, has always had an organic relationship with the Arab, Persian, and Turkic worlds. It is historically and geographically appropriate that the Indus Valley civilization, long ago a satrapy of Achaemenid Persia and the forward bastion of Alexander the Great's Near Eastern empire, today is deeply enmeshed with political currents swirling through the Middle East, of which Islamic extremism forms a major element. This is not determinism but merely the recognition of an obvious pattern.
The more one reads this history, the more it becomes apparent that the Indian subcontinent has two principal geographical regions: the Indus Valley with its tributaries, and the Ganges Valley with its tributaries. Pakistani scholar Aitzaz Ahsan identifies the actual geographical fissure within the subcontinent as the "Gurdaspur-Kathiawar salient," a line running from eastern Punjab southwest to the Arabian Sea in Gujarat. This is the watershed, and it matches up almost perfectly with the Pakistan-India border. Nearly all the Indus tributaries fall to the west of this line, and all the Ganges tributaries fall to the east. Only the Mauryas, Mughals, and British bonded these two regions into single states. For those three empires, the Indus formed the frontier zone and required many more troops there facing restive Central Asia than along the Ganges, which was under no comparable threat.......
During the relatively brief periods when the areas of India and Pakistan were united -- the Mauryan, Mughal, and British -- there was obviously no issue about who dominated the trade routes into Central Asia. During the rest of history, there was no problem either, because while empires like the Kushan, Ghaznavid, and Delhi Sultanate did not control the eastern Ganges, they did control both the Indus and the western Ganges, so that Delhi and Lahore were under the rule of one polity, even as Central Asia was also under their control. Today's political geography is historically unique, however: an Indus Valley state, Pakistan, and a powerful Ganges Valley state, India, both fighting for control of an independent and semi-chaotic Central Asian near abroad -- Afghanistan.
Despite its geographical and historical logic, this Indus state is far more unstable than the Gangetic state. Here, too, geography provides an answer. Pakistan encompasses the frontier of the subcontinent, a region that even the British were unable to incorporate into their bureaucracy, running it instead as a military fiefdom, making deals with the tribes. Thus, Pakistan did not inherit the stabilizing civilian institutions that India did.
That is why I suggested Devanagarising Urdu and got a lot of flack on the forum and outside in the nether lends!...Just as Hindi is associated with Hindus in northern India, Urdu is associated with Muslims in Pakistan. Urdu -- from "horde," the Turkic-Persian word for a military camp -- is the ultimate frontier language. Reflecting its geographical links to the Middle East, Urdu is written in a Persianized Arabic script, even though its grammar is identical to Hindi and other Sanskritic languages. It is often believed that Urdu came into existence through the interaction of Turkic, Persian, and indigenous Indian soldiers in Mughal army encampments, not just on the Indus frontier but in the medieval Gangetic cities of Agra, Delhi, and Lucknow. Thus, it is truly the language of al-Hind.
Urdu is Pakistan's lingua franca, even as Punjabi, with links to the non-Islamic Sikhs and Hindus, enjoys a plurality of native speakers in Pakistan. Under Pakistan's military dictator Muhammad Zia ul-Haq in the 1980s, the combination of Urdu literacy programs in religious institutions and the teaching of Arabic in state schools gave Urdu more of a Middle Eastern and Islamic edge, writes Alyssa Ayres, now U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, in Speaking Like a State: Language and Nationalism in Pakistan.
...
Punjab abutted the northwest frontier zone, which in turn abutted southern Central Asia, its soldiers became known for their military prowess -- the "sword arm of India," contributing 28 of the 131 infantry units in the Indian Army by 1862.
But with the re-creation of an Indus state and a Gangetic state upon the demise of the British Raj in 1947, Punjab, rather than a frontier province of greater India, became the urban hub of the new Indus Valley frontier state: Pakistan. Although eastern Punjab fell within India, western Punjab still contains more than half of Pakistan's population. With close to 90 million people, western Punjab would be the world's 15th-largest country, putting it ahead of Egypt, Germany, Turkey, and Iran. Punjabis have accounted for as much as 80 percent of the Pakistan Army and 55 percent of the federal bureaucracy.
Punjab is like an internal imperial power ruling Pakistan, in the way that Serbia and the Serbian army ran Yugoslavia prior to that country's civil war and breakup. "Punjab is perceived to have 'captured' Pakistan's national institutions through nepotism and other patronage networks," writes Ayres. Its rural female literacy rate is nearly twice that of Sindh province and the province on the northwest frontier with Afghanistan, and it's more than triple Baluchistan's. Punjabis, she adds, "are better off than everyone else [in Pakistan], with more productive land, cleaner water, better technology, and better educated families."
Note how he doesn't see any religious identity in Middle East! Very objective writer! Also denies the p-sec Indians their identity. He sees only Hindu India despite the progress made by INC in deHinduising India....The tension between Punjabis and other Pakistanis overlaps with the tension that exists among the other ethnic groups. Chronic urban conflict in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, pits local Sindhis against Baluchis and Pashtuns, just as in Baluchistan there are tensions between Baluchis and Pashtuns. Islamic ideology, like communism in Yugoslavia, has proved an insufficient glue to form a prideful national identity. Instead, this frontier region between the Middle East and Hindu India has become an explosive amalgamation of often warring ethnic identities.
Actually its ideology driven kabila occupying the fertile land of the Indus river and sucking out the life blood from that land and people... Hovering between centralization and anarchy, such a society, in Montagne's words, is typified by a regime that "drains the life from a region," even though, "because of its own fragility," it fails to establish lasting institutions. This is the byproduct of a landscape riven by mountains and desert, a place where tribes are strong and the central government is comparatively weak. Put another way, Pakistan, as King's College London scholar Anatol Lieven notes, is a weak state with strong societies.
As I said many times before, the idea of a Westphalian state was rammed down the throats of pre-modern people and has led to this rentier leadership. A bunch of fundametalist tribals were given a modern state and nukes to keep "Hindu" India down.And so we come to the core reason for Pakistan's perversity. The fact that Pakistan is historically and geographically well-rooted is only partially a justification for statehood. Although a Muslim frontier state between mountains and plains has often existed in the subcontinent's history, that past belonged to a world not of fixed borders, but rather of perpetually moving spheres of control as determined by the movements of armies -- such was the medieval world. The Ghaznavids, the Delhi Sultanate, and the Mughal dynasty all controlled the subcontinent's northwestern frontier, but their boundaries were all vague and somewhat different from one another -- all of which means Pakistan cannot claim its borders are legitimate by history alone. It requires something else: the legitimacy that comes with good governance and strong institutions. Without that, we are back to the medieval map, which is what we have now -- known in Washington bureaucratic parlance as "AfPak."
... Let me provide the real meaning of AfPak, as defined by geography and history: It is a rump Islamic greater Punjab -- the tip of the demographic spear of the Indian subcontinent toward which all trade routes between southern Central Asia and the Indus Valley are drawn -- exerting its power over Pashtunistan and Baluchistan, just as Punjab has since time immemorial.
This is a world where ethnic boundaries do not configure with national ones. Pashtunistan and Baluchistan overlap with Afghanistan and less so with Iran. About half of the world's 40-plus million Pashtuns live on the Pakistani side of the border. The majority of the more than 8 million Baluchis live within Pakistan, the rest in neighboring Afghanistan and Iran.
Precisely the reason why India regularly absorbs the terrorism from TSP and that non-action shatters them.
...Jakub Grygiel, a professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, points out that when states or empires involve themselves in irregular, decentralized warfare, central control weakens. A state only grows strong when it faces a concentrated and conventional ground threat, creating the need to match it in organizational capabilities and thus bolstering central authority. But the opposite kind of threat leads to the opposite result. Pakistan's very obsession with the ground threat posed by India is a sign of how it requires a conventional enemy to hold it together, even as its answer to India in the contested ground of Central Asia -- supporting decentralized Islamic terrorism from Afghanistan to Kashmir -- is having the ironic effect of pulling Pakistan itself apart. It is unclear whether invigorated civilian control in Pakistan can arrest this long-term process.
India is not interested in any south Central Asia nor dominance. It just wnats to be left alone and recover from the one thousand years of colonization :Islamic and European.With the Soviets abandoning Afghanistan in the late 1980s and the Americans on their way out in coming years, India will attempt to fill the void partially by building infrastructure projects and providing support to the Afghan security services. This will mark the beginning of the real battle between the Indus state and the Gangetic state for domination of southern Central Asia.
On the contrary the Pashtuns in K-P might unite with their kin folks across in Afghanistan and create a defacto Pashtunistan which is Islamic Kushan empire! This will undo the Durand line which is a legacy of British rule.At the same time, as Pakistan is primarily interested in southern and eastern Afghanistan, the part of Afghanistan north of the Hindu Kush mountains may, if current trends continue, become more peaceful and drift into the economic orbit of the former Soviet Central Asian republics, especially given that Uzbeks and Tajiks live astride northern Afghanistan's border with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. This new formation would closely approximate the borders of ancient Bactria, with which Alexander the Great was so familiar.
Indeed, the past may hold the key to the future of al-Hind.
I had earlier conteded that CJP is in cahoots with Do Nothing to create a new ruling order.Pakistan: The Supreme Court of Pakistan has disqualified Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani from holding office, retroactive to the date of his conviction for contempt of court.
Chief Justice Chaudhry declared that Gilani's office had been effectively vacant since 26 April when the court convicted him on contempt charges because he refused to pursue a corruption case against President Zardari from before he became president which would have disqualified him from office. Gilani argued the president has constitutional immunity from prosecution.
Tuesday's ruling disqualified Gilani from office and from parliament under laws passed by parliament concerning qualifications of its members, including no criminal convictions.
The leader of the governing coalition, the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), held an emergency session to decide its next move.
Comment: There are no good guys in this political crisis and it could worsen to include judicial action to disqualify president Zardari. That is the next logical legal step.
Gilani
Gilani simply refused to carry out a direct order of the Supreme Court, in the interest of protecting the president. He concurred in the conviction and served a trivial sentence which for members of parliament was administered by the Speaker of the National Assembly. He declined to appeal. Now the Speaker of the National Assembly also is under investigation for contempt of the Supreme Court.
Chief Justice Chaudhry
Chief Justice Chaudhry has deep seated resentments against Zardari and Musharraf for their roles in his unconstitutional house arrest in 2007. He is the only Chief Justice to ever have been suspended and was not reinstated until 2009. Nevertheless, he strictly and aggressively interprets and applies the laws passed by parliament, which consistently cause the undoing of its members.
One reason for this is his campaign to establish the independence of the judiciary in Pakistan as a co-equal branch of government. In practice, the judges have been manipulated, suborned or ignored in Pakistan's parliamentary system because most are civil servants of the Justice Ministry. Chaudhry has been their champion.
The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Faction
The complaint against Gilani and the new complaint against the Speaker of the National Assembly were brought by a collection of plaintiffs, most prominently associated with the Pakistan Muslim League -Nawaz. Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif was exiled by President Musharraf for eight years and only was permitted to return in 2007 after Musharraf resigned. Nawaz Sharif strongly backed the reinstatement of Chief Justice Chaudhry in 2009.
Nawaz Sharif has had designs on returning to the leadership of the government for at least five years. Removing Gilani and weakening the PPP are important steps in a long term political strategy. Nawaz and the PML-N want to remove president Zardari as well. Nawaz Sharif is no friend of the United States.
Chief of Army Staff General Kayani
Finally, Chaudhry almost certainly consulted with Chief of Army Staff General Kayani and other key security officials if only to warn them of potential security consequences. Chaudhry has cultivated ties with Kayani to build support for his campaign to ensure the autonomy of judges in exchange for close judicial scrutiny of government attempts to overreach in military affairs.
Thus, far there have been no civil disorders, but demonstrations in Islamabad are likely this week.
The road is being cleared for im the dim.ramana wrote:A judicial coup/regime change is underway:
Nightwatch
I had earlier conteded that CJP is in cahoots with Do Nothing to create a new ruling order.Pakistan:
Chief of Army Staff General Kayani
Finally, Chaudhry almost certainly consulted with Chief of Army Staff General Kayani and other key security officials if only to warn them of potential security consequences. Chaudhry has cultivated ties with Kayani to build support for his campaign to ensure the autonomy of judges in exchange for close judicial scrutiny of government attempts to overreach in military affairs.
Thus, far there have been no civil disorders, but demonstrations in Islamabad are likely this week.
Things are going as expected.
Nandu wrote:Uneven Steven Cohen comes to the rescue of the Khakis.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/opini ... stans.html
Amercia and the Two Pakistans
By STEPHEN P. COHEN and MOEED YUSUF
Published: June 20, 2012
In the past few years, multiple power centers have begun to emerge slowly in Pakistan, as evidenced again this week with the historically pliant Supreme Court dismissing the Pakistani prime minister, Yousuf Reza Gilani, from office. For much of the country’s history, however, Pakistan’s military and security apparatus has wielded unchallenged domestic clout. Consequently, throughout the six decade-long U.S.-Pakistan relationship, Pakistan’s army has been the principal interlocutor with America, both because of its domestic heft and because military rulers were at the helm in periods when the United States needed Pakistan most.
{This is inherently wrong. The CJI has acted with the Army's backing as Nightwatch also agrees. This idea of multiple centers rising in TSP is an Indian elite one as if anyone can stand against the Army. Last time one did it ended up in Memogate for even the US refused to acknowledge the potential alternate center despite claims of supporting civilan transition in the kabila! Memogate at its core is an offer for regime change which the US turned down. Maybe Uneven types advised against it?}
Today, Pakistan’s army is seen in the United States — especially in Congress — as an adversary, above all because it resists targeting Afghan militants who take refuge on Pakistani soil. The resentment is so deep that even American conservatives, historically pro-Pakistan, call for a strategy that punishes the country.
There are those who would advocate “containment,” a central element of which is boxing in the military by treating presumably more liberal civilians as pre-eminent partners, or even labeling specific members of the military and its spy agency, the ISI, as “terrorists.”
The premise for these views is correct: that the Pakistani military and intelligence apparatus undermine American interests in Afghanistan and keep civilians from changing Pakistan’s assertive role in Afghanistan — now exercised via the Afghan insurgents fighting U.S. and NATO forces.
{Second part is incorrect. Both civilians and military want to have an assertive role in Afghanistan. Could be Durand Line and or strategic depth.}
Unfortunately, the proposed remedy is as misplaced as was past support for Pakistan’s military dictators, which came at the cost of the country’s democratic evolution. Those who would force changes by playing a divide-and-rule game grossly exaggerate America’s capacity to influence Pakistani politics.
{Here comes the sales pitch! Which is more of the same. Support the TSP military no matter what.}
American attempts to actively exploit Pakistan’s civil-military disconnect are likely to end up strengthening right-wing rhetoric in Pakistan, create even more space for security-centric policies, and further alienate the Pakistani people from the United States.
To begin with, any U.S. conceptualization of Pakistan as two Pakistans — that is, a neat division between civilian and military elites — is false and will not resonate among Pakistanis. It is wrong to assume that a majority of Pakistanis would support a U.S. policy so obviously driven to undercut the military, although there is widespread hope — even within the army — that the Pakistani political system will produce more competent politicians.
Even though a number of Pakistani mainstream political parties express their desire to curb the army’s power, few want to be seen as inviting a U.S. role to achieve this.
{This is couching Islamist agenda in nationalistic garb. Its the Islamist idea that makes them reject kafir support. Uneven Cohen does "namak haram" to the US by writing nonsense like this.}
An apt illustration of the sentiment among the civilian political elites was provided by the so-called Memogate scandal, in which a Pakistan ambassador to Washington was accused of eliciting U.S. support to avert a military coup in return for the promise of a number of national security concessions. Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who has been the most vocal critic of the military and ISI, petitioned the Pakistani Supreme Court to declare the alleged act treasonous, and the governing Pakistan Peoples Party also pledged that it would never endorse such a quid quo pro with Washington.
{Does this make sense? Both parties will try to distance themselves after the US backed off and thus kept the TSPA in power. These two groups are begging to claim innocence lest they get Qadrified by the TSPA.}
It is simply not true that Pakistani civilians see eye-to-eye with Washington on their country’s national security outlook. Pakistani civilians are as perturbed as the army at the U.S. policy toward Pakistan.
The Pakistani military’s response to a two-Pakistans approach would, more than likely, cost the United States the all-important intelligence cooperation
Although Pakistan is governed poorly, the current civilian government has begun to squeeze the military’s space internally and the courts are themselves groping for a role compatible with democratic norms even though they cause instability in the short run by decisions like the one to dismiss the country’s prime minister. An American attempt to treat the Pakistani military as an enemy will only provide the institution an opportunity to turn the tables to its advantage. What, then, would be an effective policy?
{Now new sale begins. Continue support to the TSPA}
Washington should view engagement with Islamabad as a long-term project. Pakistan’s nuclear weapons will be around long after Afghanistan is forgotten. As much as possible, America should work directly with the civilian leadership on all issues, including security, and lower the profile of military-to-military meetings. Washington should also make clear that the United States will not tolerate any extra-constitutional measures by the military that short-circuit the democratic process. Moreover, Washington needs to quietly encourage the spectacular progress in India-Pakistan normalization. India is what drives Pakistan; America should take advantage of its relationship with New Delhi to allow Pakistan greater space for accelerating its internal political reforms.
{ More lies. If TSPA realizes that US will not support it in its terrorist attacks/plans on India, the TSPA will back down and settle down. Its the US and UK support that keeps the TSPA forever recalcitrant towards India. US turned the eye towards PRC transfer of nukes to TSPA.}
We must patiently try to turn Pakistan from an ally that is no friend into a state that seeks normal relations with America and its neighbors. Short cuts are unlikely to work.
{Yet shortcuts are what Uneven proposes!!!}
Stephen P. Cohen is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Moeed Yusuf is South Asia adviser at the U.S. Institute of Peace.
Why affluent Indian boys will go for Paki brides and waste their lives for staying with someone who has been brough up in a complete primitive and torturous socio-cultural perogative?Its better that RAPES sends their daughter to have a comfortable life with some sensible SDRE guys..and there are lot in our coutry....Yogi_G wrote:The recent success of the Vietnamese bride portals in China was in the same trend as the success of the Russian bride portals in the US. Past enemies suddenly wanting to tie the knot, of course all facilitated by the internet.
I know this has been discussed before in BRF about bringing in Pakistani brides into India to quell the Jihadi mindset in Pakistan but what is the odds of that happening in reality? I mean, if some Pakistani were to set up one such portal in Pakistan he would be shot dead the next day -- "honour killing" for wanting to sell Pure brides to Kafirs. But lets just assume it does become successful what then? Poverty stricken Pakistani girls suddenly tying the knot in Hindi-soap-style with rich affluent Indian middle aged men who dint have much success attracting wimmin within Desh for various reasons?
Even if regional sub-nationalism succeeds and breaks the country into pieces before jihadi Islamism takes over a united TSP, there is no guarantee that jihadi islamism will not spread among the pieces. Bangladesh is an example in our immediate vicinity. Also, the scenario of regional sub-nationalism breaking the country should be re-looked at now in the face of increasing radical Islamism. These forces may not let that happen. There is a very narrow window of opportunity available and it is now, IMO. In both cases, threat levels to india remain the same, in one case it may be immediate and in the other case somewhat delayed.ramana wrote:The other alternative is to let the regional nationalism assert themselves for self determination.
Civil war.ramana wrote: After Taliban takeover of Pakistan.
What are the consequences for
- Pakistan
Increased Jihadi terrorism. J&K looks like the 90's at the very least. Regional power aspirations are toast. BD is more radicalized. Eastern UP belt / Nepal is highly unstable.- India
Strategic Depth for TSP.- Afghanistan
Stays at arms length. Why mess when their strategic goals are being accomplished in a spectacular manner. They will seek to limit impact on xinjiang. Still supplies arms to keep TSP alive.- PRC
Either withdraws with a dire threat for any retaliation on them or western allies or escalates to an air war.- US
No impact, goes to the govt in power. It is a takeover of power, right?- Nuclear question
It will look like what TSP looks like today.- Internal dynamics of India
If the "Taliban" are Pashtuns, then Pakistan will have a Bangladesh on its hands as Pashtun groups on both sides will seek control of their own area. The US does not want this and would rather stabilize the Paki army to crush any chance of Pasthuns creating a new country out of northwest Pakistan and southern Afghanistan. They will pay and arm the Pakistan army to do this as they are doing now. This will not help India no matter what we imagine.ramana wrote:SSridhar et al, I would like to game the subject of
After Taliban takeover of Pakistan.
What are the consequences for
- Pakistan
- India
- Afghanistan
- PRC
- US
- Nuclear question
- Internal dynamics of India
What is the point of such an exercise. The christian west has been fighting Islam as long as we have been. Christian Europe did make their stand and defeated the expansion is an Islamic Ottoman Empire in 1683. It took another 200 years for the Ottoman empire to fall, but there was no question it was the maximum they could expand.shiv wrote:I personally believe that it is important to let the Taliban win to show to the entire world what Islam via the Taliban means. Pakistanis think that they can have moderation in Pakistan (moderation==less violence against Sunnis) while others are blown up. Pakistan needs Taliban rule more than anything else.
The point of such an exercise in my opinion is that this is the only way India can gain an advantage over the current stalemate.ShauryaT wrote:What is the point of such an exercise.shiv wrote:I personally believe that it is important to let the Taliban win to show to the entire world what Islam via the Taliban means. Pakistanis think that they can have moderation in Pakistan (moderation==less violence against Sunnis) while others are blown up. Pakistan needs Taliban rule more than anything else.
This was never an unmanageable problem for India. It is the US that has a problem with this. It is the USA-KSA-Pakistan nexus that makes things worse for india. Aren't you being a tad biased, in fact very "American" when you pin Iran as the bad guy without saying that the ultimate rabid islamist nation is KSA and the US says nothing only because the Saudis are in the US pocket.ShauryaT wrote: Recently, a generation has watched the Islamic takeover of Iran and the struggles of Israel, even from a cold war prism. If that was not enough, 9/11 for sure has ensured that an entire generation understands quite clearly what Islam stands for.
Yogi-G, What do you think of those ~1500 Kashmiris who went for terrorist training in TSP and got married and want to return back to India with their wives and children?Yogi_G wrote:The recent success of the Vietnamese bride portals in China was in the same trend as the success of the Russian bride portals in the US. Past enemies suddenly wanting to tie the knot, of course all facilitated by the internet.
I know this has been discussed before in BRF about bringing in Pakistani brides into India to quell the Jihadi mindset in Pakistan but what is the odds of that happening in reality? I mean, if some Pakistani were to set up one such portal in Pakistan he would be shot dead the next day -- "honour killing" for wanting to sell Pure brides to Kafirs. But lets just assume it does become successful what then? Poverty stricken Pakistani girls suddenly tying the knot in Hindi-soap-style with rich affluent Indian middle aged men who dint have much success attracting wimmin within Desh for various reasons?
I am being more quick and hence incomplete. It is US perfidic Karma with KSA that has eventually bitten the US by way of 9/11. The entente with KSA, made during second world war has eventually bitten the US hard. Their answer to this bite is a maul. One can debate the merits of their methods and strategy forever. Very few (and these few who matter do understand this) in mainstream polity here recognize the root causes sustained by the Sunni theologians and do not want to see the obvious sources of the roots of the conflict. In one way, they do not need to for they think they have other routes and means. The battle India wants the US and west to fight will not be fought until they see it as their existential battle to be fought. Till then the US will fight this the way see it fit and as they perceive the threats to them. (Not justifying, just making an observation)shiv wrote: Aren't you being a tad biased, in fact very "American" when you pin Iran as the bad guy without saying that the ultimate rabid islamist nation is KSA and the US says nothing only because the Saudis are in the US pocket.
The highlighted part is where I have difficulty accepting.shiv wrote: The point of such an exercise in my opinion is that this is the only way India can gain an advantage over the current stalemate.
True, unless there are forces arrayed to defeat this tide, it would be unable to do so on its own.[*]The Taliban represents Islamists and Pakistan was created for Islamism and seems unable to resist the tide of Islamic extremism.
Slightly different view. The US wants geo political short term needs as they see fit and see the PA as an entity that can deliver, since TSP lacks any other credible authority. The larger value systems of the US desire for moderation and fight the Islamic extremists, but that takes a back seat to short term goals.[*]The US wants Pakistan to fight that islamic extremism and wants to fund and preserve the Pakistani army to do that fighting
Agreed. The US has a failed strategy and has limited interests.[*]Because the US makes the army stronger and the Army makes the Taliban and Islamist forces stronger the US cannot win
Only India can work to change this equation, either through force or other means. But, it is India that has to do this work and put its blood, money and sweat on the line.[*]India can do very little here - Indian hands are tied because every force is working against Indian interests. the US supports he Army and everyone else is anti-India
Whichi is a policy stale mate. While India's job is difficult, this is precisely where India is "stuck". It needs to move on one of these templates to make a difference.[*]This forces India to make a choice between all out war against Islamists + a Paki army funded by USA (and China) or "peace". India hovers between peace moves and stalemate
PA has be made weaker, one way or the other.Islamists will remain anti-India no matter which way things go. It is the Pakistan army that can be made weaker, thereby removing at least one organized and powerful anti-India force.
And this is possible, as has been the evidence in the 90's and the recent events. How India capitalizes on these opportunities is unto India.But for that the US will have to stop supporting the Pakistani army. For that to happen Pakistanis must be encouraged to become as anti-US as possible and reminded that they are slaves.
IF no other force is setup to confront these forces then yes, but that is not the only alternative. A stronger polity in TSP, however faulty can stem the tide - just the way India has managed its own IM force. Not the same scale and not perfect. As far as TSP is concerned, fail to see how in 60 years a decisively Indic population runs Islamist in its entirety. Should be the biggest self goal and loss for India.If the US stops funding the Pakistan army, the US will lose its battle and the Taliban will win.
You seem to be advocating complete madness is easier to deal with than partial ones, even if the challenge increases many fold and that mad person has to live next door with maximum risk to us, just to spite someone in the next province to prove a point. You seem to say, there is no point trying to intercept the madness in earlier stages, as it has to reach its zenith for we are incapable of intervening.A victorious Taliban will create a new Pakistan that is as anti-India as before, but that new Pakistan will not have US support. That is what I want to see.
This is such a fantastic generic statement to make that there can be no sane argument against it.True, unless there are forces arrayed to defeat this tide, it (Pakistan) would be unable to do so on its own.
You have asked me this questionunless there are forces arrayed to defeat this tide, it would be unable to do so on its own.
Could you explain to me how the past 40 years of Indian relations with Pakistan constitute "partial madness" in contrast to a "total madness" that you feel my viewpoint encourages? What would be the difference between the total madness of the future and the partial madness of the past?You seem to be advocating complete madness is easier to deal with than partial ones, even if the challenge increases many fold and that mad person has to live next door with maximum risk to us, just to spite someone in the next province to prove a point. You seem to say, there is no point trying to intercept the madness in earlier stages, as it has to reach its zenith for we are incapable of intervening.
Who are we? For most of our history we have been caught between competing ideas about Pakistan. Is it a land for Muslims? What does an Islamic identity mean for the indigenous cultures of Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, Gilgit–Baltistan and the people who migrated to India?
Greatness is created through synthesis, and when old ideas are challenged by new paradigms. The decade of the 1940s saw the North East states of British India challenged by secular Muslim nationalism. What does that mean to us? We are still in the process of understanding it. But in doing so, we have relied on too many easy answers. Our national identity is based on repudiation; we choose to identify ourselves in the negative: we are not India. Our inability to step forward is because we have failed to create any synthesis from the social and political currents available to us. Let us then challenge our paralysis and press forward with our inquiry — let us seek to imagine who we are, and who we could be.
Our history does not start with 1947, nor with Muhammed bin Qasim’s (in)famous and glorified conquest of Sindh. Those events are important but form an incomplete story of our past. Our heritage goes back to the Indus Valley Civilization, one of the first people to build the great cities of Moenjadaro and Harappa, a complex language and mathematical system, and centers of commerce in Asia. The source of this great civilization was the Indus River whose mighty banks nourished and fed its people. Today it is not nuclear weapons that protect our country but the Indus, whose artery and tributaries provide the life flow of our country. By remembering that we are the heirs of the Indus Valley Civilization, we can shift our focus from the anti to the river itself. We can concentrate on protecting our environment and saving the river that is literally the lifeblood of the country, and the source of our food and electricity. We are a natural nation bound by the Indus, if the Indus dries out the country will collapse.
This doesn’t mean that we completely ignore the advent of the Mughals, the conquest of the British, the height of Hindu-Muslim unity during the war of independence and its subsequent breakdown, despite the best efforts of members of the leadership class. And of course, the bloodshed in the years leading to Partition – events which concluded that religion was going to play a role, however so undefined, in the consciousness of the masses of Pakistan.
While religion comes from the same source, it is up to different countries and peoples on how to interpret it to enrich their lives. That is why the Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia is different from the one practiced in most of Pakistan. The role of religion (in all of its cultural, spiritual, non-denominational and ritual manifestations) will remain in society. What is important is for thinkers to channel it into a force that is creative and not destructive, inclusive and pluralistic, not one that imposes its will on the unwilling. One that is large enough to include free thinkers and conservative clerics. One that encourages selfishness and a spirit of citizenship. One that convinces individuals that they have greater aims than their everyday jobs, but does not encourage utopian personalities or apocalyptic thinking.
What is the relationship between the pre-Islamic, pre-Christian Indus Valley Civilization to today’s Islamic Republic of Pakistan? These two strands of the secular and religious deliberately create a powerful contradiction. Contradictions are good because they deny any single understanding of morality and create a vibrant society through debate and compromise.
Embracing our Indus past will enable us to reject Arab cultural imperialism in the name of religion, and will help us discard the Two-Nation Theory. We will be focused not on fighting wars with India, but in making the greatest cities in the world. Cities like those of the past, which valued trade and commerce and became the hub of Indo-Persian-Chinese commerce. Let our market places be flooded by people from all over the world and be a blend of cultures. We will be a country that celebrates diversity; ethnic diversity of the many languages and cultures around the ecosystem of the great river, and religious diversity, for it will be a country for (all types of) Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs who can respect this ecosystem. It will be a country that empowers its minorities. And once religion is prevented from being abused we can truly reconcile it with modernity and our legacy of British constitutionalism.
Once our conscious awakens to this idea, we will be a renewed nation. On the crumbling edifices of Moenjadaro and Harappa we will once more build great cities, and build a great country.