Harpal Bector wrote:Shiv - I don't know who advises whom these days. I only know what I would never do. The rest is not in my hands.
The sophistication of this entire thing is novel.
We can wait a few more days to see what happens, but I suspect there is a new grand master in the big building on Suhrawardy Street.
This Gurdaspur thing is his first move on the eastern border.
The deal that ejected the Tajiks from Aminat was the opening move on the western border.
My own reactions are emotion based. I feel this way after each attack and I am certain everyone else, including PMs advisers probaby echo my feeling.
I cannot comment on the PM - but one thing seems clear to me. There are facts about Pakistan which should be better known to Indians and those facts would perhaps help Indians understand what we face. We accuse every government of manipulating and feeding the media - and to me the media do not seem to understand much about Pakistan and I see no indicators that the polity and certainly not the public, are any more informed
1. From 1947 the establishment ("governments/powers-that-be") in Pakistan have found it necessary to declare India the enemy - possibly as a way of unifying Pakistan
2. Islam has been used as a unifying tool in Pakistan by educating (by the used of newspapers/radio/TV) that Islam is in danger from "Hindu India"
3. After 1971 (actually 1974) Islamization in education has resulted in several generations of Pakistanis under 45 (born in the 1970s) seeing India as a Hindu enemy that cannot be trusted. this is a very real problem and this indoctrination cannot be changed overnight. One on one encounters with friendly and hospitable Pakistanis does not reflect this fact - but teh facts have been recorded by a series of Pakistani and non Pakistani authors. Indians choose to disbblieve recorded fact in favour of the comfortable myth that Pakistanis, given the choice, will simply love us
4. Pakistan is governed by a rapacious elite who do not really care about human development like maternal and infant mortality in rural Pakistan or in peripheral provinces
5. There is an artificially built up but very real and existing anger in Pakistan that Hindus and Indians need to be punished and that this will help India break up and restore the right of Pakistanis and Islam to rule
No amount of love and goodwill shown by India towards Pakistan can change this for the next 30-40 years
Pakistani behaviour towards India is easily explained by the above facts but Indians by and large led by an ignorant media and blinkered polity act confused and lost when it comes to dealing with Pakistan. I have been told time and again that people who matter know. That is actually nonsense. The people who know do not seem to matter. The people who matter do not know.
Indian public opinion should reflect the truth about Pakistan. It does not and since Indian public opinion is ignorant, our politicians and bureaucrats who take their orders remain at a loss when it comes to dealing with Pakistan because hard solutions are vetoed by ignorant educated and powerful Indians