Bharat Rakshak

Johann wrote:Shiv,

Again I think the reality of India's progress since the liberalisation of the 1990s, and its relative internal stability has had a powerful impact on the Pakistani ruling classes in undermining easy assumptions about Muslim superiority, especially given the larger state of the Muslim world. Every new generation gets the chance to re-evaluate their parents beliefs, and I think the younger people don't think much of the Pakistani model, and I came across far more curiosity and even respect for India than hatred. Also, the last 20 years have seen more Pakistanis study abroad than ever before (expanding beyond the elite to the middle classes), and the result has often been the development of friendships with Indians, humanising and undermining existing mutual images.

So I just don't see the ideological problem as an eternal one. Its a problem of interests, and prevailing conditions. Very little actually stays the same.

vishvak wrote:Johann, why is it that so called ruling class and so called middle class couldn't stop "escalating violence" in Pakistan because of which minorities were decimated in Pakistan and western ruling classes have been supporting Pakistan all throughout.

The same so called ruling class and so called middle class can't do a thing while military ruled and lorded them throughout even within an Islamic state; while western countries didn't seem to military intervene?

Genocide in Bangladesh is an example.

“Say whatever you like about politicians, you can even criticise the Army. But the ISI, you can never say a bad word against them.”

………. no state actor is more feared by journalists than the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence of the Pakistan Armed Forces or ISI, the military’s powerful and secretive premier intelligence service. Dozens of journalists from across Pakistan and working in all media platforms and for outlets big and small complained to Amnesty International about human rights violations – harassment, intimidation or attacks – they claimed they suffered at the hands of the ISI. On the basis of detailed investigations into these cases, it appears that journalists are particularly at risk of abuse by the ISI if they expose security lapses by the military, its alleged links to armed groups like the Taliban, or human rights violations by security forces in Balochistan and northwest Pakistan, or if they work for foreign media outlets considered by the state to be hostile to Pakistan.

After being out of the country for years a ‘matured’ Veena Malik returned to Pakistan on Wednesday

she had returned to work for social, economic and human rights in the country

she wanted to use the entertainment industry to further these causes

In the cross hairs of the extremists

The founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah never claimed that all Muslims were a nation. He said that only for Muslims in undivided India who he felt constituted a nation within the subcontinent and were therefore entitled to an equal say in the Constitution-making regardless of their numbers.He made it clear when he said that Muslims had demanded self-determination on the basis of India for Indians and that Muslims were Indians. In other words, their claim to the right of self-determination was based on the principle that Muslims were the sons and daughters of India and not outside its milieu.

When Jinnah termed Indian Muslims as a nation, it was consociationalism that served as a counter to the Congress party’s claim to speak for all Indians. Jinnah pointed toward — and he was not the first — the superficiality of the Hindu-Muslim interaction. Regrettably for Jinnah, Hindus and Muslims had failed to forge a common Indian identity on a mass level and instead had formed communal identities that had been rendered non-negotiable by the Khilafat and Non-cooperation Movements. The former ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity argued therefore that Hindu-Muslim interaction had been limited to the educated upper classes, and while Hindus and Muslims lived together, they did so in silos.

The decline of Jinnah’s postulates

When Jinnah proposed Pakistan, whether independent or within an Indian union, he maintained that it would have almost equal numbers of non-Muslims in it. In any event, Jinnah’s conception of citizenship, whether in India or in Pakistan was completely secular; he stood for equal citizenship for all people regardless of their religious or cultural identities. Pakistan as a state, in his view, could only be based on a social contract between the state and the people regardless of what religion they followed. In due course he expected, perhaps naively, that Hindus and Muslims would forge new secular identities on both sides of the border. Even in India that has not come to pass and is not likely to happen unless and until India faithfully follows its constitutional directive and implements a uniform civil code for all people of India — a move that ironically is resisted by front-rank secularists in India. In many ways, by keeping the magnificent, secular Constitution of India hostage to the Muslim minority’s special status, as was evident in the aftermath of the Shah Bano case, India has squandered the one major benefit of Partition.

Was Jinnah right or wrong is beyond the scope of the discussion here; it is an issue that lends itself to subjective interpretation. What we do know is that Pakistan abandoned Jinnah’s postulates soon after his demise. The “Indian” in the identity of the “Indian Muslim” was downplayed by the state which was seeking to identify itself as non-India. Pakistan, despite its constitutional guarantee of equality of citizenship, has in practice failed to give non-Muslim Pakistanis the equal rights that were promised to them. Consequently, Jinnah’s Law Minister, a Scheduled Caste Hindu, left Pakistan in the early 1950s, alleging a breach of faith. Since the departure of Bangladesh in 1971, Pakistan replaced the ethnic and cultural interpretation of the Muslim identity for a theological one and has burdened itself with the constitutional responsibility to “Islamise” its state and society. General Zia-ul-Haq’s dictatorship gave this constitutional imperative its teeth and restructured society around a selective and medieval interpretation of religious doctrine. The remaking of society under Gen. Zia coupled with a highly effective re-education of Pakistanis has created a generation of bigots. Simultaneously, the class structure in Pakistan has changed considerably owing to the former lower peasantry’s elevation into the ranks of an ever-increasing middle class. A drive on the famed Grand Trunk Road from Lahore to Islamabad shows how a rural middle class has emerged and has in fact urbanised.

Middle classes everywhere tend to be more conservative and cautious. In Pakistan, the middle class is also one that has been radicalised by three decades of re-education by the state. The warped world view that has emerged has also given the middle class in Pakistan a sense of being a part of the global Muslim minority instead of being a localised majority. It is in this context that Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf has managed to mobilise the middle class around an agenda of self-righteousness, morality and anti-Americanism. The cricketer-turned politician — who is currently the most charismatic figure on the Pakistani political scene — has single-handedly managed to distort the narrative on the issue of Taliban and terrorism. The Taliban has been presented as the by-product of the imperialist American war on Pakistan and Islam with genuine grievances. At best, the Taliban is seen by the radicalised middle class as “our misguided brothers” but brothers nevertheless. It therefore is to be accorded every opportunity to come into the mainstream. The whole dialogue process, which enjoys considerable support from the middle classes, especially in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has been put on the state’s agenda through the pressure exerted by Mr. Khan’s party and its more conservative allies like the Jamaat-e-Islami. The Jamaat-e-Islami, that had been one of the most notable opponents of Jinnah and the Muslim League in the pre-Partition era, has sought to infiltrate bourgeoisie institutions of the state — namely the civil-military bureaucracy and intelligence services — and was at the forefront of the ideological supporters of Gen. Zia’s Islamisation project. In doing so, it became the self-appointed guardian of Pakistan’s Islamic ideology. Today, it is the most vocal supporter of the Taliban with one ex-chairman of the party describing Taliban militants as warriors of Islam and the Taliban dead as martyrs.

All this means cognitive dissonance and a profound talent for doublethink among Pakistan’s middle class.{so allizwell with the RAPE class -to which Mr Hamdani belongs?} On one hand, there is the same old flag-waving nationalism at cricket matches but on the other, opponents of the state like the Taliban are championed and celebrated. Socially, an increasing number of Pakistanis are becoming religious and more middle-class women are donning the hijab which, till a decade ago, was a novelty at best. More disturbing, however, is the willingness of this middle class to voluntarily give up on the civil liberties and constitutional safeguards promised to it by the Constitution. A recent survey revealed, for example, that more Pakistani citizens are open to the idea of censorship on the Internet than citizens of any other country. Consequently the YouTube ban, which is unconstitutional and illegal, enjoys widespread support despite the fact that the same people routinely access the website through proxy servers and Virtual Private Networks.

All is not bleak though. A nation state in the 21st century of over 180 million people, with the 26th largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity, cannot sustain the current state of affairs. Conservative and utterly confused the Pakistani middle class may be, but it is also increasingly globalised. Economic interests more than anything else dictate that Pakistanis increasingly are being confronted with ideas that challenge their hard-boiled notions about religion and the world at large. More middle class women are entering the workplace, hijabs or no hijabs, than ever before. A robust media{ }, while also problematic at times, has helped unleash a multitude of voices that are keeping a check on the state forcing it to react differently, at times nervously, to the question of dissent. Obviously this comes with the risks in a transitional society as was so painfully obvious in the recent attack on the journalist Raza Rumi. But it will prove to be a Herculean task for the extremists to silence everyone in Pakistan. As a result, the debate in Pakistan continues on almost every contentious issue with refuseniks and dissenters holding their own.

Strengthening civil institutions

The solution to all of Pakistan’s ills lies ultimately in following faithfully the constitutional democratic process. One fervently hopes that with enough cycles of democracy, many of the things will fall in place. The persistent fear that Pakistanis have had in the last decade or so is whether or not their country will exist tomorrow. This is an irrational fear which can only be answered with a strengthening of civil institutions like Parliament and the judiciary{in your dreams}. The independent judiciary — another favourite of the middle classes — has wrought a lot of harm on the jurisprudence in Pakistan since the successful conclusion of the lawyers’ movement five years ago. But seen in its proper context, it is merely a growing pain. With time, the judiciary will play its role as the guardian of fundamental rights of the citizens of Pakistan.

Ultimately, when enough voices will clamour to be heard, Pakistan will also revisit some of its national questions to positively reframe its identity, ideology and politics in pragmatic terms. It is too big a country to lend itself to one solitary idea or rationale. A stable prosperous and democratic Pakistan is sine qua non for the peace and security of all of South and Central Asia{now Central asia too is getting blackmailed} — a fact that is not lost on our neighbours. In the long run — on a sufficiently stretched-out timeline therefore — Pakistan will likely realise DJinnah’s aspirations of a modern progressive and inclusive democratic state.

(Yasser Latif Hamdani is a lawyer and the author of Jinnah: Myth and Reality.)

Information Minister Pervaiz Rashid said on Wednesday that Pakistan’s armed forces and intelligence agencies were rendering sacrifices in the war against terrorism and independent journalism in Pakistan was a result of these sacrifices

He said all institutions were independent due to the sacrifices rendered by the armed forces

he as a representative of the federal government was trying to stop electricity theft

saip wrote:On the topic of Electricity theft there is an article in Dawn about it giving some statistics. Looks like South Asia takes the cake when it comes to power theft.

Link

may ALLAH do help of mr ABID in overcoming all this.

Johann wrote:Dear KLNM,

Sorry for the hiatus, but I haven't forgotten your post.

I don't see how it follows that this is good for India's interests. For India, it doesn't matter whether whisky-swilling koi-hai TFTA ashraf pakis are hating on India or it is their unwashed ajlaf TTP frenemies.
With respect Johann, (a) stuff like this Indus Project is some sort of self-aggrandizing quixotic BS by well-meaning ashraf snobs (unkind of me perhaps to refer to a "liberal" activist like Aitzaz Ahsan in this way, but in my experience, you just have to scratch a well-spoken paki a little bit to expose the ashraf snob inside) to invent a heritage to reconcile and make whole their own self-image. Woe be unto India if it is fool enough to set any store by "Indus Saga"-ish things for bringing Pakis to their senses and into the human fold.
And you are contradicting yourself: On the one hand, TTP is an existential threat to the Paki elite, but on the other hand, India is supposed to pin its hopes on some BS that a fringe of that same mortally threatened elite has dreamed up, which is "likely" to fructify in "a decade or so?"
and (b) By the way, even if this Indus nonsense wins out in some fantasy universe and there is somehow some sort of reconciliation with India, the overwhelming odds are that it will still be structured as a hierarchy with ashraf pakis (now reinvented as "children of Mother Indus") on top, leeching on India's productivity and hard work, while constantly bloviating to us about what is wrong with us. How's that for extrapolating from present trends, eh?
Face it, for India, Pakistan is intractable; the best approximation that I can think of, for an answer to Pakistan is to invent some sort of super-max prison for that country and confine it there for all eternity.
What I am advocating here is that Indians don't waste further time and energy in indulging our personal need to not see ourselves as haters, and focus our minds instead on the task of working out and debating ways to destroy Pakistan. Which is why I demanded that whatever information or knowledge provided be tied to what I might term the shivving of Pakistan. True you obliged, and I appreciate that, but as I said above, the effort to make the connection shows that the connection is rather weak and tentative, more of a projection of wishful thinking than anything real.
So, let me put it to you again: given the information you have provided, and given the mission of BRF, what should India be doing at this time to make progress on destroying Pakistan?

We don't have to agree with each other of course, but its important to start from the basics.

India isn't in conflict with the vast majority of the Muslim world. Even in South Asia, it does OK with the Maldives, and even its problems with Bangladesh are nothing like the problems with Pakistan. So my own view is that the conflict between India and Pakistan is not a conflict over religion or Islam per se, but over the use of religion as part of a particular political ideology.

The group of people in Pakistan that is the most committed to this ideology are not the illiterate, but the literate. In the pre-partition era the anchor was the educated Muslims of Muslim minority provinces - lawyers, government servants, the intelligentsia and college students. In the post-partition era it was the army and to a lesser extent the bureaucracy. Part of their ideological fervour was the knowlege that vast numbers of people had chosen Pakistan out of circumstance, not conviction - opportunistic landlords who supported the movement to avoid land reform, huge numbers of undecided people forced to leave India by escalating cycles of violence, and Marxists and pro-Congress or just anti-AIML Islamists who happened to live in Punjab and NWFP when Partition happened. The Pakistani state's problem for the first few decades was that it was an ideological state with not enough ideologically committed people. Zia tried to fix that by Islamising the state , but its escalated the latent conflict over what Pakistan is for and whom it represents.

What I've seen first hand is an elite that is increasingly frightened by whats going in at home with the rise of revolutionary minded jihadis. Younge people from the ruling classes with no memories of partition or war with India seem especially likely to question of the ideology of Pakistan, and the ideology of perpetual conflict. The power of the national security state which nurses this ideology has been sharply challenged (right now in the Geo vs. ISI fight) over and over again as the non-military elite attempts to wrest control of policy away from the army. In order to win power from the military they have to make the case that there can be peace with India. It is the military that needs perpetual conflict with India in order to justify its control. Its been a long slow battle, but now that the Americans are no longer backing the military following their experiences in Afghanistan and with OBL, the civilians are getting the upper hand. That also means moving away from an ideological definition of nationhood (the core problem with Pakistan) to a territorial one, and that is the kind of shift in narrative that is actually emerging. They're willing to trade being a country of manifest Islamic destiny in which they might be overthrown to ruling over a normal one.

In short I think the Pakistani ruling classes in a couple of decades will be eating out of India's hands,

depending on Indian support to defeat the jihadi threat both to their rule and to all of Pakistan's neighbours. Historically speaking the ruling class of the area have been opportunists rather than ideologues, chosing whatever option allowed them to preserve power and privilege, and mending fences with India is going to be essential to avoiding revolution. In the long run having them do the hard work is probably the cheapest option for India, much as the Raj depended on the Afghan kings to keep their population in line in exchange for subsidies which in turned strengthened the elite against the population. It was cheaper than consant warfare, and raiding or trying to rule the place yourself. Once the royal family lost those subsidies, it was toppled in just over a generation, and its been a bloody nightmare for everyone since.

• Stopping the talk about Pakistani terrorism against India
  Chanting that Indians and Pakistanis are exactly the same
  Talking about Hindu terrorism in the same breath (hush now) as Pakistani and Pakistani-inspired terrorism
  "solving" Kashmir
  Vacating Siachen
  Not inspecting Pakistani cargo that comes across the border
  Releasing Pakistani drug smugglers
  Inviting Pakistanis to play in the IPL
  Stop stealing Pakistan's Indus water
  Say south asia instead of India, Pakistan, or Indian subcontinent
  Listen to pompous TFTA pakis blather mindlessly in Indian media?
  Have uninterrupted uninterruptible talks about these things
  Agree that said talks are a favor Pakistan is doing to India
  Anything else? Fund their water car maybe? Make AQ Khan Nawab of Bhopal? "solve" Hyderabad? Hire a pakistani to run India's defense budget?

Now this a view I've only gradually come to. This is not a standard view in the West, but rather one that I've gained from time on the ground talking to people on both sides of the border. A senior retired Indian foreign service officer once described it to me this way - even if you loathe your belligerent idiot of a neighbour, you don't want to see his house on fire because its just as dangerous as him throwing matches at you. You'd much rather lend him a hose for a price. I've also seen the enormous amount of cynicism at every level of Pakistani society. There's a lot fewer committed ideologues there than you would think, and the cozy circumstances that allowed the educated classes to believe what they did are being pulled out from under them.

But I disagree with you in what you seem to be saying above--obviously there are multiple POVs, but are you claiming that there is no such thing as an Indian POV or a BRF POV? And an American POV? Really? That seems rather, well, fantastic. And I can't imagine an Indian-type BRFite taking such a view.

POVs might be from India or America, or BRF....and some might be trending at one time or another, but there's no single or fixed POV from any place. I think that's hardly controversial to say that. Unless you're talking state policy, and even behind that there's an array of often sharply disagreeing assessments. The only real difference is swimming with or against received wisdom.

a mosque in the suburbs of the very city Taseer was killed in, has been named after Mumtaz Hussain Qadri. The mosque is constructed on a 10-marla plot of land, next to a girls’ seminary, the Jamia Rehmania Akbaria Ziaul Binaat. Even though the housing society is not fully developed and several houses in the neighbourhood are still under construction, there are already four mosques, catering to people from different schools of thought, in close proximity to each other.

The mosque’s prayer leader, Mohammad Ashfaq Sabri, told Dawn: “The mosque was built to pay tribute to the services of the man who taught a lesson to a blasphemer,” adding that the name was chosen in consultation with religious scholars and residents of the area.

saip wrote:David Cameron says Pakistan’s enemy is his foe

Link

India has just become Britain's enemy!

saip wrote:David Cameron says Pakistan’s enemy is his foe
LinkIndia has just become Britain's enemy!

Lilo wrote:Remember the slimy character called Yasser Latif Hamdani (some might remember him as the guy who has an epic homoerotic crush on Djinnah).

Now his forked tongue gets a plug in Al-Chindu Opinion page.

In the cross hairs of the extremists

The founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah never claimed that all Muslims were a nation. He said that only for Muslims in undivided India who he felt constituted a nation within the subcontinent and were therefore entitled to an equal say in the Constitution-making regardless of their numbers.He made it clear when he said that Muslims had demanded self-determination on the basis of India for Indians and that Muslims were Indians. In other words, their claim to the right of self-determination was based on the principle that Muslims were the sons and daughters of India and not outside its milieu.

partha wrote:

saip wrote:David Cameron says Pakistan’s enemy is his foe

Link

India has just become Britain's enemy!

Only Pak media is reporting this. This is not present in UK government's press release -

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/paki ... -this-week

partha wrote:Only Pak media is reporting this. This is not present in UK government's press release -

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/paki ... -this-week

anupmisra wrote:
Its on Youtube. Your enemy is my enemy

anupmisra wrote:

saip wrote:David Cameron says Pakistan’s enemy is his foe

Link

India has just become Britain's enemy!

Its on Youtube. Your enemy is my enemy

Agnimitra wrote:Cameron had also emotionally referred to UQ as Pakrats' "mother country".

The report said while "Pakistani military undertook operations against groups that conducted attacks within Pakistan such as TTP, but did not take action against other groups such as Lashkar-e-Taeba (LeT)", held responsible for the November 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.

Journalist and anchorperson Nasim Zehra, who is researching the Kargil conflict, was of the opinion that no apologies to the Indians for Kargil were needed as the Indians had violated the Simla agreement by occupying Siachen in 1983-84. {She is supposed to be a sane 'liberal' types} She said Pakistan was looking for ways to get back. She also wanted to remove the myth that the Pakistan Army was behind the Kargil episode and said it was a clique of generals who had planned it. {If Army generals Plan and execute it, it is not done by the Army? From "Pakistan didnt do Kargil", pakis have graduated to "Army didnt do Kargil, it was rogue, retired generals"}

Riaz Khokhar, former foreign secretary and ambassador to the US at the time of the Kargil war, said the context is very simple, Kargil is an offshoot of the Kashmir dispute and the Siachen conflict. The Siachen adventure of India set a precedent that it’s a free for all. “Somehow one of the biggest mistakes we made was not developing a credible narrative. Nobody was willing to accept our narrative,” he said. {So the narrative was the problem. Both Pakistan and India are to blame for Kargil, but India has better PR}

“Pakistan was seen as an irresponsible country and we haven’t been able to erase that stigma,” he said while the Indians were smart and added an element of terrorism. {But didnt Pakistanis claim that it was the Mujahideen in the first place? Then why was it that it was India which brought in "element of terrorism"?}

Describing Kashmir as Pakistan’s jugular vein, he said it is an international dispute for which UN resolutions also continue to exist. Its resolution is crucial for the peace and stability of the region, he added.

LokeshC wrote:

Agnimitra wrote:Cameron had also emotionally referred to UQ as Pakrats' "mother country".

I bray to Arrah that Bakis live up to their real name : Madarc***s AAAOAAAA

NEW DELHI: India has signed an agreement under which it will pay Russia to supply arms and equipment to the Afghan military as foreign combat troops prepare to leave the country, in a move that risks infuriating Pakistan.Under the deal, smaller arms such as light artillery and mortars will be sourced from Russia and moved to Afghanistan.But it could eventually involve the transfer of heavy artillery, tanks and even combat helicopters that the Afghans have been asking India for since last year.India has already been training military officers from Afghanistan, hosted a 60-member Special Forces group last year in the deserts of Rajasthan and supplied equipment such as combat vehicles and field medical support facilities.
But the decision to meet some of Afghanistan's military hardware demands – albeit sourcing them from Russia – points to a deepening role in Afghanistan aimed at preventing it from slipping back into the hands of the Taliban and other militant groups that are hostile to India.It comes as China, another big player in the region which borders Afghanistan via a small, remote strip of land, is preparing for a more robust role in Afghanistan, also concerned that the withdrawal of Nato troops will leave a hotbed of militancy on its doorstep.Like China, India is unlikely to put boots on the ground to reinforce its strategy in Afghanistan.“We can't commit troops on the ground, we can't give them the military equipment that they have been asking us for, for all sorts of reasons including the lack of surplus stocks,” said an Indian foreign ministry official, declining to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.“Involving a third party is the next best option,” the official said, referring to plans to source military supplies from Russia for Afghan forces.The lack of direct access to Afghanistan poses additional hurdles to arms transfers.An Indian team visited Moscow in February to firm up the deal, the official said.The two countries will also help Afghanistan restart an old armaments factory near Kabul and prepare an inventory of Russian military equipment in Afghanistan that could be refitted for use. That dates back to the Soviet invasion of 1979-89, although much of the hardware is beyond repair.“We'll work with India directly as well as trilaterally involving Russia,” said an Afghan official in New Delhi.“Most of India's weapons are made in Russia or co-produced with Russia, so it makes sense. Also the three-way arrangement is cost-effective.” Indian officials said they had held talks with China, Japan and Iran to find ways to fund Afghan security demands that outgoing President Hamid Karzai told his Indian hosts during a visit last year would touch $4 billion a year.
Golts said India and Russia were likely to play a significant role in Afghanistan as coalition troops withdraw.“At the end of the day, and despite all the contradictions, it's very important for Washington to keep Russia engaged in Afghanistan.” Karzai's “shopping list” submitted to New Delhi last year comprised 66 items ranging from tanks to spares for Afghanistan's small fleet of helicopters. Karzai also wanted Indian instructors at the British-funded “Sandhurst in the Sand” military academy built outside Kabul to train Afghan military officers.

Anujan wrote:Praveen Swami's latest. Fellow cant STFU

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article5963505.ece

shiv wrote: I don't dispute this but these young people can hardly solve the problem because excluded from the count of "progressive Pakistani youngsters who often study abroad" are about 75% of Pakistan youngsters who do not get much education and whose views are moulded by a mixture of jingoistic TV and madrassas.

India's "liberalization" of the 90s should not be confused with the fact that India, starting from a much earlier date, set up structures like grass roots democracy, local self government, an emphasis on education, immunization and public health. Year after relentless year India made strides which were simply ignored by Pakistan. Pakistan have fallen behind a great deal. It may be possible to compare parts of Punjab and Sindh with India but the Pakistan is supposed to be bigger than that.

...Most Pakistanis revel on superficialities and do not seem to have a grasp of the depth to which change would have to take place in Pakistan. A large number of these changes (of democracy and freedom) have been prevented by the elite as being "unislamic". If Pakistan had to change that much - their armed forces would not have as much money as they do now and the Pakistani elite would become smaller and poorer like Indian princely families did. There is no intent in Pakistan to give up the perks of the elite and hand over power to the people.

Pakistani people are now grabbing power on their own via Islamist parties and via separatist movements. So the idea of a whole united Pakistan exists only in the minds of starry eyed Pakis. For all practical purposes Pakistan is a deeply divided state being held together by imagination and western support to an army that they prefer over the people who are seeking to rule Pakistan.

KLNMurthy wrote: For some Indians like myself there are deeper civilizational concerns with the idea underlying Pakistan (and no, it is not the two-nation theory as usually understood), but for India as a whole, if there is some way Pakistan can be made to stop attacking India, in perpetuity, then they would be happy to ignore Pakistan.

I have come to the conclusion, after decades of thought and wishing for a merger-of-the-hearts with Pakistan, (!) that (a) this cessation of hostilities will never happen from the Pakistani side and (b) attempt to focus on achieving this cessation without looking at the deeper civilizational contradictions between Pakistan (not Islam as such) and India will only lead to a growing encroachment of what this forum calls pakiness, as well as Pakistanis, into India, and the eventual obliteration of India.

for Indians the current military-civilian conflict (if it can be called that) in Pakistan is irrelevant--the "good guys', the civilians are largely united in their antipathy for India. They can't even bring themselves to do a routine thing like reciprocating the MFN status to India because of how it sounds.

They may dream of being "willing to" become a normal country but they don't have the conceptual apparatus and political determination and wherewithal to make that a reality.

A growing and assertive population whose sole moral and political ideology is world-conquering Islam means that becoming a normal country is not a possibility for them at all.

"India should support the good-pakis to defeat the jihadis" because (repeat after me) "Pakistan is also a victim of terrorism onlee" is by now a very old refrain. What is glossed over is why Pakistan became said victim, and more to the point, what specifically is India supposed to do, besides:

• Stopping the talk about Pakistani terrorism against India
  Chanting that Indians and Pakistanis are exactly the same
  Talking about Hindu terrorism in the same breath (hush now) as Pakistani and Pakistani-inspired terrorism
  "solving" Kashmir
  Vacating Siachen
  Not inspecting Pakistani cargo that comes across the border
  Releasing Pakistani drug smugglers
  Inviting Pakistanis to play in the IPL
  Stop stealing Pakistan's Indus water
  Say south asia instead of India, Pakistan, or Indian subcontinent
  Listen to pompous TFTA pakis blather mindlessly in Indian media?
  Have uninterrupted uninterruptible talks about these things
  Agree that said talks are a favor Pakistan is doing to India
  Anything else? Fund their water car maybe? Make AQ Khan Nawab of Bhopal? "solve" Hyderabad? Hire a pakistani to run India's defense budget?

Notice anything about the list? It is all stuff India has to do. And stuff India has, in fact, done. What is Pakistan going to do, has done, not even in exchange (I recognize that not everything is an even trade), but just for itself? They--your enlightened, evolving, wannabe normal pakis--haven't even thought about that, they don't even think of thinking about that, they don't have the conceptual framework to think about that. And they won't, short of a "transformative experience" like the Germans had in WWII at the hands of the Allies.

Pakistan last year had its *first* transition from one civilian government to another. I don't think its an accident that Geo is challenging the ISI this year, and Nawaz is on course for the first time to convict a former COAS in the courts.
..
Its an ongoing struggle, and the fruits will come in the future.

Anujan wrote:Pakistani Jernail says Cashmere is Jaguar vein. Nothing has changed.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/article-14626 ... tion:-COAS

Describing Kashmir as Pakistan’s jugular vein, he said it is an international dispute for which UN resolutions also continue to exist. Its resolution is crucial for the peace and stability of the region, he added.

20,000 people from Balochistan province had joined the armed forces which reflects their trust in Pak army.

it is incumbent upon everyone to remember the golden principles laid down by Quaid-e-Azam.