Johann wrote:
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KLNM a few pages back I actually posted my own thoughts on this - that the current status quo is not remotely threatened by India in the era of nuclear stalemate, it is threatened by the TTP, and that the threat is only likely to grow.
Are you familiar with the Mahabharata? There is an expression deriving from it: We may be five against a hundred, but against outsiders we are a hundred and five. What this means for India is that TTP may threaten the current status quo but both everyone--TTP and stakeholders of current status quo are virulent haters of Hindus and enemies of India.
Another decade or two of this is likely to the dismantle Anti India-centric kind of Pakistani nationalism among that country's ruling classes.
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.
There's already formal efforts in that direction - take a look at Aitzaz Ahsan's (the PPP lawyer who led the anti-Musharraf campaign) 'The Indus Saga' for a non-Mughal/Delhi, non-Afghan/Persian centric historical narrative as the basis for a recalibrated national identity. This is clearly an elite project, but most nationalist projects start that way.
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.
Even you are not convinced, Johann: Look at the weasel words: "likely to dismantle?" "in a decade or so?"
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.
I have no issues with Shiv's project in general. What caught my eye was again, this idea that to be compelling it had to capture the way things are, and the way they're going.
What we select for capturing, out of the infinite amount of information about the present state and future trends, is driven by our interests. On BRF India's interests come first and foremost.
In one of my posts on the previous post I actually prefaced my post specifically saying my interest was an accurate model of Pakistan's strengths, weaknesses and dynamics that can provide some predictive power of where its going. That's also one of the long standing interests of the thread.
My issue is not that your posts are irrelevant to the thread, or that you should not post your stuff (though I'll submit with respect that nearly all of what you post on this thread is already well-known to its readers). It is that we should be ruthless in constantly pruning the scope of the debate to keep our focus on India's primary interest wrt Pakistan (as articulated aeons ago by shiv and with which I agree) which is to destroy it as it is presently constituted and render it ineffective.
There's no reason that the larger discussion about messaging can not go on as well.
Also I'd like to point out that there is no single anything POV - whether its India or BRF or Pakistan or America or whatever. There will be various clumps of opinion regardless of what I say - if anything the problem is that people are often much more interested in who I am and what that means than in what I'm actually saying - which means I often waste a lot of time having to try to argue with their slightly random projections and straw men. The point is that the exchange of both facts, and differing interpretations of facts is stimulating and educational.
Speaking for myself, I try generally to keep away from personalities when not relevant and I hope I am not engaging in it here.
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.
I actually think "educational" and "stimulating" discussions are not always necessarily unequivocally good things. I have spent literally decades educating myself about Pakistan only to realize that most of that effort came from a desire on my part to convince myself that Pakistan is "just like" India or for that matter any normal civilized nation or culture, and we could have a friendly relationship if not be actual friends with it. Which is of course completely false.
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?
Looks like GHQ has summoned him again.
