<To say that Kashmir has nothing and hence is negotiable, ignores geography for one thing.>
Human geography trumps physical geography. In the modern world, every group who defines themselves as a nation (by reason of a common language, religion, race, and/or culture), wants their own State. Almost every multinational State in the world has fractured into its constituent ethnic pieces. And there is war, constant conflict, until the political boundaries correspond to the demographic boundaries. Where the mountains, deserts, and rivers run, is unimportant.
"The most natural boundary defining India", is the boundaries of where the Hindus are a majority (especially if India is going to shed Gandhi's pacifist secularism, in favor of a strident Hindu Nationalism). This map shows where Muslims live in India:
nirajweb.net
Kashmir is 80% Muslim; no other province is more than 30% Muslim.
<India has a collective memory of invaders from the NorthWest pouring in from about 1100 - 1600.>
The latest foreign invaders, (British, French, Portugese) came by sea. Before that, invaders came out of Afghanistan, across the Kyber Pass to Peshawar, into what is now Pakistan's NW Frontier Province. Not through Kashmir. Interestingly, the first Muslim invaders of India came by sea (Muhammad Bin Qasim in 711 at Sind).
Alexander made a winter base near Begram in 329 B.C., just as the Russians did during their recent war
216.239.33.104 Begram is now Bagram Air Base, just north of Kabul, America's main military base and torture center in Afghanistan. Holy ground, to the Gods of Blood and Sacrifice.
<the secularism that Indians have come to accept as the only sane way of dealing with diversity.>
As I understand it (from reading the BJP website), they define Hinduism as a culture (the national culture of India), not as a religion. In this way, they can promote Hinduism, while still pretending to follow Gandhi/Nehru secularism and freedom of religion. Is this anything more than a transparent rationalization? The BJP's beliefs accommodate the Eastern Religions (there seems to be no Buddhist-Hindu communal violence, no Buddhist Temples have been torn down), but say that the Semitic Monotheisms are foreign, un-assimilable, and a threat to the culture and unity of India. Christianity and Judaism are tiny minorities, no real threat. Which leaves Islam as the focus of Hindu zenophobia. That's what it looks like, to a sceptical outsider.
<Of course being part of a UN peace keeping force is not invasion.>
Whoever destroyed the UN headquarters in Baghdad seems to think so. It is their opinion, not mine or yours, that decides how an Indian army (any Muslims in it?) would be accepted.
<the national myth that Indians hold dear of never having invaded any other nation>
There are military graveyards in Iraq, abandoned and desecrated, full of Hindus and Muslims from India, and Jews and Christians who came from even further away. The forgotten dead from the British armies in WW1. |
