IT'S ABOUT CHANGING MAPS, NOT GEOGRAPHY

You cannot change geography. This is the mantra often chanted by Indian peaceniks to explain their embrace of and love for Pakistan, the logic being that since you cannot wish away the rogue, it is best to hug him and hope for the best. Some analysts go a step further: they believe India’s interest is best served by so strengthening democratic and liberal voices in Pakistan that they become powerful enough take on and defeat the military-jihadist combine that defines and runs the state.

This is akin to giving milk to a snake in the hope that once its body becomes bigger and stronger, it will act as an antidote to the venom it carries in its head and make the snake wholly non-poisonous. That, as even a shallow understanding of the history of the sub-continent coupled with commonsense will tell you, is unlikely to happen in such a smooth, civilised manner.

The metaphorical poison, we overlook, is not isolated in a tiny gland located in the ‘head’. The whole body, as it were, save the portions that we conveniently choose to highlight, is toxic, and the levels are rising rapidly.

We also make the cardinal mistake of not seeing ourselves through Pakistan’s religion-tinted eyes. Only that counts. Not our flattering, self-deceiving self-view applauded by liberals there who carry no weight or influence, and exploited with glee by Pakistani generals who take all key decisions.

Consider this: history as taught to children in Pakistani schools is designed to generate hatred towards India. Little is taught about Pakistan's long pre-Islamic history; the focus is on the glories of Islam and Mughal rule in India. As per a detailed study carried out by the Sustainable Policy Development Institution (SDPI) of Pakistan, history text books "are "full" of material "encouraging or justifying discrimination against women, religious and ethnic minorities and other nations," and four themes emerge from the curricula: 1. Pakistan is for Muslims alone; 2. Islamic teachings, including a compulsory reading and memorization of Qur’an, are to be included in all the subjects, hence to be forcibly taught to all the students, whatever their faith; 3. Ideology of Pakistan is to be internalized as faith, and hate is to be created against Hindus and India; 4. Students are to be urged to take the path of Jihad and Shahadat."

Now this is not the handiwork of some Mullahs steeped in Wahhabi or Deobandi inspired intolerance. This is the deliberate creation of educated Pakistanis who believe that their nation has to be defined by Islam, sustained by implacable hatred towards India and kept energised by the objective of claiming Kashmir and the rest of India in the name of Islam. It is easy to blame the Pakistani military establishment, particularly Zia-ul-Haq, for this slide into violent extremism. But, one would do well to remember that almost the entire Pakistani elite, including its civilian political leadership, is equally responsible for shaping Pakistan into the dangerous disaster that it has become today. According to some reports, in 2010 Pakistan was producing 10,000 potential jihadis annually out of 500,000 graduates from 11,000 madrassas. The numbers would have only increased since then.

These nurseries have not sprung up on their own. They have been assiduously planted and nurtured to provide extremely motivated fodder to the establishment in the furtherance of its strategic objectives. It is only natural that some such elements have turned upon Ahmediyas and Shias, after having brutally all but cleansed Pakistan of religious minorities, and signalled their determination to turn the whole state into the kind of Islamic Utopia that Osama bin Laden and the Taliban – trained and controlled by the military -- had created in Afghanistan before 9/11.

If we look at non-sanitised Mughal history, the reins of two emperors stand out.

Akbar and Aurangzeb both ruled for about 50 years each. During Akbar's time there was communal harmony and peace. Around this period the Bhakti movement also flourished, with the likes of Guru Nanak, Kabir, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu etc., preaching love and devotion for God, violence nowhere in their teachings. Guru Nanak even tried to establish a spiritual bridge between Hindus and Muslims. Aurangzeb, on the other hand, abandoned the liberal religious views of his illustrious great grandfather and attempted to impose Sharia law with the aim of converting India into a land of Islam. Destruction of temples, forcible conversion of Hindus, imposition of jazia on them, blanket ban on music etc. followed, as did many wars to expand the empire. It was on his orders that Sikh Guru Teg Bahadur was beheaded in Chandni Chowk, after being mercilessly tortured, for refusing to convert to Islam. It was primarily Aurangzeb's atrocities that inspired Guru Gobind Singh, the Tenth Sikh Guru, to turn lambs into lions – the Khalsa – and change the course of history.

Pakistan sees itself as the modern day Aurangzeb with ambitions that exceed his. This Aurangzeb has a problem not just with Hindu India but with the entire non-Muslim world. It honestly believes that a few nukes, an Army and thousands of brainwashed and armed young boys guided by what many Muslims say is a misinterpretation of Islam, can achieve more than Aurangzeb ever could. This belief has been strengthened by the fact that a much bigger and united India has not been able to do to it what was eventually done to Aurangzeb's empire by much smaller kings, all acting on their own.

Secular India can be said to be in Akbar's mould, overlaid by a pathological faith in Gandhian non-violence that worked against the British but was a spectacular failure against Jinnah’s ‘Aurangzebian’ call for Direct Action in 1946.

Akbar’s Pakistan is an impossibility; it would, in fact, not have been carved out of India in the first place had the great emperor got into the DNA of Muslim leaders. Yet, India continues to fool itself that Pakistan will become such a state if its democratic institutions are strengthened. This belief, as we have seen, is based on the erroneous premise that the fundamentalist lobby in Pakistan is a tiny fringe. As Zia-ul-Haq, the brain behind Pakistan’s rapid radicalisation famously said, without Islam Pakistan would be just India. That is precisely what it did not and does not want to be. In Thomas Friedman’s words, Pakistan exists only to be not (Hindu) India. That is one reason why even though most Muslims are of Hindu descent, almost every single one claims Arab, not Indian, ancestry.

Since a Pakistan driven by values that Akbar embodied simply cannot emerge of its own volition from the ‘poison’ that it has consumed and carries in its head, a strong Pakistan that mirrors the ideology and methods employed by Aurangzeb can be nothing but bad news for India.

But there are powerful voices in India who do not want Pakistan and, thereby, the idea behind it, to be defeated. Some, in fact, want to strengthen it as they derive their own strength and bargaining power from the strength of that country. If there is no Pakistan, those who created it out of thin air will begin to look like small, obdurate men who were unable to stop living in the past, in another century and world. Even worse, those in Pakistan who are now trying to sustain it in that mould will show up for what they really are: men fit to rule in an ignorant 17th century, not an aware, connected 21st. Not the kind who will meekly submit to such a body blow sitting across the table.

Warnings that if Pakistan breaks up India will have to contend with fiver rogue states -- and uncontrollable armed Talibanis will stream into and wreak havoc in India -- are completely unfounded, if not mischievous. Deprived of funding and the patronage, protection and guidance of a powerful state hostile to India, all these radical groups will quickly dissolve into the countryside, just as similar elements did after the death of Aurangzeb.

Even Pakistan knows geography cannot be changed. But it has not forgotten that maps can be, and have been all through history. It's own was in 1971. It remains pathologically obsessed with changing India’s map -- a thousand years’ war, a thousand cuts. A destructive, violent, even barbaric, energy is at work, ceaselessly. That is why you will never hear Pakistan say that a strong, stable India is in its interest. How, then, can the reverse be true?

You cannot shake hands with someone whose fist is closed. Five fingers, separated, cannot deliver a punch. India has to prise open the clenched fist.

IS BJP INDIA'S ENEMY OR PAKISTAN?

Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde’s outrageous allegation that “BJP and RSS conduct terror camps to spread terrorism” is not a shot in the dark. Made at Jaipur in the presence of Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh, it has not only not been disowned by them, but has actually been backed by External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid who says it was based “entirely on facts.”

The timing and import of this political assault are significant.

In the first reported incident of Pakistani barbarism after 26/11, two Indian soldiers patrolling on the Indian side of the LOC were beheaded by Pakistani troops on 07 Jan, 2012. The head of one of them was taken away and bodies of both were mutilated. The news went viral on social media and led to a spontaneous outrage and righteous outcry across the country for suitable retaliation.

Surprisingly, Salman Khurshid, in his first reaction, said he was not going to be “pressurised by any wild calls for revenge” as India has made a “huge investment in the peace process.” This was followed by Praveen Swami’s mischievous report in The Hindu, where he not only blamed the Indian Army for initiating the ongoing LOC violations but also alleged that it too had beheaded two Pakistani soldiers in 2012. Mysteriously, Pakistani journalist Wajahat S. Khan, who took a very aggressive Pro-Pakistan stance and made preposterous allegations on Barkha Dutt’s show on NDTV, knew about Swami’s piece – he called it “a narrative changer” -- well before it was published.

Fortunately, in the face of continued public outrage, and after the Prime Minister was belatedly briefed by Army Chief Bikram Singh, India toughened its stand and took a few damage-control steps like sending back Pakistani Hockey players and artistes, and putting on hold the disastrous visa-on-arrival agreement etc. The Prime Minister too said, rightly, that there could not be business as usual with Pakistan.

Suddenly, all the gains that Pakistan had extracted after and despite 26/11, without conceding anything in return as always, are beginning to evaporate, and the situation is back to where Pakistan and the Congress party do not want it to be. Both have made “huge investments” since 2009, but Pakistan’s de facto rulers, the men in uniform, have made them in keeping with their hostile strategic objectives in mind, -- as many Pakistani panelists on TV reminded us -- while India’s myopic and avaricious rulers have put electoral prospects of Congress ahead of and above India’s national interests.

When the Congress party did better than even it expected during the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, among the many theories doing the rounds was one that was whispered but not openly articulated, the evidence then being not solid enough to substantiate it. As per this conspiracy theory, the ISI had a role to play in the victory of the Congress and defeat of the BJP. This was based on the following :

• The Congress has lost its core dalit vote in UP to Mayawati and Yadav vote to Mulayam Yadav. It also no longer has any core vote among remaining Hindus, who remain vulnerable to advances of the BJP. Due to this fundamental weakness, Congress needs Muslim votes to survive and win. A Congress government will, therefore, per force be very soft towards the activities of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and the Indian Mujahideen (IM); this will give them much needed time and space to expand their influence and multiply their hit capability, to be activated at the right time.

• The Congress will also turn a blind eye to ISI’s efforts to radicalise Indian Muslims and fan Muslim separatism, both necessary to achieve the long term objective of turning the whole of India into an Islamic state through a thousand cuts.

• A BJP government is most likely to react militarily to another 26/11 type of attack. After the terror attack on Parliament in 2001, the then BJP government had given the go-ahead for launching a military offensive that was called off at the very last minute, thanks to the intervention of the US. The Congress, on the other hand, made a bit of noise and did nothing after 26/11. In future too it will try its best to avoid precipitating a crisis, no matter how grave the provocation, having been convinced by Pakistan-friendly elements within that it will cost it Muslim votes.

In support of this theory, the following facts were cited at that time:

• There has not been a single terror attack, big or small, since 26/11. This is because the ISI ordered all such attacks to be put on hold at least till the elections to ensure that no floating Hindu votes get diverted to the BJP.

• Compared to 2004, the Congress has gained around 6% vote share. But in UP, where the Muslim population is large, the party has gained a huge 10% compared to the Assembly elections in 2007, when it got just 8.56% of the votes. The fact that the only other party to gain vote share in the state since 2007 is the BJP, although by only 0.57%, while the SP and BSP have lost around 2% and 3% respectively, is conclusive evidence that Muslims have shifted to the Congress in huge numbers. Hindus, on the other hand, have not gravitated towards the BJP.

• This tectonic shift in the Muslim vote to the Congress in UP has taken place virtually unnoticed. This could not have happened on its own. There was obviously a concerted effort by influential and powerful extremist elements and possibly some fundamentalist religious leaders to keep this development under wraps to prevent any reverse polarisation of Hindu votes in favour of the BJP, because had that happened, this shift of the Muslim vote would have got negated.

The success that the Congress party achieved, manifestly led its strategists to believe that all that it needs to do to retain power in Delhi is to get Muslims to vote for it en bloc again. The Hindu vote, splintered along every fault line possible, cannot pose any challenge to it, as long as hatred and revulsion can be generated and sustained among enough Hindus for the BJP and RSS. Caste based ‘Hindu’ parties and regional outfits can easily be made to fall in line and make up the shortfall in seats, if any.

The ‘heavy investment’ in the peace process with Pakistan and the relentless attacks on the Sangh parivar flow directly from this ‘Unite Muslims, divide Hindus’ mantra adopted by the Congress to minimise the negative electoral impact of its dismal performance and monumental corruption over the last nine years.

That is why ISI, LeT, SIMI, IM and other umbrella terror outfits have been virtually removed from public mind with the help of an obliging media and the candle brigade that either do not talk about them or do so in manner that makes them look benign, even wronged. They have also got into overdrive about the common culture, language and ethnicity – the sameness -- of the people of India and Pakistan, (South Asia for bubble gum kids) and the great love they have for each other. All this also helps make the case that giving more and more concessions to Pakistan -- itself a victim of terror, they say -- is in India’s supreme national interest.

On the flip side, Indians are being told ad nauseum that a vast majority of ordinary Pakistanis are secular and want to have very close relations with their Indian brothers, but – this is critical – their wishes are not being fulfilled primarily because the BJP and RSS are poisoning the atmosphere in India. The almost total silence about the many Pak-sponsored terror attacks that have killed thousands of Indians is being matched by the almost daily front-paging of leaks about four bomb blasts allegedly carried out a few years back – the last was in 2007 – by a handful of misguided Hindu extremists, in reaction to Pak-sponsored attacks. Conveniently ignored is the fact that almost all of them are in prison and no one has yet been convicted, and that earlier the LeT was blamed for most of these attacks.

The picture, thus, that has been photoshopped and rammed, very systematically and deliberately, is that of Hindu terror happening now, a terror that poses a real, present and growing danger to India and Indian Muslims. The BJP and RSS, we are not allowed to forget for even a minute, are the only enemies that Indians need to worry about: India’s real war is not against friendly brother Pakistan or Islamist terror groups promoted and supported by that country, but against Hindu/saffron terror deliberately spawned by the Sangh. That even Rahul Gandhi has been led to believe this nonsense is a telling indication of how deep the reach of elements inimical to India is.

In fact, under the garb of fighting BJP and RSS politically, communal elements in Sonia Gandhi’s all-powerful kitchen cabinet, the NAC, have gone the whole hog and unleashed a war on all Hindus. The draconian Communal Violence Bill, approved with alacrity by her but not yet enacted, has in one stroke, achieved what a thousand terror attacks cannot. The Hindu has been virtually declared The Terrorist in his own country and subject to draconian provisions of law that even terrorists who blast innocent people are not. He cannot speak, he cannot write -- much less do -- anything that can be construed as offensive by a member of a minority community. Worse, even democratically elected governments, where Hindus are in majority, have been declared untrustworthy; unelected bodies in which minorities will be in majority are going to decide whether the Hindu is guilty or not. His voice has, thus, been throttled and his spirit, his freedom killed far more effectively by Mrs Gandhi than the ISI could even have dreamt.

Why has there been no major Pak-sponsored terror attack since 26/11? The answer, to my mind, is simple. When the Indian government has taken upon itself to unwittingly further the agenda of the ISI, where is the need for the Pakistani establishment to resort to active terror that will inflame passions and undo such good work prematurely? But when you ingrain soldiers -- in uniform and out -- with violent hatred for your enemy, you have to periodically whet their appetite for blood. Talk doesn’t work for them; their oxygen is wanton, brutal violence.

The barbaric beheading and mutilation of two Indian soldiers in Indian territory, despite a cease fire being in place, may have excited Kiyani, Hafiz Saeed and their men, but it has upset the proverbial apple cart of the Congress. The grand old party that led India to freedom has, tragically, so completely put its eggs in the minority basket that, ironically, the only Indians left to oppose it electorally are, honourable exceptions apart, Hindus. If they get together, Congress has simply no hope. It is mortally afraid of their rage.

That is why Shinde and Khurshid have launched a new attack on BJP and RSS. They do not want Hindus enraged by yet another Pakistani assault on their country and their sensibilities, to rise and punish Congress for not punishing Pakistan, by voting for BJP. Their attention has to be deflected from Pakistan's hostility and barbarism, and Congress' treachery. They have to be made to see in BJP the enemy that Pakistan is, the Devil's Alternative that they must not vote for.

This Goebbelsian refrain is Congress’ lifeline. It is, equally, BJP’s death warrant. And it is the opening that a much smaller and weaker Pakistan needs, to win the existential war that it senses it is finally beginning to win. So far, the BJP has shown little interest and imagination in taking on this existential threat by shaming the Congress and educating and awakening the voters. Its leaders – the same old story – are more keen on defeating each other than in saving their party, indeed the country. Will they, will we, learn?
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