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Dependence Day, 2000

"Pados mein to hum loktantrik desh chahtey hain. Lekin agar loktantra ka takhta palat kar sena satta sambhal leti hai to woh ek virodh ka karan banta hai. Hum apni nakhushi prakat kartey hain. Lekin usko hum shart nahin banatey baatchit karney ke liye. Jo jaisa hai, hum usikey saath nipatney ko taiyar hain."

These are the thoughts of the leader of a country which has been under sustained attack from the padosi desh since 12 years. This is the reaction of the leader of a country which saw 105 citizens felled in a single day by terrorists sustained by the padosi. These are the views of the leader of a country whose padosi is ruled by a military dictator who keeps armed mercenaries in the posts along the LC, naming them Border Action Teams or Tehreek Jehadi. These are the feelings of the leader of a country whose padosi counterpart defends terrorists for waging a "holy war" against said leader's country. The generalissimo declares, "We don't call what is happening in India-held Kashmir as terrorism. It is a freedom struggle"; he avers that the LC is a "vaguely demarcated territory" that does not belong to said leader's country, and his Cabinet reiterates its strong commitment to the cause of Kashmir's "liberation."

Makes me nostalgic for the likes of Deve Gowda and I K Gujral, if that is at all possible. At this point of time, I can unhesitatingly say: Atal Bihari Vajpayee is the consequence of the worst collective karma of India.

What have we done but "express our unhappiness" to the global busybodies? Why would we make conditions for our talking to a rogue state? Everything, but everything, is geared to gratify the US, which holds that "there cannot be a solution to the Kashmir issue without direct discussions between India and Pakistan. In order for such discussions to take place, however, a climate of trust must be created." We take our dependence on Big Brother very seriously. And therefore, we are prepared to not only deal with whatever form of government that exists in our neighbourhood, but also suffer anal fissures from bending over to oblige. In this stooped state, India approaches what should be known as Dependence Day.

On August 11, Minister of State for External Affairs Ajit Panja was speaking in the Rajya Sabha in response to a query from Pranab Mukherjee about the preconditions the government had set for the resumption of dialogue with Pakistan. Panja said, "India is ready to resume talk with Pakistan, but it has to be within the parameters of the Simla Agreement." That's when the prime minister cut in with his pados-mein clarification -- without reference to the Simla Agreement...

Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, chief of Markaz Dawa wal Irshad, the parent org of Lashkar-e-Taiyba ("army of the pure"), asks his generalissimo to send his troops across the LC because "It is the duty of the armed forces of Pakistan to cross the bloody line for the liberation of their Kashmiri brethren." Although Hizb claimed responsibility of the blast at the SBI complex in Srinagar, it has now been established as the handiwork of Lashkar mercenaries, 90 per cent of whom are non-Indians. Lashkar maintains an office in an upmarket locality in Lahore.

Fazlur Rahman Khalil, the leader of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, the organisation behind the attack on Badami Bagh and the December hijacking which secured the release of terrorist Masood Azhar, has an office in Rawalpindi very close to Pervez Musharraf's house and moves freely in Pakistan.

Hizb-ul-Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin, from his headquarters in a posh neighbourhood of Islamabad, urges: "Pakistan should physically involve itself in Kashmir. We want war because war will solve the issue." He declares to the Press, "In a day or two we will launch the biggest bombardment, not seen in the last 10 years." His organisation is set to step up attacks against Indian soldiers unless Musharraf is brought into a tripartite dialogue with India.

Masood Azhar directs from Karachi his Jaish-e-Muhammad slaughterers to kidnap Kashmiri youth for forcible recruitment and arms training. This came to light when, in July, 4 of the 11 boys abducted from Anantnag, Bandipora and Gaudol escaped while being taken to Pakistan and sought refuge with the Indian Army.

The Washington Times of August 11 informs that nearly 1.75 million Pakistani boys are being trained in nearly 7,000 madrassas across Pakistan to be exported to wage jehad, and over 2,000 such "students" of Mohammed Ajmal Qadri's Khuddamuddin madrassa are on their way to Kashmir. Qadri declares, "The world has to go the way we want. It's our divine right to lead humanity."

Saeed, Khalil, Salahuddin, Azhar, Qadri, and many more killers like these have free run in Pakistan and share one obsession with every Pakistani -- the "liberation" of Kashmir. They are free to lead comfortable lives since El General believes, "These people are not terrorists. They are fighting a jehad." And yet, the cessation of the proxy war against India is NOT a precondition for a dialogue with Pakistan...

One of my all-time favourite Indians, member of the National Task Force on Internal Security and former Punjab police chief, Mr Julio Ribeiro, had said that the plane hijacking case, when Mahatma Vajpayee bowed to Harkat's demands, had projected India's image as a soft state; that the Indian state would become a laughing stock with the ceding to the demands of militants. My other adored Indian and yet another former Punjab police chief, Mr K P S Gill, is probably the one who's influenced me most in my stance on national security, human rights orgs and anti-terrorism measures. (It's no coincidence that both are not Hindu, ie, "eunuch".) Since my opinions are, in effect, Mr Gill's, why don't I simply reproduce his far better worded and authoritative statements?

"The air of surprise, even of disappointment, that attends the national leadership's response to evidence of each new transgression by our most obstinate and persistent enemy would be ludicrous if it were not tragic... Apart from the haphazard pattern in which reinforcements of Army and Paramilitary forces were rushed about after each new incident, what was the sum total of the national response? The Panglossian optimism of a tourist bus to Pakistan!... It is not our business to discover alibis for the Pakistani leadership... Our concern, under the present circumstances, must simply be these actions themselves. And as far as these are concerned, they are entirely and unambiguously acts of terrorism sanctioned and supported by the State of Pakistan, and engaged in, largely, by its regular forces.

"India has suffered incessantly as a consequence of its leadership's inordinate desire to please everyone everywhere -- and the entire Kashmir imbroglio is in no small measure a consequence of our misguided attempts to project a posture of moral righteousness and pacifism. Weakness, however, has through history created more wars than strength; it is the persistent and manifest weakness of the soft state that India is, that has tempted Pakistani adventurism of all hues -- be it in the guise of support to terrorists, of the organisation and execution of low intensity warfare in various theatres across the country, or of the combination of action by terrorist and regular forces in the present crisis."

What kind of country is this?! The BJP's Venkaiah Naidu moans that the government "should not close down the option of following the policy of hot pursuit to put down terrorism in J&K." Eh? When did we ever follow it as a policy...? Twelve jawans and one journalist are killed in a bomb blast merely ten days after 100 people are killed in a 12-hour-long bloodbath. And India's defence minister says, "There has been no violation of the ceasefire by the army. We will hit back, if we are attacked." Excuse me, but what other form of attack exists that could light a fire under the MoD's posterior? I don't get it: What more provocation is required to get these wimps to behave like men...?

It's entirely possible that most Pakis desire peace with India. It may even be true that the religion that Islamic terrorists propagate is a distortion of Muhammad's Islam. But that's neither here nor there. The fact is that Pakistan has raised a remorseless jehad against India. With this licentious criminal enterprise that masquerades as a nation, trade bridges can be built, peace can be negotiated, challenging compromises can be made -- but only after the deception and violence it disseminates in India have been eliminated. Pacifism has never worked against hardened offenders and it never will: There can be no peace between India and Pakistan as long as the latter continues to support terrorism. The politics of Pakistan -- indeed, its very conception -- are rooted in an ideology of hatred, division and fundamentalism. We would be fools to believe that it would let live in peace the Hindus of India: There must be no let up in our defence measures.

When I howled about our defence non-policy and the Mahatma's pados-mein speech, one wit remarked, "You don't get it, do you?! That is precisely Vajpayee's secret weapon! He's going to incapacitate the Pakistani Army by making them laugh their heads off over his statements." I have to admit that the Pakis are brilliant - they've figured out that Atal Bihari Vajpayee is the kind of person who can be fooled an unlimited number of times using basically the same ploy. But, like him, should I merely express my nakhushi? I am not prepared to deal with whatever form of government exists in Delhi. For I did not ask for a weak, groveling, pathetic slug of a PM. I have conditions which must be met: I want him out, out, OUT. And so should every self-respecting Indian.

Varsha Bhosle