Wing Commander (retd) R V Parasnis, who so chivalrously defended me in the message board, points out that "The Pakistani invasion began on the 22nd of October 1947 and not in 1948 as you have quoted."

This is true. From what I wrote in the following paragraph -- "In December 1947, a month after the 161st Infantry Brigade counterattacked Pakistani forces and a month before Gandhiji was shot..." -- it's clear that the invasion of Kashmir began in the last quarter of 1947. However, I've used the year popular in parlance; for instance, Vice-Admiral Mihir Roy refers to it as "the Indo-Pak conflict in 1948." Too, there seems to be an understanding that though the invasion began in 1947, the war with the Terrorist State of Pakistan occurred in 1948:

By the end of July 1947 -- even before Independence -- the Northern Territories were swallowed up by Pakistan. By October 26, Pakistani regulars and irregulars raped, killed and looted their way into Baramulla, just 50 kms from Srinagar. That's when Maharaja Hari Singh signed the instrument of accession with India -- only after which could the Indian Army counteract. (Do not ask me why we had to wait; it's like asking why we had to cede the 55 crores.) In February 1948, to capture Ladakh, Pakistan launched Op Sledge from Gilgit. In May 1948, the Indian Army, while advancing through Uri and Tithwal to Muzaffarabad, came up against purely regular troops of the Pakistan Army. Point to note: Till then, the invading hordes consisted of Pakistani soldiers intermixed with "Azad Kashmir" battalions and tribals. The pretense of a "popular uprising" and "people's revolt" had finally been dropped.

'Raiders,' 'intruders,' 'guerrillas,' 'informal war,' 'proxy war,' etc, are an eyewash propagated by India's ineffectual governments, and Pakistan's godfathers. The appropriate terms are 'jihad' and 'jihadis.' Pakistan, its namaaz-raising hands dipped in the blood of Hindus and Sikhs, began as an Islamic terrorist State and continues to live up to its foundational values. Take it from Balasaheb and me: nothing will emerge from the latest "hand of friendship." Unless, of course, it is Kargil II.

On May 24, 1999, Pakistan's then foreign secretary, Shamshad Ahmed, said during the Kargil invasion: "We reject these allegations which have been always cast by New Delhi and mere allegations cannot make the world believe what India says." He accused India of LoC violations by indulging in "unprovoked firing," saying, "Perhaps they are escalating these violations due to elections in India."

Ten days later, the Indian Army got hard evidence of the involvement of Pakistan infantry in the Kargil "intrusion" when our jawans recovered three bodies of Pakistani soldiers from Batalik sector -- with documents and army-issued arms intact. It also became clear that at least two battalions had set up positions inside Indian territory with adequate supply lines and sophisticated weapons.

Yet, on June 16, foreign minister Sartaj Aziz declared, "We have no forces in Indian-held Kashmir" -- after President Clinton appealed to Islamabad to withdraw its troops. Mr Aziz said the hostilities in Kargil were between 'Kashmiri Mujahideen' and Indian forces and were just "an aspect of the larger issue of Kashmir."

Lies, lies, and more lies -- that's another unchanged feature of Pakistan's State policy. Which, you'd think, Indians have sussed by now. Yeah, right... What's happening in India after the April 18 "hand of friendship"? Here's a highly incomplete sampling:

• On May 9, the Indian Army warns that, contrary to Paki claims, more jihad camps have come up near the LoC in PoK in the past weeks. Over 4,000 jihadis are located on the Pakistani side facing the stretch from Jammu to Kupwara. The same week, intelligence agencies say that India's peace initiative has come at a wrong time, when infiltration and violence in the Kashmir valley are at their peak.

• On May 14, Pakistani troops resort to heavy shelling in Kargil and Drass sub-sectors. They also open unprovoked and intense small-arms fire on three Indian posts in Arnia and RS Pura sectors in Jammu district.

• The same day, Lashkar-e-Tayiba's founding suar Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, declares, "Jihad will continue and it must be strengthened."

• On May 15, bearded suar Masood Azhar is banned from entering PoK. The next day, he gives a speech in Kotli -- in PoK.

• On May 18, another beard, Syed Salahuddin, asserts that Hizbul Mujahideen would continue its jihad and no pressure, international or internal, would be accepted. On May 20, his gun-toting guards are arrested. Not he.

• On May 19, Paki jihadis behead -- ie, separate the head from the body -- 4 women and 2 infants. All were relatives of Kashmiri Muslims serving in the Indian Army and J&K Police.

• The same week, Pakistani troops are busy firing along the International Border from Umrawali, Uchawal, Nandpur and Kachari posts -- to disrupt India's fencing of the border.

• On May 20, a senior MHA official tells The Indian Express, "There is no indication that infiltration is down because of Pakistan's initiatives. None of the intercepts reveal Pakistan directing the terrorists to stop their activities against India. Infiltration is down only because of precise intelligence inputs and successful operations undertaken by the armed forces."

• The same day, Paki jihadis slit open the throats of a widow and her daughter in Aragam village; one man is shot dead in Paner village; one bridge blown up at Sumlar village in the Kashmir valley.

In May 1999, Shamshad Ahmed, while denying the Kargil invasion, demanded that India should agree to Pakistan's proposal: "The best solution is to have neutral and impartial observers on the Line of Control," he quoth. Today, Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmud Kasuri, while denying Pakistan's nurturing of Islamic jihadis, asks for neutral intermediaries to monitor the LoC. In addition, to divert focus from India's key demand -- halt the jihadis -- Pakistan moots a totally useless no-war pact. When has the terrorist State ever abided by pacts with India...? Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme...

In the meantime, Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, along with the 'secular,' 'liberal' candelabra, asks for a "soft border" with the Terrorist State of Pakistan...

Isn't it enough to make you want to vomit? No? Then here's a sure-shot emetic: According to The Economic Times of May 15, India's proposed anti-terrorism alliance with the US and Israel, as enunciated by Brajesh Mishra at the American Jewish Committee's dinner in Washington, "elicited prompt protests from the Communist parties, who saw it as a confirmation of their fears that the Vajpayee government had abandoned India's traditional policies of a non-aligned world view in favour of a pro-US tilt."

The pinko fury has less to do with a pro-US tilt than with the anti-jihad measure forced on us by the candelabra's beloved terrorist nation. One can understand if Pakis get hives over Ariel Sharon's visit to India and the US-Israel-India axis, but why Indians...? Is it debatable that India, like the US and Israel, is under attack from Islamic terrorists? Is it a catastrophe that US has okayed the Phalcon sale to India? Is it a crime to angle for Israel's Arrow system to fend off Paki missiles? Israel has already supplied India with portable battlefield radars, high altitude UAVs, human-detecting sensors and hand held thermals ("They are responsible for almost 70% of the 'kills' along the LoC": army source in the May 15th Times of India). Infiltration is down only because of Op Sarp Vinash and the high-tech equipment that the Army now possesses. Why do pinkos want our jawans to be ill-equipped and die? What has China or Cuba or -- yelp! -- Palestine done for us?

Yesterday, while watching Roman Polanski's The Pianist, I wondered about the anti-Semitism suffusing mainly-socialist Europe and the Leftists' sham hatred of Nazism. Israelis are now demonised as Nazis while the Palestinians -- they of Hamas and PLO -- glorified as defenseless victims by the Islamists and pinkos! Jews conspire to destroy Islam and take over the world. Jews plotted 9/11 and the Columbia disaster. "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" is not a forgery by Tsarist propagandists. Yasser Arafat does not support and arm jihadis; he has never celebrated the 'martyrdom' of fidayeens... Such fiction is legitimised by the Islamist-Pinko axis to dehumanise the Jews and paint them as terrorists.

In November 2000, at a rally organised by the Indo-Arab League in Hyderabad to express solidarity with Palestinians, the "participants carried Palestinian and Iraqi flags and repeatedly interrupted the speakers as they stood up to shout, 'Death to Americans' and 'Death to Israelis.' Slogans calling for 'jehad against the US and Israel' rent the air as the audience joined the speakers in condemning Israeli atrocities on Palestinians." (People's Voice, Nov 1, 2000). In May 2002, the League -- along with the Congress' Mani Shankar Aiyar, CPI's A B Bardhan, CPI-M's Sitaram Yechury -- gathered to celebrate the Intifada -- a purely terrorist movement! Who are these people???

India's beards go to Iraq to act as human shields! Have they ever carried medicines to Jammu & Kashmir...?

In September 2001, Maulana Syed Al-Haaj Barkati, of the West Bengal chapter of Jamait-e-Ulema, threatened, "We will start a jehad if India participates in the American attack [on Afghanistan] or lends any type of support to it... They have no concrete proof against Osama." A jihad in India in support of Osama... but against whom, exactly...?

Two months later, just after the boycott of Coke/Pepsi by Muslim-owned restaurants, doctors -- doctors! -- of the Muslim Medicos Association boycotted American-and British-manufactured drugs. But, do they want a boycott of anything from the country that has constantly been bleeding us...? Oooh nooooo... they are our "brothers."

On May 20, one "secularist" wrote in Lebanon's Daily Star, "There is nothing surprising in the tone and tenor of [Brajesh] Mishra's speech. India's right-wingers had always displayed clear sympathy for Zionism, though Mishra gives it liberal gloss of 'democracy, pluralism and tolerance.' But this is not the view shared by a majority of Indians right from Mahatma Gandhi, who led India's freedom movement. Gandhi had warned the Jewish settlers in 1938 that it was immoral on their part to hope to build a state under the shadow of British military might."

Ahh... there it is. In June 1946, after millions of Jews had been slaughtered, Gandhiji counseled thus: "Hitler killed five million [sic] Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs." Louis Fischer, his biographer, asked Gandhiji: "You mean that the Jews should have committed collective suicide?" Gandhiji's response: "Yes, that would have been heroism."

Which sane Indian won't sympathise with the Israelis?

Tell me, do you see the Islamist-Pinko-"Secularist" axis demanding the return of the Northern Territories and PoK to mainly-Hindu India...? Why not? Because, even when grabbed illegally, it's irreversible, a fait accompli...?

In which case, Israel, too, is a fait accompli. Besides which, the Jews are a nation since Biblical times; for over 3,300 years, Jerusalem -- founded by King David -- has been their capital. Jews pray facing Jerusalem; Arabs pray with their backs to it. There was no such thing as "Palestinian" before 1967, when Syrians, Iraqis, Jordanians, Lebanese and Saudis living in Israel began identifying themselves as "Palestinian." Why should Indians -- if, indeed, they are only Indian -- seek Israel's destruction...?

Europe's Jews went like lambs to Hitler's death camps, I never could understand why. But when they finally rose from their inertia, boy, how the lambs roared! I have unadulterated admiration for Israelis and groups like the AJC, and no bullshit angle of "communal harmony" can shake that. On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of Israel. On May 15, the War of Independence against the armies of Egypt, Syria, Tranjordan, Lebanon and Iraq began. On July 20, 1949, the war was formally ended -- with the Arabs winding up with less territory than before. For a tiny country to crush the surrounding Islamic nations, face internal jihad, and yet become developed -- it's an unparalled achievement. India yet can't surmount Pakistan alone. Guess, thanks to which ideology...

Postscript: The Hindustan Times reports Saturday: "Pakistani terrorists were occupying about 100 sq kms of Indian territory, 35 km inside the LoC around Hilkaka in J&K. In terms of the occupied area, this is similar to the incursions into Kargil in 1999... Major General Hardev Lidder, GOC of the Romeo Force which spearheaded Operation Sarp Vinash, says that though he did not encounter Pakistani regulars, there were signs of their involvement. 'There were field fortifications of the type which you don't expect from guerrilla bases,' says Maj Gen Lidder."

I rest my case.