Maverick's World

An article by Sri. Vikram Sood.

Sri. Vikram Sood has written a piece on 60 years of Independence in Pakistan ..

The article has many valuable insights into the present situation in Pakistan, I would greatly appreciate if my friends here were to carefully read the article and grasp all the nuances. This is the basis of a great perhaps insightful discussion on the Pakistani's state of affairs.

In this piece Sri. Sood also lays out what I feel is the core of domestic countersubversion efforts in India for the foreseeable future.

There is another important aspect that is sometimes overlooked. In India, Muslims have begun to realise that the largest number of Muslims who live in democracy anywhere in the world are here. There is also a realisation that this has been possible because of an independent, secular media and the liberal class, most of whom are Hindus. True, there have been horrible slippages but it is this class of Indians that seeks to expose and protect them against injustices on the basis of religion. The mullahs of Pakistan seek to institutionalise this discrimination and even the moderately enlightened General asserts that there can be no secularism in Pakistan. For anyone to break the Indian equilibrium he must, therefore, Wahhabise the essentially Sufi Muslim and radicalise the Hindu by enticing the former and simultaneously provoking the latter. India of the 21st century must guard against such inroads from Pakistan and from Al-Qaeda indoctrination. Our response cannot be by creating quotas for vote-banks. This only builds zones of vested interests and ghettoises the nation.

Most people in India talk about insulating the country from terrorist attacks and Pakistani incursions, but do not seem sensitive to the psychological assaults, the growing polarization that Pakistan induces in Indian society.

We all know polarization is a useful political device, but excessive polarization could cause lasting social damage. Pakistanis have clearly not learnt this point, but perhaps they will learn in the years to come as Pakistan painfully turns on the very Islamic ideals that help found it.

Though Sri. Sood speaks in the specific context of Pakistan, the point he makes about "breaking the Indian equilibrium" can be extended to a wider context.

I ask my readers to reflect on this.

posted by maverick @ 7:03 AM