India and Pakistan must step back for good sense to prevail
Warmongering doesn’t help much. The two nations can boycott each other in sporting competitions, recall their envoys, but that won’t protect them from the evils of terrorism.
There have been terrorist attacks on India in the past, going back several decades. But since the one on Mumbai on November 26, 2008, in which 166 people were killed by just 10 sea-borne terrorists, I cannot think of another one which has caused such outrage and controversy as what took place recently in Pulwama, Kashmir. A 19-year-old Kashmiri suicide-bomber rammed his explosive-laden vehicle into a truck filled with security personnel of the Indian Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), killing 40 and injuring many others. It was the worst ever terrorist attack in Kashmir, and its ramifications have been both mindboggling and serious. In fact, last Wednesday, February 21, a senior Pakistani official said that India and Pakistan could be on the verge of going to war, such has been the high-voltage reaction on both sides.
Even more sadly, from India’s point of view, some Kashmiri students studying outside their state in other parts of India, have been harassed and told to go home. A few of them are even being forced to stay away from their schools and colleges, fearing for their safety. This is what has just happened in the city of Dehradun, a prime educational hub in India. Imagine, young Kashmiris, trying to get themselves educated outside their state because of the unsettled conditions there, being forced to return, probably embittered and thereby becoming potential recruits for terrorist outfits. Which is exactly the kind of polarisation the evil minds who planned the Pulwama outrage want.
The more irresponsible Indian TV news channels — their Pakistan counterparts probably as well — have gone berserk, pandering to what I can only call jingoistic warmongering. A well-known club close to where I reside, the CCI (Cricket Club of India), has a restaurant called The All-Rounder, with photographs on its walls of many of the greatest past cricket players in the world. Among them was Imran Khan, who led Pakistan to World Cup victory and who is now his country’s Prime Minister. I deliberately use the word ‘was’, since just the other day, the CCI authorities decided to cover up his photo. How ridiculous!
There is now feverish talk about India refusing to play Pakistan in the forthcoming cricket World Cup, which is to be held in the UK, though the consequences of such a refusal have not been thought through. It could range from the loss of two points in the tournament, to India’s disqualification from the Cup altogether (the decision to boycott has been deferred). A precedent is quoted by those who say India should refuse to play with Pakistan. Many years ago, when there was Apartheid in South Africa, India and South Africa reached the finals of the main tournament for tennis supremacy, the Davis Cup. India refused to play and South Africa was awarded the Cup. That was the best chance India ever had of becoming the number one tennis team in the world.
Even poor Navjot Singh Sidhu, a Minister in the Cabinet of the State of Punjab and former Test cricketer, has not been spared. He has been taken off a popular TV show and roundly castigated for a harmless comment he made on the Pulwama terror attack. Don’t blame the entire Pakistan people for the attack, he said in effect, meaning that the perpetrators should not be identified with the Pakistani nation. I find nothing wrong with that, though this was not perhaps the time to say something like that. A terrorist outfit based in Pakistan has claimed responsibility for the attack. Needless to say, Islamabad should take firm measures against it, if indeed it is responsible. In fact, most of the civilised world has condemned the attack, which is why Pakistan has got the dubious label of being a ‘terrorist haven’. The irony is, as Pakistanis themselves point out, Pakistan has itself often been the target of homegrown terrorism!
Be that as it may, let us return to Sidhu. He is a Sikh. During the days of Punjab terrorism, some Sikhs became terrorists, aided and abetted from across the border by Pakistan. But that did not make the entire Sikh community Khalistanis (wanting an independent country called Khalistan). Only a tiny minority of Sikhs were terrorists or in sympathy with the terrorists. The vast majority were with India, even if somewhat alienated at that time. The same is the case with Kashmiris now.
The trouble is that when there is emotional turmoil, reasoning and good sense go out of the window. Warmongers and preachers of hatred rule the roost. The great Russian writer, Leo Tolstoy, put it well: Whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. Let us hope that Islamabad and New Delhi, along with the Indian and Pakistani people, return to sanity soon.
A terrorist outfit based in Pakistan has claimed responsibility for the attack. Islamabad should take firm measures against it, if indeed it is responsible. In fact, most of the civilised world has condemned the attack, which is why Pakistan has got the dubious label of being a ‘terrorist haven’.