A no-war pact with Pak is the only way to pursue peace
31 January 2010 (in the first issue of The Sunday Guardian)
India had always been opposed to the two-nation theory, but we forget that Quaid-e-Azam Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, had himself repudiated it as soon as he won independence for his state. He had declared that Pakistan would be a democratic, liberal and just state. It would live peaceably with its minority Hindu population and relations with India would be of friendship and cooperation. Unfortunately, Jinnah died soon of tuberculosis and the first Prime Minister, Liaquat Ali Khan was cruelly assassinated. Its excellent first Constitution of March 1956 was superseded and luckless Pakistanis have had to suffer long and repeated spells of autocratic military rule. The present is the chance to undo the past. Pakistan has got back its democracy; its war-mongers are lying low; the establishment understands the futility of war and the Pak-created Frankenstein of terrorism has now turned on its creator. War is not the option. A no war pact with no loopholes and escape routes is the only option to pursue. Everything else will take care of itself.
Hindutva is not a communal slogan, it’s about the nation
9 October 2011
Whenever I am out of India, my vision of India turns sharper. I become less critical of all that’s going wrong, and see with greater focus and contrast the sheer vastness, the heterogeneity and plurality, the pervasive human warmth and the miraculous auto pilot mode India functions in…
Hindutva is not a communal slogan of the Hindus or a religious concept; it is a national slogan, the secular essence of our Constitution, which citizens of all faiths and creeds swear allegiance to, separating state and religion, giving fundamental rights for religious and cultural freedom, and treating all citizens equally. In 1995, the Supreme Court of India held that Hindutva was not religion, but an ideological concept, a way of life which comprises a code of conduct to be observed by every individual in every sphere of personal and national activity, and includes respect and equal treatment to all religions.
The rise and rise of tomorrow’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi
Printed possibly in 2014.
No politician in independent India has been demonised in such a relentless, Goebbelsian manner as Narendra Modi, and no politician has withstood it with as much resilience and courage as him, notwithstanding the entire Central government, influential sections of the media machinery and civil society arraigned against him.
Today, vast sections of civil society see in him the next Prime Minister of India. I hope he will plant more visible footprints on the international seashore. He has to speak of peace and a durable solution to the Kashmir problem with the rulers of Pakistan. He must project himself as a great democratic leader of the world and a fighter for human rights and justice the world over. On the domestic front, I am proud to see him winning Muslim hearts by presenting to them the real Hindutva… In a corruption ridden country where the chief source of corruption is the Congress and its leaders, Narendra Modi shines for his impeccable integrity.
May Kashmiriyat return to paradise
3 January 2015
Coming to the complex saga of Kashmir, we have seen it descend over the last few decades from misgovernance and political instability to terrorism. And because of its history and its geography, every sneeze in Kashmir spells some degree of cold in India.
It all started with the inexplicable and fatal blunders committed by Jawaharlal Nehru. The first, for ordering the advancing Indian Army to halt at the present Line of Control when they could have taken the whole of Kashmir, after the Pakistan sponsored, tribal invasion of Kashmir in October 1947. And the second, by referring the Kashmir issue to the United Nations, converting a national issue of integration of the states, just like Junagadh and Hyderabad, into an international dispute, that till today has defied solution. The only charitable, though unpardonable excuse I can venture is that Nehru was a new and inexperienced Prime Minister, utterly naïve about the complexities and chicanery of international politics, though theories do circulate regarding whose influence these decisions were taken under.
Urgently needed, judicial reform
24 January 2015
There is no public institution in India that has not registered a steep decline of standards, and correspondingly of public confidence, in the last few decades. The judiciary is no exception. But the damage caused by decline in judicial standards is incalculable and incomparable with that of any other public institution…
The popular perception about our judiciary today is also a matter of concern. The highest plaudits come to it whenever a corrupt politician, bureaucrat or businessman finds himself within the dragnet of the law. How many times have we heard these words from them, “I have full faith in the judiciary, let the law take its course”? This “course”, which the law will take, will extend from the trial court to the high court, and then to the Supreme Court, the whole process punctuated by multiple “stays” (rule nisi), innumerable adjournments during the entire “course”, all of which can take decades, before the matter is finally decided…
Another phenomenon regarding the judiciary that has manifested itself is that whenever the moral character, public authority and credibility of other branches of government diminish, the judiciary tends to expand its powers and outreach, taking on tasks that are rightfully in the domain of the Executive, which they are intellectually ill equipped to understand or administer. This trend is popularly called “judicial activism”, and is almost like a trespass, for example, in the domain of public health, public transportation, child care, environment, even cricket and the IPL. The judiciary should seriously introspect on this issue.
Reflections on Kashmir, Bhutto, Brohi
28 March 2015
When rivers of blood were flowing elsewhere during Partition, not a single Hindu was killed by a Sindhi Muslim. We Hindus were compelled to leave only when external elements invaded peaceful Sindh, the cradle of Sufism. But our partings were heart rending, full of pathos and tears. It was after my brief stay in refugee camps near Bombay that I felt neither ill-will nor animosity towards Pakistan, but a lifelong conviction that unless India and Pakistan forget the sorry past and the tragedy of partition, and commit themselves to a peaceful and amicable relationship, both will perish. And economically, unless both countries share a common vested interest in each other’s prosperity and in eliminating their appalling poverty, the price of partition would be a total waste without any return for Pakistan…
US-Iran playing Great Game of Fire
11 April 2015
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, predecessor of the present incumbent, on his election had pronounced that Israel should be wiped off the map of the world, but after a while, in a saner mood he said it must be shifted to portions of Europe. So far as the existence of Israel is concerned, Shia Iran is as hostile as the worst of Sunni Muslim states. I am firmly of the opinion that sanctions should not be withdrawn without a solemn and credible international undertaking by Iran that it fully recognises the de facto and de jure existence of the state of Israel and that there shall be no aggression or any hostile steps to exterminate or harm it in any way whatsoever. This is in accordance with the UN Resolution 181 of 1947, which I am sure even Barack Obama is aware of. It is as much his responsibility to guarantee this, in his freak negotiations with the Iranians, which are raising several questions about his raison d’être, with some commentators wondering that though it was Iran that had the most to lose from a failure of talks, the US seems to have become the greater supplicant.