In popular mythology, the Ostrich is famous for hiding its head in the sand at the first sign of danger. Expanding further on this popular myth, the wikipedia had this to say
There have been no observations of Ostriches putting their heads in the sand. A common counterargument is that a species that displayed this behavior would not survive very long. Ostriches do deliberately swallow sand and pebbles to help grind up their food; seeing this from a distance may have caused some early observers to believe that their heads were buried in sand. Also, ostriches that are threatened but unable to run away may fall to the ground and stretch out their necks in an attempt to become less visible. The coloring of an ostrich’s neck is similar to sand and could give the illusion that the neck and head have been completely buried. “Don’t hide your head in the sand,” is an old saying that means don’t ignore a problem thinking that it will go away
The state of the Congress central leadership and the Manmohan Singh lead UPA Government is?not much unlike the mythical ostrich that seeks refuge in the sand.
If it is fashionable for the jholawallah brigade in New Delhi to brand any cause with a remote Hindu echo to it as communal, it has become a bad habit for the?casteist fringe parties represented by the Yadav duo to paint every such agitation with a saffron brush.
Caught between these two cookie cutter political responses is the Congress in New Delhi with neither the intellectual clarity to see issues for what they really are nor with the moral certitude to act the way righteousness would demand.
So we have this silly spectacle of a New Delhi based approach to resolving the Jammu crisis over the Amarnath issue that refuses to listen to the loud and clear message emanating from Jammu.
Whats happening in Jammu goes beyond the BJP or the RSS. Its a response of the Hindu majority to a double standard that it perceieves itself to be at the receiving end of. The perception runs so deep and so wide that not even the Congress leadership in Jammu is able to afford being in denial over it.
Congress MPs from Jammu in open defiance of the stance taken by their central leadership reacted.
Congress Member of Parliament from Jammu, Madan Lal Sharma, on Thursday told TOI that the government should appoint Karan Singh as the chairman of the reconstituted SASB and hand over the land to the board to salvage the situation. Sharma alleged that since the two Congress MPs from Jammu region, himself and Lal Singh, were vocal about their demands and had given their representation to Congress president Sonia Gandhi and to the PM, they were not invited for the all-party meeting.
That there is no federalism in the?Congress’ DNA is once again highlighted by the irony of the all-party meeting in Jammu that saw no representation from Jammu.
?Jammu was not represented in the all-party meeting which was called to evolve ways to manage the situation there. The National Conference was, however, allowed to bring in three of its party representatives from Kashmir besides Farooq Abdullah,? Sharma said expressing his annoyance at being sidelined in the crucial meeting.
It is precisely this attitude of the Congress that has been at the heart of all regional strife in India and will be the Congress’ undoing in Jammu. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s remarks at the all party meeting further highlight how out of touch with reality the Congress is.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is understood to told have the all-party meeting called by him on Wednesday that it was now a question of “modalities” over providing facilites to Amarnath pilgrims
The bureaucrat in the Prime Minister has once again failed to recognize the moment. Where he should have seen a genuine people’s movement that no longer has patience for bureaucratic responses, he saw merely a technical problem that needed “modalities” to be sorted out.
It is anybody’s guess how events in Jammu will play out between now and the soon to come elections, however it can be safely concluded that the politics over Jammu and Kashmir will no longer be the same.
The people’s upheaval in Jammu has exposed 3 fault lines.
Fault line #1 – The Congress in Jammu versus the Congress in New Delhi on?how to deal with the crisis in Jammu?
Fault line #2 – The BJP versus the rest on how to deal with the Amarnath issue
Fault line #3 – The vocal majority of Jammu versus the vocal minority in Kashmir
Of these 3 fault lines, the first two will likely have predictable outcomes. The last however is bound to radically change the popular Indian attitude towards the conflict in Kashmir. It is this aspect that Offstumped had in its sights when it said “recognize the moment”.
For the first time since the conflict in Kashmir errupted decades ago, the psychological advantage has shifted.
The Valley has for the first time realized how vulnerable and isolated it is.
An indifferent and inward focused Pakistan on the defensive in the global arena is not even in the picture as the debate rages on the future of Jammu and Kashmir. It is becoming increasingly clear that the politically motivated conflict in the name of independent Kashmir has now succesfully isolated Kashmir from those who it depends on for its economic lifelines.
There maybe some poetic justice in this turn of events in Jammu after all.
Having sacrificed the needs and aspirations of a mostly Hindu Jammu at the altar of political correctness in favor of a mostly Muslim Kashmir the players in Kashmir are now learning, albeit expensively,?that religious majoritarianism is not a one way street.
Offstumped Bottomline: The separatist rhetoric?in the Valley notwithstanding, the Valley has realized the significance of the symbiotic relationship with neighboring Jammu and perhaps for the first time the cost of decades old alienation. It is this moment of truth that one must recognize to succesfully straddle the fault lines exposed by Amarnath. Those in denial of this moment of truth might as well be prepared to fall through the cracks.
Filed under: amarnath controversy
LET THE KASHMIRI MUSLIM BE ALLOWED TO SELL THEIR PRODUCT TO POK.
I THINK TIME HAS CAME TO EXPOSE THESE KASHMIRI/PAKISTANI FRIENDSHIP.
LET SEE HOW LONG AND AT WHAT RATE KASHMIRI SELL THEIR PRODUCT TO THEM.
For the past five weeks Jammu has been witnessing a veritable uprising against the pro-Muslim, anti-Hindu politics and policies of the establishment in Srinagar and the Government in New Delhi. At the heart of the dispute is the contrived controversy over the allotment of 97 acres of land to Sri Amarnath Shrine Board for creating temporary facilities for Hindu pilgrims who trek to the hill cave shrine every summer. The Muslims of Kashmir Valley — let us not be coy and refer to them as ‘Kashmiris’ so as to suppress the fact that they are Muslims — took to the streets, chanting blood-curdling slogans and waving the Pakistani flag, to scuttle the allotment of land. The National Conference of the Abdullah clan and the People’s Democratic Party of the Mufti clan joined the fanatics in insisting that Muslim Kashmir would not tolerate such Hindu intrusion.
Instead of standing up to the rank communalists who have Hindu blood on their hands, the Congress and its stooge, who now occupies the Governor’s office, meekly surrendered to them, thus delivering a crippling blow against the Indian state, though not for the first time. And how did the media react to this abject surrender? The cancellation of the allotment of land was hailed as a judicious decision, an assertion of secular values, to protect ‘Kashmiriyat’; it was praised as being mindful of ‘Kashmiri sentiments’ and ‘Kashmiri psyche’. Stripped of its sophistry, what all this means is that the Congress has done well to pander to Islamic fanaticism and mollycoddle those who heap abuse on India and curse Hindus. Such is the standard used by the media for judging secularism in this wondrous land of ours.
And how has the media responded to the snow-balling protest against Muslim appeasement, which has engulfed all of Jammu region and brought men, women and children out into the streets to brave bullets and batons? There has been universal condemnation; the agitation has been dubbed as ‘communal’, ‘distressing’, ‘disruptive’, ‘anti-Muslim’ and ‘needlessly provocative’. Kashmir’s Muslims have been described as ‘tolerant’ and Jammu’s Hindus as ‘ingrates’. For 365 days a year Kashmir’s Muslims hold the Indian state to ransom and not an eyebrow is lifted. For 35 days Jammu’s Hindus petition the Indian state to protect their rights and they are ridiculed. Much concern is expressed over the manufactured grievances and imagined victimhood of Kashmir’s Muslims by the lib-left intelligentsia that dominates media. But scorn is poured on the genuine grievances and victimisation of Jammu’s Hindus.
Ever since the first violent protest in downtown Srinagar against the allotment of land to Sri Amarnath Shrine Board, facts have been twisted and the truth has been obfuscated to portray Kashmir’s Muslim fanatics as saints who wouldn’t swat a fly and Jammu’s Hindus as a violent, unruly and communal lot which should be crushed into submission. There is nothing new about this perversity: We have seen in the past how the cleansing of Kashmir Valley of Hindus has been whitewashed; how massacre after massacre of entire Hindu families have been treated by media as ‘minor incidents’ not worthy of notice; how lakhs of Pandits thrown out of their ancestral land have been reduced to refugees in their own country; and, how bogus terms like ‘Kashmiriyat’ have been used as a convenient cover to hide the brutalities inflicted by Kashmir’s Muslims. All that and more is not ‘communal’ but in keeping with the ’secular’ principles of the Indian state; if Hindus raise their voice in protest, it is not only ‘communal’ but an assault on the ’secular’ Indian state!
For the benefit of those who have come of age in the last two decades, among them many of the 24×7 news channel anchors who talk utter gibberish while donning an air of supreme confidence to camouflage their limitless ignorance, let me recount the events of January 1990, which mark the beginning of the latest crusade against the Hindus of Jammu & Kashmir. Since ’secularists’ are allergic to events of the distant past, we need not go into the details of how Hindus were decapitated by the Sword of Islam wielded by the original Islamists. The present will suffice to highlight the duplicity of those whose hearts beat for the hate-India hordes in Kashmir.
Srinagar, January 4, 1990. Aftab, a local Urdu newspaper, publishes a Press release issued by Hizb-ul Mujahideen, set up by the Jamaat-e-Islami in 1989 to wage jihad for Jammu & Kashmir’s secession from India and accession to Pakistan, asking all Hindus to pack up and leave. Another local paper, Al Safa, repeats this expulsion order. In the following days, there is near chaos in the Kashmir Valley with then Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah and his National Conference Government abdicating all responsibilities. Masked men run amok, waving Kalashnikovs, shooting to kill and shouting anti-India slogans. Reports of killing of Hindus, invariably Kashmiri Pandits, begin to trickle in; there are explosions; inflammatory speeches are made from the pulpits of mosques, using public address systems meant for calling the faithful to prayers. A terrifying fear psychosis begins to take grip of Kashmiri Pandits.
Srinagar, January 19, 1990. Mr Jagmohan arrives to take charge as Governor. Mr Farooq Abdullah, whose pathetic, whimpering, snivelling Government has all but ceased to exist, resigns and goes into a sulk. Curfew is imposed as a first measure to restore some semblance of law and order. But it fails to have a deterrent effect. Throughout the day, Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front and Hizb-ul Mujahideen terrorists use public address systems at mosques to exhort people to defy curfew and take to the streets. Masked men, firing from their Kalashnikovs, march up and down, terrorising Pandits. As evening falls, the exhortations become louder and shriller. Three taped slogans are repeatedly played the whole night from mosques: “Kashmir mei agar rehna hai, Allah-hu-Akbar kehna hai” (If you want to stay in Kashmir, you have to say Allah-hu-Akbar); “Yahan kya chalega, Nizam-e-Mustafa” (What do we want here? Rule of shari’ah); “Asi gachchi Pakistan, batao roas te batanev san” (We want Pakistan along with Hindu women but without their men). As the night of January 19, 1990, wears itself out, despondency gives way to desperation. And tens of thousands of Kashmiri Pandits across the Valley take a painful decision: To flee their homeland to save their lives. Thus takes place a 20th century Exodus.
Their wounds, as also the wounds of Hindu India, have been festering for 18 years. The simmering anger of Hindus has now burst into a raging bush fire that threatens to burn to ashes media’s perverse notions of ’secularism’ and destroy the politics of Muslim appeasement. Consternation and panic in Delhi and Srinagar are understandable.
http://dailypioneer.com/columnist1.asp?main_variable=Columnist&file_name=kanchan%2Fkanchan192%2Etxt&writer=kanchan
worst of appreasing separatists and appeasing anti- nationals, couldn’t have ever imagined..
I saw the news flash on NDTV saying “fruit growers in the valley to be compensated”
Dear Tathagata,
I am although from family having congres backgound, but I have seen arm twisting of CPIM’s cadre in my village and then at university.
In my village, Agricultural labour will start their strike during monsoon (rice harvesting timeaand continue for one months Farmers are not allowed to bring labour from outside, Local official will not act and opposition party is not in position to oppose the CPIM and help farmers. Later farmer will forced to admit theirwrong demand. In this way my village was converted to a CPIM’s base since it was well known fact that if you vote for CPIM then you will not have ant trouble in west bengal. Later I have seen the brutal tatics of SFI to suppress any oppostion voice in university and its hostel.
Especially after seeing my village surrender to CPIM and initial strong response against CPIM from state BJP, I become slowly a BJP supporter. But state BJP is not a good enough to give helping hand to suffering people in rural bengal.
Oh my God!!! I see real anger amongst Hindu brethren. This is something I have never witnessed and I am proud that we have, although few in number, woken up atlast.
[...] « Recognizing the moment [...]
Shanth…
Yes, we all are proud, that we have found a platform in INI to exchange views and vent our anger.
The most important thing is that assurance, that there are many like us who think alike, this I must confess is very reassuring.
Lets hope for the best in the coming days.
[...] Bottomline: As the nation prepares for the long haul in its quest for a solution to the people’s movement in Jammu, it must call the [...]
Edmund Burke said “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing”. This was in the context of Nazism.
But this is also true of those Kashmiri Muslims who watched silently while their Hindu brethren were either killed or tortured mercilessly or were hounded out of the Valley.
Read these sites/book, esp by those from communist Bengal and want to survive as followers of Sanatan dharma.
Hindu Genocide in East Pakistan
By Shrinandan Vyas
This article deals with slaughter of about 2.5 million Hindus in East Pakistan in 1971.
My People, Uprooted “A Saga of the Hindus of Eastern Bengal” by Tathagata Roy
Dedication :
Shyama Prasad Mookerjee in the year of centenary of his birth
Copyright :
© Tathagata Roy : First Published in 2002, ISBN : 81-85709-67-X
Publisher :
Arun Goswami, Ratna Prakashan, 2/73, Vivek nagar, Kolkata – 700075, India: Ph : 417-3731
Read these sites/book, esp by those from communist Bengal and want to survive as followers of Sanatan dharma.
Hindu Genocide in East Pakistan
By Shrinandan Vyas
This article deals with slaughter of about 2.5 million Hindus in East Pakistan in 1971.
My People, Uprooted “A Saga of the Hindus of Eastern Bengal” by Tathagata Roy
Dedication :
Shyama Prasad Mookerjee in the year of centenary of his birth
Copyright :
© Tathagata Roy : First Published in 2002, ISBN : 81-85709-67-X
Publisher :
Arun Goswami, Ratna Prakashan, 2/73, Vivek nagar, Kolkata – 700075, India: Ph : 417-3731
Read the sites/book, esp by those from communist Bengal and want to survive as followers of Sanatan dharma.
1. Hindu Genocide in East Pakistan.
By Shrinandan Vyas
This article deals with slaughter of about 2.5 million Hindus in East Pakistan in 1971.
http://www.hindunet.org/hindu_history/modern/hindu_bangla.html
2. My People, Uprooted: A Saga of the Hindus of Eastern Bengal.
by Tathagata Roy
Book is not available online anymore.
http://www.bengalvoice.org/uproot_menu.htm
Read contents here.
http://truthofbengal.blogspot.com/2007/01/my-people-uprooted-saga-of-hindus-of.html
Book Dedication: Shyama Prasad Mookerjee in the year of centenary of his birth
Copyright: Tathagata Roy : First Published in 2002, ISBN : 81-85709-67-X
Publisher: Arun Goswami, Ratna Prakashan, 2/73, Vivek nagar, Kolkata – 700075, India: Ph : 417-3731
PS. Above two messages got published wrongly.
FYI.
Jammu’s Woes
Editorial, The Sentinel, Guwahati, 12 Aug 2008
Jammu’s problem is that it is part of a problem. Let us put it this way: since Jammu is part of the State of Jammu and Kashmir which Pakistan thinks its own and where it has launched a proxy war for as long as one remembers, since Jammu constitutes a ‘breach’ in the narrative called Kashmiriyat that the Kashmir separatists and hardliners think they only have the right to project in their own ways, and since the Jammu Hindus naturally appreciate the fact that Kashmir is an integral part of India and whose problems are chiefly Pakistan-made, Jammu remains an outcast. This may sound harsh and antithetical to the professed spirit of Kashmiriyat. However, the reality is that the Hindus of Jammu who were displaced from their homes due to jehad in the State are yet to return or be rehabilitated. No ‘secular’ heart goes out to the suffering Jammu Hindus, who have suffered only because of the fact of their religion. This is the truth — in secular India. And it is here that we should bring up the claimed glory called Kashmiriyat that is said to be an epitome of secularism and pluralism — or a unique social matrix. For, we have not heard of the votaries of Kashmiriyat ask for an early rehabilitation of the displaced Jammu Hindus. We have not heard of them — even the so-called moderates in the Kashmir valley — tell the displaced Hindus to return to their homeland without fear, instilling confidence in their minds that Kashmiriyat will protect them. We have not heard of the Kashmiriyat advocates argue that the very idea of Kashmiriyat is incomplete without the displaced Hindus and without their participation in the making of a more meaningful Kashmir dialogue. So how does Kashmiriyat stand its own test?
One should see the Amarnath land row in that context. There is now a communal colour to the unsavoury episode. But there is nothing communal except for the fact that anything done in India for the cause of Hindus comes to be interpreted as ‘communal’ because it would be against the ‘spirit of secularism’. As BJP leader LK Advani asked, ‘‘How can Kashmir’s identity be threatened by the erection of temporary structures on just 100 acres of land for provision of basic amenities, and that too for only two months in a year? And what is Kashmir’s identity? Isn’t Kashmir an integral part of India?’’ These are valid questions. A Kashmir that showcases Kashmiriyat as a way of life and composite cultural mosaic would have really no problem in allowing just 100 acres of forest, uncultivable and uninhabited land for just two months every year to be used for the erection of temporary structures to accommodate the Amarnath yatris. Is the edifice of Kashmiriyat so weak as to fall apart due to temporary allotment of just 100 acres of unused land for the accommodation of Hindu pilgrims? Would the pilgrims settle there permanently and bring in more of their brethren from the rest of India to change the demography of the State and fight jehad, which is what the fear of Kashmiri Muslim leaders seems to be? And how on earth would the proposed allotment of land for a holy Hindu purpose affect the characteristic Kashmiri discourse, which is what the Kashmiri Muslim leaders are apprehensive of? Is not Amarnath itself a part of that discourse? No wonder that the first round of peace talks to restore normalcy in the valley in the aftermath of the Amarnath land row should fail, because such ‘secularly’ moralistic but practically immoral peace overtures and processes cannot address Jammu’s woes — unheeded despite being so loud and clear. And yes, it is only in India that such things happen; that the religious majority in its own homeland has to endure the suffering inflicted upon the community by self-styled secularists. Nothing of this sort can ever happen in any truly secular democratic state, which India is not. Hence Jammu’s woes.
http://www.sentinelassam.com/