"Till 1977,...The Balochi fighters were trained in the deserts of Rajasthan. We also provided them with financial and diplomatic assistance."- Mohan Guruswamy, in an Op.-Ed. published in The Tribune on August 2, 2009
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I read with an amazing interest the extract of an article by Mr. Mohan Guruswamy. After having seen this brief, I linked to the Tribune and read the complete story composed by M.G. It was a highly interesting, yet an eye opening read. Although Mr. M.G. laments the policy having been abandoned by the successive Janta party government, yet he thinks it should not have been.
I personally do not wish such type of articles to come up on blog sites which endeavor to inculcate an environment of friendship and goodwill between the two countries (as it appears to me like two kids quarrelling together while playing the chestnut game; in which the one who can throw more chestnuts in the pit wins the game). However, more so it happens when one of the kids gets moody and starts pissing into pit, thus spoiling the game altogether. Well that’s the way the kids are born to be, care free, moody and without any lust. But things get really sauer when states or their writers, strategists and policy makers start thinking and behaving like kids, yet not with the innocence the kids have while playing their games.
The theory or planning M.G. has or may be having in his mind, may be good one theoretically but practically states need to behave more maturely. (And this includes Pakistan as well).
While M.G. mentions the policy of Indira Gandhi as very “realpolitical” he should not forget there are so many people in Pakistan of the like of M.G. thinking something similar about India.
Although I personally have a strong interest in politics, yet I do not think politics of aggrandizement between India and Pakistan is going to do any good to either of these two states. And as far as his mentioning about Balochistan, well we do have an anti Punjab feeling there, however this anti Punjab factor is more of an exercise of obtaining their due rights out of the central exchequer and I being a Punjabi do think our Balochi brethren are 100 percent right. But this does not mean that Balochistan is going to secede or wishes to secede from Pakistan. M.G. should know that the four provinces of Pakistan are not only geographically coherent but also culturally and economically as well. The Indus civilization which prospered in Harrapa and Moenjo Daro actually originated in Balochistan. So through centuries Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and Pakhtun Kawah have been interconnected, historically, geographically as well as economically.
I have many a times been to Balochistan. I even once traveled in my small Suzuki FX (Mehran) from Lahore to Quetta crossing all the way from Multan, to Dera Ghazi Khan, Lora Lai, Ziarat and Quetta.
The people there are very friendly and hospitable but they are ‘anti-centric’ as much as any body in Pakistan who belongs to the common citizenry could be. The politicians (civil as well as military guys have plundered this country and in this regard the common citizens of Pakistan whether from Punjab, NWFP, Sindh or Balochistan have equally suffered at
Nayyar Hashmey | Homepage | 09.10.09 – 7:34 pm | #
I do not endorse or intend to endorse the views expressed by Mohan Guruswamy in his article.
I have published the extract here since there have been denials all around, in India, about the role played by Indian intelligence agencies in Balochistan and this is the first acknowledgement of such a role that I have come across in the Indian news-media.
It often so happens that people in either India or Pakistan accuse the intelligence agency of the other country of fomenting violence in their own country, but are either not aware of or are unwilling to acknowledge the similar role that their own country’s intelligence agency is or has been playing in the other country.
Unless people on both sides acknowlegde all that has been happening and recognise it as a mistake, whether in India or in Pakistan, there can hardly be a lasting solution, in my opinion, to the problems between the two countries.
It is not that only Pakistan has been ‘exporting terror’ to India or only India has been ‘exporting terror’ to Pakistan. The truth is that India and Pakistan have both been ‘exporting terror’ to each other’s countries.
I believe that acceptance of the facts and the recognition of these occurrences as mistakes by both sides can prove to be stepping-stones towards the achievement of lasting peace between India and Pakistan.
Sidhusaaheb | Homepage | 09.10.09 – 8:05 pm | #
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