one of the things of loving like crazy is to come up with names for the one being loved. you know, like honey, pumpkin, cupcake, pigeon, baby etc., which are of course of the generic sort. some go ahead and create totally winsome, lovable names, unique and special, like the ones you may not mostly use in public, that are uttered between pairs and are exchanged most often in the cozy warmth of intimacy. but the recent name calling between india and pakistan beats all categorisation. i do realise that here im talking about the two neighbours being in love, which they aren't because really there is no love lost between the two. but then if one looks at the shared history, and the ways they still always interact culturally even without intending to do so and fight fight fight through all of it, you would say that the two are more estranged than blood thirstily hostile. like a young couple who cannot live with each other but whom the elders wont let part. no doubt there are sections within both countries that would want to see the other wiped off the face of the earth, they are in size and function like the spleen in the human body and of course every lover who ever for even once got boiling angry with his/her beloved and frothed bloody murder but didnt kill also has experienced spleen. it is a small organ and theres only so much to be said about that.
so, mr k abbasi, the pakistani pm, knowing what he's read in the books since childhood and what his generals have told him, tells un that india is a human rights violator and terror sponsor and a brutal suppressor, the reference obviously being to kashmir. to which -- and this part needs to be quoted in full from the hindu, to accommodate here through simple ctrl(x,v) what is a drag to type out but worth quoting many times over though with the disclaimer again that the civil servant messenger is here drawing from a primary source-well of childhood literature and texts supplemented by govt of india briefings on the official line -- "Eenam Gambhir, First Secretary in the Permanent Mission of India, said: 'In its short history, Pakistan has become a geography synonymous with terror. The quest for a land of pure has actually produced "the land of pure terror". Pakistan is now "Terroristan", with a flourishing industry producing and exporting global terrorism". Ouch. really, "terroristan"? even by the standards of our hitherto exceedingly fraught and fucked up ties that's a bit harsh. but the cat kind of got pakistan's tongue after that i think cause i dont see a riposte to that although it was pakistan really that had put the ball in india's court and it was india's to respond. but of course pakistan could have replied, like quarrelsome neighbours do. but in a quarrelsome neighbourhood accusations invite jibes and jibes are followed by reproaches and so foreign minister sushma swaraj took the same un stage and asked pakistan why it bred terror outfits while india built iits and iims. good question.
pakistan is a test case, like india, of previously colonised states becoming self sufficient and self-determined. that is a painstakingly difficult process (as history has shown) that is also painful, literally, in the macro and micro sense, in varying degrees for each participant, as a community and the citizenry, for the country and its people. the thing with pakistan and india is that they see each other as the direct cause of a lot of hurt each has suffered and continues to suffer. they were talking, and talked they did, a lot, till both saw it was going nowhere and now india looks like it is giving up. it has far too much on its mind to carry on its beef with pakistan. easier just to get everybody to agree pakistan's a failed state and then india can go about its business and pakistan can be the playground bully who never graduates from school and is later dismissed as a reprobate. now maybe for this, that is the recent tightening of the screws on pakistan, or despite it, there are things happening to pakistan like what has never happened before. for starters, it had a pm being disqualified and the army didnt take over, which is the reason why in the first place k abbasi even got to make that speech in the unga. then, and this has been decried as sheer terror brazenness, hafiz saeed floated a party to contest the bypolls to a pakistan national assembly seat in lahore which was vacated by none other than deposed pm nawaz sharif. now hafiz saeed is well know as someone who has vastly different and other things on his mind than the democratic process and topmost of those things is likely the de facto decimation of india. so yes if he's contesting an election and his worldview even works as a popular electoral agenda it, to all appearances, is a worrisome thing (his party came in third although the pakistan election commission doesnt yet recognise it; sharif's spouse kulsoom won the seat). but then what if we looked at it this way. hafiz saeed, terror mastermind, international terrorist at large, is now having to actually devote some of his brain space to drawing up an election strategy. not a bad start for an established terror monger.
india is maybe giving up on pakistan at a time when the needle is slowly moving in that sorry state on many things which it would want to see changed. but if its patience is running out, well theres only so much patience anybody ever has and it is bound to run out. when estranged lovers move on they also generally move out. india looks like it is ready to move on, but the way things are, neither may be able to quite move out. they could compromise to a state of some working harmony in the not too distant future but even so it is clear that subversives is how india and pakistan are for the main part going to be for each other. a case of bad love, and deep mistrust, but the two parties always know why it didnt work out and how it could. now one could ask whether the sino-indian thing was much the same and i would have to say no, not at all. but, really, why the hell not? that one needs to be pondered. the chinese are so bloody inscrutable, but inscrutability is not a virtue of the genius, only a shield of the unassuming.
so, mr k abbasi, the pakistani pm, knowing what he's read in the books since childhood and what his generals have told him, tells un that india is a human rights violator and terror sponsor and a brutal suppressor, the reference obviously being to kashmir. to which -- and this part needs to be quoted in full from the hindu, to accommodate here through simple ctrl(x,v) what is a drag to type out but worth quoting many times over though with the disclaimer again that the civil servant messenger is here drawing from a primary source-well of childhood literature and texts supplemented by govt of india briefings on the official line -- "Eenam Gambhir, First Secretary in the Permanent Mission of India, said: 'In its short history, Pakistan has become a geography synonymous with terror. The quest for a land of pure has actually produced "the land of pure terror". Pakistan is now "Terroristan", with a flourishing industry producing and exporting global terrorism". Ouch. really, "terroristan"? even by the standards of our hitherto exceedingly fraught and fucked up ties that's a bit harsh. but the cat kind of got pakistan's tongue after that i think cause i dont see a riposte to that although it was pakistan really that had put the ball in india's court and it was india's to respond. but of course pakistan could have replied, like quarrelsome neighbours do. but in a quarrelsome neighbourhood accusations invite jibes and jibes are followed by reproaches and so foreign minister sushma swaraj took the same un stage and asked pakistan why it bred terror outfits while india built iits and iims. good question.
pakistan is a test case, like india, of previously colonised states becoming self sufficient and self-determined. that is a painstakingly difficult process (as history has shown) that is also painful, literally, in the macro and micro sense, in varying degrees for each participant, as a community and the citizenry, for the country and its people. the thing with pakistan and india is that they see each other as the direct cause of a lot of hurt each has suffered and continues to suffer. they were talking, and talked they did, a lot, till both saw it was going nowhere and now india looks like it is giving up. it has far too much on its mind to carry on its beef with pakistan. easier just to get everybody to agree pakistan's a failed state and then india can go about its business and pakistan can be the playground bully who never graduates from school and is later dismissed as a reprobate. now maybe for this, that is the recent tightening of the screws on pakistan, or despite it, there are things happening to pakistan like what has never happened before. for starters, it had a pm being disqualified and the army didnt take over, which is the reason why in the first place k abbasi even got to make that speech in the unga. then, and this has been decried as sheer terror brazenness, hafiz saeed floated a party to contest the bypolls to a pakistan national assembly seat in lahore which was vacated by none other than deposed pm nawaz sharif. now hafiz saeed is well know as someone who has vastly different and other things on his mind than the democratic process and topmost of those things is likely the de facto decimation of india. so yes if he's contesting an election and his worldview even works as a popular electoral agenda it, to all appearances, is a worrisome thing (his party came in third although the pakistan election commission doesnt yet recognise it; sharif's spouse kulsoom won the seat). but then what if we looked at it this way. hafiz saeed, terror mastermind, international terrorist at large, is now having to actually devote some of his brain space to drawing up an election strategy. not a bad start for an established terror monger.
india is maybe giving up on pakistan at a time when the needle is slowly moving in that sorry state on many things which it would want to see changed. but if its patience is running out, well theres only so much patience anybody ever has and it is bound to run out. when estranged lovers move on they also generally move out. india looks like it is ready to move on, but the way things are, neither may be able to quite move out. they could compromise to a state of some working harmony in the not too distant future but even so it is clear that subversives is how india and pakistan are for the main part going to be for each other. a case of bad love, and deep mistrust, but the two parties always know why it didnt work out and how it could. now one could ask whether the sino-indian thing was much the same and i would have to say no, not at all. but, really, why the hell not? that one needs to be pondered. the chinese are so bloody inscrutable, but inscrutability is not a virtue of the genius, only a shield of the unassuming.
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