14 August 2019
Many are the people who are persuaded as if the world was stuck in Time, when they harp on how ‘Nehru promised plebiscite to Kashmir’ as if it were written in stone. Firstly the idiocy of taking the name of Sardar Patel without the name of Nehru is a project equivalent of trying to say there was a ‘Good Taliban from the Bad Taliban’ from the RSS point of view. It is not just rebuffed from the memoirs and historical records of those times, but also clear from the dynamic of their interpersonal relationships that crucial meetings were held in the Sardar’s residence in Delhi, though Nehru was notionally the senior in rank as PM. Any way the duo promised plebiscite in two places, Junagadh and in Kashmir. In that time and place, they would have offered it to both. Now the ‘liberal and soft Nehru’ changed colours because he remained in political office for close to a decade and half, after the demise of the ‘earthy and hardline Sardar’, and it is seen not just in Goa annexation, but also in the arrest and deportation of Sheikh Abdullah from Kashmir in 1954, in the change in Nehru’s view to the Sheikh’s increasing ambivalence on the status of J&K after the death of Sardar Patel in December 1950.
India has been blessed with similar capable political partnerships between consenting adults as seen in the Advani-Vajpayee duo and now in Amit-Narendra duo, with Shastri-Kamaraj and MuKa-MGR being short lived, the former due to the demise of Shastri and the later due to the birth of rivalry. It has always been like a ‘Good Cop-Bad Cop’ routine, for it seems that to cope with politics you need to be ‘Janus’ ( Two Faced)! So for those who now cringe about how ignorant folk talk despicably about Nehru-Sardar, eulogising the Sardar while dumping Nehru unceremoniously, there are equal followers who do the same with the Advani-Vajpayee one!
The clearest example of political brotherhood while being rivals was the MuKa and MGR one, where the hospitalisation and treatment abroad was not protest one whit by the rival, as MGR continued to remain CM and also won an assembly seat from Andipatti!
At a larger level, is the USA-UK and USA-Russia and now USA-China partnership where the Russian and Chinese ones are sometimes seen as intense rivalries. What happened in Syria was an attempt to take share of the pie, where the first mover USA sought regime change, and the late mover Russia felt status quo was better because it wanted to avoid the ethnic strife and rise of terrorism as was seen in Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Today, Assad seems to be winning the war in Syria assisted heavily by Russia, but not before we had the ISIL emerge as a threat to Western World with its mutants like Jihadi John and Jack, ISIS brides, which made the Americans stop backing Turkish sponsored groups that were jostling to take over Syria from Assad. A slight change in American plans was effected when they discovered the Ottoman like plans of Erdogan, the ‘coup’ he staged to cleanse his country of its secular moorings, with express request to extradite Fethullah Gulen from USA as he is seen as the font of an alternative Islamic narrative which is contrary to Erdogan’s Turkey project!(https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/us-officials-in-turkey-to-discuss-extradition-of-exiled-cleric-state-media-says/2019/01/03/00197348-4f34-48d8-ad53-abe5a0167a53_story.html?noredirect=on)
Singapore is now facing economic downturn, as US-China trade suffers from temporary snags over barriers raised by the Trump Administration. Being a clearing house for Sino-American trade deals and financial hub where much of these transactions are routed, Singapore is the unintended victim of the current posturing between China and USA, the very China which holds the dollars that the US is spending breaching previous deficit records! (https://edition.cnn.com/2019/08/13/economy/singapore-gdp-recession-trade-war/index.html) So is Hong Kong a form of regime change strategy pushed by the USA, much like the Orange revolution in erstwhile Soviet states in Eastern Europe? The web has traced that a foundation for Democracy is fuelling the protests by pump priming it with dollars, and the Foundation has apparently been quoted as saying that they are now doing what once was the CIA’s work. Of course, the locals claim that every thing is being crowd funded, but many Chinese scholars and China Watchers think there is a deeper hand behind this, either from USA or from within PLA that is inimical to President Xi. (https://qz.com/1666181/hong-kong-protesters-crowdfund-legal-and-medical-fees/) Already there is renewed Western interest in Uighur camps and China is working at feverish pace to address the concerns of Europeans who have now an official train link from China to receive container shipments as part of the Chinese logistics campaign to market her produce, which in our part of the globe resonates as OBOR.(https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/10/world/asia/china-xinjiang-rights.html)
So when we see how this ‘Ram-Lakhan’ Jodi business operates across political and international spectrum, like carrot-stick, like velvet glove & iron fist, we can go back to ‘Mukhauta’/mask/veneer which was once a big thing in Indian politics. It is as if, we the witnesses, hapless and simply spectating, need fodder for speculating with opposite choices, so that we can keep deliberating if the appearance of swallows make the Summer advent or not! It is as if a charade is on, for the benefit of dimwit consumers who can’t tell between chalk and cheese! Are these games being played for biographers and history writers, so that they can slant their pens in a particular way without guilt about their prejudice?
Is the truth that Kashmiris are not exactly doubling with joy, nor are they shocked to stupor with the removal of provisions that benefited them in Article 370, such that the rest of India cannot digest it? If a child is suddenly denied its favourite toy, we all know from parenting experience that seldom will there be quiet acquiescence! We also know that eventually the child will over come the changed circumstances when it substitutes ‘resentment’ with ‘contentment’ and move on. Justice is mockup sold by the powers that be, narratives are the feed that spice up the gruel which is actually the grind the hapless commons are in perpetuity! If Singapore was pinched and shocked in a game between two players from distant shores, Kashmir should not feel so socked wedged between tradition bound players next doors!
A verse swells up on this momentous eve of Mid August Freedom Anniversary!
“When cheated and defeated Cold Winters approach,
Then Springs tread lightly when we are full of Hope!
Amidst swelling revelry of Summers we feel the Heat,
After bloom, in gloom, withering leaves of Autumns we Retreat!
We think that there is great churn,
The Destination at next turn,
Kindling Passions with which we burn,
Fooled by fond beliefs in our sojourn!”
May Freedoms kindle Hope in all our Hearts!
May it bestow Independent Thoughts!
Happy 15th August!
indiarubberman.com 