Pakistan: Back to India?

Submitted by timothy on Fri, 02/22/2008 - 6:12pm. Tags:

Foreign Affairs

It seems to me that the moves are being stacked for India to re-absorb Pakistan and Bangladesh. Is it just me? Couldn't really tell you why I think that; more of a general feeling than anything else.

Pros:

The nukes are not the problem they are posed to be and can be taken.

The infighting never stops anyway and is being provoked to excess beyond any real tensions that naturally exist between groups.

Pakistan's history with the Taliban, the ISI, etc is making it less and less a valuable ally and liar on a scale with Saudi Arabia from a western perspective, minus the advantages ( whatever they may be imagined to be ) of the House of Saud.

..Whilst the on-going love fest with India and growing impatience over Al Qaeda ( which seems manufactured in that there has been a "can't get there from here" mentality on the part of many concerning actually going where we "know" they are.. ) in the NWT.

Cons: I am of course missing something of the broader picture that possibly makes that "impossible".

What is it?

As far as I can see it, the Chinese or Russians would not care all that much, or even if they did would not go to war over it. India seems to get more things done for everybody --east and west. And taking back a region with better infrastructure than when it first left couldn't hurt, eh?

Just wondering out loud.

Proverbs 1:17 For in vain the net is spread in the sight of anything which hath wings.

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen

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Possible. But not probable. (#81172)

by mmghosh on Sat, 02/23/2008 - 3:10am

It would need to start with a EC or ASEAN type common market, and then possibly a common currency. I think these issues are always difficult. From a distance the nations seem similar, true, but are historically and ethnically very different. We think similarly about the USA and Canada, too - why can't the USA and Canada be one nation? I can see forvm readers laughing out loud when they read that.

Its difficult until the current generation of leaders passes away - those who were traumatised by Partition. Somewhat like Bernard and the situation in Cuba that we were discussing some diaries ago.

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wasn't it a case of moving to your religious affiliation? (#81221)

by timothy on Sat, 02/23/2008 - 11:30am

when they were first parted: most Muslims moved to Pakistan, most Hindus moved to India? Was that the traumatizing? Leaving ancestral lands?

That means at least an apparent parallel with North and South Korea... East and West Germany.. even China to some extent under Mao..

distinct currencies, ideologies.. natural resources..

And I 'm not saying it would necessarily be voluntary, which I think you have assumed. It just seems to me the fix is in the way international relations are being handled/set-up on multiple platforms. Pakistan is "broke and can't fix it" ( or is stopped from fixing it while the camera stares unblinkingly ) while India goes right on.

After its over, re-write the history books, next generation knows nothing,..standard vanity fair.. Just because it is vanity doesn't mean it can't happen.

The death of nations is just like the death of single people: nobody gets to finish and everybody dies in the middle of something. Granted, you can always think of issues that ideally should have been handled beforehand after the fact. But then its "possession is nine tenths of the law".

Psalm 144:4 Man is like to vanity; his days are as a shadow that passeth away.

Job 34:29 When he giveth quietness, who then will disturb? and when he hideth his face, who shall behold him? and this towards a nation, or towards a man alike;

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen

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I think you have put your finger on why some Americans cannot (#81243)

by mmghosh on Sat, 02/23/2008 - 1:58pm

understand or empathise with the attitudes of an expropriated people.

The American premise is built on emigration - people wanting to leave to another land because of persecution, economic opportunity, whatever. In other words, having to move is always a move to something better. Whereas expropriations - in the subcontinent, of the Chechens, of the Palestinians is something that leaves scars - in those people who didn't ask to be expropriated.

I don't necessarily agree with my parent's generation; I, like many others of my generation lead a somewhat globalised existence. But the scars are there, we are talking about people who have a deep attachment to a land for centuries. And this attachment cannot just be wished away, not in India, palestine or anywhere else. Unless this is understood, conflict resolution will not happen.

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Yes. It cannot be assuaged. But you have to see (#81249)

by timothy on Sat, 02/23/2008 - 2:16pm

that we rarely get resolution. Everything is constantly being stopped in the middle. Political campaigns, ancient rivers, whole peoples ..stopped before their notions of resolution.

Matthew 24:37-39 But as the days of Noe, so also shall be the coming of the Son of man. For as they were in the days which were before the flood, eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day on which Noe entered into the ark, and they knew not till the flood came and took all away; thus also shall be the coming of the Son of man.

America at least in times past, understood that and that merely to understand it is not evil or proof of evil intent.

America was built by people who were driven out as well. Not just by people who wanted to leave. A lifeboat in the overall pilgrimage. Everybody is just hanging on waiting to be cut off, even as they go through whole decades of forgetting that and seeking out the old homestead. It's not cold, just real.

1 Timothy 6:6-9 But piety with contentment *is* great gain. For we have brought nothing into the world: it is manifest that neither can we carry anything out. But having sustenance and covering, we will be content with these. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and many unwise and hurtful lusts, which plunge men into destruction and ruin.

We can understand each other and have compassion for each other on that basis.

Psalm 146:3-5 Put not confidence in nobles, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his purposes perish. Blessed is he who hath the *God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in Jehovah his God,

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen

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the case for Bangladesh (#81198)

by Micky Love on Sat, 02/23/2008 - 7:52am

Isn't what you're saying about the trauma of the past much more true of Pakistan? Bangladesh would appear to be an easier case to make. Looking at the situation from afar in the sub-continent of Canada, I've always thought that the Bengalis as a nation came off rather poorly with Independence. In India, Calcutta lost its pre-eminence to Delhi, and Bangladeshers were forced by West Pakistan to learn Urdu, and much worse besides.

My impression is that Bengalis on both sides of the partition might look to re-union as a way of recapturing past glories. You aware of any such sentiment?

Nothing resembles virtue more than a great crime. Saint-Just

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Bangladesh is floating on a sea of natural gas (#81212)

by mmghosh on Sat, 02/23/2008 - 9:40am

and is set to become very wealthy once someone works out how to exploit and sell it in volume. There is a very strong Islamic lobby that won't have anything to do with this going into "Hindu" hands.

Money, big money, is the main issue now. There is a construction boom in Bangladesh. The largest shopping mall in South Asia is in Bangladesh, for example. Sure, there is major poverty in the majority of the population but in terms of the political movements of the country it is a relative non-issue.

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