Thucydides was the greatest ancient Greek historian who wrote the History of the Peloponnesian War about the struggle between Sparta and Athens in the 5th century BC. The history that he wrote also analyses the moral aspect as well. It also deals with a nation’s policy in this respect. This onerous burden has shifted to the subcontinent of Asia primarily India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and countries adjacent to them. In this call for duty, it is the obligation with the heavy moral expectation that falls upon the shoulder of Pakistan’s PM Imran Khan that he does the needful. An overarching framework of India’s national security has to take cognizance of military and non-military dimensions in terms of both external threats and internal challenges to its territorial integrity and national unity.
It was of course India that should have qualified to that position but it lost the opportunity when it mobilized its army for war on Pakistan in retaliation of the Parliament attack. That could not pull the wool over the eyes of Indians let alone the world, no sooner did this matter peter out than aping the US in its war on terror and the hubris of President George W Bush India joined the bandwagon on its myopic war on terror.
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The notion of PM Khan’s leadership
PM Imran Khan came from another world of sports where he fielded his team against all the countries of cricket playing nations. Not only that but he by the sweat of his brows collected enough awards of money to build a cancer hospital in the memory of his mother Begum Shaukat. The failure of India lies in having conducted genocide of Muslims and what happened is still fresh in the minds of the fair-minded people of the world.
PM Imran Khan’s crying for efficacy to meet the needs on his country’s soil is also demonstrable by examples. While this was the scenario, in the neighborhood India was belaboring with the tangential issue of covering up of genocide of Muslims in Gujarat and it was on account of the CM Narendra Modi who was spending his time in getting clean chits from commissions of inquiry was going into records of annals of history.
India’s human rights abuses aren’t going unnoticed by the world
The US was of course fully aware of it and that is why CM Modi’s entry into the US was forbidden. It was not for nothing that The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom existed. It was headed by a woman whose father had suffered atrocities inflicted by Hitler. The report of June 2002 says:
“The Commission has grown increasingly concerned about abuses of religious freedom in India, including the communal violence and killings that took place in Gujarat in 2002. After the killing of 58 Hindus by Muslims on a train in the town of Godhra on February 27, 2002, retaliatory violence in Gujarat by Hindus against Muslims resulted in the deaths of at least 1,000 Muslims, many of whom were burned alive.”
In another context, the Council of American Muslims also submitted that Dr. Subramaniam Swami should not be allowed to teach at Harvard because his views against Muslims that they are timed to become terrorists was horrible. Subsequently, the subject he taught was dropped and he missed his terms. The Council took my permission to quote my writing.
Such occasions arose and will arise in the future because the phenomenon of war is ancient and folly on one side may be a lack of understanding on the other. “The Great Diplomats of the day like Nicias, warned against military involvement in Sicily, calling it “a war that does not concern us”. This is what centuries later President Biden also hammers out that the war in Afghanistan does not “concern us.”
If President Biden is indifferent PM Modi is more eager for a role on the world stage by the developing scenario. His eager interest in Quad is also coming home to roost. He is itching to play a greater role which he is not cut out for. The RSS has put the wrong notion that India is a Vishwa guru or mentor for the world, the same supremacist group on whose teachings he is nourished all his life. India was all right but not the world. His move to Quad has backfired what with Greece signing a deal with France to buy three warships. This will strengthen the self-confidence of the Europeans. Modi has a foggy notion about all these as he is anchored in what is evolving in his own country.
The situation in India during the pandemic peaked into the second wave when mammoth crowds were allowed to take baths in the holy Ganges under the aegis of PM Narendra Modi. Hardly the dust would have settled when another catastrophe is around the corner: the election in UP has waited with bated breath. If this was not enough India is in a quagmire of terror cases coming home to roost. For fifteen years Sachin Vase was under dismissal from their job. Then he was reinstated after he coughed up 2 crore rupees to the Home Minister of Maharashtra and got reinstated.
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A car loaded with explosives was found just outside the Antilia residence of Mukesh Ambani. That spilled the beans that there was some kind of conspiracy unfolding then. Then the car owner was found dead presumably committing suicide. This kind of familiar game of terror is turning the situation in India from turmoil to tornado. Yogi winning election is in the doldrums.
Mustafa Khan holds a Ph.D. on Mark Twain. He lives in Malegaon Maharashtra, India. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Global Village Space.