An election year in America brings Kashmir naturally to the forefront in many ways, and there is considerable concern both among Indians and Indian Americans that a government of the Democratic Party may lean the wrong way as it has for decades - wrong not only for India, but also for the USA.
That Kashmir has been an integral part of India for eons and part of its Hindu ethos from the distant undetermined start of that religion is undeniable. The destruction of many sacred shrines or the driving away of Hindus cannot change history. Many a Hindu saint and scholar as also many Hindu religious Sanskrit works and Indian classical literature grew out of Kashmir, and it finds mention in the very ancient and revered texts of Hindus as not anything foreign but an integral part of the land of their authors. And that history goes back at least 5000 years. Its Islamic history came much later beginning about 710 CE with the violent invasions of the barbarians in the name of a religion for whom anyone who did not subscribe to it, and only it, was a 'kafir' to be killed unless forcibly converted.
From a more modern geo-political point of view, Pakistan is strategically important to the so-called free world, because its falling in the hands of the communists and authoritarian regimes endangers international trade and prosperity of many nations through easy access by undesirables to the Arabian sea. In fact, it is an even more important domino than the dominos for which thousands of Americans have given their lives. Indeed, today one of the supporters of Pakistan in the Kashmir issue is China which has cleverly acquired from Pakistan, in exchange for WMDs and delivery mechanisms, a path through Pakistan-occupied Indian land to the Arabian sea. Wait until its implications fully roll out for our nation USA that fought tooth and nail in Afghanistan and lost many just to stop the Russian communists gain similar access. If you think the Chinese menace has become too much, wait for this to roll out!
It would be too naive and criminal to assume that otherwise intelligent US politicians and their so-called expert foreign policy advisers would be unaware of the above facts. Then why are many of them blinded to support Pakistan in its quest to permanently acquire Kashmir and to turn a blind eye to recent history of many an act of aggression, deceit, instigation, and terrorism by Pakistan? Why do they make blanket statements that superficially sound rooted in high democratic and humanitarian principles, but are in fact opportunist, corrupt, hypocritical, and above all suicidal?
Ask yourself how US would react if Puerto Rico, an Indian Reservation, or even a distant small possession of the US were to want to break away under similar instigations of a foreign nation or even on its own? Would these US politicians let the same "principles" they propound in the context of Kashmir apply to these situations and let them become independent? And would they even look at it kindly if the instigating power is a known failed state, a harborer of terrorists against the US, and aiding a totalitarian communist state that has become the nemesis of the USA through the Kissinger-Nixon exercise of stupid expediency and subsequent nurture for the cause of crony capitalism by successive governments of both parties? [Read the book 'Massacre' by the award winning US correspondent Robert Payne to understand how these two even ignored, just to make the US-China partnership happen through the "good" offices of Pakistan, the massacre of about three million Bangladeshis and the rape of over a million Bangladeshi women by the Pakistani army.]
Ask yourself how US would react if Puerto Rico, an Indian Reservation, or even a distant small possession of the US were to want to break away under similar instigations of a foreign nation or even on its own? Would these US politicians let the same "principles" they propound in the context of Kashmir apply to these situations and let them become independent? And would they even look at it kindly if the instigating power is a known failed state, a harborer of terrorists against the US, and aiding a totalitarian communist state that has become the nemesis of the USA through the Kissinger-Nixon exercise of stupid expediency and subsequent nurture for the cause of crony capitalism by successive governments of both parties? [Read the book 'Massacre' by the award winning US correspondent Robert Payne to understand how these two even ignored, just to make the US-China partnership happen through the "good" offices of Pakistan, the massacre of about three million Bangladeshis and the rape of over a million Bangladeshi women by the Pakistani army.]
What is at play are two highly troubling facts. One is money from Saudi Arabia and some other Islamic nations, none of which has any semblance of democracy or human rights themselves. In the quest to amass campaign contributions and possibly other payoffs, the US politicians and their advisers have chosen to prostitute themselves and the high principles on which our own nation is founded to take sides with totally non-democratic and totalitarian players. They even forget that the distant history that we conveniently quote when it comes to Israel is not applied to India whose history with Kashmir pre-dates even the very birth of Judaism or Islam. The second is the expediency of trying to get some favors and short-term economic gains for the US (and possibly personal ones like huge donations to one's 'charity' foundation) and looking good while running the US government, even if it be at the expense of the long term welfare and good of the US itself. Both China and Pakistan are true nemeses of this latter sin as far as the US is concerned. And in this, these politicians behave exactly as tricks who go for the immediate fun from undesirables at the expense of many a disease to come later. And, of course, you have the lobbyists too who are the equivalent of pimps in this game.
What is at stake is the long term prosperity and security of the USA. Young Americans and Indian Americans need to educate themselves on the history of Kashmir, the brutal invasions and subjugation of its people by tyrants and rogues in the name of the Islamic religion, and the more recent driving away of hundreds of thousands of Kashmiri Pandits (Hindu Brahmins) from their land. It is unfortunate that at least a pair of American generations has been (mis)educated by those who themselves lacked that lesson in history and a proper perspective, due mostly to the texts and writings of dishonest propaganda of the British to perpetuate their empire and satiate their own racism and bias. Herein lies the third cause of why America acts in total antithesis to its own asserted values and practices when it comes to Kashmir. Wherever do we park our commitment to human rights or democracy if we continue USA's blind and misguided support to Pakistan and the essentially terrorist movements in Kashmir? The argument that a terrorist is someone else's freedom fighter is not an argument we would accept if any group in the US were to resort to even a fraction of the violence and terror acts perpetrated in Kashmir through the instigation of Pakistan and the covert support of China.
Enough is enough. For our own long term security and respect among democratic nations of the world and for the right evaluation by history, it is high time that we - the USA - as a nation shed our hypocrisy in the matter of Kashmir and re-examine everything. May be, it is high time to send some of the old advisers and 'experts' to their real paymaster nations and get in place those who will serve the US honestly and with its long term good and only that in mind.
