Role reversal: When India proposed a plebiscite to solve Kashmir – and Pakistan rejected it

[HalfMoon]

Role reversal: When India proposed a plebiscite to solve Kashmir – and Pakistan rejected it

After Nawaz Sharif brought up the plebiscite again at the UNGA, looking back to the time when MA Jinnah said no to one.

Shoaib Daniyal

Kashmir is no stranger to uprisings but even by its own tumultuous standards, the current agitation is unprecedented. The police have had to flee south Kashmir and to maintain the presence of the state, the Indian army has had to move in. For the first time in recorded history, Eid prayers were banned in the Valley’s major mosques and prayer grounds. Mainstream politics has also been frozen, as the mood on the street rejects symbols it considers as representing India.

Reacting to the troubles, the third player in this sordid drama, Pakistan has proposed that India conduct a plebiscite in Kashmir in order to determine the wishes of the Kashmiri people. As is also par for the course, India rejected the demand.

This bit – Pakistan demanding a plebiscite and India sticking to its stand that Kashmir is non-negotiable – has been done so many times that it now barely makes the news. Given how wedded both India and Pakistan are to their positions, it is interesting to point out that they had polar opposite stances in 1947. In that year, just a few months after the birth of the two dominions, it was India that proposed a Kashmir plebiscite. And it was Pakistan – in a move that might count as amongst the worst ever in international politics – that rejected it.

Background
As the Raj ended, Kashmir entered into chaos. The Maharaja lost control of large parts of his kingdom and, in panic, even attempted to ethnically cleanse Muslims from some regions. By September 1947, Pathan tribals, supported by Pakistan, started to stream into Kashmir. Soon the Maharaja acceded to India and the Indian Army entered the conflict.

The concept of a plebiscite first entered into the equation in September 1947, not in relation to Kashmir but with respect to the tiny Gujarati principality of Junagadh, whose Muslim ruler had acceded to Pakistan. This infuriated India, given that Junagadh was in India and wasn’t contiguous with Pakistan. As a result, India toppled the ruler’s administration and proposed a plebiscite to solve the matter (a vote that India would easily win). Of course, this also set a precedent and Nehru accepted that this would also apply to other states. The concept of a ruler deciding accession was now on shaky ground – a decision that would of course apply to Kashmir. In the meeting where this was decided, British bureaucrat HV Hodson noted that, “Liaquat Ali Khan’s [the Pakistan Prime Minister] eyes sparkled” at the possibilities this opened for Kashmir.

This though was not that much of a surprise. The Congress had for a long time held that the princely states should be decided as per the wishes of its people. In November, 1947, therefore, the Governor General of India Lord Mountbatten headed to Lahore to conduct talks with Pakistan’s Governor General, Mohamed Ali Jinnah.

Jinnah-Mountbatten talks
While Governor General Mountbatten, a Britisher and the last Viceroy of the Raj, technically held a constitutional post, in actuality he had a fair bit of power even after August 15, 1947 – he even supervised Indian military operations in Kashmir. For these talks with Jinnah – that could have changed the subcontinent’s history – he went with the Indian cabinet’s approval to offer something that has now been Pakistan’s demand for the past seven decades: a plebiscite in Kashmir.

On November 1, in Government House, Lahore, Mountbatten put forward India’s proposal: a plebiscite to decide the fate of Junagadh, Hyderabad – and Kashmir. This was the exact wording of India’s proposal:

The Governments of India and Pakistan agree that, where the ruler of a State does not belong to the community to which the majority of his subjects belong, and where the State has not acceded to that Dominion whose majority community is the same as the State’s, the question of whether the State should finally accede to one or the other of the Dominions should in all cases be decided by an impartial reference to the will of the people

To sweeten the deal, Mountbatten even assured Jinnah that the United Nations would be allowed to supervise the process.

Jinnah rejects the plebiscite
Amazingly, Jinnah actually rejected this proposal. He could never accept any formula that included Hyderabad since (at the time) the princely state wished to remain independent, argued the Governor General of Pakistan.

Mountbatten then pointed out that this was as a good a deal as Pakistan would ever get given Pakistan’s much weaker position militarily relative to India. This was sound advice: India and Pakistan have fought four wars and India’s vast military superiority has ensured that the position of the Kashmir Valley remains unchanged.

Historian AG Noorani claims that Jinnah’s inexplicable stand was because he was “besotted with Hyderabad”. Noorani also points out that Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan was more open to the idea but was overruled by Jinnah.

The inability of Jinnah to process India’s military superiority was not unexpected – he had shown a similar failure to deal with realpolitik in the negotiations leading up to Partition, thinking mostly as a lawyer and not as a politician.

Missed opportunity
In hindsight, this was a terrible decision – especially given the fact that modern Pakistan has been near-obsessed with Kashmir. Not only has the pursuit of Kashmir cost Pakistan a lot of money, it has corrupted its society. Its military has grown to control the state, propped up by the bogey of India. Kashmir has also allowed Islamist militants to grow, giving them popular legitimacy in the 1990s. Today, those same militants have turned on Pakistan itself, tearing to shreds law and order in the country. And this is not to even begin to go into the human cost of seven decades of conflict in Kashmir.

Another real shot at a plebiscite never came again. Although a 1948 United Nations resolution called for plebiscite (and as a first step, asked Pakistan to withdraw its troops, which it refused to do), after 1971 this was a dead letter: the Simla Agreement of 1972 ensured that the entire Kashmir dispute would see no third-party intervention, not even the United Nation’s. Today, the Indian stand is that Kashmir is an “integral part” of the Union, which of course rules out a plebiscite even in theory.

On June 3, 1947, the Congress had accepted the communal division of Punjab and Bengal in return for stable, centralised rule. Mountbatten’s November 1947 offer to Jinnah for a Kashmiri plebiscite was a part of the same thought process. In the chaos of 1947, it seems the Congress was prepared to allow Kashmir the option of a plebiscite in order to stitch up the massive hole that Hyderabad represented in the map of India and ensure the new dominion’s stability.


https://scroll.in/article/816661/ro...ite-to-solve-kashmir-and-pakistan-rejected-it

 

[Pak_88]

Role reversal: When India proposed a plebiscite to solve Kashmir – and Pakistan rejected it

After Nawaz Sharif brought up the plebiscite again at the UNGA, looking back to the time when MA Jinnah said no to one.

Shoaib Daniyal

Kashmir is no stranger to uprisings but even by its own tumultuous standards, the current agitation is unprecedented. The police have had to flee south Kashmir and to maintain the presence of the state, the Indian army has had to move in. For the first time in recorded history, Eid prayers were banned in the Valley’s major mosques and prayer grounds. Mainstream politics has also been frozen, as the mood on the street rejects symbols it considers as representing India.

Reacting to the troubles, the third player in this sordid drama, Pakistan has proposed that India conduct a plebiscite in Kashmir in order to determine the wishes of the Kashmiri people. As is also par for the course, India rejected the demand.

This bit – Pakistan demanding a plebiscite and India sticking to its stand that Kashmir is non-negotiable – has been done so many times that it now barely makes the news. Given how wedded both India and Pakistan are to their positions, it is interesting to point out that they had polar opposite stances in 1947. In that year, just a few months after the birth of the two dominions, it was India that proposed a Kashmir plebiscite. And it was Pakistan – in a move that might count as amongst the worst ever in international politics – that rejected it.

Background
As the Raj ended, Kashmir entered into chaos. The Maharaja lost control of large parts of his kingdom and, in panic, even attempted to ethnically cleanse Muslims from some regions. By September 1947, Pathan tribals, supported by Pakistan, started to stream into Kashmir. Soon the Maharaja acceded to India and the Indian Army entered the conflict.

The concept of a plebiscite first entered into the equation in September 1947, not in relation to Kashmir but with respect to the tiny Gujarati principality of Junagadh, whose Muslim ruler had acceded to Pakistan. This infuriated India, given that Junagadh was in India and wasn’t contiguous with Pakistan. As a result, India toppled the ruler’s administration and proposed a plebiscite to solve the matter (a vote that India would easily win). Of course, this also set a precedent and Nehru accepted that this would also apply to other states. The concept of a ruler deciding accession was now on shaky ground – a decision that would of course apply to Kashmir. In the meeting where this was decided, British bureaucrat HV Hodson noted that, “Liaquat Ali Khan’s [the Pakistan Prime Minister] eyes sparkled” at the possibilities this opened for Kashmir.

This though was not that much of a surprise. The Congress had for a long time held that the princely states should be decided as per the wishes of its people. In November, 1947, therefore, the Governor General of India Lord Mountbatten headed to Lahore to conduct talks with Pakistan’s Governor General, Mohamed Ali Jinnah.

Jinnah-Mountbatten talks
While Governor General Mountbatten, a Britisher and the last Viceroy of the Raj, technically held a constitutional post, in actuality he had a fair bit of power even after August 15, 1947 – he even supervised Indian military operations in Kashmir. For these talks with Jinnah – that could have changed the subcontinent’s history – he went with the Indian cabinet’s approval to offer something that has now been Pakistan’s demand for the past seven decades: a plebiscite in Kashmir.

On November 1, in Government House, Lahore, Mountbatten put forward India’s proposal: a plebiscite to decide the fate of Junagadh, Hyderabad – and Kashmir. This was the exact wording of India’s proposal:

The Governments of India and Pakistan agree that, where the ruler of a State does not belong to the community to which the majority of his subjects belong, and where the State has not acceded to that Dominion whose majority community is the same as the State’s, the question of whether the State should finally accede to one or the other of the Dominions should in all cases be decided by an impartial reference to the will of the people

To sweeten the deal, Mountbatten even assured Jinnah that the United Nations would be allowed to supervise the process.

Jinnah rejects the plebiscite
Amazingly, Jinnah actually rejected this proposal. He could never accept any formula that included Hyderabad since (at the time) the princely state wished to remain independent, argued the Governor General of Pakistan.

Mountbatten then pointed out that this was as a good a deal as Pakistan would ever get given Pakistan’s much weaker position militarily relative to India. This was sound advice: India and Pakistan have fought four wars and India’s vast military superiority has ensured that the position of the Kashmir Valley remains unchanged.

Historian AG Noorani claims that Jinnah’s inexplicable stand was because he was “besotted with Hyderabad”. Noorani also points out that Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan was more open to the idea but was overruled by Jinnah.

The inability of Jinnah to process India’s military superiority was not unexpected – he had shown a similar failure to deal with realpolitik in the negotiations leading up to Partition, thinking mostly as a lawyer and not as a politician.

Missed opportunity
In hindsight, this was a terrible decision – especially given the fact that modern Pakistan has been near-obsessed with Kashmir. Not only has the pursuit of Kashmir cost Pakistan a lot of money, it has corrupted its society. Its military has grown to control the state, propped up by the bogey of India. Kashmir has also allowed Islamist militants to grow, giving them popular legitimacy in the 1990s. Today, those same militants have turned on Pakistan itself, tearing to shreds law and order in the country. And this is not to even begin to go into the human cost of seven decades of conflict in Kashmir.

Another real shot at a plebiscite never came again. Although a 1948 United Nations resolution called for plebiscite (and as a first step, asked Pakistan to withdraw its troops, which it refused to do), after 1971 this was a dead letter: the Simla Agreement of 1972 ensured that the entire Kashmir dispute would see no third-party intervention, not even the United Nation’s. Today, the Indian stand is that Kashmir is an “integral part” of the Union, which of course rules out a plebiscite even in theory.

On June 3, 1947, the Congress had accepted the communal division of Punjab and Bengal in return for stable, centralised rule. Mountbatten’s November 1947 offer to Jinnah for a Kashmiri plebiscite was a part of the same thought process. In the chaos of 1947, it seems the Congress was prepared to allow Kashmir the option of a plebiscite in order to stitch up the massive hole that Hyderabad represented in the map of India and ensure the new dominion’s stability.


https://scroll.in/article/816661/ro...ite-to-solve-kashmir-and-pakistan-rejected-it

If we're to really discuss Kashmir, why not discuss Junagadh and Hyderabad too?

 

[Sal12]

Jinnah died on 11th Sep, 1948 due to cancer and tuberculosis. His health deteriorated severely from early 1948 onward and he distanced himself from daily affairs of running the Govt. The ceasefire was established in 1st Jan, 1949.

As usual, the article was written to justify the continued occupation of Jammu & Kashmir by India. The good thing is that India doesn't even hold half of the Kashmir even after making claims of winning all the wars Inc. Surgical strike.

 

[TexasJohn]

The Kashmir issue is what sparked my interest in the Indo-Pakistan region, it's culture etc. years ago. I started reading about it, have interacted with dozens citizens of both India and Pakistan, and am amazed at the similarity between the two. Indians and Pakistanis appear to get along just fine here in the US. It's like a family feud in many ways with the Govts. of both sides having fairly entrenched views.
So I found this other article on the net and I am not familiar with them. I would like your views on this since it's the first I have heard this:
https://kashmirreader.com/2015/09/30/why-did-mountbatten-side-with-india-on-kashmir/

Why did Mountbatten side with India on Kashmir?
By Reader Correspondent on September 30, 2015Comments Offon Why did Mountbatten side with India on Kashmir?

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The Indian state propaganda suggests that after its army landed in Kashmir on October 27, 1947,Lord Louis Mountbatten went to Lahore on November 01, to offer a plebiscite to Mohammad Ali Jinnah on the future of Kashmir, but the latter rejected it. India derives its narrative from Mountbatten’s private secretary, Allan Campbell-Johnson’s memoir, ‘Mission with Mountbatten’, in which he writes that after the viceroy returned from Lahore, he told him of what had passed between himself and Jinnah: “Mountbatten…told me he was very pleased with his three-and-a-half hour talk with Jinnah at Lahore…He told him that he considered the prospect of the tribesmen entering Srinagar in any force was now remote.

Ashq Hussain Bhat

This led Jinnah to make his first general proposal, which was that both sides should withdraw at once and simultaneously. When Mountbatten asked him to explain how the tribesmen could be induced to remove themselves, his reply was, ‘If you do this I will call the whole thing off,’ which at least suggests that the public propaganda line that the tribal invasion was wholly beyond Pakistan’s control will not be pursued too far in private discussion…On inquiry, Mountbatten found that Jinnah’s attitude to a plebiscite was conditioned by his belief that the combination of Indian troops in occupation and Sheikh Abdullah in power meant that the average Muslim would be far too frightened to vote for Pakistan. Mountbatten proposed a plebiscite, under United Nations Organisations auspices, whereupon Jinnah asserted that only the two Governors-General could organise it. Mountbatten at once rejected this suggestion, stressing that whatever Jinnah’s prerogatives might be, his own constitutional position allowed him only to act on his Government’s advice.”(p.229).


But, what Mountbatten said and Campbell-Johnson recorded, can that be trusted? It is rather difficult given the fact that Mountbatten had supervised the airlifting of Indian troops to Kashmir. Besides, he had, with the help of Cyril Radcliffe, manipulated the Punjab Boundary and awarded Muslim majority Gurdaspur district to India, which was against the Partition principle. Gurdaspur furnished a road link between India and Kashmir, which enabled the government of India to pursue their grand design vis-à-vis Kashmir.
All along through his Viceroyalty, Mountbatten had pursued a sinister game against Muslims especially against those of Punjab and Kashmir. Way back in May 11, 1947, in a top-secret staff meeting,which was attended, among others of his staff, by Nehru in the capacity of vice president of the interim government of British India, Mountbatten had suggested keeping Muslim majority Gurdaspur district outside the purview of the Partition principle–that contiguous Muslim majority districts would be awarded to the Muslim dominion; and contiguous non-Muslim districts would be awarded to the Hindu dominion.In the next staff meeting his own Deputy Secretary ID Scott, objected to Mountbatten’s suggestion vis-à-vis Gurdaspur district. Responding to his objection Mountbatten told the meeting that he would not press for keeping Gurdaspur outside the purview of the Partition principle but would instead ask the Boundary Commission “to handover from one side to the other any area within border districts where there was clearly a majority of the opposite community”.
The 31st Viceroys Staff Meeting of May 12, 1947, makes it amply clear: “Mr Scott said that he was very much opposed to the separate procedure which had been suggested by the meeting the previous day for Gurdaspur. He felt that any departure from the principle of clearly defining the notional boundary between Muslim and non-Muslim majority areas would lead to a spate of demands for other departures. His Excellency the Viceroy said that he did not intend to incorporate the suggestion for Gurdaspur made the previous day. Instead the Boundary Commission would be instructed to arrange for the handover from one side to the other of any area within border districts where there was clearly a majority of the opposite community.” (pp759-60 & 781, Transfer of Power Vol. 10).
Again on August 4, 1947, he said to the Nawab of Bhopal, Sir Hamidullah Khan (Chancellor of chamber of princes) and Maharaja of Indore, Yeshwant Rao Holkar: “The state of J&K was placed geographically in such a position that it could join either Dominion, provided part of Gurdaspur were put into East Punjab by the Boundary Commission” (p111 Kashmir: A Disputed Legacy by Alastair Lamb).
In between these two events Mountbatten spent a week in Kashmir in mid-June. On the day of his departure a meeting was fixed between him and the Maharaja ostensibly “to discuss the future of Kashmir state” – as if they had not discussed it yet! On that fateful Sunday June 22, 1947, the Maharaja complained of stomach pain and cancelled the meeting “and as a result Mountbatten had to leave for Delhi without discussing the future of this state with the Maharaja.”It was a drama enacted by the Maharaja and Mountbatten to hoodwink the world. The reality was that Mountbatten came to Kashmir (June 1947) to warn the Maharaja on behalf of Nehru and Gandhi not to declare independence.
The Maharaja did not take a decision by August 15, the day of Transfer of Power, as to the accession of Kashmir either to (post-partition) India or Pakistan or complete independence. Perhaps he wanted to see as to which side of the Boundary Line Gurdaspur would lie after the Partition. He did not declare independence because he was not in favour of it. For the same reasons he removed his pro-independence Kashmiri Prime Minister Pandit Rama Chandra Kak and replaced him by Janak Singh and, later, by Mehr Chand Mahajan, a hawk who played Sardar Patel’s game. Moreover, the Maharaja would not have allowed ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Jammu and elsewhere, if he had pro-independence leanings.
His decision of not acceding, after district Gurdaspur, along with other Muslim-majority areas like Ferozpur, Ajnala, Fazilka, Zira, were shown on the other side of Radcliffe Line, was that he, being a despot, wanted accession with India on his own terms and conditions. But Nehru wanted him to accede as well as share power with the National Conference so that he could tell the world that Kashmiri Muslims preferred Hindu India over Muslim Pakistan. Sheikh Abdullah and his partisans parroted Nehru’s tune because it guaranteed them political power.
With Gurdaspur awarded to East Punjab, Sheikh decided in early September 1947, (while he was still in jail because of the ‘Quit Kashmir movement’) to support India (p376 Aatash-i-Chinar) because doing so would guarantee political power which to him seemed a remote possibility if Kashmir became a part of Pakistan or an independent country. On September 13, he promised loyalty to his king, Maharaja Hari Singh, through presenting what was called nazar – a gold coin wrapped in silken cloth – a mark of loyalty. Later, he submitted a written pledge to Hari Singh wherein he stated that he along with his party would treat his enemies as their own enemies. (p130 Sardar Patel’s Correspondence Vol I). This U-turn earned him a release from jail in end September.
Post tribal incursion, Sheikh fled from Kashmir on the advice of Dogra Army.Concurrently, Nehru and States Minister Sardar Patel laid plans to capture Kashmir by the end of October. The strangest thing is that Nehru knew in September that tribals from Pakistan would invade Kashmir. This fact is revealed in the letter that Nehru wrote to Patel on September 27.Those who are under the illusion that the government of India wished to resolve Kashmir dispute through plebiscite should read what Nehru wrote to Sardar Patel in 1949: “Whatever may happen in the future, I do not think Jammu province is running away from us. If we want Jammu by itself and are prepared to make a present of the rest of the state to Pakistan, I have no doubt, we could clinch the issue in a few days. The prize we are fighting for is the Valley of Kashmir.”
Back to Mountbatten. When the Indian army landed in Kashmir he went to Lahore not with any intention to resolve Kashmir dispute, but to prolong it. Governor General of Pakistan had, on receiving information that India had flown its army to Kashmir, conveyed an order on October 27, 1947, to his country’s ‘imported’ acting military chief, General Douglas Gracey (Frank Messrvy, the commander-in-chief was on a leave in London), to launch a two pronged military attack on Kashmir state, one from Rawalpindi to meet the newly arrived Indian army and the other on Jammu from Sialkot to intercept the Jammu-Pathankot (better call it Radcliffe-Mountbatten) Road.
Instead of taking orders from his Governor-General, Gracy informed the Supreme Commander, Field Marshal Claude Auchinleck in Delhi, on phone about the orders he had received. Auchinleck advised him to persuade Jinnah not to press his orders until he arrives at Lahore. On October 28, Auchinleck met Jinnah at Lahore. He told him that if Pakistan army entered Kashmir it would be an inter-dominion war between Pakistan and India in which Englishmen would be pitched against Englishmen; he threatened him that if he pressed his orders all the English officers of Pakistan army would withdraw from it. Besides, he assured Jinnah that if he withdrew his orders he would bring Mountbatten and Nehru to Lahore to sort out the differences.On November 1, Mountbatten was in Lahore but alone. Pandit Nehru excused himself on grounds of suffering from stomach pain (the same sort of pain that Maharaja Hari Singh had felt on June 22, 1947). This modus operandi of Mountbatten helped India to get a few more days to fly in their soldiers to Kashmir in strength. Without Mountbatten’s scheming it was not possible for Indian troops to have a smooth passage in Kashmir given the fact that 330 Sikh fighters along with their commander Col Ranjit Rai, that Delhi flew to Kashmir on October 27, were slain by tribals on the same day somewhere between Sangrama and Baramulla. Induction of the Pakistani army could have changed the war situation.
After his return from Lahore, Mountbatten, in order to hide his own role in getting Boundary Awards doctored, ascribed the responsibility of tribal invasion, and emergence and non-resolution of Kashmir dispute to Jinnah.Throughout his Viceroyalty Mountbatten did everything to pave the way for bringing Muslim majority Kashmir into India. And when that happened onOctober 27, he put a rider on Hari Singh’s offer of accession that as and when peace was established in Kashmir the matter would be referred to the people. Also he prodded Nehru to take the matter to the UN. These measures on part of Nehru and Mountbatten laid the foundation of the Kashmir dispute. Nehru fell to Mountbatten’s suggestions because he wanted to gain time in Kashmir so that he could deal with Junagarh and Hyderabad.
Mountbatten knew well what the verdict of the people of Kashmir would be if the UN conducted a plebiscite here. He wrote on November 7, 1947, to King George VI: “I am convinced that a population containing such a high proportion of Muslims would certainly vote to join Pakistan.” (p 354 Freedom at Midnight by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre). If he was convinced of this fact then why did he, with the help of Cyril Radcliffe, chairman Punjab Boundary Commission, place three out of the four Muslim majority sub-districts (Gurdaspur, Batala, and Pathankot) of Gurdaspur district inside (post-Partition) India?
Reasons can only be guessed: he disliked Jinnah. As Viceroy, Mountbatten had dominated everything and everyone in India except the latter. Jinnah had sartorial elegance which Mountbatten lacked; smoked his pipe in front of him, who, as viceroy, was by far the most powerful man on earth, even more powerful than the British PM; refused him the luxury of creating history by becoming the first Governor General of Pakistan. Moreover, his wife Edwina, continuously prodded her husband to side with Nehru because she too disliked Jinnah, because, as per her, he was unromantic! In hindsight Mountbatten didn’t do any real service to India. On the contrary he led it into a morass in which it has got bogged down.

 

[Umair Nawaz]

Pakistan had rejected that bail and very well done to our Founding father for rejecting it.

 

[TexasJohn]

From what I am gathering is Mountbatten wanted to get the "partition business done" and head home, never mind the long term implications

 

[Umair Nawaz]

The Kashmir issue is what sparked my interest in the Indo-Pakistan region, it's culture etc. years ago. I started reading about it, have interacted with dozens citizens of both India and Pakistan, and am amazed at the similarity between the two. Indians and Pakistanis appear to get along just fine here in the US. It's like a family feud in many ways with the Govts. of both sides having fairly entrenched views.
So I found this other article on the net and I am not familiar with them. I would like your views on this since it's the first I have heard this:
.

we r also amazed that how much u and British are similar too yet u guys even changed yr traffic laws too when u got independence from British and to this day u dont get as much long with them as one should have been......

Take example of Sasha Barron Cohen and Who is America series....it took a british citizen to make such a series with a provoking and insulting title as Who is ''America'' as if telling the entire world who the America and its culture and politics really are!

From gun rights activists to yr state level politicians that he exposed.......as well as in the Mosque episode he showed the rural Americans and their line of thinking, in some insignificant state like Arizona in the middle of desert bordering a junk like Mexico.......Have u ever thought that how much this can have an impact on yr country's image globally?

Forget abt us Muslims, we dont like u, never did, and we dont hide it either, but those of yr fellow western countries who still DO like u, what would their young generations will think abt yr Country and her future? have u ever seen things from this lens too?

And all that was done by a British jewish citizen who disguised himself as a Israeli/SpecOps/MOSSAD retired operative, a country and her citizens u hold dear to yr hearts and foreign policies.

 

[TexasJohn]

What does your rant ( or what little I think I understood) have to do with this topic / this thread?

 

[Indus Pakistan]

What does your rant ( or what little I think I understood) have to do with this topic / this thread?

Not his fault you can't understand English.

 

[Umair Nawaz]

What does your rant ( or what little I think I understood) have to do with this topic / this thread?

I started reading about it, have interacted with dozens citizens of both India and Pakistan, and am amazed at the similarity between the two. Indians and Pakistanis appear to get along just fine here in the US. It's like a family feud in many ways with the Govts. of both sides having fairly entrenched views.
So I found this other article on the net and I am not familiar with them. I would like your views on this since it's the first I have heard this

it has to do with this statement of yours. We also see u guys Britishers same way.

 

[Indus Pakistan]

and am amazed at the similarity between the two.

This really, really irks me. Honestly. In UK we have had wave of migration from Eastern Europe over the last decade which in fact has precipitated the Brexit but that is another story. Not long ago UK was being bombed every month by IRA. I have been to Ireland know lots of Irish. I always used to joke with them that I would need a forensic expert to suss out the differances between a Irishman and Englishman. I mean if it was expressed in mathetmatical quantity the differance would be measured in 0.0000000000000000 inch. The only differance is accent but then even within UK we have lots of regional accents like Scouse, Geordie, Brummie, Cockney etc.

But going back to my gym we have lots of Poles, Latvians, Slovaks, Ukranians, Estonians etc All these people are from other end of Europe. However honestly there is precious little differance between them and the native English. Again the differance is 0.0000000 inch. Then looking at your part of the world i never understood what the border that apppears to be drawn with a ruler between USA and Canada about? Same language, same people, same religion.

In the case of India and Pakistan the differance is far greater. It would be something like the differance between Tunisia and Italy or maybe even more. And finally the undivided India or the British Raj was a colonial construct made by Britain. It has been constructed by force over period of 200 years during [region coterminous to Pakistan had been annexed into the Raj by Britain only 98 years prior to 1947 at Battle of Gujrat 1849] which the British conquered and integrated the Raj a diverse geography and people. It was not India that was partitioned in 1947 but the British Raj that was divided into what today are four countries.

Ps. Sorry for the deviation from the thread but I feel quite strongly about this and felt it needed addressing.

 

[TexasJohn]

Indus, thanks for clarifying that. I last set foot in GB back during the cold war days and so did not see what you experience today. You are right about Canada and the US. They chose to remain a part of the commonwealth and we did not.
@Umair Nawaz , I was asking for your opinion on the Kashmir issue and the article, so I was a little taken aback by your response. I was merely stating my experience with Indians and Pakistanis here in the US. I guess it's OK not to like me. Cheers!
I really would like y'alls opinion on the article though. How much of it is factual?

 

[Umair Nawaz]

Indus, thanks for clarifying that. I last set foot in GB back during the cold war days and so did not see what you experience today. You are right about Canada and the US. They chose to remain a part of the commonwealth and we did not.
@Umair Nawaz , I was asking for your opinion on the Kashmir issue and the article, so I was a little taken aback by your response. I was merely stating my experience with Indians and Pakistanis here in the US. I guess it's OK not to like me. Cheers!
I really would like y'alls opinion on the article though. How much of it is factual?

Whats written in the article was a bait, we didnt take....i have posted my response separately in this thread too, in case u missed.