The Pakistan High Commissioner, Basit Ali cannot be faulted for his accustomed impertinence on which job depends. It took some gall to dedicate his country’s Independence Day to the success of the Kashmiri jihadi movement (for such it is) and risk expulsion. Expulsion might have been emotionally satisfying on both sides of the border but it would have achieved little of substance. By assuring the people of Balochistan, Gilgit and Baltistan of India’s support in their struggle against Pakistani oppression, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has raised the stakes for the failing state next door, much to the discomfiture of the grieving Salman Khurshed and Mani Shankar Aiyer, both former ministers in a Congress government. Mumbai terror attacks – mounted from Pakistan - in which some 500 innocent citizens were killed, and terror attacks elsewhere in India, have been of little consequence in the larger picture of an Indo-Pakistan dialogue, which has continued without let or hindrance for the past 70 years with no tangible results. The spectacle of a state basing its diplomacy on the export of terrorism to India and Afghanistan and getting away with such criminality because of the indulgence shown to its perpetrators by the United States of America and China, is quite extraordinary. Washington calls supinely for talks after every jihadi outrage in India, without ever considering the consequences of similar hypothetical exports from, say, Mexico or Canada into the US. All hell would break lose, would it not? But India, being India, is expected to suffer in silence.
Mr Modi has at last messaged Pakistan and its patrons that the ball game henceforward will be played according to rules drawn up by India. Talks with Pakistan would be possible only if trans-border terrorism in Kashmir was the subject. Nothing else would be acceptable.
Reverting to basics, the ruler of the princely State of Kalat in Balochistan refused to opt for the new Pakistan in 1947, arguing very legitimately, that his treaty acceding to British India was negotiated with the British Government in London, and not its India-based subsidiary in Calcutta.
Constitutional propriety was never the issue in this instance. The Pakistani government of Mohammed Ali Jinnah dispatched the Pakistan army, with full support from Whitehall, deposed the Khan of Kalat and took over his State. A plebiscite in Balochistan on self-determination would surely be the appropriate solution to the present unrest there. That would be the most human alternative to unlicensed governance imposed from Islamabad.
A similar solution should be open to Gilgit. The Pakistan flag was hoisted there by a British military officer in June 1947, six weeks before the establishment of Pakistan itself. The flag-hoisting ceremony was thus null and void in law.
Of considerable interest now is the support that Modi government has received from Bangladesh. Sheikh Hasina’s government has voiced the demand that Balochistan, which is undergoing the same experience the masses of Bangladesh suffered in 1971 under the genocidal military regime in Pakistan headed by Yahya Khan. Bangladesh has proposed a joint documentary film with India should be made; and has expressed cordial agreement. The film will no doubt also expose the nefarious roles of Nixon and Kissinger, Mao and his sidekick Zhou Enlai.
Hamid Karzai, the former president of Afghanistan has added his voice to the swelling chorus of support for Mr Modi’s stand on Balochistan. Baloch leaders across the world have expressed their warmest appreciation to him.
Truth is that Pakistan from its inception was a self-proclaimed jihadi state at war with ‘Hindu’ India. It was this vision that propelled Jinnah and his cohorts to send their tribal hordes into the Kashmir Valley in October 1947, its first foreign policy act as a sovereign state, a campaign of rape and murder. V.P.Menon, Sardar Vallabbhai Patel’s most trusted aide, drew attention to this fact in his masterly work, ‘Integration of the Indian States.’
‘Srinagar today, Delhi tomorrow,’ he wrote.
The jihadis in Kashmir perceive its secession from India as simply the first step in the demolition of India as a secular democratic republic under the rule of law and its replacement by an Islamic caliphate and the sharia. The Indian state has, presumably, no desire to preside over its own liquidation. It would be wise, therefore, to adopt Napoleon’s injunction of a ‘whiff of grapeshot’ to subdue unruly mobs.
Gujarat’s red carpet to post-Brexit investors
Gujarat is at the top table in attracting post-Brexit British investors. The State’s leading bureaucrats and industrialists have visited Britain to promote next year’s “Vibrant Gujarat Summit. ‘Gujarat: Connecting to India’ is the label they took with them for their pitch to British audiences. Free of the shackles of EU rules and regulations, Indo-British economic ties could reach for the skies.
‘Our delegation’s objective is to strengthen the relationship between the UK and and India, where Gujarat will play an important part and we have had a phenomenal response. Gujarat will assist in strengthening their business propositions and investments in India,’ said Mamta Verma, Gujarat Industries Commissioner, who led the delegation earlier this month.
Sunil Parekh, Zydus Group Advisor and a leading member of the delegation, said the UK’s vote for Brexit was the driving force behind the visit. He declared: ‘The tone and tenor of the meetings we had in the UK is that people are now looking at the post-Brexit situation for the UK. They want to build aggressive relationships for trade and investments with non-EU groups and India is one of the major elements.’
The ‘Vibrant Gujarat’ meet is held every two years and highlights the State’s investor-friendly policies and its top ranking by the World Bank and the Government of India, for ease of doing business among all of India’s many states, said Mr Parekh.
Manu Srivastava, Director, Gujarat Agro Infrastructure Mega Food Park, explained: ‘The UK is at a very interesting juncture in a post-Brexit world. Vibrant Gujarat is where businesses from all across the world come and collaborate. It opens doors to not just Gujarat but to the whole of India.’
Apart from London, the delegation travelled to Birmingham and Manchester to meet local government officials and business representatives. They discussed chemicals and petro-chemicals, electronics, aerospace and defence, renewable energy technologies, financial services, pharmaceuticals and textiles.
Vikas Nath, CEO, UK & Europe Adani Global PTE Ltd, added: ‘The scope for collaboration is immense, and the time has never been better for Gujarat to capitalize on business opportunities from the UK.’
Vibrant Gujarat will be held in January 10-13,2017 at Mahatma Gandhi Mandir, Gandhinagar, on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, Gujarat’s commercial capital.
Indian physicist Sibaji Raha in global spotlight
Kolkata-born physicist and former head of the city’s Bose Institute, Professor Sibaji Raha, who received his PhD under John Wheeler, an eminent theoretical physicist, from the University of Texas, Austin, was elected unanimously as Founding Chairman of the Joint Scientific Council of the GSI Helmholtz, Centre for Heavy Ion Research (FAIR) and the upcoming Facility for Anti-Proton and Ion Research in Darmstadt, Germany
‘While CERN discovered the Higgs Boson, a particle that explains just five per cent of the mass of matter and the evolution of the universe following the Big Bang, FAIR will study the origin of the rest of the mass.
Professor Raha will lead scientists from the United States, France, Italy, Poland Japan, Sweden South Africa, Germany, Russia, Spain, Austria and India in the Advisory Council. He said: ‘It will be a challenging task and I will be dealing with world renowned scientists who are also my peers. Being at the head of such cutting edge research, I will have the scope to see and assess the many possibilities of research for our community of scientists in India.’
For Kolkata scientists, being part of the team designing and making contributions to the new state-of-the-art accelerator complex in Germany, is an achievement to savour. Professor Raha commented: ‘This is the first time Indians will help build the actual accelerator at FAIR. Our involvement is at an intensive level here, much more than our role at CERN, where we were doing some tests for the support system.’
Two prototypes of power converters designed by scientists at the Variable Electron Cyclotron Centre at Kolkata’s Salt Lake, along with other labs, were shipped to Germany for FAIR in the first week of July. Professor Raha has turned world attention to India’s advances in cutting edge theoretical physics. His honour is India’s pride.
