Viswanathan K's Thoughts

The JNU/ Kanhaiya Kumar episode is old news; but only recently did I read a very interesting analysis of why events may have played out the way they did. No, it goes beyond the usual screaming sessions on TV as to whether calls to break up India crossed all kinds of lines or whether nothing better can be expected from a right wing government. I feel Santosh Desai is right in an additional aspect to this saga : “There is a red hot anger … and it is one that comes from a very real place. For long now, the right wing support base has nurtured fears about the intentions of the left-leaning elite. The suspicion was that the sympathy for Muslims was so great and the hatred for Modi so profound that they would actively wish for harm to befall India.” In such an environment, throw in a right wing government with absolute majority, a left wing university like JNU and calls for breaking up India and fireworks are not altogether a surprise, are they? “A lot of hitherto imagined fear...

I’ve often wished that an Indian Army guy would talk about their role the way Jack Nicholson spoke in the movie, A Few Good Men : “We (soldiers) use words like "honor," "code," "loyalty." We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punch line… I would rather that you just said "thank you" and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand the post.” Unfortunately, the only Indian soldiers who do talk are (or about to become) politicians. And then I stumbled upon the blogs of Lt Gen Syed Ata Hasnain. Boy, is he an excellent blogger, without any jingoism! Talking of the situation in Kashmir, he brought out something many of us forget: how much things have improved since the worst: “'The Last Mile' is simply a situation which is a symbolization of the last stages of conflict stabilization in the military domain; quite different from the political, ideological and...