The word 'India' has many meanings and connotations. The efforts (by various factions) to firmly pin it down to the current entity on the map of the world is not always innocent. This much should unquestionably be admitted that the word 'India' denoting a geographical space is period-sensitive. India of what era? What century? What part -- north, south, east, west or the middle?
Further complicating discourses are topics like "integral part" of India which are Partition-sensitive and hence as friendly to touch as brittle thornbushes. What was not integral to India before Partition? Punjab, Sindh, Bengal (East & West) or even Ceylon, Burma and Afghanistan comprised parts of greater India and its glorious history.
Arundhati Roy said "Kashmir has never been an integral part of India. It is a historical fact. Even the Indian government has accepted this."
Roy should have used a modifier for 'India' to specify a period. She is right if she is referring to the Partition agreement that was being negotiated in 1947 regarding Kashmir and which, unfortunately, was never resolved. Hence Kashmir is not an 'integral' part of post-Partition India we know today.
Maulana Mahmood Madani said "Jammu and Kashmir was an integral part of India. "
Maulana Madani of Deoband is right also, but he should have made a clear reference to the pre-Partition India.
We contribute to the strife by refusing to see the mistakes that are being made, deliberate mistakes with michievous intents.
Farida
To: alochona@yahoogroups.com
From: maqsudo@hotmail.com
Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2010 04:01:23 +0000
Subject: [ALOCHONA] arundhati
Roy, an award-winning author and activist, has accused Indian TV channels of whipping up protests against her.
About 100 female protesters from BJP, a Hindu nationalist party, surrounded her residence on Sunday to demonstrate against a speech last month in which she said Kashmir, the disputed Muslim-majority region, had "never been an integral part of India."
http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=161264
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