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HH - I see something in your above post that tells me your questions are genuinely felt rather than the India baiting hatred based questions I see from a number of others; hopefully my instinct is well placed.
On Kashmir all I can say is that you don't understand. Most Indians, regardless of religious affiliations, believe that the Indian government and the military should have handled Kashmir very differently. However we think most of the blame for atrocity committed against civilians lie with cross border terrorists either directly or indirectly. 'Directly' means when a terrorist comes across teh border and attacks civilians or police or military. 'Indirectly' means when our police or military is put in a situation where they are unable to distinguish between citizen and foe. The police and military have suffered so much for so long (including attacks on their respective families in their quarters) that many of them go berserk and next next thing you know, you end up with brutality. In other words we think Indian government has been ineffective in dealing with Pakistan in this respect.
Now, I am not anywhere near Kashmir - obviously somebody from there or having family there will I am sure feel differenly. But I am just telling you what people from where my near and dear live and work, feel about the Kashmir issue you brought up. It is up to you to believe or reject it, but you have to feel and know India to really understand how Indian Muslims or Christians or Sikhs or Hindus or Jains or Jews or atheists have a clear separation between feelings for the country and their faith - they by far do not encounter and allow conflicting emotions between the two. Most importantly (according to me) there is a healthy distrust amongst the educated, of so called 'holy people' in all majore religious (probably because there have been so many frauds!).
Communal conflicts occur sometimes and some of them get out of hand. But in each case the knowledgeable person knows it was politics that made the 'conflict' into 'violent conflict' - not real religious hegemony.
Where we live (even though I am settled abroad, very close relatives and family live in various parts of India), I can tell you this: the mainstream of people have no time or energy to care about the religion of the next person they are dealing with. At least in cities that is the case. I have spent time in Faridabad/Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and a little bit Kolkota - I can say the above in most parts true. People just don't care what religion the next guy is.
While studying I had classmates and friend with ni idea, other than by name, about religion. I had have Muslim clasmates I did not like and and Muslim, Hindu and Christian friends that would have given their right hand for me (and vice versa) - it had nothing to do with religion; simply that the 'gangs' (not in the nasty American sense of gangs - I mean gang of firends hanging out and having mostly decent fun) you hung out with.
When I read messages in this board from people like Marasi, mo239 etc I simply cannot fathom where these guys are getting such impotent hatred from. I know people from Karachi - they are not like that at all. In fact most people I know from Pakistan share the Indian attributes I listed above (namely, they just don't care what religion or faith - they also do not have time or energy for that).
It is just when people get on a keyboard and in the anonymity of the www, I guess they start making fun and sooner or later tempers flare up and next thing you know, we are talking big words like war, atom bomb, religion etc
Well i do not have the time to reply your post in detail so forgive me for that.
One think i can tell you is that your feeling after reading my posts is genuine.
I have no grudge against India nor Indian its only that i do try to show mirror to Indians
because only thing they do here is talk about Pakistan and never point one finger to their own country.
Personally I believe that people of both countries have so much in commen and they should live with each other peacefully there is no other way out.
My biggest problem with India is that everytime they are having cordial relationship and there is a bomblast in india then indain goverments breaks teh dialogue.
I do not get that, Pakistani government cannot even control what is happening in Pakistan (unfortuantly) let alone what extremists are doing in India.
Its very immature to everytime break dialogue whenever something bad happens.
India all the times blames Pakistan for any mishap happening in India whilst when Pakistan blames India (occasionally) then there is hue and cry from indian side.
lets be honest RAW is not a Salvation Army nor is ISI their main aim is to protect the country from outside forces with evil intention and both do their level best to destabilize and manipulate the climate.
cheers !!
