#ColgateMagicalStories Space Adventures - My Story

Children are indeed great story tellers. Just spend an hour with them and you will learn so many things about it. Children have a very wide and innocent imagination. Their mind can explore through so many different adventures which are magical and mystic.

As a teacher I get to spend so much time among these magical explorers. While teaching subjects like History, Literature or Science, the children are so very engrossed in what is being taught. When I check their notebooks, the last few pages are always filled with artwork and imaginary pictures that tell a story.

With the improvement in technology, I feel our children are losing their creativity. I mean just look at it, if our child is given homework like writing an essay or preparing a craft or drawing something, what do we do? We immediately Google it. Whatsapp has even made sharing homework easier. Even schools now days have e-boards and projectors that show documentaries and videos to the kids to explain them their textbook stuff.

It’s time to unlock the imagination of our kids.

Colgate is here to help your child reconnect with his or her dream world. With the collection of mystical characters in the Colgate collectible packets, help your child explore his/her creative side and tell you a story. The new 4 different collectible packs of Colgate Strong Teeth packs come with interesting space adventures & some trivia inside them. Along with creativity, your child can also learn some interesting facts.

I handed over the packet to my daughter. Her eyes sparkled with joy and she immediately got working on preparing her magical story.

After almost three days, her story was ready and here it is. I’m sharing this with you’ll.

“The tution teacher was absent so the children started jumping with joy thinking that it would be a free period. But to their shock, the teacher decided to take the period to complete her portion.

She started teaching the students about the solar system and the space. She was telling the stories about astronauts.

As I looked into the textbook I saw beautiful pictures of the planets and solar bodies. I saw a picture of a rocket. I began to think how it would be like to travel in space.

My parents and I got into a car and travelled to NASA. There we found out that there was an asteroid making is way towards earth.

The NASA team was sending a group of astronauts  into space to destroy the planet and save earth.

I joined the group of astronauts. We received training and were prepared to go to  and trained us to work without gravity. I wore my space suit which was made of 13 layers of material.

Our rocket took off and while doing so it emitted a lot of power which is almost more than 13000 train engines.

We entered into space. We landed on a space station that allowed us to live and work in earth’s orbit.

From our space station we could see many planets at a far distance. The sun shone very brightly like a ball of fire.

From the computers in our source station we saw the comet and how far it was.

We had machines ready to destroy the comet. But when we tried to destroy it we failed.

As I was heading back to my space station in my space ship from a failed mission, in a far distance I noticed an UFO. I got very scared.

The UFO came close to my spaceship and opened its doors. An alien got out of it.

I was very scared. But the alien was friendly. He told us that he and his team will help us destroy the comet if we help him to return to his home planet Mars as his UFO was out of fuel.

We promised him. We helped him reach Mars with the help of our rocket. His family was very happy to see him. They gave us a special lazer missile as a gift.

We used that lazer missile to destroy the comet. We saved earth. I and my team returned back to earth after our very successful mission.That’s when the school bell rang. I saw the blackboard and noticed that the teacher had explained to us about the different planets and their features.

But, I think, I learned a lot more on my magical space journey.”

“I’m blogging my #ColgateMagicalstories at BlogAdda in association with Colgate.”

Telangana IPS officer in trouble? News report alleges serious abuse of power

Tension is brewing between a newspaper and an IPS officer from Telangana. This after the newspaper  claimed to have accessed a report that makes serious allegations against the police officer.

In a piece for The New Indian Express on Thursday, Vikram Sharma reported that an enquiry by the Telangana State Intelligence Department had made several charges against IPS officer Tejdeep Kaur Menon, Director General, Special Protection Force.

Quoting the intelligence report, TNIE claims that Tejdeep was involved in misappropriation of funds meant for the Swachh Hyderabad programme and also harassed hundreds of Telangana SPF employees, including 32 posted at her house.

According to the report, these officers were allegedly used as "drivers, carpenters, cooks, attenders, gardeners and others."

The report also alleges that she showed favouritism to Andhra personnel, while also "deliberately delaying the process of distribution of SPF personnel between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh by refusing to relieve AP-native personnel." 

Lastly, TNIE also reported that "a water tanker from the SPF academy, Ameenpur, makes 150 trips to Tejdeep’s residence every month and she was faking all bills."

Tejdeep was promoted to her present post in May last year. Before that, she had served as Additional Director General, (Sports), for the combined Andhra Pradesh Government.

She is known locally, for attempting to make the Ameenpur Panchayat, garbage-free, while also taking steps to clean the Ameenpur lake.

In a rejoinder to the TNIE report, Tejdeep issued the following statement: 

"The allegations about internal organizational and resource matters of what is a security organization coupled with imputed motives of working against the interests of the Telangana state are tenuous and baseless...It is apparent that the report was written and published only to tarnish my name and reputation. The reports are highly slanderous and intended to malign the work that the TSSPF and I are involved in...The report is per se defamatory as it is a deliberate attempt to needlessly, or at the behest of some, to project me in the darkest light possible and to scandalize me in public and tar my reputation."

The INNLive reached out and spoke to both, the TNIE reporter and the IPS officer in question. Both of them assured that they would revert shortly, but did not.

The copy will be updated if and when they respond. 

The fear of Hindu Rashtra: Should Muslims keep away from electoral politics?

After Uttar Pradesh election results, Muslim community debates whether their very presence in the political arena has become problematic for Hindus.

Four months before the Uttar Pradesh election results sent Muslims in India reeling in shock, former Rajya Sabha MP Mohammed Adeeb delivered a speech in Lucknow, which, in hindsight, might be called prescient.

“If Muslims don’t wish to have the status of slaves, if they don’t want India to become a Hindu rashtra, they will have to keep away from electoral politics for a while and, instead, concentrate on education,” Adeeb told an audience comprising mostly members of the Aligarh Muslim University’s Old Boys Association.

It isn’t that Adeeb wanted Muslims to keep away from voting. His aim was to have Muslim intellectuals rethink the idea of contesting elections, of disabusing them of the notion that it is they who decide which party comes to power in Uttar Pradesh.

Adeeb’s suggestion, that is contrary to popular wisdom, had his audience gasping. This prompted him to explain his suggestion in greater detail.

“We Muslims chose in 1947 not to live in the Muslim rashtra of Pakistan,” he said. “It is now the turn of Hindus to decide whether they want India to become a Hindu rashtra or remain secular. Muslims should understand that their very presence in the electoral fray leads to a communal polarisation. Why?”

Not one to mince words, Adeeb answered his question himself.

“A segment of Hindus hates the very sight of Muslims,” he said. “Their icon is Narendra Modi. But 75% of Hindus are secular. Let them fight out over the kind of India they want. Muslim candidates have become a red rag to even secular Hindus who rally behind the Bharatiya Janata Party, turning every election into a Hindu-Muslim one.”

Later in the day, Adeeb met Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, who was in Lucknow. To Adeeb, Azad asked, “Why did you deliver such a speech?”

It was now Azad’s turn to get a mouthful from Adeeb. He recalled asking Azad: “What kind of secularism is that which relies on 20% of Muslim votes? The Bahujan Samaj Party gets a percentage of it, as do the Samajwadi Party and the Congress.”

At this, Azad invited Adeeb, who was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh, to join the Congress. Adeeb rebuffed the offer saying, “First get the secular Hindus together before asking me to join.”

Spectre of a Hindu rashtra
A day after the Uttar Pradesh election results sent a shockwave through the Muslim community, Adeeb was brimming with anger. He said, “Syed Ahmed Bukhari [the so-called Shahi Imam of Delhi’s Jama Masjid] came to me with a question: ‘Why aren’t political parties courting me for Muslim votes?’ I advised him to remain quiet, to not interfere in politics.” Nevertheless, Bukhari went on to announce that Muslims should vote the Bahujan Samaj Party.

“Look at the results,” Adeeb said angrily. “But for Jatavs, Yadavs, and a segment of Jats, most Hindus voted [for] the Bharatiya Janata Party.” His anger soon segued into grief and he began to sob, “I am an old man. I don’t want to die in a Hindu rashtra.”

Though Adeeb has been nudging Muslims to rethink their political role through articles in Urdu newspapers, the churn among them has only just begun. It is undeniably in response to the anxiety and fear gripping them at the BJP’s thumping victory in this politically crucial state.

After all, Uttar Pradesh is the site where the Hindutva pet projects of cow-vigilantism, love jihad, and ghar wapsi have been executed with utmost ferocity. All these come in the backdrop of the grisly 2013 riots of Muzaffarnagar, which further widened the Hindu-Muslim divide inherited from the Ram Janmabhoomi movement of the 1990s and even earlier, from Partition. Between these two cataclysmic events, separated by 45 years, Uttar Pradesh witnessed manifold riots, each shackling the future to the blood-soaked past.

I spoke to around 15 Muslims, not all quoted here, each of whom introspected deeply. So forbidding does the future appear to them that none even alluded to the steep decline in the number of Muslim MLAs, down from the high of 69 elected in 2012 to just 24 in the new Uttar Pradesh Assembly.

They, in their own ways, echoed Adeeb, saying that the decline in representation of Muslims was preferable to having the Sangh Parivar rule over them with the spectre of Hindutva looming.

“Muslims need to become like the Parsis or, better still, behave the way the Chinese Indians do in Kolkata,” said poet Munawwar Rana. “They focus on dentistry or [their] shoe business, go out to vote on polling day and return to work.”

He continued: “And Muslims?” They hold meetings at night, cook deghs (huge vessels) of biryani, and work themselves into a frenzy. “They think the burden of secularism rests on their shoulders,” said Rana. “Educate your people and make them self-reliant.”

Readers would think Adeeb, Rana and others are poor losers, not generous enough to credit the BJP’s overwhelming victory in Uttar Pradesh to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s development programme. In that case readers should listen to Sudhir Panwar, the Samajwadi Party candidate from Thana Bhawan in West Uttar Pradesh, who wrote last week on the communal polarisation he experienced during his campaign.

In Thana Bhawan, there were four principal candidates – Suresh Rana, accused in the Muzaffarnagar riots, stood on the BJP ticket; Javed Rao on the Rashtriya Lok Dal’s; Abdul Rao Waris on the Bahujan Samaj Party’s, and Panwar on the Samajwadi Party’s. It was thought that the anger of Jats against the BJP would prevent voting on religious lines in an area where the Muslim-Hindu divide runs deep.

This perhaps prompted Rana to play the Hindu card, and the Muslims who were more inclined to the Rashtriya Lok Dal switched their votes to the Bahujan Samaj Party, believing that its Dalit votes would enhance the party’s heft to snatch Thana Bhawan.

Communal polarisation
Sample how different villages voted along communal lines.

In the Rajput-dominated Hiranwada, the Bahujan Samaj Party bagged 14 votes, the Rashtriya Lok Dal not a single vote, the Samajwadi Party seven, and the Bharatiya Janata Party a whopping 790.

In Bhandoda, a village where the Brahmins are landowners and also dominate its demography, followed by Dalits, the Bahujan Samaj Party secured 156 votes, the Rashtriya Lok Dal zero, the Samajwadi Party nine, and the Bharatiya Janata Party 570.

In the Muslim-dominated Jalalabad, the Bahujan Samaj Party received 453 votes, the Rashtriya Lok Dal 15, the Samajwadi Party 6 and the Bharatiya Janata Party 23.

In Pindora, where Jats are 35% and Muslims around 30% of the population, the Bahujan Samaj Party polled 33 votes, the Rashtriya Lok Dal 482, the Samajwadi Party 33, and the Bharatiya Janata Party 278, most of which is said to have come from the lower economically backward castes.

In Devipura, where the Kashyaps are numerous, the Bahujan Samaj Party got 86 votes, the Rashtriya Lok Dal 42, the Samajwadi Party 1 and the Bharatiya Janata Party 433.

In Oudri village, where the Jatavs are in the majority, the Bahujan Samaj Party bagged 343 votes, the Rashtriya Lok Dal 15, the Samajwadi Party 12, and the Bharatiya Janata Party 22.

This voting pattern was replicated in village after village. Broadly, the Jat votes split between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Lok Dal, the Muslim votes consolidated behind the Bahujan Samaj Party, with the Samajwadi Party getting a slim share in it, the Jatavs stood solidly behind the Bahujan Samaj Party, and all others simply crossed over to the Bharatiya Janata Party. The BJP’s Suresh Rana won the election from Thana Bhawan.

“Can you call this election?” asked Panwar rhetorically. “It is Hindu-Muslim war through the EVM [Electronic Voting Machine].” Panwar went on to echo Adeeb: “I feel extremely sad when I say that Muslims will have to keep away from contesting elections. This seems to be the only way of ensuring that elections don’t turn into a Hindu-Muslim one.”

The Bahujan Samaj Party’s Waris differed. “Is it even practical?” he asked. “But yes, Muslims should keep a low profile.”

Hindu anger against Muslims
For sure, Muslims feel that the binary of secularism-communalism has put them in a bind. Lawyer Mohd Shoaib, who heads the Muslim Rihai Manch, pointed to the irony of it. “For 70 years, we Muslims have fought against communalism,” he said. “But it has, nevertheless, grown by 70 times.”

Indeed, those with historical perspective think Uttar Pradesh of 2017 mirrors the political ambience that existed there between 1938 and 1946 – a seemingly unbridgeable Hindu-Muslim divide, a horrifyingly communalised public discourse, and a contest for power based on mobilisation along religious lines.

Among them is Mohammad Sajjad, professor of history at Aligarh Muslim University. “The 69 MLAs in the last Assembly was bound to, and did, raise eyebrows,” he said.

But what irks Hindus even more is that Muslims constitute nearly one-third of all members in panchayats and local urban bodies. “It is they who have become a sore point with Hindus,” said Sajjad. “When they see Muslim panchayat members become examples of the rags-to-riches story, the majority community feels aggrieved. It is not that Hindu panchayat members are less corrupt. But every third panchayat member being Muslim has given credibility to the narrative that Muslims are being favoured.”

The Hindu angst against Muslim empowerment is also on account of both the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party being popularly perceived to be indifferent to the aspirations of certain subaltern social groups. For instance, it is this indifference that has led to non-Jatav Dalits and most backward castes, clubbed under the Other Backward Classes for reservations, to leave the Bahujan Samaj Party, as non-Yadav middle castes have left the Samajwadi Party. They did so in response to Mayawati turning hers into primarily the party of Jatavs, and the Samajwadi Party pursuing the Yadavisation of the administration.

“These aspirational Hindu groups are angry with the SP [Samajwadi Party] and the BSP [Bahujan Samaj Party],” said Sajjad. “Their anger against them also turned into anger against Muslims.” This is because it is popularly felt that the support of Muslims to the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party brings them to power, turning these parties callously indifferent to the aspirations of other groups.

It is to neutralise the efficacy of Muslim votes, and also to teach their parties of choice a lesson, that these aspirational groups have flocked to the BJP. “This is why the very presence of Muslims in the political arena has become problematic for Hindus,” Sajjad said.

So then, should Muslims take Adeeb’s cue and retreat from the political arena or at least keep a low profile?

Sajjad replied, “Go ahead and vote the party of your choice. But after that, play the role of a citizen. If people don’t get electricity, protest with others. You can’t be forgiving of those for whom you voted only because they can keep the BJP out of power. This is what angers aspirational Hindu social groups.”

Indeed, it does seem a travesty of justice and democracy that Muslims should rally behind the Samajwadi Party in Muzaffarnagar after the riots there. Or that they voted for the Bahujan Samaj Party in Thana Bhawan in such large numbers even though Mayawati didn’t even care to visit the Muslim families who suffered unduly during the riots.

Introspection and self-criticism
Like Sajjad’s, most narratives of Muslims have a strong element of self-criticism. Almost all vented their ire against Muslim clerics. Did they have to direct Muslims which party they should vote for? Didn’t they know their recklessness would trigger a Hindu polarisation?

Unable to fathom their irresponsible behaviour, some plump for conspiracy theories. It therefore doesn’t come as a surprise to hear Obaidullah Nasir, editor of the Urdu newspaper Avadhnama, say, “They take money from the Bharatiya Janata Party to create confusion among Muslims. I got abused for writing this. But how else can you explain their decision to go public with their instructions to Muslims?”

Poet Ameer Imam, who teaches in a college in the Muslim-dominated Sambhal constituency, said, “Muslims will have to tell the maulanas that their services are required in mosques, not in politics. When Muslims applaud their rabble rousers, can they complain against those in the BJP?”

To this, add another question: When Mayawati spoke of Dalit-Muslim unity, didn’t Muslims think it would invite a Hindu backlash?

Most will assume, as I did too, that Muslims fear the communal cauldron that Uttar Pradesh has become will be kept on the boil. But this is not what worries them. Not because they think the Bharatiya Janata Party in power will change its stripes, but because they fear Muslims will feel so cowered that they will recoil, and live in submission. “Our agony arises from being reduced to second-class citizens, of becoming politically irrelevant,” said journalist Asif Burney.

True, members of the Muslim community are doing a reality-check and are willing to emerge from the fantasy world in which they thought that they decided which party won an election. The Uttar Pradesh results have rudely awakened them to the reality of being a minority, of gradually being reduced to political insignificance, and their status as an equal citizen – at least in their imagination – challenged and on the way to being undermined.

But this does not mean they wish to enter yet another world of fantasy, which journalist and Union minister MJ Akbar held out to them in the piece he penned for the Times of India on March 12. Akbar wrote,

“…[T]his election was not about religion; it was about India, and the elimination of its inherited curse, poverty. It was about good governance.”

One of those whom I spoke to laughed uproariously on hearing me repeat Akbar’s lines. So you can say that with them believing their future is darkled, Muslims at least haven’t lost their humour.

Who put the bhang in the Holi song?

In the Hindi film song universe, the intoxicant is a relatively new addition to the festival of colours.

In the infectious Holi song Balam Pichkari (Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, 2013), lyricist Amitabh Bhattacharya writes, “Itna mazaa kyon aa raha hai, tunay hawa mein bhang milaaya” (Why am I having so much fun, you have mixed cannabis in the air).

When bhang is floating in the air, the atmosphere turns into a frenzied spectacle of music and dance. In most Holi songs, the cannabis plant preparation is implied through lyrics or depicted through visuals of revellers downing tall glasses of thandai, a concoction of milk, dry fruits and bhang.

Bhang is a relatively recent addition to the depiction of Holi in Hindi films. Popular tunes celebrating the festival of colour between the 1940s and the ’60s were more religious in nature, focusing on the legend of the god Krishna, who coloured the face of Radha to match his blue skin tone.

Songs such as Phagun Ki Rut (Holi, 1940), Bheegoyi Mori Saree (Shaadi, 1941), Holi Ka Din Hai (Renuka, 1947), Khelo Rang Hamare Sang (Aan, 1952), Holi Khele Nandlala (Raahi, 1953), Holi Aayi Re Kanhai (Mother India, 1957), Arre Jaa Re Natkhat (Navrang, 1959), Tan Rang Lo (Kohinoor, 1960) and Holi Khelat Nandlal (Godaan, 1963) refer to the playful interactions between Krishna and Radha. None of these songs has any room for bhang.

Bhang is strongly associated with Shiva. In folk tales, he is often cited smoking the ganja form of the cannabis plant. So when did bhang swing into the Holi melody?

Mehmood flops about like a thirsty bird in need of a cool drink in Zara Si Aur Pila Do Bhang from the 1968 movie Kaajal, but it is in the ’70s that bhang appears to have become indispensable to Holi festivities.

The jaunty RD Burman tune Aaj Na Chhodenge (Kati Patang, 1970) features portly men grinding the cannabis leaves into the bhang paste. Swooning men wait with empty glasses for a thandai refill. Kamal (Rajesh Khanna) implores merrymakers to drop their guard, while Madhu (Asha Parekh), dressed austerely as a widow in white, pines for the same happiness as others.

In the 1974 film Aap Ki Kasam, Rajesh Khanna and Mumtaz dance to the trippy sounds of Jai Jai Shiv Shankar. The song, composed by RD Burman and written by Anand Bakshi, acknowledges Shiva’s contribution to the intoxicant thandai through the words “Ke pyala tere naam ka piya” (We toast our goblet to you). The pyala is spiked with bhang, since the actors consume the libation on Shivratri.

The tune also doubles up as a Holi special, presumably because of its association with Rajesh Khanna and bhang.

Jai Jai Shiv Shankar from Aap Ki Kasam (1974).

After Khanna, another superstar, Amitabh Bachchan, famously gulped down a glass of thandai and sang Rang Barse in Silsila (1981). Bachchan formalises the presence of bhang and its wonderful side-effects on anyone with an off-key pitch and two left feet. Although lyricist Javed Akhtar does not include bhang in the words, the visuals suffice.

Songs such as Hori Khele Raghuveera (Baghban, 2003) and Rang Dalo (Banaras, 2006) incorporate visuals of people grinding the plant into a paste. In Anu Malik’s composition Koi Bheege Hai (Mumbai Se Aaya Mera Dost, 2003), Abhishek Bachchan carries forward the legacy of his father’s enthralled spirits when he lip-synchs the lyrics written by Sameer, “Koi bheega tarang se, koi bheega hai bhang se” (Some are intoxicated by music, others by bhang). No truer words have been sung.

In Mughal India, Holi was celebrated with the same exuberance as Eid

There were no barriers of caste, class or religion, and even the poorest of the poor could throw colour at the Emperor.

Hori kheluungii, kah Bismillah.
Naam Nabi ki ratn chaRii,
BuuNd paRi Allah Allah.

I start playing Holi with a Bismillah.
Covered with the light of Prophet’s name,
Showered by blessings of Allah.

When I celebrate Holi, Muslims often tell me that the practice is haram (forbidden), because colour is prohibited in Islam. But the 18th-century Punjabi mystic Bulleh Shah’s words above provide the perfect frame for the subcontinent’s centuries-old syncretic culture, our Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb that is under threat from fundamentalists of both religions.

As it turns out, Islam does not prohibit colour: it’s just that when we perform our ablutions for namaz, water should touch the skin, so there should be no colour at that point. Wash the Holi colours away before praying, I tell the critics. It’s simple. I do it.

Tale of harmony
This fundamentalism is a recent phenomenon. In the past, the influence of the Sufi and Bhakti movements encouraged harmony between the communities.

In Alam Mein Intikhaab Dilli, Maheshwar Dyal writes,

“Holi is an ancient Hindustani festival which is played by every man and woman irrespective of religion and caste. After coming to India, the Muslims also played Holi with gusto, be it the Badshah or the Faqeer."

Basant Panchami would signal the onset of the festivities and people would be carrying squirt guns with colours and smear gulaal (red powder) on each other’s faces. Mustard flowers would be offered in temples and abiir/gulaal would be flying in the air.

Flowers from the Tesu/Palash/Dhaak plants (flame of the forest) would be immersed in earthen water pots. It is believed that Lord Krishna played Holi with Radha using colours made from the red Tesu flower, which blooms during the spring season.

All colours used were natural and plant extracts. There were neither chemicals nor hooliganism.

Holi is one of the most delightful and colourful festivals of India. It is aimed at uniting people by forgetting their complaints and embracing one another.

Early references
In the 13th century, Amir Khusrau (1253–1325) is said to have written many verses in celebration of Holi.

kheluungii holi, Khaaja ghar aaye,
dhan dhan bhaag hamare sajni,
Khaaja aaye aangan mere

I shall play Holi as Khaaja has come home,
blessed is my fortune, o friend,
as Khaaja has come to my courtyard

The Mughal Emperor Akbar encouraged syncretism and tolerance. During his reign, all festivals were celebrated with equal gusto and it was a practice that was followed by all his successors barring Aurangzeb.

In the 16th century, Ibrahim Raskhan (1548-1603) wrote:

Aaj hori re Mohan Hori
Kaal hamare aangan gaari dai aayo, so kori
Ab ke duur baithe maiyya dhing, nikaso kunj bihari

It's Holi, Mohan, its Holi today
Who was it who came yesterday to our courtyard and swore at us
Now you hide behind your mother, far away , Oh come out Kunj Bihari

In Tuzuk e Jahangir, Jahangir (1569 –1627) writes:

Their day is Holi, which in their belief is the last day of the year. This day falls in the month of Isfandarmudh, when the sun is in Pisces. On the eve of this day they light fires in all the lanes and streets. When it is daylight, they spray powder on each other’s heads and faces for one watch and create an amazing uproar. After that, they wash themselves, put their clothes on, and go to gardens and fields. Since it is an established custom of among the Hindus to burn their dead, the lighting of fires on the last night of the year is a metaphor for burning the old year as though it were a corpse.

Much fanfare
Holi would be celebrated on the same scale as Eid in the Red Fort or Qila e Moalla (Exalted Palace). It was called Eid e gulaabi or Aab-e-Pashi (Shower of Colourful Flowers), with everyone joining in.

There would be melas or fairs behind the Red Fort on the banks of the Yamuna. A huge crowd would gather from the fort till Raj Ghat. The dhaf, jhanjaen, nafiri (tambourine, cymbal and trumpet) would be played and nautch girls would dance. Groups of traveling musicians and artists would gather under the Red Fort and display their tricks and talents. The mimics would imitate the Emperor, prince and princesses too and nobody would take offence.

The queens, princesses and noble women would be sitting in their jharokas (overhanging enclosed balcony) and enjoying the entertainment. The Emperor would reward these artistes handsomely.

At night, there would be a grand celebration of Holi in the Red Fort with singing and dancing throughout the night. Famous courtesans from throughout the country would come here. The most popular song would be Bahadur Shah Zafar’s Horiyan. Bands of entertainers would go around Shahjahanabad entertaining the aristocrats and the rich in their Havelis. There would be much good-natured leg-pulling with the slogan “Bura Naa Mano, Holi Hai!”Don’t take it the wrong way,it's Holi.

Children would also go around entertaining elders with their acts. At night there would be mahfils (soirees) in the walled city with the aristocrats, traders and shopkeepers all enjoying themselves.

Emperor joins in
Bahudar Shah Zafar (1775–1862) would join the celebration with great gusto and enthusiasm and mingle with his subjects. He wrote a song for the occasion:

Kyun mope maari rang ki pichkaari
dekh kunwarji du’ngi gaari

(Why have you squirted me with colour?
O Kunwarji I will swear at you)

bhaaj saku’n main kaise moso bhaajo nahin jaat
thaa’ndi ab dekhu’n main baako kaun jo sun mukh aat

(I can’t run, I am unable to run
I am now standing here and want to see who can drench me)

Bahut dinan mein haath lage ho kaise jaane deoon
Aaj main phagwa ta sau Kanha faita pakad kar leoon.

(After many days have I caught you, how can I let you go
I will catch you by your cummerbund and play Holi with you)

shokh rang aisi dheet langar sau khelay kaun ab hori
mukh meedai aur haath marore karke woh barjori

Who can play Holi with such a mischievous Kanha
My face you have coloured and my wrist you have twisted in your playfulness.

Jam-e-Jahanuma, an Urdu newspaper, wrote in 1844 that during the days of the Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, special arrangements were made for Holi festivities, and goes on to describe the frolicking and exchange of colour made from the tesu flowers.

Nazeer Akbarabadi (1735–1830) was the "people’s poet" who wrote:

Jab Phagun Rang Jhamakte ho,
Tab dekh bahaare’n Holi ki
Jab Daf Ke Shor Khadke Hon
ab Dekh Baharein Holi Ki
Pariyon Ke Rang Damkte Hon
Tab Dekh Baharein Holi Ki.

When the month of Phagun shines with colour
Then see the celebration of Holi.

Mehjoor Lakhnavi (1798-1818) in his book Nawab Syadat Ali Ki Majlis-e-Holi talks of the sensuous aspect of Holi , with which many can associate today.

Gulzar Khile Hon Pariyon Ke
Aur Majlis Ki Tyari Ho
Kapdon Par Rang Ke Cheeton Se
Khushrang Ajab Gulkari Ho

Roses are blooming on fairies
Preparation is on for a soiree
Clothes are smeared with colour
As bright as painted flowers.

Shah Niaz’s (1742-1834) Holi song has been made immortal by Sufi singer Abida Parveen.

Holi hoye rahi hai Ahmad Jiya ke dwaar
Hazrat Ali ka rang bano hai Hassan Hussain khilaar

Holi is being played at beloved Ahmad’s doorsteps
Hazrat Ali has become the colour and Hasan and Husain are playing.

Lasting tradition
Royal patrons who were mostly secular in those days like Ibrahim Adil Shah and Wajid Ali Shah used to distribute mithai (sweets) and thandai (a drink) to everyone in their kingdom. It was a common and beloved festival of all.

This is the Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb that prevailed all over India right till the 19th century. It still does in most of India despite attempts to divide and rule.

The famous poet Mir Taqi Mir (1723-1810) wrote on Nawab Asifud Daula playing Holi:

Holi khela Asifud daula Vazir
Rang sohbat se Ajab hain Khurd-o-Pir

Asidud daula plays Holi
Commoners and kings are happy after being drenched with colour.

Munshi Zakaullah (a mid-19th century Delhi intellectual) in his book Tarikh-e-Hindustani, even questions the fact that Holi is a Hindu festival and describes the Holi festivities lasting for days during the Mughal rule. There were no restraints of caste, class or religion and even the poorest of the poor could throw colour on the Emperor.

I don’t think there can be a better ending than Gauhar Jaan singing:

Mere Hazrat ne Madeene mein manaayi Holi.

From identity to economics: How the BJP is changing Indian politics

After tactically using caste arithmetic, the party has also consciously tried to undermine social justice as casteism and secularism as appeasement.

The Uttar Pradesh Assembly election results are not a one-time anomaly. They are repeat of the 2014 Lok Sabha results. In fact, the Bharatiya Janata Party has improved on its performance in 2014. Because the party seems set to stay in Indian politics for a long innings, it is important to reflect on what its politics means and what it is doing or going to do once in power in such an overwhelming manner.

While the BJP has cynically employed the use of religious identity, it has also consciously sought to downplay identity politics or social justice on the basis of caste or community in the last decade, particularly in the last few years. This is clear from the way the party brought a non-Jat politician to lead Haryana and encouraged a counter-mobilisation against the Jat hegemony. It also appointed a non-tribal chief minister Jharkhand and has persisted with one in Chhatisgarh. The party does not even seem to mind a Gujarati hegemony.

Where the party excels at is to package and present itself as rising above caste and community, decrying social justice as casteism, and secularism as appeasement, as Vandita Mishra points out in the Indian Express, after having carefully and “astutely picking a large number of its candidates from the large scatter of non-Yadav OBC [Other Backward Classes] castes, for instance, to add them to its traditional upper caste Brahmin-Thakur mix”, even while making a pronounced bid for backward caste support.

In fact, the success of the party’s political vision is evident from the fact that what appeared earlier as impossible seems to be the new normal now. For example, in a state like Jharkhand, the party brought in fundamental change by amending the land tenancy laws so as to serve the corporate capital and yet there was hardly any effective resistance to the move.

Most of the BJP’s important leaders also happen to be well-honed cadres of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The party seems to have made an effort to ensure that such candidates are given crucial postings, with a view to a more disciplined and ideologically committed leadership for the governments – at the Centre and in the states.

In other words, the BJP has sought to downplay one of the traditional basis of politics – that of social identities – because it hampers growth and expansion of capital.

The 2014 Lok Sabha results and now the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election results have shown how the BJP has created an anti-local, anti-caste, anti-region political ambience by ensuring that a combination of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah become acceptable to people across regions.

The Manifesto of the party for Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections began by saying:

“The Party has begun the implementation of aims of social and economic justice through good governance (sushashan) under the leadership of Shri Narendra Modi”.

Beyond this point the Manifesto talked in an idiom of class and professions, laying down how the party’s perspective on and vision of development has to reach the youth, poor, business community, women and others.

The party simply does not use the concept of social justice the way other political formations do.

Economic argument
It is in this sense that one can see how the BJP seeks to build a political agenda beyond the social identities. It tries to reach out to all of them through some economic argument or the other.

The party seems to know and understand that gradually it has to be a politics of class, which will allow it to expand because its historical legacy of being a brahmanical political force alienated it for quite some time from the Muslims and Dalits.

In the last three years or so, the party has amply shown how well religion and other social and cultural affiliations can only be used to ensure a very clearly defined rule of corporate capital. However, these affiliations along with that of nation, and other such are only instruments for mobilisation, if at all.

The violence in campuses could be seen as an example of how the party uses the instrument of lumpenism to ensure that voices of dissent can be suppressed by use of collective force.

Social justice is not a term often invoked by the Indian State after 2014. And yet the BJP cannot completely do away with the decades-long practices of positive discrimination in policy making because the move might invite strong counter mobilisation against it. Which is what explains the party’s conscious decision of going slow on its earlier discourse and policy programmes based on social identities. But the so-called slips of tongue on quotas and reservation and demonisation of Dalit activists is a clear indication of what many of the party’s leaders think on these questions.

In days to come, the BJP would rather focus on policy areas that would more proactively bring Dalits and tribals within the fold of the market. The policy decisions of the BJP are aimed at breaking the consensus on the need of taking affirmative action to remove social inequalities among groups.

Social reengineering
The BJP seeks to transform everybody into an individual, concerned only about their own self, while ironically seeking votes from them or expressing outrage in the name of Hinduism. The collective, as noted above, continues to be invoked when needed but only as a mere source of mobilisation to move towards a fragmented/individuated situation.

This thinking, while destroying their social and cultural allegiances, would transform each citizen into somebody who would cease to be concerned about the marginalised, oppressed or discriminated groups and communities. This would also lead to weakening of any opposition to whatever the state would do – from handing over the economy to corporate capital to making education institutions into skilling centres among other things.

​The BJP campaigns in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections mocked the gains that the Other Backward Classes and Dalit political mobilisations have made in these states. The party has routinely sought to underplay that there was any significant historic element of caste based discrimination. In Haryana, for instance, the party has come down heavily on unionisation of workers in the industrial belts of the state.

It has thus sought to delegitimise all movements that claim to represent social or economic justice. Which is why there is hardly any large scale resistance even when, for instance, the Haryana government unabashedly celebrates its foundation year using the symbol of a conch with a chariot embedded in it among other things. The party has thus got away by introducing overtly religious motifs in a secular country. Nor is there any public anger when workers are

The BJP represents a new moment in Indian politics. It understands and knows how to manipulate the social and cultural milieu much better than any other force towards making India fully compatible to the workings of corporate capital and seeking to break down the consensus on community and caste-based concepts of social justice.

If the political forces fail to understand this they would find it difficult to counter the BJP’s winning streak, even in 2019.

How Thousands Of Americans Lost Money To Fake Call-Centres In Mumbai?

By LIKHAVEER

73 people have been arrested in the racket where US citizens were cheated out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

It took just two days for J Roy (name changed) to figure out that all was not quite above board at the call centre he had just joined, having had several years' experience in business process outsourcing units or BPOs.

"It just didn't seem right," he told  when he was brought to court on Monday.

Roy is among 73 men and women who have been arrested in a widespread call-centre racket busted in Thane district near Mumbai in which callers, posing as American tax agents, coerced victims in the US into paying up online after telling them that they had defaulted on their taxes. The police suspect that the roots of the racket go back to Ahmedabad and have said it could be much wider than what they have uncovered so far.

On Monday, all the arrested accused were produced before a Thane magistrate. Thirteen have been remanded to further police custody and the rest have been sent to judicial custody.

Murky business
The call centre that Roy worked at was one among more than 10 that have been raided in Thane district over the last week, starting from October 4. He had spent a month there and was due to get his salary this week, but the police swooped in on his centre.

Looking back, Roy said with a smile, he knew that “the American Internal Revenue Service doesn’t call anyone”.

With a script ready for employees that ranged from mildly threatening to downright aggressive, the goings on at these purported call centres were far from right.

The call-centre employees, posing as US Internal Revenue Service agents, would use Voice over Internet Protocol or VoIP – voice calls made using a web connection – and would tell their prospective victims that they had failed to pay their full taxes and would have to pay up or face further action. The convinced callers would make an online payment using a credit card.

Several thousand Americans – police are yet to estimate the number of victims – were conned into parting with small and large sums of money. The masterminds of the racket are still at large. The police said that about seven people had put their money into setting up these call centres and operating the racket. However, 73 mostly junior employees have been arrested so far. More than 630 are also under investigation.

The IRS regularly puts out advisories about fake calls such as the ones these centres were making. Despite this, in rented premises, the purported call centres managed to run a lucrative racket, that has fetched around Rs 500 crores in a year, according to reports.

From the script
Most of the callers were young men and women – in their 20s and 30s – who had responded to advertisements and flyers announcing openings at call centres or had heard of them through word-of-mouth. Knowledge of English was generally enough to get the job.

They were then primed with a script based on anticipated responses. Some of the conversations went like this:

Statement: Where are you calling me from?

Answer: I am calling you from the INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE HEADQUARTERS which is located in Washington DC.

Statement: Where was the miscalculation (error) found?

Answer: Well, Mr customer let me make you aware that we are calling you from the investigation departments and not from the audit department and hence we cannot help you to where did you do the mistakes (sic).

Employees were trained in how to sound menacing, and taught to ask questions like, "What is your intention now, would you like to resolve this case or are you looking for a dispute?”

Callers who asked why they had not been sent the paperwork by mail or heard about the problem earlier would be told that attempts had been made to reach them, but to no avail. They would also be told no further paperwork could be sent across as it was lying in the court house.

Those who sought to speak to their accountants would be told this meant the IRS could charge them up to $50,000 as a fine and inform their employers and the media.

An accent trainer, among those arrested last week, helped the callers work on their diction and delivery and develop what the trainer described as a “neutral sounding" accent – something that would presumably not peg them to a specific country.

The scripts also took into possible scenarios where people would not agree to pay up easily and gave instructions on how to tackle those. For instance:

Scenario 1
Answer: I have already paid the IRS

Caller: What we are investigating about is the miscalculation seen in your tax filed which makes us assume your intention was to defraud to IRS and the income tax law (sic).

Scenario 2
Statement: I am not going to make any payment over the phone.

Answer: …I am here to guide you so that you can go ahead and make the payment and resolve the matter outside the court house so we can go ahead and cancel the arrest warrant.”

Scenario 3
Statement: My accountant files my taxes.

Answer: Well Mr Customer, let me make aware that federal government has not allow to hire any third party for your taxes (sic)… the law suit is filed against you. So you are the responsible person for it.”

Tell-tale signs
A relative said his nephew had worked in call centres before this and was trained to simply repeat what they had been taught without thinking too much. “That is how these things usually work,” he said.

For employees, however, there were several tell-tale signs. There were no formal identity badges, no work contract at the time of joining and most significantly, no salary slips. Employees were paid in cash, with salaries starting from Rs 10,000 monthly for about eight hours of work. This was alluring for school dropouts or young people from lower-middle-class families.

"We started to realise something was wrong, but everyone is tempted by money," said the relative of one of the accused. “When a young man has a steady income it is good for him and for the family.”

An employee who worked at one of the raided call centres on a night shift had not met his wife in a month before he was arrested last week. “He said to me, ‘I have to show them I am working hard,” his wife told Scroll.in. “His job was simply to supervise, he did not make calls.”

One of the accused claimed they realised something was wrong only about four or five days before the police raided the centres. Many had been working at the establishments for just a couple of months or a few weeks and were waiting for their salaries.

“Our children are also victims,” said a relative of one of the arrested accused. “They were only employees, doing as they were told.”

Big fish at large
The relative of another employee said: “The police needs to go after the masterminds, not the employees, who were the small fry.”

The police, however, believe that it is unlikely that the employees had no clue what was going on.

The police said that a team has just returned from Ahmedabad, the possible starting point of the operation.

“There are likely to be more [such fraudulent centres],” said Param Bir Singh, Thane commissioner of police.

The raids were conducted over the past week in Thane. Many of the centres were renting out premises in a single building. “It is an industry,” said a senior police official. “We have learnt so much in investigating this case.”

The three First Information Reports registered in the case so far include charges of cheating and cheating by impersonation under the Indian Penal Code and sections of the Information Technology Act, including those related to sending menacing messages.

Police conducted the raids based on tip-offs they received and also found that the call centres had been operating without the requisite permissions.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation in the US is expected to formally contact the Thane police in connection with the scam.

Police estimate that the racket was running for a year, but say that further details will only be gleaned once they nab the main accused in this case. The purported mastermind, believed to have fled the country, is a 23-year-old identified as Sagar Thakkar alias Shaggy, who has no previous criminal record, police said.

Some reports said that some “gang members” were operating from the US, but the police did not comment on this.

Dear India And Pakistan, Can’t We Convert Our Grudges Into Love?

By ALI JEFFERY From KARACHI

Let's move beyond the discourse of 'You started it!,' 'No, you started it!'

I find myself increasingly upset at the abuse and hatred tossed from both sides of the border, with little rationale apart from the 69-year-old chips on our shoulders.

These chips have, over time, turned into boulders.

Yet, we have an affinity with India.

When Amitabh Bachchan is in the hospital, we pray for his good health.

When Ranbir Kapoor’s film is a hit, we’re prouder than Neetu and Rishi.

We can’t deny that no one sings about romance like Kishore and Rafi.

When we meet Indians abroad, they’re desi just like us.

Our history is their history. Our language is their language.

But it’s complex, our relation.

Like siblings, we know each other’s soft spots very well.

We retaliate to each other’s provocations like children, impulsive and emotional.

“You attacked us first in Uri!”

“You started it!”

“No, you started it!”

Like trust-fund babies, we feel entitled to demand things from others, yet have no idea how to cope and be responsible for our own actions.

Mistakes on either side
They don’t accept that Muslims and other minorities are sometimes attacked on the mere suspicion of eating beef.

And us? We turn a blind eye when Christians and Hindus are assaulted for eating before Iftar in Ramazan.

They’re occupying Kashmir, we say.

But we forget how we imposed ourselves on the Bengalis. Why did we force Bengalis to accept Urdu as their national language? We never talk about that, do we?

When I think of some of the best moments during the last ten years, most of them include my brothers and sisters from across the border: food, music, laughing, dancing, singing – a refusal to be separated by political boundaries.

I think we are wrong to look to the West for support. In the past, foreigners succeeded in making sure we saw each other as enemies. And boy did we fall for it.

We carry the burden of our past mistakes.

We should look to each other for support. What I find strange is our reluctance to acknowledge that we have each other.

What’s absurd is our blindness to the immense opportunities that lie before us if we work together and the desolation if we continue to be enemies.

What characterises our relation are the ever-changing roles we occupy.

To the world, we are siblings at loggerheads, each trying to get daddy’s attention so that he may buy us toys and increase our allowance.

At other times, we are like a divorced couple constantly bickering over who lost out in the settlement, unable to come to terms with the fact that it’s over.

It seems that the scars of our separation are still so ripe, so painful, that we only find solace in making sure that the other is just as hurt as we are. And so we put in our all our resources, our best efforts, to do exactly that.

When I read that India had carried out a surgical strike inside Pakistan, it felt like a personal setback. The Pakistani rhetoric has been no less disappointing. As we each take the moral high ground, point fingers, and beat the war drums, we forget how much is wrong with each of us.

I hope that very soon, these ugly scenes will disappear.

I, for one, don’t want to remember them.

I long for peace, not war.

Better days
What I will keep in my memory instead are the moments that embody love and respect for each other:

Prime ministers of both countries using cricket as a tool of diplomacy.

Indian players acknowledging that there is no better fast bowler than Wasim Akram.

Shoaib Malik marrying Sania Mirza.

Our tennis players teaming up at international tournaments, calling for us to stop war and start tennis.

What I am saying is that I want Uri to be history, confined to textbooks. I want Uri to be remembered as an event when the cold war between India and Pakistan did not turn into a hot war.

I hope it turns out to be no more than just another episode that provides for good banter with my Indian friends.

But what is not a mere episode is our past, our shared histories and the fact that we used to be one, before we were divided.

And what is comforting is that when I messaged one of my closest friends across the border, expressing concern over the megalomaniac tendencies of our governments, he responded: “it doesn’t matter what they do, you know I will always love you.”

I want to be optimistic and believe that our next generations will turn to our ancient scriptures and holy books. It won’t take them long to see that since time immemorial, there is only one message they have been trying to convey: the message of love.

I truly believe that it’s possible for love to triumph.

Making Pakistan Bleed By A Thousand Cuts

By M H AHSSAN ! INNLIVE

India must now step up, not ease up, its multi-pronged strategy against terrorism.

The hit-and-run terrorist attack in Baramulla on October 2 left one BSF jawan dead and another critically injured. Following India’s precision surgical strike in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) on September 29, ceasefire violations along the Line of Control (LoC) have risen sharply.

India must now step up, not ease up, its multi-pronged strategy against Pakistan-sponsored terrorism.

Strategic restraint as an anti-terrorism doctrine has been given a quiet burial. Two issues stand out. First, further Pakistani retaliation: what form it will take and how to neutralise it. Second, India’s unfolding counter-terrorism strategy.

Renewed Pakistani retaliation could take two forms. One, attacking soft targets like malls, theatres, markets and other populated urban areas by activating sleeper cells and terrorists who had crossed over into India before the Uri terror attack.

Two, more hit-and-run attacks by Pakistani terrorists on Indian border posts and increased LoC shelling.

India must be prepared for both forms of retaliation by a Pakistani army humiliated by India’s precision surgical strike.

Meanwhile, the multi-pronged strategy to counter Pakistan-sponsored terrorism can be broken up into four broad areas:

Military
India’s covert strike on September 20/21 (not officially acknowledged) reportedly killed around 20 terrorists. The surgical strike on September 29 killed an estimated 40 to 55 terrorists, though the actual figure could be higher.

More than the damage inflicted on Pakistan’s terror machine, India’s political will to strike and its military capability to do so have been clinically established.

Doubting Thomases in India abound. Some said the surgical strike was a routine affair. Others bemoaned the dangerous path India had embarked on. A few said economic growth would suffer.

The government should ignore these perennial naysayers. Vested interests in India are sometimes more beholden to Pakistan’s national interest than India’s. That is the nature of a subverted ecosystem. It will unravel in the fullness of time.

Economic
Implement the full ambit of the Indus Waters Treaty. India must optimise the water it is legally entitled to under the treaty. Pakistan can object only to abrogation of the treaty, not its full legal implementation.

As a result, Jammu and Kashmir will receive more water and generate an extra 15,000MW of hydroelectric power. All India needs to do to achieve this without violating the treaty is to build barrages and water storage facilities in J&K.

The Tulbul project (dubbed the Wullar barrage by Pakistan) is a good start. China’s move to block part of the Brahmaputra’s flow into Assam and Arunachal Pradesh should not deter India.

Pakistan will pay in two ways.

On one hand, it will receive progressively less water under the legally incontestable provisions of the Indus treaty. On the other, the principal beneficiary will be the people of J&K. The political capital this can deliver to the J&K government is incalculable.

Simultaneously, Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status granted to Pakistan in 1996 on the principle of reciprocity (a principle brazenly flouted by Islamabad and meekly accepted by Delhi for 20 years) must go. 

Official trade between the two countries is low ($2 billion). Unofficial border trade is higher ($15 billion). All this misses the point. You cannot isolate a terror state by retaining its most favoured nation status. The messaging gets blurred, the outcome compromised.

Diplomatic
Isolate Pakistan both internationally and regionally. Admonitory statements from the United States, Russia and other major powers directed at Pakistan after India’s surgical strike have made it clear that the world’s patience with Islamabad has run out. The winter session of Parliament will present an opportunity to pass a resolution to declare Pakistan a state sponsor of terrorism.

Meanwhile, the cancellation of the SAARC summit has isolated Pakistan regionally. Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Bhutan have made common cause with India by pointing to Pakistan as the repository of terrorism.

The BIMSTEC forum is the obvious replacement for SAARC. It brings together a group of countries in South Asia and Southeast Asia. Dubbed the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, BIMSTEC comprises Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan and Nepal.

Five BIMSTEC members are also members of SAARC which comprises eight countries. If Afghanistan and the Maldives (both part of SAARC) are invited as observers in BIMSTEC, the grouping will give India an even wider geopolitical footprint across Asia. Pakistan, the eighth SAARC country, will be isolated.

Concomitantly, China’s move to block Maulana Masood Azhar as a UN-designated terrorist can be used to shame China internationally as a protector of global terror. It will not be easy for an aspiring global power like China to live that down.

Strategic
Grant Baloch dissidents asylum in India and allow them to establish a government-in-exile. The "Free Balochistan" movement will keep Pakistan off balance.

Meanwhile, India must shift its strategic goalposts on J&K. The LoC is no longer sacrosanct. PoK is Indian territory, as a parliamentary resolution in 1994 underlined. The only issue now to be resolved in the "dispute" over Kashmir should be Pakistan’s vacation of PoK.

The Manmohan-Vajpayee doctrine recognised that a dialogue with Pakistan was necessary to demilitarise J&K, thus indirectly legitimising Pakistan’s claim on a part of Kashmir that is in India’s possession.

That argument has now shifted decisively. The only area in dispute and open to dialogue is the part of Kashmir illegally occupied by Pakistan.

This represents a paradigm shift in India’s stand on J&K. More that last week’s surgical strike, it is this shift and its long-term implications that has rattled Pakistan the most.

Myths
Meanwhile, banish three myths that invariably surface when Pakistan is under pressure as it is today. One, that "we are the same people". We are not.

Two, that "the people of Pakistan do not support terrorism against India". Most do. The antipathy towards Indians amongst ordinary Pakistanis is far stronger than most Indians recognise.

Three, "Both India and Pakistan are victims of terrorism". This false equivalence has infected the vocabulary of peace professionals in India. The difference of course is India does not send gangs of terrorists to Lahore and Islamabad to kill ordinary Pakistanis.

This fraudulent equivalence on terror victimhood is a narrative that, like strategic restraint, must be buried forever.