The Sikhs want out, the Muslims are not happy and a vast majority of Hindus are kept so poor that they cannot even think. It is time they too stood up and question their Govt and ask for a fair share. India has had to use its ever growing army increasingly against its own people. In the last two decades it saw action only in Nagaland, Mizoram, Assam, and Kashmir but mostly in Punjab. The army was sent to Lanka to protect Tamils but ended up fighting them. Great valor and gallantry was the hallmark of the attack on the Golden Temple where thousands of innocent women perished in tank and artillery fire.
The quality of life of 90 percent of India’s 900 million people is deplorable at best yet it does not think twice before hiking its $9.12 billion defense budget by another 8 percent. The justification is Pakistan which has less than half the 1.26 million men in uniform which India has.
In the downfall of every empire, new and old there are common causative factors. But the eventual fall is preceded by a hasty militarization which the economy cannot support. The Roman Empire, France, Germany and Russia today is crumbling due to excessive military spending. The money which should have gone to nation building was spent in conquering and keeping the vanquished people suppressed.
India is blindly rushing down this road to disaster. What is worse is that India does not even have the relative prosperity of the nations it should look to in history as examples. The Hindus were lucky. They could not have conquered anything. Little wonder they were slaves in their own land for over a thousand years, The British left them a subcontinent to rule as they chose. That is when their luck ran out as they did not know what to do. They began using force against the minorities. The Sikhs aroused much bitterness and jealously as they prospered while the Hindus starved and so were singled out for special treatment. The waters of their own rivers were denied to them.
The rich are getting richer thanks to corruption and the poor are starving. Over 200 died of cold this winter. But the government put out very impressive statistics on the growth of the gross national product. 800 million people need to ask their masters some very hard questions if they can see through the communal games of which they have been made victims.
India would do well to cut its defense spending and withdraw its armed forces from Punjab and Kashmir as well as other parts which want independence from tyrannical rule. Otherwise it will be thrown out.
At a time of unprecedented global easing of tensions, India increases them for its neighbors. In an area which it already dominates militarily, India has no moral or logical justification of further increasing its military strength. India only professes peaceful intentions.
The only reason India could have wanted to spend more on the army is to further strengthen it in quelling its own citizens in Punjab, Kashmir, and Gurkhaland and so on. It should realize that tanks cannot crush the will of the people; it is the people who man the tanks. Indian army may well do what the Romanian army did — assert the will of the people against a tyrannical rule.
An independent Khalistan and Kashmir which cannot be denied and hopefully achieved without a bitter war would be to India’s advantage in the long run.
Article extracted from this publication >> March 30, 1990
