O J's Corner : Reflections

Partition policy boomerangs on U K

The United Kingdom may be ruing the day when it decided to go in for partition of British India into two countries. Mahatma Gandhi was totally against the division of the country. He tried every means to avert the tragedy of the people of one country being kept apart.

What was the price paid by the people during partition? Millions were killed on both sides of the border. The border itself was unclear. The Princely States, which showed one-upmanship, also had to pay a heavy price.

Kashmir problem was the child of partition. The Britishers thought that keeping India as one entity would act like having a continental power one day. Splitting the would-be powerful was the ad hoc solution they found.

India has been living with the tragedy ever since. Decades before America and Britain witnessed anything like terrorism, India had been the victim of foul play.

Britain did like that and left it to India to struggle with it. During the cold war era, Afghanistan’s Taliban was armed to the hilt. The former Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan. The Taliban had to use the weapons somewhere. All the Islamist terrorists group together one way or another when they face a common enemy. Civilised world is anathema to them. Pakistan has been used to aid and abet the Western world’s ploys. They are reaping the whirlwind.

Now the greatest threat, it appears, is not from Iran, Iraq or Afghanistan, but from British citizens who are from Pakistan or whose parents were from Pakistan.

The brainwashing occurs in Pakistan when they make a visit to their ancestral place in Pakistan. A phrase has come up in Britain, “Kashmir on Thames”.

Radicalised British Pakistanis develop a nexus with al Qaeda and Kashmir and they prove to be the greatest threat to the U S.

Now a section of the Americans are blaming the British for rearing a Kashmir on Thames. Violent extremism is fomented by these Islamic fundamentalists.

They got nurtured in Britain which considers itself the cradle of civilisation and democratic polity. That is all good. But extremists utilised the situation to the maximum extent.

The result is that America’s closest ally is becoming the greatest threat for the Americans by way of the fundamentalists getting a haven in the U K.

Al Qaeda  got reorganised in Pakistan after U S troops deposed Taliban regime in Afghanistan. They were quick to bank on the ethnic Pakistanis settled in the U K. They speak good English and can travel on British passports.

Mind you, British passport holders are allowed visa-free entry into the US.
There is an argument that the visa-waiver scheme should be scrapped. British citizens like these are as strong a threat as any other countrymen.

The terrorism has its roots straight from the Talibans fighting the former Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda was fighting along with Taliban and Lashkar-e-toyiba, according to the findings of the group in America.

It is a case of the Empire striking back. The world is an uncomfortable place with all these Islamist terrorists let loose everywhere.