[Image by LogaWiggler @ Pixabay]
Dear Reader,
Hell of a week.
You know what I mean.
If you don’t, listen to this video and you’ll get the drift.
Sleepless nights, spiraling anxiety and deep concern is what every Indian went through as innocent civilians were killed at gunpoint by terrorists at Pahalgam.
Continued attacks across border states and particularly in Jammu made it amply clear that the path of Gandhi’s ‘Ahimsa’ (non-violence) would not help. The truth is we have to stand up for ourselves - terror attacks on our soil cannot be tolerated anymore.
As Indians, we have always grown up on the narrative of preserving peace at any cost.
We made peace in our hearts and prayed that one day, it would stop. It got worse.
This isn’t a time to talk of peace. Because in war, you attack or defend - you don’t have the option to sit back and give sermons on peace as a strategy to survive an attack.
To pour money, material and men into the jungles of Indo-China without at least a remote prospect of victory would be dangerously futile. and destructive. No amount of American military assistance can conquer an enemy which is everywhere and at the same time, nowhere - ‘an enemy of the people’- which has the sympathy and covert support of the people.
- Senator John F. Kennedy in the spring of 1954
(Read now: "Indo-China speech of 1954, 6 April 1954." John F. Kennedy Presidential Library)
Listen to Shashi Tharoor: “You do not ask a murderer to investigate his own murders…No one wants war…we didn’t start this...we are a country that is not interested in starting a war with anybody…”
For Indians, this is an important time to read history.
Read books by Indian historians whose works are not white-washed by colonial hangovers.
[Image by Glavo @ Pixabay]
“Around the world, nation-states with the experience of colonialism have had to develop historical narratives and practices of remembering that support their independence and foment national unity. Memory deals with past events but always responds to agendas and exigencies in the present. This is why memories are repeatedly revised and adapted to emergency needs. At political junctures such as decolonisation and nation building, for instance, memory makers reconsider who the heroes of their resistance are; which foundational figures are given place in the national pantheon; or what gets highlighted as precursors of independence for a nation state. Obviously, all remembering is partial and incomplete. However, narrow and selective interpretations censor and even erase the multiple dimensions of rememberance. By encouraging a broad range of historical experiences to be remembered may help unlock a shared understanding of histories, integrating local, regional, national and even global perspectives.
Carole Lentz, President of Goethe-Institut
[Image by StockSnap @ Pixabay]
good old reads
Bilquis Jehan Khan shares memories of her royal life in Hyderabad with elaborate description in the chapter ‘How to Run a Palace’ and her love for Pakistan
book quote
Major Charlie A. Beckwith, known as ‘Chagrin Charlie’ - the cigar-chewing hero of Plei Mei the year before. He had survived a machine gun bullet through his stomach during Operation Masher/White Wing and had been brought to toughen up Ranger training before returning to combat.
“If a man is bloody stupid,” he told each group of newcomers, “his mother will receive a telegram and it will say ‘your mother is dead because he is stupid’. Let’s hope your telegram only reads, ‘Your son is dead.’ With the training we are going to give you here, maybe your mother won’t receive any telegram at all. So, pay attention.”