October 20, 2006

Is Ladakh India? Is Kashmir Pakistan? Is Tibet China?

Here's a brilliant article by Uday Kanth about 'The Story Behind Kargil War'

Although Indian maps might say so, Ladakh is not India, in the same way that Tibet is not China. If the ever-homogenizing cultural diversity of India must be ensnared by an international boundary, then, in my opinion, India ends at the Rohtang Pass, 50 km north of Manali. The notion that Ladakh, or other areas of the embattled so-called "Jammu and Kashmir" region somehow "belongs" to India is a hangover from the dreadful legacy of the Great Game, and is nothing but jingoistic hubris perpetuated by raving Indian nationalist/imperialists who just can't let go of the habits of their awful colonial past. Neither India, Pakistan or China are doing anything in their respective occupation zones beyond brazen warmongering, subjugating the unique and distinct local culture, desecrating the environment and pandering to those dreadful colonialist-imposed perimeters that were arbitrarily drawn across the arc of the Himalaya by their once British masters.
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