RAGHAVHZ

Military disparity between china and india is bound to be present for many many years to come. No matter what india does to improve its defence, chinese would always be able to keep this present military disparity. India cannot do anything about this as of now. Only thing which india shouldn't do is - cancel / postpone defence procurements like they did for 155mm Howitzers which india badly needs. This will just further worsent the situation.

afishcurry

Yes thanks to Nehru's early days peacenik nonsense where he assumed all his neigbours will be saint and ignored defence requirements we will never be able to bridge the disparity with china..
what needs to be done is not lull ourselves into another round of complacency apropos chinese..

Keep up the deterrance and chinese would not dare ..

RAGHAVHZ

^Nehru isn't that holy as you might think. Actually, it is we indians who have been preached that Nehru is a saint. There is a report called "Henderson Brooks-Bhagat report" , authored by Liuetenat General Henderson Brooks (Indian of british origin) and Brigadier P C Bhagat. A commitee headed by these 2 people was consituted by the indian government to look into aspects as to what went wrong during 1962.

This report, to this day, hasn't been de-classified (atleast completely). What does the government has to hide?. I think it blames Nehru's Policy and some top commanders in Indian army for 1962.

Jalaluddin

what the two of you are saying about Nehru is not mutually exclusive. He was smart guy, made mistakes and a lot of good too. Had some fixed notions and held his own amongst other giants of his time such as Gandhiji, Patel and others.

How can we second guess now the circumstances of then?

Yes his socialist policies in hindsight and in IMO also held back India but may be just may be that Indians of that time weren't really ready to come out of the forced docility of centuries of slavery and things had to proceed a bit slow

Med911

Ironic then how so much of Indias territory was gained through force! Some "peacenik" he turned out to be.

Jalaluddin

^ what do you mean? what territory was gained through force?

afishcurry

which territory india as i see it has lost territory ... pak bangladesh afghanistan all came out of india

Lusi

and india was a subcontinent at that time, it wasn't india as "present india".

afishcurry

NO India has always been a set of semi sovereign states with a super sovereign king before arrival of islamic invaders.. check maryan empire check gupta empire check nanda empire all along.. you can go as back as mahabharata period.. even then there was tradition of ashvamedh yagya whihc used to decide which king dom will be super sovereing and which one will be semi sovereign..

Med911

Pakistan and Bangladesh were never part of India. We were part of the British empire and the geographic entity known as the Indian subcontinent.

Pakistan and Bangladesh are nothing unique in the History of the Subcontinent. Independant states have always exisited throughout Indian history, and we are no different.

Med911

No empire in Indian ever encompassed the entire subcontinent. The Mauriyan empire for instance left out the tip of South India...
Also, If you look at a map of the Mauriyan empire, it also included much of Afghansitan. But Indians dont seem to be bothered by the fact that Afghanistan is independant. Infact, Indians dont even consider Afghansitan as being Indian despite the fact that it was also part of the Mauriyan empire!

So if you can come to terms with Afghanistan not being Indian, then im sure you can come to terms with Pakistan.

Bottom line, the boundries of what you might call India, have been in constant flux. Prior to the formation of modern day India, there was no single nation of India. There were only independant state, confederations, client states. But the India you are refering to never existed prior to 1947.

I can only go so far as to say there has always been an "Indian" Subcontinent, and states within the Subcontinent have always recognized this fact. In that case, Pakistanis also recgnize that they are part of the Indian Subcontinent. And so nothng has changed.

Med911

And Muslim "invaders" are no different from the multiple other invaders in Indian history. Including your own Aryans.

And Super Sovereign and semi sovereign? So some were more independant and others less indpendant?
If thats the case, then Pakistan and Bangladesh can be considered SUPER Sovereign.
So that in no way contradicts the traditional relationship among states in Indian history...

And I should remind you, that one of the reasons why Pakistan was created, had to do with the fact that the Indian congress under Nehru, refused to allow a 'semi sovereign' state of Pakistan under one Indian govt. He instead wanted a strong central govt, which strongly contradicted the traditional relationship between states within India, as you described it...

Jalaluddin

I don't think you understand. Take a look at this

And the Indian Empire was dvided into several presidencies for administrative purposes.

If you go before the British, to the Moghul period, during most of that dynasty, the system was the regional and provincial 'kingdoms' paid tribute & tax to the emperer in Delhi - in other words the emperor found it administratively convenient to give autonomy to local kinds and nizams but maintain control of the country.

If you go before that you will find the Maurya and a few others that did the same.

If you go even before that, while there is no recorded history in the same level as the above, various legends talk about the entire subcontinent and some lands across the ocean being under the banner, again with local kings paying tribute to a emperor.

This was not unique to India. The Romans did it too

afishcurry

you are forgeeting one thing it may nto have directly included south idnia but even south indian rulers were semi sovereign to the maryan empire.. this tradition has been since ramayan mahabharata kaal.. I told you there used to be a tradition fo ashwamedh yagya which decided the super sovereing samrat and rest used to be semi sovereign...... all parts may or may not be i direct control but there awlays was one super kingdom ..

Med911

So another words... It was a loose confederacy with autonomous states.

The reason they did this according to you, was because it was convenient to give autonomy. Implying that without this autonomy, rule would be far more difficult. I assume because states would be less amiable to direct rule.

So basically, it was important to give states autonomy because central rule would have made things far more complicated. I suppose many of those states would not hace accepted central rule.

Now Pakistan could have been created within India under the Cabinet Mission Plan. Thus not disimilar to the traditional relationship between the center and the provinces or states, where the states had a level of autonomy in their affairs.

Originally agreed upon by both parties, the deal was nose dived on the part of Nehru.

So if the Congress itself had no respect for the traditional form of governance in India, why then should the states be beholden to centralized rule, which contradicted tradition?

Med911

If thats the case, and we know that Indias borders extended beyond to the entire subcontinent, then why dont Indians clamor over the fact that Sri Lanka, Buttan and Nepal are also independant states?

The borders of the Mauriyan empire also extended all the way into Afghanistan. So why then do Indians not claim Afghanistan as being part of greater India?

I thin the bottom line remans that the borders of India have been in flux for centuries. Just because at one time Indian borders encompassed a certain area, doesnt mean that area is "Indian." If it were, then India could claim all of South Asia including Afghanistan, but it doesnt, except in the case of Pakistan.

Med911

Its al lin interpretation... The European Union is loose confederacy, but they are still independant states.

And India had the chance to create such a system in India under the Cabinet Mission plan. If you yoursleves arent prepared to honor the traditional Indian form of governance with state Autonomy as a provision, then how can you expect states to acquiese to Indian rule?

Jalaluddin

not necessarily. There is no indication that it was loose or tight. The emperors were interested in two things: acknlowdgement of superiority by the vassals and payment of tributes (money). And they got both.

In some cases adminsitrative convenience with two flavors - one the emperor appointed / crowned a close servant or friend as the king of the vassal state. In other cases the local leader/king was so crowned.

Whether majority of states accept or not, in those days there was were no trains cars and planes.Even small distances by today';s standards were very long journeys. In that scenario, control is only possible by presence. There was no choice. That is why ever civilized empire had to so organize - I gave you the exampel of Romans.

Originally agreed upon by both parties, the deal was nose dived on the part of Nehru.[/quote]
sure that could have been. Nehru and Jinnah did not get along and both made mistakes

I don't know what you mean by 'traditional form of governance in India'. DO you mean they should have taken us back to emperor and vassal states with kings? No thank you.

Patel did a yeoman job in pulling the states together; the constitution defined very clear center/state/concurrent lists (of authority & responsibilty).

By the way did you know that the archietct of Indian constitution was Babasaheb Ambedkar was a dalit?

The point I am trying to make is that there always was India, it was not a hodgepodge of states.

Jalaluddin

Now I don't understand what you are saying. Are you under the impression that India wants Pakistan back inside? That is not the case at all. May be there is a 1% or less crowd that may feel that way but I haven't come across ANYONE who wants that.

Now. many Indians, including me, are angry at Pakistan for attacks in Kashmir and Kargil etc. That is different from wanting to bring Pakistan back.

Of course borders change over time.

Maverick_27

india is also involved is cross border terrorism like in balochistan and FATA.

india fully supported tamil tigers in SL.

so india needs to improve its own approch 2wards its neighbouring country.