Subject: [world-vedic] Fwd: Francois Gauthier rebuttal to Boston 
Globe's article
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2002 00:53:56 +0000
From: "Vrn Davan" <vaidika1008@hotmail.com
Reply-To: vediculture@yahoogroups.com
To: vediculture@yahoogroups.com

From: "Ashwini Kumar" <ashwini_kumarr@hotmail.com
Subject: Francois Gauthier rebuttal to Boston Globe's article
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2002 22:08:20 -0400


Does anyone know if the Boston Globe ever published this rebuttal?


Dear Mr Greenway,

To equate Hindu extremism with Muslim fundamentalism, as you do in 
your column published in the Opinion page of The Boston Globe on July 
12, is highly unfair. There is no such thing as 'Hindu nationalists,' 
or 'Hindu fundamentalists,' since in the whole history of India, 
Hindus -- who let me remind you are 850 million in India today and 
constitute the overwhelming cultural and political majority of this 
country -- have not only shown that they are extremely tolerant of 
others, but Hinduism is probably the only religion in the world which 
never tried to convert others, or conquer other countries to propagate 
their own religion. The same is not true of Islam and Christianity.

Again, equating Pakistan with India is an old British colonial policy, 
which helped them to divide and rule. By going to Islamabad, before 
reaching Delhi, visiting American and European officials are demeaning 
India. Would they dare first go to Taiwan, then travel to Beijing? The 
Chinese government would never allow it! We are putting on the same 
footing two nations which are entirely different: the first one, 
India, whatever its shortcomings and I am aware there are many -- is a 
superpower in the making, a vast country with a billion people and a 
democracy for more than fifty years. The other, Pakistan, whatever its 
own merits -- and it has many -- has little more than one tenth the 
population of India, is nearly bankrupt and has been under military 
dictators for half of its independence.

You speak of a Hindu genocide on the Muslims in Gujarat, but you 
forget to mention that the rioting in Gujarat against Muslims was in 
reaction against the murder of 58 innocent people, 30 of them being 
women and children, who were burnt alive in a train by a Muslim mob, 
only because they were Hindus. In fact, Hindus have been for centuries 
at the receiving hand of Muslim extremism: some historians put at 25 
millions the number of Hindus killed during 10 centuries of bloody 
Muslim invasions in India, a genocide probably unparalleled in world 
history. Today this persecution goes on: there were 400,000 Hindus in 
1947 in the valley of Kashmir and barely a few hundred today. 
Thousands were killed in the late eighties by Islamic fundamentalists, 
trained, armed and financed by Pakistan and the rest fled the valley. 
Today Hindus have become refugees in their own country, a first on 
this planet.

You also talk about the 'Hindu bomb.' But you should know that it was 
Mr Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir's father, who in 1971, after Pakistan 
lost the second war it initiated against India, realised that they 
could not win a conventional war against the Indian giant. He thus 
decided that Pakistan should have the nuclear bomb, which it did in 
the course of time, with the active help of China and North Korea, a 
fact which has been well documented by the CIA, but which is generally 
ignored by the American public. India was thus forced to acquire 
nuclear weapons, with a certain reluctance, as Indians have generally 
had a nonviolent bend of mind -- some have even termed it cowardly -- 
inherited from Buddhism and Gandhian philosophy.

Today, President Pervez Musharraf, whatever his obsession about 
Kashmir, which is basically a revenge for the loss of Eastern 
Pakistan, now Bangladesh, thanks to India's support, is an intelligent 
man: he knows that if he does manage to drop one nuclear bomb on Delhi 
or Mumbai, there will be no more Pakistan worth the name, as all major 
Pakistani cities will be wiped off the face of the earth. Islam, which 
has made use of violence a near religious practice, understands the 
language of violence: see how it kept quiet when America showed its 
muscle after the September 11 attack, or when the Allies invaded Iraq. 
Thus Musharraf is doing a nuclear blackmail on the world, which is 
unfortunately working, as so many nations have evacuated their 
nationals and so much pressure is brought upon on India by the US and 
the EC to negotiate on Kashmir.

You must doubtlessly know that historically and geographically, 
Kashmir has always been part of India and that the calling of a 
referendum there would be a suicide for any Indian government, because 
the Muslim majority of the valley would automatically vote for a union 
with Pakistan. That in turn, would not only mean that Pakistan would 
have an immense strategic advantage on India, because of overlooking 
the Indian plains, but also that other Indian states, who are in a 
secessionist mood, might follow suit. Bear in mind also, that Indians 
do not understand why the West is giving lessons to India about 
Kashmir, when England battled thousands of miles away from their home 
soil to keep the Falkland islands -- which geographically belong more 
to the Argentineans than to the British -- or as France uses its armed 
might to retain Corsica, an island which has mixed French and Italian 
roots, or when your own country intervenes militarily in parts of the 
globe where you feel your interests are endangered!

Finally, you show a lot of sympathy for Pakistan, which I understand, 
as the Pakistanis are very engaging and friendly people specially when 
you meet them in the United States. Nevertheless, you must be aware 
that not only has Pakistan sponsored bombings, murders and terror in 
India, but that it has exported terrorism all over the world: in 
Bosnia, Chechnya and even towards America, as the September 11 attacks 
have a Pakistan connection. By making Pakistan its frontline state, 
America is trying to fight terrorism with terrorism, which might not 
be such a good idea, given the problems encountered by the US in 
Pakistan, as well as the blank that American forces are drawing in 
Afghanistan. It is also a sign that India, a democratic, pro-Western 
nation, would be a much better bet for the US in its war on terrorism. 
Unfortunately, your article will certainly not help US policymakers to 
see the light.

Yours sincerely,

François Gautier

The author, a French journalist based in New Delhi, is the South Asia 
correspondent for Ouest-France, the largest circulation French daily 
(1 million copies) and LCI, France's 24 hour television news channel.