Looking For Logic

In the article, 'Kashmir: A Free Way to Peace' (Business Standard, August 5/6), it was suggested that perhaps the only genuine peace possibility rests with India honouring its own 53 years old proposal of a plebiscite in the Vale of Kashmir (both the India and Pakistan controlled areas and excluding Jammu and Ladakh). The suggestion of a referendum raises hackles across the political, national, and religious divide. That it does so is natural, but it does not detract from the necessity of a referendum to end the war, the suffering, the conflict.

But it is tragic and unfortunate that the sub-continent should face a third partition in just 50 years and with Jaffna looming large, perhaps a fourth partition. These religious divides bring into question the very basis of the Indian identity, its belief in democracy, secularism, and in, well, being Hindustani.

But this questioning is mostly for academics and arm-chair psychiatrists. As captured by the song Mera joota hai Japani some 40 years ago, and most recently by the brilliant lyrics of Javed Akhtar's Phir bhi dil hai Hindustani, the raw essence of being Indian is, well