Why Godse murdered Gandhi?

Fifty-two years ago, on Jan. 30, 1948, Mohandas Gandhi was shot dead by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu extremist.  Godse and his friend Narayan Apte were hanged. His brother Gopal and two others were sentenced to life imprisonment for their part in the conspiracy.

Gopal Godse remained in jail for 18 years and now, at 80, lives with his wife in a small apartment in Pune. He is still proud of his role in the murder. Although Godse is largely ignored in India and rarely talks to journalists, he agreed to speak with TIME Delhi correspondent Meenakshi Ganguly.

TIME: What happened in January 1948?
Godse: On Jan. 20, Madanlal Pahwa exploded a bomb at Gandhi's prayer meeting in Delhi. It was 50 m away from Gandhi. [The other conspirators] all ran away from the place. Madanlal was caught there. Then there was a tension in our minds that we had to finish the task before the police caught us. Then Nathuram [Gopal's brother] took it on himself to do the thing. We only wanted destiny to help us -- meaning we should not be caught on the spot before he acted.

TIME: Why did you want to kill Gandhi?
Godse: Gandhi was a hypocrite. Even after the massacre of the Hindus by the Muslims, he was happy. The more the massacres of the Hindus, the taller his flag of secularism.

TIME: Did you ever see Gandhi?
Godse: Yes.

TIME: Did you attend his meetings?
Godse: Yes.

TIME: Can you explain how he created his mass following?
Godse: The credit goes to him for maneuvering the media. He captured the press. That was essential. How Gandhi walked, when he smiled, how he waved -- all these minor details that the people did not require were imposed upon them to create an atmosphere around Gandhi. And the more ignorant the masses, the more popular was Gandhi. So they always tried to keep the masses ignorant.

TIME: But surely it takes more than good publicity to create a Gandhi?
Godse: There is another thing. Generally in the Indian masses, people are attracted toward saintism. Gandhi was shrewd to use his saintdom for politics. After his death the government used him. The government knew that he was an enemy of Hindus, but they wanted to show that he was a staunch Hindu. So the first act they did was to put "Hey Ram" into Gandhi's dead mouth.

TIME: You mean that he did not say "Hey Ram" as he died?
Godse: No, he did not say it. You see, it was an automatic pistol. It had a magazine for nine bullets but there were actually seven at that time. And once you pull the trigger, within a second, all the seven bullets had passed. When these bullets pass through crucial points like the heart, consciousness is finished. You have no strength.

When Nathuram saw Gandhi was coming, he took out the pistol and folded his hands with the pistol inside it. There was one girl very close to Gandhi. He feared that he would hurt the girl. So he went forward and with his left hand pushed her aside and shot. It happened within one second. You see, there was a film and some Kingsley fellow had acted as Gandhi. Someone asked me whether Gandhi said, "Hey Ram." I said Kingsley did say it. But Gandhi did not. Because that was not a drama.

TIME: Many people think Gandhi deserved to be nominated TIME's Person of the Century. [He was one of two runners-up, after Albert Einstein.]
Godse: I name him the most cruel person for Hindus in India. The most cruel person! That is how I term him.

TIME: Is there anything that you admire about Gandhi?
Godse: Firstly, the mass awakening that Gandhi did. In our school days Gandhi was our idol. Secondly, he removed the fear of prison. He said it is different to go into prison for a theft and different to go in for satyagraha (civil disobedience). As youngsters, we had our enthusiasm, but we needed some channel. We took Gandhi to be our channel. We don't repent for that.

TIME: Did you not admire his principles of non-violence?
Godse: Non-violence is not a principle at all. He did not follow it. In politics you cannot follow non-violence. You cannot follow honesty. Every moment, you have to give a lie. Every moment you have to take a bullet in hand and kill someone. Why was he proved to be a hypocrite? Because he was in politics with his so-called principles. Is his non-violence followed anywhere? Not in the least. Nowhere.

TIME: What was the most difficult thing about killing Gandhi?
Godse: The greatest hurdle before us was not that of giving up our lives or going to the gallows. It was that we would be condemned both by the government and by the public. Because the public had been kept in the dark about what harm Gandhi had done to the nation. How he had fooled them!

TIME: Did the people condemn you?
Godse: Yes. People in general did. Because they had been kept ignorant.

TIME (FEBRUARY 14, 2000 VOL. 155 NO. 6)

W E B - O N L Y   I N T E R V I E W
"His Principle of Peace Was Bogus"
Gopal Godse, co-conspirator in Gandhi's assassination and brother of the assassin, looks back in anger--and without regret

The snapshot of this interview has been taken from the TIME Magazine's Website

The Rediff Interview/ Gopal Godse

'Gandhi used to systematically fool people. So we killed him'

The lights go off as you reach the dilapidated building in Santa Cruz, in Bombay's western suburbs. With great difficulty you navigate the stairs and knock on a first-floor door.

"What do you want," asks the lady who opened the door.

You tell her you have come to meet Gopal Godse.

"Yes, I'm here," a voice comes from a corner of the dark room. The lady brings a lighted candle and you see the 76-year-old man who underwent 18 years imprisonment for conspiring in Mahatma Gandhi's assassination.

"I'm sorry the lights are off," Nathuram Godse's brother says, "You know, this is India and even after 50 years of Independence we have not improved.

"Since Independence our people are accustomed to forget history. Today no one is bothered about the Partition. And no one wants to reunite India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

"Gandhi systematically fooled the people by saying, 'I'll accept the Partition of the country over my dead body.' But still he partitioned India. So we killed him..."

Godse, in an exclusive interview with Firdaus Syed Ashraf:

Do you ever regret Mahatma Gandhi's killing?

No, never. Gandhi used to claim the Partition would be over his dead body. So after Partition when he didn't die, we killed him. Usually an assassination of a leader is either for personal benefit or to acquire power. We killed Gandhi because he was harmful to India. And it was a selfless act. No one paid us a single penny for it. Our love for the motherland made us do it. We are not ashamed of it. Gandhi should have been honest to admit that his life was a failure.

You see, right from Pakistan and Bangladesh every Muslim is a converted Hindu. Gandhi's appeasement attitude (towards the Muslims) went far too much. That was why we killed him. Two hundred and fifty thousand Hindus were killed in Noakhali in October 1946. Hindu women were forced to remove their sindhoor and do Muslim rituals. And Gandhi said, 'Hindus must bow their heads if Muslims want to kill them. We should follow the principle of ahimsa (non-violence).' How can any sensible person tolerate this? Our action was not for a handful of people -- it was for all the refugees who came from Pakistan.

So, till this day, I have never regreted being one of the conspirators in Gandhi's assassination. In fact, many of Nathuram's friends told me after my release, 'Nathuram ni gadhav pana kela, tyani majha chance ghalavla' (Nathuram did you an injustice. He made you miss your chance to kill Gandhi).

Did your family undergo any social pressure after the assassination?

Yes, very much. No one used to be ready to marry girls from my family. So we decided that the first thing we should put across to the bridegroom was that we are related to Nathuram Godse. It is only now that people appreciate our honesty. Now they are ready for marriage (into my family).

If the Muslim League could influence the Muslims in 1947, why was it that the Hindu Mahasabha could not influence Hindus?

(That was) because I don't have any leadership quality. My talent is to write. And I have convinced my readers with my writing.

Unfortunately, the so-called secular Hindu leaders from the Congress have been ruling the masses since 1885. And they have ruled the country for another 50 years. It is only now that Hindus have become conscious (about the Congress). They have thrown the party out from Maharashtra and all over India.

You cannot gauge a nation in merely five decades. It took 500 years for the Christians to drive away Muslims from Europe. Muslims ruled right up to Spain and Portugal. I don't know how many years it will take for Hindus to rule the entire Bharat. It may be a decade, or it may be a century.

Did you ever contest elections?

Yes, I contested from Ranchi in Bihar. People asked me why I was contesting there. I said my slogan is 'Ab ke bar Ranchi se agli bar Karachi se'. (This election I will contest from Ranchi and the next from Karachi). I was able to secure only 7,000 votes because I did not have any mass support.

According to Nathuram the Sindhu was the only river which was pure as Gandhi's ashes were not immersed there'

What is the national mainstream?

I can give you an example: There was some inauguration of a dam in Kerala. A Muslim minister was asked to light the lamp. He refused, saying his religion does not permit him to do that! That's hypocrisy. Whenever you find benefits you keep your Islam away. And when you are asked to light a lamp you say it's against your religion! That's why I say Muslims in a mob are not in the mainstream.

Veer Savarkar once said, "If a Vithal is worshipped by a Harijan and you say that he is polluted, then he is no Vithal at all."

How can there be a mainstream in India when there are so many castes? A Maharashtrian has a different caste and culture from that of his counterpart in West Bengal.

Britishers created this caste system. Even in Maharashtra they wanted to create a split between the brahmins and the others. Laloo Prasad Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav are from the same caste. But still they quarrel. Why? Because they are hungry for power. What has tied them and every Indian together is the common culture. That is what we call Hindutva. For example, a marriage between a Mahar in Maharashtra and a brahmin in West Bengal. They come from the same mantras. That is what we call culture and Hindutva.

The most essential thing is why we are together. Because of language? No. Because of our common culture. And that is why from north to south people are going to attend the Amarnath Yatra. Once you forget your culture, the mere existence of the geographical boundary which is termed India will be of no use.

What were your experiences in jail?

When we took the step, we were sure of the consequences. We took it because we loved our nation. Bhagat Singh did not want to liberate his ancestral land. He wanted to liberate Lahore, Pune and the entire nation. So he sacrificed his life. Revolution is integrated with its leader. A man who sacrifices his life is not bothered about petty things. We knew Gandhi's leadership was not good for the nation. Someone had to jump in the fire. So we did it.

Veer Savarkar was made to do the work which bullocks did in an oil mill. And he did it. Why? Because he was dedicated to the nation. All revolutionaries have to make personal sacrifice. Luckily for us, all the jailers knew we were simple men. They knew our cause. So they never troubled us. And I never violated the prison rules. I studied about life imprisonment and wrote about it.

Can you tell me about your last meeting with Nathuram Godse?

I met him on November 13, 1948 in Ambala jail. It was the day before his execution and there were 20 others with me. Both he and Narayan Apte were jolly.

Nathuram told us that his ashes must not be immersed in any river in India -- it must be scattered only in the Sindhu in Pakistan. His explanation was that Gandhi's ashes have been immersed in all the rivers of the world -- even in the Nile, Volga and Thames. But the Pakistan government refused to immerse his ashes in the Sindhu, saying they didn't want to pollute it with the ashes of a kafir. According to Nathuram the Sindhu was the only river which was pure as Gandhi's ashes were not immersed there.

How do you see India's future?

(Laughs) You make me the prime minister and half the problem of this country will be solved. But I think we will improve only if our leaders adopt a selfless attitude. Take for example the education policy. We must set up a target: in 15 years we will educate so many people. And only those people who can read and write will be allowed to vote. In such an eventuality, politicians will get busy educating the masses in order to get votes.

Another problem is the large number of candidates. And many of them are uneducated. We must make some norms to prevent this. Only then we will improve. To date, nobody has any thought of the nation. Otherwise you would never have heard of recovering more than Rs 30 million from a politician's flat. They don't have any integration with the nation. They are only integrated with their family and sons-in-law.

What is your opinion about secularism in India?

All these 50 years we practised a mockery of secularism. The magistrate has to ask about the religion of a person before giving a judgment. If a man is a Hindu he gets one kind of justice and if he is a Muslim he gets another. Can you call this secularism? This is what is happening in our country. Even in the Property Act you have different rules for Muslims.

What about poverty in India?

Poverty has increased because resources have not increased. On one side you want to increase the life of a person. On the other, you don't want to increase the resources. If you have noticed, during the advertisement of family planning on television you never see a Muslim woman saying 'Hum do Hamare do' (We are two, ours two). And these secularists say that family planning is applicable to all of us! I don't understand why former prime minister Narasimha Rao says 'If there is a Common Civil Code riots will start all over the country'.

Which do you prefer -- the BJP or Shiv Sena?

The Shiv Sena. The BJP is more hesitant to stand by Hinduism. The Shiv Sena supports the killing of Gandhi. People accept them as a Hindu party. When I was honoured, the BJP kept away from it. In Maharashtra the Sena has more respect than the BJP.

Mumbai: The reason why Raj Thackeray admires both Adolf Hitler and Mahatma Gandhi is "the way they shook up societies and created uproar," according to the official website of MNS.

However, on Monday, it was the admiration for the Fuehrer which was on display in the Maharashtra Assembly as MNS MLAs bashed up another Legislator in the House. The MNS website has an interesting conversation with the enfant terrible of Maharashtra politics. Excerpts:

"Question: You say you admire Gandhi, who preached non-violence. Then why do your followers heed to violence? The answer: You need to communicate with your opponent in a language they understand, a language they can comprehend."

Beating up SP MLA Abu Asim Azmi for not taking oath in Marathi as he could only understand the language of violence was the message given by Raj and his men, who were mute spectators when some other MLAs did not take oath in the language and instead opted for English.

Hitler's stormtroopers persecuted Jews and people who opposed the Fuehrer. Raj and Azmi have been at loggerheads since the MNS chief launched his anti-north Indian stir.

Raj told PTI in 2005, "When it comes to organisational skills, there are few who can rival Hitler. Leave aside his negative aspects like the barbaric annihilation of millions of Jews. There are several other things about Hitler, which any leader would. http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_raj-thackeray-admires-hitler-mahatma-gandhi-mns-website_1310381

Raj Thackeray admires Hitler, Mahatma Gandhi: MNS website

A word of caution: Don’t use the “P” word

Many Pakistani Americans do not know the negative connotations of the “P” word. I was astonished to see many youngsters in New York proudly calling themselves Paki—during the Pakistan Day Parade. The 2nd and third generation Pakistanis in America who have not lived in Britain see no harm in suing the short form of Pakistani. While the word equates to the “N” word in England—it has no significance in the USA. Stupid Bigoted Bharatis (aka Indians) don’t know that the “P” word refers to all South Asians including the Indians. Many Bharatis on the internet use the word in front of unsuspecting Pakistanis—and think that they have gotten away with murder. In fact when one minority denigrates another, all minorities suffer.  While Indians are facing severe problems in Australia, they continue to use the “P” word to denigrate Pakistanis. As one Australian said same sh**, different bucket. For the racist bigot, there is no difference between on brown man or another.

Earlier this year, a homemade video of Prince Harry, the impish grandson of the British Queen whose colourful exploits have earned him tabloid darling status, was leaked to a delighted UK press. Training to be a soldier in Her Majesty’s Army, Prince Harry is shown referring to a British Pakistani Muslim colleague as ‘our little Paki friend,’ amongst other questionable remarks. Headlines exploded, the Pakistani community went on the offensive, and race relations experts came out of the woodwork in force to attack the prince.

Prince Harry unreservedly apologised for his comments, and Clarence House, the prince’s representatives, issued a statement explaining that he had used the term without malice. Still, columnists across the political spectrum criticised the prince and even the Daily Mail, the usually contrary voice of conservative Middle England, said the prince ‘had shown incredible crassness… and he can expect no more chances.’

Within the British blogosphere and on newspaper website comment sections, the row blazed on for weeks. Some commentators dismissed the criticism against the prince, claiming it was symptomatic of the prevailing political correctness in society. Others downplayed the prince’s comments and simply equated ‘Paki’ with other jocular terms denoting British regional identities, such as ‘Scot’ (someone from Scotland) or ‘Geordie’ (someone from Newcastle). Former army officers boldly said Prince Harry was just following the grand military tradition of endowing his colleagues with nicknames so that his colleague, Lieutenant Ahmad Khan, was simply ‘Paki,’ just as Sir Henry Havelock, who recaptured Kanpur during the Indian rebellion in 1857 was ‘Gravedigger’ and Philip Chetwode, the Commander in Chief in India in the 1930s, was nicknamed ‘The Bart.’

What the episode outlined – apart from Prince Harry having inherited the gaffe-prone gene of the Windsor dynasty (grandfather Prince Phillip to British students in China during a state visit in 1986: ‘If you stay here for much longer, you’ll go slitty eyed.’) – was that the contention surrounding the word ‘Paki’ was very much alive. Its connotations, context, and usage remain unclear even to desis themselves. The question is, why does the word continue to cause such offense?

For the Pakistani ensconced back home or visiting the UK, the word seems no more than a jovial contraction. Of course, it’s more than that. The word ‘Paki’ is loaded with the UK’s precarious and somewhat violent record of race relations in the late 1960s and 1970s, when immigration from the Indian subcontinent reached its apogee.
The first sensationalist and press-endorsed flogging of Pakistanis came in the early 1960s, during a reported smallpox outbreak in Bradford, where many Pakistanis had settled. A few unvaccinated Pakistanis did fall ill, but, according to Dr. Derrick Tovey, a practicing physician at the time, the press exaggerated the situation. Reportage was ‘often irresponsible,’ with headlines such as ‘City in Fear’ or ‘Keep Out Pakistanis.’ The public response reasserted essentialist – though disproved – colonial ideas about the ‘non-white’ embedded in the national psyche by Victorian science during the height of the British Empire.

Resistance to South Asian immigration materialised more coherently in the 1970s with the rise of nationalist parties and militant outfits like the British National Party and the National Front. These groups pamphleteered in white communities where immigrants had settled, urging Britons to support policies on repatriation and even accusing South Asian communities of stealing jobs and state-funded housing.

While the 1965 Race Relations Act made racial discrimination illegal in public on ‘grounds of colour, race, or ethnic or national origins,’ the Conservative MP Enoch Powell compared such legislation to ‘throwing a match on to gunpowder.’ He actively encouraged the repatriation of settled immigrants, even if they were UK citizens, inflaming national sentiment even further.

Despite race legislation supporting immigrants, many Pakistanis in the UK at the time, will recall the term ‘Paki-bashing,’ used to describe the sordid pastime of working-class white youths, or ‘skinheads,’ who would attack unsuspecting individuals from South Asian communities.

These racial tensions came to a head in 1979, when a teacher died of head injuries during a confrontation with the police in a protest by thousands of anti-racist campaigners. The protestors had assembled against a National Front meeting, which controversially took place in a town hall in Southall, a suburb in south-west London with one of the UK’s largest Asian communities.

Over the years, though, British Asians have moved into the mainstream. They are well represented in professional fields and in the media, and no doubt pleased by a declaration in 2001 by Robin Cook, the erstwhile Foreign Secretary under Tony Blair, that chicken tikka masala is the national dish of the UK. Such developments make it apparent that desis are here to stay and indeed add significant cultural and material value to British society.

Still, the usage of the word ‘Paki’ is as offensive as ever. Last year, on a rather staid UK reality show, Strictly Come Ballroom, where couples contest in ballroom dancing, slick-haired contestant Anton du Beke was accused of racism for dropping the P word. He said that his fellow dance partner, the actress Laila Rouass, who is herself of Indian and Moroccan extraction, ‘looked like a Paki.’ Heavily criticised by the press, Du Beke’s comments were shocking and reprehensible in twenty-first century multicultural Britain. And in July last year, white supremacist Neil Lewington was convicted of preparing for acts of terrorism, and was widely quoted as saying, ‘the only good Paki is a dead Paki.’

But we shouldn’t forget that the use of ‘Paki’ was once fair game on mainstream British television in the 1970s and early 1980s. Take a 1981 episode of Only Fools and Horses, which some critics say was among the best UK television comedies shows ever made. In the offending episode, a white, working class, and slightly befuddled character Uncle Albert says, ‘The Paki shop won't let us have nothing on tick (credit)! Says it’s part of his culture!’ His nephew Rodney replies, ‘Don't think it's got anything to do with the 46 quid we already owe 'em, do you?’

Some may argue that Rodney’s response illustrated the burgeoning resistance to racist syntax prevalent in the 1980s by demystifying Uncle Albert’s flawed assumptions of ‘Paki’ culture. Yet in a period of difficult race relations, in which the use of Paki was commonplace, it is hard to discern an altruistic purpose in the scriptwriter’s decision to use the word ‘Paki,’ whether comically or not.

It’s obvious to say that ‘Paki’ is an offensive, catch-all racist term that seeks to attack, offend, and alienate those of South Asian extraction in the UK. Yet in a post-9/11 – or post-7/7 world with regards to the UK – the term is beginning to connote a new prejudice in which Islamophobia takes centre-stage.

In November 2009, The Guardian reported the launch of a police investigation into a series of attacks on Muslim students at City University in London. According to the Federation of Student Islamic Societies, the gang responsible for the attacks comprised about 30 white and black youths and shouted ‘get those Muslims’ and ‘Pakis.’ Meanwhile, a BBC Panorama documentary aired in November followed two South Asian reporters who had gone undercover being abused in terms such as ‘Paki’ and ‘Taliban’ by the residents of an estate in Bristol.

It is clear that ‘Paki’ in these instances is interchangeable with derogatory anti-Muslim jibes and encompasses religious affiliation as well as ethnic origin. This will be increasingly true in a society facing down Islamist terrorism and inundated with examples of fanatic, semtex-clad British Pakistanis. Shakespeare asked, ‘What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.’  Change a few things around and you have the Bard hitting it on the nail.

Of course, this isn’t to say its all doom and gloom. Attempts to reclaim and appropriate ‘Paki’ as a positive, even fashionable term have gained ground amongst South Asian youths in the UK, in the same way ‘nigger’ was reclaimed by black hip hop artists and filmmakers in the US. At cricket matches featuring Pakistan, one can regularly see banners by Pakistani youths proclaiming ‘Paki-Power.’ Indeed, ‘Paki’ now encompasses a range of meanings, though that doesn’t lessen the offense the word can still cause

That said, there are few examples within the cultural output of British Asians to suggest a consensus has been reached as to what Paki could mean. In 2005, British Asian artist Aki Nawaz, of the band Fun-da-Mental, agreed to be interviewed for a BBC documentary titled British, Paki and Proud. Once the film was completed, he said, ‘I'm disappointed with the title. I was told [about it] last week. If I had known the title in advance I would have said, 'I will not do it under that title.' The term being endorsed I have a real problem with, it is absolutely unacceptable.’

When it comes down to it, the legitimate use of Paki really depends on who says it or not. It may be acceptable for one South Asian to call another a ‘Paki.’ But change the colour of the speaker and you have racism, it seems. The UK has arrived at the point where there is a sufficient understanding of how ‘Paki’ could be offensive and few are oblivious enough to use the term without an awareness of the ensuing impact.

It’s also worth noting that the term ‘Paki’ is part of a mix of more subtle and sinister forms of racial prejudice that are prevalent in the UK today. Take the race scandal in which Jade Goody, the late contestant on British reality show Big Brother, referred to Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty as ‘Shilpa Poppadom.’ Though not outwardly racist, the culinary reference (a popular appetizer for the British at curry houses) was intended to highlight Shetty’s ethnic origin and, in the malicious context of Goody’s bullying campaign, was no doubt racist.

Of course, as keen as some may be to highlight racist attitudes in the West, our native shores are hardly unfamiliar with prejudice that peppers everyday behaviour and language. They say that charity begins at home and we should look to the mirror for how we view the world. It’s a two-way road. The P Word By Khuroum Ali Bukhari Sunday, 17 Jan, 2010

Haiti Earthquake: Why isn’t Pakistani ERRA there?

When ERRA was created by President Pervez Musharraf, tall claims were made about developing indigenous expertise for disasters. Claims were also made that ERRA would help other nations in distress. There have been several disasters in countries—in China, Turkey, Iran and now in Haiti—and ERRA is absent.

ERRA should send Sniffing dogs, and a band of men and women who can help the people of Haiti. Where is the OIC—they should be funding a disaster relief effort anywhere and everywhere. Edhi is always one of the first to reach disasters—he was there in the USA during Hurricane Katrina and in Bangladesh and Lanka etc.

Whats wrong with this picture? ERRA the government agency with literally billions under its disposal is absent—and Edhi a private enterprise send volunteers and goods to disaster affected areas of the world.

Pakistan also has a huge database of volunteers—good natured students who want to help. Here is a cause—help the people of Haiti. Haiti has a sizable “Indian” population. There are many Muslims there also.

Mr. Zardari has more than $1.5 billion to his name. How about a donation to assist Haiti. Mr. Bilawal Bhutto is prancing around Oxford. How about taking up a cause and assisting human beings that need our help today

Senator McCain is wrong again: Illegal Drone attacks only create more militants

The drones attacks are illegal, a total violation of the UN Charter. As such they are a war crime. The murder of civilians in a sovereign country is barbaric which does not conform to the high ideals on which this great country was formed.

The is what Senator McCain said.

The use of drone strikes against suspected Islamist militants in Pakistan is an effective part of US strategy and should continue, Republican Senator John McCain said Thursday.

His comments came after Al-Qaeda reportedly said an attack on a US base in eastern Afghanistan which killed seven CIA agents was to avenge drone strikes that have killed prominent militants.

"The drone strikes are part of an overall set of tactics which make up the strategy for victory and they have been very effective," McCain told reporters during a brief trip to Afghanistan.

Drones had "knocked Al-Qaeda and other extremist groups off balance and they have been successful, and we are working more closely with the Afghan government as well as the Pakistan government to make those operations more efficient and less damaging to the civilian population," McCain said.

"I think it should continue, I think it's an important tool in our overall strategy and we can claim measurable success in carrying out those operations."

The US is a nation of laws, not men. The illegal operations have caused more than a 1000 civilian deaths, five time that number of casualties, and affected a hundred times that number. Drones only create more Anti-Americanism. Terrorists can be nabbed by means other than drones.

Fareed Zakaria’s “Shining ‘India’ “

What most of the world today perceives through the lens of the Indian and western media about Hindustan (Republic of India) is indeed very disturbing. The west befooled by the Indian opinion-makers, like Fareed Zakaria, refers to India as "the emerging powerhouse of the 21st century." In his recent treatise, The Post American World, Fareed Zakaria (true to his Indian roots) has described the great story of our times as 'Rise of the Rest' - the growth of countries like China, India, Brazil, Russia, South Africa and Kenya...and we in Pakistan (courtesy some of our own media channels) think that India is the biggest democracy and the star of South Asia. The media of the West and India, which is being referred as Windia, has become the spin-doctor trying to convince the rest of the world that India should be included in countries that can save the world from the current global economic mess and scourge of terrorism. But the million dollar question is, how is it possible for a country to save the world when it has a population of a billion plus of which 400 to 500 million live below poverty line, when it has more than 100 active insurgencies, when its hundreds of thousands die due to pollution and starvation annually, and when it has militarily intervened directly or indirectly in almost every country in its neighbourhood?

Nevertheless, it is important to mention here that there is a huge difference between poverty in an average country like Pakistan and India. India's poor live in subhuman conditions. Whether it is food or basic shelter, the Indian poor don't have that; almost an estimated one million die due to starvation and malnutrition every year. The people in the poor neighbourhoods of Mumbai and Delhi sleep on footpaths. Moreover, there are timings for this facility; you have to share the footpath space as per the prescribed timings. That is the reason why the poor in India live and die on the roads and footpaths; if in doubt, watch Slum Dog Millionaire. In the same vein, there is severe shortage of basic public facilities (toilets).

Furthermore, the Dalits or untouchables in India were and are treated like animals. The Hindu stratification enshrined in The Dharma is turning the poor in India against its own state. Undoubtedly, the world's biggest insurgencies are active in India. Here, I am mainly referring to the Naxal Republic, the three Ks of Khalistan, Kerala and Kashmir, Gurkhaland and the seven sisters adjacent to and including Assam. Other than Kashmir, the most effective insurgency is the Naxalite movement. As per Wikipedia: "Naxalite or Naxalvadis (name from the village of Naxalbari in the Indian State of West Bengal where the movement originated), are a group of far-left radical communists, supportive of Maoist political sentiment and ideology. In recent years, they have spread into less developed areas of rural central and eastern India, such as Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh through the activities of underground groups like the Communist Party of India (Maoist).

"As of 2009, Naxalites are active across approximately 220 districts in 20 states of India accounting for about 40 percent of India's geographical area, they are especially concentrated in an area known as the 'Red Corridor', where they control 92,000 square kilometres. According to India's intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, 20,000 armed cadre Naxalites were operating apart from 50,000 regular cadres working in their various mass organisations and millions of sympathisers, and their growing influence prompted Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to declare them as the most serious internal threat to India's national security ".

At the same time, India treats its minorities ruthlessly by violating religious and human rights. Kashmir, Babri Mosque, Golden Temple and burning of churches in Orissa by extremist Hindus are a few examples. The non-Hindus are being forced to accept pagan traditions in the name of their practicality and logic. Mysterious rituals, where people are forced to marry frogs and dogs to remove evil curses, are common. In a number of Indian cities there are thousands of monkeys allowed to freely roam and pollute streets, causing solid waste problems and harm to the citizens, all in the name of divinity of Hanuman. Drinking cow urine was religiously followed in the country side, it is now becoming fashionable in Indian elite and their night clubs, a re birth of novo Morar Ji Desaies in the name of Pavitarta and divinity of the holy cow.
Then again, India has another problem of managing its water resources. Indian rivers are the most acidic rivers in the world. As per Lifestyle india.com: "Water pollution is a serious problem in India as almost 70 percent of surface water resources have serious pollution problem and a growing number of ground water resources are already contaminated by various pollutants. Though River Ganga's water has not polluted totally, its pollution has reached a critical point since its water is not fit for bathing or drinking. Over the years, of the 3000 aqua creatures found in the Ganga, only 205 have survived." Surely, the basic reason is their belief of throwing ashes of the dead in the river Ganges.

The major deception being played in projecting Shining India is through the media - Windia. This media projects India as the 'Golden State' and ultimate redeemer of the world. Channels like Zee, Star Plus, BBC, National Geographic, Discovery and Bollywood project the themes of milk and honey flowing through the Ganges River. Some of our Pakistani channels (with the big slogan of 'live and let live'), are dying to project India as the ultimate success story of South Asia, despite all of what happens in India, 80 percent of the news about India appears to be from Bollywood or Indian Cricket. They need to be more objective on India.

Windia's India is like a city with its walls painted with pictures of heaven, but once you enter its gates you realise that you have entered hell. Three cheers for Incredible India, the boggy of Windia. UMAR WAQAR. Not so 'Shining India', Published: January 5, 2010, The writer is a freelance columnist.

Ruling “India” by breaking it up into more pieces

In mid-October 1952, an acolyte of Mahatma Gandhi named Potti Sriramulu invoked the tactics of his teacher and went on a hunger strike. The nation of India — at the time just five years old — was still finding shape after centuries of division and colonial rule, with many of its diverse regions clamoring for greater political recognition. Sriramulu's fast came on behalf of tens of millions who, like him, spoke Telugu, a prominent south Indian language, and wanted their own state within the country.

Yet his protest went unheeded for weeks by New Delhi and, 58 days after it began, Sriramulu died, a sacrifice that triggered widespread rioting and eventually forced the government into forming the Telugu-speaking state of Andhra Pradesh in 1953, as well as other new states organized on linguistic lines. No small irony then, that, almost 60 years later, another hunger strike threatens to dismember the state Sriramulu first won, and revive a fierce debate about the nature of the federal Indian nation-state.(See a pictorial history of the tempestuous Nehru dynasty of India.)

Late Wednesday, the Indian government announced it would approve the carving out of a separate state known as Telangana from Andhra Pradesh. The movement for Telangana secession is virtually as old as the Indian republic itself, but it gained traction this month after its main political leader, K. Chandrashekar Rao, commenced a week-long fast. Rao's deteriorating health as well as coordinated protests — some violent — across the 10 districts of Andhra Pradhesh's 23 that comprise Telangana, including the influential high-tech capital of Hyderabad, seemed to force New Delhi's hand. But it could open a whole series of controversies for the Indian government as many other regional movements have now stepped up their own demands for statehood.(See a story about the death that may have precipitated the Andhra Pradesh controversy.)

Though Telugu-speaking as well, Telangana had once been part of a separate kingdom ruled from Hyderabad, which recognized British suzerainty during the colonial period but was not administratively part of British India. It was subsumed into the territory of Andhra Pradesh only in 1956, after a further dismemberment of the once independent Hyderabad kingdom. Though the city of Hyderabad was made the capital of the united Andhra Pradesh state, calls for greater autonomy have lingered, with many in Telangana complaining of marginalization at the hands of the coastal Andhra population.

But if New Delhi imagined it would calm tensions with its nod toward accepting a new state, the move backfired. Dozens of local legislators in Andhra Pradesh have resigned their posts and strikes by those opposing Telangana's secession have paralyzed much of the state. Trains have been blocked, businesses shut down. According to news reports on Saturday, two activists in favor of a "united Andhra" took their lives in protest of the state's splitting. The turmoil has also plunged Hyderabad, a booming, cosmopolitan I.T. hub, into panic as politicians and business leaders fret over the costs of the current instability. "This will be a total flop as investors will flee," says Amruthraj Padmanabhundi, a 27-year-old I.T. professional in Hyderabad. "I am very worried [about] my prospects slipping."

The prospect of Telangana's creation has buoyed similar causes elsewhere as calls for secession echo in nearly a dozen states in India. A four-day strike is under way among the picturesque hills and tea estates of Darjeeling, in northern West Bengal, with protesters intensifying demands for a new state of Gorkhaland that would better address the needs of the area's ethnic Nepalese population. More than 100 activists have begun what they call a "fast-unto-death." On the other side of the country, in the vast desert state of Rajasthan, a caravan of some 5,000 demonstrators and 500 camels paraded into the capital of Jaipur on Friday, agitating for the formation of Maru Pradesh, a state that would be carved out of some of Rajasthan's poorest districts. "Rajasthan is huge. It is not easy to keep track of all the villages, of the development or the lack of it," says Jaiveer Godara, the leading voice of the movement. "The person who lives in the last village of Maru Pradesh has to wait for three days to get supply of water from outside ... [And] there are no roads that lead to his village."(See a story about the 1937 silver jubilee of the ruler of Hyderabad, reputedly the world's richest man, from TIME's archives.)

At the root of this looming crisis lies the still unresolved question of how the world's largest democracy ought best to govern itself. Independent India was at first a patchwork of former British provinces and princely states threaded together into a federal republic. Some of its states remain huge and unwieldy — for example, the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, with its estimated 190 million people, would be virtually tied with Brazil as the fifth most populous country on earth but it would also possess 8% of the world's population under the global poverty line. With a country of India's size and diversity — as well as poverty — there is logic in having smaller states. "It will in fact strengthen [governance] through economic and administrative convenience," says Delhi-based political analyst Paranjoy Guha Thakurta. "India can survive and prosper by breaking up."

The Indian government last fashioned new states in 2000, when three largely remote and impoverished regions were elevated in status. At least two of them — Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand — have shown marked progress since their inception. Small states like Kerala in the south and Haryana in the north, both with populations under 30 million, boast some of India's highest development indicators. Backers of further decentralization even point to the original, idealistic Gandhian vision for India — of a republic brought together not by a strong central government, but an "ocean" of egalitarian and self-sufficient villages.

Of course, that sort of utopianism has little place in the current hurly-burly of Indian politics. Experts worry that new states may simply mean more jockeying for power and expanded bureaucracy in a country already notorious for its spools of red tape as well as its perpetual political horse-trading. "Ultimately, fragmentation is not a substitute for good governance," says C.V. Madhukar, director of PRS Legislative Research, a Delhi nonprofit which advises the government.

Hoping to dampen a few of calls for new and smaller states ignited by the Andhra controversy, New Delhi has dialed back its support for Telangana, insisting that the matter now find a resolution through a vote in the Andhra Pradesh legislature. Given the current tumult, it's unclear when or how such a motion may go through. The political party headed by Rao, the Telangana separatist leader, was trounced both in recent state and national polls. His hunger strike — now ended — and the disturbances organized around it were likely an act of desperation of a movement shorn of much of its real political capital. "Having the government buckle to this kind moral blackmail is not a healthy way to go about things," says Madhukar. "There shouldn't be this sword of Damocles hanging over peoples' heads." A young India may have come of age through such dramatic acts of Gandhian sacrifice, but a more mature nation needs more measured habits. —With reporting by Nilanjana Bhowmick/New Delhi. How to Rule India: Break It Into More Pieces? By Ishaan Tharoor Sunday, Dec. 13, 2009

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1947392,00.html#ixzz0ZgzYpaiL

See a pictorial timeline of events that shaped modern India.

Read "The Insurgency Threatening India's Schools."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1947392,00.html#ixzz0ZgzNJGMa