Are unresolved questions of Partition reflected in Pahalgam tragedy, asks Mani Shankar Aiyar
New Delhi, Apr 27 (PTI): Veteran Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar on Saturday wondered whether the Pahalgam tragedy was a result of unresolved questions of the Partition.
Addressing a book release function here, the former Union minister said the question that was posed to the country then and faced it today was whether Muslims in India felt accepted, cherished and celebrated.
"Many people almost prevented Partition, but it happened because there were differences in value systems and assessments of the nature of India's nationhood and its civilisational inheritance between people like Gandhi, Pandit Nehru, Jinnah and many other Muslims who did not agree with Mr Jinnah.
"But the fact is that the Partition happened and till today we are living with the consequences of that Partition. Is this how we should be living? Is that the unresolved questions of the Partition reflected in the terrible tragedy... in Pahalgam on April 22," he said.
Twenty-six people, mostly tourists, were gunned down by terrorists at Baisaran meadow in south Kashmir's Pahalgam on Tuesday.
Aiyar said Pakistan's dream of being the protector of Muslims in the subcontinent ended after the 1971 war, when Bangladesh became a separate country.
There was the partition of 1971, when more than half of Pakistan's population and a very important part of its territory deliberately moved away from it on the ground that it was not enough to be Muslim and it was also necessary to be Bengali, the Congress leader said.
"And it was the failure to understand that every salvation has more than one dimension to this identity that was responsible for what happened to Pakistan in 1971. Its dream of being the homeland of Muslims of India and being regarded as the protector of the Muslim community all over the subcontinent was finished forever," he said.
Reflecting on the pre-Partition period, Aiyar said the real question that was posed to India at that time and which continues to haunt it today is what is to be done with what were then about 100 million Muslims and 200 million Muslims now.
He further said, "Do we accept Jinnah's view and say 'no, they are a separate nation living amongst us as saboteurs or potential saboteurs', or do we look at them and say 'they are part and parcel of us'? Do we define ourselves as a composite or do we say 'no, we have only one dimension in our identity and that is the religious dimension of Hinduism'?"
"But in today's India, does a Muslim feel that he is accepted? Does a Muslim feel that he is cherished? Does a Muslim feel that he is celebrated? Why should I answer my own questions? Ask any Muslim and you will get the answers," he added.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
