U.S. foreign policy unchanged, mum on Kashmir/India conflict

Time to change the way the world thinks
About war

About weapons

About putting soldiers on the ground

— World-renowned of India: author and global justice activist Arundhati Roy —

From Democracy Now's interviews with Arundhati Roy
Compiled and edited by Carolyn Bennett

Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir
Foreign model and presence

“Democracies are linked to dictatorships and military occupations and so on. … Some of the main military occupations in the world today are actually administered by democracies: Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kashmir. …

“Expanding the war [in Afghanistan] is not going to end that war or create any kind of just peace in that region. It is, in fact, going to exacerbate the situation. Draw Pakistan into it; and when Pakistan is drawn into it, so will be India, and so on. So it goes.…

“The situation in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir is very volatile and these are nuclear powers…

“The media was spoiling for war — the media, the elite and the urban middle class were spoiling for war. They were just pushing for a war with Pakistan. … It is very troubling to live in a place where the media has actually no accountability.”

India and Kashmir

News of what they call ‘encounter killings’ come in almost a few every day. Nonviolent protest has been put down, violently. Things are going to go back to a previous era of some kind of militant violence there — the heart of India being sort of hollowed out by this civil war and this assault on its poor.

• Most militarized zone in the world

“Since the 1990s … at the same time that the war in Afghanistan, the American one, its jihad in Afghanistan, India realigned itself and became … what it is now, sort of completely aligned with the United States. The whole problem in Kashmir, the militant armed struggle for independence — there was always a struggle for independence.

“The Kashmiris, Jammu and Kashmir, used to be an independent kingdom at the time of partition…

“It is not independence. It’s not ever been really a part of India — which is why it’s ridiculous for the Indian government to keep saying it’s an integral part of India — but that armed struggle claimed the lives of 68,000 people. India today has 500,000 troops operating in that little valley. It is the highest, most militarized zone in the world.”

• Threshold of genocide

Societies are prepared for genocide and … it’s like part of free trade, … genocides acknowledged and denied and prosecuted — all depend on world trade, and always have done… I worry that a country like India, that is poised on the threshold of progress, could also be poised on the threshold of genocide.

“… Here in India, there is the smell of fascism in the air. Earlier it was a kind of an anti-Muslim religious fascism; now we have a secular government, and it’s a kind of right-wing ruthlessness.… People openly say: ‘you know, every country that has progressed and is developed — whether Europe or America or China or Russia — [has] a cruel past. It’s time that India stepped up to the plate and realized that there are some people that are holding back this kind of progress and we need to be ruthless and move in, as Israel did recently in Gaza, as Sri Lanka has recently done with its hundreds of thousands of Tamils in concentration camps; so why not India. Why not just do away with the poor.’”

REGARDING ENDLESS DESTRUCTION, UNWINNABLE WARS
Lessons to Washington

“There’s an almost full-fledged war going on. … Several wars are going on in India. There’s Kashmir going up in flames and there’s what’s happening in the northeast. … The richest country in the world— America — has attacked and made war on the poorest countries and [has not been] able to win those wars.

“You couldn’t win Vietnam. You couldn’t win Afghanistan. Couldn’t win Iraq. Cannot win Kashmir.

“[U.S. President Obama] has expanded the war in Afghanistan and moved it into Pakistan… Right when 9/11 happened, I remember writing, ‘you forced them to raise the Taliban in their midst, and now you want them to garrote the pit they grew in their own backyard. It’s going to lead to civil war.’ You didn’t need to be a genius to figure that out.

“America has interfered with Pakistan from the beginning and Pakistan is paying a terrible price. …

[America] has destroyed Afghanistan. It has destroyed Pakistan. It has destroyed Iraq. It will destroy India — because India doesn’t have the spine.

“Whatever [U.S. President Barack Obama] is doing within America is a separate thing, but his foreign policy is not all that different from [that of his predecessor] George W. Bush. If they start a war in Iran, they won’t win — these wars cannot be won.

“It’s about time somebody realized that and decided to change the way the world thinks about war and thinks about weapons and thinks about putting soldiers on the ground.”


Sources


“Author Arundhati Roy on the Human Costs of India’s Economic Growth, the View of Obama from New Delhi, and Escalating US Attacks in Af-Pak.” September 28, 2009,
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/9/28/author_arundhati_roy_on_conflicts_and


Acclaimed Indian Author Arundhati Roy Faces Arrest for Questioning India’s Claim on Kashmir,
October 27, 2010, http://www.democracynow.org/2010/10/27/acclaimed_indian_author_arundhati_roy_faces
ARUNDHATI ROY


Acclaimed Indian Author Arundhati Roy on Obama’s Wars, Poverty and India’s Maoist Rebels, November 8, 2010,
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/11/8/acclaimed_indian_author_arundhati_roy


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