More on Advaniji's Actions and Pronouncements
Actually, in my opinion, the issue is
not that Advani called Jinnah a Secularist.
The issues were
a) Advani did not raise India's concerns about Terrorist support in
Pakistan, did not speak about known
absconders being given harbour
in Karachi -- as an Indian leader his duties were to bring up
these
issues
b) Advani spoke of "the saddest day" of
his life while in Pakistan -- as the leader of a
political party
in India who led what was, for all intents and
purposes, a political action against a ruling
party, he cannot and
should not raise a domestic issue in Pakistan
c) Advani
chose to pick and choose what he wanted to say about Jinnah -- he
highlighted only one
fraction of Jinnah's life as if Jinnah had
lived by those few words all his life
When people talk of the
Partition, they are talking of the past. The Pakistan of the
1940s is NOT
the Pakistan of the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. The
Pakistan we have been facing in the last 3 decades
is one that has
supported terrorism in Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir and has indulged
in military
adventures against India. Advani chose to go
back in time to 1946 as if the 1980s , 1990s and 2000s
have never
happened. He chose to speak counter to India's stand in the
past 3 decades.
WHY did he do so ? I can only think that
it is the same reason as why Atalji and Manmohanji
are pro-Peace
: Economics {dependence on Iranian gas, the ability
to reduce threat levels
and defence spending, being able to
focus on energy and growth, getting better FDI if
India is
seen as a safe country}, USA {the everpresent OverSeer},
the
desire to project India as a peaceful nation {even get a Permanent
Seat at the UN}.
The leadership thinks that what we might
achieve in the next 3 to 5 years will far outweigh what
we have
lost in the last 25 years.