Let My Country Awake

Where the mind is without fear and the head held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by Thee into ever-widening thought and action;

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

- Rabindranath Tagore (Happy Independence Day!)

Let Kashmir Go

I know, this is kinda controversial view, but look at the protests.
Obviously, there is plenty of political instigation in the recent blow
up in Kashmir, but it hardly looks like they are thrilled to be with
India. Of course, they have good reason to be pissed off. Our forces no
matter how carefully they deal with the locals, insurgency has strong
local support, and Indian forces have never really been welcome on
Kashmir.

We can make a hundred movies like Roja about how Kashmir is part of
India and blah blah, but at the end of the day, we seem to be
forgetting the average Kashmiri has no love lost for India. Of course,
probably in the long term, they are better off being with India than
being Independent or with Pakistan, but that's for them to decide. What
really stops India from holding a referendum in Kashmir, and if it
turns out to be that they want freedom, then grant it graciously?

Politics, of course. But let it be said: what we just witnessed a few
days ago in the Valley is probably the first, proper Freedom Struggle.
We can hide behind a million excuses about Pakistan is foisting all
this unrest, Muslim fundamentalists are doing this, or Hindu
fundamentalists are playing brinkmanship.That may all be true, but at
the end of the day, an average Kashmiri doesn't care for India. So, I
would say, the most decent thing we can do is pack up and leave.

Of course, this will take another 20-30 years to happen, but happen it
will. We can crackdown on the public, shoot innocent people all we
want, but we can never suppress a people's deepest wishes. If
Independence is what they want, they've got my support. Let's get it
over with. Kashmir maybe a beautiful piece of real estate, but if they
want us to get out, it's the most honourable thing we can do.

Well, I've got that covered...

"You've got everything, except one thing... madness. A man needs a little madness or else... he never dares cut the rope - and be free" - Zorba the Greek