The caretakers seem to spend their time being unpleasantly surprised. One big surprise was how they got missiles thrown at Balochistan, at a Jaish-i-Adl camp, though the people killed included a little girl. Baloch women have been active, one having blown herself up in Karachi at the Confucius Institute in the University there. I’ve not heard of any active in Iran, though.
There was the response, to a missile attack on Baloch nationalist camps in Iran. It seems there are two movements, one of Baloch separatists inside Iran, and another of those within Pakistan. There are two organizations within Pakistan, which means that they will probably fight one another until one is left standing.
At least, that’s how the story has gone wherever there’s been a decolonization. Baloch separatists claim that they’re colonized. But I’m not sure that there being two separatist movements is very efficient. This division makes it likely that a sort of Somalia-like solution is envisaged. Your know, there were two Somali lands, one Italian and one Brish, but they obtained independence in 1960 as one country, Somalia. Just to add to the excitement, France also took control of a small portion of land inhabited by Somalis, which was known as French Somaliland, but became independent as Djibouti in 1977. If you ask me, the best thing the Baloch could do is maintain the status quo.
Another problem that has been revealed is that the Iranians can’t really be depended on. I mean, both in 1965 and 1971, theory said they wouldn’t attack us, meaning we could move the forces on its border east. But now we can’t be sure, can we.
Anyway, after that unpleasant surprise, which was perhaps as much of a surprise for the Iranian government, was the Pran Pratishtha ceremony at Ayodhya for the Ram temple emerging at the site of the Babri Mosque, demolished in 1992. Just because the ceremony was held, doesn’t mean the Temple is complete. It’s just been opened for worshippers. Construction is going to go on for decades.
That’s about par for Hindu temples. There’s the Meenakhi Amman temple in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, which was sacked by an invading army in 1311, but was reconstructed, expanded and generally revised over the next 300 years. Just to keep temple builders hopeful, the BJP has got some immediate targets, where they claim mosques have been built on temple sites, like the Gyanvapi Mosque in Varanasi, the Taj Mahal itself, or the Mathura Idgah, which it is claimed was built in 1670, after the city was conquered by Aurangzeb in 1670.
Interestingly enough, the Muslims didn’t build a mosque on the site of the Somnath Temple, which is in Gujarat. The ruins there continued until after Independence, and a temple was built in the 1950s. The Mathura case is going to be a hot-button issue, because it also is supposed to a Janambhoomi, just like the Babri Mosque. That was supposed to be the birthplace of Ram, while the Mathura Idgah is supposed to be the birthplace of Krishna. There are already three temples there, but that doesn’t seem enough.
Babri Mosque was probably only the first. There are 600,000 active mosques in India. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Sangh Parivar was to find that every single one was built on a demolished temple, which will need to be rebuilt. Apart from being part of the Sangh Parivar and pracharks Preachers) of the RSS, I would expect temple builders, or anyone involved in temple construction (like sculptors), to contribute heavily to the BJP.
Back at home, one of the issues that doesn’t seem to be going away is that of Imran Khan’s Economist article. PTI enthusiasts are claiming that the article was written by Imran, and the PML(N) was just jealous that he could write the article, while Mian Nawaz couldn’t. They were careful not to say that Imran was brighter than Mian Shehbaz. Nor did they mention Usman Buzdar, who does not rely on AI to write articles, but does it with his feet. That is something he has kept doing, whether or not he is in the PTI.
Of course, Buzdar is no help to the PTI’s recent rally, which was supposed to be online, but which caused Internet speeds to fall precipitously. The government said it was because of a technical glitch. The PTI is not yet a terrorist, otherwise mobiles would be jammed.
