Tuesday, May 21, 2013

India should keep out of Afghanistan - Letter to the Editor - Ghulam Muhammed

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Letter to the Editor

While Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai is in India on a three-day visit, to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh this evening where he is expected to push for an expansion for India's security involvement in Afghanistan, one cannot help to note from a CNN Farid Zakaria interview of Daryl Dalrymple on the last British involvement in Afghanistan, back in 1860s when out of about 18000 British troops, only one survived the retreat, and in that expedition with the British were about 5000 Indians too – helpless coolies recruited to die, apparently not for the sake of their own country, India. Another episode blurs up the confusion on Afghanistan, when a British soldier, Joe Geldon, on Steven Sucker’s BBC Hardtalk program accuses that UK was merely hanging over the coattails of US and it has no business to be in Afghanistan. With so much world experience being articulated day in and day out even in current media programs, one hopes our Prime Minister will take heed and not drag us Indians into Afghanistan imbroglio, either hanging from the coattails of the US or Hamid Karzai – the later-day Shah Shuja --- whatever promise of gold at the end of the rainbow will be shown to him and his advisers. India should opt for a war-less future for the sub-continent and even with China, it should finalize a neighborly relations just like US has with Canada – open borders, open hearts.

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
<ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com>