Extremist Hindu Right is targetting Indian Muslims and the dispute often spills over in Pakistan

The word Hindustan is from the Persian word 'Hindu', which itself is derived from Sanskrit word 'Sindhu' for the Indus River. Plus, the popular suffix -stān, which is also Persian, meaning land. The two gave birth to the word 'Hindustan'. Literally, the word means land of the Hindus or the land of Indus River to be the Hindustan. Not the entire India.

Islam also has no problem with Hinduism. The attack in Mumbai is the problem of Hindus with the Muslims of India and that dates back before partition -- in fact a very long time before that. It is something that Mohammad Ali Jinnah who later founded Pakistan, said in his address to All India Muslim League, in 1940:

"It is extremely difficult to appreciate why our Hindu friends fail to understand the real nature of Islam and Hinduism. Those are not religions in the strict sense of the word but are, in fact, different and distinct social orders… The Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs, literatures. They belong to two different civilizations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions. Their aspects of life and our life are different."

Long before Ali Jinnah, it was Dr. Mohammad Iqbal, or as he is popularly called, Alama Iqbal, said in his presidential address of All India Muslim League at Allahabad in 1930:

"I, therefore, want the formation of a consolidated Muslim state in the best interests of India and Islam. For India, it means security and peace resulting from an internal balance of power; for Islam, an opportunity to rid itself of the stamp that Arabian Imperialism was forced to give it, to mobilize its laws, its education, its culture, and to bring them into closer contact with its own original spirit and with the spirit of modern times."

It is interesting to note how Ali Jinnah mentions just 'Hindus and Muslims' [not of sub-continent] and Dr. Iqbal mentions 'India and Islam' [not Hinduism and Islam]. Both of them feared not just for the people they represented but for every one living in India. Their worst nightmare is proving true. Hindus and Muslims in India are at loggerheads and it is spilling over, in Pakistan.

If India is truly secular, it has to ban the 'shiv Sena' just as Pakistan has banned LeT and others. No, in fact it has to dismantle Shiv Sena and other Hindu militant parties or organizations. Though it is a politcal party but it claims itself to be the 'Army of Shiva [Bhosle], the sixteenth century Marathi raja. Shiv Sena is a far-right political party that supports a broader Hindu nationalist agenda as it aligned istself with the Bharatiya Janata Party.

An estimated 200,000 people were murdered and 13 million forced to migrate from their homes in 1946-48 when India was partitioned by the British into Hindu and Muslim majority states.

Violence stopped for a while. Shiv Sena was founded on June 19, 1966 by Balasaheb Thackeray, son of Prabodhankar Thackeray (prominent leader in the Sanyukta Maharashtra Movement that led to the integration of Maharashtra in 1960).

It started again. In his book, Votes and Violence, Steven I. Wilkinson, writes that Hindu-Muslim riots after 1977 emergency [data has only been kept since], states such as Gujrat and Maharashtra have had, even allowing for population, considerably higher monthly average level of riots over the past three decades. Why? Shiv Sena, of course.

More people [mostly Muslims] have died in Hindu-Muslim riots in India compared to total number of deaths caused due to the three wars the two countries have fought since the partition in 1947.

Now I will come to the final chapter of this sordid saga; the Indus River and Kashmir. Although it starts in Tibet, it passes through India's Ladakh district of Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan's Northern Areas (Gilgit-Baltistan), flowing through the North to merge, in the south, into the Arabian Sea near Pakistan's port city Karachi. The total length of the river is 3,180 kilometres (1,976miles). It is umimaginable to feed this nation without the breadbasket of the Punjab, that accounts for most of the agriculture.

Kashmiris know very well that anyone who controls the water of Indus, can get away with murder. The water fron Indus is worth its weight in gold. The state of Kashmir in the hands of BJP or Shiv Sena is a weapon, against the Muslim heartland of Pakistan. For Pakistan, it is simply a matter of survival.

Therefore, the strategy of Shiv Sena and all extremists Hindu organizations is two pronged; sever all ties between Pakistan and Kashmiri freedom fighters -- put international pressure in the name of war on terror to seal the border between the two Kashmirs, including any political, diplomatic and moral support coming from Pakistan. Then hunt down every freedom fighter and finish him or her off. Finally, promote Hindu settlements to rapidly change the demographic balance in this region, which has a Muslim majority or the only Muslim majority state in India.

Kashmir remains an unresolved issue between the two countries. Hindu fundamentalists made progress when, in 2004, India brought international pressure from Washington and London, to bear on Pakistan to embark on a peace process. This allowed some 700,000 uniformed Indian troops to put down the armed separatist uprising in Kashmir and bring the total to 69,000 of people killed in the state since 1989.

India's official position remains that Kashmir is an integral part of India. It is not. In October 1947, Pakistani tribals from Dir entered Kashmir with the hope to liberate it from Dogra rule. The state forces were not able to withstand the invasion and the Maharaja signed The Instrument of Accession.

The accession was accepted by Lord Mountbatten, Governor General of India, the following day (October 27, 1947). Lord Mountbatten in his letter of acceptance wrote that "Consistently with their policy that in the case of any State where the accession has been the subject of dispute,the question of accession should be decided in accordance with the wishes of the people of the State,it is my Government's wish that,as soon as law and order have been restored in Kashmir and her soil cleared of the invader,the question of the State's accession should be settled by a reference to the people." Case closed.