Picto Diary - 03 December 2019 - Indo/Pak Border Crossing Ceremony

Above: Turbans. Golden Temple. Amritsar, India. 03 December 2019.

AM visit to the Golden Temple. We channel Sikh life with turbans and participation in Golden Temple communal meal.

There are 24 million Sikhs in India, 1.72% of the total population. Up to 500 thousand Sikhs are believed to be living in the USA. Sikh's have proven adept and resourceful in the United States. Increasingly, for example, they are successful participants (owners, drivers etc.) in the US trucking industry.

The Five K's: There are five items that Guru Gobind Singh commanded Sikhs to wear at all times in 1699. They are Kesh (uncut hair), Kangha (a wooden comb for the hair), Kara (an iron bracelet), Kachera (100% cotton tieable undergarment, and Kirpan (an iron dagger large enough to defend oneself)

THE AMRITSAR MASSACRE- 13 April 1919

Here. Jallianwala Bagh. A park in the center of Amritsar. Eight hundred unarmed Indians killed by fifty Punjabi and Gurkha soldiers in the British Army, under the command of Brevet Brigadier General Reginald Dyer, who was putatively enforcing curfew and assembly violations by Indian citizens, 13 April 1919.

Post WWI. Indians agitated for independence. They had supplied two million troops to the British war effort in the recently completed WWI. They believed that they deserved their freedom from colonial rule.

Some of the independence seekers were militant. Others were not. Whatever the case, the Brits were nervous. They couldn't cave to the wishes of these rabble rousers, at least right away, could they?

General Dyer, didn't want to take any chances of allowing for insurrection. For what seemed to most to be overreach, Dyer was relieved of command but acquitted of wrong doing at court of inquiry in Lahore.

Dyer maintained the rightness of his action for the remainder of his life. He died in London in 1927 of a series of strokes during the last years of his life. Dyer's position that he was doing his duty seemed to be backed up by the sentiments a majority of his countrymen. He was even given an award, Companion of the Order of the Bath, by military officers who continued in strong support of maintaining the Raj after WWI.

The tragic event remains an open sore to this day with a now independent India periodically demanding a British apology and Britain, periodically, expressing its regret, but not apologizing for the massacre..

Image shows the Jalianwalla Bagh well (pink in distance) into which women and children were thrown to keep them out of the way of the bullets from the Lee Enfield rifles. Tragically, many of them were killed, crushed by those later thrown into the well.

The movie "Gandhi," starring Ben Kingsly, has a scene representation of The Amritsar Massacre: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=345aojByoGk&authuser=0

TIMDT and Drums are in crowd at right of image.

Above: Indo/Pak border crossing ceremony. Atari, Punjab, India. 03 December 2019

Famous (as indicated by You Tube hits) Indo Pak border crossing ceremony more than meets expectations.

To near ear popping, militant percussion sound track, coordinated on both sides of border, Indian and Pakistani soldiers kick and strut as they mock their counterparts right at the frontier of their respective, belligerent nations.

Like colorful birds preparing for a cock fight, the soldiers, all of a certain size, preen and taunt. Mutually glaring at their counterparts across the border, the soldiers of each army sullenly, arrogantly burnish their cockades with a flip of their fingers.

Pre border ceremony, an amplified cheerleading soldier from India's elite Border Expeditionary Force (BEF) builds the ten thousand strong Indian crowd's enthusiasm into a patriotic fervor. "Long live!, screams the soldier/cheerleader. "Hindustan!" the worked up crowd yells back.

A similar crowd building exercise happens on the Pakistani side of the border. We are seated on the Indian side, but closest to the border, so we can see the Pakistani cheering section and hear the building cacophony of chants from both sides. At one point, cheering citizens from the two belligerents compete directly in a near paroxysmal scream fest:

From the Indians to our left: "Hindustan!"

From the Pakistanis to our right: "Pakistan!"

Hindustan!!

Pakistan!!

Hindustan!!!

Pakistan!!!

Hindustan!!!!

Pakistan!!!!

I am caught up in the enthusiasm of this primal moment. I yell "Hindustan" with the Indian crowd. And, then only do I realize that this is not a football game. These are two countries on the brink of nuclear war. The sensation of this realization, while the chants continue, is surreal.

Note: Kudos to Mohan at TravelScope India for arranging these great seats!

Above: Indo/Pak border crossing ceremony. Atari, Punjab, India. 03 December 2019.

Indian (left) and Pakistani commandos, each armed with an automatic rifle, face off on the Indo Pak frontier. Pakistani spectators are seen in the background. We are watching the ceremony from India.

Irony. The two countries working together to choreograph this spectacular border ceremony, are also deemed the two countries most likely to start the next nuclear war.

The Atari/Wagah border is not the only formal land connection between India and Pakistan. There are two other crossings along the border where similar ceremonies are held. But, here at Atari, along the Grand Trunk road, the road of the Raj connecting Delhi and Lahore, is the major, and best known of the Indo-Pak border ceremonies. Considering the razor edge belligerence between the two nations, not much happens at the border other than these ceremonies, practiced here at Atari, daily, since 1959. There is virtually no overland commercial exchange between the two antagonists.

The two nations dispute the "rightful "ownership of the former Indian princely state of Kashmir, whose Hindu ruler, at time of Partition in 1948, legally declared the majority Muslim Kashmir to become part of India.

Because of Kashmir's being adjacent to the new nation of Pakistan, and considering Kashmir's 90% majority Muslim population, Pakistan had a colorable argument that Kashmir should have been included within the borders of the new Pakistani state.

Pakistan, a nation born out of a movement to create a true Islamic state, cried foul about India's putatively legal claim over Kashmir. After all, when the Muslim Nazim (Maharajah) of the majority Hindu principality of Hyderabad declared his central Indian state to join Pakistan, the Indian's said, " No way!," and sent in their military to kick out the Nazim and take possession of his "former," majority Hindu, princely state.

On Kashmir, Packistan says turnabout is fair play. What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. After military skirmishing in 1948, and hot wars in 1965 and 1971, India still holds onto the majority of Kashmir...but, not without engendering an enemy which regularly threatens her very existence.

Note, at left in image, the female Pakistani soldier in hijab. The Indian Border Expeditionary Force (BEF) introduced female soldiers - no hijabs - into its border routine two years ago. Female soldiers entered the Pakistani border performance routine only within the last two months. — at Atari Wagah Indo-Pak Border Between Amritsar & Lahore.
Notwithstanding the movement towards multiculturalism and political correctness in the West, nationalism/tribalism remains the dominant paradignm for societal organization in the world today. Han Chinese culture, Hindu culture, Islam, Russian culture are all on the ascendancy (Russia struggling from a low base). These cultures represent three quarters of the world's population and they show no inclination to shed their nationalist thinking. Just the opposite. The multicultural, globalist West is an outlier, bending, fruitlessly, I believe, against the arc of history as it embraces kumbayah cultural relativism. Donald Trump, the anti-globalist, is a nationalist as he pushes his America first policy. This is why he is hated by the globalists so much. But, Donald Trump is more in synch with the arc of history than are his globalist, multicultural critics. To progress, people need a cause around which to rally. They will continue do this under the banner of culture, aided by the nation state.

So, no, while I see a theatrical ceremony here that many would call jingoistic, if not irresponsible, I don't condemn it. It is of the natural order of things.