Akbar's Secular Governance PRE-DATES Indian Constitution.

Akbar's Proud Secular Legacy PRE-DATES India's Constitution. Yes, that is fact.

The Indian Constitution, which appropriately is a composite borrowing from many modern constitutions, could not exist without Akbar Mughal's 16th century legacy of strategic secular governance.

The Indian Constitution, it is true, offers a modern legalistic framework, BUT Akbar pragmatic idealism which included HUMAN RIGHTS, is more inspiring, as LIVED historical experience, for Aam Koshur, every Indian, every subcontinental.
Akbar's proud, strategic, secular, legacy of subcontinental GOVERNANCE forms the critical basis of Kashmir's unity within India.

1586 not 1947 is the modern starting point of Kashmir's integral unity within India.

2 questions for J&K's elected and unelected 'leaders':

Q. Why rely on the deadly and tragic fallout of colonial Brit divide and rule imperial politics, including the post-Mountbatten-era UN Security Council Resolutions, to limit Kashmir's forward-looking future ? Does anybody seriously think that In-Security Council Resolutions, (even when they are in India's favor), can serve as the guiding framework for Kashmir's integrity and future prosperity?
Learn from the failed UN Security Council Resolutions on Palestine.

Q. Why expect homegrown, postcolonial elites, (which include BOTH Hindutva dominant-caste interest, pseudo-nationalists plus the self-serving alpahabet-soup Hurriyat), to offer constructive solutions when we can take the evidence offered by the secular discursive legacy of Akbar?

My critical reading of subcontinental South Asian political and social history points to the greatest Mughal, Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar, as the pioneering architect of India's modern secular diverse nation-making.

Historians and contemporary politicians, including human rights advocates have failed to fully acknowledge the Mughal master of open-court strategic, philosophical, literary and artistic Navratna discourse.

Akbar and his great grandson Dara Shikoh are the authentic, proven modern architects of Kashmir's unique historical integration within the world's most populous and most diverse democracy.

Aam Koshur can justly share the pride of every indigenous ancestor, every Muslim and Hindu, every Sikh and Rajput, in the governance of the third Mughal.

I write this response today, March 09, 2011, as I leave my University, to meet two dedicated, inspiring representatives of the Youth Parliament (YPP) of Pakistan, a meeting arranged by a dear longterm friend at the OIC.
Such is the complex relationship of blood and kinship that is the unfolding destiny of all South Asians, including of course Aam Koshur of the great State of J&K, India's crown, bestowed by Akbar, in 1586.

Dr. Chithra Karunakaran
City University of New York [CUNY]
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogps...
www.disqus.com/EthicalDemocracy
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Rising Kashmir copyrighted article (see link)

* yesterday
* http://www.risingkashmir.com/news/solution-within-constitution-of-india-7125.aspx

A Grievious Wrong Wrought By The Brits

A Grievious Wrong Wrought By The Brits

The India-Pakistan Divide, the India-Pakistan-Bangladesh Divide, the Kashmir Accession, the Afghanistan Impasse, were 300 years in the making. It took a lot of doing.

The people of South Asia have inherited the Imperial Project. They have yet to move their leaders to dismantle and overturn the ideology and practice of that imperial Project. It took the British (and lesser colonial powers) that long, 300+ years, in days, months and years, in decades and centuries, to robustly execute their Oppress-Exploit-Divide-Rule strategy. This strategy is in stark evidence today throughout the Global South, Angola to Zimbabwe, Indonesia to Iran, Singapore to Seychelles.

Lest we forget, we in South Asia are still playing out that strategy in 2009, with real oppressors on the ground or in the air, and imagined enemies among our very own sisters, brothers and cousins. The Great South Asian Family Quarrel has transposed itself onto the emergent struggling nation-state, carefully fractured by our departing Brit masters. Pesky relatives believe the malicious gossip and decide to walk out of the door while tea is being poured and sweets are being distributed. The taste in our mouths is bitter, watered by tears over the days of bloody parting.

We ourselves have become master performers of that cynical strategy of our erstwhile masters. Ironically we have ourselves mastered that strategy, added new rules and regulations. We oppress each other. Our families have turned on their own members. So it is today in our region, South Asia.

So it will continue -- unless we reflect and return to ourselves, our deeper collective selves.

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