Flag Of India Quotes

We stole countries with the cunning use of flags. Just sail around the world and stick a flag in. "I claim India for Britain!" They're going "You can't claim us, we live here! Five hundred million of us!" "Do you have a flag …? "No..." "Well, if you don't have a flag, then you can't have a country. Those are the rules... that I just made up!

When the climbers in 1953 planted their flags on the highest mountain, they set them in snow over the skeletons of creatures that had lived in the warm clear ocean that India, moving north, blanked out. Possibly as much as twenty thousand feet below the seafloor, the skeletal remains had turned into rock. This one fact is a treatise in itself on the movements of the surface of the earth. If by some fiat I had to restrict all this writing to one sentence, this is the one I would choose: The summit of Mt. Everest is marine limestone.

The book of nature has no beginning, as it has no end. Open this book where you will, and at any period of your life, and if you have the desire to acquire knowledge you will find it of intense interest, and no matter how long or how intently you study the pages, your interest will not flag, for in nature there is no finality.

Suddenly Ammu hoped that it had been him that Rahel saw him in the march. She hoped it had been him that raised his flag and knotted arm in anger. She hoped that under his careful cloak of cheerfulness he housed a living breathing anger against the smug, ordered world that she raged against.

In the loudest voice I could muster, I shouted, "As of this moment, you are no longer the armies of China, Macedonia, Myanmar, Tibet or India. You are now warriors of Durga! We have already fought and overcome many fierce creatures. Now we give you the symbol of their power." I borrowed the Scarf and touched it to my Pearl Necklace. The silken material sped down each and every soldier to cloak them in the most brilliant red, blue, green, gold and white. Even the flag bearers were not left out and now held banners depicting Durga riding her tiger into battle. "Red for the heart of a Phoenix that sees through falsehood!" I cheered and raided the trident. "Blue for the Monsters of the Deep that rip apart those who dare to cross their domain! Gold for Metal Birds that cut their enemies with razor beaks! Green for the Horde of Hanuman that comes alive to protect that which is most precious! And white for the Dragons of the Five Oceans, whose cunning and power has no equal!

The Himalayas are the crowning achievement of the Indo-Australian plate. India in the Oligocene crashed head on into Tibet, hit so hard that it not only folded and buckled the plate boundaries but also plowed into the newly created Tibetan plateau and drove the Himalayas five and a half miles into the sky. The mountains are in some trouble. India has not stopped pushing them, and they are still going up. Their height and volume are already so great they are beginning to melt in their own self-generated radioactive heat. When the climbers in 1953 planted their flags on the highest mountain, they set them in snow over the skeletons of creatures that had lived in a warm clear ocean that India, moving north, blanked out. Possibly as much as 20,000 feet below the sea floor, the skeletal remains had turned into rock. This one fact is a treatise in itself on the movements of the surface of the earth. If by some fiat, I had to restrict all this writing to one sentence; this is the one I would choose: the summit of Mount Everest is marine limestone.

This is a place that was “discovered” by a dude who didn’t know how to read a map, so he just showed up on some shore, thought he was in India, and then proceeded to plant a flag there, like, “TA-DA.” No, sir, no. What Christopher Columbus’s goofass needed was a compass and a clue for being so aggressively mediocre, but that dude has a federal holiday in his honor. He showed up on someone else’s property and claimed it as his because he didn’t know what it was. This country started off all the way wrong and continued in the same fashion. Chris

The Queen coined new money specifically for the Company {East India}. Minted at the Tower of London and bearing her arms on one side and a portcullis on the other, it soon became know as the portcullis money. She also granted the merchants a new flag which, with its blue field and background of thirteen red and white stripes, prefigured the one adopted by the Thirteen Colonies of America some 175 years later.

I probably should say that this is what makes you a good traveler in my opinion, but deep down I really think this is just universal, incontrovertible truth. There is the right way to travel, and the wrong way. And if there is one philanthropic deed that can come from this book, maybe it will be that I teach a few more people how to do it right. So, in short, my list of what makes a good traveler, which I recommend you use when interviewing your next potential trip partner: 1. You are open. You say yes to whatever comes your way, whether it’s shots of a putrid-smelling yak-butter tea or an offer for an Albanian toe-licking. (How else are you going to get the volcano dust off?) You say yes because it is the only way to really experience another place, and let it change you. Which, in my opinion, is the mark of a great trip. 2. You venture to the places where the tourists aren’t, in addition to hitting the “must-sees.” If you are exclusively visiting places where busloads of Chinese are following a woman with a flag and a bullhorn, you’re not doing it. 3. You are easygoing about sleeping/eating/comfort issues. You don’t change rooms three times, you’ll take an overnight bus if you must, you can go without meat in India and without vegan soy gluten-free tempeh butter in Bolivia, and you can shut the hell up about it. 4. You are aware of your travel companions, and of not being contrary to their desires/​needs/​schedules more often than necessary. If you find that you want to do things differently than your companions, you happily tell them to go on without you in a way that does not sound like you’re saying, “This is a test.” 5. You can figure it out. How to read a map, how to order when you can’t read the menu, how to find a bathroom, or a train, or a castle. 6. You know what the trip is going to cost, and can afford it. If you can’t afford the trip, you don’t go. Conversely, if your travel companions can’t afford what you can afford, you are willing to slum it in the name of camaraderie. P.S.: Attractive single people almost exclusively stay at dumps. If you’re looking for them, don’t go posh. 7. You are aware of cultural differences, and go out of your way to blend. You don’t wear booty shorts to the Western Wall on Shabbat. You do hike your bathing suit up your booty on the beach in Brazil. Basically, just be aware to show the culturally correct amount of booty. 8. You behave yourself when dealing with local hotel clerks/​train operators/​tour guides etc. Whether it’s for selfish gain, helping the reputation of Americans traveling abroad, or simply the spreading of good vibes, you will make nice even when faced with cultural frustrations and repeated smug “not possible”s. This was an especially important trait for an American traveling during the George W. years, when the world collectively thought we were all either mentally disabled or bent on world destruction. (One anecdote from that dark time: in Greece, I came back to my table at a café to find that Emma had let a nearby [handsome] Greek stranger pick my camera up off our table. He had then stuck it down the front of his pants for a photo. After he snapped it, he handed the camera back to me and said, “Show that to George Bush.” Which was obviously extra funny because of the word bush.) 9. This last rule is the most important to me: you are able to go with the flow in a spontaneous, non-uptight way if you stumble into something amazing that will bump some plan off the day’s schedule. So you missed the freakin’ waterfall—you got invited to a Bahamian family’s post-Christening barbecue where you danced with three generations of locals in a backyard under flower-strewn balconies. You won. Shut the hell up about the waterfall. Sally

The Flag Code then quotes Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, India’s second president, who explained: The saffron color denotes renunciation or disinterestedness. Our leaders must be indifferent to material gains and dedicate themselves to their work. The white in the center is light, the path of truth to guide our conduct. The green shows our relation to the soil, our relation to the plant life here on which all other life depends. The Ashoka wheel in the center of the white is the wheel of the law of dharma. Truth or Satya, dharma or virtue ought to be the controlling principles of all those who work under this flag.

who could blame them if they said "the hell with the rest of the world." Let somebody else buy the bonds. Let somebody else build or repair foreign dams, or design foreign buildings that won't shake apart in earthquakes." When the railways of France, and Germany, and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both of 'em are still broke. I can name to you 5,000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name to me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake. Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I am one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them kicked around. They'll come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they're entitled to thumb their noses at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of these. But there are many smug, self-righteous Canadians. And finally, the American Red Cross was told at its 48th Annual meeting in New Orleans this morning that it was broke. This year's disasters -- with the year less than half-over -- has taken it all. And nobody, but nobody, has helped. -  Gordon Sinclair via Radio Broadcast June 5, 1973 from Ontario, Canada

In 2017 India’s nationalist government hoisted one of the largest flags in the world at Attari on the Indo-Pakistan border, in a gesture calculated to inspire neither renunciation nor disinterestedness, but rather Pakistani envy. That particular Tiranga was 36 metres long and 24 metres wide, and was hoisted on a 110-metre-high flag post (what would Freud have said about that?). The flag could be seen as far as the Pakistani metropolis of Lahore. Unfortunately, strong winds kept tearing the flag, and national pride required that it be stitched together again and again, at great cost to Indian taxpayers.11 Why does the Indian government invest scarce resources in weaving enormous flags, instead of building sewage systems in Delhi’s slums? Because the flag makes India real in a way that sewage systems do not.

Jack, Jack,’ cried Stephen, running in. ‘I have been sadly remiss. You are promoted, I find. You are a great man – you are virtually an admiral! Give you joy, my dear, with all my heart. The young man in black clothes tells me you are the greatest man on the station, after the Commander-in-chief.’ ‘Why, I am commodore, as most people have the candour to admit,’ said Jack. ‘But I did mention it before, if you recollect. I spoke of my pendant.’ ‘So you did, joy; but perhaps I did not fully apprehend its true significance. I had a cloudy notion that the word commodore and indeed that curious little flag were connected with a ship rather than with a man – I am almost sure that we called the most important ship in the East India fleet, the ship commanded by the excellent Mr Muffit, the commodore. Pray explain this new and splendid rank of yours.’ ‘Stephen, if I tell you, will you attend?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘I have told you a great deal about the Navy before this, and you have not attended. Only yesterday I heard you give Farquhar a very whimsical account of the difference between the halfdeck and the quarterdeck, and to this day I do not believe you know the odds between . . .

robbery by European nations of each other's territories has never been a sin, is not a sin to-day. To the several cabinets the several political establishments of the world are clotheslines; and a large part of the official duty of these cabinets is to keep an eye on each other's wash and grab what they can of it as opportunity offers. All the territorial possessions of all the political establishments in the earth—including America, of course—consist of pilferings from other people's wash. No tribe, howsoever insignificant, and no nation, howsoever mighty, occupies a foot of land that was not stolen. When the English, the French, and the Spaniards reached America, the Indian tribes had been raiding each other's territorial clothes-lines for ages, and every acre of ground in the continent had been stolen and re-stolen 500 times. The English, the French, and the Spaniards went to work and stole it all over again; and when that was satisfactorily accomplished they went diligently to work and stole it from each other. In Europe and Asia and Africa every acre of ground has been stolen several millions of times. A crime persevered in a thousand centuries ceases to be a crime, and becomes a virtue. This is the law of custom, and custom supersedes all other forms of law. Christian governments are as frank to-day, as open and above-board, in discussing projects for raiding each other's clothes-lines as ever they were before the Golden Rule came smiling into this inhospitable world and couldn't get a night's lodging anywhere. In 150 years England has beneficently retired garment after garment from the Indian lines, until there is hardly a rag of the original wash left dangling anywhere. In 800 years an obscure tribe of Muscovite savages has risen to the dazzling position of Land-Robber-in-Chief; she found a quarter of the world hanging out to dry on a hundred parallels of latitude, and she scooped in the whole wash. She keeps a sharp eye on a multitude of little lines that stretch along the northern boundaries of India, and every now and then she snatches a hip-rag or a pair of pyjamas. It is England's prospective property, and Russia knows it; but Russia cares nothing for that. In fact, in our day land-robbery, claim-jumping, is become a European governmental frenzy. Some have been hard at it in the borders of China, in Burma, in Siam, and the islands of the sea; and all have been at it in Africa. Africa has been as coolly divided up and portioned out among the gang as if they had bought it and paid for it. And now straightway they are beginning the old game again—to steal each other's grabbings. Germany found a vast slice of Central Africa with the English flag and the English missionary and the English trader scattered all over it, but with certain formalities neglected—no signs up, "Keep off the grass," "Trespassers-forbidden," etc.—and she stepped in with a cold calm smile and put up the signs herself, and swept those English pioneers promptly out of the country. There is a tremendous point there. It can be put into the form of a maxim: Get your formalities right—never mind about the moralities. It was an impudent thing; but England had to put up with it. Now, in the case of Madagascar, the formalities had originally been observed, but by neglect they had fallen into desuetude ages ago. England should have snatched Madagascar from the French clothes-line. Without an effort she could have saved those harmless natives from the calamity of French civilization, and she did not do it. Now it is too late. The signs of the times show plainly enough what is going to happen. All the savage lands in the world are going to be brought under subjection to the Christian governments of Europe. I am

He also had his proof that bureaucracy made small problems into big problems. India convinced Dad that Britain, which he called socialist England, had delayed the Allied victory in World War II by an entire year.

And as they started laying about the bowling, the crowd started shouting appreciation for them too: ‘Sachin Zindabad!’ and ‘Sehwag Zindabad!’ And suddenly thousands were shouting ‘India Zindabad!’ A group of youths were tearing around the boundary line holding the Indian tricolour and green flag of Pakistan knotted together. ‘India Zindabad! Pakistan Zindabad!’ the crowd thundered. Had I not heard it, I would not have believed it was possible. In mad, murderous Karachi, the crowd was working itself into raptures over these Indians who, despite everything they knew about the city, had trusted to come to it to play cricket.

She had no right to live there. She doesn't belong there. It took those people a long time to build that country; hundreds of years, years and years of war and bloodshed. Everyone who lives there has earned his right to be there with blood: with their brother's blood and their father's blood and their son's blood. They know they're a nation because they have drawn their borders with blood. Regimental flags hang in their cathedrals and all their churches are lined with memorials to men who died in wars, all around the world. War is their religion. That's what it takes to make a country. Once that happens people forget they were born this or that, Muslim or Hindu, Bengali or Punjabi: they become a family born of the same pool of blood. That is what you have to achieve for India, don't you see?

When Americans raise their flag at the 9/11 sites, they reaffirm the resilience of their nation state. When Indians dance at the site of the 26/11 massacre, they celebrate the triumph of their civilization. The

Another distinct recollection that RNK has about his student days in Law College was of communal politics that was practiced even at the level of students’ union. He recalled, ‘While serving as a member of the Executive Committee, I got my first taste of the manner in which communal politics led to aberrations and endless discussions involving people, who otherwise seemed perfectly rational and normal. One of the questions being considered by the Executive Committee at that time was whether the National Flag should be hoisted over the union building or not. This was strongly opposed by a representative of the Muslim hostel, who said that either there should be no flag or that if the INC flag was hoisted, so should the Muslim League flag side by side. All of us argued vehemently that while the Congress flag was the National Flag, representing all communities in India, the Muslim League could not claim that its flag represented anyone else other than its Muslim supporters.

Carrying just a flag can make you a nationalist. But caring for the country's people makes you a great citizen

O fire, O soul Give us the spark of God-eternal, That friend to friend and friend to foe, One shall we stand before HIM. And the flame of Jatin, And the fire of Bhagath, And the love of the Mahatma in all, O, lift the flag high, Lift the flag high, This is the flag of the Revolution.

This strategy, together with the partial dismantling of measures to fight poverty, partly explains the continuous rise of inequalities in India. However, some of the rich have become richer for other reasons as well, including the close relationship between the Modi government and industrialists. FROM CRONY CAPITALISM TO COLLUSIVE CAPITALISM While the Modi government is not responsible for the enrichment of Indian tycoons, which began in most cases prior to the BJP victory in 2014, it continued to help them. In Gujarat, the Modi government had apparently granted unwarranted advantages to industrialists, including the sale of land below market prices, dispensations from environmental standards, unjustified tax rebates, interest-free loans, and so on.136 After forming the central government, the NDA government allegedly shielded Indian industrialists from banks to which these men owed billions. Such collusion has contributed to destabilizing a banking system undermined by dubious debts—particularly those held by these big investors, who do not pay back their loans.137 Even if the problem began under the previous government, it has persisted in part owing to collusion between businessmen and the ruling class. The government’s cronies continued to receive huge loans from public-sector banks (whose heads have trouble disobeying the government),138 which they proved unable to pay back. In May 2018, nonperforming assets (NPAs) vested in public banks—in other words, loans for which the borrower had not made payment on either the interest or the principal in at least ninety days—accounted for 12.65 billion dollars, or about 14 percent of their total loans (compared to 12.5 percent in March the previous year139 and only 3 percent in March 2012).140 A small number of borrowers were largely responsible for this evolution, among whom were prominent large industrialists.141 In 2015, in a fifty-seven-page document, Credit Suisse gave a detailed analysis of the astounding level of debt of ten Indian corporations that continued to borrow even though all the red flags had gone up.142 In 2018, 84 percent of the dubious loans were owed by major corporations, and twelve of them accounted for 25 percent of the outstanding NPAs.143 Among them is the group owned by Gautam Adani, a supporter of Prime Minister Narendra Modi since 2002.144 In 2015, the group increased its debt level by 16 percent to acquire a seaport and two power plants. Consequently, its debt soared to 840 billion rupees (11.2 billion USD), compared to only 331 billion rupees (4.41 billion dollars) in 2011.145

Interestingly, the lion plays an important role in the Mahavamsa, a Pali epic, that is the foundation myth of the Sinhalese people of Sri Lanka. According to the Mahavamsa, the Sinhalese people are the descendants of Prince Vijaya and his followers who sailed down to Sri Lanka in the sixth century BC from what is now Orissa and West Bengal. The story tells us that Prince Vijaya was the son of a lion and a human princess, which is why the majority population of Sri Lanka call themselves the Sinhala—or the lion people—and the country’s national flag features a stylized lion holding a sword. Equally significant is the fact that the Tamil rebels of northern Sri Lanka chose to call themselves the ‘Tigers’. The ancient rivalry between the two big cats remains embedded in cultural memory even as the animals themselves face extinction. Excerpt From: Sanjeev Sanyal. “Land of the Seven Rivers A Brief History of India's Geography”. Apple Books.

As the tricolour was unfurled against the sky, a light rain began to fall an s a resounding cheer broke through. he stood in the sea of his countrymen and women, unable or unwilling to return to the flagstaff. The Governer general, standing upright in the car, saluted the flag. A bright rainbow appeared emblazoning saffron, white, green - the colours of Independent India - in the blue sky. Jawahar felt curiously light. As if Indra himself had unfurled the tricoor from his indradhanush!

Ambedkar’s fears were shared even by British educationalist and member of the Council of India, who had served as the director of the University of London Institute in Paris, Theodore Morrison, whom he quotes as having said way back in 1899: The views held by the Mahomedans (certainly the most aggressive and truculent of the peoples of India) are alone sufficient to prevent the establishment of an independent Indian Government. Were the Afghan to descend from the North upon an autonomous India, the Mahomedans, instead of uniting with the Sikhs and the Hindus to repel him, would be drawn by all the ties of kinship and religion to join his flag.

Anybody who criticizes the corporate takeover of Adivasi land is called an antinational “sympathizer” of the banned Maoists. Sympathy is a crime, too. In television studios, guests who try to bring a semblance of intelligence into the debate are shouted down and compelled to demonstrate their loyalty to the nation. This is a war against people who have barely enough to eat one square meal a day. What particular brand of nationalism does this come under? What exactly are we supposed to be proud of? Our lumpen nationalists don’t seem to understand that the more they insist on this hollow sloganeering, the more they force people to say “Bharat Mata ki Jai!” and to declare that “Kashmir is an integral part of India,” the less sure of themselves they sound. The nationalism that is being rammed down our throats is more about hating another country—Pakistan—than loving our own. It’s more about securing territory than loving the land and its people. Paradoxically, those who are branded antinational are the ones who speak about the deaths of rivers and the desecration of forests. They are the ones who worry about the poisoning of the land and the falling of water tables. The “nationalists,” on the other hand, go about speaking of mining, damming, clear-felling, blasting, and selling. In their rule book, hawking minerals to multinational companies is patriotic activity. They have privatized the flag and wrested the microphone.

When I saw this pirate house I figured it was where he was headed." "How on earth could you know this was a pirate house?" "The skull and crossbones door knocker tipped me off." "Observant of you." "And the Jolly Roger flag flying from the eaves." "Well spotted." "And the fact the house is parked in the middle of Marine Parade, blocking traffic, with what appears to be a street lamp wedged beneath it." "Yes, well, we are experiencing minor technical difficulties.

KH Khorshid stopped the President of Pakistan Ayub Khan at the place of Mangla in 1960 and said that from here onwards I am in the President, drove his car ahead and said Ayub Sahib, take off the flag, gave the flag of Kashmir from his car and said follow me It is my state from here on, that I am its head, this thing is a part of history.

You are a daughter of independence, the country’s future. Women like you are the ones for whom we fought and died, the ones who will transform India. You must carry the flag forward. You may fall from time to time. We all did. What is important is to get up again.

I wrote this poem , true feelings as I celebrated and attended the flag hoisting today!

I wrote this poem , true feelings as I celebrated and attended the flag hoisting today!

Noble Praise of INDIA, The Pledge "India is my property and I am a property of India, Service is my Identity Card and Bharat Mahan is my designation, Indian is my template and citizen is my nameplate, Let the sunset in the west, I will be the light for my nation, Respect thy my country and thy my people, I shall practice any potential risk to seek peace for my country and my people, I shall sustain my nation's culture pertaining to my personal rights and freedom, I shall esteem human values regardless of the prevailing diversity in my country, I shall never bribe my fellowmen to corrupt my country, I shall stand straight to keep my nation tall, I shall be ready to sacrifice my life to live in my country, I shall wish to be the richest citizen than to be the richest man, I shall be a milestone in the history of my country, I shall be determined to obey the law and order of my country, I shall be proud to salute my tricolor national flag, I shall live finite to make my country infinite, My first breath is from my mother and my last breath is for my motherland, This body belongs to my country until I am a dead body, Even if it is my last day, I will pledge for my country, Jai Hind, Vande Mataram, Jai Bharat Mata

Under the Delhi Agreement of 1952, the state was given complete internal autonomy. The Delhi agreement was decided between Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and the Government of India, in the same agreement, Article 370 was brought into existence and it was included in the Indian Constitution. The creator of Marza Muhammad Afzal Begi was under Article 370, the state had its own separate flag, its own court, its own high court, its election commission, etc. But Khawaja Ghulam Mohammad Sadiq, late in 1964, to weaken Article 370 The positions of the Prime Minister and President of the state were changed to the positions of Chief Minister and Governor respectively Central laws were implemented Supreme Court of India and Election Commission of India's jurisdiction was extended up to the limits of Jammu and Kashmir!!!

Their flag has two background colours: green representing the ground below, and blue for the sky above. In its centre it depicted a wheel: this symbolized the image of the Romani people as travellers and, resembling the 24-spoke wheel known as the Ashoka Chatra which features in the centre of the flag of India, it served as a reference to the Roms' historical country of origin.

That settled something else, too, the troublesome … souped-up thing the Pranksters were always into, this 400-horsepower takeoff game, this American flag-flying game, this Day-Glo game, this yea-saying game, this dread neon game, this … superhero game, all wired-up and wound up and amplified in the electropastel chrome game gleam. It wasn’t the Buddha, not for a moment. Life is shit, said the Buddha, a duress of bad karmas, and satori is passive, just lying back and grooving and grokking on the Overmind and leave Teddy Roosevelt out of it. Grace is in a far country, India by name … Oh, the art of living in India, brothers … And so what if there is no plumbing and the streets are dirty, they have mastered the art of living …

Up north, where the air is cooler and crisper, quaint hill stations give way to snowcapped peaks. From Ladakh to Sikkim, the cultural influences came not from the coasts but via mountain passes. Tibetan Buddhism thrives, and multilayered monasteries emerge from the forest or steep cliffs as vividly and poetically as the sun rises over Khangchendzonga. Weathered prayer flags flutter in the wind, the soothing sound of monks chanting reverberates in meditation halls, and locals abound with holy offerings, all in the shadow of the mighty Himalaya.

Even the most educated of us are prejudiced. One simple test of prejudice is this—will you allow your siblings or children to marry outside your community or religion? If your answer is no, then no matter how much you cheer for the Indian team, stand at attention for the national anthem or cheer the Indian flag, you are prejudiced.

The prime minister was provoked by what he considered to be unfriendly or inept coverage, or both, over many months. He concluded that the editors had lost control of the newsroom. . .What was probably the last straw for him was coverage of Israeli president Chaim Herzog's visit. When the Foreign Ministry announced the visit, fury flared across the Causeway. The Malaysian prime minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, recalled his high commissioner to Singapore and demanded the visit be cancelled. For Singapore to do so after the visit was announced would inflict serious damage on its sovereignty. Demonstrations erupted in many parts of Malaysia, and at the Malaysian end of the Causeway more than 100 demonstrators tried to stop a Singapore-bound train. Singapore flags were burnt. There were threats to cut off the water supply from Johor. Malaysia saw the visit as an insult. It did not recognise Israel, and had expected Singapore to be sensitive to its feelings. Singapore, however, could not refuse the Israeli request for its head of state to make a stopover visit in Singapore, the tail end of his three-week tour of Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and the Philippines, the first visit to this part of the world by an Israeli leader. Singapore could hardly forget the crucial assistance Israel had provided the Singapore Armed Forces in the early days of independence, when other friendly countries like Egypt and India had declined to help. What angered Lee Kuan Yew was our coverage of the Malaysian reactions to the visit. He felt it was grossly inadequate. . .Coverage in the Malaysian English press was restrained, but in their Malay press, Singapore was condemned in inflammatory language, and accused of being Israel's Trojan horse in Southeast Asia. A threat to target Singapore Airlines was prominently reported. . .And by depriving Singaporeans of the full flavour of what the Malaysian Malay media was reporting, an opportunity was lost to educate them about the harsh reality of life in the region, with two large Muslim-majority neighbours.

It would have been easy to understand the terrorist element in Kashmir and the said agents of Pakistan objecting to the hosting of the flag in a public place, but it is difficult to forgive Omar Abdullah, the grandson of the Sher-E-Kashmir, temporarily joining that odious class of mischief makers. The only extenuating circumstance for young Omar is that he lost his courage to fight the practitioners of mayhem and murder whose number seems to be increasing in the valley under the influence of Pakistani incitement and money. Some people may well forgive the inexperienced Omar, but it is impossible to condone the despicable action and attitude of the Congress, the entire central government and of course the prime minister and the president of the Congress Party. The opinion of Rahul Gandhi, touted as the heir apparent, is also of interest here. Did he concur with the decision of the government that the flag should not be hoisted at Lal Chowk? If he did, he should have the honesty to proclaim to the people of India why he indulged in such shameful action.

With India having scored a self-goal with the highly vaunted Panchsheel Agreement, to save face, Nehru was left with no choice but to keep the flag of Indo-Chinese friendship flying on the world stage leaving the Chinese free to go about the business of further securing Tibet.

Clearly, on the world’s highest battlefield, a protracted war over the glaciers and passes had begun. The commanders in khaki reported the shooting and called the shots. Headquartered on the distant plains, the governmental chiefs of Pakistan and India depended on what their commanders from the desolate ice-covered peaks would report. Isolated with their platoons, and weighed under by snowman’s gear, these were often daredevil commanders. They were tasked to fly their country’s flags on the sequestered Himalayan peaks. Programmed into their DNA were nationalist narratives framing the other as ‘the enemy.’ Without this mindset, their hardship at such incredible heights would make no sense. From the clash of narratives alone could flow their will to battle their adversary. Institutional training and Statist historiography had programmed these men with guns into being willing warriors. Yet, when they accidently drifted into close proximity, this ‘processing’ would give way to human connection. With their weather-battered bodies and lonely hearts, quarantined from civilization and set in the harsh and desolate heights, they would share a smoke or a smile with an ‘enemy.

Will you be traveling there again? To Istanbul and Arabia and the places where they follow the Koran?" "I hope so," he said, laying aside the golden book very carefully. "The air is so hot there, warm and fragrant, the sky so blue, and the food tastes like nothing here. They have olives and dates and soft cheeses. I think you would like it, my Séraphine. You could dress in pink and gold and mahogany and lounge on silken pillows, listening to strange music. I'd buy you a little monkey with a vest and a hat to make you laugh and I'd sit and watch you and feed you juicy grapes." She smiled sadly and drew off her stays. "And how would we get there, Val?" "I'd hire a ship," he said taking a sip of his red wine. "No, I'd buy a ship- one of our very own. It'll have blue sails and a flag with a rooster on it. We'll take your mongrel and Mehmed and all his cats and set sail with fifty strong men. During the day we'll sit on deck and watch for mermaids and monsters in the waves, and at night we'll stare at the stars and then I'll make love to you until dawn." "And after far Arabia?" she whispered as she drew off her chemise and stood nude save for her stockings and shoes. "What then?" His smile faded and he looked very grave as she took off her shoes and stockings. "Why, Séraphine, then we would journey on to Egypt or India or China or indeed wherever else you please. Or even come round about here, back to foggy, bustling London, where, if nothing else, the pies and sausages are quite good, if that was what you wished. Just as long as I were with you and you with me, my sweet Séraphine.

Oh Muslims! Just think what the Europeans reduced you to after they escaped from the clutches of the Bible, to master the sciences that are beneficial for our times. You were pushed out of Spain, you were subjected to massacres, and you were crushed in Austria, Hungary, Serbia and Bulgaria. Your control over Mughal India was snatched away. They are ruling you in Arabia, Mesopotamia, Iraq and Syria. Just as our [Hindu] yajnas, prayers, Vedas, holy books, penances, curses could not harm the Europeans, so too will your Quran, martyrdoms, namaz, religious lockets make no difference to them. Just as the maulvis sent armies to war in the belief that the men who fought under the banner of Allah would never lose, so did our pundits peacefully sit back to repeat the name of Rama a million times. But none of this prevented the Europeans. With their advanced weapons, they not only decimated the Muslim armies, but they even toyed with the fallen flag of Allah.

Oh Muslims! Just think what the Europeans reduced you to after they escaped from the clutches of the Bible, to master the sciences that are beneficial for our times. You were pushed out of Spain, you were subjected to massacres, and you were crushed in Austria, Hungary, Serbia and Bulgaria. Your control over Mughal India was snatched away. They are ruling you in Arabia, Mesopotamia, Iraq and Syria. Just as our [Hindu] yajnas, prayers, Vedas, holy books, penances, curses could not harm the Europeans, so too will your Quran, martyrdoms, namaz, religious lockets make no difference to them. Just as the maulvis sent armies to war in the belief that the men who fought under the banner of Allah would never lose, so did our pundits peacefully sit back to repeat the name of Rama a million times. But none of this prevented the Europeans. With their advanced weapons, they not only decimated the Muslim armies, but they even toyed with the fallen flag of Allah.