General Pervez Musharraf’s claim to an Indian TV channel last week that the Kargil war forced India to negotiate the Kashmir dispute with Pakistan would be laughable had he not been responsible for so much suffering on both sides, suffering that any military conflict brings with it. Gen Musharraf’s perspective makes no sense at all. —AFP/File phot
War and jingoism go together, and the Kargil conflict was no different. India on Sunday celebrated the 10th anniversary of the end of the lacerating Himalayan conflict, which it claims was a military victory. Some Indian journalists have raised questions about the conduct of the messy war and a brigadier lost his job for disagreeing with the higher-ups about the need to sacrifice more than 500 young soldiers and officers in the haste to evict the Pakistanis from their surreptitiously occupied strategic heights.
In India, the last national census in 2001 recorded just under 70,000 Parsis – Zoroastrians who follow the prophet Zarathustra and worship one god, the creator of the universe, Ahura Mazda. —AFP Photo 
