5 March 1966: A day when Indian Air Force Bombed its own people

India claims itself to be a secular state where all religions are free to function as per their aspirations. But is it really true? The ongoing freedom struggle of the Kashmiris and its suppression with the brute force is not hidden from the world. Thousands of Kashmiri Muslims seeking freedom from India have been martyred and thousands and thousands maimed and injured for life in the recent years.

This shows that anyone is welcome to live in India provided they agree to be subservient to the majority Hindu population and sing Banday Matram to show their allegiance to the state. But are Kashmiris the only ones who are being suppressed and silenced?

Nay, you will be surprised to know that on this day, 5th March 1961, India used its air force to bomb its own people - an event lesser known to the free world. And March 5 marks the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Aizawl – the first air raid by the Indian Air Force on civilian territory within the country. 

For India, this was something just not digestible. And the government of India under Indira Gandhi ordered its air force to teach the Mizos a bloody lesson. Thus on March 5, four fighter jets of the Indian Air Force – French-built Dassault Ouragan fighters (nicknamed Toofanis), and British Hunters – were deployed to bomb Aizawl. Taking off from Tezpur, Kumbigram and Jorhat in Assam, the planes first used machine guns to fire at the town. They returned the next day to drop incendiary bombs. The strafing of Aizawl and other areas continued till March 13 even as the town’s panicked civilian population fled to the hills. The rebels were forced to retreat into the jungles of Myanmar and Bangladesh, which was then East Pakistan.

And as usual Indian government lied to its people and to the world: A March 9, 1966, report by the now-defunct Kolkata-daily, the Hindustan Standard, quoted Prime Minister Indira Gandhi as saying that the fighter jets had been sent in to airdrop men and supplies, not bombs. But the question was, why would anyone deploy fighter jets to drop rations?

[Photo]

And today, more than fifty years, the Indian army has not left any means of war which has not been used against the Kashmir Muslims seeking freedom as did the Mizos decades ago. But this time, the resilience shown by the Kashmir freedom fighters is much more potent and fierce which despite presence of of more than 600,000 personnel of Indian security forces is gaining momentum every day. Perhaps a turning point has come in the history of India to say goodbye to Kashmir, for its people are just not prepared to live and support the tri coloured Indian flag anymore. For one sees more Pakistani flags in rallies than Indian tri coloured !!

Source | Photo (IAF Hunter)

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More hollow rhetoric

In one of my previous posts, I talked about mere rhetorical promises by our honourable leaders both inside and outside the government. I commend our people who continue to listen to these ornamental speeches, promising them heavens and treasures beyond one’s imagination and still think that these would materialize.

In today’s newspaper I read one such rhetorical promise once again: “Education is a matter of life and death for us,” announces the PM, as if we did not know it before. And as usual, the vow came when the PM was addressing a national conference that titled, “School of Tomorrow, Freedom to Learn.” We listen to such slogans everyday when a minister or a dignitary is inaugurating or opening a new school, factory, institution or even planting a tree.

Now this latest rhetoric came just days after the decision of the Sind Government to close down over one thousand schools for want of funds and teaching staff. If we do not invest in our primary education, how can we ensure our learning and freedom? Perhaps our education and freedom lies in the European style schools that are mushrooming in Pakistan. Schools that teach our children a language they do not understand and even when they are made to learn it, they fail to translate their learning into the horrific illiterate environment around them.

We have already gone past the time when we should have taken stock of our vision for the schools of tomorrow as none at present is able to produce children who could rid this country of illiteracy, which is stagnant for past so many decades. Rather like tree plantation drive each year, which instead of yielding is reducing our area under forest, our education is suffering at the hands of government officials who have comfortable office at the cost of funds for running schools.

It was not long before when the Higher Education Commission (HEC) had stopped paying the scholarships to students that were sent abroad for higher education and Ph Ds by the previous government. It was not long ago when the HEC stopped funds to the universities in the country and the vice chancellors had threatened to resign in protest.

Under such environment, the hollow rhetorical promises are not only painful to listen to, but also paint a grim future for our children. Perhaps this is what people call politics – promise everything but give nothing. We wait on for a messiah to save us from such false promises, and fake politicians, and give us some hope for future.

Related Reading: Hollow Rhetoric

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