Images at War

Abstract

The Indian paranoia over Pakistan is directly linked with the sense of insult average Hindus feel from the knowledge that the Muslim minority ruled over them from when Qutbuddin Aibak established his empire in the twelfth century, and that, just when the Hindus were about to take over control of their ‘Mother India’ after another hundred years of a European raj, the wily Muslim managed to divide it. This has produced the fear that the ultimate goal of the Muslim must be to rule all over India once again. Krishna Menon, foreign policy adviser to Nehru and Defence Minister until 1962, is the outstanding exponent of this view. Menon regards Pakistan as the first instalment of Muslim revival on the subcontinent.