R Krishna Das
In the middle of 1944 when the Red Army and Allied Forces were advancing into Germany for a final assault on Adolf Hitler, the dictator unfolded a cunning conspiracy.
Foreseeing his defeat, Adolf Hitler on August 23, 1944 sent a message to Field Marshal Walther Model and Dietrich von Choltitz demanding that Paris be held at all costs, and that if it could not be held it should be turned into a field of ruins.
“Paris must not fall into enemy hands except as a field of ruins,” Hitler put it succinctly. Destroying Paris would have given Germans no military advantage; but Hitler gave the outrageous order only to soothe his chaffed ego and content himself that if he couldn’t have the beautiful city of Paris, then no one else would!
With the sudden surge in the violence in Kashmir valley in the last few days targeting the minority community, Pakistan army chief Gen Qamar Bajwa seems to be taking a leaf out of Hilter’s book. He had reiterated, “Pakistan Army firmly stands by the Kashmiris in their just struggle to the very end,” and qualifying that “We are prepared and shall go to any extent to fulfil our obligations….”
There is a strong possibility that Taliban fighters could find their way into J&K. The recent killings of minority community members in Kashmir Valley justify the plot of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of the Pakistan army, which is overseeing proxy war in J&K.
While the Taliban has been rapidly gaining ground in Afghanistan, the possibility of Pakistan striking a deal to push Mujahideen in the valley for destruction cannot be ruled out. Afterall, Pakistan claims to have played a crucial role in Taliban takeover and Rawalpindi will certainly demand its pound of flesh by directing Kabul to divert its fighters into J&K. It will be a rerun of the experiment that ISI has orchestrated in the 1990s after the then Soviet army had left Afghanistan and Mujahideen became “jobless”.
One should not ignore that Kashmir today seems to be facing a similar situation because after seeing the mayhem being orchestrated by ISI in Kashmir Valley, two points are palpable. One, Rawalpindi is convinced that just like in 1947 and 1965, Kashmiris have yet once again let the Pakistan army down by not toeing its line and hence deserve no sympathy. Second, if Pakistan can’t have what Mughal Emperor Jahangir had referred to as ‘paradise on earth’, then it will ensure that Kashmir is turned into a veritable hell! This is what Hilter planned for Paris!
Before advancing with the approach, Gen Bajwa must note it down that Hilter’s last commander in the Nazi-occupied Paris Choltitz refused to obey the order to ruin one of the beautiful cities in the World.
Though Choltitz later asserted that his defiance of Hitler’s direct order stemmed from its obvious military futility, his affection for the French capital’s history and culture besides his belief that Hitler had by then become insane, the fact remained that he had little control of the city because of operations of the resistance and could not have carried out such orders.
