We, the people of South-Asia, have a shared past going back ten millennia; our national identities are barely 60 years old.

Nature has been very kind to us. It gave us snow-covered Himalayas, perennial rivers, rich biodiversity, and fertile land. The wisdom of our ancestors ensured that we had abundant food, clean water, fine clothing, excellent habitat and, with all the caring and sharing that comes with abundance, an unusually gentle way of life. Elaborate rites and rituals were designed to ensure a symbiotic relationship of humans, the habitat and the ecosystem. It is this centrality to Mother Nature and holistic management of natural resources that made South Asia a super power right up to 1830s.

The natural resources came under stress during colonial occupation. Particularly land, water, forests and mineral wealth were taken over and an indiscriminate exploitation began to the exclusion of the rights of local communities. Let me quote from McCauley why the core strategic thrust of western elite is to destroy South Asia:

"I have traveled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar or who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values & people of such calibre, that do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage." [Lord McCauley in his speech of Feb 2, 1835, British Parliament]

While the loot of natural resources was on, McCauley started cultural enslavement of South Asia. Intellectual enslavement followed. The high quality of South Asia's population was reduced to emaciated, undernourished, pauperized, groveling millions over the next 12 decades, split along caste and religious lines with competing political ambitions encouraged by the rulers. We meant nothing to the British: we were cheap, disposable underclass. And then we stopped respecting Nature and ourselves.

And then it was easy to split a nation into many. Historians have done an abysmal job of explaining what happened during the crucial five year period, 1947 to 1952. Why Pakistan was created? I have spoken with elders and they tell me that even they don't understand on what basis the boundary line was drawn: farmland went to Pakistan, home to India; one half of a home to Pakistan, other half to India; even rooms were split between India and Pakistan. The typical Zionist inspired logic of the British was in full play.

It was during these times that Zionist inspired British were playing a parallel game in West Asia too. On one side Palestine was carved up to create Israel, on the other India to create Pakistan to control energy rich West and Central Asia.

The European ruling elite knew that an independent South Asia, spanning from Thai to Iranian border, with its highly intelligent population would sooner or later be able to out-maneuver Anglo-American ruling elite's quest for cheap energy (West Asia) and natural resources ( South Asia). Evidences clearly show that Anglo-American cabal engineered dismemberment of South Asia, destruction of democratic forces in Pakistan and later in Bangladesh and stealthily manipulated economic policies of India. Our people could never gain control of natural resources. Just one evidence, a declassified telegram No 1532, dated October 30, 1951, from US Embassy, (Source: Paul Wolf, 2003-2004) New Delhi to Secretary of State, US Government, shows the depth of perversion the Anglo-American cabal is capable of. It is important to note that the Leftist editor of 'Nadeem' newspaper, published from Bhopal, had uncannily visualized the unraveling of Anglo-American game in South Asia and had solid sources to expose their machinations that provoked the US Embassy to send the entire transcript of the editorial by telegram. The main points of 'Nadeem' editorial, published soon after Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan's assassination, were:

1. It was learned within Pakistani Foreign Office that while UK was pressing Pakistan for support regarding Iran, US was demanding that Pakistan should exploit influence with Iran and support (US demand) that Iran transfer (its) oil fields to (the) US. Liaquat Ali Khan, the then Pakistan Prime Minister, declined US request;

2. Liaquat also asked US (to) evacuate air bases under (an existing) pact. 'Liaquat demand was bombshell in Washington.' American rulers who had been dreaming of conquering Soviet Russia from Pakistan air bases were flabbergasted. American minds set thinking regarding a plot (to) assassinate Liaquat. US wanted a Muslim assassin to obviate international complications. US could not find traitor in Pakistan as had been managed (in) Iran, Iraq, and Jordan.

3. Washington rulers sounded US Embassy Kabul. American Embassy contacted Pashtoonistan leaders, observing Liaquat their only hurdle; assured them if some of them could kill Liaquat, US would undertake to establish Pashtoonistan by 1952. Pashtoon leaders induced Akbar undertake job and also made arrangements to kill him to conceal conspiracy.

4. Cartridges recovered from Liaquat body were American-made, especially for use of high-ranking American officers, usually not available in market.

All these factors prove that the real culprit behind assassin is US Government, which committed similar acts in mid-East. "Snakes" of Washington's dollar imperialism adopted these mean tactics long time ago. [Confidential Telegram No. 1532 from New Delhi Embassy, Oct. 30, 1951; copy of transcript attached below]

At the end of World War II the nature of governance was fundamentally transformed. Fascism did not die. Fascism was actually reinvented: couched in the language of freedom and democracy of rightists and centrists, and of anti-imperialism and freedom from exploitation of the Leftists. It is now clearly emerging that both were and are actually two sides of the same coin, the coin minted in illegal US Mints controlled by illegal Federal Reserve, a group of thirteen private bankers masquerading as the US Reserve Bank. It is this group of private bankers that prints dollars that the world has been forced to acknowledge as its reserve currency. The highest state of fascism, the power to print currency notes, was achieved by Anglo-American cabal in 1913; since then the world has never lived in peace.

Powerful corporations engineered the election, selection and nomination of the complicit politicians to power, not only in Britain and the US, but virtually in every country that mattered. And every country mattered to the Anglo-American ruling cabal not for establishing democracy, freedom and peace but to control their resources. Today, the US has over 750 airbases around the world; it controls the government of 192 countries. And a small group of super rich European families control the US Government and its military might. The world was slowly enslaved.

South Asia never became independent; the control over its resources was transferred to co-opted rulers in 'independent' South Asian nations.

The world is now being ruled by a handful of powerful families that has access to the military might of the US at will. Either our leaders acquiesce, complicit in a heinous agenda; or, the cabal will bomb us to Stone Age as they have done to a South Asian nation (Afghanistan), and threatened to bomb Pakistan into Stone Age (as General Musharraf himself acknowledged). Perhaps Manmohan's policies of plundering natural resources are actually a survival strategy of a terrified rat. Land is being stolen from poor farmers, water is being privatized, protected forests allocated for large projects, untrammeled rights given to private firms against absolute denial of access to rural communities and equitable benefit sharing; all of this points to fascistic control over our governments, the same old colonial policies resurrected in the name of 'economic development.'

The point is this: should we continue to live under fear of Anglo-American cabal's threats? The history of their rise to power is 17 decades old; the history of our superior culture, quality of life, and humanism spans ten millennia. South Asians never conquered any society or any nation outside the boundary of South Asia. The world came to us and we accepted them as our part, as part of humanity that shared this planet. The Vice Chancellor of Vikramshila University (820-1200AD) for sometime was a Greek; 36 Grecian columns were found, when Vikramshila University was excavated in 1978, leading up to the river Ganges. Is there a single university today that has that intellectual self-confidence to invite a foreigner to lead its institution? Is there a single university in the world that can tolerate an alien architecture?

And all of this because we managed our natural resources in a sustainable way. Holistic way. Abundance begets calm, tolerance, self-respect, and most importantly respect for others. Scarcity begets exploitation, mayhem, intolerance, and bestial behavior, hallmark of western societies; their leaders represent that sub-conscious craving for abundance. And we, the South Asians, have inadvertently followed the western model of behavior, social mores, morality and legal system towards resource management.

Today, Punj Aab, the land of five waters, is short of water. The great Himalayan glaciers that fed our perennial rivers are receding. Hundreds of streams originating from the hills are drying up or already dead. The land that fed our ancestors for ten millennia is dead of any living form, poisoned with a thousand poisons, so much so that it can't support any life! Global oil is in decline yet we never shy of buying cars and driving aimlessly. We are poisoning Mother Nature with genetically engineered seeds that will contaminate every living form, every life on this land. Mindlessly, we are following Gross Domestic Product (GDP) based growth model, without realizing that Nature has ways to limit that growth. All economic growth stems from natural resources: land, water, air, energy, minerals, forests, and food….things that nature gave us, not corporations or the Government.

We tend to forget that the use of GDP as an indicator of 'development' is barely five decades old; this notion was thrust upon unsuspecting people all over the world. We are following the GDP god, when actually God lives in the mountains, soils, rivers and streams, and forests and the myriad flora and fauna. It is time we delve deeper into our conscience and re-evaluate our beliefs and intellectual construct.

Nature is too powerful. If we start working with Nature, it will give back more than we need as it always was in South Asia. And we must acknowledge the fact that not even God can satisfy our wants. We have consumed a large part of resources Nature gave us; let us all work on conserving whatever we are left with. Let us reclaim our history, our past.

Let us reclaim for our future generations what Mother Nature gave us. We have no right to steal the future of our children.

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October 21, 2007 © Copyright: Arun Shrivastava CMC. This article was written for Freedom Festival, being organized by Action Aid (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh) and many grass roots movements, at Amritsar under the banner of "Imagine a New South Asia". The people of South Asia want economic unification and the process is on with regular meetings between civil societies of South Asian nations. Arun Shrivastava, author of this article, lives in New Delhi and can be contacted at arun1951@yahoo.com