Kosovo or Kashmir

Last month International Court of Justice endorsed the unilateral declaration made in 2008 by the tiny Republic of Kosovo. For Serbia, Kosovo has always been the cradle of her civilization. Serbs still celebrate the epic battle fought in Kosovo against the invading army of the Islamic Turks in 1389. Prince Lazar died fighting and Kosovo and rest of balkan peninsula was open for Islamicization. Although Serbs were able to reconquer Kosovo in 1912 but they had to return the favor in 1998 because of the delusions of grandeur by Slobodan Milosevic. Demographically speaking Kosovo contains more than 90% Albanian Muslims and only 4-6% Serbian Christians, but the demography was quite different in 1912 when Serbs made more than 25% of the Kosovo's population. The mass exodus of Serbs because of the hostile attitude of Islamic Albanians (fueled by the neighboring country of Albania) in Kosovo and high birth rate of Albanian Muslims changed drastically the demographic nature of Kosovo. Kosovo became a tinderbox of Balkan and Milosevic used it "beautifully" to destroy the Beautiful Federation created by Joseph Tito. Lots of Albanian Muslims were massacred in the bloody wars of 1990's. In the end Serbia lost everything and Milosevic had to defend himself in the International Court of Justice for "his crimes against humanity".

The case of Kosovo is strikingly parallel to the case of Kashmir and India has to tread very carefully. If we want to save the federation of India then we must not in any case allow anyone to settle scores of history in 2010 India, but the people should also acknowledge the treatment meted out to Hindus post 1192 AD including the destruction of temples else we will never be able to reconcile. Change of religion should never mean change of nationality or loyalty. Amen.