Jammu & Kashmir

Jammu & Kashmir

June 1998

Every spring my 2 year business college in India recruits new students for the Fall Semester. The Faculty travel to major metropolitan areas to give presentations on the MBA to prospective students and their parents. The professors travel in teams of 2, one Indian Core Faculty, one International Faculty. A meeting room is booked in a 3 star hotel. We make a presentation in the morning and conduct the entrance exam in the after noon. We alternate travel days and presentation days, so the tour is a whirlwind trip through the Land of the Veda.

In India, parents take a much more active role in guiding the lives of their children. Consequently it is not unusual for half the audience to be men in the 45 – 65 age range. If the stern parent likes what he hears at our morning lecture, a hapless son or daughter with no prior knowledge of who we are shows up on our doorstep that afternoon to take the exam. India has over 1 billion people. A very high demand for jobs is chasing after a short supply of openings. Even among the educated class, jobs are scarce. Concerned parents recognize that placement demand far exceeds supply and getting their children set-up in a good career requires an edge. The chief focus of parents and students is the placement potential provided by a graduate degree: will the MBA enhance the student's ability to land a job? How much will the MBA degree increase the starting salary and lifetime earning potential?

My tour took me North of Delhi. First stop was Chandigarh. Most Indian cities have very narrow streets with stores that cannot be entered. Indian shops have a board across the front that serves as counter, desk and barrier to entry. Customers tell the owner what they want. No matter what the customer says, none of the helpers (punes) budges until the owner repeats the request to them. Chandigarh is different. It is the most western looking city I've seen in India. It has wide boulevard streets and stores that you can enter and look around. The city is clean and beautiful. The population is predominately Sikh, this alone makes the populace more industrious and honest than the norm.

Next stop was Ludhiana. It reminds me of a dirty, sooty, heavy manufacturing city that one finds all over the world. After that was Jalandhar, another highly developed and relatively clean city.

Last stop was Jammu. Jammu the city is the primary urban center for the southern portion of the state of Jammu & Kashmir, known here as J&K. Jammu is surrounded by hills. Further North in Kashmir are the mountains.

I was intrigued by what would happen in Jammu. It is 20 km from the Pakistan border. India & Pakistan are rattling their sabers now. Pakistan is playing a dangerous game of one upmanship. India explodes 5 nukes. Pak explodes 6. Pak invaded India in 67 and 72. India won both times. Lots of resentment on both sides.

J&K is where the Paks conduct their terrorist campaigns. J&K has been under a US State Dept. Travelers Advisory informing US Citizens it is dangerous to travel there. Jammu hasn't had the terrorist attacks that Srinagar has. Nevertheless, Jammu is an armed camp. My personal estimate is that one out of every 8 men on the streets is wearing an Indian Army, Border Security Forces, or police uniform and is armed with an automatic rifle. In the rest of India, police carry ancient large bore single shot rifles. Here in Jammu police and military carry state of the art small bore lightweight full auto weapons that appear to be very well used. My tactic is to stay the 2 days and get out. No one will know in advance that an American citizen is coming on this tour, so threat of kidnapping or murder should be minimal. Make the “Z” and get out.

People are talking of war. The papers are filled daily with editorials discussing every angle from military to political. The front page is filled with articles on the arms build up, threats, posturing etc. Pakistan has already tested its Chinese designed Gauri missile which is capable of delivering a nuclear warhead into Delhi. Clinton just authorized release to Pakistan of a 1991 sale of $680 million F-16 jet with nuke delivery capability. I'm getting a sense of deja vu. Didn't I go through this in the 60's? Instead of 2 superpowers making threats and jostling for position during the Cold War, now we have 2 regional powers standing eyeball-to-eyeball daring the other to blink. And lurking behind the scenes are the US and China selling arms and technology to both combatants while publicly decrying the military build-up.

And I'm in the middle of it trying to get 60 kids to come to our school.

Billions of dollars are being spent on devices that can rip the fabric of the universe. How can these devices protect your people when the other guy has the same weapons systems you have? There is no safety in nuclear, chemical or biological warfare. As Barry McGuire said in his 1968 song, “The Eve of Destruction”: " When the button is pushed, there's no runnin’ away with the whole world in a grave." I just hope India and Pakistan come to their senses and stop this arms escalation.

There is hope, however, in the customs of the people. Take a fender bender, for example. Over here they yell and scream, shake a fist, but rarely does it erupt into physical violence. As long as India and Pakistan are talking tough, at least they're still talking. If the2 countries act according to the customs of their citizens, then eventually they will both turn and walk away without any real violence having been done.

It is interesting to note that India's version of the Natural Law Party, Ajeya Bharat Invincible India, campaigned on the elimination of foreign dependence of money and arms. Once a country relies on another country for finances and weaponry, then it is dependent on that other country. The sanctions imposed by the USA, Japan, Canada, Australia, the IMF and the World Bank on India are in effect the fulfillment of the goal of the Ajeya Bharat. The foreign supports have been removed and India must stand on her own.

On the 6 hour train ride to Jammu, we shared a compartment with an Indian Army Colonel. We enjoyed each other's company. We told him about our B-School and he explained the Indo-Pak conflict and history. We invited him to dinner. He showed up with an armed escort in an Armored Personnel Carrier (APC). He apologized saying that all Army personnel were on a 2 hour alert due to the current situation. We went to a very nice restaurant and toured Jammu.

I got to thinking about it later. Suppose I had been feeling nervous about going to Jammu and wanted to take precautions against kidnapping or murder. How many days of phoning would I need to make to locate a bulletproof vehicle and how much would it cost to hire armed guards and the vehicle? It would have taken a lot of time, effort and money. Yet Nature decided I warranted the protection and just organized it all for me. And I got a combat experienced Colonel to organize my protection.

When we drove up to the fancy restaurant, we made quite a scene just quietly getting out of the APC. Needless to say, we received the highest respect and best service imaginable. It was a hoot.

After dinner, my Indian faculty partner and I indulged in my hobby of going to some of the mandirs, Hindu temples. Our Colonel friend recommended the best ones to visit. India is filled with opportunities to discover experiences of the divine.

For example, a wealthy American took a month tour here recently with one of my International Faculty associates. One of the sites he visited was a Shiva mandir with a reputation as a holy place. The wealthy man is a devout Catholic. He was instructed to place his forehead on the Shiva Linga and think of his own personal deity. The man did this thinking to himself, "Father, Son and Holy Ghost". Instantly he saw the 3 aspects of the Catholic God merge into the One. When the man opened his eyes he was told not to mind the different names religions have for the divine because all describe the same reality. What is the difference if you call your God Shiva, Allah, Jehovah, or God? Different names for the same underlying reality. He was then pointed to the 3 pronged Shiva trident, the Trishul, and immediately recognized it as a 3-in-1 symbol.

Visiting the mandirs is a personal experience, it varies from person to person and from time to time. There seems to be a consensus that some places elicit a consistent experience of something that goes beyond the 5 senses, mind, intellect and ego. Different places produce different flavors of these experiences. Jammu was especially rich in spiritual experience.

My Indian Faculty buddy and I visited one Hanuman mandir that had a powerful Shiva Linga. The mandir is located on a strategic bridge in the middle of the city. After our visit we were told that in the 72 Indo-Pak War, a Pak pilot tried to bomb the mandir and thus destroy the bridge. As he made his approach he reported being suddenly blinded by a bright light and then he crashed. Local talk says something protects that bridge which isn't in the Indian Defense Budget.

Every mandir we visited had a taste of something that is beyond the mundane. Jammu is so beautiful. It would be very easy to retire there. Everything would be perfect if it weren't for the 114 - 122 degree Fahrenheit average daily temperature. But despite all the heat and conflict India is the experience of a lifetime.