Chapter Sixteen

being denied or deprived. On the other hand, true leaders lead movements that are based on achievements rather than denial or deprivation. They point out to people the available opportunities, not closed doors, and in this way help chart a new future for their people. Peace and Justice You can live in a state of perpetual peace, but definitely not in a state of perpetual war. But perhaps the leaders of Kashmir have no knowledge of this well-tested fact of history. They have kept up with their completely pointless war, which has now assumed the form of suicide bombing. Little do they know that the Japanese resorted to suicide bombing on an even more massive scale in the Second World War but that this tactic completely failed. Not a single ruler in history, no matter how powerful, has been able to maintain a state of perpetual war. How, then, can the weak people of Kashmir hope to keep up their pointless war forever? What is bound to finally happen is that the Kashmiri militants will one day tire of fighting and will be compelled to call off their war. But the right way would be for the Kashmiris to adopt a wise policy and end this devastating war on the basis of their own decision. Once, in a conversation with an educated Kashmiri Muslim, I said that what Kashmir needs most today is peace. He replied that the Kashmiris, too, want peace, but, he added, it should be peace with justice. Peace that did not go along with justice, he argued, was beneficial only for oppressors but not for the oppressed. My answer was that this was the gravest misunderstanding—a misunderstanding shared by all the Muslim leaders throughout the world. Peace, I said, is defined as the absence of war. This is a correct definition. Peace can never be established along with justice. Instead, when peace is established, it creates opportunities,