India s map is one of the casualties of the Internet where student-targetted website designers redraw the country s boundaries at will.
On the Lycos website for instance, if one taps the education site, one can go to any place in the world and learn about its problems and policies. For India it has a map lopped off from the top left corner and allotted to Pakistan ipso facto.
The text tells you that Jammu and Kashmir, despite being a beautiful place, has been the key to a border dispute between India and Pakistan and, consequently, large segments of the region are off-limits to travellers. But there are no indications as to which parts are off-limits.
Whenever a wrong map comes to our notice, the government takes up the matter with the organisation or the publication, said Shiv Mukherji, minister (press) at the Indian Embassy here. Over the years, hundreds of letters have been written to magazines and newpapers about the incorrect depiction of India s northern boundaries, but beyond that very little can be done until the dispute is settled. Once CNN had to change the lines after protests were lodged with it by the Indian government.
Some publications like the National Geographic however make certain to point out the disputed territory of Kashmir whenever they run a map of India.
If Indian diplomats were to respond every time the Indian map is redrawn by someone, they would be spending most of their working hours doing just that and little else, officials here maintain.
But the education site on Lycos has more to offer. If a curious student goes into the section on politics regarding Jammu and Kashmir, he or she will get an article by Anil Maheshwari of The Hindustan Times and also a website called Free Kashmir run by a Parvez Ibn Yousef from England.
The latter site was last modified on November 10, 1995, and is entitled Indian-Held at Gunpoint. It says it is dedicated to the people of Kashmir. It calls for a boycott of Indian goods and appeals to students to approach their parliamentarians to get support to free Kashmir, put an arms embargo on India and apply economic sanctions, apart from taking measures to force India to implement the UN resolutions calling for a plebiscite.
Kashmir cannot be taken away by maps. It will be decided on the ground, Mukherji said.
About the northeastern states in India, the section informs students that this was once a single state called Assam, but is now split into seven.
These states are now coming out of isolation imposed by Indian authorities due to the region s geographic vulnerability to foreign powers as well as internal political strife, students are told.
