A few weeks ago the media were running out of print space and airtime covering the Rahul Mahajan story. Rahul's sole claim to fame is that he is the son of a slain ex-minister; his own activities made no difference to most of us then or now. Yet in the midst of innumerable health and other bulletins about this 'celebrity', one of the channels had a constitutional expert voicing his opinion on the episode.
The expert said that the other three 'suspects' in the case had done the right thing by going to a TV channel to make their statements rather than going to the police. The reasoning was that once these statements had been made publicly, the police would not be able to manipulate them the way they are known to do. This comment is a reflection on the loss of confidence in the instruments of the State - its inability to protect the innocent and its ability to protect the guilty.
The Mahajan episodes bring out two things - the declining image of the State as represented by its various arms and the rising power of the media. The two are not connected and have occurred independently. If the rich and the powerful can go to the media and make their confessional statements or whatever we may call them, where does the common man go? Those who have the right connections are recognised as instant story-material, but where do those who are not deemed worth a headline go?
This is precisely something a media-savvy crook could try to do - go public with his proclaimed innocence and let the rest be conveniently branded as manipulation by the police. How long will it be before the media begin to play God too? The more fundamental issue is that when a crime has been committed or people need protection, we have no confidence to go to the police and instead seek connections and influences before going to any authority to sort out our problems.
Over time, those of us who can afford it and are tired of not being able to get what we feel is legitimately ours have resorted to self-help. If the State does not promise regular supply of electricity, we buy inverters and generators. The State does not give us water, so we dig our own illegal tube-wells. The State is unable to provide security or redress, so we outsource.
Increasingly, the State is being seen as an uncaring entity that has begun to wither away in a very negative sort of way. The most decrepit building in a district is usually the primary school and the primary health centre where teachers do not teach, and doctors and nurses do not come. Substandard drugs, obtained at 'rate contracts', are the magic potions.
Water, electricity, security, education and health are a citizen's everyday requirements, and this is where the State has failed. It is no use shedding tears and providing quotas at higher levels when 90 per cent of the children from this section of society drop out of school before they reach Class 12. This is happening in a country that prides itself as the future knowledge base of the world and is increasingly the flavour of the West. Images and perceptions are important, but need to be sustained.
The average Indian associates law and order with the traffic cop, the man he runs into every day. But there is the long arm of the law in Dundahera, ruminating under a peepal tree as he eyes that young one in fluorescent pink drifting by, quite oblivious to the traffic mayhem around him. Try paying the government the money you owe it and you will be sent on a runaround. We have Chief Ministers who hurtle down national highways in 16-car motorcades - in a country that imports 70 per cent of its petroleum requirements, and at exorbitant prices. But who pays for this majestic munificence? Presumably it is R.K. Laxman's Babuji, who basks in political sunshine just short of elections. All this and much more, is the embodiment of an uncaring State.
Leaders no longer lead and followers do not know what or who to follow. These are early symptoms of a general malaise of the weakening instrumentalities of State, and will one day become an epidemic.
The rise of the Indian media and Bollywood in recent years, informing and entertaining the public while providing the glue for unity, has been exhilarating. They are the new image-makers and iconoclasts, creators of perceptions and kings of entertainment. Live TV reportage is a comparatively new phenomenon. It has the exuberance of youth and the susceptibility to peer pressure unlike the more mature and usually staid print media. Sometimes trivial pursuits in search of better ratings actually lead to viewer ennui. In this age of instant news conveyed by sound bites and images, it is the images that linger. The spoken or written word is sometimes forgotten.
With this immense power comes a corresponding responsibility, for everyone cannot be as lucky as our Leftist comrades who are currently in power without having to shoulder any responsibility. Autocracies give some people the freedom to do what they please. Not so in a democracy, where the power and liberty to inform are automatically curtailed by the other man's freedom, rights and beliefs. The wise also understand that there is sometimes very little difference between supporting a cause and inflaming passions.
Our TV reportage of the Kargil war was excellent. But as the IC-814 hijack drama unfolded on our TV screens, we saw grieving relatives and friends with their sit-ins and dharnas. This excessive exposure ultimately forced the government to accept a weak bargain while the terrorists got free publicity. Similarly, it will always be debatable whether live and extensive TV coverage of the ghastly Gujarat riots was an exposé that helped control the massacre or was a provocation. Of course, not reporting is not the answer. In situations like this, the perennial dilemma will always be - what to report, when and how.
Bollywood is the other powerful medium that influences as it entertains. In a recent blockbuster, the main character is shown as noble and endearing and so much the boy-next-door that by the intermission, the audience is in love with him. Post-intermission, he turns out to be a vicious terrorist and resorts to killing dozens of Indian soldiers, proclaiming that his mission is to ensure that Indians and Pakistanis vacate Kashmir. The audience does not wince; it has already got the Stockholm Syndrome. Terrorism has been made respectable, even glorious.
The answer is not to Talibanise the country by having a thought police - we have enough varieties of the khaki kind - nor is it to privatise instruments of the State. The media have the power to inform but not the power to implement. This lies, and will always lie, with the State. But the instruments need to be revamped, taken away from the whims of the politician and given a security of tenure at the district level. Then the young man or woman should be fully equipped to deliver, with a performance audit.
Only then will responsive authority percolate downwards, without being oppressive or venal. We must give the civil service its soul, straighten its back and put steel into its frame if India has to keep its tryst with destiny.
Source: Hindustan Times, July 5, 2006
Friday, February 2, 2007
Allied to the problem
At the end of a French delegation's visit to Pakistan recently, the Pakistan Foreign Office put out its usual statement. It referred to Pakistan as an anchor of peace in the region and said that the leader of the French delegation, former Premier Senator (Francois) Poncet, had commended Pakistan's role in promoting peace and stability. One does not know if this is a reflection of Gaul indulgence, Pakistan's continued self-delusion or simply a Foreign Office sleight of hand. One thing it definitely is, is being elastic with the truth.
Soon after this, US State Department Assistant Secretary Richard Boucher, on a visit to Pakistan, commended America's stalwart ally for arresting the maximum number of terrorists. But where else would you find the largest number of terrorists anyway? It is like showing surprise at finding kangaroos in Australia.
Since September 11, 2001, General Musharraf's policy of riding two horses simultaneously - the one for war on terror and the other for supporting jehad - has needed extraordinary equestrian skills. One of the horses is likely to gallop away soon. There are signs of impatience and doubt in the West. Think-tanks like the Carnegie Endowment for Peace have begun to doubt Musharraf's sincerity and feel that he is exploiting the war on terror for himself. It is not yet known whether the US has realised that Pakistan is part of the problem and not part of the solution. The more optimistic assumption is that there is realisation, but also helplessness, at the moment.
In today's Pakistan, there are three main harsh realities. First, that the Baloch struggle is not about the three main tribes, the Bugtis, Marris and the Mengals, fighting for the preservation of their Sardari system. The struggle is about basic rights - economic and political - because the revolt is all over Balochistan and not restricted to these three tribal areas. The second reality is that the Waziristan area in the Fata belt, which was the launching pad for many of the campaigns in the jehad against the Soviets in Afghanistan, is today prime Taliban country - and only growing in depth and area. Third, Pakistan is getting 'jehadised', ever so incrementally; one may not notice it, but it is.
In Balochistan, there were four incidents on a single day, April 6.Between January and March this year, there were nearly 60 incidents of rocket attacks all over the province and at least 1,600 rockets were fired. In February, gas pipelines were disrupted 21 times, affecting supplies to the rest of the country. Nawab Akbar Bugti is a fugitive in his own province and has not returned to Bugti Fort for months. Akhtar Mengal is constantly harassed and Nawab Khair Bux Marri, along with his two sons, has been slapped with an arms and ammunition case. This is despite the fact that these leaders have from time to time, along with harsh statements, also said that the present struggle is not yet about secession but about provincial rights.
Reactions from Islamabad have been on expected lines - use of indiscriminate and excessive force, artillery, helicopter gun-ships and aircraft included. And finding that an ordinary Baloch was willing to die for the long-standing grievances of greater autonomy, prevention of ethnic identity from being swamped by the Punjabi outsiders, for the removal of military cantonments and a greater share in revenue and development, Pakistani authorities have begun to blame external forces. Iranian authorities, fearing that the US would want to use Balochistan to destabilise their country, may seek to pre-empt that. Pakistan's military leaders are unable to admit that the hatred for Punjabi dominance is widespread and deep-rooted in the other three provinces. There have been suggestions for the trifurcation of Punjab around Bahawalpur, Multan and Rawalpindi. Thus, apart from solving Baloch problems, Punjab needs to be cut to size if Pakistan has to be saved.
The fear is that attempts to portray the present struggle as the selfish handiwork of a few misguided miscreants and attempts to destroy traditional Baloch society by abolishing the Sardari system without anything else in place, would leave the province in a vacuum to be filled by the Taliban alumni.
Waziristan, with its inhospitable terrain and warlike conservative tribes, the Waziris and Mahsuds, was the ideal launching pad in the jehad against the Soviets in the Paktia and Khost provinces across the border. Today, terrorists fleeing from Afghanistan have made south and north Waziristan their new Taliban country, using it to regroup and relaunch into Afghanistan. About two months ago, Tolo TV channel, run from Kabul by some liberal Afghans, had shown gruesome details of half a dozen bodies being dragged by a jeep through the streets of Mandrakhel. Another scene depicted severed heads and crowds chanting 'Long live Osama bin Laden', 'Long live Mullah Omar'.
The fear is that the Taliban mindset and influence have begun to spread to the 'settled areas' of the NWFP. Areas like Darra Adam Khel provide home-made weapons and can turn in upto 400 weapons of varying kinds and calibre in a day. The Taliban are able to move at ease from Karachi to Darra to Peshawar to Quetta and on to Kandahar or Helmund or Jalalabad. Gulbuddin Hikmetyar, the ISI's blue-eyed boy and now at peace with the Taliban, is back in business.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has more than once complained to Musharraf about Taliban's transgressions, but Pakistan's leaders continue to chase the dream of strategic depth in Afghanistan and are blinded to the fact that this is becoming their nightmare. Pushed to the wall, Pakhtoons of Afghanistan will claim that the Durand Line runs south from Attock along the Indus up to Dera Ismail Khan, while the Pakistanis would want to push this up to Kabul. Therein lie the seeds of future conflict.
Over the years, conventional wisdom has held that the NWFP and Balochistan were the more conservative societies and, therefore, more susceptible to religious fundamentalism, Punjab was the symbol of modernism. This is partially true and partially a myth perpetuated by the Punjabis. Both the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba and the rabid Sunni organisation, the Sipaha-e-Sahaba, have their birthplaces here. The largest number of blasphemy cases were reported from Punjab last year. Musharraf could not go to Lahore in March for the Basant celebrations because the mullahs declared the festival un-Islamic for its Hindu origins. Everyone blames the curriculum of the madrasas as being responsible for churning out jehadis in Pakistan. Yet mainstream schools continue to teach jehad to their students. Attacks on Christians and Ahmediyas have increased.
Waziristan is slipping out of control and of the 80,000 troops deployed earlier to control the situation, some have been diverted to Balochistan. US hi-tech surveillance systems and border teams helping in joint operations along the Afghan-Pakistan border, have been unable to pick up any important al-Qaeda operatives, but the locals move across freely. More troops are needed.
The Pakistani excuse to the Americans is that it cannot divert more troops from the eastern border given the situation with India. The only way this can be done is if Indo-Pak problems from Siachen to Sir Creek are solved, enabling Pakistan to disengage and re-deploy. In the interim, if the US could at least nudge the Indians to at least demilitarise Siachen and Kashmir, it could help in the war on terror.
Source: Hindustan Times, April 11, 2006
Soon after this, US State Department Assistant Secretary Richard Boucher, on a visit to Pakistan, commended America's stalwart ally for arresting the maximum number of terrorists. But where else would you find the largest number of terrorists anyway? It is like showing surprise at finding kangaroos in Australia.
Since September 11, 2001, General Musharraf's policy of riding two horses simultaneously - the one for war on terror and the other for supporting jehad - has needed extraordinary equestrian skills. One of the horses is likely to gallop away soon. There are signs of impatience and doubt in the West. Think-tanks like the Carnegie Endowment for Peace have begun to doubt Musharraf's sincerity and feel that he is exploiting the war on terror for himself. It is not yet known whether the US has realised that Pakistan is part of the problem and not part of the solution. The more optimistic assumption is that there is realisation, but also helplessness, at the moment.
In today's Pakistan, there are three main harsh realities. First, that the Baloch struggle is not about the three main tribes, the Bugtis, Marris and the Mengals, fighting for the preservation of their Sardari system. The struggle is about basic rights - economic and political - because the revolt is all over Balochistan and not restricted to these three tribal areas. The second reality is that the Waziristan area in the Fata belt, which was the launching pad for many of the campaigns in the jehad against the Soviets in Afghanistan, is today prime Taliban country - and only growing in depth and area. Third, Pakistan is getting 'jehadised', ever so incrementally; one may not notice it, but it is.
In Balochistan, there were four incidents on a single day, April 6.Between January and March this year, there were nearly 60 incidents of rocket attacks all over the province and at least 1,600 rockets were fired. In February, gas pipelines were disrupted 21 times, affecting supplies to the rest of the country. Nawab Akbar Bugti is a fugitive in his own province and has not returned to Bugti Fort for months. Akhtar Mengal is constantly harassed and Nawab Khair Bux Marri, along with his two sons, has been slapped with an arms and ammunition case. This is despite the fact that these leaders have from time to time, along with harsh statements, also said that the present struggle is not yet about secession but about provincial rights.
Reactions from Islamabad have been on expected lines - use of indiscriminate and excessive force, artillery, helicopter gun-ships and aircraft included. And finding that an ordinary Baloch was willing to die for the long-standing grievances of greater autonomy, prevention of ethnic identity from being swamped by the Punjabi outsiders, for the removal of military cantonments and a greater share in revenue and development, Pakistani authorities have begun to blame external forces. Iranian authorities, fearing that the US would want to use Balochistan to destabilise their country, may seek to pre-empt that. Pakistan's military leaders are unable to admit that the hatred for Punjabi dominance is widespread and deep-rooted in the other three provinces. There have been suggestions for the trifurcation of Punjab around Bahawalpur, Multan and Rawalpindi. Thus, apart from solving Baloch problems, Punjab needs to be cut to size if Pakistan has to be saved.
The fear is that attempts to portray the present struggle as the selfish handiwork of a few misguided miscreants and attempts to destroy traditional Baloch society by abolishing the Sardari system without anything else in place, would leave the province in a vacuum to be filled by the Taliban alumni.
Waziristan, with its inhospitable terrain and warlike conservative tribes, the Waziris and Mahsuds, was the ideal launching pad in the jehad against the Soviets in the Paktia and Khost provinces across the border. Today, terrorists fleeing from Afghanistan have made south and north Waziristan their new Taliban country, using it to regroup and relaunch into Afghanistan. About two months ago, Tolo TV channel, run from Kabul by some liberal Afghans, had shown gruesome details of half a dozen bodies being dragged by a jeep through the streets of Mandrakhel. Another scene depicted severed heads and crowds chanting 'Long live Osama bin Laden', 'Long live Mullah Omar'.
The fear is that the Taliban mindset and influence have begun to spread to the 'settled areas' of the NWFP. Areas like Darra Adam Khel provide home-made weapons and can turn in upto 400 weapons of varying kinds and calibre in a day. The Taliban are able to move at ease from Karachi to Darra to Peshawar to Quetta and on to Kandahar or Helmund or Jalalabad. Gulbuddin Hikmetyar, the ISI's blue-eyed boy and now at peace with the Taliban, is back in business.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has more than once complained to Musharraf about Taliban's transgressions, but Pakistan's leaders continue to chase the dream of strategic depth in Afghanistan and are blinded to the fact that this is becoming their nightmare. Pushed to the wall, Pakhtoons of Afghanistan will claim that the Durand Line runs south from Attock along the Indus up to Dera Ismail Khan, while the Pakistanis would want to push this up to Kabul. Therein lie the seeds of future conflict.
Over the years, conventional wisdom has held that the NWFP and Balochistan were the more conservative societies and, therefore, more susceptible to religious fundamentalism, Punjab was the symbol of modernism. This is partially true and partially a myth perpetuated by the Punjabis. Both the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba and the rabid Sunni organisation, the Sipaha-e-Sahaba, have their birthplaces here. The largest number of blasphemy cases were reported from Punjab last year. Musharraf could not go to Lahore in March for the Basant celebrations because the mullahs declared the festival un-Islamic for its Hindu origins. Everyone blames the curriculum of the madrasas as being responsible for churning out jehadis in Pakistan. Yet mainstream schools continue to teach jehad to their students. Attacks on Christians and Ahmediyas have increased.
Waziristan is slipping out of control and of the 80,000 troops deployed earlier to control the situation, some have been diverted to Balochistan. US hi-tech surveillance systems and border teams helping in joint operations along the Afghan-Pakistan border, have been unable to pick up any important al-Qaeda operatives, but the locals move across freely. More troops are needed.
The Pakistani excuse to the Americans is that it cannot divert more troops from the eastern border given the situation with India. The only way this can be done is if Indo-Pak problems from Siachen to Sir Creek are solved, enabling Pakistan to disengage and re-deploy. In the interim, if the US could at least nudge the Indians to at least demilitarise Siachen and Kashmir, it could help in the war on terror.
Source: Hindustan Times, April 11, 2006
Living on the edge: Jehadist attitudes in Bangladesh
THE WARMTH with which Bangladesh's Nobel laureate Mohammed Yunus greeted Amartya Sen, the other Nobel laureate from the subcontinent, when the two met in Dhaka recently, does not unfortunately transmit itself to political masters of the two countries. It definitely does not get transformed into even bare civility between the two 'Ladies' of Dhaka. Instead, they have now had years of mutual suspicion and unremitting hostility visible in absolute obduracy and violence on the streets.
Domestic compulsions and truculence translate into not even wanting to help themselves economically, simply because that might help India in the process. Thus, instead of using India's vast neighbourhood markets and resources as an opportunity, Bangladesh politics demand that India is considered a threat. This can only be countered by cosying up to China, which had opposed Bangladesh's creation, and Pakistan, which had oppressed it for 25 years, and by using the terrorist weapon as a force equaliser of some sort with India.
New Delhi has taken the right decision to bypass Bangladesh and signed a gas pipeline agreement with Myanmar. Bangladesh has to quickly decide whether it wants to be a member of the South Asian community or metaphorically anchor itself somewhere else or stay in a timewarp.
The endless feud between Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia has polarised Bangladesh politics and given political space to various jehadi groups, allowing them to mushroom all over the country. Quite often this has been with the active encouragement or tacit approval of the Khaleda Zia government. Apart from Jamatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh, whose notoriety emanates from the 459 simultaneous bomb blasts it organised on August 17, 2005, there are several other jehadist outfits like Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh, Hizbul Mujahideen, Al-Haramain Foundation and Al Mujahid. The prominent Bangladesh newspaper, The Daily Star, had carried out a survey and published some startling findings on August 21, 2005. It spoke of the jehadi nexus with mainstream political parties, about their access to arms and official and political tolerance.
Many of the members are Afghan jehad veterans, and fund ing from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait continues with the aim of introducing a more orthodox system of Islamic education and governance. The argument cannot be that they are fanciful groupings of a few or that they may not be effective; instead the fear is that this shows an evolving mindset in our neighbourhood.
Changes in ideology take place incrementally; these are like continental drifts until it is too late and then tectonic changes occur. In this age of modernity, there is also a move towards religious fundamentalism mixed with politics and militarism. Our neighbourhood is not immune from these influences. All three major parties in Bangladesh have contributed to this shift. General Zia-ur Rahman (now fondly known as Shaheed Zia) resorted to introducing religious concepts in the principles of State policy and removed the word 'secular' from the Constitution. His successor, General Ershad, in an electoral alliance with the Awami League, but hounded out by a BNPinspired campaign for his impudence, declared Islam as the State religion. Both these leaders encouraged the rehabilitation of fundamentalists who had collaborated with Pakistan in 1971. Khaleda Zia cobbled an arrangement with the radical Jamaat Islami and Islamic Oikya Jote as part of a four-party alliance in governance since 2001.
The sudden decision of the Awami League, known for its liberal and secular credentials, to have an election arrangement with the 'fatwa' party, the Bangladesh Khilafat Majlis, sent shock waves in sections of Bangladesh society. This rather cynical elec toral politics alarmed the minority who had always assumed that the League's secular credentials would keep it relatively safe. The last bastion for the minorities in Bangladesh — the Hindus, Buddhists and Christians — seems to be crumbling. Apart from electoral compulsions, there is immense significance in the symbolism of this five-point 'Memorandum of Understanding' as the Awami League calls it. One of these is that no law would be enacted that contradicts Quranic values, the Sunnah and the Shariat.
The League's problem has been to counter a vociferous and powerful opposition that insists on describing this adherence to secularism as disrespectful to Islam. Besides, secularism in the subcontinent is too Indian a concept to be readily acceptable in Bangladesh where sections want the country to become increasingly Islamic. The League has nominated two veterans from the Afghan jehad from, Sylhet-1 and Narail-2 constituencies, apart from other Islamist candidates. Whether or not the arrangement Sheikh Hasina has worked out will last or whether or not she gains from this, the important point is that today the daughter of Sheikh Mujib feels that this alliance could lead to gains that would be greater than the loss from the annoyance of the minorities. And, therefore, considered worth it. In India, we play vote-bank politics by playing to the minorities; in Bangladesh and Pakistan, they play the majority tune all the time.
The stage is now set for the elections scheduled for January 22. The run-up to this has been one of the most violent in recent years and October 28 was the high point. There have been attempted assassinations. Sheikh Hasina had a lucky escape in August 2004 while former Minister S.A.M.S. Kibria was not so lucky in January 2005. Sections of the media have been intimidated very often and the authorities have been more amenable to taking action against minorities than against the majority. The Awami League has suspected, not without good reason, that there would be enough skullduggery so that the League is kept away from governance. The mastaans, who run organised crime syndicates and protection rackets, have had their political patrons but are now striking out on their own and are now part of the problem. The line between politics and crime, business and crime, has blurred.
India has chosen to stay out of any advisory roles because anything we say or do will be held against us. The West has been more explicit in expressing its worries at what might be and Dhaka-based British, US and Canadian envoys have given gratis advice on democracy and the need to hold free and fair elections. They have also been urging the young to exercise their franchise, several of whom are not on the voter lists or have been removed from the lists, because of selective revision. Usually, such mysterious omissions are names of those who belong to the minorities.
It is difficult to predict the outcome of the elections but the BNP government that has handed over power to the caretaker authority would be carrying the usual baggage of the 'antiincumbency factor' — common in our region unless one is ruled by a military dictator. The threat to boycott elections that the League sounds from time to time is another worrying factor, because sometimes, a threat repeated very often develops its own momentum. That would be tragic and the BNP would get elected unopposed and untested.
It is important for Bangladesh, indeed for the entire region, that free, fair and participatory elections are held. If not, it will be easy for Bangladesh to slip into fundamentalist chaos and radicalism. This will be a retrograde step that could lead the country to violence and extremism.
Domestic compulsions and truculence translate into not even wanting to help themselves economically, simply because that might help India in the process. Thus, instead of using India's vast neighbourhood markets and resources as an opportunity, Bangladesh politics demand that India is considered a threat. This can only be countered by cosying up to China, which had opposed Bangladesh's creation, and Pakistan, which had oppressed it for 25 years, and by using the terrorist weapon as a force equaliser of some sort with India.
New Delhi has taken the right decision to bypass Bangladesh and signed a gas pipeline agreement with Myanmar. Bangladesh has to quickly decide whether it wants to be a member of the South Asian community or metaphorically anchor itself somewhere else or stay in a timewarp.
The endless feud between Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia has polarised Bangladesh politics and given political space to various jehadi groups, allowing them to mushroom all over the country. Quite often this has been with the active encouragement or tacit approval of the Khaleda Zia government. Apart from Jamatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh, whose notoriety emanates from the 459 simultaneous bomb blasts it organised on August 17, 2005, there are several other jehadist outfits like Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh, Hizbul Mujahideen, Al-Haramain Foundation and Al Mujahid. The prominent Bangladesh newspaper, The Daily Star, had carried out a survey and published some startling findings on August 21, 2005. It spoke of the jehadi nexus with mainstream political parties, about their access to arms and official and political tolerance.
Many of the members are Afghan jehad veterans, and fund ing from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait continues with the aim of introducing a more orthodox system of Islamic education and governance. The argument cannot be that they are fanciful groupings of a few or that they may not be effective; instead the fear is that this shows an evolving mindset in our neighbourhood.
Changes in ideology take place incrementally; these are like continental drifts until it is too late and then tectonic changes occur. In this age of modernity, there is also a move towards religious fundamentalism mixed with politics and militarism. Our neighbourhood is not immune from these influences. All three major parties in Bangladesh have contributed to this shift. General Zia-ur Rahman (now fondly known as Shaheed Zia) resorted to introducing religious concepts in the principles of State policy and removed the word 'secular' from the Constitution. His successor, General Ershad, in an electoral alliance with the Awami League, but hounded out by a BNPinspired campaign for his impudence, declared Islam as the State religion. Both these leaders encouraged the rehabilitation of fundamentalists who had collaborated with Pakistan in 1971. Khaleda Zia cobbled an arrangement with the radical Jamaat Islami and Islamic Oikya Jote as part of a four-party alliance in governance since 2001.
The sudden decision of the Awami League, known for its liberal and secular credentials, to have an election arrangement with the 'fatwa' party, the Bangladesh Khilafat Majlis, sent shock waves in sections of Bangladesh society. This rather cynical elec toral politics alarmed the minority who had always assumed that the League's secular credentials would keep it relatively safe. The last bastion for the minorities in Bangladesh — the Hindus, Buddhists and Christians — seems to be crumbling. Apart from electoral compulsions, there is immense significance in the symbolism of this five-point 'Memorandum of Understanding' as the Awami League calls it. One of these is that no law would be enacted that contradicts Quranic values, the Sunnah and the Shariat.
The League's problem has been to counter a vociferous and powerful opposition that insists on describing this adherence to secularism as disrespectful to Islam. Besides, secularism in the subcontinent is too Indian a concept to be readily acceptable in Bangladesh where sections want the country to become increasingly Islamic. The League has nominated two veterans from the Afghan jehad from, Sylhet-1 and Narail-2 constituencies, apart from other Islamist candidates. Whether or not the arrangement Sheikh Hasina has worked out will last or whether or not she gains from this, the important point is that today the daughter of Sheikh Mujib feels that this alliance could lead to gains that would be greater than the loss from the annoyance of the minorities. And, therefore, considered worth it. In India, we play vote-bank politics by playing to the minorities; in Bangladesh and Pakistan, they play the majority tune all the time.
The stage is now set for the elections scheduled for January 22. The run-up to this has been one of the most violent in recent years and October 28 was the high point. There have been attempted assassinations. Sheikh Hasina had a lucky escape in August 2004 while former Minister S.A.M.S. Kibria was not so lucky in January 2005. Sections of the media have been intimidated very often and the authorities have been more amenable to taking action against minorities than against the majority. The Awami League has suspected, not without good reason, that there would be enough skullduggery so that the League is kept away from governance. The mastaans, who run organised crime syndicates and protection rackets, have had their political patrons but are now striking out on their own and are now part of the problem. The line between politics and crime, business and crime, has blurred.
India has chosen to stay out of any advisory roles because anything we say or do will be held against us. The West has been more explicit in expressing its worries at what might be and Dhaka-based British, US and Canadian envoys have given gratis advice on democracy and the need to hold free and fair elections. They have also been urging the young to exercise their franchise, several of whom are not on the voter lists or have been removed from the lists, because of selective revision. Usually, such mysterious omissions are names of those who belong to the minorities.
It is difficult to predict the outcome of the elections but the BNP government that has handed over power to the caretaker authority would be carrying the usual baggage of the 'antiincumbency factor' — common in our region unless one is ruled by a military dictator. The threat to boycott elections that the League sounds from time to time is another worrying factor, because sometimes, a threat repeated very often develops its own momentum. That would be tragic and the BNP would get elected unopposed and untested.
It is important for Bangladesh, indeed for the entire region, that free, fair and participatory elections are held. If not, it will be easy for Bangladesh to slip into fundamentalist chaos and radicalism. This will be a retrograde step that could lead the country to violence and extremism.
Thursday, February 1, 2007
The Agency that runs Pakistan
They always refer to it in hushed tones, both in awe and fear, and never by the full name. "The Agency" is how the nationalists in Pakistan or any onewho has earned the wrath of this organisation, call the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto, herself a victim of numerous murderous ISI conspiracies, described it as "a State within a State," - which it is and which one of its former chiefs does not hesitate to admit. Other similar honorifics have been bestowed upon this powerful agency over time and not without reason. The most commonly used being "Invisible Government" or Pakistan's "Secret Godfathers."
Pakistan's ISI, created in 1948, came into its own during the US-sponsored Afghan jehad against the Soviet adventure in Afghanistan in 1979. The Pakistan Army and its intelligence had been smarting in the aftermath of 1971 and General Zia-ul-Haq, having hanged ZA Bhutto, was a persona non grata in the West. As Soviet tanks rolled into Kabul that Christmas in 1979, Zia the pariah became Zia the friend along with all the country's instrumentalities. A tripartite relationship between the Americans, the Saudis and the Pakistanis blossomed as the Afghan jehad began to take shape. This was the beginning of the world's first State-sponsored global privatised campaign of violence against another State.
The war cry was 'get the Evil Empire' and the ISI took full advantage of this. But the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had abdicated its policy on Afghanistan to the ISI and Pakistani agenda in Afghanistan became the CIA's own. It did not seem to worry too much about the ISI's or Pakistan's intentions in the post-jehad phase. The relationship between the two agencies warmed up and the CIA chief, William Casey, regularly briefed General Zia about Indian military deployments and a grateful ISI chief Gen Akhtar Rehman presented a $ 7,000 carpet to Casey. The bonding was mutual and satisfying. The ISI had matured.
The origins of the ISI were fairly mundane. There were the usual reasons - the Pakistan Military Intelligence had failed in the 1947-48 invasion of Kashmir. There was need for a new agency manned by officers from the three wings of the armed forces. The charter was to collect and assess external intelligence, both military and non-military, with India as the main focus of attention. This was well intended but the continued military suzerainty or direct control in Pakistan and suspicions about ethnic minorities gradually gave the ISI an ever-increasing role in Pakistan's internal politics.
In the early days, the ISI was given an internal role in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, Gilgit and Baltistan. It was a matter of time before the ISI would begin to get a greater role inside Pakistan. There were suspicions about the loyalty and integrity of Bengali officers in the Pakistan Intelligence Bureau operating in distant East Pakistan and Bengali politicians. General Ayub Khan asked the ISI to take over the responsibility of covering internal political intelligence in East Pakistan. There were similar suspicions about the loyalties of politicians in western Pakistan. The Baluch were always suspected and when the revolt in Baluchistan gathered steam in the 70s, Baluch police officers came under the scanner. The Pakistan Army, suspicious of everything not directly controlled by it, worked on ZA Bhutto to hand over the charge of internal intelligence to the ISI. Besides, it needed a 'victory' in the post 1971 era to re-establish itself and Baluchistan was the perfect arena.
Pakistan's brief flirtation with democracy ended in 1977 when Zia took over, locked up Bhutto and had him murdered by a pliant judiciary. Relations between the Bhutto family, the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and the Army soured forever. A paranoid Zia moved the ISI into Sindh to cover not only the Bhuttos, but also Sindhi nationalists and the Shias following the Iranian revolution in 1979. The PPP campaign led by the Bhutto ladies, Nusrat and Benazir, gathered momentum and the Movement for Restoration of Democracy was seen as a threat by Zia. Surveillance of all political parties in Pakistan was therefore considered necessary and the ISI, already the favourites in the Afghan campaign, had become the master. Not above skulduggery of the worst kind, the ISI arranged to have Benazir's brother, Shah Nawaz, poisoned to death when he was in Cannes in 1985. But the lady was not intimidated; nor again when they had her elder brother, Murtaza, assassinated outside his house in Karachi in September 1996. At that time Benazir was prime minister in her second term.
Earlier, the Bhutto and ISI/Army animosity was one of the reasons that led Benazir to take the unheard of step of sacking her ISI chief, Hameed Gul, in 1989, and appoint a Bhutto loyalist, Lieutenant General Shamsur Rehman Kallue. This was the beginning of an open rift between her and Army chief Aslam Beg. The pms' ISI bosses were completely ostracised from attending meetings of Pakistan's super-cabinets - the meetings of the corps commanders. They, thus, had no access to real information. Nawaz's ISI chief, Ziauddin, had no clue about the Kargil operation being planned by Musharraf. Nominally, the ISI chief was supposed to report to the prime minister, but in reality he was always the Army chief's man. Pakistan Army chiefs have never hesitated to countermand political instructions. When Nawaz Sharif sent his ISI boss Lieutenant General Ziauddin to Kandahar to request Mullah Omar to call off assistance to the Sunni sectarian militia, the Sipah-e-Sahaba, Musharraf instructed Omar not to follow these instructions. Whenever Pakistan prime ministers tried to have their own man as the ISI chief, the Army ensured that it was the prime minister who lost his job. Nawaz Sharif had tried to mess with the ISI and the Army and he eventually had to go, for he had violated the first commandment.
Domestic political gamesmanship has become a way of life for the ISI. The idea was to keep the political parties divided, the nationalists and religious groups were also manipulated so that opposition and dissent were stifled. The Muttahida Qaumi Movement was split, religious parties were encouraged to weaken nationalist forces, sectarian mafia was encouraged and elections were rigged. This has become a fine art in the ISI where even Sunni organisations are split periodically to prevent any single organisation from becoming too powerful. Assassinations of recalcitrant leaders of these organisations are the favoured method of terminating arrangements. Afzal Beg had no hesitation in accepting that Rs 140 million, had been taken from the Mehran Bank to plot against the PPP in the elections. The Army is to remain supreme domestically and the ISI is the handmaiden.
The ISI has played a crucial role in Pakistan's quest for the nuclear bomb, in association with the infamous Bank of Credit and Commerce International, to be in league with many of the well-known arms smugglers like Viktor Bout, and subsequently in the elaborate AQ Khan caper. The Afghan jehad enriched the ISI professionally and personally where narcotics smuggling added to the ISI and personal coffers. Its assistance to India-specific terrorist outfits justified as jehad against the 'infidel' is much too well documented and known in India but the ethos of these organisations has rubbed off on their managers in the ISI. There is an internal struggle also being played out in Pakistan. Any attempt by Musharraf to control these jehadi Frankenstein's at the insistence of the US is proving difficult. The murder of Daniel Pearl, the attempts on Musharraf's life, the targeted killings of professionals, Shias and Barelvis have trails leading to the ISI's doorsteps. The message is for the General of Enlightened Moderation.
While on India, the ISI consists of chest-thumping hardliners, internally it is perceived as the essence of Punjabi domination. Pakistan establishment as represented by the ISI is far too much down the radical path for others to be comfortable or for it to turn back. The ISI has acquired this control on the body-politic of Pakistan because the Pakistan Army was not willing to trust its politicians, the elite in the Punjab did not want to lose their stranglehold and were willing to play along with forces of control in the name of a strong Pakistan against enemy India.
A Pakistan rapidly being guided into a vortex of extremist beliefs is the result of this unbridled control by its intelligence agencies.
Source: Tehelka, August 5, 2006
Securing the State
Nearly sixty years of uninterrupted Pakistani interference in India's internal affairs, from the time of infiltrating Afridi tribesmen into Kashmir accompanied by Pak troops, assistance to Phizo, assistance to Sikh terrorists and down to Kashmir today, nearly 40,000 killed, innumerable assassinations, 70,000 wounded, 25,000 AK-47/56/74s, 50,000 grenades, 4,000 rockets and 5,000 kg of RDX captured, and much more, yet the US asks India for evidence about Pak complicity. Ironically, for years we went scurrying all over the world complaining about Pakistani involvement but were unwilling to do battle ourselves.
Instead, India is now being unceremoniously asked to restrain itself despite far greater evidence than for which Iraq continues to be ravaged. The evidence is also the mindset of the various jehadi organisations and their leaders' relentless campaign against Jews, Christians and Hindus. They stand in the open in Rawalpindi, the headquarters of the all-knowing Pakistani army and openly command their followers to a jehad against Jews and Hindus. The evidence is in the newspapers and periodicals of these organisations that sell openly in which they spew venom on those from other religions. It is this that explains relations between India and Pakistan. This and the army's vast corporate interests and its own mindset are the core issue. Kashmir is the excuse not the core issue. Anyone interested in finding out more should read Ghazwa Times or Mujalla al Dawa for blood-curdling experiences, although quite frequently even mainstream Urdu papers Nawa-e-Waqt and Jung can be pretty nasty. Jehadi indoctrination begins early in Pakistan. The evidence is in the curriculum of the mainstream schools of Pakistan where jehad is still taught as a subject, not just in the madrasas. The Lashkar-e-Tayyeba has a special magazine for the young called Nanhe Mujahid that teaches hatred to the young. The evidence is in the continued activity of the jehadi or sectarian organisations with titles like Lashkar, Jaish or Mujahideen dropped and reborn with new nameplates. The list is endless. They are not short of funds, weapons or manpower. Hamid Gul, the former ISI chief, has described the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba as Pakistan's frontline soldiers in Kashmir. If this is not Slam Dunk, Mr President, then what is?
All this is being ignored because Pakistan is a useful piece of real estate available on rent to the highest bidder with an endless supply of cheap labour. Pakistan is today led by a group that lies to the US, cheats Indians and Afghans. Yet, there is no fairy godmother who is going to come and wave her wand for terrorism to disappear from India. On the contrary, the fairy godmother will show impatience and command that we get back to the negotiating table fast and 'stop all this shit'.
Meanwhile, the US will arm and equip her favourite with new gleaming weapons. These arms are not for equipping Pakistan in the so-called war against terror but are a reward to Pak rulers for helping the US in the fight against terror, for services and instructions carried out. Weapons like Advanced Medium Range Air to Air Missiles, 2,000-pound bombs (bunker busters) and guided bombs are of no use against terrorists. Instead, they are extremely handy against the Indian Army and Air Force. And, of course, the F-16s, the Awacs and the Harpoon missiles. It is immaterial to the US if, in the bargain, the Pakistanis get the periodic itch to use this equipment against India.
The anomaly of the situation is that we want to have soft borders and still accuse Pakistan of cross-border terrorism. The former only means that we are not serious about the latter. Consequently, Musharraf of Kargil is today asking us for proof after all these years of jehadi activity, with terrorists wanted in India kept in Pakistani safe havens. Musharraf is comfortable today with the backing he will continue to receive from the US. He will not be condemned, reprimanded or disciplined so long as he has his uses.
For Musharraf, it is enough to merely keep the peace process going with new absurd, unworkable ideas thrown at India while he rearms and relocates the jehadis. In this context, Mumbai was a new upgradation of the jehad and more such attacks are inevitable. Terrorists have struck at our democratic institutions, communications networks, at our financial capital, at our transport systems - air, bus and rail. Only the maritime option remains. As Musharraf's domestic troubles and uncertainties mount, recourse to diversionary adventurism will always be a tempting option for him.
Meanwhile, we have to do quite a few things simultaneously. India has to show itself as a caring State. Caring not because the politician turns up offering platitudes but by hunting for terrorists ruthlessly, for only then can the common citizen be protected. Instead, inadequate intelligence and incomplete data banks lead to indiscriminate hunts after every incident giving the entire episode a communal colour. It is like tainting the entire Hindu community with suspicion after allegations of moles and spies in high places.
We have to increase our deterrence capability against terrorists and make terrorism more difficult and expensive in every way; sharpen the reprisal and the covert option so that it begins to hurt the opposition where it hurts most; curb the urge to seek assistance from external sources; improve the policing and morale of the security forces; empower the intelligence services; provide good and fair governance; and reform the judicial process so that delays in justice are minimal. If our courts could reduce the present delay of justice from six to seven years in the lower courts to a year as it used to be some years ago, a lot of our problems would be solved. For this, the number of courts has to double every five years. This may not automatically improve the quality of justice but the number of disgruntled and disaffected would reduce dramatically and the swamp for the various militant, communal and unscrupulous groups would shrink. Our media must resist the urge to have a breaking story out of every event; this hyper-coverage is what the terrorist wants but there is life beyond TRP ratings. None of this easy or instant; it will take time and will be arduous and has to cut across party and religious lines.
We insult our own Muslims whenever we soften our reactions to Pakistan's actions for the unfounded fear that this will hurt sentiments here. This is not how it works. Instead, we should learn to treat Pakistan just as another country and not be forever conscious about their religion. This two-nation stuff is their business; in India it is 'my religion but our country', while in Pakistan it is 'my religion therefore my country'.
One word and that is the gulf between us and them. This is the world of difference between the mindset of the likes of Hafeez Saeed, LeT's mentor and Abdul Batin Nomani, the imam of Gyanvapi Mosque in Varanasi. Pakistani rulers just cannot afford to have a successful and secular neighbour (not perfect, flawed but still secular) because then the slogan in that country 'Forever Pakistan' becomes 'Why Pakistan'.
As Pakistan's rulers and mullahs push their reluctant people to medieval obscurantism, in the process killing more Muslims in India, Afghanistan and their own country, Pakistan has forfeited the self-proclaimed title of being a home for the subcontinent's Muslims. It also suffers from the effects of blowback - 'the unanticipated consequences of unacknowledged actions in other people's countries', (Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire).
Source: Hindustan Times, August 2, 2006
Instead, India is now being unceremoniously asked to restrain itself despite far greater evidence than for which Iraq continues to be ravaged. The evidence is also the mindset of the various jehadi organisations and their leaders' relentless campaign against Jews, Christians and Hindus. They stand in the open in Rawalpindi, the headquarters of the all-knowing Pakistani army and openly command their followers to a jehad against Jews and Hindus. The evidence is in the newspapers and periodicals of these organisations that sell openly in which they spew venom on those from other religions. It is this that explains relations between India and Pakistan. This and the army's vast corporate interests and its own mindset are the core issue. Kashmir is the excuse not the core issue. Anyone interested in finding out more should read Ghazwa Times or Mujalla al Dawa for blood-curdling experiences, although quite frequently even mainstream Urdu papers Nawa-e-Waqt and Jung can be pretty nasty. Jehadi indoctrination begins early in Pakistan. The evidence is in the curriculum of the mainstream schools of Pakistan where jehad is still taught as a subject, not just in the madrasas. The Lashkar-e-Tayyeba has a special magazine for the young called Nanhe Mujahid that teaches hatred to the young. The evidence is in the continued activity of the jehadi or sectarian organisations with titles like Lashkar, Jaish or Mujahideen dropped and reborn with new nameplates. The list is endless. They are not short of funds, weapons or manpower. Hamid Gul, the former ISI chief, has described the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba as Pakistan's frontline soldiers in Kashmir. If this is not Slam Dunk, Mr President, then what is?
All this is being ignored because Pakistan is a useful piece of real estate available on rent to the highest bidder with an endless supply of cheap labour. Pakistan is today led by a group that lies to the US, cheats Indians and Afghans. Yet, there is no fairy godmother who is going to come and wave her wand for terrorism to disappear from India. On the contrary, the fairy godmother will show impatience and command that we get back to the negotiating table fast and 'stop all this shit'.
Meanwhile, the US will arm and equip her favourite with new gleaming weapons. These arms are not for equipping Pakistan in the so-called war against terror but are a reward to Pak rulers for helping the US in the fight against terror, for services and instructions carried out. Weapons like Advanced Medium Range Air to Air Missiles, 2,000-pound bombs (bunker busters) and guided bombs are of no use against terrorists. Instead, they are extremely handy against the Indian Army and Air Force. And, of course, the F-16s, the Awacs and the Harpoon missiles. It is immaterial to the US if, in the bargain, the Pakistanis get the periodic itch to use this equipment against India.
The anomaly of the situation is that we want to have soft borders and still accuse Pakistan of cross-border terrorism. The former only means that we are not serious about the latter. Consequently, Musharraf of Kargil is today asking us for proof after all these years of jehadi activity, with terrorists wanted in India kept in Pakistani safe havens. Musharraf is comfortable today with the backing he will continue to receive from the US. He will not be condemned, reprimanded or disciplined so long as he has his uses.
For Musharraf, it is enough to merely keep the peace process going with new absurd, unworkable ideas thrown at India while he rearms and relocates the jehadis. In this context, Mumbai was a new upgradation of the jehad and more such attacks are inevitable. Terrorists have struck at our democratic institutions, communications networks, at our financial capital, at our transport systems - air, bus and rail. Only the maritime option remains. As Musharraf's domestic troubles and uncertainties mount, recourse to diversionary adventurism will always be a tempting option for him.
Meanwhile, we have to do quite a few things simultaneously. India has to show itself as a caring State. Caring not because the politician turns up offering platitudes but by hunting for terrorists ruthlessly, for only then can the common citizen be protected. Instead, inadequate intelligence and incomplete data banks lead to indiscriminate hunts after every incident giving the entire episode a communal colour. It is like tainting the entire Hindu community with suspicion after allegations of moles and spies in high places.
We have to increase our deterrence capability against terrorists and make terrorism more difficult and expensive in every way; sharpen the reprisal and the covert option so that it begins to hurt the opposition where it hurts most; curb the urge to seek assistance from external sources; improve the policing and morale of the security forces; empower the intelligence services; provide good and fair governance; and reform the judicial process so that delays in justice are minimal. If our courts could reduce the present delay of justice from six to seven years in the lower courts to a year as it used to be some years ago, a lot of our problems would be solved. For this, the number of courts has to double every five years. This may not automatically improve the quality of justice but the number of disgruntled and disaffected would reduce dramatically and the swamp for the various militant, communal and unscrupulous groups would shrink. Our media must resist the urge to have a breaking story out of every event; this hyper-coverage is what the terrorist wants but there is life beyond TRP ratings. None of this easy or instant; it will take time and will be arduous and has to cut across party and religious lines.
We insult our own Muslims whenever we soften our reactions to Pakistan's actions for the unfounded fear that this will hurt sentiments here. This is not how it works. Instead, we should learn to treat Pakistan just as another country and not be forever conscious about their religion. This two-nation stuff is their business; in India it is 'my religion but our country', while in Pakistan it is 'my religion therefore my country'.
One word and that is the gulf between us and them. This is the world of difference between the mindset of the likes of Hafeez Saeed, LeT's mentor and Abdul Batin Nomani, the imam of Gyanvapi Mosque in Varanasi. Pakistani rulers just cannot afford to have a successful and secular neighbour (not perfect, flawed but still secular) because then the slogan in that country 'Forever Pakistan' becomes 'Why Pakistan'.
As Pakistan's rulers and mullahs push their reluctant people to medieval obscurantism, in the process killing more Muslims in India, Afghanistan and their own country, Pakistan has forfeited the self-proclaimed title of being a home for the subcontinent's Muslims. It also suffers from the effects of blowback - 'the unanticipated consequences of unacknowledged actions in other people's countries', (Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire).
Source: Hindustan Times, August 2, 2006
Allied to the problem
At the end of a French delegation's visit to Pakistan recently, the Pakistan Foreign Office put out its usual statement. It referred to Pakistan as an anchor of peace in the region and said that the leader of the French delegation, former Premier Senator (Francois) Poncet, had commended Pakistan's role in promoting peace and stability. One does not know if this is a reflection of Gaul indulgence, Pakistan's continued self-delusion or simply a Foreign Office sleight of hand. One thing it definitely is, is being elastic with the truth.
Soon after this, US State Department Assistant Secretary Richard Boucher, on a visit to Pakistan, commended America's stalwart ally for arresting the maximum number of terrorists. But where else would you find the largest number of terrorists anyway? It is like showing surprise at finding kangaroos in Australia.
Since September 11, 2001, General Musharraf's policy of riding two horses simultaneously - the one for war on terror and the other for supporting jehad - has needed extraordinary equestrian skills. One of the horses is likely to gallop away soon. There are signs of impatience and doubt in the West. Think-tanks like the Carnegie Endowment for Peace have begun to doubt Musharraf's sincerity and feel that he is exploiting the war on terror for himself. It is not yet known whether the US has realised that Pakistan is part of the problem and not part of the solution. The more optimistic assumption is that there is realisation, but also helplessness, at the moment.
In today's Pakistan, there are three main harsh realities. First, that the Baloch struggle is not about the three main tribes, the Bugtis, Marris and the Mengals, fighting for the preservation of their Sardari system. The struggle is about basic rights - economic and political - because the revolt is all over Balochistan and not restricted to these three tribal areas. The second reality is that the Waziristan area in the Fata belt, which was the launching pad for many of the campaigns in the jehad against the Soviets in Afghanistan, is today prime Taliban country - and only growing in depth and area. Third, Pakistan is getting 'jehadised', ever so incrementally; one may not notice it, but it is.
In Balochistan, there were four incidents on a single day, April 6.Between January and March this year, there were nearly 60 incidents of rocket attacks all over the province and at least 1,600 rockets were fired. In February, gas pipelines were disrupted 21 times, affecting supplies to the rest of the country. Nawab Akbar Bugti is a fugitive in his own province and has not returned to Bugti Fort for months. Akhtar Mengal is constantly harassed and Nawab Khair Bux Marri, along with his two sons, has been slapped with an arms and ammunition case. This is despite the fact that these leaders have from time to time, along with harsh statements, also said that the present struggle is not yet about secession but about provincial rights.
Reactions from Islamabad have been on expected lines - use of indiscriminate and excessive force, artillery, helicopter gun-ships and aircraft included. And finding that an ordinary Baloch was willing to die for the long-standing grievances of greater autonomy, prevention of ethnic identity from being swamped by the Punjabi outsiders, for the removal of military cantonments and a greater share in revenue and development, Pakistani authorities have begun to blame external forces. Iranian authorities, fearing that the US would want to use Balochistan to destabilise their country, may seek to pre-empt that. Pakistan's military leaders are unable to admit that the hatred for Punjabi dominance is widespread and deep-rooted in the other three provinces. There have been suggestions for the trifurcation of Punjab around Bahawalpur, Multan and Rawalpindi. Thus, apart from solving Baloch problems, Punjab needs to be cut to size if Pakistan has to be saved.
The fear is that attempts to portray the present struggle as the selfish handiwork of a few misguided miscreants and attempts to destroy traditional Baloch society by abolishing the Sardari system without anything else in place, would leave the province in a vacuum to be filled by the Taliban alumni.
Waziristan, with its inhospitable terrain and warlike conservative tribes, the Waziris and Mahsuds, was the ideal launching pad in the jehad against the Soviets in the Paktia and Khost provinces across the border. Today, terrorists fleeing from Afghanistan have made south and north Waziristan their new Taliban country, using it to regroup and relaunch into Afghanistan. About two months ago, Tolo TV channel, run from Kabul by some liberal Afghans, had shown gruesome details of half a dozen bodies being dragged by a jeep through the streets of Mandrakhel. Another scene depicted severed heads and crowds chanting 'Long live Osama bin Laden', 'Long live Mullah Omar'.
The fear is that the Taliban mindset and influence have begun to spread to the 'settled areas' of the NWFP. Areas like Darra Adam Khel provide home-made weapons and can turn in upto 400 weapons of varying kinds and calibre in a day. The Taliban are able to move at ease from Karachi to Darra to Peshawar to Quetta and on to Kandahar or Helmund or Jalalabad. Gulbuddin Hikmetyar, the ISI's blue-eyed boy and now at peace with the Taliban, is back in business.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has more than once complained to Musharraf about Taliban's transgressions, but Pakistan's leaders continue to chase the dream of strategic depth in Afghanistan and are blinded to the fact that this is becoming their nightmare. Pushed to the wall, Pakhtoons of Afghanistan will claim that the Durand Line runs south from Attock along the Indus up to Dera Ismail Khan, while the Pakistanis would want to push this up to Kabul. Therein lie the seeds of future conflict.
Over the years, conventional wisdom has held that the NWFP and Balochistan were the more conservative societies and, therefore, more susceptible to religious fundamentalism, Punjab was the symbol of modernism. This is partially true and partially a myth perpetuated by the Punjabis. Both the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba and the rabid Sunni organisation, the Sipaha-e-Sahaba, have their birthplaces here. The largest number of blasphemy cases were reported from Punjab last year. Musharraf could not go to Lahore in March for the Basant celebrations because the mullahs declared the festival un-Islamic for its Hindu origins. Everyone blames the curriculum of the madrasas as being responsible for churning out jehadis in Pakistan. Yet mainstream schools continue to teach jehad to their students. Attacks on Christians and Ahmediyas have increased.
Waziristan is slipping out of control and of the 80,000 troops deployed earlier to control the situation, some have been diverted to Balochistan. US hi-tech surveillance systems and border teams helping in joint operations along the Afghan-Pakistan border, have been unable to pick up any important al-Qaeda operatives, but the locals move across freely. More troops are needed.
The Pakistani excuse to the Americans is that it cannot divert more troops from the eastern border given the situation with India. The only way this can be done is if Indo-Pak problems from Siachen to Sir Creek are solved, enabling Pakistan to disengage and re-deploy. In the interim, if the US could at least nudge the Indians to at least demilitarise Siachen and Kashmir, it could help in the war on terror.
Source: Hindustan Times, April 11, 2006
Addicted to the talib
Afghanistan remains a blighted country. Everyone wants to control it, but no one really is able to. The British and the Russians stared at each other across the Hindu Kush in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was the Soviets and the Americans who used this hapless country to settle Cold War scores, years later. The country has not known peace since 1979. The bitter legacy of these campaigns is the unending jehad in the Indian subcontinent, an opium and heroin economy in Afghanistan, violence and religious fanaticism that threatens to spread globally.
Five years ago Ahmed Shah Massoud, the 'lion' of Panjshir, was assassinated by two men who had transited through Pakistan. In India today, no one recalls Massoud or cares to remember, that, but for this man, Pakistan would have captured Kabul in 1992. In India, it is more fashionable now to talk of al-Qaeda and 9/11 - because the rest of the Western world does so. It was Massoud who prevented Pakistani surrogate Gulbuddin Hekmatyar from occupying Kabul in 1992; it was his forces that pushed back Hekmatyar from Jalalabad and it was Massoud who did not admit defeat even when the Taliban, backed by Pakistan, occupied Kabul in 1996. He chose to fight instead.
The only way the Pakistanis could get rid of him was to assassinate the man. The history of the subcontinent would have changed had it not been for the leader in Massoud. But the Pakistanis have not given up yet.
The Taliban are now resurgent in Afghanistan, operating at will, as in the past, from Pakistani bases, trained and equipped there. Ghazni, Khost, Helmand, Paktia (where the governor was assassinated), Kandahar, Paktika, Logar, Balkh and Kunar and now Farah province in the west bordering Iran have been affected. The casualties are high and increasing by the day. Suicide bombings are very common, numbers of no-go zones have increased, weapons are costlier and more and more areas are unsafe for aid agencies.
Today's Taliban fighter is far more radicalised and sophisticated than the one who was pushed out by the Americans into Pakistan in 2001. While the Afghan army pays its soldiers the equivalent of $ 4 a day, the Taliban pay as much as $ 8 a day. The Taliban fighter is prone to resort to slaughter and beheading and seems to revel in watching DVDs that depict anti-American violence.
It is quite apparent that continental Europe is wary of being sucked into a hopeless war, involving what is really the Pakistani army, with a deniability that the Pakistanis practised on their eastern borders. Whatever the spin might be, the 'foreigner' will have to leave. Added to this, Hamid Karzai is being increasingly seen as being helpless and unable to deliver security and development.
It has been this poor experience of governance that has contributed to the phenomenal growth of opium production in Afghanistan. Ninety-two per cent of the world's opium (6,000 tonnes this year) now comes from this area. The farmer finds it far more lucrative to grow opium. After all, it fetched him about $ 5,400 per hectare last year which is 10 times more than wheat sales. The drug barons are expected to earn $ 3 billion this year. Banning production merely increases the premium. It could take 20 years to control this. In the short term, any curb without commensurate economic alternatives will only drive the farmer into the arms of the Taliban.
The indiscriminate use of the air farmsrce, the massive bombings where untold numbers of civilians died as 'collateral damage' and the cruelties of the secret detention camps in Baghram have taken their toll on the Afghan psyche. The possibility that this anti-foreigner (Western, chiefly American) sentiment could easily translate into a Pukhtoon national movement will have repercussions on Pakistan with its sizeable Pukhtoon population. It is true that the Pakistani Pathan has better assimilated into the Pakistani mainstream than the Baloch have but there is still a strong nationalist Pukhtoon sentiment coupled with a religious ferocity that is missing in the Baloch.
General Musharraf is right when he says that the Taliban are a Pushtoon force from both sides of the border with some of the tribes living on both sides of the Durand Line, although he conveniently omits to mention that the Taliban owe their genesis to the Pakistanis and their madrasas. Maybe it is now getting out of hand or perhaps, victory is at hand and Pakistanis are hedging their bets.
In the Nineties, the Pakistanis used their jehad experience in the Afghan theatre to apply their skills, finances and manpower in Kashmir. Today, they are able to reverse this and use it in Afghanistan, despite the presence of the US and despite its disapproval.
Militarily, the idea would be to gain maximum territorial advantage before the winter sets in. Politically, meanwhile, Musharraf has tried to distance himself and his country from the Taliban. Much to Afghan annoyance, he said recently, in Brussels, that the Afghans themselves were to blame for the current state of affairs.
A similar Pakistani strategy is unfolding in India where the attempt is to hoist all attacks in India outside Kashmir on the Al-Qaeda banner or to pretend that things are not fully under the control of the army in Pakistan.
Anyone who has studied Pakistan knows that this is not true. And if things are not under control in a military dictatorship of more or less 60 years standing, then that country is falling apart. We all know that it is the Pakistani - essentially the Punjabi Lashkar and the Jaish who operate from bases in Pakistan and are members of Osama's International Islamic Front - who continue to target India. They are not members of Al-Qaeda which is an Arab organisation.
Musharraf's peace deal with the Taliban in Waziristan could signify a few important things. First and foremost is that Musharraf has realised that the Taliban cannot be militarily defeated. It is, therefore, better to strike a deal with them as the next force in Afghanistan. In Musharraf's own army are officers and men reluctant to fight the Taliban or Al-Qaeda, on grounds of conscience. There is also the fear that Waziristan could now become a safe haven for Arab and central Asian terrorists wherein they would enforce the strictest code of Islam. Pakistan is now much more Islamicised and concessions to mullahs are inevitable for political survival in the country, especially with elections due next year. Finally, Musharraf can now redeploy his forces in Balochistan following the 'peace accord'. That legitimises the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
Extreme anger, arrogance of military power and total ignorance of local conditions had spurred the intense response of October 2001, which sent terrorists scurrying for shelter, chiefly in Pakistan. The Big Ones remain untraced till date. Pakistan was enrolled as a stalwart ally. It was like asking a murderer to investigate his own crime.
Should Afghanistan collapse and disappear from the world atlas, like Iraq will, the ethnic constituents of what is now Afghanistan will probably get sucked into their neighbouring countries. On the other hand, if Ralph Peters ('Blood Brothers', Armed Forces Journal) is right, then there could be a Greater Balochistan, a Greater Pakhtoonistan, a Greater Afghanistan and another moth-eaten Pakistan.
True, this is highly improbable; but what if...?
Source: Hindustan Times, September 25, 2006
Lock, stock and barrels, The war over who will control the world's energy supply is warming up
S TEPHEN GAGHAN'S fastpaced film Syriana is about several plots and sub-plots all told in two hours. It is about the struggle for the control of oil, about dubious business mergers worked out by two Texan oil companies for oil rights in Kazakhstan; about a 'bad nationalist' Arab prince who gives his country's drilling rights to the Chinese but angry Americans ensure a violent regime change; and it is about the 'good' Arab brother is rewarded for his willingness to help some American companies sell their military hardware. There is torture and one could say, predictably and inevitably, the suicide terrorist is a Pakistani. There is intrigue, treachery and ruthlessness in the pursuit of wealth and power. Clearly, a case of reel life imitating real life. Outside the cinema, the real world looks pretty much similar. The United States has been in this region for over 60 years, ever since Roosevelt promised American protection to the Saudis, in exchange for uninterrupted supply of cheap oil. From then on, there has been a steady accretion of US power and today, the US Centcom's area of responsibility coincides with the entire energy-rich Gulf and Caspian region.
America's neo-cons have consistently professed that America had a global mission, that military power was the indispensable foundation of American foreign policy. They have stressed upon the importance of using military superiority to help introduce democracy. The debate in the last two decades of the 20th century provided the real foundation of the Bush doctrine of 'pre-emptive action'. This means an America driven forward by unrivaled military power and growing profits for the world's largest multinational corporations. Iraq may have been an unmitigated disaster according to most, but for US oil corporations, it has been a glorious war. Between them, Exxon, Chevron and ConocoPhilips earned $ 64 billion in 2005.
The US may, today, have a Bureau of Deconstruction in the Department of Defence that would deconstruct 26 regimes and a Bureau of Reconstruction in the State Department that would reconstruct these countries into democratic American clones. Others, like Seymour Hersh, have talked of ten countries that are up for facelifts while Ralph Peters has redesigned maps of the region. The Global War on Terror is not about defeating terrorism, but it is a handy means to re-order the world and retain US pre-eminence.
It is, however, becoming increasingly costly and difficult to retain this position. It is axiomatic that without access to assured cheap and abundant energy supplies, the US cannot maintain its way of life and full spectrum global dominance. A Russia that was supposed to have been finally defeated after the Afghan jehad and the fall of the Berlin Wall is resurgent under President Putin. The rise of China, as a global power, is another phenomenon that Washington must deal with. There is competition for resources and markets; energy as a weapon of influence has been used by Putin. Neither threatens the US militarily but its economic interests and those of its allies, as well as its political influence, are being challenged. Equally, without access to similar energy resources China will not be able sustain its scorching rate of growth required to keep its economy growing and prevent an internal political upheaval.
Having won the Cold War, the US continued to needle the Russians, in areas the Russians have long considered their own backyard, confirming earlier prognosis that the US and Russia would always be adversaries even had there been no communism to defeat or defend. Now, the US wants all energy supplies meant for the West to bypass Russian and Iranian territory as these provide both with the leverage that the Americans do not want them to enjoy. American troops today guard pipelines that flow from the Caspian to the Adriatic and the Mediterranean, avoiding Russian territory.
As a vital supplier of gas and oil to Europe and Japan, Russia exhibited its newfound strength at the start of the year when it shut off gas supplies to Ukraine as part of the bargain for a higher price. Possibly, the Russian President had learnt these tactics of using energy reserves for geo-strategic advantage at the St. Petersburg Mining Institute where he did a dissertation on "Toward a Russian Transnational Energy Company" soon after making a career change post-KGB. Russia-China relations have been on the upswing with mutually beneficial military and technology deals. They are also working on deals with Saudi Arabia. Russia may have lost the Cold War but it is not going to lose the Energy War.
Elsewhere, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation comprising China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan has enrolled Iran into its membership. This could be early signs of moving towards a Central Asian version of the Opec or Nato. The prospects of a triangular relationship - with Russia, China and Iran as the three sides and the energy-rich Central Asia boxed in - is fast becoming America's geostrategic nightmare, especially after its colossal failures in West Asia. Iran has 11 per cent of the world's oil and 16 per cent the world's gas.
Although Saudi Arabia has more oil and Russia has more gas, no other country has more of both these resources combined. Iran is geo-strategically located as the only country that has borders with the vital Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea. This, rather than the nuclear issue, is the real reason for US anxiety about the way Iran will turn. Iran is the only country that has gained from the failed US campaign in Iraq. No wonder, less than spontaneous antiTehran demonstrations seem to be taking place in Iran's Azerbaijan province and in Khuzestan, bordering Iraq.
American attempts to snub the visiting Chinese leader, Hu Jintao, last April when they 'mistakenly' played the Taiwanese anthem left the Chinese leader unfazed. He took off for his Saudi Arabian visit, struck a deal ensuring access to Saudi oil in exchange for sophisticated weapons and new technologies. China has ventured into the American backyard by recently hosting Hugo Chavez, the defiant Venezuelan leader. Nor did China take American advice to cancel its $ 100 billion deal with Iran. China has worked out several pipeline and exploration deals globally and also hopes to use the Gwadar port for overland energy routes in preference to sea lanes that are subject to American control. A ChinaVenezuela-Iran deal is also a worry for the US, especially its international political significance.
Experts predict that global oil production is peaking and the era of cheap and abundant oil is gone forever. Apart from traditional guzzlers, other claimants like China and India and major Western oil companies will now compete increasingly for the diminishing resource. But India is still on the reserve bench in this Big Boys League.
Meanwhile, the US naval armada is gathering in strength in the Persian Gulf and Mediterranean Sea. The wraps are off in Afghanistan and the Nato is now up front. Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya of Global Research has given a carefully documented review of the nature and extent of this naval build-up and the deployment of coalition forces surrounding Iran, which includes a possible request to India to deploy in Afghanistan.
Planned air attacks have been worked out since early 2004. The world watches. Is this merely high drama? Does it all depend on who blinks first - Ahmadinejad or Bush? If this is for real, then the world will go up in smoke - maybe nuclear - as the US Presidential Directive (NSPD 35) of May 2004 is widely presumed to include deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in West Asia.
Source: Hindustan Times, October 11, 2006
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)