Our war on terror, the long haul

Soon after Mir Jaffar did a deal with Robert Clive and helped him grab Bengal in 1757, adivasis in the East Godavari district revolted in 1770 protesting against their exploitation by local jagirdars and traders. Other revolts followed through to the 20th century against similar British exploitation.

Rethink needed: The battle against naxals cannot be won purely by military means

 

In December 1946, the legendary adivasi leader Jaipal Singh, ex-ICS and former captain of the winning Indian hockey team at the Amsterdam Olympics in 1928, addressed the Constituent Assembly as it debated the Objectives Resolution. He said .... “The whole history of my people is one of continuous exploitation and dispossession by the non-aboriginals of India punctuated by rebellions and disorder, and yet I take Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru at his word.”

Jaipal was looking at a future where there would be no exploitation. The Fifth and Sixth Schedules of Article 244 of our Constitution provided for local self-government in specified tribal regions in nine states. This never happened.

Successive governments prevaricated and, across the political spectrum, used the tribals as vote banks. In 1982 the Telugu Desam Party leader N T Rama Rao declared his party an ally of the Naxalites describing them as true patriots. So did other chief ministers later and the Congress Party indicated in 2004 that it would scale down counter insurgency efforts if elected. No wonder the counter terrorist is confused with these mixed signals.

Like Manipur or Assam and other parts of the North East, this adivasi region of Central Asia has left metropolitan India unmoved because these do not affect our daily lives; these places are far too remote. Ensuring implementation of the Fifth and Sixth Schedules now are impossible without the state reestablishing authority in the region. Otherwise New Delhi would appear to have seceded from the region. To begin with, we need an attitudinal change that gives us political will and administrative tenacity for the long haul.

The Dhabra Massacre executed with ruthless precision confirms that the terrorists had detailed advance knowledge from the time the Congress Party event was planned. There was some advance intelligence with the authorities about movement of terrorists into the Bastar region but was not pursued. There was inadequate security for the convoy and it took a police party two hours to cover the 10-kilometre distance from a police post to the scene of the incident.

The forces were not only inadequate in numbers, they also ran short of ammunition. The massacre confirms that old weaknesses remain and the remedies are also known. Ironically, Chhattisgarh has one of the finest jungle warfare schools in the country.

The battle cannot be won purely by military means even though this may be the first requirement. It cannot definitely be won by introducing the Armed Forces in place of the para militaries. This would be the most retrograde of all steps and should not even be considered as an option.

While it is important to try and prevent terrorist incidents, it is equally important that the state is visible and in control during an incident and in a post event situation. Our special forces like the NSG must be regularly upgraded, always given the best equipment possible with virtually instant mobility of operability and constant improvements in their training with expertise from other countries if necessary.

Our intelligence agencies have to be strengthened, refurbished, reoriented. No amount of technical intelligence can substitute human intelligence in planning and executing counter terror operations. There is need to rethink how we recruit and reward our intelligence agencies.

Our police force remains under trained, ill-motivated, ill-equipped and there has been no reform in 66 years. The ratio of police personnel to population in India remains among the lowest in the world. The old beat constable system, traditionally. the eyes and ears of the local intelligence, in urban and especially in the rural areas, has disappeared.

Counter-terrorism must be kept away from political pressures and from a media demanding results like instant coffee. The temptation to score political points at election time through hasty negotiations or concessions must be resisted. At all times, the state must support its anti-terror agencies and avoid any witch hunt that seems to follow every successful anti-terror operation. The sequencing of negotiations and battling are vital.

The state must defend those who die protecting it, against those who make a career out of pre-event demands and post-event sophistry. Meanwhile, why does one get the impression that the government and party were more concerned with the party casualties and there was far less obvious concern for the security personnel who died?

Source : Mid Day , 30th May 2013

Balochistan bleeds

 

 
New Delhi, May 28 (ANI): What a country can do to itself, no other country can do better. Asked the other day, a former Indian intelligence official remarked that India does not have to do anything in Pakistan because they are doing a much better job of committing harakiri.

A country that cannot today provide electricity even to its urban residents, celebrates the May 28 nuclear test at Chagai in Balochistan with illumination. The symbolism of the celebration and the irony of it, one supposes, is not lost on the many discerning people in Pakistan or on Baloch nationalists.

The social media is full of daily stories of abductions, killings and tortured bodies that surface in Balochistan much in the manner The Guardian correspondent Declan Walsh had described it nearly two years ago when he said: "The bodies surface quietly like corks bobbing in the dark. They come in twos and threes, a few times a week, dumped in desolate mountains or empty city roads, bearing the scars of great cruelty."

His report Pakistan's Secret Dirty War of March 29, 2011 is worth a careful read. There has, however, been very little interest in the fate of the Baloch in western capitals, absorbed as they are with extricating themselves from Afghanistan. This is the tragedy of the Baloch people with their cry in the wilderness.

More recently, Frederic Grare at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace analysed the Baloch problem in his essay "Balochistan - The State versus the Nation" (April 2013).

Grare points out that since 2005, Pakistani security forces have brutally suppressed the Baloch nationalist movement, "fueling ethnic and sectarian violence in the province", which was slowly descending into anarchy.

His finding was that as the bloodshed continued, social structures capable of containing the rise of radicalism had weakened because of repression and a power vacuum had emerged creating a "potentially explosive situation that abuts the most vulnerable provinces of Afghanistan."

Significantly, the report points out that many Pakistanis feel that it is the security forces and not the separatists who are biggest obstacle to national unity and stability.

It is interesting and should be a matter of concern in Pakistan that Grare also dwells at some length on the issue of rising sectarianism and Islamisation of Balochistan.

Dr Ayesha Siddiqa, one of Pakistan's foremost political military analysts had also discussed rising militancy and radicalism in her paper in February this year.

Her main argument was that "radicalisation is a greater issue in Punjab than militancy, primarily because militants tend to groom people for battles outside the country or the province. Thus, there is violence in the province, but that these figures are not commensurate with the actual amount of radicalisation that takes place in Punjab."

She adds that while poverty is a contributory factor, it was the new capitalist and middle class that plays an important role, "who bankroll and support the militant forces," just as it happened in Iran.

After discussing in detail the rise of radicalisation in the Potohar (northern Punjab), Central (Punjabi as she calls it) and Seraiki (southern) Punjab, one of Dr Siddiqa's observations is that "Currently, radicalism, which can be tapped for violence at any stage, is flowing from Punjab into Sindh and into Balochistan as well."

She is sceptical of attempts by policy makers in Pakistan to mainstream jihadi outfits without analysing or assessing its impact when the society radicalises.

Women polio workers are once again being targeted in KhyberPakhtunkhwa, while Sunni radicals continue to kill Shias in Karachi.

Today, KhyberPakhtunkhwa is violently radicalised with a Taliban-friendly government in charge. Punjab is taking the same route and spreading radical thought into Sindh and Balochistan.

There is going to be a new Islam-passand government in Islamabad, and the anticipated change of situation in Afghanistan means that policy makers in New Delhi would undoubtedly be re-evaluating options.

The trend in Pakistan is markedly towards the hard right.

Those among us, who hope that elections in Pakistan will open new vistas, need to wait a while to see how the new government challenges its new internal threats - will it seek to defeat these forces or co-opt them.

Meanwhile, in Balochistan multiple religious and ethnic conflicts rage amidst desires to control the massive natural resources of gold, oil, gas and copper, with a number of international powers involved.

The Chinese have more or less established themselves at the Gwadar Port with plans to establish rail road networks all the way to the Karakorum Highway, eventually linking with Xinjiang through Kashgar.

A Canadian-Chilean company has struck gold, literally and in huge amounts at Reko Diq, and has copper interests as well, although the company may have run into some legal tangles.

The Iranians want to push their gas pipeline through Balochistan, the Americans have a secret air base for drones at Shamsi, the Afghan Quetta Shura carefully nurtured by the Pakistan military, and drugs smuggled in from Afghanistan are some of the other interests in the province.

Resource rich, abutting the Northern Arabian Sea, close the Persian Gulf, on the eastern flank of Shia Iran, and on the route to Central Asia, should Afghanistan ever become stable, makes Balochistan a very valuable piece of real estate.

Instead of main streaming the province and its people, successive governments in Islamabad have kept Balochistan backward and deprived its people the benefits of its resources.

In response, the motley groups of Baloch nationalists have carried on their fight against what they call Punjabi domination and the Punjabis seem to have responded by unleashing sectarian groups like the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi on the Hazara Shia population of Balochistan.

A nationalist movement whose origins lie in the discrimination of the Baloch and the denial of benefits to its people of its own resources is sought to be suppressed through sectarian and religious forces.

The world has remained silent about Balochistan and its missing young. It has been unwilling to abide by its own principles of human rights for fear of upsetting a dubious ally in Afghanistan.

 So, the Baloch will continue to bleed, express their anguish on the social media networks, the world will take notice of their plight only when it is convenient to do so.

The time for a settlement of the problem through addressing socio economic grievances may be over as the security establishment seeks to suppress and Islamise the province. As a result, those willing to negotiate within a united Pakistan have been forced to join the hardcore nationalists.

Therein lies the tragedy of Balochistan.

Source :  News Editors/News Desks(ANI)

A friend comes calling

New Delhi, May 20 ( ANI) : President Hamid Karzai will be in India for a two-day visit, discussing issues that are of importance to both countries. This would be his twelfth visit here, and this in itself, is testimony to the importance of this relationship that both need to nurture constantly.There are however concerns that affect both countries, arising from the impending drawdown, as it is called, of U.S. forces next year, the status of the Afghan security forces, the parlous state of the economy and the role and attitude of Pakistan, especially after the recent elections and the evolving Taliban insurgency as it prepares for a takeover after the U.S. withdrawal.  Details of how many and what kind of U.S. troops will leave and which kind will remain, but, it is generally accepted that the U.S. wants to retain nine bases with special forces meant for counter terror operations, training Afghan forces and protecting American forces in the country. The nine bases proposed are Baghram and Kandahar air bases, with the other bases are in Kabul, Mazar-e-Sharif, Jalalabad, Gardez, Shindad, Helmand and Herat.  Apart from this, it is the nature of the American presence that remains that would be important. As in Iraq, there has been an extensive privatisation of the war in Afghanistan, and, at one stage, there were 104,000 U.S. Department of Defence contractors and 68,000 U.S. troops amounting to 69 percent of the work force. So, the military cooks came from Kellogg Brown and Roots, while Military Professional Resources Inc provided logisticians and military advisers.  When the U.S. was spending USD 4 billion a month, there were lobsters and country steaks available for U.S. personnel once a week, but there were not enough winter jackets for Afghan soldiers, nor adequate training equipment for the instructors in the training schools. There were other problems relating to the culture and language divide between soldiers who could not speak Darri, distrust of, and at times, even contempt for, the Afghan soldier and a host of other similar problems compounded by the fact that the motive of the private contractors was profit not winning the peace.  An estimated 10 percent of the funds allocated reach their intended destination; the remainder being siphoned off by contractors and warlords. The often heard complaint that the Afghan National Security Forces are inadequate and ill-trained is not solely of Afghan making. The U.S. haste to raise an army that is also not perceived a threat to Pakistan is one of the major problems that President Karzai has to handle.  Afghanistan would need a viable security force which is adequately trained and equipped with firepower and mobility to handle a growing threat from a resurrected Taliban. This is what he is expected to seek from India.  Karzai has other concerns too. Pakistan's involvement with the Taliban has evolved since the US surge in Afghanistan and as December 2014 approaches. A distinct trend is now discernible in east Afghanistan where some young Taliban who had escaped into Pakistan post 2001 were picked up and trained assiduously in paramilitary techniques, and sent to Punjab for higher training in English and IT. They are being taught how to work as undercover agents, equipped with Pakistani passports while their families are held as undeclared hostages.  They are no longer just the old style jihadi cannon fodder. They are then inducted into eastern Afghan provinces to be the links between the Taliban and Pakistan and also to keep a watch on US activities. The Taliban are evolving for the post 2014 phase and Pakistan hopes they will be under their control even then. The Taliban website Voice of Jihad regularly publishes news and monthly updates about Taliban victories and 'enemy' casualties which when read make for dismal reading.  Hamid Karzai is visiting India when his old collaborator in the Afghan jihad in 1980s, Nawaz Sharif, is preparing to become Pakistan's prime minister for the third time. During those happy days, Nawaz worked closely with Gen Zia and later as Prime Minister he had dashed to Kabul in April 1992 to instal a mujahedeen government in all its three phases. The Kargil episode notwithstanding, Nawaz Sharif, a Punjabi and a protege of the Army, has been close to them. The Generals have preferred Nawaz's politics to those of the 'dubious' PPP. Nawaz himself has been extensively involved both with the Taliban and the Northern Alliance in the past and had got the warring groups together in Islamabad in April-May 1998 to attempt an agreement.  It is, however, conceivable that nearly 30 years later, President Karzai may have some reservations about the attitudes of the prime minister-designate especially after the recent statements by Nawaz in the run up to the elections. Nawaz had said that Pakistan should stop supporting the international war on terror and talk to the terrorists instead. In the past too Nawaz had followed Zia's policies of Islamisation in his first term as Prime Minister and has shown a tendency to move in favour of the religious right when he had tried to introduce the sharia through a legislative enactment. There was a time when he wanted to be anointed Amir ul Momeen. Nawaz's closeness to Saudi Arabia, the other country that recognised the Taliban government in Kabul, is well known.  The fear in Kabul is that Pakistan may make peace with the Taliban and then concentrate on Afghanistan. Statements from the chief minister-designate in Khyber Pakhtunkha province that the Taliban were not their enemies only adds to these fears. With Imran Khan's pro-Taliban Tehrik Insaf in power in Peshawar and the Nawaz Muslim League in Lahore, Balochistan under Army control, Pakistan Generals probably see this as an opportunity to secure their interests in Afghanistan and also to have the Durand Line sanctified. The usual dual policy would apply, talk peace with the Taliban maybe through amenable persons like Imran Khan while destabilise Kabul through the new control on the Taliban.  This means strengthening the ANSF adequately that enables it to meet its primary threat which is tackling the Taliban insurgency. High on the list would be airlift capabilities including helicopters, air strike abilities and artillery pieces, one presumes. Imparting military training and equipment logistic supplies are also seen as urgent and abiding requirements. The Afghan Army has to be made fully functional so that it can clear and hold to enable economic development to take place.  While we congratulate ourselves that the US now wants to involve India in this venture, we need to be careful. India needs to assist in the furtherance of its own interests and not circumscribed by US caveats which usually seek to be over considerate to Pakistani interests.  The news coming from Pakistan is that Gen Kayani possibly advised caution to Nawaz Sharif on the peace initiative with India, the haste in Rawalpindi will be with regard to Afghanistan. For India, it is necessary to move in its own interests in the region and not convert hope for a better relationship with Pakistan as reason enough to give up its priorities in Afghanistan.  The geopolitical situation in our region could change with an energetic China looking for spaces to be vacated by the US. China's strong presence in Pakistan, growing interest in Afghanistan and closeness to Iran would lock India out of the region. In India's bilateral and larger regional interests, we need to help Afghanistan and supply funds and material. Source : News Editors/News Desks ( ANI ) , 20th May 2013

Armed and dangerous

Seventy thousand members of the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA) met over the first weekend of May in Houston to assert their right to hold personal weapons and to oppose this right in any manner despite the episode in Kentucky a few days earlier.

Gun scare: Relatives and friends mourn the loss of their loved ones in the Sandy Hook massacre in which 20 children and six adults were shot at in school by a 20-year-old.

 

Successive US governments have been unable to amend laws that would introduce stricter requirements regarding possession and sale that need background checks, because the powerful NRA has strong interest groups among Congressmen and the arms industry’s commercial interests.
The Kentucky killing of a two year old girl in an accidental shooting by her five-year-old brother with his personal gun, did generate some debate but it was not the first such incident in the US. Even recently, a four-year-old boy shot and killed a 48-year-old woman in Tennessee in April and a few days later, a six-year-old boy was accidentally shot by another four-year-old. While parental responsibility is undoubtedly an issue, a lot of this also has to do with the gun culture of America and the interests of the NRA that seeks to arm its members with a gun to protect the citizens against what it calls government tyranny. It is this gun culture that allows incidents like Sandy Hook in Connecticut which killed 20 young school children and six teachers last September and will recur unless there are attitudinal changes and legal restrictions. Constitutional rights are cited by the NRA while the private industry capitalises.

Keystone Sporting Arms is an American company that also advertises its Crickett range of rifles among which is one proudly called “My First Rifle.” Guns of this kind come in different colours. It was one of these weapons killed the two-year-old in Kentucky. Other companies too offer similar weapons for toddlers.

one, Savage Arms (do note the genteel name) manufactures the Rascal another .22 calibre single-shot rifle, while Thompson in New Hampshire sells the Hot Shot and is supposed to be a look alike of Dad’s hunting gun and Mossberg markets a .410 shotgun popularly known as the Mighty Mouse. All of these and possibly others specifically target small children in different age groups for their lethal products. Web page advertisements appear as innocuous or as seductive as those for modern toys. Private entrepreneurs also offer body armour to children while others offer training courses to second-graders to counter attack mass shootings.

There is also a great deal of romanticisation about possessing guns in America. It goes back to the days of the pioneers and the opening of the west to defend themselves against the natives protesting against intrusions, bandits and wild animals. This tradition became a symbol of freedom and insurance against a government that they did not initially trust. Later day Hollywood icons John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, of the cowboy fighting the native American or the Mexican bandits and winning, only embellished this image.

Today, it is estimated the law enforcement and the military possess four million weapons while US civilians own 310 million assorted weapons. This means roughly one weapon per individual, man, woman, young or old for a population of 311 million in 2011 or 7.9 guns per owner. This also makes US the most weaponised country in the world. Estimates also reveal that 80 million Americans own 114 million handguns, 110 million rifles and 86 million shotguns. Numerically speaking the state is outgunned. Worse, around 50 per cent of legal gun sales involve private sellers and do not require background checks.

More young Americans are killed and maimed each year by gunfire in America than all US casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan and gun homicide is one of the biggest killers among the youth. There are 30,000 gun related deaths in the US every year. The US government spends billions of dollars annually on its military and intelligence and has spent trillions of dollars fighting futile wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet is unable to enact stricter laws to protect its own citizens at home. Bowing to powerful NRA interests, the US has ensured that the International Arms Trade Agreement approved by the UN was only meant to cover international trade and transfers and not domestic trade.
Unrestricted possession of lethal weapons and an increasing propensity to use them, ultimately brutalises society. It only produces a society that is armed and dangerous.

Source : Mid Day , 16th May 2013

Pakistan - The more things change the more they remain the same, well almost

New Delhi, May 14 (ANI): Essentially, or broadly, the vote in Pakistan's recent elections has been democratic despite the usual complaints of rigging and booth capturing.

 

However, the ballot has been on strong ethnic lines with religious overtones in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and similar undertones in Punjab. It appears that the Pakistan Tehrik Insaf (PTI) will be the main opposition in National Assembly to Nawaz Sharif's Muslim League PML(N), beating the PPP to third place.
 
Nawaz Sharif is the man of the hour as the unchallenged winner, eagerly acknowledged by his neighbour. Nawaz has won Punjab spectacularly, but equally spectacularly, has lost the other three provinces, reducing himself to a provincial leader of what, in effect, is a provincial party, while his brother will preside over a PML(N) Government in Punjab.

MQM leader Altaf Hussain, whose party retained control of Karachi, was making a point when he congratulated Nawaz as the leader of a Punjabi representative party.

Imran Khan has Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where the secular Awami National Party has been wiped out.
Asif Zardari's PPP lost heavily and has been reduced to rural Sindh.

The army retains Balochistan, where an assortment of Baloch nationalists led a successful boycott of the elections.

Right wing parties like the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Jamaat-Ulema-Islami (Fazlur Rehman) won a few seats in Khyber Pakhtunkwah and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).
  
It is really a divided house that Nawaz Sharif will be ruling and it will require considerable skills to manage a seemingly strong government, but in reality, representing only one province.

Obviously, this is a situation which GHQ Rawalpindi would love while it maintains the image of its neutrality and embellishes its democratic credentials, which will keep the U.S. on its side, but all failures will continue to be at the door of the political leadership.

The new prime minister, with a comfortable majority, will have to deal with a new Chief of Army Staff, a new Chief Justice and a new President, as all three complete their terms later this year.
This could be to Nawaz's advantage, but expect some hard bargaining on this.

The emerging situation may not make for the kind of shaky governments that the army prefers to deal with, but, the present arrangement would be quite satisfactory for the generals.
 
It would be useful for Nawaz Sharif to remember that elections are only the beginning of other harder enduring problems. Terror, economy, power shortages, a radicalised society with an impatient youth who will expect that having voted, there will be an automatic solution to their problems and a fulfillment of their dreams.
  
In the run up to the electoral campaign, there were reports that major political parties had sought the help of the sectarian mafia to reach out to their voters and there were places that could only be reached with the help of these sectarian extremists.

Many of them stood for elections and it is true that they may not have won more than a small percentage (some say ten per cent) of the votes cast, but their indirect influence is far greater than the votes polled by them.

The PML(N) had entered into electoral adjustments with the banned sectarian terrorist outfit, the Sipah-e-Sahaba, renamed as the Ahel Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ), used them for election campaigns, and even gave party tickets to two SSP candidates, Abid Raza Gujjar and Sardar Ebad.

Mohammed Taqi, a well known Pakistani commentator, pointed out that Imran Khan, who lost his Lahore seat to an unknown PML(N) opponent, gave himself away when he denigrated the Ahmediyas in a video message.

This had apparently been cleared by the Dar-ul-Uloom Haqqania, from where a number of Taliban and Haqqani Network luminaries had graduated. There will be a price to be paid for this in the future.
The Jamaat-e-Islami has already made its first move, when it said its support to Nawaz was dependent on the PML(N) attitude towards the MQM in Karachi.
     
There was specifically targeted violence against the ANP in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and in Karachi against the PPP and MQM by the Tehrik Taliban Pakistan, but there was no violence in Punjab.
The result has been a victory for the Taliban friendly PTI and its leader Imran Khan in the northwestern province who, some believe is the man best suited to talk to the Taliban and bring peace to the country.

Speaking to the Taliban is something that the U.S., anxious to leave, would also want to happen, and it is even better if an elected representative of the Pakistan National Assembly lends respectability to this.
   
Then, there is the Pakistan Army with its owns foreign policy and security priorities, which are also not going to change. All this, will require statesmanship, fortitude and cooperation with other parties and, above all, managing the army and a hyperactive judiciary.

The widely acknowledged liberal and secular Awami National Party (ANP) that owed allegiance to Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan's ideology has been the biggest loser in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, giving way to the PTI.

The Khan's grandson, Asfandyar Wali Khan, lost to a JUI(F) opponent. Another ANP leader, Mian Ifthikar Hussein, whose son had been killed by the Taliban three years ago, was defeated by a Taliban supported candidate.

This is a pity, as the ones who will now rule, are from the hard right.

A pro-Taliban PTI government in Peshawar, if its leader's pre-election statements are to be taken seriously, would certainly be expected to help the army in dealing more aggressively with Afghanistan.

The PTI can be expected to be more amenable to the Pakistan Army's security issues rather than the ANP. In addition, keeping the turbulent Baloch under ruthless army control, ensures that the Pakistan -Afghan border is dealt with by governments more sympathetic to Rawalpindi.
   
Pakistan society has been radicalising almost from the first day and the liberals have struggled to retain their ability to make a difference in Pakistan politics and, at times, have compromised with the power elite.

In this context, Ayesha Siddiqa's essay "The New Frontiers: Militancy and Radicalism in Punjab" (February 4 2013) highlights this and the fact that the province, which has almost 50 per cent of the country's population, is "rapidly and consistently undergoing a process of radicalisation."
The jihadists were consolidating themselves and preparing for an offensive war, while the liberals in Punjab were losing ground and had begun to exhibit "latent radical tendencies".
There are others who are concerned too. In a recent discussion in Washington D.C. by the Hudson Institute on "Elections in Pakistan: Any Hope for a Secular Government?", Farahnaz Ispahani also spoke of the the inabilities of ruling democratic governments to withstand the onslaughts of the radical extremists, including the Pakistan Taliban and other extremists supported by the establishment.

At the same discussion, Mohammed Taqi, pointed out that Pakistan was swinging into a hard right kind of governance in Islamabad, Lahore and Peshawar. In such a situation, with the radicals running amok these past few years, Nawaz Sharif's biggest challenge, assuming he desires to do so, will be to curb them and reassure his own minorities, including the Ahmediyas.

Will he have the political courage and sagacity to do this? Political bargaining for coalition support has already begun.
   
Nothing much should be expected on the India-Pakistan front in the context of coalition politics and internal governance that will emerge in Pakistan and the Army's preoccupation with Afghanistan post 2014.

Sharif's coalition partners or supporters are from the right of the political and religious spectrum, and forays with India will be more a diversion than any serious effort.

The usual discourse will not disappear. Nawaz is less likely to be able to launch a full enquiry into the Kargil debacle.

The army will simply not allow this to happen. Nor, will he be able to reign in the jihadi hordes.
At best, there could be more business suiting Nawaz's own business interests and those of the Ludhiana-Jalandhar-Amritsar axis. Sweet nothings and grand promises at the start of a tenure are natural but, need not beguile us so long as 'core' issues remain.

This is not to say that peace between India and Pakistan is not desirable. But one election does not make it any the more attainable.

Let the euphoria on both sides evaporate a little, and then, let there be an assessment based on realistic assumptions that also take into account the enormity of domestic problems on both sides before we rush into disappointments.

Source : Yahoo News , 14th May 2013

BOOK REVIEW-General Vinod Saighal's 'Revitalising Indian Democracy'

 It is relatively easy and affordably irresponsible at times to spell out what is wrong with a political system or in a society. It is never always easy to suggest remedies. It also requires  a huge amount of courage of conviction  and commitment to the cause, the tenacity to recommend changes and finally the stamina to campaign for these changes.  A person needs the courage of conviction to battle cynicism, vested interests, a fickle following that gets easily distracted and moves on to other issues.  Maj. Gen. Vinod Saighal is one such intrepid campaigner. His campaign on various issues of governance and security started in 1995 after he retired as DG Military Training. since then while campaigning for better governance, Gen Saighal has written several books  and among them have been 'Restructuring Pakistan', 'Global Terror- The Way Forward', and 'Global Security Paradoxes 2000-2020'

His latest book, Revitalising Indian Democracy, published by Gyan Publishing House New Delhi is perhaps the need of the hour. While believing in Mahatma Gandhi's ideals Vinod Saighal also accepts that a blind reversal to the Mahatma's economic ideals would push India to an economic abyss from which there would be no coming back to the modern world. Many of the chapters in the book are based on talks or papers prepared on different occasions over the last fifteen years and more; the fact that they are still relevant only confirms that we have not adequately or seriously attempted to solve these problems. In fact as the book explains and as we all know, our problems have only compounded with time.

The chapter on corruption - Fountainhead of Corruption - highlights how bent the administrative machinery and the political system with its criminal connections had become by 2009, that despite a strong mandate to UPAII, things began to fall apart rapidly. Vinod Saighal urges reforms of the Representation of Peoples Act, police reforms, strengthening of the CBI, CVC and other investigative agencies. Sadly this has not happened nor has the National Judicial Commission been set up or the reforms recommended by the Moily Committee carried out. This lethargy or ineptitude has begun to cost the nation.

This is happening at a time when the entire world is in a flux, there is political uncertainty in the neighbourhood and political paralysis at home. Vital economic decisions are mired in indecision and political ineptitude.  The country's Human Development Indicators remain abysmal  while our political leaders and the executive remain engrossed in their own worlds. This is happening at a time when there is economic slow down along with exploding expectations. The next decade will be vital and determine the country's  future.   As China  continues its rise which it terms harmonious but this is unlikely to be so throughout, the Islamic world is in ferment, and the US ability to have its way is getting circumscribed. If we do not get our house in order  efficiently and urgently we will have missed our opportunity this century and remain a nation that might have been great but preferred to remain in the lower rungs of the global order of things - a country with tremendous potential but never really able to play to its strengths and flattered to deceive.

Generally the discussion then evolves into the civil society that should be doing something. What exactly or who exactly do we imply when we use this mysterious term 'civil society' ? Those who speak English, live in elegant homes in gated communities, drink single malts and talk of poverty and disease about 'them' or other peoples' corruption while getting ready to pay a tidy sum of money or an expensive gift to evade the law ? Our  problems will not get solved through sophisticated discussions in air conditioned studios.

All of us must have a stake in the system and be prepared to work for it and claim it not merely as an entitlement by caste or privilege; the politician will have to stop playing this and he should be aware that he cannot succeed on promises. our first struggle has to be re establishing our institutions that we have systematically allowed to be destroyed over the years.  Governance in all its aspects is the main cause for al that is wrong with our system.The state must be made to deliver or whither away. This is what Maj Gen Saighal argues in his book.

So must the society. As an anonymous writer said "When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work, because the other half is going to take care of them and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work, because somebody else os going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of the nation." Strong words but we need to be careful of where we are headed.

Book Reviewed by Vikram Sood , 1st May 2013