Big Brother has to keep watch

Edward Snowden and PRISM were headline news not because of the surveillance activities of the American intelligence system, but the sheer volume, geographical spread and range of subjects. There has been considerable feigned surprise about this but the truth is that state surveillance is as old as history. It is perhaps the extent — 97 billion pieces of information collected from all over the world in March 2013 for instance — that has frightened some. It is also part disbelief that this massive surveillance occurs in the great open American society.

If Echelon was huge years ago, PRISM is even bigger today. It is estimated there are 800,000 government employees and private contractors working on intelligence in the US. In the United States, everything is on a gigantic scale. Also, they can afford this profligacy of spending billions of dollars on intelligence in trying to secure their nation. But there’s also something else at play here: Big Money.

There has been investigative and authoritative writing by several Americans. Tim Shorrock (Spies for Hire) explained in detail the privatisation and outsourcing of intelligence to mega-corporations with revolving doors and James Bamford (The Puzzle Palace and The Body of Secrets) detailed the gigantic scale of National Security Agency (NSA) operations. Shorrock called it the industry-intelligence complex, in addition to the military-industrial complex that Dwight D. Eisenhower had warned about over half a century ago. We go a step further now, and it’s called the security-industry complex.

For the extra diligent Andrew Feinstein’s The Shadow World is recommended. This is about the global arms trade and where the American revolving door between the government and the corporate sector operates with equal ease and mutual profit, giving a clear idea where real power resides. It’s not in the White House nor on Capitol Hill. Big names like Dick Cheney, George Bush Sr and Jr, Donald Rumsfeld and a host of others appear on both sides. Even the Bin Laden family had figured with Big Money. The tie-ups of Congressmen and bureaucrats with defence contractors extend to all major US defence weapons and equipment manufacturers. The campaign funds of some Congressmen are believed to be financed by top private military contractors. It’s not surprising that when the issue of surveillance was to be discussed in the Congress recently, only one-third of Congressmen could find time to participate.

The Carlyle Group, a major conglomerate, which owns another giant, Booz Allen Hamilton, has its board members on several other mega-corporations like ExxonMobil, Reuters and Ford Motor, and relies heavily on Wall Street money. There are others in this intricate web of alliances and arrangements with the Central Intelligence Agency and NSA. These include IBM, Lockheed Martin, SAIC, and CACI. We now we have Verizon, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter whose data is mined by companies like Booz Allen Hamilton, Palantir and i2, all of them enveloping the world in a gigantic stratospheric echo chamber which includes US nationals in America.

With the miniaturisation of technology to nano-technology we are looking at entirely new ways by which the Big State can keep watch on citizens. Maybe it will, by law, and in time, embed chips in newborn children that will monitor, from cradle to grave, all movements, speech, action and possibly even thought so that all coverage is automatic, instant and all-pervasive. Add to this artificial intelligence, that would be faster than human intelligence, and Big Brother will know us by our barcodes. Welcome George Orwell, this is 2084.

Ultimately, it’s up to each country and its people to determine how much security they need and how much liberty they are willing to give up. There is no doubt many countries are threatened in their way of life by terrorism. It is surprising and alarming that in a country that prides itself on adherence to the rule of law, there is such extensive surveillance on its own citizens in the US, mostly achieved through a pliant Congress or by circumventing it.

Yet, the most difficult issue is to decide when do privacy and individual rights give way to unlimited state surveillance. In times of war, certainly, for the limited time that the war lasts. But counterterrorism is a long, dirty, unseen and endless war against an unseen enemy. Terrorists don’t carry name tags or flags, nor do they have mailing addresses. In India, those in the business have known how important and difficult it is to have access to worthwhile eavesdropping as part of technical surveillance. We all remember the famous Musharraf-Aziz conversation during the Kargil War that pinned the blame on the Pakistan Army. Recently, one heard a recording of conversations between Lashkar-e-Tayyaba controllers and operatives discussing plans to eliminate the BJP
leadership. There have been numerous other incidents when intelligence surveillance saved the day for the country and for individuals.

Besides, fighting terrorism is not just the concern of the police, armed forces or the intelligence agencies. Terror is also against the common man and he has to participate in the fight against this menace. But is he willing to sacrifice some amount of his

privacy to help the cause? After all, when the police hunt for a criminal or a terrorist travelling on a highway, they do have surveillance and roadblocks. We do subject ourselves to scrutiny at airports, railway stations and in India, entry into malls and cinema halls. We have our agony aunt columns where we are willing to share secrets with unknown entities. We happily share details of our bank accounts and income-tax returns when we apply for visas. So why not with the state?

Of course there have to be constitutional provisions and institutionally-legalised  supervisions/oversight to this kind of action, accompanied by empowerment of the intelligence organisation. This would be to ensure against misuse at all levels and guard against the tyranny of the petty bureaucrat, venality of the system or politicisation of this privilege. This is the most difficult part of the arrangement in a country like ours where our observance of the rule of law is very weak.
The basic rule is that intelligence surveillance of all kinds is a necessary add-on to “humint”, and simply cannot be put away. The perennially unresolved issue is — what price freedom, and what cost security?

Source : Asian Age , 18th June 2013
The writer is a former head of the Research and Analysis Wing, India’s external intelligence agency

The Taliban make their moves

 

 

New Delhi, June 14 (ANI): Afghanistan watchers fear that the current trends in the violence in that country would make 2013 as violent as 2011, which was the most violent since 2001. This has been mostly the result of the spring offensive codenamed 'Khaled bin Walid' announced by the Taliban on April 27.

In any case, even the winter months had seen continued violence as the U.S. and NATO forces began to withdraw their troops prior to 2014, including at time from places where the Afghan troops were not ready or equipped to take over responsibilities.   

The Taliban had threatened that the offensive would be massive and May was a horrible month all over Afghanistan. Seven soldiers with NATO were killed in two violent incidents in early May in the Farah province, including five American soldiers in the Kandahar province.  

Later in the month a suicide bomber struck in the Baghlan province killing 14 and injuring 9 as he successfully targeted Rasool Mohseni, the head of the Baghlan provincial council and a veteran commander who had led a Northern Alliance revolt against the Taliban.  

A terrorist attack on May 17 targeted a gated community partly developed by President Karzai's brother Mahmod in Kandahar killing 9 and wounding 70. The Taliban followed this up by killing a district official in Farah province, six policemen in Helmand while a bomb blast killed a border police officer and wounded eight others in Khost on the week ending Friday-Saturday May 18. Six personnel of the Afghan Public Protection Force were killed in a bomb explosion in the Herat province on May 21 and the Taliban were suspected to have planted the roadside bomb. 

 There were the two other high profile attacks in Kabul and one in Jalalabad on the office of the International Committee for Red Cross on May 29, made their intentions and abilities very obvious. The Taliban followed this up with another massive assault in Kabul on June 11 in a deadly attack on a commuter bus close to the Supreme Court that killed 17 civilians and wounded about 40. This attack had been preceded by an attack with fire rockets on Kabul airport that lasted several hours but only the attackers were killed.   

 It is estimated that there were 15 suicide attacks in May targeting government installations, military convoys, NGOs and public places. Nine terrorist attempts were foiled but there were two insider attacks targeting the ISAF and the Afghan National Police (ANP). 26 ISAF soldiers were killed in the suicide attacks.  

There are other aspects about the rapidly evolving situation as the ISAF and US forces begin their draw down and leave wide spaces to the ANSF. The world pays attention to the high profile attacks in major cities or against ISAF targets but misses out or even disregards the daily incidents in the remote parts of Afghanistan as the Taliban get more active. Also, the violence is not just about attacks against the foreign 'occupying forces' but is becoming a struggle between two or more indigenous forces vying for power.  

There have been bombings and suicide attacks in different parts of the country from November 2012 onwards. These attacks were in Wardak, Nangarhar, Nuristan, another attack on CIA Camp Chapman in Khost, an ANA base and another against British patrol base, both in Helmand, the district centre in Kunduz, with simultaneous bomb explosions in Jalalabad, Logar and Kabul in February 2013, ANA posts in Kunar and in Jawzjan in April.  

The geographical spread would indicate the extent of penetration of the Taliban forces in Afghanistan. Many of these attacks in the rural areas attracted little notice internationally, while the noticeable feature of the spring offensive has been that the attacks on ANSF and international forces had increased with attacks in Helmand, Farah, Kandahar, Ghor, Paktika and Herat provinces during May. 

All the attacks that have been taking place in the past few months have not been the handiwork of the Taliban. The Haqqani Network, apart from the Taliban has continued its activities in Kabul. The former American Chief of Staff had described the Haqqani Network quite accurately, as virtually an extension of the ISI.  

Further, Gulbuddin Hikmetyar's Hizbe Islami has been a long time favourite of the Pakistan army. The HIG now senses or aspires to a larger political role for itself post 2014 as a member of the Afghan parliament while becoming militarily active as well. It claimed responsibility for two bomb attacks in Kabul in September 2012 and another one in May this year. Meanwhile, Hikmetyar realises that his group has weakened and splintered in the decade gone by and the only recourse to him is to announce he would contest elections next year and hope to gather his flock back. He also has to exhibit military prowess to impress the government as also his hardliners. The Taliban and HIG insurgents have also been attacking civilians, despite promises not to do so.  

Another trend this year has been that Taliban have attacked in large numbers with the attacks carried out by massed groups, up to several hundreds. The idea is to hold territory (as they had done in 2006-07) and establish fortified positions which can be dislodged only with massive retaliation. It is feared that the ANSF may not have this air strike capability, firepower and mobility after the US and ISAF forces depart.  

There have been heightened Taliban activities in to the northern provinces like Faryab, Baghlan, and Kunnar. In Faryab, for instance, there were almost daily clashes between the insurgents and the ANSF. Baghlan, close to Kabul, may soon become a stronghold of the Taliban. 

A different kind of Taliban insurgent is now becoming active. The role of Pakistan in giving shelter and training has been well known but there is a change in the kind of Talibanised terrorist who is now being turned out from training camps in Punjab and at places like Mansera near Abbotabad in the KhyberPakhtunkhwa province.  

The Harkat -ul-Mujahedeen along with Pakistani agencies had operated camps here in the past and trained jihadis were sent across into Afghanistan. The current lot who graduate from these schools in the Punjab are trained to operate in the field as eyes and ears of their Pakistani trainers. They are imparted military education, taught basic English and IT, and trained to operate while undercover of a normal Afghan existence. Such individuals are the interface between the Taliban commanders and their Pakistani handlers.  

The syllabus of the Mansera training centres is different. As the insurgency in Afghanistan has developed so have the training institutes churning out new graduates. The alumni from Mansera are trained to control the Taliban units inside Afghanistan, not be dependent on the desires or ambitions of the local commanders who might be competing among themselves, and to function as administrators and commissars of Taliban units. Some selected individuals are also given Pakistani passports and are kept beholden to their new masters.  

Pakistan is preparing for life after 2014 where it hopes to exercise control through the Quetta Shura loyalists, the Haqqani Network and trained Afghan Taliban for exercising watch and remote control. The current demand by clerics and some political parties in Pakistan that the US should stop the drone attacks will only benefit the Taliban and in effect, Pakistan.  

Source : ANI News , 14th June 2013

Arctic sorbet

Nations have played great games of control and dominance with each other from times immemorial. From the 19th Century to today the Eurasian land mass from the Caspian to the Persian Gulf traversing the Caucasus to the Hindu Kush was the main theatre.

It was Captain Arthur Conolly who coined the expression the Great Game although Rudyard Kipling immortalised this in his book Kim. The players in game and the locale it is played in changed over time and the latest that is unfolding is in the Arctic Ocean.

The new northern sea route from Europe to China will be 20 per cent shorter compared to the one through the Suez Canal and Malacca Straits. Pic/Getty Images

 

India also has a share in the Arctic sorbet having been admitted last month as observers to the Arctic Council originally formed by eight nations in 1996. These were Canada, the US, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. The latest six including India are China, South Korea, Japan, Singapore and Italy. While Iceland is now on the Indian map with a diplomatic mission in Reykjavik, our EAM Khurshid will to go to the Indian research station Himadri in the Arctic during his visit to Norway. Changed climatic conditions have meant that the relevance of the Arctic has begun to change and so also the importance of the Arctic Council.

The melting of the snow has rapidly reduced the thickness of the ice where more than 50 per cent of the ice has receded in the last two years. The discovery in 2008 by US geological surveys that the region has 13 per cent of the world’s unexploited oil, 30 per cent natural gas and 20 per cent of liquid gas has suddenly transformed this region from an ice cap into a vital strategic resource area. The Arctic Ocean is said to be one of the largest sources of biological protein (read fisheries) which makes this of greater importance to the Chinese.

Added to this, the melting ice also opens sea routes and the Russians were the first off the mark when they set up a Northern Sea Route administration earlier this year as the tonnage carried through this route increased. The discovery of shale oil and fracking in North America would have altered the US perspective on the Middle East as an important source of energy for the world because this discovery reduces US dependency. This is not so, neither for Europe which remains dependent on West Asia for its source of energy and nor for the massive financial interests of mega-corporations.

This new northern sea route from Europe to China will be twenty per cent shorter as compared to the one through the Suez Canal and Malacca Straits and even 40 per cent cheaper, which is a massive amount. Japan and South Korea will similarly gain from these shortened trade routes. China’s investment in the Gwadar port for transfer of oil and gas overland into Xinjiang directly from the Persian Gulf and similar infrastructure development from Myanmar to Yunnan will make the Malacca straits that much less vital. For all the East Asian economic giants the Suez and Malacca will have a different (lower) scale of importance. Of course these are early days because neither the Arctic routes nor the infrastructure are fully developed and it will be some time before these routes become viable.

The Chinese have had their eyes on this for some time and when Iceland went into economic turmoil they were there with their cheque books bailing out the stranded economy. A country which had literally become the backwaters after the end of the Cold War, Iceland is once again on the main routes. Chinese premier Wen Jiabao had chosen Iceland in April 2012 as his first stop on his West European tour. This is probably China’s pivot to North Atlantic.

Once the northern trade route becomes active along with the extraction of the ocean’s resources, the strategic balance between the Indian and Arctic Oceans could change. Would this change be enough to mean easier or cheaper availability of oil and gas from West Asia to its main consumers Europe, China and India? Would it reduce the strategic relevance of the Ocean to the West and mean a direct confrontation there between India and China?

These are some of the questions the Indian strategic community would need to evaluate fairly early. The Arctic itself is uncharted territory and it will be sometime before all these issues of territorial, trade and exploitation zones are sorted out. The games are about to begin and it will depend on us whether we are big players or one of the also-rans.

Source : Mid Day , 13th June 2013

Dividing up the world

The recently concluded Shangri-La dialogue in Singapore was more about the United States and China as the lead actors while the rest of the world watched. This was big theatre between a superpower that wants to remain the primary power and another that aspires to break this monopoly. But the real hard bargaining for the prime slot was in the exclusive Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands in California where President Barack Obama hosted President Xi Jinping for a two-day summit on June 7-8.


The Annenberg summit was a discreet three days after the 24th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre of June 1989. Clearly the passage of time and the realities of economic growth and mutual dependency, limitations of military power, limitless technological advances and desire for global control have their own logic. The fact that President Xi had agreed to slacks and shirtsleeves meetings minus the usual pomp and circumstance signifies a new confidence and a willingness in the new Chinese leadership to take on the US on its own turf.

There were the usual positive anticipatory signals from both capitals. Former national security advisor Brent Scowcroft spoke of the primary role a US-China relationship could play in US foreign policy while building mutual trust and understanding. The outgoing NSA Tom Donilon wanted deeper military ties. Xi Jinping hoped for a new type of relationship.

This was a dialogue between the two strongest powers at a time when the world appears to be churning rather fiercely, in many different ways. Beneath the bonhomie there must have been serious business in the Big Boys’ Club about dividing the world into spheres of influence and power. The two would have to work hard to move away from the geopolitically adversarial to a competitive relationship at best, and maybe able to lay down some ground rules. Only time will tell what actually transpired after one has sifted through the spin that invariably follows such meetings.

Steady Chinese assertiveness in the Western Pacific and on its periphery was perhaps a signal to the US that a deal on spheres of influence was needed. China watchers like Gordon Chang have described China’s claims in the South China Sea as the biggest attempt to grab territory since World War II. And acceptance of this as China’s ‘core interest’ would mean effectively converting these international waters into territorial waters. The stakes are obviously very high for all those involved.

China has been active in Central Asia for a decade building networks of roads and pipelines to the energy rich powers. It is the biggest buyer of oil from Iraq while retaining a presence and influence in Iran. The Chinese recently hosted the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu and offered to mediate between Israel and the Palestinians. China has supported the Syrian government and is quite apparently getting ready to step into Afghanistan after 2014 along with Pakistan.

The Chinese are building a rail road link from Gwadar via Khunjerab to Kashgar in Xinjiang. Their footprint now extends from Latin America to the Arctic, swings across the Pacific to Australia and into Africa with everything else thrown in. It is becoming global. The US may talk of its pivot to Asia to reassure its allies in the Western Pacific but this has much less substance when the US is unable to be present in Syria and plans its withdrawal from Afghanistan, whereas the China’s shadow becomes larger as it is seen pivoting even towards North Atlantic. Asia one might rightly argue, is not just the Western Pacific but also and includes West Asia.

Americans appear surprised and, at times, accusatory that the Chinese are paranoid about US-led alliances or arrangements developing on their periphery. With a huge Honolulu-based Pacific Command facing them backed by air and naval bases, linked by mutual defence treaties with other nations, the Chinese reaction is not surprising. The avowed aim of PACOM of maintaining peace and security in the Asia Pacific region by fighting to win, is not lost on others.

The Chinese are also not impressed by the US change of terminology from ‘pivot’ to Asia in 2009 to ‘rebalance’ in 2012 to minimise the military connotations of the former. There are other Chinese interests, apart from Taiwan and the US military presence in China’s neighbourhood, that transcend territorial and geopolitical issues. Given the intricate trade, financial and economic bilateral relations, the Chinese wish to ensure their financial future. They view with apprehension, the existing financial and trade arrangements through the World Bank and the WTO, which are seen as biased in favour of the West.

The US now sees other threats to itself that emanate from China, apart from the Chinese military and territorial threat to America’s allies. These include cyber attacks and Chinese efforts at developing an anti-satellite programme even as it develops its own mysterious X-37b space plane. However, the latest disclosures about global all-source electronic surveillance by the US under project PRISM could be embarrassing for Obama.

The Xi visit was in the backdrop of continuing tensions with Japan and in the South China Sea. China’s larger message was that it was comfortable about its new position and conveying that it had the will and ability to play aggressively on multiple fronts from across the Himalayas to the Sea of Japan while handling other problems elsewhere. Xi spoke rather enigmatically of a new type of relationship between the two. He was probably alluding to the fact that the US and China have the most important economic relationship but that China was now getting ready for playing a pivotal role in global, political and security matters. Quite apparently China is signalling its rise and preparing for a bigger role but are the US and the world ready for a lesser US role?

Surely Annenberg was not just a stopover after Xi toured what has been America’s backyard in Latin America. Or is there a meaningful Annenberg Declaration that might be Asia’s Yalta? Can Russia be ignored in this calculus?

Source : Hindustam Times, 12th June 2013

The Ascent of Nawaz - Can he avoid a 'Khatarnak' Pakistan?

 

New Delhi, June 8 (ANI): In a country not really used to an orderly and smooth transfer of civilian political power, there was justifiable jubiliation in Pakistan when Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Nawaz Sharif, took oath as Prime Minister for a record third time on Wednesday, and thereafter, President Asif Ali Zardari also administered oath of office to a 25-member council of ministers in Islamabad on Friday.

 

This smooth transition from one civilian government to another, a first for Pakistan in its 66 year post-independence history, has seen 16 leaders taking oath as federal ministers and nine as ministers of state. A majority of the new ministers (23) are from Sharif's PML-N party, which swept the May 11 general elections. The remaining two are from the PML-F and National People's Party (NPP) respectively.

 

With the prescribed and pre-determined ceremonials out of the way, Sharif's baptism by fire, mostly coming from the religious right, has begun. Numerically, the far right, represented by groupings like the ASWJ (Lashkar-e-Jhangvi reborn and given electoral respectability) and the Jamaat-e-Islami, have not have broken any new ground in the National Assembly, except for Maulana Fazlur Rehman's JUI (F). Nevertheless, terrorist and sectarian killings and disappearances in Balochistan, Peshawar, Bannu, Kurram and Karachi continue. Stopping such killings and bringing peace to Balochistan, which had boycotted the elections, will be Nawaz's major challenges.

 

The most awkward event has been the drone attack that killed Taliban Deputy Chief Waliur Rehman Mehsud in Miramshah, North Waziristan on May 29. This was the first drone attack since the May 11 elections, and it came at a time when parties like the PTI and PML (N) were criticising drone attacks while negotiations were on with the TTP.

 

This week, a politically resurrected Sharif firmly called on the United States to stop the drone strikes on his country's soil.

 

"We respect the sovereignty of others, but others (Read U.S.) don't respect our sovereignty. These daily drone attacks must stop," Sharif said in his address to the 342-member National Assembly.

If Sharif's aides are to be believed, the PML-N leader is keen on building good relations with Washington based on mutual respect and interest.

 

The Taliban's reaction of calling off the talks was as anticipated and, in a country where conspiracy theories are a favoured pastime, some say this was the intention. The question is, who? And why?

 

It is possible the U.S. attack was routine, designed to avenge the 2009 TTP attack on a CIA base in Khost, killing seven. That attack was led by Waliur Rehman.

 

Further, the TTP is alleged to have trained Faizal Shehzad for the bombing attempt in New York in 2010, earning the TTP the designation of a foreign terrorist organisation and the label of an Al Qaeda associate.

 

The timing was not the best for Pakistan's politicians clamouring for a cessation of drone attacks, but the reasoning in Langley or Washington D.C., might have been that this is the opportunity when Waliur Rehman was sighted in North Waziristan, and that this should not be lost. Or, maybe, it was just another case of maladroitness. Surely, it could not be an American design to scuttle talks in the context of an earnest desire to leave Afghanistan. Then, were they set up for this by those wishing to scuttle talks and merely settle tribal scores?

 

In the complicated world of tribal politics mixed with religious zeal, there are several groups operating without any effective centralised control. It is still not confirmed that the old rivalry between Waliur Rehman and Hakimullah Mehsud, when both wanted to head the TTP following the assassination of Baitullah Mehsud, had ever been finally resolved. There was a bounty on Waliur's head of Rs.50 million announced by the Pakistan Government. The U.S. had fixed a price of USD 5 million and listed him as a specially designated global terrorist. It is possible some one benefited from this killing.

 

The recent killing of the Taliban deputy chief will remain a subject of intense debate and speculation in Pakistan for quite a while. Despite the TTP having called off talks, politicians from the PML(N), PTI and JUI(F) hope that discussions will resume. This is despite the fact that the TTP have repeatedly declared that democracy is against Islam and that they do not believe in the Pakistan Constitution.

 

This political eagerness to negotiate despite this attitude of the TTP indicates an anxiety to appease under pressure. Major parties like the PML (N) and PTI had come to an electoral arrangement with various radical elements in the recent election campaign. Also, when the TTP started to eliminate and intimidate ANP election candidates, virtually annihilating it from KhyberPakhtunkhwa, and targeted the PPP and the MQM in Sindh and Karachi, the PTI and PML (N) kept quiet.

 

The right wing is now cashing its chips with Maulana Sami-ul-Haq, chief of the Dar-ul-Uloom Haqqania, Akora Khattak, and urging the Pakistan Army to support the dialogue. Earlier, both the PML(N) and PTI had approached the Maulana for his help in striking a deal with the Taliban.

Both the PTI and the JI have blamed the U.S. for the drone attacks and for the scuttling of talks, keeping their anti-U.S. rhetoric high. This attitude is not likely to solve Pakistan's present problems.

 

Nawaz has four main problems. Two of these, the economy and acute electricity crisis, are urgent and the survival of his government will largely depend on how these are solved. The third is rising sectarianism and violence, including nationalist violence in Balochistan which largely boycotted the recent election. This in turn is connected with the fourth issue - the rising graph of radicalisation. These are long term and the survival of Pakistan as a modern country will depend on how these issues are handled.

 

The by now familiar signpost towards radicalisation of society is when banned outfits like the Lashkar-e-Islam issue the usual fatwas in Bara in the Landi Kotal area. The latest, reasserts the need to pray five times daily, insists on keeping a beard and obligates men to wear a cap, and women to wear the burqa compulsorily.

 

These resemble edicts from various radical religious and radical organisations in Pakistan. Even the Council for Islamic Ideology, established in the 1960s to debate Islamic issues, is now controlled by radical elements with Maulana Sher Ahmed Sherani as its chairman.

 

In a recent exhibition of its obscurantism, the council declared that DNA tests were not admissible as primary evidence in rape cases and that the existing procedures as laid down in Islam were adequate. It also decreed that there was no need to change the blasphemy laws, arguing that any changes would make minorities unsafe in Pakistan. The threat is implicit.

Secularism is not irreligious nor anti-religion. But, in Pakistan, its religious leaders and politicians have made it to be anti-Islam. Criticism of Pakistan is considered to mean criticism of Islam and vice versa. Worse still, in Pakistan, you can today be a true Muslim or a Pakistani only if you are a Muslim of a particular sect decided by a few self-appointed religious leaders, very often backed by the gun. The anguish of many Pakistanis about the direction in which their leaders are taking their country is very obvious. One can see this very clearly in what they write or say, or as is now the vogue, in the social media. Can Nawaz reverse this trend to push the country back to medieval times and bring modernity and peace to his country? Maybe not in five years, but he can start.

 

It would make good sense for Nawaz to seek better economic and trade relations with India, but this is not likely to be acceptable to the radicals. The successful India -China trade model would probably not be lost on the business-minded Nawaz. It is for him to win his domestic constituency, including the army, and convince them that despite an all-weather friendship with China, there is need for Pakistan to evolve a better relationship with India. He also has to get the army on his side, especially with Afghanistan on everybody's mind currently. The Pakistan Army is today more concerned with preventing Afghanistan from slipping out of its clutches into the hands of the Indians.

 

Until then, we know that we are not going to get a Naya Pakistan of the Imran Khan type, might get a Roshan Pakistan of the Nawaz Sharif type, provided he can avoid a Khatarnak Pakistan.

 

Source : ANI News ( ANI )  , 8th June 2013