Get out, leave AF to Pak - By Shekhar Gupta, Senior Editor, The Indian Express, Mumbai

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/get-out-leave-af-to-pak/877841/0

Sat, 19 Nov 2011

Get out, leave Af to Pak

Publish Post

Shekhar Gupta

Tags : shekhar gupta, columnist, indian express, Get out, leave Af to Pak

Posted: Sat Nov 19 2011, 03:12 hrs

The sharply polarised political debate on the nuclear deal was the most significant instance of the so-called holy national consensus on foreign policy breaking in India. Some of this spirit keeps returning vis-a-vis Pakistan any time the government reaches out to Pakistan, or when there is another terror attack. But beyond that, the larger consensus remains intact. It is not healthy for a democracy, and particularly not when it has a strategic community that has had even greater continuity than its establishment economists, defying all changes of government, leaders, ideology. That is why the time has come to question, or at least intellectually challenge, some other aspects of this lazy “consensus”. Even at the risk of inviting the charge of apostasy, therefore, the time might have come to question the wisdom and prudence of our totally unquestioned, un-debated idea of engaging in a dirty little cold war with Pakistan in Afghanistan once the Americans withdraw from there.

Today, everybody seems to be accepting the idea that Afghanistan is of great strategic significance to India, and we can neither cede it to Pakistan, nor leave them to fill the power vacuum that the Americans will leave behind. Similarly, that this is the Great Game country, and we are back to the Great Game, somehow inheriting the mantle of the British power in the 19th century, except that we might have to deal with an additional distraction called Pakistan. Further, that Afghanistan is a resource (mineral)-rich land where we have future commercial stakes, and is a gateway to Central Asia, making transit rights of such paramount importance for us.

There is some truth to some, but not all, of these. But the larger picture may look very different on closer examination. Also, engaging in a policy that puts us permanently and, inevitably, violently at odds with the Pakistanis is an idea that is being accepted much too readily. As if this is our destiny, part of an ongoing blood feud. As if we have no choice.

All of this, frankly, is lazy, self-serving rubbish, dished out by a strategic establishment that suffers terminally from a cold war mindset, and does not quite know, like all bigger powers (the US included), when to declare victory, and when to cut its losses.
The more curious thing is, some of this is happening under a prime minister who never tires of exhorting his policy-makers to “think out of the box” and a national security advisor who has built a formidable reputation for doing exactly this, not just now but over many decades of diplomatic service.

What kind of strategic importance does Afghanistan have for us now? Yes, we need transit to Central Asia. But to reach Afghanistan, we have to first persuade the Pakistanis to grant us transit. The more we jostle with them for influence in Afghanistan, the lesser the chances of their being so nice to us. Yes, Afghanistan is resource-rich and the Chinese may get there if we are not there. 

But what are we, meanwhile, doing with our own mineral resources? So many of our mines are shut, or not accessible. We might get a hundred times more value by either fighting, or bribing (as everybody eventually does with insurgents in Afghanistan), our own Maoists to be able to exploit our own mines. And the Chinese will get there before us anyway. And yes, there will be a power vacuum in Afghanistan. It will still be a country of great strategic importance. But for whom, is the question. It will be of no strategic importance to us. None of our supplies or trade come to Afghanistan. None of our bad guys hide there. No Afghan has ever been involved in a terror attack on India. In fact, almost never has a terror attack on us been even planned in the more precise Af-Pak region. They have all been planned and executed between Muzaffarabad, Muridke, Karachi and Multan. Almost never has an Afghan, Pakhtun, Baluch, Tajik, any ethnicity, been involved in a terror attack in India. It’s always been the Punjabis. Ask anybody in the Indian army who has served in Kashmir and he will tell you that the intruders he fought were exactly of the same ethnic stock as the bulk of the Pakistani army he may have to fight in a real war: the Punjabi Muslims.

Yes, as we said earlier, Afghanistan is still a country of great strategic importance. But for Pakistan, and certainly not for us. 

Pakistan has a long, unsettled border with it and a more-than-latent irredentist Pathan sentiment on both sides of the Durand Line that it dreads spinning out of control as (and if) Afghanistan breaks up along north-south-west ethnic lines. From tribal ties, to funny trade-links, like gun and drug-running, an unsettled Afghanistan will be a permanent thorn in Pakistan’s side when six divisions of its army are already not able to get the measure of the armed anarchy in FATA. 

Why should India then get into this unwinnable mess? More importantly, why should India give the Pakistani army and the ISI just what they need, a great, holy, moral justification to pour into Afghanistan to “fight the Indian challenge”?


Leave Afghanistan to the Pakistanis. If the Pakistani army thinks it can fix, subdue and control Afghanistan, after the British, Soviets and Americans have failed to do precisely this at the peak of each one’s superpower-dom, why not let the Pakistanis try their hand at it? If they pour another ten divisions and half of the ISI into that hapless country now, isn’t it that much of a relief for us on our western borders? What could serve our strategic interests better than having the Pakistanis discover a permanent strategic threat/ challenge/ opportunity along their western borders? Won’t that be some relief?

And if the Pakistani army thinks it can succeed in a mission in which their mightier predecessors, the British and the Soviet empires and the Americans, failed, good luck to them. Because it will fulfil a fantasy of “strategic depth” they have nursed since they were rocked by totally fictional visions of massive Indian tank assaults through the desert cutting their mainland into two during General Sundarji’s Operation Brasstacks in 1987. It is since then that the Pakistani strategic establishment has been seeking “strategic depth” in Afghanistan. Now, if any army wants to seek the “depth” of Afghanistan for its armour, vital air force assets, or even nukes, good luck to them. In fact, it would be interesting to see how the rest of the world, particularly the Americans, would react if such a thing was even contemplated. Far from being a security asset ever, Afghanistan, for the Pakistani army, will be exactly what it has been for any other invading army in its history: a permanent Waterloo in slow motion.

So shall we leave the Pakistani army and ISI to their own devices in Afghanistan? Whether they fail or succeed, it will confirm only one widely held view in the global strategic community: that howsoever dashing it may be tactically, the Pakistani military-intelligence establishment’s strategic thinking emerges not from its brains but that some place lower down in human anatomy. Maybe then, the best way we can serve our own strategic interests in Afghanistan is to stay out of their way.

sg@expressindia.com

Islamic Terrorism? - By British Jewish Historian Bernard Lewis

In a discussion entitled ''Islamic Terrorism?,'' the scholar Bernard Lewis emphasizes that there is nothing in Islam as a religion that is especially conducive to terrorism. Like the other great religions, it condemns the maltreatment of the innocent; from early on it laid down rules for the humane treatment of noncombatants during a war. And though it has always had a more explicitly political character than other religions, Islamic terrorism as practiced today is essentially an importation from the West.

On Hindutva Politics and Terror - BOOK REVIEW by MAHTAB ALAM - Mainstream Magazine, NeW Delhi - INDIA

http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article3122.html

Mainstream, VOL XLIX, No 47, November 12, 2011

On Hindutva Politics and Terror

BOOK REVIEW

by MAHTAB ALAM

Godse’s Children: Hindutva Terror in India by Subhash Gatade; Pharos Media & Publishing Private Ltd, New Delhi; 2011; pp. 400; Price: Rs 360.

The Saffron Condition: Politics of Repression and Exclusion in Neoliberal India by Subhash Gatade; Three Essays Collective, Gurgaon; 2011; pp. X+475; Price: 500.

In December 2010, when Swami Aseemanand, a ‘former’ RSS pracharak and key functionary of the Sangh backed Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, admitted before a Metropolitan Magistrate to have planned terror attacks on Ajmer Sharif, Mecca Masjid, Malegaon and the Samjhauta Express, it came as the official seal of the Hindutva terror network in India. In his confession, recorded under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code (Cr.P.C.) before Metropolitan Magistrate Deepak Dabas at Tis Hazari Court, Delhi on December 18, he confessed that he and other Hindutva activists, were involved in bombings at Muslim religious places because they wanted to answer every Islamist terror act with “a bomb-for-bomb’’ policy. “I told everybody that bomb ka jawab bomb se dena chahiye (we should reply to bomb blasts with similar bomb blasts),” reads his 42-page confession. He categorically named (in his confession) the senior RSS leader, Indresh Kumar, the murdered RSS pracharaks Sunil Joshi, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and senior RSS pracharaks Sandeep Dange and Ramji Kalsangra, among others, as being key conspirators in the terror blasts.

What is to be noted here is that this was not a ‘confession’ that the police forces are known for—the forced kind of confession, which is not admissible in the court. Rather, it was a voluntary one, in the wake of a Hirday Parivartan or change of heart and made before the Magistrate under Section 164 of the Cr.P.C., which is also considered as evidence.

However, the question arises: should we take this as an exception or an ‘individual’ act of terror, as often argued by the Sangh leaders? Would it be proper to believe that the Parivar people were unaware of their fellow activist’s actions, given the hierarchical and disciplined nature of the Parivar? The books under discussion ably answer these questions.

Subhash Gatade, as many of us would know, is one of the foremost independent journalists and long-time activist of human rights and social justice. He has been writing constantly and consistently about Hindutva politics, terror and issues of repression and exclusion.

Over a period of more than two decades, he has followed many cases and written on them extensively. In his two books released, he deals with the above subject at great length and reveals important facts about the Hindutva forces, its allies, network, politics and agendas—both short and long-term. While the first book, Godse’s Children: Hindutva Terror in India, focuses on the terrorist activities of the Sangh and its allies, the second book, The Saffron Condition: Politics of Repression and Exclusion in Neo-Liberal India, essentially deals with the policies and politics of the Hindutva outfits. The writer in these two important works also outlines the various processes adopted by these forces in persuasion of their long-term agenda—establishment of a Hindu Rashtra.

After reading these two books one would find it to be a gross underestimation, in fact criminal negligence, if one thought these to be individual acts and the first terrorist activity planned and carried out by the Sangh and its ilk. Because the politics of hate and terror were never absent from the Sangh Parivar’s system. “The tag of terrorism,” as rightly pointed out by Dr Shamsul Islam, who is an authority on Hindutva politics in India, “is not something new.” The history of the anti-national and terrorist activities of the RSS is very long and can be traced to its roots. It is because of its activities that the RSS and its network have been repeatedly censured by umpteen numbers of commissions of inquiry for its complicity in communal violence and terrorist activities. The first of these incidents can be traced way back to June 1934, when the first attempt to kill Mahatma Gandhi was made by the Hindutva fanatics in Pune. It is also an established fact that the first terrorist act in independent India, the killing of Mahtama Gandhi, was carried out by none other than a ‘former’ pracharak of the RSS, Nathuram Godse.
•
IN Godse’s Children, tracing the historical background and ideological foundation, the author points out: “Commission after commission have blamed RSS and its affiliated organisations for their participation in different riots across the length and breadth of the country…but that was different from the confession—about organising terror acts—before a judicial magis-trate by one amongst them.” (p. 32) Ana-lysing the RSS chief’s claim, terrorism and Hindus are oxymorons, Subhash Gatade says: “The thesis of the ‘oxymoron’ has shades of the concept of the Supreme Hindu race emanating from it.” He further writes: “In fact, it can also be interpreted as an indirect admission that whereas Hindus and terrorism are incompatible with each other, terrorism easily gels with non-Hindu religions and communities. Definitely, this is a very dangerous statement to make, not only because it is not based on facts but because it also tries to denigrate every other community and religion, and also because it tries to terrorise them. It can, thus, be seen as a poor attempt to deflect attention from the umpteen crimes committed by Hindu fanatics.“ (p. 71)

On the Hindutvaisation of the military forces, while discussing the case of Col. Purohit, the author notes: “Involvement of military personnel in such activities can happen in multiple ways: i. ideological; ii. direct participation; iii. in the role of facilitator. While people like Purohit could be categorised as ‘direct participants’ in such activities, it can be easily guessed that there might be many more of his ilk who may not have played any direct role in such activities, but would have acted as facilitators and ideological input-givers to the project.” (p. 135) To substantiate his claim, the writer quotes the former Naval Chief, Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat, who says: “There’s a clear majoritarian view in the military. The RSS has always had an agenda to infiltrate the armed forces, the intelligence services and the bureaucracy.” (p. 136)

The author in this book proficiently documents hundreds of cases of Hindutva terror carried out in different parts of India and concludes: “…if the political leadership, intelligence agencies and the police were interested, it would have been possible to avoid many innocent deaths at the hands of self-proclaimed pioneers of Hindu Rashtra trying their best to turn the dreams of Savarkar, Hedegawar and Golwakar in to reality.” (p. 187)

While dealing with the global dimensions of Hindutva forces, Gatade points out that “…for quite sometime, Hindutva extremists in Nepal have maintained close relations with extremist forces on the Indian side of the border. This relationship had blossomed during the colonial period in India itself, when one found elements belonging to the RSS or Hindu Mahasabha frequenting Nepal or using its example to demonstrate their ‘model state’. For the Sangh Parivar, Nepal happened to be the only state in the world where the ‘one nation, one people, one culture’ weltanschauung of Hindu Rastra was already in place.”(p. 251)

In this section, the author also deals with the role of the Israeli Intelligence agency, Mossad. Towards the end of the book, while concluding, the author seeks our urgent attention and action as he demands: “A lot depends upon the way the secular forces react to the ongoing investi-gations. Whether they would focus themselves on the role of the State only, and confine them-selves to issuing statements and appearing in talk shows only, or they are ready to take up the gauntlet thrown by the challenges of Hindutva Terror in a more militant and creative way that would be the deciding factor”. (p. 318)

•

THE Saffron Condition: Politics of Repression and Exclusion in Neo-libral India is divided into three main sections, namely, Saffronisation and the Neolibral State, Logic of Caste in New India, and State and Human Rights. The book deals with the day-to-day and larger politics of the Hindutva outfits. While the first section of this book is most of what is discussed in Godse’s Children, the section on ‘The Saffron Condition’ is a very crucial one. In this section, the author outlines the politics of repression and exclusion with the marginalised sections of the society especially Dalits, despite the constitutional safeguards.

The author notes: “It is a tragedy of our times that in India, more than sixty years after independence, the age old exclusivist mind-set which stunted the growth of our society, remains unchanged. It is a mind-set based on the notions of purity and pollution, which has helped strengthen the structured hierarchy in our society, and claims religious sanction as well.” (p. 9).

Going into the historical details of ‘merit’, on an earlier point he writes: “The manner in which the reservation discourse has developed in our society reflects a very static understanding of merit. Interestingly, all those who have become upholders of the ‘merit mantra’ would be shocked to find how badly their own forefathers and foremothers fared when they took their first hesitant steps in the education system initiated by the British. The very genesis of third division in education in the Madras Presidency College way back in first part of the nineteenth century was necessitated by the large number of failures amongst the students, most of them upper caste (Tamil Brahmans), who were unable to pass their examinations in first and second divisions.” (pp. 7-8)

Linking Hindutva politics with the neo-liberal paradigm of development, the author comments: “The growing dominance of the highly regressive and reactionary Hindutva politics appears more striking if we consider the simple fact that Gujarat is supposed to be a more ‘advanced State’ of the Indian Union, recognised for its progress in the economic sphere. It has awell-developed middle class. In so far as foreign direct investment is concerned, it stands at number two in being able to attract foreign direct investment. The enterprising nature of the Guajarati elite is also noticeable in that many of the noveau riche from the farming sector have made inroads in the urban sector…Of course this elaboration of the dynamic Gujarati society would be incomplete if we do not focus on the ‘other Gujarat’ which exhibits the underlying social tensions not normally visible. Apart from the overtly visible violence, the invisible violence takes up myriad forms.” (p. 229) Explaining the role of courts and other apparatus of the state in the era of neo-liberalism, the author notes: “In the era of LPG (Liberalisation, Globalisation and Privatisation) and triumphalism of the market, one is not very surprised to see the judiciary becoming more and more insensitive to the rights of the marginalised and the underprivileged, whether it is the workers in a polluting industry or squatters in one of those sprawling slums.” (p. 428)

While these two books inform us, they are instructive as well and place a great responsi-bility before all of those who wish to create an egalitarian, just and equitable society. A must read for all kinds of activists, human rights and social justice campaigners, students of social sciences, especially those of sociology and political sciences. Those working on Communalism, Terrorism and Caste issues can hardly afford to miss these.

Fwd: [Arkitect India] HOW THE MEDIA FOOLS US? By Soheb Lokhandwala

From: soheb lokhandwala <mpjmedia@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Nov 12, 2011 at 5:27 PM

Subject: [Arkitect India] Are you outraged at the thought that the media passes off paid information as news?Do see the docu..

To: annaadhikarabhiyanmaharashtra@googlegroups.com, arkitectindia@yahoogroups.com, peace-mumbai@googlegroups.com, citizen-mumbai <citizen-mumbai@googlegroups.com>, Jan Arogya Abhiyan JAA <janarogyaabhiyan@gmail.com>


 
How the media fools Us?

Are you outraged at the thought that the media passes off paid information as news?

Are you aware that this is happening routinely in political coverage, business, entertainment and sports?

If so, you must watch Umesh Aggarwal’s documentary, “Brokering News”. Produced by the Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT) explores this alarming issue in depth, including the Niira Radia tapes.
 
Supported by well known industrialist Cyrus Guzder, Moneylife Foundation and the vCitizens Action Network are screening the film on 18th November, at Madame Cama Hall, Kala Ghoda. 
The screening will be followed by a panel discussion, which will feature eminent journalists and activists like Umesh Aggarwal, Ayaz Memon, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Bhawana Somaaya, and Sucheta Dalal   

Filmmaker: Umesh Aggarwal
Date: Friday, 18 November 2011
Registration and tea: 5:00pm
Session Time: 5:30pm – 7:30pm
 
5:00pm:
Registration & Tea

5:20pm – 5:30pm:
Introduction of the film and filmmaker

5:30pm – 6:30pm:
Screening of the film “Brokering News”

6:30pm – 7:30pm:
Discussion and interaction with
a short Vote of Thanks
           
Venue:
 
Madame Cama Hall,
KR Cama Hall Institute,
Bombay Samachar Marg,
Opp. Lion Gate, Kala Ghoda,
Mumbai–400023.

Admission: FREE
 
PLEASE REGISTER WELL IN ADVANCE

Contact details:
 
Call Judith/Seraphina on 022-24441058-60, or email us at mail@mlfoundation.in,
or log on to www.mlfoundation.in

About the film: The Delhi-based Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT)* recently released a documentary titled "Brokering News—the inside story of paid news".

The film by Umesh Aggarwal addresses a significant challenge facing Indian democracy today—which is the state of its media. The film looks at three aspects of paid news—how politicians are paying for positive coverage during elections, with the result that those who don't pay are blanked out by the media; how the coverage and reviews of movies are orchestrated and paid for and of course, paid news about business and industry. It depicts in detail how journalists were forced to broker deals to offer editorial coverage to politicians.
 
*(PSBT): The Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT) is a non-governmental, not-for-profit trust with the mission to create and sustain a credible space for public service broadcasting in India which is independent, participatory, pluralistic and democratic, distanced from commercial imperatives and state/political pressures. It works to mainstream Indian documentary and empower independent filmmakers. You can get more details of this organisation at www.psbt.org

Arms and the Corrupt Man By Andrew Feinstein - The New York Times

Anna Hazare, the crusader against corruption, should not leave out Armament procurement and Defence establishment which the world over is the biggest source of corruption in the world. Even wars are deliberately started so that corrupt could make their pile of money.

GHULAM MUHAMMED, Mumbai<ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com>

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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/12/opinion/arms-and-the-corrupt-man.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212

Op-Ed Contributor

Arms and the Corrupt Man

By ANDREW FEINSTEIN

Published: November 11, 2011

London

Enlarge This Image

Devin Rochford

LAST week’s conviction of Viktor Bout, the so-called Merchant of Death, was a rare moment of triumph in the fight against the illicit arms trade.


But it points to the fundamental hypocrisy at the heart of the global trade in weapons: Governments protect corrupt and dangerous arms dealers as long as they need them and then throw them behind bars when they are no longer useful.

Arms deals stretch across a continuum of legality and ethics from the formal trade to the gray and black markets. In practice, the boundaries between the three markets are fuzzy.

With bribery and corruption de rigueur — a Transparency International study estimated that the arms trade accounted for almost 40 percent of corruption in all global trade — there are very few arms transactions that do not involve illegality, most often through middlemen, agents or dealers like Mr. Bout.

Mr. Bout made fortunes providing “transport and logistical” services — an oft-used euphemism favored by arms dealers — to conflict zones around the world on behalf of governments, the United Nations, large listed companies and myriad covert operators.

His clients included, among others, the Liberian dictator Charles Taylor, the Northern Alliance and then the Taliban in Afghanistan, a number of the protagonists in the Balkans, the Angolan government and its mortal enemy the Unita rebel movement, and all sides in the complex conflict that continues to rage in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Mr. Bout clearly lived out the credo of the arms merchant: “Sell to anyone who can pay.”

In 2003, shortly after the invasion of Iraq, the American military faced a major problem getting supplies into Baghdad, as planes came under fire and landing conditions became treacherous. The United States and its contractors turned to a range of air cargo suppliers.

One of the most consistently used was Irbis Air — an airline owned by Mr. Bout. From 2003 to 2004 alone, Irbis Air conducted hundreds of runs to Baghdad and other Iraqi airports, carrying everything from boots to bullets.

 Irbis Air landed in Baghdad 92 times between January and May 2004, while also conducting deliveries elsewhere in Iraq. Mr. Bout earned $60 million between 2003 and 2005 — in addition to the free fuel that the United States military gave to regular cargo operators.

Mr. Bout’s client list in Iraq made for intriguing and damning reading: The United States Air Mobility Command, Federal Express, Fluor and KBR, among others. At the time Mr. Bout was supposedly wanted by the F.B.I. and the C.I.A., as well as being the subject of an Interpol arrest warrant.

Mr. Bout and his airlines were also on the verge of being placed on an American Treasury Asset Freeze list and the Foreign Assets Control list, which outlaws the use of certain contractors. The United States military’s Central Command asked for a week’s delay. It was granted, allowing Mr. Bout to deliver a final shipment of arms and ammunition.

Clearly, years later, Washington decided that Mr. Bout’s evils outweighed his benefits, and so began the sting operation that ultimately netted the Russian in 2008.

But as his cell door clanks shut, it is crucial to remember that there are many Viktor Bouts out there, some protected by their own governments, or the governments and intelligence agencies to whom they are useful.

Governments must impose greater transparency on the use of middlemen, agents and brokers, including public disclosure of what they are paid and the details of the specific work they have undertaken. Much of this could be addressed by passing a robust version of the International Arms Trade Treaty currently being negotiated at the United Nations.

Similarly, banning the use of so-called economic offsets in procurement decisions — promises by arms manufacturers to invest in the buying country’s economy — would close down a major route of bribe payments.

And finally, given the close and complex relationships between defense contractors and arms dealers and governments and intelligence agencies, any party participating in arms deals should be banned from making political contributions — a practice that fuels corruption.

These changes require political will, which will materialize only if taxpayers who unwittingly bankroll the arms trade make clear to their elected representatives that current practices are unacceptable.

Until then, the arms trade will remain hidden behind a veil of national-security-imposed secrecy, continuing to undermine democratic accountability, the rule of law and sometimes even the very national security it is meant to bolster.

 
Andrew Feinstein, a former member of the South African Parliament, is the author of “The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade.”