Stalin 'dealt with' Netaji on London’s request (Sunday Guardian)

MADHAV NALAPAT  New Delhi | 11th Apr 2015

The disclosure that members of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's family were snooped upon for two decades has given rise to the conclusion that Government of India was worried about the family coming across evidence that he was alive, or later about the circumstances of his death. In fact, according to sources in Delhi, "The fear was that the family may discover what actually happened to Netaji." And what was this? In this context, experts dealing in matters of state express surprise at the refusal of the NDA government to release any more data than previous Congress governments on the officially declared death on 18 August 1945 of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, allegedly in an aircraft crash in Taipei. While there are nearly 200 relevant documents in the possession of the Central authorities and the West Bengal government, two of the 41 documents asked for by various individuals and authorities have been released for public viewing. However, no visible effort seems to have been made to ferret out the response of British authorities to news of Bose's escape from Tokyo. Sources familiar with the facts within India and Russia, claim privately that "the reason for such a refusal to disclose more information was not to protect the national interest, as much as it was to protect the reputation of high officials and politicians, who connived at a cover-up designed to protect the reputation of the British and Soviet governments in office at the time from public anger in India, besides global public opinion". According to these sources, "the situation (vis-a-vis) Netaji Subhas Bose was resolved in a conclusive way by Stalin", the inference being obvious when judged in the context of the fact that the leader of the Indian National Army was never seen or heard from after the date of the alleged "air crash". Taiwanese authorities have stated to this correspondent that to the best of their information, there exist no records of any crash at the airbase in question, on the date specified as being the final day of the life of Netaji Subhas Bose. Instead, they say that witnesses to the flight confirmed that the aircraft took off in a normal fashion and was bound for an airfield in Manchuria which on that date (18 August 1945) was under the occupation of Soviet forces, which had invaded the territory in force after Emperor Hirohito of Japan announced the surrender of Japan on 15 August 1945, in order to spare his people further pain after the obliteration of Nagasaki and Hiroshima a short while previously by the dropping of atomic bombs. Sources based in Russia (erstwhile Soviet Union) claim that "the aircraft landed safely in a Manchurian airbase" and that the former president of the Congress party was "taken custody of by Soviet troops and security personnel" and "flown to Moscow". According to them, Bose was taken away to a gulag within 17 months of internment in a security prison in Moscow, and passed away 11 years later. They add that the Soviet leaders, who came after Stalin, kept the circumstances of Netaji Subhas Bose's capture and passing secret "out of a desire to ensure good relations with India". Only an examination of records in London and Moscow on the basis of an official request by the Narendra Modi government would reveal the truth, or otherwise, of this assertion (assuming that these be accurate and not doctored in a cover-up bid). But the same sources claim that Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin was asked by UK Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin through Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov to "ensure that Bose never returned to India and was never heard from again". According to them, "because of Bose's policy of collaboration with Germany under Hitler and Japan under Tojo, the Soviet dictator saw him as an enemy" and therefore presumably did not need much persuasion in carrying out the British request. There are reports of the then ambassador of India to the USSR, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, having a meeting with Netaji Subhas Bose in a prison near Moscow soon after taking charge at the embassy in 1949. However, till his death, the scholar, who subsequently became President of India (in 1962), refused to comment on such reports. Interestingly, both Netaji's close associate Lt Col Habibur Rehman, as well as his widow Emilie, refused, to the close of their respective lives, to assent to the repeated requests of Government of India that he had died in an air crash and to affirm that the ashes brought back to India were Netaji's. Interestingly, although DNA matchings of these ashes could confirm whether they indeed were those of the disappeared leader, thus far this does not seem to have been attempted. What is clear is that if Subhas Bose had returned to India, rather than either been killed in an air crash or gone permanently missing, he would have easily been the most popular leader in the country, and could quite possibly have displaced Mahatma Gandhi's favourite, Jawaharlal Nehru, from the effective leadership of the Congress party and consequently the Prime Ministership. Given the fact that Netaji attracted both Muslims and Hindus to his fold in like manner, there is a high probability that a Bose-led Congress could have checkmated the plans of both Whitehall as well as M.A. Jinnah to partition India. The INA was a completely secular force, with patriots from all communities joining out of admiration for Netaji. Certainly, his return to the political arena would have upset the plans of the British, who saw Bose as a formidable foe of their empire and indeed, the entire system of governance they had constructed over the centuries in India, a system retained almost in its entirety by Jawaharlal Nehru and his successors, and which continues to this day, making India in effect an administrative dictatorship, which holds periodic elections, bringing to office those wielding such authoritarian powers. London would clearly have had ample incentive to prevent Subhas Bose from returning as a hero to India, and could be expected to act energetically to prevent such a possibility. Papers in London show that the increasing disaffection in the (British) Indian military was the most potent cause of the 1946 decision by Whitehall to partition and thereafter leave India, whereas official historians give 100% credit for the British withdrawal to the freedom struggle led by the Congress party. As for Bose, "where he erred was to assume that Stalin would welcome him because of his opposition to British rule in India". However, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose "forgot that the UK and the USSR were allies against the very individuals (Hitler and Tojo) that Bose had befriended and taken assistance from" for four years during a war to the finish for both sides. According to them, Nehru "was far more acceptable to the Communist Party of India and to the USSR, than Bose". Both would certainly have preferred the former to the latter as the future Prime Minister of an independent India. Interestingly, the "official" line on the death of Subhas Bose was best enunciated in the Shah Nawaz Khan report. The former INA officer was given the task soon after remitting office as a Deputy Minister in the Nehru government. After the report, he was repeatedly made a minister, this time with full Cabinet rank, besides other ministerial-level posts in successive Congress governments. Whether Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose died in the Taihoku crash or survived the flight and was made a prisoner by Joseph Stalin and finally "dealt with" such that he disappeared from view (either by execution or by transfer to a Siberian gulag where conditions roved fatal) can be known only after documents on the subject get released by Delhi, London and Moscow. Experts say that there is no justification for keeping secret papers dating seven decades back, as the impact of such material on current regimes and situations would be minimal. The BJP promised during the 2014 Lok Sabha campaign to release the Netaji papers, and there is still some anticipation that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will fulfil this pledge, especially because all the dramatis personae — Stalin, Attlee, Molotov, Bevin and others — are long gone, and therefore beyond harm at the disclosures. http://www.sunday-guardian.com/news/stalin-dealt-with-netaji-on-londons-request

From Promise to performance (Pakistan Observer, 10 April 2015)

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Giriraj Singh is scripting a Congress comeback (Sunday Guardian)

ROOTS OF POWER MADHAV NALAPAT www.sunday-guardian.com/profile/madhav-nalapat M.D Nalapat is the Editorial Director of The Sunday Guardian. With some of the "friends" it has, the BJP is in scant need of enemies. The latest self-goal was scored by Giriraj Singh, an individual who appears to follow the George W. Bush dictum of thinking with the glands rather than the brain. His remark that the widow of Rajiv Gandhi may not have been his eventual successor (or indeed his wife) were she of "Nigerian" extraction rather than European, is not merely tasteless, but untrue. Rajiv Gandhi was not among those who judged individuals on the basis of skin colour. He was eclectic in his choice of friends, and showed no discrimination on the basis of criteria as superficial as skin tone. Indeed, among his closest friends were individuals who would accurately have been described as dusky, but possessed of immense charm. There may have been multiple qualities in Sonia Maino, which won the heart of the elder son of India's reigning "Empress", Indira Gandhi, but skin colour was not among them. To claim otherwise is to reveal the slave mentality of Giriraj Singh himself, who has clearly not escaped from a colonial-era awe of the white skin that the globalised Indian community has moved far away from. The influx of images of living (and other) rooms in homes of "white" people during the 1980s (when Rajiv Gandhi liberalised television as he freed telecom) was followed by floods of citizens of this country travelling and settling down in countries with a majority of "whites". Once there, they discovered that human beings were human beings, and that differences such as colour were soon forgotten. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the "white" populations in Europe and North America have within them a significant proportion of idealists, individuals much freer of superficial biases than a Giriraj Singh. As those who for some time have pointed to aspects of Sonia Gandhi's actions know, a potent way of discrediting such comments has been to portray them as being based on racial prejudice, specifically on a "dislike of white people". Such a defence has served boosters of Sonia Gandhi well in smudging the motivations of the very small number of individuals — including individuals of the mettle of Tavleen Singh and Suryaprakash — who have consistently drawn attention to those parts of the Congress president's record that have gone unmentioned by her party's spokespersons. Giriraj Singh's remarks will be used by publicists of Sonia Gandhi with frequency, exactly the way it is being done now. The possession of a colonial-era slave mentality by the BJP MP, who clearly regards a white complexion as a sign of perfection and black as the opposite, has done immense harm to the cause of those who seek to raise issues about the UPA chairperson that are far away from superficialities such as skin colour, issues concerning personal and family wealth and participation in decisions of government. Rather than the focus being on such seldom-raised matters, television and print commentators are in a full-throated roar about the racially insensitive remarks made by an individual who is a poster boy for a 19th century rather than a 21st century party. It had been expected that the coming to office of the Narendra Modi government on 26 May 2014 would be followed by the government divulging information about the Congress president, which would prove with facts the numerous negative mentions of Sonia Gandhi by several BJP leaders while on the campaign trail. Thus far, negative information divulged has been zero, exactly as was the case when Atal Behari Vajpayee or Manmohan Singh was the PM. Even details about Robert Vadra have gone unmentioned, notably by Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar. Was it that Tavleen Singh, Suryaprakash and the handful of others (who constantly drew attention to what they saw as uncomfortable facets of the Congress president's record) were wrong? Is it that Sonia Gandhi is blameless, that she is actually living and moving around in circumstances as straitened as her election declarations make her out to be? Are the reports of luxurious homes in foreign countries of close relatives also wrong? What about the foreign travels of Sonia Gandhi and the means of their funding? Judging by the silence emanating from official channels, it would appear that the Congress president is in fact blameless, and therefore is owed an apology by those who thought (and wrote) otherwise. The apparent lack of success of the BJP dispensation in coming up with any evidence to the contrary provides Sonia Gandhi with a strong platform to make a political comeback, for she can now claim that the many direct and uncomplimentary charges hurled in her direction by the BJP were false and indeed motivated by racial hatred. The impossible is taking place with the Congress making a comeback as surely as it did during 1976, when Morarji Desai was Prime Minister of India. At that point in time, the Shah Commission came up with zero against Indira Gandhi that was related to personal corruption. This time around, even a cursory effort at uncovering alleged wrongdoing does not seem to be being made, thus leading to the conclusion in the minds of voters that Sonia Gandhi is innocent of the charges made against her by the BJP during the campaign trail. By his remarks on the ethnicity of Sonia Gandhi and by the way in which he has defamed an individual as liberal as Rajiv Gandhi as being influenced by skin colour, Giriraj Singh has provided a handy excuse for supporters of Sonia Gandhi to discredit the few who remain critical of her. The Congress can now claim (with much higher credibility than before) that the allegations made against Sonia Gandhi have been motivated not by the public interest but even by racial bias. While abusing Giriraj Singh in public, Congress functionaries should thank him in private for bringing back to life what were once assumed to be the dying embers of a party humiliatingly rejected by voters just a year ago. http://www.sunday-guardian.com/analysis/giriraj-singh-is-scripting-a-congress-comeback

‘Rahul in deep anguish over present situation’ (Sunday Guardian)

MADHAV NALAPAT  New Delhi | 4th Apr 2015

Sources close to Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi say that his absence from the political scene is because of "deep anguish" over the present situation in the party and the country, and that it is this "upwelling of emotions", which has led to Rahul's current retreat from not only politics but his social life as well. They say that the Congress veep "regards it as a disaster that a supercharged BJP under Narendra Modi secured a majority in the Lok Sabha" and that "since 16 May 2014 (when the results of the Lok Sabha polls got declared), Rahul Gandhi has been going through an intense period of introspection, focusing within himself for long periods of time on just how and why the (poll) defeat happened". They say that this "deep introspection" is the reason for the Congress party's Heir Apparent's exceptionally scanty appearances in the political arena after the BJP-led government took office last year. "Last October, following the shock collapse in Haryana and the miserable showing in Maharashtra, Rahul's already present periods of self-introspection deepened, and he spent long periods of time mulling over what went wrong and what his party could have done to avoid such a fate". According to these sources, Rahul is "privately unhappy" with some of the party leaders close to Sonia Gandhi, and "regard their wrong advice as the reason for serial Congress losses". They add that this is why "Rahul has been insistent that the Congress should go through a makeover as comprehensive as those undertaken by Indira Gandhi in 1969 and 1978, subsequent to which she won impressive victories, despite starting with a disadvantage". However, these sources say that Congress president Sonia Gandhi is not in favour of a purge in the party as comprehensive as these earlier episodes, and would like "all groups to be taken on board, both the old and the new". These sources say that "throughout what has been the Congress vice-president's intense crisis of confidence in his party's direction and perception of remedies", Sonia Gandhi has been a "warm and supportive mother", spending long hours with her son and reassuring him about the future. They say that Rahul's sister Priyanka Vadra too has been "an amazing source of support" to a political leader seemingly riddled with questions about the past and the future, and that both "Sonia Gandhi as well as Priyanka Vadra have been the reason why Rahul has not yet acted on his desire to leave politics entirely". They add that both mother and sister "are the only individuals who understand Rahul Gandhi fully" and who "have almost daily shown a level of love and concern (for the Congress veep) that does them both credit". The implication of such comments (that both his mother and his sister are in frequent contact with the Congress vice-president) indicates that Rahul Gandhi is not abroad as has been speculated, but within the country, most likely in the vicinity of the national capital. These sources said that "of course the SPG is aware of where Rahul is" and that they would have informed the Prime Minister's Office about the same. They gave high marks to Prime Minister Modi for his "sensitivity in keeping information (on Rahul's introspection and whereabouts) secret", despite the fact that releasing details either directly or through leaks would have been to the political benefit of the BJP. "It must be said that the Prime Minister has acted in a principled manner" in the matter of the Congress vice-president's absence from the political arena, during the recent Parliament session, at a time of high tension between the NDA and the Opposition in both Houses of Parliament. They warn that "it is not certain" that Rahul will end his period of deep introspection before Parliament reconvenes on 20 April, as "the issues being debated in his mind are of a complex nature that admit to few simple solutions". They say that Rahul Gandhi is a "deeply caring individual, who suffers genuine agony at the fact that poverty is still so ubiquitous in India despite seven decades of freedom from British rule". Among the reasons given for Rahul's retreat into deep introspection is his "disgust at the way in which even those much senior to him in age and experience such as Manmohan Singh and A.K. Antony behave towards him", acting "as though they were his subordinates rather than his being very much their junior in every way". They claim that "several times, Rahul has talked to his close friends about the sycophantic culture pervading politics in the country and how he wants an atmosphere in which only merit, and not birth, counts". They add that Rahul has been distressed by the way in which his efforts at promoting inner-party democracy and a culture of equality in the Congress have been blocked by key confidants of the Congress president. Should Rahul finally decide to take up the reins of the Congress, "it is likely that within the next two years at most (well before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls) he will ensure a complete change in personnel and approaches" within a party that has lately shown signs of regaining some of its old popularity. However, they add that as yet Rahul "has not definitely decided to return to the political arena". In such a situation, Priyanka Vadra may fill the vacuum created by such a withdrawal from political activity. She is known for her charismatic appeal and "for backing the same strong anti-NDA stand advocated by her brother", and could emerge as a formidable competitor to the BJP leadership, should there be public discontent with the performance of the BJP-led government, as is lately being manifested in some parts of the country. These sources say that "it is still an open question as to whether Rahul will heed the advice of those who seek his return to active politics", or (in their words) "heed his inner voice and once and for all leave a field that is so denuded of idealism". Whatever his decision, "it is likely to be announced before the coming session of Parliament ends", and that "in any case, it will still be the Family in charge of the party, this time in the persona of Priyanka Vadra", who, they claim, will assist Sonia Gandhi in seeking to manage a comeback for the Congress, while Rahul assists "with advice and understanding for his mother and sister". Dismissing reports of a rift within the family, these sources say that Rahul and Priyanka are "on the same page" where the Congress is concerned, and that lately, "Sonia Gandhi has been heeding the advice of her children", rather than solely relying on the traditional politicians who have been close to her and have guided her decisions since she entered active politics in 1998. http://www.sunday-guardian.com/news/rahul-in-deep-anguish-over-present-situation

Middle East's chequebook diplomacy (Pakistan Observer, 3 April 2015)

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An upsurge of Wahabbis confront the “Sabahis” (Gateway House)

BY M.D. Nalapat 

DIRECTOR, DEPARTMENT OF GEOPOLITICS, MANIPAL UNIVERSITY

More than a decade ago, this writer pointed to Kuwait and its ruling house of Al Sabah as being the ideological challenger to Saudi Arabia and the Al Sauds, who from the start of their rule have embraced the principles and practices of Abdel Wahab, the founder of the Wahabbi ideology.

Even the merest glance at the Holy Quran shows it to be suffused with moderation, compassion and benevolence. As with other religious texts, there are certainly elements of warfare within the prose, but the constantly repeated injunction is to identify the three qualities listed above as being at the core of Islam, the faith born out of the revelation of the Holy Quran fifteen centuries ago.

However, a significant boost was given to Wahabbi teachings by the Al Saud’s panic reaction to the happenings of 1979 (the coming to power in Iran of Ayatollah Khomenei and the attempted takeover of the mosque at Mecca by followers of a deluded youth believing himself to be the Mahdi).

Since the dawn of the 20th century, Wahabbi ideology has been given support by countries such as the U.S the UK—as a means of weaning away Arab communities from the Turkish caliphate in the early years of the last century, which backed a much less restrictive interpretation of Islam than was popular among Wahabbi preachers.

During the 1950s and beyond, Wahabbism came in handy for the former colonial powers of Europe and their newfound champion in the underdeveloped world – the U.S. – in rolling back the Gamal Abdel Nasser tide of Arab nationalism. At its core, the Nasser nationalism sought a cutback in the dominant position that the former colonial powers and their North American partner still had within the Arab world.

In the 1980s, this toxic creed once again proved its value to U.S. geopolitical interests, when it was fanned to unprecedented levels in order to motivate hundreds of thousands of young Wahabbi Muslims into taking up weapons in order to confront the USSR in Afghanistan. There was an alternative to such a mobilisation of this extremist creed, and that would have been to train, fund and arm Pashtun nationalists rather than radicalise a hitherto moderate people through Wahabbi preachers and accompanying audio, video and printed material.

Universities in the U.S. were given contracts by their government to design and publish textbooks and other material for West Asia, which would steer young Arab minds towards the Wahabbi ideology, setting aside the qualities of mercy, compassion and benevolence that are imprinted in every sura of the Holy Quran.

The reason why the Pashtun fanatics won over the moderates was the fact that the nationalists within that ethnic group were hostile to Pakistan, a state in occupation of vast tracts of Pashtun land leased for 99 years to the British but due back to Afghanistan since the period of the lease expired in 1992. As has been a habit with policymakers in Washington, the interests of the Pakistan military were given precedence over those of U.S. citizens, who would have been much better off were the radicalisation and empowerment (into violence) of Wahabbi youth not so sharply accelerated during the Brzezinski-Casey period and beyond.

Even after 9/11,the Saudi establishment and its ideological followers across the globe, have been funding and expanding what may be termed as Wahabbi International, a network of institutions and individuals with the aim of convincing the followers of Islam that the teachings of Abdel Wahab are in fact the “purest” version of the world’s fastest-growing faith rather than its antithesis

In the Arab world, what has kept Wahabbism ascendant is the support given to it by the Al Sauds of Saudi Arabia, and since the 1990s, by the Al Thanis of Qatar. The latter saw in Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, a possible precursor to the invasion of their own country by the Al Sauds. Judging by what happened next,it would appear that the Al Thanis decided that the best way to neutralise the Saudi “threat” would be to be acknowledged as even more determined followers of Abdel Wahab than the Al Sauds.

From that time onwards, the Royal House of Qatar began to compete with their counterparts in Riyadh, by funding and supporting Wahabbi missionaries worldwide. From the start of the present century, the rulers of Qatar added a fresh layer of protection by becoming a military auxiliary of the U.S. as well as becoming at least as big a demonstrator of soft power as the Saudi royals – the latter chiefly through a quantum jump in support given to Al Jazeera, which is today the predominant Wahabbi news channel worldwide, edging out its Saudi competitors with ease.

The rivalry between the Al Sauds and the Al Thanis have benefitted Wahabbi International. Doha has emerged as a haven for Wahabbi missionaries, and Qatar has become a financial backer of Wahabbi International objectives, such as the removal of the Assad family from power in Damascus and its replacement with a dispensation that owes fealty to Wahabbism. Indeed while Saudi Arabia under King Abdullah sought to move away from Wahabbism, Qatar filled the resulting vacuum in support – although since then King Salman appears to have returned Riyadh to the traditional Sudairi clan policy of a westernised personal lifestyle coexisting with a strictly Wahabbi dispensation within the theological institutions of a country which has within its borders the two most holy sites of Islam.

Judging by his initial months in office, King Salman seems determined to ensure that only members of the Sudairi clan will become his successors. In effect, this confines the Saudi monarchy to a single clan within it that has wielded power for much of the period since the 1939-45 war, even going to the extent of seeking to marginalise family members of his predecessor, King Abdullah, who was born of a non-Sudairi mother with roots among the common people

The Al Sabahs of Kuwait have been the outliers within the ruling families of the Gulf Cooperation Council states, introducing a written constitution more than five decades ago. More recently, the Emir of Kuwait, Sabah Al Sabah, not only continued the system of free elections but extended the franchise to women, in spite of opposition from elements seeking to bring into Kuwait more elements of the Wahabbi (and Salafi) ideology – the same practiced in Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Qatar and in parts of Yemen, and which for the past decade has been steadily advancing in Turkey.

Those seeking a return of West Asian society to the Sufi ethos of the Turkish caliphate would have preferred “Sabahism” to prevail over Wahabbism. In this, the other GCC states would copy the policies followed by the Al Sabahs and introduce democratic practices into their own dispensations, besides ensuring a level playing field between Shia and Sunni, the way it is in Kuwait, Oman and to a considerable extent in the UAE, although not in Qatar, Bahrain, or Saudi Arabia. In the latter pair, Shia are subject to severe discrimination and are routinely abused as being “puppets of Iran”, an allegation that is as untrue as is the other fiction of the Shia in Iraq being under the control of the mullahs of Teheran, or the Al Assad family in Damascus being as hostile to the Sunnis (including the Wahabbi element) as the rulers of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia are towards the Shia.

In fact, several of the Assad clan have Sunni spouses, including Bashar Assad himself, while the government in Damascus has nearly seven of every ten ministers hailing from within the Sunnis, although none of this would be obvious to those tuning in to Wahabbi-boosting commentators such as Christiane Amanpour of CNN, who adopts the orthodox Wahabbi position on disputes within the region.

Rather than “Sabahism” prevailing over Wahabbism within the GCC, it is the former that is being threatened by a rising number of supporters of the latter in Kuwait. Unlike in the past, when the population of Kuwait remained a haven of theological moderation within the Arab world, an increasing number of citizens are adopting the Wahabbi mindsets common among those resident in Saudi Arabia.

Fewer and fewer Kuwaiti women, for example, are daring to go out in public without at least a headscarf, if not the full-length abaya. Those wearing western-style clothes are subjected to disapproving stares from the increasing number of Kuwaitis who back Wahabbi (and Salafi) ideology.

Indeed, not only are citizens of the State of Kuwait appearing with regularity together with other ISIS volunteers on the fields of war in Syria, Libya and Iraq, but Kuwait-based donors are playing a role in the funding of ISIS affiliates and proxies, although not yet to the extent to which backers in Qatar and Saudi Arabia do.

What has weakened the opposition to Wahabbism within the GCC has been the shock defection of Turkey from what may be termed the Sufi stream. President Recip Teyyip Erdogan used his “European” credentials to ensure the neutering of the Turkish military (the strongest Kemalist force within the country) but shed the same affiliations as he went about changing the chemistry of governance in Turkey into a direction that is openly Wahabbi— although as yet co-existing with Sufi elements rather than overwhelming them.

Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmed Al Jaber Al Sabah, the present Emir of Kuwait, has fought with success to retain at least some of his country’s moderate traditions. However, he has had to keep a watch on the sensibilities of Wahabbi elements, refusing for instance, to follow the example of the UAE and Bahrain and permit the sale and consumption of alcohol within the country. Kuwait Airlines is alcohol-free, thereby giving a competitive advantage to UAE carriers such as Emirates and Eithad, which have refused to be cowed by Wahabbi diktats in the matter.

Were Kuwait to have followed the more liberal policies of the UAE, the country could have emerged as a global business hub like Singapore. But the influence of conservative theology has thus far prevented such a transformation, despite freedom of choice being the essence of democracy.

These days, in newspapers in Kuwait there are more and more reports about how the Emir is patronising events such as the handing over of the (sixth) “Holy Quran International Recitation and Memorization Award” – given to this year’s  winner on March 30 by Prime Minister Jaber Al-Sabah. Funding to the “Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Matters” is being substantially increased, even though as yet Kuwaiti authorities have refused to adopt the Saudi practice of banning, even in cities such as Riyadh, Dammam and Jeddah, any house of worship other than those approved by Wahabbi clerics.

The moderate traditions of the Al Sabahs have ensured that Kuwait is a country where official hostility to faiths other than that followed by the majority is absent, and where there is an atmosphere free of intimidation and disapproval for those practising faiths such as Christianity or even Hinduism. It had been expected that King Salman would follow the moderating policies of his predecessor, King Abdullah the Wise. Instead, he appears to be returning to the hard-line practices of his Sudairi predecessors, and has even gone ahead with a military intervention in Yemen certain to inflame sectarian passions throughout the region, including within his own country.

Still – not all the portents are dispiriting. “Sabahis” are still in a majority within the people of Kuwait, with women and the young especially being firm in defending their freedoms and their rights. In Kuwait, women, a group which faces discrimination in several other parts of the region, have been at the forefront of the struggle against restrictive ideologies, making Kuwait the only country within the GCC where citizens belonging to the fair sex can reject codes designed for them by Wahabbi preachers without the displeasure of their families and indeed their husbands.

The expansion of democratic choice in Kuwait has ensured a strengthening of the defences against the creeping expansion of the boundaries of Wahabbism seen in Erdogan’s Turkey, which till his consolidation of power six years ago was the societal role model for moderates throughout the region.

During a taxi ride to the Embassy of India in Kuwait city, this writer was surprised that the Bedouin driver (Ali) spoke English with effortless ease, despite a lack of formal education. Across Kuwait, the desire to connect to the 21st century is resisting the influx of Wahabbi thought and keeping alive the prospect that rather than become a clone of Saudi Arabia, it is that latter country which will learn from Kuwait and bestow the freedoms of democracy to its populace.

At present, it would appear that the Wahabbis have the upper hand over the “Sabahis”, even in some elements of local society in Kuwait. But the war for the hearts and minds of a people as gifted as the Arabs, is far from over.

M.D. Nalapat is Director of the School of Geopolitics at Manipal University, and a regular contibutor to Gateway House.

This feature was written exclusively for Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. You can read more exclusive features here.

For interview requests with the author, or for permission to republish, please contact Reetika Joshi at joshi.reetika@gatewayhouse.in or 022 22023371.

© Copyright 2014 Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. All rights reserved. Any unauthorized copying or reproduction is strictly prohibited.

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For Modi, North Block is what will matter in 2019 (Sunday Guardian)

ROOTS OF POWER MADHAV NALAPAT www.sunday-guardian.com/profile/madhav-nalapat M.D Nalapat is the Editorial Director of The Sunday Guardian. The Justice Shah Special Investigation Team (SIT) was formed by Team Modi on the lines mentioned in a Supreme Court verdict, and has sat several times since the time it was set up. Lawyers, not unexpectedly, usually regard existing or new laws as a panacea for societal ailments, a view embraced with fervour by television anchors, and press reports indicate that the many sittings of the SIT have generated a flurry of recommendations designed to tighten further legal screws on delinquent behaviour. Given the number of laws in India (some of which have their roots in the period when Aurangzeb was ruler of Delhi), many may find it difficult to understand precisely how yet another set of laws would improve the situation, especially those where the onus is on the citizen to prove his or her innocence of charges levied by officials acting at the behest of business or political interests. Certainly, the implementation of the J.S. Verma recommendations, which added to existing laws on violence against women, has not improved the situation, while making it a relatively simple matter to file a case against any male imprudent enough to enter into any form of communication or contact with the opposite sex. In India, our colonial-era laws are often used to collect bribes in order to fund the education of wards abroad, or to build a residence as opulent as that into which a former Principal Secretary to a former Prime Minister moved after demitting his job, while he had earlier been staying at a modest apartment in Vasant Kunj. His offspring too moved into much grander places of residence, in the way such well-born offspring are frequently known to do, naturally to silence from those government agencies tasked to track precisely such details and penalise those guilty of infringing the maze of law on the subject. Apart from information which accidentally fell into its hands (and into that of several other governments), thus far the government seems to have come up with little in the way of retrieving moneys illegally placed abroad by citizens of this country. Expecting such individuals to have foreign bank accounts in their own name seems a trifle naive. Almost all those with cash kept abroad would have placed such money in the accounts either of relatives or friends, who have been made NRIs for the purpose, or would have availed of the legal and accountancy services abundant in offshore tax havens to create a chain of nominations for accounts whose secrecy would consequently be close to impossible to penetrate. As for those with accounts in the US, the gap of several months between news of US authorities offering data on the bank accounts of nationals to their respective countries and the actual signing of the protocol with the US government was sufficient to allow such account holders to have cleared out such accounts, thereby ensuring that all that the Government of India will finally come up with as a consequence of the Black Money (in foreign countries) law will be the same as will be dredged up by the Shah SIT, which is a derisory figure. And by levying confiscatory taxes and penalties on the funds disclosed, the government has ensured that the new law's success rate (in bringing back money illegally deposited abroad) will be as meagre as that generated from the sittings of the Shah SIT. Fortunately, North Block mandarins have already declared that the Black Money law was "not a revenue raising measure". If the purpose was not to raise funds by getting back money illegally kept abroad, perhaps the objective of a law mentioned in this year's Budget speech was to sharpen the drafting skills of the North Block bureaucracy. By the time the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls roll by in 2017 and the Lok Sabha polls two years later, should the moneys brought back by the Government of India be a piffling amount, the impact will be substantial on the political fortunes of Prime Minister Modi, whose party was elected to power because of the confidence of voters that he would succeed in bringing back vast sums of such cash. His success or lack thereof in this will be a major factor in future election campaigns. The problem is that those steeped for decades in the present colonial system of governance may find it difficult to change their ways. As was the case with the British Raj, the "stick" is usually outsize, while the "carrot" is shrivelled and inedible. Take the case of the recent increase in Service Tax, a measure that has had a devastating effect on employment generation in India. Rather than raising the rate even further, lowering it to at least 10% would have increased compliance and therefore collections, a fact that must be known to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose practical approach to governance in Gandhinagar is what has ensured his present stay at 7 Race Course Road. Unless he succeeds in changing the processes of governance in Delhi the way he did in Gujarat, for example, by ensuring the flow of hundreds of billions of dollars back to India from offshore banking havens and from international investors, what took place in Delhi is likely to be repeated elsewhere. More than the Ministry of External Affairs and even the Ministry of Defence in South Block, it is North Block — specifically the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Home Affairs — which will decide the result of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. http://www.sunday-guardian.com/analysis/for-modi-north-block-is-what-will-matter-in-2019