India needs pragmatism, not populism (Sunday Guardian)

Those searching for explanations of the present banking crisis need to remember that some of the economic toxicity generated by the Manmohan Decade owed its origins to the transformation during the A.B. Vajpayee period of the large banks from lenders to large pools of entrepreneurs to creditors of a handful of influential businesses. India’s banking sector is in crisis, in part caused by the high interest rate policies of RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan and its impact on overall growth, but also because since around 2001, an increasing share of the loot illegally made by businesspersons, politicians and officials has been transferred abroad rather than used up at home. What V.S. Naipaul calls “the craze for foreign” reached a high point during the UPA period, when imports were encouraged not just of high technology items but sanitary fittings and even toiletries. Airports in India are a testament to this waste of an opportunity to grow the domestic economy, filled as they are with imports, mainly from Europe, a continent much favoured also by 1998-2004 Principal Secretary to Prime Minister and National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra (who through his daughter incidentally had almost as many relatives in and from Italy as Sonia Gandhi does, but whose connection with that lovely and timeless country has never been mentioned by those who publicly look askance at the Milan-Maino connection of the Congress Party ruling family). The tsunami of unneeded imports that washed across India in those years were a prime factor in the subsequent economic pain that this country has suffered, especially since Manmohan Singh (this time free of the liberalising influence of Narasimha Rao) indulged in his bureaucratic instincts from 2006 onwards and tightened controls on domestic sectors while loosening them on aliens.

Raghuram Rajan may look the other way, but it may not only be Subrata Roy who should be a guest of the government. Several of the financial conglomerates headquartered in London or New York commit in India the same economic crimes for which they are made to pay billions of dollars as fines in the countries of their origin. Money laundering has become a science in India, and in sheer volume the humble “hawaladar” is being dwarfed by the cleverly masked money laundering taking place through distinguished portals every day in India, with Singapore and Dubai in particular becoming transit points for such cash. During the UPA period, it was a known fact that a small group of officials close to a politician from Tamil Nadu regularly transmitted insider information from within North Block to a group of punters, who then made a killing via a particular exchange. Two years after the change of guard in Delhi, these officials still hop around from one influential perch to the other, along the way snuffing out any effort at uncovering the harm done by their actions in earlier avatars. Insider trading should be treated in India the way it is in the US, as being unacceptable. However, in this country, a few with access to decision-makers become billionaires at the expense of millions who lose their savings as a consequence of rigging of share prices.

Some estimates place the volume of non-performing assets (dodgy loans) in the banking system as close to Rs 550,000 crore. Much of this is owed by a handful of companies, and it is here that attention needs to be paid, not in a populist but in a pragmatic way. Statements such as “every penny will be recovered” belong to the realm of fantasy at a time when global debt recovery agencies are paying only 30 cents to the dollar to buy up Indian corporate debt from lenders, as took place recently in the case of a large entity involved in infrastructure. Should a Vijay Mallya repay 75% of what he owes (including interest and penal interest), he should be given his passport back. Other wilful defaulters paying a similar amount or more on principal and interest should be given the same lenient treatment. Those paying less should face disqualification and blacklisting, while those who repay below 60% and are guilty of wilful i.e. commercially avoidable defaults should go to jail, with this being for an extended period for those paying back 50% or less, all this apart from fines of amounts parallel to those levied in the US or the UK or if they are abroad, a public campaign in those countries to get them back to face justice.

Those who have significant loan volumes outstanding should be dealt with in a pragmatic way, in a context where the populist option of throwing the Indian Penal Code at all comers—with television anchors in full cry—merely leads to Malta or Luxembourg getting new additions to their list of citizens and the taxpayer losing out. Of course, there needs to be accountability for the past. Such as, who recommended the large loans that went bad? Were they bank managers or even bank directors? If there is any evidence of a quid pro quo for such telephone calls and recommendatory letters, those guilty need to be given both prison terms as well as cash fines.

Finally, in an age where technology has raced forward, it would be a simple matter to ensure that the office cabins of each public official dealing with money (such as in the banks or in commerce-related departments) be monitored, and the feed go to a central point where any suspicious exchange can be identified for investigation. Indeed, the sooner not just sensitive offices being monitored by designated points but all commissions of enquiry and all courtrooms be live streamed, the better. Transparency is core to a clean system, and it is to be hoped that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Justice T.S. Thakur will separately address this need in the months ahead. The people are angry and are close to the boiling point.

They seek the results only pragmatism on the Gujarat model and courage on the scale so often shown by the Supreme Court of India can ensure.

http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/4478-india-needs-pragmatism-not-populism

The bribe-takers (Pakistan Observer)

Whether a politician is amassing wealth or not can often be gauged by the lifestyles of his or her family members. For those with access to the internet, it is no secret that this columnist is not an admirer of Congress President Sonia Gandhi, although he retains an open mind on her son and heir, Rahul Gandhi. The reason for the negativity is twofold: several of the closest political associates of the lady who dominated politics in India till the emergence of Narendra Modi to the centre stage of national politics in 2013 are individuals who may reasonably be termed as “fixers” and “dealers”. Their families have, without exception, progressed at speed up the income ladder, with expensive cars and luxurious residences replacing more modest transport and accommodation. Even in their income tax returns, they have shown incredible skill in increasing their net wealth, often setting up businesses that make huge profits. To cite a particular instance, a minister who was very powerful by being a confidante of the Congress Party leader has an offspring who has made money in incredible amounts.

In the case of Sonia Gandhi, her two sisters live in luxury despite considerable ambiguity about their occupations. India’s incurious media has not regarded it as important to report on the lives and lifestyles of not only Sonia Gandhi’s sisters but the children and other relatives of others who are or were hyper-powerful. For example, it is unknown in India that an individual placed at the core of the security apparatus by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had as foreign citizens his wife and all his children. In the US, there are clear lines drawn between “No Forn” documents and briefings that are off limits to foreign nationals, and others that are allowed to be accessed by foreign nationals.

In the case of India, several key officials have progressed in their careers despite their close family members exchanging their Indian passports for that of a foreign country. Indeed, such a fact is regarded as too trivial to document. Another fact seen as outside the ambit of government is educating children in foreign countries, with few superiors curious about how an officer can educate his or her children abroad at a cost much above his or her salary.

Usually, some unknown institution steps up with a scholarship to the offspring of a senior official, and shuts down soon after the education of the lucky youngster concludes. Snd of course there is the fact that several international financial companies (who make fortunes out of insider information) hire the children of top decision-makers. Interestingly, the head of the Reserve Bank of India retains his lien on the University of Chicago job he temporarily took leave of to become the czar of monetary policy in India, as well as the option to become a US citizen at will. Similar is the case with the head of the erstwhile Planning Commission ( now renamed Niti Aayog) and the Economic Advisor to the Finance Ministry, each of whom appear to regard their current jobs as stopgap employment before returning to the US, a prospect they are reported to discuss with friends off and on. In the two years that he has devoted to his current job, Narendra Modi has followed the same example he set in Gujarat, of not making changes in the composition of officials inherited from the previous regime. While overall this is a good idea, yet an exception needs to be made in the case of that small number of officials who were accomplices to corrupt ministers and politicians. Such individuals need to be investigated, and it needs to be ensured that they be removed from sensitive positions that are susceptible to misuse. Such a spring cleaning has yet to take place.

Hence, although corruption in Delhi has been dramatically reduced since Modi took over, the pace of investigation and accountability has been glacial in its pace. A few days ago, a higher court in Italy convicted some individuals of having paid bribes to Indians to purchase some helicopters for the Air Force in its VIP squadron. It would have been a simple matter to track the money flow from Europe to Mauritius to India, but this was apparently not done even after the new government took charge. Contrary to the charges being made by some that such inaction shows the “complicity” of the Modi government in such scams, the fact is that it reveals the opposite.

The Prime Minister has left the bureaucracy alone, and has ensured that his ministers follow the same discipline (of refusing to intervene). However, such a rule needs exceptions, especially in the case of those instances which involve corruption of a level of tens of millions of dollars. In the case of the helicopter deal, several senior officials were involved, and some are still in very high positions.These have clearly used their influence to ensure that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) slept at the wheel. Although two years have gone by since the BJP government took charge, neither the CBI nor the ED have bothered to uncover the money trail. So the public in India is witness to the shameful spectacle of an Italian court convicting Italian bribe-givers, but Indian agencies inactive against the Indian bribe-takers, many of whom have influential friends across the political spectrum.

The Italian court relied on 181 boxes of evidence about the bribes paid by Agusta Westland, the helicopter company, but thus far, no agency from India has shown any interest in examining the data revealed there, even though they relate to bribes paid in India to Indian citizens. Neither has any anti-corruption agency in India sought to assist the Italian court with evidence that was relevant to the case, despite the desirability of doing so Prime Minister Modi will need to revise his Hands Off policy towards the bureaucracy, for in some departments, freedom from political influence is leading to greater misuse of authority. The system of democracy mandates control by elected politicians over unelected officials, and the Prime Minister and his ministers need to exercise that control rather than refrain from it.Of course, concurrently there needs to be much greater transparency in government, so that online tracking takes place of decisions such that laggards get identified.

As also much more accountability. For a start, Modi needs to identify and punish each of those (politicians, officials and military) guilty in the Agusta Westland helicopter scandal, no matter how high the post held or which party the wrongdoer belongs to. Unless he does so, from now onwards, politically it will all be downhill for the BJP.

—The writer is Vice-Chair, Manipal Advanced Research Group, UNESCO Peace Chair & Professor of Geopolitics, Manipal University, Haryana State, India.

http://pakobserver.net/2016/05/06/the-bribe-takers/

Make honesty in governance the new normal (Sunday Guardian)

The Nehruvian-Lutyens system that has clogged the arteries of India needs to be replaced with a system of governance that meets the test of transparency.

In an effort to dispel any doubts about whether or not he was a favourite of the Congress Party, MPs in the Rajya Sabha moved in lockstep to ensure that Subramanian Swamy got silenced within a minute of attempting to speak. The nation now has become aware that an MP from the Rajya Sabha should not mention in the House the name of any MP from the Lok Sabha. Presumably, the reverse holds as well. He or she should also avoid naming countries, clearly because such a mention would inflame relations between that country and India. It is doubtful that any other democracy has imposed such limits on the freedom of speech of its MPs, a group of individuals, who, in other countries, are expected to speak with even more verve and colour than the average sailor. Over the coming days, more and more reasons are certain to get used up to ensure that Swamy not use Parliament the way he has prime time on television to make his point, especially against Sonia Gandhi, who crossed a red line with the economist when she switched in 1999 from a promise of support to a coalition government backed by the Congress Party to a Congress government headed by herself that would be backed by other parties. After the 2004 polls, the Congress president decided against taking over as Prime Minister, handing the post over to Manmohan Singh despite an outcry from MPs belonging to the party.

The Modi government needs to ensure that each and every link in the decision-making chain involving the Agusta Westland helicopter purchase be examined in detail. An examination of the tax records abroad of close relatives of top politicians, officials needs to be carried out.

Sonia Gandhi’s success in remaining at the core of the political and policy process from the time she took over as AICC president in 1998 shows her skill in managing both the Nehruvian processes of governance as well as the “Lutyens Lok” she has effortlessly charmed since the 1960s. The National Herald case is among the few where there is an actual signature of hers on a decision. For the rest, there is merely conjecture about her involvement. For the reality is that at no stage during 2004-2014 did Sonia Gandhi hold any formal position inside the portals of government, besides the “advisory” duties of the National Advisory Council. Incidentally, the Narendra Modi government would do well to set up an NAC of its own, and populate the body with individuals having views that are not at all the same as those held by senior members of the government. But for the UPA-era NAC, there would probably not have been a strengthened RTI or an MNREGA, at least the second of which is being run far more effectively by the NDA than it was during the decade in office of the UPA, while the first will hopefully be further expanded, so as to create the transparency needed to reduce graft.

A court in Italy has drawn attention to the muck that swirls around governance in India, and the Modi government needs to ensure that each and every link in the decision-making chain involving the Agusta Westland helicopter purchase be examined in detail. There would be less than a dozen individuals (political, official and military) needing such attention, and their lifestyles as well as that of family members needs investigation. Several who have made huge amounts of illicit money have sent relatives abroad, who have adopted the citizenship of the country they are living in. An examination of the tax records abroad of close relatives of top politicians, officials as well as the higher echelons of the uniformed services needs to be carried out, to locate possible parking of black money with such individuals. The Ministry of Defence has constituted a committee of babus to examine the Agusta file. It was expected of Manohar Parrikar that he would show more imagination, as by constituting a committee that has members from outside the bureaucracy. The hearings of such a hybrid (with civil service and civil society participation) committee need to be conducted publicly, with hearings getting live streamed online. The Nehruvian-Lutyens system that has clogged the arteries of India with dirt needs to be replaced with a system of governance that meets the test of transparency and accountability. 

Freer speech, more revelations, and perhaps some inadvertent false charges as well, are the future in an India whose young seeks to be heard and wants to know the same facts that Lutyens Lok keep to themselves in the manner of the British. As he enters Year 3 of his term, Prime Minister Modi will hopefully ensure that the guilty in major defence and other scams be punished, whether they be in the Congress, in the BJP or elsewhere. “Make honestly in India”, rather than—as for the past four decades— “import dishonestly into India”, needs to be the new normal. 

http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/4364-make-honesty-governance-new-normal

Italy exposes an ugly Indian scandal (Pakistan Observer)

SINCE the 1950s, corruption has grown in India, but not as fast as has been the growth of “anti-corruption agencies”. The Indian state, in line with its colonial traditions, believes that it is only the state that should police the state, and as a consequence, there has been a proliferation of agencies tasked with eliminating corruption. Large state-run companies, for instance, have each their own “vigilance” wing, which is expected to investigate charges of graft against officers of the concerned public sector company. Such departments are under the control of the Managing Director (MD) of the company, and if – as is often the case – the MD’s office is where corruption is at its highest, it is clear that the Vigilance Department will spend its time chasing lower rank officers on petty matters rather than go after the big shots, especially those who are accomplices of the top company managers.

Incidentally, in India instances have been many where those at the top have manufactured false charges against officers who have refused to ratify the corruption of their seniors. The consequence has been that such (honest) officials get penalised over some small transgressions ( such as getting reimbursed Rs 150 more than a ticket was worth, owing to carelessness in filing of accounts), even going to prison while those guilty of raking in millions of dollars escape with their pensions intact.

In India, hawala operators ensure that cash in rupees gets swiftly transformed into euros and dollars and sent to safe locations, where they cab be deployed as per the wishes of those who have made this “black” (ie unaccounted) income. And these days, there are several countries which welcome those with bulging bank accounts to become residents and even citizens. Small wonder that the number of those from influential political and official families who are acquiring foreign passports is growing. Since 2010,when a raft of corruption stories filled the media in India, there has been phenomenal growth in the moneys flowing abroad, a flow that has accelerated after the “Drive on Black Money” initiated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi soon after he took office on May 26,2014.

Modi took a decision to retain in key posts almost all the top bureaucrats who were prominent during the sixteen years when Atal Behari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh were Prime Ministers ( 1998-2014). Several of them were facilitators of the processes through which senior ministers made hundreds of millions of dollars for themselves. As they are still in key slots, these officials have managed to ensure that Prime Minister Modi’s efforts to enforce accountability for past acts of corruption have been put on a very slow track.

Prime Minister Modi has followed his practice (while Chief Minister of Gujarat) of retaining key officials from past regimes, but after two years, it has become clear that unless those officials known to have facilitated scamster ministers in the past get replaced in sensitive slots by honest officials, the accountability sought by the Prime Minister will be elusive. After all, such scamster ministers in the two previous regimes groomed and promoted only those officers who were crooked enough or opportunistic enough to do the or bidding, not the honest majority in the system. Such bent officers will be desperate to prevent genuine enquiries from taking place, for fear that these will lead to their doors.

The deliberate incompetence of investigating agencies in India can be seen from the fact that almost every mega scam that has been exposed owes disclosure to a foreign source. The army of anti-corruption agencies in India have not located any bank account abroad of top officials or politicians. What few revelations there have been are because of exposes in the foreign media, exactly as took place in the matter of the payoffs for the Bofors guns in 1986. Incidentally, because of a cover up by the agencies involved, practically all those who took bribes during that transaction were subsequently exonerated of any wrongdoing by courts in India, who were forced to rely on the evidence presented by the agencies and go by such documentation, which in many cases was misleading and obfuscatory.

Now a court in Italy has convicted individuals in a company based there of having paid bribes to influential people in India to ensure purchases of helicopters. Reports about bribes being paid surfaced three years ago, and then Defence Minister A K Antony promptly got a First Information Report filed on the matter, subsequently ordering a halt to fresh purchases from the company reported as having bribed officials and politicians. This was for the record, for afterwards, there was zero follow up action. The result is that the bribe takers have been having a comfortable life in India (when not travelling abroad), while in Italy, the bribe givers have been sent to jail. Why is it that so little progress is made in India in the matter of investigating even the crimes of previous governments?

A senior minister told this columnist in 2007 that the policy was to “set aside 40% of the bribe amount for personal uses of the decision makers involved, 40% for political purposes of the ruling parties and 20% to be distributed to Opposition politicians to ensure their silence”. The policy of ensuring that even those in the opposition make money during the tenure in office of a rival party has meant that skeletons remain buried rather than uncovered. In India, the lifestyles of those in opposition are as high flying as those in government, for in the Lutyens system, top politicians look after each other, thereby insuring themselves in case there is a change in regime.

After nearly two years studying the Lutyens system, Prime Minister Modi would have understood the way in which this has perpetuated corruption. There are signs that the PM is now readying himself to ensure that genuine accountability take place, even if in such a process some within his own party get indicted. After all, not everybody in the Congress Party is a sinner and not everyone in the BJP is a saint. A housecleaning of those involved in cosy financial links with past regimes is overdue and is expected to take place, so that in India, corruption finally registers a decline that is inversely proportional to the number of top politicians and officials sent to jail for defrauding the public during their years in office. Much is expected from Modi in coming months and years in this regard.

—The writer is Vice-Chair, Manipal Advanced Research Group, UNESCO Peace Chair & Professor of Geopolitics, Manipal University, Haryana State, India.

http://pakobserver.net/2016/04/29/italy-exposes-an-ugly-indian-scandal/

Brexit will be good for Britain (Sunday Guardian)

Should Brexit be the alternative preferred by UK voters, India needs to ensure that it takes advantage of the closer ties that London will seek from Delhi.

His disapproving comments on a possible (formal) rupture between the UK and the EU showed that Barack H. Obama has a soft spot for David Cameron (who is known within influential circles in India as a superb host at Chequers). Obama seems worried at the fact that much of the Conservative Party has rallied behind Boris Johnson and others such as Daniel Hannan (who is, ironically, a member of the European Parliament, and therefore seeks to divest himself of his job) in their call to voters in the UK to support “Brexit”, a formal break with the European Union. Of course, that construct has over the past two decades has grown a gargantuan bureaucracy busily inventing work for itself at the expense of many of the countries which form the bloc. While the demise of the USSR ought to have resulted in a downsizing of NATO and a change in focus to terrorism and cyber threats, the contrary has taken place, with the alliance inserting itself into Africa and Asia in a manner last popular in the 19th century, and with the same disastrous results on local populations. As for the EU bureaucracy, this has allowed neither slowing economic growth on the continent or the reality of those corners of Europe that were less restrictive in their regulations, having progressed faster than the rest (East and West Europe are obvious exemplars) to slow down its expansion, with each day going by being spent in discovering some corner of European life to intrude into. Unlike Hannan, the others enjoying salaries and allowances milked from taxpayers are understandably reluctant to leave such privileges behind, and are aware that a Brexit may very soon be followed by a “Gerxit” (a German withdrawal) and a “Frexit” (a French pullout from the EU), thereby leaving the EU only with its less consequential members, although almost certainly with an even bigger bureaucracy than before. 

Barack Obama is among the most cerebral of world leaders, so he must be fully aware that his warning (that the UK would get dismissed to the back of the queue after Brexit) was nonsense. The reality is that the country has specialised precisely in those sectors that US counterparts will need to work closely with, principally the knowledge and financial industries. Whether the UK being within the EU or not, New York cannot dilute the platinum threads that it shares with London, nor will the reality of the UK being next only to the US and Israel in terms of creative output be affected. Neither the US nor the rump EU can afford the luxury of proving Obama right by ignoring the UK rather than ensuring that as little disruption in commerce and services takes place after a Brexit. This is apart from the incalculable benefit of having the freedom to choose as migrants those from Pune or Chennai, rather than having to accept any who make the crossing from Raqqa or Idlib, a problem the EU will face for years more without pause. 

If anything, a formal break with the elephantine and racially based federation, which is the EU, will ignite rather than extinguish creativity and dynamism within the UK, with the possible exception of Scotland, where Old Labour values are deep rooted, and whose voters can be expected to oppose Brexit. Indeed, should David Cameron win his bet that voters in his country will be too timid to actually say a formal goodbye to the European Union, it will be because of those voters in Scotland, Northern Ireland and in some corners of Wales who dislike the English people and therefore prefer to remain within the EU, a construct where the French, Poles and Germans have far more influence than the island race which gave an international link language to the globe at the price of subjugating most of it at one time or the other. 

Certainly David Cameron would have sought from Narendra Modi a similar affirmation as Obama’s of the alleged indispensability of remaining within the EU to the UK. It is to the credit of Modi that he has clearly resisted such an endorsement, which, incidentally, would have had substantial weight, considering that despite Mulayam Singh and Lalu Yadav, it is India that has almost as many English-language speakers as the US, and indeed much more than found in the UK. The most US-friendly individuals in the UK are those who are passionate about the need for Britain to croon a formal farewell to the EU, and these have responded not by developing hostility towards the US but by expressing a contempt for Barack Obama that is new. In the case of India as well, it is those in favour of a 21st century Anglosphere (with India, the US and the UK at the core) that are the most respectful of India and votaries of closer ties with it than presently permitted by EU regulations. Modi’s neutrality on Brexit has, therefore, served the interests of India in a manner which the emotional embrace of the Cameron position by the US President has not. Should Brexit be the alternative preferred by UK voters, India needs to ensure that it takes advantage of the closer ties that London will seek from Delhi, by achieving synergy with sunrise sectors in the UK in the same way as US companies and agencies have. Brexit may be bad news for the EU bureaucracy, but it will be glad tidings for Britain and its (non-EU) friends within the international order. 

http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/4282-brexit-will-be-good-britain

‘Hindu terror’ part of Pak GHQ campaign against India (Sunday Guardian)

The effort to create the bogey of ‘Hindu terror’ was to ‘provide a camouflage net for the activities of domestic terror groups owing allegiance to ISI and also to make Muslims distrust Hindus’.

The $15 billion narcotics lobby in India was used by GHQ Rawalpindi to promote the concept of “Hindu terror”, sources close to that establishment aver. They say that “manufactured evidence was planted about such groups that were accepted at face value by Indian investigators at the time”. The effort to create the bogey of “Hindu terror” was to “provide a camouflage net for the activities of domestic terror groups owing allegiance to the ISI and also to make Muslims distrust Hindus”. Another objective was to make other countries “as suspicious of Indians as they were of Pakistanis”. 

However, creating the bogey of “Hindu terror” was only Strand 1 in the design of GHQ to “make the international community regard India and Pakistan as birds of a feather in matters of extremism and terror”. Strand 2 was to “sow suspicion and mistrust about Delhi in Tehran and Kabul”. It will be remembered that cooperation between the security establishments of Iran, Afghanistan and India is vital in order to defeat the designs of the ISI and its proxies against the three countries. Strand 3 was to show to China that “India was facilitating acts of terror against Chinese nationals operating in Pakistan”, thereby passing the blame for such actions from the security establishment in Pakistan, which is honeycombed with ultra-Wahhabis who believe in the establishment of an ISIS Caliphate across the subcontinent. Strand 4 was to ensure that the international community equates India with Pakistan as countries that sponsor terror, extremist and insurgent groups, thereby preventing India from leveraging the international community against Pakistan. 

These sources claim that “under the direction of Chief of Army Staff Raheel Sharif, all four strands are proceeding well”, even though Strand 1 (Hindu terror) appears to have hit rough weather with revelations of the flimsy nature of the charges against the alleged “Hindu terror” perpetrators. 

Establishment sources claim that General Raheel Sharif is working on “reversing the global perception that India is the victim and Pakistan the aggressor in the matter of fomenting terror and unrest”. This is being done by “getting India and Pakistan equated in the matter”. “This strategy (of painting India in the same colours as Pakistan was globally regarded) was worked on (by General Sharif) during his time heading the Pakistan military academy around a decade back”. 

General Sharif, according to these contacts, “asked for and got set up a special cell which collected information on Narendra Modi while he was Chief Minister in Gujarat”, as the present Prime Minister of India was identified as the likely successor to Manmohan Singh in 2014, in 2011 itself by the GHQ brains trust. It will be recalled that the ISI, which functions as per the direction of GHQ, expended considerable effort in seeking to damage the image of Narendra Modi in London, New York and Geneva through the instrumentality of NGOs set up for the purpose of blackening the global image of India, including Khalistan groups that have recently become hyper-active after years of relative somnolence. These NGOs were also given significant traction in Washington and other capitals through “logistical support” by individuals linked to the ISI. 

Sources within Pakistan claim that Kulbushan Yadav, accused by GHQ of being an R&AW agent, will only be the first in a long chain of those who are to be paraded globally as evidence that India is involved in destabilisation operations in Pakistan, “especially in seeking to do a Bangladesh in Balochistan and even in assisting terror groups active against the Pakistan state”. They say that nine individuals are now in the custody of the security agencies in Pakistan and they are being coached to come out with stories of Indian involvement, not only in Pakistan but in Iran and Afghanistan as well. They say that in the case of Kulbushan Yadav, “General Sharif personally briefed the Chinese that the Indian national was involved in seeking to blow up a lodge in Gwadar where Chinese technicians were staying and also seek to commit other acts of sabotage along the $45 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor”. The Ashraf Ghani government in Afghanistan “has been given dossiers (which purport to show) that India is keeping contact with and assisting elements of the Taliban, contrary to stated policy”, while Iran “has been given dossiers about Yadav using the territory of that country to assist the Baloch not only in Pakistan but in Iran as well”. Soon, “other (so-called) Indian agents will be outed and made to tell how they were active not only against Pakistan, but against China, Afghanistan and Iran as well”. 

The sources say that “by 2019, when the present term of Prime Minister Modi ends, the objective is to paint Delhi as South Asia’s leading state sponsor of terrorism and insurgency, far ahead of Rawalpindi on both counts”. Indeed, Pakistan Foreign Affairs Advisor Sartaj Aziz has publicly called India a “state sponsor of intervention”, including in giving support to terror groups. It is extremely unlikely that any of the unfortunates apprehended by the ISI is a genuine agent, as sources in Pakistan admit that “even the most elementary precautions (such as dead drops, cut-outs and personal meetings) were dispensed with in their operations”. However, the Pakistan side claims that such lack of precautions on the part of the supposed agents was motivated by “a desire for quick results as well as over-confidence”. 

Already, Islamabad has briefed ASEAN as well as GCC envoys about manufactured claims of “Indian interference and support to terror”, and after more so-called Indian agents get paraded, more such briefings are likely. In short, Pakistan is following to the letter the rulebook followed by India in the past while exposing the activities of GHQ. 

There has also been a ramping up of efforts to ensure a drumbeat of terror strikes in India during the coming two years, which are seen as crucial for the Modi government as it enters 2019, when Lok Sabha elections take place. No less than 13 suicide attacks have taken place in Kashmir since Modi became PM, and an organised effort is on to re-ignite insurgency in the Valley. Simultaneously, “clusters of Indian nationals are being organised in India and in other locations and given directions on what is needed to get done to poison communal relations in India”. It needs to be kept in mind that the ISI recruits from all communities for its activities in India, rather than just a single community. Indeed. “in Nepal, almost all the key ISI facilitators are Hindu”, many involved in the hawala trade, which, together with narcotics, is controlled in South Asia by the ISI.

GHQ is looking warily at Prime Minister Modi’s innovative approach towards diplomacy, and to his outreach towards Pakistan, China and the US. The nightmare scenario for the generals would be a closer military partnership with the US (through the signing of the three Foundation Accords) and ultimately a trillion-dollar commercial partnership with China, beginning with an India-China Economic Corridor that would cut through the Maoist belt across India with roadways and growth opportunities. Fortunately for GHQ, elements in the Indian strategic and security establishment remain wedded to the hyper-cautious approach of the past, and regard with disfavour the breakthrough in India-US and India-China relations that could take place before 2019, in case Prime Minister Modi is able to ensure that “naya soch” enters a system clogged with debris from the past. What is clear is that there is an organised effort by GHQ to blacken the international image of India, and that this is a process in which General Sharif has registered some success. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has lost much ground to the Chief of Army Staff, in large part because the US and China both favour the military rather than the civilian leadership, unlike India. 

The “masterstroke” being planned by GHQ, according to sources close to the establishment, is to pin the blame for the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) on India before 2019, thereby “further planting suspicions about India within the international community”. The coming years will show whether General Sharif will succeed or fail in his efforts at separating the US, Iran, Afghanistan and China from India through allegations that are a mirror image of the charges made against Pakistan by successive governments in Delhi.

http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/investigation/4307-hindu-terror-part-pak-ghq-campaign-against-india

NATO monopoly harms western security (Pakistan Observer)

Times change, and with that, so do policies. Except in the case of NATO, an alliance set up to counter the Soviet Union but which expanded rather than get disbanded when the world’s Communist superstate willingly collapsed. Bureaucracies seek to perpetuate themselves indefinitely, and it is small wonder that the NATO bureaucracy was reluctant to disband itself. The reality is that after Joseph Stalin, no leader of the USSR had the stomach to seriously challenge the NATO alliance militarily, even in the case of proxy conflicts, as that which took place in Afghanistan.

Nikita Khruschev had seen enough of the horrors of the 1941-45 war with Germany to make him averse to any risk of conflict, which is why he surrendered to President Kennedy over Cuba. His successor, Leonid Brezhnev, was even more phobic to military conflict on a large scale than Khruschev, and was careful throughout his decades in power to avoid situations where there could be a risk of conflict with the US and its allies, although of course he was fearless in the case of helpless states such as Czechoslovakia, just as his predecessors had been over Hungary, both of which were subdued by Soviet tanks in a matter of days.

After Chernenko and Andropov, who spent more time in hospitals than in the Kremlin, it was the turn of Mikhail Gorbachev, who conceded to the US and its allies almost all the gains won by Stalin during the 1941-45 conflict with Germany, retaining only a sliver of Poland taken over illegally in 1941. An army is as good as its fighting spirit, and as it was clear that there was zero possibility of a conflict with the USSR, a posting in NATO was as good as a well-paid holiday. While pretending to “defend the free world” while actually having a good life free of the risk of war, officers seconded to NATO naturally developed a strong vested interest in the continuance of the organisation. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992, President Clinton sided with those in his team who sought the total de-weaponisation of the rump Russian state.

Instead of accepting Boris Yeltsin’s pleas for an alliance, Clinton sought to denude Russia of its technological and military sinews, succeeding to a very substantial extent before generating the backlash which brought the nationalist Vladimir Putin to power. Had Bill Clinton done away with NATO in 1992,or allowed Moscow to join the organisation, global geopolitics would have changed. However, the Clinton thinktankers are gamblers, and they like to go for broke, to gran as much as they can, irrespective of the risk of failure. Aware that the size and brainpower of even the rump Russian state made it a potential rival, at the least to France and Germany, President Clinton kept Moscow out of the European Union, while he expanded NATO in a manner which clearly indicated that Russia was still the target of the alliance, irrespective of changes in the structure of governance of that nation. This error, of seeking to box in Russia rather than make it a military ally ,was among the numerous errors made by the Clinton team.

The reason why Team Clinton makes so many errors – and the pattern has been repeated by Hillary Clinton during her stint as Secretary of State – is that they take decisions in bits and pieces. They are swayed by a multitude of lobbies, so that policy gets sliced into small bits, each to feed a particular lobby. Such an approach is seen in the case of several national budgets, which are usually a compendium of concessions to individual groups packaged as an entirety. Had the Clintons taken a holistic view of the US national interest, rather than assume that this concept comprises of the interests of numerous lobbies stitched together, the policies of the Clinton administration would have been less toxic to the future than they have turned out to be.

The conversion of Russia into a rival rather than an ally was among the most egregious errors of the Clinton presidency, something that President Obama has to an extent sought to remedy, now that Hillary Clinton no longer runs US foreign policy. This process was significantly advanced because of the policy on NATO, which was to (a) retain its anti-Moscow focus, this time implicitly rather than explicitly and (b) expand the theatre of operations to continents such as Africa and Asia, rather than retain the Europe-centric view of the founders of the alliance. Both were errors of significant magnitude NATO has showcased its incapacity to win wars by failures in Afghanistan, Libya and elsewhere.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban and Al Qaeda have resurfaced, while ISIS has created pockets that are safe areas for the terror group. In Libya, the entire country has become a breeding ground for extremism, while NATO actions there and in Syria have resulted in a flood of migrants washing up at the shores of European states. These are the results of the Clinton technique of slicing an issue into smaller components and devising measures for each in isolation. Thus, in Libya, the fall of Muammar Kaddafy was planned independently of what needed to get down to prevent the vacuum from getting filled by extremists. Incidentally, a search will reveal that NATO gave assistance to groups and individuals who in their speeches and writings made no secret of their extremist linkages. This was because of the single-minded focus on removing Kaddafy, without a care as to the consequences.

It is precisely such a segmented approach to policy that Hillary Clinton brought to the Department of State, and will carry to the White House, should she jump over the controversies surrounding her and get elected. NATO needs to be an all-European alliance, and in like fashion, there need to be similar alliances in Africa and Asia, with local partners. The use of NATO in these continents needs to be avoided, and the responsibility for security needs to be in he hands of local players. The US needs to be involved with (an all-European) NATO as well as with the African and Asian variants of such a military alliance. The NATO monopoly over security needs to be eliminated, for the good of the western alliance itself .

— The writer is Vice-Chair, Manipal Advanced Research Group, UNESCO Peace Chair & Professor of Geopolitics, Manipal University, Haryana State, India.

http://pakobserver.net/2016/04/22/nato-monopoly-harms-western-security/

‘Saint’ Nitish and flamboyant Eknath (Sunday Guardian)

Matters such as the consumption of alcohol are best left to individual consciences, and should the state leap in, the results are certain to be disappointing.

Saintliness is everywhere. The latest example is that of Nitish Kumar, who is following in the footsteps of Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president, “Saint” V.M. Sudheeran in ensuring that bootleggers and smugglers thrive in Bihar, the way they soon will in Kerala. Matters such as the consumption of alcohol are best left to individual consciences, and should the state leap in, the results are certain to be disappointing. A couple of years from now, when illicit liquor gangs multiply their operations in Bihar and the state gets even more deficient in revenue than is the case at present, Nitish may reflect on the high cost of virtue to governance in the state, already in tatters because of the involvement of Lalu Yadav & Family in the administration. Indeed, the RJD leader seems to have left even that maestro of “keeping power in the family”, Muthuvel Karunanidhi, a bit behind in the number of relatives that he has inserted into prime slots. Of course, saintliness does not extend as far as giving up the mansions and other perquisites of power. Even while garlands get strewn at statues of Mahatma Gandhi, none within the political class aspire to follow the Mahatma in living in huts and going “third class” in trains, not even “Saint” Nitish. The odds are that the Bihar Chief Minister will follow the example of the prime saint in Indian politics, Arecaparambil Kurian Antony (Defence Minister under Manmohan Singh) and avoid controversy by the simple expedient of not taking any decision. In India, speed in decision-making often gets punished, extreme slowness—indeed, paralysis—never.

Of course, there are those in politics who make zero pretence of sainthood. They are in the game to enjoy a good life, and the more filled their existence is with goodies, the better. Despite the bad press that he has been receiving because of his addiction to helicopters, it must be said to the credit of Eknath Khadse that he has not hidden his love for luxury the way so many others in his politician tribe do, but has been open about living a life suffused with privilege. Of course, if Eknath Khadse is representative of politicians in Maharashtra (and indeed, the rest of India), it is unlikely that he would have even seen the inside of a car during the decades of youth. Even a Bajaj scooter may have been too much of a luxury, although presumably a bicycle would have been affordable to the Khadses. It would be later, as he ascended the ladders of office, that the Agriculture Minister of Maharashtra would have begun to suffer the mysterious disease of the legs that afflicts those in posts where luxury cars, fawning assistants and colonial bungalows become an everyday facet of existence. Had he a bit of political savvy, Eknath Khadse may have decided to go around the parched precincts of Latur by bicycle, or—given the fact that he is no longer a teenager—pillion on a motorcycle. However, once the worthies who get sworn in as ministers cross to that stage of advancement, to travel except by car or a yet more advanced means of locomotion becomes an ignoble act.

Indeed, many politicians have climbed to a yet more elevated perch, refusing to travel except by charter flights or helicopters. Such, for example, are the favoured modes of transport of Lalu Yadav, who has spent much of his life ensuring that he and his not inconsiderable family have reached a level of economic advancement that would place them in those income levels where comfort gives way to luxury and to waste. Mr Yadav is hardly an outlier in such an expansive—sorry, expensive—approach to life, indeed, his is the norm.

The lifestyles of the families of the politically powerful are, with rare exceptions, comparable to those who have acquired great wealth. The families of an Abdul Kalam or a Narendra Modi are the exceptions, remaining in the same circumstances as they were before their loved one reached the top of the protocol chain.

But why be harsh on Eknath Khadse? He may have wanted to walk to Latur from the nearest railhead, but were he to do so, would his family be able to bear the shame of a minister in their ranks actually using his legs for locomotion rather than as props while reclining in a ministerial chair? And what of Khadse’s followers? Would they not feel as though they were second-class citizens, especially when faced with the hangers-on of those who refuse to travel otherwise than by chartered flight or helicopter? After all, the minister has to keep up with others of his tribe who are the successors to the British colonial masters of India. It was no accident that Jawaharlal Nehru (a self-declared socialist) chose for himself the most palatial residence in Delhi after the Viceregal Palace (which he would have occupied, had it not been frequented by Louis and Edwina at the time). It was no accident that every one of the colonial laws and practices were adopted (a few with a modicum, of adaptation) by the “people’s representatives” who took over from the departing Brits.

Both the hypocrisy of “Saint” Nitish and the openly flamboyant lifestyle of Eknath Khadse have come to exemplify politicians in India ever since in 1947 one group of colonial masters got replaced with another.

http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/4165-saint-nitish-and-flamboyant-eknath 

Trump & Sanders face lobbyist fire (Pakistan Observer)

Geopolitical notes from India

M D Nalapat

HIS front-runner status has generated a barrage of attack ads against Republican Party Presidential hopeful Donald J Trump. Each of these is anchored in claims that the public interest is what motivates such publicity, and that the US would lose ground were the real estate mogul to get sworn in as Head of State and Government of the world’s most consequential country on January 20, 2017.

In reality the primary “sufferers” would be the phalanxes of lobbyists that infest Washington. Some of these are directly affiliated to either the Democratic or the Republican Party, but most are ambidextrous, ensuring continuing relevance no matter which party makes it to the White House. They are assisted in this by the governance system in the US, which segments and distributes power between different branches of the state, such as the US Senate, the White House, the Supreme Court and the House of Representatives. Other power centres include corporate and financial interests, as well as a variety of specific lobbying groups that over time have cultivated cosy relationships (usually under the surface) with both major political parties and their hangers on. Their nightmare is in the form of two individuals who are for the present at least impervious to the influence of lobbying groups.

In ensuring a firewall between Big Money special interests and themselves, Bernie Sanders is a bit ahead of Donald Trump, who has off and on been given the attention of lobbying groups seeking to tap into his dirigible-sized public persona. However, the problem they face is that Trump has both money and influence of his own, lots of it, and has, therefore, the potential to be resistant to the wiles and lures of lobbyists in a manner not possible for Hillary Clinton or Ted Cruz, the other major contestants in the race for nomination as Presidential candidate of either the Republican or the Democratic Party.

While it is understandable that the Republican hopefuls would be going slow on their barbs at the Clinton Foundation, what is less so is the way in which Bernie Sanders has given Hillary Clinton almost a free pass on the issue. The Clintons are a single political entity, taking decisions together, and this was clear during the period when the former First Lady was Secretary of State. This at a time when huge dollops of money were accruing on a regular basis to the Clinton Foundation (as well as in the form of speaking fees and other payments) from locations that had a direct interest in the direction of US foreign policy. Perhaps entirely might be coincidence, the policy pursued by Secretary of State Clinton in the Mideast matched perfectly with the requirements of Riyadh and Doha.

The record shows that Washington was lockstep behind Qatar and Saudi Arabia, whether this be the removal from office of Muammar Kaddafi in Libya and his replacement with a regime steeped in the traditions of Wahabbism, or an effort to push Bashar al-Assad down the same road as the Libyan dictator was made helpless by his own destruction of WMD on the request of the very powers that subsequently took the lives of himself and all but one of his sons. The Secretary of State using an email account that was accessible to officials of a foundation that was the recipient of billions of dollars of foreign money, constituted a security risk to US interests that this far does not appear to have been intensively examined, perhaps because President Obama does not wish to damage his former Secretary of State’s chances of becoming his successor.

Donald Trump is spending his own money in the Presidential primary, and this makes him unique among the other candidates. Ted Cruz has, through his spouse, links with the financial conglomerates that helped cause the 2008 financial crash which saw the demise of NATO-bloc dominance in global geopolitics. As for Hillary Clinton, she has made no secret of the act that millions of dollars have been paid to her and Bill Clinton by such conglomerates. In the case of Bernie Sanders, the Senator from Vermont has shown a disregard for riches that is almost totally absent in US politics, which as in some other democracies, is entirely about making money for oneself, family and friends through the use of state power and influence. A contest between Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders would represent an entirely different choice to US voters than a match-up between two Goldman Sachs favourites, Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton.

However, precisely for this reason, efforts are intensifying to ensure that Trump and Sanders lose steam. Daily, there have been attack ads against Trump, usually filled with innuendo, while in the case of Sanders, the reason why these are not so common is the view that he will lose to Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Presidential primary contests. Should this take place, a heavy chunk of the blame would fall on Sanders himself, because he has shown himself too much of a country gentleman to match the aggression of his opponent. The Clintons are political fighters of the most superior kind, and across the years, have perfected a political machine that is expert at deciphering what the voters want to hear and in ensuring that contests be won. It is a tribute to Bernie Sanders and to the innate decency of the US voter that the Vermont politician has survived this far.

Had this columnist a vote in the US primary, he would have backed Trump over Cruz in the Republican primary and Sanders over Clinton in the other. The US needs a Head of State and Government who is as free of lobbyists as Sanders is, or even Trump has the potential to be. In healthcare, ensuring access to cheap drugs at the expense of Big Pharma would work wonders for the budget, while in matters of security, delinking from big money interests in the Mideast would help make the US and the globe more secure.

The policy of relying on religious extremists to carry out tactical and strategic objectives on behalf of the US and its partners has run its course, and needed to have been discontinued after 9/11, rather than revived during 2003 in Iraq and later in 2011 to terminate Kaddafi. The best hope of such a pragmatic policy vests in Bernie Sanders or even Donald Trump following the telegenic and likeable Obama clan into the White House. Rather than the paid views of lobbyists, what US policymakers need to give preference to, is the need of US citizens for a government that treats them fairly.

—The writer is Vice-Chair, Manipal Advanced Research Group, UNESCO Peace Chair & Professor of Geopolitics, Manipal University, Haryana State, India.

http://pakobserver.net/2016/04/15/trump-sanders-face-lobbyist-fire/

Clinton holdovers seek to derail Modi-Obama outreach (Sunday Guardian)

By MADHAV NALAPAT | NEW DELHI | 10 April, 2016

The US nuclear disarmament lobby has begun a drumbeat of criticism of India at the same time as it’s praising Pak.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has walked the extra mile to demonstrate his government’s sincerity towards even the more restrictive interpretations of the Bush-Manmohan nuclear agreement that was agreed upon in 2005. Early in 2015, India issued an FAQ to clarify points in the CNLD (Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage) Act passed by Parliament. This ensured that the Indian operator, Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL), would agree to waive supplier’s liability voluntarily, thereby opening the doors to investment by US companies in the nuclear sector. Subsequently, an international convention, which leaves the liability question in the open, was signed in the form of the Convention on Supplementary Compensation (CSC), an agreement that in the view of some experts is contrary to some of the provisions of the CNLD Act. In its efforts at building a new paradigm in India-US relations, the Narendra Modi government has shown political courage in being very accommodating of US and other international requests for information and visits to nuclear installations, so as to demonstrate good faith before the international community to an extent not done by any other nuclear weapons state (NWS) or by India till this period. 

Given the fact that a single megawatt of nuclear power costs far more (around Rs 25 crore on a conservative estimate) than an equivalent quantum of solar (Rs 9 crore) or thermal energy (Rs 6 crore), with costs for both the latter duo declining at the same time as the cost of nuclear power installations is rising, several experts question the need for significant investments in nuclear power plants manufactured abroad. They say this makes little sense when India itself has mastered the capability of setting up plants of 1 Gigawatt size and has the potential to export this technology to friendly countries. However, in deference to international sensibilities, thus far the export market has not been seriously looked at by the Modi government. Indeed, India has gone the extra mile in assuaging concerns on fossil fuel utilisation by signing COP21 and declaring carbon emission targets despite a minuscule volume of per capita emissions. This means that the reporting requirements to international agencies (controlled by countries with much higher per capita carbon emission levels) have gone up significantly. However, in order to show that India is no longer a problem in the matter of battling climate change but part of the solution, Prime Minister Modi has voluntarily affixed India’s seal to global agreements on climate change, after decades of this country being an outlier in such matters. Interestingly, the global climate has risen by 1 degree Celsius since 1870 and another 1 degree will be added by just two countries, the US and China, in the coming decades. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has invested substantially in his relationship with US President Barack Obama, and the omens are bright that transformational India-US agreements will get signed before the US President fades away into retirement next January. However, for such a trajectory to be maintained, it will be needed for Barack Obama to retain the autonomy from Bill and Hillary Clinton’s policies that he has shown in much of his second term, especially in matters relating to Cuba and Iran. However, so far as India is concerned, there are disquieting signs that the Clinton machine is tightening its grip over the White House. The non-proliferation bureaucracy in Washington is among the agencies heavily infused with Clinton-era holdovers, most of whom are negative towards India and still seek to ensure that this country give up its nuclear and missile programme. After being de-hyphenated during the period in office of President George W. Bush, US President Barack Obama appears to have reverted to the Bill Clinton policy of linking Delhi and Islamabad within the same bracket, including in the nuclear field. The US President’s equating of India and Pakistan in the field of nuclear security underscores the return of Clinton-style policies towards India and Pakistan in place of the recent trends towards acknowledging that the trajectories of the two subcontinental neighbours are very different. Interestingly, the US nuclear disarmament lobby has begun a drumbeat of criticism of India at the same time as it is praising Pakistan for its nuclear safety record, with even Obama praising the Pakistan Prime Minister for making the nuclear programme safer and under international protocols. 

Meanwhile, there have been multiplying reports, including on alleged weaknesses of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), the force protecting India’s nuclear plants. 

At present, the expectation that India would soon get admitted to the MTCR, the Wassenaar Agreement, the Australia Group and the NSG appear to be fading. Even the two countries that have signed nuclear agreements with India (Japan and Australia) have thus far seemingly not moved towards further steps in the matter, despite more than a year having gone by. In another field, that of pharmaceuticals, there are efforts to get Delhi to dilute its stand on compulsory licensing and “ever greening” so as to benefit big pharma companies in the US and Europe at the expense of hundreds of millions of the world’s poor. As for corporate India, it is groggy with debt and stressed assets, thereby becoming easy prey for foreign funds looking for discount purchases of Indian industry. Prime Minister Modi is working hard to ensure that those responsible for siphoning off bank funds into offshore accounts be brought to justice, and it is expected that several arrests and prosecutions will take place in the coming months on this score. 

Overall, prospects for a transformation in India-US relations despite numerous false starts in the past remain bright, especially in view of Prime Minister Modi’s commitment to innovative diplomacy designed to tap the global geopolitical synergies available to India. However, for such a change to take effect, President Obama will need to recover his autonomy in decision-making, and return to his efforts at changing the India-US relationship in a way that makes the two largest democracies form allies in a world filled with dangers common to both. 

http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/news/4109-clinton-holdovers-seek-derail-modi-obama-outreach

Bring back secular practices in Kashmir (Sunday Guardian)

The people of J&K seek an opportunity to improve their own lives, and this can take place only if secularism once again becomes a dominant lifestyle choice.

Religious exclusivism and supremacy are antithetical to the concept of secularism, which has as its guiding principle the absence of discrimination between those belonging to different faiths. Those societies and territories where those belonging to a particular faith are given advantages by state policy over others are anti-secular and need to be exposed as such. In India, there has been constant talk about “secular values” and a “secular identity”. There exists an army of commentators who regard it as their duty to protect secularism in our country from enemies real or imagined. However, few of this flock have looked at a state in India where secularism is almost on its deathbed. This is Jammu & Kashmir, specifically the Valley of Kashmir, from where, since the 1990s, not only has there been a steady increase in the extent of Wahhabi influence, but a decrease to insignificance of the minority communities in J&K in the valley. Those few who remain are in constant fear of their lives, and seek to conceal their religious identification lest they become the target of a murderous attack. Houses of worship belonging to the main minority community in the state have almost all been destroyed in the Kashmir valley, again to silence from those who claim to uphold secular principles. Neither in India nor abroad is there even a cursory mention of the fact that the secular principles of the republic have been steadily destroyed over the past four decades in a key state of the union, indeed a state where those in authority consistently pose as the votaries of secularism. 

What took place at the NIT campus in Srinagar is every bit as deplorable as the actions of the Delhi police on the JNU campus, after B.S. Bassi took the decision to make Kanhaiya Kumar an international hero by sending him to jail for a few comments made in a speech in a somewhat excitable tone of voice and gesture. However, neither have those who supported or who opposed Kanhaiya Kumar been at all vocal about the brutal manner in which innocent students on that campus were belaboured by policemen. Their “crime” was apparently the raising of the Indian Tricolour. The question that needs to be answered is whether the police in J&K believe themselves to be in India or in Pakistan, for if they are aware that they are in India, it was incomprehensible that students were abused and beaten up for simply displaying the Tricolour, an activity which is the right of every citizen of India since Naveen Jindal won Supreme Court approval for such a right in 2004. Thus far, there does not seem to have been any action taken against the policemen involved in the assault on the Tricolour-waving NIT students. Such pusillanimity on the part of the J&K government (in which the BJP plays a significant part) will only encourage Wahhabi elements in the valley to multiply their endeavours to create a distinct contra-secular ethos and culture in the state, or at the least, in the valley. The more powerful the Wahhabis are in that state, the less the chance that it will actualise its immense potential as a knowledge and travel hub for the world. Because of the intellectual qualities of the Kashmiri people, including the community which has been driven out of the valley since the 1990s, global R&D centres can potentially be established throughout the state, making it an export hub for Information Technology-enabled services. 

Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti visits Delhi frequently, and much of the time seems to be spent in seeking grants and loans from the Central government. The proud people of Jammu & Kashmir do not seek charity, they seek an opportunity to improve their own lives, and this can take place only if secularism once again becomes the dominant lifestyle choice in the state. Whatever the religion of a citizen, he or she ought to have the same rights and treatment from the state. 

There should be zero discrimination on the basis of religion, including in the matter of recruitment and promotion in the numerous agencies of the state government. The people of Kashmir have been steeped in Kashmiriyat, which is the same as Insaniyat. However, especially since the 1990s, this gentle culture is being replaced by a growing acceptance of Wahhabism in significant sections of the society in the state, especially in that most enchanting of locations, the Kashmir valley. Globally, there is a reaction against Wahhabism, mainly because of the fact that several groups owing allegiance to that exclusivist and supremacist ideology have taken to violence in a manner which resembles the cruelty of the National Socialist German Workers Party in 1932-45 Germany. Over the past months, for the first time in a long while, forests of Pakistan flags have sprouted in parts of Kashmir, while—again for the first time since the 1990s—the funeral processions of Pakistan-trained terrorists have been accompanied not any more by dozens but by hundreds of people. These are not signs of improving societal health. Rather, they are symptoms of the reality of a tightening of the grip of Wahhabi interests in the state. During the latter half of the 1980s, especially following the Gul Shah episode, a similar rise in fundamentalism stealthily took root, causing incalculable damage later. 

This time around, before the problem reaches the levels seen at that time, those who value secularism need to get active in Kashmir so that the march within the state of the Wahhabi impulse gets replaced by the spread of the moderate philosophies that are far closer to the traditional spirit of the Kashmiri people.

 

http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/4071-bring-back-secular-practices-kashmir