Being Realistic About Kashmir

More than 100 civilians have been killed in the last 3 months as Kashmir boils in a fury that we have not seen in recent times. There is a clear revolt in the streets of the Valley and we must face it – it is not a Pakistani plot but led by enraged young men and women. No party has any idea on how to quell the violence and the state bleeds as violent protests and demonstrations paralyze it. The National Conference demands autonomy, the Congress prefers status quo (something that Narasimha Rao had elevated to an art) while BJP wants to crush the revolt.

Omar Abdullah has not gained any brownie points for his governmental incompetence – but seriously, would changing the Chief Minister make any difference? When the State is besieged by rebellions throughout the year and the administration is left to the army, can the CM change things? You could argue that only a man in touch with the Kashmiri common man can make a difference; but then this is just as true for any political leader in this country. Those who think that Farooq Abdullah would have done a better job, better think twice – are we talking about one of the men who was responsible for the 1987 poll rigging in Kashmir, a turning point in its politics?

Everyone knows the history of Kashmir – the fact that state which may have become independent or part of Pakistan is now in India primarily because Maharaja Hari Singh agreed to cede to India in order to protect his kingdom from Pakistani tribal warlords. But that was 63 years back and we still have not been able to resolve the Kashmir issue that rocks every conference where India and Pakistan try to sit and talk to each other. No one has a magic wand to resolve it and all the smart alecs who talk about giving solutions are living in a fool’s paradise.

The Government’s announcement of 50,000 jobs and the creation of a panel to study the creation of more jobs are small efforts that are taken with a pinch of salt in the Valley. The economic package will only work with a proper political one but then India has never won any fans for its dismal and insensitive handling of provincial challenges. The strategy never changes – whether it is Kashmir, North-East or Punjab; the Centre props up a few leaders, buys or bullies its way through other factions and finds itself in a position where it is stuck in a Catch-22 situation.

The 2002 elections were a starting point of a change in the ground realities in Kashmir. Elections were held and there was wide participation by the people; the extremist groups slowly started losing their hold on the masses and there was a hope that moderate groups like the Hurriyat can be brought into the administration. Negotiations with moderates like Sajjad Lone, Yasin Malik and Mirwaiz Farooq were attempted but all this has come to nought in the past couple of years. New Delhi must take most of the blame for dilly-dallying and not doing enough to rope in moderates and allowing hardliners like Geelani to call the shots once again.

Currently, the biggest stumbling block is the controversial AFSPA – the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA), which was passed on September 11, 1958. It conferred special powers upon armed forces in "disturbed areas" in the states of North-East and was later extended to Jammu and Kashmir in July 1990. The Defence establishment is not very keen on repealing this abused act and though most political parties (except the BJP) are keen to repeal it or at least dilute it in Kashmir, no decision has been taken on it.

AFSPA was meant to be used under special conditions but unfortunately, a draconian act like the Act can never serve its purpose for long. There is no doubt that the AFSPA is the biggest obstacle in trying to bring immediate peace – we must do away with it in totality or at least gradually – and release important political prisoners. Today’s Kashmir is not what it was in the 90s – foreign influence is on the wane and the state election turnout has been very positive. Kashmir needs a proper civilian government and the government has to be run through proper political administration and not by the military.

The State police force needs to handle the ground job and get the army only to protect its borders. The Armed Forces are not equipped to handle law and order problems and you cannot justify using them against your own people. As the death toll rises in clashes between the armed forces and the protesters, witness the reaction to other protests like the Jats going berserk in Haryana. They did much more damage than the stone pelters in Kashmir but no army was brought in; it was left to the police to settle things and there were no deaths reported due to police firing.

In the last one year, India has lost ground majorly and allowed separatists to make a comeback. Knee-jerk reactions like banning SMSs, pre-paid mobile connections, media and cable channels will only increase the burning rage; the State must learn to respect the civil society and safeguard its rights. Today, there are powerful forces demanding a trifurcation of the main regions of the state – Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh – into separate administrative units but this is dangerous.

While the onus is primarily on the State and Central Government to understand the Kashmir psyche, it is also high time for Kashmiris to be realistic about their options. Are choices like independence, autonomy or alignment with Pakistan workable?

Azaadi is a utopian dream; there is no way any self-respecting country can relinquish land mindful of the geographical and political complexities of the place. Kashmiris would be foolish to believe that they can survive independently surrounded by India, China and Pakistan. Independence will only encourage the likes of Taliban to try to wrestle their way through to occupy the Valley, with tacit support of Pakistan and China, thus creating another Afghanistan like situation. Kashmir is not about the majority Muslims alone; ask the minority Kashmiri Pandits (who have been victims of ethnic cleansing making them homeless) and Sikhs and they would be happier to be aligned with India.

Bad governance is a malaise that is present everywhere in the country. Police excesses, administrative apathy and corruption have corroded India everywhere and this is not a Kashmir specific problem. The Indian bureaucracy has treated Kashmiris no better and no worse than they’ve treated the rest of India. Will throwing out the Indian element of the administration cure that? I doubt that.

Autonomous Kashmir can be a way out but then isn’t the Indian Government answerable to the rest of the nation too? If Kashmir can be autonomous, why not Tamil Nadu or Manipur or Gujarat? Historical and cultural differences are hardly significant to treat Kashmir separately – those reasons are applicable to just about any other state in India. Doesn’t Article 370 give Kashmir a special significance which we don’t have? Kashmiris need to be convinced that they are governed by somebody from among them and not a candidate whose strings are being pulled by the Centre. What we need is greater decentralization and that is the need in every state and not just Kashmir but again this is not specific to Kashmir alone; local level empowerment and devolution of power can help in making a more federal India.

Aligning with Pakistan is not a very popular option now even for Kashmir. PoK is miles away from any autonomy while Mohajirs are second class people in Pakistan. Hardliners like Alam Bhat and Asiya Andrabi may want to be a part of Pakistan but they are perceived by most Kashmiris as fundamentalists who do not understand Kashmir and its soul. But the political environment is changing; the pan-Islamic identity of the Kashmir struggle is slowly gaining ground. In the last 2 years, the moderates find themselves more and more sidelines and separatist leaders like Geelani have started calling the shots again.

Historical prejudices are hard to resolve but then if we start trying to correct every perceived historical wrong, there is no end to it. LoC is a reality that we better accept; there is no scope for ambiguity – Kashmir is an integral part of India and this is the only way forward. Improving on the existing reality is critical but ignoring the very ground reality is foolishness...

Image Courtesy - http://www.twocircles.net/2010aug16/tcn_cartoon_kashmiri_leadership.html

Don't ignore Irom Sharmila

Identify this photo. You will not be able to do so; even if I were to give her name, you will not be able to recognize her. She has also not made it to the front cover of tabloids like the Times of India and would continue to remain this way as an example of our lack of concern for “the fringes”. Mamta Banerjee went on a hunger strike recently but called it off after 25 days after high level intervention while this frail lady has been fasting for the past six years and the only thing that has happened so far is that she has been arrested repeatedly for attempted suicide but no attempts have been made to address the main issue.

Irom Sharmila, 35, has been on a hunger strike since November 2000 protesting against the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act 1958 (AFSPA) in Manipur which gives the Armed Forces draconian powers, worse than even in TADA or POTA . AFSPA is a law that can come into force in any part of India, declared as “disturbed”. The act allows anyone of any rank in the army or a paramilitary force under its operational command to shoot, arrest or search without warrant; and to kill on suspicion alone. Furthermore, there is little scope for judicial remedy. The legislation defines 'disturbed' as an area which requires the aid of the armed forces, without spelling out criteria. This has led to states being declared 'disturbed' for years — Nagaland for 46 years and Manipur (Sharmila’s state) for 24.

Her epic fast started six years back when the Army, in retaliation to an insurgent attack, went berserk and shot dead 10 civilians. From then till now, Sharmila has been observing a fast against the repeal of this act but to no avail. Instead she’s been arrested on charges of attempted suicide and put into custody repeatedly without granting bail. She has also been nose-fed forcibly to prevent her fast. Her frail 35 year old body has grown extremely weak but she continues to stand firm in the true spirit of Gandhigiri.

The Central Government had constituted a high level official panel under Justice BP Jeevan Reddy Committee to review the provisions of AFSPA. The Commission, in its 147 page report, in June 2005,stated that the protection of soldiers from legal proceedings already existed under Section 49 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (ULP Act) and unambiguously recommended repealing the law. However, the Central Government has been sitting on the report since then and the Defence Minister A K Antony recently stated that the law will not be repealed but will be made more “humane”.

This law has been in force for almost 50 years now but this has not led to any insurgency reduction in the North-East. If after all these years, the Government refuses to look at this matter as a social and political problem and tries to flex military power to address the problem, it reflects poorly on the State. This lack of progress should have spurned the Government to abandon it rather than stand by it but it stubbornly refuses to engage with the political leadership of the insurgent groups and continues with its one-dimensional thinking.

We are quite proud of our democratic setup and do not hesitate to emphasise this when we compare ourselves to China but isn't it shocking that we have such archaic laws which infringe upon our human rights. The Government is least bothered and is not willing to invest time and energy on such minor issues because it believes that there are several other pressing issues to be taken care of. The indifference is quite appalling and Amnesty International and the United Nations Human Right Committee have expressed their concern over India on its continuation of denial of democracy.

The Indian Army is too much of a holy cow to be criticized, so any excesses done are painted as “counter insurgency operations” and the people who condemn such incidents are “leftists” or “pseudo-intellectuals” who do not understand ground realities. This allegation may be true in many cases but we need to be self-critical and not always gung-ho about our systems – this is an important activity on our growth as a democracy that cares for people.

But then has the North-East ever been on the radar of either the media or the administration? It stands alienated at some corner of the country, abandoned by the State and the elite and let down by the liberals. The North-East has never meant to us anything more than maybe a Bhupen Hazarika, a Danny or a Baichung Bhutia .There have been thousands of deaths (reported and unreported) but our concern or rather lack of concern for the “fringe people” – that was what we have reduced them to- is rather shameful.

There’s a media blind spot towards issues affecting the North-East and therefore anything to the north of Bengal has become of no concern to the rest of the country. We look at it in the form of a nuisance value being created by a set of rag tag guerillas, supported by an “invisible foreign hand”, merely out to foment trouble in the country. After all, when the country is making giant strides, why would you care for people going over insignificant fasts in alien parts of the country?

Thomas Friedman refers to the world as a flat entity but as Noble Prize winner Joseph Steiglitz says in his interview to The Hindu recently, “...not only is the world not flat but in many ways it's getting less flat”. The difference between the haves and the have-nots increases, so while the Government focuses on greater economic policies, it forgets that social and economic factors must never be looked at in isolation and a lot of social problems crop up due to economic disparities. Let us not look at human rights as a dispensable commodity which can be negotiated when the time arrives; that would be a failure of the idea of a "Welfare State".

We have just welcomed the New Year with a great deal of pomp and joy but as we sit in our AC cubicles and drawing rooms, let us spare a minute for the likes of Irom Shamila and others who are waging their own lone battles against the State. The fight for basic human survival is universal and we must support it wholeheartedly.

Riding the Chinese Dragon

A few days back I watched Karan Thapar’s show “India Tonight” on CNBC-TV 18 which discussed Indo-China relations and the presence of Tibet in our “cold” relationship. It set me thinking as to why despite all this hype about our catching up with China’s economic growth, we act like a “banana republic” ( that maybe harsh but that's a more emotional statement) in our foreign and political affairs. The two most crowded countries in the world cannot sit across the table as equals because we act in such a subservient fashion with the Chinese.

China’s supreme dictator. Hu Jintao, recently stepped on the Indian shores and a few days before that, we heard not-so subtle statements, emanating from Beijing, on Arunachal Pradesh and Tibet. And what is our response? We issue a press statement reiterating that Arunachal is an integral part of India but do not even reprimand the Chinese ambassador, Sun Yuxi, who told Indian television last week: "The whole of what you call the state of Arunachal Pradesh is Chinese territory, and Tawang is only one place in it, and we are claiming all of that." How diplomatic can an ambassador get and how pacifist can we be?

The position of Tawang, on the flanks of the Tibetan plateau, and its cultural affinity to Lhasa are at the root of a decades-old dispute between India and China. Historically, China says, the region was part of outer Tibet. Today it is part of the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh - but China lays claim to it in its entirety.

India's Foreign Minister tersely responded by reiterating that Arunachal Pradesh was an "integral part of India". The Chinese say that Tawang is a part of Tibet and since Tibet belongs to them, by extension of that logic, they have control over the place. Thousands of monks stay there as they try to sustain its unique culture from being marauded by imperialistic designs of Mainland China.

One of the primary tenets of democracy is the right to dissent peacefully but democratic India decided, last week, that this is dispensable. First, the police ordered Friends of Tibet activist, Tenzin Tsundue, to stay put in Dharamsala until Hu Jintao returned to Beijing. Then, the police asked Tibetan exiles to stay away from the city centre, fearing them to be a security threat - “Atithi Satkar” of the highest level that will surely make the Chinese happy.

Not only has the Indian Govt. accepted the Chinese claim of recognizing Tibet as a part of China, but it is also bending backwards to make them feel at home. Should a democracy like ours stoop to such levels to curb the rights of civil society, from protesting against Chinese aggression? Just imagine - I can protest against Manmohan Singh and Co. in New Delhi but not against Hu and his mandarins.

Our foreign policy follows a simple policy of status quo. Therefore, we neither do anything remotely out of the box nor stand up for anything (WTO was an exception) for fear of ruffling feathers. This does not bode well for a country standing on the threshold of world leadership and desiring to stand up for developing nations.

When ex-Defence minister, George Fernandes, proclaimed China as India’s “Enemy No. 1” a few years back, he was echoing the truth. But he was pilloried for raising the China bogey unnecessarily (India Today’s headline was “George in the China Shop”). While Beijing goes about wooing Africa and the rest of the world, building rail links with Tibet, supplying arms to Pakistan and fanning anti-India sentiments in Burma and Bangladesh, the Indian polity rests in peace, unaware of the changing geo-political realities that are dictating various foreign policies world-wide. We have no policy on Kashmir even after all these years, no idea how to tackle Bangladesh population infiltration and a total ignorance on the problems in the North-East.

Our home grown communists’ romance with China, however, continues despite all these “friendly overtures” by China. They are quick to pounce upon any human right violations of the rest of the world but silent when it comes to the Chinese. Our comrades refuse to break from the umbilical cord joining them to China, though there has not been any reciprocation of such interests from the other side. Wonder what Comrade VS and Comrade Hu have in common? Beijing has shed all pretensions of Marxism and gone capitalistic in a big way but messers Raja and Yechury continue to go gung-ho about communism.

Despite all their evident economic progress, China has a morally bankrupt leadership. It has built its wealth on the altar of thousands of coffins, without shedding tears for any of them. It is among the fastest growing economies but is also the world leader in death penalties with a conviction record of about 99%.A country that is so heartless that it steamrolls tanks to mow down thousands of its students, when they protest, cannot bring peace in the world.

I found this article in the Amnesty International Site (dated May 2003) which mentions that in an effort to improve cost-efficiency, Chinese provincial authorities have introduced mobile execution vans and the article goes on to give the advantages of this system over general execution systems!!! Economies of scale in mass murder!!! It would have been funny if it were just not so tragic and perverse.

It’s not just India but the entire world that stops shy of dictating terms to them. In business circles, Walmart, the world’s largest company, had to bow down to official dictates in China and allow the creation of trade unions there (their only trade union in the world). Google, the champion of free information, had to submit itself to censorship and remodel itself to survive in China.

Despite the Dalai Lama’s popularity and the entry of celebrities espousing the cause of Tibet, the movement is losing its steam and His Holiness has himself toned down his demand from “independence” to “autonomy” for the region. Its human rights violations may hog headlines occasionally but it has not stopped the Chinese juggernaut from rolling and crushing all its detractors on its way to capitalistic freedom.

Hu’s next stop is Pakistan where he’s expected to further the nuclear relations between the two countries by announcing the sale of nuclear reactors to them. The West knows this but remains a passive spectator while continuing to urge India to maintain restraint (as if we needed someone to say that). The American electorate did to Bush what the Iraqis could not but who will stop the Communist Party of China's hegemonistic plans???

Wonder if I am a bit too paranoid about the entire thing. The Chinese have a strong leadership unlike us and so I fear they may succeed. God forbids that this will be emulated else where as a workable administration model....

To Hang or not to Hang???

A young lawyer from Delhi, a Kashmiri militant and an Iraqi leader – nothing in common among themselves until very recently but now their fates are linked by the Hangman’s noose and a slender ray of hope. All of them have been convicted of different kinds of crimes and sentenced to the gallows. The circumstances relating to their punishment and their crime is quite different but most people agree with the verdicts decided in all the three cases ;what is not consensual is the sentence which has been given. These sentences have once again brought into focus the debate on capital punishments.

Afzal Guru, the militant, has been sentenced to death for his role in the attack on the Indian Parliament – an attack which not only disturbed the Indo-Pak peace talks (arguably) but also struck at the centre of India’s authority. It is a crime that we all agree deserves to be punished and other than his immediate family and supporters, there are no takers on his innocence (that aspect is of course beyond the scope of this post). Afzal has himself not asked for mercy; it is only the human rights groups have asked for clemency (wrongly reported in parts of the press as seeking pardon).

Santosh Singh, currently a lawyer in Delhi, had been stalking a young girl Priyadarshini Matoo for a long time before he finally raped and killed her. He was acquitted by a Sessions Court Judge saying that though he knows he’s guilty he cannot be punished due to the lack of evidence produced by the police and prosecution. The media uproar and the subsequent public outcry lead to the case being reopened at the higher court where he has now been convicted. He has been awarded “death penalty” for a crime which does not fit into the “rarest of cases”.

Saddam Hussain faced trial for his role in the slaughter of Shiites in 1982 in Dujail, in retaliation for the failed assassination attempt on him. The case was dogged by controversies right from the beginning. Two of Saddam’s lawyers were killed while the first judge quit. He was not given enough time and space to prepare his defence. Ironically, the conviction would have been welcomed had it followed proper legal and moral protocols and been conducted under the auspices of an international tribunal. The timing of the verdict – just before the Senate polls – and the judge’s conspicuous animosity towards the accused has also raised questions on the fairness of the trial.

The vast majority of democratic countries in Europe and Latin America have abolished capital punishment over the last fifty years, but United States, most democracies in Asia, and almost all totalitarian governments retain it. As per Amnesty International's latest figures, a total of 129 countries (including Canada, Mexico, Australia, Russia, South American nations and most European nations) have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. Of these, 88 countries and territories have abolished the death penalty for all crimes, 11 countries have abolished the death penalty for all but exceptional crimes (such as wartime crimes) and 30 countries can be considered abolitionist in practice, i.e., they retain the death penalty in law but have not carried out any executions for the past ten years or more and are believed to have a policy or established practice of not carrying out executions. Though 68 countries retain and use the death penalty, the number of countries which actually execute prisoners in any one-year is much smaller. In 2005, 94 percent of all known executions took place in China, Iran, the USA and Saudi Arabia (US and Iran on the same stage, interesting, right?)

Beyond the statistics, we need to ask ourselves what is the purpose of the death penalty?

--Is it to remove from society someone who would cause more harm?
-- Is it to remove from society someone who is incapable of rehabilitation?
-- Is it to deter others from committing murder?
-- Is it to punish the criminal?
-- Is it to take retribution on behalf of the victim?

Death is not merely a legal undertaking but has a strong social, religious and moral angle to it. It is not just priests or saints who look at birth and death as God’s handiwork; many of us also do so. There is also a strong religious notion that the act of suffering has a purifying effect on the human spirit allowing for salvation in God. The concept of death as a retribution for the sins committed is slowly losing ground. It has been argued that the person must be given an opportunity to repent for his sins and so death cannot be the way out. Is the idea behind a punishment to reform the person or to set an example in the society? Probably both and we need a more humane solution.

Death penalty supporters argue that it is a powerful deterrent to crime but there are no statistics to support this assertion. If death penalty were a proper deterrent, there would have been a reduction in crimes in such places and eventually their number would die out because the crime rate would have fallen to such an extent. On the contrary, these penalties seem to be on a rise in several countries, undermining the very rationale given for it. Death penalty sentences in India have been on the rise lately compared to the almost non-existent cases in the 60s and 70s. These are supposed to be given in the rarest of cases as per the Supreme Court ruling in 1983 but there’s a danger of the judiciary becoming “trigger free” in handing out capital punishments, especially under greater media glare (The Santosh Singh case is a clear example of that). Moreover, terrorist crimes, serial killer crimes or crimes of passion are not dictated by pure logic, so the rationale of using death as a deterrent does not work.

The next argument is one of infallibility of judgment and the irrevocability of the death sentence. The Liebman Report in 2000, concluding a 23-year study conducted by Columbia University, USA, found that 68% of all death sentences awarded were reversed due to serious legal error. In countries like India where the judiciary is over-burdened and cases drag on for years, would it be a surprise if the number of judicial errors is high. If a person is executed because of miscarriage of justice which is subsequently discovered the extinguished life cannot be restored. An innocent life lost due to callousness on the part of the law would be too heavy a price to pay.

Finally, at a slightly more emotional level, just think about the executioner who has to carry out the death penalty. It’s a profession which caries with itself the social stigma of killing someone but there are people who have to carry out this task. Leaders may take decisions but the final blood is in the hands of the executioner who has to act on behalf of the State. I strongly recommend readers to read Shashi Warrier’s soulful book “Hangman’s Journal” in which he brilliantly chronicles the agony that a hangman goes through when he has to carry out an execution. Similarly, Adoor Gopalakrishnan explores this theme in his movie “Nizhalkuthu”. In the words of Adoor, “The Hangman is conventionally considered to be one with no fine feelings. The public does not expect him to behave like a human being, the law wants him to be neutral, the State sees him just as an instrument of its operation.”

Should a civilized society use death as a tool to counter crime? It is arguable and when you consider the plight and sorrow of the victims, it is difficult to advocate the abolition of death penalty. It is an emotional issue but law must take a firm stance on this. In the Indian context, we could look at increasing the tenure of the life imprisonment since 12-14 years may seem on the lower side for extremely heinous crimes. The media must also be careful in its coverage of events. Repeatedly bombarding visuals of the crime and upping the ante for action can lead to public pressures on judiciary to hand out “populist” verdicts.

Is the Right to Life absolute? I certainly think so but then if I were to put myself in the shoes of Priyadarshini Matto’s father, would I feel the same??? Maybe yes or maybe no….

Pyongyang Joins the Party

Imagine an exclusive executive club where a select group of powerful influential persons are members. These members enjoy rights denied to ordinary denizens and have a constitution which seeks to ensure that the club remains as elitist as possible. Their actions are highly questionable but they shroud it in morally hypocritical arguments of the greater good and preach the same to non-members. Persons who try to intrude are penalized and given stiff punishments so that the club maintains its status quo position. But there are always crazy plebeians who still manage to gatecrash bypassing the laws, something that represents North Korea’s entry into the World Nuclear Club.

North Korea had always been threatening to go the nuclear way (it withdrew from the NPT in 2003) and it was a more a question of when rather than if and so it did not surprise anybody except for a few news channels who had to feign surprise to give it that breaking news effect. For a number of years, the nuclear world was dominated by five countries who entrusted to themselves the task of protecting their existence and by extension, the world, till one fine day, two countries decided to no longer play ball. Pokharan and Chagai Hills pushed India and Pakistan into this club and now, North Korea has followed suit. Now there are renewed fears that Iran too would test the bomb.

Pyongyang going nuclear reveals a few things. It diminishes China’s assumed ability to leverage its relationship with North Korea and also undermines President Bush’s attempts to threaten it in terms of embargos. For countries to condemn it (including India) saying it threatens regional stability is a classic case of hypocrisy. But then, that’s a naive argument in the world of real politicking.

Even a militarily-passive Japan, which has always used the example of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to convey the sense of loss and destruction that nuclear weapons can bring, is under the US nuclear umbrella and so they can preach peace. Non-proliferation as a tool has not worked for more than half a century and is not expected to bring in any new dividends. What is required is a clear elimination of nuclear weapons and not reduction.

I was amongst the many jubilant voices in India when we went ahead with our Pokharan spectacle. There was this jingoistic feeling of having cocked a snook at the world-the Yankees could not stop us and now we are the super powers etc. But now, as the adrenaline levels have gone down and “Shining India” is almost a dirty word, I wonder what we achieved by going nuclear, except maybe an exaggerated sense of national pride for a few days (Of course, with exceptions like my Andhraite neighbour who was unhappy that the tests would lead to the cancellation of his son’s US visa). Does the theory of nuclear deterrence actually work? I don’t think so. The tests gave us a false sense of pride, a feeling that we are major players in the world and that the world will now listen to us. It probably does listen in many forums but that is due to our market size rather than our arsenals (Poor Shashi Tharoor is a casualty of that belief).

For a country like North Korea that stands almost at the bottom of the bottom of the economic pyramid in the world and has scores of people dying due to natural and state-sponsored schemes of disaster, you would wonder what nuclear weapons could do. Our knowledge about the country is quite limited because North Korea does not publish statistics (their own economists have no idea what their inflation rate is) except that it has the fifth largest military in the world, with the largest percentage of citizens enlisted. Maybe it gives them a sense of pride but since media is not given a proper access to the public domain; we do not even know that.

At a larger level, Kim Jong - II will leave North Korea a poorer country where hunger is fed by patriotic talk and Western phobias. Do the people have a future to look towards? A country that is so poor but believes that nuclearization will help it. Maybe, but from whom?? Let me quote the words of The XIVth Dalai Lama here which conveys all this and so much more:

Peace, in the sense of the absence of war, is of little value to someone who is dying of hunger or cold. It will not remove the pain of torture inflicted on a prisoner of conscience. It does not comfort those who have lost their loved ones in floods caused by senseless deforestation in a neighboring country. Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free.

Such countries will probably perish under the might of their own contradictions and burdens in the long run. As Amartya Sen discusses in his article on Democracy, a democratic state with a free press ushers in a certain amount of administerial responsibility because of the constant focus of the media on it. He successfully argues how a democratic state can ensure that there are no famines and droughts, something that Pyongyang needs to realize.

Nuclearization is a greater political decision than a military one. For starters, we do not even know whether they actually conducted the test successfully, as being alleged in certain quarters. Suddenly, there are talks of South Korea and Japan reconsidering their proliferation options because they feel threatened in the presence of a nuclear neighbour. The nuclear issue has also whipped up a great deal of passion in the forthcoming US Senate polls with the Democrats alleging that the North Korea going nuclear is an example of the failure of Bush’s much vaunted diplomacy.

The Americans have threatened to impose fresh sanctions but will it help? History shows it has never done anyone any good except possibly companies that act as intermediaries (Food for Oil Program types). The recent Iraq experience has shown them to be a total failure but then since constructive diplomacy has never been the most common means of working, the same old strategy will continue. In retrospect, we know that Iraq did not have the alleged nuclear stockpiles but if it had, would history have been different? Did this influence North Korea when it decided to go nuclear?

What drives nations to nuclearization? Maybe a false sense of machismo- the chest beating and fist thumping variety where you cannot offer anything to your people and so camouflage it using false arguments of self-pride, deterrence and defence. Ask the average North Korean the significance of this (assuming one day you can see him expressing his views) and his blank face would convey all that peace activists have been trying to bandy about. Do I sound naive or foolish when I advocate peace? Maybe but I believe that the world can only survive with the philosophy of peace and not the politics of non-deterrence ballistics.

I end my post by quoting the renowned French philosopher Albert Camus’s famous words that rings so true:

Peace is the only battle worth waging

9/11: The Wounded Fraction

Sanjay Dutt is facing trial for the Mumbai blasts case and he may or may not be convicted but he’s done more than anyone else in recent times in making the Mahatma India’s star icon. For a simple man, ironically manifested in all our currency notes, it has been a glorious non-violent comeback (A lesson for our Saurav Dada). “Gandhigiri” is also becoming the most popular political phrase slowly, thanks to Munnabhai. What better occasion to highlight this than while talking about the fraction that has changed the world – 9/11 (It has overtaken 22/7 – the humble pi in the popularity charts). 9/11 is America’s baby out and out but until I watched NDTV/CNN-IBN a few days back, I did not realize that 9/11 was also the centenary of the Satyagraha movement.

The 1st 9/11 in 1906 was used by the apostle of non-violence, Mahatma Gandhi, to launch the Satyagraha movement and it had wide sweeping repercussions not just here but across the globe too. Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela endorsed it later on making it a very powerful metaphor for non-violent retribution. It presented a powerful case for morally legitimate ways to fight for justice.

The last 9/11 also had sweeping global effects but on a greater negative scale. The world has not changed for the better but is more polarized now, echoing Bush’s infamous statement – “Either you are with us or against us”. That does not leave us with much of a choice then but to be against him.

I don’t even think we need to ask ourselves whether the world has been enriched by American follies – Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan and the rest are all landscapes which are testimony to the bleeding that has happened in the glorious name of “democracy” and “peace”. 9/11 was unfortunate but what about these countries and many other African republics which are rotting because of liberal America. Incidentally, 9/11 is also the day (in the 70s) when the democratically elected President of Chile was overthrown and General Pinochet took over the country in a bloody coup killing thousands of people, ably supported by US. Anyone ready to shed tears for them?

Most news channels commemorating the fifth anniversary of the WTC bombing have been repeatedly driving home the claim “The world was never the same”. Quite true, since Americans decide how the world should be. We tried coining dates like 13/12 (Parliament attack) and 12/3 (‘93 Mumbai blasts) but who remembers these poor fractions (I had to search through Google to find these dates).The life of an average Indian is probably not worth that of an American and so terrorist attacks in India do not change the face of the world and in some ways, even the country too; after all, Mumbai’s “resilience” hogged more headlines than the actual blasts.

But then, this is not an entirely an international phenomenon. A blast in Delhi which kills two is given more coverage than the death of 30-40 odd in Tripura. Only when something happens close to our home, we come to realize the potential problem in store, but till that time, token coverage and lip service is all that we can afford.

Has the world changed?

General Musharraf is the US poster boy leading the battle in the Global War on Terror. Whoever thought the perpetrator of the Kargil War would be US’s main weapon against terrorism. Even a suave IIM graduate could not have been able to reposition a losing brand like Pakistan with such elan.

After years of Blairism, UK is finally throwing Blair out after acting as Bush’s stooge for long. The law of averages has finally caught up with him and he is leaving the stage just like Ms.Thatcher did.

The Taliban is regrouping (thanks to a bountiful opium harvest also) and President Hamid Karzai’s power does not extend beyond the boundary walls of his castle.

Iran and North Korea are twitching to test their nuclear arsenals.

Iraq is wallowing in the midst of extreme lawlessness and chaos and the US Govt. has admitted that Saddam has nothing to do with AL-Qaeda or Taliban.

Osama makes guest appearances in videos keeping his halo intact and his foes guessing.

The West makes polite noises about development and democracy and continues its own way while the Rest of the World ambles along.

Who has benefited from all this?

Most of the European companies have bagged contracts (rather snatched) for Iraq rehabilitation – telecom, innovative Food for Oil schemes and of course oil.

India’s former Deputy National Security Adviser, Satish Chandra, was heard on TV the other day saying that “US is probably its own worst enemy by pandering to the likes of President Musharraf”. Once the poster boy’s role is completed, US will try to bring democracy back to Pakistan and then it would be curtains for Musharraf but till that time, its happy honeymoon for him.

Global terror has a wonderful economic side to it and who better to utilize all this than multinational companies dealing with arms (one of the most powerful industrial lobbies in US). More terror means more customers for their weapons and how can a Government who cares for its domestic industry ignore this concern?

The day is not far of when George Bush will win the Noble Prize for Peace due to his untiring efforts in bringing “democracy to the world”. And what about us? We’ll probably continue our journey with a blast here and there occasionally testing our democracy and reminding us that “An eye for an eye makes the entire world blind”. Maybe we should revive Gandhigiri then....

A fraction is mathematical representation of representing a quantity based on splitting it into a number of parts – something that 9/11 can make a rightful claim of having done.

Asian Travellers' Mid-Air Blues

A brown skin and a beard are not a felicitous (suitable) combination


– Rohinton Mistry, commenting on racial profiling

In about a month’s time, I would be travelling to Singapore on my first international trip. It’s an exciting prospect to see the world outside India but international travel worries me - I’m an Indian and these are troubled times for South Asians travelling in international flights. There have been quite a few incidents in recent times that have brought to focus racial profiling that Asians are being subjected to, in the name of national security and counter terrorism. The recent experiences of the 12 Mumbaikars who were returning via Netherlands, a Hyderabadi lad holed out in London on his way to US and two British Asians detained in an airport in Spain,after they were overheard conversing in Urdu, is unnerving.

The 12 Mumbaikars were innocuous businessmen who travelled frequently and had never got into any kind of trouble earlier. The Dutch side claims that these people exhibited suspicious behaviour on the flight – using mobiles on the plane, moving around frequently and talking in hushed tones. The Indian Government has asked for a full scale investigation into the incident and has just stopped short of asking for an apology. Maybe we were trying to be diplomatically nice with the Dutch authorities by not asking for an apology.

The public response has, of course, been much more vocal, accusing the Dutch officials of selectively targeting on the basis of race. Why would trained terrorists try to make their presence so evident in the flight? From when has fidgeting with mobiles become an international crime?Agreed that they did not exactly behave in the most gentlemanly fashion, but does that make them suspects who have to be handcuffed?

The West is pretty paranoid about this entire business of terrorists. I’m sure that it is a serious problem and we need to be very careful but when they get overboard as they have been doing in recent times, it gets to one’s nerves. It’s no one’s case that national security is to be treated with soft hands but when in the name of security, Asians who carry the stereotyped perceptions of terrorists, get grounded and often humiliated, it calls for serious concern.

Of course, not many remember that the most of the WTC accused were clean shaven, educated Islamic youth who would not have cleared the International Terrorism Exam, set by the Bush-Blair combine. How dumb would it be if terrorists were to stick to stereotypes and turn up at airports in the most conspicuous of manners? We are dealing with an intelligent group of terrorists who can outsmart the Pentagon and bring down WTC. A strategy which panders to such an ill-conceived notion and breeds on extreme Islamophobia is ridiculous. But then with the IQ of George Bush, should we even be surprised?

This situation is not going to change in the near future. To be fair to the airport authorities, we probably need to accept the fact that no one wants to take any chance and every possible danger is being addressed head on. Even for every 10 such incidents, if the authorities are successful in stopping at least one attempted sabotage, it is worth carrying out this effort.

But the flip side is that obviously, there would be a few people who would be rubbed the wrong way because of this. It has to be handled carefully and sensitively so that no one feels offended or atleast the offending factor is kept to minimum-something the Dutch did not do too well. Gallup poll surveys conducted post 9/11 have found that most people were uncomfortable with this blatant profiling of Middle Eastern or South Asian airline passengers; some sobering consolation for us, I guess.

Indians across have raised a hue and cry over this racial profiling, especially after the Mumbai incident, and quite rightly too. However, let’s step back for a moment and question our “holier than thou” attitude towards “cultural profiling”. We have our own set of prejudices that run deep down. We are a preachy nation who likes to tell others what’s wrong with their culture, while we wallow in a curious mix of self-pride and self-pity.

We also indulge in straitjacketing people here, probably not so much in terms of race but caste and religion (Of course there have been racial incidents here too like bars in Mumbai not allowing blacks on grounds of being suspected drug peddlers). There are so many people I have met who believe that reservations are bad for the simple reason that the backward castes are not good enough for studying and that any such idea will spell doom for us. So, while fretting and fuming is fine, it's also time for some self-introspection.

Maybe I should not be worrying too much. I do not fit the caricature of the terrorist designed by the West. I do not sport a beard (except for an occasional stubble) or wear a skull cap - supposedly, the latest fashion statement of all wannabe terrorists. I do not have a name with any religious connotations and do not speak Arabic/Urdu. Brown skin is the only dangerous sign I carry of being a terrorist.

P.S. I just came across a news item in BBC featuring the latest airport screener which shows passengers naked!!! This is really scary, wonder if this will enter the voyeuristic world of MMS someday. Time to bid goodbye to Right to Privacy???

Going the Israeli Way

A few months back I chanced to watch the Steven Spielberg movie “Munich”, set after the 1972 Munich massacre. It follows a Mossad squad, which is ordered to track down and kill a list of 11 Black September members thought to be responsible for the Israeli athletes’ murders. Though the mission starts in a very spirited fashion, gradually, there’s a sense of disillusionment and helplessness at the turn of events. The movie was a bit liberal with the actual incidents but it points out a very sobering truth:

For every terrorist killed, there is another- possibly a worse one waiting to take place.

As I see the latest (latest is appropriate considering the Israeli penchant for attacks at the drop of a hat) round of massacre being carried out by the Israeli forces in Lebanon, some of those thoughts and images come back haunting my mind. Someone would say wars require sacrifices and no point brooding over lost souls but then who is fighting this war and for whom is all this ? Civilizations thrive on people and cultures and not on coffins.

The latest round of stand-off began (if you leave the troubled past aside) with the Hezbollah rebels attacking and taking two Israeli soldiers hostage as negotiating chips for the release of a few of their prominent leaders. Not a great strategy you would say but they were merely replicating a system of warfare actively nurtured by the Israelis themselves. The capture of the soldiers saw a swift counter attack which surprised both the Hezbollah and the world, in terms of the lightning speed and magnitude involved. In violation of all international norms, Israel carried out large scale bombings of Lebanon, including the usage of the deadly cluster bombs. The highly disproportionate usage of force by Tel Aviv has stunned many but it is still going on with a farcical temporary ceasefire thrown in occasionally. Death has become a very statistical measure nowadays but still the loss of more than 750 people (mostly civilians) in the last 20 days calls for serious concern.

The current situation was created by Hezbollah but Israel cannot wash its hands of its role in the conflict which dates back to more than 25 years. The Israelis invaded Lebanon in 1982 to drive away the Palestinian extremists taking shelter there but post the attack, it continued to stay there until 2000. However, it has not seceded parts of the country entirely; Sheba Farms in South Lebanon is still under their occupation. They were also responsible for planting several detonators and mines but have refused to provide the maps containing this data. It is important for Israel to stop unilaterally all the firing and try to arrive at a political solution to the problem for which the seeds were sown by them.

The most worrying aspect in the entire crisis is not the extent of the Israeli retribution but the silence (they have made some noise but surely the big guns can do better) of the international community in this entire pogrom. It reflects a total lack of empathy for the hundreds of people perishing due to this and this will backfire one day. It reminds me of Martin Niemoller’s famous poem First they came for the communists.

“When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out”

The Americans and Israelis are breeding a sense of hatred which will only increase the ire of the extremists towards them. Tel Aviv’s strategy of shock and awe bombing is similar to the American attack against Iraq and will lead to the same kind of situation as in Iraq. Ironically, the original victims of the Holocaust are now its perpetuators.

There’s a weird school of thought in US (the establishment) who believes that such a military option will send a strong message to the Islamic world and so it has been attempting clandestinely to stall all peace efforts being brokered. One wonders in which utopian world the US policy makers are living in. You would think that the misadventure in Iraq would have made them wiser but then Bush has never given the impression of a man who understands diplomacy. With a war-mongering policy and ruthless stooges like Israel, it is attempting to create a new world order; it will probably do so but the cost of giving huge impetus to the extremist movement across the world.

Initially, the Arab World condemned the Hezbollah for triggering the attacks (due to their Shia-Sunni issues) but the very scale of attacks has forced them to back them or lose the popular support enjoyed by the rebels. By the way, where is the United Nations, the so-called peace keeping body of the world? They lost four dipolmats in the Israeli bombing at the UN office in Beirut but they continue to remain spineless.Maybe Karan Thapar should grill Shashi Tharoor on this matter. Wonder what the man likely to be the next UN Secretary General has to say on the UN's role or rather lack of it in resolving this conflict.

Every time there’s a terrorist attack in India, there’s wide spread condemnation at our inability to stop such incidents. It has been suggested by many that we take the Israeli way- a policy of hot-pursuit. Somehow, there’s a misunderstanding of the ground level situation; we need to understand that we are neither Bush’s chums nor is Pakistan without friends .Do we want to condemn ourselves as Indians to this kind of immoral and power hungry behaviour? This is not to suggest that we need to take all the violence being carried out in our soil lying down but that peace can be brought about only by a policy of give and take.

There’s a requirement of a proper anti-terrorism stance and policy but not the naked show of aggression and power exhibited by Israel. I do not know what our strategy for tackling terrorism should be but I am sure we should not go the Israeli way. Life is precious - diplomacy needs to be given a chance for the world to survive.

Mumbai Blasts - It hurts

Maybe it's lack of work or a sense of pathos I cannot explain but I have tried to put down my thoughts on the Mumbai tragedy....... This is a heart-felt anguish...

It was 6.30 in the evening as I got down from my company bus and walked back home, thinking on what to write for my article on Zizou and his Golden F(B)all, when I heard the news – bomb blasts rip through Mumbai. Seven blasts ripped through the Western Railway line right from Borivili to Matunga. About 30 were expected dead (initial reports) and all communication lines were jammed. Just for a second, I thanked my stars that I had left Mumbai 2 months back to come back to my home town Hyderabad. But then thoughts went back to the place that I had started my career in and where I put in 2 yrs of my life.

If one has not lived in Mumbai, one cannot imagine the extent to which the city lives in its local trains. The local train is densely populated and people just fight their way through it day in and day out through the teeming millions. Many office goers leave office late just to avoid being caught in the notorious crowds. I always felt that at the end of the day as I reached my house in Powai wading through the masses, I had successfully completed a Mission Impossible Act (without the special effects). Somehow, all this came back very strongly in my mind as I went through the various news items describing the dastardly act executed by a set of lunatics. They struck where it makes the best logistic strike at the nerve centre of the city, causing maximum damage with minimum ammunition. One shudders to think how many more would have died or been injured in the subsequent stampede that resulted.

My heart goes out to Mumbai as it seems forsaken by almost every element under the sun. First, it witnessed the water-logging fiasco and then the Shiv Sena thugs decided to have a party at the expense of others and now this. Ofcourse, every story talks about the spirit of the Mumbaikars in handling all these events but then that’s more a case of making a virtue out of a necessity. Does Mumbai deserve all this? Nature, society, terrorists everyone’s bunny target, it seems. I suddenly feel a sense of being away from home in the midst of all this.

Investigations would, eventually, reveal the hand of some fundamentalist group but we must be careful not to allow the situation to go out of control. Remember, the 93’ Mumbai blasts was a pre-cursor to all the riots that took place. It is imperative not to allow such a situation to develop once again. Any such violent retribution is no solution; it only widens the barricades we have built between communities. This time it's Mumbai; it could be anywhere tomorrow.........

There’s a sense of helplessness, anguish, grief and anger as I see the news. The earlier blasts did not make me realize the extent of damage (physical and psychological) this may have created but having lived in the city now; there is a sense of outrage and grief at having one of my homes attacked so brutally. The only things I could do are to call people, mail them, perform a silent prayer and probably put down my thoughts to paper and that’s what I am doing – pouring at my anguish against the perpetuation of cruelty by the bloody terrorists. It may be taking time out of our schedules and office work but I think it’s worth it; it feels lighter now………