Showing posts with label Kashmir. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kashmir. Show all posts
26 June, 2018
BRP Bhaskar
06 December, 2016
What the terror balance sheet says
BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today
India has just missed consciously an opportunity to initiate steps to put its troubled relations with Pakistan on an even keel.
When Pakistan’s Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz landed in Amritsar a day ahead of Sunday’s Heart of Asia conference on Afghanistan there was speculation that there might be informal talks to improve the relationship between the two countries which touched a new low after militants from across the line of control attacked an army base at Uri in Jammu and Kashmir and India retaliated with surgical strikes on terror launch pads on the other side. However, the Indian government said no talks were possible while acts of terrorism continued.
Terrorism figured prominently in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address to the delegates to the Amritsar conference, who included representatives of a score of countries including the United States, China and Russia. He said it was necessary to end terrorism to foster stability, security and development in Afghanistan and in the region as a whole.
The year witnessed an escalation of militant activity in Kashmir and a corresponding deterioration in the relations between the two neighbours. In the very first week there was a daring attack on an air force base at Pathankot.
In his Independence Day address, Modi raised the issue of Pakistani human rights violations in Baluchistan as a counter to Islamabad’s harping on Indian rights violations in Kashmir.
The killing of Burhan Wani, a young home-grown militant leader, by the security forces led to youth unrest which paralysed life in Kashmir valley for nearly four months.
Eighteen soldiers were killed in the Uri attack which took place during a rotation of units. The surgical strikes, which occurred a few days later, marked a departure from the policy of strategic restraint which the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance governments had followed. It boosted Modi’s sagging macho image but failed to make any appreciable difference to infiltration across the LoC and terror attacks. The year appears set to end as one of the bloodiest in recent years.
The worst year of the decade was 2007. As many as 311 militants crossed into India that year and 121 uniformed personnel were killed and 336 injured in terrorist attacks. According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), which collates information relating to terrorism, 164 civilians and 492 militants were also killed that year.
The following years saw a decline in militancy in Kashmir and infiltration across the LoC. Casualty figures of security personnel fell continuously and stood at only 17 in 2012 before starting to climb again.
This year, there has been only a marginal increase in the number of violent incidents but casualties among men in uniform have risen dramatically. On September 30, the toll stood at 63 security personnel killed and 181 injured. The latest available tally is 77 dead, as on November 27.
Parliament was told recently that 105 terrorists from across the LoC entered Kashmir until September 30 this year, as against only 33 last year. This, again, is the highest figure since 2007.
The security forces can perhaps draw some comfort from the fact that this year they have been able to impose heavier penalties on the terrorists than in the recent past. Their toll stood at 119 at the end of September.
Casualty figures at the SATP website show that since 1988 terrorism has taken a toll of 49,315 lives across India, 44,119 of them in Jammu and Kashmir. The number of terrorists killed was 24,101, including 23,121 in J&K. A total of 9,854 security personnel were killed. 7,688 of them in Kashmir. Civilians bore the brunt of the attacks: 17,526 killed, including 14,735 in Kashmir.
The hope raised by the surgical strike was shattered when three terrorists, wearing police uniform, broke into the Nagrota base in Kashmir last week and launched an attack in which seven military personnel, including two Army majors, were killed. They are believed to have entered India through a tunnel and reached the base travelling 85 kilometres evading army checkpoints.
Retiring Northern Army Commander Lt-Gen DS Hooda said later the Kashmir conflict was a long war requiring a long-term approach. It is just another way of saying it is a problem that requires a political solution. The terror balance-sheet also says the same thing. --Gulf Today, Sharjah, December 6, 2016.
Gulf Today
India has just missed consciously an opportunity to initiate steps to put its troubled relations with Pakistan on an even keel.
When Pakistan’s Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz landed in Amritsar a day ahead of Sunday’s Heart of Asia conference on Afghanistan there was speculation that there might be informal talks to improve the relationship between the two countries which touched a new low after militants from across the line of control attacked an army base at Uri in Jammu and Kashmir and India retaliated with surgical strikes on terror launch pads on the other side. However, the Indian government said no talks were possible while acts of terrorism continued.
Terrorism figured prominently in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address to the delegates to the Amritsar conference, who included representatives of a score of countries including the United States, China and Russia. He said it was necessary to end terrorism to foster stability, security and development in Afghanistan and in the region as a whole.
The year witnessed an escalation of militant activity in Kashmir and a corresponding deterioration in the relations between the two neighbours. In the very first week there was a daring attack on an air force base at Pathankot.
In his Independence Day address, Modi raised the issue of Pakistani human rights violations in Baluchistan as a counter to Islamabad’s harping on Indian rights violations in Kashmir.
The killing of Burhan Wani, a young home-grown militant leader, by the security forces led to youth unrest which paralysed life in Kashmir valley for nearly four months.
Eighteen soldiers were killed in the Uri attack which took place during a rotation of units. The surgical strikes, which occurred a few days later, marked a departure from the policy of strategic restraint which the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance governments had followed. It boosted Modi’s sagging macho image but failed to make any appreciable difference to infiltration across the LoC and terror attacks. The year appears set to end as one of the bloodiest in recent years.
The worst year of the decade was 2007. As many as 311 militants crossed into India that year and 121 uniformed personnel were killed and 336 injured in terrorist attacks. According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), which collates information relating to terrorism, 164 civilians and 492 militants were also killed that year.
The following years saw a decline in militancy in Kashmir and infiltration across the LoC. Casualty figures of security personnel fell continuously and stood at only 17 in 2012 before starting to climb again.
This year, there has been only a marginal increase in the number of violent incidents but casualties among men in uniform have risen dramatically. On September 30, the toll stood at 63 security personnel killed and 181 injured. The latest available tally is 77 dead, as on November 27.
Parliament was told recently that 105 terrorists from across the LoC entered Kashmir until September 30 this year, as against only 33 last year. This, again, is the highest figure since 2007.
The security forces can perhaps draw some comfort from the fact that this year they have been able to impose heavier penalties on the terrorists than in the recent past. Their toll stood at 119 at the end of September.
Casualty figures at the SATP website show that since 1988 terrorism has taken a toll of 49,315 lives across India, 44,119 of them in Jammu and Kashmir. The number of terrorists killed was 24,101, including 23,121 in J&K. A total of 9,854 security personnel were killed. 7,688 of them in Kashmir. Civilians bore the brunt of the attacks: 17,526 killed, including 14,735 in Kashmir.
The hope raised by the surgical strike was shattered when three terrorists, wearing police uniform, broke into the Nagrota base in Kashmir last week and launched an attack in which seven military personnel, including two Army majors, were killed. They are believed to have entered India through a tunnel and reached the base travelling 85 kilometres evading army checkpoints.
Retiring Northern Army Commander Lt-Gen DS Hooda said later the Kashmir conflict was a long war requiring a long-term approach. It is just another way of saying it is a problem that requires a political solution. The terror balance-sheet also says the same thing. --Gulf Today, Sharjah, December 6, 2016.
04 October, 2016
Peace need of the hour
BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today
Much of India is in a state of high alert as the country waits to see how Pakistan responds to last week’s “surgical strikes” on terrorist launch pads across the line of control in Jammu and Kashmir.
The Home Ministry asked all states to step up vigil at strategic installations, industrial complexes, crowded places, airports, historical monuments and government buildings. Delhi and the states of Rajasthan, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Maharashtra and Gujarat were identified as possible targets for a retaliatory strike by the Pakistan army or terror outfits based in that country.
Villages within 10 kilometres of the border were evacuated. Punjab also closed down schools as a precautionary measure.
Officials indicated that the heightened alert may remain during the whole of October as three major Hindu festivals which see large congregations fall during the month – Navaratri from the 1st to the 10th, Dussehra on the 11th and Diwali on the 30th.
India’s announcement on Thursday that its armed forces had conducted surgical strikes on several terrorist launch pads in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir was followed by a warning by Pakistan Army chief General Raheel Sharif that his country would give a fitting response to any misadventure by its adversaries. Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed, whom India has identified as the mastermind behind the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, asked Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to let the army hit back.
Pakistan barred low-level overflying by foreign commercial aircraft, citing operational reasons. Viewing it as a move directed primarily against it, India was said to be considering the advisability of banning Pakistani overflights.
India’s bare initial announcement of the surgical strike and Pakistan’s confused response – on the one hand it denied there had been any such action and on the other it threatened reprisal –– raised some questions about the nature and scope of the operation. However, they appeared to satisfy hawkish elements in the two countries at least partially.
The army operation was a calibrated response to the September 18 terrorist attack on the Uri brigade headquarters which had taken the lives of 19 soldiers. It followed diplomatic moves to isolate Pakistan, which were only partly successful, and a threat to review the treaty on sharing of Indus waters.
Pakistan took no precipitate action and no one of consequence condemned the Indian strike. International response was limited to advice to both countries to resolve all problems through talks.
Internally, the surgical strike helped Prime Minister Narendra Modi to redeem his strongman image, and the opposition parties quickly rallied behind him. He desisted from displaying the braggadocio which often characterises his public utterances, leaving it to the party faithful to blow the trumpet.
However, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar could not resist the temptation to make a scornful remark. “Pakistan is in a state of coma, just like an anaesthetised patient after surgery,” he said. His Pakistani counterpart Khawaja Muhammad Asif who talked of exercising the nuclear option invited a sharp rebuke from the US.
But hawks on both sides kept war talk alive. India’s jingoistic electronic media played up the strike across the LoC as a game-changer, but responsible commentators endeavoured to put things in the right perspective. They pointed out that there had been similar strikes in the past and cautioned against rushing to the conclusion that cross-border terrorism is now a thing of the past.
Indian officials put the number of launch pads destroyed in the attack variously at six to eight. Analysts noted that the attacks were not on terrorist training camps, scores of which exist in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, but on launch pads which are places where trained terrorists halt briefly before being led across the LoC by guides.
Low-ranking ruling party politicians proclaimed the end of the policy of strategic restraint, but Modi and the army brass said nothing to that effect. In fact, they sought to convey a different message. While releasing information about the strike, the army had stressed that it was a one-time operation. In a speech on Sunday the Prime Minister said India did not covet anyone’s land and had never attacked another country.
A terrorist attack on adjoining army and Border Security Force camps at Baramula in the Kashmir valley showed that the game remains unchanged.
Amid the beating of war drums, leading public intellectuals in both the countries sounded notes of caution. Pratap Bhanu Mehta, head of the Centre for Policy Research, a New Delhi-based think tank, wrote: “...in both India and Pakistan, regimes have now tied the mast of their popular legitimacy to taking strong action against the other. That is not a reassuring thought.” Asma Jahangir, Chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, tweeted: “Epidemic of insanity hits India and Pakistan again. No one wins a war. End terrorism and violence against each other and within our countries”. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, October 4, 2016.
Gulf Today
Much of India is in a state of high alert as the country waits to see how Pakistan responds to last week’s “surgical strikes” on terrorist launch pads across the line of control in Jammu and Kashmir.
The Home Ministry asked all states to step up vigil at strategic installations, industrial complexes, crowded places, airports, historical monuments and government buildings. Delhi and the states of Rajasthan, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Maharashtra and Gujarat were identified as possible targets for a retaliatory strike by the Pakistan army or terror outfits based in that country.
Villages within 10 kilometres of the border were evacuated. Punjab also closed down schools as a precautionary measure.
Officials indicated that the heightened alert may remain during the whole of October as three major Hindu festivals which see large congregations fall during the month – Navaratri from the 1st to the 10th, Dussehra on the 11th and Diwali on the 30th.
India’s announcement on Thursday that its armed forces had conducted surgical strikes on several terrorist launch pads in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir was followed by a warning by Pakistan Army chief General Raheel Sharif that his country would give a fitting response to any misadventure by its adversaries. Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed, whom India has identified as the mastermind behind the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, asked Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to let the army hit back.
Pakistan barred low-level overflying by foreign commercial aircraft, citing operational reasons. Viewing it as a move directed primarily against it, India was said to be considering the advisability of banning Pakistani overflights.
India’s bare initial announcement of the surgical strike and Pakistan’s confused response – on the one hand it denied there had been any such action and on the other it threatened reprisal –– raised some questions about the nature and scope of the operation. However, they appeared to satisfy hawkish elements in the two countries at least partially.
The army operation was a calibrated response to the September 18 terrorist attack on the Uri brigade headquarters which had taken the lives of 19 soldiers. It followed diplomatic moves to isolate Pakistan, which were only partly successful, and a threat to review the treaty on sharing of Indus waters.
Pakistan took no precipitate action and no one of consequence condemned the Indian strike. International response was limited to advice to both countries to resolve all problems through talks.
Internally, the surgical strike helped Prime Minister Narendra Modi to redeem his strongman image, and the opposition parties quickly rallied behind him. He desisted from displaying the braggadocio which often characterises his public utterances, leaving it to the party faithful to blow the trumpet.
However, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar could not resist the temptation to make a scornful remark. “Pakistan is in a state of coma, just like an anaesthetised patient after surgery,” he said. His Pakistani counterpart Khawaja Muhammad Asif who talked of exercising the nuclear option invited a sharp rebuke from the US.
But hawks on both sides kept war talk alive. India’s jingoistic electronic media played up the strike across the LoC as a game-changer, but responsible commentators endeavoured to put things in the right perspective. They pointed out that there had been similar strikes in the past and cautioned against rushing to the conclusion that cross-border terrorism is now a thing of the past.
Indian officials put the number of launch pads destroyed in the attack variously at six to eight. Analysts noted that the attacks were not on terrorist training camps, scores of which exist in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, but on launch pads which are places where trained terrorists halt briefly before being led across the LoC by guides.
Low-ranking ruling party politicians proclaimed the end of the policy of strategic restraint, but Modi and the army brass said nothing to that effect. In fact, they sought to convey a different message. While releasing information about the strike, the army had stressed that it was a one-time operation. In a speech on Sunday the Prime Minister said India did not covet anyone’s land and had never attacked another country.
A terrorist attack on adjoining army and Border Security Force camps at Baramula in the Kashmir valley showed that the game remains unchanged.
Amid the beating of war drums, leading public intellectuals in both the countries sounded notes of caution. Pratap Bhanu Mehta, head of the Centre for Policy Research, a New Delhi-based think tank, wrote: “...in both India and Pakistan, regimes have now tied the mast of their popular legitimacy to taking strong action against the other. That is not a reassuring thought.” Asma Jahangir, Chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, tweeted: “Epidemic of insanity hits India and Pakistan again. No one wins a war. End terrorism and violence against each other and within our countries”. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, October 4, 2016.
20 September, 2016
Time to move from rhetoric to reality
BRP Bhaskar
The daring cross-border attack on the Indian brigade headquarters at Uri in Kashmir, which left 17 dead and about 30 injured, several of them seriously, poses a severe challenge to the Narendra Modi regime even as it copes with the situation created by more than two months of civil unrest in the valley.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who has emerged as the government’s chief spokesman on Kashmir-related issues, blamed the attack on the “terrorist state” of Pakistan. Modi, in a tweet, assured the nation that those who were behind the despicable attack would not go unpunished.
The social media and television channels were abuzz with the informed and the uninformed offering Modi advice on what punishment to give. Suggestions from former army officers and diplomats ranged from calls for surgical strikes to passionate pleas for well-thought-through responses.
Terror groups have targeted military establishments on more than 10 occasions since the eruption of insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir in the early 1990s. In terms of casualties, the worst attack was the one staged by a gang of three at the Kaluchak cantonment in 2002 in which 31 persons were killed and 47 injured. Of the dead, three were army personnel, 18 were family members of army men and 10 were civilians.
The most audacious of all Kashmir-related terrorist actions was the 2001 attack on the Parliament House in New Delhi. Six police personnel, two Parliament security guards and a gardener were killed but no MP was even hurt. The government, headed by Bharatiya Janata Party leader AB Vajpayee, viewed the event as a proxy attack by Pakistan and drew up plans for a military response but did not go ahead with it.
The Uri attack was the second one this year. In January a group of terrorists had sneaked into the large air force base at Pathankot. The encounter that followed resulted in the death of six defence personnel. It was apparently a calculated attempt to derail the India-Pakistan peace process. Following the attack scheduled official level talks between India and Pakistan were cancelled.
Going by the government’s accounts, the terrorists directly involved in all these attacks were liquidated in the encounters that followed.
Since the Pathankot attack, with one thing leading to another, there has been continuous deterioration in India-Pakistan relations. In his Independence Day address on August 15, Modi, in a marked shift from the position taken by all previous governments, openly voiced support for rebels challenging the authority of Pakistan in Baluchistan.
The ground situation in Kashmir took a turn for the worse when protests erupted after security forces announced the killing of young Hizbul Mujahideen commander Buran Wani in July. Many parts of the valley have been under prolonged curfew, and at least 80 persons have been killed, more than 100 blinded and several thousand injured in firing of supposedly non-lethal pellets by central security personnel.
As Pakistan despatched a large number of special envoys to world capitals to mobilise opinion against human rights violations in Kashmir valley, India decided on a similar effort with the focus on Pakistani rights violations in Baluchistan and Kashmir areas under its control. The flip side of such tit-for-tat manoeuvres is that they put India and Pakistan politically on the same level.
Some observers see in Modi’s toughening stance the influence of National Security Adviser Ajit Doyal, who, since retirement from the police, has attracted a bunch of admirers by recounting his exploits as an intelligence officer and has openly advocated a hawkish line. But he is also believed to be the one who sold to Modi the idea of inviting all South Asian leaders to his swearing-in ceremony in 2014.
For Modi the time has come to move from rhetoric to reality. Recent events have revealed two grave weaknesses which India can ignore only at its peril.
One is the ease with which terrorists have been able to intrude into fortified military establishments. The Uri attack resulted in heavy casualties as it took place when one unit was taking over from another. If the attack was timed with prior knowledge of the changeover, it indicates the terror planners have good intelligence support. Clearly, strengthening of the security environment deserves a higher priority than reprisal.
The other is the alarming degree of alienation in the Kashmir valley. In the past civil unrest manifested itself mainly in the form of demonstrations in Srinagar streets. This time young stone-throwers were out in the streets in the countryside and police personnel abandoned many stations. Restoration of normalcy must come first. All else can wait.
The Centre must not forget the healthy atmosphere that prevailed in the valley during the three armed conflicts with Pakistan. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, September 20, 2016
Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who has emerged as the government’s chief spokesman on Kashmir-related issues, blamed the attack on the “terrorist state” of Pakistan. Modi, in a tweet, assured the nation that those who were behind the despicable attack would not go unpunished.
The social media and television channels were abuzz with the informed and the uninformed offering Modi advice on what punishment to give. Suggestions from former army officers and diplomats ranged from calls for surgical strikes to passionate pleas for well-thought-through responses.
Terror groups have targeted military establishments on more than 10 occasions since the eruption of insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir in the early 1990s. In terms of casualties, the worst attack was the one staged by a gang of three at the Kaluchak cantonment in 2002 in which 31 persons were killed and 47 injured. Of the dead, three were army personnel, 18 were family members of army men and 10 were civilians.
The most audacious of all Kashmir-related terrorist actions was the 2001 attack on the Parliament House in New Delhi. Six police personnel, two Parliament security guards and a gardener were killed but no MP was even hurt. The government, headed by Bharatiya Janata Party leader AB Vajpayee, viewed the event as a proxy attack by Pakistan and drew up plans for a military response but did not go ahead with it.
The Uri attack was the second one this year. In January a group of terrorists had sneaked into the large air force base at Pathankot. The encounter that followed resulted in the death of six defence personnel. It was apparently a calculated attempt to derail the India-Pakistan peace process. Following the attack scheduled official level talks between India and Pakistan were cancelled.
Going by the government’s accounts, the terrorists directly involved in all these attacks were liquidated in the encounters that followed.
Since the Pathankot attack, with one thing leading to another, there has been continuous deterioration in India-Pakistan relations. In his Independence Day address on August 15, Modi, in a marked shift from the position taken by all previous governments, openly voiced support for rebels challenging the authority of Pakistan in Baluchistan.
The ground situation in Kashmir took a turn for the worse when protests erupted after security forces announced the killing of young Hizbul Mujahideen commander Buran Wani in July. Many parts of the valley have been under prolonged curfew, and at least 80 persons have been killed, more than 100 blinded and several thousand injured in firing of supposedly non-lethal pellets by central security personnel.
As Pakistan despatched a large number of special envoys to world capitals to mobilise opinion against human rights violations in Kashmir valley, India decided on a similar effort with the focus on Pakistani rights violations in Baluchistan and Kashmir areas under its control. The flip side of such tit-for-tat manoeuvres is that they put India and Pakistan politically on the same level.
Some observers see in Modi’s toughening stance the influence of National Security Adviser Ajit Doyal, who, since retirement from the police, has attracted a bunch of admirers by recounting his exploits as an intelligence officer and has openly advocated a hawkish line. But he is also believed to be the one who sold to Modi the idea of inviting all South Asian leaders to his swearing-in ceremony in 2014.
For Modi the time has come to move from rhetoric to reality. Recent events have revealed two grave weaknesses which India can ignore only at its peril.
One is the ease with which terrorists have been able to intrude into fortified military establishments. The Uri attack resulted in heavy casualties as it took place when one unit was taking over from another. If the attack was timed with prior knowledge of the changeover, it indicates the terror planners have good intelligence support. Clearly, strengthening of the security environment deserves a higher priority than reprisal.
The other is the alarming degree of alienation in the Kashmir valley. In the past civil unrest manifested itself mainly in the form of demonstrations in Srinagar streets. This time young stone-throwers were out in the streets in the countryside and police personnel abandoned many stations. Restoration of normalcy must come first. All else can wait.
The Centre must not forget the healthy atmosphere that prevailed in the valley during the three armed conflicts with Pakistan. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, September 20, 2016
30 August, 2016
Kashmir’s shadow over SAARC
BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today
With India-Pakistan relations deteriorating in the wake of violence in Kashmir, now in its eighth week, the fate of the 19th summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, scheduled for November 9 and 10, hangs in the balance.
SAARC, which comprises India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, together account for 21 per cent of the world’s population but only nine per cent of the global economy.
SAARC members differ vastly in size and economic strength. India with an estimated population of 1,330 million and gross domestic product of $2,073.5 billion is much larger than the other seven countries put together. Pakistan, the second largest country, has an estimated population of 194 million and GDP of $270.0 billion. The Maldives with only 371,000 people is at the bottom of the population table. Bhutan with a GDP of $2 billion has the smallest economy, but it attaches more importance to gross domestic happiness than to gross domestic product.
India-Pakistan differences have held SAARC back from time to time in some areas. A common market is one of SAARC’s objectives but Pakistani fear of Indian economic domination has stalled progress in that direction. In 1995, a ministerial meeting decided on the creation of a South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) as a first step towards the goal of a common market. It was only in 2006 that an agreement in this regard went into effect. A decade later, intra-SAARC trade is still only a little more than the region’s GDP.
A South Asian motor vehicles agreement was negotiated by SAARC officials ahead of the last summit at Kathmandu in 2014 but Pakistan was not ready to sign it. Believing that it backed out as it now attaches economic integration with China more importance than South Asian economic cooperation, India decided to go ahead without it.
The relations between the two countries took a dive early this month when Laskar-e-Taiba chief called for demonstrations when Rajnath Singh visited Islamabad for a meeting of SARC Home Ministers. Rajnath Singh was flown from the airport to the meeting venue in a helicopter and he flew back immediately after the meeting without joining a lunch from which, curiously, even the host, Pakistan’s Home Minister stayed away.
Arun Jaitley stayed away from the SAARC Finance Ministers’ meeting in Islamabad last week, depriving it of much of its importance. Nevertheless, SAARC Secretary General Arjum Bahadur Thapa of Nepal called upon the group to move from SAFTA to South Asian Economic Union.
With India and Pakistan at loggerheads, speculation is rife over whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the November summit. Reports in a section of the Pakistani media have indicated that he might stay away although so far no one of consequence in India has suggested such a step is contemplated.
Modi made a personal investment in improving relations with India’s immediate neighbours when he invited the leaders of SAARC countries to his swearing-in as Prime Minister in 2014 and all, including Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, promptly turned up. Several setbacks followed but he demonstrated his readiness to walk the talk with an unscheduled stop at Lahore on his way home from Afghanistan to greet Sharif on his birthday.
The current wave of unrest in Kashmir began when protests erupted over the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani by the security forces. At least 67 persons were killed, over 6,000 injured and more than 100 blinded by pellets as youths defied the curfew. Pakistan launched a campaign against the human rights violations and India responded by raising the issue of rights violations in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Baluchistan for the first time.
Even as Modi and Chief Minister Mehmooba Mufti, whose Bharatiya Janata Party and People’s Democratic Party which are partners of the coalition that rules the state, began efforts to restore peace in the troubled valley, Nawaz Sharif deputed 22 diplomats to internationalise the issue. Under the Shimla Pact signed after the 1971 war which resulted in Bangladesh’s formation, the two countries are committed to resolve issues, including Kashmir, bilaterally without outside intervention.
Some course correction may take place sooner or later since Sharif, as the host, and Modi, as the leader of the largest member country and one who began his prime ministerhip with a commitment to friendship in the neighbourhood, have much at stake in the success of the SAARC summit. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, August 30, 2016.
Gulf Today
With India-Pakistan relations deteriorating in the wake of violence in Kashmir, now in its eighth week, the fate of the 19th summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, scheduled for November 9 and 10, hangs in the balance.
SAARC, which comprises India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, together account for 21 per cent of the world’s population but only nine per cent of the global economy.
SAARC members differ vastly in size and economic strength. India with an estimated population of 1,330 million and gross domestic product of $2,073.5 billion is much larger than the other seven countries put together. Pakistan, the second largest country, has an estimated population of 194 million and GDP of $270.0 billion. The Maldives with only 371,000 people is at the bottom of the population table. Bhutan with a GDP of $2 billion has the smallest economy, but it attaches more importance to gross domestic happiness than to gross domestic product.
India-Pakistan differences have held SAARC back from time to time in some areas. A common market is one of SAARC’s objectives but Pakistani fear of Indian economic domination has stalled progress in that direction. In 1995, a ministerial meeting decided on the creation of a South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) as a first step towards the goal of a common market. It was only in 2006 that an agreement in this regard went into effect. A decade later, intra-SAARC trade is still only a little more than the region’s GDP.
A South Asian motor vehicles agreement was negotiated by SAARC officials ahead of the last summit at Kathmandu in 2014 but Pakistan was not ready to sign it. Believing that it backed out as it now attaches economic integration with China more importance than South Asian economic cooperation, India decided to go ahead without it.
The relations between the two countries took a dive early this month when Laskar-e-Taiba chief called for demonstrations when Rajnath Singh visited Islamabad for a meeting of SARC Home Ministers. Rajnath Singh was flown from the airport to the meeting venue in a helicopter and he flew back immediately after the meeting without joining a lunch from which, curiously, even the host, Pakistan’s Home Minister stayed away.
Arun Jaitley stayed away from the SAARC Finance Ministers’ meeting in Islamabad last week, depriving it of much of its importance. Nevertheless, SAARC Secretary General Arjum Bahadur Thapa of Nepal called upon the group to move from SAFTA to South Asian Economic Union.
With India and Pakistan at loggerheads, speculation is rife over whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the November summit. Reports in a section of the Pakistani media have indicated that he might stay away although so far no one of consequence in India has suggested such a step is contemplated.
Modi made a personal investment in improving relations with India’s immediate neighbours when he invited the leaders of SAARC countries to his swearing-in as Prime Minister in 2014 and all, including Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, promptly turned up. Several setbacks followed but he demonstrated his readiness to walk the talk with an unscheduled stop at Lahore on his way home from Afghanistan to greet Sharif on his birthday.
The current wave of unrest in Kashmir began when protests erupted over the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani by the security forces. At least 67 persons were killed, over 6,000 injured and more than 100 blinded by pellets as youths defied the curfew. Pakistan launched a campaign against the human rights violations and India responded by raising the issue of rights violations in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Baluchistan for the first time.
Even as Modi and Chief Minister Mehmooba Mufti, whose Bharatiya Janata Party and People’s Democratic Party which are partners of the coalition that rules the state, began efforts to restore peace in the troubled valley, Nawaz Sharif deputed 22 diplomats to internationalise the issue. Under the Shimla Pact signed after the 1971 war which resulted in Bangladesh’s formation, the two countries are committed to resolve issues, including Kashmir, bilaterally without outside intervention.
Some course correction may take place sooner or later since Sharif, as the host, and Modi, as the leader of the largest member country and one who began his prime ministerhip with a commitment to friendship in the neighbourhood, have much at stake in the success of the SAARC summit. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, August 30, 2016.
16 August, 2016
Free country, unfree people
BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today
As India stepped into the 70th year of Independence on Monday, large sections of the population whom the promised freedom has eluded so far served notice that they are not ready to wait any longer.
The Congress, an offshoot of the organisation which spearheaded the freedom movement and dominated the political scene for most of the post-Independence period, is now on the decline. So are other parties of pre-Independence vintage like the Communist Party of India and its offshoots.
Parties whose roots lie in movements which were not part of the freedom struggle now wield power at the Centre and in many states. Topping the list is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party. It is now the largest political party.
Since Jawaharlal Nehru unfurled the national flag and spoke from the ramparts of Delhi’s Red Fort on August 15, 1947, the Prime Minister’s address to the nation from there has been the highlight of Independence Day celebrations. States hold similar events at their capitals.
This year the Centre drew up plans for the fortnight-long celebrations with the stated purpose of rekindling the spirit of patriotism. It sought to link the traditions of the independence movement with those of the army, which the nation inherited from the colonial power.
The celebrations began with events marking the 74th anniversary of the Quit India movement, the last major agitation of the freedom struggle which Gandhi had launched in 1942 with a call to “do or die”. Seventy-five ministers of the Modi government led the events at over 150 places across the country. It was a palpable attempt to appropriate the legacy of the freedom movement in which few Hindutva leaders had participated.
Speaking at a Quit India anniversary function, Modi broke his silence on the situation in Kashmir, many parts of which have been continuously under curfew following protests over the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani more than a month ago. Responding to the slogan of “Azaadi” (freedom), which resounds in the valley from time to time, he said people in Kashmir could feel the same azaadi as people in the rest of the country.
While Modi thus tacitly acknowledged that Kashmiri protesters do not have a sense of freedom, he did not go into the reasons behind it. Nor did he indicate how he proposed to create conditions in which they can feel a sense of freedom.
The presumption, implicit in the Prime Minister’s words, that outside Kashmir the people experience a sense of freedom is not entirely true.
As Modi walked up the steps at Red Fort to address the nation, several thousand Dalits converged in the small town of Una in his home state of Gujarat where on July 11 foot soldiers of Hindutva, posing as protectors of Cow the Mother, had stripped and flogged four members of the community engaged in their traditional occupation of skinning dead animals.
Worried that the Una attack and similar incidents reported from other places would harm its prospects in the forthcoming elections in the states, the BJP replaced Anandiben Patel whom Modi had installed as chief minister when he moved to Delhi.
Modi said most of the cow protectors were anti-socials. His remark angered a section of the Hindutva leadership but it did not impress the protesting Dalits. Jignesh Mevani, a Dalit activist, organised the march to Una from Ahmedabad, styled as “Azaadi kooch” (Towards Freedom).
In the troubled tribal region of Bastar in Madhya Pradesh, Soni Sori, an Adivasi activist who had suffered physical and sexual torture at the hands of the security forces, was leading a week-long march which began on August 9, the UN-designated International Day of the Indigenous People. She carried the national flag, ignoring warnings by Maoist insurgents who are active in the area.
Dalits and Adivasis together constitute one-fourth of India’s population of 1.2 billion. Outside these backward communities, too, there are large sections of marginalised people who are yet to reap the fruits of freedom. In fact, even among the rest of the population many remain unempowered. The only gift of freedom they enjoy is the right to vote in the elections.
That explains why the slogan “Azaadi” was raised by students of the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University early this year. The Hindutva establishment dubbed the students traitors. JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar explained that they wanted azaadi, not from India but in India. “We want freedom from hunger, freedom from poverty, freedom from the caste system, all of that,” he said.
A free country with unfree citizens is not entirely unusual. The lack of social mobility adds a new dimension to the problem in India.
On the completion of the framing of free India’s Constitution, its chief architect and Dalit icon BR Ambedkar had pointed out that it only granted political democracy. It should be backed by social democracy, which meant recognising liberty, equality and fraternity as principles of life, he said. -- Gulf Today, August 16, 2016
Gulf Today
As India stepped into the 70th year of Independence on Monday, large sections of the population whom the promised freedom has eluded so far served notice that they are not ready to wait any longer.
The Congress, an offshoot of the organisation which spearheaded the freedom movement and dominated the political scene for most of the post-Independence period, is now on the decline. So are other parties of pre-Independence vintage like the Communist Party of India and its offshoots.
Parties whose roots lie in movements which were not part of the freedom struggle now wield power at the Centre and in many states. Topping the list is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party. It is now the largest political party.
Since Jawaharlal Nehru unfurled the national flag and spoke from the ramparts of Delhi’s Red Fort on August 15, 1947, the Prime Minister’s address to the nation from there has been the highlight of Independence Day celebrations. States hold similar events at their capitals.
This year the Centre drew up plans for the fortnight-long celebrations with the stated purpose of rekindling the spirit of patriotism. It sought to link the traditions of the independence movement with those of the army, which the nation inherited from the colonial power.
The celebrations began with events marking the 74th anniversary of the Quit India movement, the last major agitation of the freedom struggle which Gandhi had launched in 1942 with a call to “do or die”. Seventy-five ministers of the Modi government led the events at over 150 places across the country. It was a palpable attempt to appropriate the legacy of the freedom movement in which few Hindutva leaders had participated.
Speaking at a Quit India anniversary function, Modi broke his silence on the situation in Kashmir, many parts of which have been continuously under curfew following protests over the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani more than a month ago. Responding to the slogan of “Azaadi” (freedom), which resounds in the valley from time to time, he said people in Kashmir could feel the same azaadi as people in the rest of the country.
While Modi thus tacitly acknowledged that Kashmiri protesters do not have a sense of freedom, he did not go into the reasons behind it. Nor did he indicate how he proposed to create conditions in which they can feel a sense of freedom.
The presumption, implicit in the Prime Minister’s words, that outside Kashmir the people experience a sense of freedom is not entirely true.
As Modi walked up the steps at Red Fort to address the nation, several thousand Dalits converged in the small town of Una in his home state of Gujarat where on July 11 foot soldiers of Hindutva, posing as protectors of Cow the Mother, had stripped and flogged four members of the community engaged in their traditional occupation of skinning dead animals.
Worried that the Una attack and similar incidents reported from other places would harm its prospects in the forthcoming elections in the states, the BJP replaced Anandiben Patel whom Modi had installed as chief minister when he moved to Delhi.
Modi said most of the cow protectors were anti-socials. His remark angered a section of the Hindutva leadership but it did not impress the protesting Dalits. Jignesh Mevani, a Dalit activist, organised the march to Una from Ahmedabad, styled as “Azaadi kooch” (Towards Freedom).
In the troubled tribal region of Bastar in Madhya Pradesh, Soni Sori, an Adivasi activist who had suffered physical and sexual torture at the hands of the security forces, was leading a week-long march which began on August 9, the UN-designated International Day of the Indigenous People. She carried the national flag, ignoring warnings by Maoist insurgents who are active in the area.
Dalits and Adivasis together constitute one-fourth of India’s population of 1.2 billion. Outside these backward communities, too, there are large sections of marginalised people who are yet to reap the fruits of freedom. In fact, even among the rest of the population many remain unempowered. The only gift of freedom they enjoy is the right to vote in the elections.
That explains why the slogan “Azaadi” was raised by students of the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University early this year. The Hindutva establishment dubbed the students traitors. JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar explained that they wanted azaadi, not from India but in India. “We want freedom from hunger, freedom from poverty, freedom from the caste system, all of that,” he said.
A free country with unfree citizens is not entirely unusual. The lack of social mobility adds a new dimension to the problem in India.
On the completion of the framing of free India’s Constitution, its chief architect and Dalit icon BR Ambedkar had pointed out that it only granted political democracy. It should be backed by social democracy, which meant recognising liberty, equality and fraternity as principles of life, he said. -- Gulf Today, August 16, 2016
15 July, 2015
India-Pakistan reality check
BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today
’s on again. The joint statement issued after Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif met at Ufa, Russia, signals that India and Pakistan are ready to resume bilateral talks which have been moving on an ‘on-again, off-again’ course for years.
Modi had invited all South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation leaders, including Nawaz Sharif, to attend his swearing-in ceremony last year, and they had all turned up. The development was widely seen as an indication of Modi’s eagerness to improve India’s relations with neighbours and their willingness to reciprocate.
However, India-Pakistan relations suffered a setback soon afterwards. Pakistan’s High Commissioner in New Delhi held consultations with some separatist leaders of Kashmir ahead of a scheduled meeting between Foreign Secretaries of the two countries, and the Modi government responded by cancelling the meeting.
Many at home criticised the decision. They pointed out that earlier, too, the Pakistani envoy had conferred with separatists before a bilateral meeting without inviting such a response. Besides, continued talks were the only sensible course before the two countries. However, Modi had to satisfy his Sangh Parivar followers who had been fed on anti-Pakistan rhetoric.
When India’s Foreign Secretary, S Jaishankar, was in Islamabad last March in the course of a tour of SAARC countries he discussed with his Pakistani counterpart, Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, ways to resume the dialogue process step by step without setting a time-frame.
The important decisions that emerged from the Modi-Sharif meeting include a meeting between the National Security Advisers of the two countries in New Delhi to discuss terrorism-related issues and a meeting between commanders of the Border Security Force and the Pakistani Rangers to de-escalate tension along the Jammu-Kashmir border, to be followed by a meeting between the Directors-General of Military Operations of the two countries.
India has entertained for long the feeling that Islamabad is not pursuing the case against the Pakistan-based terror group responsible for the 26/11 attack on Mumbai which left 166 people dead. According to Indian officials, a major takeaway of the Modi-Sharif meeting is Pakistan’s offer to cooperate in the terror attack trial by providing voice samples of suspects. It is not clear if the law permits the Pakistan government to do this.
Relations with Pakistan have been a contentious issue in domestic politics. Ironically the Congress, which was in power longer than any other party, is now plugging a critical line which is reminiscent of what the Bharatiya Janata Party did when it was in the opposition
For long the standard phrase in India-Pakistan joint communiqués was that the talks covered all issues, including Kashmir. After the cancellation of Secretary-level talks India was keen to shift the focus from Kashmir to terrorism.
Much of the latest communiqué is taken up by the issue of terrorism. What’s more, there is no specific mention of Kashmir. Indian officials cite this as evidence of Pakistani acceptance of the Indian stand.
However, they also concede, albeit indirectly, that India has been under pressure from the West to resume the dialogue with Pakistan. The US and other foreign governments have been warning India that recurrent exchange of fire along the line of actual control and belligerent statements by BJP leaders, including ministers, were leading to expansion of the Pakistan army’s engagement with terror groups.
The most positive aspect of the new situation is that leaders on both sides who were riding the high horse have come to terms with ground realities. However, they still have to proceed cautiously because of the compulsions of domestic politics.
Even as the BJP was labouring to present the Ufa outcome as a feather on Modi’s cap, Uddhav Thackeray, head of its closest ideological ally, the Shiv Sena, said the meeting with Sharif was unfortunate. “The neighbouring country needs to be taught a lesson in a manner it understands,” he added.
That the dialogue will now be at the level of National Security Advisers, and not Foreign Secretaries, suggests that India-Pakistan relations will be handled directly by the Prime Minister and his office, bypassing the External Affairs Ministry and its officials with experience of diplomatic engagements.
Gulf Today
’s on again. The joint statement issued after Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif met at Ufa, Russia, signals that India and Pakistan are ready to resume bilateral talks which have been moving on an ‘on-again, off-again’ course for years.
Modi had invited all South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation leaders, including Nawaz Sharif, to attend his swearing-in ceremony last year, and they had all turned up. The development was widely seen as an indication of Modi’s eagerness to improve India’s relations with neighbours and their willingness to reciprocate.
However, India-Pakistan relations suffered a setback soon afterwards. Pakistan’s High Commissioner in New Delhi held consultations with some separatist leaders of Kashmir ahead of a scheduled meeting between Foreign Secretaries of the two countries, and the Modi government responded by cancelling the meeting.
Many at home criticised the decision. They pointed out that earlier, too, the Pakistani envoy had conferred with separatists before a bilateral meeting without inviting such a response. Besides, continued talks were the only sensible course before the two countries. However, Modi had to satisfy his Sangh Parivar followers who had been fed on anti-Pakistan rhetoric.
When India’s Foreign Secretary, S Jaishankar, was in Islamabad last March in the course of a tour of SAARC countries he discussed with his Pakistani counterpart, Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, ways to resume the dialogue process step by step without setting a time-frame.
The important decisions that emerged from the Modi-Sharif meeting include a meeting between the National Security Advisers of the two countries in New Delhi to discuss terrorism-related issues and a meeting between commanders of the Border Security Force and the Pakistani Rangers to de-escalate tension along the Jammu-Kashmir border, to be followed by a meeting between the Directors-General of Military Operations of the two countries.
India has entertained for long the feeling that Islamabad is not pursuing the case against the Pakistan-based terror group responsible for the 26/11 attack on Mumbai which left 166 people dead. According to Indian officials, a major takeaway of the Modi-Sharif meeting is Pakistan’s offer to cooperate in the terror attack trial by providing voice samples of suspects. It is not clear if the law permits the Pakistan government to do this.
Relations with Pakistan have been a contentious issue in domestic politics. Ironically the Congress, which was in power longer than any other party, is now plugging a critical line which is reminiscent of what the Bharatiya Janata Party did when it was in the opposition
For long the standard phrase in India-Pakistan joint communiqués was that the talks covered all issues, including Kashmir. After the cancellation of Secretary-level talks India was keen to shift the focus from Kashmir to terrorism.
Much of the latest communiqué is taken up by the issue of terrorism. What’s more, there is no specific mention of Kashmir. Indian officials cite this as evidence of Pakistani acceptance of the Indian stand.
However, they also concede, albeit indirectly, that India has been under pressure from the West to resume the dialogue with Pakistan. The US and other foreign governments have been warning India that recurrent exchange of fire along the line of actual control and belligerent statements by BJP leaders, including ministers, were leading to expansion of the Pakistan army’s engagement with terror groups.
The most positive aspect of the new situation is that leaders on both sides who were riding the high horse have come to terms with ground realities. However, they still have to proceed cautiously because of the compulsions of domestic politics.
Even as the BJP was labouring to present the Ufa outcome as a feather on Modi’s cap, Uddhav Thackeray, head of its closest ideological ally, the Shiv Sena, said the meeting with Sharif was unfortunate. “The neighbouring country needs to be taught a lesson in a manner it understands,” he added.
That the dialogue will now be at the level of National Security Advisers, and not Foreign Secretaries, suggests that India-Pakistan relations will be handled directly by the Prime Minister and his office, bypassing the External Affairs Ministry and its officials with experience of diplomatic engagements.
Modi and Nawaz Sharif were in
Ufa for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit. SCO admitted both
India and Pakistan as full-fledged members at this meeting. It thus
becomes another forum where the two countries will work together as
equal partners.--Gulf Today, July 14, 2015.
04 December, 2014
Time to move forward in S. Asia
BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today
Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a dramatic impact by turning his swearing-in ceremony six months ago into an occasion for an informal get-together of leaders of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation. The air of goodwill that it created was missing when the regular Saarc summit was held in Kathmandu last week.
The mood was spoiled not by any specific bilateral or multilateral issue but the frigidity in India-Pakistan relations. Modi and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif spent the first day studiously avoiding each other. Cameramen waiting to record the customary handshake were disappointed. They circulated pictures which showed Modi walking past Sharif without even a nod.
Officials of the eight-nation group were ready with three draft agreements — on energy cooperation, regulation of passenger and cargo vehicular traffic, and movement by rail. The result of an Indian initiative, the three agreements were to be signed at the summit. But Nawaz Sharif sulked. He argued there had not been sufficient internal preparations to go ahead with them.
On the second day the ice was broken through the efforts of Nepalese Prime Minister Sushil Koirala. When the leaders came together for their final session, Modi and Sharif shook hands, and the Foreign Ministers signed the agreement on energy cooperation. Koirala said the agreements on road and rail traffic would be signed after Saarc Transport Ministers met and reviewed the draft.
India’s business community, which stands to benefit the most from increased trade among the Saarc countries, was disappointed by the failure to sign the agreements on transportation. The Confederation of Indian Industry said the agreement for regulation of vehicular traffic would lead to seamless movement of cargo, personal vehicles and passengers across land borders. The railways agreement too would harness the region’s economic potential.
The India-Pakistan standoff came in the wake of firing across the international border and the line of control in Jammu and Kashmir during the past few months and the calling off of scheduled ministerial-level bilateral talks by Modi’s government to show its displeasure over the Pakistani High Commissioner’s talks with separatist leaders of Kashmir.
Border clashes have been occurring regularly since the middle of July, with military and civilian casualties on both sides. Each side routinely accuses the other of firing first. At one stage, Defence Minister Arun Jaitley warned Pakistan that if it did not stop unprovoked firing India would impose an unaffordable cost on it. Pakistan’s Defence Minister, Khwaja Asif, responded with a subtle reference to nuclear power.
In 2013, Modi, as the Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate, had repeatedly taunted the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government for failing to respond effectively to incidents on the borders with China and Pakistan. In a tweet he said, “India is going through a troubled situation. China intrudes our borders, Pakistan kills our soldiers time & again but Centre doesn’t act!”
The Congress is now paying back in the same coin. Last week a Congress party spokesman said more than 400 ceasefire violations had taken place on the Pakistan border this year and 17 civilians had died, “compared to zero casualty last year and also in 2011.” As a party which has been in power for many decades, the Congress must know better than to exploit an issue of this kind for political gains.
India accounts for about 70 per cent of the area and population of the eight Saarc countries. Its prickly relationship with Pakistan, the second largest economy of the region, has been a hurdle in the way of realisation of the Saarc goal of a free trade zone. None of the other member nations has the clout to steer the group out of the India-Pakistan matrix. The leaders of the two countries themselves must, therefore, take the initiative in this regard.
In the six months Modi has been in office he has spent considerable time on foreign affairs, leading to whispers that External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has been reduced to a dummy. Modi’s invitation to the Saarc leaders for his swearing-in gave rise to the impression that he accords high priority to development of good-neighbourly relations. However, he is yet to come up with any concrete proposals in this regard.
The United Nations having rebuffed Pakistan’s bid to internationalise the Kashmir issue once again, the time is ripe for India to make a fresh bid to carry forward the bilateral process. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, December 4, 2014.
Gulf Today
Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a dramatic impact by turning his swearing-in ceremony six months ago into an occasion for an informal get-together of leaders of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation. The air of goodwill that it created was missing when the regular Saarc summit was held in Kathmandu last week.
The mood was spoiled not by any specific bilateral or multilateral issue but the frigidity in India-Pakistan relations. Modi and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif spent the first day studiously avoiding each other. Cameramen waiting to record the customary handshake were disappointed. They circulated pictures which showed Modi walking past Sharif without even a nod.
Officials of the eight-nation group were ready with three draft agreements — on energy cooperation, regulation of passenger and cargo vehicular traffic, and movement by rail. The result of an Indian initiative, the three agreements were to be signed at the summit. But Nawaz Sharif sulked. He argued there had not been sufficient internal preparations to go ahead with them.
On the second day the ice was broken through the efforts of Nepalese Prime Minister Sushil Koirala. When the leaders came together for their final session, Modi and Sharif shook hands, and the Foreign Ministers signed the agreement on energy cooperation. Koirala said the agreements on road and rail traffic would be signed after Saarc Transport Ministers met and reviewed the draft.
India’s business community, which stands to benefit the most from increased trade among the Saarc countries, was disappointed by the failure to sign the agreements on transportation. The Confederation of Indian Industry said the agreement for regulation of vehicular traffic would lead to seamless movement of cargo, personal vehicles and passengers across land borders. The railways agreement too would harness the region’s economic potential.
The India-Pakistan standoff came in the wake of firing across the international border and the line of control in Jammu and Kashmir during the past few months and the calling off of scheduled ministerial-level bilateral talks by Modi’s government to show its displeasure over the Pakistani High Commissioner’s talks with separatist leaders of Kashmir.
Border clashes have been occurring regularly since the middle of July, with military and civilian casualties on both sides. Each side routinely accuses the other of firing first. At one stage, Defence Minister Arun Jaitley warned Pakistan that if it did not stop unprovoked firing India would impose an unaffordable cost on it. Pakistan’s Defence Minister, Khwaja Asif, responded with a subtle reference to nuclear power.
In 2013, Modi, as the Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate, had repeatedly taunted the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government for failing to respond effectively to incidents on the borders with China and Pakistan. In a tweet he said, “India is going through a troubled situation. China intrudes our borders, Pakistan kills our soldiers time & again but Centre doesn’t act!”
The Congress is now paying back in the same coin. Last week a Congress party spokesman said more than 400 ceasefire violations had taken place on the Pakistan border this year and 17 civilians had died, “compared to zero casualty last year and also in 2011.” As a party which has been in power for many decades, the Congress must know better than to exploit an issue of this kind for political gains.
India accounts for about 70 per cent of the area and population of the eight Saarc countries. Its prickly relationship with Pakistan, the second largest economy of the region, has been a hurdle in the way of realisation of the Saarc goal of a free trade zone. None of the other member nations has the clout to steer the group out of the India-Pakistan matrix. The leaders of the two countries themselves must, therefore, take the initiative in this regard.
In the six months Modi has been in office he has spent considerable time on foreign affairs, leading to whispers that External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has been reduced to a dummy. Modi’s invitation to the Saarc leaders for his swearing-in gave rise to the impression that he accords high priority to development of good-neighbourly relations. However, he is yet to come up with any concrete proposals in this regard.
The United Nations having rebuffed Pakistan’s bid to internationalise the Kashmir issue once again, the time is ripe for India to make a fresh bid to carry forward the bilateral process. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, December 4, 2014.
12 February, 2013
Hanging puts the clock back
BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today
Whichever way one looks at it, the secret hanging of Afzal Guru, the lone convict in the parliament attack case, who was under the shadow of the gallows for more than a decade, is a sad commentary on Indian democracy.
While people swayed by right-wing groups, which have been baying for blood, applauded the action, civil society activists questioned the fairness of the trial, the timing of the hanging and the message that it sends out.
The case was a sequel to the December 1999 attack on Parliament House by five gunmen, said to be Pakistanis. All of them were killed by security personnel, who lost five men in the action. Four civilians were also killed but none of about 100 parliamentarians who were in the building was hurt. A massive military build-up on both sides of the India-Pakistan border followed, raising fears of a nuclear conflict.
According to the investigators, the attack was plotted by Jaish-e-Mohammad, a Pakistan-based Kashmiri outfit, whose founder, Maulana Masood Azhar, is among the 20 persons whose names figure in dossiers New Delhi has given to Islamabad. Pakistan says the evidence India has provided is not sufficient to prosecute them.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, which habitually takes a hard line on India-Pakistan relations while in the opposition, has been particularly hawkish on the Parliament attack case. The attack had taken place when the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance was in power. Azhar was one of the hardcore militants its government had released from prison earlier to secure the safe return of the passengers of an Indian plane which was hijacked after it took off from Kathmandu.
Afzal Guru was a Kashmiri militant who had surrendered to the security forces. Later he moved from the valley to Delhi and was engaged in business there. The charge against him was that he had conspired with the attackers and helped them to get arms and shelter. He claimed he was framed.
He did not get a counsel of his choice to represent him in the trial court. All six lawyers whose names he had proposed refused his brief, some of them out of fear. He dispensed with the services of the court-appointed lawyer, saying he was not presenting his case fully.
While disposing of Afzal Guru’s appeal against his conviction, the Supreme Court conceded there was no direct evidence to show he belonged to any terrorist group or was a party to any criminal conspiracy. However, it held, circumstantial evidence unerringly pointed to his collaboration with the attackers. It said the collective conscience of the society would only be satisfied if capital punishment was awarded.
Presidents APJ Abdul Kalam and Pratibha Patil left office without taking any decision on the mercy petition filed by Afzal Guru’s wife Tabasum. Pranab Mukherjee, who took office six months ago, rejected the mercy plea on February 3 clearing the way for the hanging.
Afzal Guru is the second person to be hanged in three months, the first being Ajmal Kasab, the Pakistani gunman who was captured alive during the 2008 Mumbai terror attack. As in the case of Kasab, the execution procedures were completed in utter secrecy and the body buried in the jail compound.
Afzal Guru’s family and lawyer were not informed about the date of his execution. Kashmir was placed under curfew, cyber links were cut and secessionist leaders placed under restraint to check protests. Still there were protests, some of them violent, and the valley observed three-day mourning.
Congress party spokesman Rashid Alvi said the hanging sent a tough message to the world that India would not tolerate terrorism. He appeared to be oblivious of the negative message implied in the short-circuiting of established procedures.
Human rights groups in the country and abroad were sharp in their criticism. “The secret, shameful and surreptitious manner (of the hanging) is most unbecoming of a democracy,” said Yug Mohit Chaudhry, lawyer and campaigner against death penalty.
Many analysts saw Afzal Guru’s execution, rejecting calls for reprieve, as an attempt by the ruling Congress to take the wind out of the BJP’s sails ahead of parliament’s budget session beginning this month and the general election due next year. They noted that Kasab was hanged just before the last session.
“It’s extremely tragic if Indian democracy is going to survive on executing someone or the other before every parliament session,” said Vrinda Grover, a prominent lawyer and activist.
Clearly the hanging has put the clock back.--Gulf Today, Sharjah, February 12, 2013
Gulf Today
Whichever way one looks at it, the secret hanging of Afzal Guru, the lone convict in the parliament attack case, who was under the shadow of the gallows for more than a decade, is a sad commentary on Indian democracy.
While people swayed by right-wing groups, which have been baying for blood, applauded the action, civil society activists questioned the fairness of the trial, the timing of the hanging and the message that it sends out.
The case was a sequel to the December 1999 attack on Parliament House by five gunmen, said to be Pakistanis. All of them were killed by security personnel, who lost five men in the action. Four civilians were also killed but none of about 100 parliamentarians who were in the building was hurt. A massive military build-up on both sides of the India-Pakistan border followed, raising fears of a nuclear conflict.
According to the investigators, the attack was plotted by Jaish-e-Mohammad, a Pakistan-based Kashmiri outfit, whose founder, Maulana Masood Azhar, is among the 20 persons whose names figure in dossiers New Delhi has given to Islamabad. Pakistan says the evidence India has provided is not sufficient to prosecute them.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, which habitually takes a hard line on India-Pakistan relations while in the opposition, has been particularly hawkish on the Parliament attack case. The attack had taken place when the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance was in power. Azhar was one of the hardcore militants its government had released from prison earlier to secure the safe return of the passengers of an Indian plane which was hijacked after it took off from Kathmandu.
Afzal Guru was a Kashmiri militant who had surrendered to the security forces. Later he moved from the valley to Delhi and was engaged in business there. The charge against him was that he had conspired with the attackers and helped them to get arms and shelter. He claimed he was framed.
He did not get a counsel of his choice to represent him in the trial court. All six lawyers whose names he had proposed refused his brief, some of them out of fear. He dispensed with the services of the court-appointed lawyer, saying he was not presenting his case fully.
While disposing of Afzal Guru’s appeal against his conviction, the Supreme Court conceded there was no direct evidence to show he belonged to any terrorist group or was a party to any criminal conspiracy. However, it held, circumstantial evidence unerringly pointed to his collaboration with the attackers. It said the collective conscience of the society would only be satisfied if capital punishment was awarded.
Presidents APJ Abdul Kalam and Pratibha Patil left office without taking any decision on the mercy petition filed by Afzal Guru’s wife Tabasum. Pranab Mukherjee, who took office six months ago, rejected the mercy plea on February 3 clearing the way for the hanging.
Afzal Guru is the second person to be hanged in three months, the first being Ajmal Kasab, the Pakistani gunman who was captured alive during the 2008 Mumbai terror attack. As in the case of Kasab, the execution procedures were completed in utter secrecy and the body buried in the jail compound.
Afzal Guru’s family and lawyer were not informed about the date of his execution. Kashmir was placed under curfew, cyber links were cut and secessionist leaders placed under restraint to check protests. Still there were protests, some of them violent, and the valley observed three-day mourning.
Congress party spokesman Rashid Alvi said the hanging sent a tough message to the world that India would not tolerate terrorism. He appeared to be oblivious of the negative message implied in the short-circuiting of established procedures.
Human rights groups in the country and abroad were sharp in their criticism. “The secret, shameful and surreptitious manner (of the hanging) is most unbecoming of a democracy,” said Yug Mohit Chaudhry, lawyer and campaigner against death penalty.
Many analysts saw Afzal Guru’s execution, rejecting calls for reprieve, as an attempt by the ruling Congress to take the wind out of the BJP’s sails ahead of parliament’s budget session beginning this month and the general election due next year. They noted that Kasab was hanged just before the last session.
“It’s extremely tragic if Indian democracy is going to survive on executing someone or the other before every parliament session,” said Vrinda Grover, a prominent lawyer and activist.
Clearly the hanging has put the clock back.--Gulf Today, Sharjah, February 12, 2013
09 October, 2012
Kashmir: cart before horse
BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today
A few of India’s top industrialists went to Srinagar last week at the instance of Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi, who is widely viewed as prime minister in waiting, and offered Kashmiri students scholarships and training facilities. They, however, made no commitment to invest in the state.
Gandhi, who is assiduously trying to connect with the new generation, arranged the industrialists’ visit in response to a complaint heard when he was at the Kashmir University campus a year ago that Indian businessmen ignored the state. In doing so, he avoided raising high hopes. “This interaction will not solve Kashmir’s problems or India’s,” he told the students, “but we need to keep the conversation on.”
The Gandhi initiative can be seen as an extension of the official efforts to tackle unemployment in the state which helps extremist groups to find recruits for their cause. Jammu and Kashmir has an unemployment rate of 5.3 per cent, higher than that of any neighbouring state.
About 2,000 young men and women from Kashmir, many of them school dropouts, have found employment in the state and outside under the Himayat scheme, launched two years ago primarily to help rural youth acquire job-oriented skills. Efforts are on to provide employment to 5,000 more under the scheme this year. Last March the government set up a website, Udaan, to connect unemployed Kashmiri youth with the corporate world.
The state government has drawn up a plan to expand educational facilities. It envisages establishment of 11 degree colleges in Jammu and six in Kashmir at a cost of Rs2 billion.
The Central and state governments have also formulated a scheme, costing Rs16 billion, for the rehabilitation of an estimated 400,000 Kashmiri Pandits who fled the valley after militants targeted members of the community.
Expansion of educational facilities, creation of job opportunities and rehabilitation of refugees are all important and welcome steps. They will succeed only if the government first creates the right political climate. In giving precedence to other issues over long overdue political measures the government is putting the cart before the horse.
The Kashmir problem has both national and international dimensions. There is manifest discontent among sections of the state’s population, which makes it possible for external elements to foment trouble. More importantly, the state has been at the centre of a dispute between India and Pakistan ever since they emerged as independent nations 65 years ago, and they have fought three wars over it.
All the stakeholders have made so much emotional investment in the Kashmir issue over the past several decades that neither the national nor the international dimension admits of easy resolution. However, in the recent past ground conditions have improved sufficiently to permit forward movement on both fronts.
Some ideas for improving India-Pakistan relations and ensuring peace in Jammu and Kashmir without either country giving up its basic position with regard to the state’s future were agreed upon in talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and former president Pervez Musharraf a few years ago. Unfortunately the peace process they set in motion was interrupted by the Mumbai terror attack which occurred after the transition to civilian rule in Islamabad.
The decline in infiltration from across the border and the peaceful conduct of last year’s local self-government elections created an ideal setting for New Delhi to reach out to all sections in the state, especially to those beyond the pale of electoral politics. Some useful suggestions in this regard were made by the team of interlocutors appointed by the government to talk to various groups in the state. The government is yet to act on them.
Last month the prime minister said infiltration from across the line of control is again on the rise. About 300 out of 35,000 persons elected to village councils resigned recently after militants killed a few of their colleagues. These are ominous signs that underline the need for urgent political action.
Gulf Today
A few of India’s top industrialists went to Srinagar last week at the instance of Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi, who is widely viewed as prime minister in waiting, and offered Kashmiri students scholarships and training facilities. They, however, made no commitment to invest in the state.
Gandhi, who is assiduously trying to connect with the new generation, arranged the industrialists’ visit in response to a complaint heard when he was at the Kashmir University campus a year ago that Indian businessmen ignored the state. In doing so, he avoided raising high hopes. “This interaction will not solve Kashmir’s problems or India’s,” he told the students, “but we need to keep the conversation on.”
The Gandhi initiative can be seen as an extension of the official efforts to tackle unemployment in the state which helps extremist groups to find recruits for their cause. Jammu and Kashmir has an unemployment rate of 5.3 per cent, higher than that of any neighbouring state.
About 2,000 young men and women from Kashmir, many of them school dropouts, have found employment in the state and outside under the Himayat scheme, launched two years ago primarily to help rural youth acquire job-oriented skills. Efforts are on to provide employment to 5,000 more under the scheme this year. Last March the government set up a website, Udaan, to connect unemployed Kashmiri youth with the corporate world.
The state government has drawn up a plan to expand educational facilities. It envisages establishment of 11 degree colleges in Jammu and six in Kashmir at a cost of Rs2 billion.
The Central and state governments have also formulated a scheme, costing Rs16 billion, for the rehabilitation of an estimated 400,000 Kashmiri Pandits who fled the valley after militants targeted members of the community.
Expansion of educational facilities, creation of job opportunities and rehabilitation of refugees are all important and welcome steps. They will succeed only if the government first creates the right political climate. In giving precedence to other issues over long overdue political measures the government is putting the cart before the horse.
The Kashmir problem has both national and international dimensions. There is manifest discontent among sections of the state’s population, which makes it possible for external elements to foment trouble. More importantly, the state has been at the centre of a dispute between India and Pakistan ever since they emerged as independent nations 65 years ago, and they have fought three wars over it.
All the stakeholders have made so much emotional investment in the Kashmir issue over the past several decades that neither the national nor the international dimension admits of easy resolution. However, in the recent past ground conditions have improved sufficiently to permit forward movement on both fronts.
Some ideas for improving India-Pakistan relations and ensuring peace in Jammu and Kashmir without either country giving up its basic position with regard to the state’s future were agreed upon in talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and former president Pervez Musharraf a few years ago. Unfortunately the peace process they set in motion was interrupted by the Mumbai terror attack which occurred after the transition to civilian rule in Islamabad.
The decline in infiltration from across the border and the peaceful conduct of last year’s local self-government elections created an ideal setting for New Delhi to reach out to all sections in the state, especially to those beyond the pale of electoral politics. Some useful suggestions in this regard were made by the team of interlocutors appointed by the government to talk to various groups in the state. The government is yet to act on them.
Last month the prime minister said infiltration from across the line of control is again on the rise. About 300 out of 35,000 persons elected to village councils resigned recently after militants killed a few of their colleagues. These are ominous signs that underline the need for urgent political action.
There are indications that young
Kashmiris will respond positively to a political initiative. Junaid Azim
Mattu, a leader of the moderate separatist People’s Conference, who
recently went to Mumbai to participate in a television debate, has
stated that “an absolutely inspiring empathy” reverberated in the studio
with young members of the audience calling for justice, inclusiveness
and redress in Kashmir. Enthused by the experience he has said the state
must heed this spirit and move forward. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, October 9, 2012.
15 May, 2012
Kashmir: no lesson learnt
BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today
French statesman Talleyrand said of the Bourbon kings that they learnt nothing and forgot nothing. The same can be said of India’s rulers, judging by their inaction on Kashmir when the time was opportune.
The Kashmir valley, which witnessed several waves of violence during the past two decades, has enjoyed comparative peace for some time. However, the Indian government has failed to take advantage of the situation to promote the political process and ensure lasting peace.
The quiet of the recent past is partly the result of closure of the mountain passes following snowfall, restricting movement across the line of control. But there is reason to suspect that Kashmiri weariness has also contributed to the lull.
The Hurriyat Conference, an umbrella organisation of parties which do not consider the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India as final, has not been very active. One of its leaders, Abdul Ghani Bhatt, recently suggested that the United Nations resolutions on Kashmir have lost their relevance. Its chairman, Mirwaiz Umar Farouq, asserted that they remain the basis for resolution of the dispute. The conflicting statements of the two leaders indicate the group is clueless on the way forward.
The Kashmir issue is linked with India-Pakistan relations inasmuch as it is a remnant of the partition of the subcontinent. The process of normalisation of relations between the two countries remained slow and tortuous during the past year but some hopeful signs have emerged. There is, for instance, growing recognition that both the countries can gain from increased mutual trade and people-to-people contacts.
All this created a favourable atmosphere for the Indian government to take a new initiative to address the grievances of the people of Kashmir which have led to recurrent violence. It had before it the report of a three-member team of interlocutors which contained some ideas it could work on.
The team comprising Dileep Padgaonkar, a noted journalist, Radha Kumar, a well-known academic, and MM Ansari, a former Information Commissioner, was appointed in 2010 as part of a package announced to quell a wave of student protests which had led to brutal police action that left more than 100 teenagers dead and several hundred others wounded.
A 36-member all-party parliamentary delegation which flew into Srinagar on a fact-finding mission was greeted with stony silence. The Hurriyat leaders refused to meet the MPs. However, some MPs sought them out and held discussions with them. They also had talks with J and K Liberation Front leader Yasin Malik.
Unfortunately MPs belonging to the Hindu right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party, which tends to view issues through a communal prism, adopted a recalcitrant attitude and blocked the emergence of a political consensus.
Following up on the parliamentary initiative, the government announced an eight-point package to assuage Kashmir’s wounded feelings. The appointment of interlocutors for a dialogue with political parties, groups, students and civil society was the first of the eight points.
The other points included release of all detained students and withdrawal of the cases against them, immediate reopening of educational institutions, an ex-gratia payment of Rs500,000 each to the families of those killed and review of the working of the security law and deployment of security forces, especially in Srinagar.
The government, recognising the need to address the problem of economic backwardness, made a special allotment of Rs1 billion for the state and decided to set up separate task forces to go into the developmental needs of the predominantly Hindu region of Jammu and the predominantly Buddhist region of Ladakh.
The Hurriyat leaders who want Kashmir’s representatives to be included in India-Pakistan talks on the state’s future were cool to the concept of indirect dialogue. However, the interlocutors held discussions with them. They also travelled widely in the state and met more than 700 delegations.
The content of the interlocutors’ report has not been made public so far, but it is widely believed that they have recommended grant of a measure of autonomy to the state and changes in the Armed Forces Special Powers Act which gives the security personnel impunity. The government’s failure to consider its recommendations and formulate an action plan shows it gives a low priority to the political process.
Gulf Today
French statesman Talleyrand said of the Bourbon kings that they learnt nothing and forgot nothing. The same can be said of India’s rulers, judging by their inaction on Kashmir when the time was opportune.
The Kashmir valley, which witnessed several waves of violence during the past two decades, has enjoyed comparative peace for some time. However, the Indian government has failed to take advantage of the situation to promote the political process and ensure lasting peace.
The quiet of the recent past is partly the result of closure of the mountain passes following snowfall, restricting movement across the line of control. But there is reason to suspect that Kashmiri weariness has also contributed to the lull.
The Hurriyat Conference, an umbrella organisation of parties which do not consider the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India as final, has not been very active. One of its leaders, Abdul Ghani Bhatt, recently suggested that the United Nations resolutions on Kashmir have lost their relevance. Its chairman, Mirwaiz Umar Farouq, asserted that they remain the basis for resolution of the dispute. The conflicting statements of the two leaders indicate the group is clueless on the way forward.
The Kashmir issue is linked with India-Pakistan relations inasmuch as it is a remnant of the partition of the subcontinent. The process of normalisation of relations between the two countries remained slow and tortuous during the past year but some hopeful signs have emerged. There is, for instance, growing recognition that both the countries can gain from increased mutual trade and people-to-people contacts.
All this created a favourable atmosphere for the Indian government to take a new initiative to address the grievances of the people of Kashmir which have led to recurrent violence. It had before it the report of a three-member team of interlocutors which contained some ideas it could work on.
The team comprising Dileep Padgaonkar, a noted journalist, Radha Kumar, a well-known academic, and MM Ansari, a former Information Commissioner, was appointed in 2010 as part of a package announced to quell a wave of student protests which had led to brutal police action that left more than 100 teenagers dead and several hundred others wounded.
A 36-member all-party parliamentary delegation which flew into Srinagar on a fact-finding mission was greeted with stony silence. The Hurriyat leaders refused to meet the MPs. However, some MPs sought them out and held discussions with them. They also had talks with J and K Liberation Front leader Yasin Malik.
Unfortunately MPs belonging to the Hindu right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party, which tends to view issues through a communal prism, adopted a recalcitrant attitude and blocked the emergence of a political consensus.
Following up on the parliamentary initiative, the government announced an eight-point package to assuage Kashmir’s wounded feelings. The appointment of interlocutors for a dialogue with political parties, groups, students and civil society was the first of the eight points.
The other points included release of all detained students and withdrawal of the cases against them, immediate reopening of educational institutions, an ex-gratia payment of Rs500,000 each to the families of those killed and review of the working of the security law and deployment of security forces, especially in Srinagar.
The government, recognising the need to address the problem of economic backwardness, made a special allotment of Rs1 billion for the state and decided to set up separate task forces to go into the developmental needs of the predominantly Hindu region of Jammu and the predominantly Buddhist region of Ladakh.
The Hurriyat leaders who want Kashmir’s representatives to be included in India-Pakistan talks on the state’s future were cool to the concept of indirect dialogue. However, the interlocutors held discussions with them. They also travelled widely in the state and met more than 700 delegations.
The content of the interlocutors’ report has not been made public so far, but it is widely believed that they have recommended grant of a measure of autonomy to the state and changes in the Armed Forces Special Powers Act which gives the security personnel impunity. The government’s failure to consider its recommendations and formulate an action plan shows it gives a low priority to the political process.
The
government’s inaction apparently stems from a lack of moral courage to
take on the BJP, which, it fears, will not only condemn any
accommodation of Kashmiri sentiment as appeasement but also use it to
whip up communal passions with an eye to the 2014 parliamentary
elections.--Gulf Today, May 15, 2012.
17 October, 2011
The cost of procrastination
BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today
Mark Twain once said, “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.” The Indian administration has elevated the American humorist’s quip to the level of a principle of governance.
From Kashmir to Koodankulam, the administration has routinely pigeonholed several pressing issues. Some of them are coming back to haunt the nation, demanding a high price for procrastination.
The Manmohan Singh government cannot be apportioned much blame for the Kashmir problem, which is as old as the free nations of India and Pakistan. The problem has internal and external dimensions, and these aspects have been complicated by insurgency and cross-border terrorism.
The government cannot, however, escape blame for failing to douse the flames of discontent in Kashmir. A year ago, in a time-buying effort, it appointed a three-member team of interlocutors to talk to all sections of people and make recommendations. Last week the team submitted its report, which calls for “meaningful autonomy”, speedy development and withdrawal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which allows the army to act with impunity.
The report has not generated much enthusiasm in government circles. Few expect the central administration to push for autonomy as it is sure to invite strong criticism from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, not to mention Hindu extremists who have assaulted several persons for not toeing their hard line on Kashmir.
Kashmir is the oldest and most intractable of the problems before the administration, and Koodankulam the newest. It is also a simple one inasmuch as a decision can be taken without having to look over one’s shoulders constantly.
The Koodankulam issue relates to the future of a nuclear power station, the first phase of which is ready for commissioning. Worried by the Japanese experience at Fukushima, last month residents of villages near Koodankulam launched a mass movement demanding that the project be scrapped. They suspended the agitation after Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and the Tamil Nadu Assembly endorsed the demand.
Instead of using the time thus gained to remove the people’s apprehensions about their safety, the administration went ahead with preparations to commission the plant. The villagers then returned to the battlefield with renewed determination.
Procrastination on the Telangana issue has created an explosive situation in Andhra Pradesh. In the 2004 election manifesto the Congress party had committed itself to the formation of Telangana state and included it in the common minimum programme of the first United Progressive Alliance government.
An 11-day fast by Telangana leader K Chandrasekhara Reddy forced the second UPA government to announce it would “start the process” of state formation. It then constituted a committee to look into the issue. Early this year the committee submitted its report, which merely listed three possible ways in which Andhra Pradesh can be split.
A mass movement in support of the state demand, which began five weeks ago, has disrupted life in Telangana and hit other areas too. More than 120 passenger trains running through the region are cancelled or diverted each day. Thermal power stations in Telangana on which other states too depend for power are not able to keep up production. Yet there is no sign of a sense of urgency in the way the administration handles the problem.
The northeastern state of Manipur is reeling under the impact of a double blockade of national highways, which began in August. The first blockade was imposed by the Kuki tribe to press the demand for carving out a Sadar Hills district by splitting Senapathi. The Nagas, who oppose the Kuki demand, launched a counter-blockade.
The double blockade has affected flow of essential commodities to the region, leading to steep rise in prices. A cylinder of cooking gas now sells at Rs 2,000, which is five times the normal price. Hospitals in the state are not able to undertake surgeries due to shortage of medical supplies.
Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh met the prime minister in New Delhi on Thursday to apprise him of the situation in Manipur. However, so far there has been no central initiative to resolve the issue, which has the potential to precipitate ethnic strife in the entire northeast. The government’s indifferent approach has led some observers to speculate that it may be cynically looking for some political dividend from the worsening situation. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, Octoner 17, 2011.
Gulf Today
Mark Twain once said, “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.” The Indian administration has elevated the American humorist’s quip to the level of a principle of governance.
From Kashmir to Koodankulam, the administration has routinely pigeonholed several pressing issues. Some of them are coming back to haunt the nation, demanding a high price for procrastination.
The Manmohan Singh government cannot be apportioned much blame for the Kashmir problem, which is as old as the free nations of India and Pakistan. The problem has internal and external dimensions, and these aspects have been complicated by insurgency and cross-border terrorism.
The government cannot, however, escape blame for failing to douse the flames of discontent in Kashmir. A year ago, in a time-buying effort, it appointed a three-member team of interlocutors to talk to all sections of people and make recommendations. Last week the team submitted its report, which calls for “meaningful autonomy”, speedy development and withdrawal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which allows the army to act with impunity.
The report has not generated much enthusiasm in government circles. Few expect the central administration to push for autonomy as it is sure to invite strong criticism from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, not to mention Hindu extremists who have assaulted several persons for not toeing their hard line on Kashmir.
Kashmir is the oldest and most intractable of the problems before the administration, and Koodankulam the newest. It is also a simple one inasmuch as a decision can be taken without having to look over one’s shoulders constantly.
The Koodankulam issue relates to the future of a nuclear power station, the first phase of which is ready for commissioning. Worried by the Japanese experience at Fukushima, last month residents of villages near Koodankulam launched a mass movement demanding that the project be scrapped. They suspended the agitation after Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and the Tamil Nadu Assembly endorsed the demand.
Instead of using the time thus gained to remove the people’s apprehensions about their safety, the administration went ahead with preparations to commission the plant. The villagers then returned to the battlefield with renewed determination.
Procrastination on the Telangana issue has created an explosive situation in Andhra Pradesh. In the 2004 election manifesto the Congress party had committed itself to the formation of Telangana state and included it in the common minimum programme of the first United Progressive Alliance government.
An 11-day fast by Telangana leader K Chandrasekhara Reddy forced the second UPA government to announce it would “start the process” of state formation. It then constituted a committee to look into the issue. Early this year the committee submitted its report, which merely listed three possible ways in which Andhra Pradesh can be split.
A mass movement in support of the state demand, which began five weeks ago, has disrupted life in Telangana and hit other areas too. More than 120 passenger trains running through the region are cancelled or diverted each day. Thermal power stations in Telangana on which other states too depend for power are not able to keep up production. Yet there is no sign of a sense of urgency in the way the administration handles the problem.
The northeastern state of Manipur is reeling under the impact of a double blockade of national highways, which began in August. The first blockade was imposed by the Kuki tribe to press the demand for carving out a Sadar Hills district by splitting Senapathi. The Nagas, who oppose the Kuki demand, launched a counter-blockade.
The double blockade has affected flow of essential commodities to the region, leading to steep rise in prices. A cylinder of cooking gas now sells at Rs 2,000, which is five times the normal price. Hospitals in the state are not able to undertake surgeries due to shortage of medical supplies.
Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh met the prime minister in New Delhi on Thursday to apprise him of the situation in Manipur. However, so far there has been no central initiative to resolve the issue, which has the potential to precipitate ethnic strife in the entire northeast. The government’s indifferent approach has led some observers to speculate that it may be cynically looking for some political dividend from the worsening situation. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, Octoner 17, 2011.
18 June, 2010
Mass graves in Kashmir: a daring attempt to find the truth
The Asian Human Rights Commission, Hong Kong, has forwarded a preliminary report of the International People’s Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in India-administered Kashmir with this introduction:
'Buried Evidence - 'Unknown, Unmarked, and Mass Graves in Indian-Administered Kashmir' (Dr. Angana Chatterji, Advocate Parvez Imroz et al.; The International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in India-Administered Kashmir) is a unique and daring attempt to find the truth behind the disappearance and extrajudicial execution of persons in the Indian-administered Kashmir. The 108-page report challenges the defiance of the Indian government that has so far allowed the systematic persecution of the people of Kashmir with impunity, by what is known in international human rights law as a crime against humanity, and the government's subversive acts that have prevented every attempt to bring this to light.
The International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian-administered Kashmir with the support of the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons have met and listened to hundreds of persons in Kashmir. The Tribunal received communications in confidence, many of which are reproduced in the report. The report includes a large array of recommendations to the stakeholders in Kashmir, including the government that must be acted upon.
While most of India and the rest of the world see the ongoing conflict in Kashmir as a security issue arising out of the shadow war for control over disputed territory fought between two neighbouring countries, India and Pakistan, the report throws light upon the daily reality of loss, pain and the continuing agony of the ordinary Kashmiris.
While little is known to the world about the Pakistan-administered Kashmir, for sure the Indian side of Kashmir has been for the past six decades the valley of death. There are thousands of ordinary people living in Kashmir who are confronted with the daily possibility of violent death at the hands of those whom the state refer to as 'security forces’.
Over the years, Kashmir has become an anomaly of beliefs. Here the protector has become the persecutor, safety implies silence, and honour is not a distant possibility even after death.
The rule of law that India and the state government of Kashmir have been promising to the people living in this part of the world does not apply to those who are stationed here to enforce the law. They abduct, rape, torture and kill at will, and justify it in the name of national security. Today, Kashmir has become the land of systematic state oppression. The mass graves, where mutilated and unidentified bodies are buried stands proof to this gruesome reality of life.
Thousands have lost their life in Kashmir at the hands of those the state has sent to protect. Their bodies are now mere heaps of gravel covering unidentified decomposed human remains found throughout Kashmir. It is normal to find such graves in public places. "Children ask us about these graves. Children ask us why soldiers are everywhere. Children grow up here thinking violent death is natural" (page 33). Mass graves are no more a phenomena that warrants secrecy in Kashmir. They are found near schools, play grounds and other public places. It is this normalcy of Kashmir that is frightening.
Yet like the unheard cry for dignity and justice that comes from these graves, the ordinary people of Kashmir have also refused to forget what has befallen upon them. "We learned that local communities across Kashmir insist on remembrance as practice of resistance. To forget, they say, would be to reconcile to injustice." (page 41). The report is a unique attempt to give voice to the voiceless of Kashmir.
"There they are, rows upon rows." (page 21). The report is an encouragement to similar attempts that could be conceived in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. It is an indicator to what a society may have to face in other places in India like Manipur where systematic militarisation in underway in the excuse of combating armed militancy.
The details available in the report shatter the false notion of mainstream Indian media that reporting on Kashmir is difficult.
The report in essence is the cry for help and an attempt to restore the honour of those who have been termed terrorists and anti-national to justify the brutal crime of the state.
"My son was killed in a fake encounter. Buried by the police as a 'Pakistani terrorist'. We want justice. We want his name restored. We want his memory healed." (page 9).
The question is will these cries be heard?
The report can be downloaded from the website of International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Kashmir (IPTK).
The AHRC wishes to express our sincere gratitude to the Tribunal for granting permission to forward the report with the above introduction.
'Buried Evidence - 'Unknown, Unmarked, and Mass Graves in Indian-Administered Kashmir' (Dr. Angana Chatterji, Advocate Parvez Imroz et al.; The International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in India-Administered Kashmir) is a unique and daring attempt to find the truth behind the disappearance and extrajudicial execution of persons in the Indian-administered Kashmir. The 108-page report challenges the defiance of the Indian government that has so far allowed the systematic persecution of the people of Kashmir with impunity, by what is known in international human rights law as a crime against humanity, and the government's subversive acts that have prevented every attempt to bring this to light.
The International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian-administered Kashmir with the support of the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons have met and listened to hundreds of persons in Kashmir. The Tribunal received communications in confidence, many of which are reproduced in the report. The report includes a large array of recommendations to the stakeholders in Kashmir, including the government that must be acted upon.
While most of India and the rest of the world see the ongoing conflict in Kashmir as a security issue arising out of the shadow war for control over disputed territory fought between two neighbouring countries, India and Pakistan, the report throws light upon the daily reality of loss, pain and the continuing agony of the ordinary Kashmiris.
While little is known to the world about the Pakistan-administered Kashmir, for sure the Indian side of Kashmir has been for the past six decades the valley of death. There are thousands of ordinary people living in Kashmir who are confronted with the daily possibility of violent death at the hands of those whom the state refer to as 'security forces’.
Over the years, Kashmir has become an anomaly of beliefs. Here the protector has become the persecutor, safety implies silence, and honour is not a distant possibility even after death.
The rule of law that India and the state government of Kashmir have been promising to the people living in this part of the world does not apply to those who are stationed here to enforce the law. They abduct, rape, torture and kill at will, and justify it in the name of national security. Today, Kashmir has become the land of systematic state oppression. The mass graves, where mutilated and unidentified bodies are buried stands proof to this gruesome reality of life.
Thousands have lost their life in Kashmir at the hands of those the state has sent to protect. Their bodies are now mere heaps of gravel covering unidentified decomposed human remains found throughout Kashmir. It is normal to find such graves in public places. "Children ask us about these graves. Children ask us why soldiers are everywhere. Children grow up here thinking violent death is natural" (page 33). Mass graves are no more a phenomena that warrants secrecy in Kashmir. They are found near schools, play grounds and other public places. It is this normalcy of Kashmir that is frightening.
Yet like the unheard cry for dignity and justice that comes from these graves, the ordinary people of Kashmir have also refused to forget what has befallen upon them. "We learned that local communities across Kashmir insist on remembrance as practice of resistance. To forget, they say, would be to reconcile to injustice." (page 41). The report is a unique attempt to give voice to the voiceless of Kashmir.
"There they are, rows upon rows." (page 21). The report is an encouragement to similar attempts that could be conceived in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. It is an indicator to what a society may have to face in other places in India like Manipur where systematic militarisation in underway in the excuse of combating armed militancy.
The details available in the report shatter the false notion of mainstream Indian media that reporting on Kashmir is difficult.
The report in essence is the cry for help and an attempt to restore the honour of those who have been termed terrorists and anti-national to justify the brutal crime of the state.
"My son was killed in a fake encounter. Buried by the police as a 'Pakistani terrorist'. We want justice. We want his name restored. We want his memory healed." (page 9).
The question is will these cries be heard?
The report can be downloaded from the website of International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Kashmir (IPTK).
The AHRC wishes to express our sincere gratitude to the Tribunal for granting permission to forward the report with the above introduction.
06 October, 2008
A Consceince Encountered
By Dr Sandeep Pandey
06 October, 2008
Countercurrents.org
I've often been blamed by friends and colleagues for not keeping secrets to myself. It has been my practice to share information with people whenever I feel my conscience burdened. From my experience I can say that whenever I've, under such circumstances, shared the truth, it may have put some people in inconvenient positions but in the long run it proved to be right thing to do. But, I must confess, I've never encountered something as big as this. Till now it has been only very personal things or at the most matters dealing with my friends or colleagues. But the information I possess now is of societal and national significance. I'm revealing it because it can save two lives. I'm quite aware, that in the process, I'm raising a finger at the departments concerned with internal and external security of the country and can possibly attract some punitive action too. But when I weighed the pros and cons of this I was convinced that if by revealing this information lives of two youth can be saved then I must do it. I must take the risk.
The UP Police in a planned joint operation with the army is likely to kill two Kashmiri youth (obviously Muslim), already picked up and in their custody somewhere in Meerut , in an `encounter' with these `dreaded terrorists.' The drama would be enacted in the Lucknow cantonment area, the most plausible location for an anti-national to be encountered in. Two AK-47 guns, already bought from Nepal and brought through the Bahraich route, would be shown to have been recovered from these `terrorists. ' Very high level police officials and Colonels of the Army are involved in planning this Jamia Nagar encounter equivalent of UP level operation. An encounter specialist, posted at the Cantonment Police Station till recently, has been chosen to implement the design. Recently, UP police has been presented in poor light because of contradictory (and competitive) claims made by Delhi and Mumbai police for having arrested terrorists which they claim were responsible for bomb blast incidents in UP. The question raised then is who are the people the UP police has arrested earlier who are being claimed to be responsible for these same incidents. UP police doesn't want to remain behind in the game of bravery now being played by police elsewhere. They are anxious to demonstrate that they too can carry out high profile encounter operations like the one at Jamia Nagar in Delhi . It is a different matter that civil society groups and some media have questioned the bona fides of the Jamia Nagar operation itself and the credibility of the government is at stake.
The objective of the above operation is to bring laurels to UP police. The operation would be justified in the name of national interest. UP is under pressure because it has been projected as the breeding ground for terrorist. The UP police wants to show that it is doing its part in countering terrorism.
If this is true then nothing can be more shameful. Most of the newspaper reading citizens would go along with the police version and not question it in the national interest if such an operation takes place. However, I've decided that my commitment to my nation is in ensuring justice to its citizens or at least questioning what is not just. Killing of innocent citizens in such operations or incidents like hunger deaths and farmer suicides are all government's responsibility and no such incident can be pardoned.
However, if what I've written above is totally based on imagination run wild and doesn't have an iota of truth in it then I'll be most relieved person, because I shudder to think that responsible government institutions could be engaged in such gross things. I obviously apologize to the police and army for having questioned their integrity. But the fact of the matter is that police has lost so much credibility in this country that I thought it fit to bring out the matter in open for the sake of two Kashmiri youth. We hope that not only they will not be `encountered' but no innocent will be subjected to such a fate, ever.
Dr Sandeep Pandey is one of the founders and early volunteers of Asha for Education, New York. He was awarded the 2002 Ramon Magsaysay Award in the Emergent Leadership category for his work towards uplift of the poor and the underprivileged. He is currently Coordinator for Asha-India and devotes time to the Asha Ashram at Lalpur in UP.
He can be contacted at the following address:
Dr. Sandeep Pandey
A-893, Indira Nagar, Lucknow-226016, U.P.
Email: ashaashram@yahoo.com
06 October, 2008
Countercurrents.org
I've often been blamed by friends and colleagues for not keeping secrets to myself. It has been my practice to share information with people whenever I feel my conscience burdened. From my experience I can say that whenever I've, under such circumstances, shared the truth, it may have put some people in inconvenient positions but in the long run it proved to be right thing to do. But, I must confess, I've never encountered something as big as this. Till now it has been only very personal things or at the most matters dealing with my friends or colleagues. But the information I possess now is of societal and national significance. I'm revealing it because it can save two lives. I'm quite aware, that in the process, I'm raising a finger at the departments concerned with internal and external security of the country and can possibly attract some punitive action too. But when I weighed the pros and cons of this I was convinced that if by revealing this information lives of two youth can be saved then I must do it. I must take the risk.
The UP Police in a planned joint operation with the army is likely to kill two Kashmiri youth (obviously Muslim), already picked up and in their custody somewhere in Meerut , in an `encounter' with these `dreaded terrorists.' The drama would be enacted in the Lucknow cantonment area, the most plausible location for an anti-national to be encountered in. Two AK-47 guns, already bought from Nepal and brought through the Bahraich route, would be shown to have been recovered from these `terrorists. ' Very high level police officials and Colonels of the Army are involved in planning this Jamia Nagar encounter equivalent of UP level operation. An encounter specialist, posted at the Cantonment Police Station till recently, has been chosen to implement the design. Recently, UP police has been presented in poor light because of contradictory (and competitive) claims made by Delhi and Mumbai police for having arrested terrorists which they claim were responsible for bomb blast incidents in UP. The question raised then is who are the people the UP police has arrested earlier who are being claimed to be responsible for these same incidents. UP police doesn't want to remain behind in the game of bravery now being played by police elsewhere. They are anxious to demonstrate that they too can carry out high profile encounter operations like the one at Jamia Nagar in Delhi . It is a different matter that civil society groups and some media have questioned the bona fides of the Jamia Nagar operation itself and the credibility of the government is at stake.
The objective of the above operation is to bring laurels to UP police. The operation would be justified in the name of national interest. UP is under pressure because it has been projected as the breeding ground for terrorist. The UP police wants to show that it is doing its part in countering terrorism.
If this is true then nothing can be more shameful. Most of the newspaper reading citizens would go along with the police version and not question it in the national interest if such an operation takes place. However, I've decided that my commitment to my nation is in ensuring justice to its citizens or at least questioning what is not just. Killing of innocent citizens in such operations or incidents like hunger deaths and farmer suicides are all government's responsibility and no such incident can be pardoned.
However, if what I've written above is totally based on imagination run wild and doesn't have an iota of truth in it then I'll be most relieved person, because I shudder to think that responsible government institutions could be engaged in such gross things. I obviously apologize to the police and army for having questioned their integrity. But the fact of the matter is that police has lost so much credibility in this country that I thought it fit to bring out the matter in open for the sake of two Kashmiri youth. We hope that not only they will not be `encountered' but no innocent will be subjected to such a fate, ever.
Dr Sandeep Pandey is one of the founders and early volunteers of Asha for Education, New York. He was awarded the 2002 Ramon Magsaysay Award in the Emergent Leadership category for his work towards uplift of the poor and the underprivileged. He is currently Coordinator for Asha-India and devotes time to the Asha Ashram at Lalpur in UP.
He can be contacted at the following address:
Dr. Sandeep Pandey
A-893, Indira Nagar, Lucknow-226016, U.P.
Email: ashaashram@yahoo.com
28 August, 2008
Kashmir and Jammu are burning
JAMMU PROTEST: AP Photo by Channi AnandFor weeks Jammu and Kashmir State has been burning. More precisely, the capital cities of Srinagar and Jammu are burning. In Kashmir valley, sometimes serious acts of violence occur even outside Srinagar. But such events occurring outside Jammu city in Jammu province is extremely rare. The media have been describing the current events as unprecedented. But the valley has witnessed such events on several occasions since Independence. This does not mean we can write off the events as routine. The reference to the past is intended to underline the need to take steps to prevent recurrence of such events.
The present troubles were precipitated by the dispute over allotment of forest land to provide amenities for Amarnath pilgrims. They show that communal forces have succeeded in a large measure in destroying Kashmir’s secular traditions. Along with the extremists who have gained the upper hand in the Muslim majority Kashmir valley, the Sangh Parivar, which has been stoking up communal passions in Hindu majority Jammu bears responsibility for this.
The journey to the Amarnath cave shrine, located at an altitude of more than 4,000 metres in the Himalayan ranges, is a difficult one. The main attraction of the temple is the ice Siva lingam formed as water drops falling from the roof freeze. To reach the cave one has to travel 45 kilometres along a narrow mountain path on foot or on pony. Since parts of the path lie buried under snow for nine or ten months in the year, the pilgrim season lasts only about two months. There have been occasions when many died because there is no place where one can take shelter if there is snowfall during the journey. About 25,000 people undertake the pilgrimage each year. Most of them are from outside the State. And most of them are elderly people. Since extremism made its appearance, pilgrims have been facing security threats.
There is a reference to Amarnath pilgrimage in Rajatarangini, believed to be a 12th century work. At a later stage, the pilgrimage stopped. No one even knew where the cave was. About 160 years ago, in the time of Gulab Singh, whom the British had installed as the king, a Muslim shepherd while moving with his flocks chanced upon the ice idol in the cave. Thereafter the pilgrimage began again. The king decided to give the shepherd’s family one-third of the temple’s income.
Only subjects of Jammu and Kashmir can buy land in the State. In the tribal regions of the country, too, there are laws to prevent people from outside grabbing land. It is another matter that encroachers are able to grab land with the help of politicians and officials. Interested parties propagated in the valley that allotment of land to the Board which is charged with the task of making arrangements for the pilgrims will help people from outside to settle in the State. The ineptitude of the Governor and the political leadership made matters worse. Cancellation of the order allotting land to the Board led to protests in Jammu.
Hindu communal organizations in Jammu adopted the barbarous method of blockade, which is widely used by political, labour and student movements in Kerala. Kashmiris were perturbed by the paralysis of traffic along the 300-kilometre long national highway running along the mountainside. It was mainly through Lahore that the people of the valley maintained contacts with the rest of the country before Independence. It was after Independence that the Jawahar Tunnel at Banihal which helps cross the Pir Panchal range that separates the valley from Jammu was built.
The agitation by communalists in Jammu helped the separatists in Kashmir immensely. The slogan ‘Azadi’ (freedom) is now resounding all over the valley. There are two groups among the separatists. One wishes to make Kashmir a part of Pakistan. The other hopes for the status of an independent state. Both have their roots in Muslim communalism. Events in Kashmir and Jammu show that, basically, Hindu communalism and Muslim communalism are not enemies, but friends who help each other grow.
The problem in Jammu and Kashmir is a result of the partition of the subcontinent. Those who are upset by the Azadi slogan must remember that we are not hearing it for the first time. It was this slogan that the maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir raised when the British divided the land on communal basis and left. The princely regimes in Travancore, Hyderabad and Junagadh also dreamed of independent states. The Independent Travancore project was demolished by the people of the state. India extinguished the hopes of the Nizam of Hyderabad and the Nawab of Junagadh through military action. India deposed and arrested Sheikh Abdullah, who was prime minister of Jammu and Kashmir, in 1953 as he was suspected to be entertaining hopes of Independence under American inspiration. He was a leader who saw India as one. I had first met him as a journalist when he was out of office for two decades, most of it in detention. He asked me where I came from. “From the other end, from Kerala,” I said. “Both ends must pull together,” he immediately observed. “Only then can the country move forward.” That is not a thought which can originate in a secessionist mind. Yet, from this we cannot deduce that the idea of an independent Kashmir never entered his mind. It was circumstances that turned Jinnah, who started out as a nationalist, into an advocate of Pakistan. It was circumstances that made Mujibur Rehman, who should have become prime minister of Pakistan, father of the Bangladesh nation. Those who are stoking regional sentiments in Jammu are helping to spread the message of Independence in the Kashmir valley.
The present revolt in Kashmir has prompted at least some individuals to react in a different manner than before. Arundhati Roy’s statement that Kashmir needs to be liberated from India and India from Kashmir is an example. But it is foolish to imagine that peace will reign in the subcontinent if Kashmir is handed over to Pakistan or made independent. As in 1847, Independent Kashmir remains an impractical proposition. Even if India and Pakistan are ready to honour its independence, it cannot survive. Like many other small states of the world it will come under the influence of some big country. If Kashmir had become part of Pakistan in 1947, Kashmiris would have sought India’s help to gain independence earlier than the people of East Bengal. For the kashmiriness of Kashmiris is stronger than the bengaliness of Bengalis.
Basically, the problems in Kashmir are no different from those in other states. Because of geographical and historical circumstances the sense of alienation of the Kashmiri Muslims finds expression in the political sphere mixed up with their Islamic identity. There is only one solution for the problems of Kashmiris as also of other peoples: they must be assured equality and equal opportunity in political, economic and social spheres. This is the task of Manmohan Singh and company, not the National Security Adviser and the Army chief.
Based on column ‘Nerkkazhcha’ appearing in Kerala Kaumudi dated August 28, 2008.
30 July, 2008
Kashmir may be the key to Obama’s counter-terrorism policy: NAM commentary
Barack Obama’s South Asia policy adviser says coming to grips with Pakistan’s obsession with India is critical to realizing American objectives in Afghanistan and beyond.
In a commentary distributed by New America Media Sunil Adam outlines the views of a key aide to the prospective Democratic presidential candidate.
See his commentary: Kashmir May Be the Key to Obama’s Counterterrorism Policy
In a commentary distributed by New America Media Sunil Adam outlines the views of a key aide to the prospective Democratic presidential candidate.
See his commentary: Kashmir May Be the Key to Obama’s Counterterrorism Policy
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