Time to move from rhetoric to reality

BRP Bhaskar

Gulf Today

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 

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.

Modi in tactical mode

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Parliament, which could not transact much business at its sessions earlier this year due to the acute hostility between the government and the opposition, began its winter session last week with both sides coming together to hail the Constitution and pay homage to its chief architect, BR Ambedkar.

The occasion was a two-in-one celebration: the 66th anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution, and the 125th birth anniversary of Dr Ambedkar, who rose from the ranks of the so-called untouchables to be revered by the nation as the Father of the Constitution.

The debate revealed that the Bharatiya Janata Party, which heads the National Democratic Alliance government, is trapped in the inherent contradiction between the core constitutional values, which it is sworn to uphold as the ruling party, and the Hindu Rashtra (nation) concept of its ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

In an attempt to dispel doubts about his party’s commitment to the constitutional ideals, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared that the nation would only be run according to the Constitution. India was a diverse nation, and the sanctity of the Constitution which bound together all the citizens had to be maintained, he said.

He alluded to the bitter controversies in which the ruling front and the opposition parties are involved and made a pointed reference to the way the great leaders of an earlier era had worked together to frame the Constitution.

Waving an olive branch to the opposition, which has stalled his reform programmes in Parliament, Modi offered to address its concerns. “The government is ready to debate all issues,” he said.

Modi made no reference to the bitter national debate on the issue of growing intolerance, which assumed ugly proportions when Hindutva hordes began hounding celebrated film star Amir Khan who had spoken of the growing sense of fear, insecurity and despondency in the country and disclosed that his wife, film-maker Kiran Rao, a Hindu, had wondered whether the family should think of re-locating elsewhere.

He said they should focus on how the Constitution could help the Dalits, the marginalised and the poor. This appeared to be an image makeover attempt, prompted by Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi’s refrain that he was anti-Dalit and anti-poor.

Modi, who habitually adopts a highly partisan tone, tried to sound statesmanlike, but there was no condemnation of the scattered acts of violence by Hindutva elements across the country and the public statements by governors, central and state ministers and MPs which run counter to the ideals of the Constitution.

Two quick steps that followed conveyed the impression that the government may be willing to turn a new leaf. One was the decision to accept the opposition demand for a debate in Parliament on the issue of growing intolerance. The other was Modi’s invitation to Congress President Sonia Gandhi and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for talks to sort out the differences on the Goods and Services Tax Bill, a reform measure which the opposition has held up in the upper house of Parliament in which the NDA is in a minority.

However, it soon became evident that Modi’s new stance is tactical and does not signify any change in the government’s basic approach.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who spoke immediately after him, reiterated the BJP’s traditional positions on several issues.

He said secularism was a much misused word and claimed its misuse was creating problems in ensuring social harmony. Secularism should mean not neutrality towards religions but neutrality towards sects, he added.

This was a throwback to the position articulated by the RSS all along, which equates Hinduism with India and treats other faiths as sects.

Both Modi and Rajnath Singh, in their speeches, recalled that Ambedkar, who, as a Dalit, had suffered much humiliation in his lifetime had harboured no grudge against the country. They both conveniently ignored the fact that shortly before his death he had left the caste-ridden Hindu fold and embraced Buddhism.

The BJP’s new-found love for Ambedkar is suspect. Ambedkar’s legacy was almost forgotten by all but the Dalits, who look upon him as their liberator, until the VP Singh government (1989-1990), organised nationwide celebrations to mark his birth centenary and bestowed on him the nation’s highest honour, Bharat Ratna, posthumously. A few years later, Arun Shourie, who was a minister in the first BJP-led government, wrote a whole book to denigrate him.

In the book, titled “Worshipping False God: Ambedkar and the Facts that have been Erased”, Shourie portrayed him as a self-centred, unpatriotic, power-hungry, anti-national and a stooge of the British. He even sought to belittle Ambedkar’s contribution as the chairman of the committee that drafted the Constitution. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, December 1, 2015.

US rebuke evokes divided response

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Public statements by President Barack Obama chiding India for the recent attacks on religious minorities has chilled the officially promoted euphoria over the personal chemistry between him and Prime Minister Narendra Modi and elicited diverse responses from the Bharatiya Janata Party government and its Hindutva ideologues.

Obama was the chief guest at this year’s Republic Day celebrations in New Delhi. He and Modi appeared before the media after one-to-one talks to announce elevation of the strategic relationship between the two countries to a new level.

Modi repeatedly referred to Obama by his first name to impress listeners about his personal rapport with him. That did not hold Obama back from telling a home truth. Addressing a rally before leaving New Delhi, he said, “India will succeed so long as it is not splintered on religious lines. Nowhere is it more important to uphold religious freedom than in India.”

Obama’s remark, coming in the wake of a series of attacks on religious minorities and a spate of conversions in the guise of homecoming by those who had forsaken Hinduism, was interpreted by observers as a parting shot. Modi, his government and the ruling party were not happy but chose not to respond publicly.

Last week, Obama brought up the subject again while addressing the National Prayer Breakfast, an annual event in Washington attended by political, social and business leaders. He referred to his visit to India, a place “full of magnificent diversity…where, in past years, religious faiths of all types have, on occasion, been targeted by other peoples of faith, simply due to their heritage and their beliefs” and said the acts of intolerance would have shocked Mahatma Gandhi. The government and the Hindutva outfits responded this time.

The first response came from unnamed officials who suggested that Obama’s statements were the result of political compulsions. They suggested that he had criticised India to placate the Christian lobby in the US and to prevent perceptions of closeness between India and the US racing ahead of ground reality. They also insinuated that the remarks were aimed at pressuring India into making concessions on the issues that defied solution during the Delhi talks.

For the first time officials admitted that the Indo-US nuclear, defence and clean energy discussions were marked by hard bargains. The most startling disclosure was that the US had pressured India to commit troops for service in Afghanistan, arguing they could be effective as they knew the region well.

One part of the officials’ theory was clearly wide of the mark. Far from pleasing the Christian lobby, Obama had invited its wrath by following up a reference to Daesh in his Prayer Breakfast speech with reminders of the terrible deeds committed during the Crusades and the Inquisition. Drawing attention to the treatment of the Blacks, he added, “Slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.”

As is his wont, Modi maintained silence on Hindu communalism. However, two senior ministers responded to Obama’s criticism.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who dismissed the attacks on minorities as mere aberrations, said, “The best example of India’s tolerance was the Dalai Lama sitting next to Obama.” The Buddhist leader, who has been living in India since he fled Tibet in 1959, was among the guests at the Prayer Breakfast.

“Religious tolerance is inbuilt in our culture,” said Home Minister Rajnath Singh. “No one is insecure in the country, no matter to which religion he or she belongs.”

In an apparent attempt to meet the US criticism, he asked the Delhi police to take stern action against those responsible for vandalising churches in the capital. A high official telephoned the Archbishop of Mumbai and apologised for the refusal of visas to two Vatican representatives who were to have attended a meeting of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India.

While the ministers spoke in measured tones, Surendra Jain of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, called Obama a “stooge of the Church” and said he had not been a good guest. He asked the government to weed out politicians batting for the Church.

By reiterating the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s stand that India is a Hindu nation in a speech on Sunday, its chief, Mohan Bhagwat, made it clear that the Hindutva forces are in no mood to relent. In fact, he sought to widen the social divide by raising a new slogan, “One language, one God, one religion”, which is a total negation of India’s cultural diversity. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, February 11, 2015

Denigration of Nehru

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

The birth anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru, officially designated as Children’s Day a half-century ago in recognition of his love for kids and theirs for him, passed without the customary celebrations last week. It indicated the Narendra Modi government’s determination to downgrade the first prime minister, who now ranks next only to Mahatma Gandhi in the national political pantheon.

A year ago the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government set up a committee with prime minister Manmohan Singh as the chairman to organise year-long celebrations to mark Nehru’s 125th birth anniversary from November 14, 2014 to November 14, 2015. Congress President Sonia Gandhi, who is a grand-daughter-in-law of Nehru, resigned from the committee after the change of government.

Modi reconstituted the committee with himself as the chairman. He dropped most of the members considered close to the Nehru-Gandhi family and inducted in their place persons belonging to or acceptable to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

On November 14 the government launched a National Bal Swachchata (Children’s Cleanliness) Mission, an extension of the cleanliness programme Modi had launched on October 2, Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary.

Modi, who was on a 10-day three-nation tour, limited his tribute to Nehru to a tweet, just as he had done on May 27, his death anniversary.

The national pantheon consists of heroes of the freedom movement. Across the country there are many institutions which bear their names. The Congress, while in power, enlarged it to include Nehru’s daughter, Indira Gandhi, and grandson Rajiv Gandhi, who too are former prime ministers.

The BJP, while listing the leaders of the freedom struggle in its 2014 election manifesto, omitted Nehru’s name and impliedly accused him of abandoning the spirit and vision of the movement. Modi, in public speeches, repudiates Nehru’s contributions with demagogic declarations that in 60 years of freedom the Congress had given nothing but misrule.

Denigration of Nehru is only one part of Modi’s scheme. Another part involves boosting the image of Vallabhbhai Patel, the first deputy prime minister, to make him look greater than the first prime minister. Last year, as chief minister of Gujarat, Modi sanctioned the construction of a 182-metre Statue of Unity near Vadodara at a cost of Rs29.89 billion as a memorial to Patel, who, as Home Minister, oversaw the merger of about 600 princely states in the Indian Union after the British withdrawal.

The Modi scheme is rooted in the thinking of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh which has reasons to love Patel and hate Nehru. In 1947 Patel praised the RSS for its patriotism, while Nehru criticised it for its communal outlook. It was Nehru’s strong pitch for secularism that prevented the RSS from reaping the benefits of the communally charged post-partition atmosphere.

Patel lifted the ban imposed on the RSS following Gandhi’s assassination after securing an assurance that it would stay out of politics. He was reportedly planning to draw RSS cadres into the Congress but died before this could be done.

Modi’s approach is in sharp contrast with that of the first BJP prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, who, in a lyrical tribute to Nehru on his death, said, “Mother India is mourning for her beloved prince”. On becoming External Affairs Minister in the Janata government, he ordered reinstallation of Nehru’s portrait which bureaucrats had removed following the fall of the Congress government. As prime minister, he drove to Shanti Van, Nehru’s last resting place, on his birth anniversary and offered flowers.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who inaugurated the scaled-down official commemoration of the 125th birth anniversary, said Nehru’s integrity, his love for the country and his contributions as a maker of modern India were unquestionable. RSS loyalists, fed on Modi’s anti-Nehru rhetoric, swarmed Twitter, pouring scorn on him.

Realising that Modi is seeking to either destroy or appropriate Nehru’s legacy, the Congress party quickly drew up an alternative commemoration programme under its own auspices. Its highlight is a two-day international seminar on Nehru’s worldview, which opened on Monday.

Caught between the declining Congress, to which Nehru is an electoral mascot, and the rising BJP, which views him as a continuing obstacle in the way of a Hindu India, his place in history is under challenge. But his record cannot be wished away. When the clouds of partisan warfare dissipate, the nation is sure to recognise his contributions as one who laid a firm foundation for the country’s orderly development within the framework of democracy. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, November 25, 2014.

Bickering over food security

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government, which survives in office with the support of parties that are not part of the coalition, is making a bold bid to push through Parliament its ambitious food security scheme which aims at providing grains at low rates to about two-thirds of the country’s 1.2 billion people.

The UPA, which, according to opinion polls, is set to suffer heavy losses in next year’s parliamentary elections, expects the Food Security Bill it drew up in 2011 to turn the tide in its favour. Lack of a consensus held up its passage.

Last month, while Parliament was not in session, the government promulgated the measure as a presidential ordinance. Congress President Sonia Gandhi called a meeting of the 13 state chief ministers belonging to her party and exhorted them to implement the law in letter and in spirit.

Continuous disruption of Parliament has put a question mark over the future of the measure. The ordinance will lapse unless the two houses of Parliament pass a bill to replace it within six weeks of the start of the session.

With Rajnath Singh, president of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, assuring support to the bill last week the way appeared to be clear for its passage. But Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, whom Singh favours as the party’s prime ministerial candidate, threw a spanner in the wheel.

In a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Modi claimed the measure was flawed and could not ensure calorific and nutritional security of the poor. He wanted the government to call a meeting of state chief ministers before enacting the bill. Chhattisgarh’s BJP chief minister Raman Singh and Tamil Nadu’s All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief minister J Jayalalithaa have also voiced reservations about the bill.

Their opposition may be motivated by a desire to deny the Congress the electoral dividend it is looking for. But, then, some in the UPA camp are also critical of the measure. National Congress Party chief and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has said it will make the beneficiaries lazy and dissuade them from working for a living.

The Samajwadi Party, which supports the government from outside, recently threatened to vote against the bill, peeved by the Congress party’s criticism of its government in Uttar Pradesh for initiating disciplinary action against an Indian Administrative Service officer.

According to government sources, up to 75 per cent of the rural population and 50 per cent of the urban population will get 5kg of grains each month under the measure at rates as low as Rs3 for rice, Rs2 for wheat and Re1 for coarse grains.

Modi has alleged the measure will reduce the entitlement of families below the poverty line, which are now getting 35kg of grains a month at subsidised rates, to 25kg. This is factually incorrect. The government has clarified that families classified as “poorest of the poor”, who are getting 35kg, will continue to enjoy the facility.

Right to Food Campaign, a civil society coalition, has criticised the measure on the ground that it is based on a minimalist vision. It wants a comprehensive law which will take into account the production, procurement, storage and distribution aspects and address the needs of vulnerable groups like migrants and the aged and the differently-abled.

The government has ignored the call to broaden the scope of the bill as it does not want to increase the burden on the exchequer. As the measure now stands, its implementation will require 61.23 million tonnes of grains a year, and the subsidy burden in the current year is estimated at Rs124.73 billion.

India Inc. has opposed the measure, arguing it will impose a heavy financial burden and slow down economic growth. It wants the government to use its resources to help the corporate sector with tax subsidies, claiming industry is the best driver of growth. Corporate India is so engrossed in itself that it does not see the productivity loss resulting from the poor physical status of workers.

The Food Security Bill is not perfect but marks a good beginning. It is in conformity with the Supreme Court’s ruling that right to food is a fundamental right of the citizen. What’s more, it may help plug the loopholes in the present public distribution system. India, which was 106th among 120 countries in the World Hunger Index last year, has to act fast to reduce poverty.--Gulf Today, Sharjah, August 20, 2013.

Threat to peace process

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

With guns booming across the line of control in Jammu and Kashmir for more than a week, the India-Pakistan peace progress has been thrown into jeopardy. In the present context, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Nawaz Sharif will find it difficult to take any meaningful measures to normalise bilateral relations.

Nawaz Sharif had spoken of his desire to improve relations with India during the election campaign and reiterated it immediately after the victory of his Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz). Last month, Pakistan’s National Security Adviser Sartaj Aziz discussed confidence-building measures with India’s External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid on the sidelines of the Asean summit at Brunei.

Later Sharif sent his special envoy, Shahryar Khan, to New Delhi with a letter to Manmohan Singh. Following this, the two governments made tentative plans for a meeting of the prime ministers when they are in New York for the United Nations General Assembly session next month.

The LoC developments have set these initiatives at naught. Public opinion, incensed by the killing of five Indian soldiers while on patrol duty in the Poonch sector on the night of August 5, has forced New Delhi to slow down the peace process.

Ceasefire violations in the region are not unusual, especially at this time of the year, when terrorist infiltration into Kashmir from across the line of control is at its peak. India has accused the Pakistan army of providing the infiltrators fire cover. Pakistan claims India is guilty of more truce violations than it.

The Indian army blamed the Poonch killings on Pakistani troops. However, in an apparent attempt to soft-pedal the issue, Defence Minister AK Antony told Parliament that the assailants were terrorists in Pakistani army uniform. Loud protests led by the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party forced him to make a fresh statement a day later, laying the blame at the door of the Pakistan army.

Most Indian analysts believe the spurt in truce violations and the gruesome incidents like the Poonch killings and the beheading of an Indian soldier in the same sector a few weeks earlier are part of a deliberate plan by a section of the  Pakistan army to queer the pitch for Nawaz Sharif. They say the army fears improved ties with India will reduce its clout in the Pakistani power structure.

As in Pakistan, hawks and doves are in contention in India too.

Parliamentary elections are due in less than a year, and the BJP, which is making a bid to return to power after a gap of ten years, has picked Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, a hardcore Hindutva exponent, as its prime ministerial candidate. The party sees stoking India-Pakistan tensions as a means of boosting Hindu sentiments against the Congress-led government.

BJP President Rajnath Singh has demanded that the government scale down diplomatic relations with Pakistan and declare that there would be no talks until Islamabad stopped supporting terror activities directed against India.

The way Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh joined the BJP in the anti-Pakistan chorus in Parliament illustrates how electoral compulsions can weaken a political party’s commitment to the secular ideal.

Beyond the realm of electoral politics, there is a body of opinion which believes it is in India’s interest to help bolster the position of the democratically elected government of Nawaz Sharif. Those who subscribe to this view want Manmohan Singh to go ahead with the plan to meet Sharif.

Developments in Afghanistan have a bearing on the current state of India-Pakistan relations. The United States is looking up to India to play a role in stabilising the situation in that country after it pulls out next year.  Extremist forces operating in Afghanistan and elements of the Pakistan army which support them do not favour the idea.

Those who are keen that the peace process must continue uninterrupted point out that direct engagement between the governments of India and Pakistan at the present stage is necessary to negotiate the Afghan imbroglio in such a way as to ensure regional security.

While Indian experts are agreed that a section of the Pakistan army does not share Nawaz Sharif’s enthusiasm for improved relations with India, there is sharp disagreement among them on how India should respond to the situation. Some want the peace progress to be abandoned, some others want it to be delayed and some others want it to go on. Strangely, those who want the process stalled do not seem to realise that they are on the same side as the hawks in Pakistan.--Gulf Today, Sharjah, August 13, 2013.

Daunting poll challenge

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

The Bharatiya Janata Party, which is preparing to challenge the Congress party in the 2014 parliamentary elections, has a daunting task ahead.

The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance was in power from 1999 to 2004. In Atal Behari Vajpayee it had a popular prime minister and the economy did well. Yet it could not win a second five-year term on the “India Shining” slogan. The electorate rebuffed it again in 2009.

Now it has cause for optimism. As many as 39 per cent of those who participated in a recent opinion poll said they would vote for the NDA if elections were held now. Only 22 per cent said they would vote for the UPA.

The poll also showed that Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, frontrunner in the party’s prime ministerial stakes, has a 36 per cent rating. Rahul Gandhi, whom the Congress party recently made its vice-president and is seen as its prime ministerial candidate, is way behind with only 22 per cent.

But the BJP has cause to worry too. The collapse of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s bid to secure for Nitin Gadkari a second three-year term as BJP president indicates the emergence of new dynamics in Parivar politics. This is the first time that the RSS failed to have its way in the choice of the party president.

Gadkari, a former Maharashtra minister, was little known outside the state when the RSS picked him for the top post in 2009. He became a source of acute embarrassment to the party when the media brought to light his connections with some dubious business concerns late last year, leading to an official probe. Yet the RSS pushed for his re-election. Stiff resistance by party leaders like Lal Kishen Advani and Ram Jethmalani forced it to abandon him and agree to the election of former president Rajnath Singh.

The Gadkari fiasco has come on the heels of grave corruption charges against BJP leaders in Himachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Karnataka. In last year’s assembly elections, the Congress wrested power from the BJP in Himachal Pradesh. Chhattisgarh and Karnataka go to the polls this year.

The BJP is in serious trouble in Karnataka, the only southern state where it is in power. Last year it eased out Chief Minister BS Yeddiyurappa, who had led it to victory in the state five years ago, following allegations of corruption. He has now floated a regional party, styled as Karnataka Janata Party, and is posing it a grave challenge.

The party faces dissension also in Rajasthan, another state where elections are due this year. A section of the central leadership wants to bring former chief minister Vijayaraje Scindia to the fore once again but there is strong opposition to her from within the state party.

Modi enjoys wide support among Hindutva elements, but his projection as prime ministerial candidate is sure to meet with strong opposition from sections within the BJP and the NDA in view of his alleged association with the anti-Muslim riots of 2002. The Janata Dal (United), the second largest NDA constituent, has repeatedly said that he is not acceptable.

The opinion poll also offers the BJP cause for despair. While it forecasts a rise in the NDA’s Lok Sabha strength from 159 to 203 and fall in the UPA’s from 259 to 157, the combined strength of other parties will go up from 125 to 183. It is they who will decide who should form the government.

The others are an odd assortment of small national parties with scattered pockets of influence and regional parties which are powerful in their respective areas. The leaders of some of these parties are known to have prime ministerial ambitions but the post-election scenario is likely to reduce their choice to one of going with either the Congress or the BJP. The moot question is who will be the beneficiary of their pragmatic approach. --Gulf Today, Sharjah, January 29, 2013.