He came, he scorned, he left

Rehman Malik enjoys the reputation of being a loudmouth who speaks without thought and thinks without substance. Yet, because he is Pakistan’s Interior Minister, he has to be considered with some amount of seriousness. It’s time we stopped treating him with kid gloves

It has been some days since  Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik ended his disastrous three-day trip to India, but the bitter aftertaste from his visit continues to linger. A delegation led by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs was expected to travel to Islamabad on December 19 — a tentative date agreed upon by both Indian and Pakistani officials — to finalise the details of a Pakistani Judicial Commission’s second visit to India to cross-examine key witnesses in the 26/11 terror case. But December 19 has come and gone without so much as an acknowledgment from the Pakistani side — even though it was Mr Malik who had insisted, while he was in India, that the commission be allowed to visit at the earliest. In fact, he had even said that the immediacy of the commission’s visit was directly related to how quickly the 26/11 trial could be concluded in Rawalpindi. Yet, once back in his country, Mr Malik seems to have all but forgotten about the promises made.

But then again, as India’s political establishment has recently learnt, the Pakistani Minister may be a man of many words but scarcely is he a man who keeps his word. Ask Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde who very graciously hosted his Pakistani counterpart only to find out that the latter had taken him for a jolly good ride. And so, it would be that a day after Mr Malik left this country, Mr Shinde found himself complaining to Parliament that the documents he received from the Pakistani Minister pertaining to the multiple arrests of 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed were essentially a smokescreen. The documents were presented to New Delhi to buttress Pakistan’s argument that it had all the intentions in the world to punish that extremist but could not do so given the crying lack of evidence. Consequently, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa’ah chief had to be let off by Pakistani authorities even after he had been arrested. But on closer scrutiny, it has now become clear that the three Hafiz Saeed arrests that Mr Malik had been gloating about had absolutely no connection with the 26/11 charges. That the Pakistanis believed that they could pull such a trick on New Delhi and still get away with it does speak volumes. Indeed, it is against this background that Mr Malik’s slew of blood-curdling remarks, made during the course of his visit, that offended Indian sensibilities across the board, must be viewed.

The Pakistani Minister fired his opening salvo pretty much the moment he landed on Indian soil, when he dismissed India’s forensic evidence that clearly points to the role of members of the Pakistani establishment, particularly the ISI, in the 26/11 attacks. Then, he had the gall to claim that Kargil hero Captain Saurabh Kalia died due to bad weather in the Himalayas. But even before one could swallow this affront, Mr Malik callously dropped the B-bomb, comparing the demolition of the Babri Masjid to the 26/11 carnage. Eventually, of course, he tried to muddy the waters by claiming that he had said nothing of the sort and it was the big bad media that tried to twist his statement. But still, coming from the representative of a country where minorities are routinely targeted, abducted, raped and killed; where their places of worship are destroyed with gay abandon without the state lifting so much as a finger to stop the atrocities, the Babri Masjid snub was a bit rich — not to mention that, shameful as it may have been, the episode was and remains an internal matter for India in which Pakistan has no business to poke its nose.

But the Minister had saved the best for the last. And so it was on the ultimate day of his visit that Mr Malik claimed that Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal, the alleged handler of the 26/11 terrorists who was earlier this year deported from Saudi Arabia, was in fact an agent of an elite Indian intelligence agency. Yet again, the statement was so absurd that it would have been almost farcical had it not been so downright appalling.

One way of responding to this situation is to simply dismiss Mr Malik’s statements as the nonsensical ranting of a loudmouth. He is, after all, a habitual offender and has been mocked often even in his own country for putting his foot in his mouth. For instance, when the Sri Lankan team came under attack in Pakistan, Mr Malik promptly placed the blame on Colombo’s doorstep. Similarly, last year he even thanked the Taliban for not killing Shias during Muharram celebrations — which ironically is not that much different from his Indian counterpart addressing Hafiz Saeed with the honorific ‘Mr’ and ‘Shri’ or for that matter the Congress’s spokesman Digvijaya Singh referring to the world’s most wanted terrorist as ‘Osamaji’.

However, the point here is not just that India too has its own fair share of motormouths and court jesters but that Mr Malik’s statements, no matter how stupid, should not be discarded as such. For, let us not forget that even if they were supposedly off-the-cuff remarks, the utterances were entirely in keeping with the official Pakistani strategy of stonewalling all efforts to bring the perpetrators of 26/11 to justice. It is in this context then that India’s own insipid response to Mr Malik’s volley of untruths and false statements must be questioned.

First, why was he even allowed to make these statements? Second, why was there no strong official rebuttal to his remarks from the Indian establishment? Third, why did the mainstream media not do a better job of holding Mr Malik accountable for his statements?

For instance, when Mr Malik kept repeating ad nauseam that Ajmal Kasab’s statements were not enough to nail Hafiz Saeed, there was no counter-mention of the reams of evidence that had emerged from the trials of terrorist head hunters David Headley and Tahawwur Rana in the US which also pointed to the role of Hafiz Saeed and that of ISI officials in the 26/11 terror attack.

A pliant media (with some exceptions) and India’s meek officialdom, too busy bending over backwards to appease a visiting dignitary, could not be bothered to ask if the Pakistani Government had any plans to act on the sworn affidavits of Headley and Rana in the Chicago Court, even if it trashed Ajmal Kasab’s testimony in India.

Similarly, when Mr Malik claimed that India had not taken up with Pakistan the Captain Saurabh Kalia case until now, his false narrative went unchallenged. In fact, India has on at least three occasions mentioned the case at bilateral meetings. Moreover, when the matter was first discussed during the Kargil conflict, the Pakistani Government had at that time refused to take any responsibility, claiming instead that it was the ‘mujahideens’ and not the Pakistani Army that had taken Kargil Heights.

But now that Islamabad has changed its stance and both former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and former President Pervez Musharraf agree that the Army was indeed involved, the question is: Will Mr Malik now ask members of the Northern Light Infantry, which were deployed in Kargil, for the facts — and stop distorting the truth?

(This article was published in the op-ed section of The Pioneer on December 20, 2012.)

Another vicious bout of violence

Irrespective of whether Israel and Hamas sign a ceasefire agreement any time soon, the recent flare up in Gaza which may still escalate into a full-blown war, is a reminder of how uneasy is the peace that prevails in the region

It is the seventh day of Operation Pillar of Defence, the military operation launched by Israel in response to incessant rocket fire from the Gaza Strip that has led to an unprecedented escalation of violence in that region. Already, more than a 100 people have died  and as this article goes to print, representatives from Israel and Hamas (the terror organisation that governs Gaza) are meeting in Cairo to hammer out a cease-fire agreement. The talks are being mediated by the Egyptians and are in a crucial stage.

But irrespective of how the talks progress, it will surely be a litmus test for Egypt’s recently elected President Mohamad Morsi. A member of the Muslim Brotherhood of which Hamas is an off-shoot, Mr Morsi has a tightrope to walk. On the one hand, Hamas expect their fellow ‘brother’ to behave in manner that is more favourable to them as compared to his predecessor Hosni Mubarak, a secular dictator and a Western ally. But on the other hand, Mr Morsi cannot afford to come out too strongly against Israel and cross her American friends either. He remains hugely dependent on Washington, DC for crucial aid money that is needed to rebuild the Egyptian economy currently lying in shambles.

For Mr Morsi, this is a head-versus-heart kind of situation; and for now, he seems to be going with his head having refused to condemn Israel as strongly as Hamas would have liked him to. Of course, this does not mean that Hamas is politically isolated — it continues to enjoy the support of Qatar and Turkey, for instance. That the Egyptian President has still expressed hopes for a ceasefire agreement is possibly the result of the tremendous international pressure that is there on all parties to prevent an escalation of violence.

But even as world leaders scramble to prevent another full-scale war, the fact remains that on the ground there is no respite. On Tuesday alone 60 rockets were fired into Southern Israel, at least two of which exploded as far as Jerusalem, almost 80kms away from Gaza. The distance and the religious significance of the Holy City, to both Jews and Muslims, make the attack a particularly audacious one. Now, combine that with the fact that even Tel Aviv — located in central Israel — has come under fire in this past week. It becomes amply clear that Hamas now has significantly improved weaponry that includes long range missiles such as the Iranian-made Fajr-5 missiles, for this is the first in recent time that Israel’s two largest cities have come under such fire.

On its part, Israel has of course retaliated with full force, and rightly so, starting with the killing of Hamas military chief Ahmed Jabari on November 14. Since then, it has launched more than a thousand air strikes targeting Hamas leaders, weapons caches and rocket launching pads in Gaza. Additionally, there have also been more ‘symbolic’ attacks against Government offices.But that is not all.

As Hamas continues to rain rockets on Israel, the latter has already prepared herself for a full-scale ground invasion of Gaza. Israel has already positioned 40,000 reservists on its border and if talks fail, there is a possibility that Israeli troops will once again go into the Gaza Strip — a territory they held until 2005, when Israel unilaterally backed out of the area, handing over control to the Palestinian Authority which then lost power to Hamas.

But while there is a 50-50 chance of ground invasion, it is still the last resort option. A full-scale war, similar to the 2008 Operation Cast Lead, will not only cost Israel much of the international support it currently enjoys but will also lead to huge casualties particularly on the Palestinian side. Unfortunately, a disproportionately large number of Palestinian deaths has always characterised such clashes.

This is primarily because Hamas uses women and children as human shields and deliberately launches attacks from inside crowded civilian spaces such schools, hospitals and mosques. Furthermore, it has not cared to put in place the kind of defense mechanism that Israeli citizens today enjoy — from the Iron Dome, which intercepts and destroys rockets and shells, to bomb shelters and more.

No, instead, Hamas has chosen to waste its resources on shelling Israeli targets even if that means preventing aid from reaching Gaza. On Tuesday, for instance, only 24 of the 120 Israeli aid tracks that waited at the Gaza crossing could actually go through before the border was closed. And yet ironically it is Israel that supposedly has Gaza under siege!

On a concluding note, it is important to mention that of the three Israelis who have died in this bout of violence, one was Mira Sharf — the wife of the rabbi who heads the Chabad House in New Delhi. When they came under fire, they were in the town of Kiryat Malachy which is relatively new to this kind of an attack as it closer to central Israel. Ironically, the couple was in Israel to commemorate the attack on Chabad House in Mumbai four years ago during the 26/11 carnage.

(This article was published in the Op-ed section of The Pioneer on November 21.)

Welcome to the House of Saud

By deporting to India three terror suspects in the past four months, Saudi Arabia has taken the initial steps towards cooperation in counter-terrorism activities with this country, even though these may have come at the cost of upsetting long time ally Pakistan

It’s official now. When it comes to nabbing terror suspects, long-time Pakistani ally Saudi Arabia is India’s new best friend. Analysts have been talking about this ever since Riyadh handed over to New Delhi the biggest catch in the 26/11 terror case — Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal — back in June. But, at that time many had rightly wondered if the deportation was a one-time gesture ostensibly taken under mounting pressure from the US. However, with the recent deportation of Fasih Mahmood, who is suspected to be a high-level operative of the banned Indian Mujahideen terror group, there is now ample evidence to dismiss at least some of those initial apprehensions.

In these past four months, Saudi Arabia has in fact deported three terror suspects to India, including Mahmood. An accused in the April 2010 bomb blasts in Bangalore’s M Chinnaswamy Stadium, he was also allegedly involved in the Jama Masjid terror attack in September 2010 in Delhi. The 28-year-old mechanical engineer from Bihar was deported, and arrested by Delhi Police on October 22. This was less than two weeks after A Rayees was picked up by Kerala Police from Mumbai airport after he too was sent packing by the Saudis. A suspected operative of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, Rayees is wanted in the 2009 explosives haul case. And that is not all: On Tuesday, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs said it was hoping to extradite four more terror suspects from Saudi Arabia.

Clearly, there is a new-found fervour in Riyadh to fight terror jointly with New Delhi in particular and deepen bilateral ties with India in general, even if it comes at the cost of upsetting Islamabad  just a little bit. In fact, there seems to be an overall agreement in the power corridors of not just New Delhi and Riyadh but also around those of Islamabad that increasing militancy in Pakistan is making even it staunchest allies uneasy. Serious questions are being raised about the Pakistani establishment’s ability to control these groups that it has for so long nurtured and nourished, but that now run amok in that country. Saudi Arabia genuinely fears — and rightly so — that more sooner than later things will get out of hand in Pakistan.

Take, for example, the manner in which Riyadh’s response to the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba has evolved in recent years. As South Asia scholar Stephen Tankel points out, Saudi Arabia was a “reluctant contributor to the international effort against Al Qaeda” after 9/11 but this changed after “the Kingdom suffered directly from Al Qaeda attacks beginning in 2003. However, it remained relatively tolerant of Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (which at the time had distanced itself from Al Qaeda). This owed to Saudi Arabia’s relationship with Pakistan, but also resulted from Lashkar’s position vis-à-vis the Kingdom.” Mr Tankel goes on to explain that not only do some Lashkar leaders have long-standing ties with the kingdom; many of them consider it to be the “best Islamic state, even if not an ideal one”. Equally importantly, “Lashkar leaders’ strong commitment to spreading Ahl-e-Hadith (or Salafi) Islam via non-violent activism and their decision to eschew revolutionary terrorism in favour of pan-Islamist jihad made the group more palatable” to the Saudi state, believes Mr Tankel.

However, that view of the Lashkar as a relatively ‘peaceful’ Islamist organisation was literally blown to smithereens after the Mumbai carnage of 2008 that it planned and executed. In effect, it was the 26/11 attacks that sealed the LeT’s reputation as a global terror organisation and Riyadh, under pressure from New Delhi and Washington, DC, has since been compelled to view the group as a threat to its own internal security as well. Against this backdrop, Pakistan’s inability to rein in Lashkar militants and others of their ilk has not gone down well in Saudi Arabia. Therefore, it is now clearly scoping out new friends in this region even as Pakistan tries to come to terms with the fact that it may no longer have a monopoly over the ‘Saudi relationship’.

The first signs of change in this regard were seen back in 2006 when Saudi king Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz al-Saud visited India as part of a four-country tour that, interestingly, also included a stop-over in China. Still, it was the first time since 1955 that a Saudi king was visiting this country and the ‘Delhi Declaration’ that was signed at the end of his trip would eventually prove to be a game-changer in bilateral relations.  More specifically, it was the Memorandum of Understanding on Combating Terrorism, also produced in the course of that visit, which would lay the foundation stone for cooperation in the areas of transnational crime and of course terrorism.

To be sure, all the right noises were made during King Saud’s visit. But it would be a while before they found reflection in concrete action. Nonethe-less, by the time Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Saudi Arabia in 2010, bilateral ties had deepened significantly. The time was right to put in place an extradition treaty, apart from signing the Riyadh Declaration of course, that would be key in facilitating on the ground, counter-terrorism operations.

The following two years saw increasing cooperation between India and Saudia Arabia that culminated in the deportation of Zabiuddin Ansari earlier this year. Though an Indian citizen, Ansari was in the West Asian Kingdom on a Pakistani passport when he was first arrested by Saudi authorities. As expected, Islamabad tried hard to leverage that fact in its favour and make a case for Ansari’s deportation to Pakistan instead of India. At an earlier time, this would have been the case for sure. But New Delhi was able to provide strong evidence that included DNA samples to show that Ansari was indeed an Indian citizen; this coupled with some hard-nosed American diplomacy ensured that Riyadh eventually put Ansari on a flight to Delhi.

However, it is imperative to mention here that while viewing counter-terrorism cooperation between India and Saudi Arabia through the Pakistani prism surely provides interesting perspectives, it must also be placed against the backdrop of overall improvement in bilateral ties between the two countries for a more holistic picture. For instance, between 2006 and 2012, India’s oil imports from Saudi Arabia increased by leaps and bounds. Much of this of course has to do with the US-led Western pressure to stop importing from Iran — India’s traditional oil supplier — but nevertheless, it has emerged as yet another connecting point between the countries. That apart, there has also been a jump in bilateral trade; and there is talk of greater defence cooperation especially following Union Minister for Defence AK Antony’s visit earlier visit to Saudi Arabia earlier this year.

On a concluding note though, it must be mentioned that just because the Saudis are working with India does not by any means indicate that they are willing to severe ties with Pakistan. The two Sunni Muslims countries have way too much invested in each other to break away, at least as of now.

For instance, Saudi Arabia will always need nuclear-armed Pakistan on its side to contain the influence of Shia Iran in its own neighbourhood especially if the latter acquires nuclear capabilities, and similarly, cash-strapped Pakistan will always depend on oil-rich Saudi Arabia for funds, finances and more. India clearly has no place in all of this. So, instead, it is chalking out its own relationship dynamics with the Saudis.

(This article was published in the op-ed section of The Pioneer on November 1, 2012.)

The birth of a new relationship

This past decade saw a deterioration in ties between India and Australia for various reasons, not necessarily political in nature. But the visit to India by Prime Minister Julia Gillard has changed all of that. New Delhi and Canberra are set on a fresh, cheerful course

As the deep drone of the didgeridoo permeated through the autumnal cool of the Purana Quila, it was impossible not to be swept away by the enchanting power of that moment. Somehow, the long trumpet-like musical instrument created by Australian Aborigines some 1,500 years ago had found its place within the high stone walls of one of India’s oldest fortresses, supposedly built even before the Mahabharat was written.

It was the opening night of the Oz Fest — a cultural festival aimed at promoting Australian traditions in India — and visiting Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard among other dignitaries was in attendance. The concert that brought together the musical bests of both India and Australia was expected to mark the beginning of a new era in bilateral ties between the two countries. Yet, it was really the manner in which the great civilisational histories of both countries came together on that Tuesday evening, against the gorgeous backdrop of the Sher Mandal Observatory brought to life with mesmerising 3D light projections, that the foundation of a new friendship was really cemented.

Indeed, even as the Australian Prime Minister’s landmark three-day visit comes to a close, there is a definite sense of positivity that the new momentum that now enervates the India-Australia relationship will ride both countries towards a shared vision of the future — that of an Asian Century. To what extent that the optimism will actually flesh itself out in the form of political, social, economic and diplomatic ties is of course yet to be seen.

This past decade had in fact seen a deterioration of ties between the two countries. Bilateral relations had actually taken a turn for the worse after a series of unsavoury incidents during which Indian students came under attack in Australia, Australian cricketers accused their Indian counterpart of racial abuse, the Indian doctor Mohamed Haneef was held on terror charges in Australia, and New Delhi and Canberra sparred over Commonwealth Games contracts. To be sure, the nasty aftertaste of that period which many commentators refer to as the ‘lost decade’ still linger right below the surface. This has perhaps been most evident in the manner in which sections of the Australian media have slammed Prime Minister Gillard’s decision to confer upon Sachin Tendulkar the Member of the Order of Australia award. Clearly, not many in that country have put behind them the infamous ‘monkeygate’ scandal that saw Tendulkar stand by his team mate Harbhajan Singh.

Still, it seems unlikely that the relationship will go back to those days. There is definitely no doubt that a solid new beginning has been made. Ms Gillard’s personal initiative to end Australia’s prejudice towards India with respect to uranium exports has inarguably brought her tremendous goodwill within the country. After years of refusing to sell the yellow cake to India because New Delhi is not a signatory to the Treaty to the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which New Delhi considers to be discriminatory in nature, Ms Gillard’s Government overhauled Australian policy in this matter and lifted that pointless ban last November. It was not an easy move given that neither Australian public opinion nor the political opposition in that country was really in favour of such a policy reversal.

Nevertheless, India’s own stellar non-proliferation record, its reputation as a peaceful and stable democracy, alongside a waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group allowing New Delhi to engage in global nuclear commerce, strengthened its case significantly. Interestingly, Australia, as a NSG member, had supported the group’s decision in favour of India back in 2008 but had still continued with its national ban. In this context, it is important to bring in Australia’s own need to tap new markets to sell uranium coupled with India’s growing energy demands to see how these new developments offer a win-win situation for both countries.

That uranium has been the buzzword defining Ms Gillard’s first trip to the country as Prime Minister is perfectly understandable, and so is the excitement surrounding her announcement of nuclear cooperation talks between the two countries. But having said that, it is also imperative to add a cautionary note in this regard and ensure that high-pitched rhetoric does not overshadow pragmatism and practicality. As Ms Gillard has said, it might be years before Australia actually starts selling uranium to India. A nuclear safeguards agreement — similar to the India-US nuclear deal — will have to be put in place first, and given the technical, legal and even diplomatic complexities that will be involved, make no mistake, a long road lies ahead.

This is of course not to say that unless the nuclear deal comes through, bilateral relations between the two countries will be stuck in a limbo. In fact, much to the contrary, both New Delhi and Canberra will do well to take advantage of this new momentum in bilateral ties to strengthen ties in other areas as well. Primary among these should be increasing cooperation in the India-Pacific region — the emergence of which as a ‘security construct’ is now more or less taken for granted by a majority of regional observers.

Generally speaking, the Indian and the Pacific Ocean regions have been considered to be separate geo-political entities that almost never overlap, especially within the Asian security discourse. However, East Asia’s high growth rate, particularly China’s feverish construction of maritime infrastructure in the region — think of the oil pipelines that are being built to connect the Indian Ocean to western China — has forced a re-think of that earlier paradigm.

Add to that India’s growing economic relations with East Asia with a definite naval aspect (best encapsulated in New Delhi’s refurbished ‘Look East’ policy) and the argument for a more integrated and composite view of the region automatically gains traction. Now, as the new regional powers add flavour to this geo-political stew, garnish it with just a little bit of the traditional Great Power garam masala — and bingo! You have  a perfect dish that even the culinary star-critics ofMasterchef will have to approve.

At an earlier time, America’s military supremacy in the region would have been one of the main ingredients, but with the relative decline of the US, that has now somewhat changed. Of course, there should be no doubt about the fact the US will remain a major political and military force in the Asia-Pacific region for a long time — the Obama Administration’s ‘pivot to Asia’ strategy ensures just that. But there will now be a change in the manner in which the US functions as the primary security provider there with an increased dependence on American allies — both old like Australia and Japan and new like India — to share some of that responsibility. A situation such as this fits perfectly into New Delhi’s own changing maritime policies and priorities.

The exact contours of the Indo-Pacific region are still being debated. But, generally speaking, it is accepted as “an emerging Asian strategic system that encompasses both the Indian and the Pacific oceans, defined in part by the geographically expanding interests and reach of China and India, and the continued strategic role and presence of the United States in both”.

Indeed, it is this last definition — put forth by Rory Medcalf and others in their research paper, “Crisis and Confidence: Major Powers and Maritime Security in Indo-Pacific Asia” — that goes beyond the geographic to include the political and the strategic which has the most relevance for policy-makers both in India and Australia as they come together to keep the sea lanes in the India-Pacific region safe and open for business.

(This article was published in the Op-ed section of The Pioneer on October 18, 2012.)

Muslim rage is not about Islam

The outrage and the violent protests organised by Islamists across the world have nothing to do with the supposed desecration of religion. Instead, these incidents are calibrated attempts by so-called religious leaders to firm up their politics, even at the cost of people’s lives

Even before the crowd from the previous protest had returned home, a new mob had gathered on the streets. It had been gaining strength throughout the day as hundreds arrived loaded in trucks and buses, and more people from the outside kept pouring in. Over the next couple of hours, the crowd swelled in numbers and a few local leaders gradually took their position at the helm — soon, they were whipping up outrage against some vaguely defined but provocatively conveyed threat to their religion, their Prophet or their holy book. Timing was the key, so one waited cautiously for the crowd to be sufficiently riled and then, just when the passions peaked, it was let loose like a pack of blood thirsty wolves. What followed was hours, even days, of looting, raiding, pillaging, plundering and killing. Until finally, the security forces showed up and brought the situation somewhat under control.

This is a fairly accurate description of the events as they unfolded in the little Upazila of Ramu, located in the coastal Cox’s Bazar district in Bangladesh’s southern division of Chittagong on September 29 and 30, when Islamists went on the rampage in the area and attacked Buddhist temples and homes, after they discovered a picture of a burnt Quran on Facebook that was alleged ‘tagged’ to a local Buddhist boy.

According to the latest reports available, at least 12 temples were desecrated and nearly 50 Buddhist homes systematically destroyed. But the moot point here lies not in the details of this heinous incident that has deeply scarred Bangladesh’s socio-religious fabric but in the fact that the description applies to almost any ‘Muslim protest’ that has erupted in recent times in response to a supposed act of religious outrage.

Indeed, instead of Ramu Upazila, the narrative can just as easily be placed in Masuri village in Uttar Pradesh here in India, where a similar crowd went berserk and brutally attacked the local police station after someone found pages torn out of the Quran by the railway tracks last month. The narrative also fits well in many other places — from Mumbai’s Azad Maidan where a crowd protesting atrocities against Muslims in Burma and elsewhere went on a rampage to the US Embassy compound in Benghazi where an armed mob protesting a shoddily-made, obscure anti-Islamic film killed the American Ambassador to Libya.

Look closely and a clear pattern of pre-meditated violence that emerges through each of these cases is unmistakable. The cause of the violence and the outrage here is inconsequential. It can be anything — a book that nobody has heard of, a movie that nobody has seen because it was never publicly released, a photograph that is quite possibly doctored, a quote that remains unattributed, a conspiracy theory or even a cartoon. It doesn’t matter.  What matters is how, and of course with what result, that singular instance of outrage (real or imagined) is perverted so as to make it look like it is a universal insult to Islam and its 1.7 billion followers around the world.

First, the Islamists go all out to introduce that supposed object of religious insult — almost always an obscure one — to their local audience. Then, they systemically manufacture outrage against that same object. The campaign is almost always framed within the narrative of a victim-community; a community that has been and continues to be wronged by the world. Ridiculous as it may sound, the idea of being at the receiving end of a global conspiracy is particularly tempting and as we know from past experience, hugely effective. Finally, what serves as an icing on the cake is the fact that Islamists, almost everywhere in the world, are an especially well-organised group. This automatically allows them mobilise large sections of the population and mount an effective campaign.

In other words, the bottomline here is that the protests may be hinged around an Islamic (or more specifically, anti-Islamic) subject, but in reality they have little to do with religion. Instead, the issue is of politics and power-play. Religion is merely an excuse used by the Islamists to whip up passion and mobilise social groups so that they can ultimately implement the latter’s agenda. Indeed, this is an argument that even Muslims political observers themselves have made. For instance, Mr Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s former Ambassador to the US, in his recently published article on ‘Muslim rage’ minces no words when he says, “The phenomenon of outrage over insults to Islam and its final Prophet is a function of modern-era politics. It started during Western colonial rule, with Muslim politicians seeking issues to mobilize their constituents… and Islamists emerged to claim that Islam is not merely a religion but also a political ideology.”

Indeed, Mr Haqqani traces back an early prototype of this kind of mass mobilisation within the Muslim world to a book published in British India back in 1927. Titled Rangeela Rasool (Playboy Prophet), it was a “salacious version of Muhammad’s life”, says Mr Haqqani, but “hardly a bestseller”. In fact, much the like anti-Islamic film that today is all the rage, so to say, this book too went largely unnoticed until two years after its publication when some Muslim politicians raised a hue and cry over it. The British Government of the day even arrested and tried the publisher but he was acquitted — only to be later stabbed to death by one Ilmuddin, an illiterate carpenter known only by his first name, in Lahore. Ilmuddin soon became a local hero of sorts. Islamist groups nicknamed him Ghazi (warrior) and he was defended in court by a man no less than Mohamed Ali Jinnnah (although on purely technical grounds, as Mr Haqqani points out in his essay). The book continued to be a polarising point between the Hindus and Muslims of undivided India and exacted its price in blood during Partition as well.

It is interesting to note that it was after this case of Ilmuddin that the British amended the Indian Penal Code to include punishment for blasphemy and incitement of religious hatred. It is equally ironical that a little less than a century later, another young man would once again share Ilmuddin’s fate and how! In January 2011, Mumtaz Qadri would also be celebrated as a national hero for killing Salman Taseer, the powerful Pakistani Governor of Punjab would had dared to opposed his country’s draconian blasphemy laws.

The lessons to be learnt from the past and the present are clear. These protests, wherever they may erupt, are not just a product of politics disguised as religion, but that they must be exposed as such. 

The moment the state begins to legitimise such violence as being a genuine case of religious grievance; it loses the plot and half the battle. The Bangladeshi Government realises this, which is why the whole deal about the Facebook picture was underplayed. The Pakistani Government on the other hand doesn’t get it at all and so, it had the Ishq-e-Rasool day, during which several persons where killed. India must learn its lessons from all this and stop pampering hardliners.

(This article was published in the op-ed section of The Pioneer on October 4, 2012.)

Democracy too has side-effects

Neither does an elected system automatically ensure truly ‘free’ polls nor is a supposedly democratic rule the answer to the many socio-political ills of the day, such as terrorism. Under certain conditions, such a system of governance can be harmful

When pro-democracy movements swept across Arabia last year, the world was caught largely unaware. In response, the international media — itself still trying to grasp the enormity of the situation — spun this narrative: After centuries of oppression, the people of Arabia had finally awakened; a peaceful revolution was underway; and democracy was around the corner. Across the world, everywhere the unrest in Arabia was romanticised as a popular uprising and lovingly tagged the ‘Arab Spring’.

Well, everywhere except  in the tiny Jewish state of Israel where the events were viewed and continue to be viewed with fear and anxiety. For a country surrounded by regimes whose official state policies call for its complete annihilation, additional instability in the neighbourhood is the last thing Israel needed. Hence, it comes as no surprise that in Israeli official discourse the popular protests are commonly referred to as the ‘Arab unrest’ or the ‘Arab upheaval’. A handful of those with a fondness for seasonal metaphors like to call it the ‘Islamist winter’ in response to the rise of Islamist regimes in the region that have replaced the secular and largely stable dictatorships of the past.

Egypt is a case in point. Here the autocratic, but still secular, regime of former President Hosni Mubarak has since been replaced by that of Mohamed Morsi. A mid-level functionary of the Muslim Brotherhood that was banned under the previous Government but now holds a majority in Parliament, Mr Morsi has nevertheless been appointed to that high office only after he won the first free and fair, multi-party election held in Egypt.

For Israel, this is problematic on many levels. First, the victory of the Muslim Brotherhood in itself is viewed as an existential threat — and perhaps, rightly so. Not only is the Brotherhood the same organisation that has nurtured top terrorists including present Al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri, it is also directly related to the terrorist group, Hamas, that governs the Gaza Strip and whose charter calls for the obliteration of Israel. It does not take a stretch of imagination to see why Israel fears that under the Muslim Brotherhood, its crucial peace treaty with Egypt will come under threat.

Additionally, there are also concerns regarding the increasingly lawless Sinai Peninsula. There are several reports that groups such as the Al Qaeda, are trying to ‘take over’ the region and create a terror haven of sorts. The crux of their strategy is to provoke Israel into launching retaliatory fire and eventually force the dismantling of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty. It’s a no win situation for both Israel and Egypt.

Of course, there is some hope that the international community will work to prevent such a disaster and that Egypt’s own security imperatives will hopefully persuade the new regime to maintain the status quo. But there are no guarantees yet. While some believe that these new Arab regimes might eventually adopt the Turkish model of pragmatism towards Israel, others insist that the former might initially appear to be reconciliatory in nature but will eventually return to their hardline positions as they continue to consolidate power. Overall, there is no denying that security and counter-terrorism experts still have ample reason to be deeply concerned not just about Israel’s security situation but also about peace in West Asia in general.

To be sure, only time will tell how exactly things will unravel in Egypt but for now the situation provides for an interesting study in democracy, what it means to be one and whether or not it should be considered to be the magic potion for all the world’s political maladies. The first question that must be asked in this regard is does the conduct of free and fair elections alone constitute democracy? Or, should the conduct of such elections be viewed as a political means to achieve social goals such as inclusive, pluralistic society built on the universal values of justice, freedom and equality?

Take Mr Morsi’s appointment to the office of the Egyptian President as an example. That the election that brought him to power was free and fair is commonly acknowledged around the world. But is it as much a given that Egypt under his rule will be an open, just and free society for all its citizens including women and minorities? Or for that matter it will respect its peace obligations with neighbours including Israel? Unfortunately, the answer is a resounding no.

If anything, the situation in Egypt today looks eerily similar to that in the Gaza Strip in 2006. At that time, Hamas was elected to power after similarly free and fair elections following Israel’s pull out from the area in 2005. From the Israeli perspective, this provides for an understandably discomfiting situation not only because it must deal with a terrorist organisation on its borders but also because as a country that prides itself on being the only democracy in the region, it cannot look away from the fact that not just Hamas but now also the regime in Cairo indeed represent the popular will of their people.

For the international community, particularly in the West, such a situation presents what can only be described as the dilemma of defending democracy. It forces the world to also deal with the uncomfortable reality that elections alone don’t constitute democracy — there were elections during Mr Mubarak’s reign as well.  More importantly, it raises the issue of the abuse of democratic freedoms. It must serve as an impetus to the key question: What does the world do about regimes that grab power through democratic means only to eventually dismantle the democratic machinery of the state? 

There are no easy answers here but a good place to at least start the discussion in this regard is with the dispensation of the myths surrounding democracy. For instance, it is imperative to acknowledge that neither does democracy constitute ‘free elections’ nor is a supposedly democratic rule the answer to the many socio-political ills of the day, such as terrorism. In fact, if anything, it is crucial to realise that democracy under certain conditions can actually be bad.

(This article was published in the Op-ed section of The Pioneer on September 10, 2012.)

China must learn to be rational

Prime Minister of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile Lobsang Sangay believes the faith and determination of Tibetans who are fighting  for their rights in the face of Beijing’s might, will eventually triumph. India, he adds, can do more for his people’s cause

Filling in the shoes, or well sandals, of the Dalai Lama without first having returned from the dead is no easy task. But India-bred, Harvard-educated law professor Lobsang Sangay has managed to do exactly that in this past one year that he has been the Kalon Tripa or Prime Minister of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile. In an exclusive interview to The Pioneer, the political successor of the Dalai Lama, speaks of his gruelling first year governing a country he has never visited. He talks of his own journey from a refugee camp in Darjeeling through the hallowed corridors of Harvard Law School to the monastery in Dharamsala; the trials and tribulations of being an elected representative, the democratic implications of separating the office of the political leader from that of the spiritual leader and much more. Excerpts:

You have just completed your first year as the Kalon Tripa. What were the challenges you faced and what would you list as your main achievements?

After 16 years in the US, where I was an academic at Harvard Law School, moving here and adjusting in Dharamsala was a challenging job in itself.  Domestically, the cases of self-immolation in these past months have been painful and I have strived to keep the Tibetan spirit and sense of solidarity alive. Then there is, of course, the Chinese Government that everybody is trying to understand and analyse. Administratively also there have been challenges. Even though I have a small administration of just about a 1000-plus members, still, when a new guy comes in, it requires some re-adjusting.

When His Holiness the Dalai Lama devolved all his political powers last year, there was a lot of anxiety among the people. Who is this guy coming from nowhere? But in this one year’s time, that anxiousness has lessened considerably. 

Now, that the Dalai Lama is no longer actively involved in Tibetan politics and diplomacy, how has that affected the Tibetan movement?

Earlier, His Holiness was both spiritual and political leader, and given his stature, prominence, popularity and acceptance, he performed both roles admirably well. But after that the question was, ‘Who am I trying to fill in his shoes?’ Who knows me? No one. So, I had to create my own space and raise the profile of my office. But because of His Holiness’s goodwill, friends of Tibet have welcomed us with open arms.

Within the Tibetan community, earlier decisions were a lot easier to implement because they had the Dalai Lama’s endorsement. There was little criticism. Now, I don’t have that shield. So, there is more scrutiny but overall there has been more acceptance as well.

Has the separation of the offices of the political and spiritual leaders led to greater democratisation of the Tibetan movement?

Democracy was always part of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s vision. He often told us that when he attended the People’s National Congress in China in 1954, he saw elderly leaders dozing off even as member after member would read out long speeches. Yet, every piece of legislation was unanimously approved.

But then in 1956, when he came to India, he went to Parliament here and saw the raucous, noisy deliberations and the shouting matches, and immediately decided that, ‘Yes, this is what I like.’

So, since 1959, Tibet has had a People’s Parliament. It’s just that with the Dalai Lama being both spiritual and political leader, it was camouflaged. Still, there have been many reforms. Most importantly, in 2001, direct elections were held for the office of the Kalon Tripa, which at that time was only administrative in profile. Then on August 8, 2011, the Dalai Lama said that he was handing over political authority to the democratically elected Lobsang Sangay.

How has the transition been for you from a Tibetan refugee to a professor of law to a politician?

I grew up in a remote refugee camp on one acre of land in Darjeeling. I went to a refugee school and ate dal bhaat every day. No machli. But we always had a sense of serving the community. It was enforced at home and at school but of course I had not expected to be Kalon Tripa. Even as late as 2010, I was focussed on my programmes at Harvard Law School. I hardly ever ventured to Kennedy school where future leaders were being groomed. Only in Spring 2010, when election talk was going on, did I begin auditing classes on leadership and communication.

At the time there was valid criticism that how could this guy, who had never worked even as a bureaucrat at Dharamsala, was not even a Member of Parliament, just parachute from America and become Kalon Tripa? But I decided to give it my best shot.

I won the preliminary election and then 10 days before finals, the Dalai Lama announced that he would devolve power. I had only 10 days to decide if I wanted to become the political successor of the Dalai Lama. But I am a Tibetan. And I always had this sense that I would dedicate my life to the cause of Tibet.

You spoke of the challenge of facing self-immolation cases. How has your administration handled these tragic incidents?

You know, a leader’s position is a lonely one. As a journalist, you can report about it. As an academic, you study it. As a human being, you can sympathise about it. But as a leader, you have to do something about it. We have made repeated requests against self-immolations. We actively discourage it. In fact, we do not even encourage protests inside Tibet given the harsh consequences. But once the protest takes place or some one does self-immolate, it becomes our duty to show solidarity for their aspirations.

Also, one must ask why are they protesting like this? Because there is no space for conventional protests. Yes, they are desperate, but they are so determined to bring freedom to Tibet.

Do you think China’s growing power will make it less amenable to reform?

If China thinks irrationally, then yes. But if China thinks rationally, it should solve the problem of Tibet. The Chinese Government spends more on internal security than on external defence. Which other country does this? A major portion of that security money is spent on Tibet, on the militarisation of the long India-China border, on maintaining tight security in Lhasa where there are check points everywhere. So much to ensure a ‘harmonious society’!

Also, China spends billions of dollars to promote soft power through  Confucius Institutes and events like the Olympics. But when you handle Tibetans like this, it negates all of that effort. If China solves the Tibetan problem, not only will it save billions of dollars, it will generate soft power for itself. It is in China’s interest to resolve the problem.

Do you think growing commercial ties between India and China will force New Delhi to re-balance its equation between Beijing and Tibet?

This is a common theory but my question is: Which country has profited from doing business with China? There may be an exception like Germany, but generally it is China that profits from doing business with the world. China profits more from doing business with India than the other way round. Also, you can’t compromise on morals. If that’s the case, not only are you giving China your money, you are also selling your morals.

Do you have any expectations from New Delhi?

I grew up in India. I was educated in an Indian school subsidised by the Indian Government. I owe a lot to India which has done more for the Tibetan movement than any other country. I am hesitant to ask for more. Obviously I want to see India do more, but I will not ask for it.

(This article was published in the Op-ed section of The Pioneer on August 23, 2012.)

The myth of burger diplomacy

Thomas Friedman had once famously said that no two countries that have McDonalds have ever gone to war against each. But that was perhaps before the Kargil War. Democracy does not always translate into peace

The notion of a certain kind of Government being able to promote peace is, in the least, a very tantalising one. Little wonder then that policy makers in recent times, especially in the more deeply democratic Western world, have been particularly fascinated by the proposition that democracies do not fight one another. On the surface, this seems to provide a one-stop solution to global conflict, implying that a kind of “perpetual peace”, as described by German philosopher Immanuel Kant in his 1795 landmark essay, ‘Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch’, may prevail if there were only democracies in the world.

However, since such an idea becomes oft-abused to legitimise actions against non-democratic nations — think of the Iraq war or even the aerial campaign against Libya — it is imperative to critically analyse such a statement and acknowledge the fact that a number of qualifications need to be taken into consideration before one can celebrate the inherent virtues of democratic governance.

First on the list is the matter of definitions. What is democracy? What is peace? Is the absence of war an indication of peace? What is war? What about other forms of violence and conflict? However, there are no consistent and universal definitions of these phenomena — no, not even within academia. Mostly, both political scientists and policy-makers just devise their own set of requirements to suit their research designs or strategic compulsions.

In fact, as Ido Oren describes in his seminal work, the term ‘democracy’ is highly subjective and over the years, has changed significantly to refer essentially to other members of the ‘in-group’. In other words, for American policy makers for instance, democratic nations at any given time are those nations with whom the US has friendly relations at that time.

Similarly, there are problems with understanding the concept of peace. The democratic peace literature has a realist take on the matter — meaning, peace is the absence of war. This definition thus excludes all other forms of violence, such as economic war which can be just as destructive, military interventions, covert operations, and even civil wars. Consequently, it provides for with only half the information and a false impression. For instance, India and Pakistan may not be engaged in ‘war’ right now, but relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbours are surely not peaceful.

Also, it is interesting to note that while democracies may be relatively less prone to fighting one another, they show no such tendencies towards non-democracies (think of the war in Afghanistan or even the kind of defensive position that the US has taken against autocratic China) — although some believe that while at war, they are less severely violent. Thus it is clearly evident that the idea of monadic peace — that democracies simply by themselves are more peaceful in nature — is a myth.

Interestingly, it may also be mentioned that in some cases even autocratic dyads — a set of two autocratic nations — are more peaceful in their foreign relations than would be expected. Think of Russia and China and how the countries have not only maintained cordial relations with each other but have also teamed up on the global forum to present an intimidating force.  This further negates the assumption that there is something about democratic regimes in particular that makes them more peaceful towards each other — since it may be said that similar regime types are overall less prone to go to war with each other.

Another gaping hole in the democratic peace argument is the equally vague idea of an established democracy versus a weak democracy. Neither of these terms is well-defined and both are very fluid and can easily include or exclude a vast number of nations

A study of how the democratic peace proposition finds reflection in South Asia brings out the above point better. Unlike the West, South Asia suffers from chronic instability, extreme poverty and underdevelopment. Yet, it shares the western ideal of economic liberalisation and since the 1990s, it has been a largely democratic region wherein India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka have all had some form of democratic Government, for the most part. In other words, all these countries have had more than one political party or candidate, elections have been held here in which the citizens have participated and through which, they have elected their leaders and finally, citizens have some basic political and civil rights.

However, it is also an established fact that, though elections may be held in all these countries, some, such as Pakistan and Bangladesh, do not always provide their citizens with the necessary constitutional, civil and political rights, therefore, taking away from it crucial aspects of democratic governance, as Kant would imagine.

An important assumption of the democratic peace proposition is that democracies would share their democratic norms and values with other democracies, and this in turn would be a determining factor in preventing war. In South Asia, however, this has not been the case. Neighbouring democracies have not been able to participate in sharing similar norms but have instead allowed their relations to be clouded by mistrust and suspicion which came about because of their violent and bloody historical past. Both Pakistan and Bangladesh believe that India has expansionist motives, while India is suspicious of both for brewing anti-India sentiment. Will democratic peace succeed in such an environment?

Two other factors that are believed to constrain democracies from going to war include the system of checks and balances that makes it significantly difficult for a small group of executive members to make an unpopular move, and also the fact that the Government is answerable to its people. However, what happens when the people don’t really care about foreign policy decisions — quite like in the West, foreign affairs does not figure high on the list of electoral priorities for South Asians either.

At the same time, foreign policy decisions are also increasingly made by a small group of Ministers or leaders, like members of a kitchen cabinet. Good examples of this situation are the tenures of Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter Indira Gandhi, in India; the UNP Government in Sri Lanka as it negotiated the Indo-Sri Lankan Accords of 1987 and the complicated role of the military in Pakistani foreign and domestic affairs. Therefore, given the fact that democratic institutions do not necessarily work well in these countries, does South Asia have a chance at democratic peace?

Another area of interest with regard to the democratic peace theory is economic interdependence. Proponents of the theory argue that democracies that have economic ties with one another are less prone to fight each other since that would result in mutual trade loss.

In fact, Thomas Friedman had once famously said that no two countries that have McDonalds have ever warred against each other. But that was before the Kargil War.

(This article was published in the Op-ed section of The Pioneer on August 9, 2012.)