Reaching Out To Our Neighbours

Prime Minister Modi’s bilateral engagement with heads of Government of SAARC nations and Mauritius within less than 24 hours of taking over, marks an unprecedented push in New Delhi’s relations with South Asian countries

 The inauguration of Narendra Damodardas Modi as the 15th Prime Minister of India on May 26 was a grand political spectacle, unlike any other that the world had witnessed in recent times. It was a fitting celebration of the world’s largest electoral exercise which had produced a historic popular mandate, of the kind that comes but only once in a generation, and whose strength cannot be undone by cheap pseudo-intellectual chicanery. Apart from the participation of a wide cross-section of Indian stakeholders, the invitation to regional leaders was a diplomatic masterstroke.

The presence of all eight heads of Government from Afghanistan, Bangladesh (represented by its Speaker of Parliament), Bhutan, the Maldives, Mauritius, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka at the swearing-in ceremony reiterated in no uncertain terms India’s civilisational role and position in South Asia. To use a term popularised by former Russian Foreign Minister Andrey Kozyrev in the early 1990s, the sub-continent has always been India’s ‘near abroad’, it’s ‘sphere of influence’. It is here that India’s global engagement will always be rooted, and it is here that India, as the largest social, political and economic entity, will set the agenda for regional discourse. In some ways then perhaps, the inauguration was akin to the Emperor’s coronation where all the Kings came calling.

Some may find this analogy to be imperialist in tone, and understandably so. In the past, India’s smaller neighbours have occasionally cribbed about the big brother. Yet, the fact that all eight South Asian leaders graciously attended the swearing-in of the new Prime Minister of India and his Council of Ministers shows that they all acknowledge the geo-political imperatives of the region. There is consensus that the region has the potential to become a global powerhouse if only there was greater cooperation among its members, none of whom (and this includes India) have unfortunately been able to capitalise on their inherent assets and advantages. 

And this is where the ball falls back into India’s court. As the big power in South Asia, it is India’s responsibility to engage more actively with its neighbours and lead the sub-continent towards greater regional cooperation and integration. Unfortunately, in this past decade, under the myopic guidance of the Congress-led UPA regime, India has failed in that effort. Hemmed in by decelerating growth rates and a political executive that lay paralysed for years together, New Delhi had somewhat turned away from its neighbours and isolated some of its closest friends.

In Nepal, India failed to provide enough support to that country’s fledgling democracy even as Prime Ministers walked in and out of the revolving doors of Kathmandu. In Sri Lanka, when President Mahinda Rajapaksa (after having militarily defeated the Tamil terrorist group) was bullied by the West, New Delhi did not have the spine to stand up for him. In Bangladesh, we kept ourselves at an arm’s length from one of our closest friends, even as Dhaka dutifully held up its side of the bargain. With Pakistan we frittered the hard-won gains from the previous decade and the relationship was hollowed out from within. Further out in Afghanistan, we did only slightly better in helping the war torn country rebuild, but still remained below optimal. Even in the Maldives and Bhutan, we were disconnected from our friends, a lesson that we learnt the hard way. In each of these cases, the space that was ceded by a listless Indian regime was quickly sought to be captured by other rising powers wanting to expand their footprints in the region. If India didn’t get its act together, it risked being alienated, and shall one dare say, even besieged, in its own backyard.

Thankfully, the new Government has already begun the process of course-correction. The invitation to the inauguration was the first step towards resuscitating the India Narrative in South Asia. The next step was the bilateral meetings that took place the day after the swearing-in ceremony. And if the reported outcome of these meetings is anything to go by, India is already on the right path.  According to the Ministry of External Affairs, Prime Minister Modi had ‘substantive’ meetings with all the leaders.

With Afghan President Hamid Karzai, he discussed the recent terror attack on India’s consulate in Herat and reiterated India’s commitment to the reconstruction of Afghanistan. To Bhutanese Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay, he assured India’s unflinching support to Bhutan’s socio-economic development. The duo also agreed to start four new joint hydro-electric projects and strengthen security cooperation.

Security issues were also discussed with President Abdullah Yameen of the Maldives. Islamists have been gaining a strong foothold there, and this has been a matter of concern for India. With Prime Minister Navinchandra Ramgoolam of Mauritius, Mr Modi highlighted cooperation in the maritime security sector as well as strengthening of the Indian Ocean Rim Association, which has been neglected for some time now. In the meeting with Prime Minister Sushil Koirala of Nepal, the focus was on ensuring that the democratic process in the Himalayan nation is taken to fruition with the adoption of the much-delayed Constitution. Additionally, Mr Modi also stressed on expediting the completion of the many infrastructure projects in Nepal that India was supporting, especially in the hydro-power and transmission sectors.

With President Mahinda Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka, the Prime Minister focussed on effective implementation of the national reconciliation process and also highlighted the importance of the 13th Amendment in delivering on the aspirations of the Tamil community for a life of equality, justice, peace and dignity in a united Sri Lanka. In his meeting with Speaker of Bangladesh Parliament Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury, Mr Modi acknowledged the cooperation extended by Bangladesh in all areas of mutual interest including security, power, border management, rail and road transport.

Of course, it was Mr Modi’s meeting with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan that received the most public attention. In this case, perhaps the issues that were left untouched were as important as the matters that were discussed between the two leaders. On the one hand, Prime Minister Modi’s strong stance on terrorism, his insistence that the 26/11 trial be taken to its logical conclusion and his simultaneous focus on improving trade ties offered a blueprint of how his Government will seek to map India-Pakistan relations. On the other hand, Prime Minister Sharif’s silence on the Kashmir issue and the fact he did not meet with separatist leaders (as Pakistani leaders almost always do) spoke volumes. Indeed, Mr Sharif, who defied Army pressure at home to make it to Delhi, cut a perfectly statesman-like figure during visit that included calling upon Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a significant goodwill gesture. That he did not embarrass his hosts with provocative comments (another Pakistani norm) was also much appreciated.

Expectedly, the Modi-Sharif meeting has come under a fair bit of criticism. Some commentators, who had opposed former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s meeting with Mr Sharif in New York this past September, have now also refused to endorse Mr Modi’s bilateral on the same principle — that without any change in the ground situation and no possibility of a concrete deliverable, a high-level meeting is empty symbolism. This, however, is an unnecessarily hawkish approach. First, the bilateral meetings were courtesy calls demanded by protocol, and refusing one with Mr Sharif (while entertaining all other leaders) would have amounted to insulting the guest. Second, it is unfair to use the same yardstick for Mr Modi and Mr Singh at this stage because the new Prime Minister has just started off with a clean slate. If he fumbles, like Mr Singh did at Sharm-el-Sheikh, and fails to make progress over time, he too will be called out for indulging in empty symbolism. But for now, this meeting is best viewed as a welcome, warm-up exercise. Third, by extending the olive branch to Mr Sharif, Mr Modi has effectively softened his own hardliner image and put a possibly worried neighbour somewhat at ease. Equally importantly, he has insured himself from being tagged a war-monger, in case he has to take strong measures against Pakistan at a later date.

(This article was published in the op-ed section of The Pioneer on May 29, 2014)

India poll: A view from Pakistan

Though fear-mongering about the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate and his Hindu nationalist credentials continues, many in Pakistan are of the opinion that a strong leader like Narendra Modi will, in fact, be good for bilateral relations

It is easy to see why John Oliver’s satirical take on the Indian election has gone viral in this country. The British comedian chastises the American media for ignoring the world’s largest democratic exercise and pokes fun at the apparent ‘Fox-ification’ of Indian media. Finally, he notes that the last time America heard a rags to riches story about a tea-seller boy from India, it threw an Oscar at it. This some may say is of the most sane commentaries on the Indian general election to have been produced by Western media.

But jokes apart, there has been much high commentary in the Western media about the Indian general election and expectedly much of it has focussed on Narendra Modi — widely expected to sweep the polls and become Prime Minister later this month. Several foreign magazines have written, often in depth, about Mr Modi, commonly described as a Hindu nationalist leader, and their reportage is used at home to gauge the ‘support’ (or the lack of it) that the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate enjoys on the international platform. Especially given Mr Modi’s chequered past with the West — the US denied him a visa for allegedly ‘sponsoring’ the 2002 violence in Gujarat and Europe effectively blacklisted him until recently — the coverage of his candidacy in the foreign Press has evoked much domestic interest.

And so it is no surprise that The Financial Times’s full throated endorsement of Mr Modi is the talking point this week much like The Economist’s criticism last month created ripples in Delhi’s commentariat. But while the attention paid to first world media is understandable, there has unfortunately been almost no focus in India on how Mr Modi is perceived by some of our immediate neighbours.

Let us take a look at Pakistan: As expected, sections of the Establishment there continue to take a belligerent line against Mr Modi and indeed, there is much fear mongering about him in the media as well. The most recent example of this is, of course, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan’s statement that, if elected as India’s Prime Minister, Mr Modi will “destabilise” regional peace. The harsh comment was in response to Mr Modi’s statement on underworld don Dawood Ibrahim whose residence in Karachi is an open secret but for Mr Khan it was “touching last limit of enmity towards Pakistan”. Similarly, writing in The News newspaper, South Asia analyst Brian Cloughley warns in his April 14 article that, “it’s unlikely he’ll (Modi) be good for relations with Pakistan. The former tea-boy is a bellicose ultra-nationalist... Pakistan had better be prepared for sparks to fly.”

Such analysis is common but there has also been a tempering of the anti-Modi narrative in Pakistan. A good example of this is former Pakistani Ambassador to the UN Munir Akram’s article in The Dawn newspaper. He writes, that given the “disenchantment with the Congress party Government’s economic policies and performance, and Modi’s reputed credentials as an effective and business-friendly administrator”, Mr Modi is “being mainstreamed”.

He too warns that, “Modi’s rehabilitation... has potentially serious implications for Pakistan” as “although Modi has moderated his anti-Muslim rhetoric... he and the BJP could revert to the Hindu hardline if needed to secure their core fundamentalist base... leading to an early crisis in India-Pakistan relations.” 

Further, Mr Akram opines that a BJP victory will foment violent social unrest in India for which Pakistan will be blamed, “unleashing another crisis in bilateral relations”. Interestingly at the end of his article, he tones down and advises the Pakistani Government “not to take a public position against Modi or the BJP” and “open a security dialogue with India”.

A similar sense of duality is reflected in Amir Mateen’s piece in The News wherein the author notes that while, “Questions lurk about how Modi will impact India’s secularism; if he will escalate tension between India and Pakistan and roll back the existing confidence-building measures; how he might resort to jingoism in Kashmir, interfere in Balochistan or restart a proxy war in Afghanistan… not all Pakistanis think the same way. Tiny Pakistani intellectual elite also sees better chance of détente under a strong BJP leader than was possible under a weak Manmohan Singh.”

Interestingly, in recent weeks, Islamabad’s new envoy in New Delhi has walked the extra mile in favour of Mr Modi. After Mr Modi said in an interview that he will carry forward the foreign policy legacy of the BJP’s last Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who took bilateral ties to a new high inspite of a military conflict, Pakistani High Commissioner Abdul Basit said he was “encouraged” by those remarks. Notably, he also downplayed Bihar BJP leader Giriraj Singh’s obnoxious comment that those who opposed Mr Modi would be sent to Pakistan. That statement played on the worst kind of political prejudices associated with the saffron party and, by dismissing it as high-pitched rhetoric, High Commissioner Basit made clear that he and his Government were not going to be taken in by the sound and fury characteristic of most elections.

Also, earlier this week, the Delhi correspondent of The Telegraph reported that senior Pakistani diplomats had said that Pakistan “wants the controversial Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi to become India’s next Prime Minister because it believes he will provide the strong leadership necessary for peace talks”. This, the paper noted was a considerable shift in the official line as put out by Mr Sartaj Aziz, Pakistan’s national security adviser and de facto Foreign Minister. In a previous interview, Mr Aziz had said that his Government was willing to “deal with” Mr Modi. Now, Pakistani diplomats say, that Mr Modi is in fact, “Islamabad’s preferred choice”. According to The Telegraph, Pakistani officials are hoping to grant India ‘Most Favoured Nation’ status which they hope will not only incentivise New Delhi to begin a fresh dialogue but also provide Mr Modi, who is known for his business-friendly policies, “an opportunity to open new talks without appearing weak”.

Of course, given India’s previous experience with Pakistan, be it with regard to peace talks or MFN status, these statements must be taken with more than just a pinch of salt. But that does not diminish the fact that this line of thinking, even if it is restricted to only a segment of the Pakistani establishment, is a positive development.

(This article was published in the op-ed section of The Pioneer on May 1, 2014)

Fresh Winds May Blow Soon

Manmohan Singh and the Government he has only nominally led have frittered away the robust Vajpayee legacy in foreign affairs. If the BJP comes to power with Narendra Modi as Prime Minister, it could bring tectonic, positive changes in the country’s international relations

 In recent weeks, at least two prominent Indian commentators have opined that if Mr Narendra Modi becomes Prime Minister, as is widely expected, his biggest impact will be felt not so much on India’s economic policy but its foreign policy agenda. On April 9, soon after the BJP released its election manifesto, Firstpost editor R Jagannathan observed, “If Modi were to become PM, foreign and security policy could be in for another churn”, and go through a “sea change”. The same day, C Raja Mohan, one of the country’s most respected journalists and foreign policy analysts, wrote in The Indian Express that the “vagueness” in the BJP manifesto should allow Mr Modi “considerable freedom to put his own stamp on India’s foreign policy”. 

The focus on Mr Modi in the foreign policy sphere is interesting, given that the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate does not have a particularly active profile in this regard. Almost all his time as a senior politician has been spent in Gujarat and he has no experience with the processes that guide India’s engagement with the world. To the casual observer, he may, therefore, seem like an untested hand in foreign policy matters, and more so since Mr Modi has focussed only limited attention on the subject during his election campaign. This is not unusual since  foreign policy is hardly a talking point during elections.

But even as Mr Modi holds the cards close to him in this case, comparisons with Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee have already begun. The last BJP Prime Minister, Mr Vajpayee is credited with taking India’s foreign policy to new highs — he tested nuclear weapons that initially led to international sanctions but eventually brought India nuclear legitimacy; he significantly improved the country’s relations with Pakistan despite the process being disrupted by the Kargil conflict; the joint declaration with China that he signed during his landmark trip to the Middle Kingdom in 2003 still forms the basic framework for border dispute talks; and, finally, it was under his leadership that New Delhi shrugged off its Cold War inhibitions and vitalised ties with the US. Indeed, when Mr Vajpayee demitted the Prime Minister’s Office, he left his successor a rich legacy of global engagement.

Unfortunately, Mr Manmohan Singh and the Government he only nominally led frittered away that legacy in this past decade. As the BJP manifesto notes, “The Congress-led UPA has failed to establish enduring friendly and cooperative relations with India’s neighbours. India’s relations with traditional allies have turned cold. India and its neighbours have drifted apart”. In response, the BJP has vowed to “build a strong, self-reliant and self-confident India” that will “regain its rightful place in the comity of nations”.

This has been interpreted by many as indicative of a “muscular” foreign policy under Mr Modi, although what exactly that means is unclear. What can be expected though is that, if Mr Modi takes up the top job, he will be a strong and decisive leader and craft a foreign policy that furthers the country’s “best national interests” (to use a phrase from the manifesto). 

Similarly, analysts have also been talking about what the BJP means when it says that it will “create a web of allies to mutually further our interests”. Does this mean India may shed its non-alignment policies under Mr Modi? This is highly unlikely. In recent years, India has forged a series of strategic partnerships with different countries while still holding onto its strategic autonomy. There is no reason to believe that a Modi-led Government will stray from that path. However, one can expect a greater emphasis on India’s role as an Asian power — particularly in the strengthening of relations with Japan, China and, to a lesser extent, Singapore and South Korea. 

India’s relations with Japan are already on the upswing and will get another big push if Mr Modi comes to power. Japan has been doing a lot of business with Mr Modi’s Gujarat and those experiences will be carried forward to the national level. Also, Mr Modi has a close personal relationship with Mr Shinzo Abe, the staunchly pro-India Prime Minister of Japan. In 2007, during his first term as Prime Minister, Mr Abe gave a warm welcome to Mr Modi in Tokyo; when Mr Modi returned to Japan in 2012, Mr Abe was in the Opposition, but the duo still met; months later in December that year, when Mr Abe returned to power, Mr Modi personally called to congratulate — a noticeable event given that Mr Modi was not a national leader.  Moreover, both men are portrayed as nationalists focussed on the country’s economic resurgence which makes their partnership almost natural.  

As regards China, alarmists have already raised red flags about Mr Modi’s comments, made in Arunachal Pradesh, on protecting India’s territorial integrity. They have been quick to assume that this means India may take on a provocative stance against China, which it can ill-afford, even though the Chinese themselves dismissed the statements as catering to domestic concerns during an election campaign. Also, there is reason enough to assume that under his leadership, India’s relations with China will realise their full potential, especially in trade. Mr Modi has travelled to China four times already and, in 2011, was received in the Great Hall of the People, a landmark event largely ignored by the Indian media.  

The BJP manifesto also says, “Instead of being led by Big Power interests, we will engage proactively on our own with countries in the neighbourhood and beyond.” This again has been interpreted as a snub to the West, particularly the US which finds no mention in the manifesto. But before reading too much into it, let’s not forget that no other country is individually named in the manifesto. Also, given Mr Modi’s reputation as a realist politician, one can be reasonably sure that he will not allow relations between the two countries to deteriorate on his watch. If anything, given Mr Modi’s emphasis on economic ties, one can expect a significant strengthening of trade relations between the two countries which have plateaued in recent years. However, the US’s earlier insult of Mr Modi will remain in the backdrop — so do not be surprised if he drops by Tehran on his way to Washington, DC.

Finally, there has been a lot of hullabaloo over the BJP’s promise to design an “independent strategic nuclear programme” by updating the current doctrine in keeping with the challenges of time. This was being widely seen as the party’s code for junking the ‘no first use’ principle; and Modi-baiters conveniently used this to fuel fears of ‘war-mongering’ by the man commonly described as a ‘Hindu nationalist strongman’ — no matter that there is consensus across India’s strategic community that the NFU needs to be revisited at the earliest.

Their bubble of vacuous commentary burst as soon as BJP president Rajnath Singh put to rest all speculation about the NFU being revised. It remains unclear why Mr Singh made such a definitive statement; the nuclear doctrine is not a major electoral plank — but it is hoped that, if Mr Modi comes to power, he will update India’s nuclear policy, as promised in his party manifesto.

(This op-ed was published in The Pioneer on April 17, 2014)

Decade of Democracy in Kabul

The April 5 presidential election in Afghanistan is a landmark event in that’s country’s political transition. But it is only part of a much longer and larger process and will not change the Afghan political scene overnight, either for the better or worse

Pre-occupied with the Lok Sabha vote at home, there has understandably been only limited focus in India on the landmark election that is coming up in the neighbourhood this weekend. On Saturday, April 5, Afghanistan will be going to the polls to elect itself a new President. This will be the country’s third presidential election after the fall of the Taliban, and its first without incumbent Hamid Karzai in the fray. Since he took charge in 2001, President Karzai has ably shepherded Afghanistan through a tumultuous and challenging decade of national transition but now stands constitutionally debarred from seeking a popular mandate for a third time, thereby leaving the race for the top job wide open.

Moreover, the election will also be played out against the drawdown of Western troops from that country even as the Taliban continue to gain strength — and to that extent, important questions about security and stability loom large. Many worry if Afghanistan will disintegrate into small fiefdoms held by tribal warlords while others fear the return of the Taliban to Kabul. The Taliban have, as expected, promised to disrupt the election which they consider to be an American ploy and some are of the opinion that the April 5 vote will fuel violence and bloodshed that will quickly undo the supposedly fragile gains made in the last decade. Viewed together, it is easy to see how this election can arguably be the single-most important political transition process in Afghanistan since the Bonn Conference.

On the plus side, there is much that seems to be going right. One, there is a high level of public support for the democratic process despite the security concerns. In the past two months, since the candidates began campaigning, they have held large public rallies that have been attended by hundreds. Ordinary Afghans have spent hours standing in lines outside their local election commission offices to register for voting cards and there is reason enough to believe that they will exercise their democratic rights on April 5. Even women are expected to participate in large numbers.

Two, there are as many as eight candidates in the race for President (supported by two vice presidential candidates each) and at least three of them — Mr Abdullah Abdullah, Mr Ashraf Ghani and Mr Zalmai Rassoul — are considered to be in a close fight. Mr Abdullah, a prominent Opposition figure who heads the National Coalition for Afghanistan, was a front-runner in the 2009 election as well but later withdrew from the run-off against President Karzai. Mr Ghani is a technocrat, a former World Bank employee with a doctorate from Columbia University and vast experience in the development sector. His performance in the 2009 election was lacklustre, but this time around, he is expected to put up a tough fight. Mr Rassoul was Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister until October 2013 when he resigned from his position to run for President. Previously, he had also served as National Security Adviser and now enjoys the official support of President Karzai. Overall, the candidates’ profiles offer a good indicator of how the Afghan polity has matured over the years even though President Karzai may still remain the tallest of Afghan politicians.

Three, Afghan authorities have clearly learnt from previous electoral experiences, and especially the two main bodies responsible for the conduct of free and fair elections — the Independent Election Commission and the Independent Electoral Complaints Commission — have taken several steps to rectify past problems. These range from ground-level management details, such as the use of bar codes to track the movement of ballot material, to larger policy issues such as the enactment of electoral laws by Parliament for the first time instead of a Presidential decree, as had been done during the presidential and parliamentary elections in 2004 and 2005 and then in 2009 and 2010 respectively.

But having said all of this, it is also equally important to understand the limitations of the April 5 vote. For this, let us go back through the previous points for a more nuanced view of the situation. In the first case, the popular enthusiasm for democracy notwithstanding, one cannot ignore the fact that the unsavoury electoral experience of 2009 left the Afghan public with a bitter aftertaste. Large-scale ballot rigging tarnished President Karzai’s mandate and it remains unclear to what extent the situation may have improved this time around. Yes, efforts have been made to make the voting system tamper-proof but the Afghan state still simply does not have the massive infrastructure needed to conduct free and fair elections, especially when faced with serious security challenges.

For example, the Afghan Analysts Network has reported that anything between seven to 10 million additional voter identification cards are floating around the country. Exact figures are impossible to collate as Afghanistan does not do a head count for its people. Voting cards have also been sold in bulk while for women voters in conservative areas, they have been issued to male members of their families without adequate identification proof.

In previous elections, village elders have been known to vote en masse for their people, booth capturing has been common, and ballots routinely tampered with. Now, there are private armed contractors available for hire to do the dirty work. Indeed, as Mr Abdullah said recently, his biggest challenger is not his rival candidate but electoral fraud. In Afghanistan, the point of debate is not if the results will be rigged — that is a given — but to what extent they will be manipulated.

Similarly, when it comes to presidential candidates, it may seem like there is a lot of choose from on paper, but, in reality, all the front-runners are Establishment insiders expected to continue with the Karzai consensus on most matters. Also, they all belong to the dominant Pashtun community. True, some of them have taken on minority leaders as their running mates, but that is either for window dressing purposes (as in the case of some of the women candidates) or cynical vote bank calculations (for example, the influential Uzbek leader Abdul Rashid Dostum, accused of war crimes, who has tied up with Mr Ghani).

As for the Taliban factor, it is again unlikely that the insurgents will disrupt the process entirely. There may be isolated attacks, such as the ones in Hotel Serena and the IEC headquarters but, overall, the status quo should hold. The Taliban have publicly called for boycotting the election but in private are known to have struck deals with local leaders to allow polling activity so that they may influence the vote in return.

One must not expect any significant over-night changes, either for the better or worse. It is important to understand that the election is, at the end of the day, just another step in, what has been, a long road towards a stable, democratic, peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan in the post-Taliban era.

(This article was published in the op-ed section of The Pioneer on April 3, 2014)

Not The Old Superpower. Still...

The crisis in Ukraine, which has culminated in the ‘accession’ of its Crimean Province to the Russian Federation, is not just a victory for Vladimir Putin. It marks the return of a resurgent Great Power to the international stage

Russia’s annexation of Crimea, following a controversial referendum in the peninsula that has been deemed illegitimate by the United States, the European Union and the incumbent Government of Ukraine, has expectedly stoked fears of another Cold War. While some of these concerns maybe over-stated, there is no looking away from the fact that the political crisis in Ukraine, which has culminated in the accession of its Crimean Province to the Russian Federation, marks the return of a resurgent Great Power to the international stage in a manner that it has not been seen since the end of the Cold War. On the other end, it also highlights the limits of Western powers which have struggled to respond to the crisis in an effective and cohesive manner, and have found themselves on the backfoot every step of the way. The crisis should perhaps also force a re-think on Nato’s mandate and purpose.

That the US-EU-Nato combine clearly failed to assess Russian President Vladimir Putin’s response to the ouster of Mr Viktor Yanukovich, the democratically elected President of Ukraine ,who was also Kremlin’s man in Kiev, goes without saying. This, at least partly, seems to be because the West never cared to put itself in President Putin’s position — as is evidenced from the international community’s entirely anti-Russia rhetoric on the issue. The entire blame is being laid at President Putin’s doorstep for ‘invading’ Ukraine and ‘violating its territorial integrity’, when, in fact, the West is just as much responsible. After all, aggressive Nato expansionism was bound to rankle Moscow. Yet, successive regimes in Washington, DC, continued with its eastward movement in a manner that has only served to incite Russia.

As Mr Malcolm Fraser, the former Prime Minister of Australia, notes in The Guardian: “The then (Soviet Union) President, (Mikhail Sergeyevich) Gorbachev , in negotiating with US Secretary of State, James Baker, had insisted that Nato should not move one foot east — this was an area of traditional Russian influence. President (Bill) Clinton pushed to expand the Nato alliance to the very borders of Russia. There was talk of Ukraine and Georgia being included.” True, Ukraine eventually turned down offers to join Nato but as Mr Fraser explains, “The move east... was provocative, unwise and a very clear signal to Russia: We are not willing to make you a co-operative partner in the management of European or world affairs; we will exercise the power available to us and you will have to put up with it.” And that is not all: “The message was re-emphasised years later, when President Bush sought to place elements of the anti-ballistic missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic. America said this was aimed at Iran. Russia would not have believed that. The West was acting as though the Cold War still persisted”.

Similarly, the secession of Kosovo from Serbia, which happened in Russia’s backyard and despite Moscow’s reservations, is yet another example of Western high-handness. That President Putin used the example set in Kosovo to justify his annexation of Crimea shows how things are now coming full circle. In his victory speech at the Kremlin on Tuesday, Mr Putin said: “The Crimean authorities referred to the well-known Kosovo precedent — a precedent our Western colleagues created with their own hands in a very similar situation, when they agreed that the unilateral separation of Kosovo from Serbia, exactly what Crimea is doing now, was legitimate and did not require any permission from the country’s central authorities.” 

In response, some Western experts have sought to distinguish the Kosovo case from Crimea on the ground that the secession of the former was necessitated by enormous bloodshed. While a high death toll may make for a compelling argument for it, secession is still very much a violation of the principal of territorial integrity that the West now seeks to uphold against Russia — a fact that Mr Putin has also underlined. 

For now, it seems like there is little to stop Mr Putin, who is possibly looking to flesh out his dream of the Eurasian Union, essentially a vast trade block to rival the EU, which up until now had received little international attention. The West, on its part, has begun imposing sanctions on individual Russian leaders and threatened additional ‘costs’ amidst loud protestations of “land grab” and “theft on an international scale”. But none of these seem to have perturbed President Putin much.

Russia does only limited business with the US; its main trading partner is the EU which buys Russian gas. It is unlikely that Europe, hamstrung by its own financial troubles, will be willing to bear a high cost. Indeed, as we decide to what extent the West will be willing to convert its high-pitched talk against an ‘aggressive’ Russia into punitive action, it is important to remember that neither the EU nor definitely the US has the kind of interests which Russia has in Crimea. Not only does Russia have historical ties with the penninsula that goes back centuries, Crimea has also been the base for its Black Sea Fleet for 200 years at Sevastopol. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, a lease agreement valid till 2042 allows the Russian fleet to continue operating in Sevastopol in exchange for discounted natural gas. This lease also allows Russia to station 161 aircraft, 388 warships and 25,000 armed men in Crimea (which Mr Putin used to justify the presence of his armed forces during March 16 referendum).

Indeed, India’s National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon had also mentioned “legitimate Russian interests” in Crimea — and his statement did raise some eyebrows around the world. The statement, even if carefully couched in diplomatese, showed Indian support for Russia, a long-standing friend, at a time when the latter has been virtually isolated. This must also be viewed alongside the official statement from the Ministry of External Affairs, which not only refrained from condemning Moscow’s actions but also kept out the routine mention of “respect for territorial integrity” etc. It is no surprise then that President Putin has not only thanked India for “showing restraint” but also later telephoned Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to apprise him of the developments.

(This article was published in the op-ed section of The Pioneer on March 20, 2014)

A Taste of Your Own Medicine

The terror attack in Islamabad has hit the Pakistani Establishment in its home turf, and raised questions over how long the Government will be able retain control over its own backyard even. Still, course correction seems unlikely

Terror attacks in Pakistan these days hardly grab headlines elsewhere, as they happen on a near daily basis across that country. Nevertheless, the bloodbath in Islamabad on Monday deserves attention. For one, it was a rare incident even by Pakistan’s standards. Though other urban centres, such as Karachi and Peshawar, have come under attack and repeatedly so, the capital city has been largely insulated from the onslaught of terrorists in recent years. Indeed, this was the first major attack since June 2011 and the deadliest since 2008 when the Marriott Hotel was bombed.

On Monday morning, gunmen ran into a district courthouse complex, located in the posh F8 Sector of Islamabad, firing indiscriminately at bystanders. After about 45 minutes of utter mayhem, two of them blew themselves up inside a courtroom while others reportedly fled. Eleven people, including a judge, were killed in the attack that bore a striking resemblance to the 26/11 carnage in Mumbai.

The attack has hit the Pakistani elite on its home turf, and raised questions over how long the Government will be able retain control over its own backyard even. Many believe that Islamabad, specifically the Government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, has struck a devil’s deal with terror groups: Keep your hands off Islamabad and the surrounding Punjab Province (by far, Pakistan’s most prosperous region and Mr Sharif’s stronghold) — and, in return, the state machinery will look the other way as you wreak havoc in other parts of the country. Monday’s attack shows that any such deal which may have been in place is now unravelling.

According to the Pakistani Government, the attack also shattered the ceasefire agreement that it had entered into with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan less than 24 hours ago. On Sunday, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan had announced that the Government would halt ongoing airstrikes against the militants in response to the latter’s offer to hold fire for a month, that came the day before. On Saturday, the military had targeted the hideouts of Taliban leader Hazrat Nabi, also known as Mullah Tamanche, who Government officials hold responsible for a March 1 attack in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province that claimed the lives of 11 policemen guarding polio workers. The state’s retaliatory response resulted in the killing of least five militants and, although it remains unclear if Mullah Tamanche was one of them, it seemed to have forced the TTP to call for truce.

Given the Taliban’s long history of violating ceasefire promises, it was assumed that the peace would not hold for long but few could have predicted a massacre the very next day — and this seemingly includes the TTP itself. On Tuesday, the group’s spokesperson Shahidullah Shahid washed their hands off the attack, while making vague accusations about foreign involvement to derail peace negotiations with the Government that could have been re-started. The talks had been suspended weeks ago after militants killed 23 Frontier Corps soldiers it had been holding in its custody since 2010, despite promises of ceasefire during negotiations.

Instead, a little known group, Ahrar-ul Hind, has taken responsibility for the attack. Now, few in Pakistan seem to believe that the TTP was not involved in the attack. By most accounts, it is using the new group to give itself the advantage of plausible deniability. Interestingly, it is precisely this that has been the Pakistani Government’s strategy with regard to anti-India attacks and activities emanating from its soil. But that is a different story altogether. For now, there is reason to believe that the TTP may not have actually been directly involved in courthouse attack.

The Ahrar-ul Hind claims to have separated from the Pakistani Taliban network in February, after the latter began peace talks with the Government which were supposed to be premised on two pre-conditions: First, that the Taliban accept and honour the Constitution of Pakistan and second, that any potential peace deal cover only ‘violence-hit areas’ (code for restive tribal areas that are safe havens for militants). The Ahrar-ul Hind is opposed to both and has made clear it will accept nothing less than the implementation of sharia’h law across Pakistan.

Another interesting aspect of the group is that while its spokesman has claimed that it is led by one Maulana Omar Qasmi, Pakistani media has reported that security agencies believe the ‘Kashmiri fighter’ Mast Gul, is probably its driving force. The former commander of the Hizbul Mujahideen led the 1995 siege of the Charar-e-Sharif shrine in Jammu & Kashmir. After a two month long standoff that gutted the  14th century shrine, the Indian Army eventually flushed out the militants but Mast Gul escaped. According to Former Union Minister Jaswant Singh, he received a hero’s welcome across the border as he drove to Muzaffarabad from Chakothi on August 2, three months after the arson. For a while, Gul was supposedly the ISI’s blue-eyed boy but later went off the radar. Then, this February, he resurfaced in Northern Waziristan with a TTP commander claiming responsibility for the hotel bombing in Peshawar.

But irrespective of the nature of the TTP’s ties with the Ahrar-ul Hind, the fact remains that this is not the first time that it has distanced itself from a terror attack. For example, last year the group refrained from taking responsibility for two high-profile incidents — the Nanga Parbat shooting in June and the Peshawar church attack in September, both of which were claimed by lesser known groups. Viewed along with the TTP’s refusal to take ownership of the Islamabad courthouse attack, it highlights the highly amorphous nature of the Pakistani Taliban and is indicative of the fact that the top leadership of the network does not have direct charge of every jihadi foot soldier.

This effectively dooms any peace dialogue that the Pakistani Government undertakes with the TTP. Unfortunately, Islamabad has chosen to persist with the talks. On Wednesday, Government negotiators met TTP representatives at a seminary in the northwestern city of Akora Khattak where the Afghan Taliban chief, Mullah Omar, and several of his top commanders are said to have studied. This was inspite of the fact that earlier in the day, a roadside bomb in Hangu had killed six soldiers.

The only way to contain terror, at least in the short term, is to use military action and purge terrorist safe havens from that country. And in this effort, Pakistan cannot afford to cherry-pick its targets — cracking down on those who are detrimental to Pakistani interests while protecting ‘assets’ it hopes to use against India or Afghanistan.

(This article was published in the op-ed section of The Pioneer on March 6, 2014)

Syrian Peace Deal Is Unravelling

Not only has the West’s chemical weapons agreement with Damascus done nothing to stem the humanitarian disaster in Syria, it has made matters significantly worse by strengthening the Assad regime and perpetuating a deadlock

Less than five months after the US and Russia claimed an unprecedented diplomatic victory in pressuring President Bashar al-Assad to give up his chemical weapons stock, the deal that was touted as a breakthrough in the Syrian crisis is already unravelling. Not only has it done nothing to stem the humanitarian disaster in the country where a 1,30,00 have been butchered by regime and rebel forces alike, it has, in fact, made matters significantly worse by perpetuating a deadlock.

On Tuesday, this is precisely what the Director of National Intelligence, Mr James Clapper, testified at a US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee hearing. He said: “I foresee kind of more of the same, sort of a perpetual state of a stalemate where... neither the regime nor the opposition can prevail”. In a scathing indictment of the chemical weapons deal, Mr Clapper also said that “(Assad) is actually in a strengthened position than when we discussed this last year, by virtue of his agreement to remove the chemical weapons”.

The US State Department has expectedly downplayed Mr Clapper’s testimony and sought to deflect focus by pointing to the external assistance that the Assad regime continues to receive, primarily from Iran. Now, while there is no doubt that Tehran has propped up its ally in Damascus with men, money and more, to argue that that Iranian support has somehow nullified the West’s peace bargain is downright disingenuous. The deal is falling apart because it was never meant to hold together, as had been argued in this column earlier. 

From a purely logistical point of view, it was premised on the ridiculous assumption that President Assad would lead UN weapons inspectors to his chemical weapons stockpiles (which until then he had not even acknowledged existed) and then stand aside while they take over his weapons — while a civil war rages in the backdrop. It is no wonder then that four months after the deal came into force, and with only another four months to go before the June 30 deadline for destruction of all chemical weapons expires, Syria has given up less than five percent of its chemical weapons arsenal.

The programme made a good start last year, when the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons destroyed equipment and ammunitions that could be used to launch another CW attack like the August 2013 incident in Ghouta. But now it “has reached a kind of a stasis”, according to OPCW spokesperson Michael Luhan. These views were also echoed by Mr Clapper in Washington, DC, who noted before Congress that the project was moving at a “slow pace”.

So far only 53 metric tonnes of chemical have left the Syrian port of Latakia to be destroyed abroad. This is just a fraction of the most lethal elements in Mr Assad’s chemical weapons arsenal that include sarin and mustard gases, which were supposed to have been handed over by December 31, 2013. On Wednesday, the regime also missed a second deadline for handing over other industrial chemical components. On behalf of the Syrian regime, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov has assured the international community that the former is planning a move another in shipment this month and will, in fact, complete the entire process by March. But most experts agree that this is unlikely.

On their part, Syrian officials have cited “safety concerns” — rather legitimately, it would seem, in the backdrop of a civil war — for the delay, and put out a laundry list of things they need for transporting the material across the country. Unsurprisingly, this list is heavy on items such as armoured troop carriers and armoured sleeves for containers loaded with chemicals which can also be used to beef up the regime's military might. For now, Washington has refused to fulfil the request — “The regime has every tool they need in order to deliver on their promise of moving the chemical weapons to the port at Latakia,” said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki — and instead accused the regime of dragging its feet.

This might well be the case. President Assad has a long and successful record of pushing the West’s tolerance limits, then backing off a bit with false promises, to buy time, gather his troops, and push forth again. Against this backdrop, news reports that his regime is actually stockpiling chemical weapons gains significance. The Times of London quoted unnamed Russian and Israeli sources as saying that Syria is working with Iran and North Korea to upgrade its arsenal so that it can be used as an “insurance policy” of sorts to protect President Assad’s rump state, extending across his Alawaite turf in the north-western part of the country, in case Syria is partitioned.

If true, this will not be the first time that a rogue leader has taken the West for a ride. Even Muammar Gaddafi, who voluntarily gave up his chemical weapons to end Libya’s international isolation, had put away a secret stash that was discovered unguarded in the middle of the desert after his death in 2011. Indeed, the deal’s overt dependence on the Assad regime, which has proven itself to be unreliable, has always been one of its biggest pitfalls.

Even before the deal was finalised in September 2013, this author had labelled it as one that was for everybody and yet belonged to nobody. It was a diplomatic victory for Russian President Vladimir Putin who “resurrected Russia’s image from a Cold War relic to a 21st century superpower” and reiterated “Moscow’s influence in West Asia”, a face-saver for US President Barack Obama who “needed to extricate himself from the ‘Red Line’ narrative in which he had foolishly entwined himself” and finally, and perhaps most worryingly, it allowed President Assad to “breathe easy” as the possibility of a Western military intervention in Syria was drastically reduced. The deal, which is narrowly focussed on chemical weapons, turned the spotlight away from the Assad regime’s killings by conventional weapons — most recently, deadly barrel bombs were used by the Syrian Air Force in the rebel stronghold of Aleppo — even as the death toll in Syria continues to rise. 

On a concluding note, it is interesting to note that on Monday the United Nations announced that the deputy to Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations special envoy for Syria, was resigning. While no official reason was given, it is well-known that President Assad had objected to the deputy’s presence at the Geneva II talks as he was a nephew Yasser Arafat. This is possibly because Mr Assad’s father despised the Palestinian leader. Some view this UN move to be a conciliatory gesture towards the Assad regime. If true, it points to the possibility of a some sort of a political settlement which is the only way out of this mess.

(This article was published in the op-ed section of The Pioneer on February 6, 2014)