Daily Excelsior... Editorial

EDITORIAL

By B L Kak
Tension-laden President and military ruler of Pakistan, Gen. Parvez Musharraf, has so far managed to maintain his hold over the equally tense officialdom. But he and the Pak bureaucracy may ....more

Students Islamic
Movement of India

K.N. Pandita
The banning of the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) has evoked sharp reaction from some Muslim organisations and personalities in the...more

How the five pandav
as of coalition politics
failed?

By Kedar Nath Pandey
Messrs V. P. Singh, Chandra Shekhar, H. D. Deve Gowda, I. K. Gujral and Atal Behari Vajpayee have been the only beneficiaries of unstable, faceless, shapeless and directionless coalition governments at the Centre, and all ...more

EDITORIAL

Gimmick of 'excesses'

Terrorism twists the whole scheme of democratic polity in an abnormal way with its weapon of terror. It forces whole villages, even town to slavishly follow its dictates, do its bidding and to disregard the facts, authority and even their own interest. 'Protest' are engineered, allegations of as heinous a crime as 'rape' get leveled easily, and actions against the terrorists are turned into rights-violations. Everything becomes one vicious spiral that only fosters more terrorism. For the last several years, this State has been witnessing the rise of these sadistic spirals. Even the Government as well as the general populace easily miss the full import of these mechanizations. And, more often than not, it is these same people who have been the willing or unwilling tools of these manoeuvrings of militants who become their prime targets. The easiest of these tools is the so-called excesses of the army. Indeed the major burnt of the protestations of the apologists of terrorism is the action by the army, without any acknowledging that all these actions are in response to the terrorists' strikes which are the primary cause of the army getting out of their barracks and into the field. Nor do people see the ruse of the militant propaganda. They easily fall into the trap of militants and end up being the fodder for the future attacks by the militants.

This was how the law and order problem in Kashmir became a high rights issue over the years. Today every leader who intends to remain in reckoning there has to club the militants and the army in the same group. Sometimes there are plain compulsions of existence that dictate these postures. At the other times it is to earn an extra political point. Naive nationalist forces, especially the human rights activists, who want to see Kashmir as jsut another plain subversion of justice take these subtle distortions at their face value and build entire theses upon the drummed up charges. From them it is a mere step to sociologists and 'conscientious' film makers. And, you have a full theory worked out in detail for a fictional understanding of the whole issue of terrorism and militancy. Democracy, like all good things, has the handicap that it is a good master but a bad servant; when the system is perverted to serve unholy ends it comes to helplessly obey the prevaricators' and ends up frustrating its very practice.

Now this subtlety has crossed the hills of descend upon the hill-districts of Jammu to promote the terrorists' cause. The recent protest at Doda, against the 'excesses' by army posted in the militant infested areas, is not the first one there. The first major killing in Balesa was explained away as a 'love feud'. Just as the Mehjoor Nagar killing of Sikhs is still trivialized by refusing to see militancy at its root. Equally alarming is the report that a local National Conference leader organized the show at Doda. Terrorism, the subtle tactics of terrorists and their increasing spread in reach and targets demands that public awareness about the whole thing be roused to greater levels. And the Government has to give a better account of itself. Few are ready to concede that this Government has been dealing with this next serious problem confronting the State in an adequate manner. Whether it is deployments or postings, responding to "public wishes' or seeing through the militants' ploys, the actions have not been quite in keeping with the demands of the situation. If anything the recent attack on the legislature has underscored the need to act in a more integrated manner. For a starter, say, how the junior most member in the State Cabinet always comes to be entrusted with the all-important portfolio of home?

These long queues!

Once upon a time the habit of forming a queue was taken as the ultimate sign of civilized behaviour. One formed a Q, stood patiently there and went home taking the intended ticket or the kerosene, liter and went home praising the gentlemanly behaviour of the queuing public. Queuing was convenient and comfortable mode of waiting for your turn. In many cases it was the only means to ensure that you would get your turn. Today, the person standing in a queue may stand there all the day and neither get the intended ticket nor the intended liter. The queuing person has to suffer the humiliation of life standing, dripping and jostling in a melting mass of humanity. All for the innocent wish of availing a public utility, paying for a ticket or a bill that the authorities should have been gratefully collected from him or her at home. Whether it is to pay your telephone bills, obtain travel tickets or simple postal stationary the queues are getting to be the most ungentlemanly things about the town life of these ages.

The teeming million that is India is certainly what has made queuing an ungentlemanly drudge. But that is something that we should have learned to accept and live with. Arrangements can easily be made to spare the people the shame of sweating in a tight queue. Issuing a faulty cheque is a criminal offence. Payment by cheque could ease the troubles of people here, but for that to be effectively used the billing has to be prompt and precise and the postal services have to be spruced up. Easy things these, but somehow they never get done. Using tokens to allot serials to the people in the queue is another way to spare the people the indignity of sweating in a hot line. Computers is another. Almost all the departments have been computerized. Computers make it possible to open a dozen counters in place of the usual single window. Using interlinked - computers, these counters could, even, be opened in different parts of the city to make it easy for the public to make payment. But no. The woes of the public in this country must not be eased; the people must be made to stand in smelly queues, must be made to sweat and stink, in banks, telephone offices, insurance counters, railway stations.... everywhere. That is their destiny.

Uneasy is Pakistan with US strategy

By B L Kak

Tension-laden President and military ruler of Pakistan, Gen. Parvez Musharraf, has so far managed to maintain his hold over the equally tense officialdom. But he and the Pak bureaucracy may fall apart if the US anti-terrorist campaign ultimately demanded that Islamabad enforce an effective ban on all Pakistan-based jihadi organisations.

Unambiguous is the message from the average Pakistani official: Washington’s expected demand for a total ban on all Pak-based militant and terrorist outfits will lead to a grave law and order situation in Pakistan and deal a major blow to the Kashmiri ‘freedom struggle’.

If the leading Pakistani English daily, The News, is to be believed, differences have arisen between the United States and Pakistan’s military establishment over the former’s strategy vis-à-vis Osama bin Laden and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Is the Musharraf Government really getting uncomfortable on Washington’s posturing on at least four issues?

These issues have been identified as US military assistance to the Northern Alliance, its insistence on action against jihadi groups within Pakistan, US hesitation in getting a fresh UN endorsement for its military action and non-inclusion of Muslim States in the military coalition to fight against Afghanistan. Unconfirmed reports say that the military high command in Rawalpindi has been forced to reconsider its options following the ISI’s finding that the India-backed Northern Alliance in Afghanistan was getting extensive military support from an international coalition headed by the United States.

A section of Pakistan Army is reportedly of the view that it is unnatural to expect the Pak Armed Forces to support a military action that may drive the Northern Alliance from their present hideouts in Panjshir Valley to the seat of power in Kabul. Differences between the US and Pakistan also developed over the former naming a Pakistani religious trust along with a jihad group in the list of 26 organisations to be targeted for financial crackdown.

Again, if the findings of The News were to be believed, the naming of the two organisations has multiplied doubts in the minds of Pakistani officials about the ultimate objectives of the United States mission. The average Pak official has already been led to believe that the Al-Rashid Trust, a ‘charitable’ organisation, supplied bread to nearly 1,50,000 people inside Afghanistan.

The Al-Rashid Trust is, at the same time, said to be associated with the Lashkar-e-Toiba, one of the major jihadi organisations fighting Indian troops in Jammu and Kashmir. The Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, the second Pakistani organisation to figure in the US list of targets, had been founded after the United States had declared its parent organisation, Harkat-ul-Ansar, as a terrorist outfit.

Even after his regime’s ‘unstinted cooperation’ to the US in its war against the international terrorism, Gen. Parvez Musharraf, has found it necessary to talk about the friendly Pak-Afghanistan relationship. Gen. Musharraf cannot deny the fact that he faces a troublesome Afghanistan with whom Pakistan has unsettled borders. If the border with Afghanistan becomes troublesome, Pakistan will have to raise another army to protect it.

Gen. Musharraf and his Government cannot refute yet another fact-that is, Afghanistan’s foreign policy has always been anti-Pakistan. Afghanistan was the only country to oppose Pakistan’s admission to the United Nations. It has never to this day given up its revanchist claim to the Pashtun-speaking areas extending up to the Indus river.

The British enforced the Druand Line, which demarcated the border between British India (now Pakistan) and Afghanistan under a 100-year treaty which lapsed in 1993. Mullah Omar, the supremo of the Tazliban, often referred to as Pakistan’s creation, has refused to discuss the extension of the treaty on the grounds that his country is at war with the Northern Alliance.

According to another Pakistani publication, Dawn, Mullah Omar can wave a double-edged sword over Pakistan’s head. If Pakistan’s Islamic credentials are found wanting, for instance, for cooperating with the UN-appointed border teams for monitoring the observance of arms embargo on the Taliban, the gears of propaganda in the tribal homelands would be moved forward to show the Government as lacking in Islamic spirit and character-a theme close to the heart of the right wing religious parties.

Is Mullah Omar a friend or a Frankenstein? Pakistan’s most dreaded sectarian organisation, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, is given sanctuary in Afghanistan. So are a host of other militants and wanted criminals. Terrorism and a rejection of civilised values masquerade as a religious orthodoxy that counts Mullah Omar as its spiritual and temporal head. The Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and other similar organisations such as Lashkar-e-Toiba are dedicated to overthrowing the civil order in Pakistan.

On more than one occasion, Gen. Musharraf himself admitted that sectarian and ethnic extremists were busy undermining Pakistan’s national and internal harmony. What short of a friend is Mullah Omar if he is providing sanctuary to such elements, MP Bhandara has asked in a write-up published by Dawn. The time has come to review options on Afghanistan. Bhandara has said and emphasised: "Pakistan should not seek to circumvent the UN sanctions. It is in its interest that the sanctions apply to the Taliban in full compliance of UN resolutions… Islamabad should also open better lines of communication to the Northern Alliance and fully support the efforts of King Zahir Shah to hold a Loya Jirga".

When does a freedom fighter become a terrorist? Or when does a terrorist become a holy warrior? MP Bhandara’s answer: The truth is that a terrorist is neither a freedom fighter nor a holy warrior. Pakistan is an Islamic State; the Council of Islamic Ideology should decide if private or political groups have a right to declare jihad.

Is Pakistan not guilty of ignoring Article 256 of the Constitution which forbids the creation of private armies? Bhandara’s comment: One wonders why the Pak Supreme Court does not take notice of this breach in its original jurisdiction?

Bhandara has warned: The day is not far off when these private armies will turn their guns on their creators and will create civil war-like conditions in Pakistan. Jihadi armies are usually commandeered by extremists who know not the language of political compromise. Any agreement with India, no matter how small a step in relation to Kashmir, will be labelled a sell-out by the ideological leaders of the private militias whose real agenda, according to the Pak publication, is to grab the levers of powers.

Osama bin Laden, a close relation of Mullah Omar, is only a franchise-holder for jihadi operations worldwide. There are people, as admitted by the United States, who provide financial help or forces that promote a world-view behind him. Over the past few years, the US officials have either not directed themselves against these forces or been stymied in their anti-Osama actions.

Al-Qaeda, the outfit headed by Osama bin Laden, is by all accounts a loose-knit fraternity rather than a monolithic organisation. Those who fought in the Afghan war or those who have joined global jihad subsequently use Al Qaeda as a hub for networking. This provides Osama with ready access to operatives or suppliers of logistic services and finances all over the world.

This, in other words, means that Osama bin Laden is not tied down to jihad in one particular country or one part of the world or attached to the agenda of a particular religious fundamentalist outfit like the Armed Islamic Group in Algeria or the Gama Islamiya in Egypt. Whether it was the attack on the US embassies in East Africa or on the USS Cole in Yemen, the actual operatives or support cadres were reportedly drawn from several countries and had been drawn into jihad by diverse national or ideological groups.

The Taliban regime has found itself in the dock since September 11 when America came under a cataclysmic terrorist offensive. With the United States losing no time to call upon the Taliban to hand over Osama bin Laden, the fanatic Government in Kabul could not asked for more trouble.

With Saudi Arabia now joining the United Arab Emirates in snapping diplomatic relations with the Taliban, the renegade Afghan regime’s residual lifeline of sorts is the one that Pakistan might choose to sustain or snuff out in a rapidly changing international environment.

Students Islamic Movement of India

K.N. Pandita

The banning of the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) has evoked sharp reaction from some Muslim organisations and personalities in the country. It is not to be disputed that with the shaping of Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1979, the entire Islamic world was sensitised to communal solidarity. Khumeini’s direct anti-American stand was also indirect repudiation of the Saudi monarchical rule. The Saudi’s retaliated with utmost subtlety while acting in close agreement with the CIA. They played, and played forcefully, the Wahhabi card banking on the large Sunni Muslim majority not only in the Arab world but also in Central and South East Asia. Pakistan, which has had to settle score with her formidable neighbour for more than half a century, had to be a natural ally of the Saudis in a bid to champion extensive propagation of Wahhabi ideology.

In order to give teeth to the theocratic agenda, they had to look for the "enemies of Islam". And if there was none, one had to be created and projected. Palestine has been a festering sore and Iran volunteered for armed intervention in the West Asian dispute. After all, Khumeinites had to prove their credentials as the champions of Islamic revolution. Thus appeared the launching of Hizbollah. That is the reason why Khumeini had focussed on the recapture of Qods. It was only to wrest the initiative from the Saudis. Why did not Khumeini focus on Kerbala? That would not have created the impact.

But since outside the pale of small Shia world, it was the writ of the Saudi Wahhabi ideologues that ran, the Hizbollahis made little impact on the mind of the Muslims in general. Why did the Americans and the allies come down with a heavy hand on Iraq under the pretext of latter’s intrusion in Kuwait and not on Iran carrying fire and brimstone against the Israelis through Hizbollahis? Emergence of Iraq as an Arab state with anti-Israel policy would have shadowed the importance of Saudi Arabia whereas Iran as an anti-Israel state meant not a tuppence with the Arab mStates.

The Islamic movement in Central and South Asia is essentially the Sunni-Wahhabi movement directed, funded and supported by the Rabita in Saudi Arabia. The reasons for activating these fundamentalists are immediately local and ultimately global. Local reasons differ from country to country. That Muslims are suppressed and oppressed by the local regimes, whether Islamic or not, is the refrain of their complaint.

Thus in Algeria, Turkey or Uzbekistan, all of whom are Muslim dominated countries, the complaint is that the government does not conform to the sharia and accepts western socio-political culture to regulate life and society. In India, the pretext is that Kashmir, a Muslim dominated region, is under ‘forcible occupation’ of the Indians (forgetting that India has the second largest Muslim population in the world). Even in Pakistan, which has been declared an Islamic State, the fundamentalists are handing occasional threats to the government that it would be toppled if sharia is not enforce. There are sharia courts in Pakistan, yet that too is not satisfying the extremists. In Xinjiang province of China, the complaint is that the country adheres to atheism as the Soviets did. This is repugnant to Islam, they claim. In short these are the local reasons.

On global scale, the concept of Islam’s pervasion is very significant. Waging of a jihad is considered enjoined duty for good Musalman, though of course, there is a sharp debate on the definition of jihad.. The small numbers of the faithful shall prevail over the large number of kafirs is a text book axiom for the Muslims. Therefore there is unsolicited and mechanical motivation for rising in support of faith after publicising " enemy’s nefarious designs against Islam".

Secular democracies are pleading with the extremists that in the political dispensation, provided through constitutional and legal channels, does not create any obstruction in the path of the faithful in performing their religious obligations. They even offer whatever assistance they can for the flowering of the culture of each religious group and welcome a multi-religious state as a mosaic and a colourful congregation of peace loving people.

Unfortunately the underlying strength, truth and practicality of this arrangement gets submerged under a wave of religious frenzy and unsubstantiated doubts. Nobody among the Muslims can claim that the Islamic system in any given theocratic state is an ideal system where nothing goes amiss. Take the case of Saudi Arabia, the fountainhead of Islam. We would like to remind our readers about the massacre of hundreds of anti-monarchy activists within the precincts of the sanctum sanctorum a decade and half ago. Human nature has a very important role to play notwithstanding the unilateral imposition of a bulldozing culture.

The Muslims in India have virtually gone through an ordeal as a result of partition of India. While a small section among their youth might make a case of some sort of deprivation, but the large majority of the Indian Muslims should vouch for the measure of freedom they have enjoyed in India during the half century of freedom. Saner and farsighted elements among the Indian Muslim leadership have the moral responsibility of analysing the historical processes affecting communities in and outside India.

Indians, including the Muslims and other communities are essentially faced with economic deprivation. If we pool together social force, it should be for the purpose of fighting against economic stagnation. Ethnic conflict has not been resolved in Pakistan that had been made on the basis of religion. Rather ethnic conflicts there have deepened and created fissures in that society. Pakistan has no threat from the outside world. If there is any threat it is from within. One fails to understand why the SIMI should invite the threat to its doorsteps. It is not Osama bin Laden that will come to rescue them from economic, social and political deprivation if any. Indian democracy is resilient enough to accommodate genuine demands. But any attempt at disintegration of the country will bring in trail horrible consequences.

How the five pandav as of coalition politics failed?

By Kedar Nath Pandey

Messrs V. P. Singh, Chandra Shekhar, H. D. Deve Gowda, I. K. Gujral and Atal Behari Vajpayee have been the only beneficiaries of unstable, faceless, shapeless and directionless coalition governments at the Centre, and all these five Pandavas of Indian politics have been betrayed, publicly abused and kicked around by their own coalitional partners; the latest victim of this humiliation is Prime Minister Vajpayee who felt the need to suggest quitting office after a virulent attack by Mr. Sanjay Nirupam of the Shiv Sena, a part of the NDA. The Hindu fascist Shiv Sena leadership added insult to injury by again publicly stating that Mr. Bal Thackeray had asked Mr. Nirupam to apologise to the Prime Minister not because the norms of coalitional government had been violated but because the BJP wanted such an apology.

A dominant public discourse in India is that the decade of the ‘90s has witnessed the end of the Congress’s dominance over national politics; there is no all-India umbrella party today. It has been maintained that India has decisively entered coalitional era of governance at the Centre and on the basis of trial and error, Indian political class will develop coalitional culture, or Dharma of governance. It must be stated that coalition governments will be unstable and it is wishful thinking to suggest that Indian will develop a coalitional culture of governance in the foreseeable future.

A few facts may be mentioned to substantiate the argument that Central governments in the coalitional era have become weak, unstable and more corrupt. Mr. V. P. Singh received support from Communists and the BJP to become the Prime Minister in 1989 by proclaiming from house top that he was extremely competent to manage political equations of the Lok Sabha of 1989. Mr. Singh’s 11-month prime ministership proved disastrous for the nation because he handed a disturbed Kashmir over to his successors. He committed three blunders as prime minister which laid the foundations of bloodsoaked Kashmir. Kashmir has always been an extremely sensitive problem for the India, and the appointment of a Kashmiri as the Union Home Minister was based on a total misunderstanding of the dynamics of the Kashmir issue.

The V. P. Singh government handed over public initiative to terrorists in Kashmir because they now had a most important family as a soft target, and they successfully used this opportunity provided by the Central Government to abduct the Home Minister’s daughter. The next step of the Central Government sealed the fate of peaceful democratic process in Kashmir, when it surrendered before a group of terrorits and arranged for the freedom of Mufti Mohammed Sayeed’s daughter. The terrorists have never looked back ever since. Then Mr. Singh gave the charge of Kashmir to Mr. George Fernandes, a loose canon of Indian politics; under him the situation worsened.

Many such illustrations can be given to substantiate the argument that all the five prime ministers of coalition governments have contributed to the weakening of the Central authority. The Union Government has become directionless because partners in coalition governments have nothing in common with one another and every minister or a group representative in the Council of Ministers is engaged in the pursuit of individual political agenda.

A minimum cohesiveness amongst coalition partners is a prerequisite to any meaningful governance, but sadly coalitions under all the five Pandavas of Indian politics have been completely divided.

Mr. Singh announced abruptly the acceptance of the Mandal Commission recommendations on the reservation of backwards castes in public institutions to fight his internal political battles with Chaudhary Devi Lal and Mr. Chandra Shekhar. The so-called National Commission on Review of Constitution has been appointed to suggest measure to deal with political instability of the coalitional era of the 1990s. How can any commission suggest any method to deal with the problem of walking in and walking out by coalition partners? How can any constitutional commission suggest remedies for open opposition among the allies of coalitional government? Can any retired chief justice of India lay down any law for a fascist Shiv Sena to behave correctly till the party is a partner in government?

If on the one hand coalition governments lack minimum cohesion, on the other the experiment has institutionalised political immorality, corruption and opportunism. Mr. Narasimha Rao showed his talent by purchasing elected MPs to continue in power. He pales into insignificance compared with what Mr. Thackeray says, that the Shiv Sena was not given "lucrative ministries" in the Vajpayee ministry. Mr. Rao and Mr Thackeray are honest people. Politics in India is a means to personal prosperity.

The Samata Party was caught by the famous Tehelka episode for collecting funds for its own party because every leader or group in the coalition needs funds for himself or his own group. In the process corruption has multiplied in our public life. Coalition governments have institutionalised polities of opportunism and corruption. Every partner in a coalition is busy blackmailing the other. The thirteenth Lok Sabha has 40 parties; tiny groups and so-called Independent members – out of 545 members of the Lok Sabha, the BJP has only 192 members, Messrs Vajpayee, Gujral, Deve Gowda, Chandra Shekhar and Singh constructed and manipulated majority support for forming their governments and every partner manipulated the prime minister and extracted personal concessions and benefits.

In a coalition, everyone is manipulating everyone else so that they can continue in power. How can Indians expect clean government from so many shareholders of the coalition enterprise? Small parties are sitting on the back of crippled and lame elephant, because only such a disabled beast can carry the load of politics as desired by the waring partners. Small in Indian politics has become beautiful and any shop with even two members like the Shiromani Akali Dal can tame public policies in favour of the capitalist farmers of Punjab.

The explanation for the emergence of immoral, corrupt, directionless and incoherent coalitional government lies in the logic of opportunistic politics which has become the hallmark of Indian political class. If caste war brings votes, parties and leaders championing caste and sub-caste causes and interests come on the scene. If on the one hand champions of caste versus caste politics are active, on the other, votaries of Hindutva or regional identity or sub-regional identity are busy manipulating voters for a few seats in the Lok Sabha.

The Congress was the first and last party to champion the cause of development of the whole of India. Since the party stood for large social solidarities, it could be displaced only by those who could play the politics of not large but sectional and sectarian fragmentary social identities. The large social class agglomerate platform created by the Congress has been replaced by faceless, shapeless, and fragmented social conglomerate and the result is one dominant party has been replaced by a motley crowd of groups based on limited social constituencies. This is the social essence of transition witnessed by Indians in the politics of the decade of 1990s, and its concrete expression is felt through weak and vulnerable coalition governments.

Coalition governments are a result of collusion among opportunist political groups and since opportunism cannot be a permanents bond of friendship, coalition partners confront one another. The result is coalition governments are always involved in crisis management and partners of a coalition are always engaged in looking after the interests of their own sectarian constituencies. The Government for the whole of India is only in name, and coalition partners are actually ruling either for Hindus or for Dalits or for Yadavs or for Jats or for their regions. There is no saving grace in the experiment of coalitional governance in India, which consists of practitioners of politics of immoralism. (INAV)