Plain
speaking by Manmohan Singh in Kashmir
By Ghazanfar Butt
The
statements made by Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh in Srinagar and Jammu may
not have pleased all sections of the
people in Jammu and Kashmir, but it has
swept many of the cobwebs in the minds of
the people. For the last few months,
people have been wondering what are the
possible solutions to the ‘Kashmir
issue’ and what are the options that
India and Pakistan may consider.
Various
possibilities were suggested, some by
Pakistan, some by Track-II groups, some
by academics in the United States and
many of these were approvingly nodded at
by the members of the All Party Hurriyat
Conference. It was suggested that India
and Pakistan are being pressurized by the
United States to come to some agreement,
and some of the plans were quoted to have
the approval of Washington.
The more
the different suggestions were floated
the separatists in Jammu and Kashmir
became vocal, giving the impression that
the violence in the State supported by
elements across the Line of Control has
succeeded in putting pressure on India.
The effort to put pressure on India may
not have succeeded in 1947-48, or 1965,
or 1972 and during the Kargil operations
in 1999, but now India is on the verge of
accepting a ‘solution’ dictated
by a super-power. The impression has been
gathering momentum and causing dismay in
the rest of the country.
It was
timely, therefore, that Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh made it clear in Jammu
that while "purposeful and
meaningful negotiations" are
possible with Pakistan within the limits
set by him, redrawing of borders or
second partition of the country on the
basis on religion are neither feasible
nor negotiable.
He also
gave a jolt to the leaders of All Party
Hurriyat Conference, particularly the so
called ‘moderates’ who have
been acting pricey by saying that they
should be permitted to visit Pakistan
before the next round of talks with
Indian leaders, by making it clear that
"I do not accept any pre-condition
on the part of anyone. It is not fair to
put conditions to me that I will travel
here or there before talking to us. It is
not fair", he said.
Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh’s statement
came as a bolt from the blue for the
leaders of the All Party Hurriyat
Conference. Mirwaiz Omar Farooq has been
at great pains to explain after convening
a meeting of the ‘executive’
that the demand of the Hurriyat to be
permitted to visit Pakistan before the
next round of talks was not a
‘pre-condition’ He explained
that the visit to Pakistan was aimed at
talking to people with arms and tell them
that a peaceful solution was possible.
The patronizing tone in which he reacted
to Home Minister Shivraj Patil’s
visit was missing. He spoke with
nostalgia about his talks with the NDA
Government. What he forgets is that the
present Government in New Delhi has been
saying from the start that the dialogue
with the All Party Hurriyat Conference
would continue. The Hurriyat leaders
raised many questions: who will talk to
them? Will there be any conditions? Who
will be talking to them? The suggestion
being that if they talk to the Home
Minister of India, they would be bringing
down the level of the talks Perhaps it is
too late.
The fact
is that the All Party Hurriyat Conference
has missed the bus. Mirwaiz Umar Farooq
is now preparing to meet the Pakistan
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz ‘without
any precondition’ when he visits New
Delhi on December 23. He will have for
company, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Shabbir
Shah and Yasin Malik, besides many
others. Pakistan hopes to
‘unite’ the All Party Hurriyat
Conference, under the leadership of Syed
Ali Shah Geelani. If Pakistan succeeds it
would show the true face of the APHC.
Meanwhile,
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met all
groups and organizations in Srinagar and
Jammu. He was the first Prime Minister to
visit the camps of the Kashmiri Pandits
and promised them that their living
conditions would be improved by the
construction of two room tenements. He
explained to them that he was a victim of
Partition and realized the plight of
Kashmiri Pandits.
Manmohan
Singh was also frank in stating that New
Delhi took a calculated risk when it
decided to withdrawn nearly 3,000 troops
from the Valley. The situation would be
reviewed if there is an eruption of
violence. One hopes that it does not
happen. Manmohan reiterated that there
will be no compromise with terrorism.
The Prime
Minister’s announcement that the ban
on recruitment would not be applicable to
Jammu and Kashmir has been well received.
It is to be seen how fairly the
recruitment will be done. People expect
that there would be transparency in the
process of recruitment and all the
regions would get a fair proportion of
opportunity.
The 24,000
-crore rupee package has been welcomed,
but people of the State have been used to
such announcements during the previous
visits of former Prime Ministers. The
decision to open eight more colleges has
been welcomed, but there are questions
being asked as to how long will it take
for the colleges to be fully operational.
Reacting
to Prime Minister’s statements,
General Pervez Musharraf Pakistan said
that the "vibes that are now coming
do not encourage a process of
normalisation". He said: "We
met in New York, and I think our
interaction was very good, very fruitful
and it raised a lot of hopes. Certainly
the vibes should be much vbetter than
this….. there ought to be a desire
to more forward towards peace".
Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri has
termed as ‘controversial and
counter-productive’ Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh’s rejection of
redrawing of boundaries to resolve the
Kashmir issue. – (ADNI)
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Army
runs Pak political affairs
By B L Kak
Every
country in the world has an Army. But in
Pakistan the Islamic Army has a country!
This, of course, is a cynical view about
the role of the Pakistan Army in the
affairs of the country. But this view has
been reinforced by the President, Gen
Parvez Musharraf, himself after the
unveiled a set of amendments to the
country's 1973 Constitution.
That he
rebuffed appeals and counsel from all
quarters was clearly borne out by the
manner or methodology he employed as he
formalised the role of the Army in
Pakistan's governance. His argument: ''If
you want to keep the Army out, you have
to keep it in''. Ostensibly, the
commando-soldier, would be remembered for
this quotable quote.
It is an
admitted fact that the Army has been in
the forefront of political affairs in
Pakistan since 1958,directly or
otherwise. But no one institutionalised
its role in governance the way Gen
Musharraf has. His calculated move :
Repeated emphasis why no one should fight
shy of acknowledging the central role of
the Army in Pakistani politics.
The Pak
Constitution has sanctified, as per Gen.
Musharraf's requirements, the role of the
Army through the establishment of the
National Security Council (NSC). As
consultative body it will deal with
matters pertaining to the ''sovereignty,
integrity and security'' of the state. It
reality, it has emerged as a 'super
Parliament'. The jurisdiction of the NSC
is all-pervasive because what constitutes
''sovereignty, integrity and security''
cannot be defined.
The only
concession Gen Musharraf has given to the
critics of the statute amendment package
is the expansion of the civilian
component of the NSC. Besides the
President and the representatives of the
armed forces, it also consists of the
Prime Minister, Chief Ministers of four
provinces, the leader of the Opposition
in the National Assembly and the Leader
of the Senate.
Pakistan's
Prime Minister, Shaukat Aziz, is, to all
intents and purposes, Gen Musharraf's
man. The latter, it can be argued, was
behind the move, culminating in the
nomination of Lt Gen (retd) Javed Ashraf
Qazi, former ISI (Inter-services
Intelligence) chief, as Education
Minister of the country. Both Gen
Musharraf and Shaukat Aziz simply watched
the developing situation, after the
circumstances under which former ISI
chief was given charge of education
triggered alarm bells.
Lt Gen
Asharaf Qazi's predecessor, Zubaida
Jalal, was considered a favourite of
Washington. Jalal was shown the door
after incurring the wrath of
right-wingers by endorsing education
reforms. All this when Gen Musharraf
himself was spearheading a campaign for
reforms in the 13,000 - odd deen madaris
(seminaries) catering to an estimated one
million poor children in Pakistan.
Will the
grand plans of reform get ignored in the
altered scenario? Lt Gen Asharaf Qazi is
quite unlikely to pursue these plans. He
is not associated with the hard-liners
opposed to education reforms. Obviously,
his primary task is to allay the fears of
the religious Right, the traditional
partners of the Pakistan military.
After
taking over as Education Minister, former
chief of the ISI shocked Pakistan's civil
society with his declaration that he
would ask Pakistan Army Headquarters to
engage well-educated personnel of the Pak
Army in the contonments to educate school
children in the area. On the other hand,
he took many by surprise when he praised
deen madaris (seminaries) for their
contribution to society. With this, he
ignored earlier declarations of Gen
Musharraf that madrasa reforms were key
to tackling fundamentalism.
The
madrasa system is popular in Pakistan.
Boys get free education and food. And if
they want to fight in Jammu and Kashmir,
they will get a stipend too. It has been
established beyond doubt that a Quranic
education fires them with moral
certainty. The vast majority of the
madrasas may be benigh. There are quite
of few of them like Madrasa Haqqania near
Peshawar that are associated with Jihadi
groups waging war in Kashmir, Bosnia and
beyond.
True, Gen
Musharraf has already initiated a series
of measures against religious extremism
and militant outfits in his country. But
Tanzeemul Ikhwan, an Islamic movement
with hundreds of thousands of followers,
continues to call the shots. Reasons:
Entire top leadership of the organisation
is drawn from retired senior Army
officers. Equally important is the fact
that hundreds of current officers and
soldiers attend Tanzeemul Ikhwan's
ideological training sessions.
Recently,
India made it public that some terrorist
training camps were still operational in
Pakistan as they have been re-activated.
In fact, it was the Ministry of Defence
(MoD) which made it public: Recent
reports indicate that some terrorist
training camps and launching pads in
Pakistan and Pakistan occupied Kashmir
have been re-activated''. More
importantly, the US Deputy Secretary of
State, Richard Armitage, who is known for
his 'weakness' for Pakistan, also
acknowledged that these camps were
operational in the Pakistani territory
and the infiltration across the Line of
Control (LoC), though down, was still
going on.
On the
other hand, Pakistan's Interior Ministry
has admitted that militant outfits in
Pakistan are regrouping as more
''cohesive units'' to carry out fresh
terrorist attacks in the country as
security agencies have failed to
implement the ban against them. According
to the report prepared by the Interior
Ministry, the jihadi outfits, including
Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Toiba
banned twice by Pakistan President, Gen
Musharraf, since January 2002, have
regrouped under different names.
The
Interior Ministry's report has revealed
that these terrorist groups, now working
''quite independently'', were busy
influencing the minds of likeminded
people with arguments like ''Pakistan was
toeing the line of the West and the West
was hurting Islam''. It also revealed
that terrorism had become a ''defining
threat'' to national security.
According
to the Indian Army, there is photographic
evidence of functioning of terrorist
training camps in Pakistan despite Gen
Musharraf's claim about curbs on all
terrorist activity directed against
India. The Army also maintains that
infiltration attempts have continued
unabated this year. ''There is no change
in these attempts, both south and north
of the Pir Panjal range'', is the
official statement from the Army.
Army
officers claim Pakistan is desperate to
push in as many heavily-armed militants
as possible before snow blocks the
mountain passes and traditional
infiltration routes along the 740-km-long
Line of Control. Anticipating more
fidayeen (suicide) and 'stand-off'
terrorist attacks against high-value
targets in the coming days and weeks, the
Army does not want to reduce force levels
in Jammu and Kashmir.
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EU-
India relations
By Priyanka Kumar
Commencement of
new strategic relations between India and the
European Union (EU) is based on the vision of a
multi-polar world. The new partnership attempts
to reconcile their differences both at bilateral
and various International forums with paramount
importance to issues of good governance and human
rights in dealing with growing menace of
terrorism and globalization. European Union's
call for the upgradation of its relations with
India is basically the evolution of its policies
to make its presence felt in Asian countries
independent of United States of America. The
basic objective of India's approach to its equal
partnership with the European Union is to
identify areas of cooperation, which can be a
medium to attain greater self-reliance. This
opportunity should be perceived as one of the
achievement of India's foreign policy to
strengthen its relations with all great powers in
order to rise above the toning precincts of South
Asian sub-continent in order to integrate with
the rest of the world.
Europe's relations
with India can be traced back to medieval period
yet even today both remain strangers to each
other. The strategic document attempts to break
the common prejudices concerning both India, as
an exotic land inhabited by snake charmers and
Europeans as closer allies of Uncle Sam without
their own strategic thinking. The objectives of
the document are ambitious though vague with
ample room for interpretation and calls for hard
work on both sides in order to reconcile the two
different world visions of 'a developing country
with a developed world.' The ambiguity associated
with this strategic partnership also pertains to
the nature of European Union. Even after the
signing of the treaty establishing the
constitution of European Union one wonders what
exactly it is all about. Are we dealing with a
state or a regional grouping? Simple endorsement
of multi-polar world based on liberal values does
not imply reconciliation of differences on
contentious issues such as Kashmir, NPT or issues
related to liberalization and humanitarian
intervention. It is also an attempt by the
European Union to address lack of social and
political interaction vis-a-vis United States of
America in relation to India. Over the years
thick dense institutional between India and US
and their civil societies has strengthened the
bilateral relations.
India might have
ample differences with United States of America
yet the passion for strengthening the bilateral
relations with US never dies. It is opposite in
case of European Union since for any rational
person it is difficult to digest the fact that
twenty five countries can reconcile their
differences and represent one strategic thinking.
Yet in spite of our rational thinking European
Union has produced its first strategic and
security document in December 2003 endorsed by
the European Council where India along with
China, Russia, Canada and US were bestowed with
the status of strategic partnership.
In the past cold
war in third generation Partnership and
Development agreement with emphasis on human
rights and trade was signed between European
Union and India in 1994. The institutional basis
for EU-India political dialogue is a Joint
Political Statement signed simultaneously with
the 3rd generation Co-operation Agreement. It
fixed annual ministerial meetings and opened the
door to a broad political dialogue. The first
EU-India Summit held on 28 June 2000 in Lisbon
was significant step in the evolution of this
strategic partnership. In the Joint declaration
both India and European Union committed
themselves to build on a new strategic
partnership. The European Commission's
Communication of June 2004 on ''EU-India
Strategic Partnership'', the Indian Response
Paper of August 2004, the Conclusions of the
Council of the EU on 11th October 2004 and the
Recommendation of the European Parliament of 28th
October 2004 set the stage for this crucial
document.
The 5th Summit
between the EU and India was held in Hague,
Netherlands, on 8 November 2004. The EU was
represented by the President of the European
Council, Dutch Prime Minister Dr Jan Peter
Balkenende, the President of the European
Commission, Dr Romano Prodi, the Secretary
General/High Representative for Common Foreign
and Security Policy Mr Javier Solana, the
Commissioner in charge of Trade Relations, Mr
Pascal Lamy, and the Netherlands Minister for
Foreign Affairs, Dr Bernard Bot. India was
represented by the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan
Singh, the External Affairs Minister, Mr Natwar
Singh, and the Commerce and Industry Minister, Mr
Kamal Nath. It ushers a significant opening in
India-European Union relations.
The joint
declaration identified four vital areas for
cooperation essentially related to the security
needs of both European Union and India in areas
related to terrorism, cooperation on development
policy, fostering relations on economic, science,
new technologies and intellectual cultural
exchanges. The officials on both sides will work
on an Action Plan and a new Joint EU-India
Political Declaration to be approved at the 6th
Summit in India in 2005.
European Union and
India considers this relationship vital for their
strategic and security needs. Both the sides
agreed on extending its dialogue on
anti-terrorism to cover nacro-terrorism, money
laundering, and strengthening communication on
enforcement authorities. European Union considers
the issue of security as essential for
development. There are three pressing challenges
to security in the form of terrorism, organized
crime and regional conflicts which can swell
arms, nuclear weapons race, weaken multilateral
organizations and create safe haven for
terrorists in form of failed states.
Terrorism in the
post cold war era has undergone dramatic changes,
which has important bearing for both India and
European Union. It is being used as an instrument
of foreign policy to perpetuate violence, cripple
economy and shred social fabric of a state. The
rise of religion inspired terrorist organizations
has increased tremendously. European Union has a
long history of various terrorist organizations
operating since early 1960s like India. The only
difference from the past in European Union is the
rise of radical Islamic groups and the
convenience they are operating there. The
Economic integration and harmonization of civil
laws is not complemented with common immigration
and criminal laws of these countries making them
favourite destination of terrorist organizations.
Terrorism is also related to organized crime with
networks in distant lands not essentially
operating near the borders of ones country. The
90% of the heroin sold in Europe comes in via the
Balkans from opium poppies grown in Afghanistan.
Most of its is distributed through Balkan
criminal networks, which are also responsible for
some 200,000 of the 700,000 women victims of the
sex trade world wide. A new dimension to
organised crime, which will merit further
attention, is the growth in maritime piracy.
European Union
hence needs strategic partners who share a common
vision to identify trouble spots and to
strengthen regulatory regimes to crackdown
financial and logistic support to these terrorist
groups. The biological and weapons of mass
destruction in the hands of rogue states or
terrorist organizations is a blessing while
regional conflicts such as in Middle East or
Afghanistan create safe havens for them to
flourish due to weak Government institutions.
European Union through its enhanced interactions
will be coordinating its views with India in
various international forums which will in turn
help in greater understanding between the two
entities thereby giving greater depth even to
their economic relations.- CNF
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Mired in
the statist quo
By Kedar Nath Pandey
It is really not
very smart to em-ploy hatchet arguments to drive
home a political point. Often, cynical
questioning of the workings of the state and its
operative apparatus, the Government, can seem
like the ravings of a malcontent, not amounting
to constructive criticism. And yet, constructive
criticism can only be directed at something with
which you share commonality at the level of
discourse, objectives, or even some a priori
moral or ethical platform. Therefore,
constructive criticism often smells of bad faith;
by criticising, one appears to ingratiate
oneself, in a sense, with that which is being
criticised. You do not flatter, but even by
criticising you mean to gain recognition, even
favour, through the criticism you level.
Constructive criticism often has nothing new to
say!
To truly
interrogate the Indian State, the job must be
done from an absolutist standpoint. You must look
at first causes, split open discourses that have
been been normalised over time and question the
very bases of straits arguments. Arguments used
by those who perpetuate the power of the state by
becoming its unquestioning standard bearers,
piratical apparatchilks either in its direct
service or willingly cooped by it. But theory is
only so much confusion if not gainfully applied
to reality.
Let us, therefore,
look at what most will agree are two important
public concerns of contemporary India: Health and
education. In each of these categories, debates
centre on options and policies, but seldom on
basic premises. Let me explain. Have we not
laboured, over the last 50 years, to evolve
definitive policies on health and education? Have
not they exercised our minds by being posited as
public concerns? And yet, as we shall see what is
perceived as a public domain is really not so in
practice. Health and education are totally
neglected as public (social) goods. In either
area, the state does, and has been doing, just
what we do not expect it to do. And we acquiesce
in such abdication of responsibility by offering
constructive criticism. What we must do is to
show the Indian state and its apologists for what
they are, and shame them.
A news channel ran
an eye-opening story earlier this week,
highlighting the appalling conditions that
prevail at the Guwahati Medical College (GMC). As
revealed by the story, newborns have to be
protected from rats, disposable syringes are
treated with lukewarm water and re-used, sewer
lines spill refuse all over the wards, and the
facility (if one could use such term) has no
emergency operation theatre (OT).
Commenting on the
story, an invited guest at the studio, a former
Director of AIIMS, had little of substance to
offer, except for this gem: The absence of an OT
was explained by him with the catch phrase of the
state funds shortage. For crying out loud, this
is state-speak of the most disingenuous type. One
does not even have to begin to state the
importance, indeed absolute necessity, of not
one, but many OTs in a medical college hospital.
But those who work for the state, do, over time,
internalise its banal justifications.
The larger point
here is the abdication of the state in the health
sector. We have activists and political parties
that cry hoarse when the Government decides not
to manufacture aluminium (privatisation of BALCO)
or cars (Maruti), but we remain silent in the
face of the fact that the major share of the
country’s (not just the state’s, but
the aggregate health-related expenses of its
citizens) health budget circulates in the private
sector. Ask yourself when was the last time you
visited a Government hospital?
Indeed, ask your
domestic help when she or he last visited a
Government health facility. I once calculated,
through a process of extrapolation, of course,
the possible health-related expense of the
population of a small town in Assam Dhekiajuli
(population: 50,000). The figure was a whopping
Rs. 3.5 crore! There are about 20 private doctors
there, with each earning an average of Rs. 1,000
per day. That totals Rs. 20,000 per day, or Rs.
6,00,000 per month. Pharmacies, that total about
20, have an average daily sale of Rs. 2,500,
which accounts for Rs. 50,000 per day or Rs.
15,00,000 per month. Add to these the money spent
in the four nursing homes and another for
laboratories (one computerised!) and you add
another Rs. 30,000 per day or Rs. 9,00,000 per
month. Collating these figures, you arrive at the
humungous figure of Rs. 3.5 crore per annum.
You wonder where
the state health machinery is really, with its
PHCs, etc. I accompanied a doctor to a village
called Sammalon, 30 minutes drive from
Dhekiajuli, that has no telephone, or
electricity. Cut out from major thoroughfares,
people have to cycle five kilometres to book a
taxi to cart any patient who might require
nursing care. The fee is Rs. 500, which if it
leads to a cure is a blessing, for a visit to the
town, and admission in a nursing home, can push a
family back by a neat Rs. 20,000.
Now, this is the
true face of health care in India. It is mostly
privatised, and we have no problem with it. We
quietly accept the situation because deep down we
know that since we have the resources to pay for
it, we can buy our way into quality private
health care. Aluminium is good for ideological
debates, not health.
Next, let us turn
our attention to education. Former Prime Minister
Rajiv Gandhi once observed (commenting on
Operation Blackboard) how, for every Rs. 1,000
spent on education by the state, only one rupee
reached the end beneficiary. Obviously, his
remark was meant to highlight the ubiquitous
corruption that marks the Indian state.
But that is not
the point here. Even without corruption, the
state would have had very little to do with real
education in India. As a percentage of GDP
spending, the state’s spending on education
is abysmal. And yet, India boasts of a humungous
educated class, proficient in the sciences and
very successful as skilled manpower. How do we
explain this paradox?
Giving one’s
children access to quality education is a central
concern of parents in India. In communist Wet
Bengal, parents spare no expense to offer the
best possible education to their children
(including expensive paid seats in private
engineering colleges in Karnataka). Most of the
more recognised schools in India are private
institutions. People from all walks of life
strive hard to get their kids admitted to the
best of them. Even people with limited means try
and admit their children to private English
medium schools (for whatever they are worth). In
my locality, there is a Plato Public School.
Apart from the temptation to pay a nightly visit
to its premises and re-nomenclature it Plato
Re-public School, I am also tempted to ask the
trustees how their institution can be labelled a
public school.
If you still have
missed the point, here is a summary. Health and
education are supposed to be the primary
responsibility of the state. In principle, we
agree with this premise. But what we practise is
different. We actually believe these concerns are
far too important to be trusted in the hands of
the state. So in our private little worlds, we
take courage from our means and access these
facilities in the private sector. In the arena of
public debates, however, we maintain the state
must deliver on health and education. But that is
only talk. Also, it is not exciting talk. Far
more exciting are debates on the privatisation of
VSNL or oil PSUs or BALCO or Maruti. All this,
while health and education remain largely private
in impoverished India. Think about it! INAV
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