Daily Excelsior... Editorial

EDITORIAL

By Joginder Singh

By Ashok Thakur

Those who live by the image and image alone must die by it. Laloo Yadav had nothing going for him but the image and when that began to crack up and decay in the harsh heat of scandals and the leprous deficiencies of his regime, he too went to pieces........more

After serial blast

By Ms. V. Sri Valli

After Srinagar-Bombay serial blasts, it is becoming increasingly clear that the terrorist organizations based in Pakistan have played the key role in planning and executing the serial blasts. The intelligence agencies are narrowing down Lashkar-e-Toiba (Let). However, two significant events have come to the light.. ....more

EDITORIAL

Times change

Newspaper reports about National Conference leaders including their young party president lauding the late Ghulam Nabi Wani Sogami on the occasion of his 25th death anniversary make an insightful reading. These give an indication of how times change. What immediately comes to the mind of old-timers is an interesting incident that had taken place on late Sogami's picturesque home turf of the Lolab Valley decades ago. Sheikh Abdullah was then on a whirlwind tour of the Valley canvassing support for the Plebiscite Front. Long years of incarceration had bestowed on him an instantly recognisable aura of a popular hero. He would address a series of public meetings every day. There was one such gathering nearer Sogami's home. One speaker at the Sheikh's show could not help but turn extremely bitter. He made a scathing reference to the manner in which the ruling elite continued to fatten it at the cost of poor people. For the sake of effect he went on to rub more salt into the wounds of his intended target that was to become obvious too soon. He added that such thriving leaders would sit in the comfort of their houses forgetting the person whose apron strings they would hold in the none-too-distant past. It was clearly a deliberate hit below the belt. Sogami was heavily built. He was among those who had deserted the Sheikh to jump on Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad's bandwagon. The word had also evidently gone around that Sogami happened to be nearby. His presence around on the same day must have been a sheer coincidence. Not surprisingly, however, it right away became a matter of public debate. Lo and behold, Sogami made his appearance in no time at the venue as soon as the crowd had dispersed. The man was mild-mannered. He was made of a simpler stuff. No wonder that he was at the centre of a funny story that was in wide circulation then concerning the first meeting between him and late Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri. The genesis of the tale is not known but it underlined the naivety of Sogami while driving home his loyalty to Bakshi. In a way it appeared to have been conceived as a telling commentary on a dispensation that had failed to deliver after having ousted a mass political figure. Indeed, it looks odd that the NC leaders should be singing praise of the same man after a passage of time. The turnabout may have been brought about by the nearly three-year old proximity between Sheikh's grandson Omar Abdullah and Sogami's grandson Nasir Sogami. If the report that not many NC leaders of Kupwara district, barring former minister Chaudhary Ramzan Khan, were present on the occasion is true it should not come as a surprise. His close association with the Sogami family explains Chaudhary's presence.

Well, history has relevance to the study of a particular era, event, subject and person. However, no single yardstick or methodology can be applied in this behalf for the simple reason that history mirrors human nature which is immensely varied. Generations too change. Each of them has its own temperament and dramatically different environs. Therefore, they can't be expected to blindly stick to just one stiff line as feudal lords of the bygone age did by carrying their animosity and friendship over centuries. In democratic societies in particular there is limited scope for rigidity. It is expected that political leaders don t turn their backs on each other while pursuing dissimilar ideologies. Of course, one can always argue that the ideological veneer on all fronts is too thin these days to merit any respectable attention. To the contrary, expediency is the order of the day. Over the years one has seen self-professed opponents NC and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) meet and part both at the local and national level at mutual convenience. Congress' s conviction in secularism goes haywire when it uses religion-based outfits as crutches to stay in power. Is it not an irony of sorts that those who had fallen out with the erstwhile Janata Party on the dual membership issue don t talk about it now? Individuals' whims and preferences come into play in such episodes. What is entirely hypocritical, however, is that these are packaged in the name of strongly held beliefs.

Viewed in this background it should not at all be amazing if the third generations of Sheikh and Sogami families find a common cause. They have every right to write a new chapter. Their calculation may be that it will further strengthen the NC in the sensitive Kupwara district. This is possible if they take care of ruffled feelings of the party rank and file. At the moment the party's best-known face in this region is Chaudhary Ramzan Khan who had to invariably contend with slain Abdul Ghani Lone in the Handwara constituency in the same district. Without doubt Lone has been the most charismatic leader to emerge from the border belt. His organisation People s Conference (PC) still remains a reckonable name although it is currently divided and sub-divided. Nevertheless, Kupwara on the whole has the potential of emerging a royal battlefield once again. There is a big if to it. This will call for a serious electoral confrontation between the united Lone family and the NC. Can it be entirely ruled out given dramatic twists and turns of time?

Scare and reality?

Sometimes it becomes extremely difficult to distinguish between scare and reality. A sudden incident can trigger a false alarm making people run helter-skelter. This is what had happened at Ban Ganga about one kilometre from the base camp of the holy Vaishno Devi pilgrimage on Sunday night. A mentally challenged person carrying a refrigerator compressor fitted with electric wires was mistaken for a militant. It is not clear whether he drew attention on his own or people were confused by his antics. The fact is that top district police authorities had to intervene along with a bomb disposal squad to restore order. This compels attention to several such happenings that have taken place around us. Chaotic conditions prevailed in a big hotel in Srinagar on one day at the start of militancy. A heavily intoxicated person who started throwing challenge to the militant organisation that had imposed ban on liquor caused these. Evidently to curb his excessive zeal someone spread the word that the boss of the outfit had arrived in the hotel. The lodge was virtually turned upside town. People need to see through fabrication. It requires that the majority be always in right mind.

What ails our intelligence?

By Joginder Singh

Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence has become "a state within a state", answerable neither to the leadership of the Army, nor to the President or the Prime Minister, says the Federation of Americal scientists in its report. The result is there has been no real supervision of the ISI... Drug money was used by the ISI to finance not only the Afghanistan war, but also the proxy war against India in Punjab and Kashmir. The ISI reportedly supplies weapons, training, advice and planning assistance to terrorists in Kashmir and the Northeast frontier areas of India. The question for us, is whether we are equipped to deal with the challenge posed by our neighbour. The issue again came to the fore after this month's bomb blasts in suburban trains in Mumbai which left over 200 dead and more than 700 injured.

One Union Minister in the former Government told a gathering of intelligence officials that the Kargil conflict was a result of "failure to coverage the information into actionable intelligence which led to the subserving of national security."

The point is, whether we have learnt a lesson from our past mistakes or are still fumbling around as numerous terrorists incidents, bomb blasts, both in the commercial and financial capital show.

According to police officials things have gone from bad to worse with the creation of a plethora of agencies for collecting intelligence. Most police officers sit in the police station or control room and send reports based on the happening reported to the police station or information collected by the local police.

In our desire, to collect more and more intelligence, we have not only diluted the responsibility of the Local Officers in charge of the police stations, but have occasionally totally rid them of the responsibility of gathering intelligence. It is the reports collected and collated from different levels and different sources which go into the formulation of the National Policy on terrorism or our relations with other countries.

Intelligence coordination should be the heart of intelligence management, which includes gathering and analysis. But for the reasons, that each department is an empire unto itself we do not even have a clearly earmarked turf. Every agency is stepping on the toes of others for getting points to impress their respective bosses. Intelligence affecting our sovereignty is created on a similar trail by not only IB and RAW, but also military intelligence, BSF, the Customs, Enforcement Directorate, state police.

The ideal arrangement is to have all agencies assemble their information at one point, so that a complete picture is available to the decision makers. It is best to do it at the district level, whether they are the Central or State Agencies. Theoretically, Joint Intelligence Committee and National Security Council exist and report to the National Security Adviser. But in actual practice, each agency works almost independently.

Collection, collation and analysis of information is done by each intelligence agency almost in vacuum. It is an open secret that Governments in power misuse the agencies in bringing about a change in Government compositions as well as indulging in toppling games, spying on every worthwhile individual, whether he is a politician or in other profession. Infact, late Rajiv Gandhi had openly accused the then Government in 1991 of keeping him under a watch. This allegation was also repeated by the them Congress President against the United Front Government Prime Minister in 1996 and 1997.

The bureaucracy and police also weigh as to what to report and what to water down, or what to eliminate. They want to make certain that their bread is buttered on both sides. So they present their reports including intelligence reports in such a way, that they convey only what the bosses would like to hear or believe. This kind of approach proves their loyalty not to the boss but also to his ideology. This technique and stance not only helps them in service but also after the service inning is over. This fact can be confirmed from the number of Ambassadors, Chairmen of a number of bodies, and even Governors from the ranks of civil service, who have been rewarded, not necessarily due to their work, but due to their 'Loyalty and "Yes Sir", ' stance. Retirement age for such worthies is irrelevant. They may be tired and unfit, but never retired.

But the fact remains that ultimately what kind of intelligence or investigating agencies the country will have would depend on the political leadership and not on the bureaucracy. Even if the best intelligence is presented, if the action is lacking, what is the use. It was Albert Einstein, who once said, that the world is a dangerous place not because of those who do evil but because of those who look on and do nothing. It is a stark truth that whatever we do we need courage. (PTI FEATURE)

Laloo Yadav: Myths to die by

By Ashok Thakur

Myths live as long as the truth remains a mystery. In Laloo Yadav's case, he unravelled reality himself, by his own deeds. His myth quickly caught flame. Laloo Yadav, the leader, vanished. Laloo Yadav, the politician and the politicker, Laloo Yadav, the survivor, remained.

More often than not, the more important thing is not what things are but what they appear to be; perceptions can be more seductive than the reality. The truth about Laloo Yadav's involvement in the fodder scandal, for instance, scarcely mattered after a point; what mattered was that he was widely perceived to be involved.

Much before the law and the CBI closed in on him, it was this perception that broke him, induced a nervousness in him that hadn't been on show ever before. It smothered his natural sense of humour, it splintered his confidence and a neurosis took hold of him.

Laloo Yadav was never the same man after the fodder scandal became public. Having kept up his clean, anti-establishment, pro-poor, man of the masses fa‡ade so brilliantly for so long, he could not content with his sudden unmasking. He lunged for reckless remedies.

Laloo Yadav was never a man to be put down easily. On the contrary, he could often be at his devastating best when people expected him to be deadbeat and demoralised.

In the early 1990s, his government faced an angry and protracted students' agitation in north Bihar, of the kind that he himself once used to lead. At the height of the movement effigies of Laloo Yadav were being kicked, burnt and sundered all across north Bihar. Such was the pitch of the agitation that one of his pet courtiers actually got quite worried.

Do you know, he nervously reported to his master one particularly excessive day during the agitation that they are stabbing and burning your effigies all over, more and more effigies, day after day!

"So what do you think? Laloo Yadav retorted, casually rearranging his long kurta sleeves, "I am the chief minister of the state, so whose effigies will they burn? Yours?"

On the eve of the 1995 elections, Laloo Yadav was besieged by a formidable array of adversaries.

Nitish Kumar had broken his rainbow coalition of backward, the BJP was aggressive, the Congress, in power at the Centre, was attempting a comeback; T.N. Seshan was threatening him with postponements and countermandings every day. But Laloo Yadav?

In that blizzard of anti-trends, Laloo Yadav was the very face of unconcerned, imperturbable confidence. "Nitish or no Nitish, Seshan or no Seshan, I will win the elections and win by a landslide. Don't look like a man on the victory trail? Look at the shine on my cheeks."

Nothing, just nothing could come close to bothering him. And if it did, he was not about to put it on show.

That was the Laloo Yadav of yore. The man who knew, perhaps best of all, the importance of appearances, the man who knew just how to use a perceived image. He was the prince of the pulpit, the star of the stage, the actor who best knew just what would turn on an audience.

When he knew nothing but intolerant zealotry would work, he was an intolerant zealot; he gave a call to decimate the upper castes - bhurabal hatao. When he knew a little moderation was in order, he would turn moderate, like he did immediately after his huge victory in the 1995 elections.

When he knew the idiot, country bumpkin -just how the media loved it, the "unspoilt, original native: in power, just how Laloo Yadav exploited the metropolitan thirst for the truly ethnic.

The real Laloo Yadav was actually none of the above, or, was those things only in part, but he appeared to be all of them and more at different times in different places.

That was his great success-donning the image that would sell. That was his great talent - knowing just what would sell.

And of all the different roles Laloo Yadav so proficiently played out, the most fetching was the anti-hero, anti-establishment image he donned.

Laloo Yadav became such a darling of his constituency so quickly because he was so much of them so much the harassed, oppressed man of the street, so much the man full of grievances against the system and the establishment, so much the angry, exploited fellow with a deep grudge.

Laloo Yadav did not want the power and the glory for himself he wanted to give it to the people.

If he had it, it was only because that was the only way of doing something for "his people".

He was not Lalooji or Saheb to begin with. He was just Laloo Bhaiya or simply hamar Lalua - the underdog chief minister out warring for the underdog.

That is the image he had crafted for himself for that is what sold like nothing else in Bihar. Laloo Yadav knew it only too well.

Which is why it was so strange to see him behave the way he did after the fodder scandal broke?

His brazen denial of proof of involvement, his stodgy determination not to resign, his obdurate clinging to power, his cat and mouse games with the CBI, his dogged attempts to use political leverage to subvert justice, his farcical installation of Rabri Devi as chief minister.

They all showed up a man who was not only incurably in love with power but who, in his moment of crisis, had also lost his touch for keeping the right image.

He exposed himself as weak and insecure and wanting something so desperately that he became blind to his own future good.

He chose to arrest himself in his palace, trap himself in the trappings of power. He showed himself up as a man rendered powerless by power.

The old Laloo Yadav - the one that won the elections of 1995 in the face of stiff opposition - would not only have quit the presidentship of the Janata Deal but also the chief ministership of Bihar the moment the fodder scandal spilled into the open.

He would have called it a political conspiracy - which he did - and sought a fresh mandate on the issue. He would have taken to the streets and campaigned as the wronged do-gooder, the victim of the anti-poor establishment, of a system that would not let the underdog have his share. But courage failed him.

Perhaps because he knew inside that the fodder scandal had created too big a chasm between what he really was and the image he had built of himself. It had become too much for him to bridge.

He had known the deep split between his real self and his image for long. Hadn't he, after all, been deep into the grave misdoings of the animal husbandry department even before he became chief minister?

Didn't he drag the fodder mafia along into office? But now that it was all out in the open, he reacted with desperation. He clung to power. He was nervous; he faltered. He lost his political ‚lan.

The move to install Rabri Devi in his place was, of course, a stunner; it nonplussed the Opposition and helped Laloo Yadav retain power. But it was the move of a desperate survivor, not of a people's leader that Laloo Yadav projected himself as.

A people's leader in trouble would have gone to the people; Laloo Yadav went into his backroom.

The rest is history. He is now playing the same game in New Delhi to prop himself as the leader of the masses; and the railway ministry is his backyard. The rest is for the readers to play the guess game. INAV

After serial blast

By Ms. V. Sri Valli

Foremost is; involvement of the locals in these acts of terrorism and violence to divide the Indian republic's secular fabric. The LeT apparently feels that how can the Indian Muslims stay a way from their "Jehad" 'against India? A little indoctrination coupled with some financial incentives did draw a microscopic section of this community towards LeT philosophy. And in this process, the role of Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), established in 1977 in Aligarh, role is prominently figuring in all the reports.

A section of the intelligentsia is feeling SIMI is trying to take advantage of electoral politics of Indian democracy.

Such a plan of action in serial blasts enables LeT to argue that they are not at fault; and it is the local population's discontentment with the policies being pursued by Delhi.

Equally amazing is the terror network that is encircling India. Now it is more or less confirmed by the various intelligence agencies that SIMI has developed "sleeper cells" in places like Nepal and Bangladesh; and these cells emerged as part and parcel of narcotic trade in the region. The drugs seized by the Indian Anti narcotic control authorities during Jan-June 2006 is more than the drugs seized in the entire last year.

What is more important is that SIMI has made itself available to various terrorist organizations operating from Pakistan. For instances for the Varanasi blasts, it had teamed up with the Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami, Bangladesh; for the Delhi blasts with Jaish-e-Mohammad, and for the Mumbai blasts, it chose to help the LeT. Most believe SIMI is giving a local face to the unknown terrorist. One thing's appears the certain that an operation of the scale of Mumbai and Srinagar couldn't have been mounted sans local recruits.

Simultaneously, reports started appearing once again that organizations like LeT have started receiving large amount of funds partly through hawala and partly in the name of chazities from countries in the Persian Gulf region like UAE, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The Islamic fervor is quite high in these countries and organizations like Al Qaida and its affiliates like LeT have gained certain amount of popular support. Therefore the petrodollar rich countries of the Persian Gulf region are liberal in domating few million dollars to these outfits to continue their work. In other words, the serial blasts of 7/11 are a financed by a queer mixture of narcotic money and Islamic Charity.

This back drop also results in concluding that the Jehadi culture nurtured by these Persian Gulf countries in the wake of Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979 and nurtured throughout 1980s, now realized that they have created a Frankston Monster which cannot be bottled. Therefore, they must be engaged else where.

As one Arab commentator pointed out "as long as they don't disrupt politico-social fabric in the Persian Gulf countries, giving them few million dollars or turning their back to Jehadis terrorism, is perfectly alright". He went on to add that "these Jehadis will think thousand times to repeat acts like September 2001 in New York or July 2005 in London. They know they are under surveillance in the developed WorId. Therefore, they choose soft objects in countries like India and Indonesia. Such acts provide the needed propaganda to the terrorist and give them a sense of pride".

What is surprising to every terrorism observer is why Pakistan is getting on the defensive? Pakistani intelligentsia wants to see first the evidence for the Indian accusation. The former chief of Pakistan's Inter Service intelligence Agency, Maj. Gen. Hamid Gul wanted Indian "hard evidence" for its accusations. He said Pakistan banned LeT in 2002. "There is no Lashkar here. Yes, they changed their name and now call themselves Jamat ul Dawa, but it is a purely non governmental organization," he added. Under this new avatar, JuD was legitimized Gen. Masharraf Government, by allowing it to work in the relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction work of October 2005 earth quake. In the process it managed to attract large donations from overseas, especially from the Islamic World and garner enough cadres from the disaster struck region.

Pakistan hob knobbing with terrorism and narcotic trade are well documented by the vigilant local media itself. For instance one of the most wanted international terrorist like Dawood Ibrahim living in Karachi and he acquiring properties there was documented. In the serial blasts in Srinagar and Mumbai, the involvement of Pakistani citizens will be known in the next few weeks. The indication show that the culprits are likely to be arrested is not far off.

But far more serious question that arises is to what extent Gen. Musharraf is in control of the situation in Pakistan? The 7/11 blasts have shown that he is not able to keep his promise to the rest of the world that he will checkmate terrorists. This makes people to wonder whether in Pakistan a state with in a state is in operation?; and whether this smaller state decides the final on any crunch issue?

After 9/11, military in Pakistan under stands that violence and terrorism in any form will not be tolerated by the international community. But Pakistani military is not able to comprehend this new geopolitical reality and raises the question, how can they buy peace with India? Added to it, if peace with India moves forward their, predominance in Pakistani polity will come down.

In this new situation, with Pakistan paying lip sympathy by just condemning terrorist attacks in India, is not going to redeem its image. As the things stand the pressure from the Great Powers is going to increase on Pakistan to do some thing concrete in the coming weeks.

In these circumstances, India deferring Foreign Secretary level talks is first salvo fired it Islamabad by New Delhi. Already India is trying to mobilise international public opinion to resort to preemptive strikes at terrorist hideouts in PoK. Whether India will do it unilaterally or in collaboration with others is a matter of detail. Unconfirmed reports say similar notices were sent to Nepal and Bangladesh.

All this indicate that the next few weeks are crucial for South Asia because a lot will depend on how India views the response from its difficult neighbours. -CNF