Muslim absence from the
strategic space
The
competition is already on for the loaves of office once the expected changeover
in Delhi takes place next year. It is taken as a foregone conclusion that Luah
Purush II, marketed as brand ‘NaMo’, will take over 7, Race Course Road. The
recent outburst of the Prince on the ordinance providing politicians a loophole
for escaping the long arms of the law notwithstanding, there is little sign of
beating the anti-incumbency factor this time. The manoeuvrings by underlings
for sinecures as gubernatorial posts and for more consequential ones such as
that of National Security Advisor are patently visible.
Those
in the running for NSA include at least two from the right wing think tank,
India’s own Heritage Foundation, the Vivekananda International Foundation.
While it’s director, ex IB chief, Mr. Doval, is in the race, so is Mr. Kanwal
Sibal, former foreign secretary, also at the foundation. But there are others
outside of its building in Chanakyapuri burnishing their credentials: the TV
nemesis of Pakistan, G. Parthasarathy; pseudo-academic, MD Nalapat; Amb. KC
Singh, and not a few moustachioed generals. Some with similar proclivities have
however burnt their bridges by being supping with the Congress, such as Mr.
Shyam Saran. He brokered the Indo-US nuclear deal and has staged a national
security comeback his speech earlier this year on ‘massive’ nuclear
retaliation, which a critic has called ‘making a hash of it’.
The
last time a policeman held the post, MK Narayanan, there was little to show for
national security but for the nuclear deal. This slims Doval’s chances, leaving
Kanwal Sibal as frontrunner, not least because the majority of those who have
held the post have been from the foreign service. Given this, it is useful to
examine his views. The following excerpt on strategic culture, carried by the
VIF website, can serve as a start point:
The Muslim
rulers failed to properly assess the European sea-borne threat. The way the
rulers of that period allowed an English trading company to steadily conquer
large swathes of Indian territory speaks volumes about the lack of any
strategic culture in the India of that period.
In
stating this, Sibal echoes the dominant position in conservative-realist
circles that India does not have a strategic culture. It is a defensive,
reactive and weak power with little understanding of the role of force and its
utilisation in international power games. This deficit to owes to a historical
legacy dating beyond the colonial period
to Moghul times. The usual trope is that Indians lacked a strategic culture
that allowed the Muslim ‘invaders’ (Sibal’s term) to conquer India. They in
turn lacked the foresight to anticipate the threat from the sea. Though
debatable, these are commonplace views and therefore need not detain us overly.
Of consequence here is what he goes on to say:
Independent
India could imbibe virtually nothing in terms of strategic culture from the centuries
of Muslim rule, especially as Islam became the basis for India’s eventual
division and its theology as practised by
Pakistan presents an enduring threat
to India’s security today (italics added).
Sibal,
careful foreign service bureaucrat that he has been and one who is looking to
come out of retirement soon, takes care to caveat ‘its (Islam’s) theology’ by
adding ‘as practiced by Pakistan’. This is to stay politically correct by
stating that it is not Islam that is the problem, but the manner it is
practiced in Pakistan. What Sibal is implying probably is that Islamism or
political Islam in Pakistan is a threat to India as manifested by terrorism to
which India is sometimes subjected by its adherents. Pakistan is culpable to
the extent the ruling establishment condones and participates in such acts
inspired by religious extremism.
This
is a generous interpretation of Sibal’s comment. One would wish it had come
from him, articulate diplomat that he is. That it has not suggests that Sibal
has no interest to elaborate on his somewhat cryptic position. Why this is so
is a moot question.
Firstly,
this could be proof of Sibal being in the run for posts that the new
dispensation may hand out as early as next year. What he has to say is intended
as music to the ears of cultural nationalists and that of their minders in
Nagpur. Endorsement by conservative thinkers propels them in cyberspace with,
hopefully, enough ballast to carry them to Raisina Hill. Thirdly, Sibal may
believe this himself. This can give a clue to the manner national security will
be run over the coming half decade and more. Even if Sibal himself does not get
the post he apparently covets, the one who does no doubt has similar views.
Abstracting
from the individual level and moving away from Sibal specifically, is the point
he makes among others, on the absence of strategic culture. The narrative is
that India has been slave for a millennium and therefore has lost the ability
to think strategically. This equates Muslimness with being foreign, casting the
period of Muslim dynasties in India as non-India. The fact is that a fusion at
the elite level helped run India even in medieval times, making the period as
much Indian as any.
By
default then, the Muslim legacy is one commandeered by Pakistan, which
ironically, due to its military’s attractions for power, finds enough strategic
cultural grist to consummately play the power game. To compensate for this
perceived deficit in aggressiveness with Pakistan, Indian strategists of this
school recommend greater strategic assertiveness on India’s part. While
suggestive of a design to eclipse Muslim contribution to India and its
strategic history more than mere default, outcome is in direct pressure on Muslim
communities in the country for the contrived linkage with Pakistan and terror,
and more directly in Kashmir.
While
Indian intellectuals of the liberal-rationalist school do contest such
narratives, it also needs greater Muslim involvement in debates and issues of
national security to set the record straight. For instance, Seema Alvi could
correct the version of history that Sibal suffers from. But getting balance
into the narrative will prove an uphill drive. There are but a handful of Muslims
on the mainstream strategic circuit. The Vice President was understandably
silenced in his elevation to the constitutional post. Former generals, Afsir Karim and Ata Hasnain, Mustafa, Maroof Raza, Amb. Talmiz Ahmed, Gazala Wahab, Amb. Ishrat Aziz and
Najeeb Jung come to mind. Perhaps, Asif Ibrahim could join them once he is
through with his present appointment as head of IB and later Akbaruddin, the
MEA spokeman, in his turn. There is MJ Akbar around too, but editing the Muslim-baiting
India Today as he does, it is
uncertain which drum beat he marches to.
Muslim
contribution to security debates needs also to move beyond community centric
issues of terrorism and Palestine. They have the right, and perhaps more
importantly the duty as citizens, to exercise their voice on topics such as
India’s Pakistan policy, its nuclear doctrine, conduct in Kashmir, maritime
ambitions, defence budget etc. A Muslim voice on national security cannot but
be beneficial to the debate, even if the critics will have it that it is
‘Muslim’ and not quite national. But that would be to argue that Amb. Sibal and
Amb. KC Singh speak the way they do because they are Hindu and Sikh
respectively.
Absence
of fear of being contradicted due to strategic circles not reflecting India’s
diversity enables passing of what is essentially hate speech as security
analysis. Deliberate exertion for an informed gate-crashing of strategic
debates needs being done lest questionable if not downright communal views
become ‘Truth’ itself.
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