http://www.kashmirtimes.in/newsdet.aspx?q=70289

In defence of Hamid Ansari

The erudite Hamid Ansari, who has served as vice chancellor of a national university, can be expected to defend himself. His delectable drubbing of the Hindutvavadis over their term at the helm of India indicates as much. The crescendo in their attacks on him today shows that they have not really been listening all through. They seem to have woken only last week when while demitting office, the former vice president Hamid Ansari referred to the (in)security of India's Muslims. 

Way back in February in his K. Subrahmanyam memorial lecture he had warned against 'religious majoritariansm'. Perhaps that was a bit cerebral for our Hindutva brethren to catch on to. They sugarcoat their ideology under the term 'cultural nationalism'. He should perhaps have said out loud that it is Hindu supremacism, but that would be reduce himself to their level. After all, not all Hindus are majoritarian and most - though currently in embarrassed silence - are possibly as aghast with the antics of their Hindutvavadi brethren as anyone else. The scholar and diplomat in Hamid Ansari was not quite heard out earlier. 

But he has done a signal service on departure from high office by setting the cat among the pigeons. This was necessary to do since for the foreseeable future the ones in high office are unlikely to squeal, leave alone say a critical word. It is no secret that the president is from the Hindutva brigade and to state this out loud is no longer disrespectful. 

For his part, the vice president has already done a hit-wicket even as he takes stance by being the first to discourteously shout down his predecessor, Hamid Ansari, opining that Ansari's take smacks of a 'political agenda'. It no doubt missed the vice president that keeping silent is no less striking as 'political agenda', and partaking of the majoritarian project - that accounts for his elevation to august office - is exponentially more so - and more dangerous. 

At the death anniversary of Mr. K. Subrahmanyam, once the long standing doyen of Indian strategists, Hamid Ansari had spelt out his fears, stating, 'The operative principle for this [national identity] is 'national-civic' rather than 'national-ethnic,' though a segment of opinion today would want to modulate or amend it and espouse instead an Indian version of 'cultural nationalism' premised on 'religious majoritarianism.'

Hamid Ansari spelt out his view of the dangers further. In his answer to Karan Thapar's question pertaining to the 'mood' among Indian Muslims, posed in a parting interview on Rajya Sabha TV on the eve of leaving office, he said that, 'there is a feeling of unease, a sense of insecurity is creeping in.' This phrase was lit upon by his Hindutva inspired detractors and trolls. 

He connected the thread between majoritarianism and Muslim perception of insecurity in his last speech as vice president, at the National Law School of India University in Bangalore. There he quoted Israeli thinker, Yael Tamir: '…the version of nationalism that places cultural commitments at its core is usually perceived as the most conservative and illiberal form of nationalism. It promotes intolerance and arrogant patriotism.'' 

Essentially, what Hamid Ansari is saying is that 'illiberal nationalism' in the form of 'religious majoritarianism' has created an atmosphere of 'arrogant patriotism', which has led up to the 'insecurity' of various sections of society, including within India's largest minority, its Muslims.

For his pains Hamid Ansari has been characteristically advised by RSS ideologue, Indresh Kumar, to go where 'he feels secure'. After the fashion these days, presumably, Kumar has Pakistan in mind. Or perhaps like they did with MF Hussain, they wish to banish Ansari. It is here that Indresh and his ilk err.

The country Hamid Ansari should head for instead is an India in which such elements are once again marginalized as they were earlier. As a democracy there is no reason to deny them their space, but it needs to be at the periphery and under the constraints of the law. They can be represented by the conservative party of their choice, the BJP. 

However, what has happened over the past decade is that they have emerged behind the chariot of their points-man in politics, Mr. Modi, to take over not only the BJP, but the center-stage of politics. Their minions have spread through society and eaten away at its vitals, including its tolerance, pluralism and diversity. 

The 'Modi wave' does not appear to have exhausted itself, with Bihar only recently falling in his lap. Even the ill effects of demonetization and the indignity and inconvenience it forced on people appears to have been forgiven. Within society, lynch mobs are rampant enforcing their cow related dictates, even at the cost of human lives. 

The country that Hamid Ansari should head towards is an India that shall emerge after the Modi tide has been reversed. It would not be easy. The middle class is still looking for the promised economic dividend. The country is latched down by its two rivals on either side and, therefore, there is always the call for national unity against these bogeys to fall back on. The institutions are being hollowed out. Even the redoubtable Economic and Political Weekly has suffered a setback to its reputation from seemingly tanking in to mere legal notice from a corporate house with links to the government. 

Rolling back this tide of hate would not be possible any time soon. The tide will first have to culminate in some dangerous and self-destructive climax. Arundhati Roy has prognosticated as much in her latest book. Though a work of fiction, she rightly takes India's current and ongoing hardline approach in Kashmir as symptomatic of India in a self-destruct mode and as precursor to such a denouement.

For sure, the insecurity Hamid Ansari refers to can only deepen. This would involve Muslims in their mohallas or in areas where they predominate such as in tracts of Bengal, Assam and in Kashmir. The Muslim predicament posed by lynch mobs across north India is well known. In the Deccan, the selective killing of a body builder was no doubt to send a message. The 'beef ban' law has one unstated aspect to it: that of defanging Muslims, better represented in the meat industry, and, therefore, better able to defend themselves, having the knives, the know how to use these and the stomach that does not turn on the sight of blood. A Muslim student of a premier university continues to be missing a year on. 

The Kashmir story is too well known to the readers of this to dwell on here. In Bengal, the BJP is reportedly growing inroads, using the communal tensions from incidents such as in Basirhat as they best know how. Of Assam, the Director General Assam Rifles, is emboldened enough to write in a respected strategic journal, the USI, thus: 'Districts of Karimganj, Hailakandi and Cachar are likely to suffer mainly on communal lines with noticeable increase in Muslim population, seeping in of fundamental ideas and support for Islamic Fundamental Organisations.' He goes on to say that the Rohingya refugees are falling to ISIS inducement. This perhaps explains India readying to send 40000 of them back, and allowing the refugee agency to cater for only 15000 of them. So much for India as a regional power. 

Ansari's pointing all this out led to a veiled attack on him by the prime minister in parliament. Modi more or less had it that Ansari's roots and professional confines in Muslim related issues and causes had constricted his thinking. Mr. Modi is either India's Nero or its pied piper. Both avatars do not bode well for India's future. Clearly, even though Ansari will not fetch up at an India with religious majoritarianism bottled up once again in this lifetime, it is equally clear that it is in this direction he - and all the rest of us in India - must head. If Muslim insecurity is an index of India's security, we need to heed Ansari.

The Bhopal episode and the return of the hostage theory

The Milli Gazette Online

Published Online: Nov 19, 2016

http://www.milligazette.com/news/15086-the-bhopal-episode-and-the-return-of-the-hostage-theory

The killings of eight undertrial prisoners after an alleged breakout of a high security prison in Bhopal are a message. This message is internally and externally directed. In its external orientation, it is a message by the security establishment to Pakistan that Indian Muslims are hostage to Pakistani good behavior. In its internal orientation it is a reminder to India’s Muslims that they are at the mercy of the majority and had on that count better stick to the right-wing sanctioned view of the straight and narrow.

This is not the first time in which undertrial prisoners have been gunned down. In fact, there is a well-known culture of police impunity stretching back decades. This goes by the term ‘encounters’. All manner of challenges to the state and criminality have been met with such staged killings, be it in counter-insurgency situations as Kashmir, North East and Maoist areas, but also in law and order situations in which noted criminals are bumped off.

Such killings have included Muslims among victims, such as the case last year in which five undertrial Muslim prisoners in Nalgonda were gunned down in cold blood by their escort party of Telangana police under the implausible excuse that they were attempting to make good their escape. That Muslims are not the sole victims is clear from the incident the same week when 20 alleged red-sanders smugglers were killed by the Andhra police.

From this it might appear that the opening paragraph above is somewhat overblown, resulting perhaps from an emotional reaction to the incident in Bhopal. However, such an observation would be plausible if this article was written in the immediate wake of the incident when the video and audio footage from the scene went viral on the internet. A few weeks on the observation in the first paragraph, that was then at best a suspicion, has congealed somewhat and is worth examining for what it is worth.

In the light of the messaging seemingly immanent in the killings, the hostage theory needs a reprise. The hostage theory was propounded by Jinnah when he became an adherent to the two-nation theory. He was against the vivisection of the two Muslim majority provinces, Punjab and Bengal. He therefore felt that retaining the minorities in the Muslim and Hindu majority parts of India would ensure that the majorities ruling on the other side would mete out fair treatment to respective minorities.

In the event, the minorities voted for Partition with their feet, vacating their traditional homelands in wake of Partition in a wave of violence on both sides. The Nehru-Liaquat pact after the crisis in 1950 stabilised the situation resulting from Partition. Over time, the numbers of non-Muslims in the two Muslim majority states that emerged out of British India became fewer and fewer, mostly due to a perceived insecurity in these states.

In India, the situation was more habitable and Muslims not only chose to stay but have relatively been more secure than their Hindu counterparts in either Pakistan or Bangladesh. However, over the last quarter century, coinciding with the rise of the right-wing in Indian politics, the question of security of India’s Muslims has come to fore. The Gujarat carnage has been the nadir. With the country electing the then chief minister of Gujarat as its prime minister, it is a question that can only continue to linger.

In the official Indian narrative, India has attempted to reach out to Pakistan. The invite to Nawaz Sharif to Mr. Modi’s swearing in ceremony and Mr. Modi’s susrprise visit to Pakistan are taken as evidence. However, since the military calls the shots in Pakistan, India has not been able to make a dent on Pakistan’s policy of proxy war in Kashmir and support to terrorism in the rest of India. This has led to firmer action on India’s part lately, best exemplified by Ram Madhav’s call for a shift from strategic restraint to strategic proactivism. The results are already visible along the Line of Control with the army engaging in surgical strikes and almost daily fire assaults and the paramilitary force, the BSF, also joining in with fire exchanges along the IB in J&K.

If the matter had rested at this, it would have been but a return to the situation as existed in the nineties and restricted to J&K. However, there is the wider Muslim agenda of the right-wing that needs unfolding.  BJP has gone a step further in proposing amendments to the citizenship bill which will enable non-Muslim minorities in the neighbouring countries to gain Indian citizenship. This measure, among others, heralds the creation of a Hindu state in the image envisioned in the Hindutva philosophy adhered to by the ruling party. For the Muslims living in India, the prime minister, recalling the injunction of his ideological mentor Deen Dayal Upadhyay in a speech in Kozhikode this past September, proposed ‘purification’.

It is clear that in the right-wing world view it is at the interstices of India’s external and internal security planes that Indian Muslims are located. The external factor is their association with the two nation theory and with Pakistan. This explains the oft-used term, ‘Go to Pakistan’. The internal is that Muslims are to lead lives as dictated by the right wing. In the words of one of its leading lights, Golwalkar, Muslims constitute an internal security threat, who, in his words, ‘may stay in the country wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, for less any preferential treatment, not even the citizen's rights.’

This is the context of the Bhopal incident. The killings have come in the backdrop of a worsening regional security situation, with Pakistan’s terror attack in Uri having been responded to by Indian surgical strikes. The killings were on Diwali, when there is a heightened expectation within the intelligence agencies of terror incidents. The killings can thus be interpreted as a warning to Pakistan not to indulge in any terror action in India. Internally, they serve to warn off Indian Muslims who the intelligence community perhaps believes are susceptible to Pakistani overtures for creating trouble in India. In effect, Indian Muslims are to be held hostage to Pakistani good behavior.

This interpretation of the Bhopal encounter killings suggests that the situation is unlikely to improve any time soon. In the near term the ruling party requires the polarization since it is faced with polls. Its latest demonetization misstep indicates that it would be paying a price in the UP elections. Therefore, the status quo on the Indian Muslim security question is likely to persist till the national elections. The unfortunate and inescapable conclusion is that Muslim insecurity can only be alleviated once the nation, in particular our Hindu brethren, show the ruling party the door at the next democratic opportunity. 

The Paris attacks and India’s Muslims

milligazette.com

1-15 December 2015

The clarity of condemnation of the Paris attacks by India’s Muslims shall serve to silence motivated right wing critics who usually have it that India’s Muslims are mostly silent in condemning terror. However, it bears reminding that while the allusion by a prominent UP politician, Azam Khan, to the context of the attack was certainly mistimed, it was not misplaced.

It is on this count that the India’s Muslims, while not endorsing terrorism in any manner, can yet maintain a critical stance on Obama’s statement that Muslims are not doing enough to keep their children from being ‘infected’ or the position of their own prime minister who has it that we must tackle terrorism ‘without any political considerations’.

Obama’s attempt at straddling Muslims with a guilt complex is to obfuscate the military actions of his country and his own failure to overturn the Bush legacy. He failed to coincide a peace surge with a military surge in Afghanistan early in his presidency, resulting in the takeover of Kunduz by the Taliban at the fag end of his presidency. Attempting to end any further body bags coming home and ending American support for the military template, his withdrawal from Iraq left it to a sectarian regime leading to the rise of IS. The CIA’s transfer of Libyan arms to Syria has provided the IS hardware. The financial support for the IS has come from disaffected citizens of the US’ feudal Arab allies. The reversal of the promise of Arab Spring has brought ideological extremism to fore. Obama’s inability to control Israel’s outrages in Gaza, West Bank and at Al Aqsa have enraged those who have joined the IS, including fighters from the West. Clearly, it is not Muslims, but Obama and the US that have not done enough to reverse terrorism. US actions, some in support of their anti-democratic Arab regimes, have instead fostered and sustained terror.

This is the political context that cannot be wished away. Mr. Modi’s wish that it be disregarded is to miss out on root causes. Peace theory has it that neglecting root causes cannot bring about a sustainable solution. Neglecting political consideration is a call to military action. Military action has not proven effective so far. The Taliban emerged from a military context in a civil war in Afghanistan. Their emergence set the stage for the abominable action of Al Qaeda on 9/11. The war against Al Qaeda that was willfully taken by the West into Iraq set the stage for the rise of IS. Appropriating the Arab Spring for their purposes, the West destabilized Libya first and later, Syria. It stood in way of a return to democracy in Egypt. This narrative suggests that a military template is counterproductive. The corollary is that conversely, political considerations are acutely relevant.

Critics of the position here would have it that such reminding of the context implies an endorsement of terrorism. To them, it legitimises terrorism. It is supportive of the narrative terrorists themselves seek to use. Is their counter argument valid?

To wish away political considerations is itself a political choice. As shown above, a military template void of political underpinnings is a recipe for disaster. Foregrounding the essentially political context ensures that the military template sticks to the Clausewitzian logic that military action must be preceded and,where necessary superseded, by political considerations. What this suggests is that opting for a ‘purely’ military template is a wrong-headed political choice. This is the lesson over the past quarter century of post Cold War wars. Therefore, to remind of the political context is not to endorse terrorism but to deflate endorsement of political choices that turn a blind eye to politics. Such reminding also has the benefit of bringing the military prong of strategy firmly under control of politics. It is no one’s case that the IS can be degraded without military means, but that such means if unaccompanied by political processes, including the promise of talks, can only be part of the problem. After all, for violence there can be no ‘purely political’ solution either.

Bringing a discussion of the context into the debate does not legitimize terror. Terrorism, quite like its counter in conventional military response, is void of political considerations. It is astrategic, in that it persists in wrong-headed choice of a military template, one that substitutes a suicide bomber for a predator drone. Consequently, quite like the military counter, it is unable to clinch the issue. Terrorism’s use of violence is to polarize target societies in order that it gains ideological empathy and, in case of overreaction, gather recruits. This is however not without cost. Its challenge to perceived injustice, for instance in terms of neocolonialism, on Palestine, on world order issues such as carving up of the Middle East into manipulable states, division of Arabs etc. is lost in the violence. It endangers those who its self-styled defenders are out to defend. It wishes to defend to death those who may not want to be so defended, who are appalled by actions in their name and that of their religion. Bringing politics back into the reckoning helps dispel the ‘terrorists as saviours’ myth terrorists foster.

Finally, is this the terrorist’s narrative? Terrorists make an instrumental use of the ideological critique of the West’s actions. Their violence is to bring about Bush-like a ‘with us or against us’polarization. However, in the melee they end up degrading the critique as well as providing the West a way out to avoid making course correction using terrorist violence as justification. Both need each other. Both feed off each other. Both are interested in continuation of the violence as it suits both. Both are in this respect a mirror image of each other.

The term ‘West’ here subsumes the governments. It does not include civil society, a major proportion of which is not only attentive but capable of action, even if the power of the governments is such as to make such action ineffectual: witness the several thousand who marched in European and US cities against Bush beginning his wars. Their narrative too is critical of their governments. They have simply not been allowed by the government’s information departments and the media to build up the momentum they managed in the Vietnam War. Such a momentum cannot come about by terrorizing them either, the effort in the Paris terror attacks by terrorists. Clearly, a critique of the governmental narrative that suggests a return to politics, to seeking political solution as against military, is not a replication of the terror narrative.

What does this mean for India’s Muslims? While the condemnation of terrorism must be unequivocal, there is no question of abandoning a critical view of militarized templates. India’s Muslims have no horse in the race. The Arab nationalists and religious extremists are fighting a regional war against international powers in their region. India’s proximity to the US and Israel - now no longer a state secret - explains only partially why India wants politics ignored.

The balance of the reason is in the ideological strategy favoured by the ruling formation tends to unnecessarily bring Indian Muslims under a cloud; an instance being its inquiry of foreign intelligence agencies on the numbers of Indians in the ranks of the IS. India’s Muslims need to be wary of the internal political utility to the ruling party, and its political pseudo-cultural support base, of the external, unconnected war. With five elections lined up particularly in West Bengal and Assam, will no doubt, post Bihar elections debacle, bring the internal ‘other’ – illegal immigrant - prominently to fore, among other such wily themes.

The argument that ‘root causes’ approach amounts to purveying the terrorist message must be fought off. The guilty by association argument must be demolished. India’s Muslims must join their voice to the liberal viewpoint in the West that is critical of their government’s approach over the past decade and half. It must not allow the right wing here to forward its internal political interests using yet another stick to beat India’s Muslims with.  

Why Ramchandra Guha speaks too soon

http://www.milligazette.com/news/12973-partion-muslim-of-india-why-ramchandra-guha-speaks-too-soon

Ramchandra Guha makes a case for not being ‘nostalgic about undivided India’. He argues that, ‘Had there been an undivided India, the percentage of Muslims would have been closer to 33%, or one in three. The demographic balance would have been more delicate; and prone to being exploited by sectarians on either side.’

Assuming that religious wars have been avoided by the percentage of Indian Muslims being reduced to ‘13% of the population, or one in seven’, he concludes that, ‘the cold logic of history suggests that things would have been far worse for us if Partition had not occurred.’

Since his is a counter factual case, refuting his case is as futile as it is easy.

Nevertheless, it can be argued conversely that had the percentage of the largest religious minority – the subcontinent’s Muslims – remained at about one third, there would have been an element of deterrence in the demographic balance. Guha’s apprehension of a communal bloodbath would then not arise.

In any case, precedent setting Partition would not have occurred and eddies from it would not have persisted through time. The resulting peace could have been used, just as it has been in India as brought out by Guha, for democracy and development for all of South Asia.

Guha exaggerates the problem integrating the 500 princely states posed. Sardar Patel dispatched them into history within a couple of years of independence. That would have been so even in case of undivided India, with the Nizam – possibly the only one to hold out – similarly packed off. Since contiguity would have decided the case for the rest, Kashmir would not have emerged as a bone of contention since.

As a historian Guha should really have been wary of venturing into international relations. To him, India has been spared the frontline status that Pakistan has acquired. This owes to Pakistan lending its strategic location for the purposes of a superpower through the Cold War and in the war on terror. In case Pakistan was part of India, this would not have been so. An undivided India, not warring internally and with greater military, political and moral might, could have kept its periphery peaceful. 

It is not as readily apparent that South Asia is better off divided. Worse, we may yet mourn the passing of an undivided India.

Guha is right in caveating his point that ‘India is not — or at least not yet — a Hindu Pakistan.’ ‘Not yet’ alright, but unfortunately India appears well on its way to becoming one. Guha’s other writings suggests that this possibility has not escaped him. His summary dismissal of Akhand Bharat is on this score a tad too early.  

In an understatement, Guha’s writes, ‘Religious and ethnic violence have not entirely abated’. There has been no bout of religious violence this decade of the order of those that punctuated previous decades: Bhagalpur in the eighties, Babri Masjid demolition aftermath in the nineties and the Gujarat pogrom in the 2000s.

But structural violence based on religious majoritarianism has served as an equally effective substitute. Muslims are remarkable for their absence in office spaces, shared apartment blocks and the military, from the middle classes and from assemblies and the parliament.  

With the demographic balance disrupted by Partition, Hindutvavadis have had a field day on India’s vulnerable minority over the past quarter century. And in doing so have succeeded in manufacturing an electoral constituency, a ‘Hindu vote bank’. So much so that Mr. Modi in refusing to wear a cap that serves as a Muslim identity marker reveals that he does not feel the need to even genuflect towards Muslims.

With minorities better represented it would be difficult for ideological penetration of institutions and of India’s security agencies. India’s Muslims now do not have the comfort of physical security and psychological security in greater numbers of an undivided India.

From the point of view of liberal Hindus, their higher percentage could have served to preserve India from a possible, and certainly problematic, future as ‘Hindu India’. With the prime minister even overshadowing one worthy predecessor, Indira Gandhi, to the extent of provoking a grim warning from Hindutva lion heart Advani of a turn to authoritarianism, to some liberals, India is potentially on the road to ‘soft fascism’.  

Here democracy is increasingly liable to be mistaken for majoritarianism. Modi’s Chanakya, the National Security Adviser, Mr. Doval, speaking on ‘Security, Statecraft and Conflict of Values’, provides a clue.

On the surface what he gives out is unexceptionable: that the majority democratically arrived decides how to exercise power and does so in a constitutionally bound manner in accord with its perception of the national interest.

The problems are, one, in the gauging of the ‘national interest’ and, two, in the adherence to constitutional parameters. The perennial problem remains: who will guard the guardians.

On thinking on national interest, Tarun Vijay, a leading propagandist, has it that Independence was not merely from British colonialists but also from preceding, namely Muslim, rulers and a second independence is in overthrowing current day opponents of the ruling regime.

Internal authoritarianism can only prompt external expansionism. Only, India has a nuclear power with Islamism at its door step. Mr. Dowal lets on that there can be ‘no compromise’ in the use of force where ‘national interest’ is at stake. He has a millennial notion of this, encompassing both past generations and future.

Perhaps Akhand Bharat – democratically and peacefully arrived at - is the direction South Asia must now move. It can checkmate both extremisms that in mirroring each other are indeed one of a kind.

This is not a novel idea. For millennia, India’s enlightened rulers have exerted to unify the subcontinent, a geographic unit into a single strategic and civilisational space.

Regional groupings are the trend across the world; witness EU that brought together rivals UK, France and Germany. South Asia has the SAARC for starters. A negotiated beginning is the next step.

Such visualization is akin to but reverses the divisive vision in Cambridge at which the two nation theory got its impetus. Doing so would make India whole again.

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A Viewpoint: Home Minister Brings ‘Saffron Terror’ Back on the Agenda

http://www.thecitizen.in/NewsDetail.aspx?Id=4715&A/Viewpoint:/Home/Minister/Brings/%E2%80%98Saffron/Terror%E2%80%99//Back/on/the/Agenda

10 August 2015

Pakistan is at the cusp of an official response on the dates of its National Security Adviser’s visit to India consequent to the agreement at Ufa between the two prime ministers that the two NSAs meet. What is troubling the Indian side is Pakistan’s stated intent to bring to the table what it sees as a Indian hand behind some of the terrorism it has been subject to. 

Pakistan can be expected to be on the offensive, so as to deflect India from raising its own list of grievances against Pakistan, most evident in the two recent incidents, one of a terror attack in Dinanagar and the other an attack on a Border Security Force convoy in Udhampur. India’s list will be topped by its complaint against Pakistan’s ‘go slow’ in the Zaki-ur-Rahman conviction. 

It is in the context of the NSAs’ agenda that the recent fulminations of the home minister in the parliament must be seen. In a debate, he raised the issue of ‘Hindu terrorism’, excoriating the opposition for coming up with such a label in its previous tenure. He took care to direct his ire against the use of the pre-fix Hindu, since obviously a religion cannot, and should not, be tagged to terrorism. 

However, that was no one’s case to begin with including Mr. Sushil Kumar Shinde, the previous home minister, who is credited with conjuring up the term. He was referring to ‘saffron terrorism’, a term that acquired currency on account of its accuracy and use by Mr. P Chidambaram, his predecessor. 

What Rajnath Singh was perhaps riling against was that in directing attention to terrorism perpetrated by Hindus, that alternatively goes by the term ‘saffron terror’, India had in his view diluted its case against Pakistan. The timing of his remarks suggests as much, since Pakistan could well say that at least a proportion of the terror India claims Pakistan as origin is homegrown, of Indian provenance. India’s charges of being subject to Pakistani terror by proxy will be less credible. 

Pakistan’s ammunition on hand will be its claim of Indian inspiration behind some of the terror it has been subject to, seeking to establish that it is a worse victim of terror, exacerbated by Indian intelligence operatives. 

Pakistan has been seeking such endorsement. At Sharm el Sheikh it succeeded in getting Manmohan Singh to put this into the joint statement. The equivalence it establishes will help it obfuscate its own policy of terror by proxy and proxy war. It will help rationalize such terror by making it appear as though it is part of the intelligence game the two sides indulge in and is not policy as such. 

India for its part has been attempting to downgrade the terror perpetrated by majoritarian extremists of the Abhinav Bharat variety. As seen its doing so has utility in India’s case of cornering Pakistan. Showing up Pakistan as state sponsor of terrorism can help deter it, place it at odds with world opinion, under-cut support of its allies and create divisions within Pakistani polity by pitching the civilian political domain with reservations against such terrorism against the ISI and military that back it. 

However the foreign policy angle only partially explains Rajnath Singh’s attempt to becloud terrorism perpetrated by Hindutva extremists. Singh’s concerns were less foreign policy or Pakistan strategy driven, even if these led up to his recent remarks. More importantly, the attempt must be seen for what it is. Foreign policy angle merely provides a rationale.

The actual impetus is to obscure that some of the terrorism India was subject to since mid 2000s was by majoritarian extremists. Not only were they responsible for some of the blasts directly, but indirectly in setting up a chain of revenge attacks with minority extremists, added to the terrorist incidents and charged atmosphere of those years. While already implicated directly in the more obvious attacks such as the Mecca Masjid, Malegaon and Samjhauta Express one, at least some of the less prominent attacks presently attributed to Muslim extremists must be laid at the door of these elements. 

This possibility is important to acknowledge in order that, firstly, the truth is not swept under the carpet, and, secondly, at sometime in future the cases can be reopened to implicate not only who perpetrated these attacks, but to gauge if those who stood to gain politically had any connection with the handlers. 

The actions of state agencies as revealed by prosecutor Rohini Salian in respect of the National Investigation Agency and the letting off of the likes of DG Vanzara and PP Pandey suggest these cases are being put off. The alacrity in pursuing the likes of Yakub Memon, Atif and Afzal Guru, has been sorely absent in punishing Sadhvi Thakur, Major Purohit, Maya Kodnani and Babu Bajrangi. Instead, the unashamed hounding of Teesta Setalvad suggests that the aim is to silence not only that doughty lady and her NGO, but anyone seeing her as a model. 

Clearly, all this is not merely to bolster foreign policy. If these were only rogue elements, the state could well allow justice to grind on. Instead, the criminal-politician connection is clear, but one more salient and damaging than earlier ‘Congress era’ versions restricted to corruption and money making. This time it is a more significant and dangerous terror-political connection with subversion of democratic politics. 

From the manner the saffron terror campaign played out to implicate the minority, it is apparent that it was to create a vote bank of the ‘besieged’ majority, besides showing up the ruling UPA as weak and offering up a ‘strong’ alternative. This possibility as a linkage needs to be kept alive as a direction of investigation once the majority realizes it has been duped. 

Minister Rajnath Singh has inadvertently drawn attention to India’s domestic underbelly. The foreign policy implication is relatively insignificant. While India can rightly point a finger at Pakistan for several major terror attacks it has been subject to and be demanding of Pakistan, scoring on foreign policy cannot be at the cost of pursuit of justice, truth and democratic principles

Kashmir: Not the moment for a tryst

kashmirtimes.com 1 August 2015

In an article ‘Resentful Kashmiris’, Kuldip Nayar writes of Kashmiris becoming more anti-Indian, both in form and substance. This may be useful in many ways than one. However, one way Kashmiris are better warned not to go down is to challenge the Indian state yet again, not at this juncture at any rate.

Kuldip Nayar forthrightly writes of an exchange in which he warns that Kashmiri cessation could have repercussions on India’s Muslim minority elsewhere in India, to which his Kashmiri interlocutor counter argues, ‘Your  Muslims are your problem.’

This reveals the extent of interface with their Kashmiri brethren of India’s Muslims south of the Pir Panjal. Since the mainstream Indian Muslim opinion was largely coincident with that of liberal Indian opinion on Kashmir, it was generally disapproving of the military template operational in the Valley for the past quarter century and supportive of a solution through dialogue with both Pakistan and with Kashmiris themselves.

Working through, with and within the liberal perspective was useful in that the Kashmir issue remained largely a territorial one in relation to Pakistan and not a religious one entangled in the vexed minority management issues in the rest of India. To recall, majority-minority strains came to fore coincident in time with the outbreak of the troubles in Kashmir in the late eighties, peaking together in the early nineties. That the two issues remained separate was altogether a good thing, since both had the potential to, if taken together, mutually complicate each other.

In the main liberal opinion was not quite an underdog in the years that followed. The element of restraint, such as there was, in the military template in Kashmir was on its account; so much so, that a modicum of normalcy could be said to have returned to the Valley, beginning with the NDA years under the stewardship of Vajpayee.

In effect, Kashmiris owe the rest of India much, including its Muslim minority. To be sure India could have and should have done much more to meet them more than halfway. Indeed, much of the resentment Nayar detects can be laid at India’s door, in the inability of the UPA to convert a position of advantage to sustainable peace.

Nayar hints at a possible reason for this inability and unwillingness. Liberal opinion has been cognizant of its relative strength in respect of the right wing that watched over its shoulder. It therefore confined itself to conflict management rather than resolution. That this apprehension of the right wing stealing a march in case it did otherwise was valid is borne out by the manner the right wing wrested the electoral upper hand last year.

A consideration has always been the possible repercussions of ‘concessions’ towards Kashmiris on the larger national minority. Howsoever unfair, it would have given the right wing another stick to beat not only the minorities, but the liberals as well. Therefore, that the UPA did not chance it was politically sensible. In the event, they were eclipsed anyway.

However, under the current circumstance ‘concessions’ are certainly possible. The right wing is comfortably ensconced in Delhi. It never has had to look over its shoulder. It has over the past year engaged in boundary setting and creating the conditions that enable potential concessions. In Kashmir these include getting itself into the coalition in Srinagar, telling Pakistan where to get off, staring it down at the LC, reducing infiltration to zero, and propping up its Jammu constituency to balance, and potentially cancel out, Srinagar. Outside of Kashmir, Mr. Modi is readying to have the military constituency eat out of its hand by holding on to the OROP declaration till the final moment when perhaps as early as at the 1965 fiftieth anniversary commemoration he grandly hands out the goodies.

If Kashmiris prove patient, they can prove themselves deserving of political ‘concessions’, such as progressing pushing back of the AFSPA to begin with. Mr. Modi can then grandly – as is his wont – bestow them when he builds up the tempo and is sure of pocketing the political dividend. Kashmiris would have got what they need. India’s minority would not bear any fallout. Mr. Modi would have the peace he needs to work his Gujarat model on the rest of India. This is a ‘Win-win’ situation for all, other than Pakistan’s right wingers.   

They may instigate Kashmiris to an untimely and possibly futile Round II. The army commander has in his Kargil Day interaction with the press let on that there is concern with educated youth signing up with militancy. Whereas this figure is still in the two digits, it reinforces Nayar’s observation of continuing disaffection.

In case this disaffection translates into confrontation then Mr. Modi’s hands will be as tied as any preceding Indian government’s. Just as with any other government, the suppressive template would be operational once again.

The legitimacy for this will be easy to create. Already there is disinformation abroad on the proximity of the Daeash to South Asia. A report has an opportune discovery of a Daesh plan to attack India and trigger an India-Pak Armageddon.  This will expectedly prove handy, even if time were to prove that it is a transparently motivated report put out by organizations and media outlets with right wing sympathies in the US. Mr. Modi’s foreign travels will ensure that his interlocutors there will give him the benefit of doubt. India will project itself as containing the Islamist threat, a cause that attracts the big three: US, Russia and China.

Thus, there is little that Kashmiris going militant at this stage can hope to wrest. Besides, Kashmiris can only expect to hurt to the extent they are ‘successful’ in inconveniencing India. As Nayar warns, the repercussions for India’s Muslims will be immediate and direct. They are now also hostage to Kashmiri good behavior.

The past year of Hindutvavadis running riot with state culpability hints as much. Alongside, the home ministry’s intent to busy itself with a counter radicalization program suggests they are already identified as Pakistan’s potential fifth column and an attractive constituency for the latest bogeyman, Daesh.

It appears that the earlier distance between Kashmir and India’s other minority question has eroded. Further convergence between the two can come about were Kashmir to improbably ignite yet again. That would create conditions for the perfect storm, benefiting the right wing on both sides of the erstwhile Radcliffe line and with no benefit sighted for Kashmiris. This analysis suggests that while flirting with black flags and green flags is romantic, expressive and cathartic, that is where the matter should end.

‘Concessions’ appear to be Mr. Modi’s Plan A. The somewhat limp Dinanagar attack and zero-infiltration this year indicates that Pakistan’s cards are down. It is yet to receive India’s retribution by proxy. That will likely be timed with the forthcoming NSAs meet, intended as a reading out by India of the Riot Act to Pakistan. If it fails, Plan B has been in place in Kashmir incongruous with its improved security indices for a decade in any case.

It’s therefore better to let Mr. Modi have his cake and await the outcome.  

 

 

Kashmir and India’s Muslims

http://www.kashmirtimes.in/newsdet.aspx?q=41976

Kashmiris as an Indian Muslim community differ in great many respects than other Muslim communities across India. They are territorially compact and constitute a majority in their state. They are also at odds with the Indian state and have been for close to a quarter century subject to its military attention. The Kashmir question also has an international dimension as a territorial dispute with Pakistan. Theirs is therefore a special case and has been treated as such in discussions on the Indian Muslim issues.

Consequently, Indian Muslims have been wary of commenting on Kashmiri issues, confining themselves largely to urging respect for human rights of their Kashmiri brethren. Even so, Kashmir has figured in the wider Indian Muslim predicament in more ways than meets the eye and on that count there is a case for a greater interest of Indian Muslims in the resolution of the Kashmir issue.

The primary principle that must inform any consideration of the Kashmir issue is ‘Do no harm.’ Kashmiris are in the midst of improving their security situation. This is true from the national security perspective also in that the situation has seldom been as calm. Therefore, nothing done and said south of the Pir Panjals must upset prospects of further improvement in any way. That said, are there ways in which Indian Muslims can engage productively with the Kashmir question?

It can be plausibly speculated that the Kashmir situation has contributed in part to the pall over security of India’s largest minority, its Muslims over the past three decades. Whereas most ‘mainland’ Indian Muslims security issues have a basis and origin in the Ganga-Brahmaputra basin, such as say the Babri Masjid destruction and its aftermath, the Kashmir situation has impacted these to the extent it has negatively. Consequently, can it be inferred then that a resolution of the Kashmir question can help mitigate the minority’s security situation in some measure? If so then, engaging with and urging resolution in Kashmir is a valid exercise for Indian Muslims, if somewhat unprecedented thus far.

But first to ascertain if indeed the Kashmir question has contributed to insecurity of India’s Muslims. There was an unrelated coincidence in rise of Kashmiri militancy and the Babri Masjid issue. The Kashmir issue set the context for Pakistani meddling after the fall of the Masjid and the pogrom in Mumbai that accompanied it. In the later part of the decade Kashmir related bombings occurred in Delhi, a significant one being in Sarojini Nagar. Even as late as the Parliament attack most minority related terror attacks in appeared to have a Kashmir provenance. There were fleeting reports of the outfit SIMI flirting with the Pakistani intelligence establishment, leading to its ban as a terrorist organization in 2001. This indicated that while Pakistan was looking to exploit India’s vulnerabilities, it really did not gain a significant handle, other than in Kashmir where it already was long intrinsic. Despite the spike in violence in Kashmir over the turn of the century with the Kargil War and Pakistan’s induction of ‘fidayeen’ tactics, there was little spill over. 

It was however with the 2002 pogrom in Gujarat that the security indices of India’s Muslims nosedived. The context was framed by the parliament attack and India’s military mobilization thereafter in Operation Parakram. It is at this juncture that the wider Indian Muslim security question connects with the Kashmiri question. The impunity of the Gujarat government and its police owed to the war atmosphere that prevailed and that in part stayed Vajpayee’s hands in progressing his rhetoric regards rajdharma. While questions persist over the parliament attack, it is quite clear that the burning of the bogie of the Sabarmati express was accidental. Nevertheless, that it could set off a pogrom suggests planning and direction that as has been pointed recently by Harsh Mander in his new book cannot have been without Mr. Modi playing Nero. The war atmosphere attributable to Kashmir related events enabled space for the pogrom to play out.

Whereas there were instance of Pakistani abetting a few revenge attacks, as is by now well established most such allegations were instance of ‘black operations’ intended to malign the minority. The aim was to ensure an extension of right wing governance at the Center. This explains the ‘encounters’ such as the Ishrat Jahan case. In the event the India Shining campaign failed spectacularly. Nevertheless, this only led to a greater reliance on the narrative of a nexus between extremist elements in the minority with Pakistan’s ISI. The subtext was that with the relative stability returning to Kashmir after the November 2003 ceasefire on the Line of Control and talks between India and Pakistan 2004 onwards, ISI had shifted its cross hairs to the hinterland. Subverted elements in the security establishment and motivated scribes manufactured this, no doubt with the intention of once again using the ‘India in danger’ and ‘Muslims as fifth column’ bogeys. It was also useful to project the weakness of the UPA government and in contrast the strength of the emerging champion of the right, Mr. Modi. The direction of the international discourse post 9/11 proved handy. Islamophobic narratives were liberally deployed to push the minority into a corner. This persisted through the decade.

It is curious that the periodic terror attacks that were so readily attributed to the minority have suddenly been discontinued. It only strengthens the suspicion that these were ‘black operations’ being done covertly to malign the minority for political purpose of interested parties. In the event of the spectacular victory of the right wing, it does not take a genius to put two and two together.

What emerges is that India’s minority has proven largely immune to supposed Pakistani inroads, barring a handful high profile cases as the Bhatkal brothers and earlier, D Company. Even the spillover from the Kashmir conflict into the northern plains has been episodic. However, motivated elements, with a reach into the state and in the media, have used the Kashmir issue as yet another stick for minority bashing. This was to create a constituency within the majority based on fear and prejudice. That it succeeded is testimony to the nature of the current government and need for continued watchfulness on part of India’s Muslims, including Kashmiris. If in opposition, they could manufacture such a false narrative, in support of this government they can be credited with ability for a more ambitious, and flagrant, projects.

It follows that if the Kashmir events have had negative fallout on minority security, as depicted here, there is a case for mitigating security by urging a resolution to the Kashmir question. This is along two lines: one is an internal settlement between India and its Kashmiris; and, second, is a wider reconciliation with Pakistan. This is in keeping with the government’s policy plank in that its joining in government in Srinagar is indicative  of a desire to end the troubled times there and its overall Pakistan policy, the tactical aspects of cutting off talks, firing on the LC, notwithstanding. Therefore, if India’s Muslims were to voice an opinion and lend their voice and shoulder to a resolution in Kashmir and with Pakistan it would not be out of place. It is firstly in their own interests, which as seen are aligned with that of India. Therefore, there is no cause for Muslims to tread softly on Kashmir as hitherto.

The possible agenda items are easy to arrive at. Kashmiris need being warned against flirting with violent extremists in light of the ill winds blowing from West Asia. Pakistan is proving to be dysfunctional and it is time that Kashmiris reconsider their political interests. This will incentivize the Indian state towards a peace with dignity. Clearly, Kashmiri Pandits cannot be left out of this. If this is the message for Kashmiris, so must pressure be applied on the government to be responsive. Getting past Kashmir is necessary since other ‘fights’ loom ahead, such as over the ‘Bangladeshi infiltrator’ question. Such constructive intervention will be useful precedent setting for Muslim political action in the national interest.  

Deconstructing Mr. Modi’s speech

, The Milli Gazette Online

Published Online: Feb 19, 2015

http://www.milligazette.com/news/11792-deconstructing-narendra-modis-speech-india

In his early-bird take on Mr. Modi’s speech at the National Celebration of the Elevation to sainthood of Kuriakose Elias Chavara and Mother Euphrasia in New Delhi, the editor-in-chief of the news and opinions portal First Post got it right. He writes that 'while Modi actually meant, ‘Tolerance has to cut both ways’, 'it is not quite the way his speech will be interpreted in newspapers tomorrow.'

Indeed, the media has taken a positive view of Mr. Modi’s speech and the chief ministerial candidate in J&K, hoping to justify his faustian pact with the BJP there has gone on to advertise his appreciation. That the speech that is otherwise loaded with double meaning can get such a reception indicates less clairvoyance on the editor-in-chief’s part and credulity on part of others, but a Stockholm syndrome in which captives learn to love their captors, in this case a nation held hostage to Hindutvavadi antics over the past year ends up seeing light seemingly at the end of the tunnel while it has only just entered it.

Jagannathan’s article with unconcealed glee brings out two hidden points Mr. Modi makes. One that Modi finds conversion “without coercion or inducement” acceptable. This may have had greater relevance for his audience comprising Christians, worried over the spate of attacks on churches in Delhi in the run up to the election there. Whereas they are worried of their right to practice and propagate their religion under the circumstance, Mr. Modi is highlighting alongside “inducement” that is alleged to accompany such propagation.

However, for the audience of this publication, the second one is consequential, which in Jagannathan’s words is that, “Tolerance has to cut both ways.” The message, therefore, for the Muslim audience from Mr. Modi is in his parting words: “We cannot accept violence against any religion on any pretext and I strongly condemn such violence. My government will act strongly in this regard.” This, as Jagannathan wholly in agreement, points out, can only be intended for Muslims. 

This is easy to surmise, given that Mr. Modi takes pains to bring out that tolerance is intrinsic to India since ancient times, when presumably there were no Muslims in either India or the world. Tolerant India accepted all religions that have come from without. Further, it is this tolerance in India’s “ancient cultural traditions” (read Hindutva, since it is a “way of life”, cultural tradition, according to the Supreme Court) that has been embedded in the Indian Constitution. Therefore, India is tolerant because the majority, owing to its religion and culture, is tolerant.

In other words, intolerance can only be of religions that have come from without.This he takes pains to highlight, referring to the turmoil in the Middle East using the phraseology: “The world is at cross-roads which, if not crossed properly, can throw us back to the dark days of bigotry, fanaticism and bloodshed.”Since tolerance “must be” in Indians’ DNA, it is so presumably also in the case of Muslim Indians because they are taken as converts for most part and therefore having tolerant Hindu forebears. Nevertheless, they need reminding that his government “will act strongly”.

It cannot be that Mr. Modi has suddenly realised the need for strong action against religion-inspired violence. He spent three terms in Gujarat without appropriate action (to put it generously) against those who spilt blood (to put it mildly) on his watch in the Gujarat carnage. Therefore, his message - “My government will not allow any religious group, belonging to the majority or the minority, to incite hatred against others, overtly or covertly. Mine will be a government that gives equal respect to all religions.” - is surely not directed at his support base in Hindutvawadis.

Also, note he and his political party have spent a quarter century highlighting that the Congress treated the Muslim minority differently (“appeasement” is the term used). So when he and his party mention “equality” it implies taking Muslims down a peg or two for “equality”. Lastly, he “will not” allow incitement of hatred. He does well to use the future tense since that absolves him of inaction in the case of his worthy minister’s colourful description for the minority.

Sure, he has called the Delhi DGP and emphasized that Christians need due protection. This concern may well be Obama induced in that the US President has on two occasions – in his town hall speech when in Delhi and at his prayer breakfast meeting when back in Washington – voiced concern on rising Hindutvawadi impertinence. Being responsive to “Barack” can be expected, especially in light of the defence and nuclear-related goodies India expects in return.

While the tolerance-related part of Mr. Modi’s speech has drawn attention – much of it misguided – what has been missing in the ensuing commentary is his concluding portion: “I havea vision of a Modern India. I have embarked on a huge mission to convert that vision into reality. My mantra is Development for all – sabka saath, sabka vikaas…. I sincerely request all Indians, and all of you present here to support me in this huge task.” Italics capture the megalomania dripping in the extract.

Clearly, with the budget up soon, the decks are being cleared. Social unrest can put paid to development. Development is needed to justify the Modi era, set to last a decade as per the moratorium on casteist and social unrest Modi had sought in his speech on 15 August last year. Therefore, Mr. Modi’s “Behave or else” speech, is also a “Behave and I will be the saviour”  speech. 

Finally, is Mr. Modi’s “appeal to all religious groups to act with restraint, mutual respect, and tolerance in the true spirit of this ancient nation which is manifest in our Constitution and is in line with the Hague Declaration.” The reference to the Hague Declaration is to guide the Christians in his audience. The reference to the Constitution presumably is to inspire Muslims, for whom their religion’s intrinsic resources are presumably not enough. The “true spirit of ancient nation” as guide is perhaps intended for the majority. Whereas Hinduism is notably tolerant, its political avatar, Hindutva, as with political usage of any religion, is certainly not so.

It would not do to attribute this speech to Mr. Modi’s speech-writer alone. It cannot readily be said that while Mr. Modi has turned a new leaf, his speech-writer is still stuck in the Vivekananda International Foundation groove. These are very well Mr. Modi’s own sentiments. He cannot be blamed for inconsistency. Since future events may make of this a landmark speech, it is as important that it is neither misconstrued nor misunderstood.

That said, there is no reason for Muslim Indians to give scope to the government to come down “strongly” on them. Nor need they practice tolerance because Mr. Modi is a late convert to it, but must continue to do so because it is both strategic and a religious duty. Clearly, there is no place for violence. Such recourse will leave Mr. Modi only one option: to put his money where his mouth is and instead come down “strongly” on his support base. Mr. Modi may like to tune into his one-man-army cheerleader, Mr. Bhagat’s latest piece of advice: “Shut up regressive Hindutva fanatics.”