After left-liberals, Muslim are next

The Milli Gazette Online

Published Online: Feb 23, 2016

http://www.milligazette.com/news/13822-after-left-liberals-muslim-are-next

The ongoing fight for India’s educational spaces is easy to explain. Placing the left-liberals on the back-foot is essential for the RSS combine and the ruling party. For the RSS combine it is to wrest the intellectual space and for the ruling party to silence embarrassing questions and observations on its governance. For both, subduing this constituency is a necessary step in the shaping of the battlefield for the application of Hindutva to changing India yet to come.

For readers of this journal, who shall be subject of the ‘yet to come’ Hindutva measures, the pertinent aspect of prime time news today is the wearing down of their first line of defence. India’s Muslims are safe in India owing to liberal Hindus. Their standing up to the right wing extremists is a trench line behind which India’s Muslims breath easily. Reckoning as much, the Hindutva brigade is out to wrest them from their holdouts.

Obviously, India’s Muslims cannot be bystanders, for it is their own fortifications that are being whittled. They will surely be the next targets, once the conscience of the nation in the form of left-liberal opinion has been deterred into silence. This is not to say that Indian Muslims are already not facing the brunt. The various campaigns of beef ban, love jihad and ghar wapsi are testimony. The fact is that these and plenty of Hindutva to come yet will be further emboldened.

The left-liberals through their fight back on campuses across the country, return of awards and constant red flagging of Hindutva initiatives were punching above their weight. Not only was this hurting Mr. Modi’s aura, projected abroad, but also the electoral prospects of his party within. It is not as if Rahul Gandhi’s following of his political instincts by turning up at campuses likely scares the regime. However, with both the economy and polity being more demanding than a talent-challenged cabinet could deliver on, there was a need to stifle the constant sniping by left-liberals from the educational spaces and the media.

The well-worn principle of the intelligence game - impose on one to frighten the rest - is in play. Teesta Setalvad, Arundhati Roy and now Kanhaiya Kumar are examples. It is not for the first time Mr. Modi busies himself inaugurating the likes of Make in India and Rurban initiatives even as he maintains his telling silence. To believe that there are two scripts at play in face of such consistency would be naïve.

Clearly, making sense of the happenings is easier than thinking through what to do about them. The events in Patiala House courts bring home the predicament of the Muslim youth accused of terrorism elsewhere in provincial and lower courts where there is little reach of the national media and where media is present it is of the Hindutva persuasion. There are dozens of Vikram Singh Chouhan equivalents with their ties, as those of Chouhan, extending up the political food chain of the far right. There also are OP Sharma-like legislators, waiting to exult in impunity. India is now replicating Modi’s Gujarat.

Only awaited are national level Maya Kodnani look-alikes and these would not be long in coming once the UP election comes into view. The tactics are already bare. The attempted sullying of Umar Khalid and Kanhaiya Kumar with a terrorist and Pakistani connection makes this clear. The allegation of ABVP serving as agent provocateurs in their ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ chants shows how easily a case can be manufactured for a crackdown.

There is no cause for alarm that the left-liberals will go under easily. Currently, they are on a roll in a counter attack that is seeing their ranks swell from Delhi to Jadhavpur. If the levels of fight back sustain and translate into electoral roll back of the BJP, begun in Delhi and impelled further in Bihar, into the forthcoming elections in east India, it would decisively push back the enemy at the gates. However, till then, which means till year end, there is reason for being alert.

Both the academia and media are now divided. The push back from the right wing cannot be too long in coming. The newly appointed VCs in both Hyderabad University and JNU have right wing backing. To counter the Sardesai-Dutt-Varadarajan camp, there is the one-man-army, Arnab Goswami. The manner the Delhi police over-reacted indicates the levels to which officialdom is ready to stoop. The liberal intelligentsia is only a fraction in terms of numbers and shrillness of devotees of Messiah Modi. The latter want the Gujarat model, warts and all. The Left parties are in hibernation and the Congress searching for a leading light. This brief survey of relative strength suggests that even in case the left-liberals win this round, they would stand exhausted for the multiple fights on several fronts yet to come.

What is the state of play on the Indian Muslims front? They stand divided. The Barelvis are being propped up in state-funded gatherings to rile against those perceived as Wahabis. A Modi acolyte is Chancellor of a university. The two great universities, AMU and JMI, have been outflanked by the Center’s changed stance on their minority status. Muslim electorates are being enticed by communitarian parties such as the MIM, which for its relative gains appears willing to overlook absolute gains by the right wing party at the cost of regional and national parties. While the Vice President has on occasions voiced his concerns discreetly and courageously, there is little efficacious word from the Muslim political spectrum on the latest controversy.

Finally, there is the pull of the strategy argument that staying out will keep the right wing from maligning the liberal-left spectrum as Muslim ‘appeasers’. Staying out would keep the right wing from playing the religion card. This is a battle for the soul of Hinduism as a tolerant religion much as it is of India. Therefore, the Hindus need to expose and marginalize their home-grown extremists and wrest Hinduism back to safety.

In summation, it can be said that yet another episode in the expansion of right wing’s control of India is ongoing. This time round the stakes are rather high since silencing the left-liberals would be to mute a critique itself. This for India’s Muslims could prove an existential loss, since they serve as our shield. It stands to reason then that a view needs to be taken of our involvement, levels of this and proceeding expeditiously with its rolling out.

Ram Madhav's Akhand Bharat and Modi’s Pakistan policy

http://www.milligazette.com/news/13543-ram-madhavs-akhand-bharat-and-modis-pakistan-policy



In his appearance at Al Jazeera’s Head to Head programme with Mehdi Hasan, Ram Madhav has let on that the RSS agenda is Akhand Bharat. By way of explanation, he had it that this would be a cultural or civilisational reunion, a willing one and not one by force or conquest.

While on the surface there is little to take umbrage in such an aspiration of regional integration, the devil as they say is in the details.

Indeed, this analyst had made a case for a regional union in an earlier piece in this publication, arguing that this would be beneficial not only for the larger good, but also for Muslim security. Security in numbers would be feasible with the addition of Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslims sharing a regional affinity and affiliation with India’s Muslims; and therefore restoring the original balance between the communities in the subcontinent. Hindus for their part would be preserved from a takeover by the ideology of Hindutva, that, according to Madhav posits, ‘one culture, one people, one nation’, putting paid to the time-honoured notion of ‘unity in diversity’.

Since the RSS is the power behind the ruling party in the government today, it can be understood that the government would be doing its bidding on this front too. Such action need not be up front and may be sequenced behind other priorities such as ushering in ‘acche din’, but cannot be overlooked as a potential lodestar for the government.

The RSS is already clearly at it in what is called its ‘Semitisation’ of Hinduism. The emphasis on the Bhagwad Gita; the return of Brahmanical rituals which even foreign visiting heads of state are now subjected to on the banks of the Ganga; turning up of bricks at Ayodhya to provide Hinduism its very own Mecca; return to the ‘give us three mosques’ formula through their Rasputin, Subramaniam Swamy, etc. are examples.

Ram Madhav takes this a step further in his sometimes comical performance at the Oxford Union.

With an India centralized along Hindutva lines, the next step would be gaining control of the subcontinent. To Madhav, it would be a return to 1200 years ago. He referred to the manner the Balochis and Sindhis allegedly view Pakistan. It appears he believes they are ripe for insurrection, leading to a break up of Pakistan. This would then perhaps yield up the Akhand Bharat of his dreams. Presumably, the Hindus united under a saffron flag and Muslims ethnically at each other’s throats, would enable Akhand Bharat.

It is apparent that there are differing versions of Akhand Bharat. One is institutional along the lines of the European Union in which the sovereign states get together voluntarily to increase their collective prosperity and security through agreed upon rules, laws, procedures and institutions. There is little to argue in this, with SAARC serving as a proto South Asian Union for the future. The second version is that of the RSS as articulated by Ram Madhav, in which accession to an Indian (read Hindu) dominated region state is brought about by the dismemberment (for a second time round following the first one in 1971) of Pakistan.

Given that the ruling party in the government may be sharing the RSS view, if covertly, it bears discerning if this is so and to what extent. There is little doubt that the SAARC is currently the least effective regional organisation in the world and South Asia is the least integrated region. The India-Pakistan rivalry is at the root of this, and much of the blame can easily be laid at Pakistan’s door. For instance, it denies India MFN status; prevents its access by land to Afghanistan; and is the fount of terrorism in the region. India for its part is the core of South Asia and not wanting to be ‘big brother’ allows for a leisured pace in regional integration, lest any haste on its part is misinterpreted by its smaller neighbours who may then renege or bandwagon with China. Nevertheless, India is staying the course, best evidenced by the possibility of Mr. Modi heading for Islamabad come September for the SAARC summit, given life by his flying visit to Lahore for Nawaz Sharif last Christmas. That is indeed the way to go in so far as a measured way to a regional identity goes.

However, in case this is complicated by Hindutva’s ideological shadow over India’s motives, reaching further would be unlikely.

To what extent is there an ideological shadow over India’s Pakistan policy? From the contretemps surrounding the Pathankot terror attack early this month, it is not entirely certain that the latest twist in India’s Pakistan policy is uncontaminated by ideology. While well wishers of peace would like to believe that Mr. Modi’s initiative is in the tradition of Vajpayee’s politically bold reaching out, the initiative must nevertheless be subject to hard-headed analysis as to motives, next steps and potential outcomes.

Mr. Modi has gone overboard in courting Mr. Sharif. In doing so he is opening up a schism between ‘official’ Pakistan and its ‘deep state’. Whereas in this round of détente between India and Pakistan, there are all indications that the Pakistani army is on board, the pace of this and seizure of initiative by Mr. Modi on this would lend it pause. In India’s establishment version of the Pathankot terror episode, the deep state has struck back. Using the opportunity, India at the time of writing has indicated that it would not proceed with the foreign secretary talks until Pakistan cracks down on the Jaish-e Mohammad, which India says is behind the attack. This tough line enables India to open up yet another schiIn his appearance at Al Jazeera’s Head to Head programme with Mehdi Hasan, Ram Madhav has let on that the RSS agenda is Akhand Bharat. By way of explanation, he had it that this would be a cultural or civilisational reunion, a willing one and not one by force or conquest.

While on the surface there is little to take umbrage in such an aspiration of regional integration, the devil as they say is in the details.

Indeed, this analyst had made a case for a regional union in an earlier piece in this publication, arguing that this would be beneficial not only for the larger good, but also for Muslim security. Security in numbers would be feasible with the addition of Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslims sharing a regional affinity and affiliation with India’s Muslims; and therefore restoring the original balance between the communities in the subcontinent. Hindus for their part would be preserved from a takeover by the ideology of Hindutva, that, according to Madhav posits, ‘one culture, one people, one nation’, putting paid to the time-honoured notion of ‘unity in diversity’.

Since the RSS is the power behind the ruling party in the government today, it can be understood that the government would be doing its bidding on this front too. Such action need not be up front and may be sequenced behind other priorities such as ushering in ‘acche din’, but cannot be overlooked as a potential lodestar for the government.

The RSS is already clearly at it in what is called its ‘Semitisation’ of Hinduism. The emphasis on the Bhagwad Gita; the return of Brahmanical rituals which even foreign visiting heads of state are now subjected to on the banks of the Ganga; turning up of bricks at Ayodhya to provide Hinduism its very own Mecca; return to the ‘give us three mosques’ formula through their Rasputin, Subrahmanyam Swamy, etc. are examples.

Ram Madhav takes this a step further in his sometimes comical performance at the Oxford Union.

With an India centralized along Hindutva lines, the next step would be gaining control of the subcontinent. To Madhav, it would be a return to 1200 years ago. He referred to the manner the Balochis and Sindhis allegedly view Pakistan. It appears he believes they are ripe for insurrection, leading to a break up of Pakistan. This would then perhaps yield up the Akhand Bharat of his dreams. Presumably, the Hindus united under a saffron flag and Muslims ethnically at each other’s throats, would enable Akhand Bharat.

It is apparent that there are differing versions of Akhand Bharat. One is institutional along the lines of the European Union in which the sovereign states get together voluntarily to increase their collective prosperity and security through agreed upon rules, laws, procedures and institutions. There is little to argue in this, with SAARC serving as a proto South Asian Union for the future. The second version is that of the RSS as articulated by Ram Madhav, in which accession to an Indian (read Hindu) dominated region state is brought about by the dismemberment (for a second time round following the first one in 1971) of Pakistan.

Given that the ruling party in the government may be sharing the RSS view, if covertly, it bears discerning if this is so and to what extent. There is little doubt that the SAARC is currently the least effective regional organisation in the world and South Asia is the least integrated region. The India-Pakistan rivalry is at the root of this, and much of the blame can easily be laid at Pakistan’s door. For instance, it denies India MFN status; prevents its access by land to Afghanistan; and is the fount of terrorism in the region. India for its part is the core of South Asia and not wanting to be ‘big brother’ allows for a leisured pace in regional integration, lest any haste on its part is misinterpreted by its smaller neighbours who may then renege or bandwagon with China. Nevertheless, India is staying the course, best evidenced by the possibility of Mr. Modi heading for Islamabad come September for the SAARC summit, given life by his flying visit to Lahore for Nawaz Sharif last Christmas. That is indeed the way to go in so far as a measured way to a regional identity goes.

However, in case this is complicated by Hindutva’s ideological shadow over India’s motives, reaching further would be unlikely.

To what extent is there an ideological shadow over India’s Pakistan policy? From the contretemps surrounding the Pathankot terror attack early this month, it is not entirely certain that the latest twist in India’s Pakistan policy is uncontaminated by ideology. While well wishers of peace would like to believe that Mr. Modi’s initiative is in the tradition of Vajpayee’s politically bold reaching out, the initiative must nevertheless be subject to hard-headed analysis as to motives, next steps and potential outcomes.

Mr. Modi has gone overboard in courting Mr. Sharif. In doing so he is opening up a schism between ‘official’ Pakistan and its ‘deep state’. Whereas in this round of détente between India and Pakistan, there are all indications that the Pakistani army is on board, the pace of this and seizure of initiative by Mr. Modi on this would lend it pause. In India’s establishment version of the Pathankot terror episode, the deep state has struck back. Using the opportunity, India at the time of writing has indicated that it would not proceed with the foreign secretary talks until Pakistan cracks down on the Jaish-e Mohammad, which India says is behind the attack. This tough line enables India to open up yet another schism in Pakistan, between its ‘deep state’ and ‘rogue’ elements out to wreck the emerging bonhomie with India. India in one fell swoop has created two schisms between three actors.

If Pakistani hardliners are to be believed, India is behind some of the disaffection in Baluchistan and even behind some of the terrorism Pakistan has been subject to. One Pakistani analyst outshouted even Arnab Goswami to claim that the handlers of the terrorists who attacked the school in Peshawar spoke in Hindi.

In so far as all this is ‘normal’ intelligence work and is to pay back Pakistan in its own coin, it is unexceptionable. However, in so far as India’s intelligence activity is outside of checks and balances of democratic governance, such as parliamentary and executive scrutiny, then there is a problem on hand. The generation of instability in Pakistan can then be seen as the initial part of the Ram Madhav’s way to Akhand Bharat. Indeed, India’s proximity with Israel, set to grow with Mr. Modi’s impending visit there close on the heels of the President’s last year, indicates that India is borrowing from Israel’s strategy copybook of keeping its periphery in turmoil for its own security. While Israel is using the Israeli lobby in the US to make US continue generating instability across the Middle East, India is relying on its own resources. A Pakistan down the tube is in this perspective taken as in India’s interest since it would leave India without a regional irritant, if not a strategic competitor, to deal with.

This implies both Ayodhya and Lahore are interlinked. Hindutva renders India’s domestic politics and foreign policy seamless. Even as India is transformed by Hindutva in its own image, South Asia is made ripe for a takeover by such an India. Neither of the two possibilities – increasingly distinct by the day – is heartening. Though Ram Madhav has raised a spectre, he needs being thanked for prematurely letting the cat out of bag.sm in Pakistan, between its ‘deep state’ and ‘rogue’ elements out to wreck the emerging bonhomie with India. India in one fell swoop has created two schisms between three actors.

If Pakistani hardliners are to be believed, India is behind some of the disaffection in Baluchistan and even behind some of the terrorism Pakistan has been subject to. One Pakistani analyst outshouted even Arnab Goswami to claim that the handlers of the terrorists who attacked the school in Peshawar spoke in Hindi.

In so far as all this is ‘normal’ intelligence work and is to pay back Pakistan in its own coin, it is unexceptionable. However, in so far as India’s intelligence activity is outside of checks and balances of democratic governance, such as parliamentary and executive scrutiny, then there is a problem on hand. The generation of instability in Pakistan can then be seen as the initial part of the Ram Madhav’s way to Akhand Bharat. Indeed, India’s proximity with Israel, set to grow with Mr. Modi’s impending visit there close on the heels of the President’s last year, indicates that India is borrowing from Israel’s strategy copybook of keeping its periphery in turmoil for its own security. While Israel is using the Israeli lobby in the US to make US continue generating instability across the Middle East, India is relying on its own resources. A Pakistan down the tube is in this perspective taken as in India’s interest since it would leave India without a regional irritant, if not a strategic competitor, to deal with.

This implies both Ayodhya and Lahore are interlinked. Hindutva renders India’s domestic politics and foreign policy seamless. Even as India is transformed by Hindutva in its own image, South Asia is made ripe for a takeover by such an India. Neither of the two possibilities – increasingly distinct by the day – is heartening. Though Ram Madhav has raised a spectre, he needs being thanked for prematurely letting the cat out of bag.

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.  

Is Mani Shankar Aiyar right?

http://kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=46881

On a Pakistani TV channel debate, irrepressible Congress politician, Mani Shankar Aiyar, is reported as having said, “The first and the foremost thing is to remove Modi. Only then can the talks move forward. We have to wait for four more years. They (panelists) are all optimist and that we can move forward when Modi sahab is there, but I don’t think so.”

To confess, this author was one among whom Aiyar characterizes as ‘optimist’. In an article appraising Mr. Modi’s visit to Kashmir while he was electioneering early last year, the argument expressed was that Mr. Modi would be concentrating on his neo-liberal agenda in case he were to come to power. This would entail a period of stability, with its implications of relative peace with Pakistan. It would also help him further his ideological agenda, by over throwing his anti-minority image and thereby concentrating on a subtle makeover of the rest of India.

The optimist assumption that India could be more responsive to Pakistan since Mr. Modi as a ‘hindu nationalist’ did not have to watch his flanks and back has proven false. Apparently, Mr. Modi’s reference to his 56 inch chest is not enough for him to reach out to Pakistan, despite a promising beginning in bringing over Mr. Sharif to his swearing in the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhawan. This was seen as a coup for Mr. Doval, his new national security manager. Even so, both felt the need to first flex muscles, so as to suitably impress the Pakistani brass. From a position of strength thereafter, they could presumably then pursue a more placatory Pakistan policy.

The search for this position of strength has proven elusive. The grounds for this had been laid by his predecessor government. By about 2013, recognizing the diminishing marginal utility of stalling talks since Mumbai 26/11, it had been contemplating mending fences but wanted to wait it out till elections. In his very next move - the cancellation of foreign secretary talks last August - Mr. Doval put paid to a promising beginning. Thereafter, the army was given the tacit go ahead to activate the Line of Control. The deterrence message was broadcast loud and clear with two back to back military exercises in early summer, of a pivot corps and a strike corps. The year is to culminate in yet another Command exercise that though unnamed yet, is expected to be the largest this decade.

The casualty in all this has been Nawaz Sharif. He has been the voice of the pro India constituency in Pakistan. However, India having been once bitten is twice shy. Sharif’s credibility has been limited by his showing in the Kargil episode. Therefore, India is attuned to the thinking in Rawalpindi. It may be right on this, since Sharif’s national security adviser is now a former military man. The message is that if there is to be a meeting of national security advisers of the two states, as Mr. Modi and Mr. Sharif agreed to at their meeting on the sidelines of the SCO meeting in Ufa, Russia, then the military there prefers a uniformed interlocutor.

It is clear that the Pakistani brass has been unimpressed by Mr. Modi and Mr. Doval’s show of strength. It has made gains in Afghanistan, so much so that there are reports of Pakistani agents directing the fighting for Kunduz by the Taliban. It has reached out to the new Afghan regime, ending Karzai’s pro India tilt. It has presented itself as useful for a renewed peace process with the Taliban, by offering its assistance. This has made it relevant once again for the US, seeking a way out of Afghanistan, now that the Iraq front has been set alight by the IS. It has taken on the extremists within Pakistan, best evidenced by the reduction in terror attacks in KP. The talk has been for normalizing Pakistan as a nuclear state, with some caveats though. This provides a positive backdrop to the trip to Washington by its Chief Raheel Sharif.

Further, it has faced off with the Indian military on the Line of Control. Its control of the Rangers in Pakistan has enabled it to stand up to the BSF in the abutting border belt. More importantly, Pakistan’s foreign secretary has unmistakably let on that its tactical nuclear weapons are intended to deter India’s launch of ‘cold start’ operations. Drawing on its nuclear cover, it has continued its subconventional operations, expanding the scope mid-year to Udhampur and the adjacent plains in Gurdaspur. That it continues to have a finger the pie in the Valley is apparent from the martyrdom of a colonel.

It is quite obvious that Pakistan is playing with fire. But then little else can be expected from a military dominated polity. It has little to lose, being perpetually poised on the failed state status. With the new kid on the block - the IS – there are portents of worse to come. An analyst who was in the team that had at the turn of the nineties, rightly as it turned out, predicted Pakistani meddling in Kashmir under the semi-fictional scenario, Operation Topac, has painted a grim picture of an IS inclined Pakistani state expanding the scope of meddling to the rest of India.

Manmohan’s cliché that India cannot change its neighbours means that India cannot change its geographical location. It should not be read to mean that India cannot change Pakistan’s military-set self-destructive course. As a regional power with global power aspirations, it needs to first exercise its power in influencing its region. Talking about a united front against terrorism at global for a, such as most recently Mr. Modi’s address at the G20 in Turkey, can only be taken plausibly if India sets its regional house in order first. It can only then think of rushing off to tame the IS.

From the foregoing discussion of Mr. Modi’s year and more in office, it is clear that such an exercise of power cannot be military. Firstly, it has not succeeded for at least thirty years and currently is not succeeding either. Secondly, it is risky. A bunch of terrorists can potentially set of a nuclear conflagration. It would be too late to talk nostalgically of gentlemanly South Asian wars and subcontinental maturity and strategic good sense. Thirdly, the Bihar elections suggest that Mr. Modi is on notice that neither his economic nor his ideological plank is appealing for voters. If he is to have a second innings - and being young enough he can aspire so - he has to change tack.

Giving Mr. Modi the benefit of doubt even if he wanted the situation to turn out better, his support base has had other things on its mind. As seen over the last year and half, he has squandered an opportunity for taking Manmohanomics a step further – assuming that is the right direction for the economy - by allowing his supporting pseudo-cultural formation having the run of the place. Its affect in Kashmir has been in communal tension in Rajouri and more visibly the arson that led to the death of a Kashmiri truck driver over the ‘beef’ issue. Politically, the BJP half of the coalition in Kashmir has yet to unveil its agenda fully.

Clearly, the direction Mr. Modi’s must head is stark. Rein in Hindutva and concentrate on economics. The latter necessarily involves keeping Pakistan alongside. This by corollary means his next visit to the Valley must be for more than doling out money. He has four years on his side to reset course. But then, as someone has said that would be ask for a change in his stripes. Maybe on that count, Mani Shankar Aiyar unfortunately may just be right. 

Whither Modi, and, at one remove, India?

Vol. 16 No. 21 Issue Serial # 379 facebook.com/milligazette www.milligazette.com 

1-15 November 2015 

The Akhlaq murder by a lynch mob, no doubt put to its dastardly deed by political minders of the eminently political and quintessentially pseudo cultural formation, signifies India poised at a cross road. Many are looking towards its prime minister for direction. Awaiting the Bihar poll verdict, by way of which he intends consolidating his position, Mr. Modi is studiously maintaining his silence.

Knowing that the development plank can only take the BJP so far and no further in light of Nitesh Yadav’s strong credentials in that department, the mother lode of the BJP, the Hindutvavadis, has sought to make the elections plebiscitary, a ‘with us or against us’ one depending on whether you eat beef or otherwise.

Even as the Bihar electorate contemplates this, some Modi supporters are in a quandary. Those who support his Hindutva agenda are happy to continue to profit from his letting them a loose rope. Those who support both his Hindutva agenda and the development agenda now worry that the former may overshadow the latter, leaving them only partially satisfied. Even so, they would be happy if Modi is able to foster Hindutva; with any lack in development being easily blamed on the opposition. Those who support his development plank alone are aghast that the Hindutva plank has potential to truncate development. They want Mr. Modi to rein in the Hindutvavadis so that these do not prove an embarrassment to India on the world stage and keep investment away.

Of the three categories of supporters – Hinduvavadis, development minded and with both on the mind –two categories of supporters priorities Hindutva over development. This leaves only Modi supporters mindful of his development plank alone as revolted. Nevertheless, even they would likely ‘wait and see’, giving their leader the benefit of the doubt hoping that post Bihar elections, Mr. Modi will  show the  Hindutvavadis the door and concentrate on ‘acche din’.

This analysis suggests therefore that nothing has changed. Modi supporters on the basis of development are none too numerous as to count. Mr. Modi, knowing his electoral mathematics, therefore, is unlikely to pull the rug from under his own feet by reining in the Hindutva brigade. Consequently, it can be hazarded that the future can only be ‘more of the same’ in terms of Hindutva excesses, but with an admixture of development once (and if) Bihar is in Mr. Modi’s kitty.

The point for readers of this journal is that things cannot be expected to get any better. The regime is only in its second year. It cannot be expected to change tack so soon. The opposition it is receiving from the usual suspects – the liberals – will unlikely deflect it. In both cases – whether Mr. Modi and his electoral schemer Amit Shah – pull it off in Bihar or otherwise, the outcome will be the same.

In case the Bihar elections sets the stage for Mr. Modi’s capture by end next year of the upper house, then ‘acche din’ will be closer at hand. This will embolden the Hindutva lobby, legitimizing their forays.  The two sets of supporters will be ascendant; only the solely development minded will be slightly put out.

In the second case – in which Amit Shah is shown up like in the Delhi verdict – there will be little difference. In fact, since the tide will be rolling back on the so called ‘Modi wave’, the Hindutvavadis would be energized to work their potion as much as they can while they can. Mr. Modi, continuing adrift on development, would be even less inclined to stall them.

In summation, the direction of India at the cross road is easy to discern. It will continue on – or more accurately down - the Hindutva track. This is not only in Mr. Modi’s interest, but also counter-intuitively that of his opposition. They would hope that at the next hustings, Mr. Modi would trip up over the false promise of development; be exposed by Hindutva excesses; and have his development minded flock look towards them. The opposition, after all, will not want to be seen as afoul of the greater glory of Hindu culture.

If this reading of Hindutva catching momentum hereon is accurate, strategizing for such a future is necessary. The past decade and half has demonstrated that this is nothing new. The UPA interregnum, though ten years long, did not change anything. They too subscribed to soft Hindutva and allowed institutions to be subverted from within. With the incumbents pressing ahead with their Hindutva agenda unapologetically and non-hypocritically, arriving at a sound strategy has acquired urgency. Only a barebones attempt is made here.

Getting the aim right at the outset is a critical first step. Firstly, it cannot be at the cost of any more Muzaffarpurs and Akhlaqs. The sufferers will be Muslims and perpetrators will remain scot free. Secondly, we cannot afford to furnish Hindutvavadis with an excuse for confrontation, including youthful exuberance and, worse, misconceived defence of the faith by some through violence. Thirdly, it cannot be at the cost of our right to self-defence and self-respect either. Finally, it cannot be at the cost of missing the development bus this time round too. If such a bus does manage to run, Muslims must be on it. Neither must we end up as scapegoats in case it does not run.

There appear to be two options. There is the longstanding route of throwing in our lot with secular mainstream parties and lately there is the ‘Owaisi option’, of bandwagoning with a confessional party. Owaisi misses no opportunity to discuss the cons of the former and highlighting the pros of the Owaisi option. However, the underside of the Owaisi option is in political ghettoization and the ballast Hindutva acquires. The danger is also in the Owaisi option ending in a negotiated sell-out to the BJP, once it is in position to do so with a command over the Muslim vote. To weigh-in on this, the Owaisi option is currently only hype, intended by BJP media backers to polarize voters behind the BJP; leaving us with only the first option in play.

The end state must be in showing the BJP the door end decade in a manner that a makeover normalizes it as a typical conservative party. This will signal the exhaustion of Hindus with their being used as electoral cannon fodder, a vote bank; quite like the lesson Muslims have learned in the last elections. This can be brought about by Muslims staying out of the way and keeping as low as possible while Hindutva excess leads to an internal Hindu debate over their own cultural antecedents and what these portend. It is easy to see that this will not be easy since at least a portion of these excesses will be directed our way, as the Akhlaq murder testifies.

As for the strategy framing part itself, it would require awaiting the Bihar verdict and what it spells for the balance of Mr. Modi’s term. If it indicates that Mr. Modi is an undisputed champion, then a strategy of survival will have to be in place, and if Mr. Modi is shown up finally, then it has to be one of lending ballast to the mainstream opposition in its bounce back. Muslim cannot do this alone. It is not their fight. It is about how Hindus want to see India, as Mr. Modi and his legions would like them to or in the light of pluralism two millennia old.  

      

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.

---

Kashmiri Pandits: Undoing injustice

Undoing injustice to Kashmiri Pandits

Kashmir Times, Op-ed, 25 April 2015

http://kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=40277

Kashmiris have long standing and arguably genuine grievances against the Indian state. They have resorted to several ways to voice these, including militancy, as is indeed their right. However, one way in which they appear to be furthering their agenda is in keeping the displaced Kashmiri Pandits from returning to their homes and hearths. Is keeping Pandits out, one more pressure point against the Indian state?

Kashmiris would reflexively protest such an interpretation. They would claim that not only has India suppressed their voicing of their grievances but it is not they who are keeping the Pandits from returning. They believe they have extended a sincere invite to Pandits to return, but one that has not been taken up. Instead, Pandits by not returning are enabling India to have yet another stick to beat Kashmir with. Also, the manner of insertion of Pandits back into Kashmir in self-contained residential enclaves is reminiscent of Israel’s colonising behavior in occupied territory.

To Kashmiri Pandits, the idea that their expulsion is self-exile is preposterous. They have been ousted from their historical homeland now for a quarter century. Their return has been aborted by instances of continuing threat, such as the Wandhama incident. And, one that is set to continue so long as Kashmiris flirt with extremism that lingers increasingly darkly and closer with the advent of the IS that has even put the Al Qaeda into shade. Security concerns necessitate innovative measures for sustainable returns; the idea of clusters being one such.

Where does the truth lie (no pun intended)?

Clearly, there are multiple versions of the truth. There are possibly multiple truths. No version of the truth can be rejected out of hand. There may be shortfalls in the truths held by each community. As part of debate, these can be highlighted and mitigated; but their right to their version of the truth cannot be disputed. These truths are the kernel of the identity of the community and cannot be trifled with. If this bottom-line is accepted then there is scope for next steps.

The past quarter century has made amply clear that both communities have gone through enough. Kashmiris have weathered security operations ad infinitum, while Pandits have become an internally displaced people. Both have recovered somewhat with considerable peace returning to Kashmir and many Panditsfinding a new life. Balance is returning normalcy to Kashmir.

This final touch can only be through a dignified return of Pandits back in Kashmir, preferably to their original homes.The vulnerable group here being the Pandits, the Kashmiris need to take the first step.If, and since, the cluster model does not find favour with Kashmiris, there is only one alternative: enable Pandit return direct to their homes. This would be in keeping with their rhetoric.

Historical experience does not enthuse. Seldom have communities once internally displaced managed to return with dignity. Reconciliation of such an order has little precedence. In India, people displaced in violence in Assam in the nineties continue in relief camps. People who fled villages and localities in Gujarat have settled in ghettos. Some villages continue to remain empty of their minority members after the riots in UP of last year. Within in the region, minority community members facing discrimination and security threats have largely voted to leave India’s neighbouring states, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Globally, the return of many vulnerable groups who fled conflict such as in Georgia, Kosovo and Africa’s numerous conflicts, is awaited. Can it be any different in Kashmir?

This is not a task the two communities can leave to the state. If they do, the process is liable to get politicized and consequently put off. Geopolitics is liable in the state’s eye to trump human security. To it, logistics of the exercise, such as building houses for Pandits may be easier than building the conditions to make these homes. Political actors, that control the state, get to play political football with the essentially humanitarian IDP issue. Reconciliation therefore cannot be left to the state alone; even if the state has a critical role to play eventually.

Instead, center stage must be the communities themselves. They need to stop firing at each other from the shoulder of the state, with the Pandits using the center and the Kashmiris the state government.Silencing negative motivated and opportunist political actors within each respectively will be the first challenge. Politicians can manage, contain and mark time. While itself preferable to losing ground and stepping back, they cannot deliver, transform, enlighten - necessary to bridging, reaching out, striking out.

There being no Mandela, either in Kashmir or New Delhi, and life not being a fairy tale, on the face of it, it does not appear possible. Politically, separatists, while mouthing the right phrases, cannot instill confidence. They have not given up on their Pakistani connections. Currently, these are political. However, that owes in part to the vice grip that India’s military has. Security wise, till the possibility of proxy war resumption using militants as their cat’s paw is not stashed away by Pakistan, to chance a return could prove foolhardy. Logistically, illegal usurpation of property and profiting from distress sales will first have to be undone.

But more importantly, spiritually, the chasms in trust that have only deepened with time’s passage will have to be crossed. Such levels of generosity in human spirit in face of conflict and absence of leadership, both political and spiritual, are seldom reached. Even deep Sufi wellsprings,Kashmiriyatand memories of the older generation may fail to buoy. The younger generation on both sides, more religious but less spiritual, may be less inclined to be forgiving; for sustainable return, it is they who have to be incentivised.

What we are liable to see therefore is a continuing of the dance around the IDP issue. Kashmir would not be able to transit from a conflict to a post conflict society. The liberal lode will dissipate when most needed to preserve Kashmir from ill winds from West Asia transiting the Hindu Kush to draw near. What Kashmiris fear – demographic change – may consequently appear a suitable strategy option to save Kashmir from its home-grown extremists. This may even be possible to engineer in the political circumstance as shall remain operational in Delhi for the remainder of the decade. Worse, in case of conflict revisiting Kashmir, there are aplenty today counter violence methods that were only yesterday unacceptable. The examples of Chechenya, East Timor and the wars in the Middle East bear recall.

To paint such scenarios is to be strategic. To point to Kashmiris that there are roads they must not take. However, painting such dire and plausible futures, such as this, cannot draw out compassion and grace necessary for Kashmir to rise up as a post conflict society with a difference. It is up to Kashmiris to conquer themselves, subdue their baser selves for their own sake. 

the brass in a political minefield

Challenges of the brass in a political minefield

http://indiatogether.org/army-brass-caught-in-political-minefield-under-bjp-government-op-ed

The army chief at his ‘At Home’ on the occasion of Army Day on 15 January announced the donation of a day’s pay by all ranks of the army to the prime minister’s relief fund for the floods in J&K. On the face of it this is a noble gesture and has precedent in the army having similarly risen to the occasion in the aftermath of the tsunami disaster. Given that a major proportion of the army is perpetually deployed in J&K and played its usual sterling role even during the recent floods, this generous act aiming to build bridges with the Kashmiris is yet another feather in the army’s cap.

However, soon thereafter, the media reported on the intention of at least three colonel-rank officers to take the army to court over the deduction of a day’s pay without due consultation. The army for its part clarified that the idea had been mooted in last year’s army commanders’ conference and had been suitably acted on procedurally. But the sting in the media report was the contention of the unidentified colonels, one of whom reportedly stated: ‘The donations in Jammu and Kashmir have political ramifications and the Army should refrain from sending any such signals.’ 

The politics surrounding the donation escalated with a former colonel, Karan Kharb, writing in the RSS mouthpiece, the Organiser. Kharb writes that these ‘few superseded disgruntled officers and subordinates with perceived grievances’ foretell the ‘creepy rise of Fifth Columnist elements within the Armed Forces’. The author justifies the army’s decision, citing the relevant orders permitting its leadership to take such decisions on behalf of the rank and file.

While the aggrieved colonels had apparently given vent to their feelings incognito on social media, that the right wing flagship publication, Organiser, has been chosen as the forum to launch the counter attack is interesting in itself.

FOR FULL ARTICLE SEE - http://indiatogether.org/army-brass-caught-in-political-minefield-under-bjp-government-op-ed

The article in Organiser can be credited with clarifying the issue somewhat. With the publication jumping in to justify the contribution, the latter interpretation of the serving colonels’ grievance gains credence, thus implying that the ruling dispensation possibly had a hand in it. The initial discussion on the contribution took place in October when the BJP was attempting to do the impossible, its ‘Mission 44+’ plus in Kashmir. Now, it is yet again poised to do the unprecedented, govern from Srinagar.

Author Karan Kharb’s VIF-mediated links to the NSA indicate that the idea may have sprung from outside the army. Else, there is little reason for the Organiser to involve itself in the defence of the act, even though on Twitter, the author  takes pains to distance his article from the RSS, which is strange given that it appears in an RSS publication.

If this reading is true, then it implies that the apprehensions on which the aggrieved colonels acted were well-founded, even if their action itself is lacking in legitimacy. The retired colonel, likening their action to ‘insidiously planned subversion’, has given enough grounds to suspect as much.

for full article see http://indiatogether.org/army-brass-caught-in-political-minefield-under-bjp-government-op-ed

Let’s take another example from Kashmir. The army commander there had courageously taken the blame for the killings of two youth at Chattergam. He came under fire in social media apparently from serving officers and from telegenic veterans for his unprecedented apology. Consequently, he had to explain himself in a follow up demi-official letter to his commanders in wake of the terrorist attack in early December in Uri.

Explaining his act as prompted by the nuances of the changed situation in Kashmir, he reminded all not to fall ‘prey’ to the media. The army commander was evidently not acting at political behest but under the conviction, in his words, that, ‘Our Army's ethic and values, backed up by a strong military justice system, are the best in the world. These will serve to guide us and also protect us.’

Nevertheless, his action was used to wrest political advantage, as the then defence minister Arun Jaitley, on a trip to Srinagar, cited a call from the prime minister as the trigger for him to get the army to act. The prime minister on the campaign trail appropriated the credit too, stating it was ‘proof of his good intentions’.

Under the circumstances, there is ample reason to fear for institutional good health. The former foreign secretary on being shown the door has alerted all to the fact saying, ‘‘It’s not about individuals … it’s about my Ministry as an institution.’ The country’s defence research head has been put to pasture. Earlier, a string of governors owing allegiance to the previous regime were eased out. The latest is the home secretary being axed.

Arbitrary behaviour has not spared even the BJP itself, with its Delhi unit having a chief ministerial candidate parachute down on it. Clearly, if other institutions are in the firing line, being forced to fall in line, then the army cannot be too far behind in the queue.

for full article see http://indiatogether.org/army-brass-caught-in-political-minefield-under-bjp-government-op-ed

Whereas political heads can be expected to take advantage of the government’s showing on defence, the brass needs to remain ever alert to the political impeccability of their actions. That political missteps are being pointed out from within the ranks is a new phenomenon brought to fore by the ready availability of social media. It is no wonder that the brass is rightly frowning down upon its use. In the absence of such checks, the onus is on the brass to keep up the institution’s hard-earned and arguably well-deserved reputation for political impeccability.

the citizen - politicisation in the context of the indian military

Politicisation: In the context of the Indian military

By FIRDAUS AHMED

Fri May 23, 2014

http://www.thecitizen.in/politicisation-in-the-context-of-the-indian-military/

Politicisation of a military is usually uncritically accepted as ‘bad’. In the democratic scheme, politicization implies impetus within the military to displace an elected government. Since a rash of such action was visible in newly independent states across the fifties and sixties, there was a consensus in political science theory and military sociology that politicization was a negative phenomenon. In the subcontinent’s context, the experience of Pakistan and Bangladesh with political militaries more or less sealed the argument against politicization. However, a milder interpretation of politicization is in the military aligning its perspective to suit the political positions and interests of the government. This is the current threat of politicization in India. The military may be inclined to play spectator, under the professional instinct of keeping out of politics.

A third variant of politicization arises in the circumstance of the incoming government having an expansive agenda that may not be readily visible in the near term, the military would require acting as a deterrent against any fundamental changes to India’s polity that the government in keeping with its ideological inclinations may want to engineer over the long term. In this the military may end up taking on a political role, but one that is in keeping with a third interpretation of politicization that is relatively benign. In this version, in case the government attempts to reframe constitutional fundamentals, then there have to be checks and balances that include the military in last resort political role. Since other bastions of state and society may fall along the way side, the military may require standing up for India. 

The current debate in India surrounding politicization is over the propriety of the outgoing government to appoint a new chief in its final days, namely General Suhag. However, the controversy itself goes back a bit to the ‘date of birth’ controversy raked up by a former chief and recently elected legislator from Ghaziabad, retired general VK Singh. His argument was that denial of his case for a year’s extention at the helm of the army was to keep alive the proverbial ‘chain of succession’ that had been forged earlier with the appointment of General JJ Singh as chief. Since seniority and age left to retire are crucial criteria for back of the envelope calculation of the ‘chain’, it gets easy to see who are in the queue. An extention for VK Singh would then have resulted in the incumbent Chief not making it and, ditto for General Suhag. An alternative line up would then have made it.

That the government nevertheless acted the way it did is taken by those criticizing this as politicization of the military. Specifically, they are apprehensive that the government was responsive either to what it perceived as a political inclination of prospective chiefs or that of those in the alternative line up. Either it found the former relatively amenable or the latter comparatively worrisome. Amenability does not necessarily imply that those in the line-up were politically inclined, but it could even mean that they were politically neutral or could be expected to remain so. Therefore, for critics to say that either the incumbent chief or the chief designate is political is to stretch things too far.

Instead, the Manmohan Singh government would have been more inclined to be worried by political inclination of those in the alternative line up. By this reasoning, in taking a decision against that line up, by showing VK Singh the door, it was persuaded not so much by a desire to have its man in place as much as to ensure that India does not end up with an inappropriate chief. Such a chief would have been more likely to be politically inclined rather than professionally grounded, particularly when answering to a government of a different political complexion.

The danger itself is pretty old going back to the fifties when Krishna Menon sought to politicize the military through foisting on it generals acceptable to Nehru, such as general Kaul, whose names lives in the ignominy of 1962. For Nehru, the aim was perhaps to have his man – an ethnic kin  to boot – in charge so as to control the militaristic tendency that military’s in newly independent states had started showing across the then decolonizing world. Nehru, fearful of the first form of politicization, pitched for the second form of politicization in trying for a subjective control over the military through Kaul. Kaul clearly was an ‘inappropriate’ choice for it did lead to politicization with Kaul and ‘Kaul boys’ trying to outmaneuver professionals such as SD Verma, SPP Thorat, ‘Timmy’ Thimayya and not to forget, Sam Bahadur himself. In the event, both Nehru and Kaul burnt their fingers with the 1962 debacle. Not unreasonably, politicisation has thereafter got a bad name so much so that today charges of politicization are used by both sides in the current controversy to deride the other.

Therefore it behooves investigating what exactly does politicization mean in the context of the present as the hindu nationalist party, the BJP, seeks to stride up Raisina Hill to take the oath of office. The proposition here is that the BJP will try for the second form of politicization – subjective civilian control – to keep the military politically inert and create the necessary space thereby for it to go about its agenda for India that goes beyond its election related focus on development.

While a ‘normal’ government would likely prefer a politically neutral professional military, in the case of the BJP led by Mr. Modi, it is self-confessedly an ideologically inspired government coming to power not merely for tenure at the helm, but to reboot India. There is an expansive agenda of the government not readily obvious from manifestos and speeches. It can be better discerned from the program of the right wing and religion inspired political formations on whose back it has partially ridden to power.

While politicization is negative in general, in such circumstances the third variant of it may not be such a bad thing. In case the reimaging of India is pursued with the vigour that is predicted here to attend it and doing so generates instability for India as a nation and society, then there may be a case for a military to step in to deter and if necessary make such a government back track or step aside. The ability of a military to see its role in this circumstance will amount to a political judgment and action in line with this will be political action. In effect it would be politicization, but a benign one at that.

While traditional politicization with the military on horseback is not the threat, there is likely in the near term the turn to subjective civilian control of the military. This could be sooner than later in case General Suhag finds himself on the block. It could be later since the regime is set to outlast him. The military would need self-regulation not to fall for this lest over the long term it is unable to fulfill a guardian role it may be called upon to fulfill to preserve India’s constitution when majoritarian push comes to extremist shove.