INDIA'S DEAFENING SILENCE ON THE TUMULT IN THE ARAB WORLD

By

SUSHANT SAREEN

"The worst place in hell is reserved for those who remain neutral during a moral crisis": Dante

At a time when there is great tumult in the entire Arab world, India's continuing silence on the developments in a region of critical strategic and political importance is not just inexplicable but also deafening. Whether this is borne out of abundant caution or a natural proclivity for fence sitting until the situation crystallises, or even the result of an increasing tendency in Indian diplomacy to wait for a cue from the Western world (read USA), is not quite clear. Whatever the case, given India's immense stakes in the political developments in West Asia and North Africa, there is a need to articulate India's policy and position on the events sweeping through the Arab world. The big challenge for Indian diplomacy today is to correctly read the unfolding events across the Arab world and take positions that protect India's vital national interests. In other words, India will have to identify with the popular aspirations of the peoples, but without burning its bridges with the rulers and establishments of these countries.

It is quite clear by now that the uprising in Tunisia has unleashed a domino effect that is being felt across the length and breadth of the entire Arab world. From Morocco to Iran and from Syria to Yemen, autocratic and authoritarian regimes are being challenged by their peoples like never before. While strongmen in Tunisia and Egypt have been swept aside by peoples uprising, potentates in Yemen, Libya, Sudan and Bahrain are appearing increasing shaky. Other countries like Morocco, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia have also seen protests, which could easily snowball into uprisings. There appear to be two broad options before the rulers in the Arab world: either introduce political reform or else resort to even greater repression.

Chances are that while some rulers will take the reform road, others will prefer to take the repressive path. There is however no guarantee as to what will work in which country. This means that while reforms will successfully lead to an orderly transition to a more liberal, open and progressive order in some countries, it could just as well unravel the delicate social and political balance in other countries. Similarly, repression might be successful in stalling cries for reform and bottling up dissent in some countries for some more time, but could also lead to greater chaos and anarchy in other countries.

That there is no one-size-fits-all solution available means that India too must avoid diplomatic prescriptions of the one-size-fits-all variety. This means Indian diplomacy will have to correctly read the tea leaves and make assessments as to what will happen where, on the basis of which the Indian government will have to take more forthright positions. Of course, before taking any position, India will need to first define pragmatically where its interest lie. It is entirely possible that in some countries where repression is employed to keep radical Islamists at bay, India supports the regime. But in other countries where regimes' use the bogey of either radical Islam or 'foreign hand' to repress liberal and progressive forces, India weighs in against the regime. Essentially, there are too many permutations and combinations likely and India needs to treat each country sui generis because despite the cultural and civilizational unity of the Arab world, the political dynamics and drivers in every Arab country are different and will play a critical role in determining the political outcome in different countries.

As things stand, the situation in the entire Arab world remains very fluid and it is not quite clear which regimes will retain their control and which will be replaced. Where regimes are replaced, what will they be replaced by is another question which has no easy and ready answer. Will the transitions be smooth or will there be great chaos and anarchy leading to unravelling of the state which then either breaks into new states or gives way to a tribal confederacy or descends into a Somalia type of warlordism? Are the uprisings being driven by Islamism or by the desire for greater political freedom and will the autocracies give way to democratic forces or to Islamists? Or will it be merely a change of face, with one autocrat being replaced by his clone with no change in the 'system'? Will Kingdoms like Jordan, Morocco and Bahrain plough a different political trajectory from dictatorships like Yemen, Libya and Syria? These and numerous such questions are what the Indian diplomats and academics should be answering to help the government come up with a cogent and coherent policy, as well as response, to the unfolding situation.

Despite the self-inflicted shrinking role of Indian diplomacy in global politics which is probably a fallout of the shift in focus to economic diplomacy and the neglect of all other aspects of international diplomacy, India cannot afford to be a mute spectator of developments in the Arab world. Merely issuing pro forma statements – expressing 'pain and shock' over detention and attack on journalists, 'hoping' that the situation in Egypt is 'resolved in a peaceful manner, in the best interests of the people of Egypt' and then 'welcoming' the decision of Hosni Mubarak to resign and 'welcoming the commitment of the Supreme Council...to establish and open and democratic framework of governance' – is hardly enough, even less so given the fact that many Arab nations look to India as a friend, philosopher and guide to make a transition from authoritarianism to democracy. Instead of banal statements, India probably needs to take a more pro-active stance to assist in this transition process, because the shape of future dispensations in the Arab world will have a significant bearing on the India's own stability, security and economic well-being.

For over millennia, India has felt the impact of every major political development in the Arab world. In today's globalised world, the effects of changes in West Asia and North Africa are likely to be even more immediate and far-reaching. The bulk of India's fuel supplies come from this region. Millions of Indian expatriates are settled in these countries from where they send money back home. The Arab world is one of India's largest export markets. Politically, any radicalisation in this region is bound to have an impact on the Indian Muslims, evidence of which we are already seeing in parts of the country from where a large Indian diaspora has gone to the West Asia.

The challenge for India is therefore to forge a policy that balances its economic and political interests (including its extremely beneficial ties with Israel) with its moral and ideological commitment to a democratic, pluralistic and progressive political system. Equally important, such a policy will need to be variegated according to the unique circumstances prevailing in each of the countries of the region. But being a mealy mouthed fence sitter is not an option for a country aspiring to play a major role on the world stage.

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    <1175 Words>                    24^th February, 2011

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'FIXING' THE BETS

By

SUSHANT SAREEN

    Even though the shadow of the 'spot fixing' scandal, which led to the suspension by the ICC of three top Pakistani cricketers, will be hanging over the cricket World Cup, it is not going to be enough to dissuade the bookies from 'fixing' the odds and taking bets on each and every match that will be played during the World Cup. After all, the World Cup is the biggest event in cricket and the bookmakers are not going to let anything come in the way – the law being only a minor inconvenience, easily circumvented – to rake in the big bucks. Just as officially, record monies are going to be involved in terms of sponsorships, TV rights and what have you, cricket betting too is expected to break new records even though there will be 'nothing official about it'. In fact, despite not being legal in South Asia, betting has pretty much become such an integral part of the business of the game that it has almost acquired the status of becoming a part of the extended merchandising industry associated with cricket.

    Unfortunately, in the subcontinent, which is today the Mecca of the cricket world, betting and bookmaking are held synonymous with 'match fixing'. Whether this is a sign of the growing lack of common sense or the outcome of the murder of English language in South Asia, the fact remains that these are two entirely different things. The fixing of matches is of course linked to the betting industry. But to extrapolate this to label all betting as match fixing is ridiculous. In a sense, cricket betting can be compared to the stock market. Match fixing is to betting what insider trading and market manipulation to make super-normal profits is to the stock market – essentially a criminal activity.

The problem is that the huge sums of money involved in cricket betting, coupled with the fact that owing to the legal ban on cricket betting it is completely an underground activity (and hence controlled by the underworld), has meant that the incentive for cheating is that much greater. Since there is no transparency in the betting industry, it becomes so much easier to 'fix' the outcome of a game and make enormous profits. And this is where the players get sucked in the vortex because games cannot be fixed without buying out players who can be game-changers.

But the seriousness shown by the ICC in the spot-fixing case, the spate of sting operations ensnaring cricketers, the hawk-eye that is likely to be kept by the law enforcement agencies on all players in the tournament, the procedures laid down for restricting contact with players are all going to make it very difficult to buy out players (who too will be extremely cautious) to make them throw matches in the current World Cup. Unless, of course, the 'setting' has already been done, which appears to be just too long a shot to be possible. Therefore, the odds are that matches will not be fixed during the current World Cup. Even betting innovations like spot-fixing are unlikely. But does this mean that there will be no betting? Far from it, betting will in all likelihood touch new heights both in terms of money and variety (runs per over, number of no balls in a match, number of fours and sixes, you name it and you can place a bet on it).

The bookmakers would have already put in place their systems and would have deployed the latest technology to ensure that they are one step ahead of the law enforcers trying to stop them. Advances in communication technology has led to both a widening and deepening of the betting industry and introduced new and innovative 'instruments' of betting. From a time when bets were placed on chits and for the whole match to the use of pagers and then mobile phones to now when bets can be placed on every ball and in a secure chat room on the internet, there has been a virtual revolution in this industry. What new innovation will be used this time remains to be seen.

Leaving aside the mens rea behind fixing matches, the fact remains that working out the odds in a cricket match is a highly technical job which involves evaluating bench strengths of teams, form of players, playing conditions (weather, pitch etc. and depending on this the toss and the decision on whether to bat or field), crowd support – the list is endless. Crunching all these factors into numbers to work out the odds and to keep changing the odds as the game proceeds would be challenging for even a trained actuary. The trouble is that since betting is considered illegal, the information that bookmakers require to fix the odds comes at a premium and anyone parting with such relatively harmless information (which is technically not a state secret and is known to people like the ground staff or met department etc) becomes an accessory to the crime especially since the law enforcement machinery in India proceeds on the presumption that 'all betting is setting'. But then why is betting on horse-racing allowed? After all, there are instances of horse races also being fixed.

If only the governments in South Asia were to give up their antiquated notions of guarding public morality and legalise betting, the fascinating world of cricket betting would become far more transparent and would actually earn revenue for the game and the states. Would that end the phenomenon of match fixing? Certainly not, because someone somewhere (including players) will always try to make a quick buck by short-circuiting the system. But remember, there are far fewer cases of match fixing in countries like England, Australia and South Africa where betting is legalised than in countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka where it is illegal. Perhaps the time has come where a more liberalised attitude should be adopted on the issue of betting, and at the same time no mercy whatsoever should be shown to any player found to be indulging in throwing matches or spot fixing.

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    <1025 Words>                         17^th February, 2011

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SHARM-EL-SHEIKH LIKE SURRENDER IN THIMPHU

By

SUSHANT SAREEN

    Cut through the claptrap of diplomatese and it is clear that the Manmohan Singh government has accepted all of Pakistan's demands and put the Composite Dialogue back on the rails; only the word 'composite' will be replaced by words like 'comprehensive', 'continuous', and 'constructive' to put a positive spin on what is clearly a capitulation by India. Given the track record of the Manmohan Singh led dispensation's policy on Pakistan, the complete about turn made by the Indian government on the commitment and assurance given to the Indian people that it would not get back to the Composite Dialogue framework until the perpetrators and plotters of the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai were brought to justice, should come as no surprise.

Within weeks of the 26/11 attacks, it had become apparent that the Indian Prime Minister was desperate to restart the dialogue with Pakistan and was willing to do anything and pay any price to this end. The Sharm-el-Sheikh joint statement, in which the Indian Prime Minister pulled out all stops to appease the Pakistanis, stands as testimony to the Indian government's feckless approach to putting an end to cross-border terrorism emanating from Pakistan. Even the insult heaped on the Indian External Affairs Minister, SM Krishna, by his Pakistani counterpart in Islamabad last July did not dissuade the Indian Prime Minister to stop committing the folly of pursuing what is clearly a desultory peace track with Pakistan. In Islamabad, Krishna had practically conceded on everything that the Pakistanis wanted; the only sticking point was that India wanted to save some face by not committing to any firm time line for resolving issues like Kashmir, Siachen etc. Sensing the desperation in the Indian Prime Minister to start the dialogue, the Pakistanis decided to go for broke which led to the talks collapsing. But what the Pakistanis couldn't get in Islamabad has now been given to them on a platter in Thimphu.

Fearful of a fierce reaction from the Indian public opinion, the Indian External Affairs ministry is chary of admitting that India has returned to the Composite Dialogue. It is therefore misleading the Indian public by peddling the nonsense of 'sequentially' discussing all issues that were part of the Composite Dialogue process, culminating in the visit of the Pakistani foreign minister. Pray, what else was the Composite Dialogue process? In order to sweeten the bitter pill being administered to the Indian public, issues like Kashmir and Siachen will be come later in the 'sequencing' process, by which time it is hoped that a manufactured bonhomie will make Indian public opinion amenable to a return to the Composite Dialogue (sorry, the Indian foreign secretary doesn't like 'getting stuck in terminology' and prefers to call it a return to a 'constructive' dialogue in which 'no issue will be left out').

Regardless of the reasons for Manmohan Singh's obsessive quest for improving relations with Pakistan – warding off American pressure (such "pressure" is essentially only in the mind and one can take a lesson from how successfully a bankrupt Pakistan which is completely dependent on US aid shrugs it off), winning the Nobel Prize (isn't the Prime Ministership of India a big enough prize?), economic spin-off's of South Asian peace (it is not Pakistan that stops India's progress but the dysfunctional administration and horrendously corrupt and venal political system, epitomised by the Rajas', Radias' and Kalmadis', over which he presides and protects?), to save Pakistan from its self-created jihadi monsters (if the Americans can't do this, India surely can't, nor for that matter, does Pakistan even want to be saved from them since they are Pakistan's biggest foreign exchange earner in the form of Western aid) – the manner in which the so-called peace process is being pursued by the Indian PM is likely to reaffirm Pakistan's assessment of India as a country that just doesn't have the staying power to follow through with its stated policy.

The Pakistani perception of India had been once summed up by one of their ISI chiefs – Javed Nasir, the man was behind the Mumbai blasts in 1993 – who said that 'you lick the Indians, they kick you; and if you kick the Indians they lick you'. The government's Pakistan policy has only proved the Pakistani general correct. After all, when after 26/11 the Pakistanis were begging India for a dialogue, the Indians refused; and now that the Pakistanis are kicking the Indians, the Manmohan Singh government is grovelling for a dialogue. No wonder, the Pakistanis never took Manmohan Singh seriously even after the 26/11 attacks. They adopted a two pronged approach with the Indian PM: stonewall all demands for bringing the guilty of 26/11 attacks to justice and at the same time heap him with compliments – visionary, statesman etc. – which will seduce him to forget the massacre of Indians by Pakistani terrorists and bring him scurrying back to the dialogue table.

But even the Pakistanis would have been surprised by the timing of the initiatives taken by India to get back to the talks table. The invitation to the Pakistan foreign secretary last year came against the backdrop of the London Conference on Afghanistan which had got the Pakistanis all excited and flush with misplaced triumphalism that their double game in Afghanistan had succeeded and that India's willingness to resume the dialogue was a sign of its weakness. This year the talks took place a couple of days after the Pakistanis observed the Kashmir Solidarity day, a day on which jihadi terrorists like the Lashkar-e-Taiba held rallies in the heart of every major city of Pakistan and openly threatening nuclear jihad on India.

For the Indian foreign secretary to call the Lashkar-e-Taiba chief, Hafiz Saeed, 'an inconsequential person' smacks of an unfortunate lack of understanding of the reality in Pakistan. The fact of the matter is that Hafiz Saeed is the most important man in Pakistan, and his power is comparable to that of the army chief. He has today become the symbol of that country and every institution of the Pakistani state – the judiciary, the army, the political parties, and the media – go out of their way to protect and defend him. His significance can be gauged by the fact that even the Pakistan army is afraid of acting against him.

But it is not just the actions of Hafiz Saeed which the Manmohan Singh government wishes to turn a blind eye; in order to create a conducive climate for the dialogue, the Indian foreign secretary has been desperately brushing under the carpet the stream of vitriol pouring out from the Pakistani foreign office over the last few months. Surely, the Pakistani foreign office must be touched by the enormous understanding that the Indian foreign secretary has shown for their compulsion to bad-mouth India. Interestingly, even as the foreign secretary says that it would be unrealistic to expect her Pakistani counterpart to criticise his spokesman or his foreign minister, she was most ready to accept the Pakistani foreign secretary's assurance that "the Pakistan army was on board to take these talks forward". Worse, this was offered to the Indian media as something that would lend weight to the dialogue between the two countries. Did she actually expect her Pakistani counterpart to say that the Pakistan army was not on board? Nor did she bother to explain why, if the Pakistan army is so keen on talks, the entire infrastructure of terrorism directed against India has been reactivated by them.

Even if we ignore all these inconvenient facts, surely the people of India need to know what action has been taken by the Pakistani authorities against the patrons of the 26/11 attacks. What has happened in the last six months that India feels that Pakistan has done enough to warrant a return to the Composite Dialogue? If anything, reports in the Pakistani press have revealed that the Pakistanis have warned India that the accused standing trial in Pakistan for their involvement in the 26/11 attacks are going to be released by the Pakistani courts if permission is not given to the judicial commission formed by Pakistan to examine Indian officials who investigated the 26/11 attacks.

The Indian people also need to know what the Manmohan Singh government expects to achieve from the dialogue from Pakistan. Stories doing the rounds in New Delhi hint at a compromise on the issue of Siachen. If there is an iota of truth in these stories then this obsession of normalising of relations with Pakistan, even if this is at the cost of India's territorial unity and integrity, is acquiring dangerous dimensions. While peace and friendship are entirely desirable objectives, they are not an end in themselves. The Indian people need to be informed as to what we hope to achieve from peace and normalisation with Pakistan and whether the price that is being demanded off India in terms of a compromise in its core national interest, self-respect and dignity is worth it.

As things stand, if the current dispensation doesn't give up its non-serious and cavalier approach to issues of vital national security, then it is only a matter of time that another 26/11 type of attack is repeated in India. And going by the namby-pamby approach of this government, it should be clear that all the talk of India being forced to retaliate in the event of another major terrorist attack is nothing but an empty boast. As long as this government is in power, the terrorists and their sponsors know that India will retaliate only by threatening to retaliate.

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<1595 Words>                     10^th February, 2011

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WHAT PAKISTAN HAS DONE TO THE PASHTUNS

By

Sushant Sareen

    For a country that never tires championing the cause of Afghan Pashtuns and eulogising the valour and traditions of Pakistani Pashtuns, the warped strategic vision of the national security state structure of Pakistan has inflicted the greatest damage to the identity, society, culture, traditions and most of all, posterity, of the Pashtuns. On the pretext of fighting for their interests, the Punjabi dominated Pakistani establishment has systematically reduced a once proud Pashtun community into pawns on the strategic chess-board.

Since 1947, either by design or by default, the policy framework adopted by the Pakistani establishment has only recognised either ultra-conservative Muslim nationalists or radical Islamists as the 'sole spokesmen' of the Pashtuns. Take for instance the Taliban: it is not the Pashtun ethnicity of the Taliban that makes Pakistan support them; it is the Islamist ideology of the Taliban - an ideology that rejects ethnic identity – that has so endeared the Taliban to the Pakistani establishment. In other words, Pakistan is backing the Taliban not so much because they represent Pashtun nationalism but because they reject Pashtun nationalism, which since Partition has been a bugbear of the Punjabi dominated Pakistani establishment. In the Pakistani scheme of things, anything that emphasizes Pashtun identity, culture, language, traditions must be suppressed or metamorphosed to serve the Punjab determined interests of Pakistan.

    It is in large part for this reason why the Pakistanis kept the Pashtun Tribal belt as a sort of anthropological zoo where the social, cultural, educational and political development of the people remained medieval even as adjoining areas – the so-called 'settled areas' – showed some semblance of modernity. To an extent, this Pakistani policy of making FATA into a 'reservation' gained legitimacy from the needless romanticization of Pashtun tribalism by the British who portrayed the Pashtuns as free-spirited, noble savages who lived by their own code of ethics and tolerated no attempt to curb their autonomy, much less their independence. The natural consequence of letting FATA become the 'wild west' of Pakistan was that it remained under-developed, under-educated and under-represented. Among the worst sufferers were women who were treated no better than chattels.

With no economic activity worth the name, FATA transformed into a haven for criminals from all over Pakistan who sought refuge in this area and conducted their nefarious trade – smuggling, gun-running, narcotics, kidnapping, car theft etc – with complete impunity. Administratively, FATA was a dark zone lorded over by a rapacious and unaccountable local bureaucracy that trampled human rights of the people under the draconian Frontier Crimes Regulation. By not allowing political parties to operate in FATA, the Pakistani establishment sought to depoliticize the region. The vacuum thus created was filled by the nexus between the mafia and the mullah, which suited the Pakistani establishment perfectly as it allowed the exploitation of the Pashtun tribesmen as cannon fodder for the various misadventures of the Pakistani state, starting with the 'tribal invasion' of Jammu and Kashmir in 1947 and culminating with the rise of the Taliban in the 1990's.

The policies of the Pakistani establishment, or what a Pakistani columnist calls 'deep state', were equally pernicious in the so-called 'settled areas' – the province of NWFP which has now been renamed Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. From the hounding of the liberal, secular Khudai Khidmatgars to the electoral manipulation that led to the formation of the MMA government in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the Pakistani establishment has done everything to push the Pashtun's into the dark ages and sully their image around the world. Even when the ANP and PPP were allowed to form the government, it was more because it suited the interest of the establishment. But circumstances were created to ensure that the ANP-PPP government was unable to function properly because of the insurgency in the province, which led to effective control over the province passing back into the hands of the 'deep state'. In effect, the military operations in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa have disenfranchised the Pashtuns.

The effect of the 'deep state's' policies, tactics and strategy on the Afghan Pashtuns has been nothing short of cataclysmic and is epitomised by Pakistan's support for the barbaric Taliban. Pakistan could have changed course after the liberation of Afghanistan from the yoke of the Taliban following 9/11 attacks in the US. But the Pakistani strategists were not ready to let go of their Islamist proxies who they considered as guarantors of their quest for 'strategic depth' in Afghanistan. After allowing the Taliban to recover and regroup for a couple of years after 9/11, Pakistan unleashed them on Afghanistan from around 2004. Needless to say, the brunt of the Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan was felt in the Pashtun dominated areas in the south and east of the country. By directing the Taliban attacks on aid and development workers, the Pakistanis were in effect ensuring that the Pashtun belt lagged behind other parts of Afghanistan where reconstruction activity was taking place at a feverish pace.

The deprivation of the Pashtuns was a deliberate policy aimed at enhancing the sense of grievance and alienation among the Pashtuns and introducing a vicious cycle in which terror strikes on development activity led to a halt in reconstruction work, which in turn impaired development of the Pashtun areas and resulted in growing anger among the people who felt they were being marginalised by the non-Pashtun dominated dispensation in Kabul. This anger was exploited by the Taliban to win over support from local communities which led to a further deterioration in the security situation. The Taliban also ensured that all efforts at providing governance in the Pashtun areas came a cropper. The direct impact of the relentless targeting of government officials was to render the administration dysfunctional and the resultant vacuum was filled by the Taliban who set up their own parallel administration for dispensing what they called justice and settling disputes between members of local communities.

The destruction of the schools and denial of education to girls was an essential part of the war on the Pashtun people. The only purpose of attacking the schools was to deny the future generations of Pashtuns even a modicum of secular education that would equip them to walk in step with rest of the world. As far as the Taliban are concerned, the Pashtun children did not need anything more than a grounding in religion through a madrassa education. The fact that madrassa educated Pashtuns could neither compete nor coexist with other ethnic groups is perhaps part of the calculus of denying the Pashtuns a proper education.

At the political level also, the Taliban have ensured the marginalisation of the Pashtuns by coercing them to not participate in the elections. With many Pashtuns not casting their votes in the recently concluded parliamentary polls, candidates belonging to non-Pashtun ethnic groups managed to win even in Pashtun dominated areas. For instance, in Ghazni, the Hazaras managed to win most of the parliamentary seats because of the low voter turnout among the Pashtuns. In the Afghan National Army and Police, all efforts to correct the ethnic imbalance by increasing the Pashtun representation has been stymied by the Taliban and their Pakistani backers who have threatened the Pashtuns with reprisals against their families and communities if they joined the ANA and ANP.

The havoc wrought on the Pashtuns by the Pakistani sponsored and supported Taliban and the systematic infusion of radical Islamist ideology in the Pashtun areas has made every Pashtun a suspect in the eyes of not only other ethnic groups in Afghanistan but also in rest of the world. The Pashtun areas are today seen as a zone of global instability and an epicentre of global terrorism. Ironically, in their compulsive obsession to control the Pashtun politics and prevent any assertion of Pashtun nationalism, Pakistan may have created a situation where regardless of whether the Taliban come to power in Afghanistan or there is the emergence of a Pashtun dominated entity in that country, the ramifications for Pakistan will be extremely serious. The impact of both a radical Islamist Taliban dispensation in Afghanistan or a virtual partition of Afghanistan with a 'Pashtunistan' straddling the border with Pakistan could well lead to the unravelling of the Pakistani state as we know it. The only way to avoid such a development is for Pakistan to end its double game with the Pashtuns and the Americans and allow the emergence of a liberal, progressive and secular Pashtun leadership in Afghanistan, a leadership which is at peace with other ethnic groups inside Afghanistan and is friendly with other countries in the region.

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    <1450 Words>                         3^rd February, 2011

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