Analyzing Pakistan

2011-07-02T23:20:00.000-07:00

COPPING OUT OF AFGHANISTAN

SUSHANT SAREEN

US President Barack Obama’s ‘way forward in Afghanistan’ speech should really have been titled ‘way out of Afghanistan’. Leave aside the elegance of Obama’s oratory and his steely resolve to defeat the Al Qaeda and not allow terrorist safe havens from where attacks can be planned and launched against the US and its allies, his drawdown plan – starting July, the US will pull out 10000 troops by end of the year, another 23000 by September next, and after that a steady withdrawal of troops to complete the transition of handing over security to Afghan forces by 2014 – is, in essence, a plan for an orderly retreat from Afghanistan.

Far from enhancing security in Afghanistan and rest of the world, Obama’s cop out from Afghanistan will effectively reverse the tenuous gains made by the ‘surge’. With the easing of the pressure that was being put on the Al Qaeda/Taliban forces in Afghanistan and their patrons and supporters in Pakistan, there is likely to be yet another resurgence of the Islamists in the Afpak region. What is worse, the resulting rise in Islamist violence will be inversely proportional to the determination of many of their opponents in Afghanistan and Pakistan to stand up and fight against their virulence. This is so not only because some of these purported opponents have always adopted a rather ambivalent attitude towards fighting the Taliban, but also because with the Americans trying to cut deals with the Taliban, it makes a lot more sense to switch loyalties to the perceived winners of the war.

The entire Obama plan is predicated on a few assumptions about how the situation in Afghanistan will evolve over the next couple of years. The first assumption is that after the killing of Osama bin Laden, the ties that bound the Al Qaeda and Taliban have been greatly loosened. Hence, the UN resolution delinking the Taliban from the Al Qaeda, which the Americans believe will help in pushing the ‘reconciliation process’ forward by giving an incentive to the Taliban to sever their links with the Al Qaeda and join the mainstream.

The problem with this assumption is that, one, the Taliban consider themselves as the mainstream; two, with the Americans giving the impression of throwing in the towel, there is greater incentive for the Islamists to go for broke rather than enter into power sharing deals, which in any case will be observed more in their violation; three, if even before 9/11, Mullah Omar felt that he couldn’t move against the Al Qaeda, what are the chances that now, after a decade of fighting together against a common enemy, the Taliban will give up the Al Qaeda? If anything, any move by Mullah Omar to break relations with the Al Qaeda could well end up in his being repudiated by his followers, many of whom are far more radicalised today after over a decade of close contact with the Al Qaeda.

The other faulty assumptions implicit in Obama’s speech are: a) peace in Afghanistan is not possible without a political settlement; b) since the drawdown is taking place from a ‘position of strength’, the security situation in Afghanistan will continuously improve, or at least will remain manageable, and the Afghan National Army (ANA) will be able to take over the responsibilities of the ISAF; c) while the US will withdraw the bulk of its troops, it will still maintain a few bases inside Afghanistan which will provide the necessary back up support to the ANA.

Frankly speaking, the refrain that ‘war is not a solution’ and that ‘talks is the only way out’ is utter nonsense. The fact of the matter is that talks are useful in preventing a war, not in ending a war. Wars are always decided on the battlefield, and in the minds of men. The political settlement reached on the negotiation table reflects nothing but the result achieved on the battlefield, sometimes an outright victory for one side and at other times a stalemate. Of course, there are instances where advantages gained on the battlefield have been lost on the negotiation table – Tashkent 1966 and Shimla 1972 come to mind, where India did not press home the advantage in the fond belief that its magnanimity will make Pakistan give up its compulsive hostility towards India. In the case of Afghanistan, while the war appears to be a stalemate, in reality by suing for peace with the Taliban, the Americans have tacitly conceded defeat, or at least that’s the way the Islamists will see it. Under these circumstances, the chances of any acceptable, much less long lasting, agreement being struck with the Taliban is bit of a pipedream.

The ‘position of strength’ from which the Americans are starting the drawdown is a somewhat half-baked proposition especially since the drawdown isn’t likely to be accompanied with a concomitant improvement in the security situation. On the contrary, as the US troops withdraw, the Taliban are likely to regain effective control over many of the areas which the Americans abandon. The ANA, which is still a work-in-progress, just doesn’t have the capacity to prevent a Taliban comeback. This brings us to the third assumption i.e. the US will maintain a presence – three or four military bases – in Afghanistan. This is clearly an untenable proposition. Unless the US can rid Afghanistan of the malign influence of the Taliban/Al Qaeda, it will not be able to maintain its bases in Afghanistan.

Weighed down by political and economic compulsions, perhaps the war in Afghanistan is no longer sustainable for the US. If so, then why prolong the torture for three years, and spend another $ 300 billion on a lost war? It makes more sense to follow Thomas Friedman’s advice – lose early, lose small – and put in place an alternative plan which is cheaper and more effective in controlling the global and regional fallout of a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.

Taliban ascendancy in Afghanistan will, no doubt, constitute a major setback to India’s quest for a stable and friendly Afghanistan. But India’s fears of Afghanistan once again becoming a base for terror directed against India are misdirected. This is so because any terrorism emanating from Afghanistan can enter India only through Pakistan, as indeed it did before 9/11. In other words, India’s problem is really Pakistan, not Afghanistan. It is, in fact, the malevolent impact that a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan will have on Pakistan that should worry India more than anything else. Far from providing ‘strategic depth’ to Pakistan, Afghanistan will actually become a ‘strategic black hole’ for Pakistan if the Islamists hold sway in that hapless country.

With the US withdrawal, not only will an already tottering and economically bankrupt Pakistan get militarily sucked in to Afghanistan but will also have to bear the economic burden of an economically unviable Afghanistan. To not put too fine a point on it, Pakistan's descent into failure (or if you will, jihadist utopia) will only hasten when the mess left behind by the Americans falls on its head. At the risk of belabouring the point, India’s problems will really start with Pakistan’s failure. The only hope is that Pakistan realises the folly of its ways and moves resolutely and with sincerity against the Islamists. The problem is that it might already be too late for Pakistan to change course. For India, which will find itself on the frontlines of the post-Afghan withdrawal Global War on Terror, the big challenge will be dealing with Pakistan's transformation from a quasi-jihadist state into a fully jihadist state.

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<1260 Words> 30^th June, 2011

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2011-06-24T15:00:00.000-07:00

NEEDLESS RANTING OVER RANA

SUSHANT SAREEN

Considering that Tahawwur Rana, a Pakistani-origin, Canadian national could face up to 30 years in prison after a Chicago court found him guilty of having links with the Pakistan-based terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba and plotting a terror attack against a Danish newspaper, the carping noises being heard in India over his acquittal on the charge of facilitating the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai sound somewhat incongruous. Rana being found guilty of involvement in 26/11 would not have made it any easier to punish the real masterminds of that outrage, all of whom are comfortably ensconced in Pakistan, some inside jail from where they are conducting their murderous business and others strutting about freely, making hate speeches against India and praying for the soul of Osama bin Laden in public meetings. Nor for that matter is Rana’s acquittal going to be a setback in bringing to justice those who planned and directed that barbaric attack. To put it quite simply, the Rana trial is not really material to the larger 26/11 case.

Rana was at best a bit player in 26/11 who ostensibly was motivated by two factors: one, he believed that by helping the ISI spy on India he would be able to make amends for his desertion from the Pakistan Army; and second, he probably thought that aiding the LeT in the massacre of kafirs (infidels) would earn him some sawab (rewards in the afterlife). His being indicted for involvement in the 26/11 attacks was more of an afterthought, because originally he was arrested for being part of a terrorist conspiracy to attack the Danish newspaper that had published caricatures of Prophet Mohammad. It was only the confessional statement of David Headley that implicated Rana in the 26/11 conspiracy. But the corroborative evidence that was required to back Headley’s testimony was just not adequate for a jury to pronounce the guilty verdict on Rana.

The reaction in India to Rana’s acquittal in 26/11 case has, however, been quite over the top. Not only does it smack of an utter lack of understanding of law and procedure, it is even devoid of basic common sense. It is one thing for Indian officials to express ‘disappointment’ over the Rana’s acquittal, and quite another for them to contemplate filing a charge-sheet against both Rana and Headley. Leave aside the fact that it will be practically impossible to secure the extradition of these two characters, won’t the principle of ‘double jeopardy’ come into play if these two men are to be tried in India on practically the same charges for which they were tried in the US? But let us, for a moment, assume that India does get hold of these two guys and the issue of ‘double jeopardy’ is not applicable. What, pray, is the new evidence that Indian law enforcement agencies have collected against them (which presumably the American prosecutors did not have) that will stand up in a court of law to convict these people in India?

This is precisely the reason why the reaction of the BJP to Rana’s acquittal sounds silly. In accusing the Manmohan Singh government of not pursuing the case properly in the Chicago court, the BJP seems to have forgotten that Rana and Headley were arrested and prosecuted by the US of its own volition and not because India had pointed these two guys out. India, in fact, became wise to these ‘spotters’ only after the story broke out in the US and information gathered by Indian investigators subsequently about the activities of Rana and Headley contains nothing that adds to the body of evidence collected and presented in court by the US prosecutors.

If truth be told, had Rana and Headley been tried in India, they would have almost certainly got away scot free. Apart from having gained notoriety as being probably the only country in the world where, after a recent Supreme Court ruling, no action can be taken even against a card carrying member of any terrorist organisation, including Al Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Taiba, India is also a country which is trying to fight 21^st Century crime with 19^th Century laws. No wonder that while Indian investigators have done a fairly good job in collecting intelligence and information about terrorists, they have been unable to translate this into evidence that can stand in a court of law.

Antiquated laws, poorly resourced law enforcement and security agencies and outdated investigation techniques are in large measure responsible for this state of affairs. Forget about the toothless Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, even in the case of ‘tough’ laws like POTA and TADA, the imagination of the Indian lawmaker starts and stops with making confessions before a designated officer admissible as evidence, a rather problematic proposition particularly if a confession cannot be backed by other corroborating evidence. Therefore, instead of cribbing about Rana’s acquittal on one charge, India should be thankful to the US for two things: one, by giving India access to Headley, it has helped Indian investigators fill in some of the blanks regarding the planning of the 26/11 attacks; and two, it has put away for good two flunkies of the ISI and LeT.

India’s real interest in Rana’s trial has less to do with seeking punishment for someone who played only a peripheral role in the entire 26/11 episode and more to do with laying bare in a neutral court of law the ISI’s use of terror as an instrument of foreign policy, particularly against India. This has been achieved despite the not-guilty verdict handed down by the US court. By exposing the ISI-LeT nexus in graphic detail, the Rana trial has been an unqualified success for India in terms of propaganda value. What is more, Headley’s testimony only adds more meat to the sensational report filed shortly after 26/11 by the now slain Pakistani journalist, Syed Saleem Shahzad, which revealed that the Mumbai terror plot was originally drawn up by the ISI. While Shahzad claimed that the plan was hijacked by the Al Qaeda, Headley’s testimony makes it clear that the plan was not hijacked but outsourced by the ISI to the LeT.

Other than the satisfaction of tarnishing the already terrible image of the Pakistan army and ISI before the international community, there is little that will come out of the Rana trial in terms of bringing the guilty of 26/11 to justice. Most Pakistanis have responded to the Chicago trial by going into paroxysms of denial, disingenuously pointing to the unsavoury past of Headley to question his credibility as a prosecution witness. What the Pakistani defenders of the ISI and LeT seem to gloss over is that only dysfunctional and disreputable characters like Headley would get sucked into the terrorist underworld where drug smuggling, gun-running, money laundering and other such criminal activity gets mixed up with state policy and religion to make an explosive cocktail.

But why blame the Pakistanis when the Indian establishment itself has little interest in pursuing the culprits of 26/11. Sure, there is no dearth of lip-service being paid to bringing the masterminds to justice. Nor is there any slackening of the rhetoric on 26/11. But having resumed the Composite Dialogue process, it is pretty much back to business as usual with Pakistan and all the noise over 26/11 is more the result of political compulsion rather than any conviction on part of the Indian establishment.

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<1236 Words> 14^th June, 2011

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2011-06-03T04:17:00.001-07:00

PAKISTAN'S TRAJECTORY: Beginning of the end?

SUSHANT SAREEN

Hardly anyone will dispute that May 2011 has been a mensis horribilus for Pakistan. The events that transpired during the month – the US raid to kill Osama bin Laden and the subsequent pressure on Pakistan to start delivering on its commitments in the war on terror, the massive spike in retaliatory terror attacks that culminated in the fidayeen attack on the naval airbase, PNS Mehran, and the brutal murder – all fingers point to the ISI – of journalist Saleem Shehzad who exposed the infiltration by Al Qaeda into the Pakistani armed forces – have shaken to the core the state and society of Pakistan. More significantly, these developments could force the Pakistani political and military establishment to make some profound choices and take some critical decisions that will determine the future course of the country. The portents and prognosis is, however, not very good because no matter what choices and decisions are made, things are likely to get much worse before they get better, if at all.

The problem for Pakistan today is that it is caught in multiple binds that infinitely complicate the selection of the options before the country. The national economy is on the verge of a meltdown. Running on empty, the economy is heavily dependent on foreign aid, which is either not coming or is trickling in albeit with political riders and economic reform conditionalities which the Pakistani authorities are finding difficult to accept and impossible to reject. There is a deep disconnect between the Islamist inclinations of the people and influential sections of the establishment on the one hand, and the compulsions of the state to be seen to be combating the inroads being made by the Islamists, on the other. Enormous pressure is being mounted on Pakistan from the US to end its double-game in the war on terror and take 'specific actions' and 'decisive steps'. These include launching a military operation in North Waziristan against some of Pakistan's 'strategic assets' like the Haqqani network and assisting the US in apprehending or eliminating four or five of the most wanted Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists. At the same time, the state is being challenged as never before by the Islamist terrorists who have mounted spectacular attacks all over the country. There are fears that compliance with US demands could result in ferocious retaliation by the terror networks, who have not only infiltrated the security services but also enjoy sympathy and support from a cross-section of Pakistani society.

The chasm between the effete and inefficient civilian government and the people is increasing. Even as the opposition is growing restive and inching towards forcing the government out of office, public confidence in democracy, parliamentary system, and most of all on the states institutions has plummeted. Unlike the past, when the people looked towards the army as saviours, the Abbotabad operation, the PNS Mehran attack and now the assassination of Saleem Shehzad by ISI thugs have pulled down the army and ISI's stock to an all time low. Worse, the military is no longer the dominant force that it was in the past. The army's dominance is being questioned like never before by the civilians and its armed might is being challenged every day by the Islamist militant groups. Ethnic separatism has reared its head once again in Balochistan and is simmering in Sindh. Sectarian tensions remain high.

Under these circumstances, there are broadly three options before the Pakistani state: one, clean up its act; two, continue to simultaneously ride, for as long as possible, the two boats of fighting terrorism and supporting it at the same time; and three, become a jihadist state. Each of these options will have internal and external repercussions on the Pakistani state.

The first option – comprehensive clean-up – is perhaps the most difficult in the short run, but also the only option that holds any chance for Pakistan eventually emerging as a normal country in the comity of nations. This will involve a complete reversal of all the destructive policies followed by the Pakistani state since it came into existence. In other words, a complete overhaul of social, political, economic, religious and cultural structure that currently exists. Apart from a ruthless purge of the Islamist terror groups of all hues (good and bad jihadists), establishing civilian supremacy over the military will be a sine qua non. All foreign, defence and security policies will have to be determined by the civilian leadership. The detoxification of education system, radical political and economic reforms, massive investment in the social sector (health, education, sanitation etc) institutional reform, including downsizing the military and civilian control over the intelligence agencies, normalisation of relations with India by getting of the Kashmir hobby horse, will have to be undertaken.

No doubt, this is a very tall order which even functional states would find difficult to implement. The capacity of a fragile and dysfunctional state like Pakistan to change course is extremely doubtful. To be sure, this will not be possible without enormous foreign assistance for at least 10-15 years. But even with a Marshall Plan like aid programme of tens of billions of dollars, there are no guarantees if Pakistan will be able to pull through and deliver on all of the above. Despite the difficulties that lie on this path, it offers the Pakistan army a golden opportunity, and perhaps the only opportunity, to prove its patriotism and loyalty to the nation rather than its corporate interests.

Given that the clean-up option sounds like 'mission impossible', there will be a natural temptation to take an easier option, i.e. the two boats option. Essentially, this will involve Pakistan continuing pretty much along the path it has followed for so long viz. play both sides of every game, especially in the war on terror. On the one hand, Pakistan will make efforts to combat jihadists inimical to the interests of the Pakistani state, and make a pretence of fighting jihadists with a global agenda in order to keep on the right side of the West and keep the economic and military aid flowing. On the other hand, it will also keep the jihad infrastructure intact and let the jihad factory function, albeit in a controlled manner, so that it continues to churn out 'strategic assets' which function as instruments of state policy. The advantage of this policy is that it will satisfy the jihadist urgings of the people and establishment, obviate the need for any major structural reform in the political, economic or social sphere (thereby avoiding the turmoil that accompanies such reform), keep alive its USP – nuisance value of being a nuclear-armed 'international migraine' that the international community will be compelled to bail out all the time.

The downside of the 'two boats' option is that it might well have run its course and cannot be played for much longer now because the inherent conflicts and contradictions that it entails have started coming to the fore. Simply put, this option will do nothing to arrest Pakistan's inexorable slide towards the abyss – the economy will remain in an ICU, the polity will remain unstable, the society will continue to be radicalised, the haemorrhaging of the states vitality won't stop, the power and influence of the Islamist terror groups will continue to rise while that of the state will decline. This option will only delay state failure, but not for very long. If anything, it will make the state so vulnerable that it won't be able to withstand any major shock and will collapse like a house of cards. A historical parallel is the fall of the Mughal empire to the Sikh armies which took over Lahore without firing a single shot. In the current case, it will be the Islamists who are the most likely candidates to play the role that the Sikhs played in the 18^th Century.

The third option is a fast-forwarded version of the 'two-boats' option i.e. the Pakistani state decides to become a jihadist state by design rather than by default. Instead of risking a civil war by confronting the jihadists or undergoing the slow and torturous process of losing control to the jihadists, the Pakistani establishment could well decide to defy the Americans and close ranks with their Islamist brethren for the 'glory of Islam'. This means that the Pakistanis will end cooperation in the war on terror, block the supply routes of ISAF forces in Afghanistan, forbid all drone strikes and other offensive actions by the Americans inside Pakistan, openly lend support to the Taliban in Afghanistan and enter into some sort of power sharing arrangement with the Pakistani Taliban groups that for some time at least keeps the Pakistan army in the driving seat. The fiction of democracy, civilian supremacy, rule of law and other such highfaluting concepts will end. Shariah law, as defined by the most reactionary mullahs, will be imposed. Shias and other sectarian groups will be declared non-Muslim. Women will be confined to homes. In short, an Islamic Emirate of Pakistan, which will be a clone of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, will replace the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

There will of course be severe repercussions of this because defying the Americans and the West is the easier part; it is the day after which is the difficult part, because that is when Pakistanis will realise the difference between smoking grass (which probably has induced the nationwide hallucination of being a destroyer of great empires) and eating grass (a taste for which the Pakistani palate has still to cultivate). Defiance of the West is predicated on support from China and the 'brotherly' Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran etc. But this could well be a pipedream because neither China nor the Muslim world can really replace the West. Nor are they likely to back Pakistan if it means jeopardising their ties with the West.

Once the initial euphoria of having taken on the Americans and defying them is over, the existential crises will have to be handled especially since there is a strong possibility of global sanctions being imposed on Pakistan, isolating it completely. If this happens, the economy will collapse. Trade, investment, and business will come to a grinding halt. There will be massive shortages of fuel, energy and food. The only thing in surplus will be the pride of having reclaimed sovereignty and finally having achieved a truly Islamic dispensation. It is of course another matter that there will be far greater violence, destruction and devastation that will result from the jihadi option as compared to the clean-up option. But that will be in the future, something that is always at a discount in Pakistan where policies and strategies are made from the perspective of tiding over today's problems rather than anticipating the effects of wrong policies in the months and years ahead.

Except for the 'clean-up' option, the collapse of the Pakistani state as currently constituted is inevitable. While it is impossible to predict how the Pakistani cookie will crumble – will it split along ethnic lines, will it implode, will it give way to warlordism, will the Al Qaeda/Taliban takeover, or will it be a combination of all of these – one thing is certain: when it comes, the collapse will be sudden, practically overnight. What will be the trigger is again not clear. It could be a split in the army with a couple of Corps Commanders or senior generals deciding to take over power or challenge the GHQ; it could be an ordinary Tunisia-type incident that sets into motion a domino that brings down the edifice of the state; it could be a natural calamity; it could be another Abbotabad type unilateral action by the US either to snatch and kill another high-value target or to retaliate against a terror attack on US soil by terror groups based in Pakistan; it could be a US withdrawal from the region which emboldens the Islamists to try and capture power in Pakistan; it could be the devastating effect of another global economic meltdown; in short, it could pretty much be anything.

While India needs to prepare to handle the fallout of a 'failed' Pakistan, even before such a cataclysmic development occurs, there will be serious threats to India's security. The more conditions in Pakistan deteriorate, the more the Pakistani military and political establishment sees power slip out of its hands and the more the Pakistan army loses the confidence and trust of the people, the greater the temptation to indulge in adventurism against India to make the people close ranks behind the military in Pakistan. The adventurism could be another Kargil, another Mumbai, another Parliament-type attack, or even a new and even horrific terror attack ('dirty bomb'?). India also needs to be alive to the perverse mindset in large sections of the elite and establishment of Pakistan that has resolved to take down India if Pakistan is going down the tube. To be able to guard against any such eventuality, India needs to put in place systems to minimise, if not prevent, the damage that is likely to be caused. What is more, India needs to work out its counter-responses, political, economic, military and diplomatic. This should have been done yesterday. But even if it is done today, it should be okay. One thing India doesn't have is the luxury of time because tomorrow might be too late.

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<2240 Words> 3^rd June, 2011

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2011-05-27T05:47:00.001-07:00

PAKISTAN IN A FREE FALL, ALBEIT IN SLOW MOTION

Sushant Sareen

For a people who consider themselves as the true legatees of the Mughal empire, the only apt historical parallel to describe the state of Pakistan today is the atrophying Mughal empire after the death of Pakistan's favourite Great Mughal, Aurangzeb. Just as Aurangzeb sought to cement the empire by using fundamentalist Islam, but ended up spawning a million mutinies which sapped the vitality of the realm and ultimately destroyed the empire, so too in the case of Pakistan which promoted a virulent version of Islam to fuse the nation but which is now threatening to devour the Pakistani state.

During the last days of the Mughal empire, court intrigues to become emperor or wazir or a noble were the order of the day, and this despite the fact that the empire, or what was left of it, was surviving on the sufferance of either adventurers or emerging powers like the Marathas and the Afghans. Just as the last Mughals used to depend on external intervention to secure their positions in the court, Pakistani leaders today are more than willing to invite intervention by outside powers – USA, UK, Saudi Arabia, China – for gaining or retaining political power. Even when hostile armies were on the borders and the very survival of the throne and empire was at stake, the later Mughals made no effort to forge unity to confront the invaders and marauders. Instead, all energy was focused on the getting one up on rivals. No one was willing to give any quarter to his rivals, or desist from brinkmanship, or even put one's own self-interest on the back-burner until the peril of invasion was tackled and the authority of the empire re-established. So it is in today's Pakistan.

There is a very serious danger of the state falling under the influence of the Taliban. Large swathes of territory are either not under the control of the state or under only a very fragile and nominal control of the state. Even the so-called safe areas are extremely vulnerable and have frequently come under attack. The law enforcement agencies, when not trying to protect themselves from being attacked by the forces of Jihad, are busy in either protecting the privileged or indulging in rapine and loot. Hardly anyone, including the Pakistan army, really wants to confront the Taliban. Instead of forging a strategy to effectively combat the onslaught of the Islamists, the military top brass is concentrating more on protecting its privileges and its properties and hobbling, if not ensnaring, civilian governments to snuff out any possible challenge to their political dominance. And this in spite of the fact that a couple of thousand soldiers have already lost their lives in the full-blown Islamist insurgency and terrorism that has been wrecking havoc in the country.

Even as the conflagration in the Pashtun belt is flaring out of control, the province of Balochistan is spiralling out of control. Baloch nationalism has taken a violent form and targeted killings of security force officials and pro-government people, ambushes of military convoys, blowing up of economic infrastructure (gas pipelines, electricity pylons, telephone exchanges, railway tracks etc.) has become the order of the day. The government's brutal crackdown against political activists associated with the Baloch nationalist movement has only added to the already overflowing reservoir of alienation among the ordinary Baloch. If anything, today the political face of Baloch nationalism (who only demanded autonomy within Pakistan) has receded into the background and the extremists (who wish to carve out an independent Balochistan) are calling the shots.

With both Balochistan and the Pashtun areas in flames, the Pakistani state has all but lost control over more than half of the country's territory. The situation in the remaining part is hardly anything to write home about. Sindh is seething with resentment and anti-Punjab feelings. Karachi, which is in the throes of an ethnic civil war in which hundreds of people have been killed in politically motivated target killings, is a powder keg waiting to explode. In Punjab, the southern part has already fallen under the influence of the 'Punjabi Taliban'. Important cities in Central and North Punjab like Faisalabad, Chakwal and Gujranwala, to name a just a few, have a strong presence of Islamic terror groups.

The economy meanwhile is in a tailspin and shows no sign of coming out of the ICU. For now, the drip of foreign assistance is keeping it alive. But even the aid infusion won't be enough unless the 'white cells' (or if you will the good guys) start the fight back to bring the body back to health. Unfortunately, the white cell count is so precariously low that the disease of Islamism is consuming the body politic and with it the economy at an alarmingly fast rate.

Under these circumstances, it would normally be expected that the people who have the most to lose from the deteriorating situation – the educated and elite classes, the military-bureaucratic establishment, the judiciary and civil society, the political class, the traders and industrialists – would put their heads together to forge some sort of a consensus on how to combat the dangers that confront their own interests. But no, nothing of the sort is happening. Instead those who have the most to lose are busy trading blame as to who and what is responsible for the abysmal state of affairs. What is worse, there is both a denial of the seriousness of the problems that face the country as well as an attitude of nonchalance as though what is happening is of no concern to them and is someone else's problem.

The public debate and discourse in Pakistan is so partisan, distorted and also so far removed from the ground reality, that there is now a total disconnect between the crises that confront Pakistan and the reasons and solutions that even ostensible sober and sensible people give for these crises. It is almost as though the Pakistani intelligentsia has lost the ability to think things through. For instance, a standard formulation in Pakistan today is that the war being waged in the Pashtun tribal belt between the Pakistan army and the radical Islamists (read Taliban and al Qaeda) is a mercenary war, a war that Pakistan is waging not for itself but for America. Hence, the solution that is forwarded is equally nonsensical: the authorities should engage the Taliban in a dialogue or that the Pakistani army should simply walk out of the tribal areas. The logic is that if Pakistan does not act against the Islamic radicals, they too will not retaliate against the Pakistani army. In other words, "leave them alone and they will not bother us" is the solution! None of the proponents of this solution are able to even comprehend that unless the Taliban threat is ruthlessly eliminated, it will only grow and will spread like wild-fire in rest of Pakistan, ultimately taking over the Pakistani state. They are also in denial about the intentions and objectives of the radical Islamists, which is to talibanise Pakistan by imposing their version of puritanical Islam in the country.

The inability of the Pakistani people to distinguish friend from foe stems from a totally warped national mindset which revels in bizarre conspiracy theories and suffers from paranoia of imagined enemies lurking everywhere out to destroy the country or at the very least deprive it of its 'strategic assets'. In a sense, the term 'strategic' is probably the biggest bane of Pakistan. Take for instance, the famed 'strategic assets' a.k.a. nuclear weapons. Today, it is not the nukes that protect Pakistan but Pakistan that protects its nukes! Then there are the other 'strategic assets' a.k.a. 'good Taliban' which Pakistan wants to retain to gain 'strategic depth' in Afghanistan to confront the 'strategic enemy' a.k.a. India and which makes it imperative for the Pakistani establishment to get into the mode of 'strategic defiance' of the US. That this sort of 'strategic vision' (purblindness, really) has pushed Pakistan over the brink has of course never really been part of the 'strategic calculus' of the Pakistan's real rulers – the Pakistan army.

Pakistan is not so much a victim of terrorism as it is a victim of the stupendous success of the demonical indoctrination programme which has replaced the innate pragmatism of the people with insane Islamism that doubles up as Islamic nationalism (an oxymoron, if ever there was one) and validates substantially, if not entirely, with the concept of Islamofascism. It is this phenomenon that leads a newspaper owner who is an ideal candidate for a lunatic asylum but in today's Pakistan is a leading flag bearer of the 'ideology of Pakistan' to demand a nuclear strike on India because after a nuclear exchange Pakistan will be able to progress like Japan did after Hiroshima! It is this thinking that leads a top general under Musharraf, and a man who at one point of time was touted as a possible successor to Musharraf to advocate firing "a nuclear warning shot in the Bay of Bengal, across India, demonstrating our circular range capacity" in order to send the message that "you don't mess with a nuclear power and get away with it". It is this thinking that makes a former information minister declare that "Pakistan has made nuclear weapons not to keep them in the cupboard but to use them against its enemies (read India and now more than ever the Western world, particularly USA)." It is this mindset that makes the so-called 'civil society' – news anchors, lawyers, activists – defend the action of the assassin of the former Punjab governor, Salman Taseer. And it is precisely this mindset that prevents the Pakistan army (its ranks filled with that other oxymoron, 'moderate Taliban') from ending its double-game in the war on terror.

This then is the terrible reality of Pakistan. Unfortunately, just as the Pakistanis are in denial, so too are the Indians, or at least the Indian establishment, about the ground reality in Pakistan. India's Pakistan policy (if at all there is such a thing) is predicated on interactions with what is a fringe group of liberal, moderate, modern, and sensible Pakistanis who are excellent advocates of their country but whose words don't count for anything in terms of setting their country's policy or direction. This is a class which doesn't number more than a couple of thousand and probably qualifies to be registered as an endangered species under the UN Biodiversity Convention.

Despite the tendency for many in India to take vicarious pleasure over Pakistan's impending implosion, the fact is that Pakistan's collapse will be an unmitigated disaster for India, not only because it is utterly unprepared to handle the cataclysmic fallout of a 'failed' Pakistan but also because no matter what preparations it makes, there is no way India can insulate itself completely from the great tumult that will result when a country of 180 million people either descends into chaos or goes belly up on India's border. Forget about the nukes, they are the least of India's worries. The bigger danger is that the entire Partition arrangement that gave India relative peace for over 60 years will be blown to smithereens when millions of people start streaming into India either as refugees or as jihadists.

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<1885 Words> 25^th May, 2011

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2011-05-18T01:55:00.003-07:00

PROFITING FROM TRADE

SUSHANT SAREEN

Eating grass and denying people prosperity for the sake of national dignity and honour is the prerogative not of the elite who make these statements but of the ordinary people who suffer the consequences of the bloody minded policies of the ruling class which never ever gets to eat grass and is always prosperous. It is precisely this attitude that has denied the people of India and Pakistan the fruits of mutually beneficial trade and closer economic cooperation. Cutting your nose to spite your neighbours face seems to be a congenital problem in the ruling classes of South Asia, particularly in India and Pakistan. While most other countries of South Asia have understood the benefit of regional trade and transit agreements – Bangladesh's pitch for becoming the transit hub for India, Nepal and Bhutan is a shining example of the changing attitude in other countries of the region – a sort of beggar-thy-neighbour policy continues to dictate the economic relationship between the two largest countries in South Asia.

It was no surprise then that despite the buzz surrounding the latest meeting between the commerce secretaries of India and Pakistan, there was no real breakthrough in promoting trade and economic interaction between the two countries. All that was achieved was some incremental progress and a lot of assurances that will probably never be fulfilled because of the greatest non-tariff barrier (NTB) – troubled political relations. In a sense, this NTB is a bit of a chicken-and-egg sort of conundrum: will improved political relations pave the way for trade between India and Pakistan or will lifting the trade barriers create a constituency for peace that will help in settling the political ties between them.

Clearly, trade and politics don't make for a good cocktail. But the problem is that it is not easy to separate trade and politics. Ideally, trade should not be seen as a political concession, much less a pressure point for achieving political objectives. Trade has its own intrinsic value and should be left to businessmen, who will trade not out of altruism but because there is profit to be made. And profit is generally a two way street, or to put it differently, mutually beneficial. Otherwise there is no incentive to trade. This truism is however often lost on bureaucrats, and even more on generals. In the statist model of trade, babus and not businessmen decide what trade is profitable and what is prohibited, which is why we have a positive list of tradable items. What instead needs to be done is to create an enabling environment in which businessmen of the two countries can decide what they want to buy and sell to each other.

The scepticism among many bureaucrats, and even some economists, on the potential of trade between India and Pakistan because many of the product lines of both countries are quite similar, doesn't really stand to scrutiny when we look at examples from other parts of the world. Take for instance the EU. Most European countries manufacture similar products and yet intra-EU trade outscores EU's trade with its other trading partners. Why can't the same happen in South Asia? If barriers to trade are lifted, comparative and competitive advantage will determine the direction and composition of trade and not some SRO or administrative fiat. What is more, the lifting of trade barriers will enable cheaper sourcing of raw material from the natural hinterlands that were rent asunder in 1947. Add to it the availability of markets and the benefits of trade are an absolute no-brainer.

To be sure, there is a need to harmonise tariffs, rules and regulations and standards in South Asia. This lack of harmonisation is often considered (one daresay wrongly) as a major non-tariff barrier. When goods manufactured in one country do not conform to standards laid down in another country, trade will obviously not be possible. But before such differential standards are called NTB's two things need to be checked: one, are these standards country specific or are they applied to all countries equally; and two, are not similar standards also imposed in other countries. For instance, how is it that the same standard when imposed in the US or EU is not considered a NTB but becomes a NTB when imposed by India?

While these so-called NTB's which include trading facilities or the lack of them on the borders are more easily tackled, there are some real barriers to trade which are again more a function of the state of bilateral relationship than anything else. For example, the difficulties faced by businessmen in obtaining visas. In the current climate of distrust, visas are a major problem area. But to use this as an excuse to not move forward with trade is silly because this can be easily worked around by meeting in third countries. Yes, this increases the cost of doing business but if routing goods through a third country is profitable with all the additional expenses it entails, then surely business meetings won't add so much to the transaction cost as to make trade unprofitable. Of course, this is not an ideal situation, but it is better than not doing any business. A similar tactic can be followed on issues of goods inspection. Third party inspectors can be hired in each country to inspect the goods before they are despatched. In fact many western companies are already hiring such third party inspectors to do this sort of work. The point is that many of the imagined barriers can be easily worked around if there is no major penalty imposed on direct buying or selling between the two countries. And if relations improve, then many of these barriers will automatically get lifted. In the meantime, the business can continue to profit themselves, their consumers and their country.

Alongside trade, there is enormous potential for opening up investment and tourism travel between the two countries. It might be a controversial thing to say, but Pakistan stands to gain far more than India if it were to open itself to Indian investments, tourism and allow India transit rights to Afghanistan and Central Asia. The spin-offs of these three things for the Pakistani economy will be quite impressive and will allow Pakistan to cash in on its strategic location as a bridge between South Asia and Central Asia. But guess what, since we revel in cutting our noses to spite the other person, the protectors of sovereignty and ideological frontiers will never allow this to happen. After all, isn't honour and dignity more important than prosperity especially when you are not the one paying the price. But a more fundamental question is whether there honour and dignity in mutually beneficial trade (even if it is with an adversary) or is it in the begging bowl (even if it is spread before a friend)?

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<1150 Words> 12^th May, 2011

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2011-05-18T01:55:00.001-07:00

A GAME CHANGER

SUSHANT SAREEN

Just as 9/11 changed the world, the elimination of Osama bin Laden (OBL) is going to be another game changer in the war on terror. While the Afpak region will bear the brunt of the strategic decisions made by the major players in the post OBL era, India will not be left untouched by the tumult that is likely to unfold in its neighbourhood. Unfortunately, instead of engaging in some serious analysis and scenario building on the likely changes in the regional strategic calculus of the major players, India is engrossed in a rather facile debate on whether or not it should emulate the US in taking out terrorist targets in Pakistan, conveniently ignoring the fact that India is nowhere close to America in terms of military superiority, economic clout and diplomatic influence.

For India to take vicarious pleasure from Pakistan's predicament is entirely understandable. But this cannot be a substitute for a well-thought out policy to handle the post OBL situation, especially since the US hasn't quite given up on Pakistan just yet and has left some wriggle room for the Pakistani establishment to rehabilitate itself. That Pakistan is going to come under enormous pressure to clean up its act and end its double-game in the war on terror by severing all links with Islamist terror groups is a bit of a no-brainer. But what is not clear is how Pakistan will respond to this pressure. Will it play ball or will it dig in its heels and adopt the course of 'strategic defiance'? To a great extent, Pakistan's response will be a function of the domestic political repercussions of Operation Geronimo and how these are balanced with the international compulsions confronting the country.

With Pakistan's public demanding answers, it will be interesting to see who carries the can for the national humiliation caused by US choppers breaching Pakistani defences and putting boots on ground right under the noses of the much vaunted 'defenders of territorial and ideological frontiers of Pakistan' i.e. Pakistan Army. Making the weak and discredited civilian government the fall guy is easy but will be a big mistake because next time there won't be any civilian buffer to bail out the army from charges of either complicity or incompetence. Therefore, unless the pressure for heads to roll becomes unbearable, chances are that the politicians and the military will stick together to ride out the storm.

The problem for Pakistan is that regardless of whether it now complies with US diktats or defies them, it will be confronted with a lot of turmoil. Towing the American line will mean having to move against Islamists all over the country – from Waziristan to Muridke. Not only will this be an unpopular thing to do, it will almost certainly lead to a backlash by terror organisations which will create a civil war like situation inside the country. On the other hand, 'strategic defiance' holds the prospect of international isolation, economic bankruptcy and the terrible unrest that will result from economic deprivation. Worse, once the gloves come off, then the possibility of international powers supporting freedom movements inside Pakistan – Sindh, Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan – cannot be ruled out.

There are dangers for India in both these cases. In the former case, while there is little chance of another 26/11 attack (the first one could have never taken place without the active support of the Pakistani state and we are assuming that post OBL a reformed Pakistani state will desist from sponsoring another such attack), there is nevertheless a very high possibility of the unrest in Pakistan spilling over into India. In the latter case, a disintegrating Pakistan could be tempted to take India down with it. The former army chief of Pakistan, Mirza Aslam Beg, is on record that it is the policy of the Pakistan army that even if Pakistan comes under attack from a third country, it will launch a nuclear strike on India. Even if nothing so drastic happens, India must still factor in the possibility of the Pakistani military establishment ratcheting up tension with India to rally it supporters. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what this will do to the half-baked and ill-conceived Indo-Pak 'peace process'.

There are two other possibilities that India needs to ponder over. The first is that having got OBL, the Americans could be tempted to declare victory and abandon Afghanistan. With the OBL obstacle out of the way, the path to 'reconciliation' with the Taliban in Afghanistan has cleared, or so the Americans, and more than them the Pakistanis, will think. But to be able to bring the Taliban on the table, the US will need Pakistan to make the Islamist combatants more amenable to a political settlement. While this will give Pakistan a pivotal role in the deciding the future dispensation in Afghanistan (which by definition will have deep antipathy for India), the Americans will be able to extricate themselves from the Afghan quagmire leaving India out in the cold.

The other possibility holds more promise. The manner in which the US eliminated OBL could end up demoralising and disheartening large sections of the jihadists. The disillusionment that is likely to set in will open a window of opportunity to counter the attraction of jihadist ideology among young Muslims, including in India. Of course, a new idiom and narrative will have to be devised to wean away people inspired by the Islamist propaganda. The absence of such a counter narrative has been one of the biggest failings in the war on terror and OBL's despatch to hell would have been in vain if it cannot be effectively exploited to convince people of the hopelessness of the jihadist cause. But is anyone in India even thinking about this?

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<962 Words> 7^th May, 2011

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2011-04-26T03:37:00.001-07:00

BACK CHANNEL WITH PAKISTAN ARMY: A GAMBIT WORTH TRYING

SUSHANT SAREEN

The denial by both the Prime Minister's Office in India and by the military spokesman in Pakistan of the story in The Times of an 'unofficial back channel' that had opened with the de facto ruler of Pakistan, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, isn't entirely unexpected. If indeed there was such a back channel then it is best kept under the wraps, not so much because it would make public what was being discussed or even negotiated – the details of the 'official' back channel negotiations during the Musharraf era are still secret even though the main protagonists claim to have nearly reached a deal – but more because it would be premature to admit the existence of such a back-channel until it had become a regular feature instead of a one-off contact. On the other hand, if there was no such back-channel contact, then the denials are perfectly in order and would end needless speculation on the nature of contact established between the Indian and Pakistani establishments.

Quite aside the fact that the denials would have come as a dampener for those who believe that there is a dire need for putting in place a channel of communication and dialogue between the establishments of the two countries, the very nature of the contact claimed by The Times – 'unofficial' – raises serious doubts over the efficacy of the so-called back-channel. It is of course entirely possible that some sort of contact, albeit 'unofficial' and perhaps even unauthorised, was made. After all, there are enough busybodies on both sides of the Radcliffe line who use their access to top policy making circles on either side to assume the role of self-appointed messengers. While generally the messages these people carry are either ignored or suffered in silence by the powers that be, there have been rare occasions when these messengers have helped in breaking the ice. Whether or not this is true in the current case is not entirely clear.

Even so, there is still a strong case for some sort of contact – in the preliminary stage perhaps only a military-to-military exchange between the NDC in India and NDU in Pakistan – being made with Pakistan's military establishment and exploring this track to see if a more sustained engagement is possible with the real rulers of Pakistan as opposed to the civilian show-boys that India has been so comfortable in dealing with.

The aversion in India to dealing directly with Pakistan's military establishment is entirely understandable but is also unreal given the power dynamics of Pakistani politics. Pakistan is, in a sense, a schizophrenic society. At one level, there is deep distrust and suspicion of the establishment and a tendency to attribute not only the most bizarre conspiracy theories to it but also hold it capable of, if not responsible for, the most horrible crimes. But at another level, there is an innate, almost blind, trust and faith in ability and capacity of the military establishment to protect the country and put things right. Most Pakistanis are quick to follow the lead of the army on issues of national security, especially when it comes to relations with India. As a result, when the army allows it, people gladly reach out to India (the 2004-2008 period bears witness to this) and when the army shuns it, the very same people pull back on all contact with India.

This remarkable ability and agility of the military establishment in Pakistan to manipulate public opinion must to be taken into account by the Indian establishment before it takes any initiative on mending ties with Pakistan. The bottom line is that while India can have as many 'uninterrupted and uninterruptible' dialogues with the civilians in Pakistan as it wants, unless it manages at least a modus Vivendi with the all-powerful Pakistan army, none of these dialogues will lead to anything at all. Without getting the Pakistan army on board, any dialogue with Pakistan will either be a dialogue of the deaf or one with the meek and powerless, who one daresay are unlikely to inherit Pakistan.

There are essentially two ways that India can approach Pakistan. The first is to engage Pakistani politicians and civil society, promote people-to-people exchanges, trade and what have you, in the hope of creating a constituency of peace that will force the hand of the military establishment to normalise relations with India. But quite frankly, for this strategy to work, India will have to wait till the cows come home. An alternative strategy is to continue with the above strategy but simultaneously open a sustained channel of communication and engagement – to start with, an 'official and empowered' back-channel – with Pakistan's military establishment.

Needless to say, given the power structure realities of the establishments of the two countries, the back channel contact will have to be handled with great care. In a democratic country like India, a back channel naturally tends to evoke suspicion. One way to counter this is to set up a multi-track back-channel – between intelligence agencies to discuss issues like terrorism etc., between the militaries where they discuss purely military matters, and a track in which both top civilian and military officials discuss security and doctrinal issues

If this 'composite' (given the diplomatic and political sensitivities of the Indian government, perhaps the word 'comprehensive' is more appropriate) back-channel shows promise, and in the course of discussing professional matters, creates an opening for discussing the strategic dimensions of the bilateral relationship, the two sides could consider bringing it on the front channel. In other words, they could make the transition to a 'strategic dialogue' in which a working group comprising designated civilian and military officials led by either the National Security Advisor or the External Affairs Minister discuss matters of higher state policy and the future trajectory of bilateral relations.

But even if the back-channel contact remains a desultory track, there is still something to be said for continuing to engage an adversary but without the hype and hoopla that normally accompanies any India-Pakistan engagement. If anything, the one thing that the two countries need to avoid is hyping up the expectations of a breakthrough by indulging in high profile jamborees – Mohali comes to mind. Quiet, serious and sustained diplomacy is perhaps the only way forward, even if this takes a long time and denies the politicians the legacy that they so desperately crave to leave behind.

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<975 Words> 25^th April, 2011

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2011-04-01T02:27:00.001-07:00

CRICKET DIPLOMACY OR MANMOHAN'S MALADY

SUSHANT SAREEN

On the evening of March 23, the day Pakistan celebrates its National Day and just a couple of days before the Indian Prime Minister decided to invite his Pakistani counterpart to watch the Indo-Pak cricket World Cup semi-final match in Mohali, Indian security agencies got specific information about an imminent attack on the Indian Ambassador and the Indian mission in Kabul. Needless to say, the fingerprints of the ISI were found all over the attack plan. Not only did the Indian intelligence have names of Pakistani officers who planned the attacks, they had all the information of how the attacks would be carried out. Without wasting any time on diplomatic niceties, the Pakistanis were immediately warned of 'severe consequences' if the attack was carried out. Caught with their pants down, the Pakistanis were forced to call off the attack.

Quite aside the fact that after two successful terror attacks on Indian establishments in Kabul – the suicide bombing on the Indian embassy in 2008 and the fidayeen attack on a transit accommodation of Indian officials in 2010 – this was the third or fourth time that a terror attack on Indian interests in Afghanistan had been pre-empted, the big question is whether the Indian Prime Minister has not been informed of these Pakistani plots against India, or whether he is so obsessed with entering into some sort of a peace deal with Pakistan that he is willing to ignore these murderous plots against Indian citizens. Increasingly, it appears that Dr Singh won't let anything, not even another 26/11, come in the way of his quest for peace with Pakistan.

Despite all the hype and hoopla and the mindless excitement, even hysteria, being whipped up over the semi-final match, and notwithstanding all the needless romanticization of how 'cricket is the winner' or that 'cricket is a bridge between the two countries' or even that 'cricket is a religion in the two countries' (Pakistanis saying this are liable to be murdered as apostates), the ugly reality of Indo-Pak relations is something that Indians would do well not to lose sight off. But first, a word about that old cliché of not mixing politics with sport: isn't the invitation to the Pakistani President and Prime Minister a classic case of mixing politics with cricket? Indeed, the very phrase 'cricket diplomacy' reeks of politics, and ends up relegating cricket into a sideshow. It is, however, quite another matter that the current round of 'cricket diplomacy' can hardly be called good politics.

For one, the two gentlemen invited by Dr Singh – President Asif Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani – don't really add up to very much in Pakistan, even less so when it comes to dealing with India. If the purpose of the invitation was something more than just creating a 'tamasha' (perhaps in the hope of deflecting attention from the massive corruption scandals dogging the government), it might have made more sense to have called the real power behind the throne – the Pakistan army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani. Alternatively, Dr Singh could have played a little politics with the Pakistanis by inviting the entire spectrum of Pakistan's political leadership and holding a virtual all-party meeting of the Pakistani politicians on Indian soil with the aim of evolving a political consensus among them on peace with India, something that would have strengthened the hands of the Zardari/Gilani combine if they ever decided to move forward on relations with India.

No doubt, Gilani's presence in Mohali made for great optics and kept TV news channels busy analysing the 'body language' of the leaders of the two countries. But apart from enriching marketers on both sides of the Radcliffe line, the visit was never going to achieve anything substantial. A major reason for this was the timing. With the two countries having restarted the Composite Dialogue, there is no ice that needs to be broken by inviting the Pakistani Prime Minister for a cricket match. Nor is there any great crisis between the two countries that is sought to be defused through 'cricket diplomacy'. As for the invitation generating great goodwill on both sides of the border, this appears unlikely simply because the country that lost went into a sulk and the one that won gloated, both without any grace. Except for a brief period in the middle of the last decade when cricket matches between the two countries were played in the spirit of sport, the norm has been to treat the cricket ground more as a battlefield than a sports field. And at a time, when the two sides are just picking up the pieces of their tattered dialogue, the last thing they need is the hangover induced by a cricket encounter that has been unfortunately and rather unnecessarily politicised.

There was an argument made that if Pakistani spectators are allowed to see the match in Mohali, it will work as a shot in the arm for promoting people-to-people contacts between the two countries and give a huge fillip to the peace process between them. The problem is that the visa procedures as they stand didn't permit many Pakistanis to enter India, unless of course, the Indian security agencies had decided to open the borders for Pakistani spectators. In the flush of excitement over the invitation to Gilani, it is possible that the government threw caution to the winds and let a large number of Pakistani spectators enter India without any sort of vetting. If so then this they would have done at grave peril to the security of India. In his statement to the NIA, the infamous David Headley has admitted that he and the mastermind of the 26/11 attacks, Sajid Mir, used cricket tourism in 2005 as a ploy to survey and select their targets in India, including the PMs residence and the National Defence College. What is more, some 26 people who came for watching cricket matches in India in 2005 never returned to Pakistan. Five of these people were subsequently arrested and all of them were found to be sleeper agents indulging in espionage.

This is not to say that all Pakistanis are engaged in inimical actions against India. Far from it, there are many, many people of goodwill in Pakistan who don't harbour any inimical feelings towards India, people one is proud to call friends. The problem is that these nice guys don't really count for much and most of them are fast becoming an endangered species in their own country. In any case, the business of national security has to deal with nasty, and not nice, guys and therefore cannot afford to adopt a cavalier attitude for the sake of a cricket match, even if it is a World Cup semi-final between India and Pakistan.

While under normal circumstances, it is a good thing if leaders of countries can just hop across for watching a sporting encounter, in the accident prone and extremely fragile India-Pakistan relationship, such flying visits can prove to be counterproductive. They create completely unrealistic expectations which are invariably dashed on the altar of ground realities and critical national interests. What India and Pakistan need is quiet diplomacy instead of loud, garrulous, Punjabi-style 'jhappis and pappis' which inevitably lead to a severe hangover after reality bites.

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<1217 Words> 1^st April, 2011

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2011-02-26T05:05:00.001-08:00

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

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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2011-02-20T00:35:00.001-08:00

'FIXING' THE BETS

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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2011-02-10T04:22:00.001-08:00

SHARM-EL-SHEIKH LIKE SURRENDER IN THIMPHU

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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2011-02-08T21:42:00.001-08:00

WHAT PAKISTAN HAS DONE TO THE PASHTUNS

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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2011-01-14T06:50:00.001-08:00

BLASPHEMY LAW AND THE MARGINALISATION OF PAKISTAN'S MODERATE MUSLIMS

SUSHANT SAREEN

In a country where the man in charge of maintaining law and order and fighting Islamic terrorists, Interior Minister Rehman Malik, has no compunctions in declaring that he would personally shoot anyone committing blasphemy, where a minister for religious affairs justifies suicide bombings in Britain because of the knighthood given to author Salman Rushdie, and where the chief justice of Lahore High Court enunciates a new principle of jurisprudence under which the courts don't require any witness to establish a case of blasphemy against an accused, a Mumtaz Qadri (the assassin who murdered Punjab Governor Salman Taseer for calling the infamous Blasphemy Law a 'black law') is pretty much par for the course. But more than the act of assassination, or for that matter the motivation of the man who carried it out, the real significance of the event lies in what it exemplifies and portends viz. radicalisation has seeped far too deep into Pakistan's society and is today the norm, and the liberals and moderates with which the rest of the world interfaces are the exception.

The outpouring of grief, condemnation and soul searching by what is now clearly an endangered species of liberal and moderate writers has conveyed an impression that there is widespread revulsion in the country over the assassination. Nothing can be farther than the truth. According to Pakistani journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai, the 'moderates' have a strong presence only in the editorial pages of the English language press, the readership of which is not more than a few hundred thousand in a nation of close to 180 million people. More than anything else, the virtual deluge of write-ups on Salman Taseer's killing in the English media illustrates the panic being felt by sections of the Pakistani elite. Taseer's murder came as a rather rude shock to many of these people who until now had pretty much been untouched and unaffected by the tide of religious fanaticism that is sweeping Pakistan. Qadri has, however, demonstrated that they too are fair game for the Islamists if they either defy or even deviate from the norms dictated by the extremist mainstream.

The times when this tiny elite used to set the social, cultural and political agenda of Pakistan are long gone. Over the last couple of decades, street and state power has been steadily shifting away from the miniscule, so-called liberal and progressive elite. The reaction of both the street and the state to Taseer's killing stands testimony to the marginalisation of the so-called 'moderates', what with million man marches in support of Qadri, and not more than a handful of 'civil society' activists protesting against the assassination. And while rose petals were showered on Qadri by Pakistani lawyers, it was difficult to find a cleric who was willing to read Taseer's funeral prayers. Even worse, leading lights of the lawyers movement – Aitzaz Ahsan, Justice Tariq Mehmood, Justice Wajihuddin and Ali Ahmed Kurd – who never tired of telling the world that the movement was in defence of rule of law and a more liberal and caring Pakistani state, flatly refused to come out in public to condemn Qadri.

If this was the 'civil society's' reaction, the response of the state was no better. Reams have been written about how, from the Prime Minister down all senior government functionaries distanced themselves from the stand Taseer had taken against the death sentence given to a Christian woman, Aasia Bibi, for allegedly committing blasphemy. There is also the sorry spectacle of Interior Minister Rehman Malik advising a ruling party lawmaker, Sherry Rehman, to leave the country if she wants to live. Her crime: she moved a private member's bill seeking amendments in the blasphemy law to prevent its abuse and misuse. The mullahs are baying for her blood, issuing fatwas that hold her murder a righteous and obligatory act for Muslims, but there has been absolutely no action by the state machinery against this blatant incitement to murder. What is worse, many police officials, including those involved in anti-terrorist operations, are reported to have voiced their support for Qadri and justified his actions. Is it any surprise then that warnings about Qadri's Islamist leanings were ignored?

With the Pakistani state leaning over backwards to appease the extremists, the Islamists have latched on to the blasphemy law to stamp their domination on the social, political, cultural, legal and constitutional discourse in Pakistan. They have felt further emboldened by the judiciary's complicity with, if not capitulation to, Islamism. To quote Pakistani columnist and Member of National Assembly, Ayaz Amir: "lower-tier judges go out of their way to look for loopholes when dangerous terrorists are on trial, thus giving them the benefit of the doubt, and...close all loopholes and don spectacles of the utmost strictness when it comes to the trial of a poor Christian man or woman...charged with blasphemy, on the flimsiest of evidence or the most dubious of motives". The attitude of the superior judiciary is no better, with the chief justice of Pakistan declaring that the court couldn't be a mute bystander and let Pakistan become a secular state and the Lahore High Court forbidding the government from granting any clemency to Aasia Bibi.

The seriousness of the systemic crisis that confronts Pakistan can also be gauged from the fact that the mullahs who are in the vanguard of extolling Qadri's act belong to the anti-Taliban Barelvi sect which is being touted as face of moderate Islam and is being propped up by the Pakistani state as a counterforce to the pro-Taliban Deobandi sect. But as is clear from the Taseer episode, when it comes to fanaticism, there is little to choose between the shrine- worshipping Sufi syncretism of the Barelvis and the Puritanism of Wahabbi inspired Deobandis. In other words, the struggle in Pakistan is no longer between moderate and radical Islam; it is between two competing versions of radical Islam. The vortex of fanaticism has not left the security forces and other instruments of state untouched. How could it, considering that it was the security establishment itself that fanned the flames of fanaticism in pursuit of its political and foreign policy objectives. To expect the same security forces to now recognise the danger of radicalism and put the genie back in the bottle is utterly delusional.

What has contributed to the unbridled rise in power and influence of the Islamists is absence of a convincing and credible religious and ideological narrative that can counter the Islamists. The best that the so-called moderates can come up with is that the fundamentalists do not represent the 'silent majority', something that has been proved by the consistently poor performance of religious parties in successive elections. But as Hajrah Mumtaz writes: the phrase 'silent majority' in Pakistan can only be used in the context of its original meaning — it originates from Homer's Odyssey, and refers to the dead who are in the majority as compared to the living...if Pakistan has a 'silent majority at all, it is in this manner". What the 'moderates' cannot or don't want to understand is that the extremists don't need to win a majority in Parliament to push for what they want; they can easily force their way through the use of their street power and firepower. The reality of Pakistan is that even without a single seat in Parliament, the fundamentalists hold a veto over any and every progressive measure that the government might want to take.

Take for instance the issue of amending the procedure of the blasphemy law to prevent its abuse. If even the 'enlightened moderate' regime of the former military dictator Gen Pervez Musharraf was unable to make the smallest of procedural changes in the blasphemy law, what are the odds of the current crop of 'empowered' politicians doing the same, assuming they find the courage to even attempt such an amendment? In any case, the problem is not so much with the blasphemy law itself as it is with the society's attitude towards someone accused under the law. No sooner is someone accused of blasphemy, the person is condemned regardless of the existence or otherwise of any intent, let alone evidence, of having committed blasphemy. Even if the courts acquit someone – a rarity given that the judges are either too scared or too Islamised to do so – the people take it upon themselves to kill the person.

The point therefore is that unless this attitude, rather mindset, changes, no amendment in the procedure of the law will make a whit of a difference to those wrongly accused of blasphemy. By concentrating only on the inequities of the blasphemy law, the Pakistani moderates, as also the rest of the world, are missing the woods for the trees. The real battle to be fought is the one against radical Islamic thought and not for some minor changes in law. But this is a battle that has still not been joined in any serious and sustained manner and might have already been lost.

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<1510 Words> 14^th January, 2011

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2011-01-08T02:02:00.001-08:00

NEED FOR A COMPOSITE BACK CHANNEL WITH PAKISTAN ARMY

SUSHANT SAREEN

One of the most vexing and intractable foreign policy issues dogging India has been the bilateral relationship with Pakistan. Over the last six decades, a lot of effort has been expended on working out a modus Vivendi with Pakistan, but in the face of implacable hostility and unrelenting irredentism from Pakistan, all the initiatives taken by India have so far come to nought. After 26/11, India and Pakistan have once again reached a dead-end of sorts with public opinion in India inimical to any political or diplomatic initiative by the government to try and improve relations with Pakistan. But unless India has decided to turn its back on Pakistan and behave, even wish, as though Pakistan has ceased to exist, such an attitude would appear to be unsustainable. Worse, this attitude is also untenable because it is not the result of a conscious policy or strategic game plan, but is borne out of a lot of pique, some prejudice, a degree of pugnacity and of course domestic political compulsions.

Restarting a dialogue with Pakistan is however easier said than done, more so when there is a civilian government in office but the Pakistan army is in charge. This is a problem for the Indian political and permanent establishment, which despite being aware of the power realities in Pakistan, balks at the idea of entering into any separate or direct dialogue with the Pakistan army. In other words, while India can countenance a dialogue with the 'puppets', it is averse to talking to the 'puppeteers'. The resistance to opening a dialogue with the Pakistan army would be understandable if it was part of a well thought out strategy to alter the internal dynamics of Pakistan's power structure – drive a wedge between the political and military establishment in Pakistan and eventually end the preponderant power and influence that the generals wield in the politics of the country as well as sideline them from exercising a veto power on relations with India. But clearly, this strategy is a non-starter because the Pakistani political establishment has outsourced, rather abdicated, the country's India policy to the army and now tows the line set by the army.

To be sure, India's reluctance to engage the Pakistan army is morally correct and principled. But it goes against the basic principles of realpolitik, more so when self-proclaimed standard bearers of 'democracy' and 'freedom' don't bat an eyelid while mollycoddling Pakistani dictators, or doing business with the chief of the Pakistan army even though a civilian government is in office. The Indian distaste for opening a dialogue with the Pakistan army makes even less sense considering that India has never refused to engage military regimes in Pakistan, following the principle that it would deal with whoever was in power. Why then the resistance today to deal only with the de jure power (civilian government) and not the de facto power (army) in Pakistan? Not to put too fine point on it, in Pakistan if you win over the army, everything else falls into place, more or less.

While India's antipathy towards the Pakistan army is quite natural, the absence of a credible interlocutor in Pakistan who can exercise effective control over the Pakistan army leaves India with little choice except to open a parallel dialogue with the military establishment in Pakistan. The Indian policy of developing closer people-to-people relationships as a means to make a breakthrough in the bilateral relationship is unlikely to ever work. The manner in which the entire progress made on the people-to-people front between 2004 and 2008 was practically overnight reduced to nothing after the 26/11 terrorist strike in Mumbai should be proof enough that when it comes to India-Pakistan relations, the people tend to follow the line set by their establishments. In order words, people-to-people relations flower when the establishment allows them, and they wither away when the establishment shuts the door on them.

It is even more futile to depend on the so-called civil society of Pakistan for raising a constituency of peace. For one, what goes as civil society in Pakistan is really a fringe group and constitutes around a 1000 people, and if you want to be very charitable then the number can be raised to 5000. This is not to belittle the commitment, conviction and courage of some of the members of civil society in promoting and propagating the cause of normalisation of relations with India. But at the end of the day, despite their visibility and volubility, how many army divisions or jihadists or even votes do these people control?

Interestingly, in trying to engage the Pakistan army, India doesn't even have to take the initiative; it just has to respond to overtures that the Pakistan army already appears to be making. Over the last few months, enough hints have been dropped by Pakistan's military establishment of their desire to deal directly with the Indian establishment. There are some reports, albeit unconfirmed, of a meeting between the Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad and the Pakistan army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani. The ISI chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha has met the Indian armed forces representatives posted in the High Commission in Islamabad and is believed to have conveyed to them that India needs to talk directly with the Pakistan army. There are also some suggestions (straws in the wind actually) that the Pakistan army is opening up to the idea of working with India on Afghanistan.

Indications of the Pakistan army's willingness to engage with their opposite numbers in the Indian establishment have also come from the gestures made by the Pakistan army – for instance, Pasha attending an Iftar party thrown by the Indian High Commissioner, the ISI hosting farewell parties for some Indian defence advisors who were returning to India after completing their tenures in Islamabad, the Indian defence advisors being invited to attend the passing out parade at the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul. For its part, the Indian establishment has been reciprocating the gestures from the Pakistan military establishment and has invited the head of the National Defence University in Islamabad, a serving Lt. Gen., to India. But until now, no decision has been taken to engage the Pakistan army in a serious, sustained manner.

There are of course a whole lot of counter-signals also being received that suggest that the Pakistan army has restarted the jihad factory directed against India. Many of the jihadist outfits that had been forced to go underground have started resurfacing and are openly preaching violence against India. Pakistan's Taliban proxies are targeting Indian interests, workers and projects in Afghanistan. The ISI has been once again tried to reignite the insurgency in Kashmir by coordinating the actions of the agent provocateurs and funding the unrest in the Kashmir valley last summer. None other than Gen. Ashfaq Kayani has made no bones about the fact that the Pakistan army remains India-centric and cannot ignore or neglect the threat it perceives from its eastern front regardless of the deterioration in the situation on the western front. The ratcheting up of the anti-India propaganda by the so-called 'independent' media in Pakistan is yet another pointer to direction in which the wind is blowing inside Pakistan. And, if there were still any doubts, the rise in anti-India rhetoric of the Pakistan foreign office, especially from the foreign minister, should clinch the argument that the process of normalisation of relations between the two countries has regressed significantly.

But these negative signals are precisely the reason why it is so important for India to engage with Pakistan army. That the Pakistan army and Gen. Ashfaq Kayani don't like, much less trust, India is a sentiment that India reciprocates in full measure, and perhaps with far greater justification and reason. But what India is unable to understand fully is what is prompting Kayani's anti-Indiaism. Is it a religious, or even a civilizational, hang-up? Or does it arise out of a genuine sense of insecurity from India? And is there any way that India can address this anti-Indiaism without in any way compromising on its security preparedness and its territorial unity, integrity and sovereignty? Similarly, there is a lot that Pakistan needs to do to reassure India and address its security concerns, and a dialogue with the Pakistan army can become a useful forum in finding a redressal to these problems.

Advocation of open lines of communication with the Pakistan army doesn't in any way mean letting down the guard or dropping 'assets' and 'leverages' that India might have built inside Pakistan (as had been done in the past by so many Indian Prime Ministers, including Morarji Desai and IK Gujral). Nor does it mean harbouring starry-eyed notions that the Pakistan army is no longer inimical to India's security or is in the process of ending its hostility to India.

The point being made is not that there will be an end to the secret, or if you will, 'shadow' wars being fought between the two countries in different theatres; it is that in the course of engagement, the two establishments might be able to reach a better understanding of each others' concerns and might find that some of their assumptions and presumptions about each other were misplaced. There is also a possibility of breaking common ground on a range of issues and initiating a process of confidence building measures that are verifiable on the ground.

Any dialogue with the Pakistan army must, however, be held far away from the media glare, otherwise the entire effort will be rendered futile by the grandstanding that is inherent in the presence of the media. Equally important, there must be strict confidentiality about the talks because nothing kills trust more than selective and self-serving leaks to the media. The template that can be adopted is that of the the 'back-channel' that had opened up after the Islamabad meeting between Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Gen. Pervez Musharraf in 2004.

Once the decision to enter into such a dialogue is taken, there will arise the question as to who from India's side will talk to the Pakistan army, especially since the Indian Army, by no stretch of imagination, occupies the same position in the Indian power structure as the Pakistan army does in Pakistan. Similarly, in terms of the power it wields, the Indian external intelligence agency RAW cannot be put on the same pedestal as the ISI. One way out of this is to adopt a multi-track approach, a sort of 'composite back-channel' in which the intelligence agencies comprise one track, the military leaders another track in which they discuss military and security related matters, a third track can discuss larger strategic perceptions, outlooks and assessments. All these various tracks can then provide inputs to the political back-channel. To start with, the discussions in these various tracks can be unstructured and, if necessary, can be held in some third country.

The question whether will such a composite back channel between the security establishments of the two countries work is hardly important. Having tried everything else, this is probably the only thing that is left to be tried. If it works, the prospects for normalization of relations will brighten; if it doesn't, neither country will have lost anything.

2010-12-23T07:16:00.001-08:00

A GAME THEORY FOR PAKISTANI POLITICS

SUSHANT SAREEN

With the exit from the government of the Maulana Fazlur Rehman led faction of the Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUIF), the perpetually buffeted – by an overbearing military, an hyper active and interventionist judiciary, a hostile media and fickle and demanding allies – PPP-led coalition government in Pakistan is facing yet another bout of instability. The wily Maulana has walked out of the coalition at a time when it was contending with multiple crises. Not surprisingly, questions have once again been raised questions over the survivability of the government, more so because another crucial coalition partner, MQM, is literally straining at the leash to break away from the coalition.

Adding to the troubles of the government is the coalescing of the opposition parties, and some members of the ruling coalition, against the Reformed General Sales Tax (RGST) bill that the government must get passed through parliament to get the next tranche of the Structural Adjustment loan from the IMF. The failure to impose the RGST could lead to a drying up of the aid tap. It is feared that the economic meltdown and hyper inflation that will result if aid flow stops might unleash large scale street disturbances and economic rioting that will almost certainly have an impact on the political system in the country.

At a time when Pakistan is staring down the edge of an abyss, it is saddled with a government that is perceived to be both horrendously corrupt and astoundingly incompetent, and therefore increasingly untenable. An impression that the current government's days are numbered has been steadily gaining currency. Going by recent historical record, the life of an elected government is generally around three years, and if history is any guide to future then the PPP government has almost reached its sell-by date. But while all the signs on the ground and reports in the media would suggest that the government is on its way out, the problem is that despite predictions of mortality of the regime for nearly a year and a half now, the government has managed to survive. Therefore, as things stand, there is no simple answer to the question of whether the government will collapse or will survive for some more time, and perhaps even complete its full term in office. An educated guess of the future trajectory of Pakistani politics can be, however, made with the help of what can be called the game theory of Pakistani politics.

The political game in Pakistan has an iron law – actually a paradox – according to which the stronger a government, the more vulnerable it is and greater the chances of its ouster because of a crisis; conversely, a weak and tottering government is actually stronger, not so much in terms of its ability to govern or deliver but in terms of its chances of survival in office. 'Strong' civilian governments in Pakistan, which appear to have covered all their bases and tied up all the loose ends that could unravel their hold on power, invariably tend to overplay their hand. This invites a reaction from opponents who defend their interests by acting either alone or in concert with other affected players. Weak governments, on the other hand, are always compromising and giving in to pulls and pressures in order to survive. Plus, they are not considered a threat by the other players who want such governments to continue as long as they have not tied up other loose ends of their political game plan.

Of course, there are some complexities in this iron law which add to the difficulties in making the right call on the longevity of a government, especially a civilian government, in Pakistan. One complexity arises from the multitude of players in the political game – Pakistan army, major political parties and personalities, judiciary, and the US; while some analysts would count the media as an important player, the reality is that the media is nothing more than a comprador, manipulated and misused by the major players for their objectives. The political calculations made by the main players, either individually or in conjunction with other players, and the decisions they take on the basis of these calculations can complicate the outcome of the game.

The other complexity is the perception factor. If the perception is that the government is weak and can be brought down easily, there is little incentive for the other players to pull it down, at least not until they have got what they wanted either from the government or from the situation that exists on the ground. The perception of a weak government leads to a situation that gives rise to a counter perception that the government is here to stay, i.e. 'a strong government'. But the moment a government is seen to be a 'strong government', the anti-forces create conditions and hatch 'conspiracies' to pull it down. If the anti-forces succeed, the government falls; but even if they fail, they end up weakening the government to a point where it is seen as a pushover and not a threat to any of the other main players.

While factors like political and constitutional circumstances, political skill and wild cards (natural disasters, accidents, sudden death of an important player etc.) also play an important role as swing factors, their real significance lies in their role as inputs that change the perceptions of the major players and thereby their calculations and decisions. Ultimately, whether or not a government survives becomes a function of the combination of the perceptions and calculations of the players and the interplay of interests and insecurities of the players.

A classical manifestation of the theory outlined above is the current state of politics in Pakistan. The incumbent government is arguably one of the weakest governments that Pakistan has seen and yet it has managed to defy the odds and held on to office by riding out all the political storms. Compared to the 'strong' regimes like those of Nawaz Sharif and Gen Musharraf which were unable to survive the major crises that confronted them – Kargil in the case of Nawaz Sharif and the dismissal of the chief justice and the lawyers' movement in the case of Musharraf, the Zardari led dispensation has lurched from one major crises to another, but survived for far longer than anyone had ever imagined when the hostile propaganda spearheaded by the malleable media started around a year and a half back. So much so, that until a few weeks back the anti-forces had become so disheartened that they were forced to concede that the Zardari regime is here to stay i.e. it is much stronger than the perception. But as soon as the perception of 'strong' government started doing the rounds, a new set of crises erupted which threaten the survival of the government. In other words, while the hostile media campaign did weaken the government, this weakness helped it survive; on the other hand, when the media projected the government as unshakeable, at least for the time being, it suddenly started getting jolts from all sides.

Admittedly, the government has been helped by a set of fortuitous circumstances – no acceptable alternative to the incumbent, constitutional complexities in derailing the political system, disturbed internal security situation that militates against any move that disturbs or destabilises the political scene, the support of the US for the government, the unwillingness of Nawaz Sharif to take any precipitate political action that could easily end up derailing once again the parliamentary system, Asif Zardari's ability to roll with the blows, and retreat to fight another day, as also his deft political moves to disarm his opponents (by reaching out to them and offering them concessions and rewards) and exploit their differences with each other to prevent them from ganging up against him.

Even so, the ruling coalition is so fragile that it can be ousted without much trouble. But this is precisely why there doesn't seem to be any great urgency to get rid of the government. In other words, the government is going nowhere just yet, at least not until the other players decide that the time has come for its ouster. The day such a decision is taken – either because the interests of the other players (especially the army) mandates toppling the government, or because the drift in governance brings the country to the brink of collapse and chaos and necessitates a military intervention – the government will collapse in a matter of days. But until that day, it serves the interest of all the players in Pakistan's political game to keep this government in place and extract concessions that further their personal and political interests, let the government earn opprobrium for tough and unpopular decisions, and after having milked the PPP-led coalition for what it is worth, dump it.

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<1470 Words> 23^rd December, 2010

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2010-12-18T01:57:00.001-08:00

PIPEDREAMS ABOUT PIPELINES

SUSHANT SAREEN

The superlatives being attributed to the signing of the Inter-Government Agreement (IGA) and the Gas Pipeline Framework Agreement (GPFA) for the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline appear rather farfetched especially when seen in light of the obstacles that stand in the way of implementing this mega-project. On paper, the benefits of the TAPI pipeline are undeniable for all the countries that fall in the route of the pipeline. But political and strategic considerations on the one hand and economic factors like gas price, transportation, taxation and transit fees, security of supply etc. on the other hand are together unlikely to let this project ever become a reality. Unless these obstacles are removed, the fate of the TAPI pipeline proposal won't be very different from that of the much vaunted Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline.

Unlike the IPI project, the TAPI has certain advantages. For one, there is no opposition to it from the US and its allies. If anything, the West has been pushing for the project as an alternative to the IPI pipeline, more so in the wake of 9/11 after the US forces entered Afghanistan. But even during the Taliban era, the US oil major UNOCAL was pitching for the Turkmen pipeline project and was involved in a rather murky competition with an Argentine company Bridas for the pipeline contract. After the Taliban regime was toppled, the project was once again revived when in 2002 an IGA and GPFA were signed between Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan to build what was then known as the TAP pipeline. But soon it became clear that the pipeline would not be economically viable without including India in it.

To rope in India, the Asian Development Bank was brought in. For India the project held both economic advantage (cheap and abundant energy supply which would bridge the future gas demand and supply gap in India) as well as diplomatic benefit (a symbol of regional cooperation, an affirmation of India's commitment to rebuilding of Afghanistan and as a means to become an important player in the energy sector in Central Asian states). With the West supporting the project, finding the funding the project and the companies for implementing it will be a cakewalk, something that is not the case with the IPI where international companies and financial institutions would risk US sanctions by dealing with Iran. But these positives are far outweighed by the negative factors associated with the project that could prevent it from getting off the ground.

Although India has signed the new IGA and GPFA, there are a large number of critical issues that will need to be sorted out before India signs the all important Gas Sale and Purchase Agreement (GSPA) which will decide the techno-economic issues like route of pipeline, price of gas, security of supply, fixing liability in the event of disruption of supply etc. So far the only issue that has been resolved is that of the availability of gas in the South Yoloten-Osman gasfield which has replaced the Daulatabad gasfield that had been earmarked in 2002 and on which there were serious questions being raised over the size of gas reserves. But without complete satisfaction on all the other issues outlined above, which will involve torturously long and detailed negotiations that can take a year or more, the work on the pipeline project cannot start.

Under the GPFA that India has signed, India will be buying the gas on the Turkmen border and then handing it over to the consortium to transport it to the Indian border where it will take the delivery of the gas. This is a totally untenable proposition unless accompanied by iron-cast guarantees on safe passage of gas and provisions for compensation to India in the event of disruption of supply. There will also be issues regarding the fixation of transit fees and transportation costs that will be charged by Afghanistan and Pakistan which will need to be thrashed out before the pipeline is constructed and the gas starts flowing. If the IPI is anything to go by, where the Pakistanis asked for ridiculously high transit fees from India, then India could easily lose interest in the TAPI project.

Even if the techno-economic issues are sorted out and adequate safeguards are built into the GSPA to India's satisfaction, there are very major political and strategic challenges that will have to be surmounted for the TAPI pipeline to see the light of the day. While the Americans are backing the project and see it not only as an important component in rebuilding Afghanistan but also for strengthening their hold over the Central Asian energy sector which is currently dominated by the Russians and which is being keenly eyed by the Chinese, their timing has gone horribly wrong. Perhaps if the project had been implemented in 2003-04 when the Islamist terrorism in Afpak region was in retreat, it would have served as a monument to a new Afghanistan. But since that time, the security situation has regressed enormously with the resurgence of the Taliban / Al Qaeda terrorists. What makes the pipeline project appears even more undoable is the fact that the proposed route of the pipeline will run through the Taliban heartland of South Afghanistan.

The project will also have to contend with withdrawal of at least the bulk of the NATO forces from Afghanistan by 2014. With the construction of the pipeline not likely to start before 2012-13, by which time the drawdown of NATO troops would have commenced, a huge shadow of uncertainty hangs over the entire project. With the security situation expected to deteriorate, it would almost certainly militate against the construction of the pipeline. Of course, the incumbent Afghan government has been promising adequate security to the pipeline and has pledged to dedicate around 7000-8000 troops to guard the pipeline. But to rely on the assurances of a government whose writ doesn't even run in Kabul for providing security to the pipeline would be quite foolhardy. The only way for the pipeline to come up would be if it gets security guarantees from the Taliban. But would India like to be part of a project that becomes a milch cow for the Islamist terror groups?

It would be equally reckless on India's part to depend on a hostile and increasingly unstable Pakistan to provide security to the pipeline or even to live up to its commitment to prevent any disruption in supplies. In this context, it may be recalled that in attempting to convince India to join the IPI project in the mid 1990s the then Pakistani president told the Indian High Commissioner that even in event of a war between India and Pakistan the disruption of supplies would not be for more than a couple of weeks because that is how long the two countries could fight!

The proponents and supporters of the TAPI project also make the argument that the international binding agreements that will govern the pipeline project will force Pakistan to ensure gas supply to India. But a compelling counter argument is that these international agreements will not be worth the paper they are written on if Pakistan implodes or descends into chaos and anarchy or comes under the sway of jihadist forces, as increasingly appears likely. Even if such a drastic fate was not to befall Pakistan, it will be of little comfort to India. Given the flagrant violation by Pakistan of all international agreements, treaties and conventions against export of terror to its neighbours and rest of the world, and its audacious support, sustenance and sanctuary to Islamist terror groups in defiance of the international pressure, who can guarantee that Pakistan will honour international commitments and obligations on uninterrupted gas supply to India?

Asides of Pakistan's natural proclivity for thumbing its nose at international norms of behaviour, there is also a possibility that Pakistan might use the gas line as a lever against India to prevent the hydropower projects being constructed in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. And if Pakistan does resort to such disruptions, the costs in terms of loss of production of units that depend on the Turkmen gas would balance out any benefit that India hopes to derive from the project.

It is not as if all these factors have not been taken into account by the Indian government. But if despite these factors India has joined the TAPI pipeline then it is because, for now at least, India is 'stringing along' the other countries involved in the TAPI project. The objective is to not to be excluded out if the pipeline ever gets built. At the same time, India is neither pinning any hopes nor planning its growth strategy on the gas that may or may not flow through the TAPI pipeline. In other words, there are no pipedreams in India about the pipelines.

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<1480 Words> 16^th December, 2010

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2010-11-26T09:16:00.001-08:00

26/11: TWO YEARS ON, BARBARIANS EXULT AS JUSTICE ELUDES

SUSHANT SAREEN

Two years after the barbaric mass murder of innocent people in Mumbai, justice has continued to elude the families of victims. The Pakistani perpetrators, masterminds and sponsors of the 26/11 attacks are either openly strutting about the streets of Pakistani cities or are enjoying a rest and recreation break behind prison walls, secure in the knowledge that the faux trials in Pakistani courts will end in a predictable manner – i.e. with their acquittal. Not that all this comes as a surprise. Given the complicity of the Pakistani state (read army and intelligence agencies) in the attacks, the prosecution of the people arrested in Pakistan was never going to be anything more than an eyewash.

Within hours of the arrest of Ajmal Kasab, one of the ten terrorists who attacked Mumbai, the Indian security agencies had got enough information to pin the blame for the attack on the Pakistani terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba. Despite knowing of the links between the LeT and the ISI – the former being a virtual paramilitary force of the Pakistan army – the Indian government tried to give the benefit of doubt to the Pakistani state by talking of the involvement of 'elements within the Pakistani establishment'. Had the Pakistani state not been involved in planning and provisioning and providing training for the attacks, it would have grabbed the opening given by India to bring the guilty to justice. That this has not happened coupled with the fact that all efforts have been made by the 'deep state' of Pakistan to delay the trials of arrested people is irrefutable evidence of the participation of the state machinery and agencies in the entire macabre episode.

Even the trial which is underway in Pakistani courts against six of the accused was the result of the enormous international pressure that was put on Pakistan by Western countries whose nationals were murdered by the Pakistani terrorists in Mumbai. But apart from Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and Zarrar Shah, the other under-trials are mere foot-soldiers, and almost all the main masterminds like Sajid Mir, Abu Qafa and others whose names have been revealed by David Headley have got away scot free. As far as the trial itself is concerned, there are serious questions being raised over the seriousness and sincerity with which it is being conducted. Given that the trial is being conducted in camera, there is a veil of secrecy over it. Even the charge-sheet and the evidence that has been produced by the Pakistani authorities is unknown.

All assurances given by the Pakistani authorities on bringing the guilty to justice have been violated. Take for instance the assurance given by Pakistan's interior minister to the Indian home minister on the issue of providing voice samples of some of the masterminds. Six months after Rehman Malik gave a solemn assurance, not one step has been taken in this direction. Meanwhile, the Pakistani authorities have tried to complicate the trial by sending one dossier after another seeking more information from India on the attacks. Given that the Mumbai terrorists were in constant communication with their masters in Pakistan for nearly 72 hours while the horror was playing out in front of TV screens across the world, surely the Pakistani intelligences would have got a fix on the people sitting in Pakistan who were issuing instructions to the terrorists. But so far there is total silence on this count.

Most of the information sought in the dossiers sent by Pakistan is either totally irrelevant or a clumsy effort to deflect, dilate and thereby delay the investigation. Worse, the questions are more in the nature of a phishing expedition to try and ferret out the depth and if possible source of information that the Indian security agencies have gathered so that next time around the Pakistani can take care to cover their tracks. But even as the Pakistanis try to cover the tracks of their auxiliaries who carried out the attacks, explosive new information and revelations have come pouring out. The interrogation of the Pakistani-origin terrorist, David Headley aka Dawood Gilani, has implicated the ISI and LeT, including some senior serving officers of the Pakistan army, including the ISI chief Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha who is supposed to have visited Lakhvi in prison. Small wonder then, that the Pakistan state continues to be in complete denial and resorting to lies and obfuscation to protect its jihadis – uniformed and in mufti.

Forget about taking action against the masterminds, the Pakistani government and agencies have allowed the organisation that carried out the attacks to operate openly. Despite a ban being imposed on the Lashkar-e-Taiba and its front organisation Jamaatud Dawa, these groups enjoy complete impunity to carry out their murderous trade of collecting funds, operating training camps, making hate speeches and recruiting jihadist cadres. So much so that the so-called civil society of Pakistan feels no compunctions in inviting the head of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, Hafiz Saeed, to give a talk, as was done by the Lahore High Court Bar Association some days ago.

In spite of the stonewalling on action against the terrorists, Pakistan is audacious enough to call for talks with India and asking India to not become hostage to a single incident. It is almost as though the Pakistanis want India to forget that 26/11 ever happened. Normally it is not a bad idea to move on and put the past behind. But in the case of Pakistan, every time India has tried to put the past behind and move on to normalise relations, the past has inevitably repeated itself. Take for instance the train bombings in Mumbai in 2006. India did move on and what happened? 26/11. Perhaps if India was to now forget 26/11 and move on, it would be followed by another such spectacular attack. Clearly then, India must draw a red line now. Not doing so and re-engaging Pakistan without the perpetrators and masterminds of 26/11 being punished would amount to inviting Pakistan to launch more such attacks.

More than anything else, the 26/11 attacks which have scarred the Indian psyche, need to be used both to build up an impregnable and uncompromising internal security architecture as well as developing instruments to deter and if necessary inflict unacceptable damage on the country that sponsors and supports terrorist activities in India. To do so India needs to bring into play all the components of national power – overt and covert, economic and military, conventional and sub-conventional, diplomatic and political – to protect the lives and properties of its citizens.

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<1090 Words> 26^th November, 2010

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2010-11-19T05:32:00.001-08:00

COLD START AS A DETERRENCE AGAINST PROXY WAR

SUSHANT SAREEN

For some months now, the Indian Army's 'Cold Start' (CS) doctrine has been attracting a lot of attention from Western diplomats, generals and political leaders. The reason is simple: the Pakistanis, who were reluctant to move against their 'strategic assets' (aka Taliban and Al Qaeda affiliates like Lashkar-e-Taiba), have self-servingly flagged this doctrine as proof of India's hostile and aggressive design. Waving the 'threat' from India, the Pakistan Army has been resisting pressure from the West to redeploy troops from the eastern border to the western front. The gullible Westerners appear to have bought the Pakistani line and are seeking to persuade India to renounce the CS doctrine. This, the Westerners believe, is the magic bullet to address Pakistan's sense of insecurity and allow the Pakistan Army to move against terrorist safe havens inside Pakistani territory.

How much the CS doctrine has spooked the Pakistani is clear from the statements of the Pakistani political leaders and military generals. Addressing senior officers in the GHQ on 1^st January, the Pakistan army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani called the CS doctrine "an adventurous and dangerous path". He flogged this theme during his talk at the NATO headquarters in Brussels and later in a meeting with Pakistani journalists where he showed deep concern over the Indian Army's preparations for making the CS doctrine operational. Taking the cue from him, the National Command Authority of Pakistan issued a statement in which it said that an "offensive doctrines like Cold Start...tend to destabilise the regional balance". The Azm-e-Nau military exercises, held in April-May this year, were primarily aimed at countering the CS strategy of the Indian army. Completely at a loss to understand Pakistan's recalcitrance over acting against Islamist terror groups, the West appears to have latched on to the Pakistan's India bogey as a possible solution to end the Pakistani double-game in the war on terror. Hence, the efforts to try and make India back off from the CS strategy.

The problem, however, is that no amount of disavowals by India, and no amount of security assurances by the US or other Western nations, will ever convince Pakistan, which has been badly rattled by the CS doctrine, that India's basic defence posture is defensive in nature and orientation. Despite the Indian army chief Gen. VK Singh denying the existence of any such doctrine, the CS strategy has acquired a life of its own in the Pakistani military mind.

Come to think of if, this is probably not such a bad thing from India's point of view. Even as strategists debate over the practicality or otherwise of the concept of a limited war under a nuclear overhang and the CS doctrine as a military strategy – after all, the battleground has a nasty habit of springing surprises that can ground the most well-prepared battle plans – the doctrine's validity has been confirmed by Pakistan's frenetic efforts to put in place a counter strategy. That the Pakistan army is preparing to counter the CS by its conventional forces and not through use of nuclear weapons is a tacit acceptance of both the theory of limited war under a nuclear overhang as well as the exploitation of this strategic space through the device of CS doctrine.

More important, however, has been the utility of the CS doctrine as a tool of psy-war. Not only has it unsettled the adversary, it has also put in place an effective deterrent against the proxy war unleashed by Pakistan-sponsored terror groups in India. In other words, Pakistan can no longer be sure on whether or not India will resort to lightening strikes across the border in response to actions by Pakistani terror groups inside India. The prospect of sudden retaliation by India effectively means that the impunity with which Pakistan was exporting terror to India is in grave danger. Perhaps this is one of the major reasons why there has been no major terrorist attack in India since 26/11.

But the utility of CS as a deterrent to sub-conventional warfare or proxy warfare depends in large measure on the credibility of the deterrent. In a sense, the dynamics and dialectics of a sub-conventional deterrence like CS are no different from those of nuclear deterrence. As and when India effectively operationalises the CS doctrine, it will have to ensure that the adversary knows the resolve of the Indian state to implement this strategy in response to another major terrorist strike. This is critical to prevent any miscalculation or misreading by Pakistan of India's resolve. While the retaliation doesn't have to be immediate – to quote Mario Puzo "revenge is a dish that tastes best when it is cold" – any failure by India to resort to CS in response to a terror attack supported, inspired or originating from Pakistan will degrade the value of the deterrence.

It is in this sense that the CS doctrine is a double-edged weapon for both India and Pakistan. To retain credibility India will have to retaliate militarily using the CS strategy, otherwise not only will India loses all credibility, it will embolden Pakistan to continue to unleash jihadist terror on India. But retaliation will put India on the escalation ladder which could easily go beyond the parameters of scope and scale of CS operations. The big unknown is that with sub-conventional deterrence in the form of CS doctrine breaking down, how much time and what level of desperation of either party will force them to take the next escalatory step which in turn could lead to making real the spectre of a nuclear exchange in the subcontinent.

To an extent, the escalation ladder will depend on how Pakistan responds to a CS by India. The dilemma for Pakistan will be that if it doesn't respond with its nuclear weapons, it will not only validate India's belief of space for a limited war under a nuclear overhang but more seriously, rob Pakistan of its nuclear deterrent, if only in the context of a limited war. In other words, Pakistan will face a Hobson's choice: it can either degrade the quality of its nuclear deterrent or it can unleash a nuclear holocaust which will not only wipe it out but wreck horrendous damage on India and indeed on rest of the world.

As long as the sub-conventional deterrence holds, the enunciation of the Cold Start doctrine actually introduces a degree of strategic stability in the region by forcing Pakistan to exercise extreme caution in unleashing terrorist violence in India. Far from asking India to renounce the CS doctrine or put it in the cold storage, the West needs to impress upon Pakistan that it can no longer expect India to roll over and play dead in response to actions of terror groups based inside Pakistan. If Pakistan stops using terror as an instrument of state policy, the CS strategy will stay in the cold storage. Otherwise, all bets are off.

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<1150 Words> 19^th November, 2010

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2010-11-12T02:19:00.001-08:00

INDIA, US AND THE 'P' WORD

SUSHANT SAREEN

Try as it might, India just doesn't seem to be able to get over its much disliked hyphenation with Pakistan. Even when the 'hyphenators' make a studied effort to avoid hyphenating India with Pakistan, the Indians seem hell bent on raising the 'P' word and descending back into the quagmire in which it had been enmeshed for better part of the last six decades. This needless obsession with Pakistan came tumbling out during the visit of the US President Barack Obama. Until Obama backed Indian claim for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, it almost appeared as though Pakistan was the biggest agenda item in the US-India summit. Everything else - defence deals and compact on fighting terrorism through intelligence sharing, capacity building and technology transfers, investment and trade pacts, cooperation in space and education, collaboration on energy, health and environmental issues, easing of the technology denial regime, support for India's membership to groups like the NSG, Australia group and Wassenaar group, India's role in East Asia and Afghanistan – seemed to recede into the background.

This is not to deny that Pakistan's relentless use of terrorism as an instrument of state policy poses a big threat to peace and security in the region and as such is a matter of serious concern to India which has faced the brunt of Pakistan's export of terrorism. It is also true that post 26/11, a lot has changed in India as far as Pakistani sponsored terrorism is concerned. Indeed, India is on a short fuse, and to the extent that this sentiment was conveyed to the Americans in full measure, the outcry in the media over Obama's nuanced approach towards Pakistan served the purpose. But to expect the US president to indulge in unrestrained 'Paki-bashing' while he was on Indian soil was trifle unrealistic. Not only is the US dependent on Pakistan for its logistics lines to Afghanistan, it also harbours fond hopes of the Pakistan army putting an end to the sanctuary and support it is giving to the Taliban/Al Qaeda insurgents fighting against the ISAF forces in Afghanistan.

It was not as if Obama glossed over Pakistan's complicity in terrorism, only his subtlety was lost on his hosts. After all, by staying in the Taj Mahal hotel and addressing the Indian and American CEOs at the Trident, Obama had sent out a strong and unmistakable message against terrorists and their patrons. While his not blaming or naming Pakistan for its involvement in the 26/11 attacks could be compared to someone paying tribute to the victims of the 9/11 attacks without condemning Al Qaeda, Obama made suitable amends for this oversight later on during the visit. The Joint Statement not only calls for "elimination of safe havens and infrastructure for terrorism and violent extremism in Afghanistan and Pakistan" but also states that "all terrorist networks, including Lashkar e-Taiba, must be defeated" and Pakistan must "bring to justice the perpetrators of the November 2008 Mumbai attacks."

If what Obama said on terrorism must have sounded jarring to the Pakistanis, he would have added injury to insult by what he did not say – the 'K' word – at least not in the way the Pakistanis expected or hoped. If anything, Obama's take on resolving the Kashmir issue was almost entirely in sync with India's position. Although Obama offered to "play any role that the parties think is appropriate", he was quite candid in stating that "the United States cannot impose a solution to these problems". His endorsement of the Indian line that talks between Indian and Pakistan should first concentrate on building confidence before they grapple with an issue like Kashmir should have dashed the desperate efforts of the Pakistanis to try and convince the Americans that the road to Kabul went through Kashmir.

It is actually quite bizarre for a Pakistan which is on the verge of an economic and political meltdown and is dependent on handouts from the West to meet its day-to-day expenses to expect the US or other Western countries to lean upon India to appease Pakistan. After all, if these countries haven't been able to stop the double-game being played by a tottering Pakistan, how delusional is it for the Pakistanis to imagine that these countries can pressure a rising (if you accept Obama's hyperbole, then 'risen' and 'emerged') power like India to surrender its vital interests and compromise on its territorial integrity and unity to satisfy Pakistan?

Contributing to the failure of the Pakistani gambit to link Kashmir with Kabul is the fact that nobody in the West seems to know what exactly India is supposed to do to assure Pakistan that India doesn't have any hostile intention towards Pakistan provided Pakistan stops sponsoring terrorism into India. Clearly, nothing short of India abandoning Kashmir to Pakistan and disbanding its army is ever likely to satisfy Pakistan. In the given situation, the choice before Pakistan is simple: either Pakistan learns to accept the realities and adjusts to them by entering into a cooperative and mutually beneficial relationship with India; alternatively, it continues with its ruinous hostility towards India and consequently its slide into anarchy and bankruptcy.

Apart from the 'K' word, the Pakistanis have been raising the bogey of Indian Army's 'Cold Start doctrine' to deflect pressure on them to stop their sponsorship and support to Islamist terrorist groups and undertake military operations to wipe out the terrorist safe havens in places like North Waziristan. Rather disingenuously, the Pakistanis use the Cold Start doctrine as an excuse to avoid redeploying the troops required for draining the terror swamps in FATA and other parts of Pakistan from the eastern front with India to the troubled western borderlands. As far as India is concerned, the Cold Start doctrine's value is similar to that of the nuclear weapons. While the latter serves the purpose of deterring conventional warfare, the former appears to have been successful in deterring, or at least severely degrading, the proxy or sub-conventional war that Pakistan had been waging against India. The Cold Start doctrine will remain in the cold storage as long as Pakistan behaves; but if Pakistan continues to spawn terrorism into India, then surely it must expect retaliation, of which Cold Start is but one component. Paradoxically, far from being a destabilising factor in Indo-Pak relations, the Cold Start doctrine has actually introduced stability in the region by holding out the prospect of swift retaliation by India in the event of an audacious terror attack on Indian soil by Pakistani proxies.

By deterring and dissuading Pakistan from adventurism by using its own national power and means holds a lesson for India. Instead on depending on the US or any other country to intercede on its behalf to make Pakistan behave, India needs to have its own game plan in place to protect itself from malign actions of its adversaries. Such a plan of action must not only be centred on tackling the threat, but also on grabbing the opportunity for normal relations with countries like Pakistan, should such an opportunity present itself. In its dealing with other countries India must avoid raising the 'P' word; rather it should let other countries initiate discussions on this issue. When India mentions the 'P' word, it inadvertently hyphenates itself with Pakistan. On the other hand, if India studiously avoids mention of the 'P' word, it will be in a better position to not only dictate terms to its interlocutors when they raise the issue, but also make them see the logic and correctness of the Indian stand on the issue.

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<1270 Words> 12^th November, 2010

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2010-11-03T22:31:00.001-07:00

FIREWALL AFPAK

Sushant Sareen

It is by now quite clear that the US and its allies have run out of ideas in Afghanistan and appear to be committing the cardinal sin of reinforcing failure in the manner in which they are pursuing the war. Simply put, right from 9/11, the Americans have been fighting the wrong war and in the wrong country. This is not to say that the ouster of the Taliban regime in 2001 was a mistake, only that it was not an end in itself. Liberating Afghanistan from the Taliban should have been only the first step in combating Islamo-fascism and terrorism that was symbolised by the Taliban / al Qaeda compact. A far bigger battle – to use Islamic terminology, Jihad-e-Akbar – was to confront the entire infrastructure (including the ideological streams) that gave rise to the forces of radical Islam. But this was a battle that was never joined, at least not in any significant manner.

Unfortunately, the Americans never seemed to realise that real problem lay in Pakistan, from where the forces of terror received support, sustenance and sanctuary, not to mention the ideological justification for jihadism. Ironically, the Americans enlisted the biggest source of jihadist terrorism – the Pakistan army – as an ally in the War on Terror. More than anything else, it is this fact that has led to a situation where the most formidable military machine that the world has ever seen is on the verge of an ignominious defeat at the hands of a rag-tag bunch of fanatics.

As things stand, the current strategy of the Western forces in Afghanistan is not working. And yet if they are persisting with the non-strategy, it is with a hope and prayer that in a couple of years time they will have in place an effective Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP) that can take over bulk of the security functions from them. If this happens, the West can drawdown their presence in Afghanistan and keep only a small force in place to assist and advice the ANA and ANP. But what if this is not how things play out? What is the fallback position? There are as yet no answers to this all-important, if troubling, question.

One fallback position is probably the reintegration and reconciliation policy. Cut through the clap-trap, and this really means wooing the Taliban and entering into some sort of a deal with them. Here too the hope and prayer is that the Taliban agree to stick to the terms of the deal and do not try to re-impose their rule on the whole of Afghanistan. Perhaps the West can even live with this. But what they are adamant on is that the Taliban break-off their relations with the al Qaeda. But expecting the Taliban to sever their ties with al Qaeda is a delusion. The fact of the matter is that even if Mullah Omar himself agrees to expel the al Qaeda, he will be repudiated by the militant commanders who are currently fighting under his banner but who have in the last decade struck a very close relationship with the al Qaeda.

In a recent TV interview, the former Pakistan army chief (only for a couple of hours) Gen. Ziauddin has revealed that way back in 1999 the Pakistan security forces were all set to catch Osama bin Laden. Ziauddin, who was then the chief of the ISI, has said that at that time the cabal of generals surrounding Gen. Pervez Musharraf – people like Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed and Lt. Gen. Aziz – had told him to lay off Osama because catching him would harm Pakistan's national interest. Even more important was the revelation that Mullah Omar had told Ziauddin that if he moved against Osama he will be killed by his followers. This was in 1999 when ostensibly the al Qaeda was living on Taliban mercies. Today, after a decade of fighting together against a common enemy – the West – only the most delusional mind will imagine that the Taliban will give up the al Qaeda.

Clearly then, the reintegration and reconciliation policy has failure writ large on it. If anything, it will tantamount to defeating the very purposes for which the war was being fought. Worse, it will allow the Taliban to slide into power without, in a manner of speaking, a shot being fired. The big question then is what are the options before the US and its allies? One possible option is the 'partition plan' which has been floated by the former US ambassador to India, Robert Blackwill in his article "A de facto partition for Afghanistan". But there are serious problems with this plan.

For one, it is unlikely if the partition plan with find favour with any of the Afghans. Whatever their differences with each other, there is hardly an Afghan, whether Pashtun or non-Pashtun, Shia or Sunni, pro or anti Taliban, who supports a partitioning of Afghanistan. Secondly, the Blackwill plan advocates partitioning Afghanistan along ethnic lines and calls upon the US to defend the predominantly non-Pashtun West and North and leave the Pashtun-dominated South and East to the depredations of the Taliban. It ignores the fact that the geographical space that the Pashtun's occupy extends beyond the Durand line in the East up till the Indus river. In other words, a Taliban dominated Pashtun entity in Afghanistan will invariably extend into the Pashtun areas under Pakistani control which constitute a natural hinterland for the Afghan Pashtuns. Effectively, Blackwill's plan will not just partition Afghanistan but could end up splitting Pakistan along the Indus, with a Taliban dominated Pashtun state (de facto if not de jure) in the North West and an independent Baloch entity coming into existence in the South West of Pakistan.

Third, a partition plan in which the US and other foreign forces will continue to be present in Afghanistan, albeit in the North and West, will continue to give the Islamists from around the world a legitimate cause to continue with their war. Fourth, a war in Afghanistan between the Pashtuns and non-Pashtuns will almost certainly destabilise Pakistan, the impact of which on regional and global security has not been catered for in the Partition plan. Fifth, a partition of Afghanistan will raise serious issues about how US will work its logistics lines for the 40,000 – 50,000 troops. While the cost of logistics for such a large force running through the Northern route will be less than the estimated $120 billion per annum being incurred presently, they will still be huge – around $ 40-50 billion.

All that the partition plan hopes to achieve can be better obtained through a 'firewall' strategy and that too at a fraction of the cost. Under the firewall strategy, all foreign forces will pull out of the Afpak region, i.e. no boots on the ground except for a handful of military advisors and intelligence operatives. The fallout of a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, and eventually Pakistan, will be contained by building a massive firewall around this region so that the Islamists and their Pakistani patrons stew in their own juice.

In large measure, parts of the firewall around Afpak are already in place; all that needs to be done is to further beef up these firewalls. On the Western side, Iran will serve as a natural firewall. Once the US quits Afghanistan and perhaps also Pakistan, the Iranians' problems with the Sunni extremist Taliban will erupt and force Iran to firewall its border with Afghanistan. In the north, the US can help the Central Asian States monetarily and technically to build up their capacity and their border defences to prevent the Islamists from entering their countries. In the east, India already has firewalled its borders with Pakistan and further efforts can be made to make the border defences foolproof. In the south is the Arabian sea where the US and India can work together to prevent the Islamists from breaking out. The aerial route can be blocked by enforcing an Iraq type no-fly zone by bringing into operation the existing UN resolutions against the Taliban. The only possible outlet will be China, which will face the dilemma of containing the Islamists who are active in Xinjiang and keeping its relationship with the West intact on the one hand and on the other hand staying true to its 'all weather friendship' with Pakistan.

Building the firewall around Afpak doesn't mean abandoning the region to the Islamists. All it means is that the Americans will fight the Islamists indirectly by backing all those forces that want to resist the Taliban in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Finally, the firewall plan will build a far wider and probably more robust regional security alliance in which the burden of the US will be shared substantially by important regional players all of which will have a stake in keeping the Taliban and their virulence at bay.

The one big advantage of the firewall plan which will follow a withdrawal of US troops in the region will be that it will free the US from its dependence on Pakistan and put an end to the Pakistani game of 'looking both ways' on the issue of Islamic terror groups. With Pakistan losing its main leverage – the logistics supply lines that run through its territory – the US will be in a far better position to dictate terms to the Pakistanis to come clean on clearing the mess. The choice before Pakistan will be clear: either they end the double game and exterminate the Taliban and other Islamist militias that they have been promoting and protecting or else they pay the price for this policy.

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<1610 Words> 4^th November, 2010

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2010-10-30T00:13:00.001-07:00

POLITICAL REALIGNMENTS IN PAKISTAN

The art of the impossible

SUSHANT SAREEN

A meeting in Lahore between the Federal Law Minister Babar Awan and the former chief minister of Punjab and PMLQ leader, Chaudhry Pervez Elahi, has shaken up the political scene in Pakistan by opening up the possibility of new political alignments which had until now been dismissed as impossible. While a marriage, even if of convenience, between the beleaguered PPP and the fragmenting PMLQ, cannot be ruled out, tying the knot is easier said than done. After all, not only is a lot of bad blood between the rank and file of the PPP and PMLQ that will have to be washed away – for instance, Asif Zardari had called the PMLQ 'Qatil League' while the Chaudhry Pervez Elahi has more then held PPP responsible for the break-up of Pakistan – there is also a big ideological barrier that will have to be crossed before the two parties can jump into bed with each other.

If the leadership of the two parties can manage the glaring contradictions that militate against an alliance between them, it will lead to far-reaching changes in the political power structure inside the country, not just in the centre but also in Punjab and Sindh. It is of course another matter altogether whether these changes will lead to greater political stability or if it will become the precursor to greater instability. But even if the meeting between Awan (clearly acting on behalf of Asif Zardari) and Elahi doesn't lead to anything more than an exchange of views over a cup of tea, it will have achieved a major objective: signalling that the PPP has a range of options which it can exercise if it is pushed against the wall, either by its allies like MQM or by its opponents like PMLN.

The immediate provocation for the PPP to open channels of communication with the PMLQ was the steady hardening of opposition by the PMLN and the restiveness of the MQM which had almost quit the coalition before Asif Zardari managed to pull them back. There was a growing sense within the PPP that the MQM was no longer a reliable ally and that alternatives to the MQM had to be worked out so that in the event of a pullout by the MQM, the coalition at the centre would have the numbers to retain its majority in the National Assembly. The move, spearheaded by the chief of the PMLF, Pir Pagara, to reunite the various Muslim Leagues had also spooked the PPP because it depends on a split Muslim League to win its seats in Punjab. A unified conservative vote would effectively reduce PPP into a marginal player in Punjab where nearly 70-75% of the vote is cast in favour of right wing conservative parties.

After winning the approval of PMLQ President Shujaat Hussein for this reunification move, Pagara was in the process of approaching Nawaz Sharif to play his role in unifying the Muslim Leagues. The meeting between some PMLQ leaders with Shahbaz Sharif had further added to the discomfiture of the PPP which was receiving reports that Nawaz Sharif had given the go ahead for building up support to move a motion of no-confidence against the PPP government to effect an in-house change in government. The fact that PMLN had also started building bridges with the MQM only convinced the PPP that the opposition was coalescing to bring down the government.

Amidst all this manoeuvring, Nawaz Sharif made the mistake of declaring that while he was in favour of reuniting the Muslim Leagues, he could not countenance the inclusion of people like the Chaudhry cousins, Sheikh Rashid, and some others, as becoming part of the unified Muslim League. On their part, the Chaudhries too were averse to a unified Muslim League in which they would have to play second fiddle to the Sharifs'. The PPP took advantage of this opening created by Nawaz Sharif's inflexibility to shaking hands with people who, according to him, deserted him and joined hands with Gen. Pervez Musharraf to break the PMLN and form the PMLQ which ruled the roost as the King's party during the Musharraf regime.

By reaching out to the PMLQ, the PPP could have scotched the moves to reunify the Muslim League. But there are other advantages that will accrue to both PPP and PMLQ if they actually are able to strike an alliance, provided of course in the process of joining hands the two parties are able to keep their flock together. The PPP will be able to get rid of the MQM's constant arm-twisting and will get a free hand to launch a clean-up operation in Karachi to end the wave of target killings in that city. At the centre, the PMLQ will replace the MQM and lend a more solid majority to the ruling coalition. The two parties will also be able to form their own government in Punjab, where although the PPP is part of the PMLN-led coalition, it is feeling sidelined in the decision making in the province which is considered Pakistan's 'controlling authority'. The PMLQ which has been fragmenting – there are currently four distinct factions in the Q League, all of which are pulling the party in separate directions – might be able to unify the party with the glue of power in both Islamabad and Lahore.

While the advantages of a tie-up between the PPP and PMLQ are clear, what is not so clear is whether the leadership of the two parties will be able to take their party folk along in the new political arrangement. The task of tying up with PPP is somewhat more difficult for the PMLQ than the other way round. For one, there are differences between Shujaat and Pervez Elahi on an alliance with PPP, with the latter keen on getting back in the driver's seat while the former is more circumspect about embracing the PPP. Even if the cousins forge common ground, how many of the party men will they be able to take along with them? Unlike the PMLN in which the party revolves around the Sharifs', and the PPP where Asif Zardari is the undisputed boss, the Chaudhries are only first among equals. If anything, PMLQ is an agglomeration of politicians who are who are individually influential in their pocket boroughs and do not depend on the Chaudhries to win their elections. Given that many of the top PMLQ leaders are viscerally opposed to the PPP, coupled with the fact that joining hands with the PPP won't earn them any favours with the 'establishment', there is little incentive for many Q leaguers to follow the lead of the Chaudhries on the issue of an alliance with the PPP.

Then there is the issue of the existing divisions within the Q. There is one faction of the Q – Likeminded – which is keen on forging its own path and cultivating its own identity and which refuses to accept the leadership of the Chaudhries. The likeminded group is somewhat irrelevant as far as the current power politics is concerned because of most of the top figures in this faction are not members of any legislature at this point in time. A second faction is what is known as the 'forward bloc' which comprises of those lawmakers who want to rejoin the PMLN. A third faction comprises of those who are leaning towards the PPP. And finally, there is the faction which remains loyal to the Chaudhries. Perhaps the only reason why the PMLQ has not split formally until now is the anti-defection law, which has been further strengthened after the passage of the 18^th Amendment under which the party president enjoys unbridled powers over his party legislators and can have them disqualified for the slightest infraction. Another reason why the 'forward bloc' has not switched sides is because it has felt ditched by Nawaz Sharif who, after initially leading them on, has left them out in the cold.

While the fear of losing their seats could play a big factor in keeping the Q League together, a lot will depend on the political calculations of the legislators. If the lawmakers think long-term and come to the conclusion that they will be signing their political obituaries by joining a PPP-led coalition, they might well decide to cast their lot with the Sharifs' and try and get re-elected on a PMLN ticket from their constituencies in the by-elections. This gambit will of course entail the risk of fighting another election – hardly a palatable prospect for any politician if he can avoid it – that once they resign enmasse to join the PMLN, it is possible that Nawaz Sharif might not give them the party ticket to win back the seats they sacrificed. In either case, a mini general election that will be caused by mass disqualification could throw up some rather unpleasant political configurations in the legislative assemblies from the point of view of the ruling coalition. In other words, the entire political calculus driving the realignment could end up in a disaster.

Conversely, if the PMLQ lawmakers give priority to the present over the future, and go with the bird in the hand, there will still be problems as far as providing good and efficient governance is concerned. In a political system that runs on dispensing patronage, there will probably very little latitude available to spread the political goodies among supporters, what with bankruptcy staring Pakistani state in the face. If, however, political expediency rules over the imperatives of sensible economics, as is likely to happen, then it will only worsen the state of affairs in Pakistan and push the state further towards failure.

There will also be the attendant issues of competition for the same political space. In a sense, the political space occupied by the PPP and PMLN did not clash as much as it will in the case of the PPP and its ally ANP on the one hand and the PMLQ on the other hand. The PMLN is primarily a GT road party and dominates in the Raiwind (Lahore) – Rawalpindi belt which extends a little into Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa along the GT road (Hazara division). The PPP and PMLQ however have a pan-Pakistan footprint and therefore more clash of interest. There are serious local rivalries between the two parties all over Punjab and even worse in Sindh. Papering over these rivalries is going to take some doing and on current record appears to be a mission impossible.

All things taken into account, while the prospect of a political deal between the PPP and PMLQ appears to be very clever, almost Machiavellian in scope, it's hardly the sort of political arrangement that has a long shelf life. But then in a country obsessed with a mythical past and which puts a huge premium on the present, power politics by definition has a short shelf life, more so when the only agenda before an incumbent is to ensure the completion of his term in office. Therefore, if a PMLQ-PPP alliance is able to ensure the survival of the PPP-led coalition for the next two years, it will have served its purpose.

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2010-10-14T02:59:00.001-07:00

WHAT MUSHARRAF LEFT UNSAID

Gen Pervez Musharraf's mea culpa in an interview to Der Spiegel need to be seen as the ranting of a loquacious former military dictator harbouring fond, if utterly unrealistic, hopes of making a comeback in his country's politics. Although the interview to Der Spiegel was full of self-serving half-truths, it nevertheless revealed the inherent shallowness of the military strongman. Peeling away his pretentions of being a statesman, the interview showed him up as a purveyor of kitsch politics. What is worse from Pakistan's point of view, the interview reaffirmed Pakistan's image as a rogue state. While what Musharraf said, including his sensational confessions on raising terrorist groups and exporting Islamic terrorism to India, is important, equally important is what he left unsaid during the course of the interview.

The times of military coups in Pakistan are over

Yes, they are but only until another man on the horseback decides to end the charade of democracy and assume power directly rather than running the show from the sidelines. As for the judiciary, strutting about in its new found empowerment and 'independence', setting 'a bar on itself to not validate a military takeover', this is something that will only be known when the next coup takes place. The standard operating procedure in Pakistan after a coup-maker usurps power is that he disbands the sitting judiciary and packs the benches with pliant judges who then 'validate' the coup. Far from the current judges not validating a coup, they appear hell bent on inviting one, albeit under the ridiculous pretence of protecting the rule of law by the dubious invocation of article 190 of the constitution which calls upon all executive and judicial authorities to aid the Supreme Court! The Supreme Court of Pakistan is playing the same role that bureaucrat-politicians like Ghulam Mohammed and Iskandar Mirza played in the 1950s when they invited the military to intervene in the politics of the country.

The non-performance of the government is the issue

Sure it is an issue, but who is to decide this issue – the courts, the military or the people? Successive civilian governments in Pakistan have been dismissed or overthrown on precisely this pretext. Of course, since non-performance alone doesn't sound very convincing, the charges of corruption and in some cases, anti-state activities (security risk) are added to make the putsch more saleable. The Musharraf regime's performance, when measured against the seven point programme he laid out after overthrowing Nawaz Sharif's government in 1999, was, to say the least, dismal. The mess that he left behind is one of the major factors for the poor performance of the current government.

We have a culture of vendetta and vindictiveness in Pakistan

And Musharraf epitomises this culture. His hatred for Benazir Bhutto was born out of the disciplinary action that Benazir's father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, had taken against his father who was found involved in some dodgy transactions while posted in a diplomatic mission in Indonesia. While Musharraf did not follow Gen. Ziaul Haq path by sending Nawaz Sharif to the gallows, he ensured that Nawaz Sharif was put away in prison for 25 years. During the time Nawaz Sharif was in prison, he was humiliated and treated like a common criminal. After Nawaz Sharif was sent to exile, Musharraf refused to let him return even for his father's burial. Musharraf's cronies tortured Nawaz Sharif's associates to get them to implicate Nawaz Sharif in more cases. The treatment meted out to Gen. Ziauddin Butt, the man who replaced Musharraf as army chief for a few hours – properties seized, pension annulled, and thrown into solitary confinement for two years – is probably Musharraf's definition of humaneness. The murder of Nawab Akbar Bugti by Musharraf's hit-men from the Pakistan army was also borne out of his ego clash with the Baloch sardars.

The West blames Pakistan for everything

This is typical of the denial that pervades the Pakistani psyche of the wrongs committed by them. Worse, it displays the rather puerile mindset that has become the hallmark of the Pakistani establishment, especially when it comes to India. What can be more infantile than a former head of state, even though a illegitimate military dictator, to indulge in silly rhetoric of the sort that Musharraf does when he says "nobody asks the Indian Prime Minister.....". Well, nobody asks the Indian Prime Minister because India doesn't pose a threat to the civilized world by running a nuclear Wal-mart, exporting terrorism, and extorting handouts from the rest of the world not because of any merit but because of its nuisance value.

Pakistan is always seen as the rogue

Not without good reason. Musharraf himself admits later on in the interview that Pakistan formed terrorist groups and turned a blind eye to their depredations in India because the Pakistan government wanted India to discuss Kashmir. If use of terrorism as an instrument of state policy is not the hallmark of a rogue state, what is? This is a classic case of negotiating with another country not on the basis of logic and arguments but by pointing a gun to its head. Actually, Pakistan negotiates with two guns – one pointed at the head of its interlocutor and the other one pointed at its own head. Amazingly, Pakistan seems to be getting away with this two-gun diplomacy. First it was only India which since the days of Ayub Khan has fallen for the nonsense that it must make a gesture to Pakistan and understand the compulsions of the Pakistani regime otherwise the mad Mullahs will take over. Now even the Americans are falling for this tactic.

It is the right of any country to promote its own interests

Of course it is. But has Pakistan promoted its interests by supporting, training, funding and providing sanctuary to Islamic terror groups? Strange way of promoting national interest, especially since Musharraf himself has on a number of occasions argued that these terror groups pose an existential threat to Pakistan. Worse, the use of terrorism has effectively lost Pakistan whatever little sympathy there was among some sections of Western public opinion for Pakistan's position on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir. There is hardly any country in the world which is now ready to back the Islamist cause in Kashmir because of the rippling effect this will have on jihadist movements worldwide. But in a sense Pakistan, which is today an international basket case, has indeed promoted its interests by 'looking both ways' on the issue of Islamic terrorism. Pakistan's USP today is that it is the epicentre of Jihad Inc. and this is what bestows upon it the billions of dollars in arms and aid that keep the country afloat.

There is no such thing as a moderate Taliban

But wasn't it Musharraf himself who advocated the cause of the moderate Taliban after 9/11? This statement of his is typical of the flip-flop-flip that Pakistanis adopt according to convenience on the issue of terrorism. Shortly after saying that there is no such thing as a moderate Taliban, the same Musharraf, in another interview, batted in favour of negotiations with moderate Taliban! And this is the man that George W Bush was 'thick' with?

Why, nine years after 9/11, does Pakistan remain a breeding ground for international terrorism

Simple, because Musharraf looked both ways on the issue of terrorism and the current military leadership continues to follow the Musharraf policy. Actually, Musharraf had given hints of this policy just after 9/11 when in an address to his nation to explain that he was junking the Taliban he invoked the treaties that Prophet Mohammad had signed for reasons of expediency and which were revoked as soon as the circumstances changed. The Pakistanis made a show of aligning themselves with the Americans but continued to support, sustain and sponsor their Taliban allies. Fortunately for the Pakistanis this double game was somewhat hidden by the fact that some of the Islamist groups turned their guns on Pakistan, and the subsequent actions of the Pakistan army against these renegade elements was used to convince the world that Pakistan was indeed fighting the Islamists. But the reality was quite different. And it is this continuing flirtation with the Taliban that has made Pakistan the breeding ground of international terrorism.

Mr Khan [the nuclear technician] is a characterless man

This is quite royal coming from Musharraf. Only the most gullible will buy Musharraf's line that the Pakistan army and intelligence agencies were totally unaware of the nuclear supermarket that was being run by the rogue technician. Clearly, Khan became the fall guy for the proliferation network that was being run by the Pakistan army to get missile technology from another rogue state – North Korea – and money from countries like Iran and Libya.

2010-10-08T03:25:00.001-07:00

MILITARY AND MILITANTS JOIN HANDS TO TARGET NATO CONVOYS?

SUSHANT SAREEN

It has been a double whammy for the American war effort in the Afpak region: not only have the Americans been made to eat humble pie and 'apologise' to the Pakistanis for the helicopter attack on a Frontier Corps (FC) border post in Kurram agency, they have also had to suffer an ill-disguised blockade by the Pakistan army of NATO logistic supply lines that run through Pakistan. Worse, the NATO supply convoys have come under fierce attacks inside Pakistan with over a 100 oil tankers having been burnt in different parts of Pakistan in the last one week since the blockade of the supply lines began. While NATO supply containers have been routinely coming under attack inside Pakistan for quite some time now, and looted supplies have been openly sold in the markets of Peshawar and Quetta, the attacks on NATO oil tankers last week indicate that something far more sinister is behind these attacks, which have until now been conveniently placed at the doorstep of the Islamist militants.

A closer look at the recent spate of attacks on NATO supplies suggests that the decade long double-game being played by the Military-Militant Alliance (MMA) in the war on terror is finally coming out in the open. And if this is not the case, then it means that the Taliban network inside Pakistan is far more extensive and far more lethal than previously imagined. Until now, most analyses of the spread of the Taliban network in Pakistan have limited the area of operation of the Islamist terror groups to the tribal badlands straddling Afghanistan (FATA), the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province and South Punjab. Although many Islamist groups are known to have a significant presence and network in Central and North Punjab (Lahore, Faisalabad, Chakwal, Rawalpindi, Attock) as well as in the Pashtun belt of Balochistan and in Karachi, their influence and operations in these areas have been downplayed and not considered a major threat to the stability of the Pakistani state.

But if indeed the latest attacks on NATO convoys have been carried out by the Taliban and other Islamist groups aligned with them, then it clearly means that the Taliban are a pan-Pakistan phenomenon and have not only acquired the ability and reach to hit targets at will but are practically knocking on the door of the national capital, Islamabad. After all, if the Taliban are able to burn dozens of NATO oil tankers on the heavily guarded GT road and that too next door to the Pakistan army run Defence Housing Authority colony then it is time for alarm bells to start ringing, more so since this is not an isolated incident and similar attacks have taken place in the past as well.

Equally worrisome is the impunity with which the so-called militants have burnt NATO tankers in places like Shikarpur in Sindh and in the Baloch dominated areas of Balochistan. There have so far been little or no reports of Taliban networks in rural Sindh. The Shikarpur attack therefore suggests that the Taliban have extended their tentacles into Sindh as well. As far as Balochistan is concerned, it is a well known fact that the provincial capital Quetta is the headquarter-in-exile of the Afghan Taliban leadership. But while the none-too-hidden activities of the Taliban Shura in Quetta offers a plausible explanation to the targeting of NATO convoys in and around Quetta and in the Pashtun regions of Balochistan, it beggars belief how they can launch spectacular attacks on NATO convoys in the presence of the oppressive security cordon by Pakistani security and intelligence agencies to keep Baloch freedom fighters at bay in and around the provincial capital.

Even more strange are the attacks by Taliban in Baloch populated areas like Mastung, Khuzdar and Kalat. These are areas where there is no known Taliban presence. Baloch nationalists and ordinary citizens in these areas are struggling to shake off the oppressive and repressive yoke of Pakistan army, which has placed an almost blanket security cover over the region. There are multiple checkpoints all along the highways which are manned by the military and FC. Under these conditions how could dozens of Islamic militants riding on motor-cycles or in double-cabin SUVs come out of nowhere, burn down a score or more of trucks and then disappear into the thin air?

It is simply disingenuous to suggest that perhaps these attacks were staged by either criminal gangs or by Baloch freedom fighters. The latter have no problems with the West and have never expressed any intention of attacking NATO convoys. Harping on the possible involvement of the criminal gangs is also stretching the limits of credulity. At best, the criminal syndicates role in the attacks would be limited to buying the looted NATO supplies at a low price and then flogging these goods in the local markets. This only leaves the Pakistani security forces as the prime suspect in staging these attacks, either directly or through their jihadist 'strategic assets'.

Clearly, the Pakistan army is bringing into play its main leverage over the US – the supply route – to go for broke in Afghanistan. For the moment, Pakistan appears to be succeeding, what with the Pentagon falling over backward to appease the Pakistani generals. At the same time, the Pakistanis are keeping wriggle room for themselves by resorting to the subterfuge of projecting the army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani as a pro-US general who is under pressure from his more hard line colleagues to turn the squeeze on the Americans. This is exactly the tack that was adopted after the 26/11 attack when reports filed by a Pakistani journalist acknowledged that though the attack was originally planned by the ISI, it was hijacked by the Al Qaeda after Gen Ahmad Shuja Pasha junked the plan on taking command of the ISI.

Be that as it may, the blockade of NATO supplies and the targeting of NATO convoys is classical brinkmanship which should be quite familiar to anyone acquainted even remotely with the culture and mindset of the Punjabi dominated Pakistani military. Fortunately for the Pakistanis, the failure of the Americans to understand the nature and character of the Pakistani state and society has made them blink this time. Perhaps it is this lack of understanding of how Pakistan operates which is leading the Americans to mollycoddle the Pakistan army. Why else would the Pentagon provide the Pakistan army alibis by talking about elements within the ISI and Army who 'might be interacting with terrorist organisations in ways that aren't consistent with what the government and military are doing'? That this is happening despite the fact that the Pakistan army as an institution is hand in glove with the very Taliban who are killing US soldiers in Afghanistan is, to say the least, rather strange.

Unless the Americans wake up and smell the coffee, an ignominious defeat in Afghanistan is unavoidable. The first thing that the Americans need to do is call the Pakistani bluff. Alongside, the US needs to start applying pressure where it really hurts the Pakistanis – economically, diplomatically and militarily. Third, the US must re-evaluate its strategy in the Afpak region. Resolving to stay the course and persist with the current non-strategy, as US President Barack Obama has done recently, is only reinforcing failure. Finally, the US should be prepared to read the riot act to the Pakistanis and force compliance on them or else promise to make a 'horrible example' – to use Henry Kissinger's evocative warning to Zulifikar Ali Bhutto – of Pakistan. This is imperative even if the US wants to save Pakistan from itself.

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<1275 Words> 8^th October, 2010

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2010-10-01T00:26:00.001-07:00

Getting 'stoned' by the stones

SUSHANT SAREEN (Senior Fellow, VIF)

Since June, the stone-pelting in Kashmir seems to have left the Indian establishment stupefied. The government, both in the state and at the centre, has been reduced to a state of paralysis, almost as though they have been 'stoned' by the stones. To add to the confoundedness of the government, parachute journalists, with little sense of history and even less sense of reality, have been indulging in needless breast-beating about the situation in Kashmir and making recommendations, not to mention analyses, which are not just downright stupid but also dangerous, if not treasonous. The loss of perspective on what is actually happening in Kashmir has led to panicky responses at all levels of the government, which increasingly seems to be losing not just its nerve, but also its will as well as its wits in handling the unrest in the Valley.

There are three great myths about the latest round of stone-pelting: one, that it's a peaceful protest; two, the security forces are using disproportionate force to control the disturbances; and three, it is a completely new phase in the unrest in Kashmir in which for the first time young people are coming out on to the streets, ready to face bullets. These three myths exemplify the complete loss of perspective that has afflicted even normally sober and sensible people in India.

First and foremost, there is nothing, repeat nothing, peaceful about stone pelting. Yes, stones are not as lethal as the bullets used by terrorists. But stones injure and maim and can even kill. For those who consider stone-pelting a peaceful demonstration, one can only challenge them to face a barrage of stones with the equanimity that they expect from the policemen on the streets of Kashmir. Better still, a stone-pelting demonstration should be carried out in front of their houses. Assuming that in keeping with their commitment to not use disproportionate force, these bleeding hearts should allow the mob to do as they please (something that is implicit in the way they castigate the police's management of the stone-pelting crowd), including setting their offices or homes on fire, as has been done by the 'peaceful' protestors in Kashmir on the few occasions when the police was ordered to stand down. One can be sure that faced with such 'peaceful' demonstrations against them, these bleeding hearts will rush for protection to the police whom they have no compunction in vilifying today.

As far as use of disproportionate force is concerned, the facts on the ground clearly indicate that the force used to contain the stone-pelters is far from being disproportionate. In the last 100 odd days, there have been around 100 deaths in police firing – an average of one death per day. The 'disproportionate force' argument would hold weight if the police and paramilitary forces were to fire indiscriminately on the stone-pelting crowd and kill a few dozen people in every such encounter. Also, compare the casualty rate of 1 per day with the casualty rate during the days of armed militancy when every single day there used to be ten or more violent deaths in Kashmir caused mostly by the terrorists who used to target their rivals and civilians.

Third, while the jihad in Kashmir has now taken a new form – bullets having been replaced by stones – the average age of the stone-pelting jihadi in 2010 is the same as the average age of the gun-wielding jihadi in 1990. When terrorism started in Kashmir in the late 1980s, the average age of the terrorists was not 40 years or 60 years, but around 20-22 years, exactly the average age of the neo-jihadis or the stone-pelters. It is important, therefore, not to go overboard in trying to analyze the latest round of unrest in Kashmir and coming out with findings that fly in the face of the ground reality.

Unfortunately, instead of acknowledging the political and administrative incompetence of the state and central governments, or understanding the political dynamic in which the opposition PDP is exploiting the situation to stoke the fires further in order to push the Abdullahs' into political oblivion, the army has become the fall-guy. Even though the army is nowhere involved in crowd control, a needless clamour has been raised for withdrawing the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). This is nothing but a red herring.

Given that NC won most of its seats in the J&K assembly from Srinagar in the Kashmir valley, what is preventing the elected representatives of the party from reaching out to the people who elected them and who are today on the streets, pelting stones? Where are the workers and cadres of the political parties? Isn't it strange that the Kashmiri politicians who are lobbying in New Delhi – NC to save its government and PDP for support to form a new government – are nowhere on the ground trying to pacify the public and prevent violence from spiralling out of control and causing needless casualties? Aren't the Congress ministers in the Jammu and Kashmir cabinet, also culpable because of their tolerance of the continuing misgovernance, rather absence of governance, by the Chief Minister? What steps have the Congress ministers taken to improve administration in the state and either guide the Chief Minister or hold him to account for the drift in the affairs of state?

While there are innumerable questions that can be asked from the politicians in Jammu and Kashmir, there are some extremely important questions that the political class and civil society in Delhi also needs to answer. Why is it that the media and civil society which is so outraged every time Raj Thackeray and his goons talk of the Marathi Manoos and resorts to violence, are so tolerant and understanding of similar tactics being adopted by the Kashmiri stone-pelters? Equally important is the question as to why politicians, especially the Communists, who find it unpalatable to share a stage with Narendra Modi because in their book he is the epitome of communalism, don't bat an eyelid in reaching out and holding a dialogue and even compromise with the Kashmiri separatists like Syed Ali Shah Geelani or Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who are not only raising anti-India slogans but are also unabashed and unapologetic practitioners of the Pakistani brand of Islamo-fascism in which all minorities are treated as untermensch?

Why is it that so much understanding is shown for the "alienation" and ''discontent'' among Kashmiri youth, but the same consideration is missing when it comes to youth from other parts of India who too have their share of grievances, only they don't denounce India or go about setting fire to government property for a lark and some money, which in Kashmir is being doled out hand over fist by agent provocateurs? How come it is kosher for the stone-pelting mobs in Kashmir to attack police stations and government buildings but blasphemy when Shiv Sena and MNS goons attack media outfits or multiplexes in Mumbai to vent their 'grievances'? Or is it the case that while law enforcement agencies are fair game, media outfits and entertainment centres are a holy cow? No, we don't hold a brief for the Shiv Sena or the MNS and consider them as repulsive and as antithetic to the idea of India as the Kashmiri stone-pelting mobs. But why have double-standards?

In the ultimate analysis, there is absolutely no reason for the government of India or the political establishment to behave in a knee-jerk manner over the disturbances in Kashmir and try to appease the separatists, both of the hard and the soft variety. It is important to recognise that the virus of Islamic terrorism that has seeped into Kashmiri society will take long years to go. Kashmir will be won by the side with the greater will, capacity, courage and commitment. Sadly, the manner in which the government is responding to the situation in Kashmir betrays an unfortunate absence of all of these attributes.

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Category: Jammu and Kashmir

Keywords: Kashmir, APSPA, Terrorism, Omar Abdullah, stone-pelting

2010-10-01T00:24:00.001-07:00

SOCIO-ECONOMIC UNDERPINNING OF JIHADISM

SUSHANT SAREEN

The rise of the Jihadist movement in Pakistan is driven primarily by ideological and religious factors. Decades of indoctrination of a virulent version of radical political Islam has motivated thousands of people – young and old – to take the path of violent jihad to capture political power and through it transform the society, economy and culture in order to bring about what they consider to be a pristine Islamic order. But underpinning the quest for an ideal Islamic state in Pakistan are also the harsh socio-economic realities that make jihad extremely attractive to the mass of underclass that sees jihad as the only way out of the deprivation and morbidity that comes with a low-level existence in which the vast majority of Pakistanis find themselves caught.

The Islamists cleverly manufacture and exploit grievances (some real, many imagined) to build support for their cause. But while the support for Islamist causes is found across a cross-section of Pakistani society, bulk of the feedstock of jihad comes from an underclass for whom jihad is an expression of dissent, even rebellion, against an unequal, unjust and unfair social, political and economic system which has been fostered by a corrupt, uncaring and self-centred elite and propped up by the bourgeoisie. Ironically, the social, political and economic oligarchy that rules Pakistan, and which has blocked any real opportunity for advancement to those at the bottom of the ladder, has inadvertently given rise to the very forces that today threaten its hold over the power structure in Pakistan. This they have done partly through their neglect of the social sector, partly through their rhetoric on Islam, and partly through the use of jihad as an instrument of state policy and the power shift effected by this policy in favour of non-state actors who are today challenging the state.

According to a former Pakistan army officer who is better known by his nom de guerre 'Col Imam', the feudals in South Punjab denied the children of their peasants' education in normal schools but allowed them to go to the madrassas that were proliferating in the area. These same children are today part of the larger Punjabi Taliban phenomenon. Like in FATA, where the taliban have wiped out the Maliks, Col. Imam believes that in South Punjab too, a similar transformation in the social power structure is going to take place, with the Punjabi Taliban replacing the local landlords and elite as the real power wielders.

The fear that the ranks of the jihadists could swell in the aftermath of the 'mother of all floods' that have swept through Pakistan has once again brought the focus back on to the socio-economic factors that are fuelling the jihad factory inside Pakistan. Even top officials in Pakistan, from President Asif Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani to foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Pakistan's ambassador to the US Hussein Haqqani, have been ad nauseam warning the world that if it did not come to Pakistan's aid fast enough, the Islamists would exploit the extreme distress in which some 20 million people find themselves after the floods.

There are a number of studies that link radicalism and militancy to poverty, joblessness, bad governance, failure of the state to provide social goods like education and health, and the failure of education and the 'system' to create social mobility. What emerges from these studies are interesting trends relating to the social base of jihad, the educational background of the jihadists and the conditions in the regions which have been in the eye of the jihad storm.

An analysis of the profile of jihadists suggests that most of the leaders and cadres are not from the abjectly poor sections of society. The very poor in Pakistan are probably too poor and too oppressed to rebel against the existing order. Most of the jihadists, therefore, belong either to the lower or the lower-middle classes. A majority of them are not unlettered but are half-educated and semi-literate. While many of the jihadists have attended state schools, the leadership is generally held by people with some madrassa education, at least in the Pashtun areas and South Punjab. Spatially, some of the most troubled areas – South Punjab and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) – are also the most backward in terms of social, economic and political development, and are areas where inequity, injustice, oppression and barriers to social mobility are very high. Paradoxically, despite the continuing existence of an oppressive socio-political power structure, in some of these areas the hold of the traditional elites has been breaking down as a result of a combination of economic and political factors and the emergence of new socio-political forces that have begun challenging the traditional elite.

Among the most significant transformations to have occurred in Pakistan has been the steady loss of power of the feudal elite. Contrary to popular perception, feudalism is alive in Pakistan not so much as an economic mode of production but more in terms of the attitudes associated with feudalism. The loss of economic control has, however, meant that the feudal attitude has become something of an anachronism, and is being challenged by the rise of new socio-economic realities. The rise of Islamist militias is one such reality. In South Punjab, for example, the extensive network established by the Sunni extremist organisation Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) has given it a pivotal role in local politics.

The head of Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ), the latest avatar of the SSP, Maulana Ahmed Ludhianvi, has claimed that nearly 25 Members of National Assembly (MNAs), including a couple of federal ministers, got elected with the support of the ASWJ. Ludhianvi was courted by the Punjab Law Minister, Rana Sanaullah, during a by-election in Jhang in South Punjab, while other SSP members were seen supporting the PPP. The old feudal elite can no longer depend on their traditional status either to keep the underclass in check, much less win elections without any effort. The story in the more developed Central and North Punjab is no different with old landed families struggling to maintain their dominance in local politics. Although some of the old political families continue to win their elections, the important point is that they do so only because they have compromised on their power and have reached out to the new political forces those have emerged in their areas.

In FATA, the jihadists systematically wiped out the tribal Maliks and Khans who served as the lynchpin of the Pakistani state which used to depend upon their influence and power to maintain its writ over the tribes through the jirga system. The Maliks were notorious for their corruption and were completely unaccountable and a reaction to them had started developing in Waziristan way back in the 1970s. With the rise of the jihadists, the Maliks came in cross-hairs of the militants. Hundreds of Maliks were killed, and most of the others ran away from the FATA region to save their lives, with the result that the mullahs replaced the Maliks as the power elite in FATA. The reason for targeting the Maliks was quite clear: they were the only people who could pose any kind of a challenge to the domination of the jihadists by mobilising the people of the area to form tribal lashkars to take on the militants. By eliminating the Maliks, the jihadists effectively ended any possibility of opposition to their dominance over the entire tribal belt. This was exactly the trajectory that the 'Mujahideen' had adopted in Afghanistan where the tribal chieftains were replaced by the jihadists.

In Swat, while the Taliban movement was built around the demand for imposition of Shariat, there was also a socio-economic dimension to the support that the Swat Taliban leader Mullah Fazlullah received from the people. Unlike the 'establishment' mullahs who have traditionally opposed land reforms in Pakistan, Fazlullah won over a lot of recruits by promising them land redistribution. The Taliban storm-troopers targeted the big landlords in Swat and either killed them or forced them to flee, after which they occupied their land. By exploiting the conflict between the landless tenants and the wealthy landlords in Swat, the Taliban not only won grass-root support for their movement, they also hit at the socio-economic and political power structure that was dominated by the landed gentry which could have become a major obstacle in the path of the Taliban. Apart from one big landowner, Afzal Khan Lala, who successfully resisted the Taliban onslaught, all the other big landholders turned out to be pushovers for the jihadists.

Not just in Swat, but in the entire Pashtun tribal belt, the jihadists have attracted support by holding out the promise of a more equal and just social order an important component of their political programme. Indeed, the absence of justice has been one of the primary factors for the rise of the Islamist groups who have exploited the arbitrary, corrupt and unfair justice system to win support for their cause, a fact that has been admitted by none other than the Chief Justice of the Balochistan High Court. For instance, the now slain head of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Baitullah Mehsud, used not only Islam to consolidate his power base, he also targeted big landowners to give the TTP an image of being a people's movement. In the Khyber agency, the head of the Lashkar-e-Islam, Mangalbagh, acquired a Robin Hood-like reputation which pulled in a lot of young people to his fold. According to the Pakistani journalist, Rahimullah Yusufzai, Mangalbagh used to criticise the Maliks and would always try to solve the problems of the common tribesmen.

Although all politicians in Pakistan, including the big landowners, never fail to pay lip-service to the cause of a more just and equitable social and political system, their social background has ensured that nothing of the sort will ever happen as long as they control the levers of power. Unlike the politicians, the promise of social justice that the jihadists hold out sounds far more credible. For one, the politicians represent status quo which makes any revolutionary reform in the social system extremely unlikely. The jihadists, on the other hand, seek to change the system which means that what they are promising has a pretty good chance of coming true. Secondly, given the lower and lower middle class backgrounds of almost the entire jihadist leadership – Baitullah Mehsud was a gym trainer, Mangalbagh a bus conductor-cum-cleaner, Mullah Fazlullah was a chair-lift operator – makes it easy for the people to identify with them and believe in what they promise since they are from the same background.

A study into the mindset of jihadists by a Pakistani clinical psychologist, Sohail Abbas, has revealed that the value system of the lower middle class exercised a dominating influence on the militancy. According to this study, "this class...is able to provide leadership and inspiration to the teeming masses...[it] has been an important actor in the religious movement in the country. It is deeply influenced by and now controls the mosque-religion." Abbas has found that anger against the exploitative socio-political system has been exploited by the religious groups who have "succeeded in mixing jihad with political change by the implicit promise of a Taliban type government in Pakistan".

With the normal social and political processes failing to address the growing morbidity and hopelessness in society, jihad has become an instrument of empowerment against the real and perceived depredations of the venal elite and the struggle for a genuinely Islamic system is seen as the only way to change the status quo and also gain spiritual fulfilment. Despite the fact that other than slogans and targeting the landed elite, the jihadists have not really laid out in detail how they will ensure social justice, provide employment opportunities, improve the education system and healthcare etc., the jihadists have managed to give a sense of empowerment to their supporters. There is enough anecdotal evidence of how people on the margins of society, powerless to change their lot, have overnight become 'men of respect' after having joined a Jihadist outfit – the social status of the family improves, the police is wary of them and the local influential sections of society don't mess with them. In other words, jihad offers a sense of purpose and social mobility that is simply not on offer otherwise. The case of the Ajmal Kasab, the sole surviving terrorist involved in the 26/11 attack in Mumbai, is a classic case in point.

While lack of gainful employment opportunities has been another major factor that has drawn the youth towards jihadist outfits, there has also been a steady rejection of the fatalism that had been infused in the people by the traditional, syncretic school of Islamic theology which is commonly referred to as Barelvi or Sufi culture, which had in the past played a critical role in keeping social unrest from boiling over. Not only has 'Sufi' Islam been receding in the face of the onslaught by the more radical, jihadised versions of Islam, it has now come to represent the 'establishment'. Sufi Islam's popularity in the past was in large part because it represented dissent against the doctrinaire Islam of the established religious
and political order. But with the descendants of the Sufi saints having become the ruling class, the jihadist philosophy espoused by the radical Islamic groups has replaced Sufi Islam as the expression of dissent.

Clearly, if Pakistan is serious about combating the growing power and influence of the jihadists, then it must simultaneously address not only the ideological dimension of Islamism, but also the socio-economic dimensions of the problem that are fuelling the Islamist insurgency. Fighting talibanisation through only the use of military force, while important, even unavoidable, is at best only a holding operation. While the Pakistani establishment is tirelessly making a pitch to rest of the world to pump in money to finance development in the country so that the socio-economic factors behind jihadism can be addressed, the fact remains that taking care of socio-economic factors without coming up with an effective counter ideology to radical Islam is a strategy that is doomed to fail. Conversely, evolving an ideological framework to counter the Islamist without concomitant socio-political and economic reform too will not succeed. The problem however is that other than a torrent of verbiage, there is absolutely no sign of the Pakistani state having taken even the first step to concurrently address both the ideological and the socio-economic dimensions of jihadism.

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<2570 Words> 10^th September, 2010

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2010-09-10T10:44:00.001-07:00

OPEN SEASON ON PAKISTANI SHIAS

SUSHANT SAREEN

From Gilgit to Karachi and from Lahore to Quetta, extremist Sunni terrorist groups appear to have declared an open season on the minority Shia community in Pakistan. Despite the expressions of outrage and condemnation by top political leaders and civil society organizations against the wanton targeting of the Shias, the fact of the matter is that the complicity of the state agencies (partly by design and partly by default) in the mass murder of Shias is too glaring to ignore.

In the northern portion of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir – Gilgit-Baltistan – Pakistani authorities have systematically tried to change the demographic composition of the territory by settling Pashtun Sunnis in the area. This policy of the Pakistan government not only violates the Jammu and Kashmir State subject rules that forbid any non-state subject from settling down and buying property in the state, it has also given rise to sectarian tensions in the area. The Sunnis, under state protection and patronage, have steadily pushed the local Shia community to the edge by capturing the business and trade in the area. Starting from 1984, state sponsored pogroms of the Shias have been carried out in Gilgit-Baltistan. The recent outbreak of tensions in Gilgit, where three Sunni policemen were found to be involved in target killing of Shias, is a natural consequence of the policies that Pakistan has followed in the occupied territory.

Shias in Karachi have been in the cross-hairs of Sunni extremists for years now – Shia doctors in particular have been regularly gunned down in the city. In Kurram agency of FATA, the Shias have been cut off from rest of Pakistan by the Sunni terrorists for over 3 years. Despite all sorts of assurances the Pakistani authorities have utterly failed to stop the killing of Shias in these areas. Balochistan's capital Quetta has become something of a killing field for the Shias. While Balochistan is predominantly Sunni, there is in Quetta a large settlement of the Hazaras who are Shias. Baloch society has been traditionally secular in their outlook and the Hazaras, who trace their origins to the Mongols, have lived peacefully. But in recent years, there has been a systematic targeting of members of the Hazara community and the suicide attack on a Shia procession in Quetta last week, in which around 70 people were killed and over a hundred injured, is only the latest in a series of outrages that have been perpetrated against the Hazaras in Quetta.

Like in Gilgit-Baltistan, in Balochistan too the Pakistani authorities have allowed the sectarian groups to function with impunity. According to reports in the Pakistani and Western media, the Pakistani intelligence agencies have allowed Quetta to become the headquarters of the Taliban. Worse, the 'agencies' reportedly promoting talibanisation through extremist Sunni groups like the Sipah-e-Sahaba and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, both of which are closely aligned to the Taliban, in order to counter the Baloch nationalist forces. Given the deep antipathy of the Taliban and their affiliates for the Shias – the Taliban carried out genocide of the Hazaras in Afghanistan after they occupied the Shia lands in that country in the mid 1990s – the killing of the Shias in Quetta comes as no surprise. In Pakistan's heartland of Punjab, the extremist Sunni groups hold sway. In fact, the growth of the Sunni terrorism started in the district of Jhang in Punjab where the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan came into existence. Over the years, the SSP has spread its network all over Punjab and the attack on Shias in the heart of Lahore killing over 40 people comes as no surprise.

While the divide between the Shias and Sunnis is as old as Islam, the bestiality on display in Pakistan in recent years can be traced back to the geo-politics of the third quarter of the 20th Century. Dovetailing on this geo-politics was the domestic political compulsions of the military regime of Gen Ziaul Haq. The watershed year was really 1979 when not only did the Soviet's invade and occupy Afghanistan, but there was also the Islamic (actually Shi'ite) revolution in Iran. Before 1979, notwithstanding their sectarian and theological differences, the Shias and Sunnis never indulged in massacring each other. The ulema from the two sects would heatedly argue and debate theological issues. But apart from the occasional clash or a riot between them, things never really deteriorated to a point where blood was shed. The Shia-Sunni armed conflict got accentuated after the American involvement in the Afghan Jihad, which happened just at the time when the Saudi-Iranian rivalry started playing itself out in Pakistan. Fanning the flames of sectarian hatred generated by these two factors were the imperatives of regime survival for Gen Zia military dictatorship.

The Iranian revolution in 1979 had shaken up the predominantly Sunni Sheikhdoms in the middle-east. To prevent the export of the Islamic revolution from Iran to their domains, the Sheikhdoms used sectarianism as an instrument of policy. Sunni Islam was also the natural ally of the Americans in their not so covert war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. After all, bulk of the fighters, or if you will Mujahideen, were Sunnis, many of who adhered to a puritanical version of Islam, which incidentally was rabidly anti-Shia, something that suited the Americans who had burned their bridges with Shia Iran. Add to this the deliberate divide and rule policy adopted by Gen Zia who for political reasons fuelled sectarian differences by providing the Pakistan army's patronage to the worst sort of radical mullahs who started openly spouting hatred against the minority Shias.

The relationship between ordinary Shias and Sunnis underwent a transformation after Zia imposed Islamisation in Pakistan. The Shia clergy, which had become very aggressive after the Khomeni regime took power in Iran, organised a mammoth rally in Islamabad against the Zia regime, which they accused of fostering Sunni personal law on the Shias. Although Zia was forced to back off and concede the Shia demands, this show of force convinced Zia and by extension the army establishment, including the infamous ISI, of the need to cut the Shias down to size. Exploiting an existing fault-line between Shia landlords and Sunni tenants in Jhang, the Pakistani agencies unleashed the extremist Sunni organization Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) on the Shias. This was the time that sectarian differences started being settled through bullets.

Alongside, the SSP indulged in the most virulent hate speech against the Shias, going to the extent of bringing to bear the theological differences to start a campaign demanding that Shias be declared non-muslims, a la Ahmediyas. The Shias too started organizing themselves and the Tehrik-e-Fiqh-e-Jafferia (TFJ) came into existence. Both the SSP and TFJ formed their militant wings and started targeting each other. The Shias, who comprise around 15% of Pakistan's population, were however, outnumbered and outgunned. The Sunni outfits were flush with arms and money which had flooded Pakistan due to the Afghan 'jihad' against the Soviets. What is worse, the Pakistani state and its infamous agencies patronized the Sunni jihadist outfits which were involved in the targeting of the Shias. Jumping into the fray were the Saudis and Iranians who fought their proxy war in Pakistan using the extremist Sunni and Shia groups respectively, and providing them money and weapons to kill each other.

Until the mid-1990s, the Shia-Sunni violence was limited to targeted killings of leaders and activists. But this form of violence soon graduated to mass killings, with Shia Imambargahs being stormed by gunmen. The Sunni extremists in Pakistan received a massive boost after their ideological twins, the barbaric Taliban occupied Afghanistan. Suddenly, many of the Sunni extremists had a ready-made safe haven to which they escaped after massacring Shias. Despite being clients of the Pakistan army, the Taliban rejected all requests from Pakistani authorities to hand-over some of the most notorious Sunni terrorists who had taken refuge inside Afghanistan. Inside Pakistan, the more radical elements in the extremist SSP formed the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.

The formation of the LeJ allowed the SSP to operate over-ground and participate in politics. The network of the SSP spread so deep into Pakistan's body politic that the current head of the SSP's new avatar, Ahle Sunnat wal Jamaat, has claimed that nearly 25 MNAs from across the political spectrum have been elected to parliament with the its backing. In 2002, the Pakistani military dictator, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, released then SSP chief Azam Tariq to win the vote of confidence in the National Assembly for his puppet prime minister, Zafarullah Jamali. While the SSP was strengthening its political position, the LeJ was continuing with its Shia killing campaign. There was a lull in anti-Shia violence after the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001. But with the resurgence of the Taliban around 2005, the massacres of Shias once again started, this time with even greater ferocity. Using gunmen to storm Shia mosques was passé. The weapon of choice became the suicide bomber, which has been used to devastating effect in almost all the recent attacks on Shias.

But apart from the religious hatred that makes its kosher for the Sunnis to massacre the Shias, the targeting of Shias today serves a political objective of the Islamists viz. destabilizing the Pakistani state. As a result, the Sunni extremists are killing two birds with one stone. This is, in a sense, a replication of the strategy that the al Qaeda used in Iraq, where it used the Sunni suicide bombers to target Shias and their holy places to spread chaos and anarchy. The question is how long will the Shias take these wanton massacres lying down? Unless the Shias are reconciled to their fate as fair game for the Sunni extremists and are willing to be reduced to the status that the Ahmediyas suffer in Pakistan, they will retaliate and give as good as they get. The big problem that the Shias face is that their militant arm – Sipah-e-Mohammed – has become redundant. Its revival will depend in large measure on the role that Iran plays to build up a Shia counterforce to the Sunni terrorist groups. The repercussions of any such step on the part of Iran on the relations between Sunni Pakistan and Shia Iran (as also Iraq) will be quite severe. But much worse will be the ramifications of a Shia backlash on the already tottering state of Pakistan. At a time when Pakistan is facing the blowback of its jihadist policies and is being targeted by its 'strategic assets', and is also in the throes of an insurgency in Balochistan, a Shia-Sunni war could well sound the death knell of the Pakistani state.

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<1765 Words> 9^th September, 2010

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2010-09-03T03:27:00.001-07:00

'A CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE'

SUSHANT SAREEN

In a country where an extremely wealthy and well-connected member of Islamabad's social elite unabashedly introduces himself as an "importer and manufacturer of Bollywood CDs" – a euphemism for piracy of Indian films and music – why blame cricketers for fixing matches for money? If anything, the outrage, not to mention shame that many Pakistanis are feeling after the remarkable expose of the rampant match-fixing by Pakistani cricketers sounds quite incongruous to the culture of corruption that seems to have seeped deep into every pore of Pakistani life. Increasingly, Sir VS Naipaul's description of Pakistan as a 'criminal enterprise' is sounding more and more true and Gresham's law – bad money drives out good money – has pervaded all spheres of national life, with decent, enlightened and honest citizens being reduced to an anachronism.

To be sure, something of this sort is also happening in India, what with one notorious match-fixer becoming an 'honourable' MP, and another being a permanent fixture on a TV channel to analyse cricket matches. The Indian attitude to corruption, however, pales before the chutzpah of the Pakistanis in brazening out irrefutable charges of wrongdoing. Forget about being contrite, the standard response of the Pakistanis when caught with their hand in the till is to first demand such exacting standards of proof that even God almighty will not be able to provide. Strangely, these same people readily and unquestioningly lap up the most bizarre allegations as proof of guilt of 'others' without even a shred of evidence to back these allegations – for instance, RAW backing the Baloch separatists and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, Mossad and CIA sponsoring terrorism in Pakistan.

Even as they insist upon the need to 'qualify and quantify' the evidence, they start working overtime on building up elaborate, if totally convoluted, conspiracy theories involving India (read Hindus), Americans and British (read Christians and 'crusaders'), and Israelis (read Jews), all working in concert to malign Pakistan. And no, it is not the lunatic fringe, but the lunatic mainstream that indulges in such activity. True to form, on the day that the spotgate scam hit the headlines in Pakistan, a 'mainstream' newspaper, Pakistan Observer – mainstream not in terms of circulation, which is negligible, but because it is considered to be the unofficial mouthpiece of the ISI, which is as mainstream as you can get in Pakistan – alleged that the entire scandal was "part of a greater psy-ops...to demoralize the Pakistani nation" and that the reporter who carried out the sting operation was "known for his bids [sic.] to implicate Muslims"! Taking the cue, 'imbedded' TV anchors have started mounting a spirited defence of the accused players, pointing to the so-called inconsistencies in the reportage of the sting operations, raising questions over the intention behind the sting, and of course, hinting at the ubiquitous Indian angle, without which a conspiracy theory in Pakistan can never be complete.

Not surprisingly, the tainted captain of the tainted team, Salman Butt did not bat an eyelid in dismissing the charges and saying "these are just allegations and anybody can stand out and say anything, it doesn't mean they are true." But why blame Butt? He probably drew inspiration from the Pakistani authorities who whenever confronted with damning evidence of involvement in terrorism – a classic example being the 26/11 attacks – adopt exactly the same approach. Remember, it took Pakistan weeks to even admit that the beast called Ajmal Kasab was a Pakistani? Don't also forget that when the London School of Economics report on how the ISI was running the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan was released the Pakistanis went red in the face denying all charges of playing a double game. However, when within days of the LSE report the wikileaks revelations were made, the same Pakistanis explained these away by saying that this was all old hat and that no such thing is happening anymore.

Clearly, denial, obfuscation and stone-walling has become something of a national malaise in Pakistan, and the Pakistan Cricket Board's refusal to act even against cricketers who have been serial offenders is hardly surprising. In PCBs case, the problem also is that there are dark suggestions pointing to the complicity of the board's top officials in the entire match-fixing scandal. But given that the PCB chief is a close relative of the country's defence minister and his sidekick who is the 'manager' of the team is the father-in-law of a PPP Senator who never tires of playing the ultra-patriotic card, they obviously feel that they cannot be touched. As a result, a culture of impunity has developed in Pakistani cricket, with players confident that they can get away with anything, from doping to match-fixing.

Not that this culture of impunity is anything new. Allegations of match-fixing have been surrounding the Pakistani cricketers for decades but apart from the life-ban imposed on two cricketers, everyone else has got away scot free. The irony is that many of the former Pakistani cricketers who have themselves been either accused or implicated in match-fixing in the past are today taking a very holier-than-thou stand on the entire spotgate scam. Apart from a few notable exceptions – Sarfraz Nawaz and Aamir Sohail, to name two – who have been whistle-blowers and have consistently been calling for cleaning up Pakistani cricket, most of the other cricketers have been suspected of involvement with bookies. The funniest sight was Javed Miandad talking about match fixing. Considering his friendship and his family ties with the international terrorist and the kingpin of the cricketing betting mafia, Dawood Ibrahim, it was disingenuous of Miandad to comment on the episode, unless of course he was trying to settle scores with a rival betting mafia on behalf of his 'friend'.

The tragedy of Pakistan, which has produced some fabulously talented cricketers, is that even when they formed a judicial commission to investigate match-fixing charges, the judge appointed to head the commission was a man who though a brilliant legal mind enjoyed the reputation of being one of the most corrupt and amoral judges in Pakistan's history. Such is the rot in the system that it is unlikely if even the three A's that rule Pakistan – Allah, Army and America – can cleanse cricket in Pakistan. Since the American's don't know even the C of cricket, they are obviously not up to the task. Allah's soldiers in the cricket team – the Tablighi mafia, including people like the former skipper, Inzamam-ul-Haq – have also been tainted with charges of match-fixing, not to mention ball-tampering. As for the generals, Musharraf did try and enforce some military discipline in Pakistani cricket when he appointed a general to head the PCB. The result was predictable – the general tried to manoeuvre the entry of his sons in the national team.

Like everything else in Pakistan, it appears unlikely if Pakistan will clean up its cricket without any outside intervention and pressure. Left to the PCB and Pakistani authorities, the entire spotgate scam will be white-washed and it will be business as usual. The problem is that the ICC, headed as it is by Sharad Pawar, who himself has been tainted by the entire IPL scam, is ill-equipped to take any meaningful action to clean up not only Pakistani cricket but also world cricket. The bookies and match-fixers would therefore be betting that once all the brouhaha dies down, their 'criminal enterprise' will continue to flourish.

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<1225 Words> 3^rd September, 2010

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2010-08-27T01:59:00.001-07:00

FLOODS: PAKISTAN BRACING FOR THE FALLOUT

SUSHANT SAREEN

Intimations of mortality of an incumbent regime, especially a civilian government, are nothing new for Pakistan. But doomsday scenarios about the imminent demise of the not just the political system but also the State have never been peddled as furiously and with as much conviction as they are being today, over the internet, on TV channels and in newspaper columns. The catastrophic floods that have swept through Pakistan, drowning about a fifth of the country and displacing around 20 million people, have prompted analysts, commentators and a section of politicians to become almost hysterical in predicting the impending collapse of the 'system' (political, economic, social and administrative), and perhaps even a revolution in the country.

There is no denying that the floods constitute a massive shock to the system, one that the Pakistani state will find difficult to come out of. But the apocalyptic picture being portrayed by the anchorocracy (TV anchors, most of them with right-wing, Islamist proclivities, who have taken upon themselves to set the national agenda and pronounce and propound on everything without knowing much of anything) needs to taken with a pinch of salt, more so because much of the rhetoric is heavily political and aimed primarily at somehow or the other deposing the current ruling dispensation.

This is not to rule out the possibility of large scale civil unrest leading to a complete breakdown of state authority and ultimately unravelling the Pakistani state. Even before the 'mother of all floods', Pakistan was in a very precarious state. The 'phony' War on Terror being fought by the Pakistan army – fighting local Taliban but at the same time providing support and sanctuary to Islamist fighters active in Afghanistan – had split the country down the middle. The spate of terrorist attacks in the Pakistan's heartland had demoralised the public. The tide of extremism and fanaticism showed no sign of ebbing, in large part because of the ambivalent stand of the Pakistani state on the issue of radical Islam.

The politics of the country was in a complete mess. Governance was practically non-existent as the government lurched from one political crisis to another. The army had once again started calling the shots on all issues pertaining to national security. Balochistan was once again in the throes of an insurgency. Restiveness was growing in Sindh. Law and order was breaking down all over the country. The country's commercial capital, Karachi, had steadily been descending into chaos with target killings and political turf battles becoming the order of the day.

Add to all this, the dismal state of the economy. Economic distress levels have risen to almost the breaking point in Pakistan, what with little or no new job creation (in fact job losses with hundreds of manufacturing units having closed down in the last couple of years), very poor investment climate, high inflation, a practically non-existent social goods sector (education, public health services etc.), a deeply indebted economy, low growth rates, unaffordable energy tariffs coupled with widespread energy shortages which are impacting on the already anaemic manufacturing sector.

It was against this backdrop that the floods hit Pakistan. Notwithstanding the proclivity of Pakistani officialdom to exaggerate the damage caused by the floods and profit from even a calamity, the fact is that the scale of devastation is colossal. Hundreds of thousands of houses and farmlands have been destroyed, hundreds of villages and tens of towns drowned, standing crops worth millions of dollars ruined, businesses and assets (farm implements, livestock, grain stocks etc.) washed away, scores of bridges destroyed, hundreds of miles of road and rail damaged beyond repair, power plants and refineries deluged, canals and dykes damaged. In short, the floods have pushed Pakistan back a decade or more.

The ripple effect of all this damage has already started being felt by rest of the Pakistani economy. It is estimated that economy will post a 0% growth this fiscal. While some international assistance will certainly be made available to Pakistan to rehabilitate the millions of flood victims, it is unlikely that Pakistan will get the 'Marshal Plan' it has been hankering for. Quite asides the fact that the Marshal Plan worked in a setting very different from Pakistan's, such a plan can never work in a country ruled by a kleptocracy – a venal political elite, an all powerful and unaccountable military, a dysfunctional administrative machinery, and a rapacious feudal mafia – which will siphon off a large chunk of this money.

Therefore, Pakistan will have to generate a bulk of the resources required for relief, reconstruction and rehabilitation from within the country. The most convenient way of doing this is by lopping off huge chunks off the development budget – so far no one has been brave enough to suggest a cut in the defence budget – and diverting these to flood relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction activities. In addition, the government is contemplating cutting the size of social security programmes and imposing new taxes to garner resources to fund the relief and rehabilitation work.

While additional taxation will impose a crushing burden on the miniscule Pakistani middle class that actually pays taxes – the rich in Pakistan enjoy a perpetual tax holiday – the cuts in social security programmes will add to the growing economic distress in the country. Adding further to the misery of the people will be the food, energy, fuel and raw material shortages, spiralling prices, all dovetailing on an economy already in a tailspin with no job opportunities for the youth and little or no hope for improving their lives. All in all, Pakistan confronts an explosive situation which it is feared could erupt anytime in the near and mid-term.

The Pakistani establishment is playing upon the fears being expressed within the country and without of the great tumult that could befall on it, and using this to extract as much money as possible from the international donors. But there is a real danger that the conjecture of revolution could turn into a reality, more so because cataclysmic changes are often precipitated by catastrophes like the floods. Even a functional and efficient state would find it difficult to provide succour to 10-15% of its population; to expect a moribund administrative machinery of an 'almost failed' state like Pakistan to look after such a huge population appears close to impossible.

Although the current PPP-led dispensation proved sceptics wrong and handled the crisis in Swat where military operations had displaced nearly 2-3 million people reasonably well and relatively efficiently, the flood crisis is about ten times greater in magnitude. Assuming that the Pakistan state fails to reach out to the affected people, there are broadly two scenarios that could play out once the flood waters recede. The best case and perhaps cynical scenario suggests that the Pakistani masses will not quite storm the Bastille just yet and the rotten state structure will continue to muddle along, albeit in a more weakened form. While the people affected by the floods will face enormous problems, they will be resilient enough to take the adversity in their stride. In any case, most of these people are what can be called the marginalised people of Pakistan whose voice or whose problems have never mattered to, much less cramped the style of, the Pakistani elite.

Pakistan's 'controlling authority' or the hub of the Pakistani establishment – central and north Punjab and Karachi – has escaped the ravages of the floods and is intact to control any unrest among the flood victims. As the wags put it, not a single game of golf in Islamabad club or Lahore Gymkhana has been called off because of the floods. If anything, members of the establishment and their compradors will not only retain control but also enrich themselves by grabbing new lands, partaking in the reconstruction contracts and skimming off the funds that a gullible West could pour into the country. The victims of the floods, who are inured to oppression and exploitation by the elite, will reconcile to their fate and fend for themselves.

While the best case scenario cannot be ruled out altogether, chances are that the other, more fearsome, scenario which holds the potential of unravelling the state could play itself out. At the very least, the spectre looms large of large scale civil unrest with desperate people taking desperate measures to stay alive, and in the process ripping apart whatever little remains of state authority. Propelling this outburst will be mishandling and mismanagement, not to mention misfeasance, of the relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction work.

Having lost practically everything, many of the landless will migrate to cities in search of livelihood. The impact of such large scale internal migration on an already fragile political situation in cities like Karachi, for example, will be enormous. In more stable cities, the influx of millions will create its own problems and social tensions. Meanwhile, there could be a huge law and order problem in rural areas where feuds over land will multiply exponentially, what with land records washed away, demarcation of lands having disappeared, and the rapacious land revenue officialdom waiting to extort money from hapless landholders to demarcate their lands. And even after the lands are settled there will be the issue of how to till these lands without livestock, farm implements, and the money to buy seeds, food, fodder etc.

Adding to the chaos will be Pakistan's other fault-lines which will get accentuated in the aftermath of the floods. The reservoir of resentment against the 'Raiwind-Rawalpindi belt', which is the heartland of the predominantly Punjabi establishment and has escaped the ravages of the floods, could spill over. Inter-provincial (between Punjab and the smaller provinces) and intra-provincial (between South Punjab and central and north Punjab) rivalries will gain salience with squabbles over the aid money. The apathetic attitude of the people unaffected by the floods towards the flood victims will also fuel resentment against the rich and privileged. The disaffection in Balochistan too is likely to grow, not just because of the discrimination in providing relief to the flood victims in that province, but also because of the devastation caused in the only two districts of Balochistan with a modicum of support for Pakistan – Jafarabad and Naseerabad – by flood waters which were diverted to these areas in order to save the Sindhi city Jacobabad and the Shahbaz airbase from where the CIA operates its drones. Therefore, the likelihood of chaos and anarchy breaking out all over the country is just too real to ignore.

In the event that this happens, the government will be forced to call in the army to restore order. The first casualty of any such move will be the civilian government. The army, which has been working overtime to project its relief and rescue efforts and pose as the ultimate saviour and protector of the people of the country, will takeover to control the situation. While such a step might give temporary relief by letting out some of the steam that has been building up in the system, the army's track record of governance is hardly anything to write home about. If anything, it will only worsen the political situation in the country, which will become more chaotic and uncontrollable, especially because while the army can wield the big stick, it is simply incapable of managing the conflicting and contradictory interests of the masses, something that only politicians are able to do.

While Pakistan has successfully managed to wave the Islamists-are-gaining threat at the West to force them to open their purse strings and pour aid into Pakistan, the fears of the fundamentalists exploiting the flood situation are somewhat overstated at this stage. Just as the massive aid being given by the Americans is unlikely to rehabilitate their image in Pakistan – those who detest the US will continue doing so even as they live off American money – the relief activities of the Islamists won't lead to an immediate shift of public support in their favour. In fact, a lot of the relief work being done by the charities of terrorist organisations is not in competition with the Pakistani state but with its concurrence. This much became clear when the Pakistanis orchestrated the visit of the USAID chief to a purported relief camp being either run by or manned by activists of the Falah-i-Insaniyat, a charity owned by the terrorist organisation Jamaatud Dawa, which is the holding company of the Lashkar-e-Taiba.

The danger from the Islamist terrorist organisations is therefore not immediate. The real danger lies in the fact that if the state atrophies (as it very well could even if the army takes over) and civil unrest breaks out, the Islamists are best organised to harness this discontent and pose a challenge to the 'failing' state by filling the leadership vacuum. This will confront the army with a grave dilemma: it can either enter into a deal with its erstwhile clients and/or form a coalition with them, or else it can confront them and push the country into a civil war.

While this is the ultimate nightmare scenario for the world, it is precisely the trajectory that was being followed by the Pakistani state even before the floods. All that will happen after the floods is that this trajectory will gain greater traction. Ironically, this is something that will be the result not of any calamity but of a conscious policy of the Pakistan army and establishment to nurture Islamist terrorist groups as instruments of state policy. The floods are in this sense incidental to the future course of events in Pakistan and their role will be only to speed up the process of degradation of the Pakistani state.

2010-08-12T05:44:00.001-07:00

KILLING FIELDS OF KARACHI - II

SUSHANT SAREEN

Every time there is a spurt in the violence in Karachi, the Federal Interior Minister, Rehman Malik descends on the city to play peacemaker between the ANP and MQM. For a few days, all the killing comes to a sudden stop, and then the cycle repeats itself. After Raza Haider's assassination, a 10 point code of conduct has been agreed to by the MQM and ANP. That this is touted as a solution to target killings is a tacit acceptance of the political nature of the target killings. After all, if the killing of Raza Haider was the handiwork of what Malik has called the 'third force' and 'enemies of Pakistan' who want to destabilise the country – Rehman Malik has blamed the Sunni terrorist groups Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) – then clearly a code of conduct between MQM and ANP will not be of much help in ending the violence. The 'third force' theory also does not explain who was responsible for the bloodletting that followed Haider's assassination.

While there is no denying the strong presence of Islamist terror groups in Karachi, the city also has a thriving underworld that revels in the unsettled conditions that exist in Pakistan's commercial capital. Criminal syndicates involved in narcotics, gun-running, land-grabbing, protection, extortion, kidnapping and contract killing rackets have been operating in Karachi with relative impunity under political protection and patronage. The politicians rely upon the criminal syndicates to settle political scores and also raising funds for political activities. But it was not only politicians which benefited from the underworld; the Islamists too developed a mutually beneficial relationship with the criminal syndicates. The nexus of criminal syndicates with both politicians and Islamists was aided by the fact that most criminal gangs in the city were organised along ethnic lines, which allowed them to play a role in the politics of the city which too was polarised along ethnic lines.

In the 1980's and 90's, Karachi politics was primarily polarised between the ethnic Sindhis and Mohajirs. An attempt by the intelligence agencies to forge a Punjabi-Pashtun alliance – the Punjabi-Pashtun Ittehad – had run aground. The only force to pose some sort of a challenge to the MQM in Karachi was the religious parties. But in recent years, the Pashtuns have become a force to reckon with. Karachi is today not only the largest Urdu-speaking, Gangetic Plain Muslim city in the world, it is also the largest Pashtun city in the world. In the 2008 elections, the Pashtuns, under the ANP, won a couple of seats in the Sindh provincial assembly and are today part of the coalition government in Sindh. The massive influx of Pashtuns in Karachi has caused consternation among the MQM. For now, the MQM has managed to gerrymander the constituencies in a way that they dominate the elections. But this dominance is threatened by the rising number of Pashtuns in the city, especially in areas where the two communities live side by side.

Political considerations apart, the MQM is also deadly opposed to the growing presence of Taliban in the city, which they see not only as a political threat, but also as a threat to their way of life. Regardless of MQMs unsavoury reputation as a fascist party, the fact remains that it is the only middle-class political party in Pakistan and perhaps the party with the most modern, progressive, even secular, outlook in Pakistan. Unlike most other political parties which tend to take an ambivalent stand against the Islamists, the MQM has always taken a tough, uncompromising position against religious radicalism.

But the MQMs opposition to the talibanisation of the city was seen by the ANP as a thinly veiled attack on the growing Pashtun presence in the city. Although the ANP too has been in the vanguard of the fight against the Taliban, and has suffered far more at the hands of the Taliban than any other political party in Pakistan, in Karachi local political considerations have muddled ANP's politics. By positioning itself as the party representing Pashtuns in Karachi, the ANP might unwittingly be also batting in favour of the Taliban, many of whom are believed to have taken refuge in Pashtun dominated areas.

The fact that the police has busted many Taliban modules in Karachi and apprehended members of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan from Pashtun areas of the city lends credence to the MQM charge that the ANP is turning a blind eye to the growing talibanisation of Karachi only to appease its Pashtun vote bank. The tension between the MQM and ANP has been exacerbated by the rather provocative speeches and statements issued by the ANP leaders, both at the national level and the city level, against the MQM. Add to this the enrichment of some ANP city leaders from their links with the various mafias and the growing aggressiveness and assertiveness of the Pashtuns to stake their rights over the city by force of arms if necessary and the picture of the anarchic situation in Karachi is complete.

Caught in the middle of the political tussle and war of words (not to mention bullets) between the ANP and MQM is the PPP, which is trying to juggle various critical political objectives in Karachi. The PPP-led coalition government in Islamabad would be reduced to a minority without MQM support and therefore the PPP simply cannot afford to rub MQM the wrong way. At the same time, the PPP must keep on the right side of the ANP both because the ANP support is important in Islamabad as also because the ANP and PPP are in coalition in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Compounding the problem for the PPP is the deep animosity that its Sindhi vote bank has for the MQM. The more the PPP embraces the MQM, the greater the danger that it could alienate its Sindhi support base. Although the PPP has tried to balance its politics by stonewalling on the issue of local government legislation in Sindh in which the MQM has a vital stake, it has added to the angst in the MQM which feels that it is being denied its rightful political right to run Karachi. The MQM appears unwilling to allow any other political party a piece of the Karachi political pie by dividing the city in a way that other political parties will have a stake in Karachi politics.

Adding to an already complicated situation is the somewhat dubious role being played by the infamous intelligence agencies of the Pakistan, namely the ISI and MI. Quite aside the fact that many of the Islamist groups and criminal syndicate have deep links with the 'agencies' and are known to operate with the tacit blessings of the 'spooks', there are reports of involvement of intelligence personnel in target killings. Even in the past, there have been reports that the 'agencies' have been acting as agent provocateurs to fulfil some political agenda of the military top brass – destabilise the sitting government or remove inconvenient people from the scene with complete deniability. This time around too, there are good reasons to suspect the direct or indirect (through their Jihadist proxies) involvement of the 'agencies' in the target killings to destabilise the PPP government in Islamabad.

Given the multiplicity of players involved, restoring some semblance of law and order in Karachi seems to be a rather tall task, way beyond the intellectual or administrative capacity of the civilian government. But it is unlikely if even the army will be able to handle the situation in Karachi, which is heading for a meltdown. Like the rest of Pakistan, Karachi too is now waiting tensely for that one spark that will conflagrate the whole place.

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<1280 Words> 12^th August, 2010

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2010-08-06T22:47:00.001-07:00

KILLING FIELDS OF KARACHI - I

SUSHANT SAREEN

For months now, Karachi had been sitting on a powder keg, tensely waiting for that one spark that would blow up the city. But the bloodletting that has followed the assassination of a MQM legislator, Raza Haider, in which around 70 people have been shot dead, scores of shops and transport vehicles burnt down and all business activity has come to a grinding halt in a three day orgy of violence is probably not that spark. If the reports coming out of the city are anything to go by, worse is yet to come, what with political turf battles and ethnic animosities getting jumbled up with criminal syndicates, sectarian mafias and Islamic terror groups. Amidst the growing chaos in Pakistan's commercial capital, the almost dysfunctional state machinery is in a stasis induced in large measure by political compulsions. On their part, the politicians have been reduced playing the role of helpless bystanders doing nothing more than issuing statements of condemnation and declaring the resolve to clean up the city even as the spiral of violence shows no sign of winding down.

Since the mid 1980s, Karachi has frequently suffered paroxysms of street violence. These bouts of violence were in large part the result of the political assertion by the majority Mohajir community under the leadership of the MQM. Not only did the MQM dominate the politics of Karachi, it also held complete sway over the streets of Karachi. Despite two quasi-military operations against the MQM, in which thousands of MQM cadres were brutally killed in thinly disguised extra-judicial 'encounters', the party held its own. After the Urdu-speaking Pervez Musharraf usurped power in 1999, the Pakistani establishment reached out to the MQM and accommodated it in the power structure in Karachi, Sindh and the Centre. From around 2002, the MQM was practically given a run of the place in both the provincial government as well as the city government. The pivotal position that the MQM held in the National Assembly ensured that no precipitate action could be taken against the party. This situation has prevailed even after the return of 'democracy' in 2008.

With MQM back in the saddle, the violence in the city underwent a metamorphosis. Except for a show of force in May 2007 when the then dysfunctional Chief Justice had gone to Karachi to gather support against his suspension by Musharraf, large scale street disturbances and violence got replaced by the phenomenon of target killings. Initially, police officers involved in the 'encounters' of MQM cadres were shot down one by one. But soon the trend of target killings acquired a more sinister form. Political activists and workers and ordinary citizens have been gunned down practically on a daily basis for nearly two years now. It is believed that these targeted killings were the result of a political turf and aimed partly at making Karachi appear to be an unsafe place for certain ethnic groups (which in turn led to retaliatory killings of members from other ethnic groups) and partly a tactic to impose the writ of one or the other political party in the area where these killings are taking place. At the same time, there have also been targeted killings of people belonging to rival religious sects. For instance, over a 100 doctors, almost all of them Shias, were gunned down before the law enforcement agencies woke up to the sectarian nature of the target killings.

Karachi which had always been a hub for Islamists, witnessed in the 1980's and 90's a growth of jihadist mafias in the city. Radical madrassas had sprouted up all over the city and provided the underpinning for the flourishing jihad industry. Almost all the big jihadist outfits like Harkatul Mujahideen, Harkatul Jihad Islami, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Lashkar-e-Taiba etc. had established their network in the city. Alongside, sectarian groups like the Sunni Deobandi extremist group, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), and its militant wing Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), and the Shia group Tehrik-e-Fiqh-e-Jafferia also drew support. Not to be left behind, the Barelvi sect set up its own outfit – Sunni Tehrik – to challenge the growing Deobandi influence, but suffered a huge setback after its entire top leadership was wiped out in a bomb attack in 2006 during a rally in Karachi's Nishtar park.

As a result, Karachi was quite a fertile ground for al Qaeda and the Taliban, not only in terms of providing recruits, but also for rest, recuperation, resources, and refuge, not to mention transit point for Jihad Inc, something that is borne out not only by the arrest of important al Qaeda members but also the arrest of the Taliban deputy head, Mullah Baradar. By the time the American journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and killed in Karachi, the city had already become notorious for being a hub of jihadist militias, a sort of terror central in which terror cells and modules proliferated. Surprisingly, during the last few years, despite the presence of the Taliban / al Qaeda in the city, it turned out to be least affected by the sort of Islamic terrorism that was hitting upcountry Pakistan.

This was not so much because of effective law enforcement but more because the Islamists felt that anarchy in the city would undermine their strategy instead of promoting it. A wave of terror attacks in Karachi would have forced the hand of the government to put in place security mechanisms that would interfere in the relative free run that the Islamist terror groups were enjoying in the city. Of course, this did not stop the terror groups from indulging in low level violence – target killings and the occasional bomb attack (like the Ashura bombing in December last) – to keep the city tense and on the edge by aggravating the existing political, ethnic and religious fault-lines in the city, the idea clearly being to exploit the explosive situation at a time of their choosing.

Karachi is not just the life-line of Pakistan – with its two ports which handle the bulk of Pakistan's foreign trade – it is also the life-line of NATO forces in Afghanistan which also receive the bulk of their logistics supplies through Karachi. The Islamist terror groups, most of who are either allied to the Taliban / al Qaeda or are sympathetic to them, have long eyed the logistics supply lines of the NATO forces as a target in order to choke the NATO forces war fighting capabilities. While threats have been issued to transporters – almost the entire transport trade in Karachi is controlled by the Pashtuns – to not carry NATO supplies, no serious action has been taken against the NATO supply line so far.

But the possibility cannot be ruled out that at a time when the devastating floods in upcountry Pakistan have already disrupted NATO supply lines, the killing of the MQM legislator was part of an effort by the Islamist terror groups to bottle up the logistics operations in Karachi and worsen the situation for the international security forces in Afghanistan. Even if this was indeed the case, it would still appear that the time has still not come for the Islamists to shut down the city completely and all they have done so far is to demonstrate (or should we say test) their ability to sabotage the NATO supplies by instigating and orchestrating violence in Karachi.

(to be continued)

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<1220 Words> 6^th August, 2010

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2010-07-30T06:22:00.001-07:00

THE PROBLEM WAS ALWAYS PAKISTAN

SUSHANT SAREEN

The Afghan warlogs made public by the website Wikileaks only reconfirms what has been known for years now – the complicity of the Pakistan army and intelligence agencies in supporting, funding, providing safe havens, and even directing the actions of Islamist terror groups operating in Afghanistan. To this extent there is hardly any novelty in these documents. The real value of the warlogs lies in their exposing the scale and extent of the Pakistani military establishment's links with Islamist terror groups and corroborating the recent report of the London School of Economics that has laid bare the fact that the ISI was hand-in-glove with the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.

The Pakistanis of course went into paroxysms of rage over the LSE report and some columnists even wanted the Pakistani government to sue the author of the LSE report for 'maligning' the name of Pakistan. The reaction in Pakistan over the wikileaks is once again predictable – it's old hat, it is unprocessed and raw information, it is tainted information because it has been provided by the Afghan intelligence which is under Indian influence etc. But clearly, to argue that the warlogs don't really count as a smoking gun – something that most Pakistanis and their American apologists are doing – is nothing but a refusal to acknowledge reality for what it is.

While the Pakistani denials were to be expected, what is really shocking is that despite having full knowledge of Pakistan's complicity and connivance with Islamist terror groups, the US administration and army have done precious little about it. Not only have they continued to let US soldiers get targeted by Pakistan's proxies; they have rewarded Pakistan for its double game with military and economic assistance amounting to billions of dollars. In other words, the US taxpayers, who are reeling under the worst economic crisis in living memory, are funding a country whose army and intelligence agency not only plans the killing of US soldiers but also directs the attacks. And all this under the utterly misplaced, if not self-serving, belief that the US is 'encouraging' Pakistan to do the right thing and has over the last year or so been successful in bringing about a change in the strategic direction of the ISI and Pakistan army.

Strangely enough, the fact that the 'strategic shift' in the ISI's thinking has coincided with the Taliban insurgents gathering greater strength and causing ever greater casualties of American soldiers doesn't seem to have registered either with US President Barack Obama or the US Chairman Joints Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen. While Obama doesn't want the warlogs to derail his strategy (what is it?), Mullen has said that the intelligence over Pakistani links with the Taliban was taken into account in the 'strategic review'. But if in the face of all the evidence and intelligence pointing to Pakistan's double game, the 'strategic review' is all that the so-called best brains in the US strategic community could come up with, then clearly the US is fighting a lost war for a lost cause.

The American administration however defends its policy on Pakistan by singing paeans in praise about Pakistan's partnership in the war on terror. Quite aside the fact that Pakistan was and is more of a partner of the Taliban than the Americans, it raises the important question as to who is fooling whom. From the warlogs it is clear that it isn't so much Pakistan fooling the Americans (who after all knew what the Pakistanis were up to) as the US officials fooling not just themselves but also their own people. And in their desperation to prove that this pusillanimous approach is working, they point to the 'sacrifices and casualties' of the Pakistan army in the war on terror. But they conveniently gloss over one critical fact: Pakistan has so far suffered casualties only in military operations against Taliban elements who were targeting Pakistan. They are yet to undertake any major military operation against safe havens of the Taliban groups that are targeting the NATO troops in Afghanistan.

For instance, in South Waziristan, the area of military operations was limited to only those places where the TTP faction of Baitullah Mehsud was dominant. The area under the control of Maulvi Nazir, an ally of the Pakistan army whose fighters are active only in Afghanistan was completely untouched. In Swat too, the Pakistan army moved only against the Mullah Fazlullah group after it started posing a direct challenge to the army and there was a clamour within Pakistan and pressure from without – Hillary Clinton accusing the Pakistan government of abdicating its responsibility – that forced the Pakistan army to move against the Taliban. And even after the Pakistan army conducted operations, almost the entire leadership of the terrorist groups disappeared, or was allowed to disappear. Many of these people have taken refuge in areas controlled by the 'strategic assets' of the Pakistan army which leads to the inescapable conclusion that just as the Americans are turning a blind eye to the double game that Pakistan is playing, the Pakistanis are turning a blind eye to the double game that the Taliban are playing.

The US strategy, or rather the lack of it, in Afghanistan clearly shows the sheer helplessness and cluelessness of the US army and administration in the face of the double-game that the Pakistanis have been playing with them since 9/11. There are three possible explanations for such impuissance. The first is that the Americans simply cannot comprehend that they are being taken for a ride. But with all the information that they have of Pakistan's involvement in providing support, sanctuary, sponsorship, training, direction of the Taliban war effort, this sounds rather implausible.

The second reason could be the very real possibility of some very pivotal players determining US policy are on the take of the Pakistanis and they are constantly providing justification and cover-ups for Pakistani acts of omission and commission in the war on terror. This is not as unthinkable or bizarre as it may sound. After all, the Pakistanis are known to have spent millions of dollars to bribe members of the 9/11 commission to water down the scathing references to Pakistan in their report. Incidentally, one of the members of the 9/11 commission piloted the bill in the US congress tripling aid to Pakistan and another is arguably the most Pakistan friendly US ambassador ever to be posted in India. The person in charge of managing the aid under the Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill is another inveterate India-baiter in the US establishment and is rumoured to have been a favourite of the Pakistanis.

The third reason could be that the US feels that it really doesn't have any option except to try and 'encourage' Pakistan to give up its double-game. Quite aside the fact that the US still has plenty of teeth left to force compliance on a weak, vulnerable and fragile state like Pakistan, this pathetic lament by the Americans over the lack of options has indeed not only 'encouraged' but also emboldened the Pakistanis to give up their double game. Only, the Pakistanis have not quite done this in the way the Americans wanted. The Pakistanis have now shed the double game and are now openly playing a single game, one which aims to bring the Taliban and terrorist groups like the Haqqani network to power in Kabul.

Facing almost certain defeat in Afghanistan, the Americans seem to be veering around to the view that they must try and stabilise Pakistan and avoid taking any action that could severely destabilise Pakistan. While this objective is laudable, the strategy that the Americans are following – turning a blind eye to Pakistan's connivance with Islamist groups in Afghanistan – is hardly going to help achieve that objective. Tolerating Pakistan's double game will not win the war in Afghanistan, but neither will it help bring stability in Pakistan. If the US is forced to withdraw from Afghanistan without vanquishing the Taliban, which is what is likely to happen if the current non-strategy continues, then not only will a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan be inevitable, it will have a deeply destabilising effect on Pakistan where the Islamists will run riot, eventually taking over the Pakistani state. Even if Afghanistan descends into civil war resulting in a de facto partition, the Taliban controlled Pashtun south and east will pull Pakistan into the vortex. Therefore, anyone who imagines that Pakistan will be able to resist the onslaught of the Islamists is only hallucinating.

Clearly, the time for soft options is over for the US. The only alternative before the US is to start cracking the whip on Pakistan to compel it to fall in line. This means the US must start micro-managing Pakistan army operations and force Pakistan to clean up its act. To sweeten the blow the US, along with rest of the international community, can offer $10 billion in purely economic assistance for the next ten years to rebuild Pakistan – i.e. the marshal plan that President Zardari keeps talking about. But if Pakistan doesn't agree, the US should be willing to use the big stick, promising to inflict such terrible pain on Pakistan that it will devastate that country. This could include Iraq-like sanctions, naval blockade, assisting separatist movements inside Pakistan – the list is long.

Many of these measures can be taken under the rubric of the UN because of Pakistan's failure to follow the various UN resolutions against terrorism. If anything, there is much greater justification to use sanctions against Pakistan than against Iran. But if the Chinese block UN sanctions against Pakistan, the US should be ready to act unilaterally against what is currently an 'international migraine', but will almost certainly become a brain tumour unless the cancer is removed. While there is no doubt about the serious risks of this 'operation' killing the patient (read Pakistan), the failure to undertake such an operation will also kill the patient. The question now is will the US continue with its current symptomatic treatment of the cancer of Islamic terrorism, or will it administer the necessary, if risky, treatment required to save the world, and also Pakistan, from this galloping cancer of radical Islamism.

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<1705 Words> 30^th July, 2010

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2010-07-23T05:12:00.001-07:00

A DESULTORY DIALOGUE

SUSHANT SAREEN

Lowbrowed behaviour doesn't mix well with high diplomacy. Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi's public show of petulance at being thwarted by the tough and unrelenting stand taken by the mild-mannered Indian External Affairs Minister, SM Krishna, certainly left a bad taste in the mouth. Worse, it effectively scotched any chance of putting a positive spin on the foreign minister level talks. Despite the failure to bridge differences over critical issues like terrorism and Kashmir which blocked the joint statement, the two sides had managed to agree on a few things, which though minor, could have helped to give a small push forward to the dialogue process. In the end, the 'all-or-nothing' approach of Qureshi left India with no choice but to call his bluff and walk away from the table without any agreement on any issue.

Much like Gen Pervez Musharraf, who in 2001 was left nonplussed by Atal Behari Vajpayee's firmness, Qureshi too seemed to have been completely taken by surprise by Krishna's refusal to be either charmed or pushed by his Pakistani counterpart's hard-sell and compromise on the mandate given to him by the Indian cabinet prior to his talks in Islamabad. Both Musharraf's 'ambush diplomacy' in Agra in 2001, and Qureshi's "dictation diplomacy" (in which he parroted the lines dictated to him by the puppeteers sitting in the GHQ, Rawalpindi) were typically the result of miscalculating and misreading India's intentions in restarting the dialogue with Pakistan. More than anything else, it is this feeling that the Indians are reaching out to Pakistan from a position of weakness that leads the Pakistanis to invariably over-play their hand on the negotiating table.

To be fair to the Pakistanis, the terrible timing of the Indian leadership's decision to once again reach out to Pakistan is in large measure responsible for fiasco in Islamabad. India took the initiative for talks with Pakistan after the London conference on Afghanistan where the Pakistanis were accorded a central role in deciding the future course of events in Afghanistan and India was practically sidelined. The Pakistanis couldn't stop crowing about the success of their double-game in the war on terror, which is now increasingly the only game that the Pakistanis are playing in Afghanistan what with the Pakistani army's lobbying for adjusting terrorist groups like the Haqqani network in Kabul. Such was the hubris in Pakistan that one analyst went to the extent of describing Pakistan as the centre of South Asian politics!

Agreeing to a dialogue with Pakistan under these circumstances was a sure recipe for disaster. Suffused with triumphalism over the success of their Afghan policy, it was quite natural for the Pakistanis to imagine that India was on a very weak wicket and was coming under tremendous US pressure, and that Pakistan could actually push India to agree to make concessions on issues like Jammu and Kashmir. Therefore, if there is anything positive about the failure of the talks in Islamabad, it is that the balloon of triumphalism in Pakistan has been punctured. Mr Krishna has disabused the Pakistanis of their delusion and conveyed in very clear and emphatic terms not only India's red lines, but also that India will deal with Pakistan on its own terms and if the Pakistanis really desire good relations with India then it must take the minimum necessary steps to allay India's concerns over terrorism.

Another positive that can be derived from the dialogue in Islamabad is that it would have informed the Indian leadership of the power equations in Islamabad and confirmed the pointlessness of expecting the elected civilian 'government' to deliver on anything. Although Mr Qureshi tried very hard to convince the world and his own people that unlike Mr Krishna, he had the full authority and confidence of his principals, no one is fooled. It was actually quite funny to see Mr Qureshi pretending to be in charge of making Pakistan's foreign policy, more so since everyone knows that he is a mere show boy and the real policy is made by the GHQ in Rawalpindi. Indeed, Mr Qureshi's boorish behaviour after the joint press conference was probably his way of trying to please his masters and prove his 'patriotic' credentials. There are reasons to believe that given the political situation in Islamabad, with questions being raised over the longevity of the current dispensation and talk of a possible in-house change doing the rounds, Mr Qureshi was also trying to project himself as a possible candidate for the post of Prime Minister in the event that a change in Islamabad becomes inevitable.

Of all the people, Mr Qureshi would have known what was on offer on the table before the talks started. He was being economical with the truth when he said that the Indian side was not 'prepared'. Quite to the contrary, the Indian side was very well prepared and in the talks between officials, the Indian side had informed their Pakistani counterparts how far India would go and the red lines they would not cross. If despite this Mr Qureshi thought that he could charm Krishna to go beyond his mandate, the fault was Qureshi's, not Krishna's. It is the norm that when foreign ministers meet, it is to endorse the agreements that have been reached by officials and perhaps to move forward to the next stage of engagement.

By all accounts the Indians had shown enormous flexibility, perhaps more than they should have, and the Pakistanis knew that in a sense the Indians were ready to hold a 'composite dialogue' (discuss all issues) except that it wouldn't be called a 'Composite Dialogue' and the structure of engagement would be different from the past. But one thing the Indians were not ready to give in on was terrorism. For India, Pakistani assurances were nothing more than lip-service and India wanted to see action on the ground before India could open the dialogue track on Kashmir and Siachen with Pakistan. The Pakistanis however insisted on firm timelines for talking on Kashmir, something that the Indians could not commit on without adequate satisfaction on the terrorism issue. It was this insistence of the Pakistanis that acted as the deal breaker. To blame the failure of the talks to the remarks of the Indian Home Secretary, as indeed the Pakistanis have done, is nothing but a red herring.

As things stand, the dialogue process with Pakistan is not derailed, it is only stalled. The talks can be started as soon as the Pakistanis get down the high horse they are riding. Having taken the decision to restart the dialogue with Pakistan, it would be difficult for India to suspend the dialogue in reaction to Mr Qureshi's churlish behaviour. At the same time, India and Pakistan will need to rethink the structure of the dialogue. If the idea is to build trust and confidence, then the formal, ministerial level structured dialogue will not be very helpful. While this track must certainly continue, it is important that the two countries also put in place a mechanism for their officials, even politicians, to meet in an informal setting where they try and develop a better understanding of each other's positions. In other words, perhaps it might not be a bad idea for Mr Qureshi to actually come to India for a 'pleasure trip' and invite his counterpart to the same in Pakistan.

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<1230 Words> 23^rd July, 2010

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2010-07-15T11:09:00.001-07:00

RESTRUCTURING THE DIALOGUE PROCESS WITH PAKISTAN

SUSHANT SAREEN

Notwithstanding India's expressed desire for a "serious, comprehensive and sustained dialogue" with Pakistan, there is deep scepticism over External Affairs minister SM Krishna's visit to Islamabad to try and address the new 'core issue' – the yawning 'trust deficit' – bedevilling relations between India and Pakistan. Other than the visit restarting the process of a political engagement between the two countries, very little is being out of Mr Krishna's visit. In the Indo-Pak context, low expectations are not necessarily a bad thing, because not only does it avoid the almost destructive hype that inevitably surrounds any Indo-Pak interaction, it allows both sides to claim success even without having achieved anything substantial.

There are two big problems that the resumed engagement with Pakistan will have to contend with. The first is the political, security and diplomatic environment in which these talks are being held. The second is the apparent disconnect between trying to bridge the trust deficit and the way this objective is sought to be achieved.

Politically, in India there isn't too much public support for re-engagement with Pakistan. While the main opposition party, BJP, is not going on the warpath to oppose the dialogue with Pakistan, it is also not supporting it. Even within the ruling Congress party, the support for the dialogue is very iffy. The mandate given to Mr Krishna by the Union cabinet is very limited.

As far as Pakistan is concerned, the political realities in that country raise serious questions over the credibility of the civilian government as effective interlocutor. It is by now an open secret that the civilian government's ambit is limited to handling what are best described as municipal functions. Anything remotely related to national security is now almost entirely being handled by the Pakistan army. And yet, in spite of the fact that the Pakistan army runs Pakistan's India policy the Indian leadership is extremely reluctant to open a channel of communication, must less engage, with the Pakistan army.

Although Indian officials who visited Pakistan with the Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and later Home Minister P Chidambaram were pleasantly surprised by the reasonableness of the Pakistani officials – no recriminations, no remonstrations, no recidivism and most of all, no revanchism (over Kashmir) – they are neither convinced of Pakistan intentions nor are they willing to accept on face value Pakistani expressions of goodwill and sincerity. For good reasons, India sees this as part of a good-cop-bad-cop routine being played by the Pakistanis – civilian interlocutors playing nice guys and military interlopers playing the bad guys – and not as a sign that good sense has finally dawned on the Pakistanis that they need to normalise relations with India in their own interest.

After all, there is as yet neither anything on the ground to suggest that Pakistan is ready to address India's core concerns on terrorism, nor any indication of any positive change in Pakistan's attitude or thinking towards India. Quite to the contrary, not only are reports pouring in that Pakistan has restarted the jihad factory directed against India, the Pakistan army chief is on record that India, and not the barbaric Taliban, is the enemy that poses an existential threat to Pakistan.

Diplomatically, Pakistan's cockiness knows no bounds, infused as it is with the misplaced triumphalism over the pivotal role it believes it is on the verge of acquiring in Afghanistan. The Pakistanis are convinced that with Western nations looking to them to provide a safe and honourable exit from Afghanistan, Pakistan is ideally placed to press home its demands on India with the influential members of the international community, especially the US. Indeed, the Pakistanis cannot stop crowing that India has restarted the dialogue under US pressure, which they think will extend to extracting concessions from India on issues like Jammu and Kashmir.

Perhaps, this is one reason why the Pakistanis have repudiated the 'progress' made on Kashmir in the back-channel during the Musharraf era. After all, why go in for a compromise, when you stand the chance of gaining something without giving up anything? It is of course quite another matter that the Pakistanis have inadvertently done India a favour by junking the back-channel deal on Kashmir. Without Pakistan renouncing its irredentist claims on Jammu and Kashmir, a deal of the sort worked out on the back-channel would have allowed Pakistan to follow a salami-slicing approach on an integral part of India.

It of course goes without saying that the Pakistanis might be grossly over-estimating not only their diplomatic clout but also India's susceptibility to US pressure. There are very clear limits, not to mention red lines, on how much pressure the US can put on India. While the US factor could have been one of the reasons why India decided to once again try to engage Pakistan, it was not so much pressure as it was a gesture from India to the US which is clutching at straws to find some balance in Afghanistan. In other words, by accepting the US suggestion to reopen a dialogue with Pakistan, India has effectively called Pakistan's bluff that its strained relations with India are preventing it from focussing its attention to the troubled Pashtun tribal belt straddling Afghanistan.

The sooner the US disabuses itself of the notion that improved atmospherics between India and Pakistan will lead to Pakistan shifting its focus from the eastern to the western border, the better. After all, if this didn't happen during the 2004-2008 period when relations between India and Pakistan were the most relaxed in decades, it is unlikely to happen now when the two sides have barely started trying to put together another peace process. On the flip side, the impression that US pressure has been at play in nudging India to the dialogue table with Pakistan, has emboldened Pakistan to a dangerous point where it thinks it can once again use with impunity its jihadi proxies against India in Afghanistan as well as Kashmir.

While the political, security and diplomatic obstacles in the path of the latest Indo-Pak dialogue are obvious enough, there is another factor that will come in the way of any forward movement – the mismatch between the stated objective of the dialogue – bridging the trust deficit – and the manner in which this objective is sought to be reached. In other words, what is that big idea that is going to be on the talks table that could lead to the two countries moving towards building g trust and confidence between them. As things stand, the two delegations will probably end up discussing the same old issues, taking the same old positions, and walking away after agreeing on a few minor things – exchange of prisoners, release of fishermen, etc.

Clearly, neither side seems to have worked out how to bridge the trust gap without treading the beaten path. Nor for that matter have the two sides figured out what they think they must do or can do to gain the trust of the other side. An agreement on another set of Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) is a good thing. But frankly speaking, the CBMs haven't really helped in building any confidence at least not in the strategic sense of the term. The trouble is that given the complete absence of trust between them, it is futile to expect either India or Pakistan to undertake any sort of bold initiative that ushers in a paradigm change in their bilateral relationship. In other words, we are condemned to going around in circles.

One possible way out is to restructure the dialogue in a way that the two countries engage each other in a formal but unstructured strategic political dialogue which focuses beyond immediate disputes and problems. This means that while the two foreign offices continue to handle the existing issues and problems, and the security agencies can keep doing what they must do to counter the hostile action from Pakistan, a parallel but official and yet informal and unstructured dialogue focusing on strategic issues be started at the political level, as also between the military and intelligence agencies. These parallel dialogue tracks can be used to explore any possible convergence of strategic interests by developing a better appreciation of each other's concerns and compulsions and try and see if anything can be done to address them.

To be useful and effective, this 'strategic dialogue' can and must be an officially sponsored and empowered 'Track 1.5' (perhaps under the Ministry of External Affairs) with a wide representation from the strategic community, military and intelligence officials, academics, politicians, even media personnel. This group will engage with their counterparts in Pakistan on larger strategic issues which are not limited to only the narrow Indo-Pak context. In other words, their discussions will focus on how either side views global and regional developments like Pakistan-China relations, Indo-US relations, piracy in the Arabian sea, unrest in the Middle-East, climate change, the list is endless. The discussions will be unstructured in the sense that the agenda for the talks will be very general, and the setting informal. The mandate of the group will not be reaching an agreement on any issue. Instead, the group's job will be to get a better understanding of how the other side views issues of common concern and to then see if there are any points of possible convergence of interests as also allay certain misconceptions in the other side of strategic objectives of the other side.

Will such an alternative dialogue process work? Probably not, but then is the idea is to bridge the yawning and ever growing trust deficit, then doesn't it make more sense to try a new and different tack, rather than keep treading the beaten path.

2010-07-09T00:56:00.001-07:00

NEVER ENDING ENDGAME IN AFGHANISTAN

SUSHANT SAREEN

With the Americans having conceded a central role to Pakistan in the latest round of the never-ending 'endgame' in Afghanistan, the spectre of Taliban returning to power in Kabul is all too real for countries with vital interests in Afghanistan to ignore. Unfortunately, despite sharing deep antipathy for the Taliban, important regional powers like India and Iran are unable to read from the same page on how to counter Pakistan's pernicious game-plan in Afghanistan which also holds extremely serious ramifications for their own security. This has a lot to do with the fact that as of now India and Iran's interests in Afghanistan are like skew lines and both seem to be waiting and watching how events unfold in Afghanistan before they decide their next move.

At a recent trilateral dialogue in New Delhi between members of the strategic community of Afghanistan, India and Iran, it became clear that the Iranians, more than anything else, were interested in seeing the back of the Americans from the region. The Iranians appeared to be in a denial mode of Pakistani proportions i.e. everything will sort itself out once the Americans exit from the region. Of course, quite like the Pakistanis, the Iranians too haven't thought things through on what will happen once the foreign forces abandon Afghanistan to the brutality and barbarism of the Taliban, much less the impact of this on their own country.

Unlike Iran, which considers the US as a bigger and more immediate threat than the Taliban – many Afghans allege that Iran is covertly supporting and providing sanctuary to sections of both Taliban and Al Qaeda against the Americans – India sees the US presence in Afghanistan as a stabilising force which is required to keep the Taliban at bay. Another point of divergence between India and Iran is Pakistan. While the prospect of Pakistan calling the shots on what happens in Afghanistan is anathema for India, Iran is much less antagonistic to seeing the Pakistanis in the driving seat in Afghanistan and feels that it can do business with Pakistan.

With the US in a withdrawal mode, the conviction that they will leave (timing is hardly important) is driving the strategising of regional powers. The defeatism that has descended on the foreign forces, fuelled in no small measure by the too clever by half peace deals and plans that the British are hard-selling to the Americans, has become a self-fulfilling prophecy and is, in a sense, making the US irrelevant to the future plans of regional players like India in Afghanistan. So much so that even the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, appears to have lost confidence in the Americans. He appears increasingly inclined to go over the head of his American benefactors to try and strike some sort of a deal with the Pakistanis who are pushing for an accommodation with Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is not only the de facto head of the infamous Haqqani network and a close ally of both Al Qaeda and Taliban supremo Mullah Omar, but also a 'strategic asset' of Pakistan.

Karzai, like most other Afghans (including large sections of the Taliban), has little love lost for Pakistan. But he is left with very little choice except to try and see if he can gain something by playing along with the Pakistanis. He probably understands that he will survive so long as the Pakistanis see some utility in him. Karzai is too steeped in the treacherous world of Afghan politics to be not under any illusion that while the Taliban and their allies might open a dialogue with him, they will do a 'Najibullah' on him the moment they get a chance.

While Karzai is probably hoping that a dialogue with sections of the combatants splitting the Taliban movement, warlords like Sirajuddin Haqqani have entered into a dialogue for their own reasons. Quite aside the Afghan culture of combatants holding a dialogue even as they fight, Haqqani readiness to talk to Karzai on Pakistani nudging is nothing if not classical deception. He knows that the insurgency in Afghanistan has reached the tipping point. The last thing that the Islamists would want at this stage is a military offensive by Pakistan in their redoubt of North Waziristan which could disrupt and degrade the potency of the insurgency by denying the insurgents a safe haven. The charade of talks is only a ploy to forestall any possibility of a military operation in North Waziristan.

Like Karzai, India too is being forced to re-evaluate and re-work its policy options in Afghanistan. India's problem is that until now it has been riding on the back of the US to build its influence in Afghanistan. But now the seeds of an independent Afghan policy, not dependent on the Americans, are germinating. But what shape this policy takes – whether India adopts an aggressive 'forward' frontier policy or slips into 'masterly inactivity' or even decides on a half-way house between these two extremes – is still not clear. To a large extent, the policy will depend on the objectives India sets for itself in Afghanistan. Strategically, India would like to see a stable and friendly Afghanistan which doesn't become a playground for Pakistan's sinister strategic designs in the region. Interestingly, this objective can be achieved not only if Afghanistan remains stable, friendly and immune to Pakistan's baleful influence but also if Afghanistan descends into chaos and civil war, something that will most likely happen as and when the foreign forces quit leaving behind enormous quantity of arms and ammunition and propping up proxies to carry on the fight.

One big problem that India faces in following a 'forward policy' is that it has to tie up with Iran and/or Afghanistan's Central Asian neighbours to implement such a policy. But with Iran operating on quite a different plane than India, the complexities of a 'forward policy' increase, more so because of the logistics involved in operating through Central Asian states like Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Perhaps, if and when the American withdrawal starts, Iran too might review its policy on Afghanistan and find it in its interest to tie up with India. Until then, India will, more or less, have to play the 'Great Game' in Afghanistan on its own.

The sense of resigned acceptance developing in some policy making quarters in India to imminent marginalisation in Afghanistan because of the apparent compact between Hamid Karzai and the Pakistani military establishment is quite needless simply because all is never lost in Afghanistan for all times to come. The situation in Afghanistan is always fluid and can change rapidly, practically overnight, making underdogs top-dogs and vice versa. The chances of Pakistan being able to manage Afghanistan for any length of time are, therefore, negligible, even less so given Pakistan's bankrupt economy and its society which is at war with itself? Eventually, Pakistan will get sucked into the Afghan vortex. The real existential challenge to Pakistan is not from India; it is from Afghanistan, and it must be India's endeavour to force Pakistan to divert all its attention, energy and resources from its eastern border with India to its western border with Afghanistan.

Given the dialectics of Afghanistan, it perhaps makes a lot more sense for India to build leverages that converts Afghanistan into a strategic black-hole for Pakistan. In other words, instead of trying to keep Pakistan out of Afghanistan, India needs to devise a policy that aims to draw Pakistan deeper into the Afghanistan quagmire.

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<1250 Words> 9^th July, 2010

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2010-05-31T02:18:00.001-07:00

'NEW BEGINNING' TO AN OLD CYCLE OF DIPLOMACY

SUSHANT SAREEN

Addressing a press conference in Delhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that India is making a new beginning for peace with Pakistan. Dr Singh was however not quite sure if his peace initiative would work. Going by past record, it is unlikely that the latest peace moves will succeed. The last few initiatives for a sustained and meaningful India-Pakistan political dialogues have tended to follow a boringly predictable trajectory: successive Indian Prime Ministers, with an eye on posterity but without any sense of timing or even appreciation of ground realities, reach out to Pakistan, which as it subsequently turns out, duplicitously grabs the 'hand of friendship'; the two sides start engaging each other but without either side having any new idea to break the logjam; soon the Pakistanis run out of patience and there is invariably a spectacular incident – Kargil after Lahore bus diplomacy, Parliament attack after Agra summit, 26/11 after the resumption of the Composite Dialogue process – that effectively kills the peace initiative, until next time, when the cycle repeats itself.

This time around, the buzzword, or if you will 'core issue', is 'trust deficit', which according to the Indian PM is the biggest problem between the two countries. While the Indian side maintains that the foreign ministers' dialogue will focus primarily on bridging the trust deficit, the Pakistanis are crowing about how the Composite Dialogue is back on track, albeit under a different nomenclature and perhaps a different structure. To the extent that when two countries enter into a political dialogue, a host of issues of interest to either side – including terrorism for India and Kashmir, water and alleged Indian involvement in Balochistan for Pakistan – will be discussed between them, it might be termed as a return to the Composite Dialogue. But without a structured dialogue on the sectoral tracks that form part of the Composite Dialogue, India can always claim that it has continued to hold out on the Composite Dialogue process. Although chances of any breakthrough appear very dim, the two sides will probably agree on some sort of a road map for continuing the dialogue at the political and bureaucratic level. Without such an agreement, the initiative will be declared a failure, something that both sides would like to avoid.

There is a body of opinion which feels that with the US dragging the two countries by their noses to the dialogue table, there are good chances of a breakthrough. But there are limits to how much the even the US can push India and Pakistan. In any case, the US is mistaken if it thinks that improved atmospherics between India and Pakistan will allow Pakistan to shift its focus from the eastern to the western border. If this didn't happen during the 2004-2008 period when relations between India and Pakistan were the most relaxed in decades, it is unlikely to happen now when the two sides have barely started trying to put together another peace process.

In order to kick-start the dialogue, the Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna's has indicated his willingness to 'trust' Pakistan on the issue of terrorism. This 'trust' however flies in the face of a flood of reports about how the jihad factory in Pakistan against is once again back in business. There is also rock-solid intelligence about the involvement of Pakistani intelligence agencies in directing attacks against Indians in Afghanistan. Recent incidents of attacks on Indians in Afghanistan – the targeting of Indian consulate staff in Jalalabad being a case in point – are being kept under the wraps, lest the political environment gets sullied before the talks. But this pusillanimous attitude will become politically unsustainable as soon as terrorist strikes take place in India.

Worse, in keeping with the proclivity of Indian leaders to provide an alibi for their Pakistani counterparts, Mr Krishna has explained away Pakistan's failure to take credible action against terrorists operating against India by blaming it on Pakistan's 'fiercely independent' and 'assertive' judiciary. Needless to say, Mr Krishna seems to have turned a blind eye to the quality of evidence, or rather the lack of it, which the Pakistani authorities presented against the LeT chief, Hafiz Saeed. Small wonder then that Indian foreign office could do little except mumble a rather apologetic 'disappointment' on the release of Hafiz Saeed by the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

Perhaps all this reflects the lack of trust that Dr Manmohan Singh has been talking about. But then the big question is how the two sides propose to bridge this trust gap and reach that level of confidence in each other which allows them to 'move to substantive negotiations'? Clearly, the sort of cosmetic Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) that have been undertaken so far are not going to help. If truth be told, the CBMs between India and Pakistan have done everything except build confidence between the two sides. The problem, however, is that neither side seems to have figured out what it thinks it must and can do to gain the trust of the other side. It is not even clear if, short of their maximalist positions, either side has worked out the building blocks that it thinks the other side must bring on the table to bridge the trust deficit. There is also a degree of befuddlement in official circles over the reasons for keenness being displayed by either side for resuming the dialogue, as also what the other side hopes to achieve from the dialogue.

As things stand, nothing short of India disbanding its army and handing over Jammu and Kashmir to Pakistan is likely to end Pakistan's self-created and self-serving paranoia of India, much less satisfy the Islamists who dominate the Pakistan army and polity. On India's part, unless Pakistan dismantles the jihad factory operating against India, renounces its irredentist claims on Jammu and Kashmir, reforms its educational curriculum which indoctrinates children with the most obnoxious sort of stereotyping of Hindus in particular and non-Muslims in general, and most of all, ends the pernicious influence of the army and intelligence agencies on the affairs of state, it is unlikely that India will develop any trust in Pakistan. What are the chances of any of this happening?

Theoretically, the impasse can be broken by some bold, out of the box initiatives that lead to a paradigm change in their bilateral relationship. But this is a catch-22 situation: without trust, bold initiatives are not possible, but how do you build trust without bold initiatives. The lack of public and political support in India for re-engagement with Pakistan, and vice-versa, will inhibit the two governments from deviating too much from their stated national positions. There are also serious questions over whether the current Pakistani government is a credible interlocutor. Dr Singh seems to believe that Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani's position has strengthened after the passage of the 18^th Amendment in Pakistan. But the reality is completely different.

The civilian government is merely a show-boy when it comes to Pakistan's India policy. It dances to the tune played by the Pakistan army, which remains implacably and inveterately opposed to India. In other words, the civilians in Pakistan are in no position to deliver on any deal they strike with India, which in turn means that this initiative will ultimately end up like its predecessors – in the dustbin of history.

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<1230 Words> 31^st May, 2010

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2010-05-06T04:59:00.001-07:00

DEATH DOESN'T MEAN CLOSURE

SUSHANT SAREEN

Both the guilty verdict as well as the death sentence, that has been pronounced on the barbarian, who goes by the name of Ajmal Kasab were really no-brainers. In some ways, executing Kasab for the horrific savagery that he committed seems too small a sentence. Unfortunately, legally as well as physically, this is the maximum punishment that can be given to him. And, unless misplaced political or diplomatic considerations intervene, once the legal processes run their course, the civilised world will no longer have to bear the burden of this beast after a few months time.

In a sense, the bated breath with which both the verdict and the sentencing has been received seems a little strange. Perhaps this was the result of a bit of grand-standing on the part of the prosecution which used what can only be called a legal version of sledgehammer to swat a fly. Unless there was some larger purpose being served by the thousands of pages of evidence that was presented and hundreds of witnesses that were produced before the court, the case against Kasab was pretty open-and-shut and ideally should have finished in a couple of months, instead of being dragged for over a year.

Not only was the evidence against him overwhelming – CCTV footage and what have you – he was literally caught red-handed. That despite all this, it has taken so long to convict this terrorist in a special court doesn't really say much for the Indian criminal justice system. It was, in any case, quite pointless for the prosecution to try and prove the larger conspiracy and the involvement of Pakistan behind the savagery of 26/11. This was already a well established fact and merely the fact that an Indian court had convicted one of the terrorists on the basis of all the extra evidence was hardly going to make any difference, either in terms of shaming or exposing, much less deterring, the promoters, planners and perpetrators of this horrific crime, all of who are sitting in Pakistan.

Quite aside the fact that the prolonged trial of such a high-profile case does nothing to strengthen our demand on Pakistan to speedily bring the masterminds of this dastardly crime to justice, statements by senior Indian officials and politicians that the trial proves the fairness and transparency of the Indian judicial system smacks of a sense of inferiority and lack of conviction on their part over the effectiveness of the judicial system to deliver justice. Why should India seek certificates or try to prove anything from rest of the world on the fairness of our judicial system? After all, we never hear the Americans or British or Chinese or even Middle-Eastern potentates seeking approval from any other country for the punishment they give to criminals and terrorists.

This is not to say that the criminal justice system in India is in fine fettle. Far from it, the reality is that the criminal justice system is practically dysfunctional in cases which are not as 'celebrated'. There are innumerable terrorism cases that have been languishing in the courts for years. Part of the problem is the training, investigative skills, equipment and technology needed to solve the cases is sorely lacking. Add to this the fact that the police is understaffed and has terrible service conditions. Equally, if not more, serious is the bizarre situation in which India is using 19^th Century law like the Indian Evidence Act to combat 21^st Century crimes. No surprise then that in the 26/11 trials, while Kasab was convicted because his mug was on CCTV cameras and he was captured by an act of superhuman heroism by an intrepid Mumbai cop armed with nothing more than a lathi, the other two terrorists were able to secure acquittals. If this is not a failure of the legal systems, structures and processes, then what is?

Clearly, instead of patting itself on the back and trying to win brownie points to cement its vote bank politics, the government needs to work overtime to make legal provisions that allow law enforcement agencies to collect technical evidence against terrorists and criminals. The amendments made in the law through the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act are woefully inadequate to successfully prosecute terrorists and their accomplices. Had such provisions been there in law, both Fahim Ansari and Sabahuddin too would hang.

Apart from the domestic dimension of the verdict in the 26/11 trials, there is also an external dimension which too is unlikely to change merely because a Kasab is going to hang. The simple reality is that regardless of the tomes of evidence presented in the 26/11 trial, it is not going to be enough to stop the operation of jihad factories operating in Pakistan. Quite to the contrary, these factories which had been in a go slow mode for some time now are once again going full steam in manufacturing murderers. On the very day Kasab was pronounced guilty, a Lashkar-e-Taiba cell was unearthed in Kashmir. There was also a terror alert in Delhi after the verdict.

Not only is Hafiz Saeed openly addressing rallies in Lahore and other parts of Pakistan, the LeT commander in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, Abdul Wahid Kashmiri had been addressing rallies of jihadist groups in PoK threatening jihad against India and rest of the world. It of course, goes without saying that the US secretary of state who has to certify that Pakistan is taking credible action against LeT is going to turn a blind eye to these activities and give an all clear to their Pakistani allies and ply aid and arms to Pakistan.

As far as the trial of the masterminds in Pakistan is concerned, chances are that India will be sorely disappointed. As of now, it is not entirely clear what are the charges that these terrorists are facing in the Pakistani courts, or what is the quality of evidence that has been presented against them. If the evidence is as flimsy as the one presented against Hafiz Saeed or if the quality of prosecution leaves much to be desired, then these guys could soon be back in business of exporting murder and mayhem into India. But even if by some quirk of fate these terrorists are found guilty and convicted, it remains to be seen as to what the sentences will be. If they are given light sentences ranging from 5-7 years then they could be out in a couple of years. Let us also not forget the influence that these auxiliaries of the Pakistani intelligence agencies wield in Pakistan, not only with the Pakistani military establishment but also with the superior judiciary of Pakistan which is packed with Islamist judges. A conviction by the trial court could easily be overturned by the Lahore High Court or the Supreme Court.

The bottom line is that carrying out the death sentence on Kasab is not going to bring a closure to the 26/11 case. Nor for that matter will the conviction of the terrorists being tried in Pakistan will end the menace of terrorism in India. The real closure will come only with the closure of the jihad factory in Pakistan, which in turn will happen only if Pakistan takes concerted and sincere efforts to de-radicalise its society and its polity, neither of which are on the anvil for the foreseeable future, even less so in light of reports that the Pakistan army is wanting to use LeT cadres in Afghanistan.

A last word is in order on the reaction in Pakistan to the Kasab verdict. While sensitive and sensible people in that country are embarrassed and even contrite over what has happened in Mumbai, this element is really now a fringe minority. The majority opinion is that Kasab's conviction is a grave miscarriage of justice. Given this demonical mindset that denies, if not revels, in the massacre of innocent people, one cannot help but wonder what sort of a peace process the government is entering into with Pakistan. More importantly, unless Pakistan cleans up its act, the spectre of another 26/11 type attack is always going to hang over India's head.

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<1360 Words> 6^th May, 2010

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2010-05-01T06:06:00.001-07:00

A SALAMI SLICING SOLUTION

SUSHANT SAREEN

The almost total silence in India, from the government, opposition and strategic community, over disclosures made by former Pakistani foreign minister, Khurshid Kasuri, on the deal on Jammu and Kashmir that had been worked out in the back-channel between the two countries, is quite unsettling. The fact that neither a denial nor a clarification has been issued by the Indian side is tantamount to an acquiescence to everything that Mr Kasuri has been saying. Shockingly enough, nobody in the Indian establishment, except perhaps for a tiny clique, seems to have any real idea, much less details, of the purported deal on Kashmir worked out in the back-channel. Tragically, the otherwise hyper-active Indian media is more interested in the salacious and sordid details of the IPL scam rather than about what all India might have conceded in the quest for something as fragile, uncertain, and ephemeral as a peace deal with Pakistan, and that too on Kashmir.

The broad contours of the deal have been floating around for quite some time. These included, inter alia, demilitarisation of the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir, a high level of autonomy, soft borders, no redrawing of borders and no dislocation of settled population, and some sort of joint mechanism for management of common resources like forests, water and other such issues. Kasuri not only confirmed a lot of what was being speculated, but also went a step further by revealing that the deal was almost done and was just a 'signature away'.

According to Kasuri, the two countries had reached what he calls "the only possible solution to the Kashmir issue". This involved full demilitarisation of both Indian Kashmir as well as 'Azad' Kashmir (a euphemism for Pakistan-occupied Kashmir). Both countries had "agreed on a point between complete independence and autonomy" and had worked out "a package of loose autonomy that stopped short of the azadi and self-governance aspirations." The Line of Control (LoC) would become 'irrelevant' and the people of the state could move free across the LoC using only their identity cards.

In an ideal situation, this would perhaps be an eminently workable, if not ideal, solution. But the simple fact of the matter is that given the state of relations between India and Pakistan – the trust deficit, the unremitting export of terrorism, the Pakistani animus towards India which has now acquired almost civilizational overtones – this solution doesn't have much chance of working, at least not until relations between the two countries and peoples normalise and a high degree of trust and confidence develops between them. In the current circumstances, however, the solution that appears to have been worked out is neither doable, nor deliverable and, most of all, not desirable.

Take for instance Mr Kasuri's admission that the agreement was "an interim one, and was subject to review after 15 years... during this period its implementation would be monitored by all parties concerned and, in the light of the experience, this arrangement could further be improved." The Kashmiri separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq endorsed the 'interim solution' line of Mr Kasuri. Indeed ever since the back channel diplomacy started, Kashmiri leaders like Khan Abdul Qayyum Khan from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir have spoken about 'a series of interim solutions' leading to the final solution. This is nothing if not shorthand for Pakistan using a salami-slicing approach to extend its control bit by bit over the Indian state.

Although Mr Kasuri has not stated this explicitly, it is quite clear that the LoC would not have become the permanent border between India and Pakistan. Quite aside the fact that for India converting the LoC into an international border is huge concession, even if some government was to ever agree on it, it will find it immensely difficult to deliver on such a deal. For one, there is a unanimous resolution of parliament that emphatically states that the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India and the only issue that needs to be decided is the modalities of Pakistan's vacation of its illegal occupation of a part of the Indian state. But assuming that the Parliamentary resolution can be side-stepped, the government will have to contend with a 'basic feature' of the Indian constitution which states that the territorial unity and integrity of the country cannot be altered. There is, however, a constitutional provision under which borders can be settled but even this involves an elaborate procedure – a two-thirds majority in Parliament followed by two-thirds of the Indian states endorsing such a move – which for the foreseeable future is both undoable and undeliverable.

In other words, the LoC would have remained a de facto and not a de jure border, something that would keep alive Pakistan's irredentist claims over the Indian state. This in turn means that as and when the Pakistanis felt that the situation was ripe, they could resurrect their revanchist claims. The soft LoC could easily be exploited to create conditions inside Jammu and Kashmir that could, in the future, be used to create enormous political and security problems for India and wrest control over a substantial, if not entire, part of the state.

As far as the deliverability of the deal is concerned, there is a big question mark as to whether the government in Pakistan can really pull the file off the rack and sign it. Let alone the current government, there are doubts on whether even Musharraf could have actually signed such a deal, and if he had indeed been so brave or stupid to do such a thing, how long such a deal would have lasted once he was no longer on the scene. Mr Kasuri claims that the current civilian government in Pakistan is fully aware of the deal and is in favour of pushing it through. According to him, all the stake-holders in Pakistan, including the Pakistan army, had endorsed the deal. Perhaps, the military brass had nodded their heads in agreement to the plan when Musharraf was both army chief and President of Pakistan. But no sooner had he doffed his uniform, the Pakistan army all but repudiated the deal.

Asif Zardari of course was keen on good relations with India. Shortly after his party emerged as the single largest party in the February 2008 general elections, Zardari gave an interview to an Indian channel in which he said that Kashmir must be pushed on to the back-burner and left for future generations to settle. In all likelihood, Zardari at that time was not aware of what had been worked out on the back channel on Kashmir. But the army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, who had been the ISI chief when the back channel was on, surely knew what had transpired. Within a few days of Zardari's interview, Kayani went to PoK and "reaffirmed the army's commitment to the Kashmir cause in line with the aspirations of the nation".

Zardari probably never took the hint and, after he became President, he announced that the nation "would soon hear good news on Kashmir". At this stage he was probably familiar with the understanding reached in the back-channel. A week later, Kayani went to Siachen and "highlighted the national consensus that exists on the Kashmir issue". The final straw came after Zardari told an Indian audience that Pakistan would never exercise the First-use option of its nuclear weapons. A week later the 26/11 attacks took place and the Indo-Pak peace process was blown to smithereens. Today, with the Pakistan army once again calling the shots on high policy and strategic issues and the civilian government reduced to handling municipal matters, the civilian government has been forced to distance itself from plugging for a deal on Kashmir.

It is a little surprising that a seasoned politician like Mr Kasuri, who is one of the few people in Pakistan who has always been a votary of good relations with India, could have been so politically naive as to think that the solution that was being discussed on the back channel was doable, much less deliverable. Solutions arrived at on back channels are at worst nothing more than an academic exercise, and at best theoretical constructs of what could or might be. The utility of back channel is not so much in coming up with a big-bang solution but more in working out a step by step approach to create conducive conditions that over the years enable some sort of a deal that both states and their peoples can live with.

At the end of the day, deliverable deals are possible only through regular diplomatic and political channels, in full public view and with full public approval. By Mr Kasuri's own admission, the public opinion needed to be prepared to accept the deal because the solution would have only succeeded if there was public support behind it, which it clearly wasn't. Under the circumstances, it would have been quite a task to sell the deal on Kashmir to the people of both countries. Therefore, rather than 'pulling the files from the rack', these files should be allowed to remain where they are and pulled out only after trust and confidence is built between the two countries and their peoples. Otherwise, instead of settling issues, a deal such as the one being talked about could end up inflaming the public opinion to a point where not only will the deal become untenable and the political future of the dealmakers get jeopardised, but the peace process itself will suffer a terrible setback, one from which it might find it difficult to recover.

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<1600 Words> 1^st May, 2010

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2010-04-23T23:00:00.001-07:00

BASIC LAW CHANGES, BASIC REALITIES DON'T

SUSHANT SAREEN

On the face of it, the 18^th Constitutional Amendment is a remarkable political achievement of the PPP-led coalition government in Pakistan. Forging a national consensus on amending over a 100 articles of the constitution, including making some very far-reaching and extremely contentious changes in the much abused and much misused constitution of Pakistan, was never going to be easy. The accolades being heaped on the head of the Constitutional Reforms Committee, Senator Raza Rabbani, for skilfully shepherding the bill through the committee and through parliament are well deserved. But the real credit for the sheer scope and scale of the amendments made should go to Asif Zardari who, from the very beginning, had insisted on making the bill an omnibus amendment rather than merely repealing the distortions introduced in the constitution by Gen. Pervez Musharraf through the 17^th Amendment.

While the PPP and other political parties in Pakistan can pat themselves on the back for undoing Musharraf's mutilation of the constitution and correcting some of the imbalances that had over the years crept into the basic law, it is as yet still not quite clear whether the constitutional changes will have any impact on the basic realities of power and politics in Pakistan. There is actually a very real possibility that the amendment could lead to another round of political instability in the country with political players repositioning themselves and reorienting their politics either because they have got some of what they wanted or because they have not got what they wanted, or even because they haven't got what was promised to them.

One simple, immutable reality that hasn't altered with the 'revenge of democracy' is the domination of the Pakistan army. Although Pakistani politicians cannot stop proclaiming that the doors have been shut on another extra-constitutional intervention by the Pakistan army, they are perhaps being a little too hasty in reaching such a conclusion. Even today, when it comes to issues like relations with India and US, the policy on Afghanistan, the nuclear program and Pakistan's cooperation (or lack of it) with the international community on the issue of clamping down jihadist infrastructure, it is the Pakistan army and not the parliament or political government that calls the shots.

No one understands this better than Asif Zardari, who after signing on the 18^th Amendment bill quite candidly told Pakistani journalists that while the doors had been shut on dictatorship, "you never know what might happen tomorrow". The fact of the matter is that when the time is ripe for a military intervention, neither the courts nor the constitution, and certainly not the media, can do anything about it. The amendment forbidding judges from sanctifying a military takeover sounds nice on paper but in real terms is as worthless as the long standing provision in the constitution that mandates the death penalty for any act of high treason.

The powers that had been arrogated to the Presidency during the Musharraf era have now been taken away and the president has been reduced to a virtual figurehead. While the president still enjoys some powers, especially during periods when the government's numbers in the National Assembly are shaky, he no longer has the power to dismiss the government or the national assembly. Nor can the President use his discretion in making certain crucial appointments, including those of the armed forces chiefs. The constitutional castration of the presidency however doesn't really affect Zardari.

All those constitutional powers that he appears to have lost because of the 18^th Amendment, he continues to retain by virtue of being the head of the PPP. The power to dismiss the government and the national assembly had already become redundant in the case of Zardari. Any such action by the President had to be endorsed by the Supreme Court within 15 days. The current judiciary which is rabidly opposed to Zardari would have struck down any such move. In any case, Zardari had absolutely no reason to ever want to dismiss his own party's government.

If anything, after the 18^th Amendment it has become easier for Zardari to remove the Prime Minister if he ever wanted to take such a drastic step. The law now gives party heads the power to disqualify any party member from parliament for violating party discipline. Similarly, while the appointment of services chiefs will have to be made on the 'advice' of the prime minister, in the current political scenario, the prime minister will almost certainly take his orders from the party chief, who is also the president, on these appointments. Therefore, it is not for nothing that Zardari continues to maintain that he does not find himself powerless. And with the de jure power being with the prime minister, it will now be easier for Zardari to pass the blame for failures on the 'empowered' PM and take the credit for successes in the account of the party which he heads.

Just as politically Zardari's position remains unchanged, similarly the greater devolution of powers to the provinces is more on paper than real. No doubt that by abolishing the concurrent list, a long standing demand of ethnic and provincial nationalists and a major grievance of the smaller provinces has been addressed. The provinces have also been given a greater share in the natural resources found there. But the concessions conceded to the provinces are probably a case of 'the only thing worse than not getting what you want is getting it'.

All the extra resources that would flow to the provinces courtesy the NFC award are now going to get absorbed by the extra responsibilities that have devolved on the provinces leaving them once again short of funds. There are also questions being raised about capacity of the provinces to handle the additional tasks. While the administrative and financial problems will hobble the provinces' ability to efficiently discharge their duties and keep them dependent on the centre, this will have its fallout on the politics with nationalist and separatist elements raising the demands for complete autonomy and control over resources. In other words, nothing will really change on the ground on the issue of provincial autonomy.

Among the most contentious issues in the 18^th Amendment was the renaming of NWFP and giving the majority Pashtun population in the province a sense of identity. The compromise name, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, has however raised a storm of protest in the Hazara division of the province which has a majority non-Pashtun population. The demand for carving a new province out of the Hazara division has in turn resurrected demands for creating other new provinces by reorganising existing provinces in South Punjab, Pashtun belt of Balochistan, giving the troubled FATA region a provincial status etc.

In order to present a more liberal face to rest of the world, the 18^th Amendment has made changes in composition of Senate to give minorities a representation in the upper House of parliament. But this cosmetic gesture has been balanced by closing the doors of the Prime Minister's office for non-Muslim forever. Not that the religious minorities ever had a hope in hell to aspire for that post in a country that shunned it's the only Nobel prize winner because he was a Ahmedi. The state of minorities is worse than pathetic as they are fair game for being killed, kidnapped, robbed, their women abducted and forcibly converted, the places of worship desecrated, demolished. And representation in the Senate is hardly going to make any difference to the lot of the minorities in the Islamic republic.

On its own, the 18^th Amendment is unlikely to effect a paradigm change in the power equations or for that matter the political culture of Pakistan. After all, the constitution is "nothing more than a piece of paper" (to quote the former Pakistani military dictator, Gen. Ziaul Haq). Whether this piece of paper will be torn up and thrown into the dustbin, as it has so often in the past, or the 18^th Amendment will end up being remembered more for what it achieved rather than for what it has failed to address will depend entirely on the behaviour of the political players. The manner in which the political players in Pakistan belied the hopes and expectations of the people after the 2008 General Elections doesn't inspire too much confidence in their ability to stabilise the political system and usher in a political culture that speaks for the janata rather than the junta or judges.

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<1420 Words> 24^th April, 2010

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2010-04-11T22:01:00.001-07:00

IDENTIFY FRIEND OR FOE

SUSHANT SAREEN

'Identification, Friend or Foe' is a command and control system that helps armies to prevent casualties from 'friendly fire' in the fog of war. Perhaps diplomacy and foreign policy too needs a similar system to clearly identify and distinguish between friend and foe. There is often greater 'fog' in diplomacy than there is in war, something which makes the task of identifying friend and foe far more complicated than it appears to be. For any country, 'friendly fire' from an unreliable ally is often far more devastating and destructive than anything that an identifiable foe can throw. Indeed, India today is facing exactly such a situation from its 'natural ally', the US, which is increasingly tilting in favour of Pakistan and pulling out all stops in appeasing the Pakistanis even if this is at the expense of India.

The pressure that the Obama administration was putting on India in order to appease the Pakistan army and get its assistance for an honourable exit from Afghanistan was always one of the worst kept secrets. The Sharm-el-Sheikh fiasco, where the Indian Prime Minister signed on the dotted line without getting any quid pro quo from the Pakistani side, followed by the equally disastrous invitation to the Pakistani foreign secretary for talks in New Delhi, were just two manifestations of India buckling under US pressure. The Foreign Secretary level talks, which surprised even the Indian foreign office, were so badly timed (coming as they did after the exclusion of India from the Istanbul conference on Afghanistan and the deliberate marginalisation, if not slight, of India by the US and UK in the London conference) that it only fuelled the sense of triumphalism inside Pakistan. The behaviour of the Pakistani foreign secretary in New Delhi was therefore true to form and nothing better should or could have been expected of him.

If despite Sharm-el-Sheikh and the New Delhi parleys between the two foreign secretaries, there was still any doubt over American intentions then this was cleared by a report in the Wall Street Journal that mentions a secret directive that Obama has issued "to intensify American diplomacy" to ensure that "India must make resolving its tensions with Pakistan a priority for progress to be made on U.S. goals in the region". The tone and tenor of this secret directive clearly indicates that the US has put the onus on India for resolving matters with Pakistan. After all, according to Obama, it is India, and not Pakistan, that must make it a priority to sort issues out. Even more galling, if not demeaning, is the proposition that India must do the needful, not because it is in India's interest (which it clearly is not), but because it will allow "progress on US goals in the region".

It goes without saying that implicit in the entire US policy formulation is the expectation that India must sacrifice its core national interests in order to satisfy Pakistan. What is being expected of India is that India should reduce its presence and involvement in Afghanistan, leave its borders with Pakistan unguarded so that Pakistan can divert troops to the Western border, satisfy Pakistan's irredentist, if illegal, claims on Jammu and Kashmir, stop all hydro-power projects on the Western rivers – Indus, Jhelum and Chenab – and their tributaries even though India is within its rights under the Indus Waters treaty to build these projects, and do whatever else Pakistan demands of India.

Pakistan, emboldened by the increasing US dependence on it in Afghanistan, will of course continue to merrily sponsor jihad against India, and murder Indian citizens with complete impunity. This is something that will become crystal clear when the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, certifies that Pakistan qualifies for aid under the Kerry-Lugar bill because it has taken measures to close down activities of terror groups like LeT. Appallingly, she will do this in the face of hate-filled public speeches and TV interviews of the Lashkar chief Hafiz Saeed and the threat of jihad that the Lashkar commander, Abdul Wahid Kashmiri, held out in a public rally in Kotli, PoK.

Quite aside the fact that the Americans are rewarding Pakistan for having successfully played a double-game – acting as a 'frontline' ally of the US in the War on Terror even as they continued to support, sponsor and provide sanctuary to the Taliban leadership – for eight long years, there is as yet no cogent explanation as to why India must sacrifice its national interests for the sake of Pakistan, or for that matter, for the sake of the US. The Taliban are either a strategic ally of Pakistan or they are a threat to Pakistan. If it is the former, then no matter what India does, Pakistan will continue with its double-game and never forsake the Taliban. On the other hand, if Pakistan considers the Taliban a threat, then Pakistan must eliminate them in its own interest. However, the fact that Pakistan has used various excuses to desist from acting against the Taliban, leads to the inference that the Taliban are not a threat but a strategic ally of Pakistan. In any case, if Pakistan is in trouble because of the activities of the Islamists then shouldn't it be a priority for Pakistan to resolve issues with India rather than the other way round?

Even otherwise, there is really no incentive for India in dancing to the American tune just so that Pakistan is able to gain its strategic objectives in the region, in a word 'strategic depth' in Afghanistan. Regardless of the public statements of US officials, the US regional game-plan, or lack of it, hinges on giving primacy to Pakistan in Afghanistan. And, the Pakistanis will use this to bring their proxies, the Taliban, back in power in Kabul. Given the dialectics of the situation, it is utterly unrealistic for anyone to think that India will agree to roll over and play dead and allow Pakistan to walk all over it only because this will allow the US an honourable exit from Afghanistan.

The US has been always notorious for taking an extremely short-term view of things, something it is doing once again in South Asia. In the process, it is building up a country – Pakistan – in which an overwhelming majority of people are implacably opposed to and harbour a visceral hatred for America, and alienating the public opinion of the one country – India – in which the public opinion is extremely well-disposed towards America. The Indian prime minister has already expended a lot of his political capital – in the public as well as within his party – in trying to reach out to Pakistan. Pushing him any further along this path will only isolate him further. What is worse, the reaction that is building up in India to US policy of flooding the Pakistan army with modern weapons is going to create a deep schism in Indo-US relations, something that will come to haunt the US in the not too distant a future when it needs to fall-back on Indian support to contain the fallout of an imploding, Jihadist Pakistan.

India too is not entirely blameless as far as the emerging cleavage in its relations with the US is concerned. The problem with India was that despite the caution sounded by many people that the US was an 'unreliable' partner and ally, the Indian leadership took the US at face value, and imagined that the interests of the two biggest democracies converged on the issue of terrorism. It is time for India to take off its rose-tinted glasses, as also many of the eggs it has placed in the US basket, and start dealing with the US and other countries like Iran, Russia and China, on terms that advance India's and not the US' interests. Otherwise, India will be left holding the can for American follies in the region.

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<1317 Words> 12^th April, 2010

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2010-03-30T09:06:00.001-07:00

THE DEAL THAT NEVER WAS

SUSHANT SAREEN

For a country that aspires to join the ranks of Great Powers in the not too distant a future, India's prickly reaction to reports and statements that the US could sign a civilian nuclear deal with Pakistan, as well as its quiet satisfaction, if not relief, that no such deal was signed, was quite unnecessary, more so because it deflected attention from the more substantial aspects of the US-Pakistan relationship which in the near future will impinge upon India's vital security interests.

A cool contemplation of the existing diplomatic and strategic realities should have been enough for Indian media and policymakers to know that a civilian nuclear deal for Pakistan was not on offer, at least not for the foreseeable future. The only difference was that unlike the past, when the US would unceremoniously rebuff Pakistan's oft expressed desire for a civilian nuclear deal similar to the one that the US signed with India, this time around the US was willing to hear the Pakistanis out during the latest round of Strategic Dialogue between the two countries. So far this is the only concession that Pakistan has got from the US as far as a civilian nuclear deal is concerned.

Pakistan wants a civilian nuclear deal not so much because it will solve the debilitating energy crisis that the country faces, but more because it will fulfil Pakistan's obsessive quest for strategic parity with India by accepting it as a nuclear weapons state. The legitimacy that such recognition will give to Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme will not only allay Pakistan's fears of being deprived of its nuclear assets but also end the technology denial regimes that it currently faces. More than anything else, it is this strategic dimension of a civilian nuclear deal that Pakistanis hanker for. After all, it makes very little sense for Pakistan wanting a nuclear deal to get over its massive energy deficit today because, even if the civilian nuclear deal comes through in the next few years, the first nuclear power plant will not become operational for another 10, maybe 15, years.

Quite aside the natural proclivity of Pakistanis to overstate and overplay their strengths, and understate and underplay their weaknesses, even the most delusional Pakistani would know that a civilian nuclear deal is not quite within reach. Despite the growing dependence of the US on Pakistan to sort out Afghanistan, it is unlikely that the US will be willing to go so far as to reward Pakistan with a nuclear deal. Offering such a deal to Pakistan can neither be justified on economic grounds, nor on strategic grounds and is certainly going to be very difficult for any US administration to sell politically at home and diplomatically abroad.

In any case, if the Obama administration ever decided to sign a civilian nuclear deal with Pakistan, it will take years before such a deal can actually become operational, during which time many things could change in the relationship between the US and Pakistan which in turn could kill the deal. But even if no such thing happens, and the US stakes in Pakistan remain strong, a civilian nuclear deal will have to traverse through torturous negotiations with some very tough bargaining, not to mention intrusive conditionalities. Given Pakistan's proliferation record and the fears over the security of its nuclear assets, it would be highly unrealistic to imagine that the conditions imposed on Pakistan will be exactly the same as those imposed on India. And the tough conditions that are likely to be imposed on Pakistan could easily become a deal-breaker.

Assuming that the US and Pakistani administration do manage to strike a deal, the agreement will then have to be passed through the US Congress, which is easier said than done. If India, despite its impeccable track record and its reputation as a responsible state, faced a lot of opposition over the nuclear deal in the US Congress, what are the chances of a country like Pakistan managing to get the Congress to pass a nuclear deal? The Ayatollah's of non-proliferation in the US are going to mount such massive pressure that it could be well near impossible to get the Congress to vote for a civilian nuclear deal with Pakistan.

Even if the US Congress allows the deal, it will then have to go before IAEA and the NSG. Had it not been for the personal intervention of George W Bush, the Indian deal might never been have passed in the NSG. Can Obama afford to expend his personal and political capital in the NSG for rewarding one of the worst proliferators with a nuclear deal, especially when he is trying to sell the concept of 'Global Zero' to rest of the world? There are likely to be many NSG countries that will oppose such a deal for Pakistan, more so because there is very little economic incentive for these countries in terms of selling civilian nuclear equipment to the Pakistanis.

In the case of India, the prospect of lucrative contracts for setting up nuclear power plants was a huge attraction for some of the important nuclear suppliers to push through the Indian deal. But given the state of Pakistan's economy, the prospect of getting any sort of return from investment is next to negligible. Add to this the generally hostile environment towards Westerners, and the spread of Islamist terrorism throughout the country. Under these circumstances, there is hardly any other country or company that will want to sell nuclear equipment or set up a nuclear plant in Pakistan, except perhaps for the Chinese, who have larger strategic interests in Pakistan. And, if this is the way things are going to play out, why would the Americans want to give Pakistan a deal which will actually allow the Chinese to eventually replace the US in terms of influence in Pakistan?

Clearly then, there never was any nuclear deal on offer, only a readiness on the part of the US to hear the Pakistani sales pitch for such a deal and that too because the US didn't want to rub the Pakistanis the wrong way at this juncture. The Americans perhaps also wanted to avoid giving wind to the huge anti-American propaganda campaign that has been unleashed in Pakistan, partly by the Islamists but largely by the Pakistan army through 'embedded' media personnel to pressurise the Americans into giving ever more concessions and opening their coffers for Pakistan. In a sense, the Pakistani game-plan has been successful because by creating hype around a possible nuclear deal (which they never expected to come through in the first place), they have managed to pressure the Americans into addressing many of their other strategic, economic and military concerns.

More than the nuclear deal, it is the massive transfers of conventional weapons to the Pakistanis and the other political and diplomatic assurances that the US has made to the Pakistanis that should worry India. By bolstering Pakistan's conventional military capability (not its anti-terror capability) the US has ended up emboldening Pakistan to think that it can once again ratchet up tension with India by brandishing its newly acquired weapons as well as unleashing the jihadist terror groups. The Pakistan army would now be calculating that the US is so beholden to them that it will turn a complete blind eye to the export of terror into India. And in the event of things getting out of hand, the US will pressure India to back off, like it did in the 1980's when the Pakistanis sponsored terrorism in Indian Punjab.

What is more, by feting the Pakistan army chief, the US has done great disservice to the cause of democracy in Pakistan. The Pakistan army will now use rising tension with India to further strengthen its stranglehold over the politics of the country and the civilian politicians will try to curry favour with the military by taking a hard line against India. With history repeating itself in Pakistan, the future of Indo-Pak relations seems rather dismal.

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<1350 Words> 30^th March, 2010

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2010-03-29T09:41:00.001-07:00

SOFT TALIBAN

SUSHANT SAREEN

In what was perhaps a Freudian slip, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, while addressing a public meeting in Lahore expressed surprise over Taliban attacks in Punjab despite the PMLN government sharing the stance of the Taliban of opposing the person and policies of the former dictator Pervez Musharraf and not taking any dictation from the US. Almost on cue, the Taliban issued a statement said that the organisation would stop targeting public and government places in Punjab if the provincial government gave an assurance that the Taliban would not be attacked.

Predictably, all hell broke loose after the craven statement of the Punjab 'strongman'. The very next day after the statement, Shahbaz Sharif held a meeting with the Army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, where he was reportedly given a dressing down. Clearly, Shahbaz Sharif's remarks were seen to undermine the military operations against the Taliban, sending out wrong signals to the international community, weakening the morale of the people and the armed forces and belittling their sacrifices, exposing the lack of consensus in Pakistan over treating the Taliban as enemies. Worst of all, it appeared as though Sharif had set Punjab apart from other parts of Pakistan.

Although Sharif did try to wriggle out of the situation by saying that he had been misquoted and issued a detailed clarification, it did little to assuage the Pakhtun members of parliament who launched a broadside against the PMLN leader. After all, going by Sharif's logic, it was alright for the Taliban to launch attacks in NWFP because the government of that province was following Musharraf's policies and was taking dictation from the US. But in all fairness to him, the double-standards that Shahbaz is being accused of in the context of Taliban attacks on Punjab, are actually quite similar to the double-standards that most Pakistanis adopt in the context of Islamist terrorists striking against other countries and peoples of other religions. Instead of being unequivocal in their condemnation of terrorists and their murderous acts in the name of religion, the general refrain of most people in Pakistan is that the terrorists should go and attack the Americans or the Indians and should spare fellow Muslims. One TV anchor who appears of Aaj TV even went to the extent of saying that the terrorists should be attacking India and Hindus and not Pakistan! Clearly, the public opinion in Pakistan doesn't abhor terrorism per se; it only abhors the terrorism that affects it directly. It is kosher for them if hundreds of people are massacred in Mumbai or thousands in New York.

Be that as it may, the episode has once again raised questions over the Sharif brothers Islamist leanings. Their closeness to reactionary and regressive Islamists like Jamaat Islami and the Wahhabi Jamiat Ahle Hadith, and the right-wing, conservative ideological positions that the PMLN takes are well known as is the desire of Nawaz Sharif to become the Amirul Momineen (something he tried during the fag end of his second term as Prime Minister). After their return from exile, the Sharif's have tried very hard to shake off their reputation of having a proclivity for radical Islam. This they did by taking on the mantle of being the defenders of all things democratic. They have been in the forefront on the issue of independence of judiciary, implementing the Charter of Democracy, undoing all amendments to the constitution made by the former military dictator, and taking a strong position against army intervention in politics. But the mask is wearing thin, especially after Shahbaz Sharif scurried to explain himself to the army chief – so much for the new found democratic values of the Sharifs and their 'resolve' to not allow the army to interfere in politics!

Not surprisingly, the detractors of the Sharif's were quick to latch on to his slip-up. Addressing a lecture in Seattle, Gen Musharraf called Nawaz Sharif a closet Taliban. Closer home, the Punjab governor, Salman Taseer, said Shahbaz is a true heir of Gen. Zia, while a senior PPP leader in Punjab called the PMLN 'the soft face of Taliban' and demanded that the party be put on a UN watch-list. In NWFP, there was a furore in the provincial assembly over Shahbaz's remarks. MQM supremo, Altaf Husain too did not spare Shahbaz and said that it appears that Shahbaz doesn't consider other provinces a part of Pakistan and wants Taliban to carry out attacks in Sindh, NWFP and Balochistan.

The fact of the matter remains that notwithstanding self-serving condemnation of Taliban for public and political consumption, the PMLN continues to adopt an ambivalent attitude towards the Islamists. So much so that Shahbaz Sharif is not even willing to accept that there is something called the Punjabi Taliban. According to reports, he has even refused to accept the information given to him during a special meeting of the federal cabinet that it was indeed the Punjabi Taliban who were behind the spate of terrorist attacks in the province. He kept insisting that the "Punjabi Taliban could not do it as no such league of terrorist existed in his province". Not to be left behind, the Punjab law minister, who was recently involved in a controversy after he was seen openly moving around and soliciting the support of the banned Sunni extremist outfit, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) during the recently concluded by-elections in Jhang, criticised the use of the term Punjabi Taliban since it links militants with a province or a community.

The existence of the Punjabi Taliban is however undeniable and the huge cache of arms and explosives – nearly 8500 kgs – that were recovered in Islamabad and Lahore are proof enough of the extensive network of Islamist militants in the Punjab. The ANP has been crying hoarse for a long time now that the problem of terrorism in Punjab was in fact making the situation worse in NWFP. A large number of the militants fighting in NWFP and FATA are believed to be Punjabis. The Punjab is not only a fertile recruiting ground for the militants but also provides financial support, and sanctuary to the Taliban. While earlier it was believed that the Taliban phenomenon is limited to South Punjab, there is now increasing evidence that in fact the Taliban are present all over Punjab.

Given that the spread of radicalism is now a pan-Pakistan phenomenon, it would be natural to suppose that the efforts to curb the activities of the Islamists and crackdown on their networks would be undertaken with equal vigour in all the provinces of the country. Not so, as is apparent from the attitude of the Punjab chief minister and law minister. This is now fueling resentment especially in NWFP, more so after reports that Pakhtuns all over Punjab were being singled out and harassed and apprehended by the law enforcement agencies. Cutting across party lines, Pakhtun lawmakers have accused the Punjab government of victimising innocent Pakhtuns. If this feeling grows, then it is bound to poison relations between different ethnic groups and put tremendous strain on Pakistan's federal structure.

The tragedy of Pakistan is that rather than realising the folly of using Jihad as an instrument of state policy, the ruling establishment (civilian and military) is once again slipping back into the jihad mode. While the Pakistan army is working overtime to place its taliban proxies in Kabul and reactivating groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba to strike against India, Pakistani politicians like Shahbaz Sharif are trying to appease the Islamists by openly proclaiming that their policies are in conjunction with the demands of the taliban. Clearly, if this trend is not reversed soon, no force on earth will be able to stop Pakistan's descent into chaos.

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< 1290 Words > 22^nd March, 2010

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2010-03-10T06:24:00.001-08:00

FORGET P2P, FOCUS ON E&E

SUSHANT SAREEN

One abiding feature of India's Pakistan policy has been the immense faith that has been put in store of what is often called People-to-People (P2P) contacts between Indians and Pakistanis. Despite there being no empirical evidence to support the efficacy of this policy, Indian policy makers – hawks and doves alike – have persisted in trying to push for and expand the scope of P2P contacts with Pakistan. But the experience of the last six decades suggests that the P2P policy that India has been following has proved quite ineffective in changing Pakistanis' perception of India, and has not yielded any significant dividend in terms of building influence and stakes among Pakistani society and polity.

The primary reason for this is that India's P2P policy has been targeted at the wrong set of people in Pakistan. Instead of P2P contacts, India needs to concentrate on building linkages, leverages and stakes among the Pakistani elite and establishment (E&E). This is likely to be far more effective in achieving India's policy objectives than any goodwill that India hopes to earn or impression it seeks to make on people who are powerless to change the dynamics of Indo-Pak relations. Given the realities of Pakistan's power structure, it is futile to expect that pressure from below will be able to influence the behaviour, attitude and decisions of the Pakistani E&E. In Pakistan's case, the opposite is true: influence on the E&E will automatically lead to P2P.

Quite aside the fact that centuries of P2P contacts between those who are today known as Indians and Pakistanis did nothing to prevent the holocaust in 1947, there is a very big chasm between the purpose of promoting P2P and its practise. Much of the clamour for greater P2P contacts really has less to do with the 'ordinary people' and more to do with the 'beautiful people' (businessmen, NGOs, media persons, professionals like lawyers and doctors, and political and social activists) who are nothing if not a part of the E&E. Indeed, when the Indian government talks of P2P, it too is implicitly propagating greater interaction between the 'beautiful' people who constitute the cream of society.

The problem is that the manner in which the Indian government conducts its policy, especially its visa policy, on Pakistan leads to quite the opposite result than what is intended. It effectively places obstacles in the path of people whose antecedents are well established and who not only don't pose any threat to India but can in fact serve as advocates of India in Pakistan and therefore need to be cultivated. But try inviting a well-known Pakistani academic, journalist, businessman, retired general or bureaucrat, and you will be put through a bureaucratic wringer that you will regret ever having thought of doing something so stupid. And it's become worse now with the new visa rules which require clearance from a handful of ministries which is either never given or given so late that the conference, seminar or business meeting would have ended.

At the same time over 100,000 visas are issued every year to Pakistanis whose antecedents are unverifiable. While an overwhelming majority of these 100,000 Pakistanis are neither terrorists nor India-haters and are just ordinary people belonging to divided families, the possibility cannot be ruled out of many an agent provocateurs and jihadists slipping into India by pretending to visit their non-existent relatives.

Clearly, instead of giving 100,000 visas every year to a mass of people who really don't count for anything in the power structure of Pakistan, India needs to adopt a more liberal policy towards the E&E, a policy that is designed to create a vested interest that serves as a pro-India constituency in Pakistan. The driving principle of this policy should be a sophisticated version of the carrot-and-stick approach which puts into place a system that rewards elements favourable to India and imposes costs on elements inimical to India. This means using India's soft-power – Bollywood, higher education, medical facilities, business opportunities, economic assistance, infrastructure projects, green-field investments etc. – as an effective instrument to attract Pakistani E&E and effect an insidious change in their perception and attitude towards India. At the same time, India needs to have an array of coercive instruments to penalise anti-India elements in Pakistan.

It is important however to compartmentalise the Pakistani E&E into two broad categories – statists and non-statists. The statists includes the military-bureaucratic establishment (serving and retired), big business, top politicians, big landowners, media barons, and 'embedded' journalists; the non-statists comprises the NGOs, social and political activists, a section of lawyers, non-embedded journalists, anti-establishment politicians, actors, artistes, musicians etc. Until now, Indian's have generally interacted with the latter category and given their opinions and views a degree of importance that is somewhat overstated. Worse, Indians have tended to propose, even formulate policy, on the basis of its interaction with this very vocal, if well-meaning but ineffectual, minority in Pakistan.

While links with the non-statists do serve a purpose and need to be maintained, it is imperative for India to build links – at both official and unofficial levels – with the statists. One right contact in Pakistan's power structure can deliver far more than a thousand civil society activists or a million ordinary Pakistanis ever can. Take for instance Nawaz Sharif during his second stint as prime minister. The Indian government managed to lure Nawaz Sharif in 1998-99 by buying sugar from his mills, something that gave Nawaz Sharif a stake in trying to resolve matters with India. Call it bribery or call it a trade concession, it was a pretty effective tool in roping Nawaz Sharif in.

There is also the case of General Pervez Musharraf. Once he understood the need for dealing with India, everyone else in the state structure fell in line even if they did not agree with what Musharraf was trying to do. The bilateral relations improved within weeks and remained the best that they have been in living memory till Musharraf was in power. There was a boom in E&E contacts with all varieties of delegations from both sides crossing the borders practically on a daily basis.

What many in India had thought at that time to be a paradigm change in Pakistani mindset was really nothing more than the Pakistani establishment following a liberal policy on India, a cue that the Pakistani people followed. But the moment Musharraf's successor in the GHQ took a dim view of these interactions, attitudes changed and everything stopped practically overnight. All the euphoria and all the solemn talk of commitment to the peace process by media personnel and civil society activists went through the window.

It is certainly not the case that Nawaz Sharif or Musharraf had become Indian lackeys, or had sold out to India. Far from it, they both had their own idea of how they could deal with India. But the crucial point is that India had made contact and engaged with the real power wielders in Pakistan and it is this that paid the dividends. Once Nawaz and Musharraf started to deal with India, they became amenable to move away from their stated positions and given their position in the power structure they were both able to ensure that even the naysayers fell in line.

This then is the model that India needs to adopt if it actually wants to break the logjam with Pakistan. Anything else will amount to nothing more than a talking shop and some more pappi-jhappi shows.

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<1250 Words> 10^th March, 2010

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2010-02-28T01:35:00.003-08:00

SMOKE ON THE WATER, BUT WHERE IS THE FIRE

SUSHANT SAREEN

It would perhaps surprise Pakistanis to know that the rising crescendo in Pakistan over India's alleged 'water terrorism' is so far a complete non-issue as far as Indian public opinion is concerned. Other than the strategic community and journalists covering foreign policy, the Indian public opinion is unaware of the concerns in Pakistan over river waters flowing from India into Pakistan. Even the strategic community in India is somewhat bemused by the furore in Pakistan. The debate in Pakistan, which is generating more heat than light, is hardly helping matters. If anything, it appears ill-informed and more rhetorical than real because while a lot of noise is being heard about 'water theft' by India, there is as yet no evidence that would lend credence to this allegation – a classic case of smoke without fire.

An example of this was a TV programme in which, while Pakistan's Indus Waters Commissioner insisted that there was as yet no violation of the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) by India, a PMLQ politician on the panel insisted that India was depriving Pakistan of its waters (although he admitted he is no expert on the issue) and the legal expert continued to talk of the spirit of the treaty, prejudging all the time that the spirit of the treaty must have been violated by India. Even the manner in which the issue has been raised in Pakistan's parliament suggests that it is more about grandstanding rather than any grievance based on any wrongdoing on India's part.

Despite all the emotions that water can excite, the IWT is really a technical issue more than a political issue between India and Pakistan. This is not to deny an element of politics that invariably creeps in over the issue of river waters. Over the last couple of years, the IWT is becoming an issue in the politics Jammu and Kashmir with talk of how India and Pakistan have deprived J&K of waters over which it has the first right. Even in the Pakistan administered Kashmir, this issue has been recently raised by the AJK prime minister.

There is also a body of opinion in India that has for long been exhorting the Indian government to use water as a weapon against Pakistan. For people adhering to this view, the water weapon is a fair pay-back for the use of jihad as a weapon by Pakistan. But successive governments in India have desisted from going down this path. At the same time, growing water requirements as well as shortages, and rising energy needs, is forcing the government to exploit all available water resources to their maximum potential.

According to technocrats, while the eastern rivers – Ravi, Beas and Sutlej – have been exclusively granted to India, a lot of water still spills over into Pakistan from these rivers, which is a bonus for Pakistan if one goes by the letter of the IWT. They say that the government has neglected developing the infrastructure needed to stop this water flowing into Pakistan, water that is required for growing needs of Indian agriculture and drinking water needs of Indian cities. What is more, some estimates suggest that if this water can be utilised properly, it will go a long way in addressing river water disputes between Indian states like Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan.

As far as the western rivers – Indus, Chenab and Jhelum – are concerned, the IWT grants certain rights to India on these waters. For instance, India is permitted to build run-of-the-river hydroelectric plants. There are also provisions for using these waters for drinking water as well as agricultural use in J&K. Given the massive energy needs of the Indian economy, the government is now trying to use these waters, but without violating the IWT. And this is the critical point that seems to be missing in the debate that is currently underway in Pakistan over the Indian plans to build a series of dams on the main western rivers and its tributaries.

The issue of IWT is at one level a simple technical issue: if India is indeed violating the IWT, then Pakistan is well within its rights to invoke the dispute clauses and approach the international guarantors and seek the opinion of a neutral expert which will be binding on both countries. The case of Baglihar dam is instructive. Pakistan had objections to the design of the Baglihar dam, objections that India rejected. Pakistan sought the intervention of the neutral expert, whose ruling was accepted by both countries. The fact of the matter is that India is well aware of the diplomatic and political repercussions of violating the IWT and is therefore not interested in violating the treaty. And yet, India wants to use modern engineering techniques that enhance the life of a dam project, techniques that were not available when the IWT was signed. In this, the Baglihar ruling has come as a shot in the arm for Indian dam designs because the neutral expert ruled in favour of such modern techniques.

Pakistan's fears are misplaced also because regardless of the dams that India plans to construct on the western rivers, India cannot stop the water flowing into Pakistan unless it builds the canal infrastructure that can divert this water away from Pakistan. And as yet there is absolutely no such infrastructure that is on the design board. In the case of the Kishenganga river (Neelum) the dam that India is building will keep the total quantum of water in Jhelum the same, only the water will be diverted from Kishenganga into Jhelum. The point of contention in the case of the Kishenganga project is that Pakistan too is building a dam on the same river downstream and the Indian dam will render the Pakistani dam useless. In the case of these two projects, the country that finishes its dam first wins because the other country will have to give up on its project.

While this is something that is part of the treaty, the Neelum-Kishenganga project has become a metaphor that the two countries need to use to think out of the box on the issue of river waters. In other words, rather than follow a competing model, the two countries need to consider following a cooperative model in which a common resource can be exploited jointly to maximise welfare on both sides. The fact is that rising population and, increasingly agricultural and energy needs are raising the water requirements on both sides. At the same time, hydrological factors and environmental factors are reducing the water flows in rivers. This makes it imperative for both countries to use a scarce resource like water optimally.

In the case of water, more is not necessarily better than enough. This means that irrigation techniques need to change from flood irrigation to drip irrigation that uses water far more efficiently. While this will necessitate a change in cropping patterns, it will also mean investing in a modern irrigation technique that takes care of agriculture (which consumes close to 90% of water) and leaves enough for water requirements of growing cities. The problem is that for politicians and bureaucrats it is so more easier to excite and incite people on the issue of water, but so much more difficult to do the hard work to invest in systems that utilise a scarce resource in a more efficient manner.

Perhaps, the time has also come for India and Pakistan to rethink the IWT and rework it in a way that it addresses the issues we will face in the next 50 years instead of harping on issues we faced in the last 50 years. But if this is not acceptable, then at least the two countries can work together on joint projects that will serve both their peoples and becoming a huge CBM that can effect a paradigm change in their perceptions of each other. The salvation and indeed the survival of the subcontinent depends on the ability of the two countries to cooperate and manage a joint but scarce resource like water efficiently and sensibly.

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<1350 Words> 22^nd February, 2010

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