O P I N I O N S

EDITORIALS

Casualty of Iraq war
Rumsfeld had stayed for too long
By replacing Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with former CIA chief Robert Gates soon after the mid-term Congressional elections, President George W. Bush indirectly admitted that the Rumsfeld Doctrine was the primary cause for the Republican defeat.

Primary fault
We are ignoring poor children’s education
There is no question that the key to India’s empowerment is education. Yet, enough stress is not being laid on primary education. India has an abysmally bad report card in the UNESCO’s Global Monitoring Report 2007.

ULFA again
Talks and bombs don’t go together
Sunday’s blasts in Guwahati, in which an ULFA hand is strongly suspected, has now taken 14 lives, including that of an eight-year-old girl, and left 48 injured.

• Thought for the day

ARTICLE

Time to talk with China
by B.G. Verghese
President Hu Jintao of China is visiting India later this month. The Government of India must have an agenda for talks. But here is one for consideration.

MIDDLE

Sugar and Spice
by Raj Chatterjee
Mother-in-law stories have worn very thin over the centuries since ancient Athens found them funny. Nevertheless, there are a few that still bear repetition. One concerns a chap whom everyone took to be a fool. In the event, it was he who had the last laugh and according to his lights, the best of the bargain.

OPED

Dateline London
Britain hesitant to accept Pak role in terror
by K N Malik
How does one sum up the last visit of the Indian Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, to the UK in October this year? According to Indian and British sources, it was an excellent visit. Dr. Singh was honoured by Cambridge University with an honorary degree of Doctorate of Law.

Delhi Durbar
‘Sealing Dikshit’
AT a special convocation of the University of Delhi, where honorary Doctorates were presented to Amitabh Bachchan and Delhi Chief Minister Shiela Dikshit recently, it was the cine icon who hogged the limelight. He had the audience swooning, when he recalled in his baritone voice his days at the University, most of which were spent outside Miranda House, the alma mater of Dikshit.

Bush faces two years of compromises
by Rupert Cornwell
In his own dream world, George W Bush continued to wage his misbegotten war, vowing to "stay the course" (or whatever was the formulation of the hour). In Congress his pliant troops used their majority to suspend the legislature's constitutional duty to call the administration to account, flouting the system of checks and balances on which American democracy depends.

EDITORIALS

Casualty of Iraq war
Rumsfeld had stayed for too long

By replacing Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with former CIA chief Robert Gates soon after the mid-term Congressional elections, President George W. Bush indirectly admitted that the Rumsfeld Doctrine was the primary cause for the Republican defeat. A week ago nobody would believe that the axe would fall on the architect of the Iraq war. The US President had declared in the run-up to the polls that Mr Rumsfeld would complete his term whatever the outcome. Even on Wednesday, when President Bush announced the change at the Pentagon, he heaped lavish praise on his outgoing Defence Secretary for his “accomplishments”. Most US Presidents often are indulgent to departing colleagues at farewells. Mr Bush, however, could not ignore the anguish of the voters, for whom the Rumsfeld Doctine was designed to bring about only miseries for both the Americans and the Iraqis.

The doctrine was based on speed, and Mr Rumsfeld demonstrated it when the US forces swiftly immobilised the enemy and achieved their immediate objective. But it proved to be a shortsighted one, as it could not prevent Iraq from turning into the worst sectarian killing field. Thus, the war devoured not only 600,000 Iraqis but also more than 2000 US soldiers. In the process, Iraq has become a total mess with anarchy ruling over what was once a reasonably stable country. The exact economic cost of the Iraqi adventure in search of the illusive weapons of mass destruction is yet to be known. But in return the Americans have got more insecurity and the terrorists another factor to sustain themselves.

The US voters obviously could not tolerate such a policy failure. They have responded in the best way they can — punish the Republican administration at the hustings. And they did it at the first available opportunity in the form of mid-term elections. If there is no change in the voters’ mood during the remaining two years of the lame-duck administration, it may give way to a Democratic administration, ending the long domination of the Republicans. This is what most poll pundits believe. The Bush administration is getting the wages of its own sins committed by relying on a strategy devised to launch a military operation, ignoring peaceful options and without having an exit route.

Primary fault
We are ignoring poor children’s education

There is no question that the key to India’s empowerment is education. Yet, enough stress is not being laid on primary education. India has an abysmally bad report card in the UNESCO’s Global Monitoring Report 2007. Thanks to a large number of out-of-school children, it ranks a scandalously poor 99 on a scale of 125 on the global Education Development Index. It happens to have as many as 4.5 million out-of-school children, ranking behind only Nigeria (eight million) and Pakistan (6.5 million). There is worse to follow. Nearly 30 per cent of those enrolled in Indian schools don’t attend school regularly. This is such a major handicap that despite its best efforts, India may not be able to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. That will be a crying shame for a country of the size and potential of India.

The reasons for the dismal scenario are not far to seek. As the UNESCO report itself points out, most out-of-school children live in small settlements with no school facilities. Since they come from the poorest of the poor families, they are hardly in a position to afford education costs, even where schools are available. There is an acute shortage of teachers as well. India has a student-teacher ratio of 1:41, which happens to be the poorest among the developing countries. Most schools don’t even have blackboards and drinking water. About 20 per cent of India teachers remain unauthorisedly absent from schools. What has been left unsaid in the report is the fact that the school curriculum is not exactly tailored to be of interest to these slum children.

The silver lining is that the situation is improving of late. The fall in the number of school dropouts in West Asia from 31 million to 16 million between 1999 and 2004 is largely because of India. The recent law to prevent children from being employed as domestic help may improve things further. But a lot more needs to be done. What is called for is giving the highest priority to primary education—particularly by the state governments.

ULFA again
Talks and bombs don’t go together

Sunday’s blasts in Guwahati, in which an ULFA hand is strongly suspected, has now taken 14 lives, including that of an eight-year-old girl, and left 48 injured. The fact that the blasts took place is an indictment of the loopholes in the security apparatus in the state, for there never has been any doubt of ULFA’s intentions. A central team led by Union Home Secretary V.K. Duggal and other top officers of the CPRF, the BSF and the Assam administration are in Guwahati, and reports indicate an intensification of operations with the seeking of additional forces from the Centre.

Both the Central and state governments find themselves in the farcical situation of simultaneously announcing intensified operations while insisting that the option for talks was not being closed. There is no point, however, in continuing a charade of peace negotiations when ULFA has never failed to punctuate every run-up to talks with acts of violence. The Army had rightly resumed operations in September, after a brief ceasefire had tenuously held since August. The government had announced the ceasefire as an Independence Day initiative, and there was some hope when ULFA, after 27 years of militancy, had agreed to join it.

The Centre had been talking with the 11-member People’s Consultative Group, set up by ULFA as a bridge between themselves and the government. Talks with the PCG were to serve as a prelude to direct talks with ULFA members. But similar bomb blasts, including one in the market at Guwahati, had taken place just before the last round earlier this year. ULFA cadres continue to do serious damage and take an ever increasing toll on human life, negating any shred of legitimacy that the group may have had. Violence cannot be a bargaining chip and an all-out effort must be made to put an end to this senseless killing.

Thought for the day

A good book is the best of friends, the same today and forever.

— Martin Tupper

ARTICLE

Time to talk with China
by B.G. Verghese

President Hu Jintao of China is visiting India later this month. The Government of India must have an agenda for talks. But here is one for consideration.

India-China economic and trade relations have been steadily improving but there is scope for further expansion to mutual benefit. India has been hesitant to grant Chinese visitors visas liberally and has been wary of Chinese firms bidding for consultancy and management contracts. Security concerns have been cited. These are exaggerated and do little credit to a nation that wants to be a major player on the world stage. Hopefully, some rethinking is under way.

The same diffidence is apparent in opening up Nathu La to China-India trade rather than only to limited border trade in traditional goods. Apprehensions that this might flood the market with Chinese manufactures and do harm to nascent industries in eastern and northeastern India have little basis as earlier experience shows when torch cells and hosiery goods were deemed to threaten Indian manufactures. Kolkata-Haldia is the nearest ocean outlet for Lhasa. In fact, with the opening of the Golmud-Lhasa railway, India can also make a bid to augment trade in manufactures with Tibet and heartland China.

It would next be appropriate to review the boundary talks on the basis of the principles laid out and discuss steps to expedite them and exchange maps in regard to those sectors where a broad agreement has been reached. Tawang is apparently the sticking point with the Chinese arguing that Tibetan sentiment favours “restoration” to it of this area. This is not a demand that India can concede. Tawang is not a wilderness but a developed region whose people are totally integrated with India. Its representatives adorn the highest echelons of governance in Arunachal Pradesh.

What could assuage Buddhist sentiments on both sides, if so desired, would be in some suitable manner to permit the extension of Tibetan ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the Tawang monastery on the basis of earlier historical linkages. Indeed, such an arrangement could set a precedent for a resolution of China-Tibet relations in the context of the role and return of the Dalai Lama to Lhasa. The definition of Tibet has been in contention with the Chinese limiting this to what is called the Tibet Autonomous Region or TAR that is currently under the Lhasa administration. The Dalai Lama’s people, however, argue that this omits Kham and Amdo that are presently distributed between Yunnan, Sichuan, Gansu and Qinghai. The Chinese find this provocative and denounce such “splittism” as revisionist and revanchist.

It would be practical and healing to extend Tibetan ecclesiastical jurisdiction to Buddhist monasteries and congregations in these Chinese provinces in keeping with the Dalai Lama’s traditional role as the spiritual head of the Tibetan Buddhist church. Once this matter is out of the way, other issues about ensuring genuine autonomy in TAR in keeping with the 17-Point Agreement negotiated in the 1950s might become more easily amenable to resolution. The Dalai Lama has moderated his position and the Chinese are now perhaps coming around to the view that their long-term interest lies in seeking an honourable accommodation with the Dalai Lama. It should be in India’s interest to facilitate a rapprochement that would bring stability to the region and comfort to the entire Buddhist world.

The Indian and Chinese sides will certainly review the situation arising out of North Korea’s nuclear weapons test. Neither side is particularly pleased about the development, which has destabilised the existing balance of power in Northeast Asia. The North Koran test must also trigger fears of further proliferation and the dire consequences clandestine trade in nuclear weapons technology, fissile material and delivery systems of which the Chinese are very aware. Genies are prone to get out of the bottle and develop a frightening life and momentum of their own.

The conversation could naturally lead on from here to Pakistan. The Prime Minister would do well to explain the ongoing peace process with Pakistan. China, too, has been troubled by Pakistan-based jihadis in Xinjiang, the Taliban’s increasing presence in Afghanistan and Waziristan and the unrest in Balochistan and will share India’s concern for peace, stability and enlightened moderation in the region. The peace prospects in J&K could be furthered if trade and pilgrimage to Tibet were permitted from Ladakh. The reopening of trade between J&K and Xinjiang via Leh and across the Karakoram Pass along the old Silk Route, suitably upgraded, would also be mutually beneficial.

Finally, both leaders should talk about concerting research and action to grapple with issues of climate change on the ground and in negotiations with the global community. The Tibetan plateau and the Himalayan mass play an important part in shaping global weather and Asian river systems. Both are facing the heat of global warming with glaciers in retreat and a meltdown of Tibetan permafrost. However, it is necessary to get rid of recurrent alarms about Chinese plans to divert the entire waters of the Brahmaputra from its U-Bend in eastern Tibet to North China. This ghost must be laid to rest.

MIDDLE

Sugar and Spice
by Raj Chatterjee

Mother-in-law stories have worn very thin over the centuries since ancient Athens found them funny.

Nevertheless, there are a few that still bear repetition. One concerns a chap whom everyone took to be a fool. In the event, it was he who had the last laugh and according to his lights, the best of the bargain.

He had become a frequent caller at a house ruled by a rich and attractive widow of forty, well-proportioned and liberal in her views. She did not have any objection to the man, ten years her junior, hanging around her three passably pretty daughters, the oldest of whom was aged 21 and the youngest, 16.

It seemed to the man’s friends that he was paying court to all three girls at the same time or that he believed in the old adage of there being safety in numbers. Perhaps, they thought, he did not wish to commit himself till he was sure in his mind which one of the three would make him the happiest man this side of Eden.

Then came the bombshell. The daughter’s suitor proposed to and was accepted by the mother. His friends laughed at him and called him an ass to which he replied: “But don’t you see? I’ve now got the whole set for the price of one”.

Nine months later the woman presented her youthful husband with a bonny son. The boy, as he grew up became the apple of his mother’s eye, so much so that she altered her will. Apart from a few bequests to her three daughters, she left the bulk of her fortune to her son, to be held in trust for him by his father.

The girls, I regret to say, took it badly. One by one, they entered a nunnery, had their heads shaved and were seen no more by the outside world.

The other story is about a young fellow, though no Adonis, was a friendly and amiable person, popular with both sexes and an asset at a party because he could play the piano rather well.

He had a good job in a prosperous concern and was well thought-of by his bosses — also by several matrons with nubile daughters, who were constantly pressing him with invitations to lunch, tea or dinner.

The fellow accepted them all as he was a bit of a gourmet and enjoyed good food almost as much as he did good company.

For a few years he deftly avoided the noose and then, one day, he met his Waterloo in a Bengali lady who could cook a prawn curry to perfection and had discovered his weakness for this particular dish.

In due course he married the lady’s plump and round-faced daughter who was as much a marvel in the kitchen as her mother, if not more so.

Time passed happily for the couple for, as I have said, the man had a calm and cheerful disposition which enabled him to overlook his wife’s several shortcomings, one of them being her inability to provide him with a son and heir.

And then his father-in-law died and his ma-in-law, having nowhere to go came to live with him and his wife.

Soon there was intense rivalry between mother and daughter in the kitchen. Each tried to outdo the other by turning out tasty but extremely rich food which, they thought would please the master of the house. You can guess the tragic result of this clash of wills. The poor fellow died of coronary thrombosis before he was 50, which just goes to show that the way to a man’s heart is not always through his stomach.

OPED

Dateline London
Britain hesitant to accept Pak role in terror
by K N Malik

How does one sum up the last visit of the Indian Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, to the UK in October this year? According to Indian and British sources, it was an excellent visit. Dr. Singh was honoured by Cambridge University with an honorary degree of Doctorate of Law. The British and Indian prime Ministers had useful discussions. There was an agreement on the need to fight global terrorism, challenges presented by climate changes, economic co-operation, and, on reinforcing educational links.

The Indian Prime Minister also addressed leaders of industry and trade from the two countries and met the Indian community, at a reception hosted by the Indian High Commission. Most Indian political observers living in the UK, however, did not sense any thing significant about the visit. It was mostly ignored by the mainstream British media.

No headway was made on the tricky but important subject of forcing Pakistan, a client state of the US and its most trusted ally, the UK, to stop support to terrorists causing havoc in India, particularly in Kashmir.

In early 1980s India’s relations with Britain had slumped, mainly because Britain did not heed India’s urgings to cut off support to Khalistan agitators. Some of the most wanted terrorists were admitted into Britain. It overlooked training of Khalistani terrorists on British soil and collection of funds to buy arms and ammunition to fight Indian security forces. Some of them were given council houses and they had access to social security benefits in the UK.

It was after some strong diplomatic pressure from India, including denial of visits by ministers to India and cancellation or at least withholding of some defense and civilian contracts, much coveted by British companies, that Britain started co-operating with India. Of course, one of the reasons for cutting off support to the Khalistanis was the linkages they started developing with home grown terrorists, such as IRA and other international terrorist and drug running groups.

It must be said that Britain provided valuable information on Khalistanis’ bank accounts in Europe, Pakistan and Nepal, and tipped off Indian authorities on the movements of these groups. This led to arrest of several terrorists. Though the Khalistan movement lost momentum mainly because of firm handling within India, yet Britain’s help and assistance proved extremely useful.

Unfortunately, however, Britain did not extend much assistance to India about Pakistan-based terrorist groups operating in India. These groups are actively assisted and guided by Pakistan intelligence agencies. Their operation was reinvigorated after the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan

India tried to impress upon the UK and the USA the sinister implications of these activities for international communities. Later, when the Taliban regime in Afghanistan started extending support to Pakistani terror groups, India again forewarned the Western countries about the possible extension of these activities to their own lands. Later attacks in the US (9/11) and in July 2005 in Britain proved India right. But the West even then failed to force Pakistan to cut its support to terror groups.

It is only in the past few months that the media in Western countries, particularly in the USA and UK, has woken to Pakistan support to terror groups and started wondering on whose side is Pakistan, in the West’s fight against terrorism.

These reports referred to Pakistan training and arming Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters to take on British, NATO and American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The latest of these reports came from Afghanistan by way of media briefings by senior NATO Commanders.

The Afghan President, Humid Karzai, has made many a statement accusing Pakistan, especially Pakistan’s Military intelligence agency, ISI, of sheltering, training and equipping taleban and Al-Qaeda cadres, who are killing NATO soldiers in Afghanistan. The same cadres are used in Kashmir, and other parts of India, where terrorism by Pakistani trained foreign and indigenous terrorists continue a vicious terror campaign.

When the British Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair, went to India last year, India’s former foreign secretary reminded Mr. Blair of Pakistani terror connections. Mr. Blair accepted India’s assessment but offered no concrete help. The British position is that it has been urging Pakistan to cut its links with terrorist groups. It has also banned Pakistani terrorist groups. Unlike in the past, Britain is now prepared to accept India’s recommendations on banning any new terror group without its (Britain’s) own investigation and verification. It continues discourage secessionist groups such as khalistani groups.

What the British political and bureaucratic establishments are not ready to accept is the Pakistan government’s involvement in actively encouraging terrorism in India. It continues to consider Musharraf as its best bet in Pakistan.

Unlike in the 1980s, when India was able to force Britain’s hands into curbing Khalistani groups by using the carrot and stick of lucrative contracts, at present, India has few options. Some Indian intelligence sources, however, believe that India has reliable intelligence data on terror net works in Pakistan and Afghanistan, which can be of great value to Britain and the USA. Restricted sharing of this valuable data could be used as a bargaining chip.

Delhi Durbar
‘Sealing Dikshit’

AT a special convocation of the University of Delhi, where honorary Doctorates were presented to Amitabh Bachchan and Delhi Chief Minister Shiela Dikshit recently, it was the cine icon who hogged the limelight. He had the audience swooning, when he recalled in his baritone voice his days at the University, most of which were spent outside Miranda House, the alma mater of Dikshit.

While Bachchan walked away with accolades, Dikshit was at the receiving end of protests from the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad activists who deemed her unworthy of the honour. Worse still, instead of being referred to as Dr Dikshit, the Delhi CM, who has earned the wrath of the trading community for the ongoing sealing drive, has ended up with the sobriquet “Sealing Dikshit.”

Rebellious Raja

The Left parties seem to be up in arms over the issue of special economic zones, claiming that it would hurt both the Indian farmers and general labour. The other day, industry chamber Assocham invited CPI leader D Raja and Commerce secretary G K Pillai for an interactive session on the issue.

Even though the programme had listed Raja to speak after Pillai, the organisers requested him to take the floor first so that the Commerce secretary could respond to his criticism. The Left leader tried to impress the gathering by reiterating the same issues and quickly got off the podium. When Pillai got up to respond to Raja's criticism of the SEZ policy, he brushed aside all the issues, observing that even state governments were not ready to surrender their right on rehabilitation of the affected people.

Language of defence

Even though it is rather early in the day, IAS officers of the 1991 and 1972 batch are hotly debating who will be the next Defence secretary. Present Defence secretary Shekhar Dutt retires in the first half of next year. Speculation is gaining ground that new Defence minister A. K. Antonyhe only wants a Malayalam speaking officer as Defence secretary.

At this juncture the names of three officers are doing the rounds. One of them is K M Chandrasekhar, a 1970 batch officer of the Kerala cadre, who is currently the revenue secretary. Second is Gopal Pillai, a 1972 IAS officer who is the Commerce secretary.

The third is Sudha Pillai who is also a 1972 IAS officer. Even though a Punjabi and the better half of the Commerce secretary, she is fluent in Malayalam and has been the finance secretary in Kerala when Antony was the Chief Minister. Antony might have to wait a while as .

*****

Contributed by Smriti Kak Ramachandran, Manoj Kumar and Girja Shankar Kaura

Bush faces two years of compromises
by Rupert Cornwell

In his own dream world, George W Bush continued to wage his misbegotten war, vowing to "stay the course" (or whatever was the formulation of the hour). In Congress his pliant troops used their majority to suspend the legislature's constitutional duty to call the administration to account, flouting the system of checks and balances on which American democracy depends. Wilfully divorced from reality, a desperately unpopular president continued to govern by pandering to his conservative base.

All that, mercifully, is now over. Statistically, this midterm defeat is smaller than that suffered by Bill Clinton in 1994. Then, the Democrats lost 52 seats in the House and control of the Senate. This time the Republicans will have lost 30 at most, and might just cling on to the Senate.

But make no mistake. The true upheaval is at least as great. The best Bush can hope for is to escape with a semblance of respectability from what historians already debate may be the worst presidency in American history.

Hubris has been followed by nemesis. In retrospect, the highwater mark of that hubris came a couple of weeks before Bush won re-election in November 2004 - when Karl Rove was marshalling the forces of Christian conservatives to defeat John Kerry, and when Bush loved to brag how he never looked at a newspaper.

The trouble was, a White House aide sneered in a wonderful piece by Ron Susskind in The New York Times magazine, that the despised media lived in a "reality-based community" that believed "solutions emerge from the judicious study of discernible reality". Well, not only the media, but most of the human race.

But not, of course, this White House, and this president guided by instinct, not by facts, who preferred the counsel of "a higher father" to that of his vastly experienced biological sire. The world didn't work like that any more, the aide went on. "When we act, we create our own reality." That conceit, and that pseudo-reality, have now surely been destroyed.

Rove's aura of invincibility and omniscience has been shattered. For his boss, yesterday must have been the most dispiriting morning of his life, as he woke to contemplate the transformed political landscape. The old Bush presidency, of self-certainty and swagger ("In Texas, we call it walking") is dead and buried.

What remains is a rump for which the term "lame duck" is probably an understatement. This proud and unbending man, who never admits to the smallest mistake, now faces two years in which he must make compromises with a hostile Congress, if he is to achieve anything at all. Above all, he must somehow find an orderly way out of his war.

His options are dreadful. He threw a bone to critics by at last sacking Donald Rumsfeld, the day-to-day manager of the Iraq mess, whose relationship with reality had been as tenuous as that of his boss. But that is also tantamount to an admission that the war was wrong. No less important, it also meant confirmation hearings for Rumsfeld's replacement - hearings that may well turn into the Congressional inquisition on the war, its prosecution and the intelligence fiasco that preceded it, that the White House has fought tooth and nail to avoid.

But the Defence Secretary's departure does not end the war, for which Mr Bush insists that nothing short of victory will suffice. He can only hope against hope that the bipartisan Iraq Study Group chaired by the old Bush family consigliere James Baker (one of those scorned realists with whom his earthly father used to surround himself) will come up with an exit strategy.

Paradoxically, Bush's strongest tactical card over Iraq is the sheer magnitude of the disaster he has created. Bush is correct to say Democrats have no viable alternative, for a simple reason. There simply isn't one.

What can save Bush, and offer his Republicans a chance of hanging on to the White House two years hence? His best hope is that Democrats overplay their hand, especially if they find themselves in command of the Senate as well as the House. But Democrats understand as well as anyone that these midterms were not won by them so much as lost by the Republicans.

They know full well that an eminently winnable presidential election is just two years off. It makes little sense to alienate a public disposed to give them a chance.

The Democrats may have won. But Congress has moved not leftwards, but rightwards. Not only are Democrats more conservative, so too are their opponents after Tuesday's cull of Republican moderates.

****

By arrangement with The Independent