 |
|
Politics of
lynching Get out, My Lords Convicted MPs |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Realpolitik behind
N-deal
Majha-Malwa divide
Ballistic missile
defence will enhance deterrence The nuclear red
line in Iran Delhi
Durbar
|
|
Get out, My Lords Notifying the forcible retirement of 37 senior judges of Pakistan’s Supreme Court and High Courts on Wednesday, President Pervez Musharraf has provided proof that his drive against judicial independence continues unabated. These judges were among those who had refused to take the oath of office under the so-called Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO), issued along with the imposition of the emergency on November 3. A seven-judge bench, constituted soon after the PCO came into force replacing the 1973 constitution, declared the PCO and the emergency as unconstitutional. The General obviously considered it as an open challenge to his decry and authority and, therefore, put the defiant judges under suspension and house arrest. But he was not satisfied with the “punishment” he had given. Retiring these judges through a presidential decree appears to be aimed at destroying whatever little chance they had of coming back to the bench. The judiciary has been on the forefront of the fight against General Musharraf’s efforts to perpetuate his unconstitutional rule. His first attempt to subjugate it by suspending Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry 10 months ago resulted in humiliation for the ruling General. Justice Chaudhry became the rallying point for the countrywide expression of resentment by lawyers, politicians, human rights activists, media persons and others. The deposed Chief Justice ultimately won the battle and got reinstated as Chief Justice. There were reports that the bench hearing the petitions against the General’s election as President by the outgoing assemblies was about to give an adverse judgement. This would have upset General Musharraf’s game-plan. His emergency idea was not only aimed at settling scores with the judiciary, but also replacing it with a pliable one, which could simply ditto whatever he did to the constitution and the country. The General, who is no longer the army chief, still got the courage to take one unconstitutional step after another because of the lack of unity among the politicians. He has weakened them by sowing the seeds of suspicion against one another. There is no other reason why Ms Benazir Bhutto and Mr Nawaz Sharif, two former Prime Ministers, have not been able to reach an agreement on the restoration of democracy. Ms Bhutto has grudges against some of the deposed judges, as they had declared the National Reconciliation Order, issued to facilitate her homecoming, as unconstitutional. This can, of course, help President Musharraf, who has yet to re-establish his legitimacy despite doffing his uniform, continue in power. But for how long? |
|
Convicted MPs The Supreme Court has rightly admitted a public interest litigation challenging the constitutional validity of Section 8 (4) of the Representation of People Act. Under this section — as it exists today — a legislator, after conviction for a criminal offence, will not be disqualified from being an MP or MLA, pending final disposal of his appeal against his conviction. A Bench consisting of Justice C.K. Thakker and Justice J.M. Panchal has now ruled that it will examine the important constitutional question raised by the petitioner who maintained that the section in question violates Article 14 of the Constitution (Right to Equality). He pleaded that as for the disqualification of one’s membership, the Constitution did not provide any “special protection” to sitting MPs and MLAs. Significantly, the Centre has maintained that the petitioner’s stand was illogical and out of sync with today’s era of coalition governments. The compulsions of coalition politics are such that a single MP or MLA can make or break a government, it maintained. But would the apex court be convinced with this argument? Won’t it amount to giving constitutional legitimacy to a government consisting of criminals, that too, convicted by the courts? The Bench has sought the Election Commission’s opinion on the issue. Though one has to wait for the commission’s formal stand before the court, the commission had proposed earlier that in sub-section (1) of Section 8 of the RP Act, the disqualification of an MP or MLA may start from the date of conviction and the person may continue to be disqualified for a further period of specified number of years since his release. This, the commission says, would bring sub-section (1) in conformity with sub-sections (2) and (3) under which a person gets disqualified from the date of his conviction and he continues to be disqualified for a further period of six years since his release. It had proposed that notwithstanding the suspension of the conviction and release on bail in an appeal to a higher court, the convicted person shall incur the disqualification unless the conviction itself is set aside in the appeal. It remains to be seen what decision the apex court would take on the principal question of disqualification raised in the PIL. |
|
To be clever enough to get all that money, one must be stupid enough to want it.
— G.K. Chesterton |
Realpolitik behind N-deal TIME is running out for the 123 Indo-US Civilian Nuclear Agreement which most thinking people say is good for the country. The recent debate in Parliament on the agreement was instructive — the BJP supports ties with the US but opposes the deal in its present form; the Left allies of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, who are congenitally opposed to any relationship with the US, oppose the deal irrespective of its advantages. By snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, the government is subordinating national interest to political survival. Such timidity it has shown in the past. In the 1990s, while the Congress single-handedly assembled a nuclear bomb, it was the BJP that finally tested it. In 2004, the BJP initialled the Next Steps in Strategic Partnership which laid the framework for the 123 Agreement. The Congress is once again showing a conspicuous lack of political will. Paradoxically, the nuclear tests which opened the door to the NSSP and the 123 Agreement are the catalysts to a possible Indo-US strategic partnership. The word “strategic” has become inflationary and is employed loosely to describe relations between different countries. Only the 123 accord, when consummated, could result in a strategic tie-up and would be the most important relationship since Independence. The 20-year Indo-Soviet Treaty of 1971 was a strategic necessity but without any ideological affinity. It served India well in war and peace but linked it with the Eastern Bloc. We are still strategically allied to Russia for 70 per cent of our military supplies and spares, the key elements of the conventional deterrence. At present, this is the only strategic relationship. The 123 Agreement has been the most keenly debated and most seriously negotiated document though unfortunately the nuclear energy element has obscured the potential for a transformation of Indo-US relations. The love-hate relationship took a clear pattern after 1962 when during the Cold War both countries parted ways, India being on the side of the USSR. The tilt to Pakistan in 1965 coincided with the first tranche of sanctions, followed by others in 1974 and 1998. During this period India continued to receive PL-480 consignments of wheat. The defining point was 1971, the arrival of USS Enterprise in the Bay of Bengal and Henry Kissinger’s use of seven and five-letter words beginning with B to describe Indian leaders. Americans say that as in those Cold War days, India had voted against the US in the UN, more than the USSR, references to relations between them were “unfriendly friends”, “estranged democracies”, “impossible allies”. The transformation from “estranged” to “engaged” and “impossible” to “natural” allies was occurring imperceptibly sustained in part by a growing defence relationship, end of the Cold War, economic liberalisation, the nuclear tests and 9/11. USS Enterprise returned but this time on a friendly visit to Cochin, and Indian naval ships were escorting US vessels through the Malacca Straits. The US archives reveal that USS Enterprise was first sent to the Bay of Bengal in 1962. President Kennedy was contemplating the use of nuclear weapons but the Chinese had declared a unilateral ceasefire. Only last month, Henry Kissinger was in India proclaiming that the destinies of India and the US were linked. Americans and Indians agree that their societies and economies have changed and that “we are comfortable with each other and on the same side after the Cold War”. The drivers for change were US Vision 2020 and a host of strategic evaluations which underscore the redistribution of power and emergence of new power centres like China and India. The decline of US military power was another factor. A recent report by Richard Armitage and Joseph Nye, “How to Become a Smart Power”, underlines the US current predicament and the need for reliable partners. Helping India become a global player is driven by realpolitik and in furtherance of US national security goals. The US needs the partnership with India (and vice versa). But the nuclear issue is the hurdle. The 123 Agreement is meant to overcome it by bringing India into the nuclear club, accepting it as a responsible state with advanced nuclear technology and de facto a nuclear weapons state outside the NPT. US sanctions can then be lifted giving access to civilian space, nuclear energy, high technology trade and missile defence, all ingredients of the NSSP. Enough has been said about India’s strategic autonomy, the viability of the nuclear arsenal and the three-stage fuel programme. The overwhelming assessment is that India has secured the best-possible agreement under the circumstances. The prospects of a nuclear deal have upset China, Pakistan and Russia, especially the first two who enjoy the world’s most notorious and durable strategic nexus. India-US relations will never be free from Sino-US relations which began in 1972. China has said the US cannot change international nuclear law. As for Pakistan, it does not want any strategic shift in the power balance with India, but China has promised to redress it. Russia, a time-tested strategic ally, is miffed with growing Indo-US relations. Its recent diplomatic rebuff to three Central ministers, including the Prime Minister, was accompanied by raising difficulties like delays and price hikes of several key military projects, not the least the nuclear-powered submarine for India’s sea-based deterrent. After resisting for two years, it has allowed the sale of Russian RD 93 engines to China, eventually bound for Pakistani jet fighters. Defence is a key component of India-US relations. India will be able to access high-tech US defence equipment and diversify its Russian-predominant inventory. The US has $30 billion earmarked for defence acquisitions in the 11th Plan, and 52 US companies have set up offices in Delhi. Washington has a long list of defence interests: joint exercises, interoperability, a joint logistics agreement, the Container Security Initiative, the Proliferation Security Initiative, the Maritime Security Cooperation Framework and an institutionalised strategic dialogue to replace the current security exchanges. The prized jewel for America is learning from the Indian military, the low end of conflict — counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, high altitude warfare, IED, peacekeeping, disaster management and vigil over the sealanes of communication. Most of this will remain a wish list till the Left shows the green flag. The other hurdle is the credibility of US spares and a trust deficit. As late as 2004, the India-UK Advanced Jet Trainer contract included the clause that there will be no US parts. Assurances of “trust us” have come from US officials and one even said: “India means more to us than Pakistan”. The Left has allowed the government to obtain a draft India-specific safeguards agreement with the IAEA which they will clear. This is a charade as Left leaders have consistently said they will oppose an Indo-US nuclear deal anyhow. This was reflected in the debate in Parliament as well. So, for all practical purposes, the 123 Agreement is on a drip. The Left has succeeded in depriving the Bush Administration of a foreign policy triumph. But the Democrats are not far behind. Bruce Riedel and Karl Inderfurth, who will return to key jobs if Hilary Clinton becomes the next US President, in a new report, “Breaking More Nan with Delhi: the Next Stage in Indo-US Relations”, say: “The deal is not everything!” They echo Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s epitaph on 123 — “it is not the end of road/life”. Breaking bread with the non-proliferation hardline Democrats will be much tougher than with the Republicans. Whichever administration is there in 2009 in Washington and New Delhi, India and the US will have to reconcile their differences on foreign and security policies. Till the 123 deal is clinched, the technology-denial regime will remain in place. How can an India under sanctions have an equitable relationship, leave alone a strategic partnership with the
US?
|
Majha-Malwa divide My
first home in Punjab was a matchbox-sized duplex in Jalandhar. My
neighbours were the Anejas, a couple in their 50s. Mr Aneja was a
well-mannered accounts chief in the Electricity Board, and his wife, a
conservative homemaker who spent her afternoons knitting in the
courtyard with other ladies. Despite my reluctance to participate in
discussions about her daughter-in-law, I was often forced to listen to
her disgruntlement over the callousness of the absent young woman. I
learnt within a month that the Aneja nooh had done the
"unthinkable" by getting her husband, an SDO in the PWD, to
move out of the joint family and worse, live separately in the same
town. In 1993 that was a huge social stigma for the elder Mrs Aneja.
"Don’t ever bring an Amritsar-di-kudi as your nooh",
she would repeatedly advise me with the lament, "They always
neglect the household. They only get dressed by noon, go out with their bhabhis
and eat brunch in dhabas. After a full day’s gallivanting they
return home and order a takeaway from the tandoor nearby. We, however,
are from Patiala and are very simple folk," she would tell me.
Thus, my early initiation into the biases in Punjabi society was
courtesy the loquacious Mrs Aneja. The "conveyor belt" of
transfers and postings saw me a few years later in a beautiful bungalow
in Hoshiarpur with citrus trees that sheltered several dozen parrots.
Our neighbour was an executive engineer whose wife, Juhi, was a trendy
dresser. Her tight jeans and tank tops shocked the sedate
septuagenarians of Shimla Pahari into paroxysms of outrage. Juhi told
me how they were forced to take up a posting in "backward"
Hoshiarpur because her husband, an only son, had to be near his parents,
both heart patients living in Jalandhar. "Then why not live in
Jalandhar yourselves?" I asked her one day. "It is the nearest
location that is close enough for the dutiful son and far enough for
me," she replied with a grimace. "Never marry into a Patiala
family, I tell you. The old women are all so opinionated and
interfering`85.." she trailed off. The feeling of d`EAja vu
that pervaded the air was soon replaced by a split-second realisation.
Juhi was the junior Mrs Aneja. The conveyor belt has moved a few times
since then for both the Anejas and me. Corbusier’s Chandigarh, despite
being only 114 sq. km across, is apparently big enough for the senior
Anejas not to mind living separately from their son in the same city.
My destiny, however, seems to be irrevocably linked to these ladies,
since I often run into both Mrs Aneja and Juhi. It’s been 14 years now
and the Majha-Malwa divide is apparently cast in prejudice-ridden
concrete. They still cannot stand each other and are unashamedly vocal
about it. Perhaps one of these days I should invite them both home for
tea and let out my secret: that I have been a neighbour to both of them
at different points in time. That should hopefully stop the nooh-sass
diatribes! |
Ballistic missile defence will enhance deterrence The
Indian Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) carried out on Sunday morning (2nd December, 2007) an interception of simulated electronic ballistic missile at an altitude of 15 km over the Bay of Bengal. This was reported to be a prelude to the interception test of a live ‘target missile’ successfully conducted on 6th December. These tests are reported to be part of a development effort for a two-layered ballistic missile defence system to protect the vulnerable areas of the country from an incoming enemy missile. A year ago, the interception of a ‘target missile’ in exo-atmosphere was successfully carried out at an altitude of above 50 km. According to the scientists, the long range tracking radar, the multi-functional fire control radar, the mission control centre, mobile communication terminal and mobile launcher-fired interceptor missile all performed in close harmony. India is no doubt a long way off from ballistic missile defence. But these tests and the announcement highlight that India is ideologically and philosophically supportive of the concept of missile defence. The missile defence is one of the major international security issues on which there is very serious division of opinion. Some sections of our political opinion have criticised India’s stand on missile defence as one of the issues in which India has chosen to align itself with the US. There have been objections to Indian scientists getting briefed on missile defence by visiting US teams. It is therefore necessary for Indians to have a clear idea on what should be the Indian stand on missile defence in the light of Indian security imperatives. India was opposed to missile defence in the sixties when first, the Soviet Union and then US started their initial missile defence programmes. Early seventies saw the conclusion of the Anti-ballistic missile (ABM) treaty, the first bilateral arms control measure between US and USSR, India welcomed the treaty. In early 1980s President Reagan called for new ballistic missile defence, popularly known as ‘Star -wars’ and exhorted the scientists to make the nuclear weapons “impotent and obsolete”. The massive US effort did not produce desired results and after billions of dollars of expenditure and more than a decade and half of effort the programme was wound up by President Clinton. Meanwhile the Cold War ended. Both US and Russia carried out significant reductions in arsenals and even declared to have detargeted their missiles on each other. By end ‘90s there were new pressures on US President to restart the missile defence. It was argued that while “Star-wars” was infeasible against an adversary like the Soviet Union, which could attack with thousands of warheads, the new technologies under development could provide effective defence against small scale attacks by “rogue” states such as North Korea and Iran. While President Clinton allowed the R&D to go forward President Bush decided on scrapping the ABM treaty and deployment of Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) in Alaska against an ostensible North Korean missile threat. When this was announced in 2001 the reaction of the Indian Foreign Minister, Jaswant Singh, was to welcome the defensive orientation in the doctrine spelled out. On scrapping the ABM treaty the Indian stand was it should not be done unilaterally. Subsequently, left with no alternative, Moscow reconciled itself to the abrogation of the first bilateral arms control treaty. Even as the R&D on BMD proceeded forward, it was obvious that it could be effective only against low density attacks. Meanwhile Russia developed a new Topol-M missile with a maneuverable warhead which could penetrate the BMD technology currently under development. As of now there is no US BMD which could stop a Russian missile. Yet the US has come forward with a provocative proposal of a BMD based in Poland and Czech republic, ostensibly meant against North Korean and Iranian attacks against Western Europe. Russia countered it by offering its own Radar in Azerbaijan which could monitor Iranian missiles. But the US has rejected the Russian proposal. The US aim appears to be to induce a sense of a Russian missile threat in Eastern Europe and cast itself in the role of a protector. Understandably Russia opposes this. The Russian objection is not to BMD per se but to erection of BMD in Poland and Czech Republic in a move to create tension between Europe and Russia. On this issue, there is no doubt the US move is a tension-creating one and India cannot support it. But a distinction has to be made between development of BMD technology for defensive purposes where needed, and provocative policies. There can be no doubt that BMD is under development in Russia and China. India needs BMD mainly because Pakistan whose nuclear weapon strategy is India-specific has armed itself with a whole range of intermediate, medium and shortrange nuclear capable missiles from China and North Korea. Many international observers as well as Indian strategists feel that at present, even as the Indian missile programme is under development, Pakistan has acquired a larger missile arsenal than India. Credible minimum deterrent is based not only on warheads (on which there is a lot of attention) but also on the number of delivery systems available. Part of deterrence can be generated by acquiring capability to intercept an enemy’s missiles and thereby subjecting him to uncertainty as to how many of his missiles will get through. Since Pakistan has a first-use doctrine and India a no-first-use doctrine, it is rational for India to enhance its deterrence vis-à-vis Pakistan by acquiring missile interception capability. Among countries which have limited arsenals (in hundreds and not in thousands) uncertainty about their delivery vehicles reaching their targets is a very crucial component of deterrence. Therefore our missile defence policy originates from our own security imperatives as it does for US, Russia, China and Israel. The conventional wisdom that missile defence leads to an arms race was based on Cold War logic which was based on the premise a nuclear war involving thousands of warheads was feasible and deterrence was based entirely on assured destruction of human civilization. Today there is widespread realisation that a nuclear war can not be won and uncertainty can be a significant factor in deterrence at lower levels of nuclear arsenals BMD was illogical during the Cold War era but makes sense in the present situation. |
|
The nuclear red line in Iran
By
deflating so much of the hyperbole around the issue, the National Intelligence Estimate offers an opportunity to end the international stalemate with Tehran. Having just returned from a series of meetings with high-level Iranian officials, including their top nuclear negotiator, I think the outlines of a deal are clear. Led by the United States and the European Union, with Russia and China cautiously supportive, the international community has until now been fixated on preventing Iran from acquiring any capacity to enrich uranium and thus to make nuclear fuel for civilian or military purposes. Iran argues that such a red line has no basis in the Non-Proliferation Treaty and is unjustifiably discriminatory. Tehran continues to stare down the U.N. Security Council, shrugs off sanctions and refuses to negotiate any intrusive inspection regime that would enable it to be trusted when it denies having intentions to create nuclear weapons. The international community is entitled to stay nervous, given Iran’s long history of undeclared activity and the many disturbing and provocative statements of its president. But all the signs are – and I heard nothing to the contrary in Tehran – that Iran will simply not budge on its “right to enrich.” That means an indefinite continuation of the standoff, with minimal Iranian cooperation on regional issues of immense concern – including Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and the role of Hamas and Hezbollah – and minimal confidence internationally in Iran’s ultimate nuclear intentions. The new intelligence assessment gives us the chance to break out of this impasse. What the international community really wants is for Iran to never produce nuclear weapons. The red line that matters is the one at the heart of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, between civilian and military capability. If Iran’s neighbors, including Israel, and the wider world could be confident that that line would hold, it would not matter whether Iran was capable of producing its own nuclear fuel. That line will hold if we can get Iran to accept a highly intrusive monitoring, verification and inspection regime that goes well beyond basic Non-Proliferation Treaty safeguards, which already apply, and includes both the optional additional inspection measures available under that treaty as well as tough further measures. Iran would also need to build confidence by agreeing to stretch out over time the development of its enrichment capability and to have any industrial-scale activity conducted not by Iran alone but by an international consortium. Although Iran will hold out for as much as it can get and for as long as it can, it is capable of being persuaded. This will require a mixture of incentives (including the lifting of sanctions and the normalization of relations with the United States) and disincentives (the threat of further sanctions and worse, if it crosses the military-program red line). But negotiations won’t go anywhere if the United States and European Union continue to insist on zero enrichment. In Iran two weeks ago, I heard nothing from anyone, in or out of government, to suggest that any member of the current power elite thought the benefits of a nuclear weapons program – including for deterrence or asserting regional authority – could possibly outweigh the costs. There was an acute awareness of the military, economic and further reputational risks that the country would run if it moved even a toe in that direction. Iran’s economic arguments for domestically producing, rather than buying, fuel for a civilian nuclear program have never been very persuasive, and they sounded no better on this occasion. But the psychological arguments I heard were a different story: This is a country seething with both national pride and resentment against past humiliations, and it wants to cut a regional and global figure by proving its sophisticated technological capability. One only wishes that something less sensitive than the nuclear fuel cycle had been chosen to make that point. Unconditional negotiations aimed at achieving “delayed limited enrichment with maximum safeguards” rather than the failed policy of “zero enrichment” can produce a win-win outcome. Such negotiations won’t be easy to start or conclude, given the parties’ long-held public positions. But if the objective is to ensure that Iran won’t backslide and be newly tempted to go down the nuclear weapons road, this is the only way to go. The writer, a former foreign minister of Australia, is president of the International Crisis Group. By arrangement with
LA Times-Washington Post |
|
Delhi Durbar The
debate on the nuclear deal in the Rajya Sabha saw DMK member and party chief M. Karunanidhi’s daughter make her maiden speech. Her well-prepared speech, delivered with poise and concentration, drew applause from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and several other members. With Karunanidhi having said earlier that the deal was not worth sacrificing the UPA government, there was some curiosity about the DMK’s views on the issue during the debate. Kanimozhi said that some concerns about the deal were understandable given its complexity, but the process of resolving differences should not unsettle the government. The DMK, she said, had always supported the deal but was keen on a consensus. Networking
over dinner In the international business and trade circuit, dinner diplomacy has become the order of the day. However, sometimes, such an exercise could prove to be a little embarrassing. On the inaugural day of the India Economic Summit, organised jointly by the World Economic Forum and the CII in the national capital, RAK Investment Authority of UAE had organised a dinner meeting for the 700-odd delegates attending the summit, and the Special Guest was Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath. The participants at the dinner meeting were so engrossed in their chat with fellow delegates sharing their table that the inaugural address by the RAK Investment Authority Chief could not be even heard. As the organisers were feeling embarrassed, World Economic Forum Founder and Executive Chairperson Klaus Schwab made a bold and emphatic intervention to restore order. “Ladies and gentlemen, Do you want to listen to Kamal Nath or not? If yes, then you will have to remain silent,” he said. Afghan band The band from Afghanistan stole the show at the just concluded three-day SAARC Bands Festival. It featured a different genre of music, compared to what was dished out by various bands, from the heavy metal type from Sri Lanka to the popular Indian movie music by the famed band of Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy. But the march in the festival was stolen by the Aryan band from Afghanistan, which was travelling out of its country for the first time ever, following the overthrow of the Taliban regime. Formed by a bunch of students three years ago, the band was the cynosure of all the media as its members had various incidents to share of how music was slowly coming back into the lives of the Afghans, who could not even possess a music cassette during the Taliban regime. However, what made the Aryan Band reach out to the large audience was their rendition of a popular Hindi movie song. It had the entire crowd rocking and wanting more from the band. It reflected the Indian influence on the rebuilding of Afghanistan in the post-Taliban
era. Contributed by Prashant Sood, S Satyanarayanan and Girja Shankar Kaura
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
