O P I N I O N S

EDITORIALS

A new groom for Jharkhand
But people can expect little or no change
Political stability and good governance have eluded Jharkhand for the past decade and there is no reason to believe that the new power-sharing arrangement between the BJP and the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha would lead to any significant change. The BJP’s chief minister-designate, Arjun Munda, is of course younger, fitter and arguably a better administrator than JMM’s Shibu Soren. That alone, however, is highly unlikely to rescue the state.

Action on Afzal
The law must take its course speedily
Even as the Delhi Government started processing the file on the mercy petition of death row convict Afzal Guru after 16 reminders from the Union Home Ministry since 2006, Lt-Governor Tejinder Khanna has sought some clarifications, one of them being the implications of law and order in the country if he is hanged. He has also asked the government whether it is the Centre or the Delhi Government (whose Home Department is under the control of the Union Home Ministry) which should examine the law and order question.

Notices to 6 cricketers
BCCI cannot afford laxity in discipline
The notices issued by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to six Indian cricketers for a pub brawl while in West Indies for the just-concluded Twenty-20 World Cup is a classic case of closing the stable after the horses have bolted. The manner in which some leading cricketers behaved during the recent Indian Premier League tournament should have made the team management, including the BCCI, alive to the need to enforce discipline.

• Thought for the Day

ARTICLE

US not to leave Afghanistan
But hints at soft approach towards Pak Army
by K. Subrahmanyam
President Barack Obama has made it clear, contradicting the widely held view in India, Pakistan and the West, that the US has no intention to cut and run from Afghanistan in July 2011. In the joint Press briefing with President Karzai at the White House on May 12, he made it clear that the US commitment to Afghanistan was a long-term one and it was meant to ensure a stable independent Afghanistan.

MIDDLE

Their hour of agony
by B. K. Karkra
I have served with three of the elite armed forces of the country — the Army, the National Security Guard and Central Reserve Police Force. Each one of them is peerless in its field. Though I parted company with them many decades ago, I still follow them in their triumphs and travails. I often feel that I have left something of me behind with them. The highly surgical operation by the N.S.G. in Mumbai in 2008 fills me with pride. When I read about the Army casualties in Kashmir, I anxiously look for the cost they inflicted on the terrorist in turn.

THE TRIBUNE INTERVIEW

‘We will attack the trust deficit with Pakistan’
SM Krishna, External Affairs Minister
by Raj Chengappa, Editor-in-Chief
India’s External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna is always nattily dressed and has an air of calm that disarms most people that he meets. Krishna, 78, may be mild in his manners but when it comes to dealing with complex foreign policy issues or engaging with political leaders, he exhibits the right amount of gravitas, sincerity and sobriety with occasional flashes of flamboyance and humour.

EDITORIALS

A new groom for Jharkhand
But people can expect little or no change

Political stability and good governance have eluded Jharkhand for the past decade and there is no reason to believe that the new power-sharing arrangement between the BJP and the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha would lead to any significant change. The BJP’s chief minister-designate, Arjun Munda, is of course younger, fitter and arguably a better administrator than JMM’s Shibu Soren. That alone, however, is highly unlikely to rescue the state. The power-sharing arrangement has been tried and tested before in Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Jammu and Kashmir with varying degrees of success. But the crucial difference in Jharkhand is that even the JMM and the BJP taken together do not command a majority in the Assembly. The two parties will continue to depend on a smaller ally, All Jharkhand Students Union ( AJSU), to remain in power. Not surprisingly, AJSU has had the best of both worlds with three of its five MLAs enjoying ministerial berths. By allowing the BJP in the driver’s seat first, JMM has taken a calculated risk and only time will tell if the party can sustain and survive the ‘kiss of death’.

Corruption and cronyism have been the bane of the mineral-rich state, where a former Chief Minister and as many as four former ministers are languishing in jail for misusing their office and acquiring assets disproportionate to their known sources of income. They are possibly paying the price for their naivete and lack of finesse in managing their finances. All of them were, however, arrested during the spell of President’s Rule in the state last year but thereafter the JMM-led government not only opposed a CBI inquiry but also stalled the investigation. It remains to be seen how the new BJP-led government responds to rampant corruption in the grant and renewal of mining lease in the state. The fight against corruption will be the acid test for Munda.

While Soren will happily retain his seat as MP in the Lok Sabha, in case Munda does replace him next week, the latter will have to get elected to the Assembly within the next six months. It would be farcical indeed if six months later Munda gives way to another BJP leader and returns to the Lok Sabha. But with politics in the state getting bizarre by the day, one cannot entirely rule out the possibility either.

Action on Afzal
The law must take its course speedily

Even as the Delhi Government started processing the file on the mercy petition of death row convict Afzal Guru after 16 reminders from the Union Home Ministry since 2006, Lt-Governor Tejinder Khanna has sought some clarifications, one of them being the implications of law and order in the country if he is hanged. He has also asked the government whether it is the Centre or the Delhi Government (whose Home Department is under the control of the Union Home Ministry) which should examine the law and order question. Whatever may be the Sheila Dixit government’s response to this query, it clearly amounts to the administration’s apparent abdication of responsibility to enforce the rule of law. Surely, for fear of losing the vote bank, the government has been delaying action on his mercy petition.

As on today, the Centre has to decide on the mercy petitions of as many as 29 death row convicts. If Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram’s statement on Monday that all death row convicts will be treated alike is any indication, a decision on Afzal Guru will be taken up only after the Centre decides the fate of 28 petitioners. And this will take a very long time. Even the Delhi Government’s belated processing of his mercy petition is being seen as a response to fears of inordinate delay expressed when Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab of Pakistan was sentenced to death by a Mumbai court on May 6 for his involvement in the Mumbai terror attack.

Though The Tribune in principle is against capital punishment, it believes that as Afzal Guru’s crime in the 2001 Parliament Attack case is in the rarest of the rare category, it is a fit case for death sentence. Afzal was awarded death sentence by a Delhi court on December 18, 2002 after being convicted of conspiracy to attack Parliament on December 13, 2001, waging war against the country and murder. While the Delhi High Court upheld it on October 29, 2003, the Supreme Court rejected his appeal on August 4, 2005. His execution on October 20, 2006 was stayed following a mercy petition filed by his wife Tabassum. While the issue of the President’s clemency for Afzal Guru is the subject of a volatile political debate, nothing would justify the Delhi Government’s — as also the Centre’s — inexplicable delay in enforcing the rule of law in this case.

Notices to 6 cricketers
BCCI cannot afford laxity in discipline

The notices issued by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to six Indian cricketers for a pub brawl while in West Indies for the just-concluded Twenty-20 World Cup is a classic case of closing the stable after the horses have bolted. The manner in which some leading cricketers behaved during the recent Indian Premier League tournament should have made the team management, including the BCCI, alive to the need to enforce discipline. However, it then chose to look the other way. The team manager, Ranjib Biswal, whose report to the board has triggered off the notices, reportedly told senior board officials that the cricketers left their hotel rooms without permission from him on the pretext of going out for dinner. Was this the first time they did this, Mr Biswal? If not, did he take any action in the past or even report this to the higher authorities? Or is it that, finding his own position in jeopardy now, he found it prudent to pass the blame on to others?

Clearly, the cash-rich IPL did much to spoil the equilibrium of some cricketers who were looking out for fun and games. As Indian skipper Dhoni has himself indicated, late night partying was the order of the day and discipline was thrown to the winds. Interestingly, the Chandigarh police had, at that stage, sent a written complaint to the Kings IX Punjab management and the IPL authorities that Yuvraj Singh breached the security cover repeatedly to slip out of the hotel at the dead of night. There apparently were others too who breached security at various playing venues and indulged in other misdemeanours.

If some leaks from a report being prepared for the BCCI by Indian team coach Gary Kirsten are to be believed, as many as eight of those from the Indian World Cup squad were overweight and three of them were unfit for international cricket. Besides, he claims that the selectors did not bother to consult him before selecting the players. It is time the BCCI shed its obsession with money and got down to enforcing proper discipline. It needs to take a leaf out of the book of countries whose commitment to the task at hand is exemplary.

Thought for the Day

An honest politician is one who when he’s bought stays bought. — Simon Cameron

ARTICLE

US not to leave Afghanistan
But hints at soft approach towards Pak Army
by K. Subrahmanyam

President Barack Obama has made it clear, contradicting the widely held view in India, Pakistan and the West, that the US has no intention to cut and run from Afghanistan in July 2011. In the joint Press briefing with President Karzai at the White House on May 12, he made it clear that the US commitment to Afghanistan was a long-term one and it was meant to ensure a stable independent Afghanistan.

He said, “First of all, let’s be clear about what July 2011 represents. What I have said is that having put in more troops over the last several months in order to break the momentum of the Taliban, that beginning in 2011, July, we will start bringing those troops down and turning over more and more responsibility to Afghan security forces that we are building up. But we are not suddenly, as of July 2011, finished with Afghanistan. In fact, to the contrary, part of what I’ve tried to emphasise to President Karzai and the Afghan people, and also to the American people, is this is a long-term partnership that is not simply defined by our military presence. I am confident that we’re going to be able to reduce our troop strength in Afghanistan starting in July 2011, and I am in constant discussions with General McChrystal, as well as Ambassador Eikenberry, about the execution of that time frame.

“But after July 2011, we are still going to have an interest in making sure that Afghanistan is secure, that economic development is taking place, that good governance is being promoted. And so we’re going to still be putting in resources and we’re still going to be a friend to the Afghan people in their efforts to stabilise. So that’s something I want to make absolutely clear.”

This is not a new assertion .On March 28, Obama at the end of his meeting with President Karzai in Kabul was even more explicit. He said at that time, “But we also want to continue to make progress on the civilian process of ensuring that agricultural production, energy production, good governance, rule of law, anti-corruption efforts — all these things end up resulting in a Afghanistan that is more prosperous, more secure, independent; is not subject to meddling by its neighbors; a transition will be able to occur so that more and more security efforts are made by the Afghans.” These extensive quotations are emphasised because the Pakistani Army and the anti-Obama people in US have been propagating that the US will quit Afghanistan in July 2011, leaving that country to the mercy of Pakistan and its favoured factions of the Afghan Taliban. Obama has made it crystal clear that is not going to happen.

In spite of this clear assertion, there are sceptics who argue that Obama has not indicated how he will deal with a recalcitrant Pakistan and, according to their reading, the US is still dependent on the Pakistan Army to complete its mission in Afghanistan. Perhaps, anticipating such sceptics, Obama clarified, “In the past a view on the part of Pakistan that their primary rival, India, was their only concern. I think what you’ve seen over the last several months is a growing recognition that they have a cancer in their midst; that the extremist organisations that have been allowed to congregate and use as a base the frontier areas to then go into Afghanistan, that now threatens Pakistan’s sovereignty.

“Our goal is to break down some of the old suspicions and the old bad habits and continue to work with the Pakistani government to see their interest in a stable Afghanistan, which is free from foreign meddling — and that Afghanistan, Pakistan, the United States, the international community, should all be working to reduce the influence of extremists in those regions. And I am actually encouraged by what I’ve seen from the Pakistani government over the last several months. But just as it’s going to take some time for Afghanistan’s economy, for example, to fully recover from 30 years of war, it’s going to take some time for Pakistan, even where there is a will, to find a way in order to effectively deal with these extremists in areas that are fairly loosely governed from Islamabad.

“Part of what I’ve been encouraged by is Pakistan’s willingness to start asserting more control over some of these areas. But it’s not going to happen overnight. And they have been taking enormous casualties; the Pakistani military has been going in fairly aggressively. But this will be an ongoing project.” He has made it clear that converting Pakistan from India-focus to terrorist-focus is bound to be a time-consuming exercise.

Reports from Pakistan clearly indicate that the Pakistan Army, in spite of its use of air power and artillery, has not succeeded in suppressing the Pakistani Taliban. There is a fluid situation in the tribal areas where different terrorist groups, including those hitherto patronised by the Pakistan Army, tend to form opportunistic alliances and to dominate different areas and strike at different civilian and Army targets.

It is likely that the Army action in Swat and Southern Waziristan has increased the threat to the Pakistani state from the terrorist groups who are all concentrated in Northern Waziristan. The Pakistan Army is under tremendous pressure to act against the terrorist groups in North Waziristan, especially after the disclosure that the Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, was trained in that area by the Pakistani Taliban and there are linkages with the Jaish-e-Mohammed.

Contary to the popular view that the US will increasingly depend on the Pakistani Army, it appears to be more probable that the latter may have to depend increasingly on the US stepping up its drone-strikes and perhaps even covert operations.

No doubt, there is a tendency among the second-rank US officials like Mullen, Holebrooke and even McChrystal to project an image of being soft on the Pakistani Army. One must try to probe how far this is a necessary tactical posture and how far it is a deeply ingained pro-Pakistan Army attitude developed because of their sustained proximity to the Pakistan Army. But the ultimate decision maker is Obama. He talks of Pakistani cancer and its prolonged treatment, not Holebrooke, Mullen and others. We should be careful in assessing the US strategy and not go by the projections done for public relations purposes.

MIDDLE

Their hour of agony
by B. K. Karkra

I have served with three of the elite armed forces of the country — the Army, the National Security Guard and Central Reserve Police Force. Each one of them is peerless in its field. Though I parted company with them many decades ago, I still follow them in their triumphs and travails. I often feel that I have left something of me behind with them. The highly surgical operation by the N.S.G. in Mumbai in 2008 fills me with pride. When I read about the Army casualties in Kashmir, I anxiously look for the cost they inflicted on the terrorist in turn.

I had the longest tenure in the CRPF, which today is in the throes of agony, having lost many of its jawans in Dantewada. Sadly, this district in Chhattisgarh is again in the news owing to the massacre of 36 persons, including 12 Special Police Officers, by Maoists. It is not the loss of the gallant men that rankles with the CRPF personnel — the lives of all the two hundred thousand of them are on pledge to the nation. The sad part of it is that this time they could not make their martyrdom count. Their sacrifice seems to have largely in vain, and has rather attracted adverse comment from certain quarters that are hardly in the know of things.

I have commanded half a dozen battalions of this force one after the other. I never had to look back while leading operations. I always knew that my men would be following right behind me, for they are not the ones who would flee in the face of danger. They have after all fought the Pakistan and the Chinese armies in highly adverse situations, giving and drawing the first blood.

In Dantewada, however, they got little opportunity to show their mettle. Explosives laid on the road and the sudden hail of bullets from the surrounding high ground sealed their fate. This reminds me of the plight of Brigadier Dalvi`s 7th Infantry Brigade in the Thagla Ridge area of NEFA in 1962 and that of the French Army trapped at Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam in 1954. I can assure you that in their situation nobody, not even the American, Israeli and our own army would have done any better. The only question that remains to be answered is: how so many heavily armed insurgents could collect in the area without getting noticed.

Anyway, nothing much is lost so long as the will to fight is intact. Our jawans understand it well that those who live by the sword, some of them have to die by the sword. Their difficulty is that the Maoists who they face are our own people. There is, therefore, no question of carrying revenge on mind while dealing with them. They have, thus, a difficult fight on their hands indeed, but they would get even with the believers in violence soon.

The old hands like me would like to tell them that it is not possible to tear an inconvenient page from out of history. However, a few glorious ones can always be added to make it fade.

THE TRIBUNE INTERVIEW

‘We will attack the trust deficit with Pakistan’
SM Krishna, External Affairs Minister
by Raj Chengappa, Editor-in-Chief

India’s External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna is always nattily dressed and has an air of calm that disarms most people that he meets. Krishna, 78, may be mild in his manners but when it comes to dealing with complex foreign policy issues or engaging with political leaders, he exhibits the right amount of gravitas, sincerity and sobriety with occasional flashes of flamboyance and humour. The former Chief Minister of Karnataka and Governor of Maharashtra is always careful not to overshadow Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and keeps a relatively low profile. It is for these reasons that the Prime Minister chose him to be the chief interlocutor in India’s dealings with Pakistan, India’s most important foreign policy issue. Krishna announced last week that he would be travelling on his maiden visit to Islamabad on July 15 to resume the dialogue process with Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi. In his first in-depth interview after the announcement, Krishna spoke at length with Editor-in-Chief Raj Chengappa in Tehran about the rationale for re-engaging with Pakistan. The minister was there to attend the G-15 summit. Excerpts:

During the recent SAARC Summit at Thimphu, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh had free and frank discussions. They felt the only way forward to settle all outstanding concerns between our two countries was to get back to the negotiating table.

Well, when Mumbai was attacked,we had to respond to the popular sentiment, which was also the government’s sentiment. We wanted to tell Pakistan that the conspiracy for the attack was hatched in Pakistan, was executed by Pakistanis and we had clinching evidence which we provided to them to prove our point of view.. So we had to call off the composite dialogue. The government felt that under the circumstances, it was neither desirable nor acceptable for it to talk to Pakistan. Now, a year has passed and we know that Pakistan has certain difficulties internally. About Mumbai attacks, they have arrested a few persons and their trial is going on.There are many more from our list who are absconding.

The argument put to us by Pakistan was that the executive does not have any control over the judicial process. We understand and respect that. Even in India, we cannot tell the courts what to do. And we have known that the judiciary in Pakistan has been fiercely independent in recent times.

We also thought of alternatives. What were the alternatives open to India? Shall we wage a war, a limited war, localised war or go after those suspected of the Mumbai attacks? Then it would become a full-scale war. What will then happen to the subcontinent? Let us remember that we are two nuclear powers and this fact heavily weighed on Dr Manmohan Singh’s mind. So when the two leaders met in Thimphu, the tone and tenor of Pakistan created enough confidence in us. That they are serious and they do have difficulties. So we felt it was necessary for us to resume the talks. We thought political-level talks were more effective, productive and convincing than the talks at the bureaucratic levels.

The parameters of the talk are very clear and obvious. There is total distrust between our two countries. We won’t trust them, they won’t trust us. So the question arose as to what we can do to eliminate this distrust. That is the reason why Dr Manmohan Singh and Prime Minister Gilani said that we need to attack the trust deficit and they mandated that the Foreign Ministers would address this distrust, work out how to reduce it and eliminate it. And my attempt to go to Islamabad on July 15 is to make an effort to eliminate this trust deficit.

No, terror will continue to be the core issue for us even when I go to Islamabad. I will be talking to Foreign Minister Qureshi on terror, on terror instrumentalities and how those terror instrumentalities are operating from the soil of Pakistan. But at the same time, Pakistan also says they are afflicted by terror. The Taliban and other terrorist outfits are active even in Pakistan against the establishment. So, that has to be factored while making an assessment of the impact of terror on India and Pakistan.

In the light of the terror attacks they have been experiencing in their own country they are in a position to assess what terror is all about. Terrorists can strike any country anywhere and they can do it at will. That is what they have proved in Rawalpindi. That is what they have proved in Swat and various other areas. So I am sure, Pakistan would be looking at terror perhaps in the same prism with which India views it in.

We have been telling them that we have given you enough evidence to prosecute Hafiz Sayeed who is the mastermind behind the Mumbai attacks. We have the evidence and that evidence is provable in a court of law; so I think they should proceed against him. To that their answer is that they took Hafiz Sayeed in custody and tried him twice. But both the times it was the court of law which let him out of custody. But we still insist that Hafiz Sayeed is the brain behind the Mumbai attacks and he has to be brought to justice.

Well, I will not certainly at this point of time go into the details as to how we are going to solve the Kashmir problem. The Kashmir problem has been marooning us for so long and it will rather be too simplistic on my part as Foreign Minister to say that we are going to solve the Kashmir problem. But our efforts will certainly be to eliminate the prevailing distrust. The central theme of my visit to Pakistan is to make an effort to eliminate the distrust among us. I think if we succeed, something would have been achieved.

We have said that we are going to discuss every issue which can be raised by Pakistan and which can be raised by India.

During the Shimla talks, it was said that something was clinched but early that morning it did not materialise. So there are so many ifs and buts, turns and roundabouts. I will certainly not like to dwell on that.

With reference to Kashmir, India’s position is very clear. We do not have to repeat our stand which is that it belongs to the Indian Union and that the Pakistan is in illegal possession of certain parts of Jammu and Kashmir, which really belong to India according to the Constitution. That is our stated position.

I am going to Islamabad in about a month’s time so it is rather delicate to spell it out.

It is too early in the day for us to be looking at tension points. It will be on the table if Pakistan raises it.

Well, we have the Indus Water Treaty and the Indus Water Commission. The experts met recently in Delhi. If Pakistan has any concerns, those can always be referred to the Commission or to the committee of experts. So that is why we have said that on water, or anything else, we are willing to talk. According to me, with reference to water issues, there is already a mechanism which is in place and this can always be applied.

I do not think Balochistan is an issue any more. They have not given us any proof about India’s involvement in Balochistan. In the absence of proof, it would not be fair to accuse India. The Indian Government’s position is that we will not interfere in the internal affairs of Pakistan..

Safeguarding India’s national interest, safeguarding India’s security, safeguarding India’s sovereignty is supreme in our minds. It is beyond any compromise and I do not think that anybody could make that kind of a charge against us. But at the same time, we would like to have friendly relations with our neighbours. This is our twin approach towards Pakistan. One is that India’s
national interest will be intact and secondly we would have friendly and cordial relations with Pakistan and with all the neighbours of India.

I think when NDA was in power they did talk to Pakistan and they took a lot more days talking to Pakistan then we have done in the six years of UPA rule. So they need to look at it from the larger perspective of our neighbourhood. The larger perspective is how long are we going to keep on fighting? I think we will have to talk to Pakistan and come to an understanding with them because that will be in our interest and that will be in their interest and in the interest of all our neighbours as well.