The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Actor Shiney’s conviction
Need to deal firmly with perjury in rape cases

Bollywood actor Shiney Ahuja’s conviction by a Mumbai fast track court for rape and a punishment of seven years rigorous imprisonment will send a strong message to the people that those found guilty of this heinous crime, however high or influential they may be, will not escape punishment.

Though the 20-year-old victim, who was Shiney’s domestic help, had retracted her earlier statement accusing him of having committed rape and told the court that they had “consensual sex”, the court relied on circumstantial evidence and convicted the actor. The DNA report was positive; the victim’s hymen was torn; there were blood marks on the victim’s clothes; semen was found on the quilt and curtains; and Shiney’s hands bore scratch marks of the victim. All this was enough to nail the accused.

Significantly, the court noted that the June 2009 incident had taken place at Shiney’s Mumbai apartment, the victim’s clothes were torn and there was evidence to show that she had struggled before she was raped. Since the victim’s testimony has been corroborated by medical reports and circumstantial evidence, the actor could not escape conviction. The court’s acceptance of the victim’s statement before a magistrate that she was raped is yet another important factor that led to his conviction. And once the court was convinced about the statement and the evidence, it rejected her retraction 14 months after the crime and proceeded against the accused.

Given the mental trauma and suffering the domestic help had undergone, one is not inclined to seek her prosecution for perjury. However, to protect the criminal justice system from being subverted, this menace needs to be tackled urgently. Having sentenced Zahira Sheikh for perjury in the Best Bakery case in March 2006, the Supreme Court had sent a clear and loud signal to all hostile witnesses. Zahira’s one-year sentence and a fine of Rs one lakh proved that nobody can undermine the majesty of law. The importance of the word “truly” inserted in Section 161 of the Criminal Procedure Code has not been understood in the right perspective. As we were reluctant to invoke Section 340 Cr PC and 193 IPC, unscrupulous persons changed their statements at their whim. The witnesses and deponents, who file false affidavits before the court, will have to understand the sanctity of the oath. If as a law abiding citizen, one has decided to assist the law in bringing the guilty to book, then resiling from the earlier statement made during the course of judicial proceedings (which Shiney’s maid had done) should normally entail serious consequences.

Brooking no dissent
Books should be read, not banned

Mahatama Gandhi has been the subject of over 30 biographies. His collected works run into 100 volumes of around 500 pages each, and there have been numerous other books on him. Every aspect of his life, both personal and political, has been scrutinised, explored and at times exploited by many — authors, political leaders, movie makers et al.

A book that has yet to hit Indian shores, “Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and his Struggle with India”, has been written by Joseph Lelyveld, a former editor of The New York Times. The book quotes correspondence between Mahatma Gandhi and his German friend Hermann Kallenbach. The letters reflect the relationship the two had. Some reviewers say the author has called Mahatma Gandhi racist and bisexual, and this has led to calls to ban the book in India. The author, however, says his book has been ‘grossly distorted’ by the press.

It is indeed unfortunate that a book on Mahatma Gandhi, who was open to a remarkable degree about his life, is being sought to be banned by political figures who have not even read it. Such a knee-jerk reaction smacks of considerations other than the merit of the book. The Internet is often successfully used to defeat such bans, but the lesson is lost on our politicians. Judicial review has recently even set aside such a ban by Gujarat, but politicians still pander to populist sentiments by banning books that are opposed by a vocal group of people.

Mature democracies do not proscribe opinion apart from those exceptional cases when it is absolutely necessary to maintain public order. As India aims to play a significant role in the comity of nations, it cannot afford to be a democracy that stifles dissenting opinion. An author presents his point of view to the readers, who can either accept it or reject it. It is they who should decide the fate of this book, or any other for that matter.

Thought for the Day

Education... has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading. — G.M. Trevelyan

ARTICLE

Libya and the Obama doctrine
Present tense, future uncertain
by Inder Malhotra

WITH a no-fly zone firmly established in Libya, United States President Barack Obama has reduced America’s “lead role” to a mere supporting one. The command is now transferred to NATO. For its part, the US would provide intelligence and communications among the allies. It would also jam Gaddafi’s communications. What he did not say but his critics are pointing out is that prolonged stalemate might necessitate renewed American military action because the US alone has the requisite military power.

In his major policy speech, Mr Obama repeated his demand that “Gaddafi Must Go”. He reaffirmed that he stands by it, and many Americans, ironically both liberals and “neo-cons” that dislike him, are urging the President that Gaddafi, being the problem, must be got rid of immediately. However, the President has declared equally emphatically that regime change is not a part of the UN Security Council mandate or US policy. He has added that regime change would require putting ground troops on the soil of Libya. To do so would be counterproductive for it would splinter the coalition. The objective of overthrowing the Libyan dictator, he emphasised, must be achieved by “non-military means” such as political and diplomatic pressure. To devise these methods a 40-nation conference has just concluded in London.

So far, so good, but where does this lead West Asia, North Africa and the rest of the world to? Mr Obama’s ruling out of military action to oust “the tyrant” who has ruled the country for 40 years is categorical. But does everyone in the NATO-led “coalition of the willing” agree with this? There already is cause for worry on this score. Russia is a party to UNSC Resolution 1973 because – like India, China, Brazil and Germany – it abstained from voting on it but did not veto it. Yet its Foreign Minister, Mr Sergey Lavarov, has already protested that that the Western powers intervening militarily in Libya have “exceeded” the UN mandate. He has a point and others are likely to join him sooner rather than later.

For, the NATO warplanes continue to bomb Libya well after the no-fly zone has become a reality. This bombing targets only the colonel’s army and its equipment. Such one-sided intervention in the Libyan civil war is no part of Resolution 1973. But the NATO functionaries have their varied interpretations of it. The resolution, they argue, requires the enforcement also of an arms embargo and the protection of innocent civilians by “all necessary means”. Turkey, a NATO member, has been questioning this “extension” of the UN authorisation. And this makes the pronouncements coming from NATO most intriguing. According to its Secretary-General, Mr Anders Fog Rasmussen, there are two operations going on: one, the enforcement of the no-fly zone by the alliance’s military command and the other, comprising the arms embargo and air strikes, controlled by “the coalition”.

That is where the rub lies. The two European eager beavers, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom have their own agendas that they seem determined to push through by hook or by crook. No one should forget that in the fifties of the last century, Britain and France had colluded with Israel to invade Egypt because of the nationalisation of the Suez Canal. Turkey is not alone in charging Mr Sarkozy with using the military action in Libya as a launching pad for his campaign for re-election. The irony is that until recently the French President was sucking up to the Libyan dictator. He had welcomed Colonel Gaddafi with open arms and allowed him to put up his famous tent in the gardens of Elysee Palace.

At the time of writing, Colonel Gaddafi’s army has pushed back the rebel forces that, encouraged by Western bombing, were advancing westwards and recapturing the areas they had fled earlier. No wonder, the London conference is wondering what to do next. The current idea is to provide sophisticated arms to the rebels. But, if adopted, it would evoke fierce opposition even within the coalition. World public opinion is almost certain to turn hostile. The Arab street, despite its support to Arab spring, also does not want foreigners to meddle in their affairs. The support to the West of the beleaguered Arab dictators and despots does not matter. A question that many are asking already is whether only Colonel Gaddafi’s weapons kill civilians and the weaponry of the rebels does not.

The Indian government has “regretted” the bombing of Libya and others, including the Arab League and the African Union, have condemned it. Iraq is a classic case of what happens when a foreign power tries to change a repressive regime and replaces it by democracy. Remarkably, Mr Obama drove home this lesson in his address.

To say all this is not to give Colonel Gaddafi an iota of comfort or support. That megalomaniac monster, shamelessly threatening to eliminate his opponents in Benghazi “house by house”, is wholly responsible for what has happened to his luckless country. But even enemies of democracy like him have to be fought with methods that are legitimate and democratic.

Above all, the game of promoting democracy, freedom and rule of law cannot be and must not be played with loaded dice. The record of the great and loud champions of these values is bleak all over the world, and especially in the region where the jasmine breeze is now blowing. For decades, they went on supporting reprehensible dictators and despots for selfish and cynical reasons. Now that the people of the region have risen to demand their fundamental rights, the Western powers have turned out to be selective in their reaction.

Colonel Gaddafi may be the worst of them but he is not the only autocrat to treat his people brutally. The President of Yemen, Mr Ali Abdullah Saleh, is mercilessly shooting down peaceful demonstrators by the dozens, and yet the West props him because in that country its strategic interests take precedence over its avowed values. The US believes Mr Saleh is opposed to Al-Qaeda. In Bahrain, America’s staunchest West Asian ally, Saudi Arabia, has sent its troops to snuff out the flame of democracy. In Syria, the start of peaceful demonstrations has also invited ruthless repression. The shame of Bahrain is aggravated because a 30 per cent Sunni minority oppresses and represses 70 per cent Shia majority. But this causes not the least twinge in Western conscience. Double standards and double-dealing are almost certain to boomerang some day.

MIDDLE

March of time
by P. Lal

UNCLE, I am Garima, calling from the Sector 17 bus stand. We — I mean my hubby and I — are on our way to Shimla for our honeymoon. I thought I would say hello to you.”“Oh, you are married!” my voice quivered with surprise. “How long would the bus stop?”

“Half an hour,” she replied.

“I would be there in a jiffy,” I said.

I had met her only twice before — in Delhi — the first time in 1998 and then in 2005.

A common acquaintance had taken me to her father’s house. He was an under secretary in a ministry in the government of India. She was the only child of her parents. At the time, she was 22 and was doing MA (Philosophy).

She was tall, slim, ivory complexioned, vivacious and had the gift of the gab.

Her father, in a poor state of health, wanted to see her married.

I suggested a proposal. The prospective groom, the son of a friend of mine, was 25, had done MBA, and was a probationary officer in a nationalised bank.

“Uncle, how is the boy to look at?” she asked me.

“He is okay,” I said.

“Does he look like Shah Rukh Khan?” she queried again, her expressions saying all that she wanted to hear.

“No, he looks more like THE Shah of Iran,” I teased her.

She looked confused. “That means he sports a beard,” she asked.

“No,” I tried to salvage the situation, “actually, he has a stately appearance with a pleasant personality.”

To further questions, I replied truthfully that he was stout, short and dark.

She rejected the proposal.

During a visit of mine to Delhi in 2005, the same common acquaintance took me again to their house.

Garima’s father had died by then. She was now living with her mother and had taken up a teaching assignment in a school.

She had turned 29 and had grown a little plump. However, there was no doubt she still held the reins of beauty.

The talks veered round to her marriage.I again suggested a match. The boy was tall, handsome, fair, a postgraduate in English, and son of a group B officer in a state government.

“And, what is the boy?” Garima asked me.“He is a senior assistant in a government department,” I said.“Is he an officer?” she quipped.

“No,” I clarified.She didn’t approve of the proposal.

At the bus stand, she introduced me to her husband. He was a computer-operator in the office of a private company, appeared to be in the forties, was short, bulky and ebony coloured.

As he moved to a nearby stall to order tea for us, I asked Garima: “Why did you choose him?”

“Uncle, at my age, where could I get a better guy?”

OPED defence

Threat mitigation: Going beyond just modernisation
The challenges before India are the continuation of the proxy war by Pakistan and coercion and intimidation by China. With technological advances and emerging doctrines, we need to be very clear on the nature of future wars. What is now vital is to develop the capability to perceive and mitigate emerging threats beforehand
Brig Arun Sahgal (Retd)

Russian-made T-90 tanks in Republic Day parade. Attritional platform-centric warfare approach needs a serious review during capability-based perspective planning

Every year during the budget time a great deal of debate takes place on the adequacy or otherwise of defence allocation in terms of the percentage of GDP to meet the minimum modernisation needs of the armed forces.

Response from the government as always is; money will not be a constraint to meet the genuine needs of the forces. What is unfortunately never debated or discussed adequately is what purpose is the military capability being developed for. Is the aim merely to maintain the territorial integrity of the state in a defensive construct or is it the development of hard power, in addition to soft, to secure and maximize the strategic space of "rising India' and to cope with future challenges?

Unfortunately both the propositions, i.e. territorial integrity and maximization of the nation's strategic space are interlinked, given the nature of challenges faced by India. If we were to consider the current threat perspective, Pakistan has been waging a proxy war against India with near impunity, ensuring that large numbers of Indian forces are tied down in low intensity conflict operations. In addition, Pakistan is slowly but steadily building both its conventional capability by leveraging the war on terror and the US's TINA (there is no alternative) factor on one hand, and on the strategic collusion with China on the other hand. Sino-Pak ties have seen not only the sale of conventional weapons on friendship prices but also the transfer of technology and joint projects as the recently concluded strategic dialogue between Pakistan and China would indicate.

Added to the above is the growing Sino-Pak nuclear nexus that is helping Pakistan develop its nuclear arsenal. Today Pakistan is the only nuclear weapon state that has twin weapon production lines based on enriched uranium as well as plutonium that it is producing from its Khushab I, II and subsequently III nuclear plants. This is backed by elaborate and proven missile development capability allowing it to have majority of its nuclear wraheads on missiles, thereby releasing its air force for offensive air operations. Moreover, it has a deterrent of over a 100 nuclear warheads.

In effect, it means that Pakistan continues to wage proxy war and squeeze the so called space for limited war through cultivated irrationality in terms of its nuclear war fighting doctrine as well as brinkmanship in terms of single rung escalation. Thus our ability to execute punitive strategy to deal with future acts of terror is getting incrementally restrained. What is worse, we appear to have started playing down our pro-active response doctrine (Cold Start) as can be noted from the statements from the military hierarchy.

Now let us see the situation vis-a-vis China. By all indications China is not only marching ahead in its military modernisation through primarily developing indigenous capability, but is also in the process of acquiring means to integrate military operations in all domains -- ground, air, maritime, space, cyberspace and information. It can be said to be at the threshold of acquiring real-time net-centric capabilities, backed by large standing armed forces.

Under the overall rubric of active defence, Chinese doctrinal thinking is veering toward two specific arenas. One is what the Americans call "anti-access strategy" that can also be termed as "area denial". This approach is based on the strategy enabling the technologically weak to deal with the challenge posed by the technologically superior, and designed to deny access to the US in case of intervention over Taiwan. It is a politico-military-technological thinking in terms of developing capabilities for stand-off attacks against both, the adversary’s military resources like the naval aircraft carrier-based task forces and air force assets deployed at places like Japan, South Korea and the Pacific. The overall aim is ensuring effective strategic deterrence through demonstrated capabilities such as anti-ship missiles, anti-satellite weapons, offensive and defensive use of space, direct energy and electromagnetic pulse weapons, cyber attacks and information warfare etc. The aim is to cut off vital digital links and degrade systems on which the US military capabilities are vitally dependent.

The second arena is called a "no contact war". This is a strategy aimed at political coercion through political, economic, and psychological effects —tactics apart from political and diplomatic coercion include demonstration attacks with focus on both military and non-military targets resulting in low collateral damage to maximise political gains. Targets include economic, infrastructural and communication networks aimed at producing political dislocation and coercion. Forces employed for such attacks include, theatre ballistic missiles like its CSS-6 and CSS-7, armed with manoeuvrable re-entry vehicles and short-range ballistic missiles. Precision strikes by cruise missiles, CNO (attack, defence and exploitation), information warfare and electronic warfare operations, are also to be undertaken in the backdrop of minimal force deployment that may include regular and special forces.

The entire concept of "no contact war" is aimed at striking at key points to paralyse the enemy's entire range of politico-military systems to immobilize its command structures. Possible dimensions of this approach includes "intimidation warfare", comprising military pressure or show of force i.e. actions short of war, including build up and large-scale military exercises, computer network attacks, electronic attacks, psychological operations and provocative air and naval activity.

At the high end of the intimidation spectrum is "paralysis warfare" that could include cyber warfare and electronic attacks, missile strikes, including long-range precision strikes, special operations and sabotage. All aimed at achieving a quick, decisive victory by "rapidly paralyzing command and control system and political and military nerve centers".

The major deduction emerging from above is that both Pakistan and China either singularly or in concert are engaged in what can be termed as "no contact war". One through proxy war and the other through coercion and intimidation, which includes border tensions, enlarging its footprints in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, cyber attacks, issues pertaining to issue of visas and nuclear collusion with Pakistan among others.

The basic issue how we structure our response to these challenges. Mere political response without demonstrable dissuasive deterrence capabilities of the type China is developing against the US to maximize its options, is not the answer. We need to be very clear on the nature of future wars. Current attritional platform-centric warfare needs a serious review during our capability-based perspective planning. What India needs is threat mitigating capacities and not mere weapon systems for modernisation.

The writer is a former Director, Faculty of Studies, Army War College

THE DOCTRINES OF WAR
India

The Indian Army's combat doctrine is based on effectively utilising offensive as well as defensive formations. In the case of an attack, the defensive or holding formations would contain the enemy while offensive or strike formations would counter-attack to neutralise the enemy. In the case of an Indian assault, holding formations would pin down the enemy while strike formations would launch offensives at a time and place of their choosing. The Indian Army's large size and structure ensures that it can employ several corps and independent formations for the strike role. The army is also engaged in enhancing its special forces’ capabilities, for which a new doctrine has been written. With India’s increasing global role and the requirement of protectiing India's interest in far off shores becoming important, the Indian Army and Indian Navy are jointly raising a marine brigade. Emerging doctrines cater for joint inter-service operations and the Indian Armed Forces have conducted several exercises to validate the concept of joint operations and integrated battle groups for offensive operations. A key component of India’s emerging doctrines is the ability to rapidly mobilise and execute offensive actions without crossing the enemy's nuclear-use threshold.

China

While laying emphasis on the relationship between the military and society, Chinese military doctrine views military force as merely a part of an “overarching grand strategy”. Currently, Chinese military doctrine is in a flux, but some senior officers have recently claimed that the People's Liberation Army is trying to build a force capable of attacking the enemy's structural system. Experts opine that the unique aspect of China's military doctrine is that it views everything as a weapon and believes that new technologies shape the battlefield. PLA doctrine lays a huge emphasis on information technology, electronic and information warfare, integrated satellite-based battlefield communication networks, space and aerial surveillance, and long-range precision strikes. China has very few nuclear missiles vis-à-vis Russia and major Western powers and Chinese nuclear doctrine follows a strategy of minimal deterrence capability. Some reports say that Chinese military doctrine is to maintain a nuclear force which allows it to respond to a nuclear attack, though there are indications that it could employ its nuclear arsenal in other situations also.

Pakistan

Pakistan's military orientation is totally India-centric for which it has conceived the Riposte doctrine, a “limited offensive-defence" strategy under which Pakistan, in the event of hostilities, will not wait for India to attack, but, according to expers, launch an offensive of its own along narrow fronts aimed at occupying Indian territory to a depth of 40-50 kms. Since Indian forces may not reach their maximum strength near the border for another 48-72 hours, Pakistan might gain parity or numerical superiority. Reports also state Pakistan is permanently relocating the peacetime bases of its forces closer to the border. This is so because many of Pakistan's major towns and politically and military sensitive targets lie very close to the border and it cannot afford to lose large territories. Moreover, Indian convectional superiority could lead to serious penetration inside Pakistan, with the Pakistani army being unable to maneuver to meet the threat. Counterattacking formations would then be destroyed piecemeal by numerically superior Indian forces and given its geographical shape, Pakistan could well be cut into half by an Indian attack in force. In line with the Riptose, Pakistan has created Army Reserve South, a centralised grouping of several powerful corps and equipped with assets for mechanised capability and vastly increased strategic reserves and logistic support, including ammunition and fuel, to sustain for 45 days in case of a conflict. During the 1965 war, Pakistan had only 13-day reserves, hampering its military operations, veterans recall.

— Vijay Mohan