O P I N I O N S

EDITORIALS

Skating on thin ice
Kayani may take U-turn on Haqqanis
Pakistan Army Chief Gen Ashfaque Parvez Kayani’s so-called warning that the US must “think 10 times” before launching any unilateral military offensive in North Waziristan shows growing desperation in Islamabad.

Curbing money in polls
New guidelines inspire some hope
THE Election Commission’s recently-released guidelines on the use of money in the upcoming assembly elections in five states are a positive initiative to check suspicious transactions and must, therefore, be welcomed.

Lonely and poor
Schemes must cater to rural single women
Contrary to the popular perception that single women are an empowered lot, the harsh reality is that a majority of them in India find the going tough. More so in rural areas where they have to constantly battle not only societal prejudices but also have to fight for survival.

• Thought for the Day

ARTICLE

Obama’s Af-Pak strategy hits dead end
Need to look for a suitable alternative
by Zorawar Daulet Singh
Disillusionment and paralysis in Washington over its Afghan war has touched new highs. To the rest of the region, this frustration sounds strange because President Obama’s Af-Pak policy was flawed from the outset.

MIDDLE

An ode to seminars
by Sunit Dhawan
Attending seminars and conferences is part of a scribe’s job, and hence applies to yours truly as well. Such occasions are usually monotonous for the gathering, though at times, one gets to hear some quotable quotes and “reproducible” couplets from the learned speakers (sometimes even from the comperes).

OPED — WORLD

When people took back power
More than city squares are being occupied. What is being reoccupied is a sense of collective possibility
Laurie Penny
Something enormous happened on October 15 night. In over a thousand towns and cities around the world, people from all walks of life took to the streets and occupied the squares in an international “day of action” against austerity and corporate greed.

Wide support for anti-Wall Street protests
Paul Thomasch
Anti-Wall Street protests have won broad support among New York City voters, who would verwhelmingly favour tougher regulations on the financial industry, new poll results showed on Monday.

Tension over inequalities is escalating
Protests against economic inequality and alleged Wall Street greed have spread across the US. The demonstrators have not issued a precise list of demands, but here is an examination of some of their complaints.

EDITORIALS

Skating on thin ice
Kayani may take U-turn on Haqqanis

Pakistan Army Chief Gen Ashfaque Parvez Kayani’s so-called warning that the US must “think 10 times” before launching any unilateral military offensive in North Waziristan shows growing desperation in Islamabad. US-led NATO forces in Afghanistan have already begun their “Knife Edge” operation and may anytime go ahead with their plan to eliminate the Haqqani network of the Taliban, which carried out the recent suicide attack on the US Embassy in Kabul and assassinated top peace negotiator and former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani. How the US will accomplish the task remains to be seen. But it is making every effort to force Pakistan to see reason. The US cannot afford to allow the most ruthless Taliban faction to survive as the Haqqani issue may adversely affect President Barack Obama’s efforts for a second term in the White House. If Pakistan refuses to read the writing on the wall it must get ready to suffer the consequences of its army promoting the Haqqani extremists.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Islamabad appears to be aimed at telling Pakistan that it has to choose between a NATO crippling action and the safety of the Haqqani network, promoted for ensuring elusive strategic depth. It is not difficult to make a choice if the ruling establishment in Islamabad, including its top General, is not blinded by its being a “nuclear power”. Under the circumstances, it seems Pakistan may take a policy U-turn on the Haqqani issue as the then President and Army Chief, Gen Pervez Musharraf, did in the case of the Taliban in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attack on New York’s Trade Towers.

There are indications that Islamabad will ultimately bow to the US pressure in the larger interest of Pakistan. One should read closely what General Kayani said after brandishing his nuclear weapons: “We have made it clear to the US that we will decide the timing of any such action according to our situation and capabilities.” He is no less clever that General Musharraf. But the top Pakistani General has to take care of the reaction of the local public to his government’s positive response to the US. Hence some drama for public consumption.

Curbing money in polls
New guidelines inspire some hope

THE Election Commission’s recently-released guidelines on the use of money in the upcoming assembly elections in five states are a positive initiative to check suspicious transactions and must, therefore, be welcomed. It is indeed refreshing to see a new eagerness on the commission’s part to curb excessive use of money in general and black money in particular because it is this splurge during the election process that is at the root of much of the corruption in the country’s body politic. The Income Tax Department and the Financial Intelligence Unit have been roped in to keep tabs on poll expenditure in the poll-bound states of UP, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur. Directives were recently issued by the Election Commission to the chief electoral officers of these states to create a data bank of doubtful transactions and dubious movement of cash on the basis of information provided by these departments.

Significantly, the EC, for the first time, has asked the Financial Intelligence Unit, functioning under the Finance Ministry, to sift through their records for information about the assets and liabilities of candidates participating in the polls. The FIUs receive regular Suspicious Transaction Reports and Cash Transaction Reports from banks, insurance companies and intermediaries as per regulations stipulated under anti-money laundering laws. These have largely been ignored until now but may now be used to nail errant candidates. Judging by the ease with which vested interests nullify most well-meaning moves, the monitors will need to be monitored too. There is talk of the filing of wrong accounts by candidates being made punishable by disqualification from contesting elections for three years. This must be duly adopted and pursued with vigour and impartiality.

The Election Commission’s measures to curb the menace of paid news are also well-intentioned. As per the guidelines, all state chief electoral officers will now have to obtain a list of all TV and radio channels and newspapers in the state as well as their standard advertisement rate cards six months before the term of the Lok Sabha or the State Assembly expires. The media certification and monitoring committee at district and state levels will be required to monitor all political advertisements in relation to candidates, “either overt or covert.” The signals from the Election Commission are promising. But these would need to be accompanied by a strong political will and a system of sharp judicial scrutiny and speedy deliverance of justice.

Lonely and poor
Schemes must cater to rural single women

Contrary to the popular perception that single women are an empowered lot, the harsh reality is that a majority of them in India find the going tough. More so in rural areas where they have to constantly battle not only societal prejudices but also have to fight for survival. Further proof of the sorry plight of single women in villages comes with a comprehensive survey according to which 75 per cent of the sampled women live on less than minimum daily wages in their states. What is even more appalling is that while only 21 per cent of them are recognised as poor, the government schemes meant to ameliorate their lot hardly reach them.

The challenges that single women (which also includes legally divorced, separated and widowed) face are manifold. They are not only more vulnerable as both physical and financial insecurity stalks their existence but often face overt discrimination. That many of them are not listed as head of the families despite being providers makes matters worse. Many of their problems are often overlooked. For instance, it’s often forgotten that many single women have children who need to be looked after. Then the concerns of above 60 single women too need to be addressed.

Sadly, the 36 million single women in India (according to the 2001census) numbering more than the population of Canada do not seem to figure on the government agenda. But for the pressure groups that have in recent times been airing their grievances, the voice of this invisible class may not have been heard at all. The National Forum for Single Women formed to look into the interests of single women has done commendable work and even helped many of the destitute women get ration and BPL cards in their own names. While NGOs can and have made a vital difference in bringing to the fore the problems of this marginalised section of society, the government can’t be a mute spectator. The least it must do is to ensure that the social security schemes reach these needy women without any hiccups. Single women deserve a rights-based approach to their predicament.

Thought for the Day

An empty stomach is not a good political adviser.

— Albert Einstein

ARTICLE

Obama’s Af-Pak strategy hits dead end
Need to look for a suitable alternative
by Zorawar Daulet Singh

Disillusionment and paralysis in Washington over its Afghan war has touched new highs. To the rest of the region, this frustration sounds strange because President Obama’s Af-Pak policy was flawed from the outset.

To eradicate radicalism in Afghanistan and Pakistan, a purely counter-terrorism mission could not have worked, at least in the initial phase. In the tumultuous political setting where state sovereignty has been eroded over the decades, or, as we know in Pakistan’s borderlands, has never even been established, neutralising terrorism requires some element of state building on both sides of the Durand Line. Thus, the Afghan question logically evolved into a counter-insurgency mission that could only be fulfilled via a limited nation-building project.

Yet, the massive boots required for such a strategy have not been deemed domestically sustainable in the West. This mismatch of ends and means led directly to the heart of the problem - adopting a counter-insurgency strategy that depended on the collaboration of Pakistani boots across the Durand Line. In this sense, the American geostrategy has clearly been Pakistan-centric.

The next challenge before the American planner was to persuade Pakistan to abandon its hedging strategy of supporting proxy militias on their western front. Normalising Pakistani threat perceptions, therefore, became a logical extension of the Afghan strategy.

How did the US respond to this reshaping of Pakistani threat perceptions? This involved cajoling India to reassure Pakistan. Here India’s restraint and reassurance has been stretched to the limit. Nevertheless, we have seen that reassurance that satisfies Pakistan if taken to its logical conclusion implies outright capitulation by its immediate neighbours. The US also directly reassured Pakistan by signalling a long-term commitment to address Pakistan’s fear of abandonment, and provided capacity-building support to help Islamabad help itself.

Changing Pakistan’s worldview and reconstruction of its identity, however, has proved impossible for three reasons. First, lack of intent - Pakistan has been reluctant in fully cooperating as a hammer to the American anvil to break the back of the insurgency. It hopes to retain some leverage via the Afghan Taliban factions not only for future Afghan outcomes but also in ensuring that Pakistan’s 27 million Pashtuns do not create a blowback for the Pakistani state. In fact, it is Pakistan’s Pashtun problem that is the principal driver for its “strategic depth” policies, which are then legitimised by the “India threat”.

Second, lack of capacity - an important assumption was the Pakistani state, including its military, had the capacity and discipline to prosecute a counter-insurgency strategy, which to be politically useful must be followed up with an administrative absorption of the ungoverned frontier regions into the Pakistani state. Again, Pakistan has not demonstrated sovereign governance capabilities to “hold and build” western Pakistan.

Third, an ideational paralysis - the objective of the permanently changing Pakistani calculus presumed that Pakistan’s political-military elite could change course by dismantling their strategic reliance on radical Islam. And this in turn presumed that Pakistan would be able to substitute the diabolical use of Islam and ideologically reinvent itself as a normal nation-state with normal threat perceptions.

This was always a tall order because it implied an ambitious geopolitical reconstruction of the South Asian security system and body politic. Ironically, what the post-transition phase actually needs is a predictable transactional relationship between the US and Pakistan where all western aid is conditioned on sustained anti-terror measures by Pakistan against groups targeting the international community.

Now if a Pakistan-centric approach has reached a dead-end, we need to have a relook at what can be done differently on the Afghan side of the equation.

First, western discourse focuses on breaking the link between Al-Qaida and the Taliban so that the latter can be accommodated in a power-sharing arrangement in Afghanistan. But to execute this top-down reconciliation strategy would require Pakistani intent, capacity and real governance being extended to the tribal areas and the safe havens in western Pakistan. The prospect of this happening is structurally nearly impossible.

But what about pursuing an alternative strategy that can actually be implemented from within Afghanistan? Breaking the Pashtun link from the Taliban or at least de-legitimising the narrative that the Taliban factions are the sole voice for the Afghan Pashtun is something that has not been pursued seriously. The main reason for this is the US strategic establishment has held on to the optimistic scenario that Pakistan would ultimately emerge as an intermediary in a grand top-down bargain with the Taliban confederacy.

An Afghan state that possesses a modicum of institutional capabilities supplemented with a wider patronage system and security for the southern and eastern Pashtuns can make it harder for the Taliban to sustain Pashtun allegiance, at least on the Afghan side of the Durand Line. So, instead of outsourcing the Pashtun problem to Pakistan, which in turn outsources it to radical proxies, rebalancing institutions within Afghanistan and giving them a pan-ethnic inclusive expression would help. Here rebalancing the ethnic composition of the Afghan national security forces to increase the share of Pashtuns would help in widening the legitimacy of the Afghan state.

The second is to consider what can be done on the Afghan side of the Durand Line to promote Pakistani behaviour that is evidently in its self-interest.

A strong “anvil” on the Afghanistan side, including a robust intelligence, surveillance and defence on key border passes, would imply that Pakistani inaction and intransigence over its Pashtun areas would hurt Pakistani interests more than Afghanistan. This is more likely to adapt Pakistani behaviour - become the “hammer” or face the prospect of getting even more destabilised itself. At the very least, this would produce a structural reaction rather than waiting for Pakistan to unilaterally change the way it deals with western Pakistan and its 27 million Pashtuns.

Finally, a sincere diplomatic effort at bringing Afghanistan’s other neighbours like Russia and Iran into the equation offers an alternative path. Russia’s role in expanding the northern logistical route to Afghanistan as an alternative to the one from Karachi underscores that it prefers a cooperative role. Iran, which shares a 936-kilometre border with Afghanistan, too, has a vital interest in stability. According to the 2011 United Nations Drug Report, Iran has intercepted 89 per cent of all the seized opium worldwide on its eastern border. India’s modest but well-executed reconstruction effort has endeared it to all sections of Afghanistan. In sum, the region has provided more tacit and actual support to Afghan stability than is generally recognised.

Washington can leverage these national efforts to promote a wider burden sharing aimed at a common goal for Afghanistan. A geopolitically neutral, inclusive and a minimally capable Afghanistan that is neither a breeding ground for terrorism nor a potential power-projection bridgehead would be acceptable to all stakeholders.

The Bonn Conference this December is an apt forum for course correction.

The writer is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Policy Alternatives, New Delhi.

MIDDLE

An ode to seminars
by Sunit Dhawan

Attending seminars and conferences is part of a scribe’s job, and hence applies to yours truly as well. Such occasions are usually monotonous for the gathering, though at times, one gets to hear some quotable quotes and “reproducible” couplets from the learned speakers (sometimes even from the comperes).

These events are organised with the solemn objective of enabling the organisers to impress the persons of eminence, who are invited as the main speakers. This also helps in efficient utilisation of funds meant to benefit the people at large.

The venue is spruced up, plant-pots are strategically placed and the ceremonial lamp lying in the storeroom gets an opportunity to inhale some fresh air. Some enthusiastic organisers also get a “rangoli” made at the entrance for a special effect.

The junior staffers are made to run around, which gives a busy look to the venue’s ambience. Mineral-water bottles are placed before the demigods adorning the dais, while the minor fact that the lesser mortals among the participants may also feel thirsty is conveniently overlooked.

Apart from other privileges and ego-massages, the guests of honour also get a captive audience comprising self-styled intellectuals, (mostly retired) government servants and journalists who do not have some other worthwhile engagement at the given time.

The speakers try to sound as impressive as possible, and most of them use high-sounding, flowery and bombastic words and expressions in their speeches. Needless to say, they do not mean what they say, and do not practice what they preach.

I was once attending a seminar on energy conservation. The speakers stressed the significance of saving electricity and suggested using non-conventional and renewable sources of power.

During the course of discussion, I pointed out that the seminar was being held in an air-conditioned and electrically illuminated hall, though it was a sunny winter day and much energy could have been saved had we sat in the vast lawns.

A scholarly dignitary at once told me that this idea was not found to be viable. 

One fine day, I was invited to a seminar at a state-run training institute. The speakers included top government functionaries, veteran journalists, legal luminaries, academicians, and so on.

In the midst of discussions, rumours about the arrival of the Chief Minister kept on erupting. The head of the institute, who happened to be a fairly senior administrative officer, rushed out on each such tip-off.

My heart was filled with deep regard for the Chief Minister when I was told that he had been visiting his supporters while the so-called pillars of democracy waited for him at the seminar.

I also looked at the respectable members of civil society attending the seminar with a new-found respect for their spineless humility: They modestly let themselves be treated as subjects of politicians, who are not necessarily even literate, let alone being educated.

It is heartening to note that despite knowing the real character of today’s legislators better than any other segment of society, the executive, media and judiciary themselves get awed and intimidated by them.

What, after all, is the value of petty things like dignity and self-respect when one aims for substantial material gains?

OPED — WORLD

When people took back power
More than city squares are being occupied. What is being reoccupied is a sense of collective possibility
Laurie Penny

‘Occupy Wall Street’ protesters demonstrate at the “Sankofa Day” rally against the slave labour that built Wall Street, in Zuccotti Park, near Wall Street in New York recently. — Reuters

Something enormous happened on October 15 night. In over a thousand towns and cities around the world, people from all walks of life took to the streets and occupied the squares in an international “day of action” against austerity and corporate greed. In Madrid, I watched 60,000 stamp and cheer in Puerta del Sol as protesters took over a nearby building and dropped a banner reading “Somos El 99%” (“we are the 99 per cent”), a slogan from the Occupy Wall Street movement which has become a mantra for new global resistance.

As thousands streamed into the main square of the Spanish capital, a projector was showing hundreds facing down police to camp outside the London Stock Exchange. Protest, like profit, has become globalised.

The fact that politicians and pundits are asking what all these people want can be considered a victory for the “occupy everywhere” movement. It’s not a question many in public life have seemed much concerned with in the past decade.

What commentators fail to understand is that occupation is itself a demand. It’s a new, practical politics for those disillusioned with representative democracy, which demonstrators claim is a private club run by the rich, for the rich.

The recolonisation of public space, the forming of alternative communities based on direct democracy where people can meet and realise a common struggle, is an act of defiance with its own solution to the alienation and frustrations of life under capitalism. Those who attend occupations with individual grievances stay because they want to belong to a community built on mutual aid and shared values.

As political ambitions go, “occupy everywhere” is hardly modest. It is fitting that the most notable showdown of Saturday night took place in New York’s Times Square, where thousands of peaceful protesters clashed with mounted police under the glow of giant electric billboards in this temple to corporate power.

What is being occupied is far more than a few public squares for a few weeks. What’s being reoccupied is the collective political imagination, and a sense of collective possibility — beyond nationalism, beyond left and right — as millions of people lose faith in mainstream politics.

Power is not being petitioned here — it’s being reinvented. That’s what makes “occupy everywhere” so fascinating and also so exciting.

— The Independent

Wide support for anti-Wall Street protests
Paul Thomasch

Anti-Wall Street protests have won broad support among New York City voters, who would verwhelmingly favour tougher regulations on the financial industry, new poll results showed on Monday. 67 per cent of those who responded to a Quinnipiac University survey said they agreed with the Occupy Wall Street protesters, who are upset that banks were allowed to earn huge profits after being bailed out during the recession, while average Americans remained under financial strain. An even wider margin, 87 per cent, agreed with the protesters’ right to camp out in Lower Manhattan, as long as they obeyed the law. The movement began staging rallies more than a month ago.

Support for the protests was split down party lines, with 81 per cent of the Democrats saying they backed them, while only 35 per cent of Republicans said so.

The protests have spread across the country and moved overseas over the weekend. While most rallies were relatively small, violence flared in Rome where tens of thousands of people came into the streets.

The movement’s focal point, however, has been New York, where protests have been largely peaceful. Still, less than half of those surveyed approved of the way police have handled the demonstrations, after several episodes in which force has been used on protesters.

The largest block of voters, 37 per cent, blamed former President George W. Bush’s administration for the nation’s economic problems, while 21 per cent blamed banks. Seventy-three per cent said they would support tougher government regulation. The October 12-16 poll of 1,068 registered voters had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

— Reuters

Tension over inequalities is escalating

Protests against economic inequality and alleged Wall Street greed have spread across the US. The demonstrators have not issued a precise list of demands, but here is an examination of some of their complaints.

“We are the 99 per cent” is the rallying cry of protesters, who believe the top one per cent of Americans hold too much of the country’s wealth and should face higher taxes.

The top 1 per cent of the population held 35.6 per cent of the nation’s wealth in 2009, according to a study released in March by the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute. The same report showed that a decade earlier, in 1998, the top 1 per cent held more than 38 per cent of the wealth.

A similar study by the non-partisan Levy Institute of Economics at Bard College found the wealthiest one per cent of Americans held 34.6 per cent of the wealth in 2007.

There is too much income inequality in the US, dividing the country into a small number of haves and many have nots.

The gap between rich and poor has been gradually widening for decades. The top 5 per cent of families by income accounted for 21.7 per cent of total aggregate income in 2009, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The top 20 per cent of families accounted for 50.3 per cent of total income. The top 5 per cent held 16.6 per cent of income in 1970, the top 20 per cent held 43.3 per cent of income in 1970.

The bottom 20 per cent of households by income accounted for 3.4 per cent of income in 2009, down from 4.1 per cent in 1970.

A United Nations report showed income inequality was greater in the United States than in some other major developed economies such as Japan and Germany, but inequality was not as great as in some less developed countries such as Brazil.

The percentage of Americans living in poverty reached 15.1 per cent in 2010, up from 14.3 per cent in 2009, the fourth consecutive annual increase and the largest number in the 52 years estimates have been published.

Too many people are out of work and even well-trained people are unable to find jobs.

The national unemployment rate was 9.1 per cent in September, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. As late as April 2008 the unemployment rate was only 4.9 per cent but after the financial crisis it quickly doubled to a peak of 10.1 per cent in October 2009. It has held near double digits ever since.

The United States lost 8 million jobs during the 2007-2009 recession and only about 1.4 million of those have been regained.

The lack of jobs is particularly acute among young people. with the unemployment rate for ages 20-24 at 14.7 per cent in September. The unemployment rate also is higher for minorities such as Hispanics and African Americans, and for military personnel returning from wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Unemployment also is higher for less skilled workers than for those with a college degree.

The unemployment figures compiled by the government do not include people who have become discouraged and have stopped looking for work.

Banks caused the global financial crisis and were bailed out by the US government. Now they are making huge profits and are back to getting fat bonuses.

The U.S. government spent $413 billion on its bank bailout fund, called TARP, after the 2008 crisis, of which $314 billion has been recovered by taxpayers, according to the US Treasury Department. The government spent another $245 billion investing in 700 troubled financial institutions to prop them up and received $256 billion back, so it made a profit on that program.

Bank profits were $28.8 billion in the second quarter of 2011 at FDIC-insured banks, up 37.9 per cent from the previous year and the eighth consecutive quarter that industry profits improved year-over-year, according to the FDIC.

Profits are expected to be up about 2 per cent in the third quarter compared with a year earlier, according to Thomson Reuters Proprietary Research. Banks begin reporting those results on Thursday.

Cash bonuses paid to Wall Street employees for work done in 2010 declined 7.5 per cent to $20.8 billion, according to a report released by the New York State Comptroller on Tuesday. Bonuses for work done in 2011 are expected to fall again, according to the report.

SOURCES: U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Treasury Department, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Levy Institute of Economics, Economic Policy Institute, United Nations, Thomson Reuters Proprietary Research, New York State Comptroller.

— Reuters