The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Deferring Lokpal Bill
More to it than meets the eye

IT is a shame that the anti-corruption legislation that had been resurrected after 42 years in hibernation by Anna Hazare’s movement for reform has been referred to a select committee of the Rajya Sabha in a manner that raises suspicions about the Manmohan Singh Government’s intentions. By the look of things, the bulk of the Opposition acquiesced in the move to virtually put this legislation on the setting up of the Lokpal in cold storage. This included the BJP which had taken a high moral ground during the earlier debate on the bill during the extended winter session. Leader of Opposition Arun Jaitley did express unhappiness but the BJP as a party evidently voted with the Treasury benches when a voice vote was taken to refer the bill to a select committee. The Bill was introduced at the fag end of the Rajya Sabha session fuelling suspicions that it was not seriously intended to be passed in this session.

The overwhelming public response that anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare had initially evoked in his movement for framing a Lokpal Bill and going through with it had indeed rattled the ruling dispensation as well as the Opposition parties. The speed with which the move was followed up made one feel that after all the wait of 42 years, the Bill would finally be passed. However, as the movement lost its steam in the wake of some leading lights of Anna’s crusade being found to have not followed the high standards of probity that they expected from others, the Government apparently found that it was off the hook on the issue.

It would indeed be grave folly on the part of politicians in general to feel that the Lokpal Bill is no longer a hot issue with the people. The groundswell of anger against rampant corruption is still very strong and could spill on to the streets if there is a charismatic leader who seeks to build up a movement against it like Anna Hazare did. Instead of dragging its feet over the bill the UPA must come up with a strong legislation that re-establishes faith in its avowed claim of wanting a cleaner public life.

Women to the fore
A silver lining in Haryana

With an abysmal sex ratio and unenviable track record on gender equality, it is indeed heartening to know that more and more women are joining the police force in Haryana. Even more reassuring is the news that 930 women constables who have recently passed out from the Police Academy, have been entrusted with the responsibility of security of National Capital Region. That many of these women have fought against odds and adversity is a reflection of changing attitudes in that section of society which has so far relegated women to the margins.

Till not too long ago women in uniform were a rare sight. But today while absolute equality in the armed forces might still be eluding women, the Army has opened its doors for the fair sex. Besides, the Border Security Force has an all woman battalion and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police too has its women contingent. Gujarat is training its first women intelligence officers. Haryana not only intends to increase the strength of women constables to 10 per cent but also enhance the number of all-women police units across the state. Whether it would lead to lesser crime against women per se, however, remains to be seen.

In fact, the argument that the deployment of more women constables will ensure the safety of women itself is misplaced. Women may have stormed what was considered a male bastion till now but women police personnel themselves have to fight prejudices and bias firmly entrenched in the Indian male psyche. Gender sensitisation of the entire police force is what is needed and could go a long way in checking crimes related to women. Even in cities like Gurgaon considered unsafe for women it has been observed that women turn to the police in their hour of crisis. This trust has to be built further, irrespective of the gender of the police personnel. That is not to say that women in police are not welcome. Women have been occupying unassailable positions of power in various domains, yet until a trickle-down effect happens, involving various strata of society, women empowerment will remain a chimera.

Thought for the Day

Your life is what your thoughts make it. — Marcus Aurelius

ARTICLE

Signalling strategic deterrence
Chinese link to Pak N-programme
by Arundhati Ghose

Signalling has been an intrinsic part of human communication — at interpersonal and international levels — to send messages to the other party or parties, subliminally avoiding direct methods which may have unwanted consequences. From the days of the chest -thumping hirsute cave man to the nuclear weapon power, signals have been used to threaten, persuade and even cajole. The danger lies, of course, if the signal is misread or not read at all and the consequences of such misperceptions may, in fact, be the opposite of what was originally intended. Deterrence is perhaps one of the most direct yet subtle forms of signalling, depending, of course, on the perception of credibility of the deterrence.

Recently, there has been a series of events which illustrate this proposition. On May 10, Pakistan carried out what it called a “training launch”, when it tested the Hatf III short-range (290 km) nuclear capable ballistic missile at an undisclosed location. Given that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are India-specific, this would be seen as routine, if troublesome. Earlier, however, Pakistan had tested what it called the Shaheen IA in what could only be seen, because of the timing, as a ‘response’ to India’s test of Agni V. Yet Agni V’s range was 5000 km, clearly not of relevance to Pakistan.

India, particularly its strategic community, and the world took note of the test launch of Agni V on April 19 this year. While most of the more serious commentators focussed on the technological advances achieved, others identified the diplomatically described ‘strategic deterrent’ as one which had China as its ‘raison d’etre’, given the range and capacity of Agni V. Though the deterrent is some way away from becoming operational, the signalling, in the form not only of the actual test and its coverage, but also the several statements from the senior leadership, was clear. For several years now, according to a detailed study by the International Strategic and Security Studies Programme (ISSSP) of the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bangalore, Chinese nuclear tipped missiles in Qinghai and Yunnan have been targeted at India, with the ranges of the missiles covering most of the Indian mainland. The successful launch of the Agni V introduces the beginning of a balance in the situation. The Chinese government has reacted with some sobriety, calling for partnership rather than rivalry, though its statements in the UN Security Council would indicate that the signal had been received. Its official media, on the other hand, seemed to have taken umbrage, dismissing the challenge to China as being untenable — from India’s poor infrastructure to the enormous technological and military lead China had over India to even suggesting that, for reasons not explained, that India had not revealed the true range of the missile. Then, on April 25, Pakistan tested what it called the ‘Shaheen IA’.

There has been little or no comment from India on this test, following as it did the usual pattern of Pakistan imitating each action of India’s; only a few foreign commentators felt, somewhat unimaginatively and ignorantly, that this illustrated ‘an arms race between two nuclear armed neighbours in South Asia’. The question that really needs to be asked is: was this ‘business as usual’ like the Hatf III, or was a signal being sent? If the latter, given that Pakistan would appear to be absorbed in trying to handle an economic and political crisis domestically, and a foreign policy one on the US and Afghan front, what was being signalled?

The Inter-Services Public Relations of Pakistan in a Press release claimed that the Shaheen IA was an ‘improved version’ of the Shaheen I with ‘improvements in range and technical parameters’. However, no specific range was announced. The ISSSP, which studies the missile capabilities of India’s neighbours, has assessed that the Shaheen IA is only marginally different from the Shaheen I (estimated range-673 km), which has already been tested 10 times. The range could, they feel, be improved if the missile throw mass is reduced to below 1000 kg. In any case, Pakistan has already tested the Shaheen II which has an estimated range of 2000-2500 km. So what could have prompted Pakistan to test the Shaheen IA ‘as a response to Agni V’ at a time when it is faced with such severe internal and external problems and when it appears to want to move to a more rational relationship with India? What, indeed, is being signalled by Pakistan with its second missile test in less than a month?

Some of the answers might be found in the sequence of events in May 1998 when India conducted the nuclear tests at Pokhran. It will be remembered that Pakistan tested its nuclear weapons two weeks after the Indian tests; even at that time, it was clear that the Pakistani tests could not have been their first ‘hot’ tests as no country could have been so ready to test as to take only two weeks’ preparation to do so.

According to US nuclear scientists Thomas C. Reed and Danny B. Stillman in their book, ‘The Nuclear Express’, ‘... during Benazir Bhutto’s initial term in office, the People’s Republic of China tested Pakistan’s first A-bomb on their behalf, on May 26,1990, at the Lop Nur nuclear test site.’ The close nuclear weapon collaboration between Pakistan and China are described in some detail in their book (and in other open literature), the credibility of this narrative resting on the time spent by one of these scientists within the Chinese nuclear establishment, at the latter’s invitation. It is also fairly well known that China has supplied Pakistan with the M-9 and M-11 missiles — in fact, the Shaheen I is a ‘reverse-engineered M-9 missile originally supplied by China’, according to the US Natural Resources Defense Council.

This would suggest that the Pakistani nuclear weapon programme is a part of the Chinese one, with the Pakistani arsenal serving the purposes of both countries. If this is accepted, the Shaheen IA test could very well be explained as a signal from China rather than from Pakistan, as it makes little sense from the latter’s point of view. It would be natural for China to respond to the Agni V test, in a manner that makes clear to India that it would have a joint front to contend with in the event of any misadventure on her part or any ambition of balancing the Chinese nuclear supremacy in Asia. Using Pakistan thus would leave China with more elbow-room for managing its relations with India, which is not yet in focus in China’s attention, just as North Korea keeps Japan and South Korea occupied.

It is quite possible that such an interpretation might be dismissed as smacking of paranoia; yet it is difficult to explain the Pakistani test last April in any other way, given the timing and the probable capability and range of the missile tested. The more recent test of the Hatf III is less intriguing; it seems to reiterate Pakistan’s intention of envisaging the use of nuclear weapons on the battlefield. The implications of the Shaheen IA test, however, requires serious consideration by Delhi, which hopefully is underway.

MIDDLE

Don’t call me “Babu”!
by Bharat Hiteshi

It is a common practice to address elders and seniors as babuji. But the other day I was scolded by an elder in the family who rebuked me for addressing him as babuji.

Bamboozled, I reasoned out that even the late Jagjivan Ram, a great leader, freedom fighter and crusader for social justice, was endearingly called Babuji!

No logic was enough to convince the man who issued a dictate, “call me by any name but not babu”. Shakespearean argument in Romeo and Juliet,

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” was of no avail. It was then that as a journalist, I felt the need for thorough investigation into my facts to know I had been using the term wrongly all these years.

I tried to find out what had gone wrong and what had brought that metamorphosis in such lofty titles. “Babuji” questioned my knowledge chiding me for not reading a recent report by a prestigious consulting firm based in Singapore that found Indian “babus” or the bureaucracy as the worst in Asia with a 9.21 rating out of 10. India fared worse than Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines and

China, said the report by Political and Economic Risk Consultancy Limited. Singapore remained the best with a rating of 2.25, followed by Hong Kong, Thailand, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Malaysia.

The report said India’s inefficient bureaucracy was largely responsible for corruption, where officials were willing to accept under-the- table payments and companies were tempted to pay to overcome bureaucratic inertia and gain government favours. The bureaucrats were rarely held accountable for wrong decisions and it would be extremely difficult to challenge them when there were disagreements which give them terrific powers.

I made another feeble attempt to explain that there were many exceptionally competent and honest officers who had done the elite service proud and even the 500-odd UP cadre of the IAS Association has joined hands to wage a war against corruption by voting three most corrupt officers in the state. The government too has decided to crack the whip on those who had failed to declare their immovable property by recommending “appropriate action” against 454 Class ‘A’ officers.

Ironically, “Babuji” was more sarcastic when he said that these orders would only be implemented by same babus. His reasoning left me speechless when he said that officers from the Central Bureau of

Investigation, the Central Vigilance Commission, the Cabinet Secretariat, the Central Information Commission, the Ministry of Civil Aviation and the Finance Ministry among defaulters. I made the last attempt to tell him that a new rule has been notified for officers from all-India services to

retire in “public interest” if they fail to clear a review after 15 years of service.

I vehemently reasoned out that all these were steps to restore the glory of babudom but he left hurriedly in a huff repeating, “Call me by any name but never babuji”. As he left, I had nothing but to muse over a golden melody from the classic ‘Aar Paar’ — babuji dheere chalna!

OPED PAKISTAN

Trade for Economic Growth
Michael Krepon

If India and Pakistan actually traded more onions as well as other goods and services, this disappointing, familiar script might change. Increased trade could engage powerful cross-border constituencies to support more normal relations between the two countries.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Asif Zardari of Pakistan in a jovial mood.

Pakistan and India have not fared well over the past two decades in negotiating confidence-building and nuclear risk-reduction measures. Existing measures, such as prior notifications for certain military exercises and ballistic missile flight tests, have been useful, but regrettably sparse. Many believed that these CBMs would lead to progressively more ambitious and stabilizing measures. Instead, the process of negotiating military- and nuclear-related CBMs has been like peeling an onion, one thin layer at a time.

Officials in Pakistan and India have viewed these CBMs as devices to alleviate external pressures after a crisis, as trading material, or as add-ons when bigger issues like Kashmir are properly dealt with. If government officials viewed CBMs as worthwhile steps in and of themselves, a cruise missile flight test notification agreement and an agreement to prevent incidents at sea would have been negotiated long ago. Deals on a mutual withdrawal from the Siachen Glacier and a settlement of the Sir Creek dispute have also been within grasp for many years.

An agreement to permanently demilitarize Siachen appears stuck over whether or not to recognize in some fashion positions seized by the Indian Army in 1984. The continuing dispute over Sir Creek revolves around the extension of the land border seaward. Both countries capture fishermen that have crossed this imaginary, disputed line and then release them when they want to signal a warming trend. This ritual of rounding up and freeing the usual suspects no longer counts as a CBM because it has become a thoroughly expected peel of the onion.

If India and Pakistan actually traded more onions, as well as other goods and services, this disappointing, familiar script might change. Increased trade could engage powerful cross-border constituencies to support more normal relations between India and Pakistan. If significant trade occurred between Sindh and Gujurat as well as across the Punjab divide, it would be hard to reverse course.

Trade expansion, like military CBMs, would also proceed in stages, but is likely to move at a faster pace because entrepreneurs have more clout and are in more of a hurry than diplomats. Increased cross-border trade is resisted by the privileged few who stand to lose profits if hard-pressed customers benefit from lower prices. Trade with India is also staunchly opposed by Hafiz Saeed and his followers. It would not be surprising if diehard groups seek once again to hit iconic targets in India to halt improved bilateral ties.

The Governments of Pakistan and India have been widely dismissed as being weak and beleaguered by scandal. And yet Islamabad has taken constructive steps to increase direct trade with India. Pakistan has now in principle given India the Most Favored Nation trading status and is switching from a positive to a negative list of tradable items. This could become another exercise in onion peeling; after all, India accorded Pakistan MFN status in 1996, and the results have been negligible. At least now, prospects for direct trade are better than before. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appears quite ready to reciprocate Islamabad's moves.

Pakistan cannot hope to increase its rate of economic growth, which now lags behind population growth, without more normal ties and more direct trade with what should be its largest natural trading partner. Instead, direct trade between Pakistan and India was $2.7 billion in 2010, less than India's trade with Sri Lanka. Pakistan exports more goods to Bangladesh than to India.

This abnormal situation could now change if Pakistan's military leadership is on board. Islamabad's trade initiatives imply Rawalpindi's consent, perhaps because Pakistan's military will benefit from economic growth, and because a well-funded Army that resides within a weak economy will generate increased public resentment. But Pakistan's Army retains an abiding distrust and deep grievances against India, and no large institution holds monolithic views. Since improved trade can be short-circuited by mass-casualty attacks in India, the test of the intentions and competence of the Army leadership is whether it gains advance warning of future attacks and takes effective measures to prevent them.

India, boasting an economy over eight times larger than Pakistan, also has much to prove. Generous terms of trade can serve New Delhi's interests as well as Pakistan's. But India's civil servants and diplomats take a back seat to no one when it comes to onion-peeling. Political leaders who want to accomplish something important and unusual in India will have to ride herd over a government and civil service bureaucracy that stubbornly resists change. The same holds true for Pakistan.

It is unclear whether Prime Minister Singh and President Zardari can follow through with real growth in direct trade. They have both expressed longstanding, oft-repeated desires to normalize relations. This is the most convenient way to do so.

Michael Krepon is co-founder of Stimson.

This article appeared in Dawn, Islamabad, on May 14.

Embarrassing for the media
Abbas Nasir

Pakistan’s Fourth Estate offers such rich pickings that there is every temptation to convert this into a media column but sanity prevents that from happening.

Well not really sanity, if you prefer honesty. Self-preservation is closer to the truth. But occasionally one succumbs to a rush of blood, an adrenaline surge. So here goes. Look at the recent debate or quite frankly the lack of it over the reopening of the NATO supply routes.

While parliament, the Defence Committee of the Cabinet (DCC) and all civilian elements of the government have had an ‘input’ in the decision, it’s now more than apparent that GHQ has decided in favour of the reopening of the NATO supply routes.

Those in the media who had taken to flag-waving, sloganeering and other jingoistic mannerisms first during the Raymond Davis affair, then the OBL raid and finally following the Salala attack and had ferociously slammed what they saw as the government’s pro-US stance now seem to be at a loss.

Perhaps, if their criticism had been well-founded through those episodes, it wouldn’t have been so difficult for them to have remained consistent. But some august members of the media appeared to have relied too heavily on the briefings by Gen Pasha’s psy-ops brigade.

And now that GHQ, one could argue rightly, has changed its mind, the defenders of our sovereignty particularly in the media are feeling short-changed. In fact, they are so embarrassed that they are either accusing the government of mismanaging the issue or they aren’t addressing it at all.

Now, if you ask me who I would blame for poor governance, maladministration, unaddressed corruption charges, the sharpest decline in major public-sector corporations, a breakdown of law and order in many cities, I’d say the PPP-led government without much hesitation.

Look no further than the recent ‘Lyari’ operation as a glaring example of the PPP’s incompetence. It was launched with so much fanfare but apparently so little planning that nobody knows what it aimed to achieve or did actually achieve in the end.

All one saw was a police officer known for ‘extrajudicial’ killings claiming to the media everyday that the ‘criminals will be finished off by the end of the day’. After this, his men made sure the TV cameras got their dramatic footage share as they fired aimless volleys into the air from different angles.

It was an abject failure which led to pointless, callous and criminal loss of life on all sides. At the same time, it brought misery to innocent citizens who feared getting caught in the crossfire and remained bunkered down in their homes with no power, food and water for days on end.

But please don’t tell me the PPP is to blame for any shortcomings, indecision or outright failure in foreign, defence or even national security policies because rather spinelessly, it slowly but surely surrendered these to GHQ in a process initiated after the furore over the Kerry-Lugar bill.

It can come in for criticism for having hived off to GHQ what should fall in the civilian domain according to the constitution. However, the realities of politics in Pakistan would also help you understand, even if not appreciate, what it means by its policy of ‘reconciliation’.

‘Reconciliation’ for a party that sees itself as besieged and believes it is under attack from every conceivable adversary at all times can best be described as a series of costly compromises to remain in power and build up support from this rather minimalist base.

It is the triumph of realpolitik over ideological, principled politics. Therefore, I have my own, to me, exceedingly valid grounds to attack the PPP. But frankly the reopening of the NATO supply routes won’t form the central plank of my objections.

Wouldn’t you have liked to see an illuminating debate in the media, particularly on the electronic platform, which placed a diversity of views, opinions and analyses before our many confused souls and informed and empowered them to reach judicious conclusions whatever they may be?

What we are seeing instead is an embarrassed lot of media personalities, influential opinion-makers, ducking the main issue and instead discussing topics which are no more than distractions, given the magnitude of what we face.

For example, considerable space on the electronic and social media has been taken up by media professionals debating if it was proper for the Prime Minister to ask over a dozen journalists to accompany him on his UK tour and for them to accept the invitation.

This, as also official expenses under various heads that have come to light in the Public Accounts Committee meetings, make for relevant topics as they relate to a wider malaise, patronage and lack of accountability, but the sparsely witnessed debate on the NATO supplies is worrying.

At a time when some sort of ‘endgame’ has begun in Afghanistan and Pakistan is being torn apart by terrorism many in the country link directly to events across our western borders, would it be too much to ask a vibrant media to help us understand the complexities?

All we are getting is the same biased, rowdy and purposeless slanging matches which have become the norm for large sections of our media as they try and trump each other to secure those coveted ratings/sell more copies.

Having witnessed in horror the mainstream broadsheet papers in India taking a nosedive to compete against emerging TV channels thriving on hysteria, one can only hope there is enough integrity and resilience in our media to strike the right balance.

The writer is a former editor of Dawn. By arrangement with Dawn