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Cleaning up politics
Collective failure |
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Fear in hills
Gearing up for elections
A system that works
Why do the Taliban, willing to hold out an olive branch to the US, continue to carry out violent attacks in Afghanistan? Conventional explanations behind the 'talk-and-fight' strategy can be misleading Shanthie Mariet D'Souza On June 18, the day a Taliban office opened in Doha and American President Barack Obama described it as "an important first step toward reconciliation", four US soldiers were killed near Bagram air base by an insurgent rocket attack. On the same day, while the Taliban representatives in Doha declared their intent to carry the peace process forward, the Taliban spokesperson claimed responsibility for the attack.
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Cleaning up politics
To rid politics of criminals, the Supreme Court has withdrawn the benefit of a pending appeal to convicted lawmakers prospectively. The judgment, which has far-reaching implications, has struck down a provision in the Representation of the People Act allowing a convicted MP or MLA three months time to file an appeal and stick to his post until its final disposal, which usually took years. A retrospective order would have hit hard the likes of Om Prakash Chautala, Navjot Singh Sidhu and Bibi Jagir Kaur. Now those facing cases like Capt Amarinder Singh, Lalu Prasad, A. Raja, Kanimozhi and Jayalalithaa will be under watch since a conviction could jeopardise their political future. A convicted politician cannot contest elections for six years after a jail term, if any. This is the second major initiative to clean up electoral politics. In a ruling on June 3 the Central Information Commission had brought political parties under the Right to Information Act, thus forcing them to share information about, among other things, sources of their funding. The use of unaccounted money in elections and the presence of criminals in Parliament and assemblies are two major challenges to the growth of healthy democratic practices in the country. It is a fact that ruling politicians try to fix their political opponents by slapping false cases against them. But these are professional hazards which those taking up politics as a career must be prepared for. Every profession has its risks and rewards. Besides, the number of vendetta cases is small and courts usually look into all angles before handing over justice. As individuals, they have the right to appeal and seek justice from higher courts. However, till then they cannot -- and should not -- contest or be given official positions. Elections today are won with the use of money and muscle power, which drives political parties to turn to criminals for support. It is in the interest of the parties to encourage the participation of enlightened, talented and clean individuals who know how to govern and deliver. |
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Collective failure
The most notorious terrorist in the world hid in Pakistan for six years, till he was found and killed by the American intelligence agencies in his Abbottabad hideout in 2011. Soon after his death, a shaken Pakistani government commissioned an inquiry and now the Abbottabad Commission's leaked report is making waves. While it is scathing, even self-critical to an extent rarely seen in such documents, it still fails to answer the primary question: "Who sheltered Osama bin Laden all these years?" The report, which comments on many aspects of the life and times of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, is critical of the 'failure' of the Pakistani intelligence agencies to detect his presence. The lack of coordination and general incompetence of various agencies and even the military establishment also becomes clear from the report of the commission of inquiry, which was presided over by Justice Javed Iqbal, a retired judge. He heard the testimony of most of the major players in Pakistani establishment. If the leaked report is correct, and there is no evidence to the contrary, it is a wake- up call for a nation in distress. It shows how supping with the devil led to trouble. The ISI helped the Taliban to take over power in Afghanistan, and Pakistan, indeed the world, suffered as a result of this unholy alliance. After 9/11, the Americans forced a U-turn in Pakistan's policy. Now Pakistan had to support NATO forces against the Taliban. This created tensions within the Pakistani army, which led to fissures, many of them deep. If nothing else, the Abbottabad Commission report has cast a critical eye on various institutions in Pakistan, and the lack of coordination among them which led to the debacle. It has also provided details which will keep various intelligence agencies busy as they reconstruct the last few years of the most wanted man in the world. |
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Fear in hills
The J&K High Court has warned the state government against allowing a "situation parallel to Uttarakhand" emerging vis-à-vis construction and development. The primary concern is irregular buildings coming up in areas that are either environmentally critical or are a safety hazard, as was observed in Uttarakhand. The state, particularly Kashmir, is a major tourist attraction, primarily for its green meadows, sparkling streams, and gentle green slopes. Put irregular colonies or industrial units in the midst of this and you ruin the very beauty that Kashmir spells. However frivolous it may seem, the magnificence of the valley in itself is a concern in a tourism-driven economy. Damage to river banks or hillsides is an obvious environmental violation. What, however, needs consideration is scope for development. All economies have to continuously keep growing, and growth invariably involves construction too. The pressure for this would be more in certain areas, such as Srinagar, either for tourism or the advantages of urban life that attract new settlers from across the state. The argument in favour of allowing regulated development is that it prevents irregular development by providing scope for monitored activity. Otherwise, as seen in states like Punjab and Haryana, construction goes on happening anyway, and is regularised retrospectively by governments under political compulsions. That could lead to environmental violations too that would be hard to correct subsequently. This may call for a relook at the entire set of laws governing environment, development and agriculture, many of which were enacted in entirely different socio-economic conditions. Agriculture is governed by a multitude of laws, some of which also prevent shifting from paddy to an orchard, which today pays far more than conventional farming. While there are several violations that may be harmful to the environment, and need to be corrected, a blanket ban on conversion of land use may also not be advisable. According to the state Economic Survey, only 0.041 per cent of land under agriculture was shifted to other use between 2001 and 2011, which per se is not very alarming. Development with respect for the environment is the key to sustainable growth. |
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Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute. —Josh Billings |
Gearing up for elections As the two main national parties and regional organisations take their first steps to gear up for the general election next year, there are no surprises thus far. While the Congress is an old hand in contesting elections with its array of leaders and bandobast, much interest centres on the Bharatiya Janata Party for the insertion of Mr Narendra Modi into the mix. Mr Modi's salience as the face of the BJP in 2014 - despite reservations in the party and among its mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh - is intriguing for two reasons. It was one thing to project Atal Bihari Vajpayee as the party's standard bearer in view of his wide acceptability, quite another to build a personality cult around Modi. For one thing, it is out of character for the RSS to place a person above the organisation. Second, Modi is a polarising figure. Unusually, the BJP has taken a few stumbles in its opening round. In its eagerness to present Modi as the doer, his party men sought to give his visit to the devastated Uttarakhand a twist by suggesting to a gullible reporter that he had magically rescued and sent home 15,000 Gujaratis. In the light of day, it was an impossible claim. Even more damaging was the impression it gave that the wannabe Prime Minister of the country is mindful of the interests of only his fellow Gujaratis. The second faux pas was made by Amit Shah, Modi's man Friday and points man for Uttar Pradesh, declaring that the BJP's focus would be on building the Ram temple in Ayodhya, an old issue that has been beaten to death in electoral terms. Just as the party's opponents were denigrating this apparent reversion to the Hindutva cry, there was a corrective to the Shah declaration from the party president, Rajnath Singh. The election theme of the party, he ruled, would be development and good governance. Modi has his adoring followers who greeted his Uttarakhand act with cheers; he was indeed true to their expectations: the wonder man who could pull off a stupendous feat in the face of great difficulty. Somewhat shamefacedly, Mr Rajnath Singh suggested that he would check the figure of 15,000, later declaring that neither Mr Modi nor the BJP had given the figure. Modi himself suggested in his remote address to the party faithful in Bihar that he would hone his attack tailored to individuals and local issues. In this instance, he had Nitish Kumar in his sights for abandoning the pact with the BJP in his state. It is a given that Mr Modi would employ modern technology to promote his cause and, unlike traditional Indian politicians, he hires public relations professionals for spreading the word. The Modi masks were one gimmick that worked well for him in the Gujarat elections, a ploy imitated by others. There will be wide use of teleconferencing, and his media advisers will come up with other surprises to fox his opponents. The use of modern technology poses one problem: it reaches only a segment of usually urban middle class voters, and to get to the majority of the electorate there is no substitute for party men and women going out to the villages. Building a trend (hawa) so much sought after by a politician on the stump requires much toil and tears. In all likelihood, the next general election will be the most technological of all, with Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi gearing his young tech-savvy team to take full advantage of technological aids to vote-gathering. Modi in particular must guard himself against an overreach. Both the Congress and the BJP must remember that in their obsession with technology, they do not miss out on the all-important human element. The average Indian voter has a mind of his own and many older voters have seen through politicians' gimmicks. Indeed, the contest among the main parties is focused on the young voter for whom voting is a new adventure. Thanks to aids such as Google, he can cross-check the veracity of politicians' promises. Perhaps the traditional wise men of political parties will have the last laugh because they instinctively feel the pulse of the people. In the end, Modi will have to make a giant leap from Gujarati pride to a national perspective. His acolytes have not helped with their twist on his Uttarakhand rescue act. Regional parties are still somewhat befuddled by the national scenario. Most of them know their own voters and voting patterns but are seeking to divine the national picture. Unsurprisingly, there is talk of the perennial Third Front and now a Federated Front but Nitish Kumar wisely threw cold water over such speculation by declaring that a front could only be formed after the results are out. Political pundits are by no means certain that despite the obvious disadvantages, the Congress's is a last cause. Nor are they certain that the BJP can exploit its main opponent's weaknesses to claim the crown. That leaves the mouth-watering proposition for regional parties to have their day in the sun. Judging by the record of the 1990s, with a queue of prime ministers coming and going as the Congress pulled the strings, it would not be an encouraging prospect. For the present, it is an open
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A system that works A
few college buddies congregated at the fag-end of their successful careers to share their experiences about life, love, siblings, relationships, wealth, destiny, so on and so forth. However, one topic which engaged them in an engrossing discussion was the issue of all-pervasive corruption and its various aspects. The entrepreneur among them revealed how a senior minister of the Singapore government in early stages of its development as a modern city-state, died of dehydration in the wee hours of the morning after he had received one million dollars as bribe money. He was reported to have used the age-old tongue and thumb technique in counting the bills. He further regaled his friends with his heart-thumping experience of carrying and depositing three million rupees in suit cases at the headquarters of the ruling political party. He had to shove the suit cases through a window of a big room. To his surprise, the money was not even counted. His regret was he should have obliged his friend with whom he had stayed overnight by exceeding to his request for giving him three to four lakh. The civil servant recalled how one senior government functionary developed dysfunctional vocal cords and temporarily lost his voice. One sardonic comment was because he had taken too much 'hush' money all his life. All of them felt that to be tongue-tied was a natural inclination of the bribe taker as well as the bribe giver. He further narrated how the president of the ruling political party of a State was clean bowled when he accosted the office assistant dealing with his pending criminal case with the accusation: "Why are you stalling an appropriate note on the file?" The assistant rebuffed him by saying because he never gave him any note. He shared this pun on the word "note" with his political boss who just gave him a comforting smile. The senior army officer interjected to say how a non-commissioned garrison engineer expressed no joy when he was given the news that he was soon getting the King's Commission. He shocked those present by saying that he would still prefer a contractor's commission to a king's commission. In another case one contractor sat cross the office table facing the engineer, all the time fiddling with a sizable bag under the table. Sensing his discomfiture, the engineer quipped: Darda quon hain, bag table dey utte rakh (Why are you afraid? Place the bag on the table). On the issue of corruption one of their friends mischievously observed that the worst thing about corruption as a system of governance is that it works. However, all of them were of the opinion that corruption at the micro level was horizontal in nature and the money involved gets absorbed faster into the system, whereas the macro level was vertical, up and down, emanating from the political- bureaucratic-business-criminal nexus. They further linked it to the luminous fire tail of the satellite ready to take off. Later this money finds its 'haven'
abroad. |
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Why do the Taliban, willing to hold out an olive branch to the US, continue to carry out violent attacks in Afghanistan? Conventional explanations behind the 'talk-and-fight' strategy can be misleading Shanthie Mariet D'Souza
On June 18, the day a Taliban office opened in Doha and American President Barack Obama described it as "an important first step toward reconciliation", four US soldiers were killed near Bagram air base by an insurgent rocket attack. On the same day, while the Taliban representatives in Doha declared their intent to carry the peace process forward, the Taliban spokesperson claimed responsibility for the attack. A week after, on June 25, the Taliban launched an early morning well-coordinated attack on the Afghan presidential palace in Kabul. Three security guards were killed in the attack, including the eight suicide attackers who came in land cruisers and tried to enter the fortified palace. The Taliban subsequently claimed responsibility for the violence, stating their intended targets -- the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) facility, the nearby presidential palace and the adjoining Ministry of Defence as part of their spring offensive. Why do the Taliban, willing to hold out an olive branch to the US, continue to carry out such spectacular attacks inside Afghanistan? This question has been raked several times, especially in the context of peace talks with the insurgents coinciding repeatedly with some of the most lethal attacks by the Taliban on Afghan soil. The answer to this question, to a large extent, defines the complexities of the search for peace and stability in the war-torn country. It also bares the element of futility of talking to the extremists, when the conditions and time are not ripe for such peace-making initiatives. Conventional explanations behind the 'talk-and-fight' strategy of the Taliban assume the insurgency to be monolithic, consisting of cadres owing allegiance to the same ideology, and more importantly, the same leadership and organisation. Going by this belief, these attacks have a demonstrative effect and also an additional leveraging of negotiating from a 'position of strength'. Further, attacks also signify a deep sense of disdain with the prevailing state of affairs for the 'infidel' foreigners and a 'puppet' regime supported by them. However, such explanations could be misleading.
While the initiation of the office has given the Taliban an address to communicate with the outside world, probing the intent and influence of the group that has come out in support of the peace talks portrays a different picture. The Taliban-led insurgency is no longer a monolithic organisation. Since 2001, the insurgency has been functioning as an amorphous organisation comprising huge, yet differently motivated and loosely aligned motley of anti-government elements, followers of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's radical Hizb-i-Islami (HIG), the Haqqani network, Al Qaeda and its affiliates, religious clerics, narcotic traffickers, smugglers, armed groups, unemployed youths and alienated men in Afghanistan; and tribal fighters in Pakistan's tribal areas. The transformed character of the insurgency, combined with its tactics of alliance building and network-centric mode of operations, in the last decade is instructive. The decentralised nature of the insurgency has helped to quickly replace neutralised leaders and foot soldiers and withstand the enemy (US and Afghan governments) attempts at fracturing, splintering, co-opting the insurgents. The rapidly changing character of the insurgency, on the other hand, has introduced an overwhelming amount of ambiguity into the peace processes. For example, the HIG has adopted a dual strategy of being a part of the government and at the same time maintaining its fighting potential, thus retaining a tremendous 'spoiler effect'. Since the December 2009 enunciation of the Af-Pak strategy by United States President Obama, with a greater emphasis on 'clear, kill and capture', a large number of Taliban leaders and fighters have been neutralised. At one level, many of these killed are considered to be belonging to the insurgency's moderate faction. Their replacements, however, have been more radical leaders and foreign fighters. A direct fallout of this has been an increase in the levels of competition for power and influence within the various shuras of the insurgency, especially between the Quetta Shura Taliban (QST) and the Peshawar Shura Taliban (PST). The QST consists of clerical and traditional emirate leadership wielding political power. The PST, on the other hand, has a more centralised command and control structure, young and educated recruits, greater financial resources, and close links with the Pakistani security establishment. Since 2012, with the increase in the infighting and near absence of a unified leadership provided by periodic statements by the Taliban supremo, Mullah Mohammed Omar, there has been an erosion of power within the QST with the PST wresting greater power and control of the insurgency. As a result, within Afghanistan, the old Taliban command structure remains active in the southern heartland. However, the east, (Loya Paktia) and the north are witnessing an increase in activities and influence of the factions aligned more closely to the PST and the Haqqani network. The encirclement and grip around Kabul and other population centres and along arterial roads, apart from trying to occupy peripheral areas and Pashtun dominated pockets in the north - Balkh, Sar-e Pul and Samangan from the west (Faryab, Herat and Badghis) and east (Badakhshan), has increased. The moot question, therefore, is regarding the intent and type of the Taliban in the Qatar office. Who do they represent and what influence do these 'agents of peace' have with the leaders of the factions who continue to indulge in violence? The Taliban peaceniks in Doha are said to represent the pro-talks and moderate section of the insurgency. In the past, the Pakistani military establishment had restrained them to initiate direct talks with the Afghan government. Mullah Baradar remains in captivity since 2010. In 2011, a hardline section of the Taliban targeted Agha Jan Motasim, a member of the QST. Motasim had advocated the need for the group's negotiations and eventual participation in Afghanistan's mainstream political process. So what has brought about this turnaround? Has there been a change of heart or has the conflict levels reached a 'hurting stalemate' or is the time for talks used to rearm and build on the other factions in the insurgency? Over time, there is an increasing realisation in one section of the Pakistan's security establishment of the inability of the QST to deliver their key strategic objectives in Afghanistan. By bringing in this section to the negotiating table would provide some temporary respite to the establishment from intense pressure from the international community and may well result in some additional pecuniary benefits and bargaining space, including getting concessions on the Haqqani network. At the same time, it would help in splitting the linkages between the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban. It would, however, do little to address the continuation of the conflict through a more centrally controlled, trained and well-funded lethal insurgency of the PST. The recent attempts at peace talks could thus be an exercise in futility, when the sphere of influence and control of the insurgency is shifting to the PST. Providing legitimacy by talking or even co-opting one section of a rather irrelevant faction of the insurgency will not provide the space or conditions to wean or co-opt the lethal component of the insurgency. The process of peace talks and negotiations, labelled as a crucial step for a peace settlement, would not end the perpetual cycle of violence in the Af-Pak region. With no declaration of a ceasefire and the conditions for talks becoming the end points of a process-based outcome, there is no clear vision of the end goal of such peace initiatives. Critics for long have alleged that the negotiation process with the Taliban is yet another attempt to find a quick-fix solution and for the Western nations to extricate from the present imbroglio. History has important lessons. Peace talks and negotiations with insurgent groups, when initiated in unilateral and uncoordinated manner, carry the danger of refuelling conflicts and throwing the countries into greater chaos and instability. As a consequence, Afghanistan will witness yet another unending cycle of violence The writer is a Research Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), an autonomous research institute at the National University of Singapore. She can be contacted at isassmd@nus.edu.sg. The views expressed are personal  |
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