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Chopper
controversy Officer in
the dock |
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Tryst
with tales
China-Pak
nuclear deal
No
Hindi, if you please
India needs to deal firmly with Pak on Kashmir
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Officer in the dock
Bureaucrats
are privy to all that happens behind the closed doors of the government, which at times even the RTI Act fails to pry open. Yet it is rare that an officer may reveal a major irregularity in government functioning. They are bound by service rules not to criticise any government policies, but are also obliged to report any wrong that comes to their notice. The reality is anyone who does try to realise his potential is promptly shown his limits early in career. Most succumb, but some endure. Forest service officer Sanjeev Chaturvedi of the Haryana cadre is a prime example of how one can be hounded for showing where the dirt is. Punjab cadre IAS officer Krishan Kumar faced transfers all his years in the state, till he went on deputation to the Centre. Transfer, the mildest form of punishment, has been deployed with ruthlessness in the case of Ashok Khemka, of the Haryana IAS cadre, irrespective of the party in power. The ante, however, has been upped to an unprecedented level ever since he made noise in the Robert Vadra land case. The government is pressing a second chargesheet against him, without giving him a chance to explain his position in the seed sale case, a procedural courtesy extended even to junior officials. He may very well have committed wrongs, but when multiple chargesheets come against an officer soon after he has exposed an apparently serious lapse in government functioning, the latter’s credibility becomes suspect. In Chaturvedi’s case, chargesheets filed by the Haryana government against him were quashed by the President. The government should have seen this as a major loss of face. It obviously considered protecting people accused by him more important. The political executive in most states has subverted the system such that a bureaucrat either follows its diktat unquestioningly or gets to hold no position where he can make a difference. It reflects ill on the leadership as well as the officers who submit to that.
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Tryst with tales
We
all love a good story, even more so when it is about an enigmatic person. Recently the scion of the political dynasty that rules India decided to share his tale with a audience. Here was a man to the manor born, seeking to connect with the outliers. He has earlier crossed the manor moats, spent time with the poor, even slept in a cottage, but that has lost its novelty. He thus now narrated anecdotes that allowed people into his life. Here was the tale of trials and tribulations of the family which had always been seen as one in which each child was born with a golden spoon. Not really, we realised, as came the pain and recollections of the assassination of his father and grandmother, besides the sacrifices of his mother. The prince had a human dimension, the audience realised, and it aroused much empathy. Meanwhile, there was another story that was unfolding in another part of the country. A man born into a poor family was talking of how he once ran a tea stall. Here he was now, a successful political leader with thousands of people at his command and millions at his disposal, narrating the story of his poor past. He may well be familiar with the Japanese tea ceremony, but what he wants is to bring Japanese investment into his state. He is the master of the message, and right now the projection is on development. His story finds resonance among the middle class, but then it is the poor who have the greatest power in the polls. He finds it easier to relate to them, but no one really knows if his tale will be as gripping as that of his rival. In this narrative of what goes in the name political discourse in our fair nation, what is lost is the tale of the ordinary person. She is battling price rise. She is the final victim of the endemic corruption and crony capitalism that have gripped the nation. As she sees the tales unfold before her, it is up to her to decide if she wants to swallow one or the other, or neither. Her vote shall be the tale for all to hear.
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As a child of God, I am greater than anything that can happen to me. — APJ Abdul Kalam
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China-Pak nuclear deal
When
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was getting ready to leave for his trip to China, news emerged of China-Pakistan nuclear cooperation. In what will be the first foreign sale of its indigenous 1,100 MW nuclear reactor, ACP 1000, China is all set to sell two more nuclear reactors to Pakistan in direct contravention of its own global commitments as a member of the NPT and the NSG. India has been reduced to protesting ever since the details of a potential Sino-Pak deal came to light some months back. New Delhi, we are told, has made its reservations known to Beijing through diplomatic channels. But should it really come as a surprise that China is trying its best to maintain nuclear parity between India and Pakistan? After all, this is what China has been doing for the last five decades. Based on their convergent interests vis-à-vis India, China and Pakistan reached a strategic understanding in the mid-1950s, a bond that has only strengthened ever since. Sino-Pakistan ties gained particular momentum in the aftermath of the 1962 Sino-Indian war when the two states signed a boundary agreement recognising Chinese control over portions of the disputed Kashmir territory and since then the ties have been so strong that Chinese President Hu Jintao has described the relationship as “higher than mountains and deeper than oceans.” Pakistan’s President, Asif Ali Zardari, has suggested that “No relationship between two sovereign states is as unique and durable as that between Pakistan and China.” Maintaining close ties with China has been a priority for Islamabad and Beijing has provided extensive economic, military and technical assistance to Pakistan over the years. It was Pakistan that in early 1970s enabled China to cultivate its ties with the West and the US in particular, becoming the conduit for Henry Kissinger’s landmark secret visit to China in 1971 and has been instrumental in bringing China closer to the larger Muslim world. Over the years China emerged Pakistan’s largest defence supplier. Military cooperation between the two has deepened with joint projects producing armaments ranging from fighter jets to guided missile frigates. China is a steady source of military hardware to the resource-deficient Pakistani Army. It has not only given technology assistance to Pakistan but has also helped Pakistan to set up mass weapons production factories. Pakistan’s military modernisation process remains dependent on Chinese largesse. In the last two decades, the two states have been actively involved in a range of joint ventures, including JF-17 Thunder fighter aircraft, K-8 Karakorum advance training aircraft, and Babur cruise missile the dimensions of which exactly replicate the Hong Niao Chinese cruise missile. The JF-17 venture is particularly significant, given its utility in delivering nuclear weapons. In a major move for China’s indigenous defence industry, China is also supplying its most advanced home-made combat aircraft, the third-generation J-10 fighter jets to Pakistan, in a deal worth around $6 billion. Beijing is helping Pakistan build and launch satellites for remote sensing and communication even as Pakistan is reportedly already hosting a Chinese space communication facility at Karachi. China has played a major role in the development of Pakistan’s nuclear infrastructure and emerged Pakistan’s benefactor at a time when increasingly stringent export controls in Western countries made it difficult for Pakistan to acquire materials and technology from elsewhere. The Pakistani nuclear weapons programme is essentially an extension of the Chinese one. Despite being a member of the NPT, China has supplied Pakistan with nuclear materials and expertise and has provided critical assistance in the construction of Pakistan’s nuclear facilities. It has been aptly noted by non-proliferation expert Gary Milhollin, “If you subtract China’s help from Pakistan’s nuclear programme, there is no nuclear programme.” Although China has long denied helping any nation attain a nuclear capability, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme, Abdul Qadeer Khan, himself has acknowledged the crucial role China has played in his nation’s nuclear weaponisation by gifting 50 kg of weapon-grade enriched uranium, drawing of the nuclear weapons and tonnes of uranium hexafluoride for Pakistan’s centrifuges. This is perhaps the only case where a nuclear weapon state has actually passed on weapons grade fissile material as well as a bomb design to a non-nuclear weapon state. India has been the main factor that has influenced China’s and Pakistan’s policies vis-à-vis each other. Whereas Pakistan wants to gain access to civilian and military resources from China to balance the Indian might in the subcontinent, China, viewing India as potential challenger in the strategic landscape of Asia, views Pakistan as it central instrument to counter Indian power in the region. The China-Pakistan partnership serves the interests of both by presenting India with a potential two-front theatre in the event of war with either country. In its own way each is using the other to balance India as India’s disputes with Pakistan keep India preoccupied, failing to attain its potential as a major regional and global player. China, meanwhile, guarantees the security of Pakistan when it comes to its conflicts with India, thus preventing India from using its much superior conventional military strength against Pakistan. Not surprisingly, one of the central pillars of Pakistan’s strategic policies for the last more than four decades has been its steady and ever-growing military relationship with China. And preventing India’s dominance of South Asia by strengthening Pakistan has been a strategic priority for China. But with India’s ascent in global hierarchy and American attempts to carve out a strong partnership with India, China’s need for Pakistan is only likely to grow. A rising India makes Pakistan all the more important for the Chinese strategy for the subcontinent. It’s highly unlikely that China will give up playing the Pakistan card vis-à-vis India anytime soon. Indian policymakers would be well advised to disabuse themselves of the notion of a Sino-Indian ‘strategic partnership.’ China doesn’t do sentimentality in foreign policy, India should follow
suit. The writer teaches at King’s College, London.
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No Hindi, if you please I
was
perturbed, but not unduly so, when my school-going daughter blithely informed me that she was opting for French instead of Hindi. I shrugged off my concern thinking it was a case of peer pressure. “Nothing of that sort”, my daughter impatiently exclaimed. “The Hindi teachers think we are Hinglish speakers and Hindi buffoons.” “Teen exaggeration”, I reasoned and with all the patriotic fervour at my disposal, insisted that she study the national language. My dictum was accepted with tears and a strange proviso. I must say goodbye to my expectations of a Cumulative Grade Point Average of 10. I was flummoxed by this ‘tantrum-with-a-twist’ but decided to take upon myself the task of teaching my daughter our rashtra bhasha. With much sermonising about the importance and beauty of Hindi, I sat my daughter down for her first lesson. I read out excerpts from Premchand’s Godan. For added interest I downloaded audio recordings of well-known literary works. Abida Parveen’s Sufi rendition of ‘Kabir’ seemed to do the trick. I could see the gleam of avid enjoyment in my daughter’s eyes. But when we moved to the assigned school texts boredom stuck as we waded through a maze of words bordering on the archaic. Suppressing yawns, we switched to Hindi grammar thinking it would be more interesting. But grammar was a ‘rote’ nightmare, with the prescribed text teeming with hundreds of antonyms, synonyms, idioms that have to be memorised but are never used in day-to-day speech. Seeking the teacher’s help was taboo because as my daughter explained “The teacher makes fun of our Hindi language skills. She calls
it Vyang”. “Hard work always pays,” I reassured my daughter with conviction. So we started to spend more time on Hindi than on maths and science. A month into this rigorous regime, the teacher scheduled a speaking-and-listening test. The next day my daughter came home in tears. The listening task was on urja and vidut, with scientific jargon generously thrown in. The children were clueless. The speaking task was on kartavya but the teacher’s dry satirical asides made the hapless students stumble through their speech nervously. The subsequent tests were all aimed at showing the children how little they knew their Hindi. In fact, the Hindi taught in school and the manner of imparting it seemed so flawed that it nurtured a deep-seated resentment against a beautiful language which has its roots in our culture. So the litany in school became “No Hindi, if you please.” French, definitely appeared to be a better option. So with utmost regret I gave up on my own culture and let my daughter connect with an alien culture and language. We talk ourselves hoarse about brain-drain but are blind to this self-generated alienation. If this continues the new generation will have only a smattering of Hindi language lovers. Our beautiful literature and scriptures will be relegated to the archives. Hindi, like Latin and Sanskrit, will be venerated but read by a select few. Is someone
listening?
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India needs to deal firmly with Pak on Kashmir
Exactly
67 years ago on 25th October 1947, an Army Airlift Committee headed by the Air Marshal heading what was then known as the Royal Indian Air Force (RIAF) was formed to initially discuss ways and means of sending supplies and arms to Kashmir which was under the invasion of tribesmen from Pakistan. Muzzaffarabad, Domel, Chinari and Uri had fallen and the invaders or razakars, as they were known, were closing in on Baramulla. That very morning the Defence Committee of the Cabinet chaired by Lord Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten met to discuss the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) Hari Singh's request for troops that had been received the previous night (24th October). On 26th October Hari Singh signed the Instrument of Accession and a decision was taken to airlift troops to the Valley. That same day, the razakars went about brutally massacring about 11,000 of the 14,000 residents of Baramulla and wantonly raping and abducting women, including European nuns, while destroying the Mohra power station which supplied electricity to Srinagar. It was in fact this savage orgy of sordid killings, rape (the local theatre was converted into a rape centre), loot, plunder, vandalism and desecration that slowed the movement of the razakars or else they would surely have run over Srinagar and prevented the landing of Indian Army soldiers at Srinagar airfield thereby possibly changing the course of history. Shortly before midnight the same day, a signal was flashed to 1 Sikh battalion, the nearest located Infantry unit to Delhi (stationed in Gurgaon), to reach Palam airport by 4 am the following morning (27th October). The battalion was not up to full strength and so in order to make up for the shortfall, Sikh personnel from 13 Field Regiment, an artillery regiment then stationed at the Red Fort in Delhi, were hastily organised into an Infantry company and temporarily placed under the 1 Sikh battalion. An extraordinary operation Thus on 27th October 1947, barely two months after Independence, 28 vintage Dakota aircraft carrying 474 Army soldiers took off for Srinagar. Six of these Dakotas were civilian and carried 15 soldiers each while the remaining 22 RIAF Dakotas carried 22 soldiers each. So uncertain was the situation in the Valley that the battalion's commanding officer, Lt Col Dewan Ranjit Rai, was instructed to first circle Srinagar airfield and carefully scan the countryside to check whether the raiders had already occupied it. If so, he was to fly back and land in Jammu. "Such a rider to an operational intrusion", observes the official history of the 1947-48 war, "must surely be unique in modern military history, and was an indication of the uncertainty, hazards and difficulties facing the Indian troops when they went to Kashmir. Even the details and locations of friendly troops in the state on that date were not known to the Indian Army headquarters", states the history. Indeed, saving Srinagar and securing its airfield was of paramount importance since Srinagar was located 480 km from Pathankot, the northernmost Indian railhead at that time. The first aircraft, piloted by Group Capt. Karori Lal Bhatia (later awarded the Vir Chakra), then commanding 12 Squadron, landed at Srinagar airfield at 8.20 am. Since then, 27th October is observed as Infantry Day. During the 14 month and five day war which followed, the Army lost 1,103 soldiers including 76 officers and 31 junior commissioned officers (JCOs). Another 3,152 soldiers including 81 officers and 107 JCOs were wounded. The RIAF lost 31 men including nine officers. That the war was full of heroic deeds and valour by the Army is evident from the long list of gallantry awardees that include five Param Vir Chakras (three posthumous), the highest wartime gallantry medal, 53 Maha Vir Chakras (18 posthumous which included Lt Col Rai), and 313 Vir Chakras (57 posthumous). However, instead of regaining the entire state, the political leadership of that time chose to pull its punches and stop. This was notwithstanding the death of Mahomedali Jinnahbhai (better known as Muhammad Ali Jinnah, in September 1948), the availability of more Army troops following the successful 'Police Action' against the Nizam and his troops in Hyderabad (September 1948), and the Army's successfully freeing Poonch of its year-long siege by the Pakstanis (December 1948). The latter was, however, made possible following a major diversion of troops which resulted in the Army being unable to retake Muffafarabad, Domel and the vital Haji Pir Pass that has subsequently proven to be a strategic blunder in Jammu and Kashmir. A complicated problem For decades now, the J&K issue has become badly complicated, mired as it is in ideological and territorial dispute. For, J&K is divided among three countries - India (48 per cent), Pakistan (33 per cent) and China (19 per cent) and has five types of borders — the International Boundary or IB (about 200 km) with Pakkstani Punjab; the Line of Control or LoC (740 km) with Pakistan Occupied Kashmir or POK; the Actual Ground Position Line or AGPL (110 km) ahead of the Siachen glacier starting from a point known as NJ 9842 to Indra Col; the Unnamed Boundary or UB (40 km) with Chinese occupied Shaksam Valley; and the Line of Actual Control or LAC with Chinese occupied Aksai Chin region of Ladakh. India has deployed three different forces along these five 'borders' — the Border Security Force along the IB, the Indo Tibetan Border Police along portions of the 'border' with China in Ladakh and the Army along the LoC, AGPL, UB and the LAC This is the only region where the Indian Army simultaneously faces armies of two different countries - Pakistan and China. The J&K problem both started of as and primarily remains an Indo-Pak issue. It is the difference in approach that remains palpitating and will continue to come in the way of a solution. For Pakistan, J&K is a Muslim majority state that should logically form part of their country in keeping with their belief in the Two-Nation theory and remains an unfinished agenda of partition. J&K consistently figures at the centre of Pakistan's foreign policy and its national psyche vis-à-vis India. In India, J&K is viewed as a geographical region that Pakistan (and China) has illegally and forcibly occupied and therefore must vacate. India rejects the notion that division should be on religious lines considering that India has chosen to be a secular country comprising a society that is the most diverse, complex and pluralistic in the world in terms of its multi-regional, multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-lingual and multi-class segments. Behind the complicated nature of the problem lies an unsuccessful history of what is seen in India as biased and manipulative mediations by the West starting with post-colonial Britain immediately after the sub continent's partition. This, in fact, set the foundation of a festering problem that does not seem anywhere near resolution. No place for third party mediation India never saw itself being rewarded by mediation except during the time of the Kargil War when a stern President William Jefferson (Bill) Clinton persuaded Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to vacate Pakistani Army incursions across the LoC in Drass, Mushkoh Valley, Kargil and Batalik portions of Ladakh in July 1999. Pakistan, on the other hand, always stood to gain territorially, except during the Kargil War. Malignancies are best cured if detected and treated early. Alternatively, as conflict resolution theorists would argue, a ‘ripening’ of the problem leading to a mutually hurting stalemate (plateau) or a crisis bound by a deadline or precipice may offer the best way out. But evidently the opportunity of an early resolution was lost owing to the circumstances in which partition took place and the subsequent role played by Britain and the United Nations. And yet, despite a long and intense history of conflict, hostility and discord comprising four wars (1947-48, 1965, 1971 and 1999), at least three major stand offs, numerous skirmishes along the LoC, AGPL and the IB, sponsorship of insurgency and terrorism, an unending loss of human lives and unpleasant exchanges at the diplomatic, political and public level, the situation has not reached a 'mutually' hurting stalemate either. At the best of times, the J&K stretch of the borders with POK has been marked by no war no peace or, at best, negative peace. The problem has similarly defied other models and approaches such as 'ripe moment', 'precipice', offensive goals' and 'defensive goals' that form part of third party mediation. At best, international mediation and bilateralism has helped in preventing or ending wars, but not in resolving the dispute. Some thinkers in India would argue that this is because the 'hurt' has mostly been one sided with India being at the receiving end of Pakistan's policy of inflicting death by a thousand cuts to which India's response has been that of applying a thousand bandages. Nawaz Sharif, like his predecessors, will continue to talk about talks and engage in a charm offensive with Indian journalists and other opinion makers. Yet the Pakistani establishment is not expected to desist from both raising the Kashmir issue and seeking international mediation at every international forum that it finds convenient, even if it is for the sake of simply embarrassing India. Neither is the Pakistani Army or the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, which would lose its raison d'etre in case a resolution on Jammu and Kashmir is reached, desist from playing hawk against India. The rising jihadism in Pakistan has added to Islamabad's domestic 'compulsions' thereby impeding any serious detente let alone early resolution to the problem. Need for new thinking
and resolve India needs to seriously rethink its 'thousand bandage' policy vis-a-vis Pakistan. The only time India succeeded in negotiating a bilateral treaty on its terms (although many argue that the opportunity was not optimised) was the Simla Agreement signed in 1972. That was possible because India had defeated Pakistan in December 1971 and dismembered the country. The taking of 93,000 prisoners at that time was the largest in post-World War-II history and remained so until the 'mother of all surrenders' by Saddam Hussain's Army to US forces in Iraq and then Iraqi occupied Kuwait in 1991. This bilaterally negotiated treaty continues to be cited by India as the basis on which all future discussions on J&K are to be held. While diplomacy must continue, policy makers on Raisina Hill must always keep in mind the maxim 'strength respects respect and the weak only get pushed around'. Does India's political executive have the will and resolve at the national level? Are both the military and the intelligence agencies sufficiently equipped? Is India's soft power being optimised? Thousands of lives and an expenditure of lakhs of crores of rupees over 67 years (and still counting) later, is there not a need for the Indian leadership to come up with new thinking and approach to handling Pakistan on the J&K problem which does not seem likely to be resolved for a long time ahead?
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