The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

A degrading test
Rape victims deserve humane treatment

Accused persons are often acquitted on the basis of inadequate, erroneous and archaic methods of conducting a forensic medical examination of the victims of rape and sexual assault. One of these is the humiliating two-finger test (TFT). After Maharashtra did it in 2011, the Union Health Ministry has banned the much abused test. Termed as a 'second sexual assault' on the victim, it subjects a woman to indescribable physical as well as psychological trauma when conducted without her informed consent (which is the case most of the times). The Indian Evidence Act, amended in 2002, bars a reference to the past sexual history of a victim of rape, which required the TFT. In 2003 the Supreme Court called the test “hypothetical” and “opinionative”.

Yet it took the likes of Dr Indrajit Khandekar of Wardha to file numerous petitions against the horrendous quality of the forensic medical examination a victim of sexual assault is subjected to. He had to run from pillar to post to get the loopholes eliminated and sensitise the government about the need to draft a new manual to address the psycho-social impact of sexual violence. With the Health Ministry and courts spelling out a more humane path, do we now assume that rape survivors would be treated with a degree of dignity during a medical examination? aGoing by the past experience, this seems unlikely. The Health Ministry's demand for setting up a designated room for a forensic examination of a rape victim may be an ideal, the reality is women deliver babies in open corridors in several government hospitals. Offering a realistic, doable solution, a Maharashtra-based NGO Centre for Enquiry into Health and Allied Themes (CEHAT) has produced rape kits with comprehensive guidelines to gather and preserve necessary forensic and medical evidence. Despite a 2009 Delhi High Court order making the kits mandatory in hospitals, the Delhi government had not started a centralised purchase mechanism for the kits till August 2013. This apathy witnessed in the capital, where the Nirbhaya case took place, leaves little room for hope.

Thought for the Day

A work of art has no importance whatever to society. It is only important to the individual. —Vladimir Nabokov

On this day...100 years ago

Lahore, Friday, March 6, 1914

B.A. examinations for female candidates

THE Syndicate of the Punjab University had lately before it a proposal from the Arts Faculty that female candidates for the B.A. examination be allowed to take up French, German or one of the Indian vernaculars, whereas under the existing regulations only French was included as an optional subject for female candidates. The Syndicate did not favour this proposal pointing out that there was already a large choice of subjects, and that a candidate was not compelled to take a classical language or its equivalent. It also enquired from the Faculty whether in the opinion of the latter it was necessary or desirable to continue the distinction between male and female candidates. Whatever might be said as to the requirement of a theoretical equality regarding subjects for male and female candidates, we see no reason, when French along with Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian is allowed to remain within the category of languages to be taken up, why vernacular languages alone should be tabooed.

Record of rights in the Punjab

MR. B.T. Gibson, Director of Land Records, Punjab, passes strong remarks on the trustworthiness and value of our records. Referring to the progress in the record work he says: “A further test of the experimental system adopted in Gujarat did not give satisfactory results, and tend to show that the system is unsuitable in a district where the previous maps are inaccurate or very much out of date”. Then again referring to the annual record Form IV he says that in Karnal where the bad state of the records had to be brought to the notice of the Financial Commissioner only 33 out of 341 jamabandis were checked by the Sub-Divisional Officer and Revenue Assistant. The check was also quite inadequate in Ludhiana, Gurdaspur, Jhelum and Jhang. He complains that some Sub-Divisional Officers exercise very little supervision over the records of their charges.

ARTICLE

Armed forces and governance
Indian military knows and honours its place in a democracy
Kuldip Nayar

ANOTHER Lok Sabha, 15th in the series, has concluded its five-year tenure. Whatever business that was transacted in the House was, indeed, exasperating and raucous. Unfortunately, the House representing the democratic system has fallen by the wayside practically in all Asian countries.

In the coming days the Indian voters will once again queue up before the polling booths to elect their representatives. Their quality has been found wanting. But I am confident that the next House will be better in content because the emergence of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has changed the political scenario in the country to make it cleaner and transparent.

Yet I do not like the increasing influence of the armed forces. Defence Minister A.K. Antony was correct in saying that there can never be an Army coup in the country. India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru too echoed the same thoughts when he opted for the parliamentary way of governance after Independence in August 1947. His argument was that the country was too large and too caste and religion ridden.

My worry, however, is over the say which the armed forces are beginning to have in the affairs of governance. Take the stationing of troops at the Siachen glacier. Was it necessary when several retired top brass said that it had no strategic importance? Even otherwise, when an agreement had been initialled by the foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan, our armed forces should have followed the decision but they had it stalled. Instead of being a no-man territory the soldiers of both countries at the glacier are suffering due to the inclement weather and losing men at regular intervals.

Take another example of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) which empowers the Army to detain or even kill a person on suspicion without any legal action. The Northeast has been under it for years. A government-appointed committee found it “unnecessary” and recommended its withdrawal. But the armed forces have had their way and the AFSPA continues to be in operation.

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has officially asked New Delhi to free the state from the law's application. He has made the appeal even publicly. But the Central government has not relented because the armed forces want the AFSPA to continue. Even a marginal concession of releasing the political prisoners as requested by the Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister has been denied.

More recent is the inquiry into the “encounter” at Pathribal in Jammu and Kashmir. The Army is alleged to have killed five “terrorists”, while the local villagers have said that the deceased were innocent. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquired into the matter and has submitted its report before the Supreme Court. According to the report, it was a cold-blooded fake encounter.

In fact, breaking his silence after 23 years the then Kupwara Deputy Commissioner, S.M. Yasin, said recently that he had been threatened and offered promotions to change his report on the alleged mass rapes in Konam Poshpora in February 1991. It is strange that the Army has claimed that there was no such incident. The self-acquittal by the top brass has only aggravated the sense of alienation and resentment among the people in Jammu and Kashmir. The Government of India should still set up a judicial inquiry headed by a Supreme Court judge to investigate what are perceived as fake encounters.

Hardly has the dust settled down on the Pathribal encounter when the story of a possible coup in January 2012 has become public. Two Army units-one of which was an armoured battalion moved to Delhi from Agra. Any movement of troops in the periphery of the Capital has to be with the prior permission. Still both units moved and were withdrawn only when the Defence Secretary summoned the Director General of Military Operations, Lt. Gen. A.K. Choudhary, at midnight and conveyed him that the top in the government was very unhappy and concerned.

When a daily newspaper broke the story at that time, Defence Minister A.K. Antony rubbished it. So did some key army and civilian officials. Now Lt. Gen. A.K. Choudhary, after his retirement, has confirmed the story. More shocking is the confirmation by Air Chief N.A.K. Browne, then heading the Air Force. He has said: “The paratroopers were being moved to check out the possibility of their marrying with the C130 at Hindon air base, near Delhi”.

Still the Defence Minister has said that it was “a routine training exercise.” When after telling the Director General of Military Operations, the government sends a chopper to check if the troops were on their way back, there is more than what meets the eye. Since the date synchronised with the appeal to the Supreme Court by the then Army Chief V.K. Singh's on his birth date, the movement of the military units was given importance beyond proportions.

The entire matter has to be examined further by a team of top retired civil and military officials to reach the bottom of the “routine exercise.” It cannot be left at the mere denial stage despite Defence Minister Antony’s vehement denial. Even a limited say of the armed forces in civilian matters is ominous.

That the armed forces are apolitical is a tribute to their training and conviction when both Pakistan and Bangladesh have swerved from the right path. The other two countries in the subcontinent have had a similar training. Still they threw out the elected governments. Even today when the troops have gone back to the barracks, one cannot underestimate the importance of the military.

The Indian military knows and honours its place in a democratic polity. Still the examples I have given should serve as a grim warning. True, the democratic temperament has got implanted on Indian soil. But this cannot be taken for granted. Even a small example of Bonapartism should be probed thoroughly. The armed forces are for the country's defence and the decision to use them rests with the elected government. This is something basic and no comprise can be made in a democratic structure.

MIDDLE

Genesis of Army coup syndrome
Lieut-Gen (retd) Baljit Singh

AS a military leader, Major-Gen KS Thimayya, DSO, had emerged shoulders above his contemporaries, post the 1947-48 Indo-Pak war in the J&K theatre. This measure of Timmy was further bolstered when the international community unequivocally applauded his deft handling of the acrimonious POW repatriation on the Korean peninsula. Prime Minister Nehru was so impressed by the calibre of the General that in personal interaction the PM addressed him as Timmy, always.

Gen KS Thimayya

So the day he was elevated to the post of Chief of the Army Staff, Mr Nehru broke with convention and unannounced walked into the COAS office to congratulate his friend. So taken aback was the Army Chief that he remained transfixed to his chair even as the Prime Minister walked right up to him. Without ado, Mr Nehru shook hands and taking the visitor's chair launched into a convivial conversation with the utterance "won't you offer me a cigarette, Timmy?"

We learnt of this episode some twenty years later at a mutual friend's home from Ammie, including a few indiscreet words uttered in innocent banter by Timmy. Now Ammie was the lively, petite and charming younger sister of the Chief. She had been married to a bureaucrat from the Indian Civil Service and was widowed during a cloudburst when holidaying with their two children, up in the Kullu valley in the 1950s. Mr Nehru was quick to redress the tragedy and asked Timmy whether Ammie would accept the role of a personal assistant in the PM’s household. In the event, she was assigned responsibility of the PM's wardrobe, provided suitable quarters on the premises and would become a permanent fixture on the PM's staff during foreign visits, also. Ammie was in a sense “adopted” by the Nehru-Gandhis, ultimately becoming a mentor and companion of Priyanka and Rahul during their days of cloistered childhood. Mrs Indira Gandhi would often seek out Ammie for a relaxed drink in the evening and even decades later, a car would pick her on most Sundays to lunch with the children.

However, Ammie was sad to recall that “Panditji” (as she referred to Mr Nehru, always) had taken to heart Timmy’s indiscreet banter during Mr Nehru’s unprecedented “call” on the Chief's office. She elaborated that by the side of Timmy’s office table was a steel chest of draws and Mr Nehru in the mood of bonhomie inquired, “Is that a treasure chest, Timmy?” The Chief stated that in the upper drawer were operational plans pertaining to the Western and Northern boarders. To the PM’s next interjection, “And the second drawer”, the Chief stated that it contained dossiers of a few Generals which the PM would need, to pick his successor. Persisting with child-like curiosity, Mr Nehru shot back: “And the last drawer?”

Not one to be put down in a repartee and with a mischievous smile, the Chief said: “Well sir, all it contains is the only copy of the plan for a military coup, which I keep strictly under my personal care”.

As may be imagined, the seeds of suspicion were sown unwittingly and its ghost would visit the PM’s and Timmy's successors forever, even though Mr Nehru had chuckled and kept up tete-a-tete, to finish his cigarette.

OPED-NEIGHBOURS

Can India, China cooperate on Afghanistan?
Afghanistan matters not because it is an arena for inter-state competition or competing national interests. It is important because a weak state can make it vulnerable again to radical forces and ideologies eager to fill any vacuum.
Zorawar Daulet Singh

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is so far the only regional institution in place but its area of interest is Central Asia and not Afghanistan. This file photo shows the SCO members and observers at a meeting in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, last year. AFP (Left) and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi with his Afghan counterpart Zarar Ahmad Usmani in Kabul recently. According to China, Afghanistan’s stability impacts its western province Xinjiang. AFP

Indian, Chinese and Afghan delegations, comprising former practitioners and scholars, engaged in a trilateral workshop organised by an international think tank in the last week of February. The rationale for the workshop was to examine and identify the prospects for India-China cooperation over conflict management in Afghanistan.

As one Chinese scholar remarked if such a theme for trilateral cooperation had been suggested a few years ago, it would have been dismissed as simply fantastic. In fact, at the track-1 level, Indian and Chinese diplomats engaged in their first structured conversation on Afghanistan in April, 2013.

The recent workshop revealed interesting insights into how these two regional powers perceive their interests in Afghanistan, and how the Afghan elite perceive their own state-building challenges ahead.

Persistent bilateralism

A common pattern of Indian and Chinese remarks is the persistence of the norm of bilateralism in Delhi and Beijing’s foreign policies. For both India and China, this can be traced to a cultural preference in their foreign relations for bilateral engagement and partnerships emanating from their post-colonial identities that constrain both states from sharing sovereignty in a multilateral or cooperative security framework.

China for shared approach

For China, bilateralism also has a particular virtue in this case as it enables Beijing to avoid disturbing its other regional priorities — primarily the China-Pakistan relationship. A Chinese participant made clear that Beijing is not interested in a solution that seeks to “AfPak” the process to pressurise Pakistan. China is not interested in involving itself in regional disputes (i.e. India-Pakistan, Afghanistan-Pakistan). In China’s world, the participant argued, Afghanistan and Pakistan are viewed as separate issues with a clear priority: Afghanistan’s security is a regional and global problem but Pakistan’s security is China’s problem.

The only regional institution in place – the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation or SCO — is not prepared at this stage to expand its original mandate and area of interest from Central Asia to Afghanistan. A Chinese participant argued that the SCO is useful for counter-narcotics cooperation but counter-terrorism cooperation was difficult under this format. The ship of the Chinese state moves slowly and cautiously, and, this was reflected by Chinese participants who seemed reluctant to offer decisive assessments on the possible flux in Chinese interests after the pull out of Western troops.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit to Kabul on February 22 is significant. Wang outlined Chinese interests in a press conference with his Afghan counterpart, Zarar Ahmad Osmani: “The peace and stability of this country has an impact on the security of western China, and more importantly, it affects the tranquility and development of the entire region.” Earlier, on February 7, Xi Jinping met Hamid Karzai at the Sochi Winter Olympics. According to official Chinese reports, Xi stressed that “China will continue to firmly support Afghanistan for the efforts for safeguarding state independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, and support an “Afghan-led and Afghan-owned” national reconciliation process.” Diplomatically, China has already adjusted its Afghan policy.

One Chinese scholar stated that India-China cooperation on Afghanistan is welcome but the primary initiative for such trilateral initiatives should come from Kabul. It was also stated that China will not lead a regional process but will be an equal member of a shared approach.

India and multilateral networks

Despite possessing a relatively softer version of state sovereignty, India too finds it difficult to craft effective trilateral or multilateral networks on issues of high politics. On Afghanistan, this is a disadvantage because without direct geopolitical access to a landlocked Afghanistan, crafting simultaneous partnerships with Afghanistan’s immediate neighbours becomes obvious for India. Yet, in the post-9/11 phase, India’s prior Afghan-centric cooperation with Iran, Russia and Central Asia simply dried up. In the last year or so, these regional conversations have restarted.

In fact, the Iranian Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, in his February visit to Delhi remarked: “Chabahar and a corridor, both rail and road from Chabahar to Afghanistan and Central Asia, is a project we are working together with India. I hope that in this trip we can take practical steps (to implement the project)”. The Chabahar port is connected to the city of Zaranj in southwestern Afghanistan from where India has already constructed a 200-km road to Delaram (reducing the journey time from 14 hours to 2 hours), which further connects to an existing road network onto Kabul and other important provincial towns.

An Afghan participant remarked that an operationalised Chabahar port will open a new lifeline for Afghanistan and reduce the dependence on Karachi as Afghanistan’s only line of communication to the Indian Ocean.

Overall, bilateralism remains an obstacle to structured regional cooperation, and, in the near-term, it is perhaps more realistic to anticipate Afghanistan’s immediate and extended neighbours pursuing independent policies with limited coordination. But this does not imply that there are serious intra-regional conflicts of interest over Afghanistan. Leaving aside the case of Pakistan, which is pursuing its traditional role as a spoiler, none of the other regional states are actually working at cross-purposes. India, China, Iran and Russia are all legitimising the Afghan state and providing varying degrees of material assistance. In sum, self-help policies have not translated into zero-sum outcomes so far.

Assistance for Afghanistan

The Afghan side consistently emphasised the sovereignty of the present Kabul regime and argued for an “Afghan government-led” reconciliation process rather than an “Afghan-led” process of inclusive peace building among the different ethnic groups. According to participants, the latter nomenclature is prone to misuse by external actors attempting to pursue their own conflict-resolution strategies on the reconciliation issue, which more often than not undermines the credibility of the Afghan government, and, the efficacy of the reconciliation process itself.

The general impression was the Afghan elite appears resilient enough to preserve the gains of the past decade and there is agency inside Afghanistan to absorb capacity-building assistance from wherever they can find it. One former practitioner remarked that a demographically young Afghanistan cohering around an Afghan national identity will not voluntarily submit to radical or separatist ideologies if even a modicum of an international lifeline in terms of capacity and financial assistance remains open for the remainder of this decade.

On China, the Afghan side urged participants to stop viewing Afghanistan through Pakistan’s prism and view it as an entity itself. On India, the Afghan side sought greater support – if not an “alliance” then an effective “partnership”. Afghan requirements include training their officer corps, military equipment particularly helicopters and medical evacuation capabilities, training a generation of technocrats to man the embryonic state apparatus, educational assistance via scholarships to Indian and Chinese institutions.

Scenario post-2014

Historically, Afghanistan’s role in the region has evolved in four broad stages. The pre-modern phase was really about Afghanistan as a route to militarily access India. As one Afghan participant wryly remarked this phase left only ruins to reminisce about. The second stage of Afghanistan’s development was the “Great Game” era, and, Afghanistan’s territorial definition was shaped by imperial expansion and an ultimate accommodation between British India and Russia. In the backdrop of such a balance of power, Afghanistan discovered some autonomy as a buffer between these two empires. The 1907 Anglo-Russian convention gave formal expression to a semi-neutral Afghanistan.

The third stage was opened with the 1979 Russian invasion, which overturned what had remained a peripheral locale for the great powers. The reaction to this intervention led to the ultimate destruction of the Afghan state, and, the ascendance of the externally sponsored Taliban in 1990s.

Post-2001 opened the contemporary phase. Today, Afghanistan matters not because it is an arena for inter-state competition or competing national interests but because a weak state can make Afghanistan vulnerable again to radical forces and ideologies eager to fill any vacuum.

The one unstated question that seemed to form the backdrop of the workshop was whether regional powers could live with an Afghan power vacuum that strengthens extremist havens and its potential spillover onto their territorial frontiers. For India, the historical lessons are clear: even a modicum of a progressive pluralistic state in Afghanistan is an antidote to radicalism in South Asia. For China, the spectre of radicalism infecting its western regions suggests Afghanistan can no longer be dealt via a posture of benign neglect. But the policy mix for both India and China in terms of level of assistance and involvement is in flux.

As the realist adage goes, there is no virtue like necessity. The coming months and years might find two unlikely regional powers — India and China — coordinating on at least some questions on Afghanistan’s destiny.

— The author is a doctoral candidate at King’s College London, and co-author of India China Relations: The Border Issue and Beyond

The year of transition

* Afghanistan is scheduled to undergo a political transition, courtesy the presidential elections due in April, and a security transition, with the full withdrawal of international combat troops by the end of this year.

* The Bilateral Security Agreement with the US would help to maintain a small US troop presence in Afghanistan following the general drawdown in 2014. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has not signed it.

* Given their strategic interests, India and Iran could offer Afghanistan a critical lifeline during a period of uncertainty.

* Both Moscow and Beijing are concerned about the future of Afghanistan and possible instability in the country after US withdrawal.

* Afghanistan and China share a border. The northeastern end of the Wakhan Corridor in Afghanistan connects the two countries. The terrain is widely inhospitable, making border control challenging. Beijing is concerned that Xinjiang-bound insurgents could take advantage of Afghanistan’s porous border with Tajikistan and make their way towards Xinjiang.