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Marriage in trouble Coach Walsh’s concerns |
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Pakistan's military adventurism
Breaching the hierarchy
Need for a long-term plan now Escalating tension is not good for either country
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Marriage in trouble Buoyed
by the Modi-led victory in Haryana and Maharashtra, the BJP has started asserting itself in Punjab, where it has been treated rather unfairly. In a coalition if one partner gets the post of Chief Minister, the other usually settles for that of Deputy CM. The Badals have retained both. The uneasy partnership got a jolt with the defeat of Arun Jaitley in the Lok Sabha elections. When Chief Minister Badal asked for a package for Punjab, Jaitley refused with the advice to clean up the fiscal mess at the state level. A list of demands submitted to Modi on the eve of his US visit has elicited no response so far. Another sore point in the relationship surfaced when Badal campaigned for the Chautalas in Haryana’s Sikh-dominated areas. This was followed by a bitter attack on the Badals by former MP Navjot Sidhu, who has own personal agenda. The national leadership of the BJP may not have blessed the Sidhu diatribe, but no one stopped him either. After the Sidhu guns fell silent, Punjab BJP chief Kamal Sharma decided to intervene and term Sidhu’s outburst as his personal opinion. But Sharma’s larger goal is different. Claiming that the BJP wields greater influence than SAD in category A and B cities, he has spoken for Punjab, not just his party. In recent years the Akali Dal has tried to expand its largely rural base to cities and include non-Sikhs in its fold. A clash of political interests is thus natural. The BJP has now raised inter-state issues like Chandigarh, river waters and the Rajiv-Longowal pact, which were usually left to SAD. More specifically, Industries Minister Madan Mohan Mittal has asked for a redistribution of powers, which means more important portfolios like Home, Housing, Excise and Taxation for BJP MLAs. Ideally, the two parties should resolve differences at a common platform instead of airing them in public. Things may change as the BJP has replaced its more vocal in-charge for Punjab, Shanta Kumar, with Agra MP Ramshankar Katheria. Still, given its electoral victories, the BJP's expectations from SAD are rising.
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Coach Walsh’s concerns Terry Walsh,
the Indian hockey coach, put in his papers on Tuesday before taking back his resignation the next day. Having coached the Indian team to the Asian Games gold medal - which India won after 16 years - Walsh had got into a position of great strength. It is quite likely, thus, that he wanted to discuss and negotiate issues relating to Indian hockey and his own situation from this position of strength. On a personal front, Walsh had been under pressure before Asian Games. The Sports Authority of India, which pays his salary, had suggested that nothing less than a gold medal in Incheon would be acceptable. He did not like the veiled threat. Walsh was angry over the way India’s performance in this year’s World Cup was reviewed — he says it was nothing but absolute “nonsense”. He was also upset over tax being deducted at source from his salary. On the operational front, Walsh has raised some very important issues over the way sport is organised and managed in India. He has been upset with the war of words between SAI and Hockey India; he has complained of lack of professionalism in issues as basic as the organisation of hockey camps at appropriate venues. He has said that he wants the ‘high-performance’ team of Hockey India to have a greater influence, and the “bureaucratic process” to have a greater flexibility. “We need certain things in a professional environment which should be easily accessible,” he said. In
Incheon, immediately after India won the gold medal match, he had said in terse, stern tones that India would get nowhere if fans and officials thought that beating Pakistan was the highest achievement. He expressed his frustration at lack of a proper coaching system, which could help players from the grassroots level to be coached in a uniform manner. He is particularly unhappy that the past players contribute nothing but negativity, and that official reviews are undertaken on failure, not on success. These are issues that are relevant and need to be addressed.
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Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation. — Jean Arp
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The Swadeshi spirit A CALCUTTA commercial paper ridicules the Swadeshi spirit of a young Indian who asked the paper for help. He was doubtless ignorant, but desirous of doing something during spare time. He wrote: "May I take the liberty to ask you if you can kindly suggest me one or two honest money making ways during extra time I get after daily office duties or some small industry which will produce an article of every day use?" Surely there is nothing in this enquiry to suggest ridicule because in the absence of any technical knowledge, an earnest enquirer can only appeal to experts to help. He has some spare time to devote to some home manufacture and evidently is willing to invest a little capital. In all probability he has the co-operation of the other members of his family. Why should he not be able to do something that will add to his income? If the industrial and commercial resources of the country are properly enquired into there should be no discouragement offered to a young enquirer of this type.
Co-operative movement and state aid IT is well known that the Co-operative Societies movement has become very popular throughout India. The demand for more societies and more capital is made from all quarters, but the Registrars have been unwilling to start more societies before the position of those already established is well assured. Further expansion is rendered difficult on account of the lack of proper men to manage societies and want of capital. There is always more money wanted to finance agriculture and to free them from ruinous debts. The appointment of a Commission to enquire into the condition of the movement is probably intended to devise a scheme of financing these societies.
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Pakistan's military adventurism Instead of acting circumspectly in such a situation, Pakistan has chosen to escalate tensions on its borders with Iran, Afghanistan and India. The tensions with these three neighbours with whom Pakistan shares land boundaries have arisen because of support to cross-border terrorism. This support is rendered by state agencies to extremist Sunni groups, ranging from Lashkar e taiba to the Afghan Taliban and Jaish e Adl. The tensions with Iran have risen because of the support that the extremist Sunni group Jaish ul Adl receives in Pakistan's Baluchistan Province, where the Pakistan army is simultaneously engaged in a bloody conflict against Baluchi separatists. Tensions with Iran escalated last year when Jaish e Adl mounted cross-border ground and missile attacks in Iran, resulting in Iranian casualties. An Iranian spokesman warned that the Iranian forces would enter Pakistani territory if Pakistan “failed to act against terrorist groups operating on its soil”. Virtually coinciding with this was an incident when Jaish e Adl kidnapped five Iranian border guards and moved them into Pakistan. Iran not only warned Pakistan of cross-border retaliation, but also brought repeated incursions from Pakistan soil to the notice of the UN Security Council in writing. Ever since the pro-Saudi Nawaz Sharif, whose links with radical Sunni extremist groups are well documented, assumed power, Pakistan has moved towards rendering unstinted support to Saudi Arabia, even in the Syrian civil war. It has also unilaterally annulled the Pakistan-Iran oil pipeline project, prompting action by Iran, seeking compensation. While Nawaz Sharif was commencing negotiations for a peace deal with Tehriq e Taliban in the tribal areas of North Waziristan, bordering Afghanistan, the Army Chief, Gen Raheel Sharif, disregarded the views of the Prime Minister. He launched a massive military operation, involving over 50,000 military and paramilitary personnel, backed by artillery, tanks, helicopter gunships and fighter jets. An estimated one million Pashtun tribesmen have fled their homes. They are now homeless and facing barriers, preventing their entry into the neighbouring provinces of Punjab and Sind. Not surprisingly, ISI “assets” like the Mullah Omar-led Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network have been quietly moved out from the battle zone, quite obviously into ISI safe houses. Unrest is brewing amidst the displaced Pashtun tribals as the army is unwilling to coordinate its operations with civilian relief agencies. The displaced and homeless Pashtun tribals, will inevitably, in due course, resort to terrorist violence across Pakistan. The special treatment meted out to ISI assets like Mullah Omar and the Haqqani network would have been carefully noted by the new Ashraf Ghani dispensation in Afghanistan, as a prelude to more serious attacks by the Afghan Taliban acting out of the ISI and army protected safe havens in Pakistan. Pakistan's western borders will be neither peaceful nor stable in the coming years. The escalating tensions with Iran, the partisan stance on Saudi Arabia-Iran rivalries and the military action in North Waziristan have invited criticism within Pakistan. The escalation of tension with India across the Line of Control and the international border has to be seen in this context. What better way for the army to divert attention from its misadventures in the west than to revive the “India bogey” in Pakistan? Such an action would also test the resolve of the Narendra Modi dispensation in India to deal with cross-border terrorism. Moreover, with state assembly elections due in J&K in December, the Pakistan army would strive to ensure that the credibility of these elections is questioned by ensuring a low turnout. Hurriyat leaders like Shabir Shah and Yasin Malik have already been commissioned to stir up discontent and discredit the Indian Army during the floods. What Pakistan had not bargained for, as it attempted to test India's resolve from August onwards, was the robust response that it received not only from the Indian Army, but also from the Border Security Force. This was accompanied by an ill-advised diplomatic effort to seek UN intervention in Jammu and Kashmir. Both Nawaz Sharif and his otherwise realistic NSA Sartaj Aziz seem to forget that the world changed dramatically after 9/11. The Western world led by the United States has come to realise that Pakistan-backed terrorist groups are as much a threat to their security as to that of India. Pakistan also seemed to ignore Mr. Modi’s unambiguous stance that dialogue and terrorism cannot go hand in hand. They also evidently misread the significance of the Obama-Modi Joint Declaration averring action for “dismantling of safe havens for terrorist and criminal networks, to disrupt all financial and tactical support for terrorist and criminal networks such as Al Qaida, Lashkar e Taiba, Jaish e Mohammed, the D-Company, and the Haqqanis.” Pakistan’s military adventurism on three fronts across its borders with India, Afghanistan and Iran has created just the right environment to turn the heat on Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Apart from mounting a media offensive, it is time for India to get world attention focused on Pakistan-sponsored terrorism and the plight of Baluchis, Shias and other minorities in that country. In any case, there should be no question of a sustained dialogue process till Pakistan fulfils its January 2004 assurance that territory under its control will not be used for terrorism against India.
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Breaching the hierarchy Earlier, the Chief Minister, after having been sworn to the office at Chandigarh sometime in the latter part of June,1977,had come to Amritsar where he held a meeting of the district officers .I, too, was invited to attend, though not holding a district charge; my posting at that time being as Superintendent of Police, Anti-Smuggling, a camouflage for the actual job of supervising the dreaded state-level interrogation centre, which formed part of the criminal investigation department(CID). The Chief Minister, in his address to the officers, dwelt upon the importance of the ‘executive’ in a parliamentary form of government and the need for the civil servants to implement the policies and programmes of the government in letter and spirit without fear and favour. He exhorted them to be honest, courteous, accessible, expeditious in the disposal of work and punctual in attending office. He asked them to behave as ‘servants’ of the people, and not as their masters. He concluded by saying that the officers could directly bring the problems to his notice, if they so liked. I was greatly impressed with the speech of the CM. Here was a leader of the masses who wanted the bureaucracy to deliver to the masses what was their due in a democratic set-up. Those days getting a district charge for a young IPS officer was no joke; it was widely believed that it required strings to be pulled at the political level. I had put in about eight years of service till then but the posting as a district superintendent of police had eluded me. I had no strings to pull. So, enthused by the CM's speech and his offer to approach him direct, I wrote a letter to him, pointing out my credentials and requesting him to assign me a district charge. The letter must have been marked down by the CM's office to the police headquarters which sought my explanation. Giving a lengthy explanation in black and white would not have served the purpose. So, I repaired posthaste to the state headquarters at Chandigarh and sought an audience with the Inspector General of Police (the chief of the state police then used to be an IG-level officer). I explained to him my position and the background of the matter. As I proceeded, his face saddened. Then, he spoke in a matter-of-fact but kindly manner: “There are only twelve districts and aspirants are far too many!” I understood what he meant! “And, sir, what about this letter calling for the explanation?” I mustered courage to ask him. “Forget it,” he said. He rose from his seat, smiled, shook my hands and added: “All the best.” That put my worries at rest concerning the letter and not the
district charge!
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Need for a long-term plan now So the Pakistani Army did what it does best. It escalated tensions along the border in an attempt to ratchet up pressure on India. It started with unprovoked mortar shelling on forward Indian positions along the Line of Control (LoC) and over the next few days, the firing spread to the international border and intensified. Accusing India of “deliberate and unprovoked violations of the ceasefire agreement and cross-border firing,” Pakistan promptly shot off a letter to the UN Secretary General asking for an intervention by the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan, a body for which India sees little role after the signing of the 1972 Simla Pact. The UN decided to ignore Pakistani shenanigans and has merely reiterated that India and Pakistan need to resolve all differences through dialogue to find a long-term solution to the dispute. Pakistan is facing multiple crises. Its global isolation is increasing by the day. US forces are withdrawing from Afghanistan starting December 2014 and Beijing is increasingly dissatisfied with Islamabad’s attempts at controlling the flow of Islamist extremists into its restless Xinjiang province. Tensions are rising also on Pakistan’s borders with Iran where Pakistani Sunni extremists are targeting Iranian border posts, forcing Iranian policymakers to suggest that if Pakistani authorities “cannot control the common border, they should tell us so that we ourselves can take action.” And the new government in Afghanistan under Ashraf Ghani is likely to go even further in developing close ties with New Delhi. Domestically, the Kashmir issue is once again becoming a political football with Bilawal Bhutto Zardari bombastically declaring that Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) would get back entire Kashmir from India. Imran Khan is breathing down Nawaz Sharif’s neck and the Pakistan Army’s struggle against domestic Taliban seems to be going nowhere. All this is happening at a time when there is renewed confidence in India about its future as a major global player under the Modi government and when the world is ready to look at the Indian story afresh. No wonder, the Pakistani security establishment is nervous about its growing irrelevance — and what better way to come into global prominence once again than to try to create a crisis in Kashmir! Despite the election season in India in the last fortnight, the Modi government’s reaction has been creditable so far. Rahul Gandhi came out of hibernation to attack the Prime Minister for ceasefire violations by Pakistan. The government, however, ignored the opposition’s many taunts and confidently made clear to Pakistan that Indian forces would “make the costs of this adventurism unaffordable.” This gave the Indian military much-needed operational space to carve out a response which was swift, sharp and effective. Together, the Indian government and the nation’s military have underlined the costs of Pakistan’s dangerous escalatory tactics by massive targeted attacks on Pakistani Ranger posts along the border. Now the Modi government needs a long-term plan to handle Pakistan. It can be considered the biggest strategic failure of Indian diplomacy that even after more than six decades, India has not found a way to neutralise the malevolence of a neighbour one-eighth its size. Business-as-usual has never been an option for India, and yet India’s Pakistan policy in recent years has struggled to move beyond cultural exchanges and cross-border trade. Pakistan has continued to train its guns at India and drain India's diplomatic capital and military strength, while India has continued to debate whether Pakistani musicians should be allowed to enter India. This disconnect between Pakistan's clear strategic priority and India's magnificently short-sighted approach will continue to exact its toll on India unless Delhi makes it a priority to think outside the box on Pakistan. Pakistan has a revisionist agenda and would like to change the status quo in Kashmir while India would like the very opposite. India hopes that the negotiations with Pakistan would ratify the existing territorial status quo in Kashmir. At its foundation, these are irreconcilable differences and no confidence-building measure is likely to alter this situation. India’s premise largely has been that the peace process will persuade Pakistan to cease supporting and sending extremists into India and start building good neighbourly ties. Pakistan, in contrast, has viewed the process as a means to nudge India to make progress on Kashmir, a euphemism for Indian concessions. The debate in India on Pakistan has long ceased to be substantive. The choice that India has is not between talking and sulking. Pakistan has continued to manage the façade of talks with India even as its support for separatism and extremism in India continues unabated. India should also continue to talk (there is nothing to lose in having a low-level diplomatic engagement after all) even as it needs to unleash other arrows in its quiver to manage Pakistan. Smart policy for India means not being stuck between the talking/not talking binary. It’s not talking that matters but under whose terms and after years of ceding the initiative to Pakistan, it is now for India to dictate the terms for negotiations. If Pakistan manages to put its own house in order and refrain from using terrorism as a policy instrument against India, then India should certainly show some magnanimity. Indian policy makers had long forgotten poet Dinkar’s immortal lines: kshama shobhti us bhujang ko, jiske paas garal hai, uska kya jo dantheen, vishrahit vineet saral hai. (When a serpent that has venom, teeth and strength forgives, there is grace and magnanimity in its forgiveness. But when a serpent that has no venom and no bite claims to forgive, it sounds like hypocrisy and amounts to hiding its defeat with noble words.) Modi has done well to remind Pakistan that India can impose serious costs in response to Pakistan’s irrational behaviour and he should now build on that. Pakistan’s India obsession is not about Kashmir. The very manner in which Pakistan defines its identity makes it almost impossible that India will ever be able to find a modus vivendi with Islamabad. New Delhi should be ready to face this hard reality. The Modi government has made a good start and now it should follow through with a long-term strategy vis-à-vis its immediate
neighbour.
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Escalating tension is not good for either country There
has been an escalation of tension between India and Pakistan in the recent few days. The Line of Control (LoC) has witnessed serious exchange of fire at the border for nearly a fortnight. Prime Minister Narendra Modi referred to the border firing in one of his election rallies in Maharashtra. Modi said that Pakistan was getting the befitting lesson and it would not dare to open fire on the border. It may be recalled that the cease-fire agreement between India and Pakistan came into effect in November 2003. Thereafter there had been periodic fire from Pakistan side, which had to be routinely returned by the Indian forces posted at the LoC. Union Home Minister, Rajnath Singh made a statement that Pakistan should understand that times have changed in India, an obvious reference to Bharatiya Janata Party under Narendra Modi coming to power at the centre with majority of its own. Reverting to the situation on the LoC, the Border Security Force (BSF) was handling the situation on the international border and it was BSF which was doing the firing across the LoC in Poonch, R.S. Pura and Arnia sectors. Reports say that instructions to Director General BSF, D.K. Pathak went out from the National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, who was in direct touch with DG, BSF over the period of 5 days in the first half of October 2014. The BSF reportedly fired more than 10,000 mortar shells, not to speak of countless ammunition, leading to an unprecedented situation in the border. Pakistan reported that 2 civilians were killed and about 100 injured on their side and also that scores of villages witnessed vacating of houses by the civilians moving away from the border. The former Chief of BSF E.N. Rammohan commented that earlier the exchange of fire was confined to LMGs and MMGs and now, mortars are being used which spelt danger to civilian lives who lived within 5000 meters range. He went on to comment, "civilians dying like this is absolutely absurd". An analyst had written that the flare up on the border came at the height of campaigning for Assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana when Modi referred to Pakistan being taught lesson at a public rally in Maharashtra on October 9. A BSF Commandant said, "I am very proud, nobody, not even Indian Army has fired as much as we have into Pakistan since 1971 war. There were no restrictions this time and we kept on firing. Even the Army cannot boast of so much. At least no Army infantry battalion had fired mortars.” In Pakistan, Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif was a worried man and he summoned all the senior army officers for taking stock of the situation. Nawaz Sharif also dispatched his trusted adviser Shahryar Khan to Delhi for back channel work and to bring out normalcy on the border. Khan is the President of the Pakistan Cricket Control Board and his visit to India was ostensibly to discuss cricket fixtures with India, did not go much beyond that level, since no senior Indian back channel representative met him during his stay in Delhi. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, meanwhile held a meeting attended by all senior Army commanders. Prime Minister Modi said that India had to be prepared for a changing world which demanded new thinking on economic, diplomatic and security policies. He asked them to be fully prepared for any eventuality. He also said that security challenges would be more unpredictable and invisible. On the Pakistan side, the Army Chief Gen. Raheel Sharif said at the Military Academy on October 18, that Pakistani forces are fully capable of meeting any external threat and that any aggression against Pakistan would get a befitting response. The Pakistani Army chief also digressed to the subject of Kashmir and said that the people of Kashmir should be allowed to decide their fate in the light of UN Resolutions. The growing tension between India and Pakistan had not escaped the attention of foreign observers. The Australian scholar Christopher Snedden, who has specialised on the subject of Kashmir and teaches at the Asia Pacific Centre for Security Studies, Honolulu, has commented that India's new belligerence towards Pakistan is unhelpful and cited the cancellation of talks by the Indian Foreign Secretary with her counterpart in Pakistan over the Pakistan Ambassador's meeting with Kashmiri separatists. Snedden went on to say that such meetings had routinely taken place in the past. Pakistan Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif had attended Modi's oath taking ceremony as the Prime Minister of India in New Delhi, on May 16, 2014, which he did ignoring the advice of the armed forces and hardliners, who were against his visiting India for the occasion. The border tensions and the disproportionate level of Indian reaction would lead to Pakistan analysing and reviewing various options to retaliate against India. While there would not be any serious flare up between Indian and Pakistani forces in any sector. Pakistan Army Chief and the ISI Chief of Pakistan would be seriously exploring multiple ways of hurting India. At the diplomatic level, Pakistan had activated its diplomatic representative to brief UN members on the unfulfilled UN resolution for holding plebiscite in Kashmir for ascertaining views of the Kashmiri people regarding their options between India and Pakistan. While there will be no open war between India and Pakistan in the normally understood sense, that does not prevent Pakistan from activating its tools of terror like Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed in carrying out serious attacks within India. The National Security Guard (NSG) Chief J.N. Choudhury had warned on October 16 that the Al Qaeda and the ISIS may join hands with terror groups like Indian Mujahideen and carry out multi-city multiple attacks in the country at the time of their choosing. Terror organisations like Lashkar-e- Toiba and Jaish-e- Muhammed will also be carried along in their dastardly scheme. The tensions between the two countries have to be seriously examined and ways and means to bring back normalcy should be worked out and implemented. India stands to lose much more if terrorist organisations are deployed in various cities in the country at a time of Pakistan's choice. As this possibility is strong, this needs to be given serious consideration. Now that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has demonstrated his strength once again by decisively winning the elections in Maharashtra and Haryana, it is time for him to turn to the important issue of easing tensions between India and Pakistan. There was no meeting between Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan during the UN session in October as Modi was not interested in meeting with his Pakistani counterpart. The next opportunity comes up in November during the SAARC meeting in Nepal. It is hoped that the two Prime Ministers will have one to one meeting, with or without officials and work out a road map for future course of action.
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Just
THE letter came as a bolt from the blue. It was from the state police headquarters calling for my explanation for writing to the Chief Minister direct and thereby breaching the hierarchy. The prophecy of Alvin Toffler in “Future Shock” that the edifice of bureaucracy and its pillars — hierarchy, permanence and division of labour — would crumble all over the world in not too distant a future appeared to have come tumbling down.
Pakistan