Tag Archives | cause

It is the Anna-rchy stupid!

By on August 14, 2011 in Uncategorized

Ends do not justify the means

Imagine this scenario. Syed Ali Shah Geelani, the patriarchal Kashmiri separatist leader who offered prayers for the slain al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, decides to protest against Indian “occupation” of Kashmir by hoisting the Pakistani flag at the Red Fort on 15th of August at 7.30 AM. OK, let us leave the Pakistani flag bit out of this for a moment. It is too provocative.

Say, Mr Geelani wants to offer Namaaz and read verses from the Quran to 5000 people from the ramparts of the Red Fort as a means of protest against the Indian government. He says that Indian government must accept his position on Kashmir completely as he is the sole repository of knowledge and wisdom about Kashmir. Because he claims to speak for the people of Kashmir, the democractically elected government of India must either accept his demands or allow him to go ahead with his plans for protests at the Red Fort.

Meanwhile, some of Mr Geelani’s supporters gather in front of the United Nations headquarters in New York and stage a protest against the Indian government. The US State department spokesperson asks government of India “to exercise appropriate democratic restraint in the way it deals with peaceful protest”.

As we all know, the right to protest peacefully is enshrined in the democratic ideals of the Indian Constitution. While you may not agree with the demands or cause of Mr Geelani, you would of course never deny him the right to protest in the Indian Republic. Right. Yes. Agree.

Most of the readers of this blog will be aghast at this proposition. Of course not. How can Mr Geelani lay claim to any public space in Delhi for his protest? Are there no rules and laws in this country that must be followed by the likes of Mr Geelani, and enforced by the government of India?

By now you have got the drift. This is not a rhetorical argument but has direct parallels with what Mr Anna Hazare and his team of supporters are trying to say about their plans to publicly protest against corruption on 16th of August, a day after the Independence Day celebrations in Delhi.

Considering the size of his protest and the date, Delhi Police refused to grant him permission to use Jantar Mantar and have offered the Jai Prakash Narayan Park in Central Delhi instead for a duration of three days. Delhi Police requested them to go to Burari (on Delhi’s outskirts) or some other location if they wanted it for a longer period. Mr Hazare’s supporters refuse to accept this legal order. Rather than challenge it in court, Mr Hazare instead chooses to write directly to the Prime Minister of India. So much for following the constitutionally available means of challenging government orders in this country.

A couple of public-safety and public-order related issues need to be highlighted here. Mr Hazare’s planned protest is a public event and is no different from a show by Rakhi Sawant as far as public order and safety is concerned. Who is responsible for maintaining public order at the venue? If there is a violation of public safety, who is answerable for that lapse? It is duty of the statutory bodies like the Delhi Police to take that call, however disagreeable we may find those decisions.

Notwithstanding the inconvenience and the intrusion of privacy, the average bloke  gets himself frisked at checkposts of Delhi Police and takes alternative routes when some of the roads are closed for security reasons. That is the law of the land which we have chosen to follow for the sake of public order and safety. Mr Hazare and his team are not special to be treated differently.

Independence Day and the days preceding it are days of high security alert in Delhi. It has been so from the days of Punjab insurgency in the 1980s. All leaves of policemen and policewomen are cancelled, reserve police and trainee recruits are drawn in for duty to prevent a terror strike in the Indian capital. When that overextended police force would get a well-deserved break after the Independence Day, Mr Hazare and his team have burdened the same cops with more onerous duty at the end of it all.

Lest it be mistaken, Mr Hazare is fully entitled to protest. Delhi Police is fully entitled to regulate his protest in terms of venue and time. Mr Hazare is fully entitled to seek legal recourse to get the orders of the Delhi Police rescinded. What Mr Hazare is not entitled to, is to threaten to take to streets or to take his own life, if he doesn’t agree with government orders.

Oh, by the way, some of you will turn around and say: How can you compare Mr Hazare and Mr Geelani? One is fighting for a righteous cause while other is a secessionist. If Mr Hazare and his supporters think that their cause is righteous to justify the use of any means, so do Mr Geelani and his gang of supporters. Even bin Laden believed that his cause was righteous and moral and his supporters contend that it justified the use of all means.

This reminds me of the famous anecdote of GB Shaw.

Shaw was at a dinner party with some very lah-di-dah people. Somehow, the conversation turned to slack sexual morals (in the George Bernard Shaw version, this was in the 1930s).

He asked one of the ladies present:  “Madam, would you sleep with me for one million pounds?”

“Well, for a million pounds, Mr Shaw,” the lady replied, “perhaps I would.” She and the other guests laughed.

The conversation turned to other topics and, later, George Bernard Shaw whispered to the lady: “Madam, would you sleep with me tonight if I gave you £10?”

“Mr Shaw!” replied the woman, deeply offended: “What sort of woman do you think I am?”

“Madam,” Shaw said, “we have established what sort of woman you are. We are merely haggling over the price.”

In a similar vein, by supporting Mr Hazare’s tactics, we have established what the principle is. We are merely haggling over the cause and the protagonists.

Remember, it is for good reason that one of Mahatma Gandhi’s favourite maxims was “Ends do not justify the means.”

Additional Reading: For more substantive takes on the debate, please read Nitin Pai’s FAQ on the Anna Hazare and Jan Lok Pal issue and Mr B Raman’s views on the subject.

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Weekday levity: the jehadi interview

By on October 19, 2010 in Uncategorized

To die for a jehadi cause.

Faisal Kasab applies to the Taliban for its jehadi fellowship. The Quetta shura conducts an interview.

“Jehadi Faisal Kasab, do you smoke?”
“Yes, I do a little.”
“Do you know that Osama bin Laden does not smoke and advises other jehadis not to smoke?”
“If Osama bin Laden says so, I shall cease smoking.”

“Do you drink?”
“Yes, a little.”
“Osama bin Laden strongly condemns drunkenness.”
“Then I shall cease drinking.”

“Jehadi Faisal Kasab, what about women?”
“A little….”
“Do you know that Osama bin Laden strongly condemns amoral behaviour?”
“If Osama bin Laden condemns, I shall not love them any longer.”

“Jehadi Faisal Kasab, will you be ready to sacrifice your life for the cause of the jehad?”
“Of course. Who the f*** needs such a life?”

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No to International Humanitarian Laws

By on May 18, 2010 in Uncategorized

Let us not digress from the Maoist challenge with red herrings of Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocols.

The latest incident of bombing the bus in Dantewada district saw some respected media commentators raise the spectre of invoking International Humanitarian Law [IHL] against the Maoists. Legally speaking, India is a signatory to the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949 which deal mainly with international conflict. These four conventions have also been ratified by the Indian Parliament and are thus India is obliged to follow them.

When it comes to situations pertaining to non-international conflicts, the Second of the three additional protocols to the Geneva Conventions deals with it. India, however, is not a signatory to these additional protocols and quoting them in the Indian context has little meaning. But then there is this Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions — India automatically becomes a signatory to it — which establishes certain fundamental and generic rules for a non-international conflict.

This hullabaloo about applying the IHL to the Maoists makes little sense in today’s context. India has enough sovereign laws of its own under which the Maoists can be charged and prosecuted by the state. The Indian state currently lacks the capacity to enforce these laws against the Maoists and ought to be focused on creating that judicial, police and administrative capacity rather than waste its energies over the IHL. If it is about the laws, let the Indian state first enforce its own sovereign laws with all the might of the state before venturing into invoking the IHL.

Notwithstanding the assertion of Common Article 3 that it “does not affect the legal status of the parties to the conflict”, any Indian move to raise objections about Maoists over violating the IHL will automatically offer de facto recognition and moral equivalence to an outlawed terrorist organisation like the Maoists. In any case, no good would really come out by raising these legal objections against such horrendous and ruthless killers. Does anyone believe that Maoists would be so moved by Indian objections that they would lay down their arms just because India will threaten to drag them to the International Committee of the Red Cross or to the International Criminal Court as war criminals? Let us get real. Not to forget that India, like the US, is not even a signatory to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, thereby rendering the whole argument irrelevant.

Some would argue that the left-liberal intellectual class which insidiously supports the Maoists — by conflating them with tribals and positing the security operations of the Indian state as the cause for Maoists’ violent reprisals — could be countered by taking this ethical-legal position under the IHL. If the beheading of Francis Induwar in Jharkhand or mass murder of innocent civilians travelling in a bus by the Maoists has not swayed these overground supporters from their unstinted support for the Maoist cause, their is little likelihood that they are going to be swayed by this IHL argument. In fact, there is enough evidence to suggest that these Fourth Columnists, under the guise of various Human Rights groups and NGOs, have demanded invoking the IHL against the security forces and the tribals who have helped the security forces against the Maoists. Indian state should thus eschew any temptation to influence the overground Maoist supporters in its favour unless it wishes to fritter its meagre resources and time by getting into this pointless, messy and never-ending debate.

Those who raise the issue of violation of IHL by the Maoists in the IED attack on the bus actually end up deflecting the attention from the main issue — the issue of creating adequate state capacity and the political will to launch a sustained security offensive to exterminate the Maoists. Even if inadvertently, the IHL drum-beaters do a huge disservice to the cause of the state and to the memories of the innocent victims of the Maoist terror by raising these red herrings of Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocols.

The Indian state is fully justified in ignoring and dismissing these red herrings; what it needs to do now is to go beyond and summon all the power at its command to finish the scourge of the Maoists. And that is the direction the civil society also needs to be push the Indian state into. Let us see that public pressure build now. IHL, Geneva Conventions, Additional Protocols and Common Article can wait till then. Or for ever.

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Mukul Kesavan has a cause

By on October 5, 2009 in Uncategorized

Not in opposing Operation Green Hunt, but in ensuring that the government completes its strategy by undertaking development.

From berating popular media anchors for parroting the government line and comparing Home Ministry’s plans to seize the security initiative against the Maoists to George Bush led US military operations against Iraq, Mukul Kesavan covers a lot of ground in his weekend column for Mint. In fact, so disparate are his many threads that it is a challenge to pick out the central argument in his piece which vehemently opposes Operation Green Hunt, the name given to the centrally-coordinated operation to be launched by the police and paramilitary forces against the Maoists.

The home minister’s primary justification for Operation Green Hunt is that the State can’t allow its authority, its monopoly over violence, to be flouted with impunity.[Mint]

Mukul conveys a wrong impression when he renders this primary justification to be some kind of an ego trip for the minister and his government, as if Maoist violence is an affront to their personal fiefdom. Does he really believe that the government is in a mindless competition with the Maoists for greater violence without any larger aim?

Although it is a function of governance to ensure that the  writ of a democratically elected government runs over a territory, to assert state’s monopoly over violence in this case can at best be a secondary — perhaps even a tertiary aim. More dangerously, invoking this theoretical construct converts this pressing national issue into an otiose ideological debate that deflects attention from the real questions at hand.

If one were to see rationally, the actual reasons for anti-Maoist security operations are more realistic and rooted to the situation on ground. This battle against the Maoists is an attempt to win over the hearts and minds of the people who have willy-nilly suffered from apathy, neglect and dereliction of its duty by the state over the last 62 years. The cause, a lack of development emanating from poor governance, can only be ameliorated by improving governance and undertaking economic and social development that leads to better lives for the affected populace. The Maoists, under the pretext of an outdated ideology, violently — and often brutally — deny any attempts by the state to bring development to the people. If a contrite state has to make amends for its past failures of misgovernance and undertake development, it needs to re-establish its presence in those areas.  Notwithstanding assertions by a former chairman of the national anti-Naxalite task force in the Union home ministry to the contrary, the only possible way to do that is by successfully executing security operations against the Maoists first.

Security here has two distinct yet overlapping connotations: recapturing territory and winning over the population. These correspond to the first two stages of COIN in terms of the famous Petreaus doctrine: Clear, Hold and Build. The third stage of Build translates into development. Development can only, and must, follow security. If the state stops short of undertaking development, then  commentators like Mukul  must hold the government accountable. As conscience keepers of the nation, they have an invaluable role in keeping the government honest and in ensuring that the government delivers on its promises by pursuing the anti-Maoist strategy to its logical end.

In addition, the media must also ask the government tough questions about strategy of the security forces, COIN tactics and collateral damage while the operations are planned or are in progress against the Maoists. But that would require the Delhi-based media to move into the field, out of their cosy studios where they indulge in juvenile pontifications and high-pitched arguments that befit a school debate.

Mukul — and others of his ilk — do a great disservice when they oppose what is a crucial, first stage towards bringing the fruits of India’s growth to those at the margins of the society. As a staunch liberal democrat, Mukul must realise that the success of these security operations — with some painful attendant consequences — is critical to proving that an inclusive Indian liberal democracy will always be superior to an archaic and brutal ideology borrowed from its northern neighbour.

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Governance is the solution

By on October 2, 2009 in Uncategorized

A lack of development in the past can’t be the reason for a lack of action by security forces against the Maoists now.

Whenever there is a talk about solving the Maoist problem, many well-meaning people start with exploring the root cause of the problem. Because a lack of development lead to the rise of the Maoists, they automatically assume that the solution should also commence from providing development in those regions.

More damagingly, they continue to harp on the past follies to cloud their judgement of the future. Kuldip Nayar, in his column in the Dawn, typifies this misplaced view.

No NGO or intellectual is opposed to the government taking police action to retrieve the territory under the Maoists. There cannot be a state within a state. Yet one would like to know why the government did not make development efforts when the territory was under it. The Maoists’ sway is the consequence, not the cause.

…Violence is bad per se. It does not provide any solution. What really matters is the people’s support won through the ballot box.[Dawn]

Firstly, here is a case of misdiagnosis of the genesis of the problem. The lack of development is not the cause of the sway of the Maoists. It is in itself a consequence, a manifestation, of  lack of governance. Thus a securitisation of governance [or desecuritisation due to the absence of governance] has occurred in these areas. This has become an existential threat to the state that necessitates special security measures to tackle the issue. Development should, rather must, and can only, follow action by the security forces.

Secondly, we cannot repeat the earlier mistake of a lack of governance — resulting in a lack of development — by again forgoing governance, this time in failing to ensure security. Security is as much a function of governance as development.

Thirdly, while the final solution to any insurgency will be political, this resolution is always founded on a strong and effective military action. The return of normalcy to Punjab, and even Jammu & Kashmir now, are a case in point.

Lastly, violence is not bad per se. As Mahabharata, much in fashion nowadays, tells us, it is dharma which provides the context for violence.

Providing security is not an end in itself. It is merely a precursor, an essential precondition, for undertaking development in Maoist-affected areas. Security and development are not exclusive choices but merely different functions of governance. Diminishing the importance of one vis-à-vis the other — based on misdemeanours of governance in the past — will only delay the return of normalcy to these areas.

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No halo around this Ghandy’s head

By on September 27, 2009 in Uncategorized

Kobad Ghandy… less of a Buddha, more of a Bin Laden.

The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they come from lack of understanding. ~Albert Camus

Kobad Ghandy’s is a story tailor-made for today’s mainstream media and the Indian media has gleefully obliged. Reams of articles — from old interviews and shallow psychoanalyses to political judgements — have been written and spoken about the Naxal ideologue. As the modern media barons never fail to remind us, this is a “human interest” story which justifies the extensive coverage; as if all the other stories are broadcast or printed to interest the Martians.

Why this pique against the “human interest” stories? The stories that take a clear political position on Kobad Ghandy are fine — as in a Tehelka or a Pioneer piece — but these humanistic portraits are insidious — usually inadvertently — in their messaging. This Sunday Express piece containing portrayal of regular guys-turned-Naxal ideologues makes for a perfect example. This politically indifferent portrayal — with huge dollops of romanticism — makes Ghandy out to be a kind of an ascetic, a spiritual person devoted to his cause, a dedicated soul who sacrificed all good things of life to pursue his chosen path. More dangerously, moral high ground has been yielded to him by not only humanising him, but rather bringing him out as someone way above other mere mortals, someone who could make those difficult choices that others cannot. In fact devoid of the political context, Kobad Ghandy comes out as some kind of a modern day Gautam Buddha, who willingly kicked away all materialistic pursuits and a family legacy to choose a life of constant deprivation and impoverishments for his cause.

But it is this cause which makes Ghandy what he is — evil and pernicious in his influence and actions. Ghandy and other Regular Rebels — to borrow the Express terminology — have provided ideological and intellectual nourishment to the violence perpetuated by the Naxals (or Maoists or Left Wing Extremists, whatever you wish to call them). It is these english speaking, regular middle class people who have provided a respectability to mass murderers and terrorist violence in the name of an outdated ideology. No one denies that there is poverty, under-development and inequality in certain parts of India but that is no justification for organised violence attempting to overthrow the state. It will offend many bleeding liberal hearts but once you put Ghandy’s life in this context, he resembles Osama Bin Laden in most respects, far more than he can ever resemble a Buddha.

Bin Laden, who also belonged to a wealthy business family with close ties to the Saudi Royal family, left a life of comfort to join the Mujahideens and further became the chief ideologue and world-wide symbol of al Qaeda. His followers, and supporters — and he has many, far more than Kobad Ghandy has — often invoke Osama’s courage in making the tough choice of leaving a life of comfort to pursue his cause in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Replace the Salafist-Qutubism ideology of Bin Laden with the Maoist ideology and the green colour of jehad with the red of the Left, and there is little difference left between Ghandy and Bin Laden.

Human interest or no human interest, the media cannot tell the tale of a Naxal ideologue in soft focus by covering only his personal life story. There is a social and political context to his actions which determine the legal and moral tenability of his positions. Rather than the halo being inadvertently placed around his head by the media, it is the halter which would perhaps fit this Ghandy better.

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Dismantling the Kashmir-fuels-Afghanistan theory

By on November 25, 2008 in Uncategorized

Afghanistan and Kashmir are not separate issues, but a common cause for the Islamic terrorist movement.

In this silly season with incessant chants of “solve Kashmir to sort Pakistan out and secure a US victory in Afghanistan”, some sane voices are finally making their presence felt in the US think-tank circles. William R. Hawkins, a Senior Fellow for National Security Studies at the US Business and Industrial Council in Washington, argues that Obama should not fritter away one enduring legacy of President Bush’s foreign policy — transformation of India-US relationship into a strategic partnership.

President-elect Obama needs to understand the value of what President Bush has left him. During his presidential campaign, Obama raised fears in India regarding a potential U.S. tilt towards Pakistan in the Kashmir dispute. Obama’s thinking seems to be that to win greater Pakistani cooperation against militants in its border provinces with Afghanistan; the U.S. should help Islamabad advance its militant demands on India. Such a policy would only embolden jihadists and reward radical elements in Pakistan’s army and intelligence services who are the political enemies of the country’s new democratic government. Afghanistan and Kashmir are not separate issues, but a common cause for the Islamic terrorist movement. Alienating India in order to give the militants a partial victory would be a strategic disaster for the United States. Instead, Washington, in concert with NATO and India, need to make clear to Islamabad that the legitimacy of its claim to sovereignty over its border areas depends on preventing its territory from being used for attacks against its neighbors.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari understands that the threat to the survival of his democratic government is internal, not external. Pakistan now wants to normalize relations with India, a country that poses no danger to Islamabad unless provoked. There is already an ongoing and productive peace process, which has included important back-channel negotiations over Kashmir. Rather than interfere with these discussions, Obama needs to keep focused on the larger strategic importance of closer ties with New Delhi. India is an emerging great power in Asia whose alignment with the United States is vital to the maintenance of a balance of power favorable to American security interests.[FrontPage Magazine]

Hillary Clinton, the prospective Secretary of State, is a bigger Indophile than any other Democratic leader in recent history and VP-elect Joe Biden has also proven to be a stauch supporter of a strong India-US relationship. President-elect Obama, who is largely believed to be a very practical person. is likely to pay attention to his top officials over India and Kashmir.

This simple logical inconsistency should help him figure out the absurdity of “Kashmir-solves-Afghanistan” theory. Can the US support the Islamic insurgents’ agenda in Kashmir while trying to finish them in Afghanistan and Pakistan?

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