Pakistan weighs response to Indian dossier

The material handed over to Pakistan contained curious omissions — for example the Urdu logbook maintained by Kuber was not shared even though it might have provided clues...


31 January 2009
The Hindu

Pakistan weighs response to Indian dossier

Siddharth Varadarajan

New Delhi: With reports swirling around of Pakistani investigators claiming the Mumbai conspiracy was hatched in a third country, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani on Friday repudiated comments made by his envoy in London that the terrorist attacks were not planned from the territory of Pakistan.

“How can he comment? We can’t right now,” Mr. Gilani said in Davos when asked by NDTV about the statement of High Commissioner Wajid Shamsul Hasan that the Indian evidence could be fabricated. “If the PM cannot comment, then how can he? It is only the job of the Interior Ministry,” the Pakistani Prime Minister added.

Pakistan is expected to formally communicate the results of its initial investigations into the Mumbai attacks next week. But Mr. Hasan’s comments – and the sharp response by Prime Minister Gilani – appear to be an indication of the uncertainty within the Pakistani establishment over how best to respond to the dossier India handed over earlier this month.

At the time, senior Indian officials had indicated that the same amount of information was shared with Pakistan as had been provided to all countries other than the 15 whose nationals had been killed in the Mumbai attacks. But The Hindu has now learned that Islamabad was actually provided a compressed, third version consisting of 13 pages with a two-page covering note. In contrast, other countries received 54 pages of evidentiary material and another 15 pages – irrelevant from the point of view of investigation – drawn from a background PowerPoint presentation on India-Pakistan relations.

Though the Pakistani edition of the dossier contains a crisp summation of all information the Indian side considers “actionable” (and some additional public domain material such as the mug shots of the nine deceased terrorists), the “optics” of being handed over a file that was much thinner than what had been shared with the whole world generated some disquiet in Islamabad. Several senior Delhi-based European diplomats also conveyed to The Hindu this week their belief that India erred in being so niggardly with Pakistan, especially when the dossier was being distributed so widely.

Pakistan privately asked India why other countries had been provided a more detailed dossier but decided at the highest level not to make this an issue. In turn, the fact that Islamabad didn’t publicly protest or say that it had been given insufficient information was seen by the Indian side as a positive sign.

Indian officials justify their decision by noting there was little point in giving Islamabad photographic evidence of Pakistani food and clothing items recovered from the Kuber, the boat the terrorists used for a part of their journey to Mumbai, or pictures of the phones used, or the background material on bilateral relations. “Anything that would be of value to a serious investigation like the telephone trail was given to them,” an official told The Hindu.

And yet, the dossier handed over to the Pakistani side contained curious omissions. For example, the logbook maintained by the Kuber, which was included in the full dossier, was not shared with Islamabad, even though diligent investigators might be able to ferret out clues from the handwriting and use of language. Nor were the elaborate navigation coordinates recovered from the GPS handset. The Urdu logbook, for example, mis-spells the Hindi word ‘marg’ as ‘mrg’ (Persian for ‘death’) by omitting the necessary vowel, alif, between the consonants ‘meem’ and ‘ray’ in its list of Mumbai streets, a common mistake made by Urdu speakers unfamiliar with Hindi pronunciation. The Hindi transliteration of the logbook done by the Indian side also contains mistakes – the Urdu word ‘sev-aiy-aan’ (vermicelli) has been rendered ‘sooiyan’ (needles), perhaps because the Urdu spelling used on the Indian side for vermicelli is the less-Punjabised ‘seviyaan’. Both these points would strengthen Indian claims that the terrorists were indeed from Pakistani Punjab. But New Delhi chose not to press these.

The abbreviated dossier also omits information like the fake name, ‘Kharak Singh,’ used by the terrorists to open the VoIP phone account with Callphonex, and the names of the ‘Pakistan-based handlers’ India says were in touch with the terrorists.

Terming such details as irrelevant from the investigative standpoint, Indian officials say how Pakistan responds to the limited information given will determine not just the next steps in the Mumbai investigation but also the next steps in the bilateral relationship.

New Delhi is bracing itself for the news that some of the leads have turned cold. But the hope here is that Islamabad will see wisdom in meeting the legitimate expectations of India that the Pakistani links of the Mumbai attackers are thoroughly probed.

India to sign IAEA safeguards agreement

India must next ratify the agreement and then file a separate Declaration and Notification before any additional Indian reactor goes under safeguards...

31 January 2009
The Hindu

India to sign IAEA safeguards agreement

Siddharth Varadarajan

New Delhi: India will sign its safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna on Monday but several months are likely to elapse before any additional Indian reactor goes under international safeguards, officials told The Hindu.

The India-specific safeguards agreement was unanimously approved by the IAEA’s Board of Governors on August 1 and will enter into force only after it has been signed and the appropriate letters of ratification exchanged. India’s Ambassador to the Agency, Saurabh Kumar, will formally sign the agreement on February 2. The ratification process will take longer.

Even after entering into force, however, Indian facilities will go under safeguards in a phased manner linked to New Delhi’s determination that “all conditions conducive to the accomplishment of the objective of this Agreement are in place.” Only following this ‘declaration’ and subsequent ’notification,’ will the civilian nuclear facilities India intends to safeguard be listed in an annex to the agreement and then be subject to inspection by the IAEA.

Indian officials say this process will be calibrated to the signing of lifetime fuel supply arrangements for each of the reactors to be safeguarded.

To date, India has only signed an agreement with the French firm Areva for the supply of 300 tonnes of natural uranium. This fuel has been earmarked for the RAPS-2 pressurised heavy water reactor at Rawatbhata, which is already under a long-standing safeguards agreement with the IAEA.

Other supply agreements for larger quantities of uranium are in the pipeline with Kazakhstan and Russia.

Pakistan probe will decide next turn in ties with India

Pakistan needs to uncover the evidentiary trail unearthed by India... New Delhi expects constructive information about the identity and links of the Mumbai plotters... Reports about Pakistani investigators determining that the Mumbai attacks were planned elsewhere are not a good augury...

30 January 2009
The Hindu

Pakistan probe will decide next turn in ties with India

Siddharth Varadarajan

New Delhi: When Islamabad reverts to India next week with the results of its initial investigation into the alleged involvement of Pakistani nationals in last November’s terror attacks in Mumbai, a lot more will be riding on its reply than just the fate of those who might be involved. At stake is the immediate trajectory of the bilateral relationship. Any sign that Pakistan is rejecting or stonewalling Indian claims of “elements” within its territory being involved in Mumbai would likely trigger a fresh cold wave in an atmosphere that is already dangerously frigid. But if Islamabad is able to demonstrate that its investigators are seriously pursuing investigative leads provided by India and other countries, the stage could well be set for the gradual easing of tension.

Despite the occasionally harsh rhetoric from both sides, India-Pakistan ties have been in a holding pattern of sorts over the past six weeks. The main reason for this was the lengthy transition period from the Bush era to the Obama presidency. If India did not wish to prejudice the tenor of its relations with the new dispensation by presenting it with an escalatory fait accompli, Pakistan had no incentive to provide an outgoing administration with the reward of cooperation with the Indian probe. The result was the trading of verbal barbs and threats. Behind the scenes, however, Indian officials told their Pakistani counterparts that New Delhi was prepared to give Islamabad time to conduct its own investigations. And in turn, Pakistan assured India that its Federal Investigation Agency would pursue the leads provided to it with utmost seriousness and urgency. Privately, Pakistani officials also said the initial internal dissonance in their establishment was over and that “all stakeholders” were on the same page on the question of getting to the bottom of the Mumbai terror conspiracy.

Indian officials told The Hindu they never asked for an immediate deadline and that it was Pakistan which said it would try and complete its initial probe in 10 days flat. Unfortunately, or fortunately, for both countries, that self-imposed deadline is coming to an end at the same time that the Obama team is moving quickly to establish Washington’s new South Asia policy. Stonewalling carries both costs and benefits for Islamabad. A deteriorating bilateral environment will likely goad President Barack H. Obama to demand more from Pakistan. But it will also strengthen the hands of those in his administration who look at Afghanistan, Pakistan and India as being inter-connected parts of the same strategic puzzle.

Speculative reports from Pakistan about investigators there determining that the Mumbai attacks were planned elsewhere are not a good augury. Pakistan’s FIA may well have its reasons for concluding that about the ‘master plan’ but what the situation calls for at the moment is the uncovering of the evidentiary trail unearthed so far by the Indian side. Though India provided Pakistan an abbreviated dossier of evidence — more was shared with other countries — there is much in it that is actionable, say senior officials. For example, India would like Pakistan to confirm the identity of the nine deceased terrorists.

Some of the information given in this regard is vague eg. ‘Naser@Abu Amar (23 yrs) r/o Faisalabad’ but some of the men have been identified in the dossier as residents of specific villages. It should not be difficult for Pakistani investigators to find the relatives of ‘Shoaib @ Abu Saheb (21 yrs) r/o Shakkargarh Naroval, Sialkot’ or ‘Fahadullah (23 yrs) r/o Ujrashah Mukim, Rasur Road, Okara,’ especially when India has also provided them photographs of the dead men’s faces.

Other actionable leads in the Indian dossier include the status of the Al-Husseini, the large boat that the captured terrorist, Ajmal ‘Kasab,’ claimed was used to transport his group of gunmen on the high seas till the hijacking of the Kuber. The Pakistani FIA ought to be able to establish the whereabouts, ownership and trip records of the boat.

Islamabad could also provide India with information on Javaid Iqbal, the owner of Pakistani passport no. KC092481, who wired the money which was used to open the VoIP account from which the handlers remained in touch with the 10 terrorists during the Mumbai attacks.

Another trail to be explored is that provided by the registration number of the outboard Yamaha motor recovered from the inflatable dinghy the terrorists used to reach their final destination in Mumbai. Indian investigators had been able to identify the Lahore company which imported it but who they sold it to might provide clues to the identity of the plotters.

All of this is besides the information Pakistani investigators can glean from Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives like Zarar Shah, who are in their custody. On December 31 the Wall Street Journal quoted an unidentified “senior Pakistani security official” as confirming that Shah had confessed to the LeT’s involvement in the attack “as India and the U.S. have alleged.” “Pakistani security officials say a top Lashkar commander, Zarar Shah, has admitted a role in the Mumbai attack during interrogation, according to the security official, who declined to be identified discussing the investigation,” the newspaper reported. “He is singing,” the security official said of Mr. Shah. The admission, the official said, is backed up by U.S. intercepts of a phone call between Mr. Shah and one of the attackers at the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower, the site of a 60-hour confrontation with Indian security forces. A second person familiar with the investigation said Mr. Shah told Pakistani interrogators that he was one of the key planners of the operation, and that he spoke with the attackers during the rampage 'to give them advice and keep them focused'.”

Against this backdrop, say Indian officials, they expect Islamabad to come back with some constructive information about the identity and links of the Mumbai plotters. Brushing aside the question of why India chose not to share all the evidence it had, a senior official told The Hindu that enough had been given to allow investigations there to begin. “If they are serious about a probe, they have enough material to go on. And if they are not, a thicker dossier would hardly have made any difference.”

Some tips from Jaipur for aspiring commentators

While I was in Jaipur to speak at the Literary Festival last week, a young blogger, Aayush Soni, interviewed me on a bunch of issues from how to become a political writer to the state of the Indian media, relations between India and Pakistan and Obama's foreign policy for the next four years. You can read the full text directly from his blog, Scribbles and Stories, or below. Aayush conducted several interviews while he was at Jaipur and will be posting them as he transcribes his tapes. I see that Sam Miller, the Beeb's former South Asia editor, is already up.

The session I spoke in was called Fundamentals of Fundamentalism. Moderated by William Dalrymple, the session was essentially a conversation betweem him and Malise Ruthven, author of Fundamentalism: The Search for Meaning, Basharat Peer, the Kashmiri journalist and author of the brilliant memoir, Curfewed Night, and moi. I can't remember exactly what I said but Zee News reports a "Siddarth Varadarajan (as) urging more lively debate and discussion in all religions, including Hinduism, saying that the lack of clerical condemnation of the Gujarat massacres was an example of how Hindus too can be in ‘a state of denial’ about fundamentalism in their own religion". That sounds a more or less accurate description of a part of what I talked about!

Among the interesting people I met during the one day I was at Jaipur, incidentally, was Chandrahas Choudhary, whose blog, The Middle Stage, is compulsory reading for anyone interested in intelligent criticism (and whose book review of Curfewed Night can be read here). Chandrahas's first novel is being published by Harper Collins later this year. I also caught up with an old friend, Vikas Swarup, whom I know as a senior Indian diplomat but the world knows as the author of Q&A aka Slumdog Millionaire. I hadn't yet seen the movie so we discussed... Pakistan! Best of all, though, was meeting a group of students from my alma mater, Mayo College.




27 January 2009
Scribbles and Stories

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Interview: Siddharth Varadarajan
Associate Editor, The Hindu
Interview by Ayush Soni

(On how to become a political writer, state of the Indian media, relations between India and Pakistan and Obama's foreign policy for the next for four years)

A lot of young people today are interested in political commentary and analysis but don't know how to do it. As someone who reports and writes on these matters, what insight can you offer?

In the old days, anybody aspiring to be a commentator or writer on politics or international affairs was, by and large, constrained by the lack of a platform other than that of a daily newspaper or a weekly magazine or, if you're an academic, you had academic journals. Invariably, for most of these forms, politics and foreign policy were fields that journalists got to write on after putting in years of hard labour doing crime or city reporting.

But most people don't want to do that these days..

Exactly. Now, one of the beauties of modern technology is through the internet - via blogs and news sites - it is entirely possible for any aspiring writer to present his/her views and analysis on politics and foreign policy to as wide an audience as exists out there. This is something I would tell all frustrated and aspiring writers to do. It is much better to have an article published in The Times of India or The Hindu or any mass circulation newspaper or to appear on a TV channel. But, until you build up a profile which would then give you access to those kinds of platforms, nothing prevents you from opening your own blogsite focusing on politics or international affairs and writing and giving your own analysis. I think that's what people should do.

It is said that one must specialise in these subjects to make an impact or to be taken seriously. Is it true?

I think it is essential to have, as part of one's educational background, some training - ideally a degree - but some training in an academic discipline. But, not neccesarily because some of the best writers on foreign policy are those who studied english literature in college or eveb physics. But, what a rigorous undergraduate or postgraduate degree does is that it gets you accustomed to reading and doing research and I think you cannot be a good analyst of contemporary affairs unless you have a good knowledge of history, a good grasp of current affairs and unless you're reading, not just newspapers and magazines, but books. One should also take part in seminars and talks. As a writer, my tenticles are always up and I'm constantly receiving material, whether it is through TV, books, seminars and journals. And it is only when you feed on a wide variety of sources that your own ability to analyse and think will get developed. So, it doesn't matter if you don't have a degree in political science or economics; you can still aspire to analyse the world. But what that needs is a certain humility, certain application of mind, a willingness to read and to not be arrogant with the belief that you have the right answers.

On a different note, the media has come under increasing criticism especially after the November 26 terrorist attacks in Mumbai about the manner it projects issues. Your take on the state of the Indian media today.

Your question is quite vast so I'll break it down. The Indian media's handling of the Mumbai terror attacks between November 26 and 29 left a lot to be desired. The electronic media was too breathless and the amount of competition led them to make too many mistakes of fact, interpretation and judgement which, in a sense, worsened the situation. And I'm not talking about the three days. A lot of tension and war hysteria was also the product of a media that totally got out of control and lost its own bearings as media which reports what's going on. Everybody became an activist. I think no matter how intimately a journalist feels or is involved in an event that's happening, you have to resist the urge to become an activist. That doesn't mean you shouldn't have passion or commitment. But, above all, you should have fidelity to the truth and report what's happening in as dispassionate a manner as you can. So some sense of detachment is neccesary. I think the Indian media did not display a sufficient degree of detachment during these attacks and the aftermath. It keeps happening all the time and this was an agregious example.

People these days interpret activism as taking a stance. Is there a difference between the two or is the line blurred?

Good question. I think journalists have views and should take a stance. But you should know where to take a stance and what's the platform. As a writer and somebody in print, I should respect the boundary between a news report and an opinion column. When I'm reporting an event, there's no reason why any stance taking is neccesary. But, when I analyse or write a commentary, obviously it is my view and the medium/platform requires you to take a stance. And people should take stances which lead to democratic solutions and oppose violence. The two things shouldn't be confused. If I allow my own personal opposition to the politics of the BJP to colour the way in which I report on an event involving the BJP, then tha will be a big mistake for journalist. So, the boundaries between news and views should be respected.

I asked you this question because after the Jessica Lal case verdict was declared, the media started this 'Justice for Jessica' campaign. The argument given was that at times the media has no choice but to take stance. Who decides which issue the media should take a stance on?

I think under all circumstances, events should be reported objectively. There are no two ways about it. The problem arises in the electronic media because in print, we have a neat separation between news and editorial columns. So, I am reporting facts and loopholes of the Jessica Lal case on the news pages and I do so without inserting my opinion as a writer that 'I think XYZ is guilty' or 'I think ABC is guilty'. In an editorial column, I have a platform to criticise the judge or judgement and register my opinion that the guilty were let off. In TV, such a neat separation is not possible. An anchor is, at one and the same time, somebody who's reporting an event but who also, in a sense, giving his/her opinion. That's why in the Jessica Lal case, the boundaries got blurred. Having said that, those same TV channels, which asked for justice for Jessica, didn't cover the trial or the facts surrounding the case in a wrong way. There was no distortion of fact. So, yes, everybody is entitled to a view and a channel can have an editorial stance which gets blurred because you can't separate the two (news and editorial stance) physically. But, if you were to allow your 'Justice for Jessica' campaign to get converted into a witch hunt where reporters suppress evidence or distort facts, then there's a problem. Otherwise, I don't see it as a major issue.

It is often argued that with the advent of internet and blogs, the print media will become extinct. a) Do you agree? and b) What is your opinion about the web journalism market in India.

I think the print media in India still has a long way to go before it plateaus. Growth in print will continue as long as literacy and levels of education keep increasing in our society. Also, as long as the ordinary citizen lacks access to computers and the internet, for the next 20 or 30 years we will see an increase in print circulation. Even after internet density in India catches up with other countries, newspapers will play a major role. That's because, although internet allows people to access information from all over the world, it lacks credibility as there is no editor. And, in a modern world where people don't have much time, the reader is expected to sift the good from the bad. So, the benefit of a newspaper or a magazine is that it goes through an editorial mill. That benefit of a newspaper will always remain. Nowadays, every newspaper has a web edition and you will find that The Hindu's website will always remain popular than a blog that you and I may start simply because it reflects the editorial control which you respect. Beyond 20-30 years how things evolve I don't know but I don't see a major shift in terms of importance of print media.

On a different note, media reports suggest that President Obama may appoint Bill Clinton as a special envoy for Kashmir. Do you think this is a good step or should the issue be resolved between India and Pakistan.

First, I don't think Obama will be so foolish to appoint an envoy for Kashmir as the Indian government will never accept such an envoy. Appointing such an envoy when a principal party to the dispute does not want it, will destroy the goodwill which has been built up between India and the United States over the last 10 years. Secondly, prior to the last year, year-and-a-half of terrorist attacks, fact is that India and Pakistan have made considerable progress in the peace process and they've done so within a bilateral framework. Either this framework has run its course or no more confidence building measures are possible and, if that's the case, then there would be a case for outside mediation. But I don't think the bilateral process has run its course. I think the fact that Pakistani territory is used to stage terrorist attacks is an obstacle for normalisation of relations and I think it is incumbent on the Government of Pakistan to act against the perpetrators of these attacks, not just for the benefit of India-Pakistan relations but also for ensuring Pakistan's own stability. These groups (perpetrators), no matter what their origin, have ended up staging violence within Pakistan itself. So if the US, as it says, wants a better Pakistan, then it should be firm with Pakistan to to act against these groups. Hence, there is a role which the US can play and that's where it should focus, rather than trying to get India and Pakistan to start talking when the atmosphere is so sullied due to Pakistan's refusal to act against terror groups.

So how do you think the US can put pressure on Pakistan and how long will it take for this India-Pakistan stalemate to end?

It is an uphill battle as India has little leverage over Pakistan. War is not an option. Cutting off diplomatic and people-to-people ties is not an option. Cutting off cultural exchange is not an option. These are decisions India can take but it won't help in achieving the ultimate goal i.e. to end terrorism once and for all. So India needs to lean on countries like America to apply requisite pressure on Islamabad and that's the direction in which Indian diplomacy has been going in the last six to eight weeks. And that will continue because, by itself, India has limited options and after intial rhetoric, things have improved as Pakistan says it has approinted a high-level investigative team to look into the information India has given it. It is possible that Pakistan may take some action. India needs to give it space for the process to work rather than issuing rhetorical statements. I think it is important to tone down the rhetoric and not make accusations through the media everyday. And this is true for both, India and Pakistan

Finally, Barack Obama is now in office with Hillary Clinton as Secretary or State. How do you see US foreign policy shaping up over the four years?

Unfortunately, I don't see a major shift in America's foreign policy because Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates, the Defense Secretary, are people who stand for continuity in foreign policy. Now, Obama has spoken a lot about a dialogue with Iran and a more consensual approach but in his inaugural speech he kept talking about America's leadership role. The world is a bit sick and tired of America being the world's leader and the debate is not whether you lead us in a unilateral or multilateral way but the fact that the world doesn't want your leadership. It wants to you realise that there a lot of unsolved issues and conflicts should be resolved using demcratic means. Such as respecting the Palestinians' right to self-determination rather than supporting Israel all the time. These are the kind of tough decisions America needs to take but I don't see any sign of that happening under Obama. When he was President-elect and Israel was unleashing the most brutal kind of violence on the people of Gaza, I don't remember a single statement he made condemning this. Israel committed terrible war crimes against Palestinians, but Obama remained silent. I think thats not a good sign from the Obama administration in bringing any fundamental change in foreign policy.

The real Modi story...

Via Ruchira Gupta, Salil Tripathi in Mint exposes the hollow reality behind the impressive investment figures Narendra Modi has been touting as his big achievement in Gujarat. The key point -- Modi's massacres were bad for investment:

You might think that Gujarat is outracing and outpacing India, and Modi is singularly responsible for the boom. In fact, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, Gujarat commanded a huge lead over other states: In September 1995, the state’s share was 14.45% of all projects under implementation in the country. At 9.43%, its nearest rival, Maharashtra, was a poor second. Maharashtra overtook Gujarat, but in December 2001 its lead over Gujarat was less than a percentage point.

Then something happened, and by September 2002, Gujarat’s share fell to 8.78%; three years later, it was down to 7.67%, with Orissa ahead of Gujarat, and Karnataka close behind. Since then, Gujarat has recovered, but only slowly, and today commands 9.57% of investments in India. It is behind Orissa and Andhra Pradesh. Maharashtra is only half a per cent behind, and Haryana, West Bengal and Karnataka are trying to catch up.

That “something” is the post-Godhra violence. From 2002, smart money began investing elsewhere. It has since started returning, but despite Modi’s administrative skills, his state no longer leads the inward investment tables.

So seven years on, Modi has recovered some ground. And for that, he should be made Prime Minister, Mr. Mittal?

Incidentally, I think another angle that needs probing is Mr. Modi's attitude towards trades unions. I've heard anecdotes which suggest that's why corporate types love him.

Promise and pitfalls of Obama’s South Asia policy

India needs to guide Richard Holbrooke in his work as envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan and tell him the core issue is no longer Kashmir but the nature of the Pakistani establishment...

27 January 2009
The Hindu

Promise and pitfalls of Obama’s South Asia policy

Siddharth Varadarajan

If Richard Holbrooke is to deliver on the promise of addressing the “deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” the veteran American diplomat who has just been named U.S. President Barack H. Obama’s special representative for the two countries will have to resist the temptation of mission creep.

It is an open secret that Mr. Holbrooke’s original brief included India, mainly because Mr. Obama let it be known that he believes the Kashmir issue forms an integral part of the military-strategic puzzle the U.S. is dealing with in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But that was before New Delhi unleashed a silent but strenuous campaign to ensure that the ‘I word’ did not figure in any official announcement of the special envoy’s mandate. India told the outgoing Bush administration through Richard Boucher and David Mulford and sent strong signals to the Obama people directly as well as through key business interest and lobbying groups that any appointment which smacked of linkage with Kashmir would be seen as an unfriendly act.

In the event, the Indian government has had its way on this point. An envoy with the words ‘Kashmir’ in his designation would probably not even get a visa to enter the country and would end up poisoning the bilateral relationship in every sphere. India hands in the Beltway know this only too well. No administration would like to sabotage a strategic partnership that has been so assiduously built over a decade-and-a-half, especially when the long-awaited military payoffs are believed to be just round the corner.

At the same time, New Delhi would do well to remember that Mr. Obama’s special representative revels in the image of being a troubleshooter. For his efforts in the Balkans, Mr. Holbrooke has been nominated seven times for the Nobel Peace Prize. The temptation of getting an eighth nomination by trying to “solve Kashmir” would be too great for a man of his ambition. Indeed, his remarks at the State Department last Thursday, just after being named to the job by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, make it clear that Mr. Holbrooke does not see his work as confined to the Durand Line. “In Pakistan,” he said, “the situation is infinitely complex and I don’t think I would advance our goals if I tried to discuss it today … But I will say that in putting Afghanistan and Pakistan together under one envoy, we should underscore that we fully respect the fact that Pakistan has its own history, its own traditions, and it is far more than the turbulent, dangerous tribal areas on its western border. And we will respect that as we seek to follow suggestions that have been made by all three of the men and women standing behind me [President Obama, Vice-President Joe Biden and Ms Clinton] in the last few years on having a more comprehensive policy.”

There can be no doubt that the “more comprehensive policy” envisaged is one in which Mr. Holbrooke will have a richer menu of carrots and sticks to show the Pakistani military authorities than the current offering of drone attacks, weapons sales, military assistance and non-military aid. In his pre-presidential interviews, Mr. Obama had indicated that he saw a link between Afghanistan and Kashmir. “Managing a more effective strategy in Afghanistan will be a top priority. Recognising that it is not simply an Afghanistan problem but it’s an Afghanistan-Pakistan-India-Kashmir-Iran problem is going to be a priority,” he told the Time magazine on December 5.

Regardless of his designation, then, Mr. Holbrooke will soon come round to discussing Kashmir with the Indians. As Philip Zelikow, a former advisor to Condoleezza Rice, told Foreign Policy magazine last week: “Leaving India out of the title actually opens up [Holbrooke’s] freedom to talk to them.” By itself, however, this doesn’t mean India has any reason to panic, feel nervous or get extra prickly. For one, America’s appetite for questioning the accession of Jammu and Kashmir or the human rights situation there is not what it used to be before 9/11. Pushing an outcome where violent extremists could secure another base of operation at a time when the U.S. is trying to pacify Afghanistan is not something Washington is dying to do. For another, the entire dynamic of the Indo-U.S. bilateral relationship has changed since the days of Narasimha Rao, even if America remains broadly wedded to the policy of ‘no war, no peace’ on the subcontinent. Finally, India’s capacity to stare down any power that tries to impose a settlement in Kashmir is much greater today than it ever was.

New Delhi’s worry

The worry for New Delhi, then, is not the damage Mr. Holbrooke might do to India’s interests in Kashmir. Rather, the danger is that Pakistan’s military establishment will run circles round him by linking the level of its cooperation on the Afghan front to the amount of political lifting Washington is prepared to do on the Indian front. This link, of course, was first made by Pervez Musharraf in 2001, when he told his country soon after 9/11 that Pakistan was sacrificing the Taliban to the Americans in order to keep its strategic assets alive. Those assets were precisely the jihadi investments the Pakistani military had made over the years on the Kashmir front. If Mr. Holbrooke gets sidetracked or is seduced by such arguments, he will end up allowing the Pakistani military to avoid making the fundamental course correction it has to take. And it is the people of Afghanistan, Pakistan and India who will have to pay the price.

Force multiplier

The November 26-29, 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai have underscored the de-territorialised nature of the threat posed to India by the continuing links Pakistan’s military establishment has with various jihadi and terrorist groups. The jihadi groups play the role of a force multiplier for the army in domestic politics as well as on Pakistan’s eastern and western fronts. What the Obama administration needs to do is facilitate the withdrawal of the Pakistani military from the country’s political life. The military’s policy cannot be dismantled piecemeal. Time is also fast running out. GHQ, Rawalpindi’s control over the bewildering array of jihadi players who have emerged, is fraying. As the deadly terrorist attack on the Marriot hotel in Islamabad demonstrated, not all players in the increasingly cacophonous jihadi orchestra are willing to respect the conductor’s baton. An army that still harbours dreams of gaining strategic depth in Afghanistan and wresting control of the Kashmir Valley has ceded vast swathes of Pakistani territory in FATA and Swat to the Taliban, the al-Qaeda and its kindred organisations. And yet, as the Pakistani scholar, Haris Gazdar, has astutely analysed, this ceding of territory is essentially an act of outsourcing in which the chaos engendered by cadre-based militant outfits allows the military to retain control over the polity against the competing claims of democratic politics and civilian authority.

The problem with Washington’s policy until now is that it has combined a politically soft approach towards Pakistan’s military and the ISI with a militarily hard approach within Afghanistan and a politically confrontationist stand towards Iran, the only other country that could provide a viable supply route into the landlocked battle zone. The over-reliance on lethal and poorly conceived military force in Afghanistan and the frontier regions has created fertile ground for the Taliban to recruit new fighters. And laxity towards the Pakistani brass has allowed extremists to develop an extensive support infrastructure within Pakistan. If there was any doubt about the military’s indulgence towards these elements, the recent interview of the ISI chief, Major General Shujaa Pasha, to Der Spiegel ought to settle the matter. “It is worth listening closely when the general explains why he too is unwilling to apprehend the Taliban leadership, even though many claim that Taliban leader Mullah Omar, for example, is in Quetta, a city where Pasha lived until a few years ago,” the German magazine wrote. “Shouldn’t they be allowed to think and say what they please? They believe that jihad is their obligation. Isn’t that freedom of opinion? he asks, defending extremist rabble-rousers, who are sending more and more Koran school students to Afghanistan to fight in the war there.”

Until now, Washington has tended to turn a blind eye to these links. Just as the Pakistani military sees value in keeping alive its old jihadi assets, the U.S. military presumably does not want to squander six decades of investment it has made in the Pakistani armed forces. That is why the Pentagon and State Department have avoided applying the kind of pressure Pakistan sorely needs in order for it to rid itself of military control once and for all. India needs to drive home this point repeatedly in all its interactions with the U.S. and the West. The “core issue” is no longer Kashmir but the nature of the Pakistani establishment. As for Mr. Holbrooke, if he helps bring about a fundamental change in American policy towards Pakistan, who knows, he might get lucky with the Nobel committee the eighth time around.

India Inc. and Modi

My friend and former colleague, Jyotirmaya Sharma, has written the best piece I've seen on the craven 'Modi for PM' slogans raised by Sunil Mittal, Ratan Tata and Anil Ambani recently:

In a brilliant essay, the philosopher George Steiner once remarked: `It is not only that education has shown itself incapable of making sensibility and cognition more resistant to murderous unreason. Far more disturbing, the evidence is that refined intellectuality, artistic virtuosity and appreciation, scientific eminence will collaborate actively with totalitarian demands or, at best, remain indifferent to surrounding sadism. Resplendent concerts, exhibitions in great museums, the publication of learned books, the pursuit of academic research both scientific and humanistic, flourish within close reach of death-camps. Technocratic ingenuity will serve or remain neutral at the call of the inhuman.’ There could be no better description of the march of the high and mighty in the Indian business world parading before the `leader’ in Gujarat, singing his praises and hailing him as a beacon of hope...

This is where the problem lies: in the concept of `hope’. It signifies a possibly reckless investment, an acquisition, what the stock market would call `futures’. Hope becomes operational only when reward and punishment become subject to a gamble or a lottery, where one operates on the assumptions of `shall’, `will’, `if’, and one clings on to the fiction of a shared hope of progress and one or the other melioristic vision... In such a situation, talking of bringing the perpetrators of Godhra and its aftermath to justice is seen as meaninglessly quibbling over the past. It is here that the most potent phrase in the armoury of the Indian middle classes comes into operation: we must move on. There are, of course, dissenters to this vision of hope. There are those who find a Modi, or an Ambani, a Mittal or a Tata peddling nothing more than a transcendental inference. They are the foes of all those who invest in future tenses. They make us understand what Kafka meant when he said that `there is abundance of hope but none for us’.

The piece appeared in Mail Today. I can't find the online link so I'm providing the full text here...

False Hope

Jyotirmaya Sharma

Why a handful of corporate leaders advocating Narendra Modi’s elevation as prime minister should come as a surprise is itself a surprise. It ought to be dismissed as nothing more than a presumptuous utterance, a bit of wish fulfilment, a naked display of the undemocratic credentials of India Inc. and its ever-increasing hubris. Sections of the Indian middle class, technocrats and corporate leaders love Modi just as the same category of people not too long ago loved Hitler. Remove the blot of the concentration camps from Hitler’s biography, and he becomes the idol for all anti-democratic forces through the ages. His was a model for what is mindlessly called `good governance’ these days. He built the foundations for the industrial infrastructure of modern Germany, built the autobahns, and created the structure for Germany’s military might; he was a vegetarian, loved poetry, painted, liked children, and, in the end, did right by his mistress. The only point of dissonance in this otherwise perfect picture is that good governance without democracy is fascism, and good governance without democracy and devoid of liberal institutions is Stalinism. It is this lack of faith in democracy and liberal institutions that joins a wide array of players in the Indian political spectrum and makes them cohabit merrily in destroying the plural ideas of India.

What India is witnessing is a strange amalgam of the traditional as well as the contemporary re-emergence of corporatism. In the contemporary sense, it reflects an urge to shift the centre of gravity of all politics away from the parliamentary system to the groups that dominate modern industrial and post-industrial societies. Of these, labour increasingly is marginalized as an organized, independent group, and hence leaves corporates, entrepreneurs and the government to stake claims to represent politics. In the older fascist sense, firstly, it means an all-embracing vision of an organic, spiritually unified and morally regenerated society constantly arguing for mutual sacrifice in the national interest. The RSS and the BJP and their model of Hindutva has long represented this sort of ideological vision, conflated in recent times with visions of national regeneration through Hindu consolidation and fighting the enemies of progress. These enemies, according to convenience, could vary from America, Muslims, and Christians to China. Modi, without exception, remains the most eloquent exponent and practitioner of this view. Every blip on the national screen, be it terrorism or a communal riot, adds to the strength of those who seek a leader like Modi who is seen as uncompromising and tough.

Another version of corporatism is one where the argument hinges on leaving the producers of wealth alone to do what they do best but under the aegis of the state. It is a version that calls for self-regulation of the producers of wealth under the guidance of the state. This is a thinly veiled argument for despotism, one that argues for leaving those who run the government and the economy unrestricted run of the country, unencumbered by accountability and transparency. All this is done under the pretext of forging a new form of democracy appropriate for our times. The argument is as follows: The corporatist system alone would make the state structure truly representative by ending a fundamentally divisive parliamentary system based on a system of divisive political parties as well as ethnic, linguistic, and religious identities asserting themselves. A corporatist parliament would represent `natural’ – meaning, thereby, economic – social groups instead of abstract geographical and political ones. Hindutva and its diabolical laboratories would be seen as nationalist symbols rather than sectarian or religious ones. A technocratic-bureaucratic system of this sort would argue for faster reform, liberalization and modernization, all in the delusional name of national grandeur and making India a super power.

In a brilliant essay, the philosopher George Steiner once remarked: `It is not only that education has shown itself incapable of making sensibility and cognition more resistant to murderous unreason. Far more disturbing, the evidence is that refined intellectuality, artistic virtuosity and appreciation, scientific eminence will collaborate actively with totalitarian demands or, at best, remain indifferent to surrounding sadism. Resplendent concerts, exhibitions in great museums, the publication of learned books, the pursuit of academic research both scientific and humanistic, flourish within close reach of death-camps. Technocratic ingenuity will serve or remain neutral at the call of the inhuman.’ There could be no better description of the march of the high and mighty in the Indian business world parading before the `leader’ in Gujarat, singing his praises and hailing him as a beacon of hope. So compelling is the mystique of Modi as someone who can deliver the idea of progress that it now makes even CPM leaders compose panegyrics for the Gujarat leader.

This is where the problem lies: in the concept of `hope’. It signifies a possibly reckless investment, an acquisition, what the stock market would call `futures’. Hope becomes operational only when reward and punishment become subject to a gamble or a lottery, where one operates on the assumptions of `shall’, `will’, `if’, and one clings on to the fiction of a shared hope of progress and one or the other melioristic vision. In the words of these peddlers of hope, the promise of hope becomes the outcome of the wisdom of a few men who think they have seen the `light’ and are now ready to share it with all their less-fortunate brethren. In such a situation, talking of bringing the perpetrators of Godhra and its aftermath to justice is seen as meaninglessly quibbling over the past. It is here that the most potent phrase in the armoury of the Indian middle classes comes into operation: we must move on. There are, of course, dissenters to this vision of hope. There are those who find a Modi, or an Ambani, a Mittal or a Tata peddling nothing more than a transcendental inference. They are the foes of all those who invest in future tenses. They make us understand what Kafka meant when he said that `there is abundance of hope but none for us’.

The "lifetime achievement" of Mr. Advani

I was a bit taken aback by NDTV's decision to give a "lifetime achievement award" to L.K. Advani of the Bharatiya Janata Party. After all, Mr. Advani was widely acknowledged as being one of India's worst Home ministers when he held the job between 1998 and 2004. And he's no great shakes in his current avatar as Leader of the Opposition either. Which is why he did not win NDTV's 'politician of the year' award this time despite being a nominee.

I haven't seen NDTV's official citation (actually, I'm pretty sure he was given this award as a consolation prize to make sure he attended the awards ceremony) but the unseemliness of the whole thing got me thinking about what exactly are the lifetime achievements of Mr. Advani....

Here's a brief list of what he's presided over or singlehandedly achieved:

1. Demolition of Babri Masjid (contribution to conspiracy thereof) 1992
2. Hijacking of IC 814 and release of deadly terrorists like Masood Azhar, 1999
3. Massacre of Sikhs by terrorists at Chittisinghpora, 2000
4. Massacre of Kashmiri Pandits at Nadimarg, March 2003
5. First-ever terrorist attack on Amarnath yatris, 1999
6. Terrorist attack on Parliament, December 2001
7. Godhra and the Gujarat massacre of Muslims, 2002
8. Terrorist attack on Akshardham and Raghunath temples in 2002
9. Harassment of media from Tehelka to Iftikhar Gilani
10 Failure to take any decision on dozens of death row mercy petitions pending before him from 1998 to 2004 and now demanding the Congress government move swiftly on the mercy petition of Afzal.

This is a pretty impressive list and I've barely covered 11 years of the great man's life and achievements. Readers are invited to add more details.

On a separate note, I'm not sure newspapers and TV channels should be dishing out awards of this kind, especially to categories like politicians and businessmen -- people from whom a certain distance is necessary if one's coverage is to be truly objective. I urge everyone to read Monika Halan's recent note on why she resigned as editor of Outlook Money to understand how conflicts arise:

The OLM [Outlook Money] Awards are being used to fulfil the advertising goals of
the Group. In fact, we were all part of the meeting where we were told that the
award should have gone to LIC despite it not making the cut since it is a large
company with many readers as policyholders. In a subsequent mail from the
President, I was told that the concern is that LIC has withdrawn all ads to the
Outlook Group. I see it as a clear conflict of interest between ad and edit,
especially since edit has sincerely worked on the awards in an attempt to make
them the most unbiased awards in the country..."

Debating India's anti-terror law

I spoke over the weekend at a roundtable organised by the Public Interest Legal Support and Research Centre (PILSARC) in Delhi on anti-terrorism legislation in India. The panel was pretty huge and we had barely an hour between us, not to speak of giving time for comments from the audience. The discussion was pretty stormy. Speaking first against the government's recent amendments to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act was Supreme Court advocate Prashant Bhushan. He about the scope for abuse of the new law and noted how most people prosecuted by anti-terror laws were actually innocent. He was followed by Joginder Singh, the former head of the Central Bureau of Investigation. Singh attacked human rights organisations for being more concerned about the rights of terrorists than ordinary people and strongly defended the government's move.

I followed Singh by criticising the false dichotomy between concern for human rights and the need to fight terrorism. I suggested that the Indian police is ill-equipped to deal with terror not because of lack of law but because of its lack of equipment and intelligence, its non-scientific approach and over-reliance on "easy" methods of producing "results", namely torture and third-degree, which effectively traps innocent or marginal players while allowing the real bad guys to get away ...

Former Punjab police chief K.P.S. Gill followed me and launched another attack on NGOs and human rights folks. But he ended up saying he didn't see what good the new law would bring. Retired bureaucrat Bhure Lal then made a largely incoherent presentation in favour of tough laws and also said some odd things about India's majority and minority being "from a particular community". A (self-identified) Hindu member of the audience later took that reference for an attack on Muslims, which he denounced.

There was a heated and animated discussion with robust interventions from Rajeev Dhavan,KPS Gill and members of the audience. P.C. Sharma, another former CBI director and now member of the National Human Rights Commission, refreshingly endorsed the view that the police needs to get more professional and that equipping it with new laws may not be the best answer to the menace of terrorism.

All in all, it was good of PILSARC to get all of us in the same room. Most of the time, the two sides of the debate never get to engage with each other in this manner.

Miliband’s ‘aggressive’ style upsets Delhi

So why did the Ministry of External Affairs issue this rather unusual statement on British Foreign Secretary David Miliband a couple of days ago:

“Mr. Miliband is entitled to his views, which are clearly his own and are evolving. India is a free country and, even if we do not share his views, he is free to express them. However, we do not need unsolicited advice on internal issues in India like J&K."

Read on...







17 January 2009
The Hindu

Miliband’s ‘aggressive’ style upsets Delhi

Siddharth Varadarajan

New Delhi: It is unusual for the government to publicly criticise the views of a foreign dignitary on an official visit, especially before his trip to India is over. So when Ministry of External Affairs spokesman Vishnu Prakash issued a tartly worded statement on Thursday in response to a question about “certain views expressed by British Foreign Secretary David Miliband,” diplomatic eyebrows immediately went up. The assumption was that India was responding to the views expressed by Mr. Miliband in an op-ed in The Guardian or in his joint press conference with External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

Strident arguments

Senior officials told The Hindu on Friday the MEA statement was really the product of the irritation India felt with Mr. Miliband for the “aggressive” manner in which he conducted himself in his closed-door meetings with Mr. Mukherjee and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. In particular, South Block took offence to his strident arguments that the Mumbai terror attacks were really the result of the Kashmir issue remaining unresolved.

“He’s a young man and I guess this is the way he thinks diplomacy is conducted,” said a senior official. “In both his meetings, his posture and style of talking were a little too aggressive. The PM and EAM are much older and this is not what they are used to,” he added, describing the meetings as “quite an episode.”

Mr. Miliband, they said, was also clearly unaware of all that India and Pakistan had done on the Kashmir front from cross-LoC trade to discussing ‘soft borders’ before terror attacks like Mumbai slowed down and brought the process to a halt.

Apart from Mr. Miliband’s demeanour, what irked the Indian side was his insistence on drawing a link between Mumbai and Kashmir. Officials said he berated Dr. Singh and Mr. Mukherjee on this point and said that whatever India may wish to say on the matter in public, in private they must accept that they had to do more to work with Pakistan to find a solution to the Kashmir issue. “Yes, there is a Kashmir issue and we need to resolve it,” the Indian side told the British Minister. “But when a group like the Lashkar, which says it supports ‘global jihad,’ attacks Mumbai and kills Americans and Brits and Jews, what does this have to do with Kashmir?”

Annoyed

Mr. Miliband also annoyed the Indian side by warning the two leaders that Delhi should not even think of taking any kind of military action against Pakistan in the wake of the Mumbai attacks.

All told, say Indian officials, the two meetings with Mr. Miliband were “pretty awful.” India had no objection to the British Foreign Secretary publicly disagreeing with the Prime Minister’s statement that “some official agencies in Pakistan” must be involved in Mumbai. ‘Sovereign governments can and will disagree with each other’s assessments,” an official said. “But he needs to know that we do not take kindly to being hectored.”

What surprised the Government all the more was that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had been “quite positive” on the issues which concerned India during his visit to New Delhi last month.

India does U-turn on extradition of Mumbai suspects

Now open to Pakistani trial provided it is fair and not 'a sham'...

NEWS ANALYSIS

India does U-turn on extradition of Mumbai suspects
Now open to Pakistani trial provided it is fair and not 'a sham'

Siddharth Varadarajan

New Delhi: If India has been frustrated by the raft of contradictory
statements emanating from Islamabad in the wake of the November 26-29
terrorist attacks in Mumbai, the Pakistani side can be excused for
feeling slightly confused about the Indian Government's stand on a
question that been at the centre of the war of the words between the
two countries these past six weeks: Extradition of the Mumbai suspects
from Pakistan.

After spending the better part of the month raising the somewhat
premature demand that the suspects – many of whom have yet to be
identified – be handed over to India, the Government has now climbed
down a notch and conceded the possibility of Pakistan-based
perpetrators being prosecuted in their own country.

Asked what he wanted from Islamabad, External Affairs Minister Pranab
Mukherjee told Prabhu Chawla in an interview on Thursday for the
forthcoming edition of India Today, "They should try the perpetrators
of Mumbai". Fugitives who had run away from India had to be handed
back but the Government was willing to accept that the Lashkar-e-Taiba
men and others suspected of involvement in Mumbai could be tried in
Pakistan. "A fair and transparent trial should be held, not a sham",
he said. "The prosecution should be done properly. They should punish
them. Only then will we be satisfied".

In their off-the-record interactions with the media in the aftermath
of Mumbai, senior Indian officials had conceded the impossibility of
Pakistan ever agreeing to hand the Mumbai plotters to India. But they
said India could also not afford to drop its demand for extradition
since Pakistan couldn't be counted upon to prosecute them either.
Officials cited the revolving door detentions of LeT chief Hafiz
Sayeed and the trial and conviction of Omar Sheikh for the murder of
Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. "Six years after being
sentenced to death, nobody seems to be in a hurry to hang him", a
senior official told The Hindu. "For all we know, he may not even be
in a proper prison".

But if Mr. Mukherjee's latest statements represent an explicit and
pragmatic easing of the Indian position on extradition, it is also
true that he had been dropping hints about this for some time. The
trouble is, the Indian side has not always been on message.

In a joint press conference with his visiting British counterpart on
January 13, Mr. Mukherjee made a distinction between the perpetrators
of last November's terror strikes in Mumbai and "some of the fugitives
violating Indian laws who have taken shelter in Pakistan" when asked a
direct question on whether his Government would accept anything short
of extradition for those involved in Mumbai.

Mr. Mukherjee said he hoped the latter category "will be handed over
to India for their proper justice". As for Mumbai, he said: "I do hope
the materials which we have provided to Pakistan, evidences (sic)
which we have given, they will act on it and they will ensure that the
perpetrators of this terror act are brought to justice".

This distinction between fugitive Indians and Pakistanis and
non-fugitive Pakistanis was one the minister had made before and
implied acceptance of a trial in Pakistan for those who were its
nationals even if the crime they had committed occurred on Indian
soil.

Thus, on December 13, Mr. Mukherjee told CNN-IBN that
"there are two categories of people involved". The first were those
who had "committed crimes in India… and have taken shelter in
Pakistan, like Dawood Ibrahim. We are asking the Pakistan authorities
to hand persons like these to Indian authorities so that there can be
trials as per Indian laws here". The second category are "persons who
are Pakistan citizens, who are indulging in terrorist activities. Let
them be arrested, let them be tried as per Pakistan laws".

Notwithstanding the careful distinction the minister made last month,
the Government's position soon changed to the maximalist and
ultimately counter-productive demand for all those involved in Mumbai
to be handed over.

Speaking to NDTV on January 1, Mr. Mukherjee said: "We
have been told that there is some strong evidence available to the FBI
and they have shared it with Pakistan and we expect Pakistan will act
on them (sic) and they will hand over the perpetrators of the terror
attacks in Mumbai to us. It is expected of Pakistan to do that".

In the same interview, Mr. Mukherjee argued that the absence of an
extradition treaty did not free Pakistan of its obligation to hand
over the terror suspects to India and cited various international
conventions and agreements in this regard.

Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon amplified these points in his
press conference of January 5. "What we want, as I said over and over
again, is to bring the perpetrators to Indian justice, and to
guarantee that there are no terrorist attacks from Pakistan on India.
I think that is our goal," he said when asked whether the Government
wanted Pakistan to hand over the perpetrators to be tried in India. He
was then specifically asked: "Does Indian justice mean being tried in
India?" to which he replied: "Where else is there Indian justice?"

If there was any ambiguity about what New Delhi expected from
Islamabad once the investigations were over, Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh could not have been more explicit. "We hope that these criminals
will be handed over to us to face trial in our country", he told a
meeting in Guwahati on January 3. India did not want war with Pakistan
"but it must hand over the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks."

But two weeks later, the line had changed. "Are you saying that
Pakistani nationals who are involved [in Mumbai] be tried over there?"
Mr. Mukherjee was asked by India Today. "Yes, this can happen. The
trial should be transparent. We have caught Ajmal Kasab. But there
were others who were a part of the conspiracy. They should be caught
and tried there. The authorities there should not let them go
scot-free". Asked whether he wanted them to be brought to India, the
minister replied: "If they can hand them over to us, we will only be
too glad. But if they don't, at least they should hand over those
other criminals who have committed offences here, escaped the law and
taken shelter there".

By reversing the Government's stand, Mr. Mukherjee has no doubt opened
a door for the Pakistani authorities to cooperate with the Indian
investigation without giving the impression that New Delhi was seeking
to rub their nose in the ground. But the flip-flop is also bound to
raise questions about whether the Government really knows its mind and
is following the most optimum diplomatic strategy.

Chidambaram, MEA sing different tunes on trade, civil society links with Pakistan

A conscious ratcheting up of pressure, or more evidence of confusion among policymakers in Delhi?

14 January 2009
The Hindu

Chidambaram, MEA sing different tunes on civil society links with Pakistan

Siddharth Varadarajan

New Delhi: In all briefings the Ministry of External Affairs has conducted since the Mumbai terrorist attacks of November 26-29, 2008, senior officials have gone out of their way to emphasise that India was not looking at a repeat of the measures it took in 2001-2002 when it recalled its High Commissioner and snapped air and road links with Pakistan in the aftermath of the December 13, 2001 terrorist strike on Parliament.

Yet, in an interview to The Times of London published on Monday, Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram has raised the possibility that ending people-to-people and trade contacts with Islamabad is something New Delhi might consider if Pakistan fails to investigate the involvement of its citizens in the Mumbai incident. “There are many, many links between India and Pakistan, and if Pakistan does not cooperate and does not help to bring the perpetrators to heel, those ties will become weaker and weaker and one day snap,” he was quoted as saying.

“Why would we entertain Pakistani business people? Why would we entertain tourists in India? Why would we send tourists there,” he added, though he refused to suggest a timeframe for when such a drastic downgrading of ties might occur.

Mr. Chidambaram’s remarks come at a time when Islamabad is evaluating the dossier handed over to it by India detailing the involvement of “elements from Pakistan” in the Mumbai incident.

As recently as last week, Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon told a group of 15 ambassadors to whom he handed over copies of the dossier that India was not looking at ending trade, transport and cultural ties with its neighbour, envoys who were present at the briefing told The Hindu on condition of anonymity. And in off-the-record interactions with editors over the past six weeks, MEA officials have repeatedly stressed the same point. “Stopping Pakistani overflights or the Delhi-Lahore bus or cross-LOC trade may make some people feel good but our reading is that such measures will not bring us closer to our goal of punishing the guys who organised Mumbai,” a senior official told this reporter last month.

Indeed, many officials believe the continuation and even strengthening of civil society and business links provide a possible avenue however remote — for influencing Pakistani behaviour on terrorism given the official stonewalling that has greeted the Indian demands for help over Mumbai.

Officials said the strident demands for military action or the snapping of normal diplomatic, trade and transport links being aired in some sections of the media in the aftermath of Mumbai actually played into the hands of the Pakistani military establishment which was trying to stoke tension and generate a state of siege within Pakistan.

The Indian cricket tour of Pakistan had to be called off as much for reasons of security as for politics, they said, but this did not mean New Delhi favoured an end to all contact between the two countries.

Within Pakistan and India, civil society voices have called on the two governments to ensure that the current diplomatic standoff does not lead to the suspension of cultural and business links between the two peoples and countries. Until now, if the perception in South Block was any indication, the Indian Government did not appear to favour such steps. But Mr. Chidambaram’s statements to The Times have once again raised the spectre of an iron curtain eventually coming down along the international border.

Given this dissonance between South and North Blocks, it is possible that ultra-nationalist troublemakers might seek to take the law into their own hands to impose an unofficial ban on contact on things Pakistani.

Thugs dictating terms

Already, concerns about the safety of Pakistani artistes due to stage a play here led the National School of Drama to suspend an invitation to the well-known Lahore theatre troupe Ajokha. However, that decision was quickly reversed. But in Mumbai, it was the local police which persuaded the landmark Oxford Bookstore to withdraw from its shelves books by Pakistani authors citing threats by politically-motivated goons. “Ten days ago, a policeman from the Marine Drive police station dropped in at our store and told us to be careful,” the store’s manager was quoted by the Times of India as saying. “He advised us to remove books and CDs related to Pakistan, as we may be targeted after the recent terror strikes in Mumbai. He reminded us of Raj Thackeray’s ban on Pakistani artists.”

Though Mr. Chidamabaram was referring to a diplomatic scenario that is still somewhere in the future, the fact that thugs are able to dictate the reading and viewing habits of citizens highlights the complexity of the challenge his Ministry is facing on the internal front in the aftermath of Mumbai.
heh

'When finally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me...'

These were Sri Lankan editor Lasantha Wickrematunge's prophetic last words, contained in a farewell editorial he wrote for his newspaper, The Sunday Leader, to be published in the event that his prediction were ever to come true.

On January 8, 2009, Lasantha was gunned down by "unknown" assailants. The editorial is essential reading for all journalists and editors, and for anyone who wants to understand the dangerous disease that is eating away at the innards of Sri Lanka...

11 January 2009
The Sunday Leader

And Then They Came For Me

Lasantha Wickrematunge

No other profession calls on its practitioners to lay down their lives for their art save the armed forces and, in Sri Lanka, journalism. In the course of the past few years, the independent media have increasingly come under attack. Electronic and print-media institutions have been burnt, bombed, sealed and coerced. Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed. It has been my honour to belong to all those categories and now especially the last.

I have been in the business of journalism a good long time. Indeed, 2009 will be The Sunday Leader's 15th year. Many things have changed in Sri Lanka during that time, and it does not need me to tell you that the greater part of that change has been for the worse. We find ourselves in the midst of a civil war ruthlessly prosecuted by protagonists whose bloodlust knows no bounds. Terror, whether perpetrated by terrorists or the state, has become the order of the day. Indeed, murder has become the primary tool whereby the state seeks to control the organs of liberty. Today it is the journalists, tomorrow it will be the judges. For neither group have the risks ever been higher or the stakes lower.

Why then do we do it? I often wonder that. After all, I too am a husband, and the father of three wonderful children. I too have responsibilities and obligations that transcend my profession, be it the law or journalism. Is it worth the risk? Many people tell me it is not. Friends tell me to revert to the bar, and goodness knows it offers a better and safer livelihood. Others, including political leaders on both sides, have at various times sought to induce me to take to politics, going so far as to offer me ministries of my choice. Diplomats, recognising the risk journalists face in Sri Lanka, have offered me safe passage and the right of residence in their countries. Whatever else I may have been stuck for, I have not been stuck for choice.

But there is a calling that is yet above high office, fame, lucre and security. It is the call of conscience.

The Sunday Leader has been a controversial newspaper because we say it like we see it: whether it be a spade, a thief or a murderer, we call it by that name. We do not hide behind euphemism. The investigative articles we print are supported by documentary evidence thanks to the public-spiritedness of citizens who at great risk to themselves pass on this material to us. We have exposed scandal after scandal, and never once in these 15 years has anyone proved us wrong or successfully prosecuted us.

The free media serve as a mirror in which the public can see itself sans mascara and styling gel. From us you learn the state of your nation, and especially its management by the people you elected to give your children a better future. Sometimes the image you see in that mirror is not a pleasant one. But while you may grumble in the privacy of your armchair, the journalists who hold the mirror up to you do so publicly and at great risk to themselves. That is our calling, and we do not shirk it.

Every newspaper has its angle, and we do not hide the fact that we have ours. Our commitment is to see Sri Lanka as a transparent, secular, liberal democracy. Think about those words, for they each has profound meaning.

Transparent because government must be openly accountable to the people and never abuse their trust. Secular because in a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society such as ours, secularism offers the only common ground by which we might all be united. Liberal because we recognise that all human beings are created different, and we need to accept others for what they are and not what we would like them to be. And democratic... well, if you need me to explain why that is important, you'd best stop buying this paper.

The Sunday Leader has never sought safety by unquestioningly articulating the majority view. Let's face it, that is the way to sell newspapers. On the contrary, as our opinion pieces over the years amply demonstrate, we often voice ideas that many people find distasteful. For example, we have consistently espoused the view that while separatist terrorism must be eradicated, it is more important to address the root causes of terrorism, and urged government to view Sri Lanka's ethnic strife in the context of history and not through the telescope of terrorism. We have also agitated against state terrorism in the so-called war against terror, and made no secret of our horror that Sri Lanka is the only country in the world routinely to bomb its own citizens. For these views we have been labelled traitors, and if this be treachery, we wear that label proudly.

Many people suspect that The Sunday Leader has a political agenda: it does not. If we appear more critical of the government than of the opposition it is only because we believe that - pray excuse cricketing argot - there is no point in bowling to the fielding side. Remember that for the few years of our existence in which the UNP was in office, we proved to be the biggest thorn in its flesh, exposing excess and corruption wherever it occurred. Indeed, the steady stream of embarrassing exposes we published may well have served to precipitate the downfall of that government.

Neither should our distaste for the war be interpreted to mean that we support the Tigers. The LTTE are among the most ruthless and bloodthirsty organisations ever to have infested the planet. There is no gainsaying that it must be eradicated. But to do so by violating the rights of Tamil citizens, bombing and shooting them mercilessly, is not only wrong but shames the Sinhalese, whose claim to be custodians of the dhamma is forever called into question by this savagery, much of which is unknown to the public because of censorship.

What is more, a military occupation of the country's north and east will require the Tamil people of those regions to live eternally as second-class citizens, deprived of all self respect. Do not imagine that you can placate them by showering "development" and "reconstruction" on them in the post-war era. The wounds of war will scar them forever, and you will also have an even more bitter and hateful Diaspora to contend with. A problem amenable to a political solution will thus become a festering wound that will yield strife for all eternity. If I seem angry and frustrated, it is only because most of my countrymen - and all of the government - cannot see this writing so plainly on the wall.

It is well known that I was on two occasions brutally assaulted, while on another my house was sprayed with machine-gun fire. Despite the government's sanctimonious assurances, there was never a serious police inquiry into the perpetrators of these attacks, and the attackers were never apprehended. In all these cases, I have reason to believe the attacks were inspired by the government. When finally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me.

The irony in this is that, unknown to most of the public, Mahinda and I have been friends for more than a quarter century. Indeed, I suspect that I am one of the few people remaining who routinely addresses him by his first name and uses the familiar Sinhala address oya when talking to him. Although I do not attend the meetings he periodically holds for newspaper editors, hardly a month passes when we do not meet, privately or with a few close friends present, late at night at President's House. There we swap yarns, discuss politics and joke about the good old days. A few remarks to him would therefore be in order here.

Mahinda, when you finally fought your way to the SLFP presidential nomination in 2005, nowhere were you welcomed more warmly than in this column. Indeed, we broke with a decade of tradition by referring to you throughout by your first name. So well known were your commitments to human rights and liberal values that we ushered you in like a breath of fresh air. Then, through an act of folly, you got yourself involved in the Helping Hambantota scandal. It was after a lot of soul-searching that we broke the story, at the same time urging you to return the money. By the time you did so several weeks later, a great blow had been struck to your reputation. It is one you are still trying to live down.

You have told me yourself that you were not greedy for the presidency. You did not have to hanker after it: it fell into your lap. You have told me that your sons are your greatest joy, and that you love spending time with them, leaving your brothers to operate the machinery of state. Now, it is clear to all who will see that that machinery has operated so well that my sons and daughter do not themselves have a father.

In the wake of my death I know you will make all the usual sanctimonious noises and call upon the police to hold a swift and thorough inquiry. But like all the inquiries you have ordered in the past, nothing will come of this one, too. For truth be told, we both know who will be behind my death, but dare not call his name. Not just my life, but yours too, depends on it.

Sadly, for all the dreams you had for our country in your younger days, in just three years you have reduced it to rubble. In the name of patriotism you have trampled on human rights, nurtured unbridled corruption and squandered public money like no other President before you. Indeed, your conduct has been like a small child suddenly let loose in a toyshop. That analogy is perhaps inapt because no child could have caused so much blood to be spilled on this land as you have, or trampled on the rights of its citizens as you do. Although you are now so drunk with power that you cannot see it, you will come to regret your sons having so rich an inheritance of blood. It can only bring tragedy. As for me, it is with a clear conscience that I go to meet my Maker. I wish, when your time finally comes, you could do the same. I wish.

As for me, I have the satisfaction of knowing that I walked tall and bowed to no man. And I have not travelled this journey alone. Fellow journalists in other branches of the media walked with me: most of them are now dead, imprisoned without trial or exiled in far-off lands. Others walk in the shadow of death that your Presidency has cast on the freedoms for which you once fought so hard. You will never be allowed to forget that my death took place under your watch. As anguished as I know you will be, I also know that you will have no choice but to protect my killers: you will see to it that the guilty one is never convicted. You have no choice. I feel sorry for you, and Shiranthi will have a long time to spend on her knees when next she goes for Confession for it is not just her owns sins which she must confess, but those of her extended family that keeps you in office.

As for the readers of The Sunday Leader, what can I say but Thank You for supporting our mission. We have espoused unpopular causes, stood up for those too feeble to stand up for themselves, locked horns with the high and mighty so swollen with power that they have forgotten their roots, exposed corruption and the waste of your hard-earned tax rupees, and made sure that whatever the propaganda of the day, you were allowed to hear a contrary view. For this I - and my family - have now paid the price that I have long known I will one day have to pay. I am - and have always been - ready for that. I have done nothing to prevent this outcome: no security, no precautions. I want my murderer to know that I am not a coward like he is, hiding behind human shields while condemning thousands of innocents to death. What am I among so many? It has long been written that my life would be taken, and by whom. All that remains to be written is when.

That The Sunday Leader will continue fighting the good fight, too, is written. For I did not fight this fight alone. Many more of us have to be - and will be - killed before The Leader is laid to rest. I hope my assassination will be seen not as a defeat of freedom but an inspiration for those who survive to step up their efforts. Indeed, I hope that it will help galvanise forces that will usher in a new era of human liberty in our beloved motherland. I also hope it will open the eyes of your President to the fact that however many are slaughtered in the name of patriotism, the human spirit will endure and flourish. Not all the Rajapakses combined can kill that.

People often ask me why I take such risks and tell me it is a matter of time before I am bumped off. Of course I know that: it is inevitable. But if we do not speak out now, there will be no one left to speak for those who cannot, whether they be ethnic minorities, the disadvantaged or the persecuted. An example that has inspired me throughout my career in journalism has been that of the German theologian, Martin Niemoller. In his youth he was an anti-Semite and an admirer of Hitler. As Nazism took hold in Germany, however, he saw Nazism for what it was: it was not just the Jews Hitler sought to extirpate, it was just about anyone with an alternate point of view. Niemoller spoke out, and for his trouble was incarcerated in the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps from 1937 to 1945, and very nearly executed. While incarcerated, Niemoller wrote a poem that, from the first time I read it in my teenage years, stuck hauntingly in my mind:

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

If you remember nothing else, remember this: The Leader is there for you, be you Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim, low-caste, homosexual, dissident or disabled. Its staff will fight on, unbowed and unafraid, with the courage to which you have become accustomed. Do not take that commitment for granted. Let there be no doubt that whatever sacrifices we journalists make, they are not made for our own glory or enrichment: they are made for you. Whether you deserve their sacrifice is another matter. As for me, God knows I tried.

Hear me on the Mumbai dossier @ NPR

Melissa Block from National Public Radio spoke to me on her news programme, All Things Considered', about the dossier of evidence India has handed over to Pakistan. You can listen to the interview here.

After evidence dossier, direct accusation against Pakistan strikes discordant note

Ever since Mumbai, Indian policy towards Pakistan has attempte to strike a balance between three, sometimes contradicory, goals...





8 January 2009
The Hindu

NEWS ANALYSIS
After evidence dossier, direct accusation against Pakistan strikes discordant note

Siddharth Varadarajan

New Delhi: In a strategy that runs the risk of sending contradictory signals to Islamabad and the world about the nature of Indian policy, the government has followed the handing over of a dossier linking “elements in Pakistan” to the November 26-28 Mumbai attacks with a full-throated accusation that the terrorists who killed more than 170 people “must have had the support of some official agencies in Pakistan.”

If the handing over of evidence on Monday suggested India was seriously interested in goading Pakistan into following concrete leads thrown up by the Mumbai investigation, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s remarks 24 hours later seemed to indicate New Delhi had already decided this was not going to happen. His use of the words “must have had” to qualify the accusation was a giveaway that the Prime Minister was still not absolutely certain of his charge. Certainly, the dossiers India has prepared for Pakistan and the 14 countries which lost nationals in the Mumbai attacks do not contain material which substantiates this belief. And yet he chose to up the ante by making a direct accusation against “official agencies in Pakistan,” something India had refrained from doing for the past six weeks.

Asked for an explanation, Indian officials deny there is any inconsistency in the two approaches. “We have given them the evidence they have been asking for,” a senior official told The Hindu on Tuesday. “And it is clear that the Prime Minister obviously wishes to send a strong signal to Islamabad about the gravity with which he views the situation.”

Ever since Indian investigators first began harbouring suspicions that the trail from Mumbai led straight to Pakistan and perhaps even some sections of that country’s military establishment, the Manmohan Singh government has been walking a fine line between three goals. The first was to exploit the opportunity to discredit the Inter-Services Intelligence before the world; second, to utilise the space which Pakistan’s messy transition to civilian rule had created to help push for a break with the military’s policy of using jihadi terror as a tool of power projection inside and outside the country; and third, to convey to major world powers that India’s tolerance level had been breached so that they too would mount pressure on Pakistan to help bring the perpetrators to justice.

As Indian officials grappled with these three, sometimes contradictory, imperatives, they quickly settled on “elements from Pakistan” as a convenient peg on which to hang their public accusations. The construction was suggestive enough for Islamabad to know exactly what New Delhi was talking about. But it was also vague enough to provide for a distinction between the multiple power centres that exist across the border, not to speak of the plethora of “non-state actors” which operate with impunity from Pakistani territory. Most of all, the phrase revealed an awareness of the danger that these multiple Pakistans — of the army and the ISI, the civilian government, the Opposition and civil society, Beitullah Mehsud and the jihadi and terrorist tanzims — could easily be driven to unite under a grand anti-Indian umbrella if New Delhi’s pronouncements were not carefully calibrated.

But officials concede that the same careful use of language was not repeated on other fronts of the war of words that slowly enveloped India and Pakistan in the aftermath of Mumbai. As a bellicose feeding frenzy consumed the media in both countries, the Pakistani military managed to stoke fears of an imminent conflict that Indian leaders unwittingly fuelled by endlessly repeating phrases about “all options remaining open.” Moreover, the Indian leadership, including External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, allowed confusion to reign over the question of “evidence” and extradition. Sometimes, they indicated that details from the Mumbai investigation had already been shared with Pakistan and demanded “action” such as the arrest and extradition of the perpetrators. At other times, they conceded that the Mumbai evidence had not yet been shared but added that evidence had been shared in the past to no avail. Old lists of India’s most wanted were also dredged up for no apparent purpose.

This confusion had two consequences, both of them negative. First, it effectively downgraded the unique nature of Mumbai and the evidence that was becoming available thanks to the arrest of Ajmal Amir ‘Kasab’ by comparing it to cases where the world might not share India’s certitude about Pakistani fingerprints. And second, it blurred the distinction between evidence of a judicial nature that a trial might require and evidence of the involvement of named and unnamed Pakistan-based individuals which essentially made it incumbent on Pakistan to conduct further investigation on its side.

For the past six weeks, Islamabad kept saying it could not comply with Indian demands for “action” without evidence. And when the dossier was handed over, it exploited the confusion that had been created by announcing that the evidence given was legally flawed. Part of the problem is Pakistan continuing to remain in a state of denial over facts as basic as Ajmal’s citizenship; but at least some share of the blame lies with New Delhi’s own handling. Extradition — especially to a country with which political relations are fraught — is something that can only follow the presentation of legal evidence. By publicly and repeatedly demanding this line of action when the evidence it had gathered was more by way of investigative leads, India helped the Pakistani establishment to sidestep the one action that the dossier actually calls for: rigorous follow-up investigation.

At a press conference held shortly after India handed over its material to the Pakistani High Commissioner, Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon made this point. India’s hope, he said, was “that Pakistan will investigate this material, follow the evidence wherever it may lead, and share the results with us and extend to us legal assistance so that we can bring the perpetrators to Indian justice.” But this demand, fully warranted by the impressive array of material assembled by the Mumbai investigation, got drowned in the demands for extradition.

In a foretaste of what the Prime Minister said on Tuesday, Mr. Menon pushed the envelope on Pakistan’s official complicity but still stayed within the four walls of the earlier script. “It is hard to believe that something of this scale could occur without anybody anywhere in the establishment knowing that this was happening. And that actually beggars the imagination. Wherever the evidence leads we will follow it. But we are at this stage, as I said, in an ongoing investigation. We are not going to say yes or no, this is where the line ends. We cannot, because we still have to continue with this investigation, and most of it now has to be done in Pakistan.”

Rejecting the notion that the Prime Minister’s remarks on Tuesday went against the grain of what his government’s approach has been so far, Indian officials say there is an in-built tension between framing demands around a legal discourse when the action Pakistan needs to take against terrorist elements operating from its soil is — in the final purely political. We are in a gray zone, a senior official told The Hindu. “There is a definite line of investigation which [Pakistan] needs to follow but we are not sure [it] will.” And even if it does, he added, India could never be sure that it would be taken to its logical conclusion. “So we have to keep applying pressure.” The official said it was worth remembering that elements of the ISI had even been involved in the attempted assassination of General Pervez Musharraf in 2004-05. The pickup truck used by the Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists in their attempt on his life had been purchased by the ISI out of ‘Kashmir jihad’ funds, he said. “Obviously they held an investigation and I think some of them were even shot. But even then, things were not pushed beyond a point.”

Indian officials believe Mumbai has placed Pakistan at a spot where the “entire Byzantine apparatus” set up by the ISI can be broken once and for all. “India would like to see this happen,” said an official. “And most people in Pakistan would too. But no one knows whether this is going to happen or not.”