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Well-done,
EC Word
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The poor
of India
Nepal on
the boil
A
suitable leader!
Pakistan's
ethnic tensions Tamils protest too
much Why Pappu can’t
vote
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Word from Kathmandu
Thankfully, Nepal’s political crisis seems to be eventually blowing over. It could have been worse. There are reports that Nepal’s political parties are close to agreeing on Madhav Kumar Nepal, a top leader of the Communist Party of Nepal – Unified Marxist Leninist or CPI (UML) taking over as the next Prime Minister after President Ram Baran Yadav advised the constituent assembly to elect a new political executive. Hopefully, the consensus on him will last. The country has been going through a political crisis ever since Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal alias Prachnanda resigned and pulled out his Maoist party from the government following a dispute over the dismissal of the country’s Army chief, General Rookmangad Katawal, and following a controversy over integrating former Maoist rebels known as the Peoples Liberation Army into the military. Political parties have ever since been re-working their alliances to form a new government in what is currently the world’s youngest Republic, having got rid of the monarchy about two years ago at the end of a decade-long agitation. The way the political consensus has been evolved is virtually a needed endorsement of the peace process. The Maoists have done well to go along with this process, which, if sustained, should serve the country well. Nepal’s political parties will still need to address the prickly issue of civil-military relations that triggered the current crisis. While the principle of civilian supremacy over the military is indeed correct, the motives behind Mr Prachnanda’s actions and its timing have been called into question by his critics. As a democracy with an apolitical military, India understands civilian control over the military well. Politicians in Nepal still have a lot to learn before democracy and electoral politics truly mature in the mountain state. Like India, they will have to learn that despite imperfections, coalition politics can work, given mutual goodwill.
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The poor of India
The
World Bank’s observation that “India is just ahead of Sub-Saharan Africa” must have come as a jolt to the believers in India’s growth story. In a report “Global Economic Prospects for 2009”, the bank has predicted that a quarter of India’s population will be living on $1.25 a day — considered as a state of extreme poverty — in 2015. Two years ago, a report by the state-run National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector had created a storm when it pointed out that 77 per cent Indians lived on less than Rs 20 a day. Poverty rates in Orissa and Bihar are considered as among the world’s most extreme. Such shocking revelations do prick the conscience of awakened Indians, but poverty removal has seldom been the focus of state policy. Indira Gandhi talked of “Garibi Hatao”, but it remained a slogan only. India’s growth picked up after the launch of economic reforms in the early 1990s and the number of the poor has also declined but at a very slow rate. In 1990 as many as 51.3 per cent Indians lived in extreme poverty and their number fell to 41.6 per cent in the next 15 years whereas the number of extremely poor people in China came down sharply from 60 per cent in 1990 to 15.9 per cent in 2005. In the last general election when the NDA sought votes on the “India Shining” slogan, the left-out rural India hit back in anger. This led the next UPA government to focus on inclusive growth. How well its efforts have been appreciated by rural India will be known soon. Booming stock markets or upbeat economic data do not reflect the true picture of the country. Poverty alleviation requires long-term planning, increased spending on education, health and infrastructure and political commitment. Benefits of growth have to be evenly shared. India has grown. Bharat is lagging far behind.
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How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world. — William Shakespeare
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Nepal on the boil For
over five decades now, the prospect of a Chinese presence on the Himalayan foothills, adjacent to our borders with Nepal and Bhutan, has been the ultimate nightmare for those responsible for India’s security. The Treaties that India concluded with Bhutan and Nepal five decades ago were obviously iniquitous, though Nepal derived immense benefits from the massive economic assistance and trade access it received from India and from the unique facilities millions of its citizens enjoyed of living, working and access to educational facilities in India. Despite this, successive rulers in Nepal, whether monarchical of elected, rarely missed an opportunity for criticising India, though the arrogance of some highly placed Indians naturally invited Nepali displeasure. Bhutan’s enlightened rulers, on the other hand, built bridges with India and renegotiated the anachronistic treaty relationship. Bhutan has emerged as the most prosperous country in South Asia by realistically appreciating the mutual benefits of utilisation of Himalayan water resources, while Nepal, like Pakistan, stagnates economically as an international basket case. Nepal’s elite has often turned to India to sort out its domestic crises, which arise all too frequently. The decade long Maoist insurrection ultimately ended when India, duly backed by the United States, Japan, the European Union and the United Nations, brokered and facilitated agreements aimed at drawing the Maoists into the democratic mainstream while ridding the country of its despotic monarch and monarchy. Subsequent elections led to the Maoists winning 238 out of the 601 seats to the Constituent Assembly, with the Nepali Congress winning 114 seats and the Communist Party of Nepal or CPN (UML) winning 109 seats. An important force which emerged in these elections was the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum, representing people on Nepal’s borders with India, which won 53 seats. The entire democratic exercise was based on the assumption that the Maoists would respect democratic norms. Maoist behaviour, however, raises serious doubts about their commitment to multi-party democracy. The most sensitive issue that the Maoists faced was on how to rehabilitate their armed cadres in national life. The erstwhile royalist army that has pledged to respect the elected leaders is understandably disturbed about Maoist attempts to not merely integrate the bulk of their cadres in the armed forces, but also their evident desire to take control of the higher echelons of the army’s command structure. While the present army chief General Rookamangud Katuwal behaved irresponsibly by attempting to recruit 3,000 new soldiers recently, Nepal’s Maoist Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal aka Prachanda has, through numerous actions, including a once secret speech to his cadres, raised fears that his ultimate aim is to make Nepal’s armed forces an instrument of Maoist power. Moreover, the Maoist Young Communist League is blatantly used for coercion and violence, while Maoist leader Baburam Bhattarai has made no secret of his intentions, by proposing that only those who are “anti-feudalist and anti-imperialist forces” should be eligible for elections. The aim of the Maoists to make Nepal a communist style “peoples’ democracy” rather than a multi-party parliamentary democracy is also evident from their views on establishing “peoples courts” and “reconciliation centres,” rather than establishing an independent judiciary. The present crisis arose from Prachanda’s precipitous attempts to sack General Katuwal, despite his coalition partners walking out of the Cabinet meeting where he announced the decision. New Delhi has been noting with growing concern Prachanda’s propensity to cosy up to China. Despite his denials, Prachanda was reportedly negotiating a “Friendship Treaty” with security provisions with China. This Treaty, whose provisions would give Chinese nationals access to Nepal’s borders with India, alarmed the security establishment in India. The “Friendship Treaty”, which was to be concluded during an official visit by Prachanda to China, was seen as a move to dilute ties with India. Prachanda had, after all, described Nepal’s 1950 Treaty with India as an unequal Treaty and demanded that it should be renegotiated — a demand India had expressed its readiness to discuss. Following serious concern voiced by India about the proposed “Friendship Treaty”, Prachanda deferred his visit to China. Given its policies of “containment” of India, China has not hesitated to fish in troubled waters in Nepal. Together with its “all weather friend” Pakistan, China pumped in arms to Nepal in 2005 to prop up an unpopular monarchy. It is now known to have extended full support to the moves of an embattled Prachanda to sack the army chief and set up a Maoist controlled army for the country. New Delhi has acted clumsily in dealing with these issues. The Indian Embassy in Kathmandu is said to have directly and in an avoidably high profile manner intervened in these developments. A more appropriate approach would have been to get attention focused on the concerns of virtually all political parties in Nepal regarding the Maoist propensity to blur the distinction between party and state. After all, General Katuwal’s term ends later this year and ways could have been found to let him continue till the end of his term, while getting a suitable successor nominated, without precipitating a political crisis. The Maoists evidently want a new military hierarchy in place, wherein their leaders are absorbed into the higher echelons of the army and conditions created for a former Maoist, Nand Kishore Pun to be inducted as a Lieutenant General, so that he would soon become the army chief. New Delhi would be well advised to keep away from directly meddling in current developments while encouraging Nepal’s political parties to find ways so that institutions like the army and judiciary remain non-politicised. Once India’s political leadership settles down after the elections, highest priority will have to be given to dealing with the pernicious role of an increasingly assertive China in India’s South Asian neighbourhood. Moreover, Pakistan and Afghanistan are facing extremist challenges. There are concerns about whether a victorious President Rajapakse will indeed be magnanimous and statesmanlike in addressing the legitimate aspirations of the Tamil minority. Bangladesh is still recovering from the aftermath of a rebellion by its paramilitary forces and Nepal, of course, is confronting a political crisis. The new government will have to set up effective mechanisms to deal with these emerging developments. In the case of Nepal, New Delhi will have to make it clear that while it will respond positively to its wishes to review the 1950 Treaty, it will also not hesitate to react strongly if Nepalese actions, particularly its relations with China, are seen to undermine Indian national security. Moreover, it should be made clear to the Maoist leadership that agreements on river water projects are not favours done to India, but essential for Nepal’s own progress and
prosperity.
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A suitable leader! Bhai Saab
summoned us for the midnight meet. “Our country is passing through difficult times. It needs a good Prime Minister. Any ideas?” “But sir, at this stage? We don’t know if our party will be in a position to project…” Bhai Saab, our great leader, smiled indulgently at us:” You are still kachcha (unripe) in politics. Today we can project, but who knows about tomorrow. It may be reject, deject etc. Ha, ha!” “Unfortunately, as you know, I have no greed for power and positions. I am a modest man with no such ambitions...” He glowered at us meaningfully, and sat staring vacantly at the ceiling. We understood. “But Bhai Saab, the country needs you! There is crisis all around. Our great country deserves someone like you…. You have to steer our country’s destiny”. Our leader was not satisfied. “Why? Tell me why I am suitable”. “You are stronger than Advaniji, who is called merely an iron man, though, a clever opposition would have asked for his blood reports to see if there is any iron deficiency. Manmohanji is projected as a strong man, but is too humble and gentle. But we can project you as a steel man. There is no blood test for steel. Besides owning steel factories, you have nerves of steel. Remember, that night you were so cool when your sons were caught in a raid on your hotel for hosting extra-curricular activities…” “You will deal with terrorism well”, chipped in an old fox among us. “Your guts that night, when bhabhiji was kidnapped, oh sir! You refused to pay ransom and asked them to keep her, knowing she would make their lives a living hell. How they sent her back within hours! Of course, a wag said you were hoping she wouldn’t come back”. We assured him that most women of our country would support his candidature straightaway — because when she came back, he stated that he would not ask bhabhiji to take agni pareeksha (fire test), unlike the hasty Lord of the Ramayana. Bhai Saab was still not convinced. “Sir”, our oldest member coughed and said:” You would do better than Narasimha Rao. He generally let things drift, but happen somehow. You just won’t let things happen, your mastery at putting spokes in the wheel is legendary. Every thing will be at a standstill. No new colleges, industries, hospitals, — so no ragging, no pollution, and patients will pray instead of rushing to hospitals. Sir, country needs just someone like you”. “But”, the now pumped-up Bhai Saab inquired, “does it deserve me?” “Yes”, we said in one voice. “You were in prison during the freedom movement for whatever reason, sport a rose in coat pocket, believe in urine therapy. You have a white streak in the hair, a young chocolate face and smile. Every part in your body needs surgery abroad, you do not speak Hindi, give a new slogan daily for our loveable masses…you combine many traits they have worshipped over decades. They deserve you…” “Well, theek hain”, Bhai Saab relented finally, “start projecting me, if the public needs me so
desperately…”
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Pakistan's ethnic tensions
To
outsiders the struggle raging in Pakistan with the Taliban is about religious fanaticism. But in Pakistan it is about an explosive fusion of Islamist zeal and simmering ethnic tensions that have been exacerbated by U.S. pressures for military action against the Taliban and its al-Qaida allies. Understanding the ethnic dimension of the conflict is the key to a successful strategy for separating the Taliban from al-Qaida and stabilizing multiethnic Pakistan politically. The Pakistani army is composed mostly of Punjabis. The Taliban is entirely Pashtun. For centuries, Pashtuns living in the mountainous borderlands of Pakistan and Afghanistan have fought to keep out invading Punjabi plainsmen. So sending Punjabi soldiers into Pashtun territory to fight jihadists pushes the country ever closer to an ethnically defined civil war, strengthening Pashtun sentiment for an independent "Pashtunistan" that would embrace 41 million people in big chunks of Pakistan and Afghanistan. This is one of the main reasons the army initially favored a peace deal with a Taliban offshoot in the Swat Valley and has resisted U.S. pressure to go all out against jihadist advances into neighboring districts. While army leaders fear the long-term dangers of a Taliban link-up with Islamist forces in the heartland of Pakistan, they are more worried about what they see as the looming danger of Pashtun separatism. Historically, the Pashtuns were politically unified before the British Raj. The Pashtun kings who founded Afghanistan ruled over 40,000 square miles of what is now Pakistan, an area containing more than half of the Pashtun population, until British forces defeated them in 1847, pushed up to the Khyber Pass and imposed a disputed boundary, the Durand Line, that Afghanistan has never accepted. Over Pashtun nationalist protests, the British gave these conquered areas to the new, Punjabi-dominated government of Pakistan created in the 1947 partition of India. At various times since, Afghan governments have challenged Pakistan's right to rule over its Pashtun areas, alternatively pushing for an autonomous state to be created within Pakistan, an independent "Pashtunistan" or a "Greater Afghanistan" that would directly annex the lost territories. Fears of Pashtunistan led Pakistan to support jihadist surrogates in the Afghan resistance during the Soviet occupation in the 1980s and, later, to build up the Taliban. Ironically, during its rule in Kabul the Taliban refused to endorse the Durand Line despite pressure from Islamabad. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has also resisted, calling it "a line of hatred that raised a wall between the two brothers." The British got the most rebellious Pashtun tribes to acquiesce to their rule only by giving them formal autonomous status in their own "Federally Administered Tribal Areas" (FATA). This autonomy was respected by successive Pakistani governments until the Bush administration pressured former President Pervez Musharraf into sending his army into those areas in 2002, displacing 50,000 people. Since then, Predator strikes have killed more than 700 Pashtun civilians. So how should the Obama administration proceed? Militarily, the United States should lower its profile by ending airstrikes. By arousing a Pashtun sense of victimization at the hands of outside forces, the conduct of the "war on terror" in FATA, where al-Qaida is based, has strengthened the jihadist groups the U.S. seeks to defeat. Politically, U.S. policy should be revised to demonstrate that America supports the Pashtun desire for a stronger position in relation to the Punjabi-dominated government in Islamabad. The Pashtuns in FATA treasure their long-standing autonomy and do not like to be ruled by Islamabad. As a March 13 International Crisis Group report recognized, what they want is integration into the Pashtun Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP). The United States should support Pashtun demands to merge the NWFP and FATA, followed by the consolidation of those areas and Pashtun enclaves in Baluchistan and the Punjab into a single unified "Pashtunkhwa" province that enjoys the autonomy envisaged in the inoperative 1973 Pakistan constitution. In the meantime, instead of permitting Islamabad to administer the huge sums of U.S. aid going into FATA, the Obama administration should condition the aid's continuance on most of it being dispensed in conjunction with the NWFP provincial government. Al-Qaida and its "foreign fighters," who are mostly Arab, depend on local support from the Taliban for their FATA sanctuary. Unlike al-Qaida, with its global terrorist agenda, most of the Taliban factions focus on local objectives in Afghanistan and FATA; they do not pose a direct threat to the United States. U.S. policy should therefore welcome any new peace initiatives by the secular Pashtun leaders of the Awami National Party, now ruling the NWFP, designed to separate Taliban and Taliban-allied Islamist factions from al-Qaida. As in Swat, military force should be a last resort. In the conventional wisdom, either Islamist or Pashtun identity will eventually triumph, but it is equally plausible that the result could be what Pakistani ambassador to Washington Husain Haqqani has called an "Islamic Pashtunistan." Kapil Komireddi adds: If Pakistan’s problems were principally humanitarian in nature, the Obama administration could settle the matter with a generous check. But Pakistan possesses at least 55 nuclear warheads, and as the Taliban steadily progresses toward Islamabad, their safety is a matter of grave concern. Pakistan’s history of selling nuclear secrets to the highest bidders —among them Iran and North Korea, as documented by Gordon Corera in his book, “Shopping for Bombs” —makes it difficult to have confidence in the government’s repeated assurances that its weapons are secure. Supporting Pakistan with long-term fiscal aid should be a top priority, but Washington also must take action to safeguard Islamabad's nuclear arsenal. The Bush administration sought to achieve this by offering to share with Islamabad the sophisticated PALS (Permissive Action Links) technology, which would have linked Pakistan's nuclear weapons to secret codes that would control their activation. Legal restrictions on the American side prevented this from happening. But there will be obstacles to overcome. Washington's parsimonious approach to aid has alienated many Pakistanis. Over the last three months, the U.S. has severely restricted its funding to Pakistan, refusing even to reimburse Islamabad for costs it has incurred in military operations against the Taliban. This has diminished President Asif Ali Zardari’s authority, weakened the army’s morale and generally made a mockery of the whole operation. In six decades of its existence, Pakistan has failed to establish a normal pattern of governance: Every civilian government either collapsed or was ousted before its term ended. Their government has doubtless failed them, but over the last decade, as Pakistanis protested against the cartoons in Denmark, the riots in Kashmir, the raids in Gaza and even against the knighthood of Salman Rushdie, they allowed substantial portions of their nation to slip into the hands of extremists who now threaten to destroy it. Twenty-five years into its creation, the original Pakistan, unable to contain diversity, disintegrated. Thirty-five years after that, as Pakistan once again fights for its survival, its people, particularly its educated middle-class, must ask themselves what kind of a Pakistan they want to live in. Is it going to be a Muslim Pakistan that imposes harsh religious law on its people, or is it going to be a Muslim-majority Pakistan that tolerates pluralism? Aid and ammunition are necessary. But alone they cannot save Pakistan. Only its people can. — By arrangement with
LA Times-Washington Post
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Tamils protest too much If
you had been in Whitehall on Monday evening, you would have witnessed a quaint, even charming, scene: men in dinner jackets and women in evening gowns picked their way cheerfully through the labyrinthine road works that currently disfigure this stately London street. But it wasn't the roadworks that had pedestrianised Whitehall for several hours, it was a demonstration by the city's Tamil population, protesting about the bloodshed among their compatriots in Sri Lanka. They had broken out of Parliament Square, where a fluctuating group has been demonstrating for more than a month now, and four of them had scaled Westminster Abbey. Now I know that utterly terrible things are happening in Sri Lanka, where government troops are trying to crush the remnants of the Tigers – and extinguish Tamil hopes for an independent homeland. And I have great sympathy, as very many Britons do, for other people's aspirations for independence – especially when, as in the Tamils' case, they are so far outnumbered and outgunned. Yet the Tamils' London protest, now entering its sixth week, poses two questions that go way beyond the exotic sight of crinolines in Whitehall. The first relates to protests; the second to British foreign policy. The protests first. To demonstrate in and around Parliament these days, you need permission. You can agree or disagree with this, and I disagree – strongly. In a democracy people should not need a permit to protest outside Parliament. Our elected representatives should have to see and hear what even a tiny section of the people think. Yet a particularly kid-glove approach seems to have been applied to the Tamils. We know how the G20 demonstrators were treated in the City. And you may recall how, in 2005, a couple were arrested for trying to read out a list of Britain's Iraq war dead in Whitehall. But the Tamils, who initially had no permit to protest, received one retrospectively, and apparently it has no time limit. Over the weeks, the disruption in that part of London has been huge. Monday was not the first time that thousands of people must have been mired for hours in long and almost static diversions. This has a cost, to individuals and the economy. But not, it seems, to the police, who told me that policing the Tamil protests fell "well within the usual resources". What does that say about "usual resources"? Now you can argue that it is beyond mean to juxtapose the life and death concerns of Tamils with a spot of local inconvenience. And you could say that traffic jams caused by protests in Westminster are a price Londoners should be willing to pay – a sort of humanitarian support tax in kind. You may also speculate that the Met's tactics are a reaction (over-reaction?) to criticism of the way it policed the G20 protests. Even so, five weeks is a lot of disruption; and ample opportunity to get your message across. The Tamils' message, though, is not intended just for you and me. It is intended for the Government. The protesters want ministers to put pressure on the Sri Lankan government to halt the bloodshed. In effect, they want Britain to use what they see as its clout abroad to influence the outcome of someone else's civil war. Which poses the second, and wider, question. How far should any government allow its foreign policy to be swayed by vocal exiles representing families, and causes, they have left behind? The reasonable answer would surely be: not at all. Yet since the protests began, the foreign secretary has tried (and failed) to send an envoy to Sri Lanka. He has visited Sri Lanka himself, where he may or may not have given his opposite number a hard time. And this week he convened a meeting on Sri Lanka at the UN. Have London's Tamils already skewed British policy to the point where it is helping to prolong a nasty civil war and indulging a force (the Tigers), which is proscribed here for terrorist associations? Efforts to influence policy are not unique to Tamil exiles. There are councillors, even MPs, whose election may depend on taking the "right" line over Kashmir. Exiled oligarchs have tried, with some success, to obstruct better British relations with Russia. While some exiles will never be deterred from trying to affect events where they came from, co-opting their new country in their old cause should be another matter. — By arrangement with
The Independent
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Why Pappu can’t vote I could
not vote again. In the last three general elections and the 2007 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, we have not voted despite our determination. We had come back from Germany in 1983 after a long stay of 10 years and were very keen to be the part of the democratic process. The first opportunity came during the December, 1984 general election but we could not vote as we had not registered ourselves. We vowed to ensure that we shall take the required steps next time. We had shifted to the National Capital Region and when the 1989 Lok Sabha polls process was about to begin, we not only got ourselves registered as voters as did over 1,000 fellow residents of ArunVihar in Noida. I had done a story in Patriot and it had its impact and all of us became proud voters. We did cast our votes. In the 1991 mid-term polls, we again voted but after that our fundamental right has been eluding us despite our best efforts and intentions. Way back in 1995, the Election Commission announced its programme of proving the voter an election card. I was determined to get one. So I applied for leave and came down from Chandigarh to get a photo identity card for me and my wife. We went to a school where the process for making cards was scheduled. After almost three hours our turn came and we filled a couple of forms and we were photographed. We waited for a couple of months for our cards to arrive. We were thrilled that soon we would be in possession of cards which would enable us not only to vote but also stop rigging and booth-capturing which was a serious blot on our democratic image. Out wait went in vain and we could not get our cards. On enquiry, I was told that the whole exercise had been abandoned because of some fraud. Thinking that our vote would still be there in the 1996 Lok Sabha polls, we went to cast our vote at the old polling station. We were informed that our name had been struck out of the voting list. So when the Election Commission’s announcement about updating the electoral rolls and making of photo identity cards came our way, we again made an effort. This time my two children had also attained the voting age. So we all four went to the designated place in Sector 51 and after a couple of hours, succeeded in getting ourselves photographed. We had dutifully filled the required forms also. To our surprise, we only received three cards and our son’s card was missing. After several rounds of the office concerned, we were told that he could get his card when the next exercise is undertaken. Our cards had many mistakes but we were proud owners of election cards. But when we went to exercise our right to vote, our names had been struck from the voters list. So, we decided to get our names on the voters list. We filled forms and attached the required documents along hoping that we would be able to vote in 2009. Alas on May 7 this year we returned home dejected as our names were still not on the list. Are we all Pappus, we were asking ourselves.
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