The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Politics at Maghi mela
Concerns over law and order genuine

Punjab political leaders holding conferences at the Maghi mela on Sunday discussed issues that they could not do in detail inside the Vidhan Sabha recently due to disruptions. At Muktsar they could at least freely express their opinion without being shouted down. The Congress squeezed more political mileage out of the Majithia expletives, while Speaker Charanjit Atwal is exploring legal action on airing the expunged remarks. Since the Speaker maintained that he did not hear Majithia voicing expletives in the assembly and, therefore, did not take action against him, the Congress brought it out in the open for everyone to see and hear. However, the Congress did not cover itself with glory by making public an ugly incident during a solemn religious occasion.

The government cannot shove under the rug issues Opposition parties are raising. The recent incidents of rape, murder, abduction, public brawl and thrashing involving Akali workers, policemen and others point to the state of affairs and reflect poorly on the administration. The Punjab and Haryana High Court has taken cognizance of some of the incidents and the Chief Justice has designated eight courts for the speedy trial of crimes against women. The political leadership cannot escape responsibility for the deterioration of law and order in the state by pointing to the abominable gang-rape and murder in the Congress-ruled Delhi.

Rather than extending political patronage to criminals and ignoring the criminal activities of Akali workers, the SAD-BJP government should ensure a fair and efficient investigation of all cases, particularly those involving women, and help the fast-track courts in dispensing quick justice. Instead of asking the Deputy Chief Minister, who holds the Home portfolio, to check the rising graph of crime, the Chief Minister keeps praising Sukhbir Badal in public for “ensuring a historic win” for the party and being a “capable leader” and a “good manager”. Winning elections is one thing, providing good governance quite another. Peace in Punjab is more important than the political career of the Chief Minister’s son.

Mali quagmire
France needs to tread carefully

THE French authorities have moved swiftly against the radical organisations that control northern Mali and driven back the rebels from the town of Konna. The French maintain that the rebels are a terror threat, since Ansar Dine, an Al-Qaida affiliate, is active among them. In the last two weeks, the rebels had advanced towards the south threatening the capital Bamako. It is clear that they are well armed. They have already inflicted causalities in the French ranks, thereby raising the prospects of France being sucked into an unending conflict.

Mali, a French colony till the 1960s, became politically unstable nine months ago after a military coup toppled the government. While the lack of support from the government to the army fighting against the ethnic Tuareg rebels in the north was cited as a reason, ironically the coup resulted in the rebels taking advantage of the power vacuum that followed. However, in the ensuing period, the Tuareg have been marginalised by the Al-Qaida-linked radicals, and the latter’s rise has been the cause of alarm in much of the West.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has sent in its troops to buttress the army, but much more is needed than the estimated 3,500 ECOWAS soldiers who will be deployed. Troops from other African nations, the UN and the French will have to work together to find a way of restoring democracy to a nation that has been weakened by the long military rule and also by the longstanding insurgency in the north. While there is consensus on the need for action, only logistical support can be expected from western nations like Canada, Britain and the United States. The French have led the effort to rescue Mali. They will have to move deftly to defuse the radical threat there without getting sucked into a situation that is already being called a French Vietnam.

Thought for the Day

Life is about timing. — Carl Lewis

ARTICLE

Continue the peace process
Reach out to secular sections of Pakistan
by B.G. Verghese

IF there is something India needs to remember at this time, it is the 150th anniversary of Swami Vivekananda, that great soul who tried to reinterpret India to itself and rid it of caste and other social blemishes. That is the Idea of India we must never forget but, rather, build on.

One is powerfully reminded of this when one sees sundry current “godmen” and other religious frauds backed by gullible and even fanatic followers spouting nonsense and dividing the country. India is a deeply religious and spiritual society. But some of this religiosity is rooted in medieval-rootedness that is not merely irrelevant but antithetical to our times.

Asaram Bapu is one such cult figure who cannot be left to defy the law and the Constitution and be allowed to get away with hate speech. These men often get away with such conduct because politicians and other powerful or wealthy persons have been allowed to set deviant standards with immunity and impunity. The rot begins with political parties whose politics is for person and pelf above all else and whose members’ electoral criminality is now well established.

Akbaruddin Owaisi was initially arrested and placed in judicial custody in Hyderabad for his utterly outrageous communal and anti-India rant after days of evasive action and pleading life-threatening illness. Such lies, when exposed, as in this case through an independent medical examination, should fetch condign punishment in itself for the person concerned and his family and political protectors.

People in high places also defy the law and norms of conduct by pulling rank. Witness the utterly disgraceful conduct of V.K. Singh, former Army chief, last week when a uniformed Signal’s Major sent to the General’s residence to remove the telephone exchange allowed him as a courtesy for six months — not the telephone connection itself — found himself virtually taken prisoner for eight hours. Both the front door of the residence and the compound gate were locked to prevent his “escape”. The General’s personal security staff and family said they had received no prior intimation of such a visit owing to what an Army spokesperson later described as a mis-communication for which an apology was issued. A simple telephone call to the right quarters by Singh’s family could have resolved the issue one way or the other.

Instead, the media was alerted, admitted into the compound and allowed to chase and harass the Major who was charged by the General’s lawyer with snooping around and seeking to plant a bug in the house as a plot for “something big”. It is not known whether the General was at home or not but there was no word from him then or since. Singh’s rogue conduct both in uniform and out of it falls far short of the norms expected of “an officer and a gentleman”.

How can a former Army Chief, who earlier shamefully sued his own government for self-falsification of his age, now formally charge the Army with “snooping” on him and be allowed to get away with it? As before, the Defence Minister has dealt with the matter with supreme incompetence and thereby undermined military discipline and morale.

No nexus is implied, but it is at this juncture that Pakistan for some strange reason has decided to up the ante alongside the LOC and J&K while swearing commitment to the peace process with India for its own salvation. Rather than target India as its permanent enemy, the Pakistan Prime Minister, Raja Pervez Ashraf, has called on the country to redefine its military doctrine in order comprehensively “to tackle terrorism”. He told the National Defence Institute in Islamabad on January 5 that danger to Pakistan’s national security “stems mainly from non-state actors who are targeting the State’s symbols and institutions in a bid to impose their agenda”. Political will and people’s support were critical for the success of military action.

Despite reiteration of this new dogma at various levels, General Kayani being first of the mark last April, both political will and public support remain fragmented. The LOC violations in the Uri-Mendhar sectors last week, howsoever triggered — and each side accuses the other of initiating unprovoked action – two matters stand out as undisputed. The first is that the bodies of two Indian soldiers were found mutilated, with the head decapitated in one case. This is barbaric. The second is that Pakistan has prolonged and escalated the crisis by unilaterally stopping cross-border truck movements in the Poonch sector, while previously missing yet another, December-end deadline for granting India long-overdue MFN status on specious grounds.

India’s restraint and offer to hold Brigadier-level flag meetings to sort out matters has been scorned. Instead, Islamabad has suggested investigation of these cross-border incidents by the UN Military Observer Group (UNMOG. This sounds very fair except for the fact that the proposal mischievously attempts to revive a dead horse. UNMOG was rendered comatose in 1972 when both sides agreed at Simla to bury the UN Resolutions and settle the Kashmir Question bilaterally. Islamabad is now cleverly trying to resile from the governing Simla agreement and internationalise the matter. As importantly, Pakistan is in flagrant and repeated violation of the UN rulings and resolutions on J&K. Such devious cunning will not work. Kashmir cannot once again become an international football with allies and Islamists playing their own games for their own ends.

It would seem that political will and public support in Pakistan for peace with India is divided. A radicalised section of the Army, the Islamists and jihadis continue to favour a hard line as the recent escalation of cross-border infiltration indicates. Non-state actors are still able to blackmail the state. Even the Army finds it useful to engage with these nefarious elements, some of whom have been raised, trained and funded by it and offer it plausible deniability. Hafeez Saeeds and Salahuddins are still at large and continue to spew venom and hate against India while others talk peace. The 26/11 trial drags on. The separatist Hurriyat is still a prime interlocutor in Pakistan while recently-elected panchayat leaders in J&K keep being targeted by those who fear self-determination.

Yet, the peace process with Pakistan must not be broken. The truly democratic, secular, peace-minded sections of Pakistan, though still small and fearful, must be supported. They exist. The familiar chorus of “denials” from Pakistan must be rigorously exposed so that falsehood does not masquerade as truth. But for this India needs a communications policy. Where is that?

MIDDLE

A dream so true
by SS Bhatti

The fullness of the bladder urged rapid emptying and the distended rectum begged for quick voiding, but the unconscious mind had not lost its public face. It transformed the solemn signals into a weird situation that showed the municipal toilet to be far too unclean for a respectable gentleman to answer the two-in-one call of nature. The messy mishap thus avoided I came out to find that it was raining and a little girl frolicking in gay abandon in the downpour. For her irresistible charm and lovability she outclassed the cutest of dolls ever made while the most beautiful of butterflies was hardly a match for her random ebullience.

Oblivious of her surroundings, including my presence, she kept running in utter delight on the muddy road and took short jumps, tottering ever so often to probe the unseen beauty of life barely managing to keep her balance -- though never falling. Each act soiled her frock, body and face in quick splashes of dirt but she gave no damn. She instinctively knew that she was the creator and thus focussed fully on the intrinsic joy of being one despite the polluting presence of the male folks in the world.

She paid no heed to my “Bravo, well done” that I repeated in ascending decibels wrung out of my being as “shaabaash” for her uncanny ability to regain balance each time she jumped. Yet her apathy to my words of encouragement betrayed no ignorance of anything. My “buck up” sounded to her as an unnecessary echo of male chivalry cast in the strait jacket of chauvinism that once adorned the feudal mindset as the metallic outfit of a medieval warrior, but has a redundant ridiculous persistence in an age of atomic warfare and nuclear families charged with the pulsating presence of modern womanhood.

Her pleasant playfulness convinced me that the searching and the savouring of personal liberty go together beyond the crippling confines of culture or the penal provisions of law of the land of the lawless. While I was self-engaged in a philosophic monologue I saw the winsome fairy suddenly appear in her new dress—and move in regal gait in the opposite direction irradiating jubilant joie de vivre. She seemed to suggest that I convey her mute message to my gender-holders that the human female at any age is a complete being blessed with self-renewing creative powers — far above damnable domination or decimation —to march ahead on her own steam towards a higher order of civilisation to shape gentlemen out of beasts with the stroke her unique artistry.

Becoming a willing prey of our own baser instincts as men would never sully her nobility of spirit and she would forever remain as pure as the Gangotri: the Mother of the Holy Ganges, the undiminished Pride of India! Sprung from Lord Shiva’s tresses, she is “shivam” (goodness) personified. It is her blessed being that makes “sundaram” (beauty) possible as the ultimate experience of “satyam” (truth).

OPED-DEFENCE

Fate of ceasefire hangs in balance
Time and again, Pakistan has violated the ceasefire in place along the Line of Control since 2003. The butchering of two Indian soldiers is an eye opener. With nearly 100 ceasefire violations in 2012 alone, can Pakistan ever mend its ways?
Arun Joshi

IT was Id-ul-Fitr on November 26, 2003, when the armies of India and Pakistan celebrated the end of their hostilities on the Line of Control (LoC). The ceasefire was like an “iddi” (gift) by the two governments. The ceasefire also applied to the Siachen glacier, the highest battlefield in the world.

Army jawans guarding the Line of Control in Rajouri sector. Tribune file photo: Anand Sharma

It’s January 2013 and the ceasefire is under threat. The standard statement of the Army Commanders on this side of the border used to be: “Ceasefire is holding on and there is peace on the LoC and borders.” But there was an underlined caution, too, “Infiltrators would be neutralised along the borders.”

Since India has been a victim of terrorism and has seen much violence in Jammu and Kashmir, it took advantage of the ceasefire and completed its fence along the LoC in 2005 and strengthened its counter-infiltration grid along the borderline, which many term as a “de facto border”. On the other hand, Pakistan started raising the level of its embankments and built new bunkers behind these raised walls to avoid detection. It was surely preparing for some mischief. The Indian Army and the BSF would often voice concerns but there argument was lost because the ceasefire agreement did not permit any action.

Playing dirty

The ceasefire violation by Pakistan began in January 2005 itself when it fired mortar shells, days ahead of the completion of the barbed wire fence along the LoC. It was done twice in less than a week’s time, but India underplayed the issue and reluctantly accepted the Pakistani version that it might have been non-state actors. But militants had not used mortar shells of high calibre in their attacks on the Indian Army.

“We didn’t want to escalate the tension on the LoC and give Pakistan a chance to say we were engaging in hostilities on the border,” the then Army Chief NC Vij had told the media. Thereafter, there were ceasefire violations by Pakistan at regular intervals on both sides of the Pir Panjal range of the Himalayas. It was in 2008 that the Indian Army started retaliating as its soldiers were getting killed.

It maintained that the violations were linked to infiltration from across the LoC and the Pakistan army was providing fire cover to terrorists to cross over to the Indian side. During the ceasefire, the first Indian soldier was killed in May 2007, after which there were many more such casualties. Despite all of this, the response of the Indian Army was: “Ceasefire violations take place on the LoC and other sectors also. Our response is immediate and efforts are made not to escalate the situation.”

Contentious issues are conveyed through a hotline or flag meeting between local commanders. Whenever these issues are not resolved, they are forwarded to the headquarters to be conveyed at the Director-General of Military Operations level. The ceasefire is holding by and large, the Army told The Tribune a few months ago.

But it changed with the brutal killing of Indian soldiers Lance Naik Hem Raj and Lance Naik Sudhkar Singh. The Minstry of External Affairs (MEA) summoned Pakistan High Commissioner Salman Bashir and Defence Minister AK Antony called it “provocative”.

While Pakistan regular army troopers were offering assistance to terrorists to cross the LoC, equipping them with sophisticated weapons, electronic gadgets, satellite phones, etc., India was playing down the infiltration and visible hostility. There were nearly 100 ceasefire violations in 2012 alone.

Hand of friendship

The ceasefire was put into effect after the then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, while speaking at a rally in Srinagar in April 2003, extended a hand of friendship to Pakistan. This friendship offer came at a time when the Indian Army had withdrawn from the borders under Operation Parakram. This operation came to be known as “coercive diplomacy”, forcing Pakistan to discourage non-state actors from acting against India.

The situation changed after the Parliament attack on December 13, 2001, providing the trigger to mobilise forces along the border. The two sides regularly exchanged fire following the incident.

Vajpayee justified the friendship offer, saying “we can change our friends, we cannot change our neighbours”. The political and diplomatic logic was: The US had launched a war in Iraq and if India and Pakistan failed to forge better relations, there was danger of such things happening here too.

The US had warned of a nuclear clash between India and Pakistan after the attack on Parliament, and the US foreign office made its Deputy Secretary of State shuttle between New Delhi and Islamabad to help defuse tensions. His efforts were blunted by Pakistan when it sponsored a major suicide attack on the Army camp at Kaluchak, near Jammu, in which 38 soldiers, their wives and children were massacred. War seemed imminent, but international diplomacy prevailed and the armies withdrew to their peace-time positions.

That laid the foundation of back channels getting active. It was realised there was need to end hostilities with Pakistan and the best way to do it was to end the standoff on the borders. On November 26, 2003, Pakistanis offered sweets to Indian troops. It became a regular feature between the two armies on the LoC and the international border. While Indians would offer sweets on Diwali, Pakistanis would do it on Id-ul-Fitr and Eid-ul-Zuha.

More than the armies, border residents of both sides rejoiced at the ceasefire. Most of them had shifted to safer places as firing had made their lives a living hell. They could not afford to stay indoors nor could they tend to their fields, which were mined, or send children to school.

Ujjagar Singh of Abdulian, a village close to the international border, trembles at the thought of pre-ceasefire days. “There were only bullets and mortars,” he recalls. There was hardly any house that was not perforated by bullets in border villages. After the ceasefire, border residents returned to their homes and started a new life. Weddings resumed as earlier, no one would give their daughters as bride to young men from these villages.

Carvan-e-Aman

Then came the time when the ceasefire prompted the Governments of India and Pakistan to open the LoC route for travellers and trade. On April 7, 2005, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, while flagging off Carvan-e-Aman bus, had described the initiative as an “unstoppable march toward peace” between India and Pakistan.

In July the same year, the Prime Minister voiced his wish that he wanted Siachen, where not even a single ceasefire violation has taken place since the ceasefire came into effect in November 2003, to become the “mountain of peace”, though he categorically stated that the boundaries cannot be redrawn. His idea was to reduce the LoC as a “line on the map”.

The best example of the ceasefire’s benefits was on display on October 23, 2011, when an Indian helicopter of Siachen Falcon 666 strayed across the LoC and landed in the Skardu area of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (POK). All four crew members — Lt Col Verma, Major Kapila, Major Raja and JCO Akhilesh — were taken into custody, but later released. Pakistan had even refuelled the chopper’s tank and they were allowed to return to Kargil.

The ceasefire also had a positive effect on the bilateral relations between the two countries. In a declaration in January 2004, Islamabad committed itself to not allowing any terrorist activity from its soil or the areas under its control against India. That promise has not been honoured to date even as Manmohan Singh has been reminding Pakistan, time and again, of its commitment to peace.

The horrid incident of January 7, 2013, was not simply a violation of the ceasefire alone. It was something more than that. Pakistani troops came from POK, reached the LoC and targeted a patrol party of Indian soldiers before entering the Indian territory. They killed two Indian soldiers and then severed the head of one of them. They slit the throat of the other soldier. Lance Naik Hem Raj was from Mathura in Uttar Pradesh and Naik Sudhkar Singh belonged to Madhya Pradesh.

The dastardly incident exposed the brutality of the Pakistan army. At the same time, it was a blatant violation of the sanctity of the Line of Control. The armies are not supposed to cross the borders, and when they do, they spark trouble. Who would have stopped the Indian Army from undertaking the hot chase of militants entering the Indian side from across the LoC, where 42 terror camps are still alive? These camps are training more than 2,500 militants, who are waiting to cross over to the Indian side.

The US has advised India and Pakistan to maintain peace. It is true matters should be resolved amicably across the table, but the January 7 incident has opened the door wide enough for the Indian Army to respond to “open aggression” by Pakistan. At this stage, who can guarantee peace on borders and longevity of the ceasefire?