The Defence Minister as Local Bully

Did the Defence Minsiter of India have to sound like a gully bully to make a point about the rightwing version of patriotism?

Unfortunately, his lesser crime is being highlighted and not the one that's truly dangerous.

Let's get done with the lesser one first.

He took a potshot at actor Aamir Khan's comment sometime last year about his wife feeling insecure about living in India anymore. One may or may not agree with such sentiments or their expression, and the canny Khan almost took back all that he had said, but dragging it in reveals a gameplan. And that gameplan is to ensure that those who critique the government are boycotted. Aamir lost his endorsement deal with Snapdeal and Parrikar said, "Some of our people are very smart, I know. There was a team which was working on this."

The Defence Minister is admitting that the BJP has a team that will see to it that your work and livelihood can be snatched from you if you utter a word against the government or the country: “I am only trying to point out…if anyone speaks like this, he has to be taught a lesson of his life. That was a very arrogant statement, we have to love our nation.”

The BJP has been in power for barely two years now and the party's supporters have shown us just how much they love the nation by stilling voices — verbally or by putting an end to the owner of the voice.

Randeep S. Surjewala, spokesperson of the Congress asked, "Can this be the 'Raj Dharma?" Under no circumstances must this become common lexicon. The Indian republic does not need any such terminology. We have had enough references to epics that, in a sense, confirm the Hindutva Rashtra dream.

What is far more worrying is that Parrikar has justified the use of force and weapons by the armed forces with the taunt, "I do not want to train the Army to use the lathi." Earlier this month, following the killing of Burhan Wani in Kashmir, the police and the army used pellets that grievously injured and blinded civilians. This goes against every norm of civilised society, not to forget human rights abuses.

The army knows how to use the lathi when forcing out confessions. There is nothing innocent and tame about the lathi; the person who holds it wields control. A mob running amok pelting stones in anger is often first shown the lathi that transmogrifies into a gun. Perhaps, it is a gun already.

The minister further stated:

“Where to use the Army is a civilian decision. However, whenever the Army is used, full power has to be there, otherwise do not use the Army."

In sensitive areas, the Army is used as a political tool. That is as far as a civilian decision is concerned. But if you arm the Forces with teeth and the power to use weapons at any time, then it is about militarising a region and not for civilian support.

When called upon in civilian areas, the job of the Army cannot be to shoot at sight but to maintain the peace. It should also have mastered target training and not hit at random people, including children. One major had the audacity to ask on national television, "What was a child doing there?"

Children, women and men are free to roam the areas. Even if some militants occasionally use them as shields, the figures of killings just do not add up.

More importantly, it is time ministers stopped using organisations to promote patriotism politics. The person who is killed on the land he tilled and lived off had a very close association with and love for it. Every individual who lives in the country is a nationalist, especially the one who wants the betterment of the country and questions it.

Is the CIA on a leash regarding Benghazi?

One would probably do a double-take thinking of the Barack Obama administration intimidating the CIA operatives who were in Benghazi, when the consulate was attacked.

From this report — welcome, CNN, to the world of tough questions instead of the toeing-the-establishment-line — it seems there is a huge secret and all the agents who were there that night are subjected to polygraph tests, to ensure they do not leak out any information to the media.

You will watch this clip, but the threat is not small. They are worried about their families, they know they cannot get away.

And they are not even Edward Snowden, who had access to so much more.



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In September, 2012, I had written this:

»Can you imagine Libyan pro-democracy group overtaking the headquarters of an extremist organisation, that too to protest against the killings at the American Consulate? This is what happened in Benghazi against the Ansar al-Sharia:

"Thousands of protesters took to the street earlier on Friday, declaring loudly that they represent the real sentiments of the Libyan people, not those who were behind the deadly attack 10 days ago, reports CNN. One man stated: 'I am sorry America. This is the real Libya'.”

At first I was baffled and elated by turns. It sounds nice. In many ways, it is. But, is this the real Libya? Can we forget that the anti-Gaddafi rebels were looting property and striking poses in his and his family’s homes, making a mockery of the democracy they were claiming as their own?

This is probably to gain international attention. The signs read: “The ambassador was Libya’s friend” and “Libya lost a friend.” Christopher Stevens was known to be a good person. However, the United States at one time was quite comfortable with Col. Gaddafi. They, too, were friends, although he was friendlier with others.«

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Given what's happening with the CIA, one wonders whether it is not just a civil war in Libya after all.

The Labs of Boston, Woolwich, Chhattisgarh:

Ruling Anarchy: The Labs of Boston, Woolwich, Chhattisgarh

by Farzana Versey, CounterPunch, June 1-3

“As we heard the instant matters before us, we could not but help be reminded of the novella, “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad, who perceived darkness at three levels: the darkness of the forest, representing a struggle for life and the sublime; (ii) the darkness of colonial expansion for resources; and finally (iii) the darkness, represented by inhumanity and evil, to which individual human beings are capable of descending, when supreme and unaccounted force is vested, rationalized by a warped world view that parades itself as pragmatic and inevitable, in each individual level of command...Joseph Conrad describes the grisly, and the macabre states of mind and justifications advanced by men, who secure and wield force without reason, sans humanity, and any sense of balance. The main perpetrator in the novella, Kurtz, breathes his last with the words: ‘The horror! The horror!’”

Blood. Death. Hate spreads. I do not know where sympathy should begin and for whom, anymore. We know the bad guys, with cleavers and rudimentary weapons, talking, walking with ruthless strides, dancing near corpses. That they do not look squishy clean like our sanitised toilet bowl gives us the power to screw up our noses.

The horror

We have seen the horror in the last few weeks, the latest being on May 25 in the tribal belt of India. Why is the quote at the beginning important? It comes from an unlikely source. In its report on the anti-Naxalite organisation, the Supreme Court of India pulled up the government and got the Salwa Judum banned.

The FBI spies on Americans. India sets up a counter-insurgency group against its citizens. They might call it 'necessary evil' but if after decades the problems persist, then it may be implied that the solutions infect the problem, hoping the virus spreads and falls dead. That is not how it works; it never has.

At 5.30 pm on Saturday at Darbha Ghati in the tribal area of Bastar in Raipur district of Chhattisgarh, a state carved out of Madhya Pradesh in central India, Naxalites rained gunfire at a convoy that was on its way to bring about change through its ‘Parivartan Yatra’ before the assembly elections. Over 25 people were shot dead by 200; many were injured. The figures change, but that is not the point.

The point is that this time it was not about innocent civilians.  Political leaders of the Congress Party and, more importantly, Mahendra Karma, who started the Salwa Judum were the targets. Although the Supreme Court disbanded it in 2011, the very idea that the government backed a terrorist outfit to deal with insurgency and got away with it reveals a conscientious and devious manoeuvre to obstruct not only the execution but the very concept of justice.

News channels and papers kept talking about how Karma was tortured. It was indeed brutal, as though the group was performing a ritual sacrifice through this purging. However, in 2010 the same government sent out photographs of a female Maoist’s body carried tied to a pole like an animal. What was the reason for it? I had written then that this does not send out a message to the Naxals, who are ready to die for their cause. And it does not send out any message to civil society. The last thing people need to believe they are safe from terrorism is to see armed soldiers enacting a theatre of the absurd.

The universal

Using a word like terrorism loosely is only giving more teeth to the establishment to pursue innocents, who might turn out to be what they are stereotyped to be. What puts the three incidents in diverse countries on par is that ‘national pride’ was aimed at.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his brother Dzhokhar once wanted to represent the United States, until something changed. They then planned to strike on July 4. The pressure cooker bombs were ready. They did a recce of police stations, looking for officers as possible targets. They could not wait, so on April 15 they struck at the symbol of hope and aspiration, of breasting the tape. The Boston Marathon stood for all that is good – adrenalin throbbing in the muscles of different-coloured bodies, flags fluttering in the background to convey varied ethnicities. This was the mass congregation version of the American Sweetheart.

The U.S. was afraid to bury the dead Tamerlan because it feared the site would become a cult memorial. Something has got to be wrong if this were to happen. But then, has not the superpower’s Department of Defense called all protest “low-level terrorism”? This is how it went about it: “The FBI deemed OWS (Occupy Wall Street) to be a terrorist organization and went into ‘guilty until proven innocent’ mode. Many of the FBI descriptions of possible OWS actions or those of affiliated organizations like Adbusters consistently look to have taken the most inflammatory snippets and presented them out of context.”

In Woolwich, Michael Adebolajo – a ten-year ‘Islamist’ (he converted in 2003) – was sought by M15, even offered cash. Just the sort of guy in whose mouth you can stuff some food so that he does not rant against the system and assists it.  He, along with his accomplice Michael Adebowale, hit at the concept of security in the form of a young soldier, Lee Rigby. British Prime Minister David Cameron said, "they are trying to divide us". Hugely ironic, considering it comes from the masters of divide-and-rule policy. Much has been written about the brave white woman who tried to reason with the killer. Perhaps, this is what Cameron meant by ‘they’ and ‘us’.

He has set up the Tackling Extremism and Radicalisation Task Force (TERFOR) "to stop extremist clerics using schools, colleges, prisons and mosques to spread their ‘poison’...It will also urge Muslim ‘whistleblowers’ to report clerics who act as terrorist apologists to the police". This sort of vigilantism makes everyone a suspect.

The Guardian quoted former British soldier Joe Glenton, who served in the war in Afghanistan:

"While nothing can justify the savage killing in Woolwich yesterday of a man since confirmed to have been a serving British soldier, it should not be hard to explain why the murder happened... It should by now be self-evident that by attacking Muslims overseas, you will occasionally spawn twisted and, as we saw yesterday, even murderous hatred at home. We need to recognise that, given the continued role our government has chosen to play in the US imperial project in the Middle East, we are lucky that these attacks are so few and far between."

How lucky, indeed. And this is heralded as a liberal point of view, whereas it is just more shit hitting the fan. It adds to the pan-Islamic prototype, of every darned Muslim being concerned about every country with a population that follows the faith and could get murderous in adopted lands.

Strangely, nationalistic fervour is a mirror image of the Ummah it so detests. In Chhattisgarh, the government is treating the Naxals as “kufr”, non-believers of poodle democracy.

                                                                          

The Image-makers

The reason the subject has become an even more important issue is because it highlights how the government uses subversive tactics through insidious means. In the major attack on the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) that killed 76 soldiers, the reportage and political drama hinged on ‘embarrassment’ and ‘blot’. It was the image factory at work. No emotions for the dead or the very reasons behind such insurgency,

Was the Woolwich murder a terror attack?

They hacked a soldier to death. What was as bad as the spectacle of TV anchors giving tantalising sound bites about the possible images of the beheading was the surprise over Prime Minister David Cameron cutting short his visit in France and calling for a special meeting. Is this not what a leader would do, especially since he has preempted it as a terror attack?

I watched a bit of the news, and it is inhuman that anyone would want to kill in this manner. Machetes and knives were used, although the two assailants had guns.

What is surprising and unfortunate is that not only did the men kill the soldier who was returning to the barracks in Woolwich, they had an audience. They asked them to film them. They gave statements about their motives.

What did the people do? They shot the video. Some called the police. The cops took 20 minutes to reach. Whatever the problems, could they not have alerted the barracks that were just round the corner and would not the colleagues of the victim arrive to help?

CNN kept showing one of the murdererers. Worse, it said, "They're black." We could see that. Do they ever specify white?

Surprisingly, they stayed around and so did the people. What did that one guy say?

•“We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you."

•"I apologize that woman had to witness this today but in our lands woman see this every day." [Apparently, a reference to an eyewitness.]

•"Remove your government - they don't care about you."

The obvious assumption would be that he is a jihadi, a religious fanatic. He is also talking about other lands where this happens — it is not clear whether he was referring to western interference or killings by militants within the countries by rebels or fundamentalists against their own people.

When he said "remove your government", who was he addressing? This was in London. There are many different ethnic groups. Muslims cannot remove the government, so it would seem he was appealing to all the citizens.

From the little that one could gather, it looked like the murderers did not choose the specific target. Was the soldier in army fatigues? If so, then they wanted to hit out at the institution they believe is causing trouble in their land of origin.

Has anyone given them the right to speak on behalf of their people? No. They are disgruntled. Perhaps their families or friends or neighbours back home have been killed. This is no excuse, but a possible reason. If they beheaded him, I wonder why they used this form of vengeance against what they believe is bad government.

One innocent man was killed. Besides the killers, others are already making a killing of it. It has started with a warning that this is a terrorist attack, and Al Qaeda is mentioned. Someone suggested that lone operators could not be ignored. Most certainly. But they are called murderers. 'Terrorism' changes the dynamics. The government has already issued warnings of more attacks.

Instead of making the public feel secure, it frightens them.

As expected, Muslims organisations have condemned the attack. This is all very good as a humanitarian gesture, but could they not wait? Why this rush to prove that the community is not to be blamed? It is not. No one blamed Koreans when a student went on a rampage at a university in the US. The apology plays into the media shrillness, and reaches the people. The message gets distorted along the way.

One family is grieving today. They do not even know why this happened. Think about them too, and not only about the killers. That is the job of the police and the investigating agencies. One hopes they are not influenced by the media's bloody-mindedness.

Updated May 23, 10.50 am IST:

I cannot understand how what takes place miles away lands up at our doorstep. The ridiculous assertions include:

Arabisation of Muslims: What is that? One has to keep repeating that there is no uniform Muslim ethos. The fact that a country is prefixed before Islam while discussing Arabisation makes it clear that there will be ethnic aspects. Even within the Arab world there are different streams.

 People from poor countries go to the First World and then behave like country bumpkins: Besides the obvious ignorance, it reveals a superiority complex. This makes no sense considering their own people are on dole, are homeless, are fighting regressive laws.

They “bite the hand that feeds”: What about the majority that are taxpayers, who contribute to these societies? By this logic, the high profile financial scams would also qualify as “biting the hand” because they loot the country’s economy.

MJ Rosenberg, Washington Spectator’s special correspondent on Middle East affairs explained it succinctly: “Most Muslims, like most everyone else, are horrified by London horror. But 100% of Islamohaters are ecstatic.”

So where does this come from? Why do they not outrage when there are killing by the Taliban or Al Qaida in Muslim countries where the victims are Muslim? Who are the real haters? What do screaming headlines mean except to wallow in violence as porn? And, yes, the man did use the name of Allah. What does Pastor Terry Jones say? Or those who muffle voices in basements wshile they torture their victims? Is this not terrorism?

© Farzana Versey

India and Pakistan – a Perpetual War: Decapitation vs. Capitulation

Are India and Pakistan at war? If we take a pragmatic view, then there has never been peace between the two nations. Does this translate into war? Should crossing the border, killing soldiers, infiltrating be treated as war during peacetime?

On January 8, the Pakistani army killed two Indian jawans, Lance-Naik Sudhakar Singh and Lance-Naik Hemraj. It was made out to be as though they ambled across, fired at the two, beheaded one and took away the head as trophy or proof. But this wasn’t a random act. The mainstream media has largely been talking in terms of “giving them a bloody nose” whether it is stated explicitly or implied.

Combat across the Line of Control (LoC) where both countries are involved does not amount to “diversionary manoeuvre to push infiltrators into J&K”, especially if the Intelligence Bureau was aware of it.

Winters in Jammu and Kashmir were generally considered as downtime for infiltration, the snow making it difficult for such incursion. If the IB had tipped off the Army, why were there no adequate pre-emptive steps taken? This is where it gets interesting.

False peace

Pakistan has, expectedly, denied any such killings. But what has the Indian government done? It termed it “provocative action”. The Indian Army also called it “grave provocation”. If the ceasefire is not respected, it is beyond provocation. This is not some game.

Foreign minister Salman Khurshid said: 

“I think it is important in the long term that what has happened should not be escalated…We have to be careful that forces ... attempting to derail all the good work that's been done towards normalisation (of relations) should not be successful.”

Who are these abstract forces that want to derail the peace process? Unlike in most countries that have a dispute, here peace is the Damocles Sword that hangs over the heads of India and Pakistan. It is ridiculously forced and caters primarily to the commercial and elite classes that gain points at seminars and encourage exchange of artistes to uphold a common heritage. If the heritage is common, why do we need clones?

Has any treaty been signed without ho-humming about the Kashmir issue? No. So, let us accept that the two governments are not interested in peace or a solution to Kashmir. We treat such casualties as collateral damage for a non-existent détente.

The two sides have taken position – away from the border – and ironically both are using the same excuse: non-state actors. This is particularly perplexing, for after the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai India had categorically blamed the Pakistani government and finally its ‘non-state actor’ Ajmal Kasab was hanged to death. This time, Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde has suggested that the mastermind behind those attacks, Hafiz Saeed, was seen having a chat with people across the LoC and therefore the Lashkar-e-Toiba could well be responsible.

How, then, can we blame the Pakistani government for being in denial? If this is an act of terror, then no government will accept the blame, even if there is complicity and jihad training camps.

Besides, between different versions of truth and lies, facts become the casualties. According to a Reuters report: 

“The body of one of the soldiers was found mutilated in a forested area on the side controlled by India, Rajesh K. Kalia, spokesman for the Indian army's Northern Command, said. However, he denied Indian media reports that one body had been decapitated and another had its throat slit.”

The theory of provocation assumes that needling is part of our respective foreign policies.

Libya syncing

Can you imagine Libyan pro-democracy group overtaking the headquarters of an extremist organisation, that too to protest against the killings at the American Consulate? This is what happened in Benghazi against the Ansar al-Sharia:

Thousands of protesters took to the street earlier on Friday, declaring loudly that they represent the real sentiments of the Libyan people, not those who were behind the deadly attack 10 days ago, reports CNN. One man stated: “I am sorry America. This is the real Libya.”

At first I was baffled and elated by turns. It sounds nice. In many ways, it is. But, is this the real Libya? Can we forget that the anti-Gaddafi rebels were looting property and striking poses in his and his family’s homes, making a mockery of the democracy they were claiming as their own?

This is probably to gain international attention. The signs read: “The ambassador was Libya’s friend” and “Libya lost a friend.” Christopher Stevens was known to be a good person. However, the United States at one time was quite comfortable with Col. Gaddafi. They, too, were friends, although he was friendlier with others.

The report has thrown up one interesting fact, though:

Tribal leaders are the strongest social force in the country and have come forward to demand that the militias disband. Tribal leaders in Benghazi and Darna even announced this week that members of their tribes who are also militiamen will not have protection from the tribes when faced with anti-militia protests, meaning the tribe will not avenge them if they die.

And they say the civil war is over in Libya…

Million Dollar Men: Asif Ali Zardari and Hafiz Saeed

The Ajmer Sharif Dargah in north India has become for politics what the Wagah border is for peace activists.  It is just so much melting wax and withering flowers.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari is to pay a visit to the shrine on what has been touted as a “personal” trip. Given his position, it is quite natural that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would ask him to join him for lunch. Now, when these two countries meet for any meal, there is a slow fire burning and a pot boiling in the background. You can see what is cooking, but the people at the table do not seem to have a clue.

We are still at the stage where the sophomoric question is: who should make the first move? Many moves have been made, in wars, by insurgents, through signed pieces of paper, with hugs, blasts, dialogues. These seem to have fallen on the head without anyone making the first move. Instead, the friendly country far from the neighbourhood has decided to do something about it.

The United States of America has put Hafiz Saeed, the leader of Jama'at-ud-Da'wah that was declared a terrorist organisation by the United Nations in December 2008, up there as the big dish. A little problem here. You don’t get him. He is just an item on the menu. You have to hand him over to the great master chef, Barack Obama, and in return take away the $10 million bounty offered by the U.S. for any information on him. No one quite knows what Mr. Zardari plans to pray for at the dargah, but it certainly isn’t a huge amount of money this time. As for Dr. Singh, he is a clean man with clean thoughts and, anyway, he does not have Hafiz Saeed. He can demand that he be handed over, is the chorus. Pages and pages have been exchanged over the Mumbai attacks of November 2008.

We need to look at this a bit carefully. India and Pakistan do not perceive Saeed in the same manner, and the simple reason is that they cannot. They are two countries with different compulsions. Saeed has been the mastermind behind those blasts. Ajmal Kasab, the hit man and the last guy standing, became the fall guy. In terms of a criminal act with the evidence he would be culpable. How does one gauge the extent of input by a mastermind? Osama bin Laden did not go out and attack anyone, yet he was the hunted. If we go by this logic, then the U.S. President must take responsibility for the killings of all the civilians in unprovoked wars.

The reason for bringing this up is the crucial element of American convenience. It would be facile to believe for a moment that the US is concerned about India, even though Obama said it has not forgotten the Mumbai attacks. It remembers at an opportune time. The present Zardari-Singh meeting is not terribly important, except to discuss the same old things. I also do not believe that the US bounty will suddenly make terrorism an issue. It has always been an issue.

The American establishment is only making sure it gets a sneak preview. While peace between the two countries is whimsical, the state of unrest has helped outsiders a great deal. This bane has been a boon for them, for a huge world population can be managed, if not colonised, by the simple expedient of posing as a saviour figure.  It simply does not understand that terrorism in these parts is feeding off angst. It is playing on sentiment.

To put it simplistically, for the West the Mumbai attacks showed India as a rich country and Pakistan as a few men in dinghy. Good old David Headley, Hafiz Saeed’s video maker and map drawer, managed to get a visa to India and do his recce trips as a US citizen. They have him there. Do the two countries have the courage to ask America what exactly it is doing with him?

Hafiz Saeed is roaming free. His December 2011 rally against NATO killings turned out to be bigger than that of most politicians. This was not in some small town, but in Lahore, where he turned the ‘war on terror’ on it head by urging the Pakistani authorities to revoke its cooperation. Whether anybody likes it or not, there are many Pakistanis who support his organisation, Difa-e-Pakistan. Political pragmatism would make it imperative to be on his side, because at least with regard to NATO he is expressing the prevalent sentiment: “In 10 years of war that US has fought in Afghanistan, Pakistan actually lost more than the invaded country.”

 

Afghanistan has been a sore point with mainstream Pakistani politicians from the time of the influx of refugees during the Afghan war to the Taliban entering the plains and attacking just about every group of people. The splitting of hairs over ‘good Taliban’ and ‘bad Taliban’ has in fact blurred the lines. In the popular imagination, the U.S. is to blame for it. The audacious move to assign ‘guardian angels’, troops to watch over their sleeping comrades “against possible attacks by rogue Afghans” after an American soldier Sergeant Robert Bales killed sleeping Afghans, amounts to playing victim.

Pakistan is caught between these two victim-aggressors. It is willing to risk drone attacks, but the authorities probably believe that the rightwing within might come in handy. The view that Pakistan wishes to create communal tensions in India works symbolically to the benefit of Pakistan and India should disabuse such notions actively. If Pakistan wishes to destabilise India by hitting out at its totems of economic progress, then why would it want to do trade with India and why should the Indian government encourage it?

If India believes that the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) is behind it all, then does it make any sense to ask Pakistan to hand over Hafiz Saeed or to even try him? More importantly, if India believes that all acts of terror emanate from Pakistan, then is there any purpose in pursuing peace? Peace does not merely mean no war. It conveys a sense of confidence and trust. Neither country trusts the other.

This leaves a large opening for America, and it never fails to appear. The farce of a $10 million bounty will be played out in salons rather than in Islamabad or New Delhi. This is a huge bait for Pakistani liberals and expats to fill the U.S. coffers during the run-up to the elections. The money will be in trust, without it being spoken of in such clear terms, and the well-wisher Pakistani lobbyists will buy peace. America knows this only too well.

The obvious question would be: Aren’t there more prominent Indians in that country? Rich Indian immigrants are keener on being American; they do not have to prove their innocence, unlike Pakistanis. This is a major difference.

What has this got to do with President Zardari meeting Dr. Singh? If one is to understand some of the ‘peace’ proponents, then India is doing a subtle America without the bluster. The lead opinion piece in The Times of India had this gem:

“Clearly, Zardari has stolen an imaginative moment from the bitter-sullen history of India-Pakistan, by asking to come to pay his respects to a cherished and much-beloved saint across the Indian subcontinent. It shows what we, despite the horrendous Mumbai attacks of 2008, are still capable of. Perhaps the Pakistani president will seek forgiveness for those attacks and pray that both countries can move on by jointly erasing the scourge of terrorism. God knows, there are more people killed in Allah’s name in Pakistan today than elsewhere in the region.”

This is so full of Pat Robertson type evangelism, with its penance and forgiveness tone, that one wishes that all SAARC meetings are held at the shrine. In fact, such ‘private’ visits only reinforce the belief that we in South Asia will always mix religion with politics.

Taking such peace talks further is a piece in The Hindu jointly written by former Foreign Secretary of Pakistan Humayun Khan and former Foreign Secretary of India Salman Haidar:

“Peace within the region is an essential requirement for India to continue on its upward path. It must make renewed efforts to convince its neighbours that it poses no threat to them. It still has to fully convince them that it is ready to honour their independence and separate personality.”

How can such a thing be proved? India is fighting movements within almost as much as Pakistan is, with probably fewer casualties. The emphasis on economic progress, in fact, diverts attention away from political instability. There is no doubt that India being the larger nation has to respect other nations, but their sovereignty depends on how they manage contradictions within. Bilateral peace has little to do with this.

“To further allay apprehensions, discussions could be initiated on relocation of forces along the border and on regular meetings between chiefs of the armed forces and of intelligence agencies. The need for better understanding between the two militaries cannot be over-emphasised, because the security syndrome in Pakistan is the major obstacle in the way of progress.”

Do the armed forces act independently? They don’t. Besides, there is a difference between armed conflict and terrorism. Terrorism does not take the regular route. While Pakistan has to deal with the army as possible government, India has to handle the politicisation within the army. How they talk to each other matters little when compared with how they operate inside their own countries.

Dr. Manmohan Singh does not have to worry about the Indian armed forces posing a threat to his position. Asif Ali Zardari has to every minute of the day. A little prayer at the dargah will not change that. What he might get by way of benediction is a new eureka motivation: blame the existence of Hafiz Saeed on newbie willing to sup with Islamists Imran Khan for the moment. Wasn’t seize the day an all-American novel?

(c)Farzana Versey

Published in Counterpunch, April 4

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Image of Asif Ali Zardari and Dr Manmohan Singh courtesy Open magazine

The house that Bin Laden Built?

The 'mansion' has been razed. But ghosts need no houses.

According to the Wall Street Journal:

"Pakistan authorities demolished the three-story house in Abbottabad where Osama bin Laden lived for years and died last May during a raid by U.S. Navy SEALs in an apparent bid to stop it becoming a tourist site or shrine for al Qaeda supporters..."

We are told this is a decision taken by Pakistani security agencies. The US has not been informed. One has to be naive to believe this. True Pak-US relations are at a low after the November killings of 24 Pakistani soldiers, but this is a ruse.

Osama was the most wanted man. The US hunt for him took them on a warpath, resulting in thousands of deaths. If he lived here for five years, and in that quick operation they managed to take away "boxes of materials", does it mean the safe house has no value for them anymore?

They say that the proximity to the military academy is an embarrassment to Pakistan. Pakistan says it did not know about it. As for America:

"Until now, however, the U.S. has stated it has found no evidence that Pakistan's military or government helped shelter the former al Qaeda leader."

So the soured relationship theory just does not work. The whole tourist attraction-shrine idea is lame, too.

The romanticisation of Osama relied on his hiding in caves, not in a badly-structured house, hunched over a television television watching porn DVDs, and using Viagra.

The US killed the image of Osama.

Pakistan is helping it to demolish every trace. It is a mutual understanding. For a country that revels in symbols, it is hard to imagine the US did not want to keep a watch over the site and just move on after the burial by the sea.

Something more than a building is destroyed, and America jolly well knows what that is.

Sunday ka Funda

"mez se jab meri tasweer hataai hogi

har taraf mujhko tadapta hua paaya hoga"

(My pictures taken off the shelf

Would have spread my pain everywhere)

War is not pretty. It is not desirable. It's Army Day in India today. 'Haqeeqat' remains one of the best films on the subject. It tackles the inner pain and not just outer bruises.

Sometimes, we have to forget because we are helpless...in any 'war'

Hoke majboor mujhe usney bhulaya hoga

Film: Haqeeqat

Music: Madan Mohan

Lyrics: Kaifi Azmi

Singers: Mohamad Rafi, Talat Mahmood, Bhupinder, Manna De

Director: Chetan Anand

Of Kashmiri Kids and Obama's NATO

Just the other day, they were telling us how bad the situation is in Mumbai. How do you solve this problem? Bring a group of Kashmiri kids. Here is what happens:

Even though many would prefer the serenity of the valleys of Kashmir, for this bunch of Kashmiri students currently touring Mumbai, the hustle-bustle and traffic jams of the city are more appealing. “It feels so good and comforting to walk into a city where people are not living in constant fear,” said Shabbir Ahmed, a 16-year-old student from Khadi, Kashmir.

This boy’s father or uncle or grandfather is probably in Mumbai selling handicrafts. And not because he wants to feel safe, but because the jobs have dried up in Kashmir.

Are such initiatives worth it? This has been arranged by the 23 RR Battalion of the Indian Army. Major Gurudev Jajot said:

“Our aim is to wipe out this stigma of isolation that they face and to motivate them to dream high.”

In what way is it a stigma? There are people living in many remote villages in our country. They are isolated too. By emphasising on the stigma associated with Kashmiris, it only makes it more evident and real. It is nice that children from different places interact, but not with such an agenda in mind.

Does a Kashmiri not dream high? And even if s/he does not, there can be several factors. Again, how many high dreamers are there in Chhatisgarh or even Chunabatti in Mumbai?

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I do hope Pakistan has sent a Thank You note to Barack Obama for not saying sorry for the NATO strike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. It exposes his arrogance.

Some administration aides also worried that if Mr. Obama were to overrule the military and apologize to Pakistan, such a step could become fodder for his Republican opponents in the presidential campaign, according to several officials who declined to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The military units are sent by the US civilian administration. A democratically-elected leader can overrule the military, just as he can recall them. That is what has been done all along, so why the protocol now? If he is only looking at electoral gains, then he would benefit from the apology because Pakistan will be eager to accept it due to their tacit understanding.

Cameron Munter, the United States ambassador to Pakistan, would have liked it to fix the US-Pak situation, but others disagreed:

Defense Department officials balked. While they did not deny some American culpability in the episode, they said expressions of remorse offered by senior department officials and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton were enough, at least until the completion of a United States military investigation establishing what went wrong.

Wonderful. Even if the Americans and the Pakistanis give different explanations, the fact is that these soldiers were killed, and not by the militants. Where are the investigations when the Americans get trigger-happy? Will there be an inquiry into whether they were defending themselves? Against whom? The militants or the soldiers?

If the top defense guys do not know what their troops were upto, then Pakistan could use them to stand guard outside Habib Bank or something in Karachi.

Mr. Musharraf, Do You Not Know?

Following the ruckus former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s statements to an Indian television channel have caused, mainly about Dawood Ibrahim, I decided to do a follow-up interview.

FV: Welcome, Mr. Musharraf. How does it feel….

PM: I don’t know.

FV: I have not asked a question yet.

PM: Okay, okay.

FV: How does it feel to be accused of trying to grab the limelight again?

PM: What limelight? You asked me for an interview. Who sent you here?

FV: I don’t know. Uh…mmm….I mean, this is my job. I need to know why you don’t know.

PM: I already said in that interview. How am I to know where Dawood Ibrahim is when I am not in Pakistan? Why does India not know? You have his relatives there, he is also looking for a burial place in Mumbai. Why? Is Pakistan only for hiding? Everyone wants to go to Pakistan and hide and then they get buried somewhere else. Osama was in the sea and that also not in Pakistan but Afghanistan. Karzai got so many points only for that. This was an insult to our fishermen.”

FV: But it was a Pakistani magazine that exposed Dawood’s hideout in Karachi, and there was talk about his white house.”

PM: How can you see a hideout? The Pakistani media is westernised. They cannot understand local sentiments and want to ape the Americans, so they called it white house. So many bungalows are white. They sit in their ivory towers and don’t know what is grassroots.

FV: This reminds me. No one seems to have caught on to your comment about going in a helicopter to look at the refugee camps to get a feel of the ground reality. I thought that was rather amusing.

PM: I like to poke fun at myself. I do not believe in lying.

FV: Lying is not a belief, Mr. Musharraf. But you agree you mixed up the figures and the riots in India, don’t you?

PM: I don’t know.

FV: Well, you did.

PM: I forget the figures in Pakistan too. This is not about numbers, but emotions.

FV: So you said, and I will quote you here, “They think that he (Dawood) did a very good job... Because Indians killed 3,000 Gujaratis. In Gujarat they killed 3,000 Muslims”. There has been a huge noise from the liberal Pakistanis. They say that most of them don’t feel this way.

PM: Did I give any figure? I just said they think. ‘They’ could mean any number. I told you these liberals don’t know the ground reality.

FV: Maybe because they don’t use helicopters?

PM: Even if they did, they would look at the birds.

FV: Dawood is on the list of most wanted terrorists, even though his work is mostly hawala transactions these days.

PM: For the west, this is more important now. Money.

FV: But Pakistan too depends on US aid.

PM: That is to help them. It is an economic strategy, like you say diwaala nikaalna, they can write off loans and show bankruptcy.

FV: Do you think Dawood qualifies as a terrorist?

PM: I don’t know. But since you Indians go on about him, we can give you Javed Miandad instead.

FV: Why did you say that Imran Khan is the best of the lot in politics today?

PM: I don’t know.

FV: Surely you would. Ah yes, you said he was untested and should be given a chance. Is it about him or about you getting another chance?

PM: Do you think I need another chance? I am wiser now…

FV: So you will stay out?

PM: Not at all. I am wiser, which means I will find better ways to get in.

FV: There was a TV debate later and your former spokesperson Major Gen. Rashid Qureshi was holding the flag for you. Is the Pakistani army like Indian democrats where people in exile or waiting in the wings have someone to keep their seat for them?

PM: Not at all. I am curious about what he said, though. Did he say I was chu….. (Mr. Qureshi gained notoriety for using an Urdu cuss word on Pakistan television)

FV: He suggested you were chu…chewing over several options. He did not say it, but it came across.

PM: Good boy.

FV: Right. The Pakistani army seems like an old boys’ club.

PM: Are you suggesting we are sexist?

FV: No. I don’t suppose women would want to actively be a part of it.

PM: You saw what happened to Gaddafi?

FV: But he was a permanent colonel, more titular than anything else.

PM: The same in Pakistan. We skip ranks, because our main role is politics.

FV: Will General Kayani join politics?

PM: I don’t know

FV: Of course, you do.

PM: Let me put it this way. He does not have to. It is very complicated in Pakistan.

FV: Then why do you wish to return?

PM: Because I can solve so many problems. I can call a jirga anyday.

FV: But that is only in the Pakhtun areas.

PM: Today, it is possible anywhere. Just call a few people and take quick decisions.

FV: That is what the Taliban is doing.

PM: Everyone is. Even the media. Imran Khan too had a jalsa…

FV: That is different…there were thousands of people.

PM: All of them do not take decisions.

FV: You keep talking about enlightened moderation. What exactly does it mean?

PM: I don’t know.

FV: Please try.

PM: Do you have any knowledge of gravity?

FV: A bit.

PM: If Newton had seen that the apple remained on the tree and a grape had fallen, then it would be like enlightened moderation. I will give one more example. You have a bright light in the room; if you use a dimmer and make it moderate, what do you get?

FV: Dim light.

PM: No. Moderate light. That is enlightened moderation.

FV: This is enlightening.

PM: It should always be in moderation, otherwise you become an extremist.

FV: How would you describe yourself in this scheme?

PM: I don’t know.

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(c) Farzana Versey

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Obviously, this is a satire. The real interview can be seen here

Clinton Plays Snake and the Rope

While most of the media is patting Hillary Clinton for the “tough talk” with Pakistan in Islamabad, what the US Secretary of State has really done is to send out contradictory signals. Take these two quotes:

• "Our relationship of late has not been an easy one. We have seen distrust harden into resentment and public recrimination. We have seen common interests give way to mutual suspicion."

• "We work with the Pakistani military and intelligence services [so] that any person who has committed a terrorist act or is about to commit one can be intercepted. There are many ways of doing that. I think it's one of the real successes of the relationship."

What tough talk? The US has its ways, so where is the mutual suspicion? This is the façade. It is ridiculous, as has been implied by one set of analyses, that things got a bit difficult between the two countries because of Osama bin Laden. What of him? That he was found in Pakistan? Or, that the Americans killed him? Or, that the Pakistanis helped the Americans?

The only problem with the ‘end of Osama’ deal is that the US administration is suffering from an itch. It has to fight terror, but it has nothing to show. After camping in Waziristan and Kabul – not to speak of hovering over the Middle East – it has figured out that the Haqqanis are in charge of the terror network in this part of the world.

The supposed Clinton missive is about asking Pakistan to do all sorts of things to the Haqqani faction that sounds like a bad mixer-juicer-grinder ad: "to encourage, to push, to squeeze…That is what we are looking for." All this is apparently for a peace chat. She reportedly added for good measure, revealing an appalling lack of understanding, that it was not clear whether the militants were ready for talks.

Damn them. Really. Pakistan’s military chief, Gen. Kayani, had in fact made the ‘tough call’ by saying “we are not Iraq or Afghanistan”, although everyone knows that it would take a minute to become one. The US can do that if it has a ruse. Pakistan has managed to resist obvious puppetry due to its Saudi connection.

Since Clinton has already said that the US worked with the Pakistani army, why is she ranting? Because that is her job profile. Her quick visits are part of the banshee cry that needs to resound.

If anything, this was a PR exercise.

"Every intelligence agency has contact with unsavory characters, that is part of the job of being in an intelligence agency. What we are saying is let's use those contacts to try to bring these people to the table to see whether or not they are going to be cooperative." She noted that it was the Pakistani intelligence services that requested the U.S. meet with the Haqqanis.

Where is the problem here? Why make noises about the ISI then? If the US and Pakistan are in this together, then every single meeting is a wasted effort. They are merely sending out signals to no one in particular. Since every intelligence agency has contacts with unsavoury characters, why does the US always need help? Is its own intelligence falling short or do they avoid unsavoury characters due to some moral reasons?

The most delectable comment was from The Guardian quoting Pakistani officials responding to criticism about intelligence links with the Haqqanis as saying:

“It's not like we can pick up the phone and call them to Islamabad. We know people who know people who know them.”

Sheer brilliance!

As for Ms. Clinton’s “you cannot keep snakes in your backyard and expect they will only bite the neighbours'', why has it just become a much-touted quote?

Which neighbours was she referring to? Is she okay with such neighbouring? This is such a typically selfish attitude. And, anyway, the United States of America does know about snakes in Pakistan’s neighbourhood. Its CIA helped create one. When he bit it, they decided that anything that looked like a reptile was a threat and had to be done away with. What no one realised as that the American administration was the chameleon dangling a rope and screaming, “Snake!” A win-win situation.

The noose and the venom, real and delusionary, are powerful weapons of destruction.

Libya's Poster Girl

Nisreen in Gaddafi's army

It was only a matter of time before Libya found a totem. The psychological semantics are beautifully laid out. A 19-year-old girl. Attractive. Murderer? Victim? The shadow-play is potent.

Libyan’s leader Muammar Gaddafi always had a female army alongside the traditional male one. So, what sets Nisreen Mansour al Forgani apart? Have the rebels not taken others captive, those who massacred the dissident forces? Why do all such movements feel the need to use such ‘human shields’ to drive home a point that is ironically against the debasement of the human used as shield to prop up dictatorial regimes?

It is essentially the idea of “Gaddafi's girl executioner” that has the appeal of bondage. It is essentially vicarious. Her being shackled to a bed now is a wry comment on how both sides will use an individual, especially if she happens to be an eyeball-grabbing young woman.

The rebels have taken her after she killed 11 of them, many at point-blank range. Her story, as recounted now, is about a girl who enjoyed “dance music”, which the media seems to emphasise, quite forgetting that in Gaddafi’s Libya it was not forbidden. The leader himself was given to many pleasures.

Nisreen who lived with her mother was initiated into the army by Fatma. Besides training in guns, she was also sent off by the lady to a room where military officers raped her and other young women. So, why is Fatma not being held out as the ugly face of the regime? The rebels will make the most of Nisreen. The gut-wrenching account will be for an international audience as they too like to put their best victims out.

Nisreen recounts about Fatma: “She told me that if my mother said something against Gaddafi that I should immediately kill her. If I said anything about the leader that she did not like I would be beaten and locked in my room. She also told us that if the rebels came, they would rape us.”

The rebels did not sexually exploit her, but she is being flashed around in the media. There is pity for her as she gives the details: “The rebel prisoners were tied up and kept under a tree outside. Then one by one they were brought up to the room. There were three Gaddafi volunteers with guns also in the room. They told me that if I didn’t kill the prisoners then they would kill me.”

Wasn’t she trained as a sniper? What did she expect? Weren’t most of the rebels people who opposed the regime? There were many who supported Gaddafi right until the revolution. It is a bit hard to digest that Nisreen now says her family were not supporters of the Gaddafi regime. Are these her political views? What is the genesis of it?

Was she forced to do it, or is she now claiming to be anti-Gaddafi because she fears the rebels who took her prisoner? “I told them (the rebels) what I did. They are angry. I do not know what will happen to me now.”

This is the crux. No one quite knows. If many who followed Gaddafi’s laws had been forced into doing so, then they were victims as well. Do the rebels then have the right to hold them responsible? How will the alternative powers deal with these contradictions?

In a rather macabre conversation, a rebel fighter asked her, “Do you pray?” She said she used to.

“What time of day did you kill them?”

“In the mornings.”

The rebels?

Are the rebels going to base their decision on her devotion? What does the fact that she “used to” pray convey – that she has lost faith, or that she cannot do so physically now? Is the timing important for religious reasons?

The rebels seem to be on a trip of their own. It happened with Nida in Iran, a martyr by default. It will happen with Nisreen. Where did they get the photograph of her before being tied to the hospital bed from? There are others of her weeping. These will be flaunted as part of the victory over Tripoli. The rubble from Gaddafi’s mansion with its joy rides and zoo don’t work as well as a young woman killer in tears.

The Hina Factor: Pakistan’s Wicked Ploy

Oops, you did it again! Krishna and Khar

This is Asif Ali Zardari’s shrewdest move. Sending Hina Rabbani Khar on what amounts to be the equivalent of cricket diplomacy. This is not meant to be a sexist comment. She pretty much sailed through the India test by fire even as Pakistani intellectuals and the media have been rubbishing her ever since she was appointed to the post.


What are the dynamics here? It seems impossible to disregard the references to what she wore, how she looked and spoke, and it is a tad stupid for well-traveled Indians to comment on her designer labels as though they are not exposed to these. If anything, they look a bit awestruck even as they seemingly reduce her to superficials. The Times of India decided to tread carefully and mentioned our foreign Minister S.M.Krishna’s necktie, as though it were mandatory to give him equal sartorial time.


Zardari’s victory is that he knew the attention would be diverted from important issues although he had said that giving a 34-year-old with little experience the plum assignment was “a demonstration of the government's commitment to bring women into the mainstream of national life". There is no contradiction in his mind that the mainstream is the elite. He is sending out a few messages here: our societies are obsessed with the façade of economic progress, so let us dress the part even if we are dependent on foreign aid. A report had said that Richard Holbrooke was keen that she was given more responsibility. As foreign affairs minister she does not need to know what happens in the bastis. Does Rehman Malik, the Interior Minister, know? She has to convey Pakistan’s intentions, which is an easy job to do because India already knows it. As she said in a television interview, when questioned about her meeting with the Hurriyat leaders before her official itinerary, that this was the “stated position of Pakistan”.


Rather smartly, she also took the age issue head-on and said it was a matter of how one sees it. She has been an elected MP and served two terms as junior minister that helped her “learn on the job”. This sounds like a simple statement. Think about it, though. The head of our government is not elected; the woman running this country has no experience; the youth leader has been learning on the job for years now with the added advantage of dynasty. If we decide to look into our own backyard, Ms. Khar’s debut would appear like quite a masterstroke.


So, what is it about her that has riled Pakistanis? A former envoy, Zafar Hilaly, had been dismissive: "Asif Ali Zardari clearly does not want a heavyweight in the job. Hina will play the role and say her piece; but I don't think anyone is expecting anything significant from her."


He should know that no minister can do anything significant with India. We have been playing a carrot-and-stick game for years and will continue to do so. All paperwork, statements and dossiers will be cosmetic offers.


There are derisive put-downs that she is just a rich spoilt woman from a feudal family. This comes from the media; most of the owners and editors are rather well-off and have other businesses and most certainly give the time of day to social butterflies. In fact, some noted writers have made a career of carousing for the Chanel chicks. They seem to have forgotten that none of their prominent leaders has been a grassroots person. Zardari is himself a greenhorn with a shady history. What about Benazir Bhutto? What was her experience except to belong to a political family? Jemima Khan had dismissed her  as "The Kleptocrat in an Hermes scarf" (my rejoinder was here), completely forgetting her own posh Goldsmith girl days. What is Imran Khan’s experience that some people think he’d, be a great prime minister? One will not question the political experience of military leaders because they rule either by coup or from the coop.


Professor Pervez Hoodbhoy added some perspective but a bit harshly: “In a male dominated culture, she will be derided as no more than a pretty face. This would be true even if she was hard-as-nails and an exemplary negotiator. She will also be the object of jealousy within the PPP, where sycophants know that the boss decides and suck up to him. How forcefully Khar is able to present Pakistan's position as foreign minister remains to be seen. Although she was selected for her docility rather than bold originality, there could always be surprises."


How many Pakistanis, forget politicians, have expressed a position that is boldly original on matters of foreign policy? Any national psyche makes it incumbent for people to believe in certain aspects; much of it is inherited baggage. If she is to push Pakistan’s position, that too with regard to India, how can she be original?


Before her visit, a report had quoted an unnamed observer who said, “It is well-known that Pakistan's foreign policy is in the hands of agencies, not the foreign minister or even the President. Hina will have a tough time proving that she is not just a puppet. I don't think anyone is going to forget that her roots go back to the Musharraf administration."


This goes in her favour. Pervez Musharraf conducted the biggest PR exercise in India during the Agra Summit although it ended rather badly. He became a martyred hero, so the connection is her silent trump card. Again Zardari, who it is suspected could get close to Musharraf again in one of those opportunistic alliances that his father-in-law was so adept at, has played his cards well.


And for those who are talking about maintaining the status quo, that is what Indo-Pak relations are about. That or months of sulking. The outcome is, as expected, simplistic. India and Pakistan have agreed “on the need to strengthen cooperation on counter-terrorism including among relevant departments as well as agencies to bring those responsible for terror crimes to justice”. This is worth a yawn although it gives sufficient grist for several yarns.


The confidence building measures (CBMs) will be another Samjhauta – compromise. You take some missiles out of the way, but that does not prevent the threat perception and the real threat. It is not about whether either country decides to attack, but how much it feels the need to defend itself. This is never overtly at the government level. We have coined the phrase “non-state actors” just to make sure that foreign ministers can “agree” without having a clue as to what is happening behind their backs. The intelligence agencies have to deal with the headache, unless they are the headache.


The Line of Control will now be accessible for travel and trade. Is this a big leap forward when the economies of both sides of Kashmir are not really bullish? As regards travel, residents of Kashmir are anyway given visas more easily.


In general terms, trade opening acts as one more people-to-people initiative.


By far her entertaining the Hurriyat leaders at the Pakistani High Commission before meeting our foreign minister  - while deemed undiplomatic and a kick to protocol - was her real moment. Tutored she was, but she made it seem like the most natural thing to do. India and Pakistan are just two nations. Emphasise Kashmir and you sit on the TNT bomb. To keep it simmering has proved to be the most lucrative aspect of Indo-Pak politics. CBMs are just loose change.


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Also published in Countercurrents

Sonia’s Boys Will Be Boys

Almost everyday, someone in this country is using khadi to wipe some part of their houses, some part of their person. I am quite certain they are not thinking about how they are insulting the Mahatma.


But it can happen:

Congress disapproved Union Minister Jairam Ramesh's controversial act of wiping his shoe with a garland of spun cotton given by party members while welcoming him at a public function in Rajasthan.

"In the life of a nation there are certain symbols and one should be more careful and sensitive about them," AICC General Secretary Janardhan Dwivedi said reacting to the development.

The cotton garlands were offered to Ramesh by Congress office-bearers Rameshwar Dudi and Rampyari Vishnoi at a function on Monday. When the minister was sitting on a chair at the dais, he took off the garlands and put them on a table. After some time, he took a garland and cleaned his shoe.

Reacting sharply, the state BJP criticised his act and demanded an apology saying, "The garland is a symbol of Gandhi's spinning wheel. It (the act) is an insult to Gandhi's khadi."

A few points:

• The BJP’s Gandhigiri we know about, so it is just adding to the political cacophony.

• The only insult is that the garland was offered to him as a gesture and he ought to have respected it, whether it was a garland of marigolds or of sandalwood. There is no special symbolism about khadi. It can and does clean shoes.

• People should be more concerned that this ‘humble’ fabric is sold at exorbitant rates by designer labels. In the life of a nation there is the common man, too.

• Having said this, I wonder what prompted Jairam Ramesh to become his own shoeshine boy on a public platform. Was he in fact being Gandhian and telling the party membes that you must clean your own dirt?

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Omar Abdullah declares:

“A young man was shot dead in Sopore yesterday for no apparent fault of his. Where the hell are all the irate voices??? Bloody hypocrites.”

For how many years has there been insurgency in Kashmir? How many people have been killed, by both the armed forces as well as the militants? Why this sudden looking for “irate voices”? Does the chief minister of J&K think that civilian deaths do not matter if militants kill them?


I understand that he believes that the issue of such killings by the authorities are taken up by human rights organisations, and they are silent. No, they are not. There are records of such killings. But, it must be remembered that a terrorist is not running a government or representing the country or in charge of its security. That is the big difference. People expect the security forces to not kill civilians. His comment makes one wonder whether:

• He believes that all those killed by the army are at fault.

• The fact that there are irate voices against establishment-ordered killings means that it happens and there ought to be equal vehemence in opposing it.

This is not about scoring points about decibel levels.


As for being bloody hyprocrites, how about the fact that the Centre-appointed interlocutor in Kashmir, Dileep Padgaongkar, had gone on one of Ghulam Nabi Fai’s junket conferences, and our home minister says that as this was before he became the interlocutor, it is fine? If there is criticism of Fai, then why not have a uniform response?


Mr. Fai’s links have been made much of, so where are the irate voices about the interlocutor’s role? Where is the “bloody hypocrites” declamation?

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Mani Shanker Aiyer has called the Congress a circus. Why?

"Those who have got their work done visit 10, Janpath (Congress President Sonia Gandhi's residence), while those with some hope of getting their work done visit 23, Willingdon Crescent (the residence of the Congress Chief's Political Secretary Ahmed Patel). Those who have lost all the hope and are dejected come to 24, Akbar Road (Congress' headquarters)".

I don’t think he has visited a circus in a long time. What he is describing is different phases of love. They can be encapsulated in a few phrases from a few songs, light and dark:

1. Porgee phaslee re phaslee
2. Mujhko thodi lift kara de
3. Koi hota jisko hum apna, hum apna keh lete yaaron…

Unless, of course, Mr. Aiyer meant the circus in the film Mera Naam Joker. In which case, it would be apt to address him:

kehta hai jokar saara zamaana

aadhi haqeeqat aadha fasaana

chashmaa uthaao, phir dekho yaaro

duniya nayi hai, chehra puraana

Bhool gaye kya apne din?