Nearly eleven political parties have been up in arms against the Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Government almost for a month now over a number of issues, especially on the economic front.

Economic woes faced by Pakistan at the moment are offering a rare advantage to the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) coalition led by two of the most prominent political parties — the Pakistani Muslim League (Nawaz) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) among others to attack the Government.

The first PDM rally was organised in mid-October. For now, the veteran Maulana Fazlur Rehman, head of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F), is heading the PDM. Just before beginning his first pubic appearance, he clearly underlined the objective of the coalition, “The Opposition is committed and there should be no impression that any of the parties are waiting for an agreement. All parties are committed and are united in restoring the sanctity of the people’s vote.” Outlining the PDM’s united role in its fight against the PTI Government, he said, “We don’t have personal enmity with anyone. But it should be specified that Pakistan belongs to Pakistanis. It does not belong to western entities.” He also stressed on the fact that “Pakistan did not come into power to be ruled by the global establishment. It all implies that the PDM is solidly behind the Maulana and they want an Imran-free Pakistan wherein there would be no western intervention at all.

Maryam Nawaz, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s daughter and vice-president of the PML(N), while embarking on this journey, regarded herself as the “Nawaz’s foot soldier”. She vowed to continue her father’s mission for Pakistan. Meanwhile Billawal Bhutto-Zardari, the PPP chairman and son of former President Asif Ali Zardari and late Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, too has joined the struggle and made it a united front to bring down the Imran Government.

Indeed, these second-generation leaders of the two main Opposition parties have put forward a rare fight to the Army-backed PTI Government in Islamabad.

The 26-point charter released by the PDM is very significant. It clearly spells out that there should be an end to the establishment’s role in politics. Among other things, it also highlights that Imran must resign immediately, and demanded production of missing persons and reduction of the prices of basic commodities. The PDM has also announced a clear line of action for the immediate future. Apart from its huge Gujranwala rally, the alliance will hold joint rallies across the four provinces of the country. Also it says that these rallies will be followed by mass protests across the country in December and a long march to the capital city of Islamabad in January 2021. The coalition lawmakers may also consider the option of resigning from the country’s National Assembly.

At the moment, PML(N) founder Nawaz, who was convicted of corruption in 2018, is now based in London after getting bail on medical grounds, had given fiery video speeches at two different rallies organised by the PDM. In one of his speeches, he created almost a history of sort. He called out the name of the head of the Pakistan’s Army General Qamar Javed Bajwa and accused him of engineering his ouster in 2017 and 2018 victory of the PTI in the general election. It’s in fact very rare for a senior politician of a former Prime Minister’s stature to make specific allegations against a sitting Army chief of the country. This is a worry signal for the country at this moment. But Nawaz in his speeches maintained that his fight is not against Imran but only against those people who has brought him to power. And undoubtedly, it is clear that he is pointing finger at the country’s Army establishment. Questioning the all powerful Army is somewhat prohibited in a country like Pakistan as it’s popularly known as the “deep state” of the country. Besides, the Army in that country absolutely regulates all internal and external moves of any civilian Government that has ever come to power since its formation.

Precisely, in the last 73 years of Pakistan’s history, there were four occasions when the Army ruled the country. And such Opposition alliances had in the past came together against military rulers and at times with significant successes. In the late 1960s, the Opposition parties had thrown out Field Marshal Ayub Khan from the office of the President of Pakistan. However, the Opposition parties could not register similar success in regard to General Zia-ul-Haq’s presidency in the 1980s. The charges against Zia were led by the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD). Again, such an alliance called Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) came up to dethrone General Pervez Musharraf in the 1990s. It’s not that these Opposition parties only rallied against the military dictators but they also came up to pull down civilian governments in the past. For example, the popularly elected Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Government was pulled down by such alliances in the year 1977 to bring home the General Zia presidency. But here we must remember that there were specific allegations of election rigging and manipulation of economic policies against the then Bhutto Government. In those days, the Opposition coalition was led by the Pakistan National Alliance.

When it comes to the coalition against Imran Government, it must be noted here that it is fully backed by the Army unlike the Bhutto Government of the 1977. So today’s PDM struggle is very unique in that sense and if goes further, it may garner more public support for it.

What has exactly enraged the Opposition and the public is deep economic crisis accompanied by the severe attack of the global corona pandemic across Pakistan. The acute shortage of wheat and sugar has pressed a large number of people to look out for an alternative government in the country. Besides these two problems, the devastating floods and locust attack on grain fields have together accentuated the current crisis in Pakistan.

It is an open secret that corruption of successive establishments, including the PTI in Islamabad, has severely plagued the entire administrative system of the country. It has become an inseparable part of Pakistan’s public governance system. Sadly, Imran has added an extremely poor political discourse to the existing public sphere of the country. His scant disregard for political opposition and arrogance in public forums has further aggravated the problems for the Government.

Currently, ousting the PTI Government is seemed to be an insurmountable task. The simple reason is that it is solely backed by the Army of Pakistan. But how long this support sustains is a matter of big question. Till then, Imran is safe. The traditional rivalries of the two Opposition parties within the PDM i.e. the PML (N) and the PPP must make it sure their differences should not break the alliance in the days to come. Looking at Pakistan’s tumultuous political and historical past, it can be safely concluded that the PTI Government will not survive the test of time.

(The writer is an expert on international affairs)

Even as the results of the US presidential election were pouring in and showing the Democrat challenger to Donald Trump, Joe Biden, in the lead, the US President unbelievably made a late-night declaration of victory before he had earned it and concocted a false narrative as an electoral fraud victim. In doing that, Trump denied Biden the consecrating ritual of concession. With this act of Trump, the US’ mechanism for handing over power has broken down. There is no constitutional procedure for removing a President who refuses to accept defeat gracefully.

The Founding Fathers of the US assumed and hoped that incumbents would behave with honour, though Thomas Jefferson always feared that a new Caesar might one day overstay his welcome — ironically with one of the Founding Fathers Alexander Hamilton immediately in mind.

President Trump’s late-night declaration of victory before he had earned it was an act of political sacrilege. It was also ruthlessly focussed, the opening move of a scorched-Earth strategy long-prepared by his inner circle should he be at risk of losing the vote. His allegation of a giant “fraud on the American people” was not a reckless off-the-cuff remark in the heat of the moment. Leaked tapes from his Election Day Operations team leave no doubt that this gambit was pre-planned, a calculated move to discredit in advance what he knew would be a late surge of Democrat votes as postal ballots are counted.

This “blue shift” syndrome has become a pattern of US elections, and vastly more so this year after 100 million people voted by mail or in advance to avoid the Coronavirus bullet. 

Trump has striven for weeks to taint postal votes and to impugn the credibility of the US electoral system — breathtaking chutzpah given that he controls the Justice Department and that Republicans dominate the executive machinery of the swing States. 

He urged his supporters to vote only in person, aiming to create an even greater cleavage between the party colouring of the two sets of ballots that could then be exploited. This has been his strategy ever since Joe Biden pulled ahead in the opinion polls.

It led to the spectacle that we have all just witnessed: An early Trump lead in several States evaporating later. It is an invitation to conspiracy theories, all assiduously amplified on social media, with militia waiting in the wings.  

The situation is dangerous and has nothing in common with Al Gore’s demand for a Florida recount 20 years ago. Trump has lost the popular vote and probably the Electoral College vote, too, yet he is pulling out all the stops to subvert the result before this can be confirmed.

A machinery for legal guerrilla warfare has been set in motion across the battleground States and will now cause weeks of havoc. Have markets understood the gravity of what is unfolding? The US’ succession process relies on the virtues of Lucius Cincinnatus. “Our Constitution does not secure the peaceful transition of power, but rather presupposes it,” says Amherst law professor Lawrence Douglas.

He says there are design flaws in the architecture of the Twelfth Amendment and in the Electoral Count Act of 1887 that make easy prey for an abusive President. States are not obliged to follow the outcome of the popular election when they allocate their vote in the Electoral College though they always do in practice. If doubts can be sown about the validity of the election — or if enough street disorder can be rustled up — the State Legislatures have the constitutional power to appoint anybody they want.

As it happens, these bodies are mostly controlled by the Republicans in swing States. So what will Trump’s allies in the Pennsylvania General Assembly do if the Democrats win, given that he already alleges a stolen election? At what point do they tell their party leader that enough is enough?

It comes down to whether judges often appointed by Trump are willing to strike down votes because the ballots arrived late — though posted in time — or had a slightly smudged postmark, and whether the Republican six-three majority on the Supreme Court will validate such suppression. I doubt that they will, but upon this question may now hang the fate of the republic.

At the least, Washington faces weeks of paralysis and legal fights until the “safe harbour” deadline for the Electoral College votes on December 8, and before the new Congress validates the presidential count on January 6. This chaos will happen in the middle of an escalating pandemic.

Nothing like it has been seen since the four-month Interregnum in 1932, the Winter War, when Herbert Hoover denounced Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal as a “march on Moscow” and sought to sabotage his reflation policy in advance by tightening the Gold Standard. Confidence in the banking system collapsed during the hiatus. It was the closest that the US came to a political breakdown during the Great Depression. It was also the moment when Japan invaded China, and Hitler took Berlin, and the world suddenly changed.

What might Chinese President Xi Jinping do to Taiwan while Trump is distracted with his army of lawyers and the US is tearing itself apart? The autocrats will surely relish the spectacle of a US President behaving as they do. It is the ultimate propaganda coup.

Whatever happens over the coming weeks, the Blue Wave has sputtered out. The Democrats have failed to capture the Senate. They may even have lost seats in the House. Their mandate for a radical leftward turn has evaporated. 

It has long been an article of faith among Democrats that “demographics are destiny”, and that the party’s ethnic and sectarian coalition must eventually prevail by force of numbers. But this election has been a wake-up call. There has been revulsion against identity politics and corrosive segmentation, and above all against the “cancel culture” of the Antifa statue-smashers.

The Democrats lost ground to Latinos in Florida and South Texas, despite the “Wall.” This may shock some but it should be no surprise given the business ethic of Latino immigrants, their Catholicism, and their family ties to countries with Trumpian caudillo traditions.

Markets must now confront the Washington gridlock and diminished fiscal stimulus, already reflected in the plummeting yields on 10-year Treasuries, but not so far on Wall Street.

For a brief moment, Bidenomics had us all in thrall. It looked as if there might be a $7.9 trillion Keynesian blitz to “run the economy hot.” The strategy was consciously modelled on Roosevelt’s wartime expansion from 1941 to 1945. It aimed to leap-frog supply-side constraints and achieve a virtuous circle of productivity growth, this time relying on the war against carbon as the catalyst instead of military-industrial mobilisation against fascism.

Biden will not be able to push these vaulting plans through Congress even if he does make it into the White House. The green deal is largely still-born. His front-loaded $1.7 trillion Gosplan for 500 million solar panels, 60,000 wind turbines, and the like, will be torn to pieces by the Senate.

The equity markets had come to salivate over the exorbitant sums. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Moody’s all concluded that Bidenomics would turbocharge economic growth. They will now have to settle for thinner gruel. The planned $2 trillion of pandemic aid to cover furloughs and insolvent States is for the birds. It is not clear what skinny version will emerge from a lame-duck Congress in this political climate. Don’t expect it soon.

All told, the markets face a harsher economic winter. The V-shaped rebound has faded. Investors must instead navigate the second dip of an enveloping ‘W’ without much help from Washington.

Nor is it obvious that a Democratic White House eager to regulate and a Republican Senate less inclined to spend will do much for the animal dynamism of American capitalism. Bet on bipartisan comity and a business boom if you wish. I am fetching my tin helmet.

(Courtesy: The Telegraph)

In the 60s, Indian immigrants to the US had to face discrimination and have racist slurs like “brownie” thrown at them. Fast forward to 2020 and Indian-origin Americans have become an influential community. They own a third of all Silicon Valley start-ups and two per cent of the Fortune 500 companies of American origin. Their talent pool and skill set have meant that large corporations like Microsoft, Alphabet, Adobe, IBM and MasterCard are led by Indian-American CEOs. That is not to say that they don’t face racism anymore but as more of them have entered the political arena to make their relevance felt, and done well, they do have a voice now. To the extent that both the Democrat and the Republican campaigns had initiated several diversity measures to woo the approximately 1.8 million members of the community who have emerged as a critical voting bloc in the battleground States of Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas. And to their credit, the Indian-American candidates have made their mark in this presidential election. Not only is part-Indian origin Democrat Kamala Harris waiting to become the Vice-President, four of five Democratic lawmakers, who make up the so-called “Samosa Caucus”, have trounced their Republican rivals. Raja Krishnamoorthi, Pramila Jayapal, Roh Khanna and Ami Bera have been re-elected to the House of Representatives. However, Rikin Mehta and Sara Gideon have lost their Senate race from New Jersey and Maine. But  with record participation by Indian-Americans, 2020 has been a starting point for empowerment.

Even as we celebrate the victories of Indian-origin politicians in the US, it is high time we realise that most of them do not even relate to the country of their ancestors’ origin. Being second or even third-generation US citizens, their focus is on the country they are living in and what good they can do for themselves and their constituencies. Plus, the main contours of the foreign policy of the Biden-Harris administration, should it come to power, vis-a-vis India are expected to be similar as the US believes in strategic continuity of interests it holds dear. Of course, Harris favours a more immigrant-friendly approach, So, having someone with pro-immigrant values in the White House is bound to benefit Indians in some way, even though it will be as beneficial for China. Whoever gets the verdict, this balancing will have to be done if the US wants India as its bulwark in the East.

Pakistan and soft diplomacy are highly incompatible. There was little doubt that it was enshrining Kartarpur’s iconic value as the resting place of the founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak, to further its separatist agenda of indoctrinating and radicalising Sikhs and reviving the Khalistani movement all over again. And for all the sweet talk of cultural contiguity and goodwill by Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, the corridor linking devotees on both sides of the border was intended to be a conduit of the Pakistan Army and Inter-Service Intelligence to refuel militancy in Punjab and give us another security bother. Hence there was a deliberateness of mixed signals, be it in wooing the Sikh community worldwide through its grandstanding of allowing pilgrim access, politicising it and provoking us at the same time. And now it has unmasked its real intention, by transferring the management of the Kartarpur Sahib gurdwara from a Sikh body to a separate trust. Instead of the Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, the shrine’s administrative control has now been entrusted to the Evacuee Trust Property Board. This allows Pakistan direct control over its operations. India has called out Pakistan over its unilateral move for violating the spirit of shared concern over a faith shrine that matters to people on both sides of the border. By disallowing Sikh leaders to have a say, our neighbour is also running roughshod over the rights of a minority community to pursue faith on its terms, something that Khan accuses India of. But Pakistan, which had initially claimed a high moral ground in facilitating a cross-border traffic to the shrine, is now appropriating it wholly, simply because its intent of using it as a hub of Khalistani extremists has not quite materialised to the extent it wanted. And by making an arbitrary announcement days ahead of the first anniversary of the corridor’s inauguration on November 9, Pakistan is sending out a strong message that the days of even posed bonhomie are over. Its angst is understandable considering its failure to globalise the Kashmir issue despite the abrogation of Article 370, its helplessness to stem the West, particularly the US, from gravitating towards India and its inability to convince the Arab world to take a stand against us. Since none of these has materialised and it is strategising its relevance with China and its neo-Islamic ally, Turkey, it doesn’t need to posit itself with diplomatic niceties. In fact, with the takeover move, it is making it abundantly clear that there is no scope for peace overtures and that it is back to daggers drawn.

Guru Nanak is not just a Sikh guru in the sub-continent but embodies a consciousness. As scholars have chronicled his travels across Saudi Arabia, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq, India and Pakistan, he spread what is called a “Nanakpanthi culture.” Its practitioners are syncretic groups of people in the Indus plains who follow Guru Nanak’s teachings irrespective of them being Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims. As believers, they broke down barriers of faith and cultures and were undiluted even by the Partition in 1947. So the Kartarpur corridor, connecting Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistan and Dera Baba Nanak Sahib in India, in that sense, is a symbolic leap of faith in humanity. And probably the antidote that could have helped reconcile the wounds of Partition and been a precursor to some sort of engagement between the two sides. Yet, Pakistan has always been abrasive on Kartarpur, using pictures of Khalistani separatist leaders Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, Maj Gen Shabeg Singh and Amrik Singh Khalsa in its promotional videos on the shrine. The video, which was crafted to highlight the harmony between Sikhs and Muslims, also featured known Indian Sikhs like Navjot Singh Sidhu and former Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal, in a crude attempt to project Khan as welcoming and liberal. In fact, Pakistan has been hell-bent on denying a sense of comfort to us. First, it had issues with the visa-free passage, then it stopped Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) card holders, the implication being that it wanted to address only a section of Sikhs in India. It also restricted the numbers of pilgrims at a time and the days of visit. So the Pakistan Army, without whom Khan wouldn’t have been in the chair, has always seen the shrine as its bargaining chip. Though the Pakistani leadership had for years been cool to the Manmohan Singh Government’s overtures on Kartarpur, the fact is it had been using it as a neo-axis of Sikh separatism since 2003. The gurdwara had been abandoned till then and served as a cattle shed for villagers. Pakistan even allowed rampant encroachment till it realised its political potential. While announcing the Kartarpur project, it appointed several Khalistani separatists on the committee, much to India’s discomfort. Its former Army chief Gen Mirza Aslam Beg openly advised the military and the Government to use the corridor for Khalistan terror and “create trouble for India.” The Pakistan Army even got pro-Khalistani supporters to challenge the reorganisation of Kashmir. No matter how hard India may try to make Kartarpur a matter of people-to-people concern, the fact is that Pakistan’s initiative on the corridor will never be free of politics. India has to be alert that it doesn’t become a hotbed for Khalistani propaganda and meetings in the name of allowing faith congregations. When Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Bajwa stood in Kartarpur, shaking hands with known Khalistani face Gopal Singh Chawla, it was clear he was starting a new front in the proxy war. Question is how aggressively will he push it this time.

Everywhere else in the world, where people directly elect a national leader, whether it is France, Mexico or Nigeria, the candidate with the plurality of the vote wins. Which is perfectly reasonable. Sure, there can often be legal challenges to the way an election has been conducted, particularly in nations new to the concept of democracy and in those where religious and ethnic fissures exist. In such cases, political violence can erupt and elections might be far from “free and fair”, whether they are presidential or legislative. But this is hardly expected of a nation that for decades has been the beacon of democracy. If anything, the US, over the past two days,  has been a horrible advertisement for the concept of democracy. Let alone the convoluted “electoral college” system that chooses the President, let alone the fact that twice in the last two decades the candidate who won the presidency lost the popular vote, the fact that the President himself is threatening a legal challenge to the polls even before the last votes are counted is frankly ridiculous. The US does have an established postal ballot system which many States have strengthened, thanks to the Coronavirus pandemic. Few other nations conduct such extensive absentee voting but for the US, where close to a quarter million individuals have succumbed to the pandemic, this was a logical step to curb the spread of the disease. Sure, the system can be manipulated but because most American States have their own set of rules for polling, many precautions were taken. However, it appears inevitable that Donald Trump and his team will challenge the legality of the polls, particularly mail-in ballots, and the time it is taking to count them. The matter is almost certain to head up to the US Supreme Court where he has managed to tilt the balance totally in favour of the conservative side. The US Supreme Court did take a major call in the controversial 2000 election when it stopped the vote count in Florida, which turned the election in favour of George W Bush. The consequence that decision had for modern history is known to all of us. It would be vital for the US Supreme Court to remember that any decision it might make on the elections will have a global reaction since the US has an outsize influence on policy. And should the courts intervene in the democratic process at all if there is no clear evidence of wrongdoing? A valid vote should be counted whether it was mailed in or cast at the polling centre.

As the counting continues in the tense presidential race, visuals of mayhem on the streets erode faith in an institution that should have remained sacred. Supporters of both Trump and Democrat candidate Joe Biden are confronting each other. In response to Trump’s aggressive effort to challenge the vote count and even accusing Biden of trying “to steal the election,” protesters in Minneapolis blocked a freeway while in Portland, hundreds gathered on the waterfront with another group in downtown urging for racial justice. However, things took a violent turn when protesters started smashing shop windows and confronting police officers and National Guard troops. Pro-Trump protesters gathered outside the county recorder’s office in Phoenix and outside a ballot-counting centre in Detroit, demanding that officials “stop the count.” The biggest democratic exercise conducted during the pandemic has turned into a farce.

By the time you read this, you may know more than I do as I write it, but some conclusions about the US presidential election are already certain. First, this has been essentially a re-run of the 2016 presidential poll, when Hillary Clinton was the Democratic nominee four years ago. The final Electoral College tally and therefore the presidency may still be in doubt, but we already know the popular vote as the knife-edge race tilted toward Democrat Joe Biden early on November 5, with wins in Michigan and Wisconsin bringing him close to a majority. President Donald Trump claimed he was being cheated and went to court to try and stop the vote counting. His allegation of a giant “fraud on the American people” is not a reckless statement made in the heat of the moment by a losing candidate. There is no doubt that this chest-beating was a calculated move to discredit a late surge of Democrat votes as postal ballots are counted.

The tragedy is that this “blue shift” syndrome has become a set pattern of the US presidential elections. More so this year after 100 million US citizens voted through the postal ballot or in advance as they tried to dodge the Coronavirus bullet. Trump has been trying for days, in the run-up to the election, to defame postal ballots and to assail the credibility of the US electoral system. Not something that is particularly difficult for him to do considering the fact that he controls the Justice Department, and the Republicans dominate the executive machinery of swing States. 

However, as the momentum moved to Biden, the unfazed politician made a televised speech from his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, to say that “when the count is finished, we believe we will be the winners.” But does Biden not realise that there is no more a guarantee of victory than Hillary Clinton’s three million majority in 2016?

So the Electoral College is as big a problem as ever, and the “great demographic shift” that was going to make a Republican victory impossible is still becalmed somewhere over the horizon. Second, the Republicans will most likely keep their majority in the Senate, in which case they can block any new legislation the Democrats want to pass even if Biden does win the presidency. That includes any attempt to tackle the Electoral College issue, which was a fairly forlorn hope in any case. Not winning the Senate also means the Democrats cannot create new Supreme Court judges, which is their only possible way to roll back the Republican policy of packing that court with conservative appointees (currently a six-three majority). In that case Supreme Court decisions that will probably re-ban abortion and dismantle former President Obama’s healthcare reforms, will be impossible to reverse.

Finally, the culture war that already obsesses and disfigures the US will continue. Indeed, it will intensify if Trump loses the election and continues to deny it and claim fraud. Losing the presidency is virtually an existential question for him, since without it he would be exposed to an avalanche of legal charges. There has been some speculation that an amnesty would encourage him to accept his electoral defeat and leave the White House quietly, and that would be a good idea if it could actually work. Unfortunately, even a victorious Biden could only offer Trump an amnesty for federal charges, and some of Trump’s worst legal problems are at the State level.

So Trump must hang on to the leadership of the Republican Party and mount as many legal challenges as possible for his own survival. Back in his real-estate days, his first reflex was to tie his opponents up in court battles, even if the courts were ultimately likely to decide against him. At the very least that was a way of buying more time, and now there’s also the slim chance that some key lower-court decision might be appealed all the way up to his friends on the Supreme Court. The battle in the courts will be long and exhausting, and there’s not going to be any “closure” or “healing” in the US in the aftermath of the election.

At the time of writing this column, it looks like Joe Biden will win and become the 46th President of the US but his victory will be as unconvincing in the eyes of foreigners as it is to many of his fellow Americans. A conclusion that has been growing elsewhere about the US since 2016 has only been strengthened by this election: America is not to be trusted. Are they to be trusted as partners and/or allies? For example, within few inches of victory, Biden immediately announced that if he wins, the US will rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement (which the US officially quit on November 4), but it is actually a treaty and he’ll never get ratified by the Senate. Obama got around this once by pretending it wasn’t really a treaty, but it’s hard to get away with that trick twice. The same goes for the US’ existing alliances and trade deals. They may be safe under a Biden presidency but other countries would be unwise to count on them for the long term. The partners and allies will have to start looking for insurance elsewhere, because it is now clear that Trump was not a fluke. The “other America” is permanently just one roll of the electoral dice away from regaining power, and it is both ugly and unreliable.

(Gwynne Dyer’s new book is ‘Growing Pains: The Future of Democracy and Work.’)

French President Emmanuel Macron must have had the best intentions in mind when he proposed to pass a legislation to defend the secular values of the country. The Christians see the proposed law as a welcome anti-separatist drive which is long overdue. As the President has said, “Secularism is the cement of a united France.” Many others would agree with him. The Americans are proud of the wall of separation that their Constitution has built between religion and the State. But hardly any Muslim can see eye to eye with this view.

The reason is that Islam does not approve of religion being separate from the State or, for that matter, distinguish between any aspect of life and religion. Prophet Muhammad was also the ruler of Hejaz (Mecca and Medina area). He was simultaneously a trader, soldier and a family man. So were his representatives or Caliphs; the last of whom was at once the head of Sunni Islam and the Sultan of Turkey. There was and is no gulf between the spiritual and the material. Islam is a comprehensive prescription of life and does not permit any compartmentalisation. This is unlike the Bible, which expounded early in the Old Testament that give unto Caesar what is his and keep for God what is his.

The Reformation, which was led by Martin Luther and John Calvin in the 16th century, was possible only because it was consistent with what was ordained in the Christian holy book. No Pope, then or later, stood in its path with any degree of determination. In fact, the first separation in Christianity took place early in the fourth century when Emperor Constantine moved from Rome and encouraged the formation of the Orthodox Eastern Church, based in now what is Istanbul. His mother Helena had the Church built at Nazareth in dedication to Roman Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ. Hagia Sophia was built by the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian in 537, which has recently been reconverted into a mosque by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.

The Eastern Church does not accept the belief in the Trinity of Father, Son and the Holy Ghost. It confines its theology to the first two whereas the Roman Catholics have full faith in the Trinity. In other words, the two Churches, the Roman and the Eastern differed on a canonical principle. Islam, on the other hand, has not permitted any difference of belief on a canonical basis. The Sunnis and the Shias split on the question of who should be allowed to be the Caliph. The latter felt that he should belong to the bloodline of Prophet Muhammad whereas the former believed that he could be anyone from the Quraish tribe. The Shias fell because Imam Hussayn, the grandson of the Prophet, was denied his rightful succession to his father Hazrat Ali, who was a nephew of Muhammad.

What is being emphasised here is that there is a gulf between Islam and Christianity, which Muslims are unable to bridge with secularism. A wall is being built between religion and the State. India has had a similar experience. In order to avoid Partition in 1947, Mahatma Gandhi went to the extent of inviting Mohammed Ali Jinnah to be the Prime Minister of an undivided India with full discretion. But even that failed to bring about a reconciliation. This was notwithstanding the Muslims having lived in India since the early 13th century. Until the British began to capture power in India since 1757, Muslims ruled the greater parts of the sub-continent as sultans, nawabs or badshahs. Muslims do not enjoy democracy and secularism as these contradict the Quran, which does not prescribe anything like the Biblical recommendation of God and Caesar being given their separate roles on earth.

Sharia or the Islamic law originates from the Quran and is, therefore, indispensable to Muslims. How can a truly secular country have two different laws being followed by different communities? In India, we have the extraordinary situation of polygamy or even bigamy being prohibited since 1955. Yet the Muslim men can have up to four spouses. Our Constitution, in its Preamble, calls India secular but that is a different matter.

Islamic theology recommends that Muslims should ideally reside in a Darul Islam or land of Islam. India or rather the Mughal empire was a Darul Islam until the reign of Bahadur Shah Zafar (1857-58). When the Queen of England took over from the East India Company, it became Darul Harb or land of conflict. The Muslim endeavour should be to reconvert it back into Darul Islam; if that is not possible, Muslims should undertake hijrat or migration to a country which is a Darul Islam. In 1920, as a result of a feared failure of the Khilafat movement, half a million Indian Muslims set off for Afghanistan. While some 20,000 odd remained there, the rest were deported by the Kabul Government.

The root of the present trouble in France may be in the failure of President Erdogan to help Turkey join the European Union. Had he succeeded, Turkish people could have moved to wherever they chose, and the dream of Eurabia could have been achieved. On the rebound, Erdogan turned towards dreaming about a Caliphate. Until 1924, the Sultan of Turkey was the Caliph of all Sunni Muslims. Mustafa Kemal Pasha abolished the institution and exiled him. Nevertheless, Erdogan, evidently, is unable to take his eyes off Europe and has encouraged a significant number of available men of any nationality to infiltrate France to kill and terrorise Christian Frenchmen. Little wonder then that President Macron has ordered several hundred imams to leave France.

The killer of the schoolteacher, Samuel Paty, was an illegal immigrant and the recent killers at Nice were also similar infiltrators. Legalised Muslim settlers in France would be opposed to the killing as a pathway to Eurabia. They would prefer the quiet strategy of big families and encouraging more immigration from say, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. The French welfare rules are such that a family of five or six children can sustain a middle-class life without anyone having to work. The Government introduced such liberal rules in order to encourage larger White families but they are being constructively used by the settlers who live in Benelux or the thousands of apartments in tall buildings around cities.

This tale of France is not a new one. India went through a somewhat similar experience which resulted in the birth of Pakistan. Nobody is to be blamed except  the short-sightedness of the majority as well as its lack of will to unite in order to find a solution.

(The writer is a well-known columnist and an author. Views expressed are personal)