Pompeo has planned a visit to India in the coming days, but on his way over he must stop in Rawalpindi and make sure that the Taliban was successful in bringing the reconciliation process on board.

For the Kabul Government, this August has been the worst month for violence and barbarity since the US-led war began in 2001. Equally, this year has witnessed many firsts: Offers of two ceasefires — Eid and Eid ul Zuha in June and August — first accepted and second rejected by the Taliban; militants and the Afghans embracing during the Eid cease fire; protests by civilians in Kabul against the Government’s failure to protect them against violence; scattered protests by Afghans against US and foreign forces; Peoples’ Peace Movement’s silent protests outside the US, Russia, Pakistan, the UK and Iran embassies in Kabul; the Taliban pledging not to bomb civilian areas; offer of unconditional talks by President Ghani, any time, any place, rejected by the Taliban; US engaging the Taliban in direct talks; Pakistanm Army’s direct intervention — denied by Gen Bajwa — in the recent siege of Ghazni. Afghanistan has overtaken Syria and Iraq as the bloodiest theatre of terrorism. In the first six months of 2018, 1,692 and 3,430 civilians were killed and wounded. An estimated 6,000 to 8,000 police and Army combatants were killed, deserted and kidnapped annually since 2015 — casualties that are unsustainable indefinitely.

The blood-soaked period, centred around August 15, saw multiple suicide attacks and kidnappings by the Taliban and the Islamic State (IS) across the country in Kandahar, Jalalabad, Baghlan, Faryab, Kabul and Ghazni. The temporary loss of Provincial capital Ghazni in an audacious attack was reminiscent of the Taliban storming Kunduz in 2016, which led to the reappraisal of US/Afghan military strategy following the serial foul-ups there. A German NATO officer had told this writer then that as long as Provincial capitals and Kabul are secure, and the Ring Road around Kabul and essential lines of communication are open, the Taliban cannot unhinge the strategic security grid. With 30,000 fighters, they do not have the capacity to capture and hold ground. Which is why the Afghan Government still controls half of the 365 districts, which accounts for progressively decreasing 51 per cent of the territory. The Taliban is in control of 15 percent of the districts with the rest being contested as no man’s land. District headquarters exchange hands and this pattern prevails.

Given these ground conditions, and rejection by the Taliban of the ceasefire of August 21, parliamentary elections slated for October 20 and presidential polls for 2019, appear iffy. National Security Advisor Hanif Atmar suddenly resigned last week to contest for President. It seems the Trump policy in Afghanistan announced last August, which blasted Pakistan’s role, cheating and deceit, and included a hike of 3,000 US troops to raise the force to 15,000, has not worked despite Defence Secretary Jim Mattis’ ‘last chance to Pakistan’. In defiance of US exhortations, Rawalpindi has put no pressure on the Taliban on Pakistani soil to either let up on violence or agree to join the peace process. What effect drone strikes against the Taliban/Haqqani network, that were dramatically increased in October 2017 and were suddenly put under wraps in March 2018 have had, is not clear. Both sides want to be in a better bargaining position during talks.

Meanwhile, the Taliban rejected to talk to Kabul as long as foreign forces remained on Afghanistan soil. In a dramatic U turn, Gen John Nicholson, US Commander in Afghanistan, announced that Washington was ready to discuss the role of foreign forces with the Taliban, adding “but the US is not a substitute for Afghanistan”.

In June, following the Ramzan ceasefire at the Brussels Nato summit on July 12, Ghani called the Trump strategy on Afghanistan a “game-changer”. He said: “For the first time in 40 years, we have experienced peace.” On July 28, Special Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, Alice Wells, before meeting Taliban officials in Qatar, had met Bajwa in Rawalpindi. She talked about reaching a “deal” with the Taliban soon. Meanwhile, the United Nations Security Council Resolution extended UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan for a year and the US and NATO agreed to keep funding Afghan security forces till 2024.

Despite these commitments, Trump is impatient about outcomes. He is fully reconciled to a negotiated settlement with the Taliban but he still needs Bajwa to squeeze the Taliban after he has frozen the military aid and education programme. Wells has said that the peace process is being stymied by Taliban leaders in Pakistan. Taliban supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada is telling the Afghans that invaders (US) and their stooges (Afghan Government) will soon be expelled and victory will be theirs.

Pakistan’s new leader Imran Khan wants to recalibrate relations with the US given that his links with Pakistan and Afghan Taliban have given him the moniker Taliban Khan. He can use his Government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa patronage of the Darul Uloom Haqqania militant seminary aka Jihad university, whose alumni include, late Mullah Omar, Jalaluddin Haqqani, late Mullah Akhtar Mansour to soften the Taliban. Otherwise, the mercurial Trump could use the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering which reports to FATF to threaten shifting Pakistan from grey to black list. He can also, as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggested, put a spoke in the wheel of Pakistan’s 13th IMF bailout. The option of sanctioning some more of the Taliban leaders is always there.

The Taliban has been urging the US to take the earlier lot of their leaders off the sanctions  list as a precondition for talks. Not just punishing the Taliban, the US could also sanction ISI Generals, two of whom have their children studying in the US. Recently, Trump had sanctioned some Burmese Generals. On September 5, Pompeo, enroute to India, for US-India 2+2 dialogue will stop over in Islamabad for his first meeting with Khan and Bajwa. Setting aside earlier criticism of Pakistan, the US has welcomed the new civilian Government and is looking forward to work with it.

Tough-talking Pompeo will doubtlessly talk about Taliban and Afghanistan with both and hope for a positive response from them. US priority in Afghanistan is peaceful parliamentary elections in October and Taliban brought on board the reconciliation process. Pompeo needs Bajwa to press the Taliban to join the peace process. The 64 million dollar question: What is the deal with the Taliban that Wells talked about? One possibility is amending the Constitution to placate the Taliban. The Trump team is desperate to exit Afghanistan while preserving the gains. Meanwhile, the Russian initiative on reconciliation for September 4, has been rejected by Kabul. Too many cooks have spoilt the broth.

(The writer is a retired Major General of the Indian Army and founder member of the Defence Planning Staff, currently the revamped Integrated Defence Staff)

Writer: Ashok K Mehta

Courtesy: The Pioneer

IF the idlib operation is implemented without any problems or comebacks, involving American or Turkish intervention, it is certain that this will be the last major battle of the Syrian civil war.

Idlib Province is the largest Al-Qaeda safe haven since 9/11,” said Brett McGurk, Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter the Islamic State (IS), so you wouldn’t think that the United States would object to the Syrian Government reconquering it. Especially since US forces in Syria have no way of reaching Idlib, in the country’s northwestern corner, and neither do America’s Kurdish allies.

But you might be wrong about the US stance, because the Syrian regime’s troops attacking Idlib would have Russian bombers helping them. Turkey might also object as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was surreptitiously helping Al Qaeda rebels in Syria earlier in the war and had already posted Turkish troops at ‘observation posts’ inside Idlib Province to protect the status quo.

We’re going to find out which way Turkey and the US jump quite soon, because Idlib is next on the list. Over the past two years, Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime has recaptured first the rebel-held part of Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city and then the eastern outskirts of Damascus, the capital, and most recently the areas down south near Israel and Jordan where the rebellion began. Idlib is next. It has to be Idlib because that is where all the jihadi fighters, who surrendered after those other defeats, were sent.

The influx of Islamist fighters and their families has virtually doubled the Province’s population to two million in the past two years. Assad will want to finish the job while the Russian Air Force is still in Syria, so the offensive will probably start next month. It will require intense bombing, as the Syrian Army is short of ground troops, and there are bound to be anguished international protests about civilian casualties in the crowded Province. That would provide an excuse for either Washington or Ankara to intervene and stop the attack if they want, but would they?

Erdogan would have to pull the Turkish troops out of Idlib if he wants to avoid a clash with the Syrian Army, which would be rather embarrassing, and he hates being embarrassed. He is already having to eat a good deal of humble pie in the financial crisis that is crippling the Turkish economy at home, and this would be a second helping.

On the other hand, Erdogan has already had to change his line once and accept that Assad will survive as Syria’s dictator. That makes it kind of hard for him to argue now that Syria cannot be allowed to take Idlib back, especially since the real power in Idlib is Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, the many-times-renamed Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda.

Logically, Erdogan should not be getting involved in a foreign war when he is already in a shouting match with US President Donald Trump and the Turkish economy is in a nose-dive. But he is erratic, emotional and over-confident and hence, he might just dig his heels in. As for Trump’s own decision on Idlib, national interest decrees that he should just sit back and let it happen. What’s not to love about an event that destroys Al-Qaeda’s only territorial base in the Middle East at no cost in American money or lives?

But if Trump doesn’t intervene, America’s hard Right will complain that he is allowing a further expansion of Russian power in the Middle East, while his Israeli allies will protest again at the use of ‘Iranian troops’ (really mostly Iraqi, Afghan and Syrian mercenaries paid by Iran) in the battle. And Trump, too, is erratic, emotional and overconfident.

If the Idlib operation goes off without a major hitch involving Turkish or American military intervention, it will be the last major battle of the Syrian civil war. There would remain the task of persuading the Turkish and American troops to leave the country but that should not involve fighting.

At that point, it will be all about the Syrian Kurds. Turkey wants to be sure that they do not get enough independence to set an example for its own Kurdish minority just across the border. It is especially concerned that an autonomous Kurdish region in Syria could become a base for attacks across the border by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party , the banned terrorist organisation that seeks independence for Turkey’s Kurds.

The United States, on the other hand, has made the Syrian Kurds its main instrument for fighting ‘Islamic State’ in the eastern third of Syria. IS has been beaten by this alliance and the US Army now effectively controls eastern Syria. It is reluctant to just hand over the huge, sparsely populated region to Assad, and it doesn’t want to abandon its Kurdish allies to the tender mercies of the Turks either.

There is a deal that could work. Both the Turkish and the US Armies pull out of Syria, and the Syrian Army replaces them to ensure that there is no comeback by IS and there is no base there for Kurdish separatists seeking to break away from Turkey. The Syrian Kurds are rewarded with limited self-Government including control over education, language and local spending. And the Russians go home too, since Assad no longer needs their help. That would be the sensible thing to do. But this is the Middle East. So, nobody knows what will really happen.

(The writer is an independent journalist)

Writer: Gwynne Dyer

Courtesy: The Pioneer

India relation with Latin America are in a state of unconcern. As both civilizations have huge scope and so many things in common, India must join hands and made efforts with the continent by playing up its advantages.

India has made serious efforts to improve its economic and political relationships with various parts of the world, but one region which has not figured adequately in its priorities for developing commercial and economic linkages with is the large expanse of Latin America. It was about three years ago that this issue was discussed by some scholars and analysts and reasons put forward for India to develop closer relationships with Latin America. Unfortunately, however, perhaps because of several recent problems in the Latin American and Caribbean region itself, not much has really happened in terms of advancing India’s relationship with that region and for India to work closely with it for mutual economic gain. It is important to look at the prospects for Latin America and the Caribbean region and assess the World Bank’s recent projections on economic output for that combined region.

Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region recorded an estimated 0.9 per cent growth in 2017, according to the World Bank, following two years of contraction. Brazil was able to establish stronger than expected growth during the year, but this was of course negated by very serious recession in Venezuela and sluggish growth in some other countries. It appears that private consumption has been the main contributor to economic activity in the region, and with shrinking investments, prospects for growth did not appear very attractive and promising in the previous two years. It is now estimated that Brazil has grown by one per cent during the last year after its deep two-year long recession. This growth again took place essentially due to recovery in private consumption and greater consumer confidence. It appears that retail trade and industrial production growth in Brazil had also picked up, even though there was a contraction in construction.  However, the positive elements in the Brazilian situation are that consumer confidence has remained stable and the labour market has certainly improved. At the same time, Argentina has recovered from recession and expanded at a much healthier rate of 2.7 per cent, essentially driven by increased investment and rising private consumption.

An article some years ago published in the Forbes magazine highlighted the fact that there are historical reasons why India and Latin America should logically come closer together. Firstly, both regions were colonies of European powers that later had to deal with a set of very serious developmental challenges, which also involved the creation of new institutions after independence. Also, it is interesting to observe that in the post-World War era, both India and Latin America adopted policies that were essentially socialist in character. Of course, subsequent developments and realistic compulsions have required both India and the Latin American region to liberalise their policies, but this is not necessarily a permanent condition because it is entirely possible that there could be a reversal in some of these policies, particularly in the case of Mexico, a country with which India must build much stronger ties.

It would be useful to look at the political situation in Mexico, given the fact that the country has elected a new President by a massive landslide, an experienced leader by the name of AM Lopez Obrador, popularly referred to as AMLO, which is the acronym of his name.  AMLO has been very radical in his views and is known to be a staunchly committed socialist, and this would create intriguing prospects for Mexico’s dealings with the US. However, in recent weeks, it appears that AMLO has been modifying his position possibly on account of advice received from some of his own supporters but more importantly because of the concern that Mexican business and industry appear to have expressed on the threat that they see to economic stability in Mexico, given the fact that AMLO has been voicing a number of beliefs and convictions that make business and industry quite nervous.

Lopez Obrador is an enigmatic politician and has been elected by a protest vote.  Essentially, Lopez Obrador, who has run for the presidency twice on earlier occasions, has convinced the people of his country that he would be able to bring about change for the better from Mexico’s large-scale killing and the vicious power of the drug lords. People have also placed faith in AMLO’s ability to curb the rampant corruption in Government and on the part of politicians, which the public is totally disgusted with and deeply resentful of.

Mexico, however, is a country with huge assets in the form of enormous talent and skills, a very positive entrepreneurial spirit among its people and culture and tradition which are totally akin to what India possesses. The two societies have much in common, and under stable and strong leadership Mexico is poised to become a major economic power in South America. At any rate, the LAC region has a combined GDP of over five trillion dollar, a population of over 600 million, of which almost half is below the age of 30 years. Mexico City and its surrounding metropolitan area, for instance, have an average age of only 31 years. The region is rich in mineral resources. Bolivia, for instance, is often described as the Saudi Arabia of lithium, a mineral which is essential for production of lithium-ion rechargeable batteries. India does not even have an embassy in Bolivia.

India would miss enormous economic opportunities in Latin America and the Caribbean region if we continue with the current state of apathy towards that region. It was almost a quarter century ago that Chhedi Jagan, who fought for Guyana’s independence from Britain and led its first Government, visited India. On that visit and discussions at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), of which this writer was the founding CEO for thirty four years, Jagan asked for help with his country’s energy problems. I visited that country promptly thereafter, and while helping Guyana with its plans for bagasse-based cogeneration, studied the exciting offshore geology of that nation. On return to India, I urged our Government and the Chairman of ONGC to take up exploration for hydrocarbons off-shore in Guyana, a country wherein the largest group of people is of Indian origin. This advice was not heeded, and ExxonMobil has recently found huge reserves of hydrocarbons in the off-shore areas of Guyana. India must start thinking globally if it wants to become relevant globally.

(The writer is former chairman, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2002-15)

Writer: R K Pachauri

Courtesy: The Pioneer

Many people of muslim community in China are concerned as the Chinese Government has decided to wipe out Islam from the country. It is enlightening that petrodollar rich countries are not coming out to denounce Beijing.

There are no human rights in Communist China and it quells all types of protests ruthlessly but the protests related to religion, secession, democracy and terrorism are crushed more brutally. There are reports about oppression of Christians and other religions but the Government-sponsored repression of Muslims all over China especially in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) is unparalleled.

According to a study conducted by the Pew Research Centre in 2009, there were about 21 million Muslims in China, which is more than 1.6 percent of Chinese population and it is an important minority group in the country. However, analysts claim that Muslim population is much more and it is in between two to three per cent of the total Chinese population.  Out of 55 recognised minority groups in China, 10 groups are of Sunni Muslims. Although significant Muslim populations live in Ningxia, Gansu and Qinghai regions, the biggest concentration of Muslims is in Xinjiang region. Reports suggest that there are only 36,000 religious places for Muslims and about 45,000 imams in the country and their number is fast-depleting. The Pew Research Centre also claims that the Muslim women fertility rate is at a low 1.7. Hence, the Muslim population is plummeting in the country.

Approximately, 11 million Uyghur Muslims live in Xinjiang autonomous region. However, the word, autonomous is misleading and there is no autonomy in the region. Thousands of Muslims are forcibly kept in detention centres and re-education camps. Human Rights Watch mention that 800,000 Muslims are languishing in these detention centres while Uyghur leaders residing out of China claim that more than one million Uyghurs are imprisoned. There were cases where both husband and wife were jailed and children were sent to overcrowded orphanages.

Analysts mention that Government agencies take large number of Uyghur Muslims to these re-education camps and brainwash them against Islam and its teachings. Communist ideologies claim that Muslim masses have to be re-educated as poisonous religious teachings have intoxicated their minds and it is essential to evict those teachings from their thought process. They further claim that re-education is not a punishment, and hence, no judicial procedure is required. Those selected for ‘re-education’ are kept in these camps till their minds are either numbed and/or purged of Islamic teachings and if required they are often sent repeatedly to these camps. Life is difficult in these centres — reports that beatings, torture and the withholding of victuals are commonly used techniques by the authorities to subdue religious-minded Muslims. Human rights activists assert that President Xi Jinping has adopted the repressive policies of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution.

In August 2016, Chen Quanguo, who was party secretary in Tibet from 2011 to 2016, was transferred and posted at XUAR. Chen was by all accounts a contemptible apparatchik and suppressed Tibetans mercilessly. His predecessor in XUAR Zhang Chunxian Was considered ‘too polite’. After his appointment, Chen started the repression of Kazakhs, Uyghurs and other minorities. He constructed numerous extrajudicial imprisonment camps and enhanced surveillance of Muslims through advanced technology including using the national DNA database and biometrics of persons in the age group 12-65. The number of police stations were increased and stringent regulations were enforced under which religious freedom was restricted. Chen started implementation of the “Strike Hard” policy, initiated by the Government in 2014 but was inactive in XUAR. Chen also issued a draconian “de-extremification” ordinance in April 2017.

At few places de-radicalisation and re-education centres are camouflaged as vocational training centres and even as educational institutions. A US-based non-profit organisation claims that the Chinese Government maintains the profiles of minorities and persecutes them on mere suspicion. Several ethnic minorities are prohibited to go abroad. Muslims are not allowed to eat halal meat. Storekeepers are instructed to mix non-halal meat in halal meat and if anybody asks specifically about halal meat, s/he is imprisoned. Muslims are prohibited to keep beards, mosques are being closed, keeping a fast during Ramzan is effectively a crime and in some well-documented cases Muslims are reportedly being compelled to sell liquor. Beijing’s critics allege the Chinese Government has surpassed the world’s most repressive regimes in putting restrictions on a religious group. The de-radicalisation camps and re-education centres are being compared by activists the world over to ‘concentration camps’. Mosques in Ningxia region are also prohibited the azaan (calls for prayer) and selling Islamic books is also banned; domes/minarets top of mosques are being removed and Arabic schools and religious teachings in mosques is barred.

The Chinese Government has also started a new practice from December 2017, which calls for Government officials to stay for five consecutive days in the houses of Muslim families every two months. During the five-day stays, officials ask questions about and closely observe the daily routine, religious practices and political views of the family. Officials also compel the residents to learn Mandarin, sing the National Anthem and ‘appreciate’ Communism. The five-day homestay programme is part of a larger policy under which the XUAR Government has sent 200,000 cadres to the houses of Muslim citizens to observe and make efforts to assimilate them into Han culture.

Chen’s solution to the problem seems to be to either ensure secessionist elements are either eliminated or forced to change their religious and political beliefs to accept the Government line. Chen has the full support of the Communist Party of China and President Xi who introduced a Sinicization policy in 2015 under which minorities were compelled to adopt Han Chinese culture. The policy will change every aspect of life of the minorities, including food, education, language, lifestyle, politics, religion, philosophy, culture, science and technology and even their value system.

Xi intends to integrate diverse nationalities and enforce a pan-China Han identity. This policy intends to obliterate racial, cultural and linguistic diversity. China, which is an ancient civilisation, has more than 290 non-Mandarin languages and it will be difficult to integrate all but the effort is on. ‘Sinicization’ includes assimilation and integration which critics allege is the cultural imperialism of China which it intends to impose not only within the country but also in other East and South East Asian countries under their dominance.

Religious minorities, especially Muslims, are apprehensive that Xi is determined to wipe out anything must state-approved Islam from China. It is interesting to note that petrodollar rich Islamic countries, which are the first to criticise democratic, inclusive states for their alleged discrimination against minorities, are neither criticising or condemning these moves by the Chinese Government. Muslim majority countries like Indonesia and Turkey are also observing silence. Pakistan, an Islamic country which claims that its Army is “a follower of none but Allah”, does not react to these developments either. Why doesn’t Islamabad, instead of wasting time on raising the Kashmir issue at various international fora, raise its voice against Chinese oppression of Muslims in that country?

The democratic world needs to come together and think of a sanctions regime against China so it is compelled to stop these inhuman policies towards its minority communities. Why are Muslim countries, usually so vocal on issues of the rights of their co-religionists, unwilling to criticise China? For starters, the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) should pass resolution to force China to restore the human rights of Muslims in China, and if China does not respond, the OIC countries should stop trade with China. Beijing is committing atrocities on its Muslim communities in the name of curbing terrorism but the Chinese Government should punish only terrorists and not all Muslims. The world community should adopt a long-term strategy to deal with China and its hegemonic ambitions which apparently extend to establishing cultural hegemony.

(The writer is member, United Services Institute of India, and Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses)

Writer: Jai Kumar Verma

Courtesy: The Pioneer

Finally, the Captain is in duty, as Prime Minister of Pakistan.

The umpire — in this situation the Army Chief — as always in Pakistan doubles up as the 12th man

and Imran Khan has selected, his full Cabinet or squad of 21 which has been duly anointed. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has welcomed the culmination of the democratic process in our neighbouring country and sent off a letter to his newly elected counterpart, a necessary diplomatic formality, in which he has iterated India’s desire for peace with Pakistan albeit in an atmosphere conducive for dialogue sans the menacing presence of (Islamic) terrorism emanating from that country’s soil. The background noise is the usual tune played when a new incumbent takes over in Pakistan — if India takes the first step Pakistan will take two steps etc ad nauseum. In sum, that’s about how far matters will go for the time being on the Indo-Pak front and anybody hoping for anything more from the cricketer-turned-politician and his backers in the Pakistan Army would be well-advised to contain their enthusiasm.

It is worth noting that 12 of the 21 members of Imran’s squad have served in key posts under General and later self-appointed President Pervez Musharraf. The crucial appointment from India’s point of view is that of Shah Mehmood Qureshi as the Foreign Minister. Qureshi, considered an intellectual lightweight despite flaunting a Master’s from Cambridge University, is a fully paid-up member of Pakistan’s political elite. He has also shown great flexibility in his political career having held high positions in both the PML(N) and PPP which appointed him Foreign Minister in 2008 till he had to quit over a conflict-of-interest scandal in 2011 and jumped into the welcoming embrace of Imran who needed a pedigreed in his team. While the chattering classes both sides of the Wagah Border have cast Qureshi as a peacenik, there is no eliding the reality that his first utterances after being appointed Foreign Minister for the second time in his career included both the K-word and the N-word.

Indeed, it would be safe to say that Imran knows that relations with India, on which anyway neither he nor his Cabinet can make a move without the Army’s okay, are a distant priority. For now, as long as New Delhi doesn’t get proactive militarily, it suits him just fine to focus on domestic issues ranging from health to infrastructure and education, and above all the economy, as he mentioned in his maiden speech as PM. His Cabinet comprises experts in these fields and reflects this priority as Pakistan needs a 12-18 billion USD bail-out to not become completely dysfunctional.

Writer: Pioneer

Courtesy: The Pioneer

It looks doubtful that General Bajwa can change the slogan of the Pakistan Army, which is to fight for

Cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu is in the eye of a controversy for hugging Pakistan Army Chief Qamar Javed Bajwa at the swearing-in ceremony of Imran Khan in Islamabad. The overture, to be honest, was from the side of General Bajwa. But the General being in his uniform, Sidhu possibly could not have been ignorant of his identity. The General reportedly stated that they desired peace and made his reverence for Baba Nanak (Guru Nanak Dev) obvious.

Sidhu is being criticised because he hugged the Chief of an Army, whose hands are stained with the blood of Indian soldiers. Cross-LoC terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir could not have been organised without active support of the Pakistan Army. Infiltrators have always been the advanced guard of the Pakistan Army even during the India-Pakistan wars of 1948, 1965 and 1999. Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh (Retd), who served as a Captain in the Indian Army during the 1965 war, is miffed with his Cabinet colleague’s behaviour.

A Pakistani Army Chief beseeching peace to a Punjab Minister is a climb down, semantically at least. General Pervez Musharraf, in the aftermath of the 1999 coup, notwithstanding the Kargil fiasco, was still offering India war if it wanted war, and peace if it wanted peace.

If General Bajwa desires peace, Pakistan can surely have it at no extra cost and with no extra effort. All it has to do is to do nothing; not organise infiltration of terrorist, not target Indian Army post across the LoC and international border. Pakistan is trying to wrest the Kashmir Valley through proxy war. India is not trying to wrest Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

But will General Bajwa be able to change the creed of the Pakistani Army? Its creed is to fight for Allah Rather than the nation. This is not an allegation, but a self-declaration. One has to merely visit the website of the Pakistan Army to find out what the institution has to state about itself. I request readers to kindly visit the section ‘Motto of Pakistan Army’ from side navigation menu of ‘Pakistan Army’ on the left hand bar of Pakistan Army’s official portal www.pakistanarmy.gov.pk

The motto features a poster containing Tariq’s prayer. Who is this Tariq, by the way? Tariq Ibn Ziyad (670-718 AD) was the commander of the Arab-Berber Muslim Army, which in 711 AD, invaded Spain from Morocco across the Strait of Gibraltar. He used the rock of Gibraltar as his launching pad. In fact, the word Gibraltar is Spanish derivation of the Arabic name Jabal-Tariq or the mountain of Tariq.

Tariq’s military campaign was offensive in nature in the cause of Islam. The prayer, as quoted, reads: “These Ghazis, these devoted souls of Your Lordship/Whom you have blessed with zeal of Your worship,/Their legions overcame deserts and river,/And trample mountain to dust with fervor/They care not for world’s pleasures/The love of the Lord are their treasures,/The mission and aim of Momin is martyrdom,/Not the booty of war, nor crave for a kingdom.”

Tariq was neither a Pakistani, nor a figure from South Asian history. He carried the crescent banner of Islam to Europe. Any guess why should he be an ideal for the Pakistan Army? This because, in the heart of hearts, the Pakistan Army believes in Tariq’s mission of Islamic military conquest.

The motto of Pakistan’s Army seems to be an exposition of theological principles. The section on Jihad-fi-Sabilillah is instructive. “The real objective of Islam is to shift the lordship of man over man to the lordship of Allah on the earth and to stake one’s life and everything else to achieve this sacred purpose. The Arabic word ‘jihad’ means to struggle ‘or’ to strive. In as much as ‘jihad’ is a struggle, it is a struggle against all that is perceived as evil in the cause of that which is perceived good, a cosmic and epic struggle spanning time and all dimensions of human thought and action, and transcending the physical universe.”

Shifting the lordship of man-over-man to lordship of Allah on the earth, spoken in the context military, is a very political rather than philosophical goal. It means a land, which is not under the political control of Muslim, must be conquered by them for the sake of Allah. This is exactly what Tariq did.

The section on Jihad-fi-Sabilillah, however, cautions that Muslims should not be aggressor, cruel or revengeful while fighting. Fighting has to be done under certain rules, as prescribed by the Quran. But Tariq was an aggressor. So were Mahmud of Ghazni and Ahmed Shah Abdali et al — after whom Pakistan had named its missiles.

The motto of the Pakistan Army has everything to do with religion and little to do with national security. Patriotism is not one of the virtues the Pakistan Army is actuated by, according to its motto. It would not be wrong to call it Army of Islam rather than Pakistan Army.

Now compare this with the ideals of the Indian Army. The corresponding section in the Indian Army’s official website: https://indianarmy.nic.in  is ‘The Ethos’ under ‘About Us’. The ethos of the Indian Army as given on its website::

i) Spirit of comradeship and brotherhood of the brave, regardless of caste, creed or religion. The motto is “One for all and all for One.”

ii) To do and die for “Ns” ie Naam (honour of the unit/Army/Nation), “Namak” (loyalty) and “Nishan” insignia or flag or the unit/regiment/army/nation.

iii) Non-discrimination on account of caste, creed or religion; a soldier is solider first and anything else later.

General Bajwa, despite his grooming in the Pakistan Army, might be sincerely desirous of peace. But it seems unlikely he can alter the motto of the Pakistan Army. It is this motto that spurs Pakistan to fight for Kashmir  because it is a Muslim-majority Province under the rule of India.

The underlying reasons could be anything else, like securing riverheads in Jammu & Kashmir to meet Pakistan’s ever-increasing demand for water. A recent UNDP study says a looming water scarcity will adversely affect Pakistan’s stability. Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) warned that the country may run dry by 2025 if the authorities didn’t take immediate action. Then there is all the more reason to celebrate Tariq. He conquered the water-rich Spain for the Moors of water-scarce northern Africa.

(The writer is an independent researcher based in New Delhi. The views expressed herein are his personal)

Writer: Priyadarshi Dutta

Courtesy: The Pioneer

All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief Asaduddin Owaisi and Nasir-ul-islam must reconsider past records before raking up the matter of under-representation of Muslims in the Armed Forces. They must discontinue generating communal tensions.

Last month, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief Asaduddin Owaisi demanded to know the number of Muslims in the Armed Forces. Earlier, he had asked for Darul Qazas (Sharia courts) in every district to be recognised by the Government. Soon thereafter, Deputy Grand Mufti of Srinagar, Nasir-ul-Islam, insisted on the same facility of Darul Qazas. He went on to say that if they were not granted, Muslims would be justified in asking a separate homeland, which means another Pakistan. This has caused a great deal of apprehension in the rest of India.

When the Indian Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code were introduced in the 19th century, the British rulers had abolished the Qazas. A resurrection of these communal courts will damage the country’s secular fabric. Moreover, the Qazas would be tantamount to being Islamic enclaves within the Indian republic, a state within a state. In other words, India would become a half sovereign state.

The question of representation of respective communities in the Armed Forces was thoroughly examined by BR Ambedkar on the morrow of March 1940, when at Lahore, the League passed the Pakistan Resolution. His findings and comments merit careful reading even today:

“Hindus have a difficult choice to make: To have a safe Army or a safe border? Is it in their interest to insist that Muslim India should remain part of India so that they may have a safe border, or is it in their interest to welcome its separation from India so that they may have a safe Army? Which is better for the Hindus? Should the musalmans be without and against or should they be within and against? If the question is asked of any prudent man, there will be only one answer, namely, that if the  musalmans are to be against the Hindus, it is better that they should be without and against, rather than within and against. Indeed, it is a consummation devoutly to be wished that the Muslims should be without. That is the only way of getting rid of the Muslim preponderance in the Indian Army.”

“How can it be brought about? Here again, there is only one way to bring it about and that is to support the scheme for creating Pakistan. Once Pakistan is created, Hindustan, having ample resources of men and money, can have an Army which it can call its own and there will be nobody to dictate as to how it should be used and against whom it should be used. The defence of Hindustan, far from being weakened by the creation of Pakistan, will be infinitely improved by it. The Pakistan area, which is the main recruiting ground of the present Indian Army, contributes very little to the central exchequer.” (Pakistan or The Partition of India, reprinted by the Government of Maharashtra, 1990).

One of the committees appointed by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was the one headed by Justice Rajinder Sachar; he had asked for the same information and the Government was willing to provide for it. But the Chiefs of Staff of the three services refused to do so on grounds of national security. Even in the British era, once recruited, there was no counting as to who is a Hindu or Sikh or a Muslim. How can sectarian soldiers fight in the face of the enemy? That tradition has been consistently sustained in post-independent Indian Armed Forces.

It would be relevant to recall here that the Khilafat Committee formed on the morrow of World War I in 1919, and presided over by Mahatma Gandhi, to save the Caliph on his throne, endorsed that Muslim soldiers would not fight if India was invaded by a Muslim Army, say from Afghanistan. The Muslim League headed by MA Jinnah further endorsed this contention. It is to the credit of our Army after the Independence to have abolished such communal ideas. Does Owaisi for his unsavoury political motives want to reawaken the obsolete Khilafat sentiments?

Owaisi must appreciate that independent India has been large-hearted enough to accommodate his party founded by Kasim Rizvi and subsequently led by Abdul Rasheed, the grandfather of Asaduddin. Their muscle men, who were thousands in number, were called Razakars. Their single point programme was to take Nizam’s Hyderabad State into Pakistan. They failed to do so only because Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel had the will to send a force led by Major General JN Raychaudhuri into Hyderabad.

As for Mufti Nasir-ul-Islam’s abdominal demand for another Pakistan, it needs to be mentioned that India is yet to implement the logical corollaries of Partition that took place in 1947. This is what Justice GD Khosla recorded in his book, Stern Reckoning: A Survey of the Events leading up to and following the Partition of India (Oxford University Press). “The Muslim League demand for Pakistan was based on the hypothesis that Hindus and Muslims constitute two separate nations, each entitled to a separate and exclusive homeland where they would be free to develop their culture, tradition, religion and polity. On any other ground, the partition of the country and the setting up of a separate independent State for the Muslims would have been indefensible. But the two-nation theory brought the problem of minorities into greater prominence than ever before, and the Partition, instead of offering a solution, made it even more difficult and complicated. No matter where the line of demarcation was drawn, there would be Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs on either side of it, in a majority or in a substantial minority, and whatever the geographical boundaries of Pakistan, large numbers of Hindus and Sikhs would overnight become aliens and foreigners in their own homes.”

“Jinnah made desperate efforts to evade the issue by promising protection and rights of citizenship to the minorities, but the nature of his demand was wholly inconsistent with these promises. How could millions of foreigners acquire rights of citizenship and equal status with, the nationals of Pakistan; and if they could, why divide India, why not let Muslims continue as nationals of India? Jinnah could find no answer to these questions and he was finally compelled to suggest an exchange of population. On November 25, 1946, Jinnah, addressing a Press conference at Karachi expressed the opinion that the authorities, both Central and Provincial, should take up immediately the question of exchange of population.”

For now, Mufti deserves to be exiled and not allowed to return to India. For MA Jinnah, along with his seven senior colleagues named Sir Feroz Khan Noon, Nawab of Mamdot, Mohammed Ismail, Pir ILLahi Bux, II Chundrigar, Raja Ghazanfar Ali Khan, Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah wanted an exchange of populations. They were keen for all Muslims to migrate and gather in Pakistan and for all non-Muslims to go to Hindustan. They had all made public statements which appeared in the Dawn in 1946, a daily founded by MA Jinnah. In response to this proposal, Rajendra Prasad, our first Rashtrapati for two terms, had suggested in his book, India Divided, that those Muslims who could not emigrate should be allowed to reside in India, but as aliens with visas issued by New Delhi. Jinnah agreed with this suggestion. What is tragic is that Pakistan did implement an envisaged exchange, but India did not.

Owaisi should realise that had Jawaharlal Nehru allowed this idea exchange to be implemented, he would have either been a Pakistani or an alien in India without any voting rights. Let him, therefore, not be a party to generate communal tensions in general, and in the Armed Forces, in particular.

(The writer is a well-known columnist and an author)

Writer: Prafull Garodia

Courtesy: The Pioneer

The role U.S. plays in Afghanistan on anti-terrorism seems to have hit a roadblock due to a flaw in its policy. The result is the Taliban sway continues unabated.

Developments in Afghanistan over the last several days have brought to the fore the question whether the United States’ policy in Afghanistan has been a failure. One dimension of the developments is the surge in Taliban/Islamic States’ attacks which have been steadily escalating since the US-led NATO forces ended their combat mission in the country in December, 2014. Consider the recent incidents. The Taliban’s five-day siege of the important city of Ghazni, which eased on August 15, 2018, killed, according to a report in The New York Times by Fatima Faizi and Mujib Mashal, at least 165 soldiers and police officers and 40 civilians. According to another report, 194 Taliban fighters, including 12 key commanders, were also killed. Other reports stated that “hundreds” of Taliban fighters had been killed.

On August 15 again, Taliban fighters over-ran an Army post and a police checkpoint killing 45 soldiers and eight police officers in Baghlan Province, while an attack by an Islamic State suicide bomber killed at least 48 students preparing for university examinations in a Shia neighbourhood of Kabul. Early on August 15 morning, a Taliban attack on a police checkpoint in the southern Zabul Province killed four police officers and wounded three while seven attackers were also reportedly killed. On August 13, Taliban fighters killed 21 and injured 33 soldiers — while the rest surrendered — in Faryab Province. Fifteen border guards were also killed.

The Afghan security forces, bedeviled by desertions and casualties, have been struggling to hold their own. According to the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR), a US watchdog body, casualties among Afghan security forces soared by 35 per cent in 2016, with 6,800 soldiers and police personnel killed. Civilians have suffered terribly. According to a report by the United Nations, nearly 1,700 of them were killed between January 1 and June 30, 2018 — a total higher than that in any corresponding period in the last 10 years.

Understandably then, people are asking whether the US policy has failed in Afghanistan. To start with, what were its goals? Announcing a new policy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, President Barack Obama had said, with reference to the Taliban and Al Qaeda, in Washington DC on March 27, 2009, that his message to the terrorists “who oppose us” was, “We will defeat you.”

That defeat has not happened and there has been a policy shift toward talks with the Taliban who, one has been told, included good and bad elements. As early as December 1, 2009, President Obama had stated in an Address to the Nation on “The Way Forward in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” “We will support all efforts by the Afghan Government to open the door to those Taliban who abandon violence and respect the human rights of their fellow citizens.” There have been talks about talks on a number of occasions. Kabul’s repeated attempts to initiate peace talks, however, got nowhere. Americans have also been — and are still — trying. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, American diplomats met Taliban representatives in Doha in July to prepare the groundwork for peace talks. Nothing has materialised till the time of writing.

The US role in Afghanistan suffers from a fundamental flaw — it wants to win but is not prepared to do what it takes to achieve a victory. This is compounded by its frequent inability to read ground realities. The rapid Taliban collapse in the face of the post-9/11 invasion in October 2001 by forces assembled, guided and led by the US, convinced President George Bush’s Administration that the war in Afghanistan had been won. Hence its focus shifted to preparing for the invasion of Iraq. Even before it embarked on it in 2003, weapons and equipment critically needed in Afghanistan were removed for deployment in Iraq.

The Taliban, which had been reorganising and regaining their strength with Pakistan’s help, began to strike back. The year 2003 marked the beginning of the Taliban revival, which no subsequent increase in US troop-strength and war effort, could halt, particularly since Taliban forces, whenever hard pressed, withdrew to their sanctuaries in Pakistan.

Steadily gaining ground, the Afghan Taliban now controls about 40 per cent of the country’s rural areas while the Government in Kabul controls the cities which too, as underlined by the attack on Ghazni and other cities, including Kabul, are coming under pressure. It should then be hardly surprising if the Taliban feel they are winning and view US offers of talks as being tantamount to suing for peace. Nor should it be surprising if they feel that they will achieve peace on theirs terms if they continue with their offensive. Besides, they could hardly have stopped even if they had wanted to. Pakistan, which is using them to have a Government in Afghanistan subservient to it, will not accept any solution which does not hand over Afghanistan to the Taliban.

The new US Afghan policy, unveiled by President Trump in August, 2017, doubtless involves the deployment of more American troops and more air attacks. The US now has over 14,000 troops in Afghanistan against the attenuated figure of 8,400 earlier. The number of bombs and other munitions dropped by US aircraft increased steeply from 1,337 in 2016 to 4,361 in 2017. As a part of the air attacks, the US dropped a GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast, dubbed the “Mother of All Bombs”, on Islamic State hideouts in Achin district in eastern Nangarhar Province, killing, according to unverified figures, nearly 100 militants.

According to some, the escalation in Taliban attacks in the last few months is aimed at making the US abandon the new strategy by showing it to be counter-productive. Abandonment will not lead to talks as the earlier reduction in operations by US-led NATO forces did not. As said, Pakistan, unaffected by US aid cuts, will accept nothing short of the installation of the Taliban to power in Kabul. The US should be under no illusion about the consequences of this. President Obama said while announcing his new Af-Pak policy on March 27, 2009, “If the Afghan Government falls to the Taliban — or allows the Al Qaeda to go unchallenged — that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of us as they possibly can.” And, of course, it will mean return to the middle ages for Afghanistan and slavery for its women.

Writer: Hiranmay Karlekar

Courtesy: The Pioneer

Although the current situation of Pakistan will not let Imran Khan make any moves to improve relations with India, trade can be the ideal answer to make both contries settle and negotiate space.

After clearing all hiccups, it is finally confirmed that Imran Khan will be sworn in as the Prime Minister  of Pakistan, a nation of 207 million, with an economy inching towards financial disaster and perennial conflicts on its borders due to continued dependence on terrorism as an instrument of state policy. It will, however, be interesting to see as to why is he referred to as ‘Taliban Khan.’

His sympathies towards the Taliban have been evident on several occasions in his 21-year-old political career. In June 2002, he addressed a workers’ convention in Pakistan, stating that he was inspired by the Taliban system of justice and that he would establish a similar system in the country after assuming power. In 2012, after the Taliban shot 14-year-old activist Malala Yousafzai in the head, Khan refused to condemn them by name. Later, in 2013, he stirred up a controversy when he described a top Taliban leader, Waliur-Rehman, as “pro-peace”.  During a 2014 Pakistani Government effort, to build a national consensus on a statement declaring the Taliban an enemy of Pakistan and Islam, Khan called the group “our brothers” and “our people”. He is an advocate of state funding of madarsas run by the Taliban. He also supports the allowance of Taliban to open offices in the various cities in Pakistan. His photograph, dressed as a Mujahid and sitting with Taliban cadre, is popular among the youth of Pakistan.

In 2012, when Khan pulled out of the India Today conclave on account of it being attended by Salman Rushdie, he was severely criticised by the latter who compared him to Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi. “Here he is trying to placate mullah and placate the Army while presenting himself as an acceptable face of Pakistan,” said Rushdie.

Imran Khan, of course, denied all allegations of being backed by the military. Yet, regardless of what he says, the Army’s influence in this year’s elections has been the main cause of his rise and fulfilment of his prime ministerial ambition. Gen Asif Ghafoor, the Army’s spokesperson tweeted: “You honour who you will and you humble who you will”, a verse from the Quran that is taken as confirmation of the military’s support for Khan. Thus, real power in deciding Pakistan’s relationships with India, Afghanistan and the US will continue to stay in the hands of the generals in Pakistan.

Imran Khan’s love for Islam and Sharia’h law is well documented in his memoir. In his memoir, Pakistan: A personal history, Khan wrote that the biggest damage done to the Indian subcontinent was the loss of self-esteem that resulted from colonisation. “The inferiority complex that is ingrained in a conquered nation results in its imitation of some of the worst aspects of the conquerors, while at the same time neglecting its own great traditions,” said Imran Khan. A free Pakistan, he believes, has to be rooted in the traditions of Islam.

Right at the beginning of his memoir, Khan made it clear what his idea of an ideal Pakistani state should look like and what it had become. “Far from being the Islamic welfare state that was envisaged, Pakistan is a country where politics is a game of loot and plunder and any challenger to the status quo — even with my kind of public profile and popularity — can be suddenly arrested and threatened with violence,” wrote Khan in his book.

In his victory speech, he began with a promise of converting Pakistan into an Islamic welfare state, though he fell short in elucidating from where he is going to garner funds for giving concrete shape to his ambition when an economic disaster is already glaring before the nation. Khan’s belief in the Sharia’h law to govern a state is noteworthy.  He quotes complete absence of petty crimes in tribal areas of Pakistan, where Sharia’h is in force, to support his assertion.

In order to garner majority in the National Assembly, he had to take support of dreaded Sunni militant outfits at the behest of the military. This will provide the radicals and extremists the power to reshape Pakistan’s political landscape. A new but dangerous trend in the political landscape of a country that is struggling to become a democracy. He certainly will be obliged to the military and militants who would prefer a radicalised theocratic Pakistan than a democratic Pakistan.

Khan has no administrative experience. As MNA, he hardly ever attended the National Assembly. He is known more for his rhetoric and ability to organise protests rather than administrative capabilities. He is more of a demagogue.

He will be ruled and guided by the powerful troika of military-mullah-militants. He is talking of taking two steps forward even if India takes one. Will the troika allow him to take even a half step towards India is a million dollar question.

The pity is that many pro-Pakistan apologists in our country are still hoping for better India-Pakistan relations. They are proposing a dialogue with Pakistan. This for me is mere votebank politics to address their core constituencies and furtherance of their appeasement policy rather than a serious discourse in national interest.

The recent infiltration attempts and spurt in terrorist activities as well as the deep state’s open support to the pro-Khalistan movement through helping the US-based Sikh separatist group ‘Sikh for Justice’  in organising Referendum 2020 in London should act as a grim reminder of Pakistan’s intent to these pro-Pakistan apologists.

Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is actively using the services of dreaded global terrorist Hafiz Saeed as part of ‘Operation Express’ to once again set Punjab on fire by kindling the Khalistan movement. Social media and sleeper cells are being used extensively to provoke the youth of Punjab. Certain videos have been released with a view to create dissension among Sikh soldiers of Indian Army by asking them not to fight for India.

A hyped gathering of Sikhs from almost 20 countries world-wide, organised by ISI through its proxy SFJ at London’s Trafalgar square on August 12, to raise the demand for Khalistan and set the stage for Referendum 2020, however, was a failure.

ISI is also planning to spread the tentacle of jihadi terror to the eastern and North-Eastern States of India and Myanmar, using Bangladesh as the base and launch pad. According to inputs from the National Investigation Agency (NIA), Bangladesh-based terror groups, like the Jamat-ul Mujahidin Bangladesh (JMB) and Ansarul Bangla Team (ABT), are planning recruitments in eastern parts of India, setting up hideouts and procuring weapons for terrorist activities. These groups are also making efforts to coordinate with radical Islamic groups within India to garner support and widen their network. The Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh are also being recruited by the ISI for terrorist activities. Bengal and Assam are being used as testing ground since a lot of local youth in these States have already been radicalised.  It is a pincer attack on India as part of the grand design of global jihad, notorious prophecy of Ghazwa-e-Hind, with Pakistan’s ISI as the main coordinator.

As far as Kashmir is concerned, Imran Khan made his intent amply clear when he termed Kashmir as the core issue and blamed the Indian Army for human right excesses in Kashmir. He did not consider it appropriate to mention other outstanding disputes between the two nations. Obviously, the script of his victory speech had either been prepared or approved by the troika. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) spokesman acknowledged the Army’s role when he said that there was nothing wrong  with the Pakistan Army “advising” the Government on foreign policy issues. It would be a miracle if Imran Khan went even a few inches beyond cosmetic “posturing” as far as Kashmir is concerned.

This is the true face of ‘Atankistan’ under the firm control of the mullah-military-militant troika. Prime Ministers may come and go, their tenure is not decided by any statute book but by the Army. But when you have a Prime Minister fully obliged to the troika, one can imagine the boost terrorism will get in Pakistan. What is then India’s option? The spokesperson of India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has made India’s expectation amply clear, “India desires a prosperous and progressive Pakistan at peace with its neighbours.” The key word is “prosperous Pakistan.”

A Pakistan struggling to pay debt with adverse balance of payments cannot become prosperous without reviewing its trade policy with its ‘economic giant’ neighbour India. But during his election campaign, Imran Khan had accused Nawaz Sharif “of selling out to India, compromising on Pakistan’s interests for sake of his own business interests, putting his commercial relationship with a few Indian businessmen above national interest.”

But the same Imran Khan in his victory speech said,“Our economic crisis is such that we want to have good relations with all our neighbours. I think it will be very good for all of us if we have good relations with India. We need to have trade ties, and the more we will trade, both countries will benefit.”

This statement is a tacit approval of the fact that Pakistan cannot revive its economy without mutual trade with India. Its over-dependence on China is already showing the disastrous effect it is going to have on its sovereignty. India should accept any initiative from Imran Khan’s Pakistan for better trade relations. Better trade relations with India would also help in indirectly softening the Army’s stance since a lot is at stake for the Army and its Generals as far as Pakistan’s failing economy is concerned.

(The author is a Jammu-based political commentator and strategic analyst. The views expressed are entirely personal.)

Writer: Anil Gupta

Courtesy: The Pioneer

The PTI, similar to PPP and MQM, used a conceivable image to, personally, reinforce their leader.

In 1991, I worked as a young reporter at an English weekly in Karachi. In those days, newspapers and magazines of the city would often receive photographs of former Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM) chief that were to be published without any questions. The MQM had risen to power in Karachi in 1988, and by 1990, it had reached a peak in its electoral strength and political influence. I remember, the party would frequently send photographs. Most of them showed Altaf Hussain delivering fiery speeches at rallies, but there were others as well, such as one showing him cutting a huge cake with a sword in Hyderabad! For most editors in Karachi, not publishing the photographs was not an option. In late 1991, the weekly magazine I was a part of received a photograph of a flower. Inside the flower was what seemed to be Altaf’s image. My editor had no clue what to do with this photo. The photo had come with a note written by a local MQM leader, which claimed that Altaf’s image had been discovered inside a flower at a park in Karachi. The editor decided not to run the photo. But next day the photo appeared in a few Urdu newspapers. The editor received a phone call from a senior MQM leader. He knew that the weekly had decided not to use the picture in its next issue. He did not ask why. Instead, he told the editor that he expects to see the photo in the next week’s edition. He must have said this in an intimidating manner because the bizarre photo eventually appeared in the magazine.

Why would a powerful political party need to reinforce its leader’s image through a fantastical claim? Perhaps the party wanted its followers to believe that the leader’s greatness transcended mortal political qualities? Maybe the MQM knew what most of us didn’t. In 1992, the state launched a concentrated military operation against the party. An operation against a party whose leader’s image had miraculously appeared inside a flower. Months after ZA Bhutto’s PPP came to power in December 1971, my father was an assistant editor at the party’s official daily Musawaat. He once told me that in early 1972, the newspaper received a photograph which apparently showed a fiery image of a sword in the night sky of Lahore. The image was sent by a leader of the PPP with a note saying that the day Bhutto had taken oath as President, the sword had appeared over Lahore. Not-so-incidentally, the sword was PPP’s electoral symbol during the 1970 elections. Musawaat published the picture and the news item. In 1974, the progressive Urdu weekly Al-Fateh  — of which my father was one of the founders — received a similar image. This time, it was of a sword appearing over Karachi and that, too, at the conclusion of the famous International Islamic Conference that was chaired by Bhutto in Lahore. Even though Al-Fateh was a pro-PPP magazine, its founder-editors decided not to run the picture. Recently, social media was flooded with images of PTI chief Imran Khan’s picture projected on a tower in Saudi Arabia. Even though the image was fake, PTI’s official Twitter handle milked it, so much so that even some TV news channels ended up running the same image.

However, unlike the fantastical flower image used by the MQM and an ethereal one pushed by the PPP, the PTI used a more conceivable image. The mindset was the same though: Reinforcing a leader’s image with a larger-than-life claim. So, is this a tradition in our part of the world? There are very few examples other than the ones mentioned here where the qualities of political personalities are enhanced through some fantastical claims. Apart from some old books that made certain other-worldly claims attributed to a handful of 18th and 19th century Islamic scholars in South Asia, I could not find any prominent political examples in this context. However, it is clear that this tradition has a historical link with the phenomenon of deeply religious people ‘discovering’ miraculous signs. Over the centuries and even today, one comes across ‘news’ of people discovering blood pouring out from statues of Jesus in Catholic churches in South American countries, or tears trickling down from the eyes of Mary’s figurines in European villages. During my research, I found that in South Asia, sightings of Hindu deities consuming edible offerings left in Hindu places of worship by devotees appeared from the 19th century. This is also the period when Muslims in the region began to discover the name of the Almighty on fruit, vegetables and even goats!

In cognitive aspects of religious symbolism, Pascal Boyer suggests that, over the centuries, every time a population or a more religious segment of the population feels that the state of their faith is weakening, it tries to reinforce it among the people by proliferating miraculous claims. Interestingly, this phenomenon is not that ancient. Its frequency increased with rapid advancement of science and secular politics. The sudden appearance of Altaf Hussain inside a flower was born from the creeping fear in his party that the state was gearing up to neutralise it in Karachi. PPP’s sword in the sky was an attempt to give Bhutto’s otherwise ‘socialist’ regime divine approval. But Khan’s image photoshopped over a Saudi tower was a lot more ‘modern.’ It was done to exhibit how excited the world was about Pakistan’s new PM-in-waiting, even though he had emerged through a controversial election and with extremely fragile support in Parliament.

Writer: Nadeem Paracha

Courtesy: The Dawn

The recent Pakistan polls are a clear example of how the military interfered and rigged them to catapult Imran Khan to power.

Few things in recent times has surprised this writer more than the breathtaking claim, even by Indians who ought to have known better, that the parliamentary elections held in Pakistan on July 25, 2018, were completely free and above board. The fact is that they were not, and were blatantly rigged in favour of Imran Khan, chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), who is set to become the Prime Minister.

Some have argued that they saw candidates of all parties campaigning freely and people voting without any interference by the Army or any other agency. Just because there was no such visible interference during polling, means nothing. The intimidating presence of 370,000 troops throughout Pakistan on polling day was more than a reminder that the Army called the shots and the presence of troops, even within polling booths, conveyed the impression, rightly or wrongly, that uniformed men would know which individuals voted for whom. It was also common talk that the Army wanted Imran Khan to win. People in Pakistan know one can pay a very heavy price for ignoring its writs.

The argument that one indication that the elections were free and fair was that candidates could be seen campaigning freely, ignores the fact that not all were allowed to become candidates. One of them was none other than former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who was debarred from holding any political office by an eyebrow-raising judicial verdict. Not just that. More than 100 candidates of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Sharif’s party, were made to change their allegiance or stand down. Criminal cases were slapped on more than 17,000 activists of the (PML-N) for violating “election rules.”

Any argument that changing of party loyalties mean nothing because it is frequent in India as well, is laughable. India is a vibrant democracy in which the Army has never played any political role; neither it nor any other agency can force candidates in any election to change sides or desist from contesting. The Army’s role in Pakistan, where it has run dictatorships for long spells, is well-known.

When not running Governments directly, it has been puppeteering elected civilian Governments from behind the scenes, and staging coups to assume power when its dictates went unheeded. In the case of the recent elections, it had made life, to say nothing of contesting, difficult for PML-N candidates who refused to heed it orders by sabotaging their campaigning and hindering their movements.

Third, vendors of the theory that recent elections in Pakistan were free and fair, play down the Army’s scarcely-secret role in compelling a section of the country’s electronic media to launch a vicious campaign against Nawaz Sharif and his family. While it can be nobody’s claim that the Sharifs are pure as driven snow, a significant part of the offensive comprised gross exaggerations and even blatant lies like Nawaz Sharif receiving $400 million for allowing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s emissary, Navin Jindal, to arrive in Pakistan sans a visa. And this lie was spread just on the eve of the elections — in fact, after the campaigning had ended — when there was not time to shred it before polling.

The media blitzkrieg against Nawaz Sharif and family appears more than a bit odd because there is virtually no political party or leader in Pakistan which or who has not been accused of corruption. The knight in shining armour with a blazing sword, the great crusader against corruption, Imran Khan, is no exception. On August 7, 2018, he appeared before Pakistan’s National Accountability Bureau (NAB) which asked him 15 questions regarding his alleged misuse of Mi-17 and Ecureuil helicopters owned by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial Government which is run by his party, PTI. The resultant loss to the State exchequer was Rs 2.17 crore.

The NAB ordered a probe in February after Geo News had reported the matter. While Imran needed time to campaign for the general elections held on July 25, 2018, he could have been asked to appear in May or the first half of June without affecting his electioneering. This did not happen; nor did the media go to town over the massive corruption marking the functioning of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Government.

The argument that the Army did not intimidate but let out a few subtle hints and the media observed “self censorship”, suggesting that the media caved in needlessly, ignores the Inter-Services Intelligence’s role in dealing with journalists who had invited its ire. The most shocking, of course, is its abduction, savage torture and murder in May 2011 of the outstanding journalist, Syed Saleem Sahzad. The crime, which has gone unpunished, had sent out a clear message: You will have to pay a heavy price if you cross our path.

One could then hardly expect the media to ignore the Army’s “subtle hints” to its bidding.

It is, thus, an election thoroughly rigged by the Army that has hoisted Imran Khan to power. Instead of swinging the cherry, he will now swing to the dictates of the men in Khaki. The sooner this is realized, the better.

Writer: Hiranmay Karlekar

Courtesy: The Pioneer