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

The poll results in Pakistan speak volumes about how polarised the polity there is. There is very little reason for Imran Khan’s PTI to have won the elections if there were free and fair elections.

Just like most elections in Pakistan, the 2018 poll have been marred by allegations of rigging. Nevertheless, even though numerous cases of bungling in this context can (and have) been highlighted, there is scant reason to believe that had the election been entirely free and fair, Imran Khan’s centre-right Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) would not have been able to win.

According to the final tally announced by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), PTI grabbed 115 National Assembly seats. However, I believe that in a more free and fair election, PTI would not have bagged more than 90 to 95 seats. But it would still have managed to win more than the Centrist Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), and certainly, the Left-liberal Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).

No matter how marred the elections actually were, they did correctly reflect the highly polarised nature of Pakistan’s polity. The bulk of the votes were split between PTI, PML-N and PPP, with PTI receiving approximately 32 per cent.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) voters decided to stick with PTI and voted overwhelmingly for the party. The main reasons for this are PTI chief Imran Khan’s continuing popularity in that Province; the police reforms that the last PTI Government in KP initiated; and, interestingly, the de facto positive image the party’s provincial Government in the Province enjoyed due to a considerable decrease in extremist terror attacks in the region.

I have used the word de facto because, ironically, PTI was against the military operation that was eventually launched by Pakistan’s armed forces and the PMLN-led federal government in 2015. The relative peace that followed just happened to emerge during a period when PTI was ruling KP.

This time, Punjab — Pakistan’s most populous Province — was split in half between PML-N and PTI. The former had swept it in 2013. But in 2018, whereas the ousted PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif’s narrative of him being a victim of ‘establishmentarian intrigues’ bagged PML-N some massive wins in much of central Punjab, the more conservative areas of the Province — mainly in the northern and the hilly Pothwari regions — largely switched to PTI. The more feudal-dominated southern Punjab region, too, mostly went to PTI.

Balochistan was as mercurial as ever. As has been the case for decades, its votes were distributed among the ever-splintering and ever-changing secular Baloch nationalist outfits and religious groups.

Sindh was once again swept by the PPP which notched a number of huge wins here, proving to be an unmatched electoral force in the province. A majority of Sindhis have continued to see the PPP as their bridge to the larger politics and economics of the country.

However, the most stunning results emerged in Sindh’s large, chaotic capital, Karachi. Karachi does not have a Sindhi majority. Approximately 41 per cent of its enormous population is made up of Urdu-speaking Mohajirs. The city’s second-largest ethnic group is Pakhtun (approximately 22 per cent) followed by Punjabi, Baloch, Sindhi and Seraiki groups.

Between 1988 and 2008, the secular and once radical Mohajir nationalist Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) was an overwhelming electoral force in this city. But its vote bank began to slowly dwindle from 2013 onward. The party split into three factions in 2017, leaving the city open for other parties to sneak in.

The PPP, on the other hand, had remained strong in Karachi’s Baloch, Kutchi and Sindhi majority areas, such as Malir and Lyari.

But the party that eventually managed to sneak in was PTI. It nearly swept the city. The PTI had received the second-largest number of votes here in 2013. This time it was able to effectively neutralise the MQM, rather its largest faction, MQM-Pakistan. On the other hand, PTI also evicted the PPP from Lyari, a PPP bastion in Karachi since 1970.

Again, despite all the discrepancies of the election, one can still somewhat explain the stunning results in the city. The voter turnout in Karachi was low (38 to 40 per cent). During the last couple of years, the city has witnessed a concentrated police and Rangers’ operation against extremist outfits, criminal gangs and also against so-called militant wings of the now splintered MQM.

But whereas a majority of Karachiites had hailed the operation and the comparative decrease in the city’s once bulging crime rate, MQM and PPP were critical of the way the operation was being conducted. This gave the impression that both the parties were against the operation.

There was thus not much protest when the operation also targeted so-called MQM militants; and members of the Peoples’ Aman Committee (PAC) — a clandestine outfit patronised by the erstwhile PPP minister Zulfiqar Mirza. The PAC was made up of hardened Baloch gangsters from Lyari. Even though the PPP regime in Sindh eventually distanced itself from PAC, it seemed helpless in controlling Lyari’s vicious gang wars.

Both MQM and PPP began to be perceived as parties which were trying to roll back the Rangers’ operation in the city. Interestingly, the PML-N Government at the centre enjoyed a brief wave of popularity here, when it claimed that it was former Prime Minister Sharif who had initiated the operation. It was when Nawaz Sharif had a falling out with the military establishment that most Karachiites decided to side with the establishment.

As a consequence, in 2018, the political party which was seen as being closest to the establishment received the most votes. That party was PTI. As in KP, here too PTI benefitted in a de facto manner from an operation that it had nothing to do with.

The most striking aspect of the 2018 election was the manner in which the once obscure far-right Sunni Barelvi outfit, Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), managed to bag the sixth-largest number of votes. Most of these votes were cast in Punjab and in Karachi.

The TLP is seen as a more militant reaction against the rise of Deobandi and Salafi outfits in Pakistan. However, in the last couple of years, as militant Deobandi outfits begun to be pushed back by the state, the once non-militant political Barelvi segment not only saw resurgence but got radicalised by the execution of Mumtaz Qadri, the murderer of former Punjab governor Salman Taseer.

The TLP got the bulk of its votes in Punjab where many low-income Barelvis saw the PML-N as the ruling party which okayed Qadri’s execution — even though it was the former military chief, Gen Raheel, who had pushed for it the most.

In Karachi, much of the TLP votes were cast in the city’s large working and lower-middle-class industrial area, Korangi, and in the low-income Lyari area.

Low-income and lower-middle-class Mohajirs have continued to belong to the Barelvi sect. Before 1988, they used to vote for Shah Ahmad Noorani’s Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan (JUP). In the event of MQM’s split, many Barelvi Mohajirs from this economic segment switched to TLP.

In Lyari, the stage for TLP was set by apolitical Islamic evangelical outfits who found many takers there during the deadly gang wars in the area. Consequently, the large Baloch, Memon and Kutchi segments who had already been attracted by the Barelvi evangelical organisation Dawat-i-Islami, saw in TLP a more assertive expression of their reinvigorated religiosity.

But one should keep in mind, the TLP in Punjab and Karachi received the protest vote. Protest votes are largely short-lived. Also, TLP as an outfit cannot survive without street agitation. It is bound to face eventual resistance from the state just as the once patronised Deobandi outfits did.

Writer: Nadeem Paracha

Courtesy: The Pioneer

India and Korea not just share history, but also have immense shared business interests. Samsung plant in NCR is just a beginning, a lot more is to come…

The South Korean President Moon Jae-in paid a four-day visit to India in July (7-10) and held delegation-level talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other senior leaders on a wide range of bilateral, regional, and global issues of mutual interest with a view to further strengthen the special strategic partnership between the two countries. This was Moon’s first visit to India after he took over as the President of South Korea in 2017. It was one of the most productive visits to India by a foreign leader as the talks ended with a big-ticket investment announcement that would further deepen bilateral ties between Asia’s third and fourth largest economies, particularly in the economic sphere. Prime Minister Modi also took the opportunity to mention how India is concerned about North Korea’s nuclear weapon development programmes, and appreciated Moon’s initiative to address this issue. For India, Pyongyang’s nuclear link with Pakistan has remained a matter of concern for a long time.

A brief history

India-South Korea relations are not recent but for reasons other than economics, bilateral relations remained in a state of “strategic disconnect”. India’s policy of “non-alignment and economic autarchy” and the perceived closeness with the then Soviet Union were seen by the US and its allies, such as Japan and South Korea, with suspicion. Under the circumstances, there was little prospect for India-South Korea relations to develop. even the important role played by India in dispatching the 60th Parachute Field Military Ambulance Platoon — a mobile army surgical hospital that treated more than half of the wounded soldiers and an average of 250 to 300 civilians a day, during the UN operations in late 1951 following the Korean War — though remembered with gratitude, did not substantially help remove political barriers to forge a partnership that could have fetched mutual benefits.

There are civilisational linkages between the two countries too. It is popularly believed in South Korea that the legendary Korean King Suro married an Indian princess from Ayodhya centuries ago and mothered the Kim dynasty. Almost 80 per cent of the present generation bearing the name Kim traces their ancestry to the ancient dynasty. So, there is an emotional connection between the people of the two nations.

even Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s evocative poem that Korea will be the lamp bearer for the illumination of Asia could not translate to concrete construction of an India-South Korea partnership until the ideological gulf remained. The collapse of the Soviet Union and India’s Look east policy, rechristened now as Act east policy, dramatically altered the perceptions in reviewing India-South Korea bilateral ties in a different light in which economic, defence, and strategic dimensions were found enmeshed. The strategic history of India’s ties with this Northeast nation, that remained disjointed for almost four decades since the end of the Korean War, has been successfully recast now.

Put briefly, India-South Korea relations have developed in stages. The years since diplomatic ties were established in 1973 until early 1990 was the first stage or the ‘budding period’. Though some efforts were made by both, they could not realise the potentials because of their “inherent ideological incongruity and differences in their policy orientation”. While India adopted a socialist, secular, democratic government at home and pursued the policy of non-alignment of the third world in international affairs, South Korea remained tied in a security alliance with the US. So, both saw each other as belonging to different camps and “were blinded by the blinkers of the global block politics of the time”.

India’s choice of inward-looking import substitution model of development sharply contrasted with South Korea’s outward-looking export-oriented development path prevented the growth of economic ties between them. Though the diplomatic and other bilateral interactions continued smoothly, not much headway could be made in expanding the economic ties.

The second stage of the bilateral ties between 1991 and 2009 can be called the phase of ‘economic and commercial cooperation’. Both countries discovered a convergence of interests in many areas during this period. In the third stage, the bilateral relationship was elevated into a ‘strategic partnership’. This strategic partnership could be achieved because India’s of the convergence of India’s Look east Policy and Korea’s New Asia Diplomatic Initiative described as “policy rendezvous”. First, the bilateral relationship was catapulted into a higher gear when President Roh Myun-Hwan visited India in 2004 and a “long-term cooperative partnership” was established. This served as the bedrock for bilateral relations. This relationship was elevated to the level of strategic partnership when President Lee Myung-bak paid a historic visit to India in January 2010 as the chief guest of the Republic Day celebrations. The Comprehensive economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) signed in 2009 was also implemented and entered into force from January 1, 2010, thereby jump starting the dormant economic component of the bilateral ties. The CePA — which came into force on January 1, 2010 — was the first deal of its kind which India signed with an OECD country and South Korea with a BRIC nation.

Subsequently, several top level visits have taken place between the two countries: Former President Pratibha Patil’s visit in July 2011, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit in March 2012, and others. Defence and
Foreign Ministers from both countries have also visited, each time elevating the relationship to a higher level.

Significance of Moon’s visit

Against this background as the relationship evolved, Moon’s recent trip to India is another milestone in the bilateral ties. Firstly, the timing of the visit is significant as it coincided with the changes taking place with breathtaking rapidity in the geopolitical landscape of Northeast Asia. The architect of the changes is none other than President Moon whose peace overtures — which started with North Korea’s participation in the PyeongChang Winter Olympics and subsequently led to a summit meeting with Kim Jong-un on April 27, and later paved the way for the first ever summit between Kim and US President Donald Trump in Singapore on June 12. India-South Korea relations were elevated to ‘special strategic partnership’ after Modi visited South Korea in May 2015, seeking investments in many flagship programmes of the Government, including Skill India and Make in India. The South Korean Government earmarked a whopping $10 billion as “financing arrangement for infrastructure development in India”.

Moon’s dynamic leadership aside from his efforts to solve the nuclear dilemma of North Korea became demonstrably clear, or at least his intent, even during the presidential election campaign in 2017 wherein he pledged that he would elevate ties with India to the level of Korea’s relations with four major powers in and around the Korean Peninsula — China, Japan, Russia, and the US. This aside, he intended to craft India prominently in his “new Southern policy” and include the 10-member ASEAN group in its ambit. This is a significant departure from Korea’s traditional foreign policy and possibly could be, as some analysts suggested, a hedging strategy amid the US-China stand-off, coupled with the desire to forge a robust India-South Korea partnership in the interest of building peace and stability in the region. Though for India, South Korea is a valued partner, bilateral trade is below its potential. Bilateral trade in 2017 totaled $20 billion and investment has shown an upward trend. Both sides have pledged to increase it to $50 billion by 2030. There are about 300 Korean companies which have invested about $3 billion, employing about 40,000 workers. The only aberration in the bilateral ties seems to be that the POSCO project in Odisha did not take off despite that it was the single biggest foreign direct investment project to the tune of $12 billion, owing to land acquisition problems.

This 12-million capacity steel plant was floated in 2005 and POSCO had the patience to wait for close to a decade to see the project become functional. In the process, the company invested a lot of money in the social sector, including the CSR. But despite strong governmental support to the company to make the required land available for the steel project to be set up, the efforts failed and POSCO was forced to pull out of the project in 2017, after waiting for 12 long years as public resistance continued with no sign of ending.

Though POSCO was an unhappy experience for South Korea, this did not deter it to halt investment in India in other projects, such as by firms like Kia and Samsung, in recognition of the Indian market and the buying power of the urban middle class estimated to be to the tune of 350 million plus. Though the main driving force in the bilateral relations remains economic, the strategic dimension including defence cooperation is becoming equally important. The two sides are looking at defence hardware procurement and manufacture. India is looking for minesweepers for the Navy, and South Korea could be a possible source. India has also sourced artillery guns from South Korea and is looking to manufacture them in India under the Make in India programme. In this light, Moon’s India visit shall pave the way for expanding bilateral ties in multifarious dimensions, upgrading business ties to the level Korea has with China. Indeed, Moon has been pushing Korean majors to raise their investment in India.

The reason why the economic dimension in the partnership is significant can be deciphered from the address Moon made to the India-Korea Business Forum organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry. It was attended by top management of the major business houses or large family-owned mega-conglomerates from Korea, such as Samsung, Hyundai, and LG. The three companies command large chunks of the export and domestic consumer and industrial markets in Korea. This was the second such event in less than five months. In February, Modi had addressed a mega delegation of 150-odd Korean companies, wherein he had exhorted the chaebols to further expand the $2.7 billion worth of investment mainly in the automobile and engineering sectors. Consumer products of Korean companies, such as Samsung and LG, are household names and therefore important players in the Indian consumer market. In the automobile sector, Hyundai competes equally with Japanese products, such as Toyota, Honda, and Mitsubishi.

There are some trade and tariff issues that need to be sorted out. For example, India seeks zero duty on items such as sesame and motor parts. Korea is reluctant to accede to this request. South Korea imports 630 per cent duty on Indian sesame, while imports 24,000 tonnes a year from China at zero duty, and therefore, India’s request is legitimate. Korea feels that opening tariff lines to a country ensures zero custom duty to importers of the country to which it is opened. The duty is applicable for products under those tariff lines. From the strategic perspective, the importance of South Korea in India’s Indo-Pacific strategy came out clear in Modi’s keynote address at the Shangri-La Dialogue on June 1, 2018, when he mentioned South Korea was an important component of the Act east policy.

During Modi’s visit to South Korea in 2015, the two sides sought amendment to the bilateral Air Services Agreement to enhance flight connectivity covering more cities. As Korean business in Indian cities expands, Korea would be interested in increasing direct flights from the existing six in a week. That time, an MoU was inked on cooperation in audio-visual co-production, paving the way for co-production of films, animation and broadcasting programmes. This time during Moon’s visit, five MoUs in the field of science and technology were signed. Science and Technology Minister Harshvardhan and his Korean counterpart You Young Min signed three MoUs on Programme of Cooperation 2018-21, Establishment of Future Strategy Group and Cooperation in Bio-technology and Bio-economy. Two other MoUs were signed between the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and South Korean National Research Council for Science and Technology and IIT Mumbai and Korea Institute of Science and Technology, to further accelerate future-oriented cooperation.

During his visit, Moon inaugurated a Samsung manufacturing unit, the largest in the world, in Noida in which the company has invested $760 million, demonstrating the trust and business confidence in Indian market despite the unhappy experience of POSCO. This is going to be the world’s largest mobile phone manufacturing facility, touting Modi’s pet Make in India to propel India to become the world’s second-largest manufacturer of mobile phones as the number of factories soared to 120 from just two, four years ago. Apart from creating four lakh direct jobs, 30 per cent of the phones manufactured at the factory — built at a cost of Rs 5,000 crore — will be exported to the Middle east and Africa. India was already the R&D hub for Samsung, now it will be a manufacturing base too.

Would India be the next China for South Korea, as claimed by Korea’s Trade Minister Kim Hyun-chong? It may be recalled when South Korea deployed the THAAD US missile defense system in 2017, a decision taken by Moon’s predecessor, a diplomatic row broke out between South Korea and China as the latter felt that THAAD breached into China’s security. China adopted a series of economic retaliatory measures against Korean products, thereby severely affecting the Korean economy. South Korea is yet to recover from this. Moon now seeks to enhance economic and trade relations with the ASEAN and India, thus announcing his southern policy.

Moon’s strategy is laudable but not without difficulties. Many bilateral economic issues concerning trade and tariff need to be sorted out. Moreover, if Moon targets the ASEAN grouping as a single package, that would be difficult, as a strategy that fits all countries may not be possible as the characteristics of each country could be different. For example, if South Korea wants to expand the market presence of its car makers in Indonesia — the largest car market in Southeast Asia where Japanese vehicles enjoy 98.6 per cent market share, but the Korean cars take up only about 0.1 per cent — the challenge could be huge. on the other hand, India holds the greatest potential for South Korea and has the least risk, which is why India is a priority destination for Korean businesses. The absence of any sensitive issue, either historical or geographical, also works in India’s favour to be a preferred partner for South Korea. The Moon Government has, therefore, prioritised India to deepen and strengthen multidimensional relations.

With its population expected to reach 1.5 billion in 2030, India has the potential to emerge as the world’s single largest market. In view of this, any nation doing business with another country may find it irresistible to overlook India to be a partner in pursuit of economic prosperity. Moon is aware that India is eyeing the tag of the world’s third largest economy by 2030, after overtaking France as the sixth largest economy and coming close to the UK, which is at the fifth place. Indian economy is at the take-off stage and is expected to be the world’s third largest by 2030 with the GDP worth $10 trillion. This means India is aiming to overtake the UK, Japan, and Germany by 2030, to be behind only the US and China. As far as doing business is concerned, India presents tempting prospects for any country, and South Korea is well aware of this.

Rajaram Panda: Writer is former Senior Fellow at the IDSA, was until recently ICCR Chair Professor at Reitaku University, Japan. rajaram.panda@gmail.com I Courtesy: The Pioneer

New Delhi needs to clearly understand that Imran Khan, hoisted to power by the Pakistan Army, will do what the Generals ask him to, particularly when it comes to Kashmir

Fatima Bhutto cites two horrific incidents in a searing piece titled, ‘Imran Khan is only a player in the circus run by Pakistan’s military’ in The Guardian of July 24, 2018. On July 17, supporters of his party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), “tied a donkey to a pole and punched its face till its jaw broke, ripped open its nostrils, and drove a car into its body, leaving the animal to collapse, having been beaten to an inch of its life. Before they left, they wrote ‘Nawaz’ (the name of the former prime minister) into its flesh, seemingly inspired by their leader, Imran Khan, who has taunted Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) workers as ghadday or donkeys. The donkey was rescued by the ACF Animal Rescue Team, a private organization, who noted that, even days later, it could not stand up on its own because of the ferocity of its torture. It soon succumbed to its injuries, an innocent creature beaten to death for entertainment.”

Bhutto further states in the article that another donkey was mercilessly attacked the day after. In her words, “the skin on its face was ripped off, the flesh on its forehead was ripped apart till all that remained between its eyes was a pulpy, bloody hole. The RCF did not say whether the animal was a victim of the same party but, in a landscape of venomous online trolling, people are afraid to say very much these days.”

One had expected Pakistan’s playboy cricketing icon, now set to become the Prime Minister, to at least come out with a strident, public condemnation of the savage torture of the two donkeys and remove the culprits from his party. There is no indication that he has done either or both. Any argument that compassion for animals, and anger over cruelty to them, are personal attributes and have nothing to do with governance will not wash. Compassion and sensitivity to cruelty are indivisible. The overwhelming majority of those who are kind to animals are also kind to humans and vice-versa. Compassion for the poor and suffering and anger over cruel suppression of the rights of people and legitimate, peaceful protest, is central both to the ethos of a liberal, democratic society, and the framing of policies that define a just and fair Government. Compassion for trees — sentient living beings — is important to the protection of forests, which is a critical component of efforts to save the environment. Not surprisingly, Ar-ticle 51-A(g) of the Constitution of India, states in the context of the Fundamental Duties of citizens, “It shall be the duty of every citizen of India to protect and improve the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers and wildlife and to have compassion for living creatures.”

If Imran Khan has not acted severely against those who have savagely tortured the two donkeys, then the fact underlines the allegation by many that he is utterly insensitive person who is not moved to anger by savage, wanton cruelty. The incident provides an equally damning commentary on his followers’ characters. A large section of them clearly comprises the dregs of Pakistan’s society. The question is: How does this country deal with a person like him, particularly given the kind of supporters he has?

While the dregs have played a significant role in Imran Khan’s rise to power the others who have contributed include members of Pakistan’s urban middle class with their hope for a cleaner politics and better governance, fundamentalist Islamist organisations to which he has been pandering over the years, and pious Muslim moved by the growing religiosity that he has been publicly displaying.

The enabling, over-arching support has, of course, been the Army which did everything it could to ensure PTI’s victory. The process began long before the elections. The Army manipulated the movement launched by three fundamentalist organisations — Tehreek-i-Labaik Pakistan, Tehreek-i-Khatm-i-Nabuwwat and Sunni Tehreek Pakistan — demanding the dismissal of Pakistan’s Law Minister, Jahid Hamid, holding him responsible for alleged changes in Pakistan’s Election Act 2017 altering the Khatm-i-Nabuwwat (Finality of Prophethood) oath compulsory for electoral candidates. They were not moved by the Governments attribution of the change to a “clerical error” and amendment of the Act to remove it. Finally, the Government had to surrender following a three-week siege of Islamabad and other cities; Hamid resigned on November 27, 2018. The Army’s role became clear when, despite being ordered by the Interior Ministry to restore law and order, the Army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, suggested peaceful handling of the protestors. After Hamid’s resignation, the Labaik chief, Khadim Hussain Rizvi, thanked General Bajwa’s for his help in ending the stand-off.

Earlier, the Army had played a dubious role in relation to the movement accompanying the “Azadi March” which lasted from August 14 to December 17, 2014. The march was a synchronized campaign, albeit with different agendas, by Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and Muhammad Tariq-ul-Qadri’s Pakistan Awami Tehreek, for the removal of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. It led to much violence before Imran Khan called it off on December 17, 2014, following Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan’s attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar on December 16, which had caused 141 deaths, 132 of which were of school children. The Army’s role had become clear almost at the very beginning of the march when it had issued a statement calling for restraint by the police. There was no condemnation of the agitation which sought to remove an elected prime minister, whose party, the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) had won 190 of the 342 seats in Pakistan’s parliament in the 2013 General Elections, through street upheavals.

As the July 25 parliamentary elections approached, a number of measures like Nawaz Sharif’s disqualification from holding political office, his and his daughter’s arrest, intimidation of his party’s candidates into not contesting or changing sides, and massive, intimidatory Army presence on election day, were part of an all-out effort to defeat PML-N and ensure Imran Khan’s victory.

Imran, who, in 2014, demanded Nawaz Sharif’s resignation on the ground that the latter had become Prime Minister by wholesale rigging of the 2013 elections, has now become Prime Minister on the basis of an election widely considered rigged. While this, the underlying irony is engaging, critically important for India is that he has been put in office by the Pakistan Army and will do its bidding on all issues, particularly ties with India and Kashmir.

(The writer is Consultant Editor, The Pioneer, and an author)

Write: Hiranmay Karlekar

Courtesy: The Pioneer

The ‘friendship pillar’ placed in Lhasa reads: Tibetans to be happy in the land of Tibet and Chinese in the land of China. The authorities seemed in China seems to have forgotten to provide a translation of what it reads.

In 821 AD, Tibet’s great emperor, Tritsuk Detsen and his Chinese counterpart entered into an agreement “seeking in their far-reaching wisdom to prevent all causes of harm to the welfare of their countries now or in the future.”

The Peace Treaty signed between Tibet and China was carved in Tibetan and Chinese language on a stone pillar which was placed in front of the Jokhang Cathedral in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital. A few years ago, the Chinese decided to restore the pillar describing the grand alliance; the communist authorities, however, forgot to give the translation of the ‘friendship’ pillar.

Last week, when the Chinese Premier Li Keqiang visited Lhasa, he walked down to the stone pillar and affirmed that the monument was a model for unity between the Tibetans and the Chinese. Li probably did not read the Treaty: “Tibet and China shall abide by the frontiers of which they are now in occupation. All to the east is the country of Great China; and all to the west is, without question, the country of Great Tibet. Henceforth on neither side shall there be waging of war nor seizing of territory. If any person incurs suspicion, he shall be arrested. …Tibetans shall be happy in the land of Tibet, and Chinese in the land of China. Even the frontier guards shall have no anxiety, nor fear.”

This was forgotten when the communist troops walked into Tibet in October 1950. Today, Tibet is an ‘unalienable’ part of China (and the frontier guards have shifted to the Indian border). The ‘unalienable’ part was highlighted by Premier Li during his visit. It is the art of rewriting history with Chinese characteristics.

Interestingly, it was the first ever visit of a Chinese Premier to the Roof of the World. It is usually the Chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, also a Member of the all-powerful Standing Committee of the Politburo (presently Wang Yang) who visits Tibet, not the Premier. The head of the United Front Work Department also regularly ‘inspects’ the Roof of the World. One reason for this unexpected change might be that President Xi Jinping (who was then travelling in Africa) finally tries to delegate some of his responsibilities to Li Keqiang; rumors to this effect have recently been circulating in China.

The coverage of the visit is another sign that all is not smooth in the Middle Kingdom.

Usually such an important visit would be announced after the VVIP is back in Beijing; only then reports would appear in Chinese and later the English version would come out, tailored for the foreign public. This time, it was rather chaotic; some English websites broke the news on the first day of the visit, while Xinhua kept mum till Li was back in Beijing. Are there two voices of China?

Remember in March, after the legislative and consultative meetings, China decided to unify its voice. The State Council announced that the Government had formed the world’s largest media group called Voice of China, combining the existing China Central Television, China National Radio, and China Radio International under one unified umbrella and name. It was the responsibility of the publicity (ex-propaganda) department to manage it. But in the case of Li Keqiang’s visit to Tibet, China spoke incoherently. While the media affiliated to the State Council covered it nearly ‘live’; Xinhua waited for Li’s return to Beijing to report.

What were the visit’s highlights?

The atheist Premier went to the Jokhang Cathedral in Lhasa, he told some monks in attendance that he hoped that “Tibetan religious patriots could learn from the eminent monks in history, and devote themselves to maintaining the unity of the state, ethnic solidarity, a harmonious society and smooth religious affairs.”

All the monks are obviously not good ‘patriots’, a fact which worries Beijing. Li also urged “religious circles to continue to make contributions in safeguarding national unity and promoting ethnic solidarity as well as social harmony.”

China Tibet Online had reported earlier that Li Keqiang visited Southern Tibet on July 25. Apparently, Li went directly to Nyingchi prefecture, bordering Arunachal Pradesh where he visited a village in Mailing County; this is a new village inhabited by Monpas, who have been ‘relocated from impoverished areas’, located next door. Metok County is situated on the Yarlung Tsangpo (Brahmaputra), north of Upper Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh.

Li went to a newly-built house of a Tibetan named Kunsang; he sat with the ‘migrant’ family and talked to the six members of the household about their daily life. Kunsang told Li that his family moved from Metok County, where “road travel is fairly difficult”. This is rather surprising considering that since 2013, when a tunnel was opened, the Chinese propaganda has been stressing the ‘changes’ in Metok, principally mentioning better communications. So why move people to a nearby County, if the situation had improved so much in the first place?

Li was said to have been really pleased “to see that the villagers have cast off poverty through the relocation programme and lived a prosperous life.” The Premier wished the family an even more prosperous life in the future.

It is difficult to understand why this family was ‘shifted’ from Metok to Mainling County in the first place. Were they creating problems for the Chinese government near the Indian border? It is possible. Metok, like several other places on the border, has been the focus of very generous investments from the Central Government, the local Government as well as different Provincial Governments. It is doubtful if ‘poverty alleviation’ was the reason for this transfer of population.

For the Tibetans, it should be worrying, considering that the Premier’s visit takes place just days before the yearly summer retreat of the party’s top bosses in Beidaihe, which is always the occasion to discuss ‘new’ policies. Will reallocation of Tibetans within Tibet (like it is happening in Xinjiang) from border areas be discussed?

Incidentally, Li met with the hard-core Old Guard: Phakpala, Raidi, Jampa Phuntsok, Legchok and Passang, who served in Tibet for decades; he praised their past work for the ‘stability’ of Tibet.

Has Beijing decided to return to ‘pure’ communist policies of the old days, symbolised by these cadres? It is quite frightening.

(The writer is an expert on India-China relations and an author)

Writer:  Claude Arpi

Courtesy: The Pioneer