Now let the PM square this circle

Arun Shourie: Tuesday, November 28, 2006

What had the prime minister drawn as the contours beyond which India would not budge on the Indo-US nuclear deal? Do the provisions of the bill as finally passed by the Senate fall within those contours? If they do not, how can the country now be made to swallow the deal?

The prime minister’s website records some of the responses he gave to the nuclear scientists when he met them after his statement of 17 August, 2006 in the Rajya Sabha. Asked about what India’s response would be if the US Congress passed the bills as they had emerged from the House and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Dr Singh said: “I had taken up with President Bush our concerns regarding provisions in the two bills. It is clear that if the final product is in its current form, India will have grave difficulties in accepting the bills. US has been left in no doubt as to our position...In their final form, if US legislation or the NSG guidelines impose extraneous conditions on India, the government will draw the necessary conclusions consistent with my commitments to Parliament.”

Dr Manmohan Singh had earlier told the Rajya Sabha itself, “We have concerns over both the House and Senate versions of the bill.” He had recalled the 18 July, 2005 Joint Statement and the Separation Plan that government had announced in March 2006, and added, “What we can agree with the United States to enable nuclear cooperation must be strictly within these parameters.”

The bill as it has been passed by the Senate is not just what it was then, and in accepting which the prime minister had said India “will have grave difficulties,” it now has provisions which, as we shall see, put it even farther outside the lakshman rekhas that Dr Manmohan Singh had drawn in the Rajya Sabha. But, lo and behold, the bill is being projected as a great breakthrough for the nuclear deal, indeed for India. The fact that the vote in the Senate was overwhelmingly in its favour, is being projected as a triumph of Indian diplomacy!

What had the prime minister spelled out as the contours beyond which India would not budge? Do the provisions of the bill as finally passed by the Senate fall within those contours? If they do not, how can the country now be made to swallow the deal?

Our foreign policy’s independence

To begin with, the prime minister told the Rajya Sabha: “I would, hence, again reiterate in view of the apprehensions expressed, that the proposed US legislation on nuclear cooperation with India will not be allowed to become an instrument to compromise India’s sovereignty. Our foreign policy is determined solely by our national interests. No legislation enacted in a foreign country can take away from us that sovereign right. Thus there is no question of India being bound by a law passed by a foreign legislature. Our sole guiding principle in regard to our foreign policy, whether it is on Iran or any other country, will be dictated entirely by our national interest.”

He returned to this issue in his response to questions that were raised after he had spoken. He again said:

“Government is clear that our commitments are only those that are contained in the July Joint Statement and in the Separation Plan. We cannot accept introduction of extraneous issues on foreign policy. Any prescriptive suggestions in this regard are not acceptable to us.”

Asked a third time about the reference in the bills to Iran, he said yet again:

“We reject the linkage of any extraneous issue to the nuclear understanding. India’s foreign policy will be decided on the basis of Indian national interests only.”

Well, the bill as passed by the Senate requires, as a condition for the waiver authority to become effective, the president to certify that “India is fully and actively participating in United States and international efforts to dissuade, sanction, and contain Iran for its nuclear program consistent with United Nations Resolutions.”

Nor has this clause been included inadvertently. Even during the hearings of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a senator had closely questioned officials of the US government about a newspaper report that India was giving training to Iranian naval personnel, and had refused to believe their explanations that the ships in question had only made a port-call at Kochi. During the full debate on amendments, Senator Harkin, who introduced the Iran amendment, pointed at length to the fact that, while India had twice voted with the US in the IAEA, it had tried to keep Iran out of the reach of the Security Council and thus beyond the reach of sanctions. He drew attention to the resolution which India had joined in passing at the meeting of Non-Aligned Countries in Havana. He pointed to the “robust relationship” of India with Iran. He recalled that recently sanctions had to be imposed on two Indian firms for exporting chemicals to Iran which could be used for chemical weapons, and that the Indian External Affairs spokesman had claimed that the exports were “not in violation of our regulations or our international obligations.” “This is deeply disturbing,” the senator told his colleagues. “What this means is that India’s current export control laws are inadequate and do not meet the same high standards of US export laws.” He said, “India actively engages in military-to-military cooperation with Iran...” He told his Senate colleagues, “The ties between India and Iran are troubling.” “That is why I believe we must — through my amendment — require the president to provide a determination that India is actively supporting efforts to contain Iran’s nuclear program before he can waive existing restrictions on civil nuclear commerce with India.”

It was after all this that the Senate inserted the clause into the bill.

Now, it can be argued, and the prime minister has stated this on occasion in the context of Iran, that it is not in India’s national interest that there should be another state in the region that has nuclear weapons. Moreover, he has pointed out that, being a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Iran must abide by the international obligations it has undertaken. The point is different. When what we must do on a matter as grave as this is made part of the law of the US and an agreement that we sign with it, our hands get tied. Tomorrow, the US changes its mind, we must, adhering to our international commitments no less, also change our mind! Yesterday, arming, financing the Taliban was good — to defeat the USSR; we would have had to believe it to be good. Today, Taliban are a scourge; we must believe that too, and act accordingly.

‘Full’ means ‘less than full’

Next, the prime minister placed great emphasis on the fact that the nuclear cooperation from the side of the US must be “full”. That is what the 18 July, 2005 Joint Statement had pledged, he pointed out. Nothing less would be acceptable. It is necessary to read his precise words:

“Let me now turn to some of the concerns that have been expressed on the second set of issues regarding possible deviations from assurances given by me in this august House on the July 18, 2005 Joint Statement and the March 2, 2006 Separation Plan. I would like to state categorically that there have neither been nor will there be any compromises on this score and the government will not allow such compromises to occur in the future.”

Recalling what had been stated in the Joint Statement and the Separation Plan, he emphasised, “This Separation Plan had identified the nuclear facilities that India was willing to offer, in a phased manner, for IAEA safeguards, contingent on reciprocal actions taken by the United States. For its part, the US administration was required to approach the Congress for amending its laws and the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group for adapting its guidelines to enable full civilian nuclear cooperation between India and the international community.”

Not to leave any doubt about what “full” meant, the prime minister reiterated: “The central imperative in our discussions with the United State on Civil Nuclear Cooperation is to ensure the complete and irreversible removal of existing restrictions imposed on India through iniquitous restrictive trading regimes over the years. We seek the removal of restrictions on all aspects of cooperation and technology transfers pertaining to civil nuclear energy — ranging from nuclear fuel, nuclear reactors, to re-processing spent fuel, i.e. all aspects of a complete nuclear fuel cycle.”

“... We will not agree to any dilution that would prevent us from securing the benefits of full civil nuclear cooperation as amplified above.”

And a third time: “We seek the removal of restrictions on all aspects of cooperation and technology transfers pertaining to civil nuclear energy — ranging from supply of nuclear fuel, nuclear reactors, reprocessing spent fuel, i.e., all aspects of complete nuclear fuel supply. Only such cooperation would be in keeping with the July Joint Statement.”

But Section 106 of the bill as passed by the Senate expressly prohibits “export or re-export to India of any equipment, materials, or technology related to enrichment of uranium, the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, or the production of heavy water.”

Nor is this accidental. Article 1 of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty binds the US not to directly or indirectly assist any non-nuclear weapon state to acquire or manufacture nuclear weapons. All the three items listed in Section 106 are useful for producing nuclear weapons. Its existing laws also explicitly prohibit the US from allowing the export of any technology relating to these aspects. Officials of the US administration state that they have made this plain to Indian negotiators time and again.

Both in the report of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and during the debate in the full Senate, members drew attention to the fact that non-proliferation of nuclear weapons remains a key objective of US policy, and of this agreement with India too. They pointed out that enriched uranium, reprocessed spent nuclear fuel and heavy water are used for production of nuclear weapons. They recalled that in an important address to the National Defence University in February 2004, President Bush had spoken of the loophole in Article IV of the NPT that “enables non-nuclear weapon states to acquire all forms of nuclear technology, including sensitive uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing facilities, as long as they are under IAEA safeguards and are used exclusively for peaceful purposes.” In particular,

President Bush called on the Nuclear Suppliers Group to “tighten its export control guidelines by prohibiting the export of enrichment and reprocessing technology and equipment to countries that do not already operate enrichment and reprocessing plants.” In fact, the president had gone further and urged the Nuclear Suppliers Group to also ban such transfers: “The 40 nations of the Nuclear Suppliers Group,” he had said, “should refuse to sell enrichment and reprocessing equipment and technologies to any state that does not already possess full-scale, functioning enrichment and reprocessing plants.” He had also noted that “enrichment and reprocessing are not necessary for nations seeking to harness nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.”

Condoleezza Rice and the under secretary who has been negotiating this deal with our officials, Nicholas Burns, both testified before the Senate Committee that the US would not allow transfer of equipment, materials or technologies for any of the three purposes. They told the Senate Committee that they had already informed the Nuclear Suppliers Group that the US would not allow such transfers to take place. Accordingly, while testifying before the Senate Committee, the Under Secretaries, Burns and Joseph, stated that “full civil nuclear cooperation will not include enrichment or reprocessing technology.” And, furthermore, that the administration was not contemplating any transfers of these relating to production of heavy water either. During the debate, the sponsors of the bill, like Senator Biden, themselves recalled these statements of the president and other officials of the administration. They said that such prohibition was necessary in view of US laws; in view of US obligations under Article I of the NPT; and in view of the fact that one of the principal objectives of the US remains the limitation of military uses of nuclear energy. As one of the co-sponsors of the bill, Senator Biden, told the Senate, Section 106 is designed to legally prohibit such transfers because “these technologies are all used to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons. In fact, the administration already has a worldwide policy of not exporting these technologies.” “Some Indian officials are reportedly upset because section 106 singles out India,” he continued. “But they have long known that it is US policy not to sell them these technologies, so this is a matter more of pride than of substance, which I hope they deal with.”

I am sure the senator must not have had our prime minister in mind — for the latter is known the world over for being free of pride!

The senators said that they were deliberately making the prohibition tighter than IAEA safeguards: the latter prohibit the transfer only of nuclear materials; the bill they were sponsoring prohibited not just materials but, in addition, technologies that may help in any of the three spheres.

Nor does the bill just prohibit the US from transferring materials, equipment and technologies that may assist in enriching uranium, reprocessing spent fuel or in production of heavy water. Section 103(7) of the Senate Bill imposes a further duty on the president. It lays down: “Given the special sensitivity of equipment and technologies related to the enrichment of uranium, the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, and the production of heavy water, to work with members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, individually and collectively, to further restrict the transfers of such equipment and technologies, including to India.”

In view of the categorical pledge of the prime minister that “We will not agree to any dilution...” in this regard, that “Only such cooperation would be in keeping with the July Joint Statement” as encompasses all aspects of the fuel cycle “ranging from supply of nuclear fuel, nuclear reactors, reprocessing spent fuel,” etc., by what rationalisations will the government now accept the deal?

(To be continued)

Combating Terrorism -II

Arun Shourie
�A State that�s patronising terrorists should wake up to the consequences; in any case its immediate neighbours must�

* Corresponding to the four ��don�ts�� are six ��do�s��: Believe what the ideologues and organisations of the terrorists say. The one thing for which ideologues and organisations can be credited is that they are absolutely explicit about their aims and objectives. The fault -- the fatal fault -- is that of liberal societies: to this day they continue to shut their eyes to what these organisations proclaim to be their aim: domination, conquest, conversion of the ��land of war�� into the ��land of peace,�� that is the land which is at peace because it is under their heel -- exactly as they had shut their eyes to Hitler in the 1930s and to Stalin later. Read their press, reflect over their books and pamphlets, and act in time -- that is, before they have wreaked the havoc they proclaim they will.

* To combat a belief-system One must have a thorough knowledge of the scriptures of that ideology: during the early 1980s, propagandists start asserting, ��Sikhism is closer to Islam than to Hinduism;�� how can one counter the poison unless one has deep and intimate knowledge of the Granth Sahib, unless one knows what the Gurus fought for and against whom they fought? Commentator after commentator has been referring to the Taliban as Deobandis, he has been recounting how they were minted at the Binauri madrasa in Karachi. But unless we know what the Dar ul Uloom in Deoband has been churning out we will be easily deflected from grasping what has been forged in those factories of hatred.

* Similarly, unless we have liberated ourselves from the shackles of political correctness sufficiently to broadcast what these religious seminaries have put out, and are putting out to this day, how will we awaken citizens to the danger that faces them?

* Go by what the scripture as a whole says, not by what a stray passage plucked from it says - what will determine the outcome is the mind which the scripture, the tradition creates; and this will be determined by the teaching as a whole, not by a stray passage.

* Go by the plain meaning of the scripture, not by the construction that apologists and commentators contrive to put on it: again, it is by the plain meaning of the scripture that the faithful will proceed, not by the convolutions of some liberal.

* Go by what those who are recognised by that group as authorities say about the ideology -- the CPSU in Stalin�s Russia, the ulema in Islamic groups and States; not by what some columnist or retired politician says. Often great effort is expended in securing press statements that support the anti-terrorist campaign -- on occasion even a fatwa has been procured to that effect. These are useless.

Those who issue them are dismissed as ��sarkari sants��, their statements are rejected as command performances. This rejection reflex is deeply, and consciously instilled into members of such groups, indeed into the communities themselves. If someone who is not a member of the group -- if he is not a Communist, if he is not a Muslim -- his critique will be rejected automatically: what else can you expect from that ��agent of imperialism�� in one case, from that ��enemy of the faith�� in the other.

On the other hand, no believer will raise questions of any consequence -- neither about the basic approach of the group nor about, to take the current context, the individual act of destruction.

If he does so, his critique will be dismissed as swiftly, and as much by reflex: ��he has crossed the barricades,�� that was the refrain about fellow-travelers who at last spoke up; ��he is an apostate�� -- that has been the refrain in Islamic societies for centuries about any believer who has dared to raise even the slightest question that touches fundamentals.

To gauge the true content of that ideology and its potential for evil, see what these authorities do when they are in power: to ascertain what Communism actually means, do not be lulled by the act that Communists have to put up in a free and open polity such as ours; see what their gods did in Stalin�s Russia, in Mao�s China; to gauge what a religion portends, see what their rulers did in medieval India, what Iran went through under Imam Khomeini, what the Taliban have been doing in Afghanistan.

Terrorism is just a weapon, it is just one among an array of weapons. To expect that by killing one band of terrorists, smashing one network, or even by reclaiming one country from the grip of an extremist band, one has taken care of the problem is suicidal. The aim of the terrorist is not to trigger one explosion, his fulfillment is not in carrying out one assassination. The explosion and assassination are instruments. The terrorist is himself an instrument, he sees himself as an instrument -- of history in Marxism-Leninism, of the Will of Allah in Islam.

For that reason to think that by giving in over Chechnya, by making concessions to Hamas, by handing Kashmir to them, one will effectively deal with ��the causes of Muslim anger�� is to play the fool. For the believer the ��problem�� is not Chechnya or Kashmir. The ��problem�� is that aeons having passed, the world has not yet accepted his creed.

His object is not the real estate of Chechnya or Kashmir, or Jerusalem. His object -- indeed, the duty which has been ordained for him -- is to convert the land of war, that is the land the people of which have not yet submitted to that creed, into one in which that creed prevails. The believer cannot remain true to his faith unless he prosecutes the war till this consummation is achieved. Ideologues and propagandists have a well-practiced division of labour in this regard.

The directors of the ideology intoxicate believers with visions of how affairs will be ultimately -- of how total domination will be secured over the whole world. The propagandists addressing the rest of the world, on the other hand, focus a narrow beam -- on the next, single objective: Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya. The beam is as blindingly intense as it is narrow: the aim is to convince ordinary folk that if only this one concession is made, all problems will cease. This focus and suggestion is accompanied by a systematic campaign -- through front-organisations, intellectuals, fellow travelers -- that raises an ��intellectual�� debate, and thereby foments doubts in the minds of the victims about the moral rights of the issue.

The assault has two prongs. On the one hand violence and terror: these aim at tiring out the victims by inflicting death and carnage. Simultaneously, doubts are fomented in the victims developed about the rightness of their cause -- these ripen into a rationale for capitulation: why not yield a bit on Kashmir?, after all, this one gesture will ensure peace, and we will be free to go our way after that; in any case, the world is not entirely convinced of our case... Victory on that one item in its pocket, the group commences the same sequence on the next target: and doing so is but natural, for the issue -- Kashmir, Chechnya -- was just an instrument.

BELIEVERS will inevitably come to internalise this mindset -- of unremitting violence � whenever the ideology has the following ingredients:

* Reality is simple;

* It has been revealed to one person;

* That person has put it in one Book;

* Every syllable in that Book is divine, it is the ultimate truth; anything that contradicts what is in the Book is not just false, it is a device of the Devil, a device to mislead and waylay the believer; nothing that is not in the Book is of consequence;

* The Book is difficult to fathom;

* Therefore, believers require an intermediary -- the Party, the Church, the ulema;

* Once all humans embrace the way of life that the Book prescribes, eternal peace and prosperity will break out; unless all embrace it, that dawn will not break;

* It is, therefore, the duty of that intermediary to invite you to accept the Faith;

* The truth of the message is so vivid that if, in spite of the invitation, you do not embrace the faith, that is itself proof that you are inherently evil; it is, therefore, the duty of that intermediary, indeed it is the duty of every ordinary adherent to put you out of harm�s way: for you are then blocking the march of History -- in Marxism-Leninism, you are blocking the Will of God, you and your obstinacy are thwarting the dawn, and manifestly you are doing so because of the evil in you;

* As this is a duty ordained, it is but right that the agent use whatever means are required to ensure that the Cause prevails. Unless the rest of the world has come to consist of docile imbeciles, these propositions inevitably entail violence -- the forms of violence that come to mind when we talk of terrorism being just the weapon of choice for a particular circumstance, a particular locale.

THE faith has three further ingredients:

* It forecloses alternatives to inevitable, protracted, indeed eternal, and violent struggle. Allah, for instance, repeatedly declares that unbelievers are congenitally perverse, that nothing the faithful can possibly do will bring them round -- for, He says, I have Myself made them turn their faces away from Me; indeed, He tells believers, I have deliberately put them in your way to test you. They have but one aim, He tells believers: to turn you away from your faith, to beguile you into becoming like them, to deceive you into giving up your duty.

* It drugs the faithful into believing that victory is not just inevitable, it is imminent. Recall, the ��imminent collapse of capitalism�� theses that were the staple of Communist pamphleteering.

* But as victory eludes the believers, the Faith provides rationalizations, indeed consolations for failure. It conditions the believer -- in this case the terrorist -- to persevere in either event, in the face of defeat as much as upon succeeding.

* When he succeeds, he is fortified in the belief that Jehovah in the Old Testament, Allah in the Quran, History in the Marxist texts, is on his side. When he fails, the indoctrination leads him to believe that Jehovah, that Allah, is just testing him -- God wants to assess whether his faith in Him will falter in the face of the setback. In the alternate ��secular�� religion, the adherent is conditioned to believe that, as History moves dialectically, the setback will itself create the conditions for eventual success.

Faced with such indoctrination, two things are imperative:

* Know the opiate, broadcast it before hand, and thereby provide the spectacles through which the believer will view the event;

* Having forged the spectacles, do not just sit back and hope that the believers will see events through them. In the wake of the engagement, especially when the terrorist group has been subjected to a setback, show up the hollowness of the rationalizations that the believers had internalised. Of course, the group will have its ways of shutting out the evidence of defeat. But even as it does so, it will be weakening the foundations of falsehood on which its edifice is built.

Till the other day, Pakistani intellectuals and ulema were projecting the Taliban as one of the great successes -- of the Army and the ISI who had secured ��strategic depth�� for Pakistan, of Islam -- for rulership of pure, idealist youngsters had been established, a rulership that the people loved as it had brought peace, as it had pulled them back from the abyss of immorality and licentiousness.

That was the refrain -- day in and day out for years. And then suddenly Pakistan was being told that joining the campaign to crush the very same Taliban was a masterstroke. The somersaults that the Comintern used to execute seemed so clever at the time. Soon, they delegitimized the ideology itself.

The lethal potential of these ideologies is now compounded by the fact that States such as Pakistan have adopted terrorism as an instrument of State policy. Musharraf has said in so many words, ��Jehad is an instrument of State policy.�� For such States this is a particularly attractive proposition: it is war on the cheap. The ideology that goes with adopting such means, the spread of the gun-culture that invariably accompanies such a strategy, eventually boomerangs -- as the Talibanisation of Pakistan shows. But in the meanwhile the decision of a State to adopt terrorism as an instrument is certain to inflict enormous costs on its neighbours.

What was said of Mussolini�s goons is doubly true of terrorists: ��they were nothing without the State, but with it they were unstoppable.�� In a shrunken world, all countries are the ��neighbours�� of such a State -- as the US has been reminded by the 11th September attacks. The State that patronises such governments or States should wake up to the consequences its patronage will foment. In any case, the immediate neighbours must.

Often a State can end up inflicting grave injury on another even when it does not bear active hostility towards its neighbour. For instance, the intelligence agencies and sections of the Army of Bangladesh are so closely linked to their counterparts in Pakistan that leaders and cadre of groups such as ULFA operate in complete safety from them. Bhutan and Myanmar exemplify a different sort of situation: the administrative grip of these countries over their own territory is so loose that terrorists operating in India are able to carve out their own areas of influence in those countries.

AS important as getting at the State which patronises terrorists is to get at their networks. Terrorists have established numerous fronts: mosques, madrasas, ��research institutions��, ��charity foundations��. The range of persons and organisations against whom the US and other countries had to move after the 11th September attacks -- from those that had been involved in managing finances to those who had been providing safe houses -- gave a glimpse of how the networks, even of just one brand of terrorism, now spread across the globe. Indeed, one of the devices they have mastered is how to use religion and ��religious bodies�� as fronts: Bhindranwale�s conversion of the Golden Temple into a headquarters for terror, eventually into a fortress; the use of charities in Pakistan for raising laundering funds for jihadi groups; the orchestrated appeals from across the globe that the Americans suspend bombing during Ramzan...

For a society to survive, it must have the gumption to tear these veils apart, expose the fronts for what they are, and demolish them.

Terrorism constitutes a threat to all: what is being inflicted on one country today can be inflicted on another tomorrow. It is worse than imprudent, therefore, for a State to consort with States that patronise, finance, train, arm, give sanctuary to terrorists.

For the same reason, and as the evil are so well knit, States should share their resources, in particular intelligence to combat terrorism. That is what should be. In the real world, a country such as India must remember that no one else is going to fight our war for us. For fighting that war the sine qua non is: when the battle has been won, do not forget those who delivered you -- as, to our shame and misfortune, we in India are in the habit of doing.

Part I - What if Osama were caught in India? A debate would explode: should he be tried under evidence act? POTO?

Indian Express
December 19, 2001

The Realities of Pakistan

Arun Shourie

As Mr I. K. Gujral proceeded with his "Gujral Doctrine," a friend in RAW said, "He will rue it by September." As we returned from Lahore, he said, "When Pakistan goes so far out to seem friendly, it is planning something big." As Nawaz Sharif kept bringing one institution after another under his heel -- he enacted a version of our anti-defection law which made legislators his bonded men: they stand disqualified the moment they defy the party whip on any matter; he had the President resign; he removed the Chief Justice; he did away with the Council for Defence and National Security thereby curtailing the Army's role; he put a pious cipher into the presidency -- my friend said, "He will go on rushing forward till he bangs his head into a brick wall. It is his nature."

Each of his forebodings came true: the intensification of terrorist explosions -- in Coimbatore, in Delhi, in a score of other places -- as Mr Gujral strove to bring back the days of his youth; Kargil in the wake of Lahore; Nawaz's eventual confrontation with the Army, and its coup now.

An important lesson: my friend was going by the inherent nature of the State and society in Pakistan, not by what should happen; he was going by the nature of Nawaz, others were going by the premise that, in his own interest, Nawaz Sharif will not cross the limit.

Musharraf's new "Proclamation of Emergency" is the eleventh constitutional scheme for running Pakistan. With the removal of Nawaz Sharif's Government, the old record remains: in its 52 year history, only one elected government -- Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's first round in office -- completed its term: in the next round, mounting turmoil forced Bhutto to declare early elections; he won what was widely regarded as a grossly rigged election; his victory was barely in, and he was ousted by Zia in a coup. A constitutional scholar notes, "The Qaid-i-Azam died in September 1948, and the first Prime Minister, Liaqat Ali Khan, was assassinated in 1951. All other executive Presidents and Prime Ministers have been prematurely removed, while General Zia died in suspicious circumstances in a plane crash. This, in short, has been the constitutional and political history of the country." As a result, for twenty five of the fifty two years since independence, Pakistan has been under Army rule in one form or another.

Such a history conditions the mind. It explains not just why people have accepted the latest coup with such evident "calm". It explains why they have in a sense been looking forward to it, several sections have been paving the way for it -- unmindful of what it will do to them, forgetful of what they had undergone the last time the Army was in control: for months now, politicians -- who must have known, after all, that they would be the first to be out of business once military rule is imposed -- have been urging the Army to step in and "save the nation." As has been the case with every other spell of Army rule, a few months from now people will start swearing at this bout of it also. But when they are under civilian dispensation, they can think of no other solution except to place the country once again in the hands of the Army.

And with what felicity the Supreme Court of Pakistan has legitimized such takeovers: endorsing the fiction put forth by Zia -- the Constitution has not been scrapped, it has merely been held in abeyance -- and proclaimed verbatim now by Musharraf! Martial Law was first imposed in Pakistan in 1958 -- by the then Governor General Iskander Mirza, who in turn was soon turfed out by General Ayub Khan. In what is known as the infamous Dosso case, the Pakistan Supreme Court legitimized the usurpation on "the doctrine of necessity": the doctrine, namely, that when saving the country requires that the Constitution be scrapped, the one who seizes power can scrap it. And the legality of an extra-constitutional seizure is established by the fact that it has succeeded! The weakened Ayub "handed over" -- after much manifest persuasion -- to Yahya Khan in March 1966, and the latter imposed his own Martial Law. During his time the country broke in two. The courts kept deliberating; the Supreme Court eventually struck down Martial Law and thereby the "doctrine of necessity" in the Asma Jilani case -- by that time it was hardly necessary, but perfectly safe to do so!

Zia staged his coup in July 1977. Nusrat Bhutto challenged Martial Law. The Supreme Court endorsed it -- going back in effect to the "doctrine of necessity." Indeed, it provided an Islamic basis for it - repeatedly invoking the Shariat maxim, "necessity makes prohibited things permissible"! The Chief Martial Law Administrator -- Zia -- has said that he is not scrapping the Constitution, that he is merely holding it "in abeyance," the Court noted. He has said that he has been forced to do so "for the welfare of the people," it noted. The supervisory jurisdiction of courts such as ours remains unimpaired, it consoled itself. He has solemnly declared that he will hold elections in three months, it noted. The Court has every hope that he will live up to his word, it declared.

This in a judgment delivered months after that three month limit for holding elections had passed! Lest it be seen to be letting out just half a cheer, the Court proceeded and declared, " ...the Chief Martial Law Administrator, having validly assumed power by means of an extra-constitutional step in the interest of the State and for the welfare of the people, is entitled to perform all such acts and promulgate all legislative measures which have been consistently recognised by judicial authorities as falling within the law of necessity, namely: (a) all acts or legislative measures which are in accordance with, or could have been made under the 1973 Constitution, including the power to amend it..."

Zia put that touching faith to work: soon he mutilated the powers of the judiciary itself, he set up an alternative structure of Shariat courts -- and used it both to frighten the populace, as well as to dump inconvenient judges! In little time he in effect overturned the Constitution -- by mere grafts and "amendments"! And all that too in a strictly "constitutional" manner: Article 16 of his "Constitutional Order" of 1981 provided, "The President as well as the Chief Martial Law Administrator [by the grace of Allah, Zia combined both offices in himself] shall have, and shall be deemed to have always had, the power to amend the Constitution"! And the courts cheered him along -- for ushering in an Islamic order!

That is how Pervez Musharraf can so breezily proclaim as law what is by the text of the Constitution treason to be punished by death. "In pursuance of deliberations and decisions of Chiefs of Staff of the Armed Forces and Corps Commanders of Pakistan Army," -- an agglomeration unknown to the Constitution -- "I, General Pervez Musharraf, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee and Chief of Army Staff," -- another entity unknown to the Constitution -- "Proclaim Emergency throughout Pakistan and assume the office of the Chief Executive of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan." How convenient!

That is how he can so easily suspend all legislatures; dismiss all cabinets; place the entire country in the control of the Armed Forces; declare that the country shall continue to be governed "in accordance with the Constitution", "as nearly as may be", and "subject to this Order and any other orders made by the Chief Executive"; that the courts shall continue to function "subject to the aforesaid"; that fundamental rights shall continue in force, to the extent that they are "not in conflict with the Proclamation of Emergency or any other order made thereunder from time to time"; that the President shall continue, except that "he shall act on, and in accordance with the advice of the Chief Executive"; the courts will continue to discharge their duties, "provided that the Supreme Court or High Courts or any other court shall not have the powers to make any order against the Chief Executive or any person exercising powers or jurisdiction under his authority," they shall continue to discharge their functions except that "No judgment, decree, writ, order or process whatsoever shall be made or issued by any court or tribunal against the Chief Executive or any other authority designated by the Chief Executive"; that all laws shall continue in force "until altered, amended or repealed by the Chief Executive or any other authority designated by him" But this is not Martial Law, he declares in his television address!

That is why he can impose a structure which is wholly outside the Constitution, he can acknowledge plainly that he is setting the Constitution aside -- I had to choose between saving a limb, the constitution, he says, and saving the body, the entire country -- and yet declare that the Constitution is just being "held in abeyance".

And there is not a murmur. In fact, on all counts people are gratified that the Army has rid them of their current obsession -- Nawaz Sharif!

That is one reality we must bear in mind the next time we have to deal with a civilian ruler of Pakistan. The second is the sea-change in the nature of the Army itself: over the decades it has become progressively Islamic. The change in its motto has indeed been symbolic: Jinnah had given the Pakistan Army, "Unity, Faith, Discipline" as its motto; Zia replaced it with, "Faith, Piety, Jihad". By now two other factors have pushed it further in that direction: first, it has spawned, and is now intricately entwined with extremist jihadi groups; second, like them, and with them, it is enmeshed in the one flourishing enterprise of Pakistan -- the trade in drugs.

More important, this jihadisation of the Army itself is but a reflection of the jihadisation of Pakistani society as a whole. Indian liberals interact with the liberals there, and assert that Pakistan has a liberal core: but the latter are an inconsequential, minuscule minority. Moreover, many of them have the closest possible social and family ties with high-ups in the Army. Pakistani liberals often counter by saying, "But the fundamentalists have never received more than 3 per cent of the vote, and look at India -- you people have handed over the entire government to fundamentalists." In fact, no party in India works for establishing the sort of theocratic State to which every party in Pakistan is pledged. And these parties -- to say nothing of the liberals -- do not set the agenda: that is set by the heirs of Maulana Maudoodi.

This progressive Islamisation / jihadisation of Pakistani society and State has had the predictable consequence. It is the jihadi version of Islam which is the touchstone for every move. When a ruler grabs unjustifiable power, he announces Islamic steps to legitimize his dictatorship, Zia being the textbook case. When a ruler runs into difficulties, he announces further "Islamization": from Bhutto in 1977 to Nawaz in 1999.

And as far as Pakistan is concerned, the essence of jihadi Islam is to humiliate and defeat and break India. "Allah ke bagiyon ko mazkaraat se nahin, jihad se he khatm kiya ja sakta hai," the Ausaf of 5 October quotes the Amir of Markaz Daawa wal Irshad, Hafiz Muhammad Sayed as declaring: "those rebelling against Allah can be finished not through dialogues but jihad". The entire earth has to be liberated from the rebels of Allah and their evil, he tells the gathering in Islamabad, polytheists can be eliminated through jihad alone -- and the proof of this is that polytheists were annihilated in Kashmir in spite of the nexus among all the infidels of the world on this front. Talks inflict a setback on jihad, it quotes the Amir of Al Badr, Saifullah Amin as declaring, and keep mujahidin from their destination. The Hindu bania understands the language of the gun alone...

That pitchforks Pakistan into a dilemma, of course. It is in dire economic straits: as Musharraf said, it has "hit rock-bottom." It is literally living from day to day -- not even on loans now, but on the rescheduling of its repayment obligations for what it has borrowed in the past. Its foreign exchange reserves are down to five weeks' imports, foreign direct investment as well as remittances from abroad continue their precipitous decline, portfolio investment has been registering a net outflow, Even though the donors had agreed to a generous rescheduling package enabling Pakistan to postpone repayments until the end of 2001, month after month, the IMF has been compelled to postpone releasing tranches that Pakistan needs immediately. July, then September, then "probably November."

This condition circumscribes options, as is evident from Musharraf's address: he chose to speak in English, not Arabicised Urdu; he has styled himself "Chief Executive" not, as Zia had done, "Chief Martial Law Administrator"; he has asked the ulema to counter the extremist version of Islam. But the more he does to allay apprehensions of the West, the more he abides by conditionalities that IMF etc. will demand, the more he opens himself to the charges that were pasted on Nawaz Sharif: that like him, he is being "pro-India, pro-West, anti-Taliban, anti-jihad." On the other hand, like every single Pakistani ruler before him, to survive, he will have to don more and more Islam. But the more Islamic he becomes, the more he will risk alarming the West further. A bind that should ensure some latitude for us.

There is also the "positive side," so to say. By their demonology they are already pushing closer to us those with whom we should be collaborating. "Allah ne hamari zimmedari lagayee hai," the Ausaf of 7 October quotes the Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba declaring, "ki duniya se Isayiyon, Yahudiyon, Hinduyon aur dighar taghooton ki saltanaton ko Allah Akbar ke zarab se pash kar den" -- "Allah has placed a special responsibility on us to eliminate Christians, Jews, Hindus and other evil forces from the world with the blow of Allah Akbar. The USA and other devilish [taghooti] forces are striving to root out jihad from this region" -- they will be crushed, it reports him as proclaiming. "Clinton ko kisi Musalman ka ghulam aur Hillary Clinton ko kisi Musalman ki laundi hona chahiye tha," the paper reports him saying: "Clinton should have been the slave of some Musalman (Muslim), and Hillary Clinton should have been the keep of some Musalman." The Jasarat of 11 October has Maulana Fazal-ur-Rahman, the Chief of the Jamiat Ulema-Islam, declaring Americans to be hypocrites: when militants fought against Russia, Americans honoured them as mujahidin, he declares; when they fight against Hindus to save Muslims from Indian tyranny, Americans dub them terrorists; America is responsible for sectarian killings in Pakistan; under pressure from the Americans the Government [of Nawaz Sharif] is indulging in baseless propaganda against the Taliban, and paving the way for America to invade Afghanistan...

We must not be misled by Musharraf's empty gesture of "troop withdrawal from the international border" -- as the Security Advisor to the Prime Minister has pointed out, this withdrawal had been agreed upon at the meeting of army officers in July itself. Nor by his offer of "unconditional talks" -- in the same address he has declared that Pakistan's "moral, political and diplomatic support" to insurgents in Kashmir will continue -- as Pakistan has never acknowledged that it has been giving any other manner of support, this means that all that it has been doing in regard to Kashmir will continue; he has also repeated in the address that India must ensure "self-determination for the people of Kashmir".

It would be criminal, therefore, to be misled again. Instead we should base our responses on four realities: first, the jihadisation of Pakistani State and society as a whole; second, among sections of society, the Army is more fervently committed to jihad against India than almost any other section -- as Musharraf and his colleague, General Aziz, told each other in the Kargil tapes, the Army has the tuft of the extremist organizations in its hand; third, power now is entirely in the hands of this jihadi institution, the Army; fourth, within the Army, power has fallen to the architect of the Kargil operation.

Israel, with its accustomed clarity, sees the nature of Pakistan. Even the USA is being nudged from its make-believe. But several factors keep it from opening its eyes fully. Its notions of political correctness. The intertwining webs with Pakistan forces and agencies which have been spun over fifty years. The rich man's presumption that everyone can be de-fanged by some doles. The new rationalization: Pakistan is a nuclear weapon State -- if we let it sink, those weapons will fall into the hands of raving lunatics...

So, while in a sense Pakistan itself is preparing the ground for cooperation between India and other countries -- Israel, USA, Russia, Iran and others -- there is a lot of work to be done. Musharraf's coup supplies both -- an opportunity as well as an urgency to the task.

October 18, 1999