“Either diplomacy or war”

Source: Indian Express
Thursday , Aug 13, 2009 at 2353 hrs New Delhi:

“Trust but verify,” the Prime Minister says, invoking Ronald Reagan. Of course, Reagan did not just stop at enunciating a maxim. He worked to, and succeeded in helping dismember “the Evil Empire.” One does not have to even ask whether the Prime Minister will do anything of the sort.

But take the maxim itself that the Prime Minister says he believes in following. Has all verification not already shown that Pakistan has not just been organizing terror-strikes against India, it has conducted a proxy-war continuously, unrelentingly for three decades? Evidence apart, haven’t the highest authorities of Pakistan acknowledged as much? Did Musharraf not proclaim, “Jihad is an instrument of State policy”? Has Zardari not said just a fortnight ago that, indeed, Pakistan spawned terrorists? Has our Army not said just a few weeks ago that infiltration into Kashmir has been stepped up again?

The Prime Minister’s reason for going on trusting is belief, it is faith in the current leadership of Pakistan. He told Parliament on 29 July, “I sincerely believe that it is as much in Pakistan’s interest as it is in ours to strive to make peace. Pakistan must defeat terrorism before being consumed by it. I believe the current there understands that. It may not be very strong, but the impression that I have is that the current leadership understands the need for action. [What “may not be very strong”? The current leadership of Pakistan? The understanding that the current leadership of Pakistan has about the need to fight terrorism? Or the impression that the Prime Minister has formed of the understanding that the current leadership of Pakistan has about fighting terrorism?] I was told by their parliamentarians who accompanied Prime Minister Gilani that there is now a political consensus in Pakistan against terrorism. That should strengthen the hands of its leadership in taking the hard decisions that will be needed to destroy terrorism and its sponsors in their country.”

Last time the faith was in George Bush – “The people of India love you, deeply.” Will we never learn? When Benazir Bhutto was the Prime Minister, we were told, “No, no, you don’t understand. She and Rajivji have excellent rapport. You see, they were at Cambridge at the same time” – as Mrs. Indira Gandhi and Zulfiqar Bhutto had been at Oxford in their time! When Nawaz Sharif replaced Benazir, we were told, “No, no, you don’t understand. He is a businessman. He is a practical wheeler-dealer. We can cut a deal with him.” When Musharraf ousted him, we were told, “No, no, you don’t understand. He is going to be there for years, in any case. It is with him that we have to strike a deal.” When he weakened, the argument became the opposite: “You don’t understand. We have to be generous and come to an agreement that he can present to the Pakis as a victory. Don’t you see, the alternative to him are the mullahs? We have to trust him. We can trust him. You see, he has learnt from Kargil.”

Now that Zardari and Gilani have replaced him, “I believe the current leadership there understands that.” Advocates in the Rajya Sabha added the tested argument: “Don’t you see, whenever there has been democracy in Pakistan, relations with India have been better? If we don’t reach out, these current leaders will weaken. The Army will be back, and relations with India will worsen once again.”

Trust apart, are Zardari and Gilani the “current leadership”? Is it not that collective – the Army, the ISI, and the organizations they have spawned, the LeT/JuD, and the like? On the one hand, the Prime Minister asks us to trust the new realization among the current leaders. On the other, in the same statement to Parliament, he reports that both Zardari and Gilani told him that “Mumbai was the work of non-State actors.” Anyone who is prepared to swallow that does not know a fig about, or is deliberating shutting his eyes to the pervasive presence and role of the Army-ISI and allied agencies in Pakistan’s State and society. But even if that assertion is taken at face value, what does it establish? That Zardari and Gilani may be the “current leadership”, they are not in control. How then can a new realization among them – on which also the only evidence we have is the Prime Minister’s gut feeling, “I believe the current leadership understands that…” – be the basis of policy?

And what precisely is this current leadership prepared to “seriously address”? After the Taliban had reached within 100 miles of Islamabad itself; after the Americans had put the fear of a complete rupture into them, these “current leaders” began an offensive against the Taliban. Only against the Taliban in its western provinces. Indeed, even in that region, only against those sections of the Taliban that have gone out of the control of the ISI-Army.

Neither the “current leadership”, nor, of course, the Army-ISI have raised a little finger against the terrorists and organizations they have reared in the East for assaults on India. Quite the contrary, as we shall see.

The moral is what it has always been: do not go by your assessments of “current leaders”. Go by the nature of Pakistan’s State and society. Go by the attitude of that State and society towards – not Pakistan; not the world; not the US, but – our country. And in that, go by their attitude to what they have made into their obsession regarding our country – that is, Kashmir. Is there the slightest evidence that the basic attitude towards India, and towards what they insist is “the core issue” has changed in any way?

“But we cannot change geography,” the argument goes. “Pakistan is our neighbour. It will always be so.” For seven months, the PM says, we have used all bilateral and multilateral instruments. It is only after doing so that the new course embodied in the Sharm-el-Sheikh Joint Declaration has been charted. Actually, the only things that have been done are two: plead with the US and others to do something; and go on talking to Pakistan at different levels. Naturally, this could not and has not yielded anything.

Pakistan will not desist from what it has for three decades been successfully inflicting on us for the simple reason that we are not able to, and manifestly do not have the nerve to inflict any cost on the ones who are orchestrating the assaults.

But it is diplomacy or war, says the Prime Minister, and the Congressmen echo him in chorus. There is no third alternative.

But even in one element – dialogue – of one of these alternatives, diplomacy – there are two alternatives! Dialogue after the preconditions you have laid down are fulfilled. Or dialogue irrespective of whether what you said were preconditions are fulfilled or not. To get the answer to the question whether the choice is only the binary one that the PM posits –“diplomacy or war” – consider two questions:

• How is it that Pakistan has been able to use a third option against us for 30 years? The option, namely, to inflict, and go on inflicting violence on us, but always do so at a level below the threshold that would trigger a full-scale war?

• How is it that Dawood Ibrahim is able to live in style in Karachi and go on orchestrating operations against India? How is it that Paresh Barua and other leaders of ULFA are able to hide in plain sight in Dacca and go on killing people in Assam?

The answer is obvious: Pakistan has built the requisite capacities, and we have not. After every assault, therefore, we are left in the same quandary: “Either diplomacy or war.” And “diplomacy” here means just going from one capital to the next requesting others to do our work for us.

But things obviously don’t stop there. There is the further lemma: “And as no sane person wants to go to war, the only way is dialogue.” And then the lemma after that: “As Pakistan has shown that it will not fulfill the pledge it had made of not allowing the territory under its control to be used for terrorism against India, there is no alternative to giving up the precondition…”

And so we recommence dialogue – confident that the next assault will make us forget the last one.

Foretold

In the wake of the attacks in Mumbai, the Prime Minister and others in Government laid down two conditions for the resumption of talks and the “peace process”: that Pakistan must bring to book the ones who had planned, controlled and directed the operations from Pakistan; second, that it must dismantle the infrastructure and groups that it had built up for terrorist assaults against India.

These two conditions were reiterated again and again in the months that followed. S.M. Krishna emphasized them as the new Parliament commenced. I said and wrote then that the Government would be compelled to abandon these conditions and resume the so-called dialogue without any conditions whatsoever.

That required no astrology! The reason was simplicity itself. Americans are desperate to get out of Afghanistan. To do so while retaining the pretext that they have accomplished their objectives, they have to be able to claim that they have restored “normalcy”. For that they are dependent on Pakistan. They will, therefore, have to do Pakistan’s bidding. And that bidding will be, “Get us concessions from India.” They will, therefore, force the Government to make concessions. And the modality for that has to be resumption of “dialogue”.

The Government would have to do all this, I said, as it has become perilously dependent on the US.

How much more “composite”?

That is exactly what has happened. The Prime Minister has had a meeting with the Pakistani President. He has had a two-hour meeting with the Pakistani Prime Minister. As The Hindu has reported, and as the Prime Minister has subsequently acknowledged, the head of the ISI, Ahmed Shuja Pasha, has met Military Attaches in our embassy in Islamabad. There have been meetings at other levels – the “formal Track-II”, so to say. In the Sharm-el-Sheikh Joint Statement the roadmap for further talks has been set out: Foreign Secretaries will meet “as often as necessary,” the Foreign Ministers will meet during the forthcoming UN General Assembly session – which, incidentally, begins in just three weeks.

And the talks that have already started cover everything. The Joint Statement says that the two Prime Ministers “considered the entire gamut of bilateral relations…” Not just that. Our PM has pledged that “India was ready to discuss all issues with Pakistan, including all outstanding issues” – the last two words being a euphemism for Kashmir.

The Government makes out that the “composite dialogue” shall actually be kept in abeyance till, as the PM put it in the Lok Sabha, “Pakistan fulfils, in letter and spirit, its commitment not to allow its territory to be used in any manner for terrorist activities against India.” Yet, as we have seen, the talks are taking place. The roadmap for further talks has been set out. The agenda is to cover everything.

A vital substitution

Several other aspects in regard to this sleight of words should be noted. Twice in his statement in the Lok Sabha, the Prime Minister; and then on the 31st July, S.M. Krishna in the Rajya Sabha laid down as the condition that “Pakistan fulfill, in letter and spirit, its commitment not to allow its territory to be used in any manner for terrorist activities against India.” Ostensibly this is the commitment that it had made in the Joint Declaration of Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee and President Musharraf in February 2004.

Do you notice the change the PM and Krishna have made? In the Vajpayee-Musharraf Declaration the words had been carefully chosen: Pakistan shall not allow the territory “under its control” to be used for terrorist attacks against India – that meant the territory of Pakistan and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. Replacing “territory under its control” by “its territory”, as Manmohan Singh and Krishna have begun doing, means either of two things: either that we now recognize POK as Pakistani territory, something that the Vajpayee-Musharraf Declaration specifically did not do; or that Pakistan does not have to do anything in regard to groups and infrastructure that it has created in POK and is using against India.

Another bit of bad drafting?

Furthermore, as “all issues, including outstanding issues” are on the table, has Parliament been told; have even the leaders of other political parties been taken into confidence; I dare ask, have other members of even the Cabinet Committee on Security been taken into confidence about the contours of the “solution” to Kashmir that the Government is prepared to arrive at with Pakistan?

Apart from the intrinsic importance of the issue of Kashmir, there are two reasons why the question is important. First, as we saw in the Nuclear Deal, and as we have now seen in the abandoning of preconditions to which the Prime Minister had committed himself and his Government, Manmohan Singh’s stratagem is to present everyone with a fait accompli. Second, the Resolution that the Parliament passed unanimously on Kashmir and which stands unaltered to this day is that the only unfinished business in regard to Kashmir is for India to get back the portion illegally occupied by Pakistan. Does the Government stand by that Resolution or not?

Foolhardiness to foolishness

Foolhardiness crosses all limits in two subsequent clauses of the Joint Statement. First, “Both Prime Ministers recognized that dialogue is the only way forward. Action on terrorism should not be linked to the composite dialogue process and these should not be bracketed” – an expression that gives, to use the expression much favoured by the Prime Minister, a clean waiver to Pakistan from the commitment it had undertaken in the Vajpayee-Musharraf Joint Declaration.

Nor can this be put to bad drafting. For it faithfully reinforces what Manmohan Singh had agreed to in the statement he signed with Musharraf in April 2005. The peace process is “irreversible”, the two proclaimed. Further, the two “pledged that they would not allow terrorism to impede the peace process.” What was the result? Musharraf’s Army and ISI continued to execute their murderous operations against India; and the onus to keep these from impeding the peace process fell on India! The consequence of the new Statement will be exactly that.

The next provision raises foolhardiness to foolishness: “Both leaders agreed that the two countries will share real time, credible and actionable information on any future terrorist threats.” Imagine this pledge had been signed earlier. The equivalent of Zaradari and Gilani in Pakistan receive information that the Indian Embassy in Kabul is going to be blown up. You think they will pass the information to India? Remember that even the friendly American agencies were constrained to say that the ISI had planned the assault. Or look at it the other way: we get to know that terrorists have captured Kuber, and are moving in to attack Taj, the Railway Station, Oberoi in Mumbai; should we give that information to the Pakistani Government so that its agencies and the handlers may alert the terrorists?

Will we never learn? In July 2006, there were a series of blasts in trains across Mumbai. Two hundred were killed. What was the creative response of our Government? Within two months, in another act of faith, it set up a “Joint Mechanism” with Pakistan for fighting terror! This was presented as the great breakthrough, the result of out-of-the-box thinking – “For the first time Pakistan has agreed to cooperate in curbing terrorism. No earlier Government has been able get Pakistan to do this.” If you count only the major strikes by Islamic groups and only from six months after the Mechanism was formed, giving it time to get functional, so to say, and excluding all the strikes in J&K and the entire Northeast, you bump into the explosions on 19 February 2007 near Diwana in Haryana: 68 killed; in Hyderabad on 18 May 2007: 11 killed; in Hyderabad again on 25 August: 44 killed; in Ajmer on 11 October: 3 killed; near simultaneous blasts in Varanasi, Faizabad, Lucknow: 15 killed; in Rampur on 1 January 2008: 8 killed; 8 blasts in Jaipur on 13 May 2008: 80 killed; 8 blasts in Bangalore on 25 July 2008; 17 blasts in Ahmedabad on 26 July 2008: 53 killed; 5 blasts across Delhi on 13 September, and again on 27 September 2008: 27 killed; 26 to 29 November 2008: assaults at multiple locations in Mumbai: 166 killed. In between, there was the attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul in July 2008. And, of course, the attacks across Kashmir, and the Northeast… [For an authentic, regularly updated enumeration, see the outstanding South Asia Terrorism Portal, www.satp.org]

And all through the Joint Mechanism was holding meetings. Of course now, it will not just hold meetings. The Prime Ministers have pledged that it will also pass on or be furnished “real time, credible and actionable information”!

Narrowing even the single condition

That enumeration is a cruel reminder of another facet of our collective psychology: convenient amnesia. We allow, in fact, we almost use every assault to erase from our minds the memory of previous assaults. Of no one is this truer than of our governments. In the Joint Statement that our Prime Minister has signed, the demand that Pakistan dismantle and destroy the infrastructure and groups which it has set up to attack India, of course, finds no mention. But nor does any assault except the attack on 26/11 in Mumbai. The Indian demand has now been reduced to the minimum – that is, that Pakistan bring the organizers and directors of that attack to book.

And notice what the Pakistani Prime Minister has pledged to do even in regard to this minimal demand. In the Joint Statement we are told, “Prime Minister Singh reiterated the need to bring the perpetrators of the Mumbai attack to justice. Prime Minister Gilani assured that Pakistani will do everything in its power in this regard.” And now see how things work out to the convenience of the perpetrators and organisers. Under pressure from countries across the world, Pakistan put the head of the LeT/JuD, Hafeez Sayeed, under house arrest. In the judgement which the Lahore High Court delivered on 6 June 2009, the High Court released Hafeez Sayeed even from the minor inconvenience of remaining in his own house, recording that not a single document had been brought on record that the Dawa or Sayeed or his associates were involved in the Mumbai incident. It also recorded that no evidence had been adduced to establish that Sayeed or any of his associates had any links with Al Qaeda or any other terrorist movement. Indeed, the court went on to say that “the security and anti-terrorism laws of Pakistan are silent on Al Qaeda being a terrorist organisation.” When the case came up before the Pakistan Supreme Court, the position was no different. The oral remarks that fell from the Chief Justice were along the same lines. Sayeed has, therefore, been set free even from having to remain in his own house.

How very convenient! To make a show of doing something, you ask the man to stay in his house. At the hearings, you produce no evidence. The Court frees the man even from that minor inconvenience. And you claim that you have done everything you had pledged to do. Recall that the Pakistan Prime Minister has pledged Pakistan to do “everything in its power in this regard.” Surely, now the Pakistani authorities can say, “What can we do? Our courts have set the man free. Doing anything more about him or his associates is not in our power.”

In fact, what more evidence is required for proceeding against a person like Hafeez Sayeed or Sallauddin who operates to this day out of Muzzafarabad in POK? Their speeches are available on tapes by the hundreds. The literature recording their hate-filled words and the murderous declarations of their organisations against India and Indians are available in piles and piles of publications. But, to the convenience of all concerned, the court insists on “specific evidence”; the Government produces none; the court sets the man free to work his evil. The commitment enshrined in the Joint Declaration is fulfilled!

The perpetrator as Judge

Nor is that the end of this predictable tale. The Joint Statement goes on to record, “He [ the Prime Minister of Pakistan] said that Pakistan had provided an updated status dossier on the investigations of the Mumbai attacks and had sought additional information/evidence. Prime Minister Singh said that the dossier is being reviewed.” That is exactly what I had warned would happen. Soon after the Mumbai carnage, the Government announced that it would give detailed evidence and information to Pakistan. At that very time, I warned of the consequence of doing so: you will be installing Pakistan on the seat of the Judge; the authorities there, the controllers of those authorities – the very ones who would have sanctioned and planned these attacks – will now be pronouncing on whether the evidence you have given them is sufficient and credible or not. Even the Home Minister, P. Chidambram, has since been compelled to say that furnishing evidence to Pakistan has become an endless exercise – they just keep asking for more. As The Indian Express reported the other day, now Pakistan has asked for a sample of the “pink foam” taken on board MV Kuber; a statement from the Indian magistrate who recorded the confessional statement of Kasab; the testimony of experts who conducted the forensic examination of the GPS device; the testimony of experts that establishes that the terrorists were in touch with handlers in Pakistan; the interrogation reports of others who were first arrested, and so on. As for what we will do now, the Joint Statement records our Prime Minister assuring the PM of Pakistan, “the dossier is being reviewed”!

But through this dossier Pakistan has admitted that persons of and from Pakistan have been responsible for terrorist attacks on India, the PM says. This is the first time that Pakistan has made such an admission. The NDA Government was never able to get the Pakistan Government to admit as much… With Kasab in our hands, with his having made a detailed confession, admitting to the role of Pakistanis is the least that the Pakistan Government could have done.

I become the cause!

Then there is the howler regarding “Baluchistan and other areas.” Apropos of nothing, the Joint Statement records, “Prime Minister Gilani mentioned that Pakistani has some information on threats in Baluchistan and other areas.”

Pressed to put up some sort of defence, Pranab Mukherjee told the Lok Sabha that this was just the unilateral view of the Pakistan Government. Is a Joint Statement of two Prime Ministers the place in which one of them records his unilateral assessment of some internal problem that is on his mind? And just see what the Prime Minister of Pakistan said immediately after the Sharm El Sheikh Statement was put out: “The Joint Statement underlines our concerns over India’s interference in Baluchistan and other areas of Pakistan.” The Interior Minister of Pakistan, the Chief of Staff of the Pakistan Army have all been asserting that India is behind the troubles, and not just in Baluchistan. Pakistan has blamed the troubles in Swat, the explosions at the Police Academy in Lahore, even the attack on the Sri Lankan cricketers on India. And here is our Prime Minister signing a Joint Statement incorporating this “unilateral view”.

The Prime Minister told the Lok Sabha that he had categorically told the Prime Minister of Pakistan that India had nothing to do with the troubles in Baluchistan, etc. As that was the case, what was the difficulty in adding one sentence after that “unilateral view” of the Pakistan Prime Minister? Why could just a few words not have been added to record, “In response, the Prime Minister of India said that India had nothing to do with the troubles in Baluchistan or any other areas of Pakistan”?

But the Government and its backers were not done. In both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, they invoked me to explain the reference to “Baluchistan and other areas” in the Joint Statement! Had I not said in Parliament, they demanded, had I not written that Pakistan will desist only when we acquire the capacity to do a Kashmir to Pakistan in Pakistan? Had I not said that Pakistan itself was presenting us opportunities in Baluchistan, Baltistan, POK, etc.? Had I not said, they asked, “Not an eye for an eye, not a tooth for a tooth. For an eye, both eyes. For a tooth, the whole jaw”? How can you now object to the reference to Baluchistan in the Statement? they demanded.

What importance these spokesmen confer on me! That two Prime Ministers should be moved to make a reference to matters just because of what I had said. I might as well say all that again. After all, that is exactly the view I hold. And may be, by my saying it again, in the next Joint Statement they will refer to me by name!!

Faithful drafting

To attribute all these things to “bad drafting” is worse than disingenuous. No official, certainly not a Foreign Secretary who has served the country with great distinction in the most delicate assignments for decades, would have slipped up on a document as important as a Joint Statement of two Prime Ministers. Quite obviously, someone whose command he could not disregard would have told him to agree to the words which we now find in the Joint Statement.

Moreover, the words faithfully reflect the convictions on which the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, has been proceeding all these years. When the Joint Statement puts the victim of Pakistan’s terrorism – that is, India – at par with the perpetrator of that terrorism – that is, Pakistan – it does so in furtherance of his oft-expressed view that Pakistan is a victim of terrorism. When this Joint Statement records, “Both Prime Ministers recognized that dialogue is the only way forward. Action on terrorism should not be linked to the composite dialogue process and these should not be bracketed,” the Statement does no more than once again reaffirm what Dr. Manmohan Singh pledged in the statement he signed with President Musharraf in April 2005, namely that the two of them “would not allow terrorism to impede the peace process.”

Characteristic

But red herrings are the well-practiced device. The Government has signed the End Use Monitoring Agreement with the US. It maintains, with the same disingenuousness, that, in fact, the Agreement precludes the United States from unilateral inspections of equipment it supplies – that the venue and timing of the inspections shall be determined by India. This is how the Prime Minister put it in the Lok Sabha: “There is no provision – I repeat, there is no provision – for any unilateral action by the United States side with regard to inspection or related matters. India has the sovereign right to jointly decide, including through joint consultations, the verification procedure. Any verification has to follow a request; it has to be on a mutually-acceptable date and at a mutually acceptable venue. There is no provision for on-site inspections or granting of access to any military site or sensitive areas.”

The US supplies F-16 fighters. What will we do? Bring them for display for display and inspection to the India Gate? The US supplies some optical devices for our Air Force’s aircraft. What will we do? Take them out of the aircraft for them to be inspected at some civilian venue?

The fact is that American officials – Condoleezza Rice, Nicholas Burns, and others – had repeatedly assured the US Congress that the Administration would ensure, what they called fall-back safeguards. That is, if the US was not satisfied with the inspections that were carried out by the IAEA, the agreements to be signed with India would ensure that India would give access to US inspectors to inspect the equipment and materials which had come from the US. And the 123 Agreement specifically provided for this – all that it did was to replace the word “inspectors” by the word “experts”. India pledged under that Agreement to “facilitate” the visits of those “experts”.

The End Use Monitoring Agreement merely operationalizes that pledge, and enlarges it to cover all sensitive supplies from the US. That is how the US Assistant Secretary of State, Philip Crawley said that this new Agreement is part of the understandings arrived at during the negotiations of the Nuclear Deal. But we are to swallow, “mutually acceptable date and venue.”

The device is even more evident in regard to the Prime Minister’s new observation in regard to the transfer of enrichment and reprocessing technologies. Throughout the discussions on the Nuclear Deal, when persons like me read out specific provisions of the 1954 US Act, of the Hyde Act, Government spokesman maintained, “But those are laws of the US. We are not bound by them.” The question was: “Is the US Government bound by them? Will US companies that will be exporting materials and reactors and technologies to India be bound by them?”

Persons like me read out the specific provisions of US laws as well as the repeated affirmations of President Bush, Condoleezza Rice and others in which they pledged that India would not be given the processing and enrichment technologies, and that the US Government would work with other members of the NSG to ensure that they also would not make such technologies available to India. But, “No, we are not bound by US laws or what US officials say… ‘Full” means full…”

And now see what the Prime Minister has slipped in. Responding to the concerns which members had expressed about restrictions that seem likely on transfer of enrichment and reprocessing technologies to India, the Prime Minister told the Lok Sabha:

“…our Government is fully committed to the achievement of full international civil nuclear co-operation. Consistent with this objective in September last year, India has secured a clean, and I repeat we secured a clean exemption from the Nuclear Suppliers Group, one that was India specific. At that time also, there were attempts to make a distinction but we got a clean exemption which means that the Nuclear Suppliers Group consisting of 45 countries has agreed to transfer all technologies which are consistent with their national law.”

Did you notice the last seven words -- “which are consistent with their national law”? But, exactly as persons like me had pointed out at the time, the US laws – the 1954 Act, the Hyde Act, the new Act passed in October 2008 approving the 123 Agreement – prohibit the US from transferring such technologies and they bind the US Government to work with other members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group to ensure that they also refrain from transferring such technologies.

That is the device: do what you will; present everyone with a fait accompli; and slip in a few words every now and then to establish that you have done nothing which you have not already said you would do!

Just the trailer

Each step is leading to the next one. The Joint Statement which the Prime Minister has signed with the Prime Minister of Pakistan and the disastrous concessions which he has made through it, are not a case of bad drafting. They are what the conductor – the US – finds convenient. We should, therefore, open our eyes to what is coming: pressures to withdraw over troops from Siachin; pressures to grant “autonomy” to Kashmir… All this simply because the US, dependent as it is on Pakistan today, has, to get Pakistan to curb the terrorists along its Afghan border, to deliver to Pakistan what the latter has not been will to get on its own.

Open your eyes now. No use wailing after the deeds are done.

Surprised ?

Source: Indian Express

Monday , Dec 01, 2008 at 0545 hrs

Our coastal areas are coming under increased threat from terrorist groups, which have decided to use the sea route to infiltrate into India. They also plan to induct arms and ammunition through the sea routes” — that is Shivraj Patil addressing the directors general and inspectors general of police in November 2006. “We understand they (the terrorists) have been collecting information regarding location of various refineries on or near the Indian coastline... Some Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operatives are also being trained specifically for sabotage of oil installations. There are plans to occupy some uninhabited islands off the country’s coastline to use them as bases for launching operations on the Indian coast...”

That was the ever-alert home minister in November 2006. The minister of defence has been no less alert. On March 9 2007, he was asked in the Lok Sabha, whether “the intelligence agencies have warned about the possibility of terrorists trying to infiltrate through the sea route or trying to target our offshore installations?” He answered, “Yes, sir. There are reports about terrorists of various tanzeems being imparted training and likelihood of their infiltration through sea routes...” He was asked whether “maritime terrorism, gun-running, drug-trafficking and piracy are major threats that India is facing from the sea borders of the country?” His answer? “Yes, sir.”

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On May 9 2007, the home minister was asked in the Rajya Sabha, whether “it is a fact that there are strong apprehensions of terrorist threats to the country through the sea route?” “As per available reports,” he answered, “Pak based terrorist groups, particularly LeT, have been exploring possibilities of induction of manpower and terrorist hardware through the sea route...” On December 8, 2007, the National Security Adviser, M.K. Narayanan, was educating the world at the 4th Regional Security Summit organised by the International Institute of Strategic Studies, the Manama Dialogue. “According to our intelligence reports,” he confided to the assembled sheikhs and experts, “there are now certain new schools that are now being established on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, which now specialise in the training of an international brigade of terrorists to fight in many climes. According to our information, recruits from 14 to 15 countries have been identified as amongst the trainees there... Training has become extremely rigorous — it is almost frightening in nature... Studies are being carried out about important targets, with regard to vulnerability, accessibility, poor security, absence of proper counter-terrorism measures, etc. The sea route, in particular, is becoming the chosen route for carrying out many attacks, even on land. References to this are to be found replete in current terrorist literature.” “Given India’s experience in dealing with terrorism,” he added, “I would like to therefore sound a note of warning, that there is no scope for complacency...”

On March 11, 2008, A.K. Antony addressed the “International Maritime Search and Rescue Conference,” in Delhi. He warned the delegates of “dangers of terror attacks from the sea in the region.” In the course of his address, Antony admitted that the Coast Guard faces shortage of manpower as well as hardware. But “necessary steps are being taken to strengthen the search and rescue infrastructure of the Indian Coast Guard...” On November 13, 2008, just a fortnight before the assaults at Mumbai, Manmohan Singh warned the BIMSTEC summit, “Terrorism and threats from the sea continue to challenge the authority of the state...”

By now it was time for Shivraj Patil to address yet another meeting of the DGs and IGs of Police. Thus on November 22, 2008, that is literally on the eve of the attacks in Mumbai, he told the police chiefs, “To control terrorism in the hinterland, we have to see that infiltration of terrorists from other countries does not take place through the sea routes and through the borders between India and friendly countries. The coastlines also have to be guarded through Navy, Coast Guard and coastal police. The states’ special branches and the CID should identify the persons forming part of the sleeper cells and lodging in cities and towns and studying in educational institutions and working in industries and professions...”

And four days later, the terrorists, using the exact same sea route, do the exact same thing that these worthies have been warning others about. Are they consultants to government or ones running the government? Is their job to issue warnings to others or to see that the warnings are acted upon? Warning given, the job is done. But that is the fate of warnings in this system. After all, that very sea route was used to smuggle explosives for the blasts across Bombay in 1993. Were those blasts not warning enough?

Seven years later —in 2000 — the warning and lesson were made explicit yet again. Four task forces were set up in the wake of the Kargil war. The one on border management warned, “The long coastline with its inadequate policing makes it easy to land arms and explosives at isolated spots on the coast.” It recalled that this is exactly how explosives were smuggled into Maharashtra in 1993. “The situation, if anything, has worsened over the years with the activities of the ISI becoming more widespread along the coast particularly by extension into the coast of Kerala... Such coastal areas must be particularly kept under surveillance.”

There is space here to cite just one example. The task force pointed out that the ISI had started using the Lakshadweep archipelago as a major staging point for smuggling arms and personnel into India. The agency used smugglers and their networks — like Dawood Ibrahim and his tentacles — and their routes for doing so. These dons and their networks were given shelter and support in return for helping the agency with its operations against India.

Now, Lakhsdweep has 36 islands. Ten of these are inhabited. Talking of one of these islands — Suheli — the task force pointed out that, sea vessels of smugglers apart, “there have been instances of twin rotor helicopters (of the kind used by militaries) landing at Suheli Island and spotting of unidentified helicopters flying over the waters around the islands...” And what were we doing? “Intelligence gathering in the islands,” the task force recorded, “is carried out by one inspector, one sub inspector, one head constable and three constables working in the special branch at Kavaratti” — just one of the 36 islands. “Intelligence gathering in all other islands is carried out by one head constable/constable who reports to the OIC (the officer in charge) of the police station who in turn passes it on to the inspector (special branch) at Kavaratti.” Please read that again: 36 islands; one inspector, one sub inspector, one head constable and three constables on the main island; and one head constable/constable for all the remaining 35 islands...

What has happened since, what is the position today, I ask the person who has held the highest posts in intelligence. Exactly what it was then, he says, with one difference. With the upgradation of all posts, the inspector (special branch) at Kavaratti is now designated not as officer in charge, but as joint assistant director or deputy central intelligence officer depending on his cadre. As for the other recommendations — patrolling, setting up sensors, and a host of others things are as they were.

And we are surprised!

I can multiply such examples by the score at no notice at all. Recalling just one thing will be sufficient. When, during a debate on national security in the Rajya Sabha, I began citing such passages from the report of this task force, shouts went up from the Congress, “But this is a secret report... How has he got it?... How is he citing it?...” Shivraj Patil remained his composed self, eventually chiding me with the sagacity which even terrorists have by now come to associate with him.

Things to do. First, act on recommendations that are made by committees you set up. Second, that will not happen unless we send a better type into legislatures and, thence, to governments. When we select leaders who treat the police as their private army; when we select leaders for whom investigating agencies are instruments to fix rivals or let off allies, don’t expect the police and agencies to suddenly turn around and forestall terrorists.

Third, remember that little can be achieved unless every aspect of governance, is brought up to par. You can’t have a first-rate commando force and a third rate magistracy. You can’t have defence and intelligence personnel who will nab terrorists and courts that will let them off, or, better still, enable them to live off the treasury as state guests for years. And that excellence must reach down to that “head constable/constable” level. When K.P.S. Gill reconquered Punjab for the country, he did so by strengthening and invigorating the local thana.

Fourth, that is only one part of the explanation. A weakened and confused society explains as much — and the responsibility lies as much with those who have dissipated national resolve, who have made nationalism a dirty word. That set includes the media as much as politicians. Sixty-seventy thousand killed by terrorism and we are still debating whether we should have a federal investigating agency. Sixty-seventy thousand killed by terrorists and we are still debating whether we should have a special law to bring them to book.

Of course, we must have the agency. Of course, we must have the sternest law in the world. But having the law is not enough. We must enforce it. One side of the picture is that, to pander to its vote bank among Muslims, the government has been withholding sanction to the law passed by the Gujarat assembly — even though that law is the exact replica of the law that its own party’s government has passed in adjacent Maharashtra. The other side is that, as the Maharashtra government does not use the law it has, those who will give shelter and support to terrorists give them with abandon — you just have to think of the quantum of weapons that the terrorists brought in; the detailed local knowledge they had — of the spot at which to land their boats, of the location of the building in which Jews and Israelis were staying, of the insides of the hotels, to see that they could not have executed their plans without the most extensive local help, help given over months.

And enforcing the law means carrying out sentences that the law provides. The parliament of India is attacked, guards are killed; one of the killers is tried and convicted, the sentence is confirmed by the Supreme Court, and, eight years after the assault, his “papers are still being processed,” indeed there are signature campaigns against executing the sentence. Given these circumstances, the best thing for a terrorist to succeed in his mission, and then get caught. He will get the best lawyers to defend him. He will get judges who are ever so solicitous about his rights, ever so finicky about procedures. And, of course, he will get activists to shoot off press statements on his behalf. Lawyers better, judges more solicitous, activists more articulate and better networked than any in his own country.

But for any of this to happen, the society has to be clear in its mind. This is, it has for 20 years been, war. It can be won only by overwhelming the adversary — not by running after the terrorist, as K.P.S. Gill says, but by out-running him, indeed by over-running him. Not an eye for an eye. For an eye, both eyes. Not a tooth for a tooth. For a tooth, the whole jaw. Human rights? Yes, we will respect the human rights of the terrorists and their sponsors and their local supporters to the extent that they respect the human rights of our people.

Finally, have a clear realisation of the condition of the society and state of Pakistan. Unless you come across evidence that the nature of the state and society of Pakistan has changed, it is idiotic to put faith in the profession of this ruler or that. Remember Musharraf’s “Main naya dil leyke aayaa hun”? Taliban and Al Qaeda are not the cause of the state of Pakistan. They are the result of the Talibanisation of Pakistani society and state.

Where do you think, and by whom do you think are the teachers instructed to ensure that students from class 1 onwards “recognise the importance of jihad”; to ensure that they “must be aware of the blessings of jihad”; to ensure that they “create yearning for jihad in his heart”; to ensure that they develop “love and aspiration for jihad, tabligh, shahadat, sacrifice, ghazi, shaheed”? Where do you think, and by whom are teachers instructed to ensure that students from kindergarten onwards learn to “make speeches on jihad and shahadat”, and are “judged on their spirit while making speeches on jihad”? Do you think these are instructions issued by the Islamic fundamentalists to maulvis in madrasas? They are instructions given by the government of Pakistan through official circulars to principals and teachers in government schools of Pakistan.

You didn’t know that? Exactly. That is a large part of the problem. You will find reams of these and other facts in the 2002 report edited by Pakistani academics, A.H. Nayyar and Ahmed Salim, and published by the Sustainable Development Institute, Islamabad, ‘The Subtle Subversion: The state of curricula and textbooks in Pakistan, Urdu, English, Social Studies and Civics’. Get on to the Internet, download and read the report from www.sdpi.org. Here is a part of the problem that you can solve by yourself.

As for the rest of the problem,as we can no longer rely on Shivraj Patil, we are compelled to continue to rely on the one who has been for the government as a whole, what Shivraj Patil has been for the home ministry — that is, the prime minister, Manmohan Singh.

The writer is a Rajya Sabha MP from the BJP

But who has that distant a horizon? III

Arun Shourie: Thursday, November 15, 2007

There is every likelihood that pseudo-reforms will be pushed, and little possibility of the fundamental reforms that are required in Pakistan, writes ARUN SHOURIE

It really is ‘crunch time’ for Pakistan, says a keen observer: the mere installation of a civilian government will not change the character of Pakistan. In a sense, even under Musharraf, a civilian government has functioned — there has been a cabinet headed by Shaukat Aziz, a Citibank executive, no less; there has been an elected assembly; a ‘normal’ political party, the PML-Q, has fronted for Musharraf; there has even been a free press. And yet things have reached the pass they have.

A much more fundamental choice confronts Pakistan as well as the West: Pakistan’s rulers and its props have to choose — to either have the country lunge for the jihadi option or to wage an all-out struggle to root out the causes of the jihadi culture; to either hand the country over to extremists or to crush them completely. The problem relates not to whether the government is military or ‘civilian’. Even in the latter, given the way things are in Pakistan, the army and agencies like the ISI will control all vital decisions and policies, as they have done in the previous civilian governments. It relates to the nature of such government as controls affairs. It relates even more fundamentally to the nature of the society from which the government must necessarily be formed and which it has to steer.

As we have seen, the nature of Pakistan’s society today — in which, to recall just one symptom, jihad and shahadat have such exalted status, in which enmity to India has such a central place — is the result of developments over 60 years and more. Three features of the ‘solution’ that is necessary are at once evident.

First, as analysts like Ajai Sahni, Sushant Sareen and others correctly point out, it will entail deep, very deep surgery, a complete reversal. It will require not just that jihadi groups be absolutely crushed; but, in addition, that the army is completely subordinated to civilian authority; that constitutional government, and the rule of law are instituted; that the ISI in its present form is virtually eliminated; that the curricula of madrassas and government schools are overturned; that the objective of wresting Kashmir is abandoned; that the premise, to use Musharraf’s enunciation, that terrorism and proxy-war are ‘instruments of state policy’ is shed completely; that Pakistan comes to reconcile itself to more realistic notions of the extent to which it can ‘project’ its power; that either the populace goes back on the basic article of faith, ‘Pakistan is an Islamic state’, or that Islam is so thoroughly recast as to be almost unrecognisable.

But such an about-turn requires leaders of the highest legitimacy, it requires an intellectual ferment, it requires robust reformers. None of the three is around. The leaders are dwarfs, especially when it comes to religious discourse — none of them could hold her or his own even in front of the run-of-the-mill maulvis who crowd Pakistan’s Islamic TV channels. There is no intellectual ferment within Islam as it is practiced in South Asia. As for reformers, Iqbal is long gone, Maulana Maududi prevails.

Moreover, there are so many coils in which the current world-view is entangled. Recall, for instance, the deep links that Middle Eastern regimes have with the jihadi groups in Pakistan. Will they forego the links and the options that the links give them? The option, for instance, of directing the revolutionary zeal of fundamentalists to regions outside their countries and thus saving themselves? Within Pakistan, such surgery will go against the indoctrination of the last 60 years. The difficulties entailed in doing so, especially in the rural areas, can scarcely be imagined. There is another factor: Pakistan has relied on and stoked Islamic identity to neutralise ethnic nationalisms — Baloch, Pashtun, Sindhi, Mohajir. These will erupt even more ferociously than is already the case were the Islamic quotient in the concept of state to be diluted. In any case, such an exercise cannot even commence until the ruling elite of Pakistan comes to realise that it has no option at all except such a course. The fact of the matter is that, while they appear non-plussed today, the elite are far from such a point — on the contrary, they are confident that the West will, and that China and Saudi Arabia in the end will allow them, even assist them to go on as they have been doing. On the other side, with the breakdown of governance, security, even basic services, people are much more likely to leap for the messianic alternative that is being proffered by fundamentalists than to go along with such fundamental wrenching of everything they have been fed for 60 years.

The first point that stands out about what is necessary, therefore, is that, on the one hand, only deep surgery will work, and, on the other, there are almost insuperable difficulties in attempting it. The second feature is just as evident: even if it were to be attempted, such a solution will take one generation, if not two. And, third, neither the rulers of Pakistan nor the West — in particular not the US — have that far a horizon.

True, civil society has to be strengthened, the reasoning in the West is liable to go. But we need the army today, and the army feels that a strengthened civil society will necessarily weaken its hold... True, all these basic reforms should be initiated over the long run, the reasoning will go, but the army has to be humoured today — let us postpone these reforms till tomorrow — why not first start a pilot-project and see how things work out... And as the army will not be humoured by arms needed to fight the terrorists, we must give it the arms it wants — F16s if F16s are what they want — is it any surprise that of the eleven billion dollars that have been given to Pakistan as ‘aid’ since 9/11 by the US alone, only one billion are reported to have gone for ‘development’? Is it any surprise that, while military aid has been given ostensibly for fighting the Al Qaeda in the mountains, much of it has consisted of weapons systems that enhance Pakistan’s offensive capacities vis a vis a country like India?

This is exactly what the nostrums that are being pedalled today show once again. You must hold elections as you promised, Bush tells Musharraf. We can be quite confident that exactly that was Musharraf’s preferred option even when he was giving in to American pressure and striking a deal with Benazir. Get her to sign the deal. That will at once break the political configuration that the Charter of Democracy presaged. Then do the customary thing: rig the elections so that no party, certainly not Benazir’s PPP, wins an outright majority. The new ‘civilian’ government will then have to take your own surrogates on board. And you could certainly tell Benazir, “With a hung assembly, what can I do? I can’t amend the Constitution to remove the bar on your becoming PM for a third time...” Musharraf would have had little difficulty in ensuring this outcome — his Election Commission had already begun the process: the number of voters had suddenly fallen by several million, by so many that the number of voters for the elections scheduled for 2008 was less than the ones that were there in 2002; that the electoral rolls would have to be ‘corrected’ at top speed would give the agencies and the army all the opportunity they needed for ‘correcting’ them correctly! There would have been no difficulty, it is just that a random variable barged in, the chief justice and the suddenly independent court!

You have to give up your uniform, Bush tells Musharraf. Assume he does so, and Benazir becomes PM. As Wilson John and others have remarked, she will be one of a trio — Musharraf and Kiyani, the army chief, will be the two other members. She will almost certainly be kept out of the vital areas — foreign policy, in particular everything concerning relations with the West, India and Afghanistan; the fight against terrorists; nuclear weapons... This, after all, is exactly what was done in the past — and not just with her. In any event, the provision that allows the president to dismiss the elected government — Article 58(2) of the Constitution — would be still on the statute book, indeed it has been formalised once again in Musharraf’s Legal Framework Order — the precise provision that was used by a previous president, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, to dismiss Benazir earlier. Even if none of this comes to pass, and the trio comes to function, she, or in her stead some other civilian prime minister, will be the weakest of the three. As has been rightly pointed out, to stand up to the president, she/he will have to seek the help of the army chief. Even if she/he gets this help, the hold of the army over governance will be reinforced. And yet, everyone is fixated on, ‘you have to give up your uniform,’ as if it were a sovereign remedy.

Thus, the ‘solutions’ that are being pushed are liable to turn out to be merely pro-forma. Others are liable to be worse. One of the problems always is that those who have a particular thing make themselves believe that that thing will turn the trick. Those who have superior technology think that technology will solve the problem — witness Iraq. Those who have money think that money will solve the problem: announcements from Washington suggest that $750 million are to be pumped into the NWFP and FATA to ‘develop’ them; as Jagmohan has documented in the case of Kashmir, as K.P.S. Gill has pointed out in the case of left-wing violence and other insurgencies, we can be certain that the funds will end up with the terrorist groups and will finance the insurgency further.

The other nostrum — ‘modernise madrassas’, introduce science, computers, English — will fare no better. Quite the contrary. As Ajai Sahni writes, such steps will only help close a ‘competence-deficiency’. Today the would-be graduate of these institutions has some difficulty, for instance, in blending into the country he is tasked to target. Having been taught English, being familiar with science and modern technologies, he will be all the better able to use those technologies, he will be better able to blend into western societies for carrying out the operations for which he has been primed.

Hence, there is every likelihood that pseudo-reforms will be pushed, and little likelihood of the fundamental reforms that are required. At each turn, the latter set of reforms will be begun nominally, and soon postponed to the indefinite future. And every step that will be taken to put existing realities to work will only reinforce the current configuration.

The other development that is likely in the coming two or three years, if not sooner, will be even more consequential for us. American and NATO forces will retreat — from both Afghanistan and Iraq. They will retreat in defeat. We must bear in mind that American forces did not lose a single engagement in Vietnam. Yet they had to retreat. The Soviet forces did not lose a single engagement in Afghanistan. Yet they had to retreat.

This retreat will provide a tremendous boost to fundamentalist forces. While they will continue to try to penetrate the US as well as target American installations abroad, their immediate targets are likely to be one or two regimes in the Middle Eastern — regimes that have thus far been buying security by exporting revolutionary impulses; Europe — which is still caught in effete notions of political correctness, and in which there now is a quantum of population that is large enough to be a political force, as well as to contain within it the few who will be hosts to and provide members for fundamentalist cells: intelligence sources state that volunteers who left for training in Iraq and Pakistan are now returning for carrying out operations in Europe itself. But the most likely of all potential targets will be soft states like India.

That is the prospect for which we must prepare — a Pakistan the nature of whose society does not change, and a triumphalist extremism.

A host of steps is necessary for meeting that prospect — from shedding the perverse nonsense that leads so many to lionise those who assault our country: witness the campaigns for Afzal Beg; to exhuming the ideological bases of Islamic extremism; to showing up the pretensions of ‘Islamic states’ — how come, as Pervez Hoodbhoy, the Pakistani physicist asks, that such states are among the richest in the world and yet their work in science and technology is so far behind? How come, as Maulana Wahiduddin has asked, while it is claimed again and again that no religion gives as exalted a place to women as Islam does, the position of women in every Islamic state is woeful? For exhuming the ideological bases and nailing such pretensions to reviving the Northern Alliance so that, even if the Taliban win, they remain busy within Afghanistan; to supporting groups that are struggling for the most elementary rights in POK, in Gilgit-Baltistan, in the northern territories of Pakistan; to ensuring honest and effective governance in Kashmir... first we have to clear our minds. First we have to give up what has become our fixed policy — hoping that something will turn up.

Till then, let us be clear, the best possible outcome for us, one for which we can do little, is that a discredited and besieged Musharraf continues in office — so that the fount of decisions remains preoccupied with his own problems. And that the Pakistan army remains encoiled in protracted and bloody hostilities with the extremists that it and ISI, and so on, have reared — so that the trust and working alliance between them is ruptured. If prayers are to be the only policy we are capable of, pray for these, not for democracy!

Where have all the general’s cheerleaders gone? I

Arun Shourie: Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Ulti ho gayin sab tadbirein, kuchch na dawa ne kaam kiya — every stratagem has boomeranged, no potion works. That’s Pervez Musharraf’s predicament today, writes Arun Shourie in a three-part series on Pakistan beginning today

The only persons who could have been surprised by what Musharraf has done are the Americans - who had invested everything in him, and as a consequence just would not see - and Musharraf’s acolytes here in India. Here is one of the most deceitful men we have had to deal with. It is not just that he was the architect of Kargil. Here is a general who insisted that the Pakistani army had nothing to do with Kargil, so much so that he did one of the most dishonourable things that any armyman can do: he refused to accept bodies of soldiers who had died in the operation he had himself planned. And yet the same man claims in his book that Kargil was one of the most successful operations of the Pakistani army! Here is a man who has repeatedly dishonoured his word — pledged to the people of Pakistan, to its courts — about sticking to his office. Here is a man who has repeatedly issued decrees exempting himself from law, from his pledged word. Here, then, has been a personification of deceit. And yet, what a buildup he has had in India — eulogising him has been almost a fashion-statement among many Indian journalists.

And not just among journalists. The very highest in this government allowed themselves to be persuaded by the Americans that we should do something that would strengthen Musharraf, as he was the best, it would seem the only option for us. Of course, they were nudged into accepting American ‘advice’ by that one mental ability they have in abundance — the ability to conjure wishfulfilling thoughts, thoughts that exempt them from standing the ground. This combination — American ‘theses’ and conjured rationalisations — led them to almost make a grand gesture of Siachin to bolster Musharraf, and yet again buy ‘peace in our time’, and that too under the exact camouflage that an American think-tank had stitched up. We have to thank Musharraf: by the morass he has created for himself, he has saved us from our do-gooders.

Yet his cleverness had convinced me long ago about the pass he would reach. For, in the end, few things do a ruler in as surely as cleverness. This is especially so when cleverness is combined with audacity, the ‘commando’s audacity’ that so many among our chatterati came to admire in Musharraf. For this audacity spurs the person to, among other things, lie outright. Soon, though not soon enough, karma catches up. A stage arrives when everything such a ruler does, recoils.

If he moves against the Taliban, he is in trouble. If he does not, he is in trouble. If he does not let American forces chase the Taliban into Pakistani territory, he is in trouble. If he lets them do so, he is in deeper trouble. If he does not storm the Lal Masjid, he is in trouble. If he does, he is in deeper trouble. If he does not remove the chief justice, he is in trouble. If he removes him, his troubles are just beginning. If he gives up his uniform, he can’t rely on the army. If he does not, he can’t rely either on his nemesis, the Supreme Court, or his sole prop, the Americans. If he lets Nawaz Sharif stay, he is in trouble. If he does not, he is in trouble. If he rigs elections again, he has to rely even more on the religious parties and fundamentalists, and he falls deeper in trouble. If he does not rig them, he is finished. Unless he throws the judges out, he is out. Now that he has thrown them out, even his patrons are insisting he bring them back — ulti ho gayin sab tadbirein — every stratagem has boomeranged — kuchch na dawa ne kaam kiya — no potion works!

Once a ruler reaches this pit, anyone and everyone who associates with him, gets tarnished. Americans and Musharraf got conflated: Musharraf came to be seen as the stooge of the Americans; Americans came to be seen as the ventriloquists. Whatever he did was attributed to them: ‘He could do none of this but for the fact that the Americans are behind him.’ And whatever the Americans did came to be pasted on him. As they came to be seen to be waging an out-and-out war against Islam, he came to be seen as the instrument of the enemies of Islam. Convinced, though, they have remained that he is indispensable for them, even the Americans came to realise the heavy cost that association with him was bringing upon them. But the Chinese came to suffer too: they were seen to have been the immediate trigger for the assault on the Lal Masjid, as it followed the kidnapping of Chinese women on the charge that they were running a brothel in Islamabad. (For their part, the Chinese have been increasingly concerned about the Uighurs who have been receiving training in Pakistani madrassas and terrorist camps.) The Saudis too, were shocked by the wave of resentment that hit them upon their being parties to the deportation of Nawaz Sharif. This was one of the main reasons for their subsequent decision to endorse Sharif’s proposal that he return.

And so did everyone within Pakistan who was associated with Musharraf. The ‘Q’ in the name of the faction of the Muslim League that had walked over to him — the PML-Q — came to stand not for ‘Quaid’ after Jinnah, but for an abuse. Look at Benazir till the attack on her procession. She lost heavily when it became known that she had struck a deal with Musharraf. Of course, the ignominy was compounded by two factors: as the deal was seen to have been authored by the Americans, it was contaminated from the very start. Worse, it became known that Benazir had been negotiating terms with Musharraf even as she was signing the Charter of Democracy with Nawaz Sharif — a charter in which both of them pledged that they would never have anything to do with a military dictator. It is only the attack on her procession, and the subsequent snuffing out of the Constitution that has helped restore some of her reputation. But no institution has suffered as much by association with Musharraf as the army: as he came to be seen as the instrument of the enemy, the army, which he controlled, came to be seen as the instrument of the instrument of the enemy...

What a pass for a ruler to reach.

And rulers are brought to this pass by their own stratagems. No ruler after Zia ul Haq gave as big a boost to religious parties and to terrorist groups as Musharraf. It is because of the way he rigged the assembly and provincial elections and the alliance he formed with them that the religious parties — which used to get 5 to 7 per cent of the popular vote — got to form governments in NWFP as well as Balochistan, and to become such a significant factor in the National Assembly. The consequence was as predictable as it has been disastrous. With governance in the hands of religious parties, for instance, the Taliban and Al Qaida acquired an open field in NWFP, and from there into FATA.

Similarly, his premise — one that he set out in as many words — that jihad is an instrument of state policy, and the way he patronised and facilitated terrorism in Kashmir, for instance, has had the same consequence. In her recent study, The Counterterror Coalitions, Cooperation with Pakistan and India, Christine Fair puts it well: one consequence of the jihad in Kashmir and that for the acquisition of Afghanistan, she writes, has been that ‘the concept of jihad has attained an unassailable stature,’ and ‘the political capital’ of groups engaged in it has multiplied several fold. And you can see the end result, even for Musharraf: recall the way he and his government remained paralysed for months in the face of what was being done in and around Lal Masjid. Second, she points out, it has meant that organised criminal groups have been able to extend their operations and reach within Pakistan itself under the banner of jihad. Third, over the past few years, new alliances and coalitions have come to be formed among the various groups. The operational consequence of the latter is just as evident, and it is one of the things that eventually led even his patrons in the US to conclude that he was not doing enough to curb terrorists: when the US or NATO allies were told that steps had indeed been taken against the terrorist groups whom they wanted brought to heel, they were soon disillusioned. And for the obvious reason: when one of the groups was targeted, all that its members had to do was to shift to the adjacent group in the coalition.

Two other features broke through during the last few months: that Musharraf was losing control, and that he had lost touch with what was happening. As for the first, recall how, for months and months, fundamentalists from the Northwest could go on piling up arms in the Lal Masjid right in Islamabad — and the military dictator with all his intelligence agencies should not have known. As for losing touch, recall how gravely Musharraf misjudged the way the public would react to the sacking of the chief justice.

Lessons for us

There has been a veritable industry in India urging concessions: when Pakistan or a ruler of Pakistan has appeared strong, when terrorism sponsored by it and him has been at its murderous height, concessions have been urged on the ground, “but how long can we live with a permanently hostile neighbour?” When he has been facing difficulties, the same concessions have been urged on the ground, “he is our best bet.” Such specious reasoning has almost prevailed when we have had, as we have now, a weak and delusional government, a government that does not have the grit to stay the course; when we have a government over which suggestions from abroad have sway of the kind they have today; when we have a government the higher reaches of which are as bereft of experience in national security affairs as in the government today. We must never sacrifice a national interest in the delusion that someone is the ‘best bet’ — he will soon be gone, and our interest would have been sacrificed in perpetuity. Nor should we ever sacrifice an interest in the delusion that doing so will assuage that ruler, country or ‘movement’.

The concession will only whet his appetite. To the ruler/country/movement, it will be proof that he can extract the next capitulation. Second, we should think for ourselves, and not be led by others, howsoever powerful they may be. One of the great strategic blunders of the US in regard to its ‘War on Terrorism’ has been to have believed, indeed to have proclaimed, that Musharraf is indispensable. The consequence has been predictable. Their having come to think of him as indispensable, Musharraf has done what suited him, not that war: look at the selective way in which he went after the terrorists. He first targeted only the Al Qaida in whom the Americans were interested; then, those who targeted him; then those who targeted the Pakistani state. The organisations that he, his army, the ISI had reared for breaking India, he left alone. The Americans had to shut their eyes. “You are putting all your eggs in one basket,” they were told. “But there aren’t that many baskets in Pakistan,” they said. Soon, they got their desserts too, and twice over. First, as was noted above, given the fungibility among such groups, the former set of terrorists had just to don the garb of the latter and continue to recruit, to rearm, to regroup. And then, Musharraf having come to be seen as merely their stooge, he couldn’t keep the system going — for them any more than for himself. In a word, powers, howsoever well endowed, can be dead wrong in their assessment even of their own interest. In any event, it is their own interest they shall be pursuing. Their own interest as perceived by a handful. Their own interest as perceived by a handful at that moment.

Today Saddam is good because he is a counter to Iran; tomorrow he is evil. Today the Taliban are mujahideen, freedom fighters, as they are necessary for throwing the Soviets out; tomorrow they are evil. Today the Kurds are good as a counter to Sunnis in Iraq; tomorrow they are evil as the fellows are dragging Turkey into the arena... This is not to blame the Americans or anyone else: through such twists and turns they are merely pursuing their interest. The lesson is for us: how very wrong, how very shortsighted it would be for us to outsource our thinking to others.

The even more important lesson is illustrated vividly by the relief we have had in Kashmir in the last few months days. As Balochistan, NWFP, and now FATA have flared up, Pakistan has had to withdraw its troops and other resources from its border with India to its western border. The killings and explosions in Kashmir have gone down. Just a coincidence?

Now notice two things. First, as Pakistan has had to move its troops away from the border with Kashmir, an orchestra has started in India demanding that we thin our troops in Kashmir: just another coincidence? Second, recall the ‘remedies’ that our secularists have been urging — ‘autonomy’ and the rest. “The Kashmiris feel alienated,” they have been declaiming. “That is the root-cause of terrorism... give them autonomy...” A formula-factory came into being: ‘Musharraf’s 7-regions’ formula...’

None of those ‘solutions’ has been put in place. Yet, the killings have gone down. Which is the medicine that has worked? The potion — ‘autonomy’ — we did not administer? Or the medicine that Pakistan has administered to itself? That it has got into trouble on its western borders? A lesson there...

TRACKING TERROR

TRACKING TERROR

PART-1

National security through redefinition

Arun Shourie,

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

‘‘This has not happened in six months’ time. In 2001, it was 131 districts; in 2003, it had gone up to 143, and in 2004, this number had gone up to 157. I would say that the number has gone up, but it has not gone up only in six months time; it has gone up in three years’ time. That has to be borne in mind.’’ That was Shivraj Patil, the Home Minister, speaking in the Rajya Sabha in November 2004.

I had cited figures from official sources about the spread of Naxalite violence. Could it be any consolation that the sway of these violent groups had been spreading for a longer period than just six months? Quite the contrary: every year, year after year, the reach and lethality of Naxalites had continued to spread, showing that the rot in governance had continued to increase without let.

The situation continued to worsen. By October 2005, open sources were reporting that the number of districts affected by Naxalite violence and activity had risen to 165. The Rajya Sabha debated the matter again, in November 2005. Shivraj Patil improved on the reasoning. Though the figures I was citing are published by the Home Ministry itself, he said that such figures give a misleading impression. If one village in a district is affected, the whole district is counted as being affected, he said. Hence, the figures gave an impression of large stretches of the country being in the grip of extremist violence when that is not the case.

Why not disaggregate further, I had to inquire. After all, when the terrorists attack, they do not decimate the entire village. They kill just a handful from the village. They burn down just a few houses. Why not publish figures by household? And divide the number of households that have been attacked by the total number of households in the region, and thereby do even more to keep people’s morale up? Better still, why not disaggregate and count the number of individuals who have been killed, and divide that number by the total population of the region or the country? Wouldn’t we feel even safer?

But the Home Minister is the Home Minister. His reasoning has prevailed. Faced with more lethal attacks over a wider area, his Ministry has just stopped giving figures of the total number of districts that are affected by Naxalite operations and activity. It now gives figures only of districts “badly affected” by Naxalite violence. This comes to 76 districts. Isn’t that reassuring? National security through redefinition!

A truer index of the extent to which this virus is spreading is the fact that, after all, the Home Ministry had been using the same criteria for decades. On that basis, in the early 1990s, 16 districts were affected. In 2003, 56 districts were listed as affected. In October 2005, the number had risen, as I said, to 165. Since then, the situation has become much, much worse.

That Naxalites are actually carrying out violent attacks on police stations, that they are actually executing people is not the index of their sway. Violence comes at a much later stage of their operations; in almost every case, years later. In an interview with The Telegraph (July 15, 2005), a member of the Maoist Central Committee, “Comrade Dhruba”, is reported as saying that, apart from Bankura, Purulia and Midnapur districts, “our mass base in Murshidabad, Malda, Burdwan and Nadia is ready.” He adds, and this is what has a bearing on the Home Minister’s way of measuring, “After five years, we will launch our strikes.”

By the time violence is unleashed, the Naxalites have entrenched themselves firmly in the area. They commence with surveys — a 56-page survey that was recently recovered of “Perspective Areas” in a targeted state is so proficiently done that it would put some of our best institutions to shame: pattern of holdings; crops; problems of each crop; issues relating to wages and tenure; caste composition and tensions. Then front organisations are formed to instigate people on these issues. Experts instigate the demonstrations into violence. Reprisals fuel polarisation. Sympathisers and agents are steered into “voluntary organisations”, local bodies, cooperatives. Only after years of such capture and consolidation are dalams and the like formed. Violence is unleashed thereafter.

By that time, the situation has gone so far beyond the reach of the State apparatus that it can only do what the Home Minister is doing now.

THE PROPER CRITERIA

The criterion, therefore, is not whether violence has actually been unleashed, nor whether the level of violence has become embarrassingly “bad”. That entire area must be taken to be affected by terrorist activity in which that group — say, Naxalites — is able to prevent officials of the State from carrying out their primary functions: of governance, of dispensing justice, of executing development works. The relevant questions to ask, therefore, are:

• Do the people of the area look to the police for protection from the Naxalites, or are they now conducting themselves in such a way that the Naxalites would spare them?

• Have the contractors of the area to pay Naxalites a cut for the works they execute - say, on construction involved in “development projects”?

• Who is dispensing “justice” in the area? The regular courts, or the Naxalites’ mobile courts?

• Are the government officials themselves not paying protection money to the Naxalites?

And remember, there are many types of insurgencies that are afoot in different parts of the country. The tests apply to the NSCN(IM) in Nagaland, to the score or so groups in Manipur, to the terrorists in Kashmir, as much as they apply to Naxalites.

THE COMPREHENSIVE MECHANISM

Replying to the debate in November, 2005, the Home Minister had gone further in providing comfort. He had taken the House into confidence, and, going by the way he spoke, he had shared a deep secret of the State. The passage is worth reading in full. Shivraj Patil told the Rajya Sabha that, in fact, a comprehensive mechanism is already in place to tackle challenges to internal security. ‘‘This mechanism is already there’’, he said. ‘‘Probably, it is not known to the Hon. Members because it is an internal matter that we are doing.’’ He shared this State Secret, the information about this ‘‘mechanism’’: ‘‘We have a Special Security Secretary here. The responsibility given to the Special Security Secretary is to talk to the DIGs and other officers in the Naxalite-affected states every month or two months or whenever it is necessary, and decide as to what has to be done... Then there is a committee which is presided over by the Home Secretary, who talks to the Chief Secretaries of the states and DIGs of the states and they decide as to how the policy should be evolved to deal with the Naxalite activity or the terrorist activities in J&K or the North Eastern states. And, then, there are regional committees of the Home Minister and the Chief Ministers who meet periodically to decide about the policies. And, then, the Chief Ministers have been talking to the Prime Minister and the Home Minister every now and then, whenever they want. There is coordination. There is institution for coordination. You don’t think that we are not talking.’’

So there is a mechanism. There is committee upon committee. There are meetings after meetings. All concerned are talking. The result is before you — in the increasingly lethal depredations wreaked by Naxalites — by now in 14 states; they must have been visible in the trains in Mumbai.

100 PER CENT IMPLEMENTATION

In his statement on the Mumbai train blasts too, the Home Minister gave a long list of meetings that had been held in the wake of the blasts. The last time, there had been more. I had cited recommendations that had been made by the Task Forces on Border Management and Internal Security — two among four set up after the Kargil War. I had shown in detail how little had been done in regard to them.

The first reaction of the Congress Party and its props was, ‘‘Which reports? Where are the reports? Is he prepared to authenticate them?’’ As I had carried both the voluminous reports with me, I lifted them, and said I would authenticate them there and then. The attack shifted, ‘‘These are secret reports, how is he citing them?’’ Then, ‘‘But what did your Government do for three years?’’

Uncharacteristically, the Leader of the Opposition, Jaswant Singh got provoked enough to state, ‘‘As a matter of personal knowledge, I do wish to say that I had the distinction and honour of simultaneously holding the portfolio of Defence at that time and I can state to the House that about 95 per cent of the recommendations of the Subramaniam Committee report and the Task Force on the Armed Forces were implemented.’’

He had, as is usual with him, been careful in his choice of words. He had referred only to the recommendations of the main report of the Subramaniam Committee and the Task Force on the Armed Forces — not to the Task Forces on Border Management and on Internal Security, whose findings and recommendations I had been reading out. But that was enough. The Home Minister built on what Jaswant Singh had said: ‘‘Sir’’, Shivraj Patil said, ‘‘The points which were raised by Mr Shourie have been replied now by the Leader of the Opposition sitting over there. And, I can assure the House that the recommendations which have not been implemented are in the process of being implemented.’’ The Home Minister returned to this later in his response, and remarked, ‘‘I am very happy to point out that when this point was made by Mr. Arun Shourie, the Leader of the Opposition was here in the House and he did get up and say that nearly 95 per cent of the recommendations of the Group of Ministers have been acted upon, have been implemented and I had no difficulty in getting up and saying that even 5 per cent recommendations which remained unimplemented, would certainly be implemented by the Government because they are good recommendations and we have no difficulty in implementing them.’’

One hundred per cent of the recommendations having been implemented — for we must assume that, months having passed, even those remaining 5 per cent have been implemented — the results should not surprise us! On 21 February, 2006, the Minister of State for Home told Parliament that in 2004, 653 had been killed in Naxalite-related violence. In 2005, 892 were killed. Going by open source compilations, in 2006, up to 23 July, already 550 have been killed.

But, as I mentioned, that is not even a partial index of the state of affairs. Captured documents indicate that Naxalites have already put in place ‘‘Regional Bureaus’’ for two-thirds of the country: including one for Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Bihar and UP — and, a high authority on Left-wing violence tells me, the person who has been identified as heading this ‘‘Bureau’’ is one of the very best organisers among them. Further, barring the Northeast, J&K, Himachal and Rajasthan, ‘‘State Committees’’ are by now in place for every other state, ‘‘Special Area Committees’’ have been instituted for UP-Uttaranchal, Bihar-Jharkhand, and Bengal.

An ‘‘Urban Perspective Document’’ sets out detailed strategy for extending operations into and unsettling urban areas. Governance is weakening in many cities even now, it notes. And this weakening can only accelerate: urban population is expected to increase from 285 million to 540 million by 2020. A fertile field.

The point is that each such terrorist movement is proceeding systematically. Its programmes cover every aspect: land, caste-tensions, ‘‘courts’’, targets for raising finances, recruitment, training, capture and production of arms, calibrated unleashing of violence. And on our side?

The Home Minister’s ‘‘comprehensive mechanism’’. His ‘‘100% implementation’’. His redefinitions of the area that is affected.

And yet, the inattention to Left-wing violence is not the worst of the problems.

(To be concluded)

If You Let Facts Interfere You Lack Party Spirit

Arun Shourie

The first thing that strikes one upon reading the books of these eminent historians, of course, is the double standard. Recall how, without an iota of evidence, our eminent historians advanced the most far-reaching assertions about ancient India -- about its having been a period riddled with tensions, inequity and oppression. And how, in cases such as Aurangzeb and the Sultanate, these very historians shut their eyes to what stares them in the face. In a word, their approach is set to a formula : pre-Islamic India must be presented as a land of discord, a land in the grip of a social and political system marked by injustice, extreme inequities and oppression; and the Islamic period must be presented as a period in which "the composite culture" flowered, a period in which the norm was a policy of "broad toleration", and such departures from it as took place were just the aberrations of individuals, aberrations which themselves can be tracked down to wholly secular causes.

The second point is the brazenness with which our historians suppress the evidence and, having done so, slip in falsehoods. To take just one example, recall how Satish Chandra concludes the account of Aurangzeb's deeds vis-a-vis temples : The order for destroying temples was not a new one; the order was limited to new temples and not to existing structures; the order let a great deal of latitude to local officials; Aurangzeb adopted "a new stance" only when he encountered political hostility and when he came to conclude that the temples had become centres from which "subversive ideas" were being spread; that the destruction of temples was more or less confined to periods of hostilities. And finally that "it seems that Aurangzeb's zeal for the destruction of temples abated after 1679, for we do not hear of any large scale destruction of temples in the South between 1681 and his death in 1707."

How does this assertion compare with what the Akhbarat of Aurangzeb themselves state, as well as other accounts recorded at the time? Here are some of the entries:


25 May 1679 : "Khan-i-Jahan Bahadur returned from Jodhpur after demolishing its temples, and bringing with himself several cart-loads of idols. The Emperor ordered that the idols, which were mostly of gold, silver, brass, copper or stone and adorned with jewels, should be cast in the quadrangle of the Court and under the steps of the Jama Mosque for being trodden upon."

January 1680 : "The grand temple in front of the Maharana's mansion (at Udaipur) - one of the wonderful buildings of the age, which had cost the infidels much money - was destroyed and its images broken." "On 24 January the Emperor went to view the lake Udaisagar and ordered all the three temples on its banks to be pulled down." "On 29 January Hasan Ali Khan reported that 172 other temples in the environs of Udaipur had been demolished."

"On 22 February the Emperor went to look at Chitor, and by his order the 63 temples of the place were destroyed."

2 August 1680 : Temple of Someshwar in western Mewar ordered to be destroyed. 10 August 1680 : "Abu Turab returned to Court and reported that he had pulled down 66 temples in Amber."

September 1687: "On the capture of Golkonda, the Emperor appointed Abdur Rahim Khan as Censor of the city of Haidarabad with orders to put down infidel practices and (heretical) innovations and destroy the temples and build mosques on their sites." Circa 1690 : Instances of Aurangzeb's temple destruction at Ellora, Trimbaakeshwar, Narsinghpur (foiled by snakes, scorpions and other poisonous insects), Pandharpur, Jejuri (foiled by the deity) and Yavat (Bhuleshwar) are given by K.N. Sane in Varshik Iribritta for Shaka 1838, pp. 133-135.

1693 : "The Emperor ordered the destruction of the Hateshwar temple at Vadnagar, the special guardian of the Nagar Brahmans."

3rd April 1694 : "The Emperor learnt from a secret news-writer of Delhi that in Jaisinghpura Bairagis used to worship idols, and that the Censor on hearing of it had gone there, arrested Sri Krishna Bairagi and taken him with 15 idols away to his house; then the Rajputs had assembled, flocked to the Censor's house, wounded three footmen of the Censor and tried to seize the Censor himself; so that the latter set the Bairagi free and sent the copper idols to the local subahdar."

Middle of 1698 : "Hamid-ud-din Khan Bahadur who had been deputed to destroy the temple of Bijapur and build a mosque (there), returned to Court after carrying the order out and was praised by the Emperor." "The demolition of a temple is possible at any time, as it cannot walk away from its place." -- Aurangzeb to Zullfiqar Khan and Mughal Khan. "The houses of this country (Maharashtra) are exceedingly strong and built solely of stone and iron. The hatchet-men of the Government in the course of my marching do not get sufficient strength and power (i.e., time) to destroy and raze the temples of the infidels that meet the eye on the way. You should appoint an orthodox inspector (darogha) who may afterwards destroy them at leisure and dig up their foundations" -- Aurangzeb to Ruhullah Khan in Kalimat-i-Aurangzib.

January 1705 : "The Emperor, summoning Muhammad Khalil and Khidmat Rai, the darogha of hatchet-men... , ordered them to demolish the temple of Pandharpur, and to take the butchers of the camp there and slaughter cows in the temple .... It was done."

The eminent historian did not need to trouble himself by going to the primary sources. He could have found these and other entries in a single compact Appendix in Volume III of Sir Jadunath Sarkar's well known History of Aurangzeb. That history has been in circulation since 1928! Our writer, writing in 1996, is conveniently oblivious of the evidence which even an elementary student of Aurangzeb's period would have come across!

However, there is little mystery. For there are two pillars to progressive history-writing in India : first, one must fabricate evidence which will establish Hindus to be intolerant; second, one must respect and show an empathetic understanding of Islamic communalism. And the litmus test is : are you prepared to stand up for Aurangzeb ?!

The third thing that strikes one in the tortured explanations our historians dole out is how closely they parrot the volumes of a person like Ishtiaq Husain Qureshi. As is well known, Qureshi taught History at the Delhi University. He migrated to Pakistan. There he became one of the early and ardent proponents of Islamisation : he is credited with having been one of the principal drafters of the "Objectives Resolution" which was passed by the Pakistan Constituent Assembly in 1949, and became the fount of Islamization; he became a Minister in the Government of Liaqat Ali Khan and later the President of the Pakistan Historical Society. He was eventually decorated with the high honour, Sitara-i-Pakistan.

In his volume The Muslim Community of the Indo-Pakistan Subcontinent, Qureshi remarks about the reimposition of jizyah by Aurangzeb as follows:

"When Alamgir I reimposed jizyah after a lapse of 115 years, no sudden spurt in the number of conversions is recorded. Without the availability of statistics a definite conclusion is difficult to reach; but even in the epistles of such an ardent advocate of the reimposition of jizyah as the Mujaddid-i-alf-i-Thani, the argument that the abolition of jizyah had in any way affected the propagation of Islam was not advanced; nor does Bada'uni, who bewailed Akbar's lapse from orthodoxy and disapproved not only of the abolition of jizyah but also of the growth of Hindu influence in the affairs of the Empire, say that the abolition of jizyah had hampered the spread of Islam. There is no record of any significant difference in the rate of conversion either as the result of the abolition of jizyah or of its reimposition....
"If jizyah had been a crushing burden upon the non-Muslims, it could have led to conversions, but it was not too heavy a burden. It was levied only on able-bodied male adults who had a surplus of income after meeting the necessary expenses of maintaining themselves and their families. The religious classes like priests and monks were exempt.... The assessment seems to have been lenient because at no time did jizyah form an important source of revenue, and a very large percentage of the non-Muslim population was exempt for one reason or another. Even if a tax is heavy but bearable, people are averse to changing their religion to escape it; but when it is not heavy, there is little inducement for conversion. Therefore, it does not seem likely that jizyah helped, in any significant manner, conversion to Islam."

And our eminent historian says :

"We are told that after accession to the throne, Aurangzeb contemplated revival of the jizyah on a number of occasions but did not do so for fear of political opposition. Ultimately, in 1679, in the twenty-second year of his reign, he finally re-imposed it. There has been a considerable discussion among historians regarding Aurangzeb's motives for the step. Let us first see what it was not. It was not meant to be an economic pressure for forcing the Hindus to convert to Islam for its incidence was too light -- women, children, the disabled and the indigent, that is those whose income was less than the means of subsistence were exempted, as were those in government service. Nor, in fact, did any significant section of Hindus change their religion due to this tax. Secondly, it was not a means of meeting a difficult financial situation. Although the income from jizyah is said to have been considerable, Aurangzeb sacrificed a considerable sum of money by giving up a large number of cesses called abwabs which were not sanctioned by the shara and were hence considered illegal.

"The re-imposition of jizyah was, in fact, both political and ideological in nature. It was meant to rally the Muslims for the defence of the state against the Marathas and the Rajputs who were up in arms, and possibly against the Muslim states of the Deccan, especially Golconda which was in alliance with the infidels. Secondly, jizyah was to be collected by honest, God-fearing Muslims, who were especially appointed for the purpose, and its proceeds were reserved for the ulama. It was thus a big bribe for the theologians among whom there was a lot of unemployment."

The historian then notes the infirmities in implementing the tax but his final verdict remains as considerate as that of Qureshi :

"Some modern writers are of the opinion that Aurangzeb's measures were designed to convert India from a dar-ul-harb, or a land of infidels, into dar-ul-Islam, or a land inhabited by Muslims. Although Aurangzeb considered it legitimate to encourage conversion to Islam, evidence of systematic or large-scale attempts at forced conversion is lacking. Nor were Hindu nobles discriminated against...."

Similarly Qureshi emphasizes in the same volume that Aurangzeb had no option but to wage his campaigns against Golconda and Bijapur. He remarks :

"The Sultanates were incapable of even keeping peace within their territories. The Marathas got their sinews of war by plundering them. Besides, the sultanates, in spite of the growth of Maratha power at their expense, were secretly in alliance with them and helped them with money and supplies. The situation in Golconda was even worse because the real power was in the hands of two Brahmin officials, Madanna and Akanna, whose obnoxious rule was resented by the Muslim population of the sultanate and who were even more enthusiastic supporters of the Marathas. Under such circumstances it would have been foolish to leave the sultanates alone."

In his volume Ulema in Politics, Qureshi reverts to the same matter and remarks :

"The Sultanates of the Deccan had been so weakened by the Marathas that they were fast sinking into a state of anarchy. They, because of this weakness, became almost the storehouse of Maratha resources who grabbed whatever they needed from their territories. Besides they were in alliance with the Marathas, because they perversely thought that after the threat from the Mughuls had been averted, the Marathas could be dealt with more easily. This was a gross underestimate of the potentialities of the Maratha activities. So far as Alamgir was concerned, he had no choice. The Marathas and the Sultanates constituted a single problem and could not be detached from each other. Those who suggest that the Sultanates could be persuaded to act against the Marathas or could become a bulwark against Maratha expansion ignore the realities of the situation."

The verdict of our eminent historian is identical. He says :

"Aurangzeb has been criticised for having failed to unite with the Deccani states against the Marathas, or for having conquered them thereby making the empire 'so large that it collapsed under its own weight.' A unity of hearts between Aurangzeb and the Deccani states was 'a psychological impossibility' once the treaty of 1636 was abandoned, a development which took place during the reign of Shah Jahan himself. After his accession, Aurangzeb desisted from pursuing a vigorous forward policy in the Deccan. In fact, he postponed as long as possible the decision to conquer and annex the Deccani states. Aurangzeb's hand was virtually forced by the growing Maratha power, the support extended to Shivaji by Madanna and Akhanna from Golconda, and fear that Bijapur might fall under the domination of Shivaji and the Maratha-dominated Golconda. Later, by giving shelter to the rebel prince Akbar, Sambhaji virtually threw a challenge to Aurangzeb who quickly realized that the Marathas could not be dealt with without first subduing Bijapur and possibly Golconda."

And though Satish Chandra is inclined to concede, "perhaps Aurangzeb might have been better advised to accept the suggestion apparently put forward by his eldest son, Shah Alam, for a settlement with Bijapur and Golconda to annex only a part of the territories and let them rule the South Karnataka which was far away and difficult to monitor," his understanding of Aurangzeb's compulsions is no less than that of Qureshi!

Qureshi is at pains to emphasize that Aurangzeb did not institute new laws, that, therefore, the collapse of the Empire after him cannot be attributed to his religious policies. As he puts it :

"The Muslim Empire had endured in the subcontinent for several centuries. The orthodox laws of Islam had been imposed with varying degrees of thoroughness. Alamgir I did not bring into existence a new set of laws. In the course of these centuries the jizyah had remained in abeyance only for a period of one hundred and fifteen years. The order for the demolition of unauthorized temples had been given under Shah Jahan and Alamgir did not enforce it for the first time. If the Empire collapsed like a house of cards after the death of Alamgir I, the main causes must be sought elsewhere than in the religious policies of that emperor, though these also played some role in its disintegration."

Our eminent historian emphasizes the same point in almost the same words in context after context : "Aurangzeb's order regarding temples was not a new one. It reaffirmed the position which had existed during the Sultanate period and which had been reiterated by Shah Jahan early in his reign... " And of course, jizyah was not being imposed for the first time, -- it was being re-imposed after a gap of 115 years !

And so on. Thus the "explanations" for Aurangzeb's policies are identical, all that is missing is the adoration that Qureshi holds for Aurangzeb. Either the string of similar explanations are instances of great minds thinking alike, or of the fact that in the mind of one the test of intellectual daring and secularism is whether one can internalize and repeat the assertions of the one who went away!