US arms for India

INDIA has now added the United States to the long list of countries it intends to purchase arms from. Last year, New Delhi signed an agreement with Israel for the purchase of sophisticated arms worth two billion dollars. With Russia, differences over the pricing formula postponed the signing earlier this month of what would have been another arms deal worth one billion dollars for giving more fire power to India’s rapidly expanding armed forces. And in January, while Tony Blair was on a supposedly trouble-shooting mission, India was in the midst of finalizing the purchase of 60 Hawk jets. Now Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman of the US Joint Chief of Staff, is in New Delhi to replenish India’s already overstocked arsenal. Reports say India is interested in weapons-locating radars.

As the Foreign Office spokesman pointed out on Monday, this “relentless pursuit” of arms by India will trigger another arms race in South Asia and add to regional instability and military tensions. Already, the Indian armed forces have a huge edge over those of Pakistan in all the three services. India’s own indigenous defence industry is several times larger than that of Pakistan and it has greater sophistication and variety. For instance, India is no more content with purchasing an aircraft carrier, in addition to the one it already has; it has plans for indigenous production of aircraft carriers. The acquisition of American arms and sophisticated equipment will add enormously to India’s offensive capability, because as Defence Minister George Fernandes said the US was capable of supplying weapons which no other country in the world could. However, what is strange about the present arms deal is its timing.

The US is at present pursuing active diplomacy to lessen tension between Pakistan and India. Just the other day, President Bush offered to “facilitate” the resumption of dialogue between the two countries to solve the Kashmir issue. America has also repeatedly called for a de-escalation of the eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation. All friends of South Asia, including the US, have also expressed serious concern over the possibility that this prolonged confrontation could lead to an accidental war between the two nuclear powers. That at a moment of acute political and military tensions such as this the US should arm one of the parties is indeed astonishing. India is not merely the guilty party in Kashmir; it is also responsible for the current stand-off. Using the terrorist attack on the Indian parliament building as a pretext, it has massed its forces along Pakistan’s border in a threatening posture. The aim is to divert the world’s attention away from Kashmir by raising the bogey of “cross-border terrorism.”

India has repeatedly spurned Pakistan’s offer of a dialogue to solve all issues, including Kashmir. Islamabad has also proposed a phased withdrawal of troops. India has rejected that, too. In a sense, this intransigence is now receiving American backing in the form of arms supplies. In the given context, the least the US administration could do is to link the supply of arms to de-escalation and a resumption of talks. Without such a condition, American arms will amount to encouragement for India to press on with its policy of implacable hostility to Pakistan.

Who’s ‘bonded’, who’s not?

BONDED labour stands officially abolished in Pakistan since the passage of the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1992, but in practice it continues to exist in many semi-urban and rural areas across the country. The worst hit, however, is rural Sindh where thousands of haris continue to live in bondage with little relief in sight for them. A recent case in point is that of a hari, Rano Bheel, who has been fined by the Sindh High Court, Hyderabad Circuit Bench, for bringing a wrongful lawsuit against the detention of 67 haris by their landlords. The judge threw out the case, ruling that it was a dispute between the landlords and the haris that should be tried under the Sindh Tenancy Act, 1950, which governs the relations between tenants and landowners. The judgment came as a departure from standard judicial practice with courts granting relief to the petitioners, treating similar cases under habeas corpus.

The intent here is not to question the legality of the judgment in question but to point out the anomaly in the existing laws. Clearly, the ambiguity surrounding these can be used to the disadvantage of the agricultural workers who do not strictly fall into the category of bonded labour, as was the case in the Rano Bheel lawsuit. The fact remains that 67 haris still remain in captivity of their landlords and as per the ruling of the High Court their release will now have to be sought under a different set of laws. Given the ambiguity in the existing laws, the fear is that landlords who treat many of their tenants as bonded labour will continue to do so with impunity. The practice is in contravention of Article 25 of the International Labour Organization’s convention, which prohibits forced or compulsory labour and cites it as a punishable offence. The government needs to examine the existing laws on an urgent basis so that the bane of bonded labour can be effectively abolished.

Busting car-lifting gangs

THE Islamabad police have made headway in busting a major gang of car lifters with the arrest of one of its leaders. The gang is believed to be a well-organized inter-provincial one, which steals cars from the Punjab region, including the Rawalpindi-Islamabad area, and drives them to the tribal areas of the NWFP where the chassis and registration numbers are changed and then the cars re-sold. The man was arrested while he was driving to the NWFP in a stolen vehicle. What is surprising is the fact that the culprit is a former NWFP minister. This obviously means that he is influential and would stop at nothing to use his influence to extricate himself from any charges levelled against him.

The arrest of this major suspect in a crime rampant in many cities should serve as a fillip to the police in nailing such car-lifting gangs. Just two weeks ago, a resident of Islamabad had his car snatched while he was driving back from Islamabad Airport in the night. The thieves were dressed in police uniform and were driving a car with the blue flashing light on top. The Islamabad police, in particular its anti-car lifting cell, together with the NWFP police, should redouble their efforts to uncover each and every one of the accomplices of the arrested former minister and recover all the vehicles stolen by the gang. Only the firm hand of the law can quell this crime. It is precisely the absence of this firm hand which has allowed such gangs to flourish. If the former minister is allowed to go scot-free, it will have a demoralizing effect on the police and embolden the car lifters’ gangs to pursue their crime more daringly.