Securing Central Asia

THE American interest in an expanding engagement with the Muslim states of Central Asia is broader than the military bases those countries are supplying to US forces.

In the 10 years since gaining independence from the Soviet Union, the five republics stretching from China to the Caspian Sea — Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan — have themselves become a sinkhole of economic failure and political repression and, consequently, a growing source of Islamic extremism.

Thanks to their proximity to Afghanistan, these countries now are drawing money and attention from the Bush administration that, if directed in the right way, could help save them from becoming one of the crisis zones of the 21st century. For that to happen, however, the United States needs to carefully balance its long-term security interests in the region with its short-term need for bases.

Senior administration officials say they understand this challenge. In a press briefing last week, the State Department’s assistant secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, Elizabeth Jones, described a recent tour through the five republics in which, she said, she underlined to the Central Asian rulers that “if you want to have the kind of security that we’re talking about, we have to talk in terms of specific improvements in human rights activities . . . and expanding democratic processes.”

She said she warned rulers such as Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan that “without that, you are simply creating a generation of people who are so disaffected that they become easy targets for extremist organizations.”

The message is exactly right; the problem is how to make it stick. Mr. Karimov’s Uzbekistan, a nation that is in many ways the linchpin of the region, encapsulates the challenge. Since Sept. 11, Mr. Karimov has worked hard to make himself indispensable to the US military campaign in Afghanistan, providing an air base for US planes; in return, the Bush administration proposes to triple aid to his country, to $150 million.—The Washington Post

Last battle of the upper castes

THE on-going elections in some states in India are going to show whether the high castes led by Brahmins are going to retain power or this is their last battle to keep their supremacy in Indian politics.

Uttar Pradesh (UP) has the largest segment of the population, even more than in Pakistan, and the election there often decides the fate of any government that wants to rule in New Delhi. It was the main centre of Hindu-Muslim conflict before independence that resulted in the partition of the subcontinent and since then it has been the hotbed of conflict among the lower and upper castes.

While the Hindus were influenced by the Vedas and considered the low castes inferior according to the dictates and the practices of their religion, the Muslims also did not regard them as their equal and treated them as lesser breeds. It may be interesting to note that most of the Muslims were presumably the descendants of the converts from the same stock.

Soon after Gandhi arrived on the political scene, he took up the caste issue. He was a religious man and a believer in the Vedas. He did not like injustices practised in the name of religion by the high caste Hindus against the lower castes, while at the same time he was not in favour of the abolition of the caste system. He started a magazine called Harijan meaning ‘the children of god.’ The name itself sounds patronizing. Harijan was to be used to promote the cause of the downtrodden castes. The Indian National Congress started absorbing the low caste Hindus within its fold while Gandhi started working for their entry into the temples which were the preserve of the high castes.

As the movement was on for the freedom of the country, everyone was eager to join the political process. Indian National Congress played the foremost role for the freedom of India. Congress formed the ministry in UP under the 1935 Act. Pundit Govind Vallabh Pant was the first chief minister or premier.

He was a Brahmin and the other members of his cabinet were Dr Kailash Nath Katju, Mrs Vijaylakshmi Pundit, both Kashmiri Brahmin, and Rafi Ahmed Kidwai, a Muslim. This combination was to continue till independence. Later on some Congress members of the scheduled castes, as they were called then, were also taken into the cabinet.

Dr Ambedkar, who was the president of the All-India Scheduled Caste Federation, became the law minister in the first cabinet of independent India. He was a brilliant scholar who piloted the independent India’s constitution. After independence the socialists in the Congress left the party and adopted the principled position of resigning their seats in the UP assembly, thereby causing thirteen bye-elections to be held. Acharya Narendra Deo, a socialist leader, stood for re-election from his Ayodhya constituency. He was popular as the native son of the city. congress brought one Baba Raghava Das, a sadhu from Gorakhpur, to contest against him. Ayodhya city was full of ‘bairagis’ and ‘mahants’ who were all recruited to work against this godless socialist.

Pundit Pant declared that Acharya Narendra Deo did not believe in the divinity of Lord Ram as proved by the fact that he did not wear the traditional ‘choti’ or tuft of hair at the back of the head which all devout Hindus are supposed to wear. This sort of slandering by a leading figure of the Congress against a former stalwart of the freedom movement, left a bad taste in the mouth of many people. However, Acharya Deo lost the election but the city of Ram still remains a flash-point of communal conflict.

The first post-independence government headed by Jawaherlal Nehru gave a secular constitution to the country. That was a very sensible decision on their part but when it came to putting the secular provisions of the basic law into practice, many failed. In spite of their failure, the Congress ruled for thirty years. A major factor for its long stay in power was its strong support among the Muslims and the scheduled castes, but gradually it lost its following among them.

Jagivan Ram was the leading figure in the Congress who belonged to a low caste; when he resigned most of the Harijans left the party. I remember an incident at a private party in London where I was talking to his daughter Mira. Jagjivan Ram was a candidate for the post of prime minister after Morarji Desai resigned. With tears in her eyes, Mira said that her father would not get the chance simply because he was not an upper-caste Hindu. And he did not.

Later on the divisions sharpened and caste-based parties started gaining popularity. Even before the removal of Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv from the scene in the eighties, scheduled castes were already moving towards their own parties while the upper castes joined the Janta Dal and the Hindu fundamentalist Bhartya Janta Party.

V.P. Singh, leader of a coalition and prime minister, brought forward a proposal for reserved seats for the depressed classes according to their proportion to the total population. He appointed the Mandal commission that recommended these reforms. Later the Supreme Court also ruled in its favour. These reforms alienated the Brahmin, Bania and Rajput elite who finally joined the BJP in large numbers to maintain their hold on power. The traditional rulers were mostly in the BJP now. This encouraged the party’s fanatic wing to storm and demolish the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. the rest is history.

As the BJP is part of a coalition at the Centre, it cannot impose its Hindutva policy nor can it easily build a temple at the site of the demolished mosque without resistance from other coalition partners.

Desperate to retain its power in UP, the BJP has resorted to Pakistan-bashing and similar other moves and manoeuvres calculated to arouse nationalist sentiments generally and mobilizing the support of the communalists in its favour in UP elections particularly. It looks as if one is witnessing the last battle of the upper castes to keep their hold on the levers of power.

Muslims and the middle caste of Ahirs or Vadavs, who constitute more than thirty per cent of the total population of UP, are going to back Mulayam Sigh Yadav for the chief ministership of the state. He is likely to get the largest number of seats, if not the majority, in the assembly.

The other contenders for the post are Mayawati and Rajnath Sigh, the present chief minister and the leader of the BJP. According to a recent survey, Mayawati, the leader of dalits or depressed classes, is likely to come second and the ruling BJP may end up third. Mulayam Singh and Mayawati hate each other too intensely to coalesce for the purpose of forming a government. In that case the BJP will support Mayawati to form the government while itself becoming a junior partner.

There is hardly any chance for the Congress unless the Samajwadi party of Mulayam Sigh needs their votes in the assembly. UP elections are going to decide the fate of the Vajpayee government at the centre where his coalition may not survive if his party loses badly which is likely to happen in the Up elections.

Apart from these main contenders for power in UP, there are two other significant personalities in the field. Ajit Singh, the American-educated son of a former prime minister, leads the Jats in the western part of the state. He does not have the charisma of his father, Charan Singh. Also, Jat votes are likely to be divided between the BSP of Mayawati and the Congress.

Some smaller parties are putting up Muslim candidates, who do not have a chance to get elected but they may spoil the chance of serious candidates. The only party that will bring Muslims into the assembly is the Samajwadi Party of Mulayam Singh. He is likely to be a winner in the race for the chief ministership. The BJP with its major component of caste Hindus is most likely to lose. It did show some upswing in support during its rallies against Pakistan but to win at the scoreboard it will have to go to war, which is not possible in the present world climate. Moreover, Vajpayee’s coalition partners are not going to support him in this mad venture.

The clash of interests generated by the Mandal Commission’s report has formalized itself in the form of a clash of political parties at the polls. After repeated clashes, the high castes’ preserve of power is coming apart. The elite is realizing its bleak prospects in the on-going struggle. Apparently, it is going to shift its efforts to secure its future in the corporate sector where its higher education and technology promises a better future for it.

India’s resort to coercive diplomacy

AS President Musharraf began his first official visit to the US last week, India repeated its demand that Pakistan hand over the 20 persons it had listed as being involved in terrorism and subversion within its territory. This demand has been reiterated against the backdrop of a concentration of Indian armed forces along the border with Pakistan as well as the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir.

New Delhi has sought to follow a pattern increasingly discernible in the international sphere following the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US, leading to President Bush’s war on terrorism. The US resort to the use of overwhelming force to stamp out the menace had a clear moral purpose: to rid the world of terrorist violence as a mode of political action. This terrorist manifestation was essentially rooted in religious extremism. However, when Israel and India invoke the “terrorist” argument to suppress legitimate movements for the right of self-determination in Palestine and Kashmir, they are in effect practising state terrorism themselves.

By now, the military concentrations that have pitted a armed forces of India and Pakistan in an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation along their common border are some two months old. They have imposed high costs, as reflected in the war tax collected by India, and the lowering of expectations of GDP growth in India and Pakistan. Crops and civilian life have been affected along a 2000-mile front. The additional Indian provocations, such as missile tests, have aroused serious international concern.

Few international analysts see the logic of the India’s resort to coercive diplomacy. President Musharraf has been offering talks for de-escalation leading possibly to negotiations on more substantive issues. At the same time, he chose the occasion of the Kashmir Solidarity Day on February 5 to reiterate Pakistan’s principled stand on Kashmir. India continues to maintain that “cross-border terrorism” has not ended, and that Pakistan keeps pushing or facilitating the movement of, armed men across the LoC.

Islamabad’s response to this oft-repeated allegation has been that both countries should agree to the stationing of the UN observers groups along the LoC to monitor any infiltration. India remains opposed to it, mainly because it wants no UN involvement in the situation in occupied Kashmir.

The risks from the military confrontation precipitated by India’s massing of its forces were largely obviated by international diplomacy, with US Secretary of State Colin Powell playing a major role. During his visit to the region in mid-January, he even took the occasion to point out to Prime Minister Vajpayee that the forward Indian military placements in Punjab were far too aggressive, on the basis of US satellite intelligence. Powell had also expressed himself satisfied over the measures announced by President Musharraf in his January 12 address to the nation to rein in religious militancy in Pakistan.

Given Pakistan’s accommodating posture, and repeated interest in reviving a dialogue, India’s obduracy in maintaining tension has been attributed by international analysts to domestic considerations, notably to capitalize on the war hysteria in elections in several North Indian states, notably UP and Punjab. Pakistani observers also see the traditional Indian goal of weakening Pakistan economically reflected in this display of coercive diplomacy. However, objective observers everywhere are beginning to realize that the muscle-flexing by India is proving counterproductive.

The tensions in the subcontinent figured in the talks President Musharraf had with President Bush and other US leaders during his recent visit to Washington. As if to prepare for a climbdown by India, comments have started appearing in the Indian press on the negative fallout of persistence in coercive diplomacy.

In an article in the prestigious Indian daily, the Hindu on February 12, Lt.Gen. V. R. Raghavan, who is director of the Delhi Policy Group, has come out with the view that India’s military deployment on the border may have achieved the goal of military persuasion but that “no more gains can be expected to accrue from its continuation.” Indeed, he has questioned the wisdom of such a course of action for political purpose.

In his view, this raises questions about India’s strategic purpose now that it has created the “unique situation of handling serious political threats through military measures”. Initially, the Indian response to the December 13 terrorist attack on the parliament building had wide public support. Though there was a military deployment and the language of war was repeatedly used by the political leadership, the “reality is that war was not an option available to the Indian government. Nor is that option available now, and is unlikely to be in future”. He feels “it is inconceivable that an Indian government can contemplate war without the minimum international empathy”, implying clearly that there is no support in the international community for a resort to military means by India.

Gen. Raghavan points out that maintaining a warlike posture by India has become “unrealistic and impractical” for two important reasons. Firstly, Pakistan has a nuclear capability and a limited war would carry the risk of a catastrophic nuclear exchange. Secondly, Pakistan, together with Afghanistan, has become part of US military presence in the region. The recent offer by Pakistan of Karachi as the base for US military operations in Afghanistan has “strategic Implications for India.”

Recent developments in India suggest that the divide between the moderates and the hardliners in the BJP leadership is again coming to the fore. Mr. Vajpayee has threatened to step down if the militant groups, such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Bajrang Dal and Shiv Sena persist in their resolve to begin construction of the Ram Mandir on the site of the demolished Babri Masjid despite injunctions of the Indian Supreme Court.

Mr. L.K.Advani and his backers continue to maintain a tough stance and are more concerned with electoral considerations. However, India’s persistence in coercive diplomacy is being seen as likely to prejudice the success already achieved in terms of tough measures taken by Pakistan against militant and terrorist forces and to turn it into a political and diplomatic liability.

Dinner at the Darbys

I WAS having dinner at the Darbys when Sheila Darby said, “Guess what Caroline wants to be when she grows up?”

We all looked at Caroline, who is 16 years old. She said, “I want to be a whistle-blower.”

“That’s an honorable profession,” I said. “But you have to work hard to catch a person who is up to no good.”

“That’s what I told her,” her father, Joe, said. “You have 15 minutes of glory and then you can’t find a job.”

Caroline said, “Sherron Watkins of Enron is my role model. All the girls at school think she’s fantastic.”

I said, “Whistle-blowers have come into their own now that Sherron has spilled the beans. But no one at Enron backed her up. Whistle-blowing is a very lonely business.”

Joe said, “I don’t want TV cameras on my lawn all day and all night.”

Caroline said, “That’s the part I like the most. I could be interviewed on the ‘Today Show’ and ‘Good Morning America,’ and by Tom Brokaw. He could say I was a member of the Greatest Generation.”

Sheila said to Caroline, “If you’re going to be a whistle-blower, you’re going to need a decent education. No one is going to believe you if you don’t have a college degree.”

Joe said, “There are corporate whistle-blowers who report on their bosses stealing from the pension fund. No one in the company will talk to them at the water cooler anymore.”

Caroline asked, “How do I practise being a whistle-blower?”

I suggested, “For starters, you could snitch on your 14-year-old brother, Tommy.”

Caroline said, “I saw him smoking a cigarette outside Tyson’s Corner mall.”

I said to the Darbys, “She’s a natural whistle-blower.”

Tommy was angry and yelled at Caroline, “I was not and you know it.”

Joe said, “If I were you, Tommy, I’d take the Fifth Amendment.”

Caroline said, “By the time I grow up, Sherron Watkins will have used up her 15 minutes.”

I replied, “Not necessarily. Don’t forget she has a book to write and her story will be made into a TV movie.” Joe complained, “That means we’ll have to give up all our privacy. Sherron Watkins may be a very successful whistle-blower, but there are thousands of tattletales you’ve never heard about. They lost their jobs and their health insurance.”

Sheila said, “I like what Caroline wants to do. If she can find a crooked accountant or a smarmy lawyer when she grows up, we should encourage her.”

Tommy said, “I would rather be a crooked accountant. You make more money.”

Caroline told him, “If you were, I would send you to jail.”

Tommy answered, “Says who?”

I interrupted and said, “I would rather have a whistle-blower than a crooked lawyer in the family.” Sheila said, “Wouldn’t we all?”—Dawn/Tribune Media Services