On to the year 2003

WHAT is in store for Pakistan in the year 2003? Are there some developments that we can foresee of which Pakistan’s new policymakers should take serious notice? What should Islamabad do to take advantage of the positive developments that may occur in 2003 while protecting itself against some of the problems the year might bring?

These are important questions as the new generation of politicians settle down in Islamabad and in the country’s four provinces and begin to move Pakistan forward into a new era. Many of the answers to the questions posed above will depend upon developments within the country’s own borders. The direction the country will take in 2003 will depend to a significant extent on the relationship various political parties are able to forge with the military leaders. In this context, the distribution of work, authority and responsibility will be a matter of tremendous import. Would the Musharraf-Jamali duo have a more comfortable relationship than the Zia-Junejo arrangement of some decade and a half ago? Only passage of time will provide an answer to this question.

The year 2003 will also be shaped by the way the various political parties and political organizations get to work with one another. The elections of October 2002 moved Pakistan away from the two-party structure that evolved in the period 1985-1999. There are advantages in that kind of system. In theory it provides two clear alternatives to the populace. The people can choose between two different sets of policies and two different sets of governance. But for such a system to work, it is important that the parties operate within political and institutional frameworks to which both subscribe. The conflict between the different points of view has to be fought within the boundaries of a political system.

That, of course, did not happen in Pakistan. The two mainstream parties — the Pakistan People’s Party and the Pakistan Muslim League — were not prepared to live together in the same political space. The conflict between them started the moment election results were announced and a victor was identified. That led to a no-holds barred tussle in which the victor and the vanquished adopted all means — legal and extra-legal — to diminish each other. The party that came to power worked hard to send the opposition into deep shadows. The opposition laboured equally strenuously to make it difficult for the people in power to govern and complete their tenure.

It was inevitable that in such a situation very little of substance got achieved. The most damaging consequences of this unending battle between two highly entrenched political processes was the destruction of the country’s institutional base. In the decade and a half between the time General Ziaul Haq began the long process of pulling the military out of politics to the time General Pervez Musharraf brought the military back into power was characterized by an assault by the politicians on most institutions important for ensuring economic and political development. Three parts of the institutional structure were especially targeted to create space for the politicians who wished to retain power in their hands no matter at what cost.

The judicial system was made subservient to the will of the politicians in power. The administrative system was politicized. The financial system was used to reward friends and followers and punish those who dared oppose those who controlled the levers of power. Both parties, the PML and the PPP, must share the blame for making Pakistan an institutional graveyard.

As economists enlarge the scope and breadth of their analysis to understand why certain economies fare better than others, they have begun to focus their attention on two things that are important contributors to development. Continuity of policy is one and a robust institutional structure is another. Both were absent in Pakistan in 1985-1999. The question at the start of 2003 is whether these two contributors to development would be resurrected.

The answer will be provided by the ability of the new generations of politicians to work the new political system. The system is new for many reasons; of these two are of particular importance. The military has given itself a formal role with a reasonably well articulated mandate. It expects the politicians to abide by that mandate. Two, Pakistan now has a multi-party system with four components: the PML, the PPP, the MMA and the MQM. The two mainstream parties have strong and durable support which will ensure their continuous presence in the political arena. The religious parties, by coalescing together, have learnt to play the political game. And the MQM, a party with a strong regional base, now walks the corridors of power in Islamabad and Karachi.

Will the fracturing of the political system and the demise of the two-party structure produce a government and a set of policies that would ensure continuity of policies? A multiparty system in India that emerged out of the system that was dominated for several decades by the Congress Party has produced reasonable policy stability in that country. Pakistan could follow the same route. In sum, the performance of the Pakistani economy in 2003 will be affected in many profound ways by the way the political system evolves over the next several months.

The second important influence on Pakistan’s economic performance will be its relations with the United States. This is a complex relationship and its evolution will depend on a number of factors, some of which our policymakers have only dimly understood. Whether we like it or not — and whether we agree with Samuel Huntington’s contention that following the collapse of communism the dominant battle for ideas in the world will be between the West and Islam — religion will play a role in determining America’s approach towards Pakistan and other large Muslim states.

It is important to note that when Huntington wrote about a clash of civilizations he did not see it as an open conflict between two religious systems — one Christian, the other Muslim. Instead, he wrote about the West represented by a system of values in which religion did not play any significant role. According to him, the clash he saw coming was between a secular system of governance and a system dominated by religious beliefs and values.

But America under Bush and Ashcroft is in many ways an increasingly Christian — or, more accurately, a Judeo-Christian country. President Bush, a born again Christian, is not the only politician in America who has turned towards religion as a guide for making policy. Last spring Tom Delay, the new House majority leader, told a church group that “only Christianity offers a way to live in response to the realities that we find in this world — only Christianity.” He also said he was on a mission from God to promote a “biblical worldview” in American politics.

This swing towards a religious base for policymaking was enforced by “nine-eleven” and President George W. Bush’s celebrated “us versus them” response. Who are Mr. Bush’s “us?” His definition goes beyond the simple “America vs. the world that is attempting to hurt America.” It defines “us” in terms of the people who seek to defend and perpetuate an instinctive use of loyalty. As one conservative writer explains in an article contributed recently to The Wall Street Journal, the sense of “us” is “reinforced by customs and habits that have their origin in the Judeo-Christian inheritance, and which must be constantly refreshed from that source if they are to endure. In the modern context, the American conservative is an opponent of multi-culturalism and the liberal attempt to sever the constitution from the religious and cultural inheritance that first created it.”

America’s turn towards conservatism interpreted in strong religious overtones poses serious difficulties for Muslim countries in which Islamic parties have gained a foothold through the democratic process. How Washington responds to the problem posed by the emergence of democratic-political Islam has special significance for countries such as Pakistan and Turkey. Equally significant is the question as to how a coalition of religious parties such as the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal in Pakistan and the Justice and Development Party in Turkey will relate to America and its world view.

Complicating the situation created by these deep ideological differences that have recently emerged between Washington under President Bush and some parts of the Muslim world is Pakistan’s inability to fully satisfy America and to fulfil the demands the latter has made on Islamabad. According to a report filed by the respected Pakistani journalist, Ahmed Rashid, and published in an American newspaper a week or two ago, “Today US officials express deep concern with Islamabad’s behaviour on three fronts: Pakistan’s testy relations with neighbouring India, its protection of Afghan figures the US considers terrorists, and Islamabad’s alleged aid to North Korea.”

The Americans may be weary of alienating Pakistan at this time since there is now consensus in Washington that Afghanistan has not settled down into the kind of tranquillity that was expected following the defeat of the Taliban. Also, the Americans would not want to upset a key Muslim ally as they prepare for a possible war on Iraq. And, continues Rashid, “For their part, Pakistani officials have warned Washington that with anti-American feeling on the rise across the country, General Musharraf has no choice but to show some independence from US pressure.”

That the citizens of Pakistan have strong reservations about the way Washington is managing its relations with the Muslim world has not gone unnoticed in Washington. In a recent worldwide opinion poll by the Pew Research Centre, 69 per cent of Pakistanis held an unfavourable view of the United States and only 10 per cent had anything positive to say about America. Of the 44 countries surveyed for this project, Pakistan tied in with Egypt for the most negative perception of the United States.

For a democratically elected government, managing relations with America will pose an especially difficult problem. But this relationship will need to be managed in a way that keeps Washington interested in Pakistan’s economic and social development. A country in Pakistan’s situation — a country short of resources it needs to invest to promote development and a country that must look for markets for the products it wishes to export — must find a way of working with the world’s only remaining power. At the same time, the US’s interest in Pakistan and in the region in which we are situated must be accommodated without sacrificing our sovereignty and strategic interests. Balancing these two objectives will pose a challenge for the Jamali administration.

How Pakistan performs in 2003 will be determined to a great extent by the type of relations the country’s new leaders forge with Washington.

An attack on us all

THE preparations for a war on Iraq are moving inexorably forward, despite UN intervention, formal and popular opposition, and Iraqi ingenuity and compliance. The real motives for this projected attack, despite a plethora of public pronouncements, remain confusing and mysterious.

Many Arabs see in it a variety of sinister plots involving control over their oil, neo-colonialism in their region and the machinations of a hegemonic Israel. Much of this has been ascribed to the Arab obsession with conspiracy theories, and yet there is an anti-Arab theme running through the debate over Iraq. A deep and unconscious racism imbues every aspect of western conduct towards Iraq — and by extension the Arabs in general.

Ever since the first Gulf war, America and its western allies have portrayed the conflict as a fight with one man, Saddam Hussein, apparently existing in a void in which the 22 million Iraqi inhabitants do not feature. Even the name of the 1991 military campaign against Iraq — Desert Storm — helped reinforce this concept of an empty land. The Iraqi leader is always referred to by his first name, not in endearment of course but, in the Arab view, to denigrate his status; no other president of a sovereign state is addressed in this way.

Arabs call him Saddam as well, but the reasons are quite different. As an Arabic personal name, it is almost unique and hence could be a surname. This implies no disrespect, as in the West. The language used about him by western leaders reinforces that disrespect: “What we have done is put Saddam back firmly in his cage”; “he knows what he has to do” (Tony Blair, 1998 and 2002); “Saddam is bottled up”, (US vice-president Dick Cheney, 2001).

The epithets applied to the Iraqi leader are so virulent as to demonize him beyond reason. All sense of who he really is, a petty local chieftain, albeit a brutal and ruthless one, and Third World dictator in the mould of many others before him, has long vanished from the debate.

No wonder that in this scenario, the Iraqi people — the real victims of the West’s sanctions against Saddam Hussein — have been ignored. Their feelings go unremarked, except when it has been politically expedient to adopt one or other group among them — the Marsh Arabs, the Shi’a community in southern Iraq, the Kurds. Under the latest UN security council resolution (1441), Iraqi scientists and their “immediate families” can be moved out of Iraq for interrogation, like so many inanimate objects.

This ignores both the rights and wishes of the people concerned but also the crucial fact that Arab families are traditionally extended. The immediate members make up a fraction of a much larger whole, and all are important. No Iraqi would submit to any procedure that might endanger this extended family. In response, the US is considering issuing subpoenas demanding their presence outside Iraq.

To Arabs, resolution 1441 evokes nothing less than the image of a sadistic UN schoolmaster flogging an errant Iraqi pupil. At the same time, strenuous western efforts have been made to groom Iraqi opposition groups for government — though they are notorious for being unstable and fractious — without the slightest concern for their legitimacy in Iraq or their acceptability to the Iraqi people.

Undeterred, the US backed a major Iraqi opposition conference in London to elaborate a future post-war strategy for Iraq. Reports spoke of petty squabbling and rivalry among the 50 or so groups there, while the US envoy was making “the real decisions” in private meetings taking place alongside the conference.

Likewise, the planning of the war on Iraq and its aftermath is callously unconcerned with the human consequences. Arab states considered necessary for launching the war have been coerced into acquiescence in the American plan, irrespective of the effects on their populations and governments.

Thus, the Syrian president paid a first ever official visit to Britain — part flattery, part arm-twisting. A sop to Arab feeling comes in the shape of Sawa, a sugary US radio station in Arabic recently established and aimed at wooing younger Arabs. Tony Blair has suddenly announced he will host a conference on Palestine, presumably ahead of the attack on Iraq. Worthy as this initiative would appear, one must suspect that it is yet another sop to the Arabs and a ploy to ensure their compliance over Iraq.

There is open talk of an interim US governorship for Iraq after the anticipated fall of the present regime and an imposed leadership, possibly chosen from the same unreliable Iraqi opposition parties. As preparations to attack an Arab country intensify, the US continues its unabashed support for Israel, without regard for the suffering of the Palestinians.

Iraq’s history under British rule in the 1920s, when popular opposition was crushed by military force, including the use of mustard gas, is a vivid reminder of such attitudes. In 1921 Winston Churchill, then colonial secretary, wrote in an official communication: “I am strongly in favour of using poison gas on uncivilized tribes.” Later, he added that the gas used against the Iraqi rebels had “excellent moral effects”.

The creation of Israel in 1948 against the will of the native population is another classic example of colonialism. The 1917 Balfour declaration, which paved the way for this, consigned the Arab majority to the status of “non-Jewish communities”. That dismissal of the indigenous population made possible the subsequent takeover of Palestine by European Jews.

America’s intention to wage an unprovoked war on Iraq is redolent of this earlier colonialist tradition. The racism underlying this emanates from an anti-Arab culture in the US that gained strength after September 11, though it was well established, before. Hollywood made several overtly anti-Arab films long before September 11, notably ‘True Lies’ in 1994, which depicted Arab terrorists bombing American cities. The mass media and countless cartoons now depict Arabs in overtly racist ways and go unpunished; Arabs are being harassed and intimidated, and 2,000 are currently being held without trial in US jails.

I recall that a similar culture prevailed in the UK during the 1956 Suez crisis and the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, when Nasser was the arch-villain and all Arabs were crudely targeted. Today, in Britain, such overt anti-Arabness is unacceptable, so it takes subtler forms. Saddam-bashing, a sport officially sanctioned since 1991, has made him the perfect surrogate for anti-Arab abuse. It is tragic that the Arabs themselves — those who are providing facilities for this war — should have colluded with an enterprise so irrational, destructive and demeaning. —Dawn/Guardian News Service.

The writer is a former president of the Palestinian Community Association in Britain

A frightening 2003: ALL OVER THE PLACE

DONALD Rumsfeld’s words ring out to greet the new year: “The US military was perfectly capable of fighting two major regional conflicts while continuing to engage terrorists across the world.”

It is not quite the message that fills our hearts with good cheer and we look to 2003 with grave forebodings, more struggle, more strife, more deaths, more ruination. No mention of peace on earth, no offerings of hope. More terrifying than war is the aftermath of war, whole regions being turned into refugee-camps, more breeding grounds of hatred, the spoils of battles won.

Yet, there is no regret that 2002 has passed. True, there were elections in Pakistan but the elections were inconclusive in that no single party was given a clear mandate. Indeed, the elections were not about issues, the long list of the people’s needs and wants, but were contest between personalities, some of whom sat on the fence, a rusted fence, till they knew which was the winning side.

Still, that is politics, as the politicians themselves will tell you, the art of the possible, a reed that will bend, will not break. I cannot presume (or dare) to speak on behalf of the people. But I would guess that there are no great expectations. All your wishes can come true, if you do not make any wishes. A case of nothing ventured, nothing lost! Life goes on, good or bad and we are like the poor boy who cursed because he had no shoes, until he saw an even poorer boy who had no legs. There are countries that are far worse off than Pakistan. We must count our blessings.

Can we look forward to 2003? As individuals, some of us can and some of us can’t. As a country, we have no control over forces that seem hell-bent on destabilizing the region, whether it is our belligerent neighbour, now clothed in saffron robes, or the war on terror, in which we are a front-line state but on the receiving end from both sides, the terrorists and those who are waging war against them.

We are getting our share of bomb blasts and we have been called “the most dangerous country in the world,” and Australian cricket teams refuse to play in Pakistan because they are fearful of their security.

Meanwhile, our doctors are picked up in the dead of night at the pointation of FBI whose sleuths seem to be sniffing about for Al Qaeda fellow-travellers, ministering to Afghan wounded or the sick being a violation of the Hippocratic Oath rather than an adherence to it. My father was a doctor and he ran a Children’s Free Dispensary in Delhi and he was in the British Army (IMS) and he never bothered to ask whether his patients were ‘loyal’ subjects or whether they were children of those plotting against the Raj. They were children and they needed medical attention.

India was simmering with revolt, slogans of inqilab zindabad broke the silence of the troubled midnight and the noon’s repose. The British, to their credit did not put him on a watch-list. A doctor must do what he is trained to do, heal the sick.

I wrote in a column about the profiling of Muslims in the United States. Masood Haider, a friend of mine and this newspaper’s correspondent in New York, wrote last week of the harrowing experiences of two distinguished Pakistanis, Arshad Mahmud, a music composer and Prof. Muzzafar Iqbal, a Canadian-Pakistani, when they arrived in New York.

It is one thing to be checked and questioned by an Immigration official. But good manners and courtesy need not be sacrificed in doing so. Both were insulted and humiliated and the line of questioning bordered on the bizarre. It qualifies as third-degree, demeaning, menacing and all they wanted was to enter a country for which they held valid visas.

Masood Haider’s report ends with this revealing paragraph: “When a Pakistani correspondent wanted to know as to why such mistrust of Pakistanis is pervasive at the Immigration Department, one immigration official responded: ‘We trusted those 15 of the 19 Saudi hijackers who were in this country legally. Look what they did?’”

Words fail me, how does one respond to this kind of logic? One would expect that someone would have briefed immigration officials that discretionary powers that are vested in them do not allow them to behave like wardens in a maximum-security prison. A visitor to the US does not surrender his self-respect, or should.

There is, of course, the World Cup and we are all looking forward to it. Even the World Cup cannot escape from politics. There are efforts being made to punish Zimbabwe for its land-reforms that affect white landowners. A campaign is underway to declare Zimbabwe as being an ‘unsafe’ country though the ICC has cleared it. You steal someone’s country and you resent it when he wants it back. Pretty soon, a terrorist cell will be discovered in Harare and there will be demands to remove Mugabe, to bring about a regime-change. So goes the world and a happy new year.

I am sorry I cannot offer more cheer. These are dangerous times for friend and foe alike. How does one tell the difference?

A gain for Sri Lanka

THE suicide bombings and assassinations that have plagued Sri Lanka for nearly two decades have so poisoned the air that neutral locations are needed to discuss how to stop the killing.

Norway has played a key role in mediating between the Tamil terrorists and the Sri Lankan government, and Oslo was chosen for talks this month that centred on how to maintain the cease-fire that has worked well for a year.

The meetings produced an unexpected bonus: The terrorists gave up their demands for independence. The minority Tamils on the beautiful island off the southern tip of India long have claimed that the majority Sinhalese discriminate against them. Nineteen years ago the Tamil Tigers demanded a separate homeland and launched a civil war in which 64,000 people have been killed - this in a country of fewer than 20 million.

Fighting was especially savage in the northeast, where rebels held so much territory they established their own police stations and courts. India sent troops in the 1980s in an unsuccessful attempt to enforce a cease-fire. A Tamil suicide bomber who crossed into India assassinated former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 as he was campaigning for reelection.

A Tiger negotiator said his group would have to explain to followers why it had abandoned its demand for independence. But giving up the impossible dream of a new nation and acceptance of a “federal” state were important steps in making the cease-fire more solid. So was the trip by Tamil leaders to Switzerland last week to examine the Swiss government’s relationship with the cantons.

The Oslo talks were the third round in a year, resulting in what should be a clear road map to ending the civil war. The Tigers claim to have stopped recruiting children as soldiers or kidnapping them, and the next talks, scheduled for Thailand in January, will include human rights and possible constitutional changes to allow the Tamils the autonomy both sides have agreed on.

Washington considers the Tamil Tigers a terrorist organization and has helped Sri Lanka in the peace process by providing aid and financing the clearing of land mines. Some three dozen foreign nations gathered in Oslo in November to show support for the cease-fire and promise additional funds to rebuild from the devastation.

Past attempts to end the bloodshed have failed, but both sides appear sufficiently weary of the killing to give this cease-fire a greater chance for success. —Los Angeles Times

Deeper into the communal trap

TWO dates, a year apart, stand out in India as being of historic significance. On December 13, 2001, a terrorist attack on the Indian parliament was utilized by the BJP government to resort to a whole series of punitive measures against Pakistan for its alleged complicity in acts of terrorism.

The concentration of India’s armed forces along the border and the LoC the snapping of all communication links by land and air with Pakistan, and the downgrading of diplomatic representation were presented to the world as an expression of disapproval of “cross-border terrorism.” President Musharraf felt obliged, a month later, to announce draconian measures to contain terrorism and extremism.

On December 12 this year, the BJP won a decisive victory in elections in Gujarat by exploiting communal antagonism, in which the Muslim population was subjected to violence and victimization on a scale that put responsible Indian analysts to shame. Not only did the president of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad claim credit for having torn to shreds secularism, which is a basic principle of the Indian constitution; he also declared that the enforcement of Hindutva was going to be the main plank of the ruling party’s campaign strategy in other parts of India.

Political developments in India and Pakistan have to be understood in the light of the rapidly evolving scenario in the region, notably in the post-cold war period, that affects them directly. The year 1989, which witnessed the demolition of the Berlin Wall, and the launching of a democracy movement in the world, also saw the launching of the Kashmir intifada. Another landmark event of that year was the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan. However, Afghanistan remained unstable, and with the Soviet-backed Najibullah regime holding on to power in Kabul for another three years, the Afghan jihad continued. During these years, with India stepping up repression in Kashmir, jihadist activity picked up there as well.

India found it convenient to put the blame for that indigenous freedom movement on outside incitement and support. The rise of Hindu extremism in India, and the increase in the strength of the BJP in the Indian parliament was directly related to these developments.

What is significant is that the curve of religious extremism is moving in opposite directions in India and Pakistan. The rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan had been endorsed by some of the religious parties in Pakistan, which were also sympathetic to the heightened activity of the Mujahideen in occupied Kashmir, in response to severe repression by the Indian armed forces. However, the resort to terror by some extremist groups inside Pakistan was also out of sectarian hatred which was no doubt being fanned by RAW for its own ends. Pakistan had begun cracking down on religious extremism even before the 9/11 events, and the government of President Musharraf had taken serious note of the problem of religious militancy right from the time it assumed power in October 1999. It banned two extremist sectarian organizations in August 2001.

Since the 9/11 events, Pakistan has moved decisively to curb all forms of religious extremism, and steps have been taken to rid the madrassahs of any militant. Following the president’s address of January 12, 2002, not only were all jihadist groups banned, but hundreds of their leaders and activists were also arrested. The subsequent occurrence of terrorist acts targeting foreigners has led to further strict measures to eliminate terrorism and extremism. All political parties, including the religious ones, oppose militancy and terror as being opposed to the teachings of Islam.

In India, the trend has been in the opposite direction. Taking advantage of the linkage established in the US and other western countries between terrorism and the Muslim world, the Hindu extremists have increased their activities sharply. Within the ruling BJP, the hard-liners like L.K. Advani, the deputy prime minister, and Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat, have carried the day. Since February 2002, when riots broke out in Gujarat, over the alleged attack by Muslims on a train carrying Hindu activists returning from Ayodhya, there has been a well-planned and state-backed pogrom against Muslims.

In a continuous orgy of communal violence, more than 2,000 persons have been killed in Gujarat, most of them Muslims. The scheduling of state elections by Modi while communal passions were high has paid off handsomely, as the BJP has won two-thirds of the seats in the state.

Despite the signal for de-escalation, as indicated by the Indian decision in October to end military concentration along the border, the extremist faction of the BJP has taken charge, with Mr. Vajpayee going along. Advani even called for all-out war against Pakistan, and took advantage of the terrorist attacks on temples in Jammu and Gujarat to indulge in anti-Muslim fulminations. Saner elements urged a more moderate approach but the Hindu extremists remained adamant on playing the communal card. Pravin Togadiya, the general secretary of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, declared that the election in Gujarat “was fought on Hindutva and we will not let them shift the agenda”. He called for a mass mobilization drive in the run-up to national elections in 2004.

This trend marks a radical shift from the compromise the BJP had made when it formed the government in New Delhi in October 1999. To build a coalition with 23 other parties, the BJP had given up several goals of its manifesto, including that of building a temple at Ayodhya, abrogating article 370 of the constitution relating to autonomy in Kashmir, and replacing Muslim personal law. In the wake of the Gujarat election results, Hindu extremists are demanding that the project of building the Ram Temple on the ruins of the Babri Masjid must be completed forthwith.

State elections are due in another ten states next year, and the BJP is making plans to apply the same strategy of fanning Hindu extremism by precipitating communal frenzy, that may again lead to violence and atrocities against the Muslims. The formula worked in Gujarat because BJP held power there and the state machinery could be used with impunity against the hapless Muslims. Will public opinion in other states allow the stirring up of anti-Muslim hatred, and display the same contempt for saner opinion at home, as well as reactions abroad? Many commentators hope this will not happen.

Anyway, the linking of the election strategy of a major political party in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious country of the size and potential of India to religious extremism cannot be happy augury for the future.

India’s ambitions to play the role of a major power in the Indian Ocean region cannot be helped by the campaign to impose the doctrine of Hindutva, specially if the strategy of the leading political party is to victimize the Muslim minority, and fan anti-Muslim sentiments to gain power. More than half of the Indian Ocean littoral countries are Muslim, so that this approach is bound to prove counterproductive. Even within the country, the tensions and instability arising out of the policy of promoting communal differentiation is economically crippling. The rate of growth in Gujarat, which had been one of the most dynamic and flourishing states of India, has fallen to below one per cent as a result of the dislocation of industry and commerce caused by communal violence and insecurity. Should the same strategy be followed in other states, the negative internal and external consequences can be crippling.

Among Pakistani intellectuals, the fall-out of the prolonged conflict inside Kashmir is being critically evaluated, specially following the apparent Indian success in putting a “terrorist” label on the freedom struggle there. The major powers and the bulk of the international community are unlikely to put much pressure on India to honour its earlier commitments to allow the people of Kashmir decide their future through an impartial plebiscite. An estimated 50 per cent of Indians do not support the use of violence by either side in Kashmir and could possibly be influenced through a non-violent struggle that relies on the merits of the case in Kashmir. The strategy of keeping the issue alive, while taking violence and bloodshed out of it, can be sustained through a peaceful struggle in the held state.

Many Kashmiris inside the state want to see an end to the terrible suffering of the people, as the Indian government’s resolve to crush the uprising has received tacit international backing in the post-9/11 period. Violent struggles are now frowned upon as a form of terrorism. With both India and Pakistan now armed with nuclear weapons, finding a solution to their differences through conflict is virtually ruled out; peaceful dialogue is the only realistic and sensible option.

During the election campaign in Gujarat, the Congress Party tried partly to capitalize on the communal feelings, though not as blatantly as the BJP. Would the “success” of the BJP push it in the same direction, or would it and other political forces show awareness of the dangers inherent in the Hindutva approach? Would political power based on hate and oppression secure India support for its bid for a big power status? Despite the short-sighted attempts by power hungry politicians, the ancient Indian civilization has certain values that need to be adhered to. One hopes the great mass of the Indian people will realize the terrible consequences of falling deeper into the extremist trap.