| October 10, 2003 | Friday | Sha’aban 13, 1424 |
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Faith in the unseen
Rebuilding Iraq
Growing US anxieties
THE Quran enjoins belief in the unseen (2:3) which could obviously be faith in the existence and Unity of Allah (112:1-4). There is an impression that for having firm faith in the existence of something one must either see that thing with one’s own eyes or there must be some signs or indications which are convincing enough about the existence of that thing.
THE visit to Islamabad earlier this week of two high-level US State Department officials was apparently aimed at seeking a reassurance of Pakistan’s commitment to the war on international terrorism. With the situation in both Afghanistan and Iraq continuing to be a matter of growing concern, Washington would want to be sure of the intentions of the allies it has in the region. Pakistan’s unclear stand on sending its troops to strengthen the peacekeeping force in Iraq is also a source of anxiety for the Bush administration.
WHEN was the last time that India witnessed a national political agitation on a purely economic issue? 1973, when George Fernandes organized the railway strike.
The great movement inspired by Jayaprakash Narayan in 1974, which left Indira Gandhi so impotent that she was forced to declare an Emergency in June 1975, was a call against corruption and political immorality. There was no serious economic agenda beyond undefined aspirations for a socialist society. The eighties began with the explosive Khalistan conflict, but that was another attempt to partition the country in the name of religion.
L.K. Advani and V.P. Singh launched their separate assaults on Rajiv Gandhi in the late eighties: Advani exploited with consummate skill a horrific mistake made by Rajiv Gandhi when he chose to appease the most regressive elements in the Indian Muslim community over a Supreme Court judgment that sought to protect an impoverished Muslim divorcee’s alimony.
In the process, Advani let loose the most regressive elements in the Indian Hindu community, but that is another story. V.P. Singh settled for the familiar territory of corruption. When corruption withered on the vine, V.P. Singh turned to casteism, the alternative dialectic of Indian socialists.
But it was the Advani momentum that consumed the nineties, and eventually brought the BJP to power at the head of a coalition. One of the ironies of these last three decades has been the co-option of George Fernandes as well as many of the Jayaprakash socialists into this coalition. Both the BJP and the socialists put something of their past aside to share a common platform. But that is not the only irony. It was easier for the socialists to surrender their past because their ideas sank somewhere in the shifting sands of the nineties. It is entirely understandable that George Fernandes chose to ignore the 30th anniversary of the great railway strike. It is as if he does not want to remember the high point of a now irrelevant past.
A child born in 1973 could have voted five times to elect a national government. In none of the general elections since 1989 has economic development been the principal issue on which the fate of governments has hinged. Nor has there been any serious opportunity for a child of 1973 to channel his anger at hunger or deprivation through a democratic forum. This is extraordinary. There is a current feel-good factor that encourages us to believe that we are no longer a poor nation.
This may even be partially true: certainly we are richer than we were three decades ago, and infinitely better off than we were four decades ago when famine was still a familiar ghost at an empty table. But India is still the nation with the world’s largest population of poor people. About 400 million Indians are still either on the wrong side of the poverty line, or hovering too close to the line to tell the difference. That is more than the population of the whole of North America.
Poverty is not a statistic. Poverty is people. Who are the poor of India?
You will find the poor among all the castes and communities, but the two groups that have the largest incidence of poverty are the Dalits and the tribals. Poverty levels among Muslims are high too, but not as high as that among the Dalits and tribals. Moreover, Muslim politics — unfortunately — is not driven by economic issues.
What distinguishes the Dalit experience from the tribal one is empowerment. The Dalits were fortunate to have a leader of the eminence of Babasaheb Ambedkar who began to mobilize his community to become a participant in the political structures that the British started to set up after the Communal Award of 1932. Ambedkar, passionate in his anger against the inhuman injustice reserved for the Dalits, wanted the most radical options: he urged conversion to Buddhism and separate electorates.
Mahatma Gandhi, seeking to prevent another schism within the Hindu community, intervened and launched the process by which the Dalits became part of the Congress vote bank. In other words, the politicization of the Dalits began early, and moved up a significant notch upwards when Kanshi Ram launched the Bahujan Samaj Party and Mayawati emerged as his heir.
The tribals have been the most neglected, exploited and manipulated people of the country. Gandhi had no time for the people of the forest, because there was no Ambedkar to threaten his vision of social coexistence. The tribals we are talking about live in a belt across the middle of India, from Jharkhand through Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat and Maharashtra. They have lived on the margins of our society. Their men were treated like animals and their women like sex slaves.
Their own liberal social mores provided a convenient veneer for this exploitation, and their voice is still drowned out in a litany of crude jeers mixed with ferocious brutality. The only institution that had time for tribals was the Church. The Vatican has recognized this by elevating the archbishop of Ranchi, Teleshore P. Toppo, to a cardinal.
The Congress took the tribals for granted. It picked up their votes and forgot about them. The socialists, whose social philosophy was more egalitarian, should have attempted to empower them, shifted to other streams of politics. They invested in the Backward Castes in the north, and in trade unions. The only political force that went into tribal areas was the Communists. The first show of Communist muscle was in Telengana, but since it was an armed struggle rather than a democratic one, it was defeated.
The Communists did not bring the tribals into the democratic flow of Indian politics; not when they were limited to Telengana, and not in their Naxalite incarnation either. This historical hangover, as well as the inability of either national or regional parties to create a connect with the tribals, has left them unempowered.
The tribals wanted economic development; they wanted rescue from the degrading poverty into which they had been born. They lived in the midst of great natural wealth, of forest and ore, but while every other kind of Indian prospered from coal and mine, the people of the land were left in hopeless misery. Political parties walked away from economic issues, and the indifference of the 1950s and 1960s evolved into the callous neglect of the next three decades.
The only organization that began work in tribal areas, partly in response to the Church, was the RSS. This brought important dividends in a state like Gujarat. But the RSS could work only where it could; and its mission was socio-religious, not economic. The real answer was political, and for five decades the tribals were denied their legitimate states because the Congress and its successor governments simply did not care enough to do what should have been done with the Fazl Ali commission in the mid-fifties: the creation of tribal-majority states. It was left to Atal Behari Vajpayee to push through the first decisive affirmative action on behalf of the tribals when his government created the states of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.
In such an environment, violence has sometimes been the only answer. In fact, perhaps the surprise is why there has not been more violence in central India.
But the story of the People’s War Group, which attempted the assassination of Andhra Pradesh’s capable chief minister, Chandrababu Naidu, is a little more complicated, and a little less savoury. The PWG, or the Naxalites, once evoked the romance of Telengana and of Naxalbari. But today they are running a state within a state. They have parallel revenue raising means, which is a polite way of describing extortion. The state government has either an easy or uneasy relationship with the Naxalites, depending on deals made on the ground between the MLA, the police and the Naxalites. When the deals have not been struck, or have been violated, violence begins, or resumes.
Why would a politician want to make a deal with the Naxalites? The answer is simple enough. Naxalites have popular support and control votes; they can deliver them in bulk. Why quarrel with the managers of any vote bank? The disease is not restricted to Andhra; Ajit Jogi in Chhattisgarh is flirting with similar fire.
Of course it is a dangerous game, because those who believe in the gun are dangerous people. This factor turns the game into a sinister one, because once violence becomes part of the power culture, it blurs into convenience. When you want to settle scores, you can use the Naxalites to blame the death. Indeed, they themselves could become guns for hire; after all, they do use it for revenue. In the shadowy nether regions of power, who knows what is the truth?
Andhra Pradesh is fortunate that Chandrababu is alive and well. This should be a wake-up call for the chief minister if there ever was one. He needs to find out the truth, and then do something about the truth.
The diagnosis must reach out to the heart of the problem, which remains poverty, and the neglect of the poor. The poor have also become pawns, but the answer is to promote the pawns to a point where they have a place in the economy and thereby a stake in the system.
President Kalam asked a vital question when he last spoke to the nation: what will future generations remember us for? As builders of temples and mosques, or as builders of a nation? To build a nation politics has to reconnect with economics.
The writer is edit-in-chief of Asian Age, New Delhi.
But the fact remains that neither seeing with one’s eyes nor deduction arrived at through the process of pondering and reasoning can be the basic requirements of faith in the unseen. The process of pondering and reasoning can only strengthen faith in the existence of the unseen but it cannot be the basis of the faith itself. We have faith in the existence of many a things without seeing or pondering over them. For having faith in the existence of unseen, two things are necessary. One is the message about its existence which may be conveyed by one’s own intuition or by some other credible source or person. The other is some sign or manifestation to give further strength to such faith.
As regards faith in the existence of Allah, man always felt or perceived His existence and was so desperate about knowing that truth that he fell prostrate before any object which he took for Allah. It means that feeling about the existence of Allah was already there as a part of human nature. What it needed was proper guidance. The Quran gives clear indications about such a feeling when it refers to the pattern on which man was created (30:30). It was, therefore, through a living message conveyed through an unbroken chain of Prophets, starting from Adam and ending with Muhammad that the human beings were guided about whom they had to regard as real God.
A message acquires greater credibility when it is in the living form and is conveyed by or through some one worthy of credit and is at the same time accompanied by reliable guidance. All the Prophets were chosen from amongst the people for whom the message was initially meant and were well known for their credibility. Muhammad (peace be upon him) was termed as Amin (trustworthy) by his people long before he pronounced his nomination as the Messenger of Allah. The message of every Prophet was accompanied by necessary guidance.
Thus, our faith in the existence and unity of Allah is primarily based on the message conveyed through the channel of Prophets and guidance through them. The Quran too lays emphasis on the message for having faith in Allah (68:52) and rather prohibits the separation of Allah from the Prophets in matter of faith (4:150,151). One has to have faith in the both simultaneously. This fact is further reflected from another Quranic verse which says “And in the earth are many indications for those whose faith is firm. And (also) in your selves. Can you then not see?” (51:20,21).
The above verses tell us about two things. One is that there are many signs in the earth as well as in ourselves providing enough proof about the existence and unity of Allah. The other is that these signs are for those who have firm faith in the existence and unity of Allah. It means that faith in the existence and unity of Allah comes first and pondering over various signs as a proof of that comes later. The only way to have faith in the existence of Allah before pondering over the signs could be to accept the message conveyed by the Prophets. There can be no way other than that. Such faith is, however, further strengthened when one ponders over various signs in the universe.
According to the above verses (51:20,21), there are indications even in ourselves pointing towards the existence and unity of Allah. A minute look at the constitution, mechanism, and functioning of human body reveals that it is nothing but a unique configuration of the finest possible proportions which no artist or designer, other than Allah, could have possibly conceived. As the Quran says “Allah is the Creator, the Designer (shaper) out of naught and the Fashioner” (59:24). It further says “Who created you, then fashioned and proportioned you” (82:7). A human being is, in fact, one of those creations of Allah that exhibits all the attributes of Allah as mentioned in the two verses.
In addition to the human body, there are several other indications in the heavens and in the earth providing proof about the existence of Allah. The most conspicuous, infallible and convincing among these indications is the existence of harmony in the creation which could be one possible reason for the survival of the system for billions of years. In this connection the Quran says, “He raised the heavens high and set the balance” (55:7). It further says, “The sun must not catch up the moon, nor does the night outstrip the day. Each one is travelling in an orbit with its own motion” (36:40). And “We created seven heavens in harmony. You will not see any fault (disproportion) in the creation of the Merciful” (67:3,4).
According to renowned scientist Einstein, “God reveals Himself in the harmony that exists in the creation”. Commenting on the existence of this harmony, Martin Lings observes, “Harmony is the imprint of Oneness upon multiplicity, and the Quran draws attention to that harmony for man’s meditation”.
According to Charles Townes, a noted physicist who shared the 1964 Nobel Prize in physics, “recent discoveries in cosmology reveal a universe that fits religious views specially that some intelligence must have been involved in the laws of the universe”. According to John Polkinghorne, a prominent physicist, “when you realize that the laws of nature must be incredibly finely tuned to produce the universe we see, that conspires to plant the idea that the universe did not just happen, but that there must be a purpose behind it”. The Quran says “We will show them our portents on the horizons and within themselves until it is manifest to them that this is the truth” (41:53).
THE debate over President Bush’s request for $87 billion in emergency spending for Iraq and Afghanistan is threatening to take a dangerously irresponsible turn. Democrats and, to an extent that is rattling the Bush administration, some Republicans are drawing a distinction between the $66 billion requested for military spending and the $21 billion devoted to reconstruction, almost all of it in Iraq.
The first pot of money is considered politically untouchable; indeed, the first words out of nearly every lawmaker’s mouth are to pledge devotion to spending whatever is needed to support “our troops.” The reconstruction spending, though, has produced considerable dissent, with a number of lawmakers questioning whether US taxpayers ought to bear that burden.
Distinguishing between spending on troops and spending on reconstruction is a false and counterproductive dichotomy. Whatever one’s position on the war, it would be foolish now to withhold the resources needed to enable the enterprise to succeed. Getting the infrastructure — electricity, water, schools, hospitals — to the point of adequate functioning is a necessary step toward that aim.
Five billion dollars of the reconstruction money would go to desperately needed security measures such as training the Iraqi army and building up the police force. As Paul Bremer, the chief of the occupation authority, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week, failing to pay for reconstruction would be not only contrary to the interest of the Iraqi people but also “contrary to our interest, because it would create a situation of much greater insecurity.” Some of those complaining most loudly are the very people who have faulted the administration for failing to do enough for reconstruction in Afghanistan.
The administration can blame much of the resistance on itself. President Bush refused, both before and after hostilities commenced, to be straightforward about the magnitude of the undertaking. Instead, administration officials dismissed legitimate questions about its postwar plans and the eventual costs by insisting that it was all too uncertain and by flinging around overly optimistic predictions about the availability of Iraqi oil revenue.
They continue to be maddeningly coy about costs down the road. It’s disappointing that other nations are balking at making significant financial contributions, but a good deal of the responsibility for that, too, lies with Bush’s ham-handed diplomacy. Nor do we think the administration is automatically entitled to its request on its terms. Congress is right to ask searching questions before it cuts a check and to demand accountability afterward. Though this isn’t likely, Congress ought to help pay for the new spending by reconsidering the latest round of tax cuts and suspending those for the wealthiest Americans.
Still, much of the furore surrounding the spending request is sheer political mischief. The notion that any spending on the Iraqi infrastructure should be matched dollar for dollar with investments back home may play well with voters who worry, and rightly so, about the US electric grid or drinking water.
But to pile spending on spending and further increase the deficit is not a responsible solution. And while it might be appealing to make loans rather than grants to Iraq, that, too, would be an unwise course. Iraq already faces $200 billion in debt.
There isn’t any government empowered to make a binding repayment commitment, and an American claim on future oil revenue would play into the hands of those who viewed the war all along as a bid for Iraqi resources. As Bremer noted last week, Iraq ought to have enough leftover oil money by 2005 to begin paying for some reconstruction itself. To get there, though, it needs US help now. — The Washington Post
While in Pakistan, the US deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage, and the assistant secretary of State for South Asian Affairs, Ms Christina Rocca, spent practically all their time in talks with officials of the Pakistani defence and foreign policy establishments. Simultaneously, Gen John P. Abizaid, Commander of the US Central Command, also paid a two-day visit to Pakistan and had meetings, among others, with retired Lieut-General Hamid Nawaz Khan, defence secretary.
According to an official press release, the agenda for the talks included possible steps for strengthening security along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan and Pak-US cooperation in “hunting for Al Qaeda and Taliban militants.”
It was no coincidence that on the eve of the US state department officials’ visit, Pakistan intensified its operations for cleansing the tribal territory adjoining Afghanistan of militant elements.
Despite the presence of a jirga-elected administration under President Hamid Karzai in Kabul, the political and law and order situation in Afghanistan remains volatile. It is common knowledge that the Karzai administration’s writ does not run much beyond Kabul and certain elements in the countryside regard themselves as a law unto themselves.
At places in South Waziristan straddling the Pak-Afghan border, pockets of Taliban elements appear to have lately consolidated their position. A French TV journalist has reported his journey from Balochistan to some miles inside the Afghan territory where he came across what to him seemed like a fairly strong position of the Taliban in Khost. According to him, he made contact with “more than 50 Taliban” inside Afghanistan after getting in touch with a Taliban representative in Quetta.
Reports such as these and of the presence of the Taliban remnants in the Khost province cannot but be disquietening for the Americans. However, Mr Armitage, after a day-long visit to Kabul and Kandahar and his meetings with President Karzai, appeared somewhat reassured about the situation in the troubled country.
All the same, his claim, while talking to journalists in Kandahar, about “fantastic changes” in Afghanistan does not seem credible, especially in view of a recent upsurge in factional violence there with some 300 persons, including US soldiers, having been killed since August.
The situation in Iraq continues to be from the US point of view even more disturbing with reports of American soldiers being killed almost every day. Many of the violent incidents in and around Baghdad have been in the nature of organized attacks by Iraqi protesters. There have also been ominous signs of former soldiers of President Saddam Hussein’s army openly confronting American and British patrols on streets.
Some 200 former Iraqi servicemen violently protested against the presence of American soldiers in Baghdad last Sunday. Indeed, Baghdad, Basra and several other towns have hardly ever been without trouble or without violent protests. There have been crowds of Shia Iraqis confronting the American military patrols. Around 2,000 Shia protesters were entrenched in a mosque in Baghdad on Tuesday with US soldiers helped by helicopters trying to force them out.
The peacekeeping force in Iraq deployed by the Americans which, according to the US authorities, has the backing of some 34 nations, is apparently not able to cope with the unsettled situation. The Bush administration has, therefore stepped up efforts to secure the cooperation of more countries, including Pakistan.
Turkey has already agreed to provide a contingent of its troops to reinforce the US-led force in Iraq. Washington will pay a sum of $8.5 billion to Ankara in return for its cooperation. However, the US authorities appear to be indifferent to the Iraqis’ hostile reaction to any such development. Apart from the traditional hostility between Turkey and Iraq, there is also the complicating Kurd factor which the Americans will have to take into account.
The Kurds who are concentrated in the north of Iraq have always apprehended Turkey’s designs to subjugate them. Some idea of the shape of things to come can be gained from a report of the US-backed governing council in Iraq issuing a warning that troops from Turkey and other neighbouring countries would not be welcome.
That these developments have a direct bearing on Pakistan which has been under US pressure for some time to provide troops for the peacekeeping force in Iraq cannot be overlooked. The visit of Mr Armitage was also intended to convey the importance that Washington attached to Pakistan’s participation in peacekeeping in Iraq. President Bush’s administration may well have calculated that once Pakistani troops joined the force, other Muslim countries like Bangladesh might follow suit.
The US seems blissfully unconcerned about the dilemmas confronting Pakistan as a result of its policy on Iraq and Afghanistan. While Pakistan would want to be of help to Iraq in its hour of peril, Washington does not seem to realize that the people of Pakistan generally do not look upon American occupation of Iraq the same way as President Bush does.
Regardless of how much the events are rationalized and the tragic happenings of 9/11 presented as the reason for the war against Saddam Hussein, Pakistanis generally, like most Muslims elsewhere, do not approve of Washington’s defence of the so-called pre-emptive attack on Iraq. Washington must also accept the reality that even though in the past President Saddam Hussein hardly ever evoked any feeling of admiration, there is now a widespread feeling of sympathy for him in Pakistan. The talk of Islamabad willing to send its troops to Iraq in support of the peacekeeping force there has generally drawn a negative response from Pakistanis.
The consequences of the US’s strategic objectives in Afghanistan are similarly of concern to Pakistan. The plain fact is that the American propaganda has failed to link the former Taliban government with Osama bin Laden’s terrorist designs.
The repatriation to the US or Cuba of persons suspected to be actively associated with the Taliban or Al Qaeda and detained without a legal process has generally drawn an angry reaction here.
In any case, there is a significant section of people in Pakistan who ideologically are supportive of Taliban and even Al Qaeda.
A ham-handed attempt to deal with them could create unforeseen difficulties for the authorities in Pakistan. The American leadership can be expected not to lose sight of these realities while attempting to put Gen Pervez Musharraf’s government under pressure to go along with its methods.