THERE is generally an iota of truth in any swathe of Delhi gossip. The certainties of Delhi are more dubious. The certainty this week is that differences between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi are slowly corroding and paralyzing governance.

Logic suggests that this is unlikely. There has been a clear demarcation in the Congress between the Church and the State, with Mrs Gandhi in charge of political management and the prime minister entrusted with governance. Differences are expected in any human relationship, and inevitable when power is in play. The two may, for instance, have differing views on whether Satish Sharma should be inducted into the cabinet or not. But to stretch that into a deathly Singh-Sonia confrontation is stretching the imagination.

Why? Simply because it is in neither person’s interest to damage the government and neither has shown the tendency, as yet, to be suicidal. Could this equation change? Certainly. If Mrs Gandhi is persuaded that the BJP has weakened itself enough to give the Congress an opportunity for a breakthrough in BJP territory (the contiguous states of Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Gujarat), she could well set in motion a process by which the allies would seem to have brought the government down and forced another general election. But that moment has not yet come.

If Dr Manmohan Singh seems to be in office without being in power, it is because he has not been able to establish his authority on the four big offices of state that constitute the substance of power in any government: home, defence, external affairs and finance. The big four, Shivraj Patil, Pranab Mukherjee, Natwar Singh and P. Chidambaram, pay lip service to the prime minister and pursue their own agenda (or, as in the case of the home minister, non-agenda).

The first three consider themselves unfortunate, in the sense that any of them could have become prime minister instead of the incumbent, and see no particular reason why they should accept his leadership. The fourth, Chidambaram, the weakest since he has no political constituency, and little to advertize except puff notices in backscratch media, has been encouraged by the example of his peers to behave similarly. Is it a coincidence that two of the big four have created serious problems for the government with its principal ally, the left, or is that merely an accident?

The left is not playing charades over disinvestments in Bhel or the Indo-United States defence pact. Its anger is serious. These are issues of hard politics and policy. The CPI(M) cannot risk alienating the working class in Bengal, which is the foundation of its strength, and which provides, at a rough estimate, some 70 seats to the party in Bengal (take away those seats and the left Front’s majority disappears).

The Congress cannot expect the CPI(M) to accept a decision that affects its core interest in its citadel in order to keep an alliance afloat in Delhi. Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s sunny smiles in Washington had clouded by the time he landed in Delhi. He tried to placate the left, and indeed important sections of the country, with semantics. This was only a “framework” rather than a “pact”.

Intelligent ministers should not believe that either their opponents or their friends are foolish. A rose by any other name smells as sweet, but onions do not begin to smell like a rose if you rename them. The objectives of the “framework” signed by Pranab Mukherjee and Donald Rumsfeld have been defined in Clause 3. The first is, “defeating terrorism and violent religious extremism”. No problem with that. The second is “preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction and associated materials, data and technologies”. This is more interesting.

Who defines “spread”? The last person accused of such nefarious behaviour, in case you’ve forgotten, was Saddam Hussein. The truth did not prevent the launch of a horrible war in which nearly two thousand Americans and a hundred thousand Iraqis have already died, a war which co-signatory Rumsfeld says might last another twelve years. Would we have been required to help America under the terms of this “framework” had it been signed three years ago? Saddam Hussein was also called a terrorist. Would we have been required to help eliminate him or remove him from power?

These questions are relevant not only because of the past but because of the future. President George Bush and Rumsfeld believe Iran is in an “axis of evil”, and accuse it of promoting terrorism and building nuclear weapons. Iran has an advanced nuclear programme that it says is for peaceful purposes. The dividing line between peaceful and not-so-peaceful purposes is thin. We claimed for decades that our nuclear programme was only meant for peaceful purposes until, to no one’s surprise, out popped the bomb.

Supposing Europe, which does not want a strong Iran either, joins Washington in declaring Iran to be on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons. Are we then committed by this treaty (alias “framework”) to join a campaign against Iran? These are not idle questions, Mr Mukherjee; nor are they merely rhetorical ones. I presume the defence minister has noted that he has signed such a commitment twice, not only in Clause 3 but also in Clause 4E where he reaffirms that the two sides will “enhance capabilities to combat the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction”.

There is a sub-text to this clause that has not been addressed. India became a nuclear power without America’s permission, or indeed without anyone’s permission. America imposed sanctions against India, which became irrelevant over time. However, has the United States formally recognized India as a legitimate nuclear power, or are we still in an undefined penumbra? This has to be clarified. Otherwise, we become, paradoxically, an illegitimate nuclear state, and must, by the terms of this “framework” act against our own interests!

As I said, all we need is a formal statement from Washington recognizing India as a legitimate nuclear power. Did Pranab Mukherjee raise this point with his host Rumsfeld? Will Dr Manmohan Singh, prime minister of India, and therefore responsible for everything that his defence minister has signed, raise this with George Bush when he pays a formal visit to America in a week’s time?

The third objective should have been signed by commerce minister Kamal Nath. India and the United States have agreed to protect “the free flow of commerce via land, air and sea lanes”. This is the ultimate homage that a defence minister can pay to globalization. Pardon my ignorance, but I had no idea that government policy had become so committed to globalization that we were ready to introduce such a clause in a formal defence agreement with the United States. I wonder if Mr Mukherjee checked with Mr Rumsfeld if America would, under this “framework” protect the free flow of gas in the proposed pipeline through Iran, or whether America’s definition of freedom is slightly different from ours.

I presume we leave each other alone when our definitions differ. But what was the necessity of accepting a clause such as this? Two lines in the “framework” need to be read together, although they are distanced in the document. Clause 4B says that the two countries must “collaborate in multinational operations when it is in their common interest” and Clause 4J adds that they must “assist in building worldwide capacity to conduct successful peacekeeping operation, with a focus on enabling other countries to field trained, capable forces for these operations”.

There is no suggestion, incidentally, that any multinational operation should be under the aegis of the United Nations; a bilateral agreement is sufficient. India has therefore formally replaced the Nehru doctrine of working in multinational operations only through the blue-helmet regime of the UN with the Bush doctrine that seeks to build alliances for intervention in third countries outside the UN mandate. Under the careful guidance of Pranab Mukherjee we have rejected Nehru and embraced Bush. Welcome to the future, boys!

It does not need a cryptologist to understand what this means. The second sentence is a direct and obvious agreement for Indian participation in what will be called the training of the new Iraqi army and police (consistently being attacked by the insurgency). Against all this Mr Mukherjee has been waving the lollipop of co-production. He has not been totally candid here either. American defence production is in the private sector, and I would be pleasantly surprised to see transfer of technology from the private sector.

Did the defence minister take the prime minister into complete confidence about the intricacies of the commitments he has made? If he will not answer, the prime minister must. Are the senior ministers indifferent to the prime minister because they believe that their jobs are in the gift of Mrs Sonia Gandhi rather than the prime minister? If that is true then the government of Dr Manmohan Singh is in trouble, because an animal with two heads will walk in different directions. To return to the classic analogy, the Church and the State work in the same country, protecting separate parts of a common interest.

Mrs Gandhi named the prime minister. It was her right to do so after she revived the Congress. It is now the prime minister’s right to name his ministers, and hold their performance accountable. It cannot be in Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s interest if the government does not function. Who gains if Manmohan Singh fails?

If an animal with two heads cannot walk straight, then a cross-eyed prime minister cannot see straight either. Dr Singh has one eye on his duties, and the other on 10 Janpath. Realignment is essential for focus, and focus is critical for success.

The writer is editor-in-chief, Asian Age, New Delhi.

WILL 7/7 turn out to be another 9/11? Hopefully not. The British, with a more mature and detached view of the world, appear to have reacted with greater caution and introspection than their cousins across the ocean had after 9/11. Moreover, Tony Blair is an intelligent leader with a profound understanding of the forces of history. But then, he is also a clever politician, not too concerned with morals. So, we cannot be sure how he may use this tragedy.

Mr Blair’s initial response was commendable, especially when he remarked that the solution to the problem of terrorism “cannot only be security measures”. Admitting that this type of terrorism has “very deep roots”, he called for measures to improve understanding between religions and the need to promote the Middle East peace process. Sadly though, he could not resist stating that “they will never succeed in destroying what we hold dear”, ignoring that the terrorists are not interested in destroying what the British perceive as “dear”. They are simply making the British pay a price for policies that their government has been pursuing in Iraq.

The London blasts certainly represent a most reprehensible crime against innocent civilians that deserves to be condemned in the strongest terms. It has been rightly described as “barbaric’. Horror at these attacks has, however, not prevented credible analysts from pointing out that may be these terrorists struck because they hold the British to be as guilty as the Americans on the issue of Iraq. After all, official sources have confirmed that Mr Blair knew that the case against Saddam Hussein was built on distortions and falsehoods.

Having committed this grievous wrong — the invasion of an independent, sovereign state and that too, in violation of the United Nations Charter — the British prime minister has no moral or legal leg to stand on. When no weapons of mass destruction were found, nor ties to Al Qaeda discovered, nor a credible case made that Iraq could be a threat to the United States, we were given strictures on “democracy”. As the well-known British journalist Robert Fisk pointed out, “what do we call the massive bombings that the Anglo-American aircraft have carried out in Iraq, the use of cluster bombs on civilian areas, indiscriminate killings of bystanders. Are these simply to be described as ‘collateral damage’?”

The West must recognize that its policy of holding on to their former colonies through political manipulation, coupled with economic control over their natural resources, has led to feelings of resentment, hostility as well as enmity on the part of many angry, frustrated and alienated young men and women. The Bush administration may claim that it spends one billion dollars a week on Iraq and has so far lost over 1,700 lives in that country. But no one believes that these enormous sacrifices have been made to bring the blessings of democracy and freedom to this bombed and impoverished country.

If, as is now widely acknowledged, there was no evidence to substantiate the charges levelled against Iraq, the American and British leaders are guilty of either a serious error of judgment or massive deception. In either case, the only honourable course for both would be to leave the scene.

Admittedly, the West’s colonial rule was brutal — cultures destroyed, languages distorted, beliefs ridiculed, resources looted and entire communities wiped out. In some instances, only a handful of the natives survived, to be viewed as museum pieces. When forced by historical developments, (the Great War and growing political restiveness among the “natives”), the colonial powers granted the colonies their independence, but only after having come up with ingenious devices — political, economic and even legal ones — to perpetuate their stranglehold over these resource-rich territories.

In the wake of 9/11, there were repeated promises to deliver freedom, democracy, human rights and social justice. Can George Bush, Tony Blair and company tell us that they have taken a single step, be it political, economic, social or trade-related, that shows understanding or appreciation for the misery and suffering of the poor masses in strife-torn regions of the world? Have Palestine, Chechnya and Kashmir seen any meaningful action taken to bring to them the fruits of freedom, democracy and social justice?

Instead, the Israeli occupation forces plan new settlements to deprive the Palestinians of more land, the Chechens continue to be brutalized by the Russians, and the Indians have failed to reduce the massive human rights violations in the occupied territories.

True, the original members of the radical groups may have honed their skills and expertise against the Soviet forces on the battlefields of Afghanistan, but now it is the killing fields of Palestine, Iraq, Chechnya, Afghanistan and Kashmir that have become the breeding grounds for these terrorists. As Gary Younge wrote in the Guardian last week “what Fallujah went through at the hands of the US military, with British support, was more deadly than what the terrorists could do.”

Let us not demonize Islam. Let us not forget that all religions have had adherents who have not refrained from using the good name of their faith to use violence to achieve their political aims. Robin Cook, the former British foreign secretary, was right to warn that “so long as the struggle against terrorism is conceived as a war that can be won by military means, it is doomed to fail. The more that the West emphasizes confrontation, the more it silences moderate voices in the Muslim world, who want to speak up for cooperation.”

It may surprise some that even in the United States religion has always figured prominently. Some critics have blamed the Bush administration’s mistakes on the influence of the conservative evangelicals, who make up the “religious right”. In fact, President Bush’s belief that the United States has a “mission” or a “calling” from God to spread freedom across the globe, is an echo of what many of his predecessors had said. Also, his mistakes echo a pattern that goes back to the Indian wars, to the Mexican War of 1846, to the Philippines war of 1899 and to the Vietnam encounter in the 1960s.

As a well-known historian put it, “what differentiates Bush from his more illustrious predecessors is that instead of formulating foreign policy on the basis of empirical assessment of means and ends, he appears to be guided not only by the objectives of Protestant millennialism, but also by the apocalyptic mentality it has spawned.”

Admitted, the West may not be interested in promoting democracy in the Muslim world. But it would not be fair to single it out for all our ills and shortcomings. Why should we, when an assorted bunch of authoritarian rulers has entered into a Faustian bargain with western masters. So, what do we do in such a situation? There is of course the Al Qaeda way — murder, mayhem and destruction all around.

It may be dramatic and eye-catching. But it is wrong and dangerous and also counter-productive. If Muslims continue to blow themselves up and the West persists in its current follies, this action and reaction mode would be highly destructive for the entire world. All we are doing is to ensure that the doomsday scenarios of people like Huntington become a reality.

What is needed is a two-pronged approach that requires a major review of existing policies, on both sides. The Muslim states and, in particular, their people must go back to the basics. Let us exorcise the demons within us, before we go to slay dragons outside. Men of goodwill and learning must engage in soul-searching.

Why are Islamic societies so backward? Why are they plagued by ethnic and sectarian strife? Why have Islamic countries remained prisoners of mediaeval customs and practices? Why has there been no reform for the past many centuries? Why have we had a sad experience with democracy in Islamic countries? How long can we keep the door to ijtehad closed? It is not enough to say that Islam is a religion of peace. We have to prove it by our conduct. Moderation, tolerance and the rule of law have to become the norm, not the exception.

The other side of the bargain concerns the West. Iraq has proved that there are no military solutions to political problems; just as London has demonstrated the futility of a policy of confrontation. The West must not only talk about democracy, human rights and the rule of law, but actually take a strategic decision to promote these values everywhere. There may be temporary impediments and even setbacks, but eventually it will be able to build relationships based on trust and genuine mutual advantages. It must also initiate a policy of fairness and equity in deciding issues relating to international trade and economics. The era of unilateralism and militarism must come to an end. Both sides have to enter into a partnership to deal with the global challenges that humanity faces. It is time for a grand covenant.

THE real threat posed by last week’s brutal bombings in London is that the Muslim terrorists who apparently planted the bombs still think they can win. Breaking that psychology is the fundamental challenge for responsible leaders in the West and the Muslim world.

Compare the first statements from both sides, and you can see the essential battle of wills. A group calling itself the Secret Organization of Al Qaeda in Europe posted a triumphal statement immediately after the London attacks last week, claiming that “Britain is now burning with fear, terror and panic.” That was untrue, as anyone watching Londoners on television could see. But the attacks showed the determination and resourcefulness of the terrorist underground.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s first statement after the bombings also went to the heart of the matter: “Our determination to defend our values and our way of life is greater than their determination to cause death and destruction.” Later in the day Blair put it more succinctly: “We shall prevail, and they shall not.”

But what does “winning” mean, and how does it fit public sentiments on both sides of the battle? That’s the subject of two fascinating studies that surfaced just before the London bombings. Taken together they help clarify some of the strategic issues facing the Bush administration and its allies.

The terrorists’ motivation is outlined in a disturbing new book by political scientist Robert A. Pape, “Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism.” He analyzed the 315 suicide attacks that occurred around the world from 1980 to 2003 and concluded that in nearly every case terrorists were resisting what they regarded as foreign occupation. Their goal was “to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland,” Pape writes. They turned to suicide attacks because, in their judgment, they worked against democratic societies, which have difficulty absorbing the pain the terrorists can inflict.

Pape quotes a 2003 sermon by Osama bin Laden that focused on what Osama saw as America’s vulnerability to such attacks: “America is a great power possessed of tremendous military might and a wide-ranging economy, but all this is built on an unstable foundation which can be targeted, with special attention to its obvious weak spots. If America is hit in one hundredth of these weak spots, God willing, it will stumble, wither away and relinquish world leadership.”

But what is the real psychological base line of America and its allies? Here I turn to a new paper by three Duke University political scientists — Christopher F. Gelpi, Peter D. Feaver and Jason Reifler — titled “Casualty Sensitivity and the War in Iraq” and available on the Internet. They argue that it isn’t casualties per se that drive US public opinion about war. Instead, it’s the public perception of whether a war is winnable.

“When the public believes the mission will succeed, then the public is willing to continue supporting the mission, even as costs mount. When the public thinks victory is not likely, even small costs will be highly corrosive,” the authors write. (Feaver is currently working for the Bush National Security Council staff.)

Putting these two studies together, we can see that the challenge for the United States and its allies is to define “winning” in an achievable way, so that public support can be maintained. To win, says Pape, the United States must “defeat the current pool of terrorists now actively planning to kill Americans” and at the same time “prevent a new, potentially larger generation from rising up.” As long as a war can be characterized as resistance to foreign occupation, the terrorists will maintain support from their public.

That’s the puzzle the Bush administration confronts in Iraq. There aren’t any easy solutions, but it seems to me that the administration is on the right track with its plans, reported in a leaked British memo last week, to reduce troop levels in Iraq by more than half by early next year and turn over 14 of 18 provinces to Iraqi control. That will allow the US to focus on training Iraqi security forces, which are the only ones that can stabilize the country in the long run.

The administration is also wise to seek a political settlement with Iraq’s Sunni Muslims, in the recognition, as Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick said in Amman, Jordan, this week, that “military means alone are not capable of defeating the insurgency.”

The most reassuring fact, a week after the London bombings, is that the terrorists clearly failed to achieve their goals. The West is not terrorized, and western governments are more united now than before. The West isn’t going to lose. But what will “winning” look like? — Dawn/ Washington Post Service

THIS has been a dreadful week. First there was the series of bomb blasts in central London where four tragically euphoric blind visionaries demonstrated the ultimate in logical negativism by blowing up themselves and 57 innocent people in the belief this would take them to paradise.

Then there was the triple train crash at Ghotki in Pakistan with a death toll of 136, with disfigured bodies strewn about crazily on carpets of grass and carriages scattered like strung toys on a jerk of wire. And in between, as if on cue, the new international icon, the suicide bomber, who, almost on a daily basis slowly decimates the population of Iraq, at times getting his target — the invading American soldier — but most often claiming the lives of his own people with his deadly shrapnel.

London will never be the same after the blasts. The pride of the world’s most tolerant city has been wounded. This was a metropolis that took in the refugees of Europe, penniless and homeless and made them feel safe.

A city where the Ashkenazi of Bucharest and Budapest and the White Eagles of Poland jostled with exotic Jamaicans and subcontinentals and Nigerians who brought a little southern sunshine, spice and colour into the staid old streets and the fretted structures of earlier generations with their stingy and sooted windows.

But more than anything else it gave both the native and the tourist a feeling of what the Germans call Gemuetlichkeit and a sense of fair play. There is a chapter in Cases in Court, in which one of England’s greatest barristers, Sir Patrick Hastings, illustrates this point.

During the battle of the Somme in the First World War, when anti-German feeling was at its very height, and the kaiser and his spike-helmeted generals were being ridiculed in the music halls, a British jury acquitted a German national living in London in a highly sensational and long-drawn out trial . Could there be a greater example of objective justice?

Sadly, Hyde Park corner with its air of rude eloquence will now be referred to in the past tense. As will hitchhikers rambling over pub lunches; rowing in a skiff on the Serpentine, feeling the slightest tremor in the dark muscle of the lake; sharing confidences with the pharaohs in the Egyptian room in the British Museum; and gobbling up salted beef sandwiches in the Nosh Bar in sight of the Windmill Theatre, the granddaddy of strip shows, whose management throughout the second World War proudly claimed “We never closed.”

Nobody can crush the indomitable spirit of the British people who will carry on as before. But things won’t be quite the same for visitors from this country.

They will be looking into more surveillance cameras, will probably see people looking over their shoulders a lot more often than they did in the past, and will probably be the target of hate crimes. But they shouldn’t worry too much. After all, didn’t President Bush say that Pakistan is winning the war against terror?

Coming back to the national scene the president has been quick to rule out sabotage in the Ghotki rail disaster and has ordered an investigation. Strangely enough, after this terrible tragedy which has adversely affected the lives of over 2,000 people one way or another, there have been no resignations, just a few expressions of deep regret, honouring the timeless Pakistani tradition of keeping things pending when swift administrative action is called for. Usually, when a huge catastrophe takes place, the head of the organization where the tragedy has struck usually makes a symbolic gesture and throws up the sponge, taking full responsibility for what has happened.

Then the prime minister in a display of magnanimity asks the incumbent to take back his resignation, which he, of course, graciously does and the inefficient grossly overstaffed enterprise grinds on until the next accident.

The president has certainly got his hands full with what is happening in the NWFP. But one wishes he would devote a little more attention to how an increasingly large part of the intelligentsia views his activities.

The point is, who is going to tell him that no matter how honest and well meaning he might be, all these trips are unnecessarily giving him a bad name in his own country, and are spreading the impression that he is hell bent on completing a world tour — something that would be unthinkable across the border in India.

The public usually gets to know details of how the resources of the nation are squandered in bits and pieces, through short, snappy snippets. A couple of weeks ago, however, a writer got his second wind and went the whole distance.

According to him the president has been on 41 official tours abroad between June 2000 and December 2004 and visited 71 countries, some of which “had never before been visited by a Pakistani head of state,” as if it really mattered These travels cost the exchequer around Rs 658 million.

Not to be outdone, those valiant upholders of the faith and champions of the Muslim League, Zafrullah Khan Jamali, Shujaat Hussain and Shaukat Aziz between November 2002 and January 2005 visited 34 countries at a cost of Rs 350 million.

Now the quintessential Pakistani Shaikh Rashid with the two-stroke voice and that icy politesse which suggests that a hatchet is about to fall, would probably say that all these visits were absolutely necessary, even if the hundreds of freeloaders who could have easily paid for their boarding and lodging spent most of their time in hotel lounges gazing at the potted palms or girls with lower spine tattoos and bald boys in D&G combats.

The information minister has probably forgotten that Tansu Ciller, a former prime minister of Turkey, who when she went to attend her son’s graduation in the United States bought two tickets from her own money and travelled by a commercial airline.

And even Queen Elizabeth II when she visited Australia a few years ago travelled by a commercial airline. Currently Shaikh Rashid is squirming, much to the delight of his detractors, after the Indians turned down his application for a visa. But what about the novel ways in which the executive wastes the country’s resources? Last Tuesday, this writer spotted opposite the chief minister’s house 16 police mobile vans and two military police jeeps. The government apparently has money for petrol but not for cleaning up the slums.

It’s these gross contradictions that remind one of that old negro spiritual one used to hear in Kentucky in the days of the moon shiners and the illegal distilleries. “I’d rather be on the inside looking out, than on the outside looking in.”

The overwhelming majority of the masses in Pakistan live, of course, on the outside with little or nothing to look forward to. Their children have no future. They survive in squalor, drink water one wouldn’t wash horses with in Austria and breed like rabbits. These are the Downers, the lumpen mass whose cultural impoverishment blots out any modest material improvement.

The Uppers, on the other hand, who live on the inside and who have a law unto themselves, and have never had it so good, are rapidly losing touch with the masses. They are beginning to resemble the handful of lawyers in Mumbai and Delhi referred to by the sage in the film Gandhi, as people who do little more than make speeches for one another as they plot to replace one unrepresentative government with another.

The tragedy is that under the peculiar system by which this country is governed there are no checks and balances which would stop people like the speaker of the National Assembly from appropriating an Rs 11 million Mercedes Benz from the taxpayers’ money after chairing a committee specially setup for the purpose of granting the speaker an Rs. 11 million Mercedes Benz.

What the country badly needs is a peoples’ forum apart from the assemblies, made up of representatives of the underprivileged classes, who could sit on the National Security Council, and politely point out that 50 per cent of the Rs 1008 million spent on the official foreign trips could easily have been put to better use, like ensuring that villages in Sindh and the Punjab have clean drinking water and electricity.

As a tailpiece, here are a few lines from T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland. Can connect/Nothing with nothing./ The broken fingernails of dirty hands./My people humble people who expect/ Nothing.