THE POLITICAL SCENE

 

Dr. Santishree D. N. B. Pandit

 

This has been one of the most eventful periods both domestically as well as internationally. On the international front, there has been the action against the Serbs in Kosovo on humanitarian grounds. This has led to the transformation of the NATO in the Post Cold war period as a peace keeping and peace making force replacing effectively the UN forces. This has led to a lot of debate of the use of force for humanitarian causes and who determines this. By the world community, it effectively means the First world and the G8 group of rich nations. The other major issue that has been the most dominantly covered issue is the war in Kargil between India and Pakistan. Whether one terms it as a full-scale war or a low intensity one, depends on how it is viewed. The Scandinavian school of Peace and Conflict studies defines a war as a conflict where there are more than one thousand battle deaths. It is from this definition that Kargil is a war. This brings the Pakistani mindset of its obsession in getting Jammu and Kashmir from India in the fair name of Islam. There seems to be no dearth in the holy mercenaries who are all geared to fight a jihad with India. From all these wars has been the unfortunate death of John Kennedy Jr. along with his wife and sister-in-law brings in the sad legacy of the Camelot, who had all the gifts except the length of years.

 

Nearer home, the people of India have again an election imposed on them by irresponsible politicians, who have showed unprecedented unity at defeating the BJP-led coalition government, by a single vote. This also showed that when it came to forming the government, the fissures were more though the Congress, which has been restless to be out of power, was only too willing a partner. The Congress has been unable to project a single national leader and its other politicians are extremely uneasy to be out of power. The alternate government could not be formed due to the exaggerated ambitions of two women. One Jayalalitha, who did pull down the BJP coalition by withdrawing from the coalition but was unable to put Sonia Gandhi in power. Her tantrums and blackmailing tactics were so resentful that people wondered why the BJP was tolerating her in the first place and trying to appease her. Sonia’s foreign origin did prove a stumbling block atleast in the eyes of the Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh, who pulled the rug under Sonia’s feet. This also brought in the national debate whether a woman of foreign origin could hold the highest office in India. Elections have indeed made strange bedfellows and there have been parties breaking up and new allies coming together.

 

The international events proved beyond doubt that the only real superpower is the USA, which has a global military reach to impose its will. This is what it showed by taking action against Milosovich and the Serbs in the Kosovo crisis. The Kosovo crisis is an ethnic crisis, which has been due to the hegemony of the Serbs and their refusal to give autonomy to the Kosovo Albanians. This allege that a few years ago the Serbs and the Albanians were in equal number. But due to political problems in Albania, the Albanians have grown in greater numbers and the Serbs have been reduced to a minority. The Serbs have also left Kosovo to other parts and their presence has been more in the urban areas. This coupled with the oppressive policy of Belgrade worsened the situation. The ethnic divide has been along religious lines, the Serbs are Orthodox Christians and the Kosovo Albanians are Muslims.

 

The bombing of Serbia, especially bridges, factories and a lot civilian places done by the NATO for several weeks made the leadership accept the NATO peace plan with Russian participation. But this was construed as too late and too little for the Serbs, who thought that the Russians were allies. This crisis confirmed the supremacy of the USA and the gap between the USA and the so-cal1ed challengers, that is China and Russia. Russia could in no way help the Serbs though their sympathies were with them, they could only intervene to negotiate and the Serbs feel betrayed by the once Big brother and cousin Russia. The bombing of the Chinese embassy by mistake also saw that China could do nothing more than scream fouls from international fora like the UN. The USA simply gave an apology and there the matter ended, the destruction caused by the aerial bombing has shown the usefulness of air power in the Post Cold War period. The need for control of communication and information technologies and advanced air warfare can easily win a conflict without a single soldier from the NATO side being killed though several innocent civilians were killed on the Serb side.

 

What is worrying from all this is that can human rights of one group be violated to protect the human rights of another group. This is a theoretical question and a shift from accepted norms of international law, where sovereignty and national borders are sacrosanct. This unilateral intervention from a global power along with her allies, which is the use of force against the elected government of a state, does raise the issue of intervention as a norm for global governance. Does global governance mean the will of a few powerful states against the rest? Who defines as to what is humanitarian? By the same token the so called global community, which has been in reality a US-led alliance that took action against Iraq to protect the Kurds, but what about a NATO ally Turkey’s systematic elimination, of the Kurds, including a false trial against its leader? The global order can be a partial order as well and this can be dangerous for other states that may want to be independent and are not part of the western alliance.

 

Luckily for India, the USA made a total paradigm shift from its earlier stand in the Kargil crisis where Pakistan army sponsored militants had crossed the LOC (line of control). The USA has used the Kargil issue to correct its stand towards India which was reflective of the Post Cold War realities China that has to be checkmated. All this within a year of the Pokharan II and the fifty years of reserve towards each other. Pakistan was intending a Kosovo like action from the USA, where the ISI and the Pakistani army have been portraying Kashmir as a human rights issue. But this bluff did not work, not because the USA was seeing things more realistically but because she herself has been a target of these militant groups, who are also fighting a holy war against the West.

 

            Osmana Bin laden, who is the supreme leader of three of the militant outfits that are fighting in Kargil has now become a terrorist, who was initially a darling freedom fighter fighting against the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan. The USA in its generosity armed him to the teeth and it is these weapons which were used against India, though India has been shouting hoarse about the diversion of these small arms into India especially Kashmir as well as other states. The USA will have to learn its lessons from history that once a terrorist always a terrorist. And Afghanistan has been a waterloo even for the biggest outside imperial powers, like the British during their Afghan wars and recently the Soviet Union. Pakistan is playing a dangerous game by setting up a fundamentalist Taliban regime, which is so backward that even a conservative regime like Iran calls it unIslamic and fundamentalistic. It is like the pot calling the kettle black. It can become the Vietnam of Pakistan, which is on the verge of a debt burden and the failure of democratic institutions and the increasing power of the military to dictate terms to the political authority becoming a failed state.

 

            This clearly shows that Islam can be politically misused by power hungry groups and can be hijacked by men to oppress women. What is more tragic is that the founder of Pakistan, Quaid-e-Azam M.A. Jinnah, would be turning in his grave seeing the backwardness that is being spread in Afghanistan in the name of religion. His dream was to make Pakistan a modern secular state, though he used religion as a weapon to achieve this end. But he never wanted a theocratic and a fundamentalist state. It is he who imprisoned Maulana Moudodi as the founder of the Jammat-I-Islami.

 

            Pakistan’s intentions failed totally and exposed her and even a reliable friend like China diplomatically isolated her. The intended Kosovization of Kashmir dispute did not take place for the only similarity is that both start with letter “K” and there ends the matter. It is a minority that is targeting the majority. The US and the world community saw it as aggression an unilateral crossing of militant groups into the Indian side. All this was aided and abetted by the Pakistan army and the ISI, which was initially denied by the Pakistan government. It was a violation of international law and seen as an issue of religious terrorism. Pakistan wanted to imitate its mentor and benefactor China. The parallel is to talk peace and stealthily occupy Indian territory like China had done since the Panchsheel and occupied Aksai-Chin. In the same way Pakistan was pursuing the Lahore process and sending intruders into Indian territory. Luckily in this case India realised in time unlike the earlier instance where there was an aggression as well as loss of territory.

 

            China did not want to be overt for this would have exposed the covert role of the benefactor of the Pakistan nuclear programme. China is a realistic power and it realised that openly supporting Pakistan would be detrimental to her interests in the region. For it will push a neutral India into the arms of the US camp and China herself has had problems in the Xinjiang province, where it recently executed a Muslim fundamentalist from Pakistan. China has also become status-quoits power and does not want to LOCs to be re negotiated as this would open up a Pandora’s box in her case. So this pragmatism brought about Chinese neutrality which was forced by global circumstances and the sea shift in the US position. Though China despite several Sheriff visits had to refuse any help. The best thing to happen was the Indian External Affairs Minister, Jaswant Singh’s visit to Beijing, which in reality may not have got any concessions but kept the Chinese happy after the bad bashing that they got from the Indian defence minister, George Fernandes earlier.

 

            The US position is indeed a total change in the present Clinton administration which when it started and in the first term questioned the accession of Kashmir to India. The Assistant Secretary of State, Ms. Robin Raphael made a lot of statements that made India feel that the Cold War mindset was not yet over in the sub continent. It started with questioning the very validity of the accession of Kashmir to the Indian Union and indirectly the US endorsed the Pakistani view point of the “Two nation theory” as enunciated by the founder of Pakistan, Mohammed Ali Jinnah. This theory set about that the Muslims of the subcontinent. He reiterated a sterootype that Islam does not allow coexistence with outsiders, that is, those who are not Muslims by faith. This has caught on and with Islam as the basis for political discourse and practice, especially after the Iranian Islamic revolution; there has been further evidence in the global system that Islam has a political avatar and an all-encompassing vision. The rise of a more fanatical and fundamentalistic groups aided and abetted by Pakistan in Afghanistan is the Taliban. It is nothing but barbarous and fanatical all in the name of Islam.

 

            These groups were initially freedom fighters led by Osmana Bin laden, a Saudi national and a darling of the West, especially the USA to fight the “Red peril”, the Soviet imperialism. These groups were armed to the teeth by the charity of the USA and the plying conduit of Pakistan, which used this opportunity to extend its influence into Afghanistan as well keep its pot boiling by aiding the militants in Kashmir and Punjab. This has been going on for a decade and India has been shouting from roof tops about the easy availability of small arms and stringer missiles, all of which were intended for fighting the Communists finding their way into India. All of India’s protests did not register, until the Muslim fundamentalists with the loss of the enemy turned against the USA and targeted their embassies. It is then the USA woke up from its deep slumber about the realities of funding fundamentalist groups in the region. Now for the US, Bin laden is the most wanted terrorist and Pakistan, its once client state, its benefactor.

 

            A little peep into what the types of groups that are fighting reveals Pakistani trained mercenaries whose resolve has been fortified by faith. These groups have made wresting Kashmir their primary aim. Local jihad collections as well as donations from Arab countries fund them. Some of the well known terror outfits are:­

 

1) JAMAAT-E-ISLAMI - The religious party is led by Quasi Hussein Ahmed and has three major wings.

2) ISLAMI JAMAAT-E-TULBA - Enrols members from various colleges in Pakistan.

3) JAMAAT-TULBA-E-ARABIA - Its members are from religious schools called madrasas.

4) HIZBUL-MUJAHIDEEN - The militant outfit of the Jamaat-e-Islami is one of the most active in the Kashmir valley.

5) LASHKAR-E-TAYYIBA - The militant outfit of Markaz is backed by the ISI and operates from POK. Its Kashmir wing is headed by Abdul Rehman ul-Dakhil.

6) BINNOT TOWN MADRASA - Centre for orthodox Sunni learning in Karachi has produced some of Taliban’s top military commanders. Madrasa graduates are waiting in Kabul for military assignments and weapons. The bulk of them have been trained at the Darul Uloom Haqqania near Nowshera in the North West Frontier Province and the Jamia Uloomul Islamiya in Karachi.

7) MARKAZ-UD-DAAWA-WAL-IRSHAD - ­Its headquarters at Muridke, near Lahore, prepare Mujahideen for jihad around the world. The 170-acre Muridke centre was set up after a meeting between Saudi millionaire Osaman Bin Laden and a professor at Lahore’s University of Engineering and Technology.

8) HARKAT-UL-ANSAR - Started in the early eighties as Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. Draws support base from Tabigi Jamaat movement, now headed by Lt. Gen. (retd.) Javed Nasir, former director general of ISI. Sixty percent of members are foreign mercenaries, the rest Pakistanis. Since it was declared a terrorist organisation by the US in 1997, it has reverted to its old name, Harkat-­ul-Mujahideen, and set up another group called Harkat-ul-Jehad.

 

            All these groups seem to be ignorant of the Kashmiri language and this was clearly exposed in international fora. Atleast India has held elections in Jammu and Kashmir but in the last fifty years Pakistan has not held any elections in POK.

 

            For Pakistan, raising the Kashmir issue and a military victory against India will divert attention of the people from the failures of the Nawaz Sheriff regime and its corrupt and militant nature. His party is just the moderate facade of the military groups and the Army and ISI, all of whom helped Sheriff gain a landslide victory. This was a misadventure and Kargil has proved to be a disaster for Pakistan after the total loss to India and the diplomatic isolation. What is surprising is that Pakistan is refusing to accept the failure and hell bent in continuing the training and abetting terrorism of the fundamentalist groups. It is in a very bad shape with its economy and debt ridden which is in contrast to the boom of the Indian economy. The reason for this refusal to accept reality and the LOC are:­

 

1. Pakistan’s paranoid obsession of parity with India. The 1971 partition of Pakistan is not still accepted as a genuine freedom movement of the Bengali Muslims.

2. This has led Pakistan to aid and prop up a fundamental, fanatical brand of Islam with the US support initially in the rise of the Taliban. The success of this campaign has revived the hopes for Pakistan that Islam is a potent weapon. But Pakistan has gone into amnesia, when the earlier benefactor, the US and her allies would not touch these groups with a barge # pole now.

3. Pakistan hopes to influence and control Afghanistan through the Taliban. But history tells us that no group have been able control this tribal and geopolitically important region. The British learnt hard lessons, the Russians had their Waterloo and this can be no different for the latest external power, Pakistan.

4. The Pakistan state is on the verge of collapse with institutions failing, the economy in shambles, the army having a rogue character, the drug lords controlling urban areas and civil society absent.

And 5. Even the great ally of Pakistan, China could not accept the new avatar of Pakistan as a benefactor of the radical and fundamentalistic variety of Islam.

 

            By restraint and extremely well conducted diplomatic, political and military campaign by the BJP led coalition especially the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee won for himself party laurels at home and abroad. This has ensured his party’s return to power with an absolute majority in the coming elections. The Jaswant Singh-Talbott talk also helped the USA see India’s viewpoint in a more realistic way. This is one of the greatest successes in free India. But India will have to be vigilant for a wounded and isolated Pakistan will be more aggressive. India will have to modernise its airforce and its intelligence services totally. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. The meeting with the American secretary of state, Ms. Albright at the ARF meeting will help build better ties between India and the USA which should be independent of both the China and the Pakistan factors. We should build a relationship with dynamics of its own. The USA has realised that India is the power with self-restraint and it is time that it should be rewarded. If the best thing the Pakistanis did was talking repeatedly of a nuclear strike. The White House which now directs foreign policy decided to send Gen. Anthony Zinni, Chief of the Central Command to give Pakistan a perfect dressing down and it seems to have worked. And India was briefed about it. India comes under the Pacific Command. USA also realises that Indian democracy is qualitatively superior to Pakistan or to any in South and West and South East Asia for one rarely sees the flexibility and freedom with which it works at various levels. A good example is the Defence Minister, George Fernandes. He was once to become a priest from Mangalore but became a Socialist and a trade union leader, married to a Muslim and today one of the senior most leaders of India, who sees the BJP as the better party than the Congress.

 

            In the domestic sphere, it has been nothing but Kargil all the way. This war due to media attention has been a war in which the Indian citizens showed their patriotism in different ways. The civil society and public opinion have been so supportive of the war. The present government, which was struggling to have issues for the elections which was imposed by a divided opposition and a desperate Congress party, Kargil obliterated it totally. Even the issue of Sonia’s foreign origin was simply crushed under the feet of the national patriotism in the aftermath of Kargil. The real test of Sonia’s leadership was exposed when the whole party was at a loss to make any useful move. They were simply overtaken by events. That the sycophants in the Congress who were shamelessly comparing her with Annie Besant could not help her make one sensible statement during the Kargil crisis. It is not that one is against Sonia just because she is a foreigner. Where are her qualifications, educational and services to India, apart from being the widow of Rajiv Gandhi and the “bahu” of Indira Gandhi. If these are the only qualifications, then Menaka Gandhi has better claims as the widow of Sanjay Gandhi does. These are accidents. One will not mind if Mother Teresa stood for Prime Ministership. Nobody, even the Congress does not know what Sonia did before she married Rajiv.

 

            The greatest blow for the Sonia leadership came from within, the “AMAR, AKBAR, ANTHONY” of the Congress. The Pawar, Anwar and Sangma trio who questioned her leadership through a letter and hence got thrown out clearly showed the dictatorial tendencies of Sonia. Like an immature schoolgirl, she threatened to resign and went into a shell knowing very well that she will be begged and cajoled to comeback. Her legitimacy was given a thrashing and this will benefit the BJP, whose leader Vajpayee has conducted himself with great dignity and restraint both on domestic and international issues. He is the only national leader and has become more acceptable because of his vast experience and attitude to accommodate all views.

 

            The most surprising thing of the Kargil issue is the total peripheralization of the Left parties in India. The Left parties in recent times have tried to gain political power through alliances of all sorts. The Congress was welcome but the Congress did not want it and the great embodiment of corruption and arrogance, the AIADMK supremo, Ms. J. Jayalalitha, whose idiosyncratic ways imposed elections has become the new embodiment and hope for both the Congress and the Left of a clean and a secular alternative. The other is the break-up of the Socialists and their realignment under the leadership of our irrepressible Defence minister, George Fernandes. The old foes in Karnataka have become the new allies and this has brought a rift between the national and local units of the BJP. But this polarization of the Socialists toward the Hindu right alliance is indeed a major shift in the national political discourse.

 

            The Congress fiasco in its month long support to the Haryana government of Bansi Lal was indeed another clear indication of the muffled thinking within the Congress. It has also exposed the Sonia factor as that which is created by the media and she is unable to function on her own. Now the other groups in Haryana should get the assembly dissolved and go for elections rather than form a government with all defectors. Already, three states, that is Maharashtra, Karnataka and now Haryana should go for state assembly elections. In Maharashtra, the presence of the new force in the Rashtriya Congress of Sharad Pawar will make a serious dent as the present incumbent government of the Shiv Sena - BJP alliance has totally misgoverned. The Shiv Sena has antagonised all sections, the majority on the insult to the Marathi Literature and the University and College teachers, the high level of corruption, the handling of an honest bureaucrat like Arun Bhatia, the daylight murder of Kini, the threats to Dilip Kumar and the indecent behaviour of the Sainiks against those who supported “Fire”, the beating up of missionaries and several more. Bal Thakeray has become more of a liability even to the majority. It was a good sign that he was asked to keep quiet on Kargil.

 

            It is hoped that these elections will atleast create a stable government at the Centre and the Centre and the citizens are saved of elections as an annual feature. It is an extremely expensive type of entertainment for a poor country like India.

 

 

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