SACW - 11 Nov 2014 | Afghanistan: ‘A Shocking Indictment’ / Nepal: The invisible state/ Sri Lanka: Security and Sovereignty / Pakistan: Why does Malala Yusufzai's Nobel Bother so Many on the Left? / India: Assam Ethnic Cleansing; Trilokpuri Violence; segregation on campus
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at gmail.com
Mon Nov 10 16:32:49 EST 2014
South Asia Citizens Wire - 11 November 2014 - No. 2839
[since 1996]
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Contents:
1. Sri Lanka on Nuclear Weapons Absent In Action | Jayanta Dhanapala, Professor Savitri Goonesekere, Surya Wickramasinghe (The Friday Forum)
2. Videos: 'Safeguarding Security and Sovereignty', K.G.Kannabiran Memorial Lecture by C.V.Wigneswaran (9 November 2014)
3. Pakistan: PILER condemns killing of brick kiln workers in Kot Radha Kishan
4. Pakistan: Press Release from the Society for Secular Pakistan
5. Why does Malala Yusufzai's Nobel Bother so Many on the Left? | Pervez Hoodbhoy
6. India: Reversing Nehruvian Legacy | Ram Puniyani
7. India: Violence in Trilokpuri - Hindutva Priming for Delhi Elections | Jamal Kidwai
8. Rationalizing Ethnic Cleansing In Assam: A report by Indian American Muslim Council
9. The surprising impact of the Rome Statute in India | Usha Ramanathan
10. Is it a crime to possess or wear clothing with national insignia of a neighbouring South Asian Country ? : An Open Letter to Secretary General of SAARC | Harsh Kapoor
11. India: Rioting Master Class by Marr Mit Baba | Poster 1 Kacchhay Spin [Good Spin] Poster Series | Harsh Kapoor
12. Recent posts on Communalism Watch:
- India: 'Bharatiya Sanskriti Rakshaks' - Dictating the culinary choices of students (Janaki Nair)
- India: A pattern of Violence - The troubles in Delhi (Mukul Kesavan)
- India: Godman Sant Rampal's commando protection force versus the police
- India: Zee TV debate on 'Kiss of Love: Who decides the boundary?' [in Hindi]
- India: NIA arrests accused in 2010 Kerala prof attack case which involved the famous Popular Front of India (PFI)
- Wearing a sports jersey that says Pakistan Cricket Team on it could land you in prison in India the worlds largest democracy
- Kerala the so called progressive state remains thoroughly regressive - here students get suspended for hugging on campus
- India: Delhi students in Kiss & Hug protest outside the RSS office while the Hindu Right moral police intimidate them over Western culture
- India: Delhi's 'Kiss of Love' campaign registers strong protest against moral policing
- India: 'Kiss of love' protest outside RSS office in Delhi, 70 detained
- India: On the use of Sankrit terms in official programmmes (Jansatta, 22 oct 2014)
- India: AAP says 'Modi for PM Arvind for CM' and then takes it down ; this isnt the first time Sanghi's in their midst do this
- India - Moral Police: Meet Kerala's young hair-gelled Freakers, who oppose kissing in public
- India: Riots and a culture of wilful amnesia
- India: Political Scientists Pradeep Chhibber, Rahul Verma have their prescription for Modi's govt
::: FULL TEXT :::
13. People’s SAARC 2014 (22 to 24 November 2014) Kathmandu, Nepal
14. Strengthen Saarc's institutional structure | Saman Kelegama
15. Pakistani schools network observes anti-Malala day | AFP
16. Pakistani private schools ban Malala's book | AP
17. Afghanistan: ‘A Shocking Indictment’ | Rory Stewart
18. Nepal: The invisible state |y Yubaraj Ghimire
19. India's Father And Daughter | Vinod Mehta
20. The Nehru Daur | Shyam Benegal
21. India - Naga Peace Talks: A Course Correction | Sanjib Baruah
22. MODERN TIMES: India 1880's to 1950s by Sumit Sarkar
23. ON THEIR WATCH: Mass violence and State apathy in India Examining the record Edited by Surabhi Chopra & Prita Jha
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1. SRI LANKA ON NUCLEAR WEAPONS ABSENT IN ACTION | Jayanta Dhanapala, Professor Savitri Goonesekere, Surya Wickramasinghe (The Friday Forum)
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Sri Lanka's foreign policy has recently been the target of much criticism and one can cite a litany of scandals and questionable departures from professionalism and our traditional Non-aligned stance. These are now overshadowed by the glaring lack of principle and consistency recently seen in the First Committee of the current UN General Assembly sessions where Disarmament and Security issues are discussed and voted upon.
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2. VIDEOS: 'SAFEGUARDING SECURITY AND SOVEREIGNTY', K.G.KANNABIRAN MEMORIAL LECTURE BY C.V.WIGNESWARAN (9 November 2014)
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K.G.Kannabiran Memorial Lecture by Justice C.V.Wigneswaran Chief Minister, Northern Province, Sri Lanka. Former Judge, Supreme Court of Sri Lanka on 'Safeguarding Security and Sovereignty'. [9 November 2014 in Chennai]
http://www.sacw.net/article9960.html
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3. PAKISTAN: PILER CONDEMNS KILLING OF BRICK KILN WORKERS IN KOT RADHA KISHAN
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KARACHI, Nov. 5: Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research has vehemently condemned the brutal killing and then burning of bodies of Shahzad and Shama, the worker couple in Kot Radha Kishan Punjab. .... In a recent addition to the rapidly rising list of attacks on religious minorities, the Christian couple was reported to be beaten and their bodies were put in a burning brick kiln in Kot Radha Kishan area of Punjab on November 4. The couple was alleged of desecrating the Holy Quran however some news reports contradicted the allegation by claiming that there was some dispute between the couple and the kiln owner.
http://www.sacw.net/article9947.html
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4. PAKISTAN: PRESS RELEASE FROM THE SOCIETY FOR SECULAR PAKISTAN
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The Society for Secular Pakistan (SfSP) strongly condemns the killings of Shazad Masih and his pregnant wife Shama by the crowd incited by the clerics of three mosques of the villages in Kasur.
http://www.sacw.net/article9953.html
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5. WHY DOES MALALA YUSUFZAI'S NOBEL BOTHER SO MANY ON THE LEFT?
by Pervez Hoodbhoy
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It is surely time for one-track leftists to learn that we live in a multiple-tracked world, to recognize that there can be more than one baddie, and to resist from simplifying at the cost of accuracy. Else they do grievous wrong to all.
http://www.sacw.net/article9955.html
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6. INDIA: REVERSING NEHRUVIAN LEGACY by Ram Puniyani
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Nehru's staunch and principled commitment to Indian nationalism, pluralism, secularism and scientific temper make him a figure totally unacceptable to Hindu nationalists.
http://www.sacw.net/article9968.html
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7. INDIA: VIOLENCE IN TRILOKPURI - HINDUTVA PRIMING FOR DELHI ELECTIONS (Jamal Kidwai in EPW)
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The recent violence in Trilokpuri and communal incidents in some other areas of Delhi suggest that these have been instigated with an eye on the coming elections in the city state. The target seems to be to communalise important sections of Delhi's dalit population and mobilise them politically with Hindutva. Worryingly, there seem to be little counter-mobilisations and initiatives from political parties, which claim to oppose communalism and also profess to represent the poor and the oppressed.
http://www.sacw.net/article9956.html
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8. RATIONALIZING ETHNIC CLEANSING IN ASSAM: A REPORT
by Indian American Muslim Council
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This report covers the wider context behind the violence in Assam and the motives behind the persecution of the state's Muslim population. It also explores the mechanisms of such persecution, including the false characterization of Muslims in western Assam as “illegal immigrants” from Bangladesh. Such mischaracterization has been disseminated systematically in order to whip up sectarian tensions, often times with the complicity of sections the media.
http://www.sacw.net/article9961.html
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9. THE SURPRISING IMPACT OF THE ROME STATUTE IN INDIA | Usha Ramanathan
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Though India refuses to join the ICC, the Rome Statute has proved very useful in pushing for law reform that would put an end to decades of impunity for state complicity in violence. A contribution to the openGlobalRights debate on the International Criminal Court.
http://www.sacw.net/article9958.html
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10. IS IT A CRIME TO POSSESS OR WEAR CLOTHING WITH NATIONAL INSIGNIA OF A NEIGHBOURING SOUTH ASIAN COUNTRY ? : AN OPEN LETTER TO SECRETARY GENERAL OF SAARC
by Harsh Kapoor
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Your excellency, I write to draw your attention to the recent filing of a police complaint against 10 young boys in the Kushinagar area located in the province of Uttar Pradesh in India on grounds of wearing the Tee shirts of the Pakistan Cricket Team.
http://www.sacw.net/article9957.html
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11. INDIA: RIOTING MASTER CLASS BY MARR MIT BABA | Poster 1 Kacchhay Spin [Good Spin] Poster Series
by Harsh Kapoor
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A caricature series on the politics of hate in India. This poster was produced after the 'controlled riot' in Trilokpuri area of Delhi in late Oct - early Nov 2014.
http://www.sacw.net/article9948.html
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12. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH:
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available at: http://communalism.blogspot.in/
India: 'Bharatiya Sanskriti Rakshaks' - Dictating the culinary choices of students (Janaki Nair)
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/11/india-bharatiya-sanskriti-rakshaks.html
India: A pattern of Violence - The troubles in Delhi (Mukul Kesavan)
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/11/india-pattern-of-violence-troubles-in.html
India: Godman Sant Rampal's commando protection force versus the police
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/11/india-godman-sant-rampals-commando.html
India: Zee TV debate on 'Kiss of Love: Who decides the boundary?' [in Hindi]
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/11/india-zee-tv-debate-on-kiss-of-love-who.html
India: NIA arrests accused in 2010 Kerala prof attack case which involved the famous Popular Front of India (PFI)
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/11/india-nia-arrests-accused-in-2010.html
Wearing a sports jersey that says Pakistan Cricket Team on it could land you in prison in India the worlds largest democracy
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/11/wearing-sports-jersy-that-says-pakistan.html
Kerala the so called progressive state remains thoroughly regressive - here students get suspended for hugging on campus
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/11/kerala-so-called-progressive-state.html
India: Delhi students in Kiss & Hug protest outside the RSS office while the Hindu Right moral police intimidate them over Western culture
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/11/india-delhi-students-in-kiss-hug.html
India: Delhi's 'Kiss of Love' campaign registers strong protest against moral policing (report in DNA, 8 nov 2014)
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/11/india-delhis-kiss-of-love-campaign.html
India: 'Kiss of love' protest outside RSS office in Delhi, 70 detained (Times of India, 8 Nov 2014)
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/11/india-kiss-of-love-protest-outside-rss.html
श्रमेव और संस्कृत - On the use of Sankrit terms in official programmes (Jansatta, 22 oct 2014)http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/11/on-use-of-sankrit-terms-in-official.html
India: AAP says 'Modi for PM Arvind for CM' and then takes it down ; this isnt the first time Sanghi's in their midst do this
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/11/india-aap-says-modi-for-pm-arvind-for.html
India - Moral Police: Meet Kerala's young hair-gelled Freakers, who oppose kissing in public
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/11/india-moral-police-meet-keralas-young.html
India: Riots and a culture of wilful amnesia
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/11/india-riots-and-culture-of-wilful.html
India: Political Scientists Pradeep Chhibber, Rahul Verma have their prescription for Modi's govt
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2014/11/political-scientists-pradeep-chhibber.html
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::: FULL TEXT :::
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13. PEOPLE’S SAARC 2014 (22 to 24 November 2014) Kathmandu, Nepal [The counter summit]
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People’s Movements Uniting South Asia
for Deepening Democracy, Social Justice & Peace
South Asian people's movements (women, youth, peasants, labour, socially marginalised groups) and civil society organisations have planned a convergence from 22 to 24 November 2014 in the form of People's SAARC or people's assembly, in parallel to the official 18th SAARC Summit in Kathmandu, Nepal.
Venue
The opening ceremony, events (workshops, panel discussion, exhibitions, movie & documentary screening, cultural programmes etc.) and closing ceremony will be organised at premises of Nepal Administrative Staff College and Local Development Training Academy (LDTA), Jawalakhel, Lalitpur.
Detail: Website: www.nasc.org.np
Visa Information
In Nepal, there is visa-on-arrival facility for citizen of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. In the case of Afghanistan, the Secretariat/organiser shall communicate with government offices to provide visa-on-arrival letter to the immigration office, a copy of which will be sent to Afghani participants in order to facilitate their travel.
Please visit Department of Immigration’s website: http://immi.gov.np/ for necessary travel documents.
Contact Detail
NGO Federation of Nepal (NFN)
People’s SAARC Focal Organisation, Nepal
The Secretariat,
People’s SAARC 2014 Host Country Organising Committee
Buddhanagar, Kathmandu, Nepal
Telephone: +977 1 4782908, Email: praman.adhikari at gmail.com, peoplessaarc at gmail.com
Website: www.peoplesaarc.org, www.ngofederation.org
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14. STRENGTHEN SAARC'S INSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURE
by Saman Kelegama
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(The Daily Star, 11 November 2014)
THE 18th Saarc Summit will take place in Kathmandu, Nepal on November 26-27. As usual, the centre of attention will be the Saarc Declaration, which will have many high sounding goals and the emphasis on the need for goodwill and cooperation to achieve the set goals. People in the region have heard this narrative for the last three decades with limited ground level achievements. It may be time to look back to look beyond.
Saarc now has eight members and seven observers and has experience with economic cooperation for two decades. Yet its economic achievements over the years have been far from satisfactory. Intra-regional trade in goods remains at 5%, intra-regional trade in services is at 0.2%, while intra-regional investment flows are at a low level with a weak nexus between trade and investment. When Saarc trade flows are compared with other comparable regional groupings like Asean at 26% and MERCSOR at 15%, it becomes clear that Saarc is relatively lagging far behind.
Existing literature points to a number of factors for this scenario in Saarc: (i) the uneasy political situation between India and Pakistan; (ii) heavy bureaucratic layers and non-tariff barriers; (iii) poor connectivity among Saarc member countries; (v) poor follow up of Saarc decisions, and so on. The first issue is not unique to Saarc. In the EU, there existed political problems between France and Germany during the early years of European integration but they got over-shadowed by the overwhelming desire for peace and economic benefits from cooperation.
The second, third, and fourth issues of non-tariff barriers, poor connectivity, and slow follow up of decisions were prevalent in Asean also during the 1970's and 1980's, but these were overcome under a strong regional institutional framework to facilitate smoother flows of trade and investment in Asean. Decision making was strengthened by having a strong Secretariat with enough powers to drive the Asean during crucial times. Clearly, the problems facing Saarc are not insurmountable.
Recent research has shown that trade facilitation closely linked to (ii) above and economic connectivity linked to (iii) above can play a significant role in enhancing trade and investment compared to preferential tariffs. Time and again, Saarc has made reference to implementing trade facilitation measures and improving economic connectivity but the progress has been slow. Lack of a strong institutional structure to take forward multiple initiatives is a major lacuna in Saarc. According to a recent study by the ADB, Saarc is 'institution lite.'
It is not that Saarc lacks institutions. It has a number of regional centres focusing on energy, human resource development, agriculture research, tuberculosis, etc. It has many technical, standing, and working committees. In other words, a heavy bureaucratic set-up with several layers of decision-making characterises the Saarc institutional structure.
This situation is further complicated by three other factors: (1) the Saarc Secretariat lacks necessary resources to implement projects and monitor the progress of activities being implemented; (2) the Directors of the Saarc Secretariat are not appointed according to subject specialisation (e.g., trade, investment, transport, energy, etc.) but on usual foreign ministry appointment basis; and (3) the Saarc Secretary General has limited powers to drive the Saarc process between Saarc Summits.
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The problems of the Saarc institutional structure were identified as far back as 1998 by the Group of Eminent Persons (GEP). It has also been highlighted by heads of states. Reference can be made to the statement at the 1997 Saarc Summit from the then Sri Lankan President where she posed the following questions: “Does the proliferation of activities in the last decade signify anything more than the growth of barren foliage in a vast tree? What fruit has Saarc truly borne? Do we need to prune those activities which do not bring any significant yield and more carefully nature others that do?” But hardly any action has been taken to revamp Saarc's institutional structure since then.
In 2010, in an article titled “Saarc Programmes and Activities: Assessment, Monitoring and Evaluation,” Professor Mahendra Lama of JNU, India, concludes: “Given the current situation, if drastic measures are not taken to both enhance the capacity of the Secretariat to operationalise the announced projects and also ensure strong monitoring and evaluation mechanisms to verify implementation of decisions taken at various Saarc meetings, a situation may emerge in which leaders will year after year talk about the need to have effective implementation, while progress remains stunted.”
It is time to reform the institutional structure of Saarc if the regional mechanism is to provide better results. A recent study by the ADB outlines several steps to strengthen Saarc, viz., create an autonomous Secretariat equipped with stronger agenda-setting and surveillance power, ensure adequate financial and human resources, provide clear legal mandates and enhance decision making rules, build stronger links with existing institutions and with national agencies, establish more objective membership rules, etc.
With the improvement of India-Pakistan relations in recent years, the political environment may be conducive for Saarc member countries to commit themselves to reform and strengthen Saarc's institutional structure. If this is not done soon, improving connectivity among Saarc countries will be a slow process, so would implementing trade facilitation measures. This in turn would mean that the trade and investment flows will also be slow and Saarc will as usual lag behind all other regional blocs in taking forward the economic cooperation agenda. It is high time to act and make the necessary changes, if not, Saarc will remain the least integrated region in the world for many more years to come.
The writer is the Executive Director, Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka.
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15. PAKISTANI SCHOOLS NETWORK OBSERVES ANTI-MALALA DAY
AFP
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(Dawn November 10, 2014)
ISLAMABAD: An association of Pakistani schools held an “I am not Malala” day on Monday, condemning young Nobel peace laureate Malala Yousafzai for what it called her support for controversial novelist Salman Rushdie.
Education campaigner Malala was shot in the head by the Taliban in October 2012 but recovered and went on to win this year's Nobel peace prize.
The 17-year-old has been hailed around the world for standing up for girls' rights to education, but the response to her in Pakistan has not been universally positive, with some seeing her as a “Western agent” on a mission to shame her country.
The All Pakistan Private Schools Federation last year barred its members from buying Malala's memoir “I am Malala” because of what the group said was its “anti-Pakistan and anti-Islam content.“
It said the book, written with British journalist Christina Lamb, was too sympathetic to British novelist Salman Rushdie.
Rushdie in 1989 became the target of an Iranian fatwa, or religious edict, calling for his murder for allegedly blaspheming Islam and the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) in his book The Satanic Verses.
Mirza Kashif Ali, the president of the schools' federation, said in a statement it was “clear that Malala has nexus with Salman Rushdie and Taslima Nasrin, and also has alignment with Salman Rushdie's ideological club”.
“We severely condemned the chapter of the book in which Salman Rushdie's book has been mentioned as freedom of expression by Malala while referring to father's views,” Ali said.
He said walks, seminars and press conferences were held to highlight the “I am not Malala” day.
Bangladeshi author Nasrin was forced to flee her homeland in 1994 after radical Muslims accused her of blasphemy over her novel “Lajja” (Shame), in which a Hindu family is persecuted by Muslims.
Blasphemy is a sensitive issue in Pakistan also, where it can carry the death penalty.
Malala's book describes her life under the Taliban's brutal rule in northwest Pakistan's Swat valley in the mid-2000s, hints at her ambition to enter Pakistani politics and even describes her father's brief flirtation with Islamic fundamentalism as a youngster.
The book describes public floggings by the Taliban, their ban on television, dancing and music, and the family's decision to flee Swat along with nearly one million others in 2009 amid heavy fighting between the militants and Pakistani troops.
Malala, who lives in Britain where she went for treatment after being shot, was jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October alongside India's 60-year-old Kailash Satyarthi for their championing of children's rights.
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16. PAKISTANI PRIVATE SCHOOLS BAN MALALA'S BOOK - AP
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Updated Nov 10, 2013
In this Friday, Sept. 27, 2013 file photo, Malala Yousafzai addresses students and faculty after receiving the 2013 Peter J. Gomes Humanitarian Award at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. -AP Photo
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani private schools associations office bearers said on Sunday that they have banned teenage activist Malala Yousafzai's book from private schools across the country, claiming it doesn't show enough respect for Islam and calling her a tool of the West.
Malala attracted global attention last year when the Taliban shot her in the head in northwest Pakistan for criticizing the group's interpretation of Islam, which limits girls' access to education.
Her profile has risen steadily since then, and she released a memoir in October, ''I Am Malala,'' that was co-written with British journalist Christina Lamb.
While Malala has become a hero to many across the world for opposing the Taliban and standing up for girls' education, conspiracy theories have flourished in Pakistan that her shooting was staged to create a hero for the West to embrace.
Adeeb Javedani, president of the All Pakistan Private Schools Management Association, said his group banned Malala's book from the libraries of its 40,000 affiliated schools and called on the government to bar it from school curriculums.
''Everything about Malala is now becoming clear,'' Javedani said. ''To me, she is representing the West, not us.''
Kashif Mirza, the chairman of the All Pakistan Private Schools Federation, said his group also has banned Malala's book in its affiliated schools.
Malala ''was a role model for children, but this book has made her controversial,'' Mirza said. ''Through this book, she became a tool in the hands of the Western powers.''
He said the book did not show enough respect for Islam because it mentioned Prophet Muhammad's name without using the abbreviation PBUH ''peace be upon him'' as is customary in many parts of the Muslim world.
He also said it spoke favorably of author Salman Rushdie, who angered many Muslims with his book ''The Satanic Verses,'' and Ahmadis, members of a minority sect that have been declared non-Muslims under Pakistani law.
In her reference to Rushdie, Malala said in the book that her father saw ''The Satanic Verses'' as ''offensive to Islam but believes strongly in the freedom of speech.''
''First, let's read the book and then why not respond with our own book,'' the book quoted her father as saying.
Malala mentioned in the book that Pakistan's population of 180 million people includes more than 2 million Ahmadis, ''who say they are Muslim though our government says they are not.''
''Sadly those minority communities are often attacked,'' the book said, referring also to Pakistan's 2 million Christians.
The conspiracy theories around Malala reflect the level of influence that right-wing sympathisers to the Taliban have in Pakistan. They also reflect the poor state of education in Pakistan, where fewer than half the country's children ever complete a basic, primary education.
Millions of children attend private school throughout the country because of the poor state of the public system.
The Taliban blew up scores of schools and discouraged girls from getting an education when they took over the Swat Valley, where Malala lived, several years ago.
The army staged a large ground offensive in Swat in 2009 that pushed many militants out of the valley, but periodic attacks still occur.
The mastermind of the attack on Malala, Mullah Fazlullah, recently was appointed the new head of the Pakistani Taliban after the former chief was killed in a US drone strike.
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17. AFGHANISTAN: ‘A SHOCKING INDICTMENT’
by Rory Stewart
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(The New York Review of Books, 7 November 2014)
No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War Through Afghan Eyes
by Anand Gopal
Metropolitan, 304 pp., $27.00
1.
Ashraf Ghani, who has just become the president of Afghanistan, once drafted a document for Hamid Karzai that began:
There is a consensus in Afghan society: violence…must end. National reconciliation and respect for fundamental human rights will form the path to lasting peace and stability across the country. The people’s aspirations must be represented in an accountable, broad-based, gender-sensitive, multi-ethnic, representative government that delivers daily value.
That was twelve years ago. No one speaks like that now—not even the new president. The best case now is presented as political accommodation with the Taliban, the worst as civil war.
Western policymakers still argue, however, that something has been achieved: counterterrorist operations succeeded in destroying al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, there has been progress in health care and education, and even Afghan government has its strengths at the most local level. This is not much, given that the US-led coalition spent $1 trillion and deployed one million soldiers and civilians over thirteen years. But it is better than nothing; and it is tempting to think that everything has now been said: after all, such conclusions are now reflected in thousands of studies by aid agencies, multilateral organizations, foreign ministries, intelligence agencies, universities, and departments of defense.
But Anand Gopal’s No Good Men Among the Living shows that everything has not been said. His new and shocking indictment demonstrates that the failures of the intervention were worse than even the most cynical believed. Gopal, a Wall Street Journal and Christian Science Monitor reporter, investigates, for example, a US counterterrorist operation in January 2002. US Central Command in Tampa, Florida, had identified two sites as likely “al-Qaeda compounds.” It sent in a Special Forces team by helicopter; the commander, Master Sergeant Anthony Pryor, was attacked by an unknown assailant, broke his neck as they fought and then killed him with his pistol; he used his weapon to shoot further adversaries, seized prisoners, and flew out again, like a Hollywood hero.
As Gopal explains, however, the American team did not attack al-Qaeda or even the Taliban. They attacked the offices of two district governors, both of whom were opponents of the Taliban. They shot the guards, handcuffed one district governor in his bed and executed him, scooped up twenty-six prisoners, sent in AC-130 gunships to blow up most of what remained, and left a calling card behind in the wreckage saying “Have a nice day. From Damage, Inc.” Weeks later, having tortured the prisoners, they released them with apologies. It turned out in this case, as in hundreds of others, that an Afghan “ally” had falsely informed the US that his rivals were Taliban in order to have them eliminated. In Gopal’s words:
The toll…: twenty-one pro-American leaders and their employees dead, twenty-six taken prisoner, and a few who could not be accounted for. Not one member of the Taliban or al-Qaeda was among the victims. Instead, in a single thirty-minute stretch the United States had managed to eradicate both of Khas Uruzgan’s potential governments, the core of any future anti-Taliban leadership—stalwarts who had outlasted the Russian invasion, the civil war, and the Taliban years but would not survive their own allies.
Gopal then finds the interview that the US Special Forces commander gave a year and a half later in which he celebrated the derring-do, and recorded that seven of his team were awarded bronze stars, and that he himself received a silver star for gallantry.
Gopal’s investigations into development are no more encouraging. I—like thousands of Western politicians—have often repeated the mantra that there are four million more children, and 1.5 million more girls, in school than there were under the Taliban. Gopal, however, quotes an Afghan report that in 2012, “of the 4,000 teachers currently on the payroll in Ghor, perhaps 3,200 have no qualifications—some cannot read and write…80 percent of the 740 schools in the province are not operating at all.” And Ghor is one of the least “Taliban-threatened” provinces of Afghanistan.
Or consider Gopal’s description of the fate of several principal Afghan politicians in the book:
Dr. Hafizullah, Zurmat’s first governor, had ended up in Guantanamo because he’d crossed Police Chief Mujahed. Mujahed wound up in Guantanamo because he crossed the Americans. Security chief Naim found himself in Guantanamo because of an old rivalry with Mullah Qassim. Qassim eluded capture, but an unfortunate soul with the same name ended up in Guantanamo in his place. And a subsequent feud left Samoud Khan, another pro-American commander, in Bagram prison, while the boy his men had sexually abused was shipped to Guantanamo….
Abdullah Khan found himself in Guantanamo charged with being Khairullah Khairkhwa, the former Taliban minister of the interior, which might have been more plausible—if Khairkhwa had not also been in Guantanamo at the time….
Nine Guantanamo inmates claimed the most striking proof of all that they were not Taliban or al-Qaeda: they had passed directly from a Taliban jail to American custody after 2001.
Why didn’t I—didn’t most of us—know these details? The answer is, in part, that such investigative journalism is very rare in Afghanistan. Gopal’s work owes a lot to other researchers. He is building on the work of Sarah Chayes and Alex Strick van Linschoten (both of whom immersed themselves in the Pushtu south), of exceptional journalists such as Carlotta Gall and David Rohde of The New York Times, of officials with years in the country such as Eckart Schiewek, Robert Kluijver, and Michael Semple, and of Afghan journalists such as Mohammed Hassan Hakimi.
Afghanistan, however, is not an easy place for in-depth reporting. Foreign civilians have been targets, even in the safer areas, since 2001, when the first Spanish journalists were executed near Jalalabad. Gopal—an American civilian—pursued his stories into the most active centers of the insurgency—the inner districts of Ghazni, Uruzgan, Helmand, Kandahar, and the Korengal valley in the northeast—places where thousands of international troops have been killed. He learned Dari and—more difficult—Pushtu. He won the trust of insurgent leaders.
But his real genius lies in binding all these sources together and combining them with thousands of hours of interviews. He tracks down the Taliban commander who attacked the provincial capital of Uruzgan in 2001, and then he interviews the US Special Forces commander who was defending it. He shows us the US commander ordering the air strike, and the Taliban commander seeing the same bomb destroy the jeep in front of him. He researches individuals by interviewing them, their neighbors, and their enemies, and then traces the very same people through Human Rights Watch reports, State Department documents (via WikiLeaks), US Army press statements, and Guantánamo interrogations and arrest reports.
All this allows him to bring life to figures who have hitherto been caricatures. Human Rights Watch reports have long emphasized the crimes of warlords such as Sher Muhammed Akhunzada, Jan Muhammed, or Abdul Rashid Dostum. But policymakers have still been tempted to perceive them also as charismatic rogues and inescapable parts of the Afghan establishment. Their links to organized crime, the CIA, Pakistani intelligence officers, and the international narcotics trade can seem simply elements of their machismo. Their scams—running construction companies, private security agencies, developing property, importing and exporting oil and opium poppy, and providing logistical support for the foreigners currently on temporary duty in Afghanistan—can seem simply colorful.
Ambassadors, for example, often joke about Dostum’s heavy drinking and his extravagance (he is rumored to have paid $100,000 for a fighting dog). A Washington Post journalist records Dostum thundering, when posing for his US visa photo: “My friend, even if you take a picture of my ass, the US will know this is Dostum.” All the American generals, Pakistani intelligence chiefs, heads of European NGOs, ambassadors, ministers, and foreign correspondents who have met Dostum over thirty years compete to tell such anecdotes. He cooked hundreds of Taliban prisoners to death in shipping containers. But he has just become vice-president.
Gopal’s deep investigation, however, brings out, in detail, the real horror inflicted by such men. His long interviews with warlords, his sympathetic accounts of their youth and sufferings, make their crimes only more convincing and more shocking. Thus he interviews Jan Muhammed at length, tracing his rise from school janitor to major resistance commander in the fight against the Soviet Union. He describes his being imprisoned, the tortures he suffered, and his being marched out to face a Taliban firing squad. He describes how Jan Muhammed saved President Karzai from an ambush in the 1990s and then became his friend and adviser.
All this, however, is the introduction to Jan Muhammed ordering death squads to shoot unarmed grandfathers in front of their families, to electrocute and maim, and to steal people’s last possessions, in pursuit of an ever more psychopathic crusade to eliminate anyone associated with the Taliban or indeed with a rival tribe. No one reading Gopal would be tempted to joke about these men again, or present them simply as “traditional power-brokers” and “necessary evils.”
The same careful research allows Gopal to reveal not only the conservatism of Afghan rural life, but also its startlingly modern elements. His description of the rural south, for example, where a woman is a piece of property—the “government would no more intervene in [killing your wife] than it would if you had in some private rage killed your own oxen or damaged your own house”—may seem familiar. But he also uncovers unexpected mobility and lurches in status behind the blank mud walls of the compounds. One long interview (it forms the basis for almost a quarter of the book and must have taken many days to complete) reveals that an impoverished woman, locked with her mother-in-law in Khas Uruzgan, was educated at Kabul University, and once lived unveiled in a prestigious Soviet-designed apartment block in the capital city.
Her husband—who beat her for leaving the house—was a progressive leftist and a proto-feminist who once encouraged her to work. When her husband was murdered and her ten-year-old son badly wounded in a gunfight, she was reduced almost to starvation in the southern city of Kandahar, and then suddenly, through a family patron, found herself elected the first female member of Parliament from Uruzgan.
Gopal’s astonishing stories are not, however, a complete portrait of Afghanistan. He is so immersed in the mayhem and abuse that he seems genuinely to believe—as the title of the book suggests—that in Afghanistan there are “no good men among the living.” The more difficult truth is that it is hard to describe living among Afghans without falling back on words like dignity, honor, courage, strength, and generosity. Many of the Afghans I have worked with epitomize these virtues so clearly, and even quixotically, that they can seem almost a rebuke to our age.
Gopal must have experienced this—with the Afghan friends, for example, who accompanied him on motorbikes into the heart of the insurgency. Walking across Afghanistan, and working in a very traditional community in the capital, I came to know dozens of authority figures who were men of striking charisma, energy, and sense of responsibility, clearly knowledgeable and competent in their immediate society. Gopal must have known many too. And he must have noted how even the villains of his book had been prepared to risk their lives, again and again, whether for religion, patriotism, or simply pride—and how calmly they lived, knowing that they would eventually be captured or killed. (A high proportion of the people he interviewed have since been murdered or imprisoned.) But he does not explore these virtues. And above all, he doesn’t capture their sense of humor. Afghans smile and laugh more than almost any people I know.
stewart_2-110614.jpg Contact Press Images
The Hazrat Ali mosque, Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, November 2001; photograph by James Hill from his book Somewhere Between War and Peace, just published by Kehrer
2.
Ashraf Ghani is now—after four months of wrangling over electoral fraud—the new president of Afghanistan. His book Fixing Failed States (coauthored with Clare Lockhart) argues that Afghanistan can be fixed through creating ten functions of the state, including the “rule of law,” good governance, and a state “monopoly on the legitimate means of violence.” Along the way he proposes eliminating corruption, disarming and demobilizing militias, and creating a reliable justice system and a prosperous economy. Having spent three decades as a professor, a World Bank official, and an Afghan minister developing this intricate theory, he is now putting it into practice.
The leaders of the US intervention in Afghanistan once had very similar objectives—often directly influenced by Ashraf Ghani, who has been the most tenacious and articulate advocate of this vision of “state-building” since September 11. Similar concepts appear in General David Petraeus’s US Army counterinsurgency manual and in presidential envoy James Dobbins’s The Beginner’s Guide to Nation-Building. Much of the $1 trillion spent by the US and its allies in Afghanistan, and the more than a million people, deployed over a dozen years, have been justified in such terms. President Obama may in fact have been unconsciously quoting Ghani when he explained that Afghanistan’s problems with narcotics and women’s rights, and even the instability of neighboring states, could be solved through the creation of “a credible, effective, legitimate state.”
State-building, however, is not confined to Afghanistan. Ghani has promoted exactly the same recipe from Nepal to Ethiopia as the copresident of the Institute for State Effectiveness. And it seems to be immensely appealing. For the World Bank in 2013, state-building was the solution to piracy in Somalia. For French President François Hollande in 2013, “restoring the state, improving governance” were the first steps in tackling trafficking and violence in Mali. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon distilled the theory of Afghanistan’s civilian surge in his 2014 bon mot “Missiles may kill terrorists. But good governance kills terrorism.”
Gopal’s book, however, should at least make us question this fashion of state-building under fire. What has actually been the result of Afghanistan’s $1 trillion attempt to create “security,” “economic development,” and “governance”? What did creating security mean in Khas Uruzgan where, Gopal explains, all the traditional leaders had been killed and where the only counterbalance to the Taliban was an illegal militia? How could the “police” be trusted to establish a “monopoly on the legitimate means of violence” if—as Gopal records—“in Wardak’s multiparty, multiethnic district of Jalrez, for instance, all sixty-five members of the police force hailed from a single pro-Sayyaf village”? (Sayyaf is a Pashtun warlord.)
What future was there for the Afghan economy when, as Gopal shows, it relied on servicing, supporting, and seeking rent from two hundred thousand foreign soldiers and civilian contractors, and where Afghan “businessmen” were often simply warlords profiting from security, supply, and construction contracts generated by US military bases? How would any of this be sustainable after the troops withdrew?
Aid agencies put billions directly into the budget of the Afghan government, on the grounds that this strengthened the “accountability” and “legitimacy” of the Afghan state. But much of the Afghan bureaucracy, including the ministries most popular with donors (education, for example), were paying money to employees who did not even pretend to work; and the regulations, tax inspections, and administrative orders were generally simply opportunities for nepotism, revenge, or bribes. Again and again Gopal reminds us that the state, which the West was supposed to be developing, was far weaker than anyone acknowledged—and often simply didn’t exist.
In truth, international statements about establishing “the rule of law, governance, and security” became simply ways of saying that Afghanistan was unjust, corrupt, and violent. “Transparent, predictable, and accountable financial practices” were not a solution to corruption; they were simply a description of what was lacking. But policymakers never realized how far from the mark they were. This is partly because most of them were unaware of even a fraction of the reality described in Gopal’s book. But it was partly also that they couldn’t absorb the truth, and didn’t want to. The jargon of state-building, “capacity-building,” “civil society,” and “sustainable livelihoods” seemed conveniently ethical, practical, and irrefutable. And because of fears about lost lives, and fears about future terrorist attacks, they had no interest in detailed descriptions of failure: something had to be done, and failure was simply “not an option.”
3.
Recently, as chair of the UK Parliament Defence Committee, I voted on air strikes in Iraq, and saw state-building’s enduring appeal. The prime minister opened the debate by saying that his strategy depended on “the creation of a new and genuinely inclusive government in Iraq [and] a new representative and accountable government in Damascus.” An ex–cabinet minister argued that the solution to ISIS was to “focus on local governance and accountability.” A shadow minister replied that “there needs to be a wider, encompassing political framework, with a plan for humanitarian aid and reconstruction, which will ultimately lead us to create a stronger and more accountable Iraqi government.”
This is the intellectual frame within which Britain and many others have now decided to mount air strikes against ISIS, supplemented by counterterrorist operations to kill and capture ISIS commanders. The new coalition will pay, arm, and reinforce Iraqis and Syrians to attack our enemies. And we will replace ISIS with a credible, legitimate, inclusive state in Iraq and Syria. Before perhaps turning to Yemen, or Somalia, or returning to Libya.
But Gopal shows us clearly how easy all this is to say, and almost impossible to do. Why should we be any better at targeting ISIS than we were at targeting the Taliban and al-Qaeda? We are now funding Syrian and Iraqi militia commanders and tribal leaders. In Afghanistan such commanders made themselves wealthy off international contracts, misrepresented their rivals as terrorists, and used their connections with us to terrorize and alienate the local population. How different will our new allies be from Afghan warlords such as Jan Muhammed or Abdul Rashid Dostum? We already tried counterinsurgency and state-building in the same area of Iraq in response to a very similar group—al-Qaeda in Iraq—in 2008. We invested $100 billion a year, deployed 130,000 international troops, and funded hundreds of thousands of Sunni Arab militiamen. And the problem has returned, six years later, larger and nastier.
This is not a reason to reject intervention entirely—Bosnia, for example, was a success. But we should not pretend that a global model for “nation building under fire” is the answer. “Governance,” “the rule of law,” and “security” have different meanings in different cultures and are shaped by very local structures of power. Insurgencies vary with what remote and often little known communities think of themselves, their leaders, their religion, their past, and the outside world. Building a state or tackling an insurgency therefore requires deep knowledge of the history and character of an individual country. And such activity demands that Western governments acknowledge how little they know and can do in most of these places and cultures. But the startling differences within the countries in which we intervene are only exceeded by the startling uniformity, overconfidence, and rigidity of the Western response.
The question we need to ask today is not “How do you create good governance, economic development, and security?” Instead, we should be asking “Who makes up ISIS, and why are they getting tacit support from the Sunni population?” Are either the Iraqi state or army a credible alternative? What view have rural Sunnis developed of the West, of the “surge,” or extremism? Could the Kurds hold a new front line if ISIS continued to occupy Mosul? How would you convince the Kurdish leadership to allow the peshmerga to become a professional force, when it remains the essential channel of patronage and power for the major political parties?
How do you bring Turkey to actively support the fight against ISIS? How do you convince people in the Gulf to cease financing it? How do you stop Iraq and Syria being simply pawns in a much bigger fight between Iran and its Sunni opponents? What support can you provide for the people living under ISIS, to allow them to slowly escape this circle of horror? And how do our—the interveners’—institutions, conceptual models, weapons, and dollars undermine and distort our relationships, corrode our programs, and defeat our own stated objectives?
These are the kinds of questions—rooted in politics, culture, and lived experience—that we should have been posing in Afghanistan, instead of refining universal models of “state-building.” Such are the questions that only studies such as Gopal’s can answer.
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18. NEPAL: THE INVISIBLE STATE
by Yubaraj Ghimire
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(Indian Express, November 10, 2014)
Nepal’s peace process, which began in April 2006, will be deemed to have reached its logical conclusion the day a new constitution, acceptable to all sides, is delivered. The decade-long civil war that claimed almost 17,000 lives came to an end with the beginning of that peace process. Since then, the Maoists have let their combatants settle down as civilians, with financial assistance from the state, or symbolically join the army.
But as a constitution acceptable to all appears nowhere in sight, Netra Bikram Chand, a powerful guerilla leader during the insurgency, has warned that he would soon launch an “armed struggle” to take the erstwhile revolution to its “logical conclusion”. Chand was associated with the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-M), which broke away from the Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (UCPN-M) in June 2012, on two main grounds: whether India ceases to be a “enemy country”, and whether Maoist combatants should be “civilised” and integrated with society so that future peace is not threatened. The breakaway group differed with the mother party on both counts.
But more than two years later, Chand has put the two parties and their leaderships in the same bracket and declared that the peace process has already collapsed.
Chand’s closed-door meetings, slogans and gestures suggest that the “revolution” that began in 1996 and ended in 2006 must be resurrected, not with peace but arms, to achieve the rule of the proletariat. There is concern that some old combatants and new recruits have already been given guerilla training by Chand. Although the decade-long insurgency and its leaders, including Prachanda and Baburam Bhattarai, are now as discredited as the other “bourgeois” leaders, Chand probably assesses that an almost invisible state will be easy to defeat.
It is too early to say how the Nepali state and its leaders will deal with a second round of armed insurgency, if it arrives. But there is a sense of panic in government and the Constituent Assembly (CA), where it’s now known for certain that the constitution will not be ready by the January 22 deadline. The process has stalled, with its key actors indulging in a blame game. Prachanda has given a call to the Newar community, the ethnic group that dominates the Kathmandu valley, to rise up in revolt as the ruling coalition partners, the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML), are not willing to concede to the demand for an ethnicity-based federalism. Prachanda, who leads the UCPN-M and a 22-party alliance for ethnicity-based federalism, is approaching ethnic and caste groups for a “revolt” against the regime.
The UCPN-M, the third-largest party in the CA, is the main opposition. But it convincingly argues that it cannot be treated in that capacity alone, as Nepal’s shift to a federal democratic republic was an outcome of its “revolution”. Although Prachanda’s appeal has been met with lacklustre public response, Prime Minister Sushil Koirala refuses to accept the emerging situation. “There is no other alternative to a consensus-based constitution, and we will deliver it at any cost on January 22,” he said last Wednesday. But neither his party nor others involved in the constitution-making process believes that any more. The international community and the Nepalese people know that the parties have not budged an inch, while the number of people opposing “federalism, secularism and republicanism” is increasing by the day.
It is not only the extremist Left that threatens to derail the peace and constitutional process. Last Thursday, the campaign in favour of a “Hindu Nepal” got off to a start, with the organiser threatening to launch a nationwide movement that will assert Nepal was declared a “secular” country under the design of “Western churches and Nepali revolutionaries”. A weak state, under threat of war from two political extremes, is a scenario that doesn’t dishearten the Nepalese alone.
A joint statement by EU countries last Thursday appealed for the constitution to be delivered by January 22, but with the guarded comment that it’s entirely for Nepal’s leaders to decide what kind of constitution they would have. India, which often says Nepal’s stability is in its own interest, appears no less concerned.
Deposed king Gyanendra suddenly left for New Delhi last Friday, fuelling speculation that India’s new regime is making an objective assessment of a process it has unconditionally supported since 2006, but that failed all along. The situation will only worsen unless Nepal’s politicians realise that the solution lies in pursuing a policy of national reconciliation.
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19. . INDIA'S FATHER AND DAUGHTER
by Vinod Mehta
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(The Times of India, Nov 06 2014 (Delhi)
Nehru and Indira laid down principles of secularism and nationalism that today's politicians can't ignore
It is open season on Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. No opportunity is lost to demonise and denigrate father and daughter. Even October 31, the day the lady was assassinated, became a day-long festival for celebrating her wickedness, besides proclaiming she was no martyr but a case of self-destruction. Fortunately , we are told, a set of rulers, or shall i say ruler, is at hand, with the wisdom and vision to repair the damage.
We need to talk about Jawaharlal and Indira. That's for sure. But we also need to keep some touch with historical veracity . For their lifelong opponents truth lies in the eye of the beholder.Consequently , 2014 onwards provides an excellent window to demolish once and for all the myth about their contribution to nation-building. What they built, so the argument goes, is their family dynasty .
Party politics can and is used to float falsehoods with the help of state power. Witness how the fable concerning our glorious Vedic past is being represented triumphantly (in which allegedly plastic surgery and stem cell research flourished) without a murmur of incredulity , or a titter of mirth.If truth is the first casualty in war, it is the second casualty in times when, as Lawrence Durrell puts it, “truth is what contradicts itself “.
The systematic and organised campaign to vilify the Nehru legacy and replace it with the more `muscular and patriotic' legacy of Sardar Patel is top of the agenda. The exercise is ludicrous and an insult to the great Sardar. But let us leave that falsehood alone for the moment.
At the heart of the demolition project is the announcement that a new Idea of India, contrary to the one proposed by Nehru, is available, and in need of urgent execution. It is an abiding irony that the sole politician in the current pantheon of saffron leaders the present prime minister pays obeisance to is Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who ruled the country with Nehru as his lodestar.
What is this new Idea of India? I think we should be told. Alas, its architects have provided no blueprint except to declare it exists. If i were say Mani Shankar Aiyar, i would argue it consists of one part jingoism and one part xenophobia. Perhaps that is a slight exaggeration. More accurately , it rejects the legendary poet Raghupati Sahay aka Firaq Gorakhpuri's thesis, “Sar zamiin-e hind par aqwaam-e alam ke Firaq Kaafile baste gae, Hindustan bantaa gayaa“. (In the sacred land of Hind, caravans of the world Firaq went on settling, and Hindustan kept on being formed.) If one takes the short view of history, Nehru is an easy target, and Indira even easier. To compile a list of `sins' the duo committed would be superfluous since the compilation has already been lovingly done by the Sangh Parivar. Many of the sins are not without basis but they are not black and white either, except the Emergency . They were committed at a specific moment in history . Happily, we have access to material which provides us with full, balanced assessments warts and all. We are therefore neither astonished nor shocked when these transgressions are presented. No verdict on Nehru or Indira is possible without its share of criticism.
Perhaps this is the right time to ask the hunters looking for two prized scalps some questions. Where did Narayana Murthy and the entire information technology industry come from?
Where did Indra Nooyi come from?
Where did Warren Buffett's financial wizard, Ajit Jain, come from? They all came from the IITs, IIMs and other world-class education centres Nehru had the foresight to set up.
If India has the `bomb' and internationally renowned research labs, the credit must go to the same man. At a time when the republic struggled, he insisted a newly independent, backward nation be fully engaged with the contemporary first world through advanced learning and progressive thinking. Nehru ensured a society steeped in superstition, ritual, religious dogma and belief in kismet embraced a scientific temper so that the temptation to wallow in a mythical `glorious' past could be resisted. The modern nation state outward-looking, open, rational, argumentative, sceptical armed with universal adult franchise, is the creation of Jawaharlal Nehru. Rubbish that if you like.
I yield to no one in my abhorrence for aspects of Indira Gandhi's prime ministership. Because i entered journalism in 1974, i experienced the full horrors of civilian dictatorship. That she wrecked critical democratic institutions is undeniable. But we must also remember she dismembered Pakistan and made sure it could never pose a threat. There is a good Indira and a bad Indira.
Incidentally , when i read opinion polls reveal she is easily the most popular prime minister the country has produced, when i see long queues outside her Safdarjung Memorial, i wonder if our Iron Lady needs more than one yardstick (Emergency) to assess her term in office.
If Nehru's legacy is the real obstacle holding India back, why don't its adversaries throw it into the wastepaper basket? And govern on the majoritarian doctrine? Not a chance. When it comes to self-preservation, the new rulers are wise. They know they would soon be out of a job, if they abandoned the idea (secularism) which has held the country together.
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20. THE NEHRU DAUR - Shyam Benegal
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The Times of India (Delhi), Nov 09 2014
I remember the first time I saw Nehru.
It was soon after the police action that liberated Hyderabad from Nizam's rule. I must have been about 12 at the time. A friend of mine and I were walking towards a disused golf course close to my home where we often played cricket. It was early in the morning. Two horsemen came cantering along on their horses. One was General J N Chaudhuri who was the Military Governor of Hyderabad at the time and the second was Jawaharlal Nehru. He looked like a bronze god. The second time I saw him was several years later at an Inter University Youth Festival in New Delhi.He gave an extraordinarily inspirational speech which in fact changed the course of my life.
The early years of Independent India were times of great optimism. Nehru was the great hero, with his film star good looks and his charming manner. Also, he was an extremely inspiring leader, particularly for young people. Nehru in his youth was greatly inspired by the Russian Revolution.He travelled to the Soviet Union with his father in the late 1920s and was most impressed with the idea of the social engineering that he saw being attempted there.He was all for creating a new society but not necessarily by altogether dismantling the earlier economic and social structures.He substituted the ideal of socialist society with the term socialist pattern of the society which was described as a mixed economy with space for both private and public sector. He wanted a self-reliant India rather than attempting to make it self sufficient.
Many mainstream filmmakers were impacted by the optimism of the early Nehruvian years. The films of Khwaja Ahmed Abbas ('Jagte Raho', 'Awara') and others such as B R Chopra ('Naya Daur') were critical of the present but were extremely optimistic of the future.Their films were essentially Nehruvian in concept.
Another important development in the Nehruvian era were the creation of the three cultural academies -Sangeet Natak Akademi, Lalit Kala Akademi and the Sahitya Akademi. The Film and Television Institute was founded during Nehru's tenure. The FTII was designed to train filmmakers who would create films that would reflect changes taking place in Indian society rather than turn out escapist fantasies which were the staple of mainstream cinema.
The impact of Nehruvian thinking was felt most significantly in Bengali, Malayalam, Kannada and Oriya cinema before it was felt in Hindi films. These films were clubbed together by the press and described as parallel cinema.
Most of the early graduates of the FTII, began to make films that were far more original and reflected social and aesthetic attitudes and views very much their own rather than being influenced by popular mainstream cinema of the time. Among the notable filmmakers, who made their mark were Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Aravindan in Kerala, Girish Karnad in Karanataka, Nirad Mahapatra in Orissa among others. As far as Hindi Cinema was concer ned, there were filmmakers like M S Sathyu and myself.
Hindsight criticism of Nehru has become fairly fashionable today . Nehru's contribution according to me was a foundational one and contributed hugely in making India an independent minded democratic country. What Nehru did was help open up minds to different kinds of thinking and to possibilities whose significance can never be underestimated.
My film `Ankur' was essentially about social change. So was `Manthan' while `Bhumika' was about the liberation of women from the oppression they suffered in the traditional patriarchal society of our country. `Kondura' was about breaking free of traditional superstitions that held society in thrall.
These were all influenced either directly or obliquely by Nehru vian views on social change -the idea that one cannot develop society and move forward without actively helping to make far reaching social changes.
These views are as relevant today as they were yesterday.
-As told to Mithila Phadke
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21. INDIA - NAGA PEACE TALKS: A COURSE CORRECTION
by Sanjib Baruah
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Outlook (New Delhi) November 10, 2014
It has been abundantly evident for a while that the Naga peace talks need a course correction.
The numerous rounds of negotiations have not brought us close to a resolution. Yet the achievements to date are not insignificant.
The atmospherics have changed. We have come a long way since NSCN (I-M) leaders and the Indian government’s representatives were meeting in foreign cities like Amsterdam and Bangkok. Now they meet in New Delhi. Certain issues have been significantly reframed. The conflict appears more tractable and on key issues there is now space for bargaining.
The NSCN leaders no longer talk of absolute sovereignty. But within the framework of India’s territorial sovereignty finding common ground on the political status of a Naga homeland will still be a formidable challenge. However, the resolution of that issue now is more about symbols than substance. At least in principle, the bi-lateral framework of the negotiations can come up with an acceptable compromise.
But the negotiations have reached an impasse on another key issue: the reunification of the Naga territories—a bottom-line, non-negotiable demand of the NSCN (I-M).
Multiple developments in Northeastern states, notably in Manipur, have made abundantly clear that this is an explosive emotion-laden issue with multiple stakeholders. It is not a matter that could be settled by the central government mustering the political will to make a decision and impose it on unwilling states and communities.
The project of reunification of ethnic territories to conform to some imagined ancient reality is an impossible fantasy. Pre-colonial political formations in the region were not primarily territorial in structure. New historians rely on concepts such as overlapping and shared sovereignty to make sense of political life in pre-colonial Northeast India.
The region is not unique. The borders of African states—many of them are straight lines—are unmistakably colonial in origin. They are the product of the late 19th century "scramble for Africa" among European powers. International borders divide numerous ethnic groups, not unlike the Nagas. Yet African states declared in 1964 that, “the borders of African States, on the day of their independence, constitute a tangible reality" and pledged not to challenge them. Perhaps there is a lesson for Northeast India from this piece of African political wisdom.
There are important shifts in the Modi government’s approach to the Naga talks.
It has repeatedly asserted that the negotiations will be “time-bound.”
But most significantly, it has appointed a strident critic of the process, Ravindra Narayan Ravi as its interlocutor. Ravi considers the 1997 ceasefire with NSCN-IM to be a mistake. He has described the organization as “essentially a militia of the Tangkhul tribe of Manipur with little resonance with the broad Naga family.” The ceasefire, according to him, has perverted the process of “political reconciliation and social assimilation of the Nagas.” The talks, he has said, cannot resolve the Naga conflict so long as key stakeholders are excluded.
Mr Ravi has publicly expressed his suspicion of former Nagaland chief minister Neiphiu Rio’s closeness to Mr Muivah and of his tactical alliance with the BJP. Rio has since resigned as chief minister and was elected to the present Lok Sabha. There was speculation that he will be inducted into Modi’s Cabinet and that he will play at least an informal role in taking the Naga peace process forward, Rio has not made it to the Central Council of Ministers so far. Clearly the Modi government is following a different script.
A number of Naga organizations had opposed Ravi’s appointment. “Surely no Naga can accept an interlocutor with this demeaning attitude,” said one organization sympathetic to the NSCN (I-M). Ravi’s appointment, it says, shows that the government intends to “corner the Nagas into submission.”
It took some convincing by Nagaland’s popular governor P.B. Acharya, who has had a long association with the state as an RSS and BJP functionary, for Naga organizations to warm up to this appointment. That the NSCN-IM chose not to make an issue out it however, has more to do with political realism than anything else.
Following last month’s talks, Home ministry officials said that future talks would be more like “business meetings” without publicity and fanfare. The Naga leaders were apparently told that they could get in touch with Mr Ravi as needed, and that Mr Ravi will do the same. But the government also frankly laid out its “limitations,” as did the NSCN (I-M) leaders.
There is little doubt that the “limitations” relate to the demand for reunification of Naga territories.
The issues are difficult to resolve, for sure. But there is room for bargaining: the possibility of splitting the difference exists.
Consider the phrase “alternative arrangement” for governing Manipur’s Naga areas. The phrase has recently entered the vocabulary of Manipuri Naga activists. Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh says that he does not understand what it means. But ambiguity can sometimes be constructive. It can help advance negotiations on sensitive subjects. And an arrangement by which the Nagas of Manipur can be affiliated to a future Naga homeland—perhaps more in symbolic rather than substantive ways—is certainly one such issue.
However, if such issues are in principle resolvable, negotiations between NSCN (I-M) leaders and the central government alone cannot accomplish it. They need a parallel multilateral negotiating track.
There is little doubt that the Modi government is trying to press the reset button on the Naga talks. But a more radical course correction may be needed: establishing a parallel multilateral negotiating track, along with the bilateral track. However, to bring that about at this stage of the game will need a lot of persuasion that will be both difficult and time-consuming.
(Sanjib Baruah is Professor of Political Studies, Bard College, New York)
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22. MODERN TIMES: India 1880's to 1950s
by Sumit Sarkar
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Much has changed in the world of South Asian history-writing since Sumit Sarkar’s renowned classic, Modern India (1983). “The passage of thirty years having rendered that work thoroughly dated, the futility of any attempt to revise it became increasingly clear to me, especially as over this period my own historical perspectives took new and unexpected directions”, says the author. The present work is an entirely fresh view of the same period.
Focusing on three huge areas — Economy, Environment, and Culture — Professor Sarkar offers his magisterial perspective on these.
Scientific discourses, laws, forest administration, peasants and adivasis, irrigation, and conflicts over land-use are examined, as are agrarian relations, commercialization, indebtedness, and famine. Trade, finance, and industry are other major focus areas.
Modern urban India is scrutinized via the literature on its big cities. Sociabilities, caste configurations, and public culture (theatre, cinema, and sports) are discussed, as are literature, dance, music, and painting.
In conclusion, says Professor Sarkar, “I have within each chapter incorporated the relevant historiographical developments, changes, and debates. Separate bibliographical sections will I hope facilitate the work of teachers and students.”
After Professor Sarkar's serious illness nobody had imagined he would be able to complete this monumental work. What went into the writing of it could make another book. The first copies were presented to him over a ceremonial dosa and a cup of tea -- that is the way he wanted it.
SUMIT SARKAR is among the most influential and widely admired historians of modern India. His several books include The Swadeshi Movement in Bengal, Modern India 1885–1947, Writing Social History, and Beyond Nationalist Frames. Following a distinguished teaching career, he retired as Professor of History, Delhi University. He lives in New Delhi and is working on his next book.
Permanent Black, HARDBACK| Rs 895|456 pp
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23. ON THEIR WATCH: Mass violence and State apathy in India - Examining the record
Edited by Surabhi Chopra & Prita Jha
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About the book:
In 2005, India passed a law giving individuals the right to information on the State’s acts and decisions. Using this law, the authors in this edited volume applied for official records about four of the worst episodes of mass violence in independent India. These traumatic events had not previously been scrutinised using the recently-minted law on this scale. The authors filed over 800 applications for information; the results of their unusual endeavour led to this book.
Sifting through hundreds of government documents on criminal justice, administrative discipline, commissions of inquiry, emergency relief and monetary compensation, the authors examine the State’s response to sectarian violence in Nellie in 1983, Delhi in 1984, Bhagalpur in 1989 and Gujarat in 2002.
Hundreds of people, most of them religious minorities, were killed, injured, displaced from their homes, and stripped of their livelihoods in these episodes of mass violence. In each instance, violence was encouraged by the politically powerful and tolerated by the police.
This book examines official records and shows how State apathy in the wake of violence thwarted attempts to rehabilitate survivors and punish perpetrators. These failures are not simply an unfortunate coincidence. The State’s own records reveal that national and state governments have been negligent in recurring, systematic ways. By detailing how State processes have failed, this disquieting book demonstrates that the State could have pursued justice and reparation for victims of mass violence in the past, and could, in substantial measure, still do so.
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Abouth the author:
Surabhi Chopra is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law, Chinese University of Hong Kong. She researches transitional justice, national security and the rights of the poor.
Prita Jha is a legal activist and researcher based in Ahmedabad. She works on justice for survivors of mass violence and violence against women.
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Publisher’s note:
This book is a comprehensive survey, analysis and critique of the State and its institutions with regard to the horrific communal mass violence that has dotted the political and social landscape of Independent India. It holds the State and its institutions accountable, in its acts of commission and omission, for the sheer scale of the communal massacres, for its inability to ensure safety of its citizens and to guarantee justice and adequate relief and rehabilitation for the survivors. What is remarkable about the book is that its thesis has been argued on the basis of the State’s own records, retrieved mainly through RTI applications.
It tells the facts, names the names, of the perpetrators and those complicit, and its reading is a humble lesson on how far the world’s largest democracy is from the equality and secularism enshrined in the Indian constitution. The episodes of mass violence covered in this volume, Nellie (1983), Delhi (1984), Bhagalpur (1989), Gujarat (2002), reflect the endemic nature of communal violence and its systemic roots.
[. . .]
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CONTENTS:
1. Introduction
Part I: Extracting State Records
2. Exercising the Right to Information
Part II: Four Episodes of Mass Violence
3. Nellie 1983
4. Delhi 1984
5. Bhagalpur 1989
6. Gujarat 2002
Part III: Examining the State’s Record
7. Access to Criminal Justice
8. Holding Public Officials Accountable
9. Relief, Compensation and Rehabilitation
10. Conclusion
Appendix: Battling a Corrosive Menace
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pp xx+374, demy octavo 8.5 x 5.5 in., includes bibliographies and index.
ISBN (Hardcover) 978-81-88789-87-0
Rs750 (India) $25 (elsewhere)
ISBN (Paperback) 978-81-88789-98-6
Rs500 (India) $18 (elsewhere)
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Available at major bookstores and with our main distributors: IPD Alternatives 35A/1 Shahpur Jatt, New Delhi 110049 Tel. 011-26491448/26492040 e-mail ipd.alternatives at gmail.com
To buy directly from Three Essays
www.threeessays.com/books/on-their-watch/
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