India’s Regional Dilemmas

Statecraft

HAPPYMON JACOB

India has long been accused of being the regional hegemon that often tries to intervene in the internal affairs of its smaller South Asian neighbours, or bully them into doing its bidding. Many of the country’s neighbours maintain that the various Indian institutions, especially its bureaucracy, continue to think and behave like the erstwhile British Empire. While there may or may not be some truth in that, recent developments in the region tell a different story altogether. 

The Maldivian government recently decided to declare the multi-year contract that it had signed with the India-based G. M. Rao Group to run their international airport, and did so unilaterally without heeding to requests from New Delhi to reconsider its decision. India’s new External Affairs Minister Salman Kurshid’s calls to his counterpart in Maldives did not manage to convince the country to alter its decision. Remember, India provides a great deal of economic and military assistance to the tiny state in the Indian Ocean region. Indeed, last year when the then President of Maldives was dethroned in a not-so-proper manner, he had asked India to intervene and reinstate him as the President. He was widely considered to be close to India, but New Delhi did nothing. It simply did not want to interfere in the internal politics of another sovereign country. Reports now indicate, or least G. M Rao, the head of GMR Group, claims, that ‘foreign hands’ – meaning Chinese – were responsible for the ouster of the GMR Group from Maldives. 

Take the case of Sri Lanka. Developments in the last few years show that the island county, which recently managed to militarily defeat the LTTE, is no more dependent on or tolerant of India as it used to for many decades in the past including officially requesting India to intervene in its internal affairs to defeat the LTTE. India did not even provide Colombo with weapons let alone actively intervening Sri Lanka’s civil war after its intervention there in the late 1980s went terribly wrong. But the Chinese sensed an opportunity and helped Colombo, again. Now, as a result, Colombo and Sri Lanka are getting closer by the day. 

In Myanmar, prior to its ongoing transition phase (of becoming a normal mature democracy), India was asked by the democratic forces there including its leader Ang San Sukyi and the international community, though in indirect terms, to play a role in leading Myanmar towards democracy. India did not do so primarily because of the Chinese closeness to Myanmar’s junta. India feared that if it went against the ruling military regime in Myanmar it would pave the way for an increased involvement of China there which would be against India’s strategic interests. Nor could India make up its mind to support the Junta fearing reprisals from the pro-democracy activists and the international community. As a result, India did not have traction with either of the groups, the junta or the pro-democracy groups. India was losing out either way. Ang San Sukyi said in a recent interview in New Delhi that she had wished that India had done more to help the cause of democracy in Myanmar. 

What do all these mean?  Is India really losing its influence and sway in the region? For the land of Jawaharlal Nehru, who was one of the most respected world leaders of his time, an architect of the Non Aligned Movement and contributed a great deal to resolving many international conflicts, these failures in the neighbourhood can be seen as a historic low. For a country that is so often criticized for its hegemonic behavior in the neighbourhood, it doesn’t even seem to be able to take care of its genuine business interests in the region. 

What explains this incongruence between perceptions and results in the Indian behavior towards the region? There seem to be a number of variables at play here. First of all, there is a clear Chinese angle here which offsets the Indian efforts in the region. China is willing to extend military, economic and other forms of help to the various South Asian states with hardly any preconditions attached. Their fundamental objective is strategic leverage and economic benefit in the pursuit of which they are willing to forgo ethical and human rights considerations. Chinese involvement in Myanmar and Sri Lanka are clear examples of that. This has frustrated the Indian policy in the region since India is constrained by a number of non-strategic and non-economic factors in its foreign policy pursuits. The second aspect is the lack of institutional coordination and the general lack of foreign policy purpose. Often there is no cohesive and consultative foreign and foreign economic strategy making by the various concerned Indian institutions in India. 

Thirdly, Indian foreign policy pursuits and behaviour are severely hamstrung by deeply ingrained normative considerations and moral dilemmas that the country has inherited over many decades of its independence as well as from its own non-violent freedom struggle. For India, its foreign policy decisions and commitments have to pass the test of its moral preconditions and ethical standards. This means that apart from the fact that it would find it difficult to interfere in the internal affairs of another state and support regimes that violate human rights of its people, it would also find it difficult to forgo its peaceful and defensive posturing to engage in force projection outside its borders. These self-perceived moral and ethical aspects are now further ‘complicated’ by India’s openness to and interface with various international normative standards. 

There are no easy answers to any of these dilemmas faced by India especially when there is another actor that is quite willing to operate under a completely different set of standards which gives a certain ‘freedom of choice’ to the many states of India’s neighbourhood.

(SOurce: Greater Kashmir, December 23, 2012. URL: http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2012/Dec/23/india-s-regional-dilemmas-21.asp )

Bon Voyage, Mirwaiz

Statecraft

HAPPYMON JACOB

The All Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC-M) leadership is currently in Pakistan after a gap of five years to hold discussions with the Pakistani leadership, creating yet another controversy. I have often been critical of APHC’s political course of action despite the personal admiration that I have for the Mirwaz, Umar Faroq, and some of the others in the group. For one, but for the calm and non-condescending personality of Umar Farooq, the coalition of over 20 parties would not have stayed under the same political roof for such a long time. 

Not unsurprisingly, the APHC and the Mirwaiz are being criticized by a number of Kashmiri intellectuals for undertaking this trip to Pakistan: while some of it is valid, most of the criticism is unfair and misplaced. Here’s why. 

Limited agenda and bad timing 
Critics are right that the APHC is visiting Pakistan with a limited agenda and at a bad time. While one wonders why APHC chose to visit Pakistan at a time when Pakistan itself is in deep political flux. Didn’t they know that in politics timing is everything? The elections are around the corner in Pakistan and the present regime there is most likely going to lose power in upcoming elections. The current President may not even be in the country after the elections thanks to the many cases of corruption pending against him. Hence anything that APHC discusses with the current regime will bear limited dividends in the days to come. I think there is some validity in this argument. What about the rationale for the visit? I am not too convinced that the APHC could have asked for anything better under the circumstances. Let me explain. First of all, so much water has gone under the bridge since the 2007 visit of APHC to Pakistan. For one, Indo-Pak relations and the peace process were at their height in 2007 and more so there was a certain peace deal that was being finalized between the two sides with the full knowledge of the AHPC (they may or may not acknowledge that though). Today, the dialogue process is just picking up; the major stakeholders in the region are waiting for the US-NATO pullout to begin from Afghanistan; and nothing in New Delhi and Islamabad will have any political shape or form till the new governments come to power in these two countries. Hence there are far too many variables that need to fall in place for anything concrete to happen on something as vexed as the Kashmir conflict. So under these circumstances, the APHC could have either waited or started mediating: they have chosen the latter.  

More so, the two countries have now seriously begun their talks on all outstanding issues including Kashmir. Therefore, it makes perfect sense for the APHC to insist that the Kashmiri opinion is heard when they talk to each other about Kashmir. 

It’s now or God-knows-when
Secondly, five years, let’s face it, is a very long time. If the APHC does not visit Pakistan now, they might as well wait for three more years since one hopes that by 2015 we might have a clearer understanding of where the region is heading. So it’s now or God-knows-when. 

But then why visit Pakistan at all? Let me quote the Mirwaiz: “The purpose of the visit would be to bring Kashmir to the fore. We would stress on Islamabad to bring Kashmir back on its agenda…we want to clear the impression that the CBMs on small issues like trade are not going to help Kashmir. You have to address Kashmir issue to bring permanent stability in South Asia.”

To do so the APHC will be meeting with Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf, Foreign Minister Heena Rabbani Khar, PML-N Chief Nawaz Sharief, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leader Imran Khan and leaders form the PAK.

To my mind, for the APHC to have achieved anything more than this is asking for far too much. 

Why it is a good visit
I would go on to argue that there is a symbolic political value to this visit. First of all, by planning and undertaking this important political visit the APHC is proving that they still have the resourcefulness and wisdom to negotiate between the Government of India and the Government of Pakistan which happens to be the primary aim of the coalition. Indeed, this visit should be seen in keeping with one of the declared aims of APHC as laid down in their constitution: “To make endeavour for an alternative negotiated settlement of the Kashmir dispute amongst all the three parties to the dispute -- India, Pakistan and people of the Jammu and Kashmir -- under the auspices of UN or any other friendly countries, provided that such settlement reflects the will and aspirations of the people of the state.”
Secondly, this visit also highlights the distinct and special place that Kashmir has in Indo-Pak relations. What should be noted here is that this visit is being organized with the green signal from New Delhi. 

While APHC’s critics have used this to argue that it is acting under the directions of New Delhi, I would adopt a different line of argument. APHC is not an underground organization and if it has to visit Pakistan to talk to them on behalf of the Kashmiri people, there is no way they can do so without the go ahead from New Delhi. This does not in any way mean that APHC is compromising on their basic goals by deciding to use Indian travel documents: after all, this visit is a part of the agenda to change that very status quo. More so, if the declared objective of the APHC is to negotiate between the two states, how can they do so without visiting, meeting and talking to the two sides? Indeed, if anything, the Hurriyat has to be more proactive in talking to both India and Pakistan. 

In other words, what the APHC’s detractors are missing is the political message and symbolism of this visit. How often do you see a dissident group from India visiting a foreign country to negotiate between the two countries? Never. That is precisely what the Mirwaiz and the senior leadership of the APHC is doing in Pakistan now and that is precisely why they are doing the right thing.

(Source: Greater Kashmir, 16 December 2012. URL: http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2012/Dec/16/bon-voyage-mirwaiz-19.asp )

Why death penalty is immoral

Statecraft

HAPPYMON JACOB

Killing someone is not an occasion to celebrate. Indeed, rejoicing as a nation at the killing of someone, even if he is a dreaded terrorist or criminal, shows the moral degradation of that society. If anything, the detailed, blow-by-blow account of the events relating to the hanging of Ajmal Amir Kasab, the terrorist who shot scores of innocents in Mumbai on 26/11, and the ensuing ‘widespread celebration’ thereafter, are deeply disturbing and forces one to reflect over crime, punishment and moral progress in our country. 

Death penalty as spectator sport 
Popular reactions and the jubilant media coverage of the ‘secret execution’ of Kasab bears an uncanny resemblance to the use of death penalty as a sport in 18th century Europe, intended for purposes of deterrence and to demonstrate the might of the state. Public execution of condemned prisoners even earned the state some revenue as spectators had to pay to witness the gory sight (there were of course no TV channels that could boost up their TRP ratings then!). The Taliban in Afghanistan as well as some other countries continue to use the method of public execution. Killing of criminals by the state, in public or private, negatively affects the moral core of the society as it clearly violates the sanctity of human life. More so, there is a thin line between the use of death penalty for deterrence and public execution as spectator sport as both the acts end up legitimizing the killing of another human being. What is problematic here is the killing of a human person; legitimate or not depends on the moral order that one lives in. In any case, empirical research has shown that death penalty only kills the criminal, not the crime. There is no correlation between the two and so we have to conclude that deterrence cannot be the logic behind the death penalty. 

Meaning of justice 
One of the major claims made by the supporters of death penalty is that by awarding death to the perpetrator of a heinous crime the state is providing justice to the victim’s families. While this is a powerful argument, one fails to see how killing the criminal can provide justice to the victim’s family. Notwithstanding the fact that the state, as per this line of argumentation, is seen as a ‘contract killer’, what it actually does, on many occasions, by killing the criminal, is ‘compensating’ for real justice that it is unable/unwilling to provide. The EU memorandum on death penalty, for instance, says: “capital punishment should not be seen as an appropriate way of compensating the suffering of crime victims’ families, as this view turns the justice system into a mere tool of illegitimate private vengeance.” In other words, most states limit their provision of justice to awarding death to the criminal instead of a) providing material and psychological support to the victim’s families, b) ensuring that such crimes are not repeated by adopting preventive measures, and c) understanding the sociological, psychological and economic contexts which created the criminal in the first peace and addressing them. 

Killing a criminal is easy, but preventing crime is a complex process that the state is often unwilling to undertake. Theoretically, therefore, it is even possible to see a positive correlation between the extent of a state’s inability to protect the lives of its people and the severity of the punishment meted out to the criminals. 

Society and crime
Those advocating capital punishment often tend to imagine that crime is committed in a social vacuum, and claim that crime is essentially social deviance.  A more sophisticated understanding of criminal behaviour would require us to see it as a result of social conditioning and the moral, political, and psychological conditions that the doer of a particular crime finds himself or herself in. The tendencies to overlook this important sociological aspect of crime and, more importantly, self-righteously isolate the rest of the society from the criminal lead to an unproblematised understanding of crime and criminal behaviour. 

Supporters ofdeath penalty should consider for a moment that those who do good deeds are not born with better genes; they just happen to be exposed to better social conditioning and conditions. The argument here is not intended to deprive individual humans of their moral agency to choose good over evil, but rather to point out that in many cases, social conditioning and conditions have a great role to play in the making of a criminal.  Take the example of Kasab. Much of the information available on the 26/11 terrorist suggest that he comes from a social background where being a jihadi and waging jihad in the name of Islam are seen as laudable. Indeed, the religious indoctrination he was subjected to clearly convinced him that he was engaging in a noble endavour in the name of God. While that does not justify what he did, it certainly enlightens us on where our focus should be if we were to eradicate terrorism from our midst. 

Why modern societies should not kill
If one is persuaded to agree with the argument that societies can not absolve themselves completely of the crimes that criminals commit, then it is only logical that societies should not only take part of the blame but also should adopt such methods to rehabilitate criminals which does not involve the violent removal of the criminal from the society. Moreover, states and societies have no right to play ‘God’ not just because societies have to accept part of the blame for the crimes in their midst but more importantly because by giving the state the right to kill individuals, we are erroneously awarding the state absolute power over our lives which in the long term would have significant negative implications. Gone are the days when we thought that our rulers and governments were infallible; today we know that they habitually make mistakes. 

Fighting terrorism
It is increasingly understood today that the phenomenon of terrorism symbolizes the moral, political and philosophical challenges that our societies face; the gun-wielding terrorist is a symbol of a larger socio-political malady. The only way to defeat terrorism or extremism is to fight it politically and with the power of ideas. By merely killing the individuals who are, in a sense, as much victims of their ideology, we will not be able to defeat terrorism. It’s time our governments realized that we can’t defeat unconventional and ideological threats such as terrorism and religious extremism using conventional means of discipline and punishment. Our ‘war’ on terrorism has to start its fight from the root causes as well as address the sanctity for violence that exists in our societies that gives rise to terrorism in the first place. Indeed, symptomatic treatment of such a deep-rooted malaise will prove to be counterproductive. 

India and the global norms India as a nation has always prided itself in being one of the few islands of liberalism, tolerance, enlightenment values and non-violence in the developing world. Practice of death penalty is undeniably one significant blot on the collective conscience of such a forward-looking society. At a time when most of the contemporary international community is moving towards delegitimizing death penalty, India, by executing Kasab, seems to be going against the world opinion. Moreover, by hanging Kasab, we have discarded our own self-imposed moratorium on death penalty. A country that has long struggled to advocate a moral international order, based on the visions of Gandhi and Nehru, and one that now wants to be a major norm maker of a reformed and egalitarian international system should have a more liberal and humanitarian approach to crime and punishment. Fyodor Dostoyevsky once observed, “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons”. The continued presence of archaic forms of punishment, including death penalty, can also tell us a lot about the moral character of our societies. Regrettably, India failed to be on the side of nations that voted to adopt a recent UN Resolution asking states to put in place a moratorium on executions in order to eventually abolish the death penalty. 

The politics of Kasab’s hanging
The Congress party, under whose rule both the 26/11 carnage and the hanging of Kasab took place, has not, thankfully, exhibited any triumphalism after sending the Pakistan-born terrorist to gallows. While that is commendable, what is missing from the debate generated by the hanging of Kasab are questions such as how 26/11 was allowed to happen in the first place and what improvements have hence been put in place in the national security management of the country to take care of the crucial lapses that made 26/11 possible. The Mumbai police and the Union Home Ministry had claimed after the 26/11 attacks that they would make the Indian coast impenetrable to the country’s enemies. Clearly, nothing much has happened on that front, various media reports suggest that. If we think that by hanging Kasab we have taken care of our national security, we are sadly mistaken.

(Source: Greater Kashmir, 09 DECEMBER 2012. URL: http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2012/Dec/9/why-death-penalty-is-immoral-4.asp )

On Nuclear Disarmament

Statecraft

HAPPYMON JACOB

I was in Vienna the other day discussing strategic stability and nuclear politics with contemporaries from other nuclear-weapon possessing countries such as USA, Russia, China, Israel (!) and Pakistan. This ongoing initiative brings together mid-career analysts from these countries to deliberate on strategic stability under nuclear conditions and the potential for a world without nuclear weapons. 

The boys who can’t handle their toys 
My first impression from the 2-day conference was that there is a great deal of worry and concern in the West and US about Indian and Pakistani nuclear weapons, much more about the Pakistani nukes though. There is palpable fear that the Indians and Pakistanis, again more vis-à-vis Pakistan, may not be able to handle their nukes in a responsible way. Indeed, there seems to be more worry about Pakistan in the West today than in India. No, my argument is not that there is absolutely no need to fear or worry about the Pakistani nuclear weapons, postures and the dilemmas they pose for India. We in India don’t tend to look at Pakistani nuclear weapons in isolation but rather as part of the Pakistani state’s security apparatus, security dilemmas and its threat/security perceptions. That is why unlike in the West where you get to hear talks about ‘taking out’ Pakistani nukes through surgical strikes, you don’t get to hear that in India very often. When indulging in this talk of South Asia being the dangerous nuclear flashpoint what the Americans forget is that it was their country that first used nuclear weapons against live humans for target practice, not India or Pakistan. 

There is also a lot of uneasiness about the preferential treatment meted out to India by the United States through the Indo-US nuclear agreement and the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) waiver. Here is where one gets to see the convenient coming together of the West, that likes to preach to the rest, and Pakistan, that suffers from a permanent inferior complex vis-à-vis India. 

‘Our’ hypocrisy 
There is no doubt that India has been given preferential nuclear treatment by the US though I don’t for a moment doubt that India deserves it. India deserves to be made a partner in the global nonproliferation order simply for the reason that it has had a very clean proliferation record: it has not engaged in nuclear pilferage or in any way behaved irresponsibly in nuclear matters (if we choose to ignore for a moment the internal diversion of nuclear material meant for peaceful purposes to military purposes). And yet there is no way one can make the argument that India has never engaged in hypocritical doubletalk on nuclear issues. The fact is that even as India kept making vociferous demands for global nuclear disarmament through the Cold War years ever since 1947, having nuclear bombs, at the opportune time, was clearly something India had in mind. While the politicians and civilian strategic community kept mouthing the pious platitudes on global nuclear disarmament, the scientific community in the country quietly went about their work and finally produced nuclear weapons. When it realized that the preaching was not doing any good, India decided to move sides and declared itself a nuclear weapon state and asked others to recognize it to be so. Surely, this is hypocrisy, not because India made nuclear bombs but because it kept swearing that it had no plan to make nuclear bombs when they were actually making them in the backyard. 

For long we argued that the global nuclear order was an example of apartheid, and then claimed a place right at the center of that very apartheid order, burying the rhetoric of the past so unceremoniously. Pragmatic it may be, but hypocritical it surely is. 

‘Their’ hypocrisy
The Indian hypocrisy, at least in part, is the result of consistent hypocritical positions by the Nuclear-5 (USA, UK, France, China and Russia). By putting together a fundamentally discriminatory nuclear order in 1970 through the entry into force of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that essentially states that those who produced nuclear weapons before January 1, 1967 would continue to have them while those did thereafter would not be designated as Nuclear Weapon States, the P-5 founded one of history’s biggest hypocrisies. Thus countries like India and Pakistan became lawbreakers as per NPT and its promoters. Over and above this discrimination, although the NWS kept mouthing the ‘global nuclear disarmament slogan’ from the hallowed pulpits of the United Nations, it refused to put in place a time-bound plan to do so. So far the Americans and Russians have only agreed to reduce the number of their nuclear weapons, down to thousands from tens of thousands. 

The problem of nuclear zero
The latest American/Western nuclear fad is the movement for ‘Nuclear Zero’ spearheaded by the Obama administration. While the unwillingness to make a time-bound nuclear disarmament plan clearly frustrates the ‘Nuclear Zero’ movement, the bigger challenge comes from the fact that even if the Americans are willing to let go of their nukes, the other states may not be happy to do so thanks to the overhang of American conventional superiority. In other words, in a world where there are no nuclear weapons, the Americans will continue to enjoy high levels of superiority in conventional weapons which will be disadvantageous to states like Russia and China and they have clearly said so. Russia has clearly said that any reduction in its nuclear arsenal will have to be linked to deep cuts in American conventional weapons. This logic applies to secondary nuclear rivalries as well, namely India Vs. China and India Vs. Pakistan. While Pakistan clearly benefits vis-à-vis India due to its nuclear weapon status since it is conventionally weaker than India, the Indians have a sense of security from their nukes vis-à-vis China. 

The problem with the Nuclear Zero logic and many other similar nuclear disarmament arguments is that when they talk about a world without nuclear weapons they seem to mean a world minus nuclear weapons. Indeed, a world without nuclear weapons should be a world where peace and security should be the overarching tendencies of the international system: the preeminent culture of such a world should be peaceful resolution of conflicts where differences are resolved through dialogue rather than on the battlefield. That is why I would argue that for nuclear disarmament to ever become a reality it has to have a radical peace plan before itself and the nations of the world. In other words, a world without nuclear weapons will not only witness the obsolescence of those dangerous weapons but also the eventual erosion of the tendency and willingness to engage in mass murder of humanity that those weapons symbolize. 

But how do we get there? 
I am convinced that US is the wrong country to preach nuclear disarmament even as they have to begin rolling the ball by destroying its weapons first. There should also be a focus on conventional weapons reductions by major powers – US, Russia, China and India. It is likely that the others might follow suit then. 

(Source: Greater Kashmir, November 18, 20102. URL: http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2012/Nov/18/on-nuclear-disarmament-4.asp ) 

What does Obama’s reelection mean for India?

Statecraft

HAPPYMON JACOB

Does the reelection of President Barack Obama make any difference to India’s strategic interests? Does it have implications for the country’s foreign and defence policy as well as national security? I am increasingly prone to think that while the ‘reelection’ part would have some implications for India and its neighbourhood, the ‘Obama’ part would be of less relevance. The ‘Obama part’ is less relevant because whoever becomes the President of the world’s only superpower will essentially choose the beaten track with some minor variations. The ‘reelection’ part will make a difference because the reelected president will be unleashed in his external/defence policy pursuits primarily because he doesn’t have to face yet another reelection and also because his reelection clearly means that his policies have been endorsed by the country by and large. Moreover, I have no hesitation in admitting that Obama is better evil than the rightwing republicans, any day. 

I am also persuaded to think that Obama’s policies will not have any ‘direct’ negative implications for the country. Indo-US relations have reached a situation of great cooperation and mutual understanding of the needs, expectations and constraints of each other that it would be difficult for the American President to harm the already robust relationship. Even though Obama keeps talking against outsourcing of American jobs to India, the fact is that he has not done anything against it apart from merely reducing the tax benefits of those forms that engage in this practice. At the very least, status quo will continue, and the bilateral partnership will see new heights at best. That said, Obama’s policies towards the Southern Asian region could potentially have negative implications for the country, indirectly that is. 

Before looking at those scenarios, let us look at some of the likely ‘constants’ in Indo-US relations under the Obama Administration. The fast-evolving Indo-US strategic partnership is likely to remain unaffected. After all, the Indo-US strategic partnership is not a one-way traffic; the Americans are beneficiaries too. Secondly, the increasing economic, cultural and people-to-people interaction between the two sides will clearly increase in the next few years to come. The ‘civilian nuclear partnership’ is most likely to continue with the present momentum that is no less promising. The Americans are also unlikely to go back on their promise to help India make its mark in the international system by supporting India’s entry into various elite nuclear clubs, permanent membership of the UNSC etc. 

That said, India is also likely to fiercely protect its strategic autonomy. Even though one could argue that the words and deeds of Indo-US partnership have drastically transformed during India’s transition from being non-aligned towards the Cold War rivalry to merely insisting on tis strategic autonomy in its relations with the US, the fact is that New Delhi attaches a great deal of importance to maintaining its autonomy in taking decision on strategic issues. It is important to note here that India is one of the very few countries that have managed to maintain its foreign and defence policy autonomy even while being in a strategic partnership with the US as well a US beneficiary. Most US allies have tended to fall into the overwhelming US embrace pretty soon. The question is whether India will be able to continue to maintain its strategic autonomy for too long. 

The new Southern Asia and its challenges 
Apart form the Middle East, the other area of strategic interest for the Obama Administration is likely to be the Southern Asian region. With the withdrawal of NATO and US combat troops from the Afghan theater in 2014, the region will witness the official beginning of the Afghan endgame even if not the endgame itself. Given the kind of acrimonious relations that Washington currently shares with Islamabad, one is at a loss when it comes to describing what might be the shape of things to come in and around Kabul. Washington realizes that the way out of Kabul is through Islamabad and hence it is likely to mend its relations with the latter. And yet one is left with more questions than answers. Will the Taliban return to the seat of power in Kabul? Will there be a tie-up between Islamabad and/or Rawalpindi and the Taliban leadership? What attitude will the US adopt towards the neo-Taliban? And what would be the regional security implications of these developments? In particular, what role would India play, and be allowed to play by Islamabad and Washington, in all of these? We will have to wait for answers. 

Yet another theater of conflict is likely to be Iran. There seems to be no letting up in Washington’s efforts at putting pressure on Tehran to given up its alleged nuclear weapons programme. Is Obama going to play diplomacy with Iran as he did in the beginning of his first term or is he going to play hardball with it? Will he be able to resist the ever-continuing Israeli demands to use force against Iran? And if Israel decides to go it alone, what will be Obama’s response? Given the fact that the Middle East is already on the boil, how will a military campaign against Iran contribute to worsen it? How will it affect India, not just economically due to its dependence on Iran for energy needs, but also geopolitically and strategically? 

Yet another factor that needs to be carefully looked at is Obama’s attitude towards the growing power of China. The rise of China is coinciding with the decline of the United States. Washington is clearly nudging New Delhi to play ball to contain the Chinese rise to Super Power status. It has left no stones unturned in making this logic of classical balance of power clear to India. India has so far resisted Washington’s attempts to go against China knowing fully well that it makes no sense to do America’s dirty job of balancing against China who happens to be India’s next door neighbor and India’s biggest trading partner. Will this trend continue or will India fall into the American pressures? What will be the implications of potential Indian postures vis-à-vis China? 

The world waits with bated breath for part-II of Obama’s presidency, so do we.

(Source: Greater Kashmir, November 11, 2012. URL: http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2012/Nov/11/what-does-obama-s-reelection-mean-for-india--15.asp )

Mark the Graves

Statecraft

HAPPYMON JACOB

The famous Russell–Einstein Manifesto issued in London on July 9, 1955 ends with the following words: “We appeal, as human beings, to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you can’t, there lies before you the risk of universal death.”

Today the time has come for us to call upon the rulers of Jammu and Kashmir to remember their humanity, listen to the voice of their conscience and take a decision that will begin the process of undoing the many wrongs committed against the people of Kashmir. The time has come for the rulers of J&K to stop living in denial and come out with truths even though some of those truths might hurt than comfort. But then bitter truths are better than false comforts. 

The Omar-Abdullah led government of J&K should immediately order the DNA profiling of over 2000 dead bodies lying unsung in around 38 graveyards of Kashmir.For a Chief Minister who has been talking about truth and reconciliation and has been a voice of reason and moderation, this is the opportunity to demonstrate to his fellow Kashmiris and the world that he does care about those whose Chief Minister he is. 

Indeed, there is a growing national and international concern about the Omar-government’s flip-flops on the question of mass graves. This is something that his government is not going to be able to ignore for too long. TheUN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, in her statement a few days ago urged “the Indian authorities to fully investigate past killings and disappearances and bring the perpetrators to justice, as well as to ensure protection of witnesses and families of the missing and provide them with redress”. Amnesty International in its reports has been calling upon the government to conduct an inquiry into the matter. Kashmiris from all walks of life have been demanding on a daily basis that the government should order DNA profiling of the remains in those graves. How long will the rulers of Kashmir be able to ignore the voice of their people? 

The J&K State Home Department has reportedly written to the State Human Rights Commissionthat “many of the Human Rights activists raise the bogey of human rights violations at the behest of forces inimically disposed towards our country”. The ‘all-knowing, immensely wise and undoubtedly patriotic’ J&K Home department, by this statement, has not just accused “human rights walas” but also the State Human Rights commission, which happens to be a statutory body, of being anti-national! Someone needs to remind the babus of J&K Home department that it was not a report written by Pakistan that spoke of over 2000 bodies dumped into unmarked graves at 38 sites in north Kashmir. It was a report prepared by the Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission (SHRC). 

Replying to a question by the senior CPI-M leader and MLA, MY Tarigami a week ago, the J&K government informed the State’s Legislative Assembly that as per the information provided by the District Development Commissioners, 2305 persons have been declared missing in the state. Indeed, the figures were provided by the same Home department. 

So if we have a home department report which says that over 2000 persons are missing from the state and a SHRC report that says that around the same number of bodies are lying in unmarked graves in Kashmir, how on earth can the very same Home department now say that the graves mentioned by the SHRC are full of dead bodies of terrorists even though the state has still not been able to account for 2305 missing persons. I simply can’t get the logic behind this.  

In September 2011 Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had said so valiantly that DNA tests will be conducted on the dead bodies in the unmarked graves to confirm their identities. One year later, Omar’s government has now changed their stance on the issue. What has changed in one year? Who has convinced him to change his stance? Moreover, why does the Chief Minister keep changing his positions on important political issues? Shouldn’t the chief Minister of J&K be a man of his own words, at least? 

Is it not outrageous for the state government to say that “the families of the disappeared should identify the particular graveyard and the grave where they believe their family member might be buried. Only then after acquiring proper permission DNA test of that particular grave would be carried out.” As I said in my last column, how on earth can the families of missing persons ever manage to do that? Forget justice for a moment, can Omar Abdullah’s government please stop making fun of the Kashmiri people?

If the home department is so certain that the bodies actually belong to militants killed by the Indian armed forces and not innocent Kashmiris, shouldn’t it actually be forthcoming and enthusiastic about a probe that will verify their claims? If the home department is not lying to the people why not back it up with some evidence? 

The fact is that we all know why the state government is choosing to live in denial. The J&K government, like all governments, would not like to own up to having committed or help commit any sins.

What is also unfortunate is that even as there are sane voices in the rest of India demanding an urgent probe into the matter, much of the country seems to prefer not to bother with it. As the widely read Indian columnist Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar pointed out a year ago: “Secular Indians feel outraged by 900 Muslim deaths in Gujarat’s 2002 riots. They are outraged by the killing of 3,000 people by Chilean dictator Pinochet. But they are mostly bored by 2,730 Kashmiri bodies in unmarked graves.” This is the tragedy of Kashmir and no less a predicament of the Indian secularism.

Rahul’s ‘non-political’ Kashmir visit

No ‘uncomfortable’ questions were allowed to be put to the visiting dignitaries!

Statecraft 

BY HAPPYMON JACOB

The recent visit of the Congress scion and Member of Parliament Mr. Rahul Gandhi to the Kashmir University with a delegation of prominent Indian businessmen is indeed a welcome step, but an inadequate one at that. The fact that Mr. Gandhi managed to convince top industrialists such as Ratan Tata, K.M. Birla of Aditya Birla Group, Rajiv Bajaj of Bajaj Auto, Deepak Parekh of HDFC, and Ashoka Reddy of MindTree to accompany him to Kashmir and speak to the students at the University auditorium deserves praise. I have no doubt in my mind that the likes of Mr. Tata and Mr. Birla will live upto the promises they made to the young Kashmiris. Some of them have even promised to make a comeback visit to Kashmir sometime later. So far so good.

That said, my concern is not really about the utility of such moves intended to improve the economic conditions of people, but about Rahul’s technocratic approach to addressing political issues. Again, I do not doubt the fact that Rahul is a well-meaning gentleman and a sincere politician. But over and again, he has proved to be unable to view and understand political issues through political lenses. Rahul, for instance, was nowhere to be seen when the Kashmir valley was up in flames in 2008 and 2010. We did not hear him offer any solutions to douse the fire nor was he reaching out the Kashmiri youth during those days. But then why blame him alone? Even Kashmir’s own politicians had gone into hiding when the valley was burning.

Rahul Gandhi’s three monkeys
Rahul seems to be going by the slightly modified version of the principle embodied by the three wise monkeys “When in Kashmir, see no politics, hear no politics, speak no politics”. What else can explain the fact that Rahul was unwilling to discuss any politics during his visit to the campus? Apparently, his organisers had stage-managed the show to such an extent that no ‘uncomfortable’ questions were allowed to be put to the visiting dignitaries! Does he think that students in university campuses are not mature enough to discuss politics? Does Rahul think that it is not their job to discuss politics in the campuses and that they should just do their studies and go home? While bringing economic prosperity to Kashmir is good, Rahul should also have shown the political vision and guts to answer the ‘uncomfortable’ political questions of the Kashmir University students. 

Moreover, Rahul should have reminded his close friend Omar Abdullah that the latter’s government should take the trouble to conduct DNA profiling of the 2,156 dead bodies in around 38 graveyards of Kashmir. A year ago Omar had claimed that his government would make sure that the DNA tests are conducted and the families of at least some of the missing persons will finally have a sense of closure. His government has now gone back on that promise saying that a) it is not possible to conduct DNA profiling of all bodies and, b) only terrorists are buried in those graves. Even more curious is the argument that “The families of the disappeared should identify the particular graveyard and the grave where they believe their family member might be buried. Only then after acquiring proper permission DNA test of that particular grave would be carried out.” For heaven’s sake, how can the families of missing persons ever manage to do that? Forget justice for a moment, can Omar Abdullah’s government please stop making fun of the Kashmiri people? 

Economic opportunities are good, but bringing justice to those whose kith and kin have been killed is even more important. And if Mr. Rahul Gandhi thinks that bringing Tata and Birla to Kashmir will compensate for the blood spilled by thousands of Kashmiris, he has not even begun to understand the conflict in Kashmir. 

Let us face it, economics is not politics and hence any attempts by anyone to resolve political issues through economic means is unlikely to be successful in the longer run. Indeed, using economic means to address political questions is not something that New Delhi is doing for the first time: this is a standard practice in state-led conflict resolution initiatives. And these economic means come in many shapes and forms: economic rebuilding, job creation, infrastructure development and sometimes straightforward bribing. But then a symptomatic approach is not designed to address the deeper political questions and that is precisely its problem. 

What is interesting to note is that while Rahul and Omar show reluctance in addressing political questions using means that are truly political, their grand fathers Jawaharlal Nehru and Sheikh Abdulla, respectively, used to be exactly the opposite. They reveled in politicizing everything that happened around them. They had absolutely no hesitation in discussing deeply distressing political questions right in the middle of their people. Elderly Kashmiris would remember how the Sheikh and Nehru used to make impromptu speeches at Lal Chowk addressing important political questions that Kashmir faced then: Kashmir faces the very same questions even now but the grandsons of Sheikh and Nehru seem to fight shy of addressing them. Why is a political approach important? Notwithstanding the fact that a political approach is often a comprehensive one, it is also useful in bringing justice to those who have been deprived of it. More so, an economic approach can only help ‘hide’ a political problem and so an economic solution provides no guarantee that the conflict will not come back to hurt us again.

(Source: Greater Kashmir, October 7, 2012. URL: http://greaterkashmir.com/news/2012/Oct/7/rahul-s-non-political-kashmir-visit-5.asp )

Don’t blame it on the professor

HAPPYMON JACOB

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Unemployment, skyrocketing prices and other governance-related problems are not the failures of the Indian higher education system

This is in response to Justice Markandey Katju’s article that appeared in The Hindu on September 3, 2012, entitled “Professor, teach thyself.” At the outset, let me say that a number of issues that he has raised in his article are justifiable criticisms of India’s higher education system and hence deserve further discussion even if one were to ignore the highly condescending tone of the article. However, Justice Katju’s arguments also suffer from several serious logical and substantive flaws.

He is critical of the fact that while a great amount of money is pumped into the higher education sector in India, money spent on primary education is negligible. It is the latter sector that needs resources, he argues, because the huge amounts of money spent on higher education in the country are “for the benefit of foreign countries.” Even if one were to buy this highly skewed and factually incorrect argument, one is at a loss to understand how the “professors” are responsible for this state of affairs. Surely, it is not the university fraternity that makes decisions regarding budgetary allocation in this country. Just because the government’s policies do not prioritise primary education, it does not follow that we stop funding the higher education sector; that is indeed a curious argument. Funding the country’s primary education sector, which is indeed a priority, need not be at the cost of India’s higher education sector.

THE ‘STATE-OF-THE-ART’ MYTH

On the one hand, he argues that the Indian university system should produce Nobel laureates and “Fellows of the Royal Society,” emulating the universities in advanced countries such as Australia. On the other, he also complains about the Rs.150 crore that is annually given to universities like Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). He also complains about the “state-of-the-art” campuses and “air-conditioning” provided to institutions of higher education in India. Has Justice Katju ever made an effort to inquire about the facilities and infrastructure available in western universities?

Most universities in India still do not have access to the latest journals; and when we think of “state of the art facilities,” we only have in mind clean toilets, and electricity to run our computers. The fact is that most Indian universities do not have the funds to air-condition lecture halls or provide air-conditioning even in the chambers of senior professors; that is certainly the case in JNU. I wonder if Justice Katju would be able to work out of a non-air-conditioned office and lecture in furnace-like lecture halls for hours together in Delhi’s sweltering heat!

THE ‘HIGHLY PAID’ MYTH

Justice Katju writes that the professors are given “huge salaries and fine houses to live in.” This is yet another factually incorrect argument. If he wishes to understand how much professors get paid for their work, he should compare their salaries with the salaries of those holding equivalent ranks in the government or the judiciary. While I tend to agree with the spirit of this argument that a large number of academics do not engage in high-quality research and that their publications are “mostly poor,” I wish to point out that there are several structural reasons why academic research in India may not be policy relevant. Those of us who teach/research international relations or India’s foreign and defence policy, for instance, are aware that the government’s unwillingness to declassify and open its archival records on defence, security and foreign policy matters to public access even after 30 years of a particular policy decision is one of the major reasons why it is almost impossible to produce authoritative academic assessments in these fields. When we do write, policymakers would discard it saying it is inaccurate and speculative, and they are not entirely wrong in saying so. However, if a considerable amount of academic writing in India on foreign policy and national security is widely considered to be based on guesswork, please don’t put the blame entirely on the professors. The government’s archaic secrecy laws have to take part of the blame.

THE OBJECTIVE OF HIGHER EDUCATION

I also fail to understand how IIT and IIM professors are to be blamed if their students get employment abroad and prefer to leave India. If anything, the very fact that IIT and IIM products are chased after by the international business houses proves that their professors are actually doing a fine job of giving them world-class education. Moreover, it is patently misleading to suggest that the government should stop funding higher education because of the brain drain from the country.

Finally, there is a larger substantive question that Justice Katju’s article raises. He asks whether the higher education system in India has managed to raise the standard of living of the poor Indian masses who are struggling with massive unemployment, skyrocketing prices, huge problems of health care, housing etc. I have fundamental issues with this line of argument. First of all, massive unemployment, skyrocketing prices and such other governance-related problems are not the failures of the Indian higher education system: these are systemic failures and pinning that on the Indian higher education system is grossly unfair. Second, the primary job of the universities is to teach students and guide their research, not to tell the government how to run the country. Third, even when the universities produce research-based studies on ways of improving various aspects of governance in the country, the government hardly ever takes notice of the research outputs of universities. If the babus don’t listen to the professors, why blame the professors? Finally, Justice Katju’s “instrumental” understanding of education is deeply problematic. He seems to argue that the sole objective of higher education is to help the governance of the country. Going by that argument, any intellectual or academic pursuit that has no direct instrumental value for governing the country is a useless enterprise. Hence, the production, accumulation and transfer of knowledge on philosophy, ancient history, African tribal societies, Victorian drama and aesthetics have to be considered as a waste of time since they don’t contribute to solving governance problems in India!

(Happymon Jacob teaches at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi).

Source: The Hindu, September 17, 2012. URL: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/article3904588.ece )

Indo-Pak Relations: Glass Half Full

There is an urgent need to create ‘shock-absorbers’ in India-Pakistan relations

Statecraft BY HAPPYMON JACOB

Will the ongoing visit of India’s foreign minister S. M. Krishna to Pakistan make any difference to India-Pakistan relations? Can the Indian foreign minister,who belongs to an embattled UPA government, take the ongoing efforts to strengthen the bilateral relationship to the next logical level? Or will Krishna’s ‘mission Pakistan’ prove to be yet another futile exercise? I think the glass is half full. 

Minister Krishna is scheduled to meet (or has already met) a host of Pakistani leaders from both the ruling party as well as the opposition. This by itself, I think, is a progressive step. The fact is that if New Delhi wants to deepen its relations with Pakistan, it should reach out to Pakistanis belonging to a wide spectrum of political persuasions. Secondly, the revival of the Indo-Pak Joint Commission and its subgroups can do a lot of good for Indo-Pak relations. The Joint Commission has often been a victim of the imponderables between the two sides. Thirdly, my ‘glass is half full’ optimism also comes from the great deal of diplomatic effort that has gone into strengthening the Indo-Pak bilateral environment in the past year or so. From the parlays between the home secretaries to the commerce and the foreign secretaries, there have been a number of Indo-Pak official engagements in the past yearand these in a sense have managed to deepen the relationship and create a certain sense of purpose and vision, at least from an instrumental point of view. One only hopes that the diplomatic effort of the past one year, including this visit by Krishna and his delegation, is taken to a higher level by a visit by Dr. Manmohan Singh to Islamabad sometime soon. 

It is interesting to note that while New Delhi and Islamabad have been making politically correct noises about the ‘K’ (Kashmir) word and the ‘T’ (Terrorism) word, the apparent lack of progress on these two items has not prompted either party to call off the dialogue process. While I do not believe that not talking about contentious issues is not the perfect way to resolve them, I am willing to see some merit in carefully planning and timing the discussion on contentious issues. Sometimes diplomacy is all about timing. 

Critics would argue that this is yet another round of talks without any real and tangible result in sight, and hence these talks are as good as not having them at all. India and Pakistan are simply going through the motions of a dialogue process, half-hearted as it is, and may achieve almost nothing at the end of it, they would argue. For instance, but for some improvement at the trade front, what have all these diplomatic engagement s of the past one year produced? Nothing, really.

I do see their point: you need to work towards concrete outcomes in a purposeful manner. And yet, I am persuaded by the thinking that sometimes process is itself the product. Often, there is a need to engage your ‘adversary’ at multiple ‘peaceful’ levels to create the atmospherics to negotiate lasting peace. After all, it is better to be talking to each other peacefully and graciously, even when there is not tangible outcome in sight, than working to sabotage each other.  Finally, the fact is that India has simply no other choice than to diplomatically and politically engage Pakistan? Does it really have any other alternative vis-à-vis Pakistan? 

The imponderables 
To me, however, what is bothering is not really the lack of concrete outcomes from the dialogue process, but the potential of the ‘imponderables’ to frustrate the peace process. Indeed, India-Pakistan relations have always been a victim of such imponderables: what else can explain the overnight disappearance of the 2004-2008 India-Pakistan peace process which was widely termed as ‘irreversible’? 

The first imponderable, of course, is a repeat of 26/11. While one hopes that such an instance won’t take place, there is no way one can rule it out. What a Mumbai-II will mean for Indo-Pak relations is something only time can tell. One thing, however, is certain. It will ‘at least’ mean a repeat of what followed the 26/11 terror attacks, that is, the end of the Indo-Pak peace process. The second imponderable is a regime change in Pakistan. What will be the fate of this engagement process between the two sides if and when there is a regime change in Islamabad? And what if the new regime in Pakistan is less forthcoming towards India than the present one? Thirdly, what will be the impact of the evolving ‘endgame’ in Afghanistan on Indo-Pak relations? Indeed, on all these three ‘imponderables’, we have a historical record to go by and that record is not something that can make us optimistic about the future of Indo-Pak relations. 

I would, therefore, argue that instead of trying hard to rule out potential wildcards such as these, there is a need to think of ways to deal with them as and when they occur with minimum damage to the bilateral relations. Differently put, there is an urgent need to create ‘shock-absorbers’ in India-Pakistan relations so as to not let the unforeseen effects of unfortunate imponderables throw them off balance. The exact nature of these political and diplomatic shock absorbers are to be designed by the officials on both sides. But some of the steps in this direction could already be taken. For instance, institutionalization of regular exchange of views between the two intelligence communities, like it used to be the case between the two superpowers during the Cold War years, is one way doing it. It’s time India and Pakistan put on their ‘thinking caps’ and did some out-of-the-box thinking about it.

(Source: Greater Kashmir, September 9, 2012. URL: http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2012/Sep/9/indo-pak-relations-glass-half-full-4.asp )