India’s Arihant — upping the psychological ante

While Pakistan’s decision makers squabble over whether to go ahead and implement the 2008 decision of buying German submarines or alter course and seek more French subs instead, India has put its prototype nuclear powered submarine, INS Arihant, into the waters. Incidentally, those in Pakistan who have been ranting for years over the use of Islamic warrior names for our missiles seem absurdly mute in commenting on India’s aggressive usage of Hindu mythology warrior names not only for its missiles but now also for its nuclear-powered submarine. Of course, the reality is that the nuclear reactor of this submarine will not go critical till 2012, so at the moment Arihant is more of a symbolic reflection of where India is headed in terms of its nuclear arsenal. Nevertheless, the development has signalled the nuclearisation of the Indian Ocean by a littoral state – since nuclear weapons have been present in this Ocean through the military presence of the external nuclear powers, especially the US.

That is one major reason why the US, France and UK always opposed the UN General Assembly’s efforts to make the Indian Ocean a weapon-free “zone of peace” – as reflected in the first UN GA Resolution of 16 December 1971(2832:XXVI). Ironically, along with the Soviet Union, India was a major force behind this Non-Aligned Movement-supported UN resolution. But then this has been the hallmark of Indian security policy: seeking time through multilateral diplomatic moves while it builds its military capability. In contrast to the Indian position on the Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace resolution, the US, France and the UK always voted against this idea and in 1989 they chose to withdraw from the 44 member UN committee on this issue that had been set up in 1972. The US in fact demanded that the committee be eliminated so as to reduce UN spending and we know how this whole issue simply died for lack of visible progress. Now that India has also moved towards nuclear militarisation of the Indian Ocean, it will be difficult to see any revival of the zone of peace proposal for this region in the future. With the launching of the Arihant, India has moved still further away from being a proponent of nuclear disarmament to being a projector of nuclear force. Strategic rationality makes it incumbent on Pakistan to seek to restore the nuclear balance for the future.

However, this should not be a major issue for us even in financial terms, as long as the lure of commissions does not distort or destroy our strategic interests. We already have conventional submarines including the Agosta-type which are not only capable of carrying nuclear warheads, but can be upgraded to being fitted with air-independent propulsion technology (AIP) specifically designed to allow conventional subs to remain submerged for longer periods. That is the main advantage of nuclear-powered submarines, along with the speed element – they do not need to surface like conventional subs that need to surface after short periods of being submerged and therefore become vulnerable. AIP technology is specifically designed for conventional subs and the Germans have been in the forefront of this technological development, although the Agostas can also be upgraded.

It is unfortunate that Pakistan’s purchase of subs has been delayed apparently over the commissions lure, because now the international community will make it harder for this country to acquire these subs. Have we learnt no lessons from what happened to Pakistan in 1974 after the Indian nuclear test? India tested and Pakistan was penalised! The Canadians withdrew from KANUPP despite IAEA safeguards and a legal agreement. There is nothing to suggest that things will be different this time round – given how Hillary Clinton practically blessed Indian militarisation with a new defence pact. Besides Pakistan’s pathetic record of asserting legal agreements with its allies makes us easy victims of foreign pressure and diktat – remember the replacement of F-16s with wheat and soya beans? Not only did we lose our money, but before the US finally retracted on the deal, we were made to pay parking charges for these F-16s also! But we always forget US abuse and present ourselves for more of the same whenever the occasion arises!

Coming back to the Indian nuclear powered submarine – it should be pointed out that we do not yet know how it will perform once its reactor goes critical. Will it actually have the speed and capability – given that it has been built with Soviet/Russian technology and the fate of many Soviet/Russian subs lies at the bottom of the seas – taking a heavy toll of human life and reflecting the limitations of Soviet weapon systems? A major disadvantage of nuclear-powered subs is that they are noisier because they have to keep the reactor powered on all the time so if conventional subs can acquire longer submergeable capability through AIP technology – although it will still not be the same as a nuclear-driven sub – the imbalance can be offset to some extent.

Sea-launched nuclear missiles are central to second strike capability which acts as a stabiliser in the context of nuclear strategy since it reduces the imperatives for first strike. In this context, although Pakistan has not officially made any declarations regarding the development of this capability, it is now fairly well-established that we are already on the way to ensuring this second strike capability. It is also now recognised that we have had more success with missile development than India – probably because we have kept our missile ranges and types limited and focused more on developing solid fuelled delivery systems (which, again, are more stable) and reducing circular error probabilities. India, on the other hand, chose to have a wide-ranging missile programme including seeking the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). While we have stabilised our cruise missile as well as moved towards the beginnings of sea-launched ballistic missiles, from all accounts, India has not been too successful in both these fields – especially with the Sagarika (which is to be its sea-launched missile) in surface tests. So if India is to gain any advantage from its nuclear-powered submarine, assuming it will perform as expected once its reactor goes critical, it will have to work more on its delivery systems.

For Pakistan while there is no need to go into panic mode, we will have to stop sacrificing good deals simply because of the greed over commissions. The fact that a French inquiry has hinted at commissions lying at the root of the death of the French engineers in Karachi should be a sobering moment for any leadership. But the brazenness with which our successive decision-makers have been proceeding, with scant regard for propriety and wastage of limited national resources, shows that no lessons have been learnt – nor is there any desire to learn from even recent history.

Worse still, our rulers are full of bombast but are unwilling to take proactive concrete actions. Take the case of Balochistan. Political leaders of all shades have been repeating ad nauseum the need for political healing and economic investment in that province but why have the first steps in that direction not been taken beyond publication of reports and statements? Why is the leadership so hesitant to declare a general amnesty for all Baloch political figures and the release of all political prisoners? When we can talk to militants (and we should if they are our own people prepared to accept the writ of the state) and be allied to the Americans who continue to kill our people through drone attacks, why are we so unwilling to begin the healing process with the Baloch people and their leaders? Why are we allowing our detractors to provide support for the dissidents instead of taking the punch out of their dissidence by granting them a one-time amnesty if they accept the writ of the state? How can we rise to external military challenges posed by countries like India and the US when we are unable to deal with our own people? Our weakness lies within ourselves reflecting a psychological confidence deficit which makes the rulers aggressive and non-accommodative with the nation and timorous before external players. The Indians and Americans are exploiting this well which is why the Indian’s are making grandiose statements about a submarine that has yet to show how it performs!

Will India, Pakistan stop playing pot and kettle?

At the height of the Cold War, a Russian was showing off his country’s achievements to an American visitor. There was a train from Moscow to Vladivostok every three hours, he boasted. And, regardless of the vast stretch of 9,288 kilometres the journey involved, there was never a minute’s delay.

When the train didn’t show up for the entire day, the Russian detected a victorious smile on the American’s face. ‘Look here, Yankee,’ he growled. ‘You too have a black problem in your country.’

India and Pakistan are often enough like the pot calling the kettle black. Take the latest story of a bigoted Pakistani cleric called Hafiz Saeed who preaches hatred of Hindus and Jews, Shias, Sunnis, Christians – everyone except Wahhabis and Salafis. India says he masterminded the Mumbai terror attack. There is a good chance that the claim is right. Some of Saeed’s colleagues are being tried for their alleged role in the crime. As the leader of the pack he should logically be seen as culpable in the incident, which has injected litres of bad blood in the India-Pakistan equation.

However, Hafiz Saeed may well have done, if he did what India says he did, on behalf of someone else – perhaps someone who found it objectionable that the national security advisers of India and Pakistan had an excellent meeting in Delhi in October. Remember also that Mumbai was attacked in November, precisely on the day, in fact within hours of, a good meeting between the Pakistan foreign minister and his Indian counterpart in Delhi.

Was the Mumbai attack planned to torpedo improving India-Pakistan ties? It could be one of the reasons, if not the entire explanation. And everyone in India and Pakistan who believes that the two countries should continue to mistrust each other are complying, if not colluding, with the terrorists’ strategic objectives carried out in Mumbai, Kabul, Bangalore, Lahore, Delhi and Karachi among a growing number of places in their cross-hairs. The Lok Sabha TV, an official channel that I find somewhat balanced in contrast to its several private counterparts, asked me if Pakistan lacked the will to prosecute Hafiz Saeed. Former Indian high commissioner to Pakistan, G. Parthasarthy, who I see as a hawk on Pakistan (a lethal combination with his army background) was the other discussant. I asked the anchor to try to use the word alleged, as the old-fashioned (and more reliable) journalists would. Parthasarthy disagreed.

He said Hafiz Saeed would not qualify for the cautionary word we were taught to treat as sacred in journalism. For him Saeed was as much a culprit as Ajmal Kasab was in Mumbai’s November nightmare. Why don’t we just abandon the trial and hang everyone we ‘know’ to be guilty?

With this attitude Indians are basically double guessing Pakistan’s Supreme Court, which did not find grounds to keep Hafiz Saeed in captivity any longer. Indians would not normally like others to question their apex court. And if you did something like that in India you could be sent to prison as Arundhati Roy was, for questioning the Supreme Court’s hitherto unquestioned wisdom. So Indians should first canvass to change the colonial-style judiciary and the blind faith in their courts. And then perhaps they would be justified in questioning the integrity of Pakistani judges and to pontificate about their superior judiciary to the rest of the world. Let’s grant to Parthasarthy the possibility that Pakistan’s highest court had acted, like any other court would, on the material evidence placed before it. Perhaps the ISI, or whoever it was that handled the prosecution of Saeed, did not deliberately want to arrest him for whatever compulsions and, therefore, presented a weak case. That’s theoretically possible. In fact this kind of thing happens all the time, not in Pakistan alone. How do we proceed along the commonplace and patently Indian narrative that the Pakistan establishment, which rejoices in the death of a rabid hate-monger like Baitullah Mehsud, is in fact doing everything to set his ideological clone Hafiz Saeed free? I said to the TV anchor that it was possible that Pakistan has unknown compulsions, like the ones India has revealed on several occasions in domestic affairs.

It would be preposterous, for example, to suggest that India had some kind of willingness to free a group of terrorists in a swap deal for the passengers of a hijacked Indian Airlines plane in December 1999. But it certainly must have had its compulsions. Whether we agree with that or not is beside the point. In fact I can even see a hint of continuity of that line of thinking even though India has a different government today than the one that freed the Pakistani terrorists.

The faith in the Vajpayee-era policy, in fact its endorsement, is evident in the fact that the foreign ministry official who accompanied the terrorists to Kandahar with his foreign minister to set them free there, happens to be the head of the group that was authorised by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to lead the talks on terrorism with Pakistan after the Havana meeting with President Pervez Musharraf.

One of the fellows thus freed in Kandahar went on to fund the group that slammed hijacked planes into the World Trade Centre in New York. He then proceeded to brutally slit the throat of a fine journalist, partly because he happened to be a Jew. The other fellow released by India is believed to have staged the December 2001 attack on India’s parliament. What were the compulsions for India to free these people?

Some lives were saved, others put to risk. Could there be a similar compulsion for Pakistan to handle Hafiz Saeed with cotton wool? A senior editor from Pakistan, who has some credibility in Delhi, told an Indian TV channel that perhaps Pakistan does not want to have a domestic backlash when it was engaged in a war against the Taliban. Do we accept that argument? Is it possible that the Indian government is aware of the pitfalls that Pakistan faces if it presses too hard against everyone that New Delhi wants to be put behind the bars? Without a degree of trust, at least between the prime ministers of the two countries and not necessarily their foreign ministries, I doubt if they could have clinched the agreement to share ‘real time intelligence’ against future terror threats. I think that was the biggest achievement of Sharm el-Sheikh. Parthasarthy believes the agreement is unworkable.

As far as compulsions go India has had quite a few of its own. There has not been a single conviction in the genocide of the Sikhs in 1984. Does anyone know why? Not one person has been sent to jail for breaking the law (and also the heart) of India in Ayodhya in 1992. The Justice Shrikrishna Commission Report on the pogrom against a minority community by a well-armed group of fanatics in Mumbai, assisted by the police, has been all but thrown into the dustbin. It had named names and given police wireless records of the culprits and their culpability. Nothing happened. When a group of Indians protested against the killing of nine Christians in Pakistan by Muslim extremists I thought there should have been many more angry demonstrations against what happened across the border. There should be demonstrations in both countries against atrocities committed by religious fanatics. The massacre of Christian tribes people and Dalits in Orissa is a case in point where there should have been a collective condemnation of the horrific killings. That’s the way we used to be. If we have a common destiny, then we have a stake in each other’s pain and grief.

However, the focus has already shifted to the looming elections in Maharashtra, a prestigious contest for the ruling Congress and the rightwing opposition. All the attacks on the Indian prime minister’s agreement with his Pakistani counterpart in Sharm el-Sheikh, from within his party and the opposition, are not unrelated to the politics of elections. After all Mumbai is the capital of Maharashtra and the Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party are looking to exploit the shaken sentiments of the sprawling multi-cultural city.

And so the story of the train to Vladivostok and America’s black problem is not likely to lose its currency anytime soon. The South Asian narrative is a tragic variant of the pot calling the kettle black.

The year when it all began

President Barack Hussein Obama’s much-anticipated speech at Cairo University was without precedent. His narration encompassed the sweep of Islamic history in a way that no sitting president of the United States had achieved before.

 

The speech will continue to be analysed from all angles in the weeks to come. One thing is clear. His vision of peace and cooperation between the Muslim world and the West will be welcomed by all but the most hardened anti-Americans in the Muslim world and the most hardened Islamophobes in the West.

 

Obama said that he was seeking a ‘new beginning’ between the US and the Muslim world based on ‘mutual interest and mutual respect’. He said that America and Islam were not mutually exclusive. Indeed, while travelling to Egypt, he told a German reporter that the US was one of the world’s largest Muslim countries.

 

In Cairo, he said America and the Muslim world shared common principles of justice, progress and tolerance and, most importantly, they conferred dignity on all human beings.

The speech was remarkable for what it contained and equally remarkable for what it did not contain. Obama did not apologise for American policy in the Middle East, as many in the region had hoped he would. Neither did he hurl invective at Muslims or their faith, as some non-Muslims would have liked. In recognising the current tensions between the US and the Muslim world, he conceded that the Cold War and the decades of colonial rule that preceded it had fuelled tensions. But he pointed squarely at violent Muslim extremists for making the ties worse.

 

The people who had carried out the attacks of 9/11 were continuing on a global rampage, attacking civilians regardless of faith to further their agenda. He said these extremists did not represent either the Muslim world or the religion of Islam. In so doing, he echoed what many Muslims throughout the world have been saying. Unfortunately, many religious leaders in Muslim countries have not been saying it loudly enough. They continue to blame America for all their problems.

 

This will not do. It has to change. The ulema have to come out and condemn terrorism in all its forms. And the political leaders in the Muslim world need to sow the seeds of tolerance both within their own societies and where other societies are concerned. Obama put it very well when he said: ‘So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather peace.’

 

What Obama did not go into, perhaps given the impolitic conversations that it might engender, was how the US and the Muslim world had arrived at the current impasse. Much of the current tension dates back to events that took place 30 years ago. As the year 1979 dawned, the UN declared it the International Year of the Child. It would prove to be a prophetic title but not in the way that it was intended. It would spawn geopolitical problems that would linger on for decades.

In January, the Shah fled from the land where he had ruled as the ‘king of kings’. The Shah had been America’s boy in the Middle East. He was known to flip through the pages of Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine, shopping for arms like it was the Sears catalogue. He was expected to guard the oil resources of the region once Britain closed its East-of-Suez bases.

 

In February, Ayatollah Khomeini ended his exile in France and landed in Tehran. In April, Iran was declared an Islamic republic. In November, staffers at the American embassy were taken hostage. The war against the Great Satan, which had installed the Shah by deposing an elected civilian ruler in the 1950s, had begun.

 

Meanwhile, in neighbouring Iraq, Saddam Hussein took over as president. He portrayed himself as a secular alternative to the emerging theocracy in Iran. The West bankrolled him in his eight-year war with Iran which killed some 1.5 million people on both sides and left Iraq with a mountain of debt. When Kuwait called on him to repay the debt, he annexed that country as Iraq’s 19th province, precipitating the Gulf War.

 

That war led to a sizable American presence in Saudi Arabia and gave credence to Osama bin Laden’s cause in ways that were not anticipated by Washington. Al Qaeda would not be what it is today without that blunder. In April 1979, the military government of Gen Zia in Pakistan executed the deposed prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, making the military ruler a pariah in the West. On Christmas Eve, Soviet tanks rolled into Afghanistan placing Kabul under the iron hand of the Red Army.

 

Zia played up the Soviet threat by recalling the dreams of the czars to have a warm water port. The West now made him its saviour, granting him billions in military and economic aid. This myopic act by a Republican administration in Washington conferred legitimacy and longevity on what would otherwise have become a discredited regime.

 

Democracy was placed on the backburner. Once the Soviets pulled out, the Mujahideen broke out into a civil war which would lead to the birth of the Taliban in the mid-1990s. Pakistan’s intelligence agencies served as the mid-wife for a new regional order based on a deadly cocktail of narcotics, Kalashnikovs and religion.

 

In the years to come, the Taliban, in conjunction with Al Qaeda, would engage in suicide bombings aimed at innocent civilians, beheadings of Muslims and non-Muslims alike and the enslavement of Muslim women. In November 1979, in a sign that politically disenfranchised movements were breaking through the surface, the Grand Mosque in Makkah was taken over by extremists. The Saudi royals did not pay heed to the simmering revolt by reforming their society and would pay for it in the decades to come.

 

As he embarks on a journey that has the potential to transform ties between America and the Muslim world, President Obama will be attacked from all sides by people who seek a clash between civilisations. Attacks from the neoconservatives have already begun pouring in. That is why it is essential to view current events through the lens of history. There is no better way to shed light on what happened and why it happened and to derive insights about what needs to be done in the future to prevent a repeat.

The remaking of America

No African came in freedom to the shores of the New World. He was brought in irons. Today an African American is the President of the United States of America.

For millions of people all over the world, including Pakistan, Inauguration Day was a day for hope. President Obama told the Muslim world that he wants “a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.” Obama was the first president to use the word “Muslim” in the inaugural address. He is also said that some of his relations were Muslims.

“Our security,” he said, “emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.” It was a day for radical departure from the failed policies of George W Bush. It also offers opportunities for bold initiatives and truly new beginnings. Unfortunately, Obama’s actions, so far, do not match his rhetoric. The remaking of America began with the bombing and killing of innocent men, women and children in Waziristan. So, where is the change?

Sometimes extreme dangers, instead of elevating a nation, bring it low. That is what happened to America after 9/11. I was in Washington that Sept 11 and was shocked to see, on television, the terrible human tragedy in which thousands of innocent men and women lost their lives. Nobody can justify or condone a crime of such unparalleled magnitude. We understand America’s anger and we share its grief and pain, but on Sept 20, as we listened to President Bush’s wartime rhetoric and Wild West allegories, we held our breath. When he finished, the spontaneous reaction of all those present was that President Bush had virtually declared war on the entire Islamic world.

Until Bush arrived on the world stage, it was axiomatic that the “habits of democracy are the habits of peace”; that democratic states abide by norms of behaviour in the conduct of their foreign policy. Both Paine and Jefferson felt that the new nation could and should make a sharp break with the past and conduct a foreign policy guided by law and reason, not power politics. Jefferson claimed that war and coercion were legitimate principles in the Dark Ages, but that in the new era of democracy and law, relations between nations should be guided by “but one code of morality.” Bush reversed all that and seemed intent on reinstating the old imperial logic of power that “might makes right.”

For Bush, treaties were not considered binding. The war on terror was used to topple weak regimes. Washington’s main message to the world was: Take dictation. No wonder, very few respect America these days. The poor and the weak are scared to death and fear the world’s only superpower. In the eyes of millions of Muslims throughout the world, America is perceived today as the greatest threat to the world of Islam since the 13th century.

This is the darkest era in the history of Islam since the time when Mongols ransacked the Islamic world. Those who oppose American aggression are branded anti-American, terrorists and extremists. Afghanistan and Iraq, two sovereign Muslims countries, are under American military occupation. Today the United States and Britain are conducting a virtual crusade against the Islamic world to steal its oil and capture its resources. Iran, Syria, and Pakistan are next on the hit list. It is now abundantly clear that Pakistan, the only nuclear power in the Islamic world, will soon be denuclearised and emasculated.

Americans are, once again, on the wrong side of history. Doesn’t it reflect their profound ignorance of the history, culture and politics of the Islamic world? Why don’t they recognise the futility of trying to wage a modern war on two ancient civilisations that formed their identity by repelling invaders? Are Americans destined to fail once again to recognise the limitations of modern, high-technology military equipment, in confronting unconventional, highly motivated nationalist movements? Are Americans so naïve as to believe that the war they are fighting is a war for democracy and freedom when most of their Islamic coalition partners are either military dictators or thoroughly corrupt, discredited civilian despots hated by their people?

Americans seem to have stopped talking about who they are and are only talking now about who they are going to invade, oust or sanction. These days nobody would think of appealing to the United States for support for upholding a human rights case–maybe to Canada, to Norway or to Sweden, but not to the United States. Before there were three faces of America in the world–the face of the Peace Corps, America that helps others, the face of multinationals and the face of US military power. The balance has gone wrong lately and the only face of America we see now is the one of military power.

Who says we are friends? There can be no friendship between the strong and the weak. There can be no friendship between unequals, neither in private life nor in public life. “The strong do what they can,” the Athenians told the intractable Melians, “and the weak must suffer what they must.” The Farewell Address of George Washington will ever remain an important legacy for small nations like Pakistan. In that notable Testament, the Father of the American Republic cautioned that “an attachment of a small or weak toward a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter.” “It is folly in one nation,” George Washington observed, “to look for disinterested favours from another…it must pay with a portion of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character.” No truer words have been spoken on the subject. If you want to know what happens to an ill-led and ill-governed small country which attaches itself to a powerful country like the United States, visit Pakistan. Nuclear Pakistan has lost its independence. It is now virtually an American satellite and is portrayed in American media as a “retriever dog.” Pakistan lost its manhood, its honour, its dignity, and its sense of self-respect during the presidency of George W Bush.

Muslims do not hate American freedoms. They have no quarrel with the American people or their way of life. They hate American policies. They hate their blind support of Israel in its war of aggression against the oppressed people of Palestine. They hate the killing of innocent men, women and children in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. They hate their support of usurpers, hereditary monarchs, military dictators, un-elected, corrupt and effete rulers in the Islamic world.

Thanks to George W Bush, President Obama has to pick up the fragments of a broken dream. He must begin by listening to the Muslim world, because if he does not understand what resonates with them, what fuels their anger, Americans will sink deeper and deeper into the black hole they are digging. There are two immediate litmus tests by which we in Pakistan and Afghanistan and perhaps the rest of the world will judge Obama. The drone attacks on FATA are counterproductive and a violation of our sovereignty and must stop.

The decision to send additional troops to Afghanistan is simply an extension of the failed policy of George W Bush. Beefing up the American occupation in Afghanistan is not the solution. It is part of the problem. The presence of foreign troops on their soil is perceived by Afghans as deeply humiliating, a constant reminder of the loss of everything they cherish, everything they hold dear: Freedom, sovereignty, liberties, honour and national pride. They will never accept foreign occupation of their country. The least America can do in its own national interest is to follow the first rule of holes and stop digging.

One thing is clear. There can be no stability in Afghanistan or Pakistan as long as Afghanistan remains under foreign occupation. That is for sure. Those who advocate beefing up the American occupation should keep in mind Rudyard Kipling’s “the young British soldier,” 1892:

When you are wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains

And the women come out to cut up what remains

Just roll to your rifle and blow up your brains

An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.

How can President Barack Hussein Obama succeed in this “graveyard of Empires?”

Back to Future

In his initial days in office President Barack Obama has signalled a fresh start to America’s engagement with the world, pledging to temper power by “humility and restraint” and place greater emphasis on diplomacy to secure its goals. Will this promise translate into a new approach towards relations between the US and Pakistan?

Today this relationship is characterised by mutual frustration engendered by a growing trust gap. While the leaderships of the two countries place a high value on their ties, their publics and legislatures increasingly view the other with suspicion and depict each other as an unreliable ally. The advent of a new administration in Washington offers a window of opportunity to redefine and recalibrate relations. Both sides need to guard against unrealistic expectations but be prepared to engage in an honest dialogue.

Three things stand out about this troubled relationship from a historical perspective. First, relations have lurched between engagement and estrangement in almost predictable cycles. Second, these swings have occurred under both Republican and Democratic administrations, which have taken turns to impose and then lift sanctions. And, third, the episodic nature of ties has reflected Washington’s changing strategic priorities and shifts in global geopolitics, which in turn has reinforced the perception among Pakistanis that their country is seen from a tactical perspective, and not in intrinsic terms. This burden of history has contributed to a negative dynamic that will need to be addressed if relations are to be placed on a more consistent and positive footing.

By naming Richard Holbrooke as special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Obama administration has put one of America’s most prominent international trouble-shooters in charge of a region which it has accorded top priority. But in limiting Holbrooke’s formal brief and not extending it to encompass South Asia, this diplomatic prescription for a “regional approach” appears to be at odds with the diagnosis that Obama himself has made. Before his inauguration he indicated more then once that the road to a stabilised Afghanistan runs through a Kashmir solution, because that would enable Pakistan to switch its strategic focus from the eastern to its western frontier.

Holbrooke was originally envisaged as special envoy for South Asia, but his formal mandate was circumscribed after Delhi mounted a frenetic diplomatic effort to prevent “re-hyphenation with Pakistan.” But it would be a mistake to conclude that this will preclude him from engaging with the sources of South Asian instability. Once he familiarises himself with on-ground realities, he will have to take into account the interconnectedness of issues in the region, not least because of Washington’s anxiety that prolonged tensions between Pakistan and India could hobble any “new” approach to stabilise Afghanistan. Moreover, as Afghanistan has been the new arena for the old subcontinental rivalry to be played out, Holbrooke may well engage with Pakistan-India relations via Afghanistan. So he can be expected to approach the region with a wider scope.

It is also up to Islamabad how seriously it engages Holbrooke and sets out its own security concerns, driving home the reality that there can be no durable solution to tensions between Pakistan and India unless Kashmir is addressed, and that Pakistan’s ability to act forcefully and decisively on its Western border rests critically on a peaceful eastern frontier. And if Washington simply “pressures” Pakistan to rein in Kashmiri militant groups without balancing this by urging Delhi to seek a political solution of Kashmir, this would relieve India of its responsibility to stabilise the region. Virtually every crisis in Indo-Pakistani relations has been directly or indirectly related to Kashmir. Any strategy of simply “leaning” on Pakistan is flawed. No state can be pressed onto a course unless it regards that to be in its own interest.

Engaging the new US administration requires Islamabad to evolve a clear and achievable agenda that reflects national priorities and interests. As Washington gears up for “relentless diplomatic efforts,” Islamabad must be ready with a clear and coherent approach that is designed to reset ties with the US and align these with the sentiments of its own people. After all no policy is sustainable unless it has public support. Such an approach should include the following elements:

1) Seek an end to unilateral US Predator attacks on Pakistani territory, which have inflamed public opinion, undercut Islamabad’s own counter-insurgency efforts and risk destabilising the country. Washington should respect the democratic will as expressed in Parliament’s resolution of Oct 23, 2007, and instead help strengthen Pakistan’s own capacity to contain militancy.

2) Reject any conditionality attached to assistance promised under the Biden-Lugar bill. The administration’s announcement that this assistance will be linked to Pakistan’s counterterrorism performance in the border region is at odds with the approach advocated by President Obama during the campaign. It also contradicts assurances given by Vice President Joe Biden during his recent Islamabad visit of taking relations to the “pre-Pressler” days. Conditioning aid turns on its head the very rationale for assistance that US officials have themselves been advocating: that assistance to stabilise Pakistan will empower it to deal more effectively with security challenges. An approach that treats Pakistan from the paradigm of “hired help” rather than valued ally, should be unacceptable to Islamabad. It only reinforces the transactional nature of ties that are so resented by Pakistanis.

3) Convey that Pakistan is neither looking for nor needs US military assistance to build its conventional capability. But to strengthen its counterterrorism capabilities, it requires helicopters, night vision, radars, electronic intelligence devices and other advanced technology. Absent these, the Pakistani army will continue to fight an asymmetrical conflict with conventional implements.

4) Insist on the criticality of trade, rather than aid, in helping Pakistan’s economic recovery. The country’s economic lifeline, textiles, is in deep trouble. Providing Pakistani garments and textiles access to the American market would be a transformative act. The present US trade policy imposes higher tariffs on Pakistani goods than those from many developing nations. Tariffs on Pakistani textiles are also much higher than on goods from many rich countries. Enhanced trade creates jobs and income. Aid usually doesn’t, as Pakistan has learnt from the three aid packages of the 1960s, 1980s and post-9/11. Jobs and income are more effective anti-terrorism tools than bombs and bullets.

5) Assert that a genuinely “regional approach” should address Pakistan’s security concerns with India, especially Kashmir, and Afghanistan. Washington should be made to recognise the regional nature of Pakistan’s security challenges and acknowledge that many issues in the region are so interconnected that they can set each other off.

6) Insist that as the US reshapes its Afghan policy, Pakistan’s views and security are factored into the review. Unless Pakistan and Washington’s NATO allies are all on board and “buy into” the revised approach, no strategy will work. Such a review must aim at a fundamental overhaul, not just a policy tweak.

7) Counsel the US that simply sending more troops to Afghanistan without a significant change in strategy will be counter-productive. The war in Afghanistan is unwinnable if it continues to be waged the way it is now. A troop surge on its own will not reverse the downward spiral. Instead, it will increase the sense of occupation and multiply targets for the insurgency. At the peak of its occupation of Afghanistan, the Soviet Union deployed around 150,000 troops and also had another 50,000 Afghan army forces available. This did not avoid a spectacular defeat in terrain that has been the graveyard of empires.

Policies to stabilise Afghanistan should not unintendedly end up destabilising Pakistan, as has been the case with the flawed approach and military missteps of the Bush era. The stated US goal of helping to stabilise Pakistan has been undermined by actual policy pursued in the region.

The Obama Administration should consider a more realistic approach to Afghanistan that focuses policy on the “core” project (defeating terrorism), rather than a “big project” of multiple goals that can mire it in a war without end. This means distinguishing between what is vital (disruption of terrorist networks) and what is desirable but best left to Afghans to undertake (transforming society, building a centralised state and promoting democracy). This should aim to separate Al Qaeda from the Taliban, and engage the latter in a reconciliation process. Building confidence by dialogue should be followed by the offer for an eventual withdrawal of foreign forces in return for a cessation of attacks and support for the creation of a viable Afghan national army and security apparatus.

For its part Pakistan needs to review its counter-militancy strategy to ensure that its patchwork actions in FATA, as indeed Swat, are replaced by a consistent policy of robust law-enforcement to establish the writ of the state. And the government must make unrelenting efforts to mobilise public support to counter the forces of violent extremism. Its counter-insurgency strategy must be anchored in a set of interlocking political processes and involve the strengthening of local, civilian administration, to ensure that security objectives are sustainable.

In evolving a credible road map for stabilisation of its border areas and sharing this with Washington, Islamabad should also specify redlines so that the US understands the limits of cooperation and commits to respect Pakistan’s sovereignty. With Mr Holbrooke expected soon in Islamabad, Pakistani officials should prepare to press their views and vision of the future relationship with clarity and boldness.

If the Shoe fits

IF only President George W. Bush had consulted a fairy godmother before he had embarked on his unfortunate final visit to Iraq.

He might have been warned that instead of losing a glass slipper, he would be receiving instead a used, size-10 men’s shoe.

In many respects, the presidency of any country — especially that of the United States of America — contains all the ingredients of a fairy tale. The central figure is supposed to overcome all odds and adversities, to battle on behalf of righteousness, to destroy demons and vanquish ogres, restore order in the world, provide reassurance that nothing untoward will ever happen again (until the next fairy tale, that is), and then to retire and live happily ever after.

That is what Aesop and the Grimm brothers and more recently J.K. Rowling have always led us to believe. We as children and in turn our own children have grown up in a magical world of their making, in which right always prevails over wrong, in which conflicts and wars are justifiable only because they restore social order and a natural equilibrium.

One wonders therefore which bedtime fairy tales Mrs Barbara Bush must have read to her son — the boy who grew up to become President George W. Bush. Whatever those stories may have been, it is obvious that at some time during the night, somewhere in the laboratory of his fermenting mind, the experiment went horribly awry. As a result, today, we, Iraqis and non-Iraqis alike, between the Bosphorus and Indus, are being made to suffer the consequences.

Five years ago, President Bush blundered into Iraq, relying on intelligence that as he now claims was flawed. Unlike President John F. Kennedy who lost his innocence over the Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba and then wept for having relied upon his errant military advisers, Bush has not found the time to waste a tear either on his misadventure or over the damage caused by it.

Ordinarily, persons with blood on their hands rarely revisit the scene of crime. Did President Bush seriously imagine that his recent visit to Iraq would be welcomed as a last hurrah, lauded as a final victory lap, an opportunity for an avuncular valedictory address by a victorious Caesar to an audience that had been cowed into grinning submission?

Had he forgotten that the Iraqis had celebrated the fall of Saddam Hussein and the demolition of his statue in Firdos Square by US marines in April 2003 by beating it, once it was safely down, with shoes?

Did he believe that millions of Iraqis would feel grateful that in place of Saddam Hussein and his iron-brained militia, they now have the steel frame of 150,000 US troops underwriting their fledgling democracy?

Had he been deluded by his own propaganda? In April 2003, President Bush told his troops while standing on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln: “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.” Five years later, he professed the same optimism, with diminished conviction: “The war is not over, but it is decisively on its way to being won.”

Bush could have done worse than to have read Winston Churchill’s wartime speeches before he left for Iraq. He might have understood why many Iraqis find less comfort in his own fading reassurances than they do in the defiant words of Winston Churchill.

Harassed by German onslaughts and a wavering French government, Churchill addressed the Canadian parliament in the winter of 1941. He quoted the advice given to the then French prime minister by his timorous generals, that “in three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken”. Churchill added laconically: “Some chicken; some neck.”

Iraq’s neck has been stretched for over five years already, and may well be elongated for as long a period again. Whatever may be the crucial determinants that hasten the end of war, they are not visible at the moment. Human casualties for sure are not a factor. Over 4,200 American lives have already been lost. No one has the time to calculate how many Iraqis have been misplaced — a hundred thousand? Many hundreds of thousands? A million? More than a million?

The cost of the war is also not the tourniquet. More than $570bn have been spent already, and no one knows when or where that figure will finally stop. With the US economy in a state of recession, the last jobs president-eject Bush and president-elect Obama will want to touch will be those of America’s Military Inc.

That might explain why Obama has chosen to include key components of Bush’s national security team into his own administration. These include Robert Gates as Obama’s defence secretary, and retired Gen Jim Jones, who supported John McCain (Obama’s opponent in the race for the presidency) as his national security adviser. To many — and they are not all necessarily Iraqis — who had hoped to witness with the election of Obama a change in US policies, continuity of the same faces signals instead a linear persistence. Old ammunition is simply being reissued in new casings. They will however be no less lethal. Carnage is a permanent resident in every front page.

For the 170 million surviving here in Pakistan, life has never been a fairy tale. Our frogs do not transform into coachmen, our rodents do not become footmen, and our undersized pumpkins do not balloon into golden coaches. Most importantly, our fairy godmother has changed gender. Our former fairy godfather is paying more attention to our stepsisters than to us.

Living in a world of one’s making is challenge enough; living in a world of some one else’s making is even more difficult. Living in a world of our own make-believe is unforgivable. Gradually, as the juggernaut of the war against terrorism moves inexorably towards and across our frontiers, we need to remind ourselves that fairy tales are the product of peacetime tranquillity. War spawns its own stories, in which the footwear is not a glass slipper, not even a size-10 shoe, but a hobnailed boot.

The Mumbai Enigma

On Nov 26, an enigma began unfolding in Mumbai. It emerged that 12 gunmen armed with AK-47 assault rifles ransacked Mumbai for three days killing 188 people (unverified), including a few Israelis and other westerners. Security forces suffered 14 casualties. One terrorist, Kasab, who appeared to have been focused by the cameras, was arrested while all others were killed.

Why did the terrorists not carry any shoulder-fired rockets/grenades and explosives to Mumbai? The attackers, if they had no love lost for India, ought to have planned for maximum destruction during the attack. Or was the attack not meant to cause extensive damage?

Three of the 14 personnel killed were those who had proved that a serving Indian Army colonel, in collusion with Hindu militant groups, had actually bombed and burned Pakistanis alive inside the Samjhauta Express in 2007. While the father of Karkare, the senior-most Anti-Terrorist Squad officer, refused to receive condolences on behalf of the State of India and his widow refused to receive any monetary award. Did they conclusively believe that Karkare and his companions were assassinated for absolving Pakistan of complicity in the Samjhauta Express massacre in which 68 Pakistanis lost their lives? If this was somehow true, as it can be because of a very plausible State motive existing, then what was actually happening in Mumbai on 26 November 2008? Was there the linkage between the terrorists and the State forces? Is this why rocket launchers and explosives were not carried by the attackers, in order to contain destruction? Questions like these seek credible answers. The suspicious killing of Karkare and his colleagues has caused a rumpus even in the Indian Parliament.

With every window on each floor of the Taj Hotel being an entry point that was accessible by the fire brigade equipment available in Mumbai, could three terrorists actually hold that 750-room hotel building for three days against the might of India? What we saw happening in Mumbai defies military logic. How could the other nine terrorists also hold out in groups of twos and threes in a number of very accessible and widely dispersed buildings, independent of each other, for three days?

The Islamabad Marriott was destroyed in moments. That was a horrific real-life terrorist attack. The terrorists in Mumbai somehow did not even carry enough explosive to blow up one single room anywhere? Billowing smoke came through the top of the Taj Hotel. Was the smoke there for the cameras of the world electronic media in order to have Mumbai on the television screens of the world for three days to cause an international outcry meant to facilitate the subsequent political moves in the region? Could that objective have been to bring in the entire world against Pakistan, especially the USA, by maligning Pakistan in such a manner that Pakistan’s political and military establishment is cornered and browbeaten into submission?

The road would then obviously lead to measured attempts aimed at denuclearisation of Pakistan’s military potential and also decimating its conventional military potential, including the crippling of the ISI. To people saying its preposterous to imagine that India orchestrated Mumbai it can be said that the price paid by India is nothing at all if the bigger objectives outlined above are even partially achieved. India may not be alone on this. Israeli interest in the denuclearisation of Pakistan is well known and the Israelis are likely to have played a role larger than what is obvious.

The Indian Navy’s Western Command based at Mumbai maintains a hawkish vigil on India’s maritime borders with Pakistan. Yet, it is said that a bunch of ragtag terrorists sailed into Mumbai for the attacks we all witnessed on TV. For a moment let us assume that the terrorists actually came from Pakistan’s maritime borders. Why, then, have the Indian chief of the Naval Staff and the Commander of the Indian Naval Western Command not been held accountable for such a colossal failure?

The Mumbai enigma needs to be conclusively resolved and the best way to do so is through a combined investigation committee of Pakistan and India, as Pakistan has offered.

Pakistan and India are burdened by unemployment, poverty and deprivation. Neither country can boast of internal stability. Both have their share of ethnic and sectarian disorders and are troubled by militancy. Some very strong Hindu militant organisations in India are far beyond State control. Nearly 200 districts in India have some sort of serious disorder or insurgency. Neither country can ever overpower the other militarily. The option of a Pakistan-India war is no longer an option because the cost would be the total destruction of South Asia. Therefore, the only way that Pakistan and India can survive and be viable States is through peaceful and good relations. India has to stop dreaming of ever being able to treat Pakistan as a satellite state.

India must guard against falling prey to any wishful desire to see Pakistan dismembered through an international conspiracy, because the domino effect of disaster will not stop at Pakistan’s borders with India. The many blood borders, within India itself, will all get activated, as in the case of the erstwhile Soviet Union. Let both countries now begin to move towards a European-Union-kind of a South Asia.

If the people of South Asia are to be more than mere pawns in world politics then the only way towards that is for Pakistan and India to bury the hatchet. Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Burma, Sri Lanka and the Maldives will become natural partners of Pakistan and India. Other countries like Iran and Afghanistan would then want to be on the South Asian bandwagon of peace, progress and prosperity. Central Asia, China and ASEAN too would be interested in a fruitful partnership. Pakistan and India truly hold the balance between the survival or destruction of South Asia and to a progressive or a retrogressive Asia.

Mumbai and the Media War

The Indian as well as the Pakistani media, particularly the electronic one, has been extremely irresponsible in its coverage of the Mumbai carnage. India and Pakistan have dozens of electronic media channels but they seem, by and large, to lack the responsibility that comes with running such channels at times of crisis.

It was distasteful to see the Indian media and officials implicate Pakistan even before the operation to flush out militants was completed. It was equally distasteful to see the Pakistani electronic media raise emotions against India, rather than showing solidarity at such an hour of crisis.

It seems both India and Pakistan are living in denial of their deeds. India seems to be in denial of its treatment of its minorities, particularly the over 150 million Muslims who live in extreme poverty and deprivation. India also seems to be in denial over its role in suppressing the struggle for independence in Kashmir. As William Dalrymple noted in an article in The Guardian on Nov 30: “If Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is the most emotive issue for Muslims in the Middle East, then India’s treatment of the people of Kashmir plays a similar role among South Asian Muslims.”

Pakistan seems to be in denial that it has become a hotbed of terrorists from all over the world and that terrorist acts all over the world often have links to outfits in Pakistan. Whether it is the July 7, 2005, bombings in London or the attack on commuter trains in Spain, there is always some kind of connection to Pakistani actors and/or groups. The mastermind behind a plane to bomb trans-Atlantic flights through the use of liquid bombs in 2006, Rashid Rauf, was also allegedly killed in a US drone attack a few weeks ago in Bannu. Pakistan seems to have become a safe haven for terrorist who kill innocent people mostly in Pakistan but also in the rest of the world. This grave realisation was completely missing in any analysis by the electronic media in Pakistan.

Sure, the US has a role to play in all of this. Had America not imposed its proxy war on Pakistan from 1979 onwards, Pakistanis and the rest of the world would have been a much safer place now. It was the CIA-financed war, operationalised by the ISI, that created a network of global jihadis and which has now blown back on America, Pakistan and the rest of the world. American imperialism played a definite role in making Pakistan do its dirty job and Zia-ul-Haq’s military government and military top brass was more than willing to receive huge military aid and be an active promoter of jihadi culture that has come to haunt us and the rest of the world today.

But we cannot turn back the clock. We have to deal with the fallout and clear our mess. This cannot be done if both India and Pakistan continue to live in a state of denial and blame each other. Indian security forces have usurped the rights of Kashmiris and have killed them and tortured them mercilessly. Indian groups have burned churches and destroyed mosques and carried out massacres of minority groups – Gujarat 2002 is a case in point. It is a complete failure of the Indian state that something as gruesome as the Gujarat massacre happened, in the first place. It is even a bigger failure that the government of Narendra Modi has not been held accountable for it so far. Having said that, no amount of injustice condones murderous attacks of Mumbai. Violence cannot end violence – it leads to only more violence.

Most of the Pakistani intelligentsia, much like the Indian intelligentsia (barring a few exceptions on both sides), suffers from moral bankruptcy. Watching the coverage of Mumbai attacks, one got the impression that many journalists, opinion-makers, and so-called security and defence “experts” were almost as bad as the Indian hawks and jingoists. Both sides were looking at only the ubiquitous “foreign hand” behind everything, without accepting any responsibility for their own actions – though in the Indians’ case this was more pronounced.

To quote an example from Pakistan, Lt-Gen (retired) Salahuddin Tirmizi openly referred to India as “dushman mulk” – and this was while the tragedy was still unfolding in Mumbai, with militants still in a shootout at the Taj. Is this the way neighbours express solidarity at such a delicate moment of mayhem and crisis? One wonders why such a jingoistic commentator was invited, in the first place.

Unfortunately, Pakistanis cannot watch Indian media; otherwise there would have been far more such examples to quote from the Indian side as well. One gets the sense from media coverage and talking to people that Indian media has been extremely jingoistic as well. Just the way, they have made the whole world believe that militants just came off the boats from Pakistan and launched this unprecedented massive assault on the financial heart of India. How could they reach such a conclusion while investigations are still at primary stage? How could people who have just come off the boats launch such a massive attack without being familiar with the city and its environs? Then this changed and one began to hear that the attackers came to the city at least a month before the attacks and a few may have actually stayed at one of the hotels that was attacked.

Equally irresponsible were the statements by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee, as well as a major-general of the Indian Army. All of them directly or indirectly implicated Pakistan while the situation was still developing and it was premature to be sure of the attack’s definite links and causes.

At the end, we also have to come clean on the ISI’s role once and for all. The agency’s political wing has been disbanded but we all know that in the past it has worked closely with jihadi groups, especially as a result of the war against the Soviet presence in Afghanistan. It is also not a hidden secret anymore that the agency was involved in the past in helping groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad fight in Kashmir. As a nation, we need to know where the ISI stands in its relationship with jihadi groups now – though we are told time and again that this is now non-existent. If we fail to ascertain that, it would be very hard to refute the label of Pakistan being a haven for terrorists or of it indirectly being behind such attacks.

One can only hope that better sense and sanity will prevail and that the unadulterated blame games and muscle flexing on both sides will give way to restraint. Of course, the Indian media and officials have been more irresponsible because they started the blame game. But that doesn’t mean that the Pakistani media necessarily reply in the same coin. It needs to show sympathy and should not give in to the tendency – in such situations – to reply in the same coin.

Women & Democracy

THE relationship of women with the state in Pakistan appears to depend on three interrelated sets of relationships: (i) the relation between the state and the individual citizen; (ii) the relation between the state and the ethnic or religious group to which a citizen belongs; and (iii) the relation between women and the ethnic or religious group with which they identify.

The extent to which a woman is allowed or denied her fundamental rights granted by the state is mediated by her ethnic or religious group and its relationship with the state.

In a liberal bourgeois democracy these relationships are further complicated by the need to accommodate ethnic and religious parties in coalition arrangements. Elections increasingly deliver ethnically split verdicts in which no single party gets a simple majority and the party with the largest number of seats is forced to rely on others to form its government.

In return for support the smaller parties extract their pound of flesh in the form of ministries, lucrative positions and compromise on certain ideological standpoints. This not only creates large cabinets it also requires backtracking by political parties on clearly enunciated principles. In political bargains the greatest backtracking is invariably witnessed on the issues of women’s rights and equality.

The clearest evidence of such political manoeuvring is the manner in which the PPP inducted two ministers, Israrullah Zehri as minister for postal services and Hazar Khan Bijarani as minister for education. Israrullah Zehri is on record defending the brutal murder of five women (the figure is disputed) who it is alleged were buried alive in Balochistan. Hazar Khan Bijarani is said to have presided over a jirga that ordered that five girls aged two to five be handed over to a rival clan to settle a dispute.

The overriding need to accommodate people from the smaller provinces and minority ethnic groups to ensure their support for the government has negated the fundamental rights to life and security for women. Such political compromise for expediency ignores the manifesto of the party which states: “The Pakistan People’s Party has an unflinching commitment to the cause of gender equality ever since it was founded in 1967” and “The party will take institutional initiatives to prevent crimes against women in the name of tribalism, such as honour killings and forced marriages”. Despite repeated protests by various sections of society this travesty of justice has not been reversed.

Other parties with stated commitments to women’s rights and equality have also exhibited misogynist biases against women by failing to show a modicum of respect for their female colleagues. The remarks about two women being equal to one man by Ishaq Dar of the PML-N, and the subsequent refusal by party members to allow Sherry Rehman to record her protest is an incident reflective of the deeply prejudiced attitudes of our lawmakers.

The bewildering insensitivity was further demonstrated by Chaudhry Nisar Ali’s nomination of Hanif Abbasi as head of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Women’s Affairs despite the presence of a number of worthy women candidates in the parliament. The heartening fact is that the PML-N women parliamentarians themselves protested. The PML-N’s manifesto also promises to “promote participation of women in national development and their social, political and economic empowerment”. One wonders how women’s political empowerment would be possible when even their most basic rights to represent themselves are not acknowledged.

As if all this were not enough there are rumours circulating that the Ministry of Women Development would be given to the JUI-F. Apart from this party’s known aversion to women’s equality and freedom, it is vital to remember that its members had stated that the implementation of the Protection of Women Bill 2006 was like challenging God. One of the demands of the JUI-F for supporting Asif Zardari’s presidential bid was the revocation of parts of the Women Protection Act. Maulana Fazlur Rahman and his associates were seen roaring with laughter over an anti-women song at the maulana’s brother’s valima reception. The song was about marrying four times as one wife was not sufficient.

Patriarchal and misogynist attitudes are deeply ingrained in our social, economic, political and ideological structures. It is too much to hope that those entrusted with making the country’s laws would reflect a morality higher than the rest of the nation’s. However, one can expect the lawmakers to have read the constitution and know that killing citizens, men or women, is murder and that murder is a crime. The country’s law does not allow so-called honour to be invoked as a justification for vile murder. It is also reasonable to expect that lawmakers would not pass statements contrary to the law to justify crimes.

Since one cannot depend on individuals to rise above their ethnic or religious prejudices, one has to rely on systems. The assumption underlying liberal democracy was that over time it would eliminate the pre-modern identities of caste, clan, tribe and sect and create the modern identity of the citizen whose relation to the state would be a direct one and not mediated through local, cultural and customary structures. It was also assumed that broad-based political parties, premised on shared economic issues, would replace narrow sub-nationalist, ethnic, sectarian and fundamentalist outfits.

Instead, politics itself became ethnicised, and sub-national, sectarian and tribal sentiments were articulated in the political arena. The state capitulated to such sentiments in the process itself becoming tribal and sectarian. Multiple legal systems distorted democracy and laws came to be premised on religion and tribal customs.

The Qisas and Diyat law is a major example of a tribal law becoming entrenched in the state’s legal structure. The tribal state allows parliamentarians like Ajmal Khattak, Salim Mazari, Israrullah Zehri and Hazar Bijarani to legitimise the murder and trafficking of women as cultural tradition.

The sectarian state allows violence against women to be condoned through laws made in the name of religion. Political compulsions force parties like the PPP to establish the Sharia in parts of Pakistan like Malakand. With the collusion between the Sharia, tribal and customary law, and Anglo-Saxon legal principles, women’s rights and equality are sacrificed at the altar of political expediency.

If democracy has reinforced rather than weakened tribal, sectarian, fundamentalist and ethnic articulations, it is because Pakistan’s social and economic structures were not transformed significantly to meet the needs of a viable democracy. The most fundamental requirement for democracy is secularism so that the legal system of the country can ensure equality and justice to all citizens irrespective of religion, sex or ethnic belonging. A sngle legal system based on democratic and secular principles would eliminate parallel ones and establish a direct relation between women citizens and the state. Their relation to the state would then not be mediated by the immediate reference group but by their status as equal citizens.

Media falls in the old trap

THE Mumbai nightmare has plunged the media in India and Pakistan into the dangerous, old trap in which nationalism trumps responsible reporting. This is not a new phenomenon, nor is it restricted to India and Pakistan.

American journalists fell into this trap after the attack on the Twin Towers in New York on Sept 11, 2001. They were vigorously criticised for their unquestioning over-reliance on the security establishment for information. The security establishment, with its blinkered security paradigm, fed them false information that prepared the ground for the Iraq invasion and the Afghanistan bombing.

As part of society, journalists may find it difficult to step back and see the larger picture, especially when their countries are under attack. Responsible reporting and commentary require recognising this fallibility. There is no such thing as objective journalism. All journalists have their own world views and political baggage but at least we can aspire to be fair — to our subjects, to our audiences, and perhaps to our common humanity rather than national identities.“Media manipulation is less an issue of overt censorship than an internalisation of myths and mindsets,” commented Rita Manchanda, summing up a radical critique of the mass media by Indian and Pakistani journalists (‘Reporting conflict’, South Asia Forum for Human Rights, May 2001).

If the Indian media tends to be nationalistic and trusting in its government (which Pakistan government representatives often ask the more cynical Pakistanis to emulate), the Pakistani media has clearly demarcated no-go areas. As the veteran Peshawar-based journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai said at the consultation, “Pakistani journalists never had the opportunity to professionally cover the 1965 or 1971 wars or the Rann of Kutch or Kargil conflicts.” Add the conflicts in Balochistan and the northern areas to that list since then.

The Babri Masjid demolition, the nuclear tests and the Kargil conflict all fed jingoism and jingoistic reporting on both sides. Sometimes journalists are culpable more by omission than commission, ignoring or playing down certain aspects or not asking crucial questions.

Take the festering issue of prisoners. The young Indian fisherman Lakshman who died in a Karachi jail on March 10, 2008 received scant mention in the Pakistani media. The body of a Pakistani prisoner Khalid Mehmood who died in an Indian prison, sent home around the same time, made front-page news, with many journalists accusing the Indians of torture.

Prison conditions and how the police treat prisoners in both countries are no secret. It is not that we treat Indian prisoners well, while they viciously torture Pakistanis. Sometimes a prisoner’s death results not from outright torture but illness arising from neglect — poor living conditions in a hostile environment, extreme temperatures, lack of medical attention, all compounded by lack of contact with loved ones back home.

When the Maharashtra government stopped two Pakistani artists from continuing their work in Mumbai, TV reporters here got sound bites from passers-by who condemned the action. The reporter did not ask, and nor did the respondents bring up, the question of what would have happened had the situation been reversed — would Indians have been allowed to continue working here in the aftermath of such an attack, in which the attackers were widely believed to have links with India?

Similarly, talk show hosts let hawkish talk go unchallenged. In one recent instance, a retired army general referred to India as Pakistan’s dushman mulk (enemy country). They invite more balanced commentators also but give them get far less time and space. Channels play up Mahesh Butt’s criticism of the Indian media but, as the analyst Foqia Sadiq Khan asks, would they quote someone from Pakistan criticising the Pakistani media? “They quote Shabana Azmi ad nauseum that she couldn’t find a flat in Bombay being a Muslim, but not on her opinion of fundamentalism.”

Media might have brought the people closer but when nationalism rears its head, the beast of 24-hour television news also fuels conflict. This is where the commercial aspect comes in. When something big happens, the public seeks answers. The channels which cater to this need improve their ratings. Sensation sells. With viewers glued to the screens, channels keep them there with a continuous virtual reality show. They fill the time with speculative commentary, ‘expert’ guests and whatever footage is available. Sometimes such footage is repeated ad nauseum — like when the Twin Towers were destroyed on 9/11, when the Marriott hotel was attacked, when the FIA building in Lahore was struck.

Even when nothing big is happening, information is packaged in an exciting way in order to attract attention. This often means playing up bad news and downplaying good news. TV channels continuously showed the scene of the blasts that rocked the World Performing Arts Festival in Lahore on its second-last day, injuring two people. They did not give the artists who defied fear and went ahead on the last day the same kind of attention.

When Zardari was sworn in as president, a breaking news ticker reported: “Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh congratulates Zardari”. Breaking news? At least it was true. In the rush to be the first, channels often misreport.

The Mumbai nightmare provided several examples, as Kalpana Sharma documents in her critique of the Indian media’s coverage of the first 60 hours, ‘Unpacking the pixel’ in Tehelka. She concludes, “it is essential that reporters be trained to handle such extraordinary situations, that they learn the importance of restraint and cross-checking…. Professionalism and accuracy will ensure that we don’t contribute to prejudice and panic.”

Some Indian channels are running the Pakistan factor like a movie trailer, complete with sound effects and watch-for-the-next-episode commentary. This obviously fuels Pakistani indignation. However, this indignation could be tempered by being less reactive and empathising with the Indians’ pain and grief that many Pakistanis share. Zealous commentators could also recall the times that their own media houses sensationalised an issue.

Journalists may argue that they are just the messenger, reflecting official or public opinion. But the media must also question, and get people to think. The stakes are high in our nuclear-armed countries, in a post-9/11 world where the major players include armed and trained men around the world who subscribe to the ideology of Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

As President Asif Ali Zardari said, even if elements within Pakistan were involved it is these same elements that the Pakistan government is fighting. So how much sense does it make to push the Pakistan government in a corner and divert its attention from fighting these elements?