India’s Cry Wolf App?

By Deepika Jaitley
Area 14/8

‘Rape Capital’ Delhi, sprawling metropolis and epicenter of the Government of India, is also victim to elements of endemic sexual violence. Earlier this year an English local newspaper published statistics under the headline: Shame on Delhi Men. “The dazzling streets of Delhi hide a dark truth,” it said, publishing the results of a poll revealing that 66% of the capital’s women were molested between two and five times last year and that 70% of men “looked the other way” when it happened. What happens when they don’t was amply demonstrated earlier this year when a 55-year-old rickshaw driver in West Delhi was beaten to death for “defending his daughter’s modesty” from a group of drunks.

Cracking down on sexual predators, in what is the most dangerous city for women in India, hasn’t borne much fruit considering Delhi’s stereotypical policeman is a figure of legend, renowned for sloth, corruption, brutality and casual misogyny. To counter pandemic violence charities of all sorts have come to the fore one of which is Whypoll a local charity which has devised a smart phone app “Fight Back” that is to be launched in November this year. Whypoll will function as an SOS alert device — sending out a text message with a GPS location to up to five people, including police, and as a post on Facebook and Twitter. This app will be available to download from the Whypoll website for a small fee and will be supported by a range of smart phones such as Nokia and BlackBerry.

Read Complete Article Here: http://www.area148.com/cms/?p=8148#more-8148

Raids could loosen Suresh Kalmadi’s hold over Pune

Imtiaz Jaleel

Pune: Raids that lasted eight hours at his houses in Delhi, Mumbai and Pune didn’t seem to affect Suresh Kalmadi’s holiday cheer.

”I’m not hurt. I told you I wanted to give good Games. After that I’m ready for any investigations. So I am happy they’ve come and gone and they’ve taken whatever they wanted,” said the man who chaired the Organizing Committee of the Commonwealth Games.

His laptop and some hard drivers were among the items collected by the CBI which showed up at his homes early this morning.

While Kalmadi – a politician of considerable experience and acumen – keeps up the bluster, he is increasingly finding himself in a corner with allies in the slim-to-none category.

Even before the Games began, near-daily reports in the media proved the voluptuous and naked corruption that seemed embedded in every aspect of the Games. Virtually every major contract -from broadcast rights to sponsorship deals – seemed infested with financial malevolence. The men in charge of the Games seemed to have signed on dotted lines that, when traced, led to the front doors of their families and friends.

At the closing ceremony for the Games, Kalmadi was booed by a stadium packed with thousands, Sonia Gandhi shook her head when he thanked Rahul Gandhi and her for their support and leadership.

On November 9, 2010, Kalmadi was dropped as Secretary of the Congress Parliamentary party. (Read: Suresh Kalmadi sacked from senior Congress post)

Pune has been his bastion – for 30 years, he has represented the city in the Lok Sabha and Rajya SAbha. His lordship covered not just politics, but the cash-rich automobile industry that’s based here.

Kalmadi ensured that Pune remained unwinnable for Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), even as the party strengthened its control over the rest of Western Maharashtra.

The raids in Pune today could impact the municipal elections, scheduled in 2012. The NCP knows that it has a soft target now in Kalmadi – and it’s taking aim.

”Definitely it will impact the Congress. The morale of their workers is down. We will see a political change in the municipal elections of 2011,” said NCP spokesperson Ankush Kakde.

The CBI earlier arrested three of Kalmadi’s close aides. Their interrogation – and today’s raids – have nudged Kalmadi into an odd defense . He doesn’t deny any wrongdoing- instead, he opts for safety in numbers, stressing that he could not have acted alone. ”There’s an entire executive board. There’s an Organizing Committee Finance Committee, another finance committee, all the government officers there,” he says.

Absolutely, says the BJP, whose leaders sarcastically suggested today that Kalmadi turn approver and turn in the big fish in the Congress who allegedly benefitted from the crooked deals he struck.

In the run up to the Games, Kalmadi worked hard to project himself as the face of one of India’s largest events – the Games would be unforgettable, he promised repeatedly. The credit for the Games eventually went to officials like Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit. And Kalmadi is a solitary man now, the unwitting totem of the roughest side of the Games.

Stop being petty, Delhi

The Express Tribune

The Indian government’s recent actions regarding Pakistani trade are somewhat confusing. On the one hand is the Indian high commissioner’s speech in Lahore earlier this week where he advocated an expansion of trade ties between India and Pakistan, suggesting that a full-blown effort at regional economic integration be undertaken in South Asia. On the other hand, the Indian government has been lobbying the World Trade Organisation to block the European Union’s (EU) move to grant concessionary trade access to Pakistan. Is India for free trade access for Pakistani goods or against it? It seems difficult to tell.

Is India for free trade access for Pakistani goods or against it? It seems difficult to tell.

The reality is that India fears that even temporary preferential access to the European market will give Pakistani goods a competitive advantage over Indian goods and possibly reduce some of the trade between India and the EU. Yet it seems quite unreasonable to argue that since the industries most likely to benefit from the trade agreement are not located in the flood-affected areas, the agreement should be nullified. The Pakistani economy as a whole will benefit from trade access to European markets and the overall prosperity is in the benefit of flood victims, especially since India realises that the EU is not like to give any cash handout out of the fear that it will likely be squandered on corrupt or inefficient aid projects.

Getting the EU to grant preferential trade access in lieu of aid to the flood victims has been one of the few policy successes of the Gilani administration as a response to the flood. To have that taken away due to a grudge held by the Indian government would be unfortunate indeed. India has aspirations to become a regional or even global power. New Delhi would do well to realise that it is often incumbent upon larger states to show magnanimity towards their smaller neighbours. Or, at the very least, not be quite so openly petty.

Reflections on India

By Sean Paul Kelley

If you are Indian, or of Indian descent, I must preface this post with a clear warning: you are not going to like what I have to say. My criticisms may be very hard to stomach. But consider them as the hard words and loving advice of a good friend. Someone who’s being honest with you and wants nothing from you. These criticisms apply to all of India except Kerala and the places I didn’t visit, except that I have a feeling it applies to all of India, except as I mentioned before, Kerala. Lastly, before anyone accuses me of Western Cultural Imperialism, let me say this: if this is what India and Indians want, then hey, who am I to tell them differently. Take what you like and leave the rest. In the end it doesn’t really matter, as I get the sense that Indians, at least many upper class Indians, don’t seem to care and the lower classes just don’t know any better, what with Indian culture being so intense and pervasive on the sub-continent. But here goes, nonetheless.

India is a mess. It’s that simple, but it’s also quite complicated. I’ll start with what I think are India’s four major problems-the four most preventing India from becoming a developing nation-and then move to some of the ancillary ones.

First, pollution. In my opinion the filth, squalor and all around pollution indicates a marked lack of respect for India by Indians. I don’t know how cultural the filth is, but it’s really beyond anything I have ever encountered. At times the smells, trash, refuse and excrement are like a garbage dump. Right next door to the Taj Mahal was a pile of trash that smelled so bad, was so foul as to almost ruin the entire Taj experience. Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai to a lesser degree were so very polluted as to make me physically ill. Sinus infections, ear infection, bowels churning was an all to common experience in India. Dung, be it goat, cow or human fecal matter was common on the streets. In major tourist areas filth was everywhere, littering the sidewalks, the roadways, you name it. Toilets in the middle of the road, men urinating and defecating anywhere, in broad daylight. Whole villages are plastic bag wastelands. Roadsides are choked by it. Air quality that can hardly be called quality.Far too much coal and far to few unleaded vehicles on the road. The measure should be how dangerous the air is for one’s health, not how good it is. People casually throw trash in the streets, on the roads. The only two cities that could be considered sanitary in my journey were Trivandrum-the capital of Kerala-and Calicut. I don’t know why this is. But I can assure you that at some point this pollution will cut into India’s productivity, if it already hasn’t. The pollution will hobble India’s growth path, if that indeed is what the country wants. (Which I personally doubt, as India is far too conservative a country, in the small ‘c’ sense.) More after the jump.

The second issue, infrastructure, can be divided into four subcategories: roads, rails and ports and the electrical grid. The electrical grid is a joke. Load shedding is all too common, everywhere in India. Wide swaths of the country spend much of the day without the electricity they actually pay for. With out regular electricity, productivity, again, falls. The ports are a joke. Antiquated, out of date, hardly even appropriate for the mechanized world of container ports, more in line with the days of longshoremen and the like. Roads are an equal disaster. I only saw one elevated highway that would be considered decent in Thailand, much less Western Europe or America. And I covered fully two thirds of the country during my visit. There are so few dual carriage way roads as to be laughable. There are no traffic laws to speak of, and if there are, they are rarely obeyed, much less enforced. A drive that should take an hour takes three. A drive that should take three takes nine. The buses are at least thirty years old,if not older. Everyone in India, or who travels in India raves about the railway system. Rubbish. It’s awful. Now, when I was there in 2003 and then late 2004 it was decent. But in the last five years the traffic on the rails has grown so quickly that once again, it is threatening productivity. Waiting in line just to ask a question now takes thirty minutes. Routes are routinely sold out three and four days in advance now, leaving travelers stranded with little option except to take the decrepit and dangerous buses. At least fifty million people use the trains a day in India. 50 million people! Not surprising that waitlists of 500 or more people are common now. The rails are affordable and comprehensive but they are overcrowded and what with budget airlines popping up in India like Sadhus in an ashram the middle and lowers classes are left to deal with the overutilized rails and quality suffers. No one seems to give a shit. Seriously, I just never have the impression that the Indian government really cares. Too interested in buying weapons from Russia, Israel and the US I guess.

The last major problem in India is an old problem and can be divided into two parts that’ve been two sides of the same coin since government was invented: bureaucracy and corruption. It take triplicates to register into a hotel. To get a SIM card for one’s phone is like wading into a jungle of red-tape and photocopies one is not likely to emerge from in a good mood, much less satisfied with customer service. Getting train tickets is a terrible ordeal, first you have to find the train number, which takes 30 minutes, then you have to fill in the form, which is far from easy, then you have to wait in line to try and make a reservation, which takes 30 minutes at least and if you made a single mistake on the form back you go to the end of the queue, or what passes for a queue in India. The government is notoriously uninterested in the problems of the commoners, too busy fleecing the rich, or trying to get rich themselves in some way shape or form. Take the trash for example, civil rubbish collection authorities are too busy taking kickbacks from the wealthy to keep their areas clean that they don’t have the time, manpower, money or interest in doing their job. Rural hospitals are perennially understaffed as doctors pocket the fees the government pays them, never show up at the rural hospitals and practice in the cities instead.

I could go on for quite some time about my perception of India and its problems, but in all seriousness, I don’t think anyone in India really cares. And that, to me, is the biggest problem. India is too conservative a society to want to change in any way. Mumbai, India’s financial capital is about as filthy, polluted and poor as the worst city imaginable in Vietnam, or Indonesia-and being more polluted than Medan, in Sumatra is no easy task. The biggest rats I have ever seen were in Medan!

One would expect a certain amount of, yes, I am going to use this word, backwardness, in a country that hasn’t produced so many Nobel Laureates, nuclear physicists, imminent economists and entrepreneurs. But India has all these things and what have they brought back to India with them? Nothing. The rich still have their servants, the lower castes are still there to do the dirty work and so the country remains in stasis. It’s a shame. Indians and India have many wonderful things to offer the world, but I’m far from sanguine that India will amount to much in my lifetime.

Now, have at it, call me a cultural imperialist, a spoiled child of the West and all that. But remember, I’ve been there. I’ve done it. And I’ve seen 50 other countries on this planet and none, not even Ethiopia, have as long and gargantuan a laundry list of problems as India does. And the bottom line is, I don’t think India really cares. Too complacent and too conservative.

Sean Paul Kelley is a travel writer, former radio host, and before that an asset manager for a Wall Street investment bank that is still (barely) alive. He recently left a fantastic job in Singapore working for Solar Winds, a software company based out of Austin to travel around the world for a year (or two). He founded The Agonist, in 2002, which is still considered the top international affairs, culture and news destination for progressives. He is also the Global Correspondent for The Young Turks, on satellite radio and Air America.

India’s Shame

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat
Countercurrents.org

Caste purity could not allow a Brahmin to touch and save two Dalit ( Balimiki) boys cleaning his ‘shit’. Deaths in the Soak pits in Gazipur village, Fatehpur District, Uttar Pradesh

Ms Mayawatiji,
Honorable Chief Minister of Uttar-Pradesh,
Chief Minister’s Secretariat,
Lucknow
May 29, 2009

Two workers from valmiki Dalit community died after inhaling poisonous gases in a soak pit of Abdul Gani Locality of Fatehpur district on May 5, 2009. The victim Naresh aged 35 years, son of Bankelal was an employee of local Municipality while the other victim Deepak aged 22 years son of Munnilal, was a daily wage worker with the same municipality and a neighbor. Both were residents of Arabpur locality of Fatehpur.

A fact finding team constituted by Social Development Foundation, Delhi lead by Ms Sehroj Fatima, Chitrakoot, visited the site on May 7th, 2009, to take stock of the situation in Abdul Gani locality where the accident occurred and Arabpur locality where the families of the deceased workers live. The situation in the entire area is grim and unrest prevails still.

There is no manual scavenging prevalent in the district, said the District Magistrate a few days back in Fatehpur district of Uttar-Pradesh. Fact of the matter is that most of the districts in Uttar-Pradesh and elsewhere claim that manual scavenging have been eliminated. Many notices send by the National Human Rights Commission have been returned empty handed blaming the complainant for politicizing the issue.

About the victims:

Naresh who used to work in the Local Municipality as Safai Karamchari was aged 35 years and was living with his wife, four children, younger brother and sister. He was a permanent employee of the municipality for the past 10 years, yet due to economic pressure, would take up the private work of cleaning the soak pits on requirement. Due to lesser wages for Class IV employee in municipality, Naresh has to work beyond is working hours to meet ends. He used to go for cleaning jobs and even as part of orchestra playing in weddings in the area to earn a little more.

Despite repeated reports, the municipalities claim that there is no manual scavenging. Some of them feel that with the construction of cemented toilets without sewerage system, the issue of scavenging is over. Hence they falsely report about the elimination of scavenging. With low wages and irregular wages for the daily wage workers in the municipality, most of them work privately and clean night soil.

On the fateful day also, he went to clean the soak pit of one Jugal Kishore Misra, who promised Rs 1000 for the work, along with Deepak 22, an unemployed youth who would play drum and orchestra to meet his financial needs. Deepak was not married and was living with his parents and other siblings. Naresh and Deepak, parents were working in the Municipality. Deepak was highly dependent on Daily wage work and used to do all sorts of cleaning work and also be part of the Orchestra party like Naresh. On the day of incident, Naresh took Deepak along so that they can equally divide the money among each other after few hours of work.

What happened at the site?

Most of the houses in the area are dry latrine and the Balmiki community is still engaged in manual scavenging and this is how they earn their living. But there are few houses which have toilets connected to a deep soak pit where the waste gets collected over years. After few years, depending on the depth of the soak pit, people have to get it cleaned. This can be cleaned both through machines and also manually. Unfortunately, mechanization process has not yet happened in India and therefore we see young and old boys from the scavenging community involved in this gruesome work at the risk of their life. This can not be called a work as it involves killing of human dignity and degrading his self respect, yet despite all this, the work continues, thanks to our governments and their antipathetic bureaucratic attitude that emancipation of the community does not come in their mind and rehabilitation of the community means a job in the municipality for them.

In this particular case, Mr. Jugal Kishore Misra, the owner of the house where the site of accident is, engaged Naresh to clean the soak pit for Rs 1000. Naresh, after coming back from work, had his food and asked Deepak to come along to clean the soak pit. At first they used rope and bucket to drain waste water collected in the tank. But then the owner shouted at the two workers ordering them to get inside the tank and clean the entire tank properly.

On his insistence, the duo entered the ill-fated soak pit with help of an iron ladder, immediately lost consciousness and fainted in side the tank. Naresh got stuck in the sludge immediately while Deepak drowned in the waste water while yelling for help.

The owner and his son were witness to the entire episode, instead of rescuing the duo; they asked his grandson to inform the family of the victims. Even though the distance between the two localities was hardly 500-700 meters, but by the time the relatives reached and removed the bodies from the soak pit, both of them were dead.

Role of the Authorities

Later the doctors of the Government Hospital also confirmed the death. According to the relatives, if the owner had acted quickly in rescuing the men, they would have been alive. As the angry relatives demanded arrest of the owner and due compensation to the family, the police called PSC force to keep the protest under vigil.

The local tehsildar calmed the agitators by saying that the information of the death has been sent and they are waiting for the news from the State Government. While the officials from the Municipality gave Rs 5,000 to each of the victims family. While the SDM of the Area Mr Arvind Chaurasia said that since both of them have government connection they will not be eligible for compensation but help will be given from CM relief fund.

The police did not show the FIR while Mishra was having his connections. The cases have been filed after much pressure but people do not know what exactly the charges are. The community leaders have not been consulted on this, neither the family people were told about the charges leveled against Mishra. Moreover, the Post Mortem report has also not been given to the family people of both Naresh and Deepak.

It is sad that the authorities in the state still behave in feudal brahmanical way and do not have sense of duty towards the Balmiki community which remains lowest of the low due to its traditional occupation. Such racial prejudices on part of administration is condemnable and we demand strict against the police officials, district officials and municipality leaders.

Evidences collected from the relatives of the victim:

According to Naresh’s wife Anita, Naresh was removing waste water from the tank with help of bucket and rope, but then the owner asked him to go inside the tank to clean it properly as he was paying him Rs 1000. Then they entered the tank with help of an Iron ladder, but soon lost his conscious and got stuck in the sludge. When the owner was questioned about his inaction he categorically said that he had only one son and moreover this work is of the Dalit untouchable community.

According to Rakesh, brother of the deceased Naresh, when they rushed to the site, they saw the sludge all over the place and the owners’ family was also standing. When he looked inside the soak pit, he saw a body and soon realised that both of them had died in the tank. Then he tied rope on his waist and got down the tank. According to him, it was easier to lift Deepak’s body as it was floating on water, but Naresh’s body was stuck in the sludge. Both the bodies were full of insects. After removing the bodies from the tank, he was also feeling giddiness due to the gas.

The bodies were taken to the police station where they refused to register the case, next they took the body to the government hospital where the doctors refused to do post-mortem. But then the relatives got very angry and they agitated and blocked the road. This compelled the hospital to do postmortem but the report is still not made public.

According to Deepak’s mother Rampati, Deepak will not be getting any compensation as both his parents are working in Municipality and he was unmarried. She also pointed out that nobody took photographs of the accident site. The postmortem was conducted at the time it was dark. They have not received the report as yet.

Jugal Kishore Mishra is a powerful man and trying to save his skins. For two days the local bar went on strike against filing case against Jugal Kishore Mishra. This shows which side the law stands in our society. It is tragic that the entire issue is being seen as a ‘mere accident’ by the administration. After the Balmiki community protested, there are efforts to silent it by a token compensation from the Chief Minister’s Funds.

While we demand the enough rehabilitation and compensation need to be paid to both the families so that none of their family people return to this disgusting work, it is also needed that government must work on taking prompt action on the issue. The Nagar Palikas are lying in the state and every year going for huge ‘appointments’ to placate the Balmiki community for the ‘government’ job. We request this must stop. To rehabilitate the community, a proper alternative time bound action plan is needed and the time has come when the government shows that it is seriously concern.

We demand the following:

1. Can the issue be just relegated to mere compensation according to the law? How much does government give to class IVth employee?

2. Should not there be an action against the owner of the house for forcibly sending the two into soak pit.

3. What is the role of municipality? The District Magistrate and Government Officials must see what have the municipality report to them related to this case.

4. Why this case shouldn’t be filed against the authorities under the prevention of SC-ST act.

5. Compensate the families of both the deceased handsomely so that none of the family members return to this work again and it becomes a model code for every one. May be a hefty fine should be imposed on both the owner of the house as well as municipality. Some strict punitive measures are needed in this regard.

6. Order a judicial inquiry and ask for recommendation to eliminate this practice and fixing up responsibility and accountability of various departments.

I hope that your government will look into this serious crime against humanity and take necessary action.

Thank you,

For Social Development Foundation,
Vidya Bhushan Rawat
Director
188, Master Block, Street No 5,
Shakarpur Extension,
Delhi-110092

Collective use of Chenab water

Sajjad Hussain Palejo

Whilst the “energy cum power crisis” has precipitated the economic slowdown and augmented anguish in the life of citizens with lengthy spells of “power stoppages”, India withheld millions of cubic feet of water upstream on the Chenab in Indian-administered Kashmir and stored it in the massive Baglihar dam so as to produce hydro-electricity. This was a flagrant breach of Indus Water Basin Treaty of 1960, as it resulted in the substantial decrease of water levels of both the river and subsoil water. After initial talks to try and resolve the issue, the matter has been put on pause because India considers it an inappropriate climate for “peace process and Composite dialogues in the wake of Mumbai attacks of 26 November, 2008 in which 170 people were killed, fuelling tensions between the two neighbours. However, it is hoped that when India sees Pakistan is serious in fighting the militants in FATA, India will soften her stance and re-start peace process and r the distribution of water as a resource. This is because the sources of all the five tributaries of the Indus – Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas and Sutlej remained in India. The dispute between India and Pakistan over water resources is rooted in history. Just after the partition of the subcontinent in 1948, Delhi stopped the flow of water from the canals on its side, denying water to some 8 per cent of the cultivated area. However, India agreed with Pakistan, which allowed for the continuation of water supplies for irrigation purposes until the Pakistani side managed to develop alternative water resources. As a result of World Bank’s constant efforts from 1952 to 1960, the Indus Water Treaty-1960 was signed, designed to regulate water use in the region. According to Indus Water Treaty of 1960, India has got the exclusive control over the waters of the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej, whereas Pakistan controls the waters of the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab. As the demand for water has increased by leaps and bounds, India is seeking maximum control over the sources of the supply of water of 3 western rivers, and thereby increasing the tension with Pakistan that share the claims over water. At the current pace the population of Pakistan will rise to 270 million in 2025.

The alarming situation again emerged in 1984 when India announced plans to build the barrage on the Jhelum River at the mouth of Wullar Lake, the largest fresh water lake, near the town of Sopore in the disputed Kashmir Valley. This created uproar in the Pakistani camp and under compulsion India had to stop the constructional work on the project. Again in 1992, India announced her plans for another controversial water reservoir, the Baglihar Dam on the Chenab River- allotted to Pakistan by the 1960 treaty. The Chenab is fed with glacial melt-waters from the Himalayas and for centuries has provided crucial irrigational system for the region. While the accord gave India full rights to use water from the eastern rivers by building dams and barrages, it allowed limited irrigation use of water from the western river earmarked for Pakistan. The Treaty barred India from interfering “with the water of these rivers except for domestic use and non-consumptive use, limited agriculture use and limited utilization for generation of hydro-electric power.” The treaty also barred India from storing any water or constructing any storage works on the western rivers that would result in a reduced flow of water to Pakistan. The water dispute has been on the agenda of the composite dialogue, but no progress has been made. While talks have yet to yield results, Indian attempt to use water as a geo-strategic tool, is unfair and in contravention to the IWT-1960.

Ever since the inking of Indus Water Treaty-1960 over collective sharing of water, the Indian Government has devised a well-articulated strategy to deprive Pakistan of water and render it into a desert. The construction of Uri Todiam Dam, Kishan Ganga Dam, Salal dam, Wullar barrage, Tulbul Navigational barrage, Baglihar dam etc, on Pakistani rivers, are grand design to conquer Pakistani water, because dams on these site have the potential to make the well-placed link-canal system redundant in Pakistan. By doing so, India will be in a position to close down both of these rivers (i.e. Jhelum and Chenab). If it is allowed to happen, then it would make Pakistan barren by 2014. The Baglihar Dam along with other dams has diminished the flow of Chenab during the vital Rabi crop-sowing season (January and February) threatening Pakistan’s agro-based economy.

According to Indus Water Treaty-1960, Pakistani position on the Chenab water issue has been that a minimum of 55,000 cusecs of water should flow into Pakistan at the Marala headworks near Sialkot in peak season; however, a flow of only 22,000 cusecs was recorded last year, adversely affecting the crops. Pakistan demanded compensation for the water from India. The Indian did not pay any heed to objections raised by Pakistan relating to the compensation for the loss of 23,000 cusecs of water. India says that the dam has been built on “run-of-the-water” and as such the amount of water to Pakistan would not reduce. In this connection, Indian commissioner on water, G Aranganathan said it had invited Pakistan’s water commissioner Mr. Jama’t Ali Shah to visit the dam to see that the Chenab’s flow was naturally low. The 470-feet high, 317-meter wide dam, with a storage capacity of 15 billion cusecs of water, has significantly reduced water flow to agriculture-dependent Pakistan. Some of the objections raised by Pakistan on the construction of Baglihar dam are: Firstly, it will have poverty and ecological effects in Pakistan. Secondly, it gave India a strategic leverage in times of tension or war with Pakistan. Thirdly, it would dry some 5.6 million acres of land. India should release Pakistan’s share of river waters and if it is not done, Pakistan will left with no other choice than to take the issue to the court of arbitration or to neutral experts.

Throughout history, rivers have been our foremost source of fresh water for both agriculture and individual consumption. Water has caused people to rise up against people and country to rise up against country. Countries must avoid “unilateralism” in building water dams cum hydroelectric projects. Any major upstream alteration in a river system, or increase in use of shared groundwater, should be negotiated, not imposed as in case of Indian water overtures on its neighbors. The governments of India and Pakistan should look beyond national borders to basin-wide cooperation. India, the biggest country of the region, has to allay the concerns of its neighboring countries, i.e. Pakistan & Bangladesh as the lower riparian states and Nepal and Bhutan as the upper riparian states, while utilizing the hydro potential of its waters. Upholding the thesis of “collective use of Hydrology”, India should release water from its own share to save the Indus delta so vital for keeping the regional ecological system robust. India has plans to build 65 dams to cater the growing needs of its burgeoning population. On the other hand, Pakistan has so far constructed only 63 dams altogether. The Chenab water blues can be judiciously addressed by sharing the water as a “collective resource” for our future generations.

Nepal’s Maoists cry Indian foul play

By M K Bhadrakumar

For any Indian who ever felt intrigued as to why South Asian neighbors often dislike his country, the past fortnight offered clues. Like in a Tennessee Williams play, painful to watch as the plot thickens slowly and invidiously, as protagonists begin tearing each other apart in quiet despair after love begins to drain or threatens to flee, India and Nepal are still locked in an embrace.

Someone must do the merciful act of separating them; of making them behave as they should – as two sovereign countries. Indian papers are full of interviews by Nepal’s former prime minister Prachanda, who claims he was deposed in a concerted conspiracy by the Indian bureaucratic establishment. He repeatedly claimed that at a time when the seasoned Indian politicians who by instinct understood Nepali politicians and their native ways have been out of Delhi on the grueling campaign trail in the current parliamentary elections, the mandarins of the Indian bureaucratic establishment settled scores with him and his Maoist party.

According to the Maoists, the Indian establishment has forced them out of power in a virtual coup by rallying disparate political elements and vested interests opposed to them in Kathmandu on various counts, including the Nepalese army and Nepal’s deposed king.

The Indian establishment is not generally known for such neat planning or efficiency. But what matters is that in Nepali public perceptions, the allegation resonates. Any Indian diplomat who has served in India’s neighborhood can tell that India carries the burden of a larger-than-life profile. There is a wealth of misconceptions among India’s neighbors about its capacity to harm. The common perception is that India can be a ill-tempered, self-righteous bully.

But the ungainly truth, as often happens, gingerly lies somewhere in the middle. True, India can probably muster a quick temper and may even be capable of doing mischief if its feathers are ruffled, but then, if its neighbors are clever enough, they can pay back in the same coin.

Take Sri Lanka. In the early 1980s, Delhi took a deliberate decision to start a quarrel with Sri Lanka’s Western-oriented leadership in Colombo. Several complicated factors led to the quarrel, including vanities at the leadership level, but it overtly wore the look of a pale Indian variant of the Monroe Doctrine.

Delhi wanted the unhelpful leadership in Colombo to be put in its place – like the Maoists in Kathmandu who showed the audacity to warm up to China’s friendly overtures. Books have been written which graphically describe that Delhi fostered the Sri Lankan Tamil insurgent groups as an instrument of foreign policy to pressure the then Sri Lankan government under president J R Jayewardene.

If so, Delhi truly underestimated the tenacity of the Colombo political elite to hit back. The grit of small countries, which depend paramountly on their wits rather than muscle to safeguard their autonomy, is something too hard to believe. Before Delhi could count to ten, Jayewardene sought and won an Indian military intervention in Sri Lanka to put down the very same Tamil insurgency it thoughtfully fostered in the first instance. And, amazingly, in no time, Delhi agreed to do the unthinkable – dispatch an expedition to intervene in a neighboring country’s civil war.

But Colombo soon made yet another neat somersault and the Indian military expedition in Sri Lanka found itself to be the common target of the Tamil insurgents and the Sri Lankan security forces alike. The result was that after the loss of a few thousand Indian soldiers and the assassination of a former Indian prime minister, Delhi wound up its expedition in Sri Lanka in shame and ignominy and sailed home. But the story didn’t end there.

The Colombo elite, having tasted blood, allowed Delhi a brief respite before working on its vanities again and getting the Indian elite on its side even as another bloody chapter of the civil war was unrolling. Some say the Indian establishment was not so dumb-witted as made out to be, but was probably on a brilliant Machiavellian act in assisting Colombo to vanquish the Tamil insurgent army. Time will tell.

At any rate, if the Maoists are clever, they would do a Colombo act on Delhi. It seems they may do just that. They are reaching out to a political formation at the other end of Nepal’s fragmented political spectrum comprising Nepalis of ethnic Indian origin who are commonly seen as Delhi’s proxy on the Nepalese democratic chessboard – the Joint Madhesi Democratic Front (JMDF).

Quite possibly, the Maoists may have calculated that with their 230 members in an alliance with the 83 members of the JMDF, they can be a force in the 601-member parliament that can spike the incipient plans of a ganging-up by Nepal’s status quo parties as a new non-Maoist coalition government. At the very least, the Maoists are seeking to avoid political isolation.

But it could presage something more. The Maoists are evidently reaching out to Indian public opinion as well over the head of the Indian bureaucratic establishment. They are doing what the Colombo elite would have surely done in similar circumstances.

At the very minimum, one has to be truly moronic to miss the point that the Maoists want to play by the democratic rules; that they do not want to return to the jungles and become guerillas again; that they are pragmatic enough to cross ideological divides; and, quite probably, they want to be Delhi’s favorites in the corridors of power in Kathmandu. So, what is the problem?

The problem seems to lie in a five-letter word – China. The malaise bears a striking similarity with the early 1980s when the Jayewardene government in Colombo took to the free market with gusto, was favorably inclined to accede to the setting up of a Voice of America transmitter within earshot of India, was reportedly allowing in Israeli intelligence specialists, and was toying with the idea of leasing out Trincomalee’s fine natural harbor and its vast “oil farm” built by imperial Britain during World war II as a naval base for the Americans.

The supreme irony is that today Delhi is not going to lose sleep over any of those daredevil things that Jayewardene likely contemplated. Today, a quarter century later, India has not only taken to the market, but the current government in Delhi, which is about to complete its term, subscribed to the Washington consensus even after the Americans began losing faith in it.

The Israelis of course are all over India, with the visiting Israeli army chief taken to Kashmir last September on a counter-insurgency tour and Indian space scientists launching away Israeli “spy” satellites. India today not only desires a strong US naval presence in the Indian Ocean (as a “counterweight” to China) but aspires to be the US Navy’s preferred partner. If Indians don’t care to listen to Voice of America, it is merely because they have chosen to watch CNN.

Alas, the Indian strategic community’s ire about the Nepalese Maoist dalliance with China is a replay of the xenophobia that was prevalent in Delhi in the early 1980s. True, China is taking an excessively high degree of interest in Nepal. But that isn’t because Nepal’s biggest political party subscribes to Maoism or because Beijing wants to add yet another “pearl” to its “string” around India, to borrow the famous words of a minor analyst working for the Pentagon which have become the hot favorite idiom among Indian strategic thinkers.

The fact is that China is keen to plug the infiltration route of Tibetan militants who travel to and from India via Nepal. It is a crucial issue for Beijing. Unsurprisingly, China will go the extra mile to ensure there is a friendly government in Kathmandu that dissociates itself completely from the “low-intensity war” waged in Tibet by militants coming in from outside. Just as China pays enormous attention to its Central Asian neighbors to ensure that Uyghur militants from the outside world do not infiltrate the Xinjiang Autonomous Region.

Kyrgyzstan may have a population less than five million, but when a Kyrgyz dignitary comes calling, Beijing rolls out a red carpet as if US President Barack Obama had arrived. That shows an acute sense of national priorities, as a sizeable Uyghur community lives in Kyrgyzstan.

Therefore, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that China has begun assiduously courting the democratic leadership in Nepal. Or, that the Maoist government began cooperating with China to clamp down on the activities of the Tibetan activists who operated out of Nepalese soil through the past half-century.

China will not be deterred from befriending Nepal on the crucial question of tranquility and stability in Tibet, no matter what it takes. The time is not far off before Beijing offers Nepal a berth in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Indeed, China has the political will and the financial capacity to offer to Nepal what Delhi could have offered through the past six decades and failed to do – staking a common future as partners in economic development and regional stability. China’s reach is enormous today. It has just replaced the United States as Brazil’s top trade partner.

Countering the Chinese challenge in Nepal needs imagination, a coherent game plan and a sustained approach on India’s part. Muscle-flexing is not the answer. Nor is diplomatic one-upmanship the answer or the pretensions by the right-wing Hindu nationalist outfits in India that Nepal is their sequestered pasture.

Antagonizing the Maoists will not be a smart thing to do, as they represent historical forces that are on the ascendance and they will be around as the dominant political force in Nepal, sure as the sun rises in the east. But there are pragmatic ways in which the Maoists could be made to view Delhi as their preferred partner. Arguably, the Maoists are themselves already intensely conscious that they cannot do without India’s cooperation.

Contrary to the Indian security establishment’s earlier doomsday scenario, the Maoists are not messing around with the radical left movements professing to follow Mao Zedong’s ideology which are active in something like 160 out of India’s 600 districts. That shows a high degree of sensitivity to India’s national-security concerns.

But what Delhi should scrupulously avoid is any interference in Nepal’s internal affairs. Let the Nepalese settle their squabbles themselves over drawing up a new constitution and charting out their future. Leave it to the Nepalese political parties to carve out their space on the democratic arena. Political parties begin to die when they cease to be relevant.

The forces, which Delhi might have favored when Nepal was a “Hindu kingdom”, may no more be capable of representing the people’s aspirations. India cannot resurrect them. Let them die. Of course, it will be dangerous to encourage the Nepalese army to harbor Praetorian instincts, either. South Asia has had enough of armies.

India will always enjoy a huge advantage over China in cultivating Nepal – of history, geography, culture, ethnicity, economy and social bonds and kinship. Where India loses is that it cannot get its act together as a driving force for Nepal’s emergence out of abject poverty. That is the leitmotif of China’s challenge to India. The entire sub-Himalayan region will incrementally feel gravitation toward China as Tibet surges forward at its present level of economic transformation and Beijing shows a willingness to share the cake.

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.

(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

Indian polls, cricket & black cash

Dr A R Colachal

The processes of Indian polls and cricketism began and continued almost together, while polls are over and results announced , the cricket IPL drama is still on and all efforts are being made by the cricket mafia to make Mumbai India and Delhi, the top most cricket teams in India. All major political players are busy making regime calculations.

Once upon a time, cricket, invented by the UK to keep their colonies in Third world in good humors, was considered to be a “gentlemen’s sport. Focused on non-sport goals, above all trade and military strategic pursuits, cricket has ceased to be a genuine sport now; it is a hidden agenda for post-colonial nations with colonial bent of mind. Joint cricket exercises are a common feature of current cricket scene. By observing the latest cricket trends in bogus Indian IPL 20/20 with a hidden political agenda, going on for over a month now arranged in a “life or death” hurry in South Africa along side the Indian Parliamentary poll, one could offer an easy definition of cricket: two international frauds with long bats exercising in the centre surrounded by another 11 similar frauds playing with balls (as part of the already made compromises) and a few referees enjoying the field “adjustments” on the field by both teams, while the crowd around applauding the global mischief and cricket mafia controlling the entire scene. Indians are very good spectators of these.

The Premier League has floated several Teams with names while making the Mumbai Team the only Indian Team. Since huge black cash is being pumped into the League matches with facilities for extra cash for “extra duties”, the organizers have made special care not let any Team sport Green colour code uniform which thy mentally associate with Pakistan and Islam they hate and Blue colour should dominate the scenario. Hyderabad Decca, Mumbai India, Rajasthan, Bangalore, etc., are carrying the “Blue torch” on the battle field; One wonders why Hyderabad was given the Blue colour; the reason is simple it makes the world see, wrongly, that Pakistan (Hyderabad) also now sports Blue color, in stead of their Green and some Pakistani players also play for India now by using blue colour code and appeasing Hindus.

And Pakistani President Zardari now says India is no more a serious threat to Islamabad. Pakistan appeases Indians even after Indian terrorists have crippled Pakistan badly beyond the Lahore mayhem. Not only Indians and Americans call Pakistanis terrorists, Indo-US is also out to destabilize Pakistan. So, who is deadly ill focused on Pakistan then, if not India? India for strategic and domestic reasons projects Pakistan and other neighbours as major threats just as a policy. India avoids any fruitful relations with Pakistan for fear of losing Jammu Kashmir and losing leverage with Pakistan and USA.

After showcasing their cricket mastery winning all the first 5 matches in IPL, Hyderabad Gilchrist’s boys have been increasingly knotty and caved in to Indian tactics and lost next few matches (for which extra black cash would be delivered to them) have let the opponents win even after being in a more comfortable position to win. On 09 May, for instance, Hyderabad faced Mumbai and it bated first scoring 168 runs, though they could have scored still more, as in the last two overs they managed only 8 runs which is unbelievable, while in return when Mumbai was bating they were offered Fours and Sixes towards the end of the match making Mumbai defeat Hyderabad. It is one of glariest instances of how math fixing and field adjustments are taking place in cricket.

Of course they don’t feel ashamed of themselves for these nasty cricket affairs because they get extra cash and Indians are proud to be cheaters in public. Hyderabad Deccan was the dominant team in the competition’s early stages, but since their run of four consecutive wins they’ve experienced a serious slide with four defeats in their last five games. They emerged second best in a thrilling encounter against Punjab in their previous match, letting it slip in the final stages after holding the cards for a good part of the game.

Hyderabad Deccan Chargers won by 19 runs on May 06 making an average 145/6 in 20 overs while Mumbai Indians collapsed at 126/8 in 20 overs. The match that looked like going down to the wire suddenly, and unexpectedly, became a lost cause for Mumbai Team, against the wishes of all concerned.

As in Indian IPL the Banglore team is not doing well and letting Delhi, Mumbai and Punjab teams win comfortably, the Banglore based political outfit Janata Dal (S) is losing hopes in the parliamentary polls too, as fortunes in the IPL is considered by the top politicians as signal for regime fortunes. Former Prime Minister Deve Gowda turns 77 two days after the election results yet it is highly unlikely he would want to celebrate, as his dreams of playing a major role in a non-Congress, non-BJP formation are rapidly fading. His party, the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S), is contesting 21 of Karnataka’s 28 Lok Parliamentary Sabha seats. The party is sure of winning two: Deve Gowda’s from his Hassan home district and of his son and former state chief minister Kumaraswamy, who is contesting from the Bangalore Rural constituency. One does not know if all other non-Congress-BJP parties have similar views or are gearing up for New Delhi to form government.

After the schooling, youngsters are trained in signaling and playing according to signals on prior arrangements. Those who fair well in this nefarious unfair sport are promoted further to play regional, zonal and national matches. And they are thought conversant with “cricket” matches according to match-fixing they are introduced into the international arena. There make ‘wonders”. This is the story of global Cricketism. When Delhi Daredevils thrashed Kolkata Knight Riders by 7 wickets to win the 39th match of the I P League on 10 May, it was clear form the very start that Kolkata had decided to let Delhi reach the top slot to weaken both Bangalore, Chennai and Deccan Hyderabad, while Bangalore has already deiced to go with the general trend and support the Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai (Indian Captain Dhoni belong to this team) teams where possible.

Cricket is being used as a powerful toll for many purposes in India including trade and regime making. Bulk of Indian cricketers is pampered by Congress party for profitable politics. Generally Congress and BJP, the Hindutva majors and Leftists in select states are hoping to reap poll fortunes. Since Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Rajasthan teams are better placed in IPL, the parties of Congress and BJP are hoping for forming government. The Congress which controls the entire nations through the intelligence and political outfits, including BJP and Communists and other regional outfits wants to take the lion’s share, while the BJP whose cricket constituencies are also expected to win plenty of seats are eager to enter the government.

Politics is now intertwined with IPL. Trillions of Indian currency, both white and black, have been wasted in the “free and fair” poll many leaders must have got sumptuous cash by now. Indian capitalists financed the politicians and bureaucrats among others thus far, are ready to reap the poll benefits no matter who forms the Cabinet. Both Congress and BJP are eagerly waiting for the official announcements by the Election Commission.

Communists and other Third leaders must be preparing for their “First front” government. Total corruption and nepotism, terrorism, cricketism, blackmarketism, would continue to thrive making both political parties and individuals richer in this largest democracy. Electronic vote machines are eagerly waiting for the remote operators to show the results of their choices. However, how the IPL results are going to be tuned into an expected poll verdict remains a mystery. Supposing Hyderabad Deccan charge to win eventually the bogus IPL by defeating either Delhi’s devils or Mumbai’s original Indians?

The Minority Perspective On The BJP Manifesto

By Firdaus Ahmed
Countercurrents.org

A party’s manifesto is not taken too seriously since the compulsions of power impact the promises in it considerably. In the coalition era, this is even more so. Therefore to assess the BJP’s position on security through its manifesto may be neither fair nor accurate. However, the exercise needs to be done if only to point out that the manifesto in its references to national security shows a remarkable insensitivity to minority concerns.

The very first reference to national security is on the Congress’ ‘abysmal failure to protect citizens from terrorism’. The verdict on counter measures is that ‘this is clearly not enough.’ Understandably the very first section after the Introduction is on national security. In this the first point is on terrorism. Unsurprisingly excluded from the list of terrorist activity in the Congress’ tenure is missing Malegaon. The overall impression is that the major instances of terror have been Muslim perpetrated, culminating in the 26/11 attacks by Pakistani terrorists.

Clearly, this bracketing of all terror instances is untenable as insufficient evidence exists of a minority linkage with the pattern of blasts in major cities last year. Since Malegaon investigations have not progressed adequately and the other possibilities with regard to BAD (Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Delhi) have been buried with the Batla House ‘encounter’. As intended by perpetrators other than the ‘usual suspects’, the trail has not been picked up. A canard thus takes on the status of a truth or ‘common sense’. It bears reflection as to why these attacks have mysteriously stopped since the Malegaon revelations. That the manifesto propagates the error as a given is explicable in light of the ideological orientation of the party. Having deliberately misperceived the problem, the solution can only be persistence in error.

The manifesto is keen that Afzal Guru hang. That this has not already happened, despite the strong incentive for the Congress to have wanted to profit from the action, indicates there is more to the Parliament attack case than meets the eye. Afzal Guru is perhaps an innocuous victim of a larger conspiracy which in media reports spread to the considerably autonomous ‘dirty tricks’ department of J&K police. Since invoking national security can help legitimize anything, one Indian less in keeping its secrets secure is really no big deal. That Afzal Guru lives bespeaks of substance to the book ’13 December: The strange case of the attack on the Indian Parliament’.

Illegal immigrants are seen as the unwitting foot soldiers of terror with their ‘vulnerability…exploited by the ISI and its jihadi front organisations as well as local terror cells to carry out bombings and provide logistical support to foreign terrorists (italics added).’ Securitisation of the problem of economic migration as an ‘internal security’ issue helps focus attention on the need for their eviction. Its yet another handle on the minority since the party intends to in ‘Launch a massive programme to detect, detain and deport illegal immigrants’ in its very first hundred days.

There is an element that has been missed in reflection on this issue thus far. It is the possibility of such a targeted drive arousing Bengali nationalism. Nationalism is multi dimensional with one or other identity facet coming to the fore. The break up of Pakistan in which religion was trumped by ethnicity is an example. The Bengali ethnic group is the largest on the subcontinent. Presently it is divided on lines of religion. It would be prudent to preserve the status quo from point of view of Hindu nationalism. That this possibility has not entered the discourse points to the religion tainted limitation of cultural nationalism.

More disturbing is that reference to a reversion to 2002, despite its lesson. The Manifesto states: ‘Coercive measures, including diplomacy, will be used to deal with countries which promote cross-border terrorism.’ This is accentuated in the linkage drawn between the global war on terror and internal security in its very next sentence: ‘India will engage with the world in the global war on terror while not compromising on its domestic interests, primarily protecting citizens from the ravages of terrorism.’ This portends a more proactive engagement with GWOT as it unfolds with greater potential for violence in wake of the Riedel-Holbrooke-Petraeus ‘Af-Pak’ strategy recently unveiled by President Obama. The contrived linkage with India’s internal security makes for a continuing overhang over India’s largest minority.

That peace would continue to prove elusive with Pakistan is a given if the manifesto were to guide its actions when in power. It maintains that, ‘There can be no ‘comprehensive dialogue’ for peace unless Pakistan…hands over to India individuals wanted for committing crimes on Indian soil.’ This eminently avoidable condition gives out the agenda of using Pakistan as the threatening other to deepen the roots of the BJP’s brand of majoritarian nationalism.

Security issues comprise the first 17 pages. Other issues are also given the by now mandatory ‘security’ tinge such as ‘food security’, ‘social security’ or ‘energy security’. The civilian led militarization of mother India is virtually complete.

In saying that ‘the BJP repudiates the division of Indian society along communal lines which has been fostered by the Congress and the Left in pursuit of their vote-bank politics’, the BJP attempts to obfuscate it’s resort to and greater success at the same game in attempting to make the denominational majority its vote bank. It has contradicted itself in stating that, ‘categorisation of communities as ‘minorities’ perpetuates notions of imagined discrimination and victimhood; it reinforces the perception of the ‘minority’ identity as separate from the national identity’ in a section title ‘Minority Communities’. This slip indicates that the defining reality of India is its being a symphony of minorities along differing dimensions. Forging of majorities therefore should not, and hopefully cannot, be on lines of religion as the BJP seeks. Its effort in this direction is laid bare from the last section of the manifesto detailing measures for ‘Preserving our Cultural Heritage’.

The manifesto indicates that secularism continues as an embattled concept. Giving secularism a fresh lease of life requires a judicious and informed exercise of the vote.

Jitters in Delhi

BY BHIM PRASAD BHURTEL

India’s Lok Sabha election is being held next month. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the Indian Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) are contesting in the polls. Recently, foreign policy has become an Indian election agenda for both the ruling alliance and the opposition. Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee recently disclosed to Al Jazeera that the political developments being seen in Nepal were a result of Indian initiatives. Similarly, Lal Krishna Advani, the NDA’s prime ministerial candidate, said that Indian foreign policy was not serious about containing China’s growing strategic interest and engagement in Nepal.

After the abolition of the monarchy, China has wrought a fundamental policy shift in Nepal from silence to proactive diplomacy. There have been regular high-level Chinese visits to Nepal. Beijing sent a high-profile official of the Chinese Communist Party and the government to take part in a conference of the Communist Party of Nepal (UML) and Madheshi Janaadhikar Forum (MJF) last month. China has handed over a draft of a proposed new treaty to replace the 60-year-old Sino-Nepal Peace and Friendship Treaty. It is commonly taken as a response to India’s agreement to rethink the 1950 Indo-Nepal Peace and Friendship Treaty. More recently, 33 China Study Centres have been established in southern Nepal adjoining the Indian border. China Radio International has launched a local FM radio station in Kathmandu, and it is broadcasting programmes through many local FM stations all over Nepal “to bring China closer and break the impregnable wall of the Himalaya”.

There is an exaggerated and irrational demonizing of and paranoia about Nepal’s engagement with China in India’s foreign policy establishment. India itself is strengthening its relationship with China. However, why is India so cautious about Nepal’s move to strengthen its relationship with China?

Indo-Nepal relations are based on the principles conceived by Nehru and the Panchasheela that comprises mutual respect among nations, peaceful coexistence and non-interference in the internal affairs of others. However, Nehru himself never acted in accordance with the equal sovereignty principle deeply allied with Panchasheela. Nehru wanted Nepal, Bhutan and Sikkim to be protectorate states. Sikkim was annexed to India in 1975. That event distinctly made the small countries bordering India psychologically insecure.

India’s policy towards its neighbours is marked by a sense of “superiority” known as muscular diplomacy. Indian prime ministers and foreign ministers often feel bashful and hesitant to visit neighbouring capitals. There is an importunate shadow of the British imperial mindset in India when it comes to dealing with neighbouring countries. Similarly, Advani’s recent remarks are deeply rooted by “superiority” psychic.

India is the only country on the subcontinent having common borders with all the neighbours. It finds itself surrounded by countries that are going through a serious stint of volatility in the neighbourhood. Its relations with many of the smaller neighbours have remained far from normal. India has either border disputes with Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal and Sri Lanka or they accuse India of having a “big brother attitude”. Conversely, China has warm relations with all the capital cities of its neighbours that present an example of its neighbourhood policy.

South Asia needs a strong democratic India to counter-balance communist China strategically. Similarly, India has to play a more effective role to cope with the possibility of Islamic fundamentalists getting their hands on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons which are a serious security threat to Asia and the world. But to fulfil that role, India must respect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of its neighbours. If India wants to assume a bigger role which it aspires to, like China, on the strength of its economic power, it will first have to develop its credibility among its neighbours.

India has traditionally sought to prevent exterior powers from intervening in the region. While not always successful, it has been a mantra for the Indian establishment. Events in India’s neighbourhood are proceeding at such a pace that it is time for policymakers to evolve a new paradigm to cope with the avalanche. It is in the interest of India, given its size and economic and military strength, to give unilateral concessions to its neighbours.

The Gujral Doctrine, that raised the comfort level of its neighbours in relation to India, was an attempt to think along these lines. However, in general, India’s deportment has been distrustful and lacking in self-confidence to grant any concession to its neighbours. If India is to emerge as a constructive and decisive factor in Asian and world affairs, it has to carry its neighbours along by playing a helpful role in their diplomatic engagements with other countries.

Nepal offers greater opportunities to play China off against India being the hyphen between India and China. The open border and deep cultural and religious ties with Nepal are undeniable, but it is time to rescind such relics as the Indo-Nepalese treaty of 1950 which makes it clear that India has legitimate security interests and it is also determined to protect the same.

(The author is executive director of the Nepal South Asia Centre, Kathmandu, a South Asian think tank.)

An inept government may be India’s best choice

The security fears surrounding the IPL cricket highlight the dilemma facing voters in the world’s largest democracy

Aravind Adiga

Imagine that ten men from a neighbouring country – boys, almost – get on a boat one night, go to London, spray bullets, kill, take hostages and paralyse the nation for nearly three days. During this time the police have no idea what to do. The Government has no idea what to do. Months later, the Foreign Secretary still can’t get that country to close the terrorist training camps that still operate with impunity in its territory.

Now it’s election time. Would you even think of voting a government like this back into office?

If you’re an Indian, you may have little choice but to do just that. Starting on April 16, India holds its general elections, one of the world’s great exercises in democracy. More than 700 million voters will decide who rules the world’s largest democracy for the next five years. Proceeding in stages for nearly a month, the elections will be great entertainment. Bollywood stars will campaign (and contest); and a political party has bought the rights to Jai Ho, the signature tune from Slumdog Millionaire, which it plans to play at rallies. International media will swoop on the subcontinent and people across the free world will applaud what usually gets called “the carnival of democracy”. Anglo-American adulation, a sure thing each time India holds an election, is likely to be especially intense this year, given that Pakistan is in chaos and appears to be sliding into military rule.

The adulation isn’t misplaced. Alone in South Asia, India has done both things required of a democracy – elected governments by popular vote at regular intervals, and guaranteed that those governments do not encroach on the liberties of their own citizens – for more than half a century. This is a tremendous achievement and Indians are rightly proud of it. However, it is time also for some sober reflection on what goes on during the great “carnival of democracy”. Consider the choices facing the voter at these elections.

The present Government, a coalition led by the Indian National Congress party, has done a few good things since winning office in 2004. Led by the soft-spoken and dignified Manmohan Singh, the Government has made an earnest attempt to improve India’s neglected villages, where most Indians live, by funding new employment schemes and loan forgiveness programmes. No one is sure how much of this money has percolated through the bureaucracy to the poor- but after years of apathy, Delhi is at least trying to do something for the countryside.

On the other hand, Dr Singh’s Government has almost entirely lost the plot on terrorism – a fact highlighted by yesterday’s decision to move the hugely popular IPL cricket competition abroad because of security fears. Thanks to the Government’s general ineptness on security and defence, terrorism has risen steadily, culminating in the Mumbai attacks late last year.

In any other democracy, a failure of this magnitude would suffice to have the Government swept out of power. In India, however, the alternatives range from the merely corrupt to the outright criminal. The main opposition party, the Hindu nationalist BJP party, would probably do a better job of improving India’s roads and ports, and reducing its fiscal deficit; it may also do a better job in forcing Pakistan to close the terrorist camps that created the ten murderers who attacked Mumbai. But a BJP government will make Christians and Muslims feel like second-class citizens, as it has whenever it wins office: it does not deserve to rule one more time. Only slightly worse is the possibility of an “alternative” government taking power – a hodge-podge of regional parties perhaps led by the controversial Mayawati, who heads a party of the Dalits, the former “Untouchables”, in the north of India. If previous “alternative” regimes are any indicator, such a government is likely to be chaotic, corrupt and will be ineffective in fighting terrorism.

Which brings us to the depressing fact that the present Government appears to be the best option. Even more depressing is the certainty that whether it is Dr Singh, L.K. Advani, the BJP leader, or Mayawati who emerges as India’s new prime minister, they will have to rule in alliance with one all-important party: the party of criminals.

Many Indians speak bitterly of the “criminalisation” of their polity – a term that can seem puzzling as their prime ministers, like Dr Singh, are usually men of impeccable integrity. Yet the term is accurate. Of the 543 men and women elected to India’s Parliament in 2004, 125 were facing criminal charges ranging from murder and rape to corruption. This time too, men and women accused of serious crimes will emerge as a big power bloc in the new Parliament. No party can afford to ignore them, such is the stranglehold of criminals over large parts of the country, especially the North. No matter who becomes prime minister, these rotten men will play a role in the nation’s future for five years, and will steal a slice of every programme meant to improve the lot of the 400 million people who live in crushing poverty.

Indians have every right to be proud of their democracy; yet that Indian democracy is a bit like a Gulliver tied down by a gang of kleptocratic and criminal Lilliputians; every five years they let the giant get up and stretch, and then order him to lie down again.

Can this election bring about real change? It’s possible. The anger that many middle-class Indians felt after the Mumbai attacks – the feeling that the system simply had to change – is still alive. The country’s most powerful magazines and newspapers have been publishing lists of candidates with criminal records, urging citizens not to vote for them. I hope that after the loudspeakers blaring Jai Ho have been turned off and the “carnival of democracy” ends the real work will go on: the work of cutting Gulliver free of his captors.

The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga’s Man Booker prize-winning novel, has just been published in paperback

Ten myths about Pakistan

4 Jan 2009, 0032 hrs IST, Mohammed Hanif

Living in Pakistan and reading about it in the Indian press can sometimes be quite a disorienting experience: one wonders what place on earth they’re talking about? I wouldn’t be surprised if an Indian reader going through Pakistani papers has asked the same question in recent days. Here are some common assumptions about Pakistan and its citizens that I have come across in the Indian media… 1. Pakistan controls the jihadis: Or Pakistan’s government controls the jihadis. Or Pakistan Army controls the jihadis. Or ISI controls the jihadis. Or some rogue elements from the ISI control the Jihadis. Nobody knows the whole truth but increasingly it’s the tail that wags the dog. We must remember that the ISI-Jihadi alliance was a marriage of convenience, which has broken down irrevocably. Pakistan army has lost more soldiers at the hands of these jihadis than it ever did fighting India. 2. Musharraf was in control, Zardari is not: Let’s not forget that General Musharraf seized power after he was fired from his job as the army chief by an elected prime minister. Musharraf first appeased jihadis, then bombed them, and then appeased them again. The country he left behind has become a very dangerous place, above all for its own citizens. There is a latent hankering in sections of the Indian middle class for a strongman. Give Manmohan Singh a military uniform, put all the armed forces under his direct command, make his word the law of the land, and he too will go around thumping his chest saying that it’s his destiny to save India from Indians . Zardari will never have the kind of control that Musharraf had. But Pakistanis do not want another Musharraf. 3. Pakistan, which Pakistan? For a small country, Pakistan is very diverse, not only ethnically but politically as well. General Musharraf’s government bombed Pashtuns in the north for being Islamists and close to the Taliban and at the same time it bombed Balochs in the South for NOT being Islamists and for subscribing to some kind of retro-socialist, anti Taliban ethos. You have probably heard the joke about other countries having armies but Pakistan’s army having a country. Nobody in Pakistan finds it funny. 4. Pakistan and its loose nukes: Pakistan’s nuclear programme is under a sophisticated command and control system, no more under threat than India or Israel’s nuclear assets are threatened by Hindu or Jewish extremists. For a long time Pakistan’s security establishment’s other strategic asset was jihadi organisations, which in the last couple of years have become its biggest liability. 5. Pakistan is a failed state: If it is, then Pakistanis have not noticed. Or they have lived in it for such a long time that they have become used to its dysfunctional aspects. Trains are late but they turn up, there are more VJs, DJs, theatre festivals, melas, and fashion models than a failed state can accommodate. To borrow a phrase from President Zardari, there are lots of non-state actors like Abdul Sattar Edhi who provide emergency health services, orphanages and shelters for sick animals. 6. It is a deeply religious country: Every half-decent election in this country has proved otherwise. Religious parties have never won more than a fraction of popular vote. Last year Pakistan witnessed the largest civil rights movements in the history of this region. It was spontaneous, secular and entirely peaceful. But since people weren’t raising anti-India or anti-America slogans, nobody outside Pakistan took much notice. 7. All Pakistanis hate India: Three out of four provinces in Pakistan – Sindh, Baluchistan, NWFP – have never had any popular anti-India sentiment ever. Punjabis who did impose India as enemy-in-chief on Pakistan are now more interested in selling potatoes to India than destroying it. There is a new breed of al-Qaida inspired jihadis who hate a woman walking on the streets of Karachi as much as they hate a woman driving a car on the streets of Delhi. In fact there is not much that they do not hate: they hate America, Denmark, China CDs, barbers, DVDs , television, even football. Imran Khan recently said that these jihadis will never attack a cricket match but nobody takes him seriously. 8. Training camps: There are militant sanctuaries in the tribal areas of Pakistan but definitely not in Muzaffarabad or Muridke, two favourite targets for Indian journalists, probably because those are the cities they have ever been allowed to visit. After all how much training do you need if you are going to shoot at random civilians or blow yourself up in a crowded bazaar? So if anyone thinks a few missiles targeted at Muzaffarabad will teach anyone a lesson, they should switch off their TV and try to locate it on the map. 9. RAW would never do what ISI does: Both the agencies have had a brilliant record of creating mayhem in the neighbouring countries. Both have a dismal record when it comes to protecting their own people. There is a simple reason that ISI is a bigger, more notorious brand name: It was CIA’s franchise during the jihad against the Soviets. And now it’s busy doing jihad against those very jihadis. 10. Pakistan is poor, India is rich: Pakistanis visiting India till the mid-eighties came back very smug. They told us about India’s slums, and that there was nothing to buy except handicrafts and saris. Then Pakistanis could say with justifiable pride that nobody slept hungry in their country. But now, not only do people sleep hungry in both the countries, they also commit suicide because they see nothing but a lifetime of hunger ahead. A debt-ridden farmer contemplating suicide in Maharashtra and a mother who abandons her children in Karachi because she can’t feed them: this is what we have achieved in our mutual desire to teach each other a lesson. The writer is the author of ‘A Case of Exploding Mangoes’

Delhi’s flawed strategy

Thursday, December 25, 2008
By Nasim Zehra

India’s post-Mumbai concerns are genuine as is its need to fully investigate the facts about the Nov 26 attacks. For the Manmohan government to seek Pakistan’s cooperation in tracking any Pakistani involvement would be a legitimate request. Meanwhile, Pakistan as a neighbour and one gripped with its terrorism problems should help Delhi. And for such cooperation bilateral anti-terrorism mechanism does exist between India and Pakistan. In fact, immediately after the attacks, Pakistan did offer to help Delhi in the investigation.

All this notwithstanding, three weeks after the Mumbai tragedy and instead of cooperation an air of confrontation engulfs South Asia. Barring the issue of sending the ISI chief to New Delhi, the response to the violation of our air space and the question of Masood Azhar’s whereabouts, Islamabad has remained consistent with its offer to help Delhi. As for the Ajmal Kasab case it has repeatedly said that it is committed to taking action if India provides evidence of the involvement of any Pakistani national. It has also complied with the UN Security Council’s resolution on the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, banning it, sealing its offices and detaining some of its leaders.

For its part, New Delhi has opted to completely reject the bilateral track for resolving the matter. Instead it has made for unilateral public demands – primarily that Pakistan hand over 40 men that Delhi claimed were involved in terrorist acts inside India and that Pakistan dismantle “terrorist infrastructure” in Pakistan and destroy “terrorist training camps”. These demands have been consistently backed by a threat of force and international pressure led by the US and UK. China has said that pending the results of the investigation any finger-pointing is premature – it has also called for a joint investigation.

America and Britain have supported New Delhi’s position. Britain’s prime minister has publicly asked that British intelligence be allowed to interrogate Pakistani “suspects” involved in terrorism. The threat of force is continuously upgraded with private intelligence outfits such as Stratfor saying that an Indian surgical strike is “imminent”.

Whatever step India’s policy-making and policy-influencing community may be contemplating the only real step that should be taken is to rule out completely the use of force. Given Pakistan’s guaranteed military response to such a strike an Indian attack has a high risk of escalating into an all-out war. Past military confrontations between the two nuclear-armed countries confirm this fact. As for Kargil, it remained contained since it was not a direct military engagement. Also Pakistan’s flawed military strategy and international pressure forced the withdrawal of Pakistan’s forces from Kargil.

Islamabad’s response to New Delhi’s four-point demands has been rather uncomplicated. It is asking for evidence or that the evidence be at least given to a third party with established neutral credentials and the capacity to verify the charges. Delhi also has to follow the due process laid out in charging a foreign national. A case must be registered at the point of the crime and a charge-sheet prepared. That and the evidence is then examined by a judicial magistrate. This is then attested by the country’s foreign ministry and given to the local Interpol office which sends it to Interpol headquarters. And then it is sent to the country of the citizen accused of the crime. Questions of extradition follow only after this has been done. Also, the accused has the right to appeal in a court in the country of his or her origin.

The fact is that so far India has not handed any evidence to Pakistan or to Interpol. Instead Indian officials have held meetings with the US Director of National Intelligence in Delhi and shared evidence with him. Meanwhile the only document handed to Pakistan has been Ajmal Kasab’s letter which he has written in Indian custody. Reportedly it reads like a confession document and he has asked for Pakistan’s legal help in fighting his case. While Pakistan is likely to continue tackling its own growing problem of violence and terrorism, it is unlikely that it can make any substantive move against its own citizens on Delhi’s demands without any credible and concrete evidence.

The Indian refrain of asking for evidence includes the following elements: Pakistan used to hand over its nationals to the US without any legal procedure and it has been proven beyond doubt that Kasab is a Pakistani citizen. Also Pakistani citizens have in the past been involved in similar terrorist attacks in India and Pakistan did nothing then either. A more strident position is that of the BJP which says that it regrets having trusted Pakistan and that the peace process its government initiated in 2004 was a mistake.

Delhi’s headstrong attitude is unwise. India mistakenly believed that it could take the US post-9/11 route for dealing with the problem of terrorism; a browbeating approach, with the threat of force and international support behind it. Delhi must understand that Pakistan and its government and people do want peace, equally the state, the government and the people want to deal with terrorism. However, Pakistan will do this within the parameters of international and national law. The post-2007 Pakistan, with a strong commitment to the rule of law and citizens’ rights, the commitment to democracy and the rejection of militancy and terrorism, will ‘play by rules’. Delhi needs to go beyond ‘browbeating’.

Delhi needs to adopt a more constructive attitude in dealing with the post-Mumbai crisis. There is no international ‘browbeating’ route that will yield any results for India.

The writer is an Islamabad-based security analyst. Email: nasimzehra@ hotmail.com

India elsewhere

From The Economist
An awkward neighbour in a troublesome neighbourhood

ON SEPTEMBER 26th Manmohan Singh expressed an unfashionable sentiment. Addressing George Bush in Washington, DC, he said: “The people of India deeply love you, and all that you have done to bring our two countries closer to each other.” There is some evidence for this. According to a survey by the Pew Research Centre in June, 55% of Indians approved of Mr Bush. A big reason must be the nuclear deal between India and America: it has moved India’s world.

It should provide India with some useful electricity. But the deal is much more significant for the country as recognition of its growing importance in the world. Even governments and commentators that disliked it—and there were many in Europe, including this newspaper—mostly agreed that the existing sanctions regime, which restricted sales of nuclear fuel and technology to India, was outworn. Most Indians considered the fact that the rich world was rewriting its rules for India to be more pleasing than any detail of the deal. Referring to its passage through the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), the Times of India gushed: “If the Beijing Olympics was China’s coming-out party, the NSG waiver was India’s.”

That was silly. But the deal has also generated enthusiasm abroad. In his recent book, “Rivals”, Bill Emmott, a former editor of The Economist, calls it Mr Bush’s “Richard Nixon moment”—in reference to that American leader’s historic overture to China. It is safe to assume, as Mr Emmott does, that Mr Bush’s fear of a rising China, and his wish to bolster India against it, was the main motive for the nuclear detente. But what sort of rising power is India?

On foreign policy, in which until recently India had little interest outside South Asia, it is starting to look a bit like China. India’s foreign service is still tiny, with around 600 diplomats. Its foreign trade, though rapidly growing, is also still relatively small. But India, like China, is increasingly writing foreign policy to meet its economic needs: chiefly, access to natural resources and foreign markets.

That was the message of a summit India held for 14 African leaders in Delhi in April. A decade ago India’s two-way trade with Africa was twice the size of China’s. It is now less than half the size, at around $30 billion a year. But that inaugural India-Africa summit also illustrated important differences from China in India’s approach to building its economic ties. The summit in Delhi was dominated by private companies, which are leading India’s overseas investments. This helps to ensure that India escapes much of the opprobrium heaped on China for consorting with dictators.

In fact, democratic India is often no more principled abroad than communist China. It refuses, for example, to condemn brutish governments in Myanmar, which has oil and gas that India needs, and in Iran, with which it is negotiating to build a $7.5 billion gas pipeline. Last year, in the thick of the nuclear-deal drama, America urged India to rebuke Iran. In a public statement, India told America to back off.

A messy part of the world
But India’s biggest foreign worries, as the Mumbai terrorist strike has shown, are still in its messy region—especially Pakistan. In a sign of an enduring preoccupation with their neighbour, many Indians considered the nuclear deal most pleasing for having “de-hyphenated” their country from it: that is, for making a distinction between the world’s biggest democracy and the nuclear proliferators next door. Speaking in a different tone, Pakistanis tend to agree: set against India’s recent progress, their latest turmoil is humiliating.

India no longer exults, at least openly, in Pakistan’s problems; it worries about them. That explains the carefulness of its post-Mumbai message to its neighbour. India said that the terrorists were Pakistani, but not that Pakistan’s government was behind them. It did not threaten Pakistan with a military reprisal, as it has done after previous terrorist attacks. Impressively, India apparently did not consider withdrawing from a four-year diplomatic effort to “normalise” its relations with Pakistan.

The process has been more or less stalled for over a year, mainly because of political chaos in Pakistan. But India has also contributed to the deadlock. In particular, it has seemed reluctant to settle the rivals’ main dispute, on the status of the divided region of Kashmir.

India and Pakistan both claim all of Kashmir (though officially Pakistan says Kashmiris must decide their fate), and have fought three of their four wars over it. But both know that the current arrangement, in which India has the rich valley of Kashmir and Pakistan a poorer portion, is unlikely to change. Pervez Musharraf, who resigned as Pakistan’s president in August, had therefore proposed legitimising it. As a sop to Kashmiris, and to Pakistani pride, he also suggested that the newly demarcated border in Kashmir should be a soft one.

There is no better solution. But India did not trust Mr Musharraf, so it dragged its heels. Mr Musharraf’s successor as president, Asif Ali Zardari, has sounded even more accommodating to India: he has described Islamist separatists in Kashmir, formerly backed by Pakistan, as “terrorists”. But so long as Pakistan is as unstable as it is currently, India will be unlikely to bite. Its latest attitude of angry forbearance towards Pakistan is, for now, probably as much peace as can be hoped for.

As a neighbour, India is itself far from ideal. It has a long history of meddling in other countries’ politics, including Pakistan’s. Nepal witnessed an embarrassing example of this in April, when India had its paw-prints all over the country’s first proper election in a decade. Seeking to secure a pliable new government, its agents bribed and divided the field; this almost certainly helped a party of Maoist guerrillas, whom India disliked most, to a stunning victory.

Subcontinental hopes
Bangladesh, a semi-hostile nation of 153m delta-dwellers, which is currently under military rule and often under water, is another worry. Illegal Bangladeshi migrants are already sparking conflict in India’s north-eastern state of Assam. As the seas rise, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change calculates that another 35m will have crossed into India by 2050. If only to manage climate-induced problems, South Asian countries have got to co-operate better.

Mr Singh’s answer, to start by boosting regional trade, is the best there is. His vision is “to have breakfast in Amritsar, lunch in Lahore and dinner in Kabul”. (And wake up in hospital, diplomats josh.) But there is a way to go. According to a World Bank report released last year, South Asia is the least integrated region in the world. Trade between its members accounted for less than 2% of their combined GDP. In East Asia the figure was 20%.

From this tiny base, there is at least a promise of an advance. A regional free-trade scheme came into effect in July 2006, though its progress has been painfully slow. Meanwhile, two-way trade between India and Sri Lanka, which signed a bilateral free-trade agreement in 1999, is ballooning. More important, as a measure of the bilateral relationship that India is starting to worry about most, two-way trade between India and China is climbing: from $4.8 billion in 2002 to $38 billion last year.

That is still modest: China’s trade with South Korea is worth four times more. But it is an encouraging basis for a relationship between two giant countries that fought a border war in 1962 and still claim portions of each other’s territory. Those disputes continue to fester; last month Chinese officials reasserted China’s claim to India’s entire north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh. Indian strategic thinkers, who tend to be of a traditional bent, like to speculate about the circumstances that could drive India and China to conflict.

This is bold thinking: India’s armed forces are, like its economic progress, at least a decade behind China’s. India’s defence spending is also less than half China’s. But India does have an advantage over its giant neighbour in the way much of the world perceives it: as well-intentioned and democratic, maybe chaotic—but not inscrutable and possibly malign.

Difficult, and proud of it
That should be a big advantage for India. Indeed the nuclear deal is testimony to it. But India does not often return the world’s compliments. It demands, and increasingly gets, a seat at the world table, but its table manners are sometimes regrettable. In international negotiations, on trade and climate change, India has a habit of obstructionism, in which it takes unseemly pride.

China has profited from this. At the most recent Doha-round negotiations at the World Trade Organisation in July, for example, a deal was blocked by India, China and America. But unlike its fellow protectionists, India seemed keen to take responsibility for this failure. Its obstreperous chief negotiator, Kamal Nath, was garlanded on his return to India—for having defied the Western imperialists. That sort of nonsense might play well with Indian voters, but it is bad for India’s reputation abroad.

source: http://www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12749743&fsrc=rss

Beyond Mumbai

Spearhead Analysis—04.12

An Indian TV channel claimed that it had done what RAW, CIA and MOSSAD had not been able to do—solve the Mumbai mystery. It claimed that a man, Chacha (Uncle) Rehman was behind the attack and this Uncle Rehman’s ‘Cabin’ was in a remote village in North Pakistan. It is from there that he was masterminding operations (2500 kms away!) in Mumbai. The telecast included footage from a Bollywood film about terrorists. This is an example of the media frenzy as the blame game picks up momentum and the voices of reason and restraint get sidelined. This is unfortunate because the genuine sympathy of the people in Pakistan for the sufferings in Mumbai is not getting through. The most haunting image of the tragedy is the two year old toddler whose parents were brutally killed and the 13 year old girl shot dead with her father. No one in Pakistan has sympathy for the perpetrators of such acts because Pakistan has suffered similar tragedies at the hands of people without remorse and humanity.

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