Our view of Pakistan's role in the Afghanistan war has undergone an ominous but necessary series of shifts. At the outset of the war in October 2001, Pakistan correctly was seen as a necessary ally - both politically and geographically - as the primary conduit for our entry and lines of communication into Afghanistan.
Over the years, we came to understand that Pakistan's intelligence service was playing a double game - helping us, but also supporting the Taliban, while Pakistan's northern area had become a safe haven for both the Taliban and al Qaeda.
Thus, Pakistan came to be seen as part of the problem that the Obama administration reasonably has taken to calling the “AfPak” war. Gen. David H. Petraeus told a Senate committee that he saw Pakistan and Afghanistan as “a single theater.”
Now another perception shift is starting to take hold: The increasing instability of the Pakistani government makes Pakistan - more than Afghanistan - the central challenge of our AfPak policy.
Last week, David Kilcullen, a former Australian army officer who was Gen. Petraeus' senior counterinsurgency strategist and is now a consultant to the Obama White House, said Pakistan could collapse within months.
“We have to face the fact that if Pakistan collapses, it will dwarf anything we have seen so far in whatever we're calling the war on terror now,” he said.
Mr. Kilcullen said time was running out for international efforts to pull both countries back from the brink. “You just can't say that you're not going to worry about al Qaeda taking control of Pakistan and its nukes ... the Kabul tail was wagging the dog,” he said.
Afghanistan was a campaign to defend a reconstruction program. “It's not really about al Qaeda. Afghanistan doesn't worry me. Pakistan does,” Mr. Kilcullen said. He said maybe we can manage Afghanistan and Richard Holbrooke can cut an international deal, but there is also a chance that Washington will fail to stabilize Afghanistan, Pakistan will collapse and al Qaeda will end up running what he called “Talibanistan.”
“This is not acceptable. You can't have al Qaeda in control of Pakistan's missiles,” he said.
“It's too early to tell which way it will go. We'll start to know about July. That's the peak fighting season ... and a month from the Afghan presidential election.”
Gen. Petraeus himself recently said that “extremists ... pose a truly existential threat to [Pakistan].”
The radical Islamist threat to the already weak and unstable Pakistani government has become acute because of reconciliation of former adversaries: Mullah Omar (leader of the Taliban fighters who have left Afghanistan for their new stronghold in Quetta, the capital of Pakistan's Baluchistan province) and Baitullah Mehsud (leader of the Pakistani Taliban in the tribal regions along the border with Afghanistan) .
According to last week's Der Speigel, “In late February, flyers written in Urdu turned up in the Pakistani-Afghan border region announcing the formation of a new platform for jihad. The Shura Ittihad-ul Mujahideen (SIM), or Council of United Holy Warriors, declared that the alliance of all militants had been formed at the request of Mullah Omar and [Osama] bin Laden.
”There is a new quality to this .... These groups are now the Pakistani face of al Qaeda,” the German newsmagazine reported.
The problem is that the united radical Islamists are expanding the combat zone inside Pakistan, threatening the state itself. Our drone attacks on the united Taliban (and al Qaeda) are driving the radicals deeper into Pakistan, including its major cities. Also, the attacks inevitably also kill Pakistani women and children (or are claimed by the radicals to have done so), which serves as a recruiting tool for new jihadists.
Thus Mr. Kilcullen was quoted by Der Speigel: “I am against the drone attacks. Even if we could kill half of the al Qaeda leaders, what does it help us if we cause an uprising by the population of Pakistan?”
Mr. Kilcullen's quote raises the strong inference that because the Obama administration has increased the George W. Bush administration's level of drone attacks into Pakistan and Gen. Petraeus' top counterinsurgency adviser publicly opposes the attacks, there must be a major policy fight going on within the administration.
Military strategy disputes are understandable. We have no good choices. Because of the overstretched condition of our military, we have too few troops available to deal with Pakistan, which itself has an active and reserve military manpower of 1.4 million.
Yet Pakistan's military seems insufficient to deal with the radical Islamists. After the Taliban took over the Swat Valley in the middle of Pakistan, seized an emerald mine to help finance their war with America and Pakistan, and established Shariah law, the Pakistani government was so weak it accepted a cease-fire with Maulana Fazlullah, a local thug and terrorist.
With our own Army too small, our NATO allies unwilling to help and Gen. Petraeus' senior counterinsurgency adviser worried that the Taliban and al Qaeda may be able to take over nuclear Pakistan, we are left with a policy of temporizing and crossing our fingers.
Tony Blankley is the author of “American Grit: What It Will Take to Survive and Win in the 21st Century” and vice president of the Edelman public relations firm in Washington.
Showing posts with label terrorism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label terrorism. Show all posts
Friday, April 17, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
Swat valley: transition from Buddha to Radio Mullah
Celebrated in the Hindu scriptures as 'udyan' (garden), it's a stunningly picturesque place where the Buddha once walked, cultures intersected, poets sang and mystics came in search of peace. But, sadly, Swat valley in northwest Pakistan has now become synonymous with unrest, bloodshed and Talibanisation.
Not many know that the Swat valley, which is in the news now for the local government's much-criticised peace deal that allows the Taliban to impose Sharia, or Islamic law, in return for surrendering arms, has an unbroken history of over 2,000 years that has seen many religions and civilisations come and go.
'The Swat river is mentioned in the Rig Veda as Suvashtu which literally means the river on which settlements can be made,' Kumkum Roy, professor of ancient Indian history at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and the author of 'Historical Dictionary of Ancient India', told IANS.
'Kushan rulers also had connections with the Swat valley,' she said.
Centuries later, the scenic river, which flows from the majestic Hindukush mountains into the Kabul river in the Peshawar valley, is a magnet for Pakistani tourists who love to flaunt the Swat valley as the Switzerland of Pakistan.
Some historical accounts also mention that in 327 BC Alexander the Great crossed the Swat river with part of his army and before going south to conquer the locals at what are now Barikoot and Odegram.
The region has also played host to a succession of dynasties like the Mauryans, the Indo-Greeks, the Indo-Syphians, the Kushans, the Turk-Shahis and the Hindu-Shahis down the ages before the invasion by Mahmud of Ghazni who brought Islam to the valley in the 11th century.
Buddhism thrived in the region that was once the centre of the Gandhara civilisation. The Swat museum has the footprints of the Buddha, who, as legend has it, came to Swat during his last reincarnation as the Gautama Buddha.
Statues of the Buddha, stupas, monasteries, rock carvings, art, coins, pottery and other artefacts can be found everywhere in the valley. Emperor Ashoka is also said to have ordered the erection of a stupa in the region.
In 403 AD, the famous Chinese pilgrim, Fa-Hien, counted 6,000 monasteries in the valley. Two centuries later, Hsuan Tsang, another itinerant monk, saw around 1,400 monasteries.
This splendid multi-layered heritage now stands imperilled with a resurgent Taliban determined to impose its austere version of the ideal Islamic society based on Sharia that has no place for music or other niceties of life and scorns sending girls to school.
Although the restive Swat valley has been known for anarchy and lawlessness for some time, the process of Talibanisation started acquiring a sinister ring in July 2006 when Maulana Fazlullah, a firebrand cleric-turned Taliban ideologue and commander, started broadcasting his Wahhabi interpretation of the Quran and preaching extremist messages to people in the valley.
'Radio Mullah', as he came to be known, soon became a local legend and acquired an army of volunteers who pillaged and burnt girls' schools, CD shops, the famous ski resort and Buddha statues to turn his dream of installing an Islamic emirate into reality.
Not surprisingly, much after their ideological fellow travellers across the border in Afghanistan who brutally destroyed the famous Buddha statues in Bamiyan, they have also turned their ire on what they consider remnants of an infidel culture.
Nearly one and a half years ago, Fazlullah's informal army defaced a 23-foot-high, 7th century Meditating Buddha, carved in a rock in the lap of a mountain in Jehandabad village, in Swat, triggering protests among conservationists and Buddhists all over the world.
Things can only get worse with the Islamabad-backed provincial government striking a deal with the local Taliban represented by Sufi Muhammad, the father-in-law of 'FM Mullah.'
Not many know that the Swat valley, which is in the news now for the local government's much-criticised peace deal that allows the Taliban to impose Sharia, or Islamic law, in return for surrendering arms, has an unbroken history of over 2,000 years that has seen many religions and civilisations come and go.
'The Swat river is mentioned in the Rig Veda as Suvashtu which literally means the river on which settlements can be made,' Kumkum Roy, professor of ancient Indian history at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and the author of 'Historical Dictionary of Ancient India', told IANS.
'Kushan rulers also had connections with the Swat valley,' she said.
Centuries later, the scenic river, which flows from the majestic Hindukush mountains into the Kabul river in the Peshawar valley, is a magnet for Pakistani tourists who love to flaunt the Swat valley as the Switzerland of Pakistan.
Some historical accounts also mention that in 327 BC Alexander the Great crossed the Swat river with part of his army and before going south to conquer the locals at what are now Barikoot and Odegram.
The region has also played host to a succession of dynasties like the Mauryans, the Indo-Greeks, the Indo-Syphians, the Kushans, the Turk-Shahis and the Hindu-Shahis down the ages before the invasion by Mahmud of Ghazni who brought Islam to the valley in the 11th century.
Buddhism thrived in the region that was once the centre of the Gandhara civilisation. The Swat museum has the footprints of the Buddha, who, as legend has it, came to Swat during his last reincarnation as the Gautama Buddha.
Statues of the Buddha, stupas, monasteries, rock carvings, art, coins, pottery and other artefacts can be found everywhere in the valley. Emperor Ashoka is also said to have ordered the erection of a stupa in the region.
In 403 AD, the famous Chinese pilgrim, Fa-Hien, counted 6,000 monasteries in the valley. Two centuries later, Hsuan Tsang, another itinerant monk, saw around 1,400 monasteries.
This splendid multi-layered heritage now stands imperilled with a resurgent Taliban determined to impose its austere version of the ideal Islamic society based on Sharia that has no place for music or other niceties of life and scorns sending girls to school.
Although the restive Swat valley has been known for anarchy and lawlessness for some time, the process of Talibanisation started acquiring a sinister ring in July 2006 when Maulana Fazlullah, a firebrand cleric-turned Taliban ideologue and commander, started broadcasting his Wahhabi interpretation of the Quran and preaching extremist messages to people in the valley.
'Radio Mullah', as he came to be known, soon became a local legend and acquired an army of volunteers who pillaged and burnt girls' schools, CD shops, the famous ski resort and Buddha statues to turn his dream of installing an Islamic emirate into reality.
Not surprisingly, much after their ideological fellow travellers across the border in Afghanistan who brutally destroyed the famous Buddha statues in Bamiyan, they have also turned their ire on what they consider remnants of an infidel culture.
Nearly one and a half years ago, Fazlullah's informal army defaced a 23-foot-high, 7th century Meditating Buddha, carved in a rock in the lap of a mountain in Jehandabad village, in Swat, triggering protests among conservationists and Buddhists all over the world.
Things can only get worse with the Islamabad-backed provincial government striking a deal with the local Taliban represented by Sufi Muhammad, the father-in-law of 'FM Mullah.'
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Reclaiming India and Pakistan. Just imagine, pre-islamism, Sanatana Dharma territory.
The attacks on Mumbai are reminiscent of the first Arab incursions, by sea between 634 and 637 AD through Thana, Broach and Debal. These were repulsed and led to incursions through land routes in the Northwest between 650-711 AD. Muhammad Bin Qasim finally succeeded in occupying parts of Sindh in 712 AD. In contrast to the 70 years it took to occupy Sindh in face of Hindu resistance, the Islamic armies had conquered Persia, Syria, Egypt within eight years of the Prophet"s death. North Africa was taken between 640 AD and 709 AD with Spain falling in 711 AD. Thus the entry of Islam into Hindu India which now has broken into a Muslim Pakistan, a Muslim Bangladesh and a Muslim Afghanistan faced more resistance than its triumphant march elsewhere. When Christian Europe finally won against Islam, they did not leave growing colonies within, to repopulate and create new Islamic nations. Arabs, no longer need attack India. The Muslim descendents of the Hindus, at least in Pakistan and Bangladesh, having severed themselves from their roots and heritage, find greater commonality with Arabic language, customs and religion. The idea of roots, state, civilization or cultural heritage are super ceded by the common ground of Islam.
Islam, does not recognize the idea of sovereignty of state or the concept of individual free will guiding individual choice –whether towards lifestyle or to one"s spiritual path. All Semitic faiths speak of a single God, but clearly not the same one, as each claims an exclusive covenant and an exclusive revelation through an exclusive prophet and salvation through the individual agency representing the religion. Thus if all were true then there must be three equal Gods or if only one were true then there is one true God and two other false Gods with two false creeds and two false institutions. If all were false, the idea of God must be difficult to sustain for the majority of the world and these religions must find a separate mission than offer salvation -invited or uninvited. Of the three great faiths one must admit that the modern Jewish faith does not directly negate
others and does not indulge in the task of conversions overtly and covertly and therefore intrinsically seeks no conflict -only the right of self existence. The Hindus seek peaceful self existence but differ from all, in laying no claim to a unique covenant or a unique
relationship with their own particular God. They further believe in self inquiry, the right to- differ, question, criticize, adopt or reject any particular aspect or tenet of spiritual life. Faith is welcome but not necessary and lack of faith or criticism does not call for execution. No conversions are needed as spiritual life does not mandate membership in an exclusive creed. State has no spiritual responsibility. The spiritual path at the beginning calls for personal purity and righteousness, with non violence and harmlessness to all- and evolves finally towards individual spiritual inquiry leading to
enlightenment or realization -of the nature of God. Venerable Prophets are many, within and outside India, who can be guides but are not necessarily needed. Being reflections of the Divine through the human form they are exalted beings but may have human limitations or imperfection at times. There is no Hindu Umma, Dar al Hind and Dar al
Harb and there are no Momins and Kafirs. No Ghazis are required to wield swords to decapitate heads of Kafirs to reap rewards in an indulgent Zannat to please the one God. For Hindus- property, life and women of Non Hindus, are not subject to enjoyment, destruction, enslavement and confiscation as per scriptural guidelines. Places of worship where others worship are not special targets of wrathful destruction. Hindus have largely chosen to accept, ignore, negate and justify their suffering, believing that tolerance and patience would certainly be rewarded in the long run by dawning of reason among those
who have brutalized India for about ten centuries. Large scale negation has been supplemented by outright falsification of the scale of atrocities on part of Islamic invaders. Indians have also submitted to more subtle but equally pernicious civilizational and spiritual subversion along with economic destruction by the Christian West. Purposeful erosion of the Hindu culture (Kul-achar) and ethos, was ensured, post Independence by the Congress-Communist nexus, under the cloak of secularism. This destruction continues unabated today.
Political empowerment of minorities is yet to occur in Europe and North America while in Islamic countries systematic cleansing has reduced minorities to near extinction almost everywhere. Indian congress, communists, secularists and Human right activists have not
bothered themselves with the Hindu victims of Islam or Christianity. They have built their credibility among foreigners and anti- Hindu faiths by sabotaging the ideal of India"s Nationhood based on Sanatan Dharma.
The idea of a tolerant Islamic State (for Non Muslims) is a contradiction in terms. For Christianity, state and religion, have historically been symbiotic entities -one thriving on the expansion of the other, each empowering the other. State was certainly the vehicle
for Christianity" s spread and eventual conquest of Europe rendering extinct all indigenous forms of spirituality and culture, from Greece to Lithuania beginning from Italy. For Islam, conquest of Arabia wiped out millennia of pre-Islamic Arabic history and culture. Persia and Egypt did not fare better. State as an entity, is subservient to Islam
and is merely its tool for expansion. In Western Europe and more prominently in America, while the pursuit of an individual religion is not interfered with but political empowerment of minority faiths other than Judaism is not even entertained as an idea in political or social discourse .The idea of Hindutva, Hindu fundamentalism are not merely
illogical concepts but are carefully crafted themes to empower the exclusivist faiths who battle today for the soul and soil of India.
There is no state other than India, that has seen political empowerment of minority faiths to an extent that persecution of majority is no longer looked upon with surprise. The ethnic cleansing of 400,000 Kashmiri Hindus in Hindu majority India is ignored, while
communal riots in response the burning of Hindu pilgrims in Godhra is termed pogrom with international condemnation, humiliation, and enquiry commissions whose findings contradict the charge of genocide due to state complicity or permissiveness. This of course cannot satiate the Indian media"s Hindu bloodlust. India"s English media,
human rights activists, television and it"s ruling Cabal reflect a coalition of Christians, Communists, Moslems, Western educated McCaulayites and foreign agents who live on the crumbs from middle east or the West. The zenith of one"s recognition in politics,
academia, art , media, or intellectual circles is related to the degree of virulence one is able to muster against the Hindu and the culture of his forefathers. Regrettably, the defense of majority Hindus in their own land is at the hands of parties like BJP, whose
apologetic conviction of their own heritage offers little hope. Their need for eulogies from the nation"s enemies is only matched by their gutlessness, lack of vision for their nation, colossal lack of cohesive planning and the spinelessness of political opportunism.
How about the spiritual foundation? the very reason why the Hindu has not given up his identity through millennia of occupation. India"s conquest to a large extent was due to loss of Dharma. Dharma as it relates to individual action guides the individual towards his larger sphere of responsibility towards family, community, nation, environment, and world at large. It is not merely individual salvation that religion should contract to, but it must exhort the individual to righteous and courageous action to uphold eternal values enjoined in Sanatan Dharma. Hindu spiritual leaders have miserably failed to exhort Hindus to the highest ideals of civic or community life and have forgotten the entire notion of Rashtra Dharma. Creating competing cults and creeds for self promotion, ritualistic worship or individual salvation without fulfilling all aspects of one"s Dharma is the foundational deficit that is once again propelling India into subjugation by Asuric forces. India"s multitude of temple goers and professional priests can no longer understand the ethos that had decreed motherland to be more exalted than the heavens. Therefore, the ritualistic, cult based, habit reinforced and temple oriented Hindu today is oblivious of the environment he lives in. The insularity of ritualistic behavior has degraded a deep worship tradition to "customary practice" severing philosophic continuity with our children - while outsiders have hardly been subtle in their contempt. For almost a thousand years jeering Islamic armies destroyed temples telling the Hindus that their Gods were mere idols who could not protect themselves, while the Hindu kept rebuilding his temples. The mosque built by the genocidal Babur was no mosque but merely a usurped temple that the weak Hindu finally used his bare hands to bring down
-but to what dramatic disbelief, condemnation and outrage -that a servile Hindu could do this! None bothered that a place of worship was named after a genocidal monarch - for it is but natural for Islam to honor its Ghazis. To protect Babur"s monument (though no Islamic scholar claimed it to be a true mosque) seemed to be a national obsession for the liberal Indian, for it to be brought down a national shame? Can such a country survive its citizenry? Is there a Church in Poland named after Hitler (a faithful) or for that matter, one in Rome after Constantine or Theodosius?
Finally one must come to the intellectual elite of India. The intellectual leaders of India are no longer creative, natural thinkers in indigenous languages but are brilliant products and protagonists of Western Education. One would be hard put to find an Indian thought
leader today who reads or writes in a language other than English. The Chinese, Japanese, Russians, Greeks, Germans, Spaniards, Mexicans or Egyptians do not have "English" intellectual Elite. These countries do no obsess themselves with intellectuals adorned with Booker prizes or Oscars for denigrating their countries. Their leading newspapers, media, or academic institutions do not have to use English to be well
regarded. It is perfectly cute to have the Chinese Premier shake his head at the US President and exchange pleasantries through an interpreter while it is not for the Indian savage to do the same. Indian parents regard education in English and higher studies in the English speaking West to be the highest form of academic achievement. It is a natural consequence to imbibe the English based knowledge systems and discard the vast indigenous intellectual wealth, available in Sanskrit and other indigenous literature. Thus the first rung of our civilization -the intellectual Indian has been simply de-indigenized. Validated by economic success and access to leadership positions this Indian intellectual leadership is Indian only in appearance -in character it represents colonial continuity. It is
virulently anti -Hindu and seeks not to be identified with Hindutva . Why else is "Hindu Tattva" or the essence of being a Hindu a dirty word while "being a good Christian" - a claim to value. Is it not the Hindu seer who gave the world Numbers and Counting, Astronomy, Music, Grammar, Yoga and Ayurveda besides Philosophy and the first glimpse of God ? What knowledge streams did the Prophets from the Monotheistic
faiths bequeath to the world ? India"s English media and its English Children have turned the Hindu into a despicable, backward and intolerable heathen, who is now violent as well. To unleash violence outside one"s borders on alien lands is natural as long as the
perpetrators are Christians or Moslems but to defend oneself and one"s faith within one"s own borders is fundamentalism in case of the Hindu. When the Christians or Moslems disallow proselytization or conversion it is the natural inclination to preserve one"s identity but for the Hindu to take such a view would be unacceptable bigotry. Barring
exceptions, India"s intellectual elite today is India"s most pernicious enemy - an elite reared on the subsidized state sponsored education funded by the toiling Hindu.
One must end with a discussion on solutions. As a first measure the Hindu majority of India must find its voice and aspiration reflected in the media. It must not support an anti India media through viewership, audience, subscription or advertisement revenue in any
form. India must demand a media free of foreign ownership or revenue based influence. Indians must control their media. Equally important for Indians is to elect a leadership that to start with is not anti-India. Needless to say, any leadership that is anti- Hindu is
anti-majority and by definition, anti-India. They cannot be at the helm of the country. Therefore, the UPA, its adherents and its supporting parties must be defeated and discarded into political oblivion. Marxism is welcome as part of academic discourse but its anti-national and anti-majority views do not permit it to be a legitimate political body . Marxist organizations and political parties need to be outlawed. The nexus of criminals and politicians has to be broken by a strengthened judiciary and ruthless imposition of law. A criminalized democracy manipulated by feudal families, foreigners, anti India and anti Hindu agencies is worse than an undemocratic, but ethical administration. India of the past has done far better under Vikramaditya or Chandragupta. The academic institutions of India starting from at its schools need to be entirely revamped. Study of its indigenous languages, knowledge streams, and its classical history from indigenous sources must be mandatory for all, but most of all for its political leadership and administration, as a prerequisite for electoral contest or administration. Anti India
academicians cannot have any public funding sources towards salary, research and publications and media presentations offending Hindu sentiments should not be tolerated. India"s 1.2 billion people and 1 billion Hindus must be what they want to be, not what others manipulate them to be -in this respect they must learn from China. Minorityism in the form of appeasement, selective economic aid, reservation, media propagation and political empowerment for votes, must be eliminated without any compunction -Hindu"s who have chosen to adopt foreign religions have no basis for special consideration,
though they remain free to practice their faith in private. Political action or activism that promotes sedition or violence must be met with violence and eliminated ruthlessly. Hindus should not be supportive of any Hindu religious institution, cult, temple or spiritual leaders who remain disconnected from the concept of a nationalism based on Sanatan Dharma .There cannot be any spiritual path divorced from Dharma in its
broadest sense .To support such self serving Hindu institutions and spiritual leaders is a folly as well. The intellectual leadership of India must be reconstructed and realigned to be steeped in its historical traditions that have always reflected a combination of value systems - a search for discriminatory wisdom, simple living, cultivation of Dharma combined with a sense of honor and valor. Meekness, avoidance of responsibility, search for self gratification and success should not be lauded but are worthy of rejection and
derision. India cannot honor those who dishonor it. Leaders in politics, academia, media, corporate world, arts, sciences or spiritual domain must not be honored anymore for being Anti-Hindu. If Tasleema Nasreen cannot be given asylum in India for offending
sensibilities of Muslims, on what grounds does one have to tolerate the likes of Arundhati Roy, M F Hussain, Jayalalitha , Brinda Karat, Karan Thapar, Shabana Azmi, Agnivesh or AR Antulay?
Hindu majority India managed to lose power and suffer enslavement, decapitation, conversion, jiziya, dhimmitude, and famines apart from annihilation of its identity for over a thousand years. Its current course shows no memory of this experience. All Hindus must act now, through forging a common Hindu identity and must express this identity
through a Hindu vote for a Hindu India - a Muslim India or a Christian India cannot be a pluralistic tolerant India. Let Islam and Christianity demonstrate this first in the lands they control. Let the US elect a non Christian Governor or President and let Indonesia or
Pakistan have a Hindu President first. Let rest of the world demonstrate its equality to the Hindu .The Hindu must protect himself first, to deliver humanity. While India as a nation state should stand for equality for all its citizens and proclaim all life to be sacred as decreed by Sanatan Dharma - it must let its external enemies know, that the future theatres of war would be on their soil and the rites of war would be one that they inflict on others.
Islam, does not recognize the idea of sovereignty of state or the concept of individual free will guiding individual choice –whether towards lifestyle or to one"s spiritual path. All Semitic faiths speak of a single God, but clearly not the same one, as each claims an exclusive covenant and an exclusive revelation through an exclusive prophet and salvation through the individual agency representing the religion. Thus if all were true then there must be three equal Gods or if only one were true then there is one true God and two other false Gods with two false creeds and two false institutions. If all were false, the idea of God must be difficult to sustain for the majority of the world and these religions must find a separate mission than offer salvation -invited or uninvited. Of the three great faiths one must admit that the modern Jewish faith does not directly negate
others and does not indulge in the task of conversions overtly and covertly and therefore intrinsically seeks no conflict -only the right of self existence. The Hindus seek peaceful self existence but differ from all, in laying no claim to a unique covenant or a unique
relationship with their own particular God. They further believe in self inquiry, the right to- differ, question, criticize, adopt or reject any particular aspect or tenet of spiritual life. Faith is welcome but not necessary and lack of faith or criticism does not call for execution. No conversions are needed as spiritual life does not mandate membership in an exclusive creed. State has no spiritual responsibility. The spiritual path at the beginning calls for personal purity and righteousness, with non violence and harmlessness to all- and evolves finally towards individual spiritual inquiry leading to
enlightenment or realization -of the nature of God. Venerable Prophets are many, within and outside India, who can be guides but are not necessarily needed. Being reflections of the Divine through the human form they are exalted beings but may have human limitations or imperfection at times. There is no Hindu Umma, Dar al Hind and Dar al
Harb and there are no Momins and Kafirs. No Ghazis are required to wield swords to decapitate heads of Kafirs to reap rewards in an indulgent Zannat to please the one God. For Hindus- property, life and women of Non Hindus, are not subject to enjoyment, destruction, enslavement and confiscation as per scriptural guidelines. Places of worship where others worship are not special targets of wrathful destruction. Hindus have largely chosen to accept, ignore, negate and justify their suffering, believing that tolerance and patience would certainly be rewarded in the long run by dawning of reason among those
who have brutalized India for about ten centuries. Large scale negation has been supplemented by outright falsification of the scale of atrocities on part of Islamic invaders. Indians have also submitted to more subtle but equally pernicious civilizational and spiritual subversion along with economic destruction by the Christian West. Purposeful erosion of the Hindu culture (Kul-achar) and ethos, was ensured, post Independence by the Congress-Communist nexus, under the cloak of secularism. This destruction continues unabated today.
Political empowerment of minorities is yet to occur in Europe and North America while in Islamic countries systematic cleansing has reduced minorities to near extinction almost everywhere. Indian congress, communists, secularists and Human right activists have not
bothered themselves with the Hindu victims of Islam or Christianity. They have built their credibility among foreigners and anti- Hindu faiths by sabotaging the ideal of India"s Nationhood based on Sanatan Dharma.
The idea of a tolerant Islamic State (for Non Muslims) is a contradiction in terms. For Christianity, state and religion, have historically been symbiotic entities -one thriving on the expansion of the other, each empowering the other. State was certainly the vehicle
for Christianity" s spread and eventual conquest of Europe rendering extinct all indigenous forms of spirituality and culture, from Greece to Lithuania beginning from Italy. For Islam, conquest of Arabia wiped out millennia of pre-Islamic Arabic history and culture. Persia and Egypt did not fare better. State as an entity, is subservient to Islam
and is merely its tool for expansion. In Western Europe and more prominently in America, while the pursuit of an individual religion is not interfered with but political empowerment of minority faiths other than Judaism is not even entertained as an idea in political or social discourse .The idea of Hindutva, Hindu fundamentalism are not merely
illogical concepts but are carefully crafted themes to empower the exclusivist faiths who battle today for the soul and soil of India.
There is no state other than India, that has seen political empowerment of minority faiths to an extent that persecution of majority is no longer looked upon with surprise. The ethnic cleansing of 400,000 Kashmiri Hindus in Hindu majority India is ignored, while
communal riots in response the burning of Hindu pilgrims in Godhra is termed pogrom with international condemnation, humiliation, and enquiry commissions whose findings contradict the charge of genocide due to state complicity or permissiveness. This of course cannot satiate the Indian media"s Hindu bloodlust. India"s English media,
human rights activists, television and it"s ruling Cabal reflect a coalition of Christians, Communists, Moslems, Western educated McCaulayites and foreign agents who live on the crumbs from middle east or the West. The zenith of one"s recognition in politics,
academia, art , media, or intellectual circles is related to the degree of virulence one is able to muster against the Hindu and the culture of his forefathers. Regrettably, the defense of majority Hindus in their own land is at the hands of parties like BJP, whose
apologetic conviction of their own heritage offers little hope. Their need for eulogies from the nation"s enemies is only matched by their gutlessness, lack of vision for their nation, colossal lack of cohesive planning and the spinelessness of political opportunism.
How about the spiritual foundation? the very reason why the Hindu has not given up his identity through millennia of occupation. India"s conquest to a large extent was due to loss of Dharma. Dharma as it relates to individual action guides the individual towards his larger sphere of responsibility towards family, community, nation, environment, and world at large. It is not merely individual salvation that religion should contract to, but it must exhort the individual to righteous and courageous action to uphold eternal values enjoined in Sanatan Dharma. Hindu spiritual leaders have miserably failed to exhort Hindus to the highest ideals of civic or community life and have forgotten the entire notion of Rashtra Dharma. Creating competing cults and creeds for self promotion, ritualistic worship or individual salvation without fulfilling all aspects of one"s Dharma is the foundational deficit that is once again propelling India into subjugation by Asuric forces. India"s multitude of temple goers and professional priests can no longer understand the ethos that had decreed motherland to be more exalted than the heavens. Therefore, the ritualistic, cult based, habit reinforced and temple oriented Hindu today is oblivious of the environment he lives in. The insularity of ritualistic behavior has degraded a deep worship tradition to "customary practice" severing philosophic continuity with our children - while outsiders have hardly been subtle in their contempt. For almost a thousand years jeering Islamic armies destroyed temples telling the Hindus that their Gods were mere idols who could not protect themselves, while the Hindu kept rebuilding his temples. The mosque built by the genocidal Babur was no mosque but merely a usurped temple that the weak Hindu finally used his bare hands to bring down
-but to what dramatic disbelief, condemnation and outrage -that a servile Hindu could do this! None bothered that a place of worship was named after a genocidal monarch - for it is but natural for Islam to honor its Ghazis. To protect Babur"s monument (though no Islamic scholar claimed it to be a true mosque) seemed to be a national obsession for the liberal Indian, for it to be brought down a national shame? Can such a country survive its citizenry? Is there a Church in Poland named after Hitler (a faithful) or for that matter, one in Rome after Constantine or Theodosius?
Finally one must come to the intellectual elite of India. The intellectual leaders of India are no longer creative, natural thinkers in indigenous languages but are brilliant products and protagonists of Western Education. One would be hard put to find an Indian thought
leader today who reads or writes in a language other than English. The Chinese, Japanese, Russians, Greeks, Germans, Spaniards, Mexicans or Egyptians do not have "English" intellectual Elite. These countries do no obsess themselves with intellectuals adorned with Booker prizes or Oscars for denigrating their countries. Their leading newspapers, media, or academic institutions do not have to use English to be well
regarded. It is perfectly cute to have the Chinese Premier shake his head at the US President and exchange pleasantries through an interpreter while it is not for the Indian savage to do the same. Indian parents regard education in English and higher studies in the English speaking West to be the highest form of academic achievement. It is a natural consequence to imbibe the English based knowledge systems and discard the vast indigenous intellectual wealth, available in Sanskrit and other indigenous literature. Thus the first rung of our civilization -the intellectual Indian has been simply de-indigenized. Validated by economic success and access to leadership positions this Indian intellectual leadership is Indian only in appearance -in character it represents colonial continuity. It is
virulently anti -Hindu and seeks not to be identified with Hindutva . Why else is "Hindu Tattva" or the essence of being a Hindu a dirty word while "being a good Christian" - a claim to value. Is it not the Hindu seer who gave the world Numbers and Counting, Astronomy, Music, Grammar, Yoga and Ayurveda besides Philosophy and the first glimpse of God ? What knowledge streams did the Prophets from the Monotheistic
faiths bequeath to the world ? India"s English media and its English Children have turned the Hindu into a despicable, backward and intolerable heathen, who is now violent as well. To unleash violence outside one"s borders on alien lands is natural as long as the
perpetrators are Christians or Moslems but to defend oneself and one"s faith within one"s own borders is fundamentalism in case of the Hindu. When the Christians or Moslems disallow proselytization or conversion it is the natural inclination to preserve one"s identity but for the Hindu to take such a view would be unacceptable bigotry. Barring
exceptions, India"s intellectual elite today is India"s most pernicious enemy - an elite reared on the subsidized state sponsored education funded by the toiling Hindu.
One must end with a discussion on solutions. As a first measure the Hindu majority of India must find its voice and aspiration reflected in the media. It must not support an anti India media through viewership, audience, subscription or advertisement revenue in any
form. India must demand a media free of foreign ownership or revenue based influence. Indians must control their media. Equally important for Indians is to elect a leadership that to start with is not anti-India. Needless to say, any leadership that is anti- Hindu is
anti-majority and by definition, anti-India. They cannot be at the helm of the country. Therefore, the UPA, its adherents and its supporting parties must be defeated and discarded into political oblivion. Marxism is welcome as part of academic discourse but its anti-national and anti-majority views do not permit it to be a legitimate political body . Marxist organizations and political parties need to be outlawed. The nexus of criminals and politicians has to be broken by a strengthened judiciary and ruthless imposition of law. A criminalized democracy manipulated by feudal families, foreigners, anti India and anti Hindu agencies is worse than an undemocratic, but ethical administration. India of the past has done far better under Vikramaditya or Chandragupta. The academic institutions of India starting from at its schools need to be entirely revamped. Study of its indigenous languages, knowledge streams, and its classical history from indigenous sources must be mandatory for all, but most of all for its political leadership and administration, as a prerequisite for electoral contest or administration. Anti India
academicians cannot have any public funding sources towards salary, research and publications and media presentations offending Hindu sentiments should not be tolerated. India"s 1.2 billion people and 1 billion Hindus must be what they want to be, not what others manipulate them to be -in this respect they must learn from China. Minorityism in the form of appeasement, selective economic aid, reservation, media propagation and political empowerment for votes, must be eliminated without any compunction -Hindu"s who have chosen to adopt foreign religions have no basis for special consideration,
though they remain free to practice their faith in private. Political action or activism that promotes sedition or violence must be met with violence and eliminated ruthlessly. Hindus should not be supportive of any Hindu religious institution, cult, temple or spiritual leaders who remain disconnected from the concept of a nationalism based on Sanatan Dharma .There cannot be any spiritual path divorced from Dharma in its
broadest sense .To support such self serving Hindu institutions and spiritual leaders is a folly as well. The intellectual leadership of India must be reconstructed and realigned to be steeped in its historical traditions that have always reflected a combination of value systems - a search for discriminatory wisdom, simple living, cultivation of Dharma combined with a sense of honor and valor. Meekness, avoidance of responsibility, search for self gratification and success should not be lauded but are worthy of rejection and
derision. India cannot honor those who dishonor it. Leaders in politics, academia, media, corporate world, arts, sciences or spiritual domain must not be honored anymore for being Anti-Hindu. If Tasleema Nasreen cannot be given asylum in India for offending
sensibilities of Muslims, on what grounds does one have to tolerate the likes of Arundhati Roy, M F Hussain, Jayalalitha , Brinda Karat, Karan Thapar, Shabana Azmi, Agnivesh or AR Antulay?
Hindu majority India managed to lose power and suffer enslavement, decapitation, conversion, jiziya, dhimmitude, and famines apart from annihilation of its identity for over a thousand years. Its current course shows no memory of this experience. All Hindus must act now, through forging a common Hindu identity and must express this identity
through a Hindu vote for a Hindu India - a Muslim India or a Christian India cannot be a pluralistic tolerant India. Let Islam and Christianity demonstrate this first in the lands they control. Let the US elect a non Christian Governor or President and let Indonesia or
Pakistan have a Hindu President first. Let rest of the world demonstrate its equality to the Hindu .The Hindu must protect himself first, to deliver humanity. While India as a nation state should stand for equality for all its citizens and proclaim all life to be sacred as decreed by Sanatan Dharma - it must let its external enemies know, that the future theatres of war would be on their soil and the rites of war would be one that they inflict on others.
Mumbai terror, implications for US interests (Congressional Research report)
http://www.scribd.com/doc/9940655/001R40087 Congressional Research Service document. Terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India and implications for US Interests by K. Alan Kronstadt, Specialist in South Asian Affairs dated December 19, 2008
Excerpts:
A 2006 session of the U.S.-India Joint Working Group
on Counterterrorism ended with a statement of determination from both countries to further
advance bilateral cooperation and information sharing on such areas of common concern as
bioterrorism, aviation security, advances in biometrics, cyber-security and terrorism, WMD
terrorism, and terrorist financing.105 The Working Group has met a total of nine times since its 2000 creation, most recently in August 2008. Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mullen was in New Delhi in early December to meet with senior Indian leaders, where he reiterated the U.S.
military’s commitment to work closely with Indian armed forces on counterterrorism. http://newdelhi.usembassy.gov/pr120408a.htm.
The Mumbai incident elicited more vocal calls for deepening U.S.-India counterterrorism
cooperation that could benefit both countries. Such cooperation has been hampered by sometimes divergent geopolitical perceptions and by U.S. reluctance to “embarrass” its Pakistani allies by conveying alleged evidence of official Pakistani links to terrorists, especially those waging a separatist war in Kashmir. Mutual distrust between Washington and New Delhi also has been exacerbated by some recent clandestine U.S. efforts to penetrate Indian intelligence agencies.
Despite lingering problems, the scale of the threat posed by Islamist militants spurs observers to encourage more robust bilateral intelligence sharing and other official exchanges, including on maritime and cyber security, among many more potential issue-areas. See Lisa Curtis, After Mumbai: Time to Strengthen U.S.-India Counterterrorism Cooperation, Heritage Foundation
Backgrounder, December 9, 2008, http://www.heritage.org/Research/AsiaandthePacific/upload/bg_2217.pdf.
U.S. law enforcement agencies possess specialized equipment that can trace voice-over-internet calls, along with other expertise for examining the global position and satellite phone systems used by the attackers. One unnamed senior Indian intelligence source was quoted as saying that FBI assistance in tracing VoIP calls will be a “test case for U.S. promises.” (Praveen Swami, “Key Test for Indo-U.S. Intelligence Ties” (op-ed), Hindu (Chennai), December 3, 2008; quote in “Terror Boat Was Almost Nabbed Off Mumbai,” Times of India (Delhi), December 10, 2008.)
Summary
On the evening of November 26, 2008, a number of well-trained militants came ashore from the
Arabian Sea on small boats and attacked numerous high-profile targets in Mumbai, India, with
automatic weapons and explosives. By the time the episode ended some 62 hours later, about 165
people, along with nine terrorists, had been killed and hundreds more injured. Among the
multiple sites attacked in the peninsular city known as India’s business and entertainment capital
were two luxury hotels—the Taj Mahal Palace and the Oberoi-Trident—along with the main
railway terminal, a Jewish cultural center, a café frequented by foreigners, a cinema house, and
two hospitals. Six American citizens were among the 26 foreigners reported dead. Indian officials
have concluded that the attackers numbered only ten, one of whom was captured.
The investigation into the attacks is still in preliminary stages, but press reporting and statements
from U.S. and Indian authorities strongly suggest that the attackers came to India from
neighboring Pakistan and that the perpetrators likely were members and acting under the
orchestration of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist group. The LeT is believed to
have past links with Pakistan’s military and intelligence services. By some accounts, these links
are ongoing, leading to suspicions, but no known evidence, of involvement in the attack by
Pakistani state elements. The Islamabad government has strongly condemned the Mumbai
terrorism and offered New Delhi its full cooperation with the ongoing investigation, but mutual
acrimony clouds such an effort, and the attacks have brought into question the viability of a
nearly five-year-old bilateral peace process between India and Pakistan.
Three wars—in 1947-48, 1965, and 1971—and a constant state of military preparedness on both
sides of the border have marked six decades of bitter rivalry between India and Pakistan. Such
bilateral discord between two nuclear-armed countries thus has major implications for regional
security and for U.S. interests. The Administration of President-elect Barack Obama may seek to
increase U.S. diplomatic efforts aimed at resolving conflict between these two countries. The
Mumbai attacks have brought even more intense international attention to the increasingly deadly
and destabilizing incidence of Islamist extremism in South Asia, and they may affect the course
of U.S. policy toward Pakistan, especially. The episode also has major domestic implications for
India, in both the political and security realms. Indian counterterrorism capabilities have come
under intense scrutiny, and the United States may further expand bilateral cooperation with and
assistance to India in this realm.
For broader discussion, see CRS Report RL33529, India-U.S.
Relations, and CRS Report RL33498, Pakistan-U.S. Relations. This report will not be updated.
www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33529.pdf
www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33498.pdf
Chidambaram’s visit cancelled; US report puts focus on 26/11
Livemint Posted: Fri, Jan 9 2009. 12:38 AM IST
Mint could not immediately ascertain whether the home minister’s trip had been put off because of the imminent change in the US leadership
Liz Mathew
New Delhi: Home minister P. Chidambaram’s proposed trip to the US to share evidence about the involvement of Pakistan-based groups in the Mumbai terror attacks has been cancelled even as a US Congressional research report said it may be time to evolve a new foreign policy for South Asia.
In less than two weeks, Barack Obama will take charge as the next president of the US. Mint could not immediately ascertain whether the home minister’s trip had been put off because of the imminent change in the US leadership.
According to a top official in the ministry of external affairs, or MEA, Chidambaram’s visit had been cancelled because India had already handed over evidence establishing links between the attacks and Pakistan-based “elements” to Pakistan and given copies to the US. The official did not want to be identified. When contacted, Chidambaram declined to comment. He had been expected to meet US homeland security secretary Michael Chertoff and secretary of state Condoleezza Rice in Washington.
Meanwhile, the report, “Terrorist Attacks in Mumbai, India and Implications for US Interests”, prepared by the Congressional Research Service for circulation among lawmakers, said the Mumbai attacks could complicate the US’ South Asia policy.
“Potential issues for the 111th Congress with regard to India include legislation that would foster greater US-India counterterrorism relations. With regard to Pakistan, Congressional attention has focused and is likely to remain focused on the programming and potential further conditioning of US foreign assistance, including that related to security and counterterrorism,” the report said.
Pratap Bhanu Mehta, president of the Centre for Policy Research, a Delhi-based think tank, said the attacks have “re-hyphenated India and Pakistan in the US foreign policy” and “it would be a fair hypothesis to say that the Mumbai attacks were partly carried out to complicate US foreign policy”.
“I think it is now time that the US does a fundamental rethink on its Pakistan policy rather than its South Asia diplomatic efforts,” Mehta said.
Former national security advisor Brajesh Mishra said, “Much is going to depend on the (Joe) Biden visit. Obama is sending Biden, along with four colleagues, to see for themselves.” US vice-president-elect Joe Biden is scheduled visit to Pakistan this week.
Independently, Ted Osius, minister counsellor for political affairs at the US embassy in India, told a conference organized by the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce on Thursday that the US would want to look at Russia as an alternative to route its supplies and equipment for bases in Afghanistan and thereby reduce reliance on Pakistan.
Ruhi Tewari, Rahul Chandran and Asit Ranjan Mishra and PTI contributed to this story.
liz.m@livemint.com
http://www.livemint.com/Articles/PrintArticle.aspx?artid=BA08F254-DDB1-11DD-A9CC-000B5DABF636
SP blows hot, and then cold, on pullout threat
8 Jan 2009, 0246 hrs IST, TNN
NEW DELHI: A day after the Supreme Court threw a spanner in the Centre's bid to bail out Mulayam Singh Yadav in the DA case, the Samajwadi Party raised the ante with threats of pullout from the UPA, only to suddenly calm down after an audience with Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.
The sudden rise and fall in SP temper, with party general secretary Amar Singh as protagonist, left political circles bewildered as observers linked the flip-flop to the brazen CBI attempt to get SP chief out of the agency's net.
SP linked its anger to the UPA government's refusal to act decisively against Pakistan, and the late-evening U-turn was also argued around terror, but few were ready to buy the argument.
While the Centre has done its part to help Mulayam Singh out of the CBI net, going to the extent of seeking a withdrawal of the case after having sought the SP chief's prosecution, Samajwadis feel that more needs to be done to clinch the issue.
As the drama played out within a day of the apex court's strong remarks on CBI, the terror-Pakistan link to the rise and drop in SP anger had few takers.
Amar Singh told reporters in the afternoon that SP could withdraw support to UPA as the latter had failed to take decisive action against Pakistan for the Mumbai terror attacks.
"During an all-party meeting 40 days ago, the government had promised party chief Mulayam Singh that decisive action against Pakistan will be taken in 15 days...that deadline is over," he said, adding that a decision would be taken at the parliamentary board meeting on Thursday.
As Congress downplayed the outburst, saying it only showed SP's concern over terrorism, Amar Singh drove to 10, Janpath, for a meeting with Sonia Gandhi. He emerged from her residence to say there was no question of a pullout and that he had only expressed the sentiments of his party workers.
After having built a case around terror in the day-long drama, SP leaders may gather on Thursday to raise the pitch even further. It suits Samajwadis to take a belligerent stand on Pakistan, having realised that public mood has turned completely against the politicking as it did during the Batla House encounter.
SP believes that a tough stance on terror would endear it to voters across the board. That rival Mayawati has also taken a strong line on terror only shows how language of UP politics has changed since the Mumbai attacks.
Excerpts:
A 2006 session of the U.S.-India Joint Working Group
on Counterterrorism ended with a statement of determination from both countries to further
advance bilateral cooperation and information sharing on such areas of common concern as
bioterrorism, aviation security, advances in biometrics, cyber-security and terrorism, WMD
terrorism, and terrorist financing.105 The Working Group has met a total of nine times since its 2000 creation, most recently in August 2008. Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mullen was in New Delhi in early December to meet with senior Indian leaders, where he reiterated the U.S.
military’s commitment to work closely with Indian armed forces on counterterrorism. http://newdelhi.usembassy.gov/pr120408a.htm.
The Mumbai incident elicited more vocal calls for deepening U.S.-India counterterrorism
cooperation that could benefit both countries. Such cooperation has been hampered by sometimes divergent geopolitical perceptions and by U.S. reluctance to “embarrass” its Pakistani allies by conveying alleged evidence of official Pakistani links to terrorists, especially those waging a separatist war in Kashmir. Mutual distrust between Washington and New Delhi also has been exacerbated by some recent clandestine U.S. efforts to penetrate Indian intelligence agencies.
Despite lingering problems, the scale of the threat posed by Islamist militants spurs observers to encourage more robust bilateral intelligence sharing and other official exchanges, including on maritime and cyber security, among many more potential issue-areas. See Lisa Curtis, After Mumbai: Time to Strengthen U.S.-India Counterterrorism Cooperation, Heritage Foundation
Backgrounder, December 9, 2008, http://www.heritage.org/Research/AsiaandthePacific/upload/bg_2217.pdf.
U.S. law enforcement agencies possess specialized equipment that can trace voice-over-internet calls, along with other expertise for examining the global position and satellite phone systems used by the attackers. One unnamed senior Indian intelligence source was quoted as saying that FBI assistance in tracing VoIP calls will be a “test case for U.S. promises.” (Praveen Swami, “Key Test for Indo-U.S. Intelligence Ties” (op-ed), Hindu (Chennai), December 3, 2008; quote in “Terror Boat Was Almost Nabbed Off Mumbai,” Times of India (Delhi), December 10, 2008.)
Summary
On the evening of November 26, 2008, a number of well-trained militants came ashore from the
Arabian Sea on small boats and attacked numerous high-profile targets in Mumbai, India, with
automatic weapons and explosives. By the time the episode ended some 62 hours later, about 165
people, along with nine terrorists, had been killed and hundreds more injured. Among the
multiple sites attacked in the peninsular city known as India’s business and entertainment capital
were two luxury hotels—the Taj Mahal Palace and the Oberoi-Trident—along with the main
railway terminal, a Jewish cultural center, a café frequented by foreigners, a cinema house, and
two hospitals. Six American citizens were among the 26 foreigners reported dead. Indian officials
have concluded that the attackers numbered only ten, one of whom was captured.
The investigation into the attacks is still in preliminary stages, but press reporting and statements
from U.S. and Indian authorities strongly suggest that the attackers came to India from
neighboring Pakistan and that the perpetrators likely were members and acting under the
orchestration of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist group. The LeT is believed to
have past links with Pakistan’s military and intelligence services. By some accounts, these links
are ongoing, leading to suspicions, but no known evidence, of involvement in the attack by
Pakistani state elements. The Islamabad government has strongly condemned the Mumbai
terrorism and offered New Delhi its full cooperation with the ongoing investigation, but mutual
acrimony clouds such an effort, and the attacks have brought into question the viability of a
nearly five-year-old bilateral peace process between India and Pakistan.
Three wars—in 1947-48, 1965, and 1971—and a constant state of military preparedness on both
sides of the border have marked six decades of bitter rivalry between India and Pakistan. Such
bilateral discord between two nuclear-armed countries thus has major implications for regional
security and for U.S. interests. The Administration of President-elect Barack Obama may seek to
increase U.S. diplomatic efforts aimed at resolving conflict between these two countries. The
Mumbai attacks have brought even more intense international attention to the increasingly deadly
and destabilizing incidence of Islamist extremism in South Asia, and they may affect the course
of U.S. policy toward Pakistan, especially. The episode also has major domestic implications for
India, in both the political and security realms. Indian counterterrorism capabilities have come
under intense scrutiny, and the United States may further expand bilateral cooperation with and
assistance to India in this realm.
For broader discussion, see CRS Report RL33529, India-U.S.
Relations, and CRS Report RL33498, Pakistan-U.S. Relations. This report will not be updated.
www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33529.pdf
www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33498.pdf
Chidambaram’s visit cancelled; US report puts focus on 26/11
Livemint Posted: Fri, Jan 9 2009. 12:38 AM IST
Mint could not immediately ascertain whether the home minister’s trip had been put off because of the imminent change in the US leadership
Liz Mathew
New Delhi: Home minister P. Chidambaram’s proposed trip to the US to share evidence about the involvement of Pakistan-based groups in the Mumbai terror attacks has been cancelled even as a US Congressional research report said it may be time to evolve a new foreign policy for South Asia.
In less than two weeks, Barack Obama will take charge as the next president of the US. Mint could not immediately ascertain whether the home minister’s trip had been put off because of the imminent change in the US leadership.
According to a top official in the ministry of external affairs, or MEA, Chidambaram’s visit had been cancelled because India had already handed over evidence establishing links between the attacks and Pakistan-based “elements” to Pakistan and given copies to the US. The official did not want to be identified. When contacted, Chidambaram declined to comment. He had been expected to meet US homeland security secretary Michael Chertoff and secretary of state Condoleezza Rice in Washington.
Meanwhile, the report, “Terrorist Attacks in Mumbai, India and Implications for US Interests”, prepared by the Congressional Research Service for circulation among lawmakers, said the Mumbai attacks could complicate the US’ South Asia policy.
“Potential issues for the 111th Congress with regard to India include legislation that would foster greater US-India counterterrorism relations. With regard to Pakistan, Congressional attention has focused and is likely to remain focused on the programming and potential further conditioning of US foreign assistance, including that related to security and counterterrorism,” the report said.
Pratap Bhanu Mehta, president of the Centre for Policy Research, a Delhi-based think tank, said the attacks have “re-hyphenated India and Pakistan in the US foreign policy” and “it would be a fair hypothesis to say that the Mumbai attacks were partly carried out to complicate US foreign policy”.
“I think it is now time that the US does a fundamental rethink on its Pakistan policy rather than its South Asia diplomatic efforts,” Mehta said.
Former national security advisor Brajesh Mishra said, “Much is going to depend on the (Joe) Biden visit. Obama is sending Biden, along with four colleagues, to see for themselves.” US vice-president-elect Joe Biden is scheduled visit to Pakistan this week.
Independently, Ted Osius, minister counsellor for political affairs at the US embassy in India, told a conference organized by the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce on Thursday that the US would want to look at Russia as an alternative to route its supplies and equipment for bases in Afghanistan and thereby reduce reliance on Pakistan.
Ruhi Tewari, Rahul Chandran and Asit Ranjan Mishra and PTI contributed to this story.
liz.m@livemint.com
http://www.livemint.com/Articles/PrintArticle.aspx?artid=BA08F254-DDB1-11DD-A9CC-000B5DABF636
SP blows hot, and then cold, on pullout threat
8 Jan 2009, 0246 hrs IST, TNN
NEW DELHI: A day after the Supreme Court threw a spanner in the Centre's bid to bail out Mulayam Singh Yadav in the DA case, the Samajwadi Party raised the ante with threats of pullout from the UPA, only to suddenly calm down after an audience with Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.
The sudden rise and fall in SP temper, with party general secretary Amar Singh as protagonist, left political circles bewildered as observers linked the flip-flop to the brazen CBI attempt to get SP chief out of the agency's net.
SP linked its anger to the UPA government's refusal to act decisively against Pakistan, and the late-evening U-turn was also argued around terror, but few were ready to buy the argument.
While the Centre has done its part to help Mulayam Singh out of the CBI net, going to the extent of seeking a withdrawal of the case after having sought the SP chief's prosecution, Samajwadis feel that more needs to be done to clinch the issue.
As the drama played out within a day of the apex court's strong remarks on CBI, the terror-Pakistan link to the rise and drop in SP anger had few takers.
Amar Singh told reporters in the afternoon that SP could withdraw support to UPA as the latter had failed to take decisive action against Pakistan for the Mumbai terror attacks.
"During an all-party meeting 40 days ago, the government had promised party chief Mulayam Singh that decisive action against Pakistan will be taken in 15 days...that deadline is over," he said, adding that a decision would be taken at the parliamentary board meeting on Thursday.
As Congress downplayed the outburst, saying it only showed SP's concern over terrorism, Amar Singh drove to 10, Janpath, for a meeting with Sonia Gandhi. He emerged from her residence to say there was no question of a pullout and that he had only expressed the sentiments of his party workers.
After having built a case around terror in the day-long drama, SP leaders may gather on Thursday to raise the pitch even further. It suits Samajwadis to take a belligerent stand on Pakistan, having realised that public mood has turned completely against the politicking as it did during the Batla House encounter.
SP believes that a tough stance on terror would endear it to voters across the board. That rival Mayawati has also taken a strong line on terror only shows how language of UP politics has changed since the Mumbai attacks.
Brisking neighbour
Officials estimate that the Taliban has either burnt down or blown up more than 140 educational institutions in the past two years. The picture shows students outside a school after it was destroyed in the Kundar village of Swat Valley.
A small bomb blast does not make the headlines in Karachi anymore. The ensuing dialogue is always followed by the same question: how many killed? One, two or even 10 does not merit a pause in the conversation, let alone a prayer for the departed. These stoic rejoinders are not limited to Karachi. Similar reactions punctuate news of bombings all over Pakistan, perhaps with even more pronounced restraint when the incidents take place in the tribal areas. Just as the news of a bomb blast is met with little incredulity, Pakistanis, confronted with an Islamist insurgency spanning into its third year, continue to insist that their daily lives remain unaffected by the upsurge in Islamist violence around the country. The twin symptoms, resignation and denial, are denominators of Pakistan's new 'normal' — defined as it is by violence so commonplace and insecurity so routine that it no longer registers shock or protest.
This redefinition of ordinary has not been gradual. Even a mere five years ago, the Taliban was an idea relegated to beyond the western border in Afghanistan, and tourists continued to swarm areas like Swat for summer vacations. Ski lifts were crowded and guesthouses remained full all season. The death of that Swat is now old news, no longer reported by journalists, either in Pakistan or abroad.
Yet the magnitude of violence and fear unleashed tells a story of how, in a short span of time, a population can be so vastly terrorised that it is rendered effectively mute. Officials estimate that the Taliban has either burnt down or blown up more than 140 educational institutions in the past two years, leaving nearly a million of the children without access to education. With nearly 30 per cent of the girls having withdrawn from schools and colleges anyway, the news of the announcement by Mullah Shah Doran, the Taliban's second in command, that all girls would be forbidden from attending school from January 15, 2008 was relegated to the inside pages of most newspapers.
If the girls in Swat are bearing the brunt of the Taliban campaign against education, the girls daring to go to school in the urban centre of Lahore are not spared either. The bomb squad in the city reported nearly 50 threats to various schools and colleges in the past few months. The threats were part of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan's effort to expand its activities into the cultural capital. As part of this campaign, nearly five "cultural blasts" took place on January 9, 2009 outside theatres which were accused of spreading immorality. The incidents were connected to blasts that took place in the city last year near the Al-Hamra Arts Centre and Garhi Shahu ice cream parlours. The last time the area was threatened, in the form of an anonymous letter written to Shabbir Labha, head of a local trader's organisation, the writer said the area would be bombed if the sale of pornographic CDs was not halted immediately. One day later, traders voluntarily burned 60,000 CDs in a pragmatic move to avert an attack on their market. This most recent "cultural blast," however, came without warning, costing millions of rupees in damage to the theatres.
Singular incidents such as these come and go, but their cumulative effect on the maimed psychology of people is far from being of "low intensity," the term used to describe the explosive used in the most recent Lahore attack. In the past year, Pakistan has overtaken both Iraq and Afghanistan in the number of suicide attacks, with casualties numbering over 600.
No category of targets — from schools to juice shops and from fancy hotels to barber shops — has been spared. The victims have been security officials, businessmen, poor trader women, shopkeepers and, of course, even former Prime Ministers. Television audiences have become used to watching clips of decapitated heads of suicide bombers, which are regularly made available to TV crews after attacks. Everyone knows that when a suicide bomber detonates his explosives, his head pops off and is usually found intact.
The visibility and constant onslaught of violence has a peculiar effect on those witnessing it. As the grasp of the insurgency widens, from the remote tribal areas always, relegated to the recesses of the Pakistani geographical imagination, to the streets of Karachi and even the cultural centre of Lahore, the world of the individual Pakistani constricts further and further. The web of concern and empathy, once expansive enough to encompass fellow countrymen, gets ever narrower, stretching only to include those in ever smaller circles. In contracting their radius of concern, Pakistanis look only to their near and dear, finding solace in the small group that may still remain untouched, and insulating themselves from the assassinated, the kidnapped, the looted and the threatened.
As a result, it is not just bomb blasts that merit little attention, empathy or protest from Pakistanis. Ever worsening crimes — from the live burial of five Balochi women by the relative of a Minister to the unleashing of dogs on a 17-year-old pregnant girl — prompt little mass protest other than by token women's groups and journalists. In a mental exercise engaged in only by the most traumatised, Pakistanis routinely slice their much taxed sympathy into those few that matter and the millions that don't. In the words of one Karachi-ite, "I look down, do my work, pick my children up from school and don't worry too much about what is happening. It's the only way I can survive here."
And then there are the moral conundrums permeated by violence that strategically attacks a set of confused ideological premises which have long plagued the moral conscience of Pakistanis. One area where this confusion is glaring is the regulation of cultural practices considered un-Islamic under the draconian Taliban rubric. It is thus not just the Taliban threats that have an impact on local populations but their reverberations. One example is the Lahore High Court's recent decision to ban 'mujra,' the age-old dance form practised in Lahore for nearly 400 years.
Following the ruling, the theatres where the dancers performed went on strike, prompting the court to reverse the ban and order the dancers to "wear shawls covering their necks and wear shoes." Necks and bare feet were considered too erotic, and hence impermissible. The moral of the story is clear: in a society unsure of the religious merit of its culture and unable to articulate the place of religion, all ills can be blamed on the guilty pleasures that can produce moral shame, and hence justify terror. In this case, the misogyny heaped on female entertainers and the guilt of those selling and consuming their product are effectively used to valorise even the terror produced by the Taliban. When those enjoyments relegated to the guilty recesses of consumption are attacked, their elimination, however crude, is painted as purification rather than denigration of society.
In the years and months since the Taliban insurgency has taken hold, its measure has been taken in lives lost and property damaged. Little effort has been made, however, to evaluate how the incursion of religious extremism has altered civil and social life in Pakistan. The indirect effects of the constriction of empathy, the tacit acceptance of insecurity and the self-imposed moral monism that is intolerant of all differences are effects that have a longer and much more drastic effect. This can already be seen in the muffled non-existence of civil society that can no longer organise or conceptualise a position on any political or legislative issue.
If Pakistan does not have a national, organised movement of civil society groups against terror, it is not because Pakistanis are not suffering. The conglomeration of a survivalist indifference, in which caring is reserved not for the larger world but for the chosen few of one's immediate circle, and the confusion of faith and its role as a moral regulator are ultimately giving birth to a new, more menacing definition of normalcy.
In a country where the population is inured to violence and has resigned itself to persecution, there can be little expectation of political organisation or representation beyond the most illusory. Lulled into catatonia by such pervasive helplessness,
Pakistanis can do little except deny that the violence exists, persecutes and targets them every single day, or stubbornly insist that even if it does, it means little and that life — simply if uncertainly — goes on just as before, with a new definition of normal.
Barbarians at the gate
There is sufficient reason to be worried about the gutless civilian Government in Pakistan abjectly capitulating to the Islamic fanatics of Swat Valley who have prohibited girls from attending school, ordered women to stay at home, instructed parents to give their daughters as ‘wives’ to the Taliban, begun flogging men in public squares, and will soon replace popular entertainment by way of films and music with stoning victims of rape to death in bazaars. With the Tehreek-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Muhammadi — never mind that we are talking about the Pakistani variety of Mullah Omar’s masked Afghan killers — virtually coming to power in Malakand division of North-West Frontier Province, reducing the secular ANP Government to no more than a nominal ‘authority’ forced to do Islamabad’s bidding, it’s only a matter of time before the geographic expanse of ‘Jihadistan’ increases to consume large chunks of what remains of Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s moth-eaten Pakistan.
It’s really of little or no relevance that last week’s ‘peace deal’ hinges on the imposition of ‘Nizam-e-Adl’, or shari’ah criminal law: Malakand won’t be the only place in the world where limbs will be chopped off for petty offences or women done to death for the crimes of men. Nor should we be unduly impressed by Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari’s description of the Taliban as “murderous thugs and militants” who “pose a danger to Pakistan, the US and India”. Surely he hasn’t forgotten that it was Benazir Bhutto who connived with the ISI to promote the Taliban, nor should he pretend to be ignorant of the fact that it was Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto who aggressively preached “Islam is the solution, the Islamic Bomb is the means”. Having sent Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to the gallows, Gen Zia-ul-Haq could not but have aggressively pushed Islamism and its attendant evils. The poison fruit is now for the PPP and the people of Pakistan to relish.
Mr Arun Jaitley of the BJP was not being facetious when he said that the Taliban are a mere five hours away from India. Parliament may have missed the point and the Prime Minister’s flatterers may be upset that he should have compared the absentee head of Government as a ‘night watchman’, but it would be outright stupid to ignore the fact that the barbarians are at the gate. Let us also bear in mind that the Deobandi madarsas which produced the taliban who then went on to become the Taliban — in Pakistan and Afghanistan — are not entirely dissimilar to the madarsas which have mushroomed across the length and breadth of India, nurtured by both mullahs and their patrons in the ‘secular’ political parties, of which the Congress is just one example.
Let it also be said that the ‘intolerance’ of the Taliban which so alarms us is not specific to the ‘murderous thugs’ of Swat Valley and Kandahar. We have seen dissident Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen being hounded out of Kolkata by Islamic fanatics and forced to leave India by the ‘secular’ UPA Government which now wrings its hands and waxes eloquent on the dangers of the rise of Talibani fanaticism. If only such concern had been expressed over the editor and publisher of The Statesman being arrested for reproducing a scintillating article from The Independent, written by Johann Hari, Mr Anand Sharma’s vapid reaction to the fall of Swat Valley would have carried some conviction. If Pakistan is now paying a steep price for its duplicitous policy of using violent Islamism to further its strategic interests in Afghanistan and bleed India through a ‘thousand cuts’, we too shall pay a price for following a line of least resistance and legitimising appeasement by grafting what the Prime Minister described as “Muslims first” to the policies of an allegedly secular state.
There are other similarities which make India as vulnerable as Pakistan to the scourge of Taliban. For all its emphasis on subjugating the country to the supremacy of Islam, of being one with the ummah, and its repeated proclamation of the equality of Muslims, Pakistan has abysmally failed to deliver good governance. Elected Prime Ministers and military dictators have equally fleeced the country, pushed the masses deeper into poverty, made a mockery of the judicial system, and maintained a dissolute elite’s hegemony over Pakistan’s politics, economy and society. Islamism was once a useful means to distract the masses and silence critics. Islamism now has become a powerful tool to mobilise the masses against the elite. Real grievances and imagined victimhood have coalesced to create a fetid swamp that breeds the deadliest of germs, of which the Taliban is a particularly venomous species.
Cut to India. The vast Muslim underclass remains unaffected and untouched by the Prime Minister’s “Muslims first” creed. While Mr Manmohan Singh spends sleepless nights agonising over the plight of those suspected to be involved in jihadi terrorism, millions of Muslims spend sleepless nights — as do millions of Hindus — wondering where their next meal is going to come from. When the Government decides to reward the families of slain jihadis, it sends out a loud message to Muslims: Take up the gun, die in action, ensure a better life for your families. By casting aspersions on Delhi Police and accusing them of killing ‘innocent’ Muslims, the Prime Minister’s Cabinet colleagues encourage moderates to turn extremists. When madarsas are euologised and Saraswati Sishu Mandir schools are relentlessly demonised, the ulema feel sufficiently emboldened to include hate in their teachings. When the Government slyly allows the setting up of qazi courts, which dispense justice according to shari’ah, and lets them function without so much as a whimper of protest, it tells Muslims that India’s secular justice system is incapable of protecting their interests. When a wholly illegitimate All-India Muslim Personal Law Board is allowed to dictate how Muslims should run their personal lives, the state abdicates its responsibility to its citizens. As in Pakistan, here too the Government has come to believe that Islam is a substitute for jobs, housing and health services. Azamgarh to Alappuzha, Dibrugarh to Dharwad, a fetid swamp similar to that of Pakistan’s is spreading; the ‘Indian Mujahideen’ are the produce of this swamp.
The distance between Swat Valley and Islamabad is 160 km. Jamia Nagar is in Delhi.
It’s really of little or no relevance that last week’s ‘peace deal’ hinges on the imposition of ‘Nizam-e-Adl’, or shari’ah criminal law: Malakand won’t be the only place in the world where limbs will be chopped off for petty offences or women done to death for the crimes of men. Nor should we be unduly impressed by Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari’s description of the Taliban as “murderous thugs and militants” who “pose a danger to Pakistan, the US and India”. Surely he hasn’t forgotten that it was Benazir Bhutto who connived with the ISI to promote the Taliban, nor should he pretend to be ignorant of the fact that it was Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto who aggressively preached “Islam is the solution, the Islamic Bomb is the means”. Having sent Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to the gallows, Gen Zia-ul-Haq could not but have aggressively pushed Islamism and its attendant evils. The poison fruit is now for the PPP and the people of Pakistan to relish.
Mr Arun Jaitley of the BJP was not being facetious when he said that the Taliban are a mere five hours away from India. Parliament may have missed the point and the Prime Minister’s flatterers may be upset that he should have compared the absentee head of Government as a ‘night watchman’, but it would be outright stupid to ignore the fact that the barbarians are at the gate. Let us also bear in mind that the Deobandi madarsas which produced the taliban who then went on to become the Taliban — in Pakistan and Afghanistan — are not entirely dissimilar to the madarsas which have mushroomed across the length and breadth of India, nurtured by both mullahs and their patrons in the ‘secular’ political parties, of which the Congress is just one example.
Let it also be said that the ‘intolerance’ of the Taliban which so alarms us is not specific to the ‘murderous thugs’ of Swat Valley and Kandahar. We have seen dissident Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen being hounded out of Kolkata by Islamic fanatics and forced to leave India by the ‘secular’ UPA Government which now wrings its hands and waxes eloquent on the dangers of the rise of Talibani fanaticism. If only such concern had been expressed over the editor and publisher of The Statesman being arrested for reproducing a scintillating article from The Independent, written by Johann Hari, Mr Anand Sharma’s vapid reaction to the fall of Swat Valley would have carried some conviction. If Pakistan is now paying a steep price for its duplicitous policy of using violent Islamism to further its strategic interests in Afghanistan and bleed India through a ‘thousand cuts’, we too shall pay a price for following a line of least resistance and legitimising appeasement by grafting what the Prime Minister described as “Muslims first” to the policies of an allegedly secular state.
There are other similarities which make India as vulnerable as Pakistan to the scourge of Taliban. For all its emphasis on subjugating the country to the supremacy of Islam, of being one with the ummah, and its repeated proclamation of the equality of Muslims, Pakistan has abysmally failed to deliver good governance. Elected Prime Ministers and military dictators have equally fleeced the country, pushed the masses deeper into poverty, made a mockery of the judicial system, and maintained a dissolute elite’s hegemony over Pakistan’s politics, economy and society. Islamism was once a useful means to distract the masses and silence critics. Islamism now has become a powerful tool to mobilise the masses against the elite. Real grievances and imagined victimhood have coalesced to create a fetid swamp that breeds the deadliest of germs, of which the Taliban is a particularly venomous species.
Cut to India. The vast Muslim underclass remains unaffected and untouched by the Prime Minister’s “Muslims first” creed. While Mr Manmohan Singh spends sleepless nights agonising over the plight of those suspected to be involved in jihadi terrorism, millions of Muslims spend sleepless nights — as do millions of Hindus — wondering where their next meal is going to come from. When the Government decides to reward the families of slain jihadis, it sends out a loud message to Muslims: Take up the gun, die in action, ensure a better life for your families. By casting aspersions on Delhi Police and accusing them of killing ‘innocent’ Muslims, the Prime Minister’s Cabinet colleagues encourage moderates to turn extremists. When madarsas are euologised and Saraswati Sishu Mandir schools are relentlessly demonised, the ulema feel sufficiently emboldened to include hate in their teachings. When the Government slyly allows the setting up of qazi courts, which dispense justice according to shari’ah, and lets them function without so much as a whimper of protest, it tells Muslims that India’s secular justice system is incapable of protecting their interests. When a wholly illegitimate All-India Muslim Personal Law Board is allowed to dictate how Muslims should run their personal lives, the state abdicates its responsibility to its citizens. As in Pakistan, here too the Government has come to believe that Islam is a substitute for jobs, housing and health services. Azamgarh to Alappuzha, Dibrugarh to Dharwad, a fetid swamp similar to that of Pakistan’s is spreading; the ‘Indian Mujahideen’ are the produce of this swamp.
The distance between Swat Valley and Islamabad is 160 km. Jamia Nagar is in Delhi.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
पख्तून राष्ट्रवाद का यथार्थ
This was a good article from Dainik Jagran(Hindi Daily)-just go through its good
भले ही राष्ट्रपति बराक ओबामा कुछ शर्तें लगाएं, लेकिन पाकिस्तान को अमेरिकी सहायता एक मजबूरी बन गई है। अमेरिकी विदेश मंत्री हिलेरी क्लिंटन के मुताबिक जरूरी है कि पाकिस्तान में लोकतंत्र को मजबूत किया जाए। पाकिस्तानी प्रशासन के भाग्य से किसी को भी ईष्र्या हो सकती है। पाकिस्तान आज भी बेहतर ब्लैकमेल की स्थिति में है। सोवियत संघ के खिलाफ तालिबान को खड़ा करने के लिए 3.2 अरब डालर, तालिबान के खात्मे के लिए 8 अरब डालर और अब लोकतंत्र मजबूती के लिए दी जा रही रकम दोनों को मिलाकर भी उससे कहीं अधिक होने की संभावना है। पाकिस्तान को असैनिक सहायता से सैन्य साजोसामान खरीदने की महारथ हासिल है। सिर्फ अकाउंट बुक में हेरफेर की जरूरत है, इससे ज्यादा और कुछ नहीं। अगर अमेरिका पाकिस्तान को सिर्फ उसके भाग्य के भरोसे छोड़ दे तो भी समस्या का समाधान हो जाए। साम्राज्यवादी काल के अंत में पश्चिमी शक्तियों ने एशिया में इजरायल और पाकिस्तान के रूप में दो बड़े नासूर दे दिए। उनका रणनीतिक उद्देश्य एक तो अरब दुनिया और दूसरा भारत की महत्वाकांक्षाओं को नियंत्रित करना था। अब वे चौधरी बनकर अपनी ही पैदा की हुई समस्याओं का समाधान हम पर थोप रहे हैं। अमेरिका की भौतिकवादी सोच भारतीय उपमहाद्वीप और पश्चिम एशिया के क्षेत्र का मनोविज्ञान समझ नहीं पाती। अफगान विजय के बाद जुनूनी तालिबान का जिहाद में विश्वास दृढ़ होता गया। पाकिस्तानी सेना और आईएसआई के मजहबीकरण के बाद से यह संभव नहीं है कि पाकिस्तानी सेना को तालिबान के विरुद्ध युद्ध करने के लिए एक सीमा से आगे मजबूर किया जा सके। अब सदियों बाद परमाणुसंपन्न सेना की मजबूत इस्लामिक धुरी आकार ले रही है। वह विचारधारा जिसने दुनिया को दारुल इस्लाम और दारुल हरब में बांट रखा है, के वैश्विक एजेंडे के लिए इससे उपयुक्त अवसर और कौन सा है? अमेरिका को समझना होगा कि उनकी सहायता आतंक की समस्या को कितनी मुश्किल बनाती जा रही है।
अफगान और पख्तून वे कौमे हैं जिन्हें गुलामी के विचार मात्र से गहरी नफरत है। उनके भीतर विद्रोह और खुदमुख्तारी की भावना इसलिए भी जबरदस्त है, क्योंकि उन्हें अपनी सरकारें चलाने का अवसर कम मिला है। परिणामस्वरूप वे कबीलाई स्वायत्तता के टापुओं में तब्दील होते गए। तानाशाहों ने वहां कबीलाई व्यवस्था में दखल दिए बिना शासन किया है। वे अपने उसी मध्यकालीन कबाइली समाज की मानसिकता में आज भी कैद हैं। उनके लिए वक्त उसी दौर में ठहर गया है जहां जिहाद इंसान का बुनियादी दायित्व था। जिहाद और राष्ट्रीयता परस्पर विरोधी विचार हैं। जिहाद एक विद्रोह है नई पहचान के लिए, इसके विपरीत राष्ट्रीयता अस्तित्व का स्वीकार है। पाकिस्तान की सरकारें डालरों के लिए दूसरी भाषा बोलती हैं, लेकिन पाकिस्तान का आम नागरिक अमेरिका से घृणा करता है। अमेरिका के मुद्दे पर तालिबान और पाकिस्तान एक साथ हैं। वे जानते हैं कि अमेरिका तेल मुल्कों की राजनीति और अर्थव्यवस्था अपने अनुसार चलाना चाहता है। अमेरिकी समझते हैं कि लोकतंत्र लादकर वे इस्लामी जगत को नियंत्रित कर लेंगे। लोकतंत्र को लेकर दोहरे अमेरिकी प्रतिमान इससे भी जाहिर हैं कि वे सऊदी अरब में लोकतंत्र नहीं, बल्कि सुल्तानों का ही शासन चाहते हैं। इसलिए लोकतंत्र जब तक अमेरिकी हाथों में है, उसे उनका हथियार ही समझा जाएगा।
नार्थ वेस्ट फ्रंटियर प्राविंस जिसे आजादी से पहले सरहदी सूबा कहा जाता था, को कभी भगवान बुद्ध और उनके काफी बाद खां अब्दुल गफ्फार खां ने शांति का पाठ पढ़ाया। अंग्रेजों की जिन्ना से मिलीभगत के कारण 1946 में खां साहब की चुनी हुई सरकार को बर्खास्त कर उसे पाकिस्तान के हवाले कर दिया गया। खां अब्दुल गफ्फार खां ने आजादी के बाद कहा भी था कि कांग्रेस द्वारा पख्तूनों को भेड़िये की मांद में धकेल दिया गया। पाकिस्तान की राजनीति में इतने बरसों में पख्तून हाशिये पर ही रहे और अपने इलाके में खुदमुख्तारी का परचम लहराते रहे। वे मुहाजिरों के दबाव में बने पाकिस्तान के कभी भी दिली समर्थक नहीं थे। पाकिस्तान ने मजहब की आड़ में उन्हें कभी कश्मीर में तो कभी रूस के खिलाफ इस्तेमाल किया, लेकिन इतने वर्षों में उनकी जिंदगी में तालीम की रोशनी नहीं आने दी। जब उन्हें तालिब या शिक्षित बनाने का वक्त आया तो उन्हें रूस के खिलाफ लड़ने के लिए जिहादी तालिबान बना दिया गया। पाकिस्तानी सेनाओं द्वारा अब तक सिर्फ इनका इस्तेमाल किया गया है, सत्ता व अधिकार में कोई भागीदारी नहीं दी गई। पख्तूनों के इलाके को अफगानिस्तान और पाकिस्तान की सरहदों में बांट दिया जाना एक बड़ी ऐतिहासिक गलती थी। अंग्रेज यह नहीं समझे कि पख्तूनों को सीमाओं में बांटना संभव नहीं है। वह राष्ट्रवाद जिसे मजहब की आड़ में दबाया गया, अब जिहाद के रूप में अभिव्यक्त हो रहा है।
अब रास्ता क्या है? अगर पाकिस्तानी सेना, तालिबान, और अलकायदा के संयुक्त तंत्र को तोड़ना है तो पख्तून काउंसिल या 'लोया-जिरगा' की परंपरा में पख्तून समाज के सत्ता व अधिकार की बात करनी पड़ेगी। उन्हें अपने इलाके की खुदमुख्तारी देनी पड़ेगी। पख्तून क्षेत्र को बांटने वाली डूरंड लाइन को दरकिनार कर उन्हें वह आजादी देनी पड़ेगी जो पश्तो कवि स्व. कबीर स्तोराई की शायरी में मुखर है और सदियों से पख्तून समाज का ख्वाब रही है। अगर अमेरिकी नीति-नियंता पख्तून राष्ट्रवाद को समझेंगे तो तालिबान और अलकायदा के भूत के गायब होने का रास्ता दिखना प्रारंभ हो जाएगा। आईएसआई और पाकिस्तानी सेना इसी पख्तून राष्ट्रवाद से भयभीत होकर उन्हें वैश्विक मजहबी साम्राज्य का सब्जबाग दिखा रही है। पख्तून राष्ट्रवाद की असलियत स्वीकार करते हुए सरहदी सूबे को पाकिस्तान की गुलामी से मुक्ति देनी होगी। तालिबान और जिहाद के फलस्वरूप समस्याओं के समाधान के मद्देनजर क्या अमेरिका इसके लिए तैयार है?
[आर. विक्रम सिंह पूर्व सैन्य अधिकारी हैं]
भले ही राष्ट्रपति बराक ओबामा कुछ शर्तें लगाएं, लेकिन पाकिस्तान को अमेरिकी सहायता एक मजबूरी बन गई है। अमेरिकी विदेश मंत्री हिलेरी क्लिंटन के मुताबिक जरूरी है कि पाकिस्तान में लोकतंत्र को मजबूत किया जाए। पाकिस्तानी प्रशासन के भाग्य से किसी को भी ईष्र्या हो सकती है। पाकिस्तान आज भी बेहतर ब्लैकमेल की स्थिति में है। सोवियत संघ के खिलाफ तालिबान को खड़ा करने के लिए 3.2 अरब डालर, तालिबान के खात्मे के लिए 8 अरब डालर और अब लोकतंत्र मजबूती के लिए दी जा रही रकम दोनों को मिलाकर भी उससे कहीं अधिक होने की संभावना है। पाकिस्तान को असैनिक सहायता से सैन्य साजोसामान खरीदने की महारथ हासिल है। सिर्फ अकाउंट बुक में हेरफेर की जरूरत है, इससे ज्यादा और कुछ नहीं। अगर अमेरिका पाकिस्तान को सिर्फ उसके भाग्य के भरोसे छोड़ दे तो भी समस्या का समाधान हो जाए। साम्राज्यवादी काल के अंत में पश्चिमी शक्तियों ने एशिया में इजरायल और पाकिस्तान के रूप में दो बड़े नासूर दे दिए। उनका रणनीतिक उद्देश्य एक तो अरब दुनिया और दूसरा भारत की महत्वाकांक्षाओं को नियंत्रित करना था। अब वे चौधरी बनकर अपनी ही पैदा की हुई समस्याओं का समाधान हम पर थोप रहे हैं। अमेरिका की भौतिकवादी सोच भारतीय उपमहाद्वीप और पश्चिम एशिया के क्षेत्र का मनोविज्ञान समझ नहीं पाती। अफगान विजय के बाद जुनूनी तालिबान का जिहाद में विश्वास दृढ़ होता गया। पाकिस्तानी सेना और आईएसआई के मजहबीकरण के बाद से यह संभव नहीं है कि पाकिस्तानी सेना को तालिबान के विरुद्ध युद्ध करने के लिए एक सीमा से आगे मजबूर किया जा सके। अब सदियों बाद परमाणुसंपन्न सेना की मजबूत इस्लामिक धुरी आकार ले रही है। वह विचारधारा जिसने दुनिया को दारुल इस्लाम और दारुल हरब में बांट रखा है, के वैश्विक एजेंडे के लिए इससे उपयुक्त अवसर और कौन सा है? अमेरिका को समझना होगा कि उनकी सहायता आतंक की समस्या को कितनी मुश्किल बनाती जा रही है।
अफगान और पख्तून वे कौमे हैं जिन्हें गुलामी के विचार मात्र से गहरी नफरत है। उनके भीतर विद्रोह और खुदमुख्तारी की भावना इसलिए भी जबरदस्त है, क्योंकि उन्हें अपनी सरकारें चलाने का अवसर कम मिला है। परिणामस्वरूप वे कबीलाई स्वायत्तता के टापुओं में तब्दील होते गए। तानाशाहों ने वहां कबीलाई व्यवस्था में दखल दिए बिना शासन किया है। वे अपने उसी मध्यकालीन कबाइली समाज की मानसिकता में आज भी कैद हैं। उनके लिए वक्त उसी दौर में ठहर गया है जहां जिहाद इंसान का बुनियादी दायित्व था। जिहाद और राष्ट्रीयता परस्पर विरोधी विचार हैं। जिहाद एक विद्रोह है नई पहचान के लिए, इसके विपरीत राष्ट्रीयता अस्तित्व का स्वीकार है। पाकिस्तान की सरकारें डालरों के लिए दूसरी भाषा बोलती हैं, लेकिन पाकिस्तान का आम नागरिक अमेरिका से घृणा करता है। अमेरिका के मुद्दे पर तालिबान और पाकिस्तान एक साथ हैं। वे जानते हैं कि अमेरिका तेल मुल्कों की राजनीति और अर्थव्यवस्था अपने अनुसार चलाना चाहता है। अमेरिकी समझते हैं कि लोकतंत्र लादकर वे इस्लामी जगत को नियंत्रित कर लेंगे। लोकतंत्र को लेकर दोहरे अमेरिकी प्रतिमान इससे भी जाहिर हैं कि वे सऊदी अरब में लोकतंत्र नहीं, बल्कि सुल्तानों का ही शासन चाहते हैं। इसलिए लोकतंत्र जब तक अमेरिकी हाथों में है, उसे उनका हथियार ही समझा जाएगा।
नार्थ वेस्ट फ्रंटियर प्राविंस जिसे आजादी से पहले सरहदी सूबा कहा जाता था, को कभी भगवान बुद्ध और उनके काफी बाद खां अब्दुल गफ्फार खां ने शांति का पाठ पढ़ाया। अंग्रेजों की जिन्ना से मिलीभगत के कारण 1946 में खां साहब की चुनी हुई सरकार को बर्खास्त कर उसे पाकिस्तान के हवाले कर दिया गया। खां अब्दुल गफ्फार खां ने आजादी के बाद कहा भी था कि कांग्रेस द्वारा पख्तूनों को भेड़िये की मांद में धकेल दिया गया। पाकिस्तान की राजनीति में इतने बरसों में पख्तून हाशिये पर ही रहे और अपने इलाके में खुदमुख्तारी का परचम लहराते रहे। वे मुहाजिरों के दबाव में बने पाकिस्तान के कभी भी दिली समर्थक नहीं थे। पाकिस्तान ने मजहब की आड़ में उन्हें कभी कश्मीर में तो कभी रूस के खिलाफ इस्तेमाल किया, लेकिन इतने वर्षों में उनकी जिंदगी में तालीम की रोशनी नहीं आने दी। जब उन्हें तालिब या शिक्षित बनाने का वक्त आया तो उन्हें रूस के खिलाफ लड़ने के लिए जिहादी तालिबान बना दिया गया। पाकिस्तानी सेनाओं द्वारा अब तक सिर्फ इनका इस्तेमाल किया गया है, सत्ता व अधिकार में कोई भागीदारी नहीं दी गई। पख्तूनों के इलाके को अफगानिस्तान और पाकिस्तान की सरहदों में बांट दिया जाना एक बड़ी ऐतिहासिक गलती थी। अंग्रेज यह नहीं समझे कि पख्तूनों को सीमाओं में बांटना संभव नहीं है। वह राष्ट्रवाद जिसे मजहब की आड़ में दबाया गया, अब जिहाद के रूप में अभिव्यक्त हो रहा है।
अब रास्ता क्या है? अगर पाकिस्तानी सेना, तालिबान, और अलकायदा के संयुक्त तंत्र को तोड़ना है तो पख्तून काउंसिल या 'लोया-जिरगा' की परंपरा में पख्तून समाज के सत्ता व अधिकार की बात करनी पड़ेगी। उन्हें अपने इलाके की खुदमुख्तारी देनी पड़ेगी। पख्तून क्षेत्र को बांटने वाली डूरंड लाइन को दरकिनार कर उन्हें वह आजादी देनी पड़ेगी जो पश्तो कवि स्व. कबीर स्तोराई की शायरी में मुखर है और सदियों से पख्तून समाज का ख्वाब रही है। अगर अमेरिकी नीति-नियंता पख्तून राष्ट्रवाद को समझेंगे तो तालिबान और अलकायदा के भूत के गायब होने का रास्ता दिखना प्रारंभ हो जाएगा। आईएसआई और पाकिस्तानी सेना इसी पख्तून राष्ट्रवाद से भयभीत होकर उन्हें वैश्विक मजहबी साम्राज्य का सब्जबाग दिखा रही है। पख्तून राष्ट्रवाद की असलियत स्वीकार करते हुए सरहदी सूबे को पाकिस्तान की गुलामी से मुक्ति देनी होगी। तालिबान और जिहाद के फलस्वरूप समस्याओं के समाधान के मद्देनजर क्या अमेरिका इसके लिए तैयार है?
[आर. विक्रम सिंह पूर्व सैन्य अधिकारी हैं]
Monday, February 2, 2009
A strategy to deter terrorism
Most prominent national security analysts have argued that in countering terrorist threats, deterrent strategies as formulated for conventional warfare have no significant role to play in combating terrorism. A 2002 Rand Corporation study asserts: "The concept of deterrence is both too limiting and too naive to be applicable to the war on terrorism."
Within the coming four years, we have to prepare to pre-empt this holocaust by making meaningful allies and drawing up a strategy. This necessarily means an US, Israel, and India compact. The LeT has delivered in effect that message to the world by brutal murders on 26/11 and thus written the message for us in blood.
In the human body, when the cells start to grow independently of the brain, we say that the body has cancer. Pakistan as a nation thus is suffering from political cancer. After another few, may be four, years this cancer will become terminal.
In four years, I reckon that the Taliban, Mullah, ISI and Army government will unite to form a unified jehadi government. Zardari will then have to return to Dubai and the rest of the prominent members of Pakistani civil society will end up as kafirs in a morgue. Thereafter, India will have nothing left to piously debate about Pakistan on 24/7 TV channels because a jehadi nuclear war will be on the cards. Hence if we do not risk a war with Pakistan at a time of our choosing, we shall have a war anyway of the united jehadi government after four years at the time of their choosing.
Hence, within the coming four years, we have to prepare to pre-empt this holocaust by making meaningful allies and drawing up a strategy. This necessarily means a US, Israel and India compact. The LeT has delivered in effect that message to the world by brutal murders on 26/11 and thus written the message for us in blood.
I do however think our neighbour, and Pakistan's unwavering benefactor, China, has to be kept in the loop, and won over. It can be done because China cannot survive as an economic power without the US. The recent financial crisis has proved that convincingly. Moreover, China has a Islamic fundamentalist problem brewing in Xinjiang, and would be interested in ending it, particularly the infiltration from Kazhakstan and Turkmenistan.
But the core countries of our strategic planning have to be those who have been long identified by Osama bin Laden as the enemies of Islam: US, Israel and India.
Today destiny has bound us together for a common purpose: the extermination of terrorism from the face of the earth by going to its festering source: Islamic fundamentalist theology embedded in the Koran, Sira and Hadith. The hardliners are in control, and their inspiration is Umar of the Caliphate.
All the humane sounding verses quoted by apologists from Koranic texts are really reserved for "believers" i.e., Muslims. For others especially non-kitabis, only brutality, murder and reducing to degrading dhimmi status are prescribed. Let us therefore not be under any illusions. There is therefore no such thing as a "moderate" Muslim. Either one is a Muslim or a renegade equivalent to a kafir. There is no room in Islamic theology for a third alternative believer.
A study by Peter Hammond concludes that where Muslim population in a country is less than 5 per cent, that population does not agitate for a separate law, the Sharia, in fact the community totally integrates itself with the majority in society. He cites the US and Australia as examples. Where the population of Muslims is between 5 per cent and 15 per cent they start agitating on religious grievances and separate identity. He gives India, France and UK as examples. When the population crosses 15 per cent and reaches 40 per cent, then an aggressive struggle by Muslims for autonomy starts. Thus India is at the threshold percentage today. Hammonds analysis corresponds to the classification of countries in Islamic theology: Darul Islam where Muslims rule, Darul Harab where Muslims are not in power but as a minority can agitate by fair or foul, hook or crook, to convert these countries to Darul Islam, and Darul Ahad (or Taqqiya) where a Muslim in minority risk the wrath of the majority, and hence Muslims must be compliant to the wishes of the majority for survival. Islamic theology does not, however as Hammond does, classify nations according to percentage of Muslim population but according to the nature of the majority—whether it is united and aggressive or divided and passive. India is in the latter category, and hence even where Muslims are less than five per cent as in Tamil Nadu, in pockets in the state where Muslims are in majority such as Thondi in Ramanathapuram district or Melvisharam in Vellore district, Muslims have established Darul Islam where Hindus are denied all civic amenities and live defacto as dhimmis. In Kashmir, where statewise they are in a narrow majority, they have engaged in religious cleansing to achieve Darul Islam by driving out half a million Hindus and Sikhs and made them refugees in a 83 per cent Hindu country. Only the Indian army is holding back the establishment of Darul Islam in Kashmir.
I do not blame Islam for this behaviour but find fault with the Hindus for not understanding the nature of Islamic theology even after a 1000 year experience of brutal Islamic rule, or by the betrayal by Ali brothers of Mahatma Gandhi following the foolish Khilafat movement, or the religious cleansing in Kashmir. Globally today, no Muslim nation permits any other religion to be practised even inside one's home, nor permits gender equality as even a goal, or regards democracy as a human value.
No Muslim can be a "moderate" unless he risks becoming a kafir. The experience of Rushdie and Taslima should leave no one in doubt about this. That is why I insist that unless an Indian Muslim proudly acknowledges that his ancestors are Hindus, and hence Hindu civilisation is his or her legacy too, he or she cannot be treated as an equal citizen in India. We need this commitment from the Muslims of India to secure our nation and civilisation from jehadi terror from abroad. According to me, even if half the 83 per cent Hindus unite above caste and linguistic divisions, Muslims will accept this historical truth of being descendents of Hindus. India then can become through the democratic process a virat brihad Hindu nation, where Hindus and Muslims can live securely as blood brothers.
At the same time, let us be clear not to go overboard, as we are prone to do, in forging the US-Israel-India compact against Islamic terrorism. The US interest will always remain to make India into another Australia or Japan, a reliable, pliant, and neutered poodle. But Indian mindset must never waver on the basic goal of a virat brihad Hindutva, and to make India a power of global reach.
Every concession to the US therefore must be negotiated as a return for India's emergence in the global power structure as a pole. India has one asset that the US or Israel does not have, but urgently needs—a huge labour surplus of gifted and intelligent individuals—our demographic dividend now available thanks to the resounding defeat of the Congress in 1977 by the Janata Party and thus putting an end to its horrid nasbandi campaign.
Hence, wherever there exists a "demographic hole" in these two societies, we must offer to fill it. That means readiness to make available our best brains for R&D, and to deploy our army, airforce, and navy in any theatre that they cannot adequately. In return, we must get them to build our infrastructure, modernising our armed forces, and develop our agro-industries with market access.
This bonding is sufficient to make the US-Israel-India compact durable and rewarding for us. Without India the other two cannot fight Islamic terrorism in the most important theatres of the world.
With this compact in place, our virat brihad Hindu identity or Hindutva clearly defined and assimiliated, India can formulate a strategy for deterrence against terrorism that nullifies the political objectives of the patrons of terrorists.
India is today infested with a host of terrorist insurgency. The JKLF, SIMI, ULFA, the PWG, the Maoists, the Tripura TNA, the Naxalites, the Naga terrorists, the Manipur terrorists, etc., etc. They can be crushed quickly except for one factor: The support given to them by Pakistan and Bangladesh. Pakistan's support is via the ISI, a wing of the army, which engages also in fake Indian currency to finance such activities. Pakistani involvement is not because its civil society wants it, but because of the Islamic fervour in the army that is not reconciled to the defeat of its forces in Bangladesh. The same Islamic fervour has turned the Bangladesh establishment against India, and hence with the help of the ISI, AI Qaeda has through it's Indonesian wing established a base to help these terrorists and also to develop the HuJI which is emerging as the human infrastructure of the terrorists in India. Thus, Islam is the heart and Pakistan is the brain of terrorism devil in India. Challenging Islam in the realm of ideas, without diluting the debate with secular platitudes, jamming the brain of terror, and destructing its human infrastructure embedded in Indians the core of a strategy to deter terrorism. This means sanitising Pakistan and truncating Bangladesh is required.
Most prominent national security analysts have argued that in countering terrorist threats, deterrent strategies as formulated for conventional warfare have no significant role to play in combating terrorism. A 2002 Rand Corporation study asserts: "The concept of deterrence is both too limiting and too naive to be applicable to the war on terrorism.1' US President's National Security Strategy document states: "Traditional' concepts of deterrence will not work against a terrorist enemy".
Of course. I am not concerned here with "traditional concepts" but with new ideas to combat the new form of warfare—clandestine violence under the name of terrorism.
This overwhelming consensus against efficacy of deterrence has now been challenged by two US based scholars, Robert Trager and Desseslava Zagorcheva [in "Deterring Terrorism - It can be Done" International Security Journal (Harvard-MIT publication, Vol.30. No. 3, 2006)]
According to them the case against the use of deterrence strategies in counter-terrorist campaigns appears to rest on three pillars. First, terrorists are thought to be irrational, and therefore unresponsive to the cost-benefit calculation required in successful deterrence. Second, many terrorists are said to be so highly motivated that they are willing to die, and so not deterred by fear of punishment or of anything else. Third, even if terrorists were afraid of punishment, they cannot be deterred because they lack or have a shifting "return address"1 on which retaliation can be visited. Therefore if terrorists' base cannot be found, the use of force against them is useless, eounterterrorist strategies that advocate addressing "root causes", such as by "winning hearts and minds'', economic packages and promoting human rights, are for the long run. The required cure is however for the short run.
Trager and Zagorcheva argue that neverthrelress even the most highly motivated terrorists can be deterred by holding at risk the political goals of their patrons and financier rather than by threatening the life or liberty of the terrorists themselves.
Thus from a policy perspective, my view is that the ability of a terrorist targeted nation to put political goals of the patrons of the terrorists and their benefactors at risk stands the best chance deterring terrorism, and hence is the most important objective of counter-terrorism policy.
The structure of a counter-terrorism policy and the selection of instruments for implementation of this policy has to be targeted nation-specific and terrorist organisation- centric. There cannot be a general global strategy of deterrence against terrorism.
Harvard scholar and Nobel Laureate Thomas Schelling, in his Arms and Influence, (pp.70-71), contrasts deterrence (the threat to take hostile action unless the adversary acts).
Traditional view of deterrence in strategic studies literature implies the scope for a bargain: both sides agree to co-operate on a state of affairs that both prefer to alternatives they face. This is called cost-benefit analysis. Deterrence, therefore, is not just about making threats; it is also about making offers. Deterrence by punishment is about finding the right combination of threat and offer.
This war is against Indian culture
By Subramanian Swamy
The Islamic terrorists in India have only one goal: To convert the Dar-ul-Harab India of today into the Dar-ul-Islam of tomorrow. Judging by the secret writings in circulation amongst clerics in Saudi Arabia, the Muslim clerics consider as unacceptable the failure of 800 years of Islamic rule in India to convert India into a 100 per cent Muslim nation, as they did in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Egypt etc.
In 1989, to obtain the release of Mufti Mohammed Sayeed's daughter, Rubaiyya who had been kidnapped by terrorists, five terrorists in Indian jails were set free by the VP Singh's government. This made these criminals in the eyes of Kashmiri separatists and fence sitters as heroes, as they had brought India's 'Hindu establishment' on it's knees.
In the case of terrorist menace, because of their ideological and religious beliefs, many terrorists place extreme value on their political objectives relative to other ends (e.g., life and property). For this reason, it appears impossible that a deterrer could hold at risk something of sufficient value to terrorists such that their behavior is affected.
The Islamic terrorists in India have only one goal: To convert the Dar-ul-Harab India of today into the Dar-ul-Islam of tomorrow. Judging by the secret writings in circulation amongst clerics in Saudi Arabia, the Muslim clerics consider as unacceptable the failure of 800 years of Islamic rule in India to convert India into a 100 per cent Muslim nation, as they did in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Egypt etc. Leave alone 100 per cent. Akhand Hindustan could not be converted more than 25 per cent. Thus, it was a passive victory of the Hindus and a blow to the imagined invincibility of Islam.
Hence, Islamic theologists consider the US a meddling nation that is corrupting the social morals of Muslims, Israel to represents a reversal of Islamic conquest of territory in West Asia by Jews who were hated by Prophet Mohammed, and Hindustan a challenge to the invincibility of Islam.
India has a huge population, and worse has begun to develop quickly. Thus India must be targeted by terrorising Hindus and make them to submit. The mad mullahs are thus on a rampage, and we Hindus have to wake up to the real challenge of Mumbai 26/11 and all that preceded it.
Therefore, recognising that targeting of Hindus is the political goal of the Islamic terrorists, while Muslims of India are largely just passive spectators, and that the foreign patrons of Islamic terrorists are beginning to engage in terrorist acts that could put Muslims against Hindus in nation¬wide conflagration and possible civil war as in Serbia and Bosnia, hence the first lesson to be learnt from recent history is that for tackling terrorism India should recognise that the Hindu is the target, and that Muslims of South Asia are being programmed to slide into suicide against Hindus.
The recent of Al Qaeda video tapes in Bihar seeking recruits for terrorism against the ';US-lsrael-India axis" is an indication of this. It is to undermine the Hindu psyche and create fear of civil war that terror attacks are organised. And hence since the Hindu is the target, Hindus must collectively respond as Hindus against the terrorist and not feel individually isolated, or worse be complacent because he or she is not personally affected. If one Hindu dies merely because he or she was a Hindu, then a bit of every Hindu also dies. This is a necessary part of an essential menial attitude of a virat Hindu [for fuller discussion of the concept of virat Hindu, see Hindus Under Siege: The Way Out, Haranand, 2006] required in formulating a deterring strategy against terrorism which is Hindu-centric in it's targets.
Therefore we have to have a collective mindset as Hindus to stand against the terrorist. In this response, Muslims and Christians of India can join the Hindus if they genuinely feel for the Hindus. That they really do so feel, cannot be believed unless they acknowledge with pride that though they may be Muslims or Christians, their ancestors are Hindus. It is not easy for them to acknowledge this ancestry even though that is the truth, because the Muslim Mullah and Christian Missionary would consider it as unacceptable according to the Koran and the Bible.
That realisation of oneness with Hindus would also dilute the religious fervour in their faith and thus create a mental option for their possible re-conversion and return to the Hinduism. Hence, their religious leaders preach hatred and violence against the kafir and the pagan i.e.. the Hindu [for example read Chapter 8 verse 12 of the Koran] to keep the faith of their followers. The Islamic terrorist outfits, e.g., the SIMI being the latest has already resolved that India is Dar-ul-Harab. and they are committed to make it Dar-ul-Islam. That makes them free of any moral compunction whatsoever in dealing with Hindus, including in massacring them.
Bul still, if any Muslim or Christian does so acknowledge his or her Hindu legacy, then we Hindus can accept him or her as a part of the Brihad Hindu Samaj. which constitutes Hindustan. India that is Hindustan is thus a nation of Hindus and those others whose ancestors are Hindus. Even Parsi and Jews in India have Hindu ancestors. This is the true identity of India, known as Hindustan. Others, those who refuse to so acknowledge or those foreigners who become Indian citizens by registration can remain in India, but should not have voting rights [which means they cannot be elected representatives] .
Hence, to begin with, any policy to combat terrorism must first begin with requiring each and every Hindu becoming collectively committed or a virat Hindu. By this it is meant that it is not enough commitment if one individually claims to be Hindu, or goes to temples, does pujas, and celebrates festivals. That is not sufficient to be a committed or virat Hindu. To be a virat Hindu one must have a Hindu mindset.
The second lesson for combating the terrorism that we face today is: since demoralising the Hindu and undermining the Hindu foundation of India in order to destroy the Hindu civilisation, is the goal of terrorists in India we must never capitulate and never concede any demand of the terrorists.
Terrorists are encouraged by appeasement but never satisfied by it. Therefore, no matter how many Hindus have to die for it, the basic policy has to be: never yield to any demand of the terrorists. That necessary resolve has not been shown in our recent history. Instead ever since we conceded Pakistan in 1947 under duress, we have been mostly yielding time and time again.
In 1989, to obtain the release of Mufti Mohammed Sayeed's daughter, Rubaiyya who had been kidnapped by terrorists, five terrorists in Indian jails were set free by the VP Singh's government. This made these criminals in the eyes of Kashmiri separatists and fence sitters as heroes, as they had brought India's 'Hindu establishment' on it's knees. To save Rubaiyya it was not necessary to surrender to terrorist demands. There were other ways. But the then government was capitulationists in outlook, or perhaps the then Home Minister was in cahoots with the terrorists.
The third lesson to be learnt is that whatever and however small the terrorist incident, the nation must retaliate—nor by measured and"sober" responses but by massive retaliation. For example, when Ayodhya Temple was sought to be attacked, or the Institute of Science in Bangalore was targeted, these were not big terrorist incidents but we should have massively retaliated. Our Intelligence agencies keep telling us that we have clinching proof of terrorist training camps in PoK and Bangladesh, and if that is so, we should bomb them by despatching our airforce. There is some evidence that the US agency, the FBI has presented to a district court in California satellite photos that establish that five terror training camps exist near Balakot in northeast Pakistan, Indian government claims proof which has not been made public that there are 57 camps in Pakistani held territory and 36 camps in Bangladesh.
Many are advising the Hindus to deal with the root "cause" of terrorism rather than concentrating on eradicating terrorists by retaliation. And pray what is the root "cause"?
According to bleeding heart liberals, terrorists are born or bred because of illiteracy, poverty, oppression, and discrimination. They argue that instead of eliminating them, the root cause of these four disabilities in society should be removed. Only then terrorism will disappear. Moreover they argue, terrorists cannot be deterred by force since they are irrational, willing to commit suicide, and have no 'return address'.
Searching the backgrounds of some of the world's most notorious Muslim terrorists; we find:
• Bin Laden, the son of a Saudi billionaire, studied engineering.
• His deputy Ayman al-Zawahri is an eye surgeon.
• Mohamed Atta. the son of a lawyer, earned a master's degree in urban planning.
• 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed graduated from an American college with an engineering degree.
• Flight 93 pilot Ziad Jarrah's father is a Beirut bureaucrat who drove a Mercedes and put his son through prep school.
Some of the London bombers had college degrees. One was a school teacher. Another's father owned a store.
Many of the Saudi hijackers were the best and brightest in their towns.
Hani Hanjour who crashed the plane into the Pentagon, studied English at the University of Arizona. Family members were wealthy merchants from Taif, a resort city in Saudi Arabia.
Most Palestinian suicide bombers have come from middle-class homes.
They didn't do what they were expected to do to escape poverty.
And some of the most radical imams in America have doctorates.
Muslim Fundamentalists have an education and an economic future, yet they still terrorise hate. They're literate enough to liberally interpret their holy books, yet they still embrace jihad against kafirs.
The fourth lesson to learn is that more than the activities of the terrorists in India, the more sinister corrosion of our nation state occurs from within. This corrosion provides 'a force multiplier' to the terrorists.
That is, the terrorists are able to leverage the influence of highly placed individuals in the government, media and academia, who have been compromised by the terrorists and blackmailed on sex, drug money and illegitimate favours, into collaborating with them.
One thing is for sure—terrorists in India of all hues and background have their compromised moles in the India's establishment, and hence no anti-terrorist policy can succeed unless these fifth column elements are weeded out. The IB/RAW/MI/CRPF all have files on them and so identifying them is no problem. The political support these traitors have to withdrawn and some have to be made an example of.
It is thus a ridiculous idea that terrorists cannot be deterred because they are irrational, willing to die, and have no 'return address. Our inference here is that terrorist master-minds have political goals and a method in their madness. An effective strategy to deter terrorism is therefore to defeat those political goals and to rubbish them by counter-terrorist action
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