A YEAR AFTER 26/11, CALLS FOR A STRONG PAKISTAN

It is exactly one year since Mumbai was attacked by terrorists sent from Pakistan and 20 years since India began fighting terrorism unleashed on it by that nation. Despite all the hue and cry after 26/11, there is absolutely nothing, repeat nothing, to suggest that there has been any fundamental change in Pakistan's posture towards India. Those who masterminded the Mumbai attack still roam free in Pakistan and the usual belligerent noises continue to be made by its leaders. Just because Pakistan has got mired in an internal strife of its own making does not mean it has awoken to the realisation that it is time for it to embrace India as a friend. There is also no reason for any Indian to say that Pakistan too is an innocent victim of terror.

Yes, there has been no major terror attack since 26/11. But this pause should not make anyone rush to the conclusion that there is a cessation of hostilities from Pakistan's side.

Despite the mountain of bitter experiences that began with Partition itself, there remain intellectually and emotionally weak and meek voices in India's establishment whose hearts beat for Pakistan. Forgetting everything, they are trying their best to scare Indians into believing that a strong and stable Pakistan is India's interest, and that if it breaks up, India will have to face five loose and very dangerous cannons. Taliban will be at India's doorstep, they bleat like ignorant goats who believe they are going to be slaughtered, as if a rag tag outfit of individuals with nothing but small arms, is going to be a far more dangerous proposition in hostile Indian territory than the strong, cohesive and fully armed military machine of Pakistan.

These professors of panic have conveniently forgotten that ever since its creation, Pakistan has been deliberately working to break India up. In fact, it can even be argued that the sole objective of its policy towards India has been to bleed it to death by inflicting on it a thousand cuts. Has anyone ever heard Pakistan say that a strong India is in Pakistan's interest? Is a single Pakistani whose voice matters saying so even now? Forget Pakistan. Has anyone heard even China say something like that? On the contrary, it has been giving every possible support, including in the nuclear field, to Pakistan to enable it keep India weakened and tied down. It has even given shelter and training to various insurgent groups of the North East. Of late, in fact, there is even talk in China of breaking India into 25-30 pieces. And our dumb guys are crying for a strong Pakistan?!

Any other country in the India's place would have done everything possible to destroy all threats emanating from Pakistan by comparatively so weakening it that it would have been left with the same choice that China has left India with. Not many people know that India had raised an armed unit of Tibetans who were to carry out covert operations in Tibet at a opportune time. But after China zoomed way ahead of an apathetic India in military strength, the idea was dropped in utter panic. If India tries anything now, it has no doubt that the response from China will be in many multiples. Learning from China, that it exactly the kind of fear that India should have put into Pakistan. But it did nothing whatsoever to even slightly deter Pakistan from continuing to fearlessly prosecute its proxy war.

That is why India has, for 20 years, been fighting terrorists on its own soil and taking a heavy body count. Why did this happen? A fatal fondness for being seen as nice and peaceful has created an inertia that has made this nation vulnerable to all kinds of attacks, even from insignificant countries like Bangladesh. That is why the very people who have criminally failed to make India strong and secure against attacks from Pakistan are the ones who are now saying that a strong Pakistan is in India's interest. They have somehow managed with a known enemy without doing anything at all for decades. Any change is unfamiliar territory; weak hearts and static minds fear nothing more than change.

That is precisely why, instead of readying India for a post-Pakistan scenario or even a fully Talibanised Pakistan, they are once again displaying the same mental bankruptcy that has seen India needlessly lose thousands of its sons over the last two decades. To strengthen their case for continuing with the status quo ante situation of a strong Pakistan, frightening pictures are being painted of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of the Taliban. This is not being done with even the remote thought of readying India's armed forces to play a major role in securing the nukes with the help of the US and sane elements in the remnants of Pakistan, should it go under, but to frighten India into making concessions to a nation that, even if it survives this time, will without doubt become even more dangerous and violent in the coming years.

In fact some analysts have gone to the extent of making the absurd claim that Pakistan winning its war on terror is "in India's supreme national interest!" - take that - to make out the even more ridiculous case that India must make "moves, offers, anything that will enhance the power and credibility" of Pakistan's government. One is unable to comprehend how such minds work, and how they can be so out of touch with the reality in Pakistan, despite this being a major part of their job 24/7. Pakistan is effectively run by the military which has promoted and used religious fundamentalism and terror as instruments of state policy. The weak civilian government there does not take the final call in any major matter, particularly concerning India. Even President Zardari who has made some right noises, has no control over anything; his words amount to nothing. That is why even Dr Manmohan Singh says "I don't know who to deal with" in Pakistan. Yet some guys want to "strengthen" Pakistan's government, when they should know that it will not in any manner change anything in India's favour.

Even a child knows that a clenched fist packs much more power than an open hand with its five fingers apart. There is also no one who does not know that if the roots of a tree are cut, its branches lose their vitality, and that even if they are successfully replanted individually, they emerge much weaker than when they were being nourished through one stem. Yet, some bright individuals want Indians to believe that India will be secure if there is a strong Pakistan that is ideologically and militarily united to fight India, and will become vulnerable if it has to deal with five small resultant states that will be without direction and power, and perhaps even at war with each other.

Last year, General David Petraeus, commander of the US Central Command, reiterated the unpleasant truth that some Indians want to avoid, when he said that many Pakistani leaders consider India as its principal threat and regard extremist groups as potential strategic asset against it. The recent arrest of Syed Daood Gilani aka David Headley and the revelations about his close links with the LeT, Indian Mujahideen, ISI and serving and retired Pakistan Army officers, has once again highlighted the repeatedly forgotten fact that terror in India has been, and is being, promoted and sustained by the state of Pakistan, or at the very least parts of it that matter and will continue to call the shots.

Many people realise that if Pakistan emerges stronger from the present crisis, particularly after the US leaves, the news can only be bad for India. A well-oiled terror apparatus having the full backing of a rejuvenated state which may well get Afghanistan back, as it is aiming to, will present an unprecedented challenge to India. India needs to strengthen and prepare itself to meet such an eventuality with a sense of urgency that is nowhere to be seen. Any concessions and offers that it makes to Pakistan now are only going to be used to claim victory for the jihad launched by it against India. And that will only breathe fresh life into the terror structure and attract more recruits to fight India with renewed vigour and determination. One has to be nuts to even make such a suggestion at this point of time.

There is no pressing hurry to get into talks with a state when you don't know who is in control of it. There is nothing to be gained from strengthening the very hands that have tried their best, and are trying still, to slit your throat. There is no sense whatsoever in helping to hold together, much less strengthen, an idea that is grounded in hostility to you and that is already self-destructing, as it had to. Whatever needs to be done should only be done after the debris has settled, no matter how long it takes.

This is the least that those culpable and sitting protected in their fortresses - and their mouthpieces - can do out of respect for those who have laid down their lives fighting this long and all but declared war of hate, and the innocent who have fallen victim to it in the course of their daily lives. To their souls in heaven, any call being made for a strong and stable Pakistan is nothing short of treason.

Also read: Musharraf's shockers on terror. Kashmir and Indian Muslims
'

CAN INDIA REMAIN A FUCTIONING DEMOCRACY?

India's democracy is ill. This is a reality that no one can deny. But just how serious is this illness? Is it curable or is it only question of time?

Dr Manmohan Singh, an economist who became a politician by accident, is not known to make loose statements, much less dramatic ones. So, when he says something his inimitable manner, attention needs to be paid to it. Speaking to Fareed Zakaria of CNN a few days back, Dr Manmohan Singh's response to a single question about a lesson that a democratic India has to teach the world, has perhaps not got the attention it should have. In his brief answer, he qualified his answer by saying as many as three times, "if we do succeed" in remaining a functioning democracy.

Seen in isolation, one can be accused of reading too much in too little. But this is not the first time the Prime Minister, a man of spotless personal integrity, has voice his concern about the shape our experiment with democracy has taken. Two years back, he had spoken openly about the ills of the model of multi-party democracy that India has adopted, the model that has almost castrated the nation and rendered effective governance virtually impossible.

Shedding his characteristic soft stance, he had then candidly questioned whether "a multi-party model where parties with varying national reach and many with a limited sub-national reach is capable of providing the unity of purpose that nation states often have to demonstrate." The problem, he elucidated, is that “Sometimes the resolution of problems acquires an excessively political hue, and narrow political considerations, based on regional or sectional loyalties and ideologies can distort the national vision and sense of collective purpose”.

That was not all. Dr Manmohan Singh actually went to extent of favouring a single party system. "A single party state has many advantages in managing Centre-state relations smoothly as opposed to a multi-party system, or is a multi-party model, with national parties dominating the political scene, superior, where one can hope that all of them will take a national view on policy issues and help to reinforce the unity of the federation?"

Two years later, Dr Manmohan Singh remains as skeptical of India's success as a functioning democracy as he was then, and as many right-thinking individuals have been for a long time.

That a damning criticism of our democracy and apprehension about its success have come from the Prime Minister himself, is a serious indictment of not only the political class as a whole, but also of the analysts and commentators hogging prime media space and singing praises of what is increasingly appearing to be a sham that has only widened the gulf between the rulers and the ruled. No one can place his hand on his heart and say that our model truly gives us a government of, by and for the people. While politicians may have forgotten the real purpose of democratic politics, thanks to the dynasties and the muck they have created, others have no justifiable reason to feign such amnesia and blindness. Unfortunately, many of them have been so corrupted by the very politicians they are supposed to keep a watch on, that the dividing line between the two has, ethically and practically, all but ceased to exist. The cancer of a fearless and shameless politician-bureaucrat-criminal-police-media nexus has spread deep into all institutions that define any state.

Parliament has become such a joke, nay, a national shame, that even former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee had, on more than one occasion, to tell MPs that they were working overtime to finish democracy. Elections are now held at various levels almost nonstop around the year. As a direct result, proceedings of Parliament have started to look like more like 24/7 news channels, as all political parties expend their energies in scoring sensational political points over their opponents as part of preparations for the next elections. They have neither any time nor inclination to talk about governance and the many very serious issues facing the country, in a responsible, bipartisan manner. The focus remains on petty politics of the worst kind, no matter what.

Ironically, to the poor voter, the real 'sovereign' on whose behalf his so-called representatives shame the nation again and again, this democracy means little more than the freedom to cast a vote once in five years; sometimes even that small freedom of choice is usurped by his 'leaders'. For 850 million Indians still living a sub-human existence on Rs 20 a day, it has not had any meaning whatsoever for 63 long years.

The only thing that really energizes our politicians are gutter fights for the petty political power they are desperate to physically experience and enjoy as individuals and parties, just as spoils of war are in a foreign land. Morality is not even a factor any more as politicians of all parties willingly rip apart every single norm of civilized behavior in their unbridled greed and lust for perverse, personal political power. Hypocrisy, corruption and falsehoods have become so pervasive that they are not issues that disturb any longer or discussed any more except when politicians are throwing blame at each other or scoring pathetic political points in TV studios. Regional and sectional ideologies and aspirations are little more than convenient tools exploited without a care for the larger societal and national consequences, just for the sake of getting power in the next elections or to vent frustration at having lost the last one.

Our founding fathers had adopted the Parliamentary form of democracy of England, where this system suited for governing a tiny island had evolved over a number of centuries to suit its specific requirements. Many of India’s states are larger than that Atlantic island, and the diversities are enormous. Unfortunately, just freed from the yoke of colonial rule which influenced them deeply, our founding fathers failed to realise then that in this country comprising of many ‘Englands’, democracy would not develop into the comfortable two-party avatar that they had seen there.

With numerous regional, sectarian and ideological strains at work, governance has become incidental, an unpleasant chore that has per force to be performed as the byproduct of power, getting which is increasingly becoming unpredictable and slippery. Ironically, in this model of democracy, a party or a group does not even need to get the mandate of the country to come to power. Even when the nation or a state collectively finds none of them fit to rule, a hobbling arrangement can be cobbled up with quite disgraceful methods and compromises to run a virtually non-functional government, blackmailed at every breath.

Democracy is no more than a system of governance, a means to take a nation and its people forward. It is not an end in itself, as many romantically believe, to be placed above national interest, which they don’t understand. It can, and should be, discarded for a better system, if it does not remain responsive to the ever changing internal and external dynamics that a nation has to deal with.

The multi-dimensional failure of our multi-party democracy is something that should be of concern to not just our Prime Minister. Unfortunately, there is little evidence to suggest that others who are happily enjoying the fruits of its many failures and distortions are willing to make even small personal sacrifices for the common good of all. That is why with every passing day, we hear of more and more things going from bad to worse. Those who should be having sleepless nights about the direction in which things are going, are having sleepless nights alright, but partying.

That is perhaps why Dr Manmohan Singh is worried that India will not remain a functioning democracy for long, unless radical changes are ushered in, in time. He also knows that our leaders will not make even a small change that is crying to be made till they are pushed into a corner from where there is no way out. He was brought in to save India's almost sunk economy only after India had to pawn 47 tons of gold to stay afloat and had absolutely no idea about how to get out of the deep shit hole that its leaders and bureaucrats had put it into.

Then the failure was uni-dimensional and could be rectified by a brilliant economist. Now the failure is along nearly every dimension and goes well beyond just the fatally flawed model of democracy. An isolated fix here and there is not going to help anymore. Since there is no effort to attempt even that as of now, one wonders whether Dr Manmohan Singh, who has the best view in town, is actually seeing it failing in the foreseeable future. I certainly am.
'

GILANI, GILANI AND GILANI CORP, AND THE 'G' EFFECT ON INDIA

The surname Gilani must have a strong karmic connection with India.

Syed Ali Gilani is the one separatist Kashmiri leader who has been steadfastly saying that Jammu and Kashmir is Pakistan since ethnic Kashmiris are Muslims. Even though 'moderate' separatist leaders have 'toned down' their demand to 'Azadi' (Independence) - do overlook the latest statement of the Mirwaiz that China is also a stakeholder - Gilani refuses to budge. He in fact has gone to the extent of justifying Pakistan's policy of infiltrating terrorists into India by asking, "Why did India send its troops to East Pakistan to support the movement there?" Needless to add, he represents the 'basic issue' that India does not want to acknowledge, as it attempts, yet again, to find a resolution to the Kashmir problem, without knowing how and without any understanding of the dynamics that will be set in motion if any concession is given to Pakistan. A country that mindlessly created a problem in 1948 and then foolishly allowed it and Gilani to become bigger and bigger over 63 years, can scarcely be expected to get proactive overnight and find a thought-out "solution" that is in India's best long term interest.

Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani is the present Prime Minister of Pakistan. He blew hot and cold after at least 10 terrorists from Pakistan attacked Mumbai on November 26, 2008. Initially, not only did he deny that the terrorists were Pakistanis, his government even went to the extent of calling them Hindu-Zionists who were planted by India to spoil the 'pak' name of peace-loving Pakistan. It was only when the paternity and village of Ajmal Kasab could no longer be hidden, did the reluctant admission come, thanks primarily to Uncle Sam. But that culpability did not deter Gilani from making hawkish noises, particularly about Kashmir. In fact, just eight months after 26/11, he ambushed an unsuspecting Dr Manmohan Singh and got him to admit in writing that, effectively, India was sponsoring terror in Baluchistan and other parts of Pakistan. If that was not enough, not only has he allowed the masterminds of 26/11 to roam free, he and his government are now accusing India of supporting the Taliban in Pakistan, and pressuring it to solve Kashmir, undoubtedly in Pakistan's favour. This Gilani is the face of the Pakistani establishment that has never been able accept, among many other things, the reality of Pakistan's size and live in peace with a bigger, secular India.

Syed Daood Gilani is much in the news now, as David Coleman Headley, the name he adopted in 2006 to escape suspicion for his frequent trips to India, Pakistan and elsewhere on chilling terror missions. Son of a Pakistani diplomat father and an American mother, he went to a military school in Pakistan, before moving to the US. He was in India just before 26/11 and in Pakistan when the attack took place, fuelling speculation that he was deeply involved in that terror attack. The US says that some elements in the ISI could be linked to him and that it will soon confirm whether he had any connection with 26/11. Gilani had also been travelling freely to different parts of India, reportedly to find recruits for the Indian Mujahideen and to set up sleeper terror cells. According to some reports, he was even given a satellite phone by an official of the Pakistan consulate to enable him to make calls to Pakistan without being detected. Our useless intelligence agencies, working overtime to prove that there was no involvement of locals in 26/11, would never have got wind of his activities had the FBI not homed on to him. The scale of his involvement in terror activities is still unfolding. Five serving and retired Pakistan army officers have already been arrested for their links with him. Much more is expected to follow in the coming days and months. This Gilani represents the brainwashed aam admi, the foot soldier who executes Pakistan's policy of using Islamic terror, jihad, as an integral instrument of the state.

In many ways, this 'Gilani, Gilani & Gilani Corporation' exemplifies what Pakistan was, is, and is likely to remain, particularly with respect to India. There may be moderate voices in Pakistan, especially in the media. But the harsh truth is that those who conceptualised and moulded Pakistan, and are now running it, metaphorically belong to the dangerous 3G corporation. This is something that India needs to get firmly into its head. Unless that is done, we will keep getting ambushed during parleys and wasting away the blood of thousands of sons of India, by losing on the negotiating table what they have been repeatedly protecting and gaining with their valour and sacrifice.

Hang on. Is it a mere coincidence that India has, perhaps, an even deeper karmic connection with another surname beginning with 'G'?

Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Family Gandhi are all intimately linked with, and have shaped, the destiny of India. The first Gandhi led India to Independence and Partition. The second Gandhi broke Pakistan in two. Rajiv Gandhi reportedly frittered away a golden opportunity to cut Pakistan to size for good in 1987, enabling it to launch its ongoing proxy war against India in 1989. Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi are now in the saddle. Are they going to complete the task that Indira and Rajiv left unfinished? Or are they going to commit the blunder that Indira Gandhi did in Shimla in 1972, and wind up creating an even more dangerous situation for India in the long run?

Funny isn't it that both Gilani and Gandhi have six alphabets each and sound pretty similar too? India has been effected in the extreme by the 'G' effect of both. One will have to give way. The former cannot win unless the latter chooses to lose to it in a fit, or fits, of the same naive large-heartedness that led to the downfall of Prithviraj Chauhan. One can only hope that the Gandhis of Delhi do not make the same mistake again. But with an Italian connection, you never know...
'

THE RSS SURGERY: WILL IT HELP REVIVE BJP?

A few months back, senior BJP leader Arun Shourie had asked the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS) to bombard the headquarters and take over the BJP. Being an insider who was privy to the steep decline in values and principles which once differentiated the party from the Congress, he could see better than most that there was no other way of saving it from the clutches of unprincipled and greedy individuals who had seized control and were not letting go, despite the general election disaster .

The RSS has evidently listened to him, if reports are correct that Rajnath Singh, that unmitigated disaster of a party president, is being booted out and replaced by Nitin Gadkari.

RSS Supremo Mohan Bhagwat had also said sometime back that the BJP needed chemotherapy. At that time, however, he believed that it was for the party, and not the RSS, to decide what medication it should take. But after the recent by polls in UP, where BJP candidates lost their security deposits in nine out of 11 seats, it was clear to everyone that the coterie that was ruining the party would have to be surgically removed, without further delay, so that the party could begin the process of resurrecting itself.

Nitin Gadkari is Bhagwat's choice. Arun Jaitley, Ananth Kumar, Venkaiah Naidu and Sushma Swaraj, the famous Dilli4 stars about whom much has been said and written in the last few months, have been summarily brushed aside. Swapan Dasgupta, not surprisingly at all, is livid at this turn. In a lively discussion on CNN-IBN's Face The Nation program, he openly called this development a "military takeover" by the RSS. My namesake from Hindustan Times who belongs to that core group of politically committed journalists whose affiliations are clearly visible behind clever smokescreens, was also upset at the development and 'advised' Dilli4 to not take it lying down.

There may well be a Mahabharat in the BJP in the coming months, even years, before a 'new and improved' party emerges, if at all. Whatever happens, one thing is certain: the old leaders and master strategists who contributed directly to the party's poor image and performance in the last Lok Sabha elections will have to either accept the new realities or quit the party. Perhaps the latter will be better. Remember how in the middle of the election campaign, Rajnath Singh and Arun Jaitley had a disgraceful public row, with the latter openly showing his arrogance by keeping away for two weeks? That spat exemplified the rot of lack of discipline and commitment to the party that has overtaken the BJP at the highest level. No party that wants the people to believe that it is capable of governing the country can afford to let such immature petulance and defiance go unpunished.

Is a relatively unknown leader like Gadkari the right choice as party President? Wouldn't a big leader like Narendra Modi, for example, been better? Is the control of the RSS going to help the party get more votes or is it going to marginalise it even further?

This perhaps is not the right time for a big leader to take control of the party Gadkari may be a relatively - not physically - light-weight leader but he carries no baggage. And that is saying a lot for a man who has been Maharashtra's PWD minister, a 'wet' portfolio that most lust for. What the BJP certainly does not need are leaders who appear much taller than they are because of what they say in TV studios, to which they are always dying to rush at the slightest opportunity with multiple objectives, many not becoming. Nor does it need media sympathisers who actually harm it since they look and behave like poor cousins of the many media friends of the Congress and, as a result, almost invariably wind up inadequately 'defending' the BJP against the aggressive terms of discussion laid down by their opponents.

If the BJP wants to emerge successfully from the intense, painful but inescapable churning that is now beginning to gather speed, it will need to do much more than appoint a new party president. There are many issues that it will have to fully address well before the next general elections in 2014. Some of these, in my view, are:

• The RSS must limit its intervention to life-saving surgery and amputation only. It should not thereafter succumb to the temptation of running the party full-time.
• Leaders of proven integrity alone should form, to begin with, at least the core of the party's leadership.
• Lumpen elements of the Sangh Parivar must not, under any circumstance, be patronised or encouraged in any manner.
• Criminals must not be given party tickets, no matter what the immediate cost. Definition of 'criminal' must not be dishonestly legalistic; it must be based on the perception of voters - it is their trust that needs to be won, not just in one constituency but across the country.
  
• Dynastic practices should be firmly banished. Not more than one member of a family should be allowed to contest elections at any level.
  
• The party must find, as Sagarika Ghose puts it pithily, "a modern leader rooted in the traditional idiom".

Will the BJP be able to do what is needed to pull itself out of the swamp it has got itself into? Will it re-emerge as a party that does not see power and values as being mutually exclusive? Will it be able to convince millions of Indians who once voted for it because it promised to be "a party with a difference" that it will not break their trust again?

At this point of time, skepticism is fully in order.

AKBAR TURNS JINNAH, ASKS FOR A MUSLIM STATE

"What the Muslims... are looking for... is a defined political space within which they can find food-and-faith security." Were these words uttered by MA Jinnah a little before he formally articulated the demand for a separate nation, a homeland, for all Muslims of India? Not at all. 63 years after India was violently divided on the premise that Hindus and Muslims cannot live together, a well-known and secular Muslim journalist and writer has quietly re-voiced what is essentially that very demand on that very unstated premise. On behalf of Indian Muslims who, in 1947, chose a secular India over an Islamic Pakistan.

MJ Akbar, writing in the Times of India of November 15, 2009, has, in one stroke, felled the very concept of secularism on which India is founded, by reiterating that not just mullahs, but even so-called secular Muslims like him, place their religious identity above all else. Should India be surprised? If a Westernised, whiskey-drinking, pork-eating, non-practicing Muslim like MA Jinnah could effortlessly don a separatist, communal coat and tear the country apart, are the likes of MJ Akbar going to face any difficulty in doing a volte face and attempting an encore?

Akbar, conscious of the heavy baggage of history, has begun with a call for carving a separate state in western Uttar Pradesh, comprising of areas where Muslims live in large numbers. "Such a state will have a substantive Muslim population, as well as a string of important Muslim educational institutions, from Aligarh to Deoband. It will become a natural socio-economic magnet for Muslims of the north." Pakistan was also visualised as a similar "magnet" for Muslim iron filings programmed to crowd out those following other faiths. Kashmir Valley, a part of India still, is another such magnet where the outcome has been duplicated.

It is evident that MJ Akbar has not thought up this pernicious demand on his own. It is probably being debated quietly among the clergy and has, not surprisingly, struck a chord with progressive and secular Muslims too. To give it concrete shape, the strategy being worked on is to find a vulnerable politician or political party ready to sell this nation to communal, divisive and regressive elements in exchange for captive Muslim votes, only to grab power at any cost and then loot the nation. Remember how some secular leaders like Mulayam Yadav and Amar Singh kept saying for a long time that SIMI was a secular organisation? Remember how some of them behaved after the Batla House encounter?

MJ Akbar says that the Congress has nothing new to offer to Muslims and that they have gone back to it due to lack of choice. So, he has zeroed in on Mulayam Yadav to "unlock the next dimension of Muslim demands", the one mentioned above being the first. This, in all likelihood will unleash a race between the Congress and Mulayam Yadav, both desperate to claim credit for conceding this demand, even if it is done obliquely by calling it "Harit Pradesh". In this unholy fight, many rootless media luminaries who sound like Congress party spokesmen will help the Congress by generating a wave of public opinion in TV studios and newspapers in support of India's first communally carved state.

Just a few days back, the Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind passed a series of resolutions in Deoband which effectively rejected secularism completely and asked Muslims to look at themselves solely from the prism of a version of Islam that is followed by the Taliban in Pakistan too. Ominously, media discussion was limited to the issue of Vande Mataram only. Forget flinging of panties, those who cry murder at the slightest pretext otherwise, did not even open their mouths. It must be mentioned that the Deoband seminary from which both the Jamiat and the Taliban draw ideological guidance is going to be part of the new "Muslim" state that Akbar wants secular India to create.

Before Independence, the Congress blundered in not taking the challenge posed by separatist Muslim leaders seriously enough, and was stunned into submission by the violence that Jinnah unleashed with his call for Direct Action in 1946. This happened despite the fact that the party had giant leaders of spotless integrity and credentials. Now, India has few real leaders. Most so-called leaders have become businessmen and view politics as the fastest, safest and surest way to ill-gotten billions. Propagation and protection of dynasties has, as a direct result, become their primary concern. Such leaders can do anything. With eyes wide open, all faculties working. MJ Akbar has spotted in Mulayam Yadav what many believe is the most vulnerable and the most easily corruptible target. He also knows that this will have, at some stage, a domino effect as greedy politicians try every unacceptable trick to quench their almost totally unprincipled lust for power and pelf.

To my mind, the question is very simple. Are Indian citizens who are Muslims not ever going to look beyond their faith, not as a personal belief but as a communal, political tool? Are 15 crore Muslims really a minority in India when, as everyone knows, there is really no "Hindu" majority at all? What do we call Yadavs who vote for Mulayam Yadav? Or dalits who vote for Mayawati? Or Tamilians who vote for Karunanidhi or Jayalalitha? Where and who are the so-called "Hindus" who are oppressing Muslims and denying them their faith? Why are Muslims again seeking power communally as Muslims alone? Why do the same Muslims rush to denounce those who talk of Hindus as a whole and call them fascists?

In the dispensation that presently rules India, where are the Hindus? The PM is a Sikh, Chairman UPA, Sonia Gandhi, is a Catholic and her closest advisor, Ahmed Patel is a Muslim. Many other persons in her powerful inner circle like Oscar Fernandes, Ghulam Nabi Azad, AK Antony, Tom Vadakkan, Margaret Alva (she used to be Rahul's nanny on many outstation visits earlier) etc are all non-Hindus. In fact even many of the other so-called Hindus in this power ring, including media stooges, are actually rootless atheists who equate secularism with an abhorrence for the religion of their birth.

However imperfect, this is secularism at work and as Indians we are all proud of it. The question is: if it is working for Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Jains and others, why are Muslims, even secular ones, having a problem with it?

Had this demand for a separate Muslim dominated state been made by a fundamentalist group that believes that it is the duty of all Muslims to establish the political rule of Islam over the whole world, one could have given it a miss. But when a leading secular media luminary articulates it, however subtly, it must ring alarm bells immediately everywhere.

People have forgotten that the idea of Pakistan had a lot to do with principle of religion based reservations. This "splittist" idea is again being flirted with very seriously by the same amnesic political party which presided over the Partition of this nation. The manner in which the Congress instituted the manifestly pre-programmed Sachar Committee with a clearly communal political objective in mind, is indication enough that the party has not learnt any lesson from history.

That is not surprising, considering the people who wield all the power in the party. Therefore, though it talks of secularism, there is little doubt that it will now even more readily capitulate to communal demands than it did before Independence. All that the coterie has to do is keep its First Family happy and in business. One example of the dangerous dynamics that are being mindlessly - or is it deliberately? - being set in motion is the recommendation of the Sachar Committee to do away with reserved constituencies where Muslims are in greater proportion in numbers than dalits. Why this change only on the basis of religion in a secular country? Why not in constituencies where other communities of other religions are similarly placed?

MJ Akbar is already speaking of the next dimension of Muslim demands after the first repeat of communal division already under implementation. He has undoubtedly studied Jinnah and Partition of India in great detail. India's leaders and media stars have either forgotten about it or have not bothered to read about it at all. In fact many want to pretend it never happened, because they do not know how to handle their vacuous notions of secularism with that reality in their face.

What do you think will be the next step after this "magnet" for Muslims becomes a reality right next to Delhi? More and more Muslims will systematically migrate to the new state till their numbers reach a level where only a Muslim party is in a position to form the government there. Then the bargaining power of Muslims will increase exponentially and communal demands will increasingly become more strident and uncompromising. Deja vu. Given the manner in which an Islamic Pakistan is imploding today, thanks to the Deoband-inspired ideology of the Taliban, and considering what has happened in Kashmir, one needs little imagination to visualise the danger that India will put itself in in the long run.

Muslims have never been suppressed by "Hindus" anywhere at any time in India's history. They have fallen behind primarily because they have fallen prey to isolationist religious leaders who are afraid of losing their hold over them and who want to use them as pawns in their political power games. The security-and-space ruse being thrown now is the same old lie that has been repeated everywhere; the ultimate objective is always the same: to seize power or to force a division on a communal basis whenever and wherever the numbers are right.

India's secularists never tire of speaking about the secular Mohammad Iqbal who penned the immortal "Saarey jahan se achha". But they don't want to be reminded that the same Iqbal was the leading ideologue and co-creator of Pakistan. They want to limit their vision to Dr Jekylls only and pretend that there were no Mr Hydes who violently hacked India on a communal basis. Unless they open their eyes to both dimensions, they will never see the events that shaped India's recent history in the correct perspective, and will wind up helping the likes of Akbar push India into repeating old mistakes and more.

Will India's so-called leaders, particularly the ones who fraudulently call themselves secular, wake up and put the nation above their narrow interests and ensure that the communal virus that first rejected India and secularism more than 70 years ago is not allowed to spread again and destroy the very idea of a secular, inclusive India?

We must not forget that there is no Raj and there is no British Indian Army too now. When things spin out of control next, ignited by a tiny spark somewhere, the fires will not die down and the dead will be beyond count.

CAN CHINA'S MIGHT A MONK'S POWER FIGHT?

China seems to be more afraid of the Dalai Lama than most of us suspect. The Tibetan spiritual leader has been troubling them no end for decades, and their apprehensions are only increasing with every passing day. For those who believe that non-violence is powerless in these times and that without the gun nothing can be achieved, there is no better example than the Dalai Lama of the enormous power that the path of unyielding truth can generate.

Is it not ironical that super power China is today seriously concerned about virtually no one save a monk in ochre robes? With all their nukes and guns and tanks they can pressurise, even defeat, most nations on the battle field. But with what do they fight a man whose only weapon is the truth he speaks and the spiritual power that all can feel but none can see?

At stake is no small piece of land "on which not a blade of grass grows", that can just be written off, Nehru style; the fight is for a vast region the size of Western Europe, a land that was invaded by China's People's Liberation Army in 1950.

For 60 years, China has systematically replaced Tibetan language and culture with Chinese, and attempted to change the demographics of Tibet by pushing in Han Chinese settlers into it. Estimates of the number of Chinese living there now vary widely, due to opaque Chinese administrative structures, but in many cities, including capital Lhasa, they now outnumber Tibetans.

China claims that Tibet is a part of China; Tibetans believe otherwise. Both cite history to support their claims. Be that as it may, the fact is that 60 million Tibetans do not accept that their country is a part of China. In 1912, the 13th Dalai Lama stated that the relationship between the Chinese Emperor and Tibet "had been that of patron and priest" and that Tibet was an independent nation. The present Dalai Lama, who fled to India in 1959 following the Chinese invasion has, however, accepted the reality of Chinese rule and has been demanding genuine autonomy within China, with three conditions: a) Beijing to control only defense and foreign affairs, b) the regions of Kham and Amdo to be added to Tibet and c) Han settlers to leave. For the Chinese, obsessed with total control and Han domination, this is absolutely unacceptable.

But the Dalai Lama cannot be wished away, as China desperately wants. 50 years after he left Tibet, he continues to exercise enormous influence among most Tibetans living not only in Tibet but also in China. It is surprising that communist China has not realised so far is that the more it tries to demonise him to assert its claim over Tibet and justify what it is doing there, the more respected he becomes in the eyes of Tibetans and the more the power that the Tibetan people's undying quest for freedom from its yoke gets.

The Chinese are afraid of this rising non-violent power that, it may be recalled, was seen by the whole world when it erupted suddenly in 2008, despite choking Chinese control. They remember the energy that Mahatma Gandhi unleashed, the undying fire that an incarcerated Nelson Mandela lit. So they are desperate to knock it out, before it is too late. But they just don't have the right tools to do it. So, almost like mindless robots, they continue to repeat the same mantra ever time the Dalai Lama visits a country and is honoured and received with respect by heads of state. The more he travels, the more vicious becomes China's criticism of him; the more China abuses, the greater the honour this holy man of peace receives.

That is probably why China seems to be losing it. Concerned about reports that President Obama will meet the Dalai Lama on his return from a visit to China, it has made an absolutely absurd call to America's first African-American President. It has likened slavery in America to the state of Tibetan society under the Dalai Lama!

"He is a black President and understands the slavery abolition movement." These are not words of Tibetans who want freedom from Chinese occupation and slavery, but of Beijing which wants Obama to buy this ridiculous line and shun the dangerous and "splittist" Dalai Lama. In fact China is even claiming that its stance is like Lincoln's; it too is abolishing slavery in Tibet. If China is to be believed, the Dalai Lama is the racist that the US must shun, and Hans and Tibetans are actually one people!

The US has already yielded to China's pressure. President Obama did not meet the Dalai Lama when he was in the US recently, to avoid annoying the Chinese before his visit to that country. The US may give in even more; supreme national interest and China's growing economic and military might will dictate policy.

Of what use is that awesome power when it comes to tackling a man of God? Communist China has lost its connect with its own spiritual past. It now almost exclusively follows Mao's dictum that "political power grows through the barrel of a gun...whoever has an army has power, for war settles everything." That certainly applies when you deal with nations and people ready to fight you with guns of their own.

But what do you do when someone refuses to pick a gun but also refuses to yield? How do you fight him? The British were not able find out and they left India. The Chinese can also not fight the power of a monk with their might alone. But they can find the answer; they only have to look into their own rich history, the values which they have discarded almost completely. Once they do that, may be they will want to leave Tibet on their own. It is also equally possible that then Tibetans will happily accept being part of China on honourable terms that both have experience of.

One thing is for sure. By continuing to abuse His Holiness the Dalai Lama - he has even been called a "jackal in ochre robes" - China is only accumulating bad karma. It is never going to win over the non-violent people of Tibet or legitimise its oppressive rule over them this way. It has to either annihilate them or yield. The latter will happen; it is only a question of time.

UPDATE

Barkha Dutt spoke to the Dalai Lama after this post was written. Watch him and listen to his words. An illuminating experience:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Readers may also read: China and India: competition of civilisations

BYPOLLS: MANY SURPRISES, MORE IN STORE

In the recent bypolls in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, Mayawati and Mamata have emerged triumphant. While Mamata Banerjee was expected to do reasonably well, many believed that the Congress would put up a very good show in UP.

The "Rahul Wave" created in some sections of the media after the Lok Sabha elections in May this year has almost evaporated in UP within six months. Mayawati, who was humbled then, has perhaps surprised even herself by bagging nine out of 11 seats. This despite - perhaps because of - the intense media campaign against her statue-building spree. That this victory has come on top of her winning three of the four seats for which elections were held in August, makes the blip in May stand out even more. The Congress has wrested two seats and lost two that it had held earlier, while the SP and the BJP have drawn a blank.

In keeping with dynastic tradition, Rahul Gandhi is being given all the credit for the defeat of Mulayam Yadav's daughter-in-law in his home turf, Firozabad. What is being conveniently overlooked is that it is the BSP, not the Congress, that has won the Bharthana seat vacated by Mulayam Yadav's son. Both these results underline the fact that the SP has been routed in its fortress. This is a least expected body blow that Mulayam Yadav will find hard to take. For various reasons, the balance of political power appears to be shifting decisively away from him.

The BJP, thanks to the total vacuum of credible leadership in the state and its comatose central High Command led by Rajnath Singh - perhaps the worst leader the party has thrown up in UP - has been humiliatingly routed. Not only has it failed to win a single seat, it has lost security deposits in all constituencies barring its erstwhile stronghold Lucknow West, and Jhansi. How much more punishment its failed top leaders and strategists are going to inflict on the party before they are removed is a question that needs to be openly debated in the party.

In West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee is continuing her triumphant march that began in the Lok Sabha elections, by winning all the seven seats her party contested. But shockingly, the CPM has failed to win a single seat. Just three years back, the Left Front had stormed back to power with a three-fourths majority. But, thanks to Singur and Nandigram, the Left is, suddenly being wiped out in a manner that no one would have dreamt of a couple of years back. Cumulative failures of the past two decades are beginning to hurt and haunt the communists, ironically because of the reforms they belatedly initiated to undo the colossal and almost irreparable damage they inflicted upon the society and the state during their long and uninterrupted rein.

These results have tempted most analysts to write off the SP and BJP in UP, and the Left in West Bengal. That may well happen if things continue the way the are. Can anything swing things dramatically again?

In West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee is benefitting from the anger against the communists. The Marxist onslaught has, among other things, created such a leadership vacuum in the state that there is no other leader behind whom its people can rally against them. Is she really the alternative that voters are looking for? Will she be able to take the state forward or will she plunge it into even greater inertia and violence? Given her track record, it is almost a given that things will get only worse if and when she gets into the saddle. But even before that happens, just as the communists are paying for a couple of mistakes, Mamata might just hurt herself badly; a small slip is all it will take for voters to go back to the commies or a progressive break-away faction led by someone with the kind of vision that the many great leaders and thinkers of Bengal had once shown to the whole of India.

In UP, can the Mulayam Yadav dynasty really be written off because of the Firozabad defeat? Can it also be safely assumed that those who have deserted the BJP will not hurry back to it again? If the Congress is seen to be courting Muslims in a divisive manner and pandering to the mullahs who are now openly rejecting secularism, things can change overnight with one wrong decision, provided there is a good leader to exploit it without engaging in mindless communal provocation. It may be recalled that one reason for the BJP holding the gains it had made in UP was the no-nonsense and decisive leadership shown by Kalyan Singh as Chief Minister, something that the state had perhaps never seen before in the long years of Congress rule. May be that is one reason why Mayawati is holding her own, despite serious corruption charges - there is no honest and effective counterfoil available in any other party today. May be that is one reason why brand Gandhi has failed to work for decades in its home state. If the Congress can find and project a new, credible alternative, who knows what might happen! Or if, following the example of kings of yore who treated their marriages as political, even military, force multipliers, Rahul Gandhi marries a dalit girl from the state, it is more than likely Mayawati may never recover.

It may be recalled that in the couple of years preceding the Lok Sabha elections this year, the Congress had lost the assembly elections in most states that went to the polls. But in the final round that mattered the most, it delivered an unexpected knock-out punch to the BJP. The many surprises in these bypolls also suggest that no political party can take anything for granted based on past electoral results. If anything, they should expect to be surprised in future.

Given our fundamentally flawed and society-dividing model of democracy, a few slip-ups and a slight re-alignment of political and social combinations is all it takes to upset all calculations and projections and produce unexpected results that, as we saw in the recent Maharashtra elections, can hide unacceptable failures. No wonder independent India has produced so few great leaders of the calibre and integrity that the freedom struggle threw up.

This is the age of Mayas, Mamatas and dynasties.

JAMIAT ULAMA-I-HIND: GHETTOISING INDIAN MUSLIMS

How often do we hear that Muslims are being discriminated against, and that it is this that has led to their extreme poverty and backwardness? This seductive argument has been used, once again, by the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind (JUH) to ask for reservations for Muslims in accordance with their proportion of the population. If the JUH is to be believed, persistent discrimination against Muslims in official, semi-official and representative institutions has been going on for 62 years, and that is why their representation in various spheres is less than 2%, despite 'India's second largest community' constituting 13% of India's population. This view was reiterated in the resolution adopted by the JUH in its 30th General Session held at Deoband recently.

There is little doubt that there have been, and are, many walls, big and small, between people belonging to various religions, communities, castes, sub-castes, creeds etc. There is also little doubt that many of these have either broken down completely or been reduced to a height that allows reasonably friction-free social interaction and engagement. That has happened primarily because India chose to be a secular state and pushed in many reforms that kept religion firmly away from the affairs of the state. The practical realisation of individuals that they need to adapt to rapid changes taking place all around them if they want to survive and get ahead have also helped in breaking barriers fairly rapidly in some parts of the country. In the midst of all this, there continue to be pockets of stiff resistance that feel threatened and insecure by the sheer sweep and speed of change that is leaving no one untouched.

Are we to believe that Muslims have fallen behind only because they are "oppressed and deprived" like Dalits, as the JUH wants the nation and Muslims to believe? Or is there more to it? No one can deny that the violent creation of Pakistan has left a scar and makes some non-Muslims unfairly view some Indian Muslims with a degree of suspicion. But for anyone to say that Muslims have got marginalised because they have been oppressed for 62 years is neither fair nor justified.

But, as always, the JUH has blamed the government, indeed all us who are non-Muslims, squarely for the failure of Muslims to march in step with other Indians. Has it tried to find out where Muslims might have gone wrong and what steps they really need to take to change their deteriorating relative position? Sure it has, but not in the manner you would expect.

In fact, the prescriptions that the JUH has prepared for Indian Muslims are designed to only push them further into a downward spiral and isolate them even more from not only the secular Indian state but also their non-Muslim neighbours living across the road.

The JUH resolution says that while "degeneration in the Indian society" has affected every community, "Muslims, in particular, have been targets of various cultural malpractices". There is, of course, no mention of who exactly is so targetting Muslims specifically and for what purpose. The JUH also believes that Muslims are being tempted towards western culture. "This has created crisis of Islamic identity. These evils have to be fought against vigorously". And how are Muslims expected to fight it? "Practice salaam, don their Islamic identity...avoid watching cinema, television and other moral killing things". Condoms have been implicitly banned too.

Can you spot the difference in what the JUH is saying and what the Taliban have put in place in large parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the explosive results thereof? Now if Indian Muslims are also being asked to look no further than their Islamic identity, as defined by the JUH, and isolate themselves in an impenetrable bubble even though they are living in a secular state, while continuing to preach unilateral secularism to non-Muslims, where are things going to head?

There is more. Despite making the charge that Muslims are discriminated against, the JUH resolution admits the harsh fact that Muslims are highly backward in the realm of modern education and that this is the main cause of their socio-economic backwardness. This is actually the where the real problem lies; the talk of "oppression" is designed to keep Muslims isolated and under tight control of the ulema more than anything else. The resolution even goes to the extent of acknowledging that a "section of Muslims who get admission in the government and semi-government common institutions of modern courses, get isolated". Why do they get isolated? And what must be done to end that isolation? Most will immediately agree that this can be done primarily by increasing social interaction between Muslims and others, and that this must begin right from the nursery school stage itself.

But, the JUH does not see it that way at all. In fact it wants to do exactly the opposite, and isolate Muslims even more. It wants Muslims to establish primary, secondary, higher secondary schools and colleges, and professional and technical institutions, and to make arrangements in them to provide education about religious studies "under Islamic atmosphere". What about girls? They should study in non-residential schools with a special syllabus that should be completed in six years. "On completion of 10 years of age, complete shariat norms should be observed while continuing their education". The JUH also wants the government to establish an independent central board of education, like the CBSE, governed by a body of Muslim scholars and educationalists, where Muslim schools and educational institutes can get easy affiliation. In these schools, modern education will be provided to "Muslim children in Islamic atmosphere".

In short, the JUH wants that Indian Muslims must shun everything that defines a secular state and an inclusive society. They must remain confined to themselves at home and in schools and colleges, and be known by their defined-by-JUH "Islamic identity" alone.

As far as the JUH is concerned, therefore, the sole role of a secular Indian state is to permit Muslims to see themselves only from a narrow religious prism and, at the same time, give them representation in all secular institutions of the state in proportion to their population.

Is that possible? If the JUH feels that some Muslims feel isolated in common institutes of modern education because of their upbringing based solely on a religious identity, how are they ever going to feel at home after years of an exclusively 'Islamic' atmosphere in homes and schools and colleges? What about Muslim women? If they are to be brought up strictly as per Shariat norms, how are they ever going to pick up jobs in secular institutions or be comfortable as wives in such social environments where their husbands are employed? And if both men and women remain aloof and isolated there too, is it not going to strengthen prejudices and actually increase social friction and reinforce stereotypes?

This raises a logical question: Who is actually 'oppressing' Muslims and preventing them from moving ahead like fellow Indians of other religions? Is it the secular Indian state and non-Muslims, or Muslim organisations like the JUH that want to mentally and physically ghettoise Muslims to retain control over them, and then cry discrimination?

Clearly, even the events in Pakistan and Afghanistan have not made the JUH realise that in this vastly changed world, Muslims cannot afford to remain frozen in time and still expect to progress like the rest of the world. That is perhaps one reason why even Jinnah visualised Pakistan as a secular state. During medieval times, the whole world was almost at the same technological level. At that time, rigid religious identity and missionary zeal, coupled with the element of surprise, acted as force multipliers that altered the balance of power and achieved dramatic results. Today, with the rest of the world having powered far ahead in education, technology, material comforts, individual and religious freedom, and hard power - and speeding further away - the same tools cannot work, if one takes a macro, civilisational view. They can only have the long term effect of further marginalising and impoverishing Muslims who remain stuck in that mindset.

It is time secular, liberal and progressive Indian Muslims raised their voice against attempts by organisations like the JUH to push Indians Muslims further into seclusion and resultant backwardness. Javed Akhtar and Salman Khursheed have already shown the way, questioning the JUH resolution banning the singing of Vande Mataram, by highlighting that the JUH is needlessly raking up an issue that had been settled 50 years back, a decision to which the JUH was a party. Aamir Raza Hussain has also done so. Many more such voices need to be raised. For India, for its Muslim citizens and for the society at large.

MS ARUNDHATI ROY'S WAR

Long before many of us were born, there lived a man in India who raised his voice against exploitation of India's resources and its citizens by the state that was then run by a colonial power. This man, despite being born into wealth and privilege, and educated in the land of the exploiting kingdom, chose to fight for his countrymen to free them from that oppressive yoke.

Like many before him, he too could have wined and dined in Delhi and Bombay, written fine articles in the language of the master whose ways he had adopted, and filled himself and the oppressed with hatred, to incite them, from the comfort of his home or wherever, to wage war against the 'state' by picking up a gun, or the bows and arrows that they had been using since 'long before there was a country called India'.

But, no, he did something else altogether. He shed almost everything that represented the repression he was fighting against, and took to living the life of the poor people he wanted to awaken and help. Without hatred or violence, that man in a loin cloth electrified India and overthrew the greatest empire on earth.

63 years after Independence, the state run by its own people remains the oppressor and exploiter in the eyes of over 800 million Indians for whom freedom and democracy are words that still have no meaning whatsoever. They remain poor, uneducated, hungry and as developed as they were hundreds, even thousands of years ago. And now, their land is under threat too, ready to be taken over by large corporations ready to extract bauxite, iron ore and much more, to feed the needs of an India that is growing and developing rapidly, unconcerned that a large part of it is still stationary and therefore moving farther away.

Many tribals, failing to find a real leader who can lead them into light, have fallen prey to a few who have made them believe that like Mao, they too will free them from the yoke of a state that has done nothing for them, a state that cannot be distinguished from the colonial regime that preceded it, a state that suppresses them using the same tools of governance that it found demeaning when their reins were in white hands.

Those few - call them Maoists, Leninists, Naxals, whatever - left a viciously violent legacy, wherever they held sway, be it the Soviet Union, China or Kampuchea. In the last century, they murdered close to 110 million people, many more than the 38 million who were killed in all the wars of the century put together. That is what they will do in India too, should they get power in the name of the people whose cause they are championing. What they did recently in Andhra Pradesh and elsewhere in India should have left no one in any doubt that this path has the same ending, no matter where it is followed.

Enter a new breed of educated 'liberators' of India's downtrodden tribals, most ensconced comfortably in 21st century enclaves in cities, and loving it. They are the unlikely defenders and champions of Maoists, and are not willing to open their eyes to any but their anachronistic notions of a solution based on a discredited, violent ideology that they watch and cheer from a safe distance.

One of the most prominent of these romantics, for want of a better word, is a celebrated author armed with the Booker and, as Sagarika Ghose puts it, luminous prose. Arundhati Roy has been angry with the state for a very long time, for reasons that may be revealed in a future novel or autobiography. I have not followed her closely and have not read her 'God of Small Things' or her latest, but I do remember reading, among other things, that some time back she had seceded from India and become an independent mobile republic of one.

This republic is at war with India again. This time on behalf of the poor tribals who live in a vast forest area that was once called Dandkaranya.

Roy knows her statistics well and knows how to use and conceal them creatively to show you just the kind of picture she wants, the kind that will impress many but move a few, notwithstanding her incandescent words. One is almost charmed by the canvas she paints to lull you into believing that there is real pain in her heart for the forest people, that she wants nothing more than seeing that their lives improve, that her opposition to the state is born out of such feelings alone. But, at the end of it, like in her Outlook article entitled 'Mr Chidambaram's war', she emerges looking no better than an artificial flower; it looks very real - can't tell - but simply doesn't have the right smell.

Roy rejects the model of development that India is following and wants to dismantle and replace it, not really knowing with what and how; that does not concern her. Her focus is on destruction and violence, not construction and peace. You know what she wants, or at least what she wants you to believe, when she says that the bauxite and other minerals that are going to be mined should 'remain in the mountain', because if the hills are destroyed, 'the forests that clothe the tribals will be destroyed too'. She is convinced - not erroneously, given the unforgiveable track record of the Indian state thus far - that the tribals will have to pay the price of progress. So, she doesn't want them to pay that price, like most of us don't. But, unlike most of us, she is comfortable condemning them to paying a far greater one.

The only way to protect the tribals, as one can surmise from what Roy says, is by keeping them just where they have been for thousands of years. They should stick to bows and arrows, live on forest produce and let the forest clothe them. From that it must follow that they should also never cook their meals in aluminum utencils on steel stoves, and never take a bus or train - none of these has ever been made without mining ores from a mountain somewhere and changing the lives of the affected forever. So what if has been for the better in recent years elsewhere?

If the bauxite had remained in the mountains, how would Roy have travelled to get her Booker? Now that she has discovered , like a certain Gandhi did nearly a century ago, that to keep her and 'neo-colonialists' like us motoring and flying and connected to the whole world, the tribals of India will have to pay a price that she finds unacceptable, why does she not walk the Gandhi talk? Why does she not begin by making a personal sacrifice to reduce the burgeoning demand for metals and minerals worth trillions of dollars that lie inside the mountains? Will she, or anyone else, like to go back to the lives their ancestors led a few hundred years ago, to save the environment and to effectively ensure that those who have missed the progress bus do not catch it ever? Or would she rather live in a country that follows the development model of, and is run by, the likes of Lenin, Mao and Pol Pot? Does it matter to her that China, not the one that Maoists want to emulate, produces 10 times more steel than India? Have China's tribals paid a heavy price or are they happier, wealthier and better fed than ever before?

Roy is not going to do either. There is a big difference between genuinely wanting to do something for others out of empathy and deliberately provoking some others to attract attention to ones own self. No? Why is she not unequivocally denouncing the violence unleashed by Maoists and others? Why is she cleverly hiding behind selected views of others to mask Maoists and convey her support for what they are doing? Why is she not talking about the fact that arms and ammunition that Maoists have require money which tribals don’t have, as she herself admits? Why is she silent about the manner in which Maoists are extorting money from the very corporate houses and mining companies that they are supposed to be fighting against? She will, of course turn around and say that all reports pointing to this are false and that the latest CNN-IBN report to this effect is another manifestation of the state unleashing its most potent weapon, the 'embedded media'; Maoists can do little wrong.

Why is Roy focusing selectively on castigating the state for the force it is belatedly using to reclaim its writ, however faulty? Why is she craftily picking faults with any and everything that the state is doing and has done, knowing fully well that will not help set things right for the people whose cause she has picked up? Why is she deviously casting aspersions on everyone's integrity, Prime Minister downwards, only because India's mineral wealth has to be exploited to support the needs and improving lifestyles of millions, Roy included? Why does she want the state out of the forests where people are living sub-human lives and leave them at the mercy of armed thugs? What is it that makes her hate and oppose the state so much that she can see little wrong with those who oppose it, whether it is in the vast jungles of Dandkaranya or in the 'tiny valley of Kashmir'?

It is not love for the environment or the poorest of the poor - or anyone else - that resides in Roy's heart. That there is no space in it for anything except for hatred, particularly for the institution called the state, is evident from the fact that she has a problem even with the setting up of 'a brigade headquarters in Bilaspur (which will displace nine villages) and an airbase in Rajnandgaon (which will displace seven)'. As far as she is concerned, the state is always against the people, never for it; armed forces of the state only kill its people, not defend them - only those who fight against them do! To prove this to even herself, she sometimes lapses into imagining and inventing simplistic, childish scenarios. Sample this nursery story: "Kashmir used to have a Hindu king and a largely Muslim population, which was very, very backward and so on at the time, because at the time, you know, Muslims were discriminated against by that princely—in that princely state."

Arundhati Roy may have divorced the Indian state and seceded. But that unpleasant parting has evidently neither satisfied her, nor given her peace. On the contrary it seems to have left her even more embittered. There is violence inside her, not love. She wants the big world to believe that violence was done to her and that she did, and is doing, right. That is perhaps why she will not speak up against the Maoists; for her the only violence that is unacceptable is that of the state. Her war is against it. It is not for the poor she is talking about; they just happen to be on her side of the international border.

She does not want the state to correct its many flaws and empower and enrich its forgotten poor; she wants it to abdicate.

She says provocatively that the state needs a war, that the Maoists are to the Congress what Muslims were to the BJP. That may or may not be correct. But one thing is certain: Ms Roy doesn't want any war to end. As long as her luminous prose - that beautiful body that lacks a soul - helps her fight her personal wars from afar, as long as there are non-state actors across the world telling her from the sidelines that she is right, the poorest of the poor can remain just where they are - clothed by the forests that they have been living in long before there was a country called India.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Readers may also read:
1. Conspicuous consumption and conspicuous poverty
2. Bharat and India: armed rebellion and mental secession
3. For Bharat's sake, and India's, dump colonial institutons

LEADERSHIP VACUUM AT THE HT SUMMIT

If a picture can say what a thousand words can't, this is one of them.

Taken at the recent Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in New Delhi and given top billing across six columns on a page that bore the heading "Vision 2020", in the paper of November 01, 2009, it tells a story that is quite different from the one that the man who got it published wanted to.

Seen in the picture are two leader role models chosen by HT, Bollywood actors Kareena Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan. And guess who is in the middle? A certain mediocre journalist who is known more for his powerful connections and unconcealed political affiliation than for any insightful work that he has churned out in his long and understandably successful career. His strategic presence in the picture should also tell you something about the media that you always wanted to know but did not know whom to ask.

To me this picture symbolises, more than anything else, the existing and emerging leadership vacuum in this country. It also depicts the central role that the media is playing, as asked to perhaps, to deflect the attention of the nation from it. What better way to opiate Indians than with the help of a glamorous Bollywood couple?

Will anyone be surprised if HT has actually been paid handsomely for this seemingly free publicity ahead of Kareena and Saif's forthcoming film?

Here is a shot of the photo as it appeared in HT: