TERROR: FORGET POTA, EVEN POLICE NOT NEEDED!

For the last fours years and more, the nation has been told ad nauseum that there is no need for any separate 'draconian' law like the Prevention of Terrorist Acts(POTA) to fight the growing menace of terrorism. After every terror attack which claims some more innocent lives, politicians rush to assure increasingly cynical and despairing and angry Indians that the perpetrators of these 'cowardly acts' will not be spared and that they will be firmly dealt with under the prevailing law. You would naturally not expect them to admit in the same breath that so far there has not been a single conviction. This is the new definition of 'zero tolerance' to terror.

The greatest 'argument' against an anti-terror law has been that when POTA was in force earlier, terrorist attacks did not stop. This is topped by the shining red cherry that the attack on Parliament took place despite POTA. Mind you, this mindless logic has not been used just by committed politicians looking for any stray logic to support their political stance, honesty be damned. Even celebrated and suitably 'awarded' media personalities have been trying hard to make ordinary citizens swallow this line that only the pea-brained will - that too with great difficulty!

Political dishonesty can be flogged only up to a point. And that point has long been crossed. The Congress and other like-minded parties have belatedly realized that by continuing to con the nation for so long, they may actually have committed a major and costly political blunder. They have not only alienated a large chunk of their voters from the majority community but have also failed to win over the Muslims that they were trying so hard to.

Elections are around the corner. That is why the need of having a tough anti-terror law is now being spoken of again, after the government has slept through its full term. A few days back, Veerappa Moily of the Congress was the first to shock other Congress leaders, still spiritedly sticking to the old party line, when he spoke of the need having a new law to tackle terror. Then the PM himself said the same thing, but there were voices who opposed him, a political light weight. Now Rahul Gandhi has joined them, and all Congressmen are nodding their heads violently to make sure that he notices that they fully agree with him!

The National Security Advisor(NSA) has also gone to the US to study how well that country has organised its homeland security after 9/11, resulting in no major terror attack in the US after that. For years, the NSA did nothing except bloat the already overweight higher ranks of the police that, in the eyes of ordinary citizens, is hopelessly corrupt and unfriendly, and that has repeatedly failed to deliver. Now, when the term of the government is ending, what has prompted him to 'study ' the measures the US has put in place, when he knew all along what they were but did little other than promoting the petty interests of his cadre?

The United Nations and the United States have been repeatedly warning that India is losing the war on terror because structures vitally required to fight it are either not in place or are in disarray. Not only do terrorists waging war against the state enjoy the same benign system of justice that ordinary criminals face, there are other major gaps in the anti-terror framework like inadequate laws on terror financing, special investigative techniques like electronic surveillance and undercover operations, lack of witness protection programs and national database, and inadequacies in securing the borders.

Not only has there been no meaningful national debate on the subject, these reports have just been buried, without perhaps even a cursory reading, only because of the demands of vote bank politics. They are being dusted now, perfunctorily, when the government is about to go. Is the public is so gullible as to be fooled by these gimmicks?

But wait! In the Indian context, there might just be a twist in the tale, something that those in the West can probably not understand. Instead of putting in place a POTA type law again, India's politicians might surprise all suddenly by justifying not only the doing away of that 'anti-minority' measure but suggesting that even police is not required to fight the war on terror! With elections around the corner, that would almost the perfect step to mollify the minorities angered by 'fake' Batla House type of encounters carried out by a 'communal' police. Here are some revealing statistics that they can use to push through this path-breaking proposal.

As per a report in the Hindustan Times of September 28, 2008, for every square kilometre, Gurgaon has 65 per cent more policeman and 2.7 times more PCR vans, compared to Delhi. Yet, it has 51 per cent more robberies and 13 per cent more murders per lakh residents. Could there be more persuasive statistics to prove that crime is directly proportional to the the number of policemen available in an area? Ordinary citizens are obviously safer if there are no policemen around. Just about the perfect logic to remove policemen from all trouble spots like Jamia Nagar, for example!

When terrorists who kill innocent civilians and then enjoy watching the dead and dying on TV come to know that not only is there no danger of POTA, but that even the police has been removed, they will have a transformational change of heart. As a result, instead of bombs, they will go around quietly dropping flowers and fruits for the good citizens of this country! India will then be blessed with not just one but thousands of Munnabhais! And guess what, in due course it might even lead to the IPC and CrPC also being repealed since in over a hundred years, they have not been able to prevent murders, rapes etc from being committed.

Why hasn't anyone yet thought of this brilliant non-violent strategy that promises to defeat terrorism and get minority votes in one go? Come on guys, what are you afraid of? Give it a try...till the elections at least. At worst a few more ordinary, innocent Indians will die.
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Readers may like to read: Rushdie and Jinnah: whither Indian Muslims?

SARAH PALIN EFFECT: MEN BECOMING GULLIBLE SHEEP?- 2

A fortnight back, I had written about the effect that Sarah Palin was having on men, some of whom were becoming “gullible sheep”, quite like what had been found in an unrelated study done by the University of Leuven. Well, it appears that it is not just ordinary men who are falling prey.

Even Heads of State are not safe. Of course many of them have perfected the art of concealing their personal emotions and passions to meet the demands of protocol. But, some are simply unable to resist giving voice to the churnings that they go through when they come in formal physical contact with a gorgeous woman like Sarah Palin. That is precisely what happened to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari when he met her in New York on September 24. Here is how their introduction went:

Zardari: “You are even more gorgeous than you are on the television.”
Palin: “You are so nice. Thank you.”
Zardari: “Now I know why the whole of America is crazy about you.”
An aide asks the two to shake hands again for the cameras.
Palin: “I’m supposed to pose again.”
Zardari: “If he’s insisting, I might hug.”

One can only imagine what direction relations between the US and Pakistan will take should Sarah Palin actually find herself in the White House as President. One thing is certain: she will be able to get a lot more out of Pakistan than any US president has till now. Provided, of course, General Kiyani is also in the loop!

But before all that happens, Zardari’s public display of the “effect” has again raised the largely ignored question whether, in line with the Leuven study findings, American men will remain gullible sheep till November 04 and vote for Sarah Palin without considering the price that they collectively might have to pay should she become VP and even President. Will they actually go and press her button – on the voting machine – because of her looks alone?

Many Indians will surely remember the “effect” that Menaka had on the great Sage Vishwamitra. He was so charmed by her that he mindlessly dumped 10,000 years of penance and meditation and self-control with alacrity. This country is actually named after their offspring, Bharat. It took even Vishwamitra, despite all his spiritual knowledge and power, one full year to realise that he’d made the wrong decision! Can ordinary mortals be blamed if they don’t do any better?

Obama has a real, real fight on his hands! Has McCain picked an unbeatable winner? Wait till November 4.

In the meantime, here is that famous Palin-Zardari video.



This post was also published in Bloggers' Park Mumbai Mirror and Bangalore Mirror

McCAIN AND OBAMA: COWBOY AND COWHERD

Today was the first of the debates between John McCain and Barak Obama. Today was McCain’s big chance to prove that he, with all his experience and exposure, was the right President to lead America for the next four years. Today was the day when Obama was supposed to get ruffled and exposed for his naiveté in so far as his world view was concerned.

McCain did try to rub in what he thought was his advantage. And he thought the best way to do it was to keep saying almost condescendingly that Obama did not understand the dynamics of the situation, be it in Iraq, Afghanistan, Russia, Iran or Korea. But what he wound up achieving was to tell the whole world that there were fundamental differences between the views and attitudes of both of them and that his views were in no way any better than Obama’s or, crucially, any different from those of Bush.

It appears that McCain is perhaps seven terms or more too late for the White House. His world view is not much different from that of a cowboy of the Wild West. John McCain looks a lot like John Wayne. But this is the 21st century and the world is wired and interconnected like the US never was during the days when the good guys just shot the bad guys, no questions asked. Yet, McCain still believes that all the talking with Iran, for example, is best done from the business end of a revolver.

Obama, on the other hand, sounds quite like the cowherd that the dark skinned Krishna was in Vrindavan. He has the ability to mesmerise everyone with his views and eloquence, just like Krishna did with his flute. He too believes that even your worst enemies need to be first spoken to and given a full and fair chance to see reason before your power and might is unleashed on them.

The US has seen what the ‘cowboy doctrine’ of Bush has led to in the last eight years. McCain promises more of the same. He is clearly frozen in time. Obama, on the other hand, wants to usher in a new era which carries real positive energy and an inclusiveness that the whole world is badly in need of. He ideas promise a fresh future in which most people will gently sway to his tunes of harmony rather than involuntarily shake to the disturbing cacophony that has been jarring them for a number of years.

Unfortunately for Obama, an Associated Press-Yahoo News poll conducted with Stanford University recently has found that Barak Obama will lose six percentage points on election day for being a black. That is not a small penalty for prejudice. If the race is close, racism might just tilt the scales. Clearly, there are many white Americans out there who haven’t moved out of the cowboy mould and who still think of blacks as inferior at some levels. Obama is not going to be able to win them over, no matter what he says or does. John McCain is not going to lose them either, no matter he says or does.

As per a CBS/NYT poll conducted before the first debate, Obama was leading McCain by five points, 48 to 43 percent. After the debate, a CNN post debate snap poll showed that Obama led McCain by 13 points, 51 to 38 percent. A CBS poll also showed that Obama had won this debate.

The results suggest a surge for Obama after the face-off. If the momentum continues, Obama will have a sweeping victory on November 04. The six percentage points of prejudice will not be able to stall his march. Change, it seems, will prevail over race.

Here in India, the land of the original cowherd, there are a couple of authentic cowherds hoping to get to the chair of the Prime Minister. But to get there, they are not doing what Obama is in the US. Far from it. Here, they are playing their flutes only to attract and ‘steal’ the cows of others for their personal gain. And it is not just the cows: they want the fodder too! Change? Which animal is that?
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1. From Obama to Laloo: a rude reality check
2. Obama and Jindal: Hanuman and the Monkey
3. Looking for India's Obama in Harvard!

THE 'BIG' WAR BETWEEN MUKESH AND ANIL!

Mukesh and Anil Ambani, sons of Dhirubhai Ambani are at war. Over the Empire, Reliance, that their father created from a scratch. And a lot more. They talk at each other through the media and haven’t talked to each other for a long time.

A couple of days back, however, someone mischievously mixed up their schedules so that they could come face to face and sort out all their messy problems as big men should. Did they? Here is how the imaginary conversation went after pleasantries had been exchanged.

Mukesh: Anil what is it that I hear about your having filed a Rs 10K crore defamation suit against me?

Anil: What else did you expect me to do? I was very disappointed when I read about your having referred to me as having been a lobbyist and spy of Reliance Industries.

Mukesh: But that’s true.

Anil: I am a BIG man. You should have called me at least the Managing Director responsible for paying BIG money to, and spying on, BIG people in the government.

Mukesh: But why on earth should I have told such a big lie?

Anil: That would have gone well with the BIG image of my group. But you’ve ruined it all. I have no choice but to set the record straight. Since real brother Amar Singh could not help me out in this matter, I had to go to court. After all it is a question of my BIG reputation.

Mukesh: What is this new BIG mantra that you have started reciting endlessly?

Anil: I am BIG.

Mukesh: C’mon, I have been seeing you since you were really small.

Anil: Bhai I have really grown since you saw me last. I am really BIG now.

Mukesh turns questioningly towards Tina(Anil’s wife)

Tina: No comments!

Mukesh: How could you have found a way to become BIG when I haven’t been able to do that despite having explored everywhere?

Nita(Mukesh’s wife): He must have hit upon a BIG secret while you were wasting all your time learning how not to say ‘like’ after every word.

Mukesh: Like which word?

Nita: See, with that new-found power Anil now wants to turn the whole of India on. Remember his macho ad ‘Power on toh India on’?(When power is turned on, so is India!)

Anil: Ho toh BIG ho!(If you have it, it has to be BIG!)

Nita: Size does matter.(sigh)

Tina: Don’t go by BIG ads, Nita. They always promise more that they deliver! (wink-wink)

Mukesh: It’s all gas. Trust me.

Nita: I know, I know. It stinks. But you still want more of that oily stuff.

Mukesh: Yes. I am going to meet 40% of India’s oil and gas requirements.

Anil: How heavily crude can you people get? If only you had learnt how to get BIG, bhai, we might still have been together.

Mukesh: Now you are talking. Why were you shouting ‘Think Bigger Think Better’ earlier and giving me a complex?

Anil: That was only a stop-gap slogan to let the whole world know that I am BIGGER than you. I actually wanted to become the BIGGEST.

Tina: Snigger

Mukesh: Stop it bhai, my BP is going up.

Anil: Relax bhai, I have realised that it takes a lot more than thinking to become BIGGER, forget BIGGEST.

Mukesh: Tell me more.

Anil: Even though on paper one might look biggest, there are always many bigger guys in the market who can bring you back in touch with reality in a jiffy. Look at how much I have shrunk. The power seems to have gone too!

Mukesh: I always knew it would happen to you one day. You should have listened to papa like I did and stuck to small basics.

Anil: But still I am BIG. Today I have BIG Adda, BIG TV, BIG Entertainment, BIG Cinema, BIG B...

Mukesh: Cut it Anil. We both have Ma. Despite the BIG ‘Deewar’ between us.

Anil: Shit!

Mukesh: Besides, I may not be BIG but deep I do dig.

Anil: Yes I know you can gas about that. But give me my share of gas. Without it I’m powerless!

Mukesh: I always knew that you are going to gas around that you are BIG and powerful, just to make me feel really small. That is why I am holding the gas back.

Nita: Don’t release it here, for God’s sake.

Anil: Is that also why you have humiliated me by making such small allegations against me?

Mukesh: You got it BIG man! Now go do what you want.

Anil: Mummyyyyy!

(To be continued....)
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Readers may also read: Anil Ambani pays or returns Rs 5000 crores to shareholders?

ISLAMIC TERRORISM: MUSLIMS IN INDIA LIKE JEWS IN NAZI GERMANY?

Of all the ugly charges and abuses being hurled at the Indian state, this one is the most horrific. And it has not been made by a demented cleric. It has been made by Shabnam Hashmi, the toast of India's English media. In a program on NDTV on September 22, 2008, she actually alleged that the condition of Muslims in India today was like that of Jews in Nazi Germany! Can anything be more incendiary and more blatantly untruthful?

As terror attacks on innocent Indians get bigger and more inhuman, bigger get the charges by educated, liberal Muslims against India, as if this country has consciously unleashed a pogrom to marginalise and demonise Muslims who really are the last word in peace, tolerance and inclusiveness. When the whole world knows that India is a ‘soft state’ unable to take even basic steps to tackle and defeat terrorism, Hashmi and the like want to make Indian Islamic terrorists look like heroic ’freedom fighters’ and jehadis, just as Pakistan does, by comparing the Indian state with Nazi Germany.

Suddenly, after the police managed to kill and nab young, educated members of the Indian Mujahideen(IM) who had been claiming responsibility for the blasts in Delhi, Jaipur and Ahmedabad, the tone of even liberal Muslims has changed. It is almost as if their gloves are finally off, now that it is no longer possible for them to keep pretending that Indian Muslims are not involved in terror attacks on innocent Indians across the country.

But for a cursory and slippery condemnation of the terror attacks, the focus is being sought to be shifted by Muslim intelligentsia to the alienation that Muslims are feeling in India. Hashmi, Owaisi, Mushirul Hasan and others are all now dexterously deflecting all discussions on terrorism to this alienation along various parameters like education, employment etc while at the same time saying that for the ‘yet unproven’ activities of a few individuals, the whole community should not be demonised.

No doubt the vast majority of Indian Muslims are silently against terrorism that clearly has Pakistani roots. But what is the direction being shown to them by their religious and community leaders? There is no honest introspection whatsoever, to truly educate the community which has got increasingly ghettoised in India and is now facing a similar situation globally. On the contrary, all their actions and statements show a peculiarly aggressive response which not only obliquely justifies terror attacks but also threatens that if the alienation is not reduced, even more innocent Indians will be blown to smithereens.

Is it not significant that the Shahi Imam of Delhi’s Jama Masjid attended the burial of the two terrorists killed by Delhi police in Batla House, Jamia Nagar, even though their families stayed away? What message is that going to convey to Muslims? Of course, to the cameras he will say that till proved guilty, they are innocent. That is something that everybody knows. But where was the need for the Imam of India’s biggest mosque to give such high profile respect to those who might be really be killers of scores of Indians? And if, as some suspect, he actually does know through his subterranean links that they were indeed responsible for the blasts, what dangerous message is he trying to ram into his country and the relatives of those whom these guys killed?

There is more. Some Muslim organisations coming together under the auspices of the ‘Coordination Committee of India Muslims’ have issued a press statement rejecting the Batla House operation carried out by Delhi police as fake, notwithstanding clinching evidence to the contrary and the death of Inspector Sharma to the bullets of terrorists. They have not stopped there and have demanded virtually separate and exclusive criminal laws and procedures for Muslims.

This is what they want: “We demand that whenever police undertakes a combing or search operation in any Muslim locality, at least one third of the raiding force must consist of officers belonging to the minority community, and minority elders of the affected area should be taken into confidence and made part of the enquiry and interrogation teams.” The separation that influential Muslim leaders want from the Indian state and other ordinary Indians is no longer limited to personal laws and a civil code. They now want a separate criminal code too. The sub text is that if the state does not give in, they will wave the alienation flag and justify all future killings of innocents by Islamic terrorists.

All this is really explosive stuff. This is just the perfect recipe to ensure increasing separation of Muslims from rest of the nation. This is just what is needed to ring alarm bells in the minds of people of other communities and destroy any possibility of mutual trust being built. Integration of any community or sect in the mainstream, essentially a matter of trust, is simply not possible when such statements and demands are made, not by religious extremists but by responsible community leaders.

It must be said that the process of eroding trust and fanning doubt is being helped no end by an irresponsible media obsessed with TRPs and brought up on theoretical secularism totally disconnected from the real world out there. Sections of the media are also responsible for inadvertently ‘justifying’ Islamic terrorism by myopically and dangerously linking it with ‘alienation’. Islamic terrorism has very different ideological roots and the Pakistan factor simply cannot be wished away.

It needs to be remembered that no other ‘alienated’ section of India’s population – there are many of them - goes around planting bombs to kill innocent people and taking pleasure in counting the ‘kills’.

Islamic terrorism has to be faced squarely without flinching and fought by all Indians, including Muslims, till it is decimated. It is time for the country’s many truly secular but silent Muslims and India’s media to recognise this fact which is staring them in the face, and contribute responsibly to the achievement of this sacred national objective.

This post was also published by Reuters.com
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Readers may also read:
1. Tackling Islamic terrorism: what India needs to understand
2. Rushdie and Jinnah: whither Indian Muslims?

9/11 TO 9/19: BEADS ON A STRING THAT NEEDS TO BE CUT

Pakistan is imploding. Its Frankenstein has grown too big and too strong to be controlled. In fact, it now wants to seize control. And in a hurry. The Islamic Republic of Pakistan is under siege; its leadership is losing control to the very terrorists it once created and nurtured with great care and effort as Jehadis.

September 19, 2008, was, according to some analysts, Pakistan’s 9/11. That evening, Islamabad’s Marriott Hotel, located a shout away from the residences of Pakistan’s top leaders, was destroyed in a fidayeen attack when a truck laden with 1000 kilograms of explosives blew up at its security check post. This daring attack, within hours of President Zardari’s address to Parliament, has shaken the nation like no other attack had till now.

Between 9/11 and 9/19, Islamic terrorists have been striking with almost monotonous regularity across parts of the world, particularly in India and lately in Pakistan. To the casual observer, these attacks may not appear to have much in common. But make no mistake: they are all beads on the same one Islamic string. And that string needs to be cut.

Let us face the one uncomfortable truth that has created this explosive string: Islam is in retreat. From the heights that it had reached when the Ottoman and Mughal Empires were at their peak, the Islamic world has lost most of its might over the last couple of centuries. Had it not been for the oil beneath the sand made valuable by the West, even the economic prosperity that has camouflaged the grievous loss of political power and dominance, would not have blessed many Muslim countries, particularly in the Gulf. Fortunately, oil wealth has made the Arab world more or less comfortable with the situation. They are agitated basically by the political marginalisation of the Palestinians and their oppression by the state of Israel.

The only one nation that has not been able to reconcile to the decline of the grandeur and power of Islam and has reacted to it is Pakistan, the Islamic state carved out of India in 1947. It mistakenly believes that it is the inheritor of the Mughal empire. Powerful sections of its establishment, if not all of them, have taken it upon themselves to reclaim that lost empire. From that desire has emerged the strategy of bleeding India to death by inflicting on it ‘a thousand cuts’. In the single minded pursuit of this strategy, Pakistan has hopelessly intertwined its politics with the legacy of the Mughals, the teachings of Islam and the concept of Jehad. The breaking away of Bangladesh in 1971 should have opened many Pakistani eyes, but it had the opposite effect.

The Quranic concept of Jehad was first distorted and exploited by Pakistan as a political tool to successfully throw the Soviets out of Afghanistan. The spectacular success that Pakistan achieved in Afghanistan, albeit with American help, against a super power, was just the heady tonic that its establishment needed to unleash Islamic terrorists against India with renewed vigour, initially in Kashmir and later in the rest of the country.

The success in Afghanistan also proved to be equally heady for radical Islamists for whom the battle was more than just political. For them it meant a return to ‘pure’ Islam and the way of life that was prevalent during the time of the Prophet, as interpreted by them. That is what they achieved in Afghanistan after throwing the Soviets out. That is also what attracted Arab millionaire Osama bin Laden to set up base in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Laden was unable to reconcile to the domination of Christian West over the Muslim world and the presence of American troops in the Holy Land. He also believed in the restoration of the Sharia and the rejection of all other ideologies and religions of the world. It was this rare confluence of ideology and beliefs that enabled Laden give concrete shape to his ambitions in this part of the world.

Osama bin Laden’s presence and vision helped Pakistan give global shape to its jehad which was, until his arrival, limited to India, notwithstanding the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Laden believed that it was not just heretics, but America, Israel and even Shia Muslims who were the principal enemies of Islam. Pakistan is overwhelmingly Sunni and had the same problems with Ahmediya Muslims. So, this explosive combination quickly converted Pakistan into the natural ideological home and the physical training ground of Islamic terror groups who earnestly believed that with the power of Allah with them, they would be able to defeat not just India, as the state of Pakistan wanted, but also the remaining super power, as Laden did, and then establish the rule of Islam over the whole world.

That is where the Pakistani establishment made a fatal mistake.

Most Pakistanis do not want their country to become an Islamic state of the kind that Afghanistan was before 9/11. They are aware that even the Mughal Empire was never an “Islamic state”. The creator of Pakistan, Jinnah, in fact actually visualised a liberal, secular state that had nothing to do with the personal matter of the religious beliefs of its citizens. But, tragically, his vision, which would have produced a mirror image of the India Pakistan had broken away from, and in time exposed the contrived concept behind its creation, was summarily dumped by other Pakistani leaders in favour of an increasingly Islamised state. That idea was given a firm one way ideological direction by General Zia-ul-Haq after he overthrew Bhutto to become the ruler of Pakistan.

It is against human nature to remain static mentally and physically. The world has changed drastically over the last thousand years, thanks to the undying spirit of enquiry and the ability of man to think not just adaptively but creatively. But for Laden and the Taliban, nothing short of a return to ‘pure’ Islam will do. They want to roll back time. Their war is rooted in and is inseparable from that ideology. For them, it is not a convenient political tool to be used dishonestly and then discarded.

That is why today Pakistan is under siege. It is having to confront within Pakistan the very ideology which it successfully used to virtually annex Afghanistan. The proponents of that ideology, having been routed in Afghanistan, can naturally not accept the fact that their mother state is now sleeping with the US and has become the frontline state of their enemy in its war against them. Even elements in the Pakistani establishment and the ISI cannot live with the humiliating defeat that has been inflicted on them by the Americans. They still believe that they can defeat the US like they did the Soviets, if the state of Pakistan continues to support them. Of course they don’t want to even remember that in their war in Afghanistan, the US was with them and now there is no USSR to back them.

The tactical decision of Musharraf to join up with the US after 9/11 to save the state of Pakistan has generated a lot of emotional anger among ordinary Pakistanis. That is because they do not know how deep in trouble their country is. They do not want their country to become another Afghanistan; yet they do not want it to be on the side of the US. Their rulers know better. That is why, notwithstanding whatever he had said earlier, Zardari did not take long after getting power to say that Pakistan faced a grave danger from Taliban and that the organisation should be banned. No wonder, then, that he has come under attack so soon.

9/19 has a clear and very ominous message for Pakistan’s rulers from their creation, the Taliban and their invited guest, Osama bin Laden: join us in our holy jehad against the US or join battle with us; we are going to get you, no matter where you are.

9/19 has also made it clear that Pakistan’s jehadis-turned-terrorists have the capability and the support required to strike terror at will wherever they wish to against those who oppose them. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto was not an aberration. Nor was the hijacking of Islamabad’s Lal Masjid by radicals. The Al Qaida has already said that it will kill Musharraf.

The state of Pakistan has already lost all but nominal authority in nearly the whole of Pakistan save Punjab and Sind. Now, it is under siege in the very heart of the country. Some believe that 9/19 was actually meant to be an attack on Parliament when Zardari was addressing it, to take out almost the entire political Pakistani leadership in one huge blast.

After 9/11, the US moved swiftly and decisively against those who had carried out the attacks. It could do so because Americans were united in that fight against a clearly identifiable enemy. Pakistan too has to move like that if it wants to save itself. But, Pakistanis are deeply divided in that fight and the enemy is no one else but one of their own who was till yesterday their hero.

Will Pakistan and its military be able to decisively fight with and kill and defeat Pakistanis and other Muslims fighting the US in Afghanistan and in control of large parts of Pakistan? If the answer is yes, Pakistan might survive in its present shape as a country. Otherwise, it may soon find people looking for it in a few barely read pages of history books.

Notwithstanding what Pakistan does or not to face this challenge of its own making, the world needs to realise that unless the one common string that joins almost all terror attacks that have been carried out across the globe is cut decisively, innocent lives will continue to be lost and the world will continue to remain as unsafe as it is today.
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Below is a 'must watch' dramatic CCTV footage of the minutes preceding the blowing up of the truck at the security gate of the hotel. Listen to the conversations too, if you can understand Hindi/Urdu.


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Readers may also like to read:

1. Mumbai 11/26: wake up to Islamic terror, this is just the beginning
2. Pakistan: dangers of the multi-ethnic Islamic state

IT IS INDIA, NOT PAK THAT US NEEDS TO WIN TERROR WAR

It was always going to happen. America’s war on terror in Afghanistan was never going to be a success with Pakistan as its ally. Perhaps the Americans too knew it. But immediately after 9/11, they had little choice but to co-opt the creator and cradle of Islamic terrorism. Taking on a nuclear powered Pakistan straightaway, before Afghanistan was converted into a firm base from where US troops could operate safely in the region, and without ‘securing’ the former’s nuclear arsenal and getting sufficient hard intelligence of the real situation on ground, would have been disastrous.

Barak Obama first spoke of the need of sending US troops into Pakistan to hunt down Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaida and Talibani elements which were operating against US forces in Afghanistan from Pakistani territory. Last week, it was revealed that President Bush had signed an unprecedented secret executive order back in July giving carte blanche to special forces to mount counter terrorist assaults inside Pakistan territory.

It would be naive to assume that Bush was not aware that this action of the Americans would infuriate ordinary Pakistanis as well as important elements of the establishment, even if they had successfully arm-twisted General Kiyani to toe their line. It also goes without saying that this order, which fundamentally alters the rules of the game, may well escalate into a bigger war into which India will also get sucked at some point of time. Perhaps that is why the Pakistanis have privately caved in while making appropriate public noises about violation of the sovereignty of Pakistan not being acceptable.

US drones have regularly been launching missile attacks on targets inside Pakistan for months, creating tension between Pakistan and the US. Things came to a head on September 03 when US commandoes landed helicopter gunships near a village in South Waziristan and killed 20 people. Pakistan has now warned that its troops will defend its territorial sovereignty and will militarily respond to any incursions by US forces. According to some reports, a couple of days back, Pakistanis did fire at American helicopters that violated the country’s air space, forcing them to go back to Afghanistan. This has been denied by the US which, like Pakistan, is now making the right noises publicly about respecting Pakistan’s sovereignty.

Forget the public statements of the Americans. Things are clearly headed one way because Pakistan is in no position to disown and destroy the religious fundamentalist elements it has assiduously created and nurtured as instruments of state policy for a long time. Indeed if anything, the civil-military hybrid regime that has succeeded Musharraf appears to be losing control of the situation. Religious extremists already control vast swathes of Pakistan territory from north to south along the border with Afghanistan. Now they are moving into the very heart of Pakistan.

The infamous ISI, which Musharraf once described as being central to the very existence of Pakistan, is still not willing to come to terms with the reality of the situation. Elements of it still remain emotionally and ideologically attached to Islamist extremists who continue to flourish in Pakistan, thanks in no small measure to its continuing support. The ISI and key elements of the establishment also remain implacably hostile to India and are still in the mode of only ‘managing’ the current situation with cunning. They are in no mood yet to shed 61 years of visceral hatred for India and junk Pakistan’s prime objective of bleeding India through ‘a thousand cuts’.

The recent attack on the Indian embassy in Afghanistan, to quote one instance, with the tacit approval of General Kiyani, should leave no one in any doubt that behind all the right noises of friendship being made these days, nothing has really changed fundamentally. So deeply embedded is this basic position that Pakistanis who matter are unable to accept that they have actually wound up mortally wounding their own country. Similarly, behind all the talk of being the ally of the US in its operations in Afghanistan is the burning desire to see America defeated like the Soviets were, and proclaim its defeat as the great victory of Islam over the Great Satan.

How long can anyone, no matter how cunning, ‘manage’ to pretend to be fighting with the one he is actually fighting against?

The belated decision of the United States to start the process of taking the war on terror into Pakistani territory is a surprising development for only those who still do not accept that the root of whole problem is the nation state of Pakistan. To those who know it, including Pakistan’s leaders, the inevitability of this development should have always be known. It was always clear that the US would play along with Pakistan only till it realised that it could not win the war on terror by banking on that country’s duplicitous support.

That time has finally come. And, fortuitously, the US will wind up doing to Pakistan exactly what India should have done a long time back but was afraid to because it lacked the military muscle required to guarantee only one result.

India should not hesitate to use this heaven sent opportunity. It must align with the US to achieve its own aim. Even if our politicians and bureaucrats don't get their basics right as has almost always been the case in matters concerning national security and strategy, it will be in the interest of the US to illuminate them and get them to follow the American line in India’s supreme national interest. They need to understand that terror cannot be decisively taken out without taking out the nation state of Pakistan. A ‘stable’ Pakistan in its present shape can only make India ‘unstable’.

A fateful convergence of interests with lasting global ramifications is emerging between India and the US at a speed that might be disconcerting but is not artificially generated. How this potentially powerful synchronicity is exploited and in what time-frame is something that will be watched with great interest by everyone as it will majorly impact the global order. If the clearly visible synergy flows naturally, the world will be safer and more stable than it is today.
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Readers may like to read the following posts:
1. Take out Pakistan to tackle terror
2. Pakistan: dangers of the multi-ethnic Islamic state
3. A vote to save Jinnah's Pakistan: will it?
4. Musharraf mauled: Jinnah's Pakistan next?

WAR ON TERROR: FIVE WASTED YEARS

The serial blasts that shook Delhi on September 13, 2008, have finally jolted India’s ‘secular parties’.

Laloo Yadav, who till the other day was defending the SIMI, has made a complete ‘U’ turn. He now wants the head of the Home Minister for failing to prevent terror attacks. Mulayam Yadav’s voice, Amar Singh, has suddenly started talking like a statesman by calling for a bipartisan approach to fight terrorism. All that loud talk of defending the SIMI and calling it a secular outfit has simply evaporated.

The biggest turnabout, of course, has been of the Congress party which is heading the UPA government.

For five long years, every single Congress leader has been vehemently arguing that existing laws were more than adequate to fight terror. At all forums, they have been using the most unbelievably bizarre and pea-brained logic that since the earlier tough anti-terror law did not lead to a reduction in terror attacks, there was no justification for it or a similar ‘draconian’ law that was prone to misuse and harassment of innocent citizens. The terror attack on Parliament in 2001 has also been twisted grotesquely and used ad nauseum to run down the demand for tough laws.

Year after year, the United Nations and the US have been putting out reports highlighting in detail how India is hopelessly unprepared to tackle terror and suggesting in detail a slew of measures, including laws, that need to be put in place by this country which has suffered most due to terrorism. These have been summarily pushed under the table only because India’s politicians are mortally afraid that any tough steps would be viewed as anti Muslim and cost them electorally. Anti-terror laws passed by the states of Rajasthan and Gujarat have also not been cleared by the central government, more keen on mistakenly showing to Muslims how much it cares for them rather than developing any coherent strategy to combat and defeat this cancer that is making its presence felt with monotonous regularity.

Even as more and more Indians have been dying in terror attacks, the Congress and its allies have remained frozen and paralysed by the fear of loss of vote banks which, to them matter infinitely more than loss of innocent lives. At one point, the Home Minister had in fact gone to the extent of linking the hanging of Indian Afzal Guru with the demand for extradition of Indian Sarabjit Singh from Pakistan. Afzal Guru, convicted for the attack on Parliament, has still not been hanged only because that might prove electorally expensive.

As late as yesterday, fiery spokespersons of the Congress party were defending, to their last ‘breath’, the stand that there was no need whatsoever for a tough anti-terror law. Worse, without having even a foggy idea of what it meant, one spokesman of the party even declared that the government had ‘zero tolerance’ for terror! The National Security Advisor, an intelligence ‘specialist’, also went to the extent of claiming that some attacks has been prevented in Delhi in the last few days due to good intelligence.

Today, to use a Hindi proverb, ‘the parrots of all of them have flown’. Today, the Prime Minister, at long last, admitted that the intelligence set up of the country is in bad shape and that he is open to the idea of having tougher laws to tackle terrorism. There is also talk of appointing a separate minister for internal security, a belated acknowledgment that virtually no attention has been paid to the growing menace of terrorism by both politicians and the career bureaucrats who effectively run the show on ground.

Tomorrow, you will hear political chameleons speak virtually against themselves and all that they have been saying for five years. Till yesterday, they made it appear as if there really was hardly any terrorism worth talking about and that India actually faced a danger only from the BJP and its allies. India’s real war on terror, it seemed, was in TV studios between political rivals fighting to protect their respective vote banks rather than the nation.

Tomorrow, you will hear political statements that will amaze you. Tomorrow, you might be fooled into believing that after five lost and wasted years, India’s politicians have actually woken up to the danger of terrorism, the dimensions of which have suddenly been revealed after the Delhi blasts. A few good men apart, be sure that this ‘awakening’ is nothing more than political gimmickry and dishonesty. This volte face that the country is seeing is only because they have woken up to the realisation that many of their non-Muslim voters are very angry. There is a real danger that they will desert some parties and leaders due to the callous and criminal neglect displayed by them in ensuring the safety and security of innocent citizens of this country.

This government has only a few months left before elections are held. Will the appointment of a new minister at this belated stage serve any purpose at all? Will enactment of a tough law wash away the stains of years of criminal neglect? Who is to be held accountable for the five years wasted by the government in India's war on terror?

These wasted years have seen terror groups grow from strength to strength. They have not only been ignored but have actually been shielded and encouraged by some of our leading politicians. Before this country can start fighting terrorism with real purpose, it perhaps first needs to treat and tackle some of its politicians on the same scales of justice and firmness that are applicable to terrorists. Only then will the war on terror be won decisively.
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Must Read:
1. India Losing war on terror: the Prithviraj Chauhan syndrome

2. Rushdie and Jinnah: whither Indian Muslims?

BLESSINGS OF THE LEADER, CRIES OF THE LED, CURSES OF THE DEAD

By now, every kid on the street knows that India has a Home Minister who just does not fit the job. This ‘Clothes Man’ is a far cry from the ‘Iron Man’ that Sardar Vallabhai Patel was as India’s Home Minister. On September 13, immediately after Delhi had been hit by serial blasts, Shivraj Patil was seen calm, unhurried and unruffled at three different places in three different dresses within three hours.

India’s Home Minister, who is directly responsible for the security of national capital, showed that evening to the whole nation that there was a living Nero in Delhi who was busy changing clothes within the hour even as he was getting report after report that innocent people were dying minutes away from him. Long before the media started speaking about the damning incompetence of Shivraj Patil, I had written in this blog on May 15, that “Patil is a ghost like figure, rarely seen and heard. And, when he does open his mouth, you immediately know that he can do no better than put his foot there, so clueless is he about his job and the developments that are taking place right under his very nose.”

The Times of India of September 16, 2008, headlines the ridiculous statements that Patil has been parroting mechanically after every terror strike. In an interview with Rajdeep Sardesai of CNN-IBN yesterday, he once again shot himself in the foot by claiming that he knew that a terror attack was going to take place in Delhi even before Narendra Modi gave this information to the PM based on the interrogation of the suspects of the Ahmedabad blasts.

He obviously made this claim to take away the credit from Modi. But what he actually wound up doing was exposing the fact that despite this input and the lead time he and the intelligence agencies had, no ‘actionable intelligence’ about the timing and methodology of the attack could be obtained by the full might of the government of India in Delhi.

When asked whether he would resign because everyone seemed to have lost faith in him, Patil replied with a look of great gratitude on his face that he would not resign as he “had the blessings of the leader”.

Remember, the National Security Advisor is a former head of the Intelligence Bureau(IB). With him at the helm, one would have expected path-breaking changes and drastic improvements in the intelligence gathering capabilities of not just the IB but all other domestic intelligence agencies in the country. That is the domain of his expertise. But what do we have? Almost total intelligence failure, attack after terrorist attack, including the latest one in Delhi. Yet, he keeps coolly waffling his way through all his dismal failures, secure in the knowledge that where it really matters to ensure his personal survival, he has not failed even once.

The third individual in the frame is the Minister of State for Home, Jaiswal. When he speaks, I had written earlier, he “sounds like a villager sitting under a peepul tree in a village, smoking a hookah and discussing the happenings with equally uninformed, illiterate villagers.” Yet, he too continues to keep vigil in the ministry, not against terrorists who are threatening the nation but perhaps against conspirators who might be hatching a plot against the leader.

All these gentlemen are occupying perhaps the most critical appointments that are directly responsible for facing the challenge posed to the nation by religious terrorism. Yet, despite their continuously disastrous performance, they continue to enjoy of the “blessing of the leader”. The leader, it must be added, is not the PM, the guy responsible to run this country.

Loyalty to the person of the leader is all that matters, it seems. Competence, integrity and accountability are weighed on that one scale only.

These blessings lie over the cries of ordinary Indians, the only ones suffering due to terrorist attacks which are claiming the livelihoods of those dear to them, and the curses of those who have had their lives snatched from them due to the criminal callousness of these gentlemen. They have done absolutely nothing till now to either meaningfully protect law abiding, innocent Indians or to tell the perpetrators of terror and their masters in other countries that they cannot continue to willfully keep spilling Indian blood without incurring unacceptable costs, wherever they may be.

That is what the US did after 9/11. It put in place stringent anti-terror mechanisms in the US and, most importantly, went after the gut of the attackers in Afghanistan, and now even in Pakistan. The Pakistanis and the terrorists have understood clearly that if there is another 9/11, the US will retaliate even more massively.

Unless you put that kind of fear into their bones, even insignificant countries like Bangladesh will continue to show you “Chappell’s finger” contemptuously. Atal Bihari Vajpayee did mobilise the Army after the terror attack on Parliament. But he chickened out just hours away from launching an attack on Pakistan, perhaps under US pressure. If my reading is correct, that pressure will not come from the US in future.

The blessings of the sort that the likes of Patil are thriving on cannot give any solace or comfort to anyone who values human life. They cannot even be sought by those who have any sense of the enormity of the responsibility that rests on their shoulders: the safety and well being of one billion Indians.

These blessings will benefit neither the ‘blessor’ nor the blessed. One can only hope that this light dawns on them before more Indians shriek in pain or lie still in death only because their leaders failed them just to protect their own turf.

INDIA AND THE US: PARTNERSHIP OR SUBSERVIENCE?

When India finally got an exclusive waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group(NSG) to mark its all but formal entrance into the Nuclear Club, a wave of elation washed over most Indians, particularly because it was perhaps India’s first ever ‘victory’ over the Chinese. Never mind that it was Bush who forcibly pushed it down unwilling Chinese throats; India had something to crow about.

The waiver caused a sudden change in India’s forever bullied stance against incessant Chinese arrogance and its belittling of India at every available turn. The Chinese ambassador was served a demarche at 3 AM, its Foreign Minister on a visit to India was made to face some music, and India made public its displeasure and anger at the devious efforts that China made to scuttle the deal despite assurances to the contrary at the highest levels. After 46 years, India began re-growing a spine.

No one knows why Bush went out of his way to do for India what he did at Vienna. Everyone knows, of course, that the US is very keen to enter into an altogether unprecedented strategic relationship with India. While most believe that the Indo-US Nuclear Deal is a manifestation and almost the beginning of that strategic partnership, the BJP and the commies think that the deal will actually lead to “strategic subservience”.

The celebration of this new relationship that two sovereign nations have entered into in their perceived national interests has, in many quarters in India, acquired a different dimension altogether.

Many analysts and commentators have once again started mixing up the ‘social partnership’ that Indians have always had with the US with the strategic partnership that India is embarking upon now. It is perplexing, to say the least, to hear leading and otherwise well informed citizens say that India and the US are natural allies because a lot of Indians study and work in that country, many Indians in the US are leading academics, entrepreneurs, business leaders etc; Indians love all things American, including TV shows, fast food, rock stars, music – the American way of life, in sum. Because of all these social factors, they argue, the Americans can no longer treat India as it has done in the past; the nuclear deal is simply an extension of this reality!

If nations had been guided by such sentimental and essentially irrelevant considerations, this world would have been such a nice, happy family.

Stalin, arguably the most powerful Soviet leader was not a Russian. He was from Georgia. Today Georgia is an independent country at war with Russia and dying to join the NATO. Millions of Bangladeshis have found a home and life in India. Yet Bangladesh is happy to play host to anti-India terrorist outfits ranging from the ULFA to HUJI. Till not long ago, people of Western Europe were fighting each other in a manner that the world had never seen. Pakistanis have more in common with Indians than Indians have with Americans, yet they our implacable enemies who want to bleed us to death ‘with a thousand cuts’. The Taiwanese are all pure Chinese. Need more be said?

This mixing up of the social with the strategic is a malaise that afflicts perhaps Indians alone. And the celebration of this social interaction is where the real subservience lies. Indians are happy to praise and be in awe of all things American. Their aspiration ends at getting to America and doing well there; they are satisfied that in that success they have become minor/major ‘celebrities’ for folks back in India. Most importantly, they are more than content to play second fiddle to America and Americans.

Disturbingly, playing second fiddle has almost become a part of the psyche of Indians, thanks perhaps to centuries of colonial domination. It is not just the Americans who are benefiting from the Indians' lack of national ambition and pride. The Chinese have gained the most from it. Both India and China were at the same level of economic and military capabilities in the fifties. In 1962, India meekly accepted a humiliating military defeat and then just watched with indifference as China went leaps ahead over the next few decades to become an economic and military super power.

Today, it is difficult to spot an Indian who wants his country to recover lost ground and get to where China has reached. There is a ready, defeatist and passive acceptance of being beaten without a fight, and remaining a distant second best as a nation.

The BJP is wrong. India’s strategic subservience to the US is not going to become a reality because of the clauses included in the 123 Agreement or the Hyde Act. It will happen because of the appalling subservience that exists in the minds of Indians who as individuals simply love admiring and aping all things American, except the ones that generate the pride and patriotism that have made America the greatest nation in the world.

Indians just never get fired to beat the Americans as a nation, as it were, by scaling new heights of excellence collectively as Indians. Individually a few former Indians will excel in the US. That is not India, that is America excelling, while India remains mired in the mediocrity that makes second-rate nations. Unless this is understood and corrected, India will remain little more than a subservient tool in the strategic vision of America. And Indians will keep taking great pride in all things American, as if they were their own.
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Readers may like to read: Chak De India, Second Best Means Nothing

DELHI BLASTS: BLAME PAK, BLAME ISI, GO HOME

Now it is the turn of Delhi. Five blasts in a span of 45 minutes starting 6:15 PM this evening have claimed 18 lives already, still counting.
The usual email of the Indian Mujahideen claiming responsibility for the attack has been received by the police. As per the email, Operation BAD(Bangalore Ahmedabad Delhi) is now complete. The pathetic blame game and talk of ‘intelligence failure’ has already begun.

One can safely predict the sequence of events that will follow.

The Home Minister will make a brief appearance and blame Pakistan directly or obliquely. The Minister of State for Home will be heard saying that the matter is being investigated and that the ISI has a hand in the attack. Minister Renuka Chaudhary will explain why domestic violence cannot be dealt with by normal laws, necessitating a tough new law, while stoutly defending the opposite stand taken by the government to deal with the unending violence unleashed by terrorists. The NSA, who has used his stint to mindlessly upgrade police ranks and increase the dysfunctional invasion of the IPS cadre into the para military forces, will probably remain silent. If he eventually does decide to waffle an answer, he will most likely say that there is credible evidence to show Pakistan’s involvement, and declare that the ISI needs to be destroyed, without knowing what that entails.

Mulayam Singh Yadav will be shown saying that there is no proof against the SIMI and that it is a secular organization. Lalu Prasad Yadav will echo his sentiments and ask for a ban on the RSS and the VHP also if the SIMI is banned. Ram Vilas Paswan will defend illegal Bangladeshi migrants saying that there is no evidence against the HUJI and that all Bangladeshi migrants should be made Indian citizens. Of course, no one will ask him as to why not a single Bangladeshi has been able to settle down in J&K while millions have created a dangerous security situation in many other parts in the rest of India. Sitaram Yechuri will eloquently justify the hypocritical position of India's commies against a stiffer law for terrorists while recommending exactly the opposite for drunken driving.

The BJP will chant its POTA mantra and blame the Congress for going soft on terror. It will the taunt the Congress that the only blast cases of the last few years that have been solved are those that took place in Modi’s Gujarat, while in other states the political leadership has failed because it is trying to appease the minorities. Finally, it will ask for the government’s resignation and ask for elections. Sushma Swaraj may actually declare once again that these blasts are a sinister conspiracy of the central government to delay the monsoon session of Parliament and divert the attention of the people who in reality are very unhappy with Indo-US Nuclear Deal.

The usual chat shows will be held in TV studios in the next few days with the same players, the same questions and the same answers. At these platforms, bleeding heart secularists will get the opportunity to voice their apprehension that the blasts may actually be the handiwork of Hindu terrorists belonging to the fringe groups of the Sangh Parivar. Selected Muslims will also be heard saying that Islam is a religion of peace which does not permit killing of innocent civilians.

After all this has been said, everyone will show ‘great resilience’ and get back to the beat of life as if nothing ever happened.

This is what has been happening for years. And nothing, actually nothing, has been done till now to proactively tackle this scourge that India has been facing for decades now. Why proactively? Precious little has been done even reactively. Not one of the anti-terror mechanisms that other countries have put in place have even been considered by India.

India simply does not have the courage to do what it needs to. Why? The prime reason, of course, is the politics of vote banks which frightens politicians who are in business solely to grab power, all means fair. Due to this, the entire government machinery has been hijacked by bureaucrats who in this country have become the real, permanent rulers. Systematically, they have infiltrated, captured and destroyed all institutions that matter in the matrix of power. And, they lack the integrity to step aside and let real professionals, and the best available minds, get into the system to make it responsive and dynamic.

What did the Americans do after 9/11? They did not let their bureaucrats and diplomats let them beat around the bush into doing nothing. They went into Afghanistan. What are they doing now? Having given Pakistan enough time and opportunity and money to tackle the Talibanis and Al Qaida elements operating in that country, the US has decided unilaterally to send its special forces into that country to do the job. Yes, we all know that Pakistan is a sovereign country. Yes, we all know that the US is violating its sovereignty. What else should it have done? Should it have kept helplessly swallowing Pakistani duplicity like India has done?

A few days back, a guest on CNN suggested that the US should use diplomatic efforts rather than sending its troops into Pakistan. The news reader promptly shot back saying that diplomacy will take a long time to yield results and that with US troops dying in attacks planned in Pakistani territory, that kind of time was not available to the US.

Even American news readers understand this elementary fact.

But for over two decades, India’s politicians, “policy makers”(generalist bureaucrats) and career diplomats have not grasped it even though more troops have been lost to terrorism than have been killed in all the wars that Independent India has fought. When your top leadership does not understand or chooses to ignore simple facts that stare you in the face, because its civil servants can see things in only terms of cadre supremacy, no response is possible. That is exactly what has happened. And no one wants to learn anything from the US where career bureaucrats and the police are nowhere in the top decision making hierarchy. In fact bureaucracy is almost abhorred by the leadership there.

So, be prepared for the usual and superficial media blitz for the next two days. Hear a lot of statements from India’s leaders blaming Pakistan and the ISI. And know that there is nothing more that they can do. Job done, they will just shake the dust off their hands, go home, and then get back to the petty politics of creating new divisions in India’s social fabric, only so that they can get a few additional votes in the next elections.
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Readers may like to read the following posts:
1. Tackling Islamic terrorism: What India needs to understand.
2. Terror and national security: The failure of intelligence
3. India losing war on terror: The Prithviraj Chauhan Syndrome
4. Stiff law for drunken drivers not terrorists!

SARAH PALIN EFFECT: MEN BECOMING "GULLIBLE SHEEP"?

On August 29, John McCain, the Republican Presidential candidate, stunned everyone by picking Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. Till that day, very few people outside Alaska had hear of her. But on that day, everyone saw that McCain had picked a stunner.

Sarah Palin, is a former beauty queen and was runner up in the Miss Alaska pageant in 1984. In 1988, she worked briefly as a sports reporter for KTUU-TV. In 1989, she eloped with her high school boyfriend Todd Palin. The couple now have five children, the youngest being just four months old. Sarah Palin’s 17 years old daughter is five months pregnant and intends to keep the baby and marry the father of the child.

She clearly has negligible experience for the job. Her political career began in 1992. She was for two terms Mayor of Wasilla, a small town/village of about 6000 people. In 2006, she became Alaska’s first woman Governor and, at 42, the youngest ever. Alaska is a remote state whose population of under 700,000 is less than that of many Indian towns.

Palin obtained her passport for the first time only in 2007, when she travelled to Kuwait to meet Alaskan National soldiers and to Germany to meet wounded soldiers. Her opponents say with some justification that her exposure to foreign affairs is limited to her interactions with Washington from distant Alaska!

These facts alone certainly could not have motivated McCain to pick her as the one Republican best suited to take over as the President of the most powerful nation in the world, should something happen to him.

Yet, ever since she has entered the electoral fray, its dynamics have undergone a dramatic change. The focus has substantially shifted from McCain to her. And, as per the latest opinion polls, Obama has lost the big lead that he had opened up between him and McCain after his famous acceptance speech. In fact the latest Fox news and Gallop polls show him trailing McCain by three and four percentage points respectively.

What really has Sarah Palin brought to the campaign that has brought about this surge? How much do her looks have to do with the rejuvenation being witnessed in the McCain camp?

According to an unrelated report on Tuesday by Flemish broadcaster VRT, a study by the University of Leuven has found an inverse relationship between testosterone levels and price awareness among males. This “naked women effect” shows that men who are exposed to naked women stop paying attention to prices and become “gullible sheep”. The study also found a similar effect on men exposed to scantily clad women.

Remember what happened immediately after Sarah Palin’s nomination? Fake photographs showing her naked and scantily clad appeared on the net, drawing immense traffic and causing a virtual meltdown. American men obviously went over the moon to just to see her unclothed. Subsequently, Sarah Palin dolls made an appearance showing her as a tough and armed version of the very pretty and ageless Barbie.

Has Sarah Palin managed to turn some American men into “gullible sheep” who have stopped paying attention to the price that they collectively might have to pay should Sarah Palin become the VP and even the President?

Has McCain consciously hit the winning button by picking a beauty queen? He knows how to do that. His first wife, Carol, was a successful swimwear model in Philadelphia. He divorced her after 15 years to marry Cindy, "a poster girl with big money", who was 18 years his junior. Carol attributed that marriage to “John turning 40 and wanting to be 25 again.” He is now 72 and has picked an almost unknown running mate who is very pretty and 28 years younger.

Will the “Sara Palin Effect” last till November 4? Will Obama be able to find a way to get a lot of men to shed their blinkers and get back into focus to decide on real merit who they want to see in Washington? Will he also be able to win back the white women voters who, as per some polls, have gone over to the Palin camp?

Obama has a tough fight on his hand. McCain was almost a sitting duck for him till Sarah Palin took the Republican centre stage. Now he has to deal with an unfamiliar challenge which possibly cannot be taken on conventionally, not in less than two months in any case. Will he rise to the occasion and find an answer? Or has McCain picked a winner?

Read Part 2 here.

IT'S TIME BJP EMBRACED NUCLEAR DEAL

The BJP is in a terrible bind. Of its own making. It has realised, just too late, that it has committed what may turn out to be it its greatest historical blunder by opposing the Indo-US Nuclear Deal. Dr Manmohan Singh, with a generous push from George Bush, has emerged triumphant as a PM whom the nation can blindly trust. How many Indian leaders would have staked their own chair for the sake of securing the nation’s interest? Mr LK Advani, on the other hand, has plummeted into the abyss meant for the many petty, selfish and greedy politicians who place their own interests above that of the nation.

Who does India need to thank for rightfully elevating Dr Manmohan Singh and exposing Mr Advani and the BJP? For once, the Chinese have inadvertently helped Indians to see the high ‘highs’ and the low ‘lows’ of India’s political landscape. Nail-biting and agonisingly protracted negotiations preceded the exceptional waiver that was finally granted to India by the Nuclear Suppliers Group(NSG) in Vienna. Till the last minute, there was opposition from some countries to the preferential treatment being given to India by way of a clean waiver, without it having signed the NPT and the CTBT.

At one point it appeared that the waiver would not come through. That was when the hidden hand of the Chinese was revealed. They had all along been lobbying quietly with 30 odd nations to ensure that India did not get the deal. The whole nation waited as President Bush spoke to the Chinese President and others to literally bulldoze them into a ‘unanimous’ agreement. When that finally happened in the last meeting of the NSG, the decision was tellingly greeted by silence, not clapping. In fact, the Chinese, finding that they had been exposed and defeated, chose to skip that final meeting where India emerged victorious and in another league altogether.

For really petty political considerations, spurred by greed to get into power prematurely by toppling the government, the BJP had been opposing the deal on many specious grounds, including that India’s sovereignty had been compromised. Indian communists had been saying exactly that for long. Although nobody was buying the BJP’s argument even then, the party was deluding itself into believing that its strategy of saying that it would re-negotiate the deal if it came to power was being swallowed by a gullible nation.

The Chinese have left the BJP with absolutely no place to hide. India’s commies are in any case expected to be, and were, consistent in placing ‘ideology’ over national interest even it means that they promote the interests of India’s biggest and intrinsically hostile neighbour and rival. But the BJP on the same side? A party that claims that it is a nationalist party also working against India’s interests just as the the Chinese were, only for petty political gain? That is a blot that the BJP will never be able to erase.

Already, the party is looking for a way out. Unfortunately, seeing the way some of its leaders have conducted themselves during the past few months, there is little doubt that it will again look for a less than honourable and a dishonest and devious way to make peace with what will prove to be a historic deal for this country.

Swapan Dasgupta has already started that process. Writing in The Times of India of September 10, 2008, he admits that the BJP “cannot escape the opprobrium for refusing to share India’s moment of glory last Saturday” and that the party is in the “bizarre predicament of appearing on the same side as China.” He further goes on to say that the party has to now accept the deal and deliberate how best it can use it to promote India’s interests if it comes to power next year.

Even before the 123 Agreement has been cleared by the US Congress, the US is saying that its next aim is to make India a “full partner” in the NSG as it believes that such a status for India is important from a “strategic, political, economic and energy standpoint.” India has not even thought that far ahead yet for itself, which gives a clear idea of the vacuum of strategic planning that exists at the highest levels in a hierarchy dominated by generalist career bureaucrats who have neither the ability nor the motivation to look beyond protecting cadre supremacy. Putting dysfunctional pettiness above national interest is a malaise that afflicts not just India’s politicians.

The enormous benefits that will accrue to India due to the Nuclear Deal are becoming increasingly visible. As India opens up for nuclear trade, it will generate worldwide business worth $40 billion. India plans to set up 24 imported nuclear power plants in the next 11 to 15 years. As per the CII, the NSG green signal has directly opened up opportunities worth Rs 1,20,000 crore for global and Indian firms over the next 15 years. The benefits of the waiver will also be visible in other hi-technology areas like pharma, space, defence, chemicals, robotics, engineering, electronics etc.

All these economic benefits will not worry the Chinese in the least. What concerns them is the fact that with this deal, India will be in a position to quickly address the hopeless asymmetry that exists between these two giant Asian countries in their nuclear weapon and delivery system capabilities. That is why they tried to sabotage the NSG waiver. They were sure that India was not bartering away its sovereignty and becoming a vassal state of the US. It is not believable that these elementary facts were not known to the BJP too. Yet, the party chose to place itself above the nation. That is about as close to treason as you can get without attracting the charge.

LK Advani missed a historic opportunity to be on the side of India when he forced the government to seek a confidence vote in Parliament on the issue, in the fond hope that the government would be defeated and he would become Prime Minister. That is a blunder from which neither he nor the BJP will recover in hurry. But, the party still does not appear to have learnt the right lesson.

The US is in the middle of a closely fought Presidential election. That has not prevented Obama from supporting the NSG waiver and the 123 Agreement, even though the hated Bush is going to claim all the credit for it. The US would probably never have become the great nation it is had its politicians not shown the wisdom to display honest bipartisanship where it mattered to the country. That is one lesson that India needs to learn in a hurry.

It is no doubt too late for the BJP to recover anything from the wreckage of its stand on the Nuclear Deal. But that is no reason for it to compound its folly by adopting a deviously distorted stance that pretends to justify its opposition to the deal while making grudging peace with it. Arun Shourie is a master without parallel at dissecting every alphabet in a text. Unfortunately, in doing so, he sometimes loses sight of the big picture that matters. That is what his party needs to look at now.

The BJP will do itself and the country great good if it accepts and unflinchingly embraces and celebrates the Nuclear Deal. It is time for the party to manfully accept that it made an honest mistake. That is only way for it minimise the self inflicted damage to its image. Unfortunately, the dismal record of India’s politicians suggests that the BJP will continue to indulge in petty nit picking and wind up harming itself even more.

Let us see whether LK Advani can show some real bipartisan leadership and a bit of statesmanship even at this late stage.

This post was also published by Reuters.com

ARUSHI CASE: A DAMNING INDICTMENT OF INVESTIGATIVE AGENCIES

Just four days back, I had written that the CBI, which had taken over the sensational Arushi murder case and claimed with much fanfare on July 11, 2008, that it had solved the case, was unlikely to file a charge sheet against any of the three accused whom they had arrested. On September 4, Vijay Mandal was granted bail by a court on the ground that the CBI had no proof to name him as an accused.

Today, India’s premier investigative agency has surprised the nation by throwing in the towel. It has finally admitted that it has found no proof against anyone in the case. Worse, it has announced a reward of Rs1 lakh for anyone who gives them further information in the case.

Even when the CBI had claimed on July 11 that it had solved the case with arrest of Krishna, Rajkumar and Vijay Mandal, there were serious doubts in my mind about its claims because some vital points had been ignored. They were as relevant on that date as they are today and merit being repeated here:

• Nothing heard by the Talwars. The CBI had stated on July 11 that they had physically opened the door to Arushi’s room and found that nothing could be heard from her parents’ bedroom with the AC running. It was also mentioned that upon being assaulted by the accused, Arushi tried to shout, but she had a bad throat. The trespass into Arushi’s bedroom was not done by an individual making a careful entry. Four men under the influence of liquor entered her room in the still of the night, manifestly with the intention of sexually exploiting her. In her room, they even had a fight, due to which, as per the CBI, Hemraj left the room in a huff. Whether the other three did assault her sexually or not before or after hitting her with a blunt weapon is not clear. But, it needs no intelligence to understand that four hot-headed drunk men would have made enough of a racket in Arushi’s room for quite a while. Dr and Mrs Talwar were not sedated. It is really difficult to believe that they just did not hear the commotion, if not the muted cry from the bad throat of Arushi. Yet, the CBI chose not to subject Dr Talwar to a narco test. That too despite one of his polygraph tests not yielding a satisfactory result.

• Blood stains on Rajkumar’s shirt. The CBI has obviously not found incriminating bloodstains on Rajkumar’s shirt that they had sent for analysis. The question is: what about the shirts of Krishna and Mandal? Krishna was, as per his relatives, sleeping with them in a small room all through the night. If he did manage to quietly slip out, how come when he came back, he changed his clothes and hid those that were bloodstained, yet undiscovered, without anyone getting to know about it? What about Mandal’s ‘murder’ clothes? Where are the clothes that Dr Talwar was wearing that night?

• Destruction of all forensic evidence. No incriminating forensic evidence at all was found by either the police or the CBI from Arushi’s bedroom and the terrace where Hemraj was killed. Were three drunk guys having no criminal background so smart that they destroyed it all after committing the crime? Were Dr and Mrs Talwar so foolish and ignorant that they allowed all and sundry to enter Arushi’s room the day after the murder and destroy such evidence?

• Where are the mobiles and the murder weapon? This question was relevant on July 11. But the CBI chose to ignore it then. It is unanswered even today, despite the ‘confessions’ and ‘leads’ obtained during the narco tests. Without them, the CBI will look as foolish as the NOIDA police did earlier, and has no case.

The way both the NOIDA police and the CBI have bungled this case points to a very fundamental malaise that has hollowed the core of India’s ‘elite’ civil services that includes the IPS. In case after case, the professional incompetence and lack of integrity of India’s police officers has been exposed. Yet, nothing happens to them. Heads never roll. All that happens is that the concerned officers are removed from public and media glare for a while by transferring them to another place. Soon all is forgotten. And such officers continue to rise in rank and are entrusted with even more responsibility!

In the Arushi case, while the concerned IPS officers were transferred, one has not heard of action being taken even against Arun Kumar who, on July 11, claimed that the CBI had found the real murderers and had given a clean chit to Dr Rajesh Talwar, till then the prime accused, without subjecting him to narco analysis like the other accused were.

Be warned. This is the kind of material that may well land up heading the BSF, CRPF, CBI, IB, RAW, NSG, NSC and more. Is it a surprise that 61 years after Independence, these ‘elite’ police officers have not been able to effect any fundamental organisational and functional changes in a 19th century police set up put in place by a colonial power to subjugate its subjects? If anything, they have made things worse for ordinary citizens with blatant corruption at all levels and an arrogance that would have embarrassed even the British of the Raj.

There is no agency beyond the CBI that can question it for its failures. India’s politicians, who should have had the vision and the responsibility to set things right, have led from the front to corrupt this and other organisations by using them as private agencies for petty and partisan political and personal purposes. When the real rot is right at the very top, how can you expect integrity and honesty from those below?

The Arushi murder case stinks. Something horribly wrong has been and is being done with a disturbing nonchalance. One cannot help shake the feeling that a lot of money has something to do with the botching up of what should have been the one of simplest of cases to solve.