EMBRACE US, EUNUCHS

(Hafiz Saeed's song for India)

Embrace us, do, we will hug you too,
To make you forget what we remember;
Many tiny cuts we will evermore inflict,
To bleed you dry and then dismember.

Every weapon on to bring you down,
Great we won’t let you again become;
A mongoose and a snake's enmity this,
No mercy or respite till you succumb.

At war we are, you pretend it is peace,
You talk to prolong it, we parry to win;
We will not tire, our belly is afire,
Nor will we rest till you kneel, give in.

No cost is too high, no blood too much,
Time doesn’t daunt us, nor a lethal blow;
You fight to not finish but make peace quick,
For us there’s no peace till we slay you low.

Relentless Ghori felled foolish Chauhan,
When he won at last, it was their last battle;
Forgiving is a virtue, forgetting can be fatal,
We remember this truth, you revel in prattle.

A thousand years’ war, eating nothing but grass,
Is not a psycho’s boast, or a coward’s threat;
Each defeat’s ebb builds a tide of revenge,
On one we will hit home, you always forget.

Irrational for you is God’s way for us,
Kafir you won’t get it, such a soft mindset;
This is no game that can end in a draw,
Jihad is never over till victory is met.

Embrace us, eunuchs, we will reciprocate;
Cowardly pleas will help us speed you to your fate.

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MUMBAI ONCE MORE

Mumbai has been hit once more. Will be hit many times over. Given the trajectory that our leaders and policy makers have put this nation on, it not a question of whether but when another terror strike will take place.

Notwithstanding Rahul Gandhi’s baseless claim that 99% terror attacks have been prevented, it is true that the frequency of attacks has reduced since 26/11. But this is not because of the few half-measures taken by the government to bolster internal security but because a) Pakistan’s hands have got a bit tied after they were completely exposed for the first time ever in that attack b) Sonia Gandhi has gone into a maniacal mode to consolidate her Muslim and minority vote bank guided by her personal predilections and her campaign team consisting of the NAC and dubious NGOs and hate-mongering activists, prompting terrorists and their masters across the Radcliffe Line to pull their foot off the terror-attack pedal till she delivers, so that reaction from the majority community is muted, and c) focus of the intelligence agencies has been diluted and diverted to create a big media tamasha of the clear, present and growing danger of a virtually non-existent Hindu terror which was the creation a handful of people involved in four attacks, the last of which was in 2007, giving them time and space to consolidate and build.

The net result is that the people of India are today more vulnerable than they were earlier to terror; sitting ducks, as a leading daily headlined their plight after the Mumbai serial blasts on July 13, 2011.

What does it take to fight terror? First, a country has to put in place internal measures, including a robust real-time intelligent network, to make it extremely difficult for terrorists to get funding, local support and freedom to move around with little fear of getting caught before they launch an attack. After an attack, not only should getaway be made very difficult but there should be swift and stringent punishment, mainly as a deterrent for those who might be contemplating joining such outfits. Second, the external factors responsible for propagating and exporting terror should be made to feel the cost of their misadventure to the degree that they are compelled to put a stop to their activities. Unless the second part is conclusively addressed, the first will yield only limited results, and lower the morale of the people and the nation as a whole.

But, be it in the corridors of power or in post-attack discussions and columns, despite the sound and fury, despite the very detailed knowledge some analysts have about the mother-terror architecture in Pakistan, in the end, the refrain remains the same: we can do no more than talk to Pakistan, and we must improve police and intelligence set up at home.

The first part, the easy, meaningless one really -- except for analysts and commentators -- continues to be pursued, while the second remains as neglected as it always was.

In fact, given Sonia Gandhi’s seemingly obsessive compulsion to woo the minorities, central agencies are increasingly looking the other way as the Indian Mujahideen consolidates and spreads it wings, and as Pakistan deploys more and more local sleeper cells to be activated at a time of its choosing. Home Minister Chidambaram, who initially promised much, seems to have been effectively been done in by Sonia’s team that is more focused on emasculating the majority and splitting the society communally to deliver an electoral victory to Sonia in 2014, than on allowing the government to fulfill its constitutional obligation of protecting the lives of its citizens and securing the nation from the menace of terror of which it has been a victim for almost a quarter century.

Talking to Pakistan is not going to yield anything for India. Pakistan is getting India to the negotiating table at the point of gun not to give but to extract, to extort. Our leaders and babus have made their mouths and minds the weapons of choice to deflect and defeat the aggressive, never-say-die, hate-filled minds ready to wage – and doing so – a thousand year war. They think little about the helpless and innocent Indians who are getting killed again and again, because they and their kith and kin are safe and secure. They believe that giving some concessions will get the Pakistanis off their back, and they spend their energies solely on trying to give only that much as will not raise a furore in the country.

The Pakistanis, who smelled the coward in them long back, on the other hand, keep shifting the goal posts and outsmarting them at every turn, so as to wear them down till finally they --India -- submit. It does not seem to have struck our guys that the more we give, the more the demands will increase, after suitable pauses. May be they know it; but if that be so, it means that their ignorance of and abhorrence for the employment of force to counter and defeat force overrides their commonsense, live and effective examples of other nations notwithstanding.

The US is a democracy like us, but after just one major attack on mainland US, they went for the perpetrators of the attack even though they were non-state actors in a sovereign country. And, though it took them ten years, they hunted down and killed Osama bin Laden. They knew that unless they struck terror back in the hearts of the terrorists, attacks on the US would not only continue but would increase in intensity and frequency. Though they that also put in place very stringent measures to almost eliminate the chances of further major strikes, they were never under any illusion that mere defense would defeat fanatic warriors who were not fighting a conventional war and who thought nothing about losing foot soldiers fed to fight and die for virgins in paradise.

That is why there have been no attacks on America till now, while here the sense of despair is becoming alarming. Make no mistake: if there are more such attacks, that country will not hesitate at all to introduce even harsher measures, at greater cost to individual freedom temporarily. Liberty comes at a price and can be enjoyed unfettered only in a secure nation not facing a serious threat. Many terror attacks and decades later, we refuse to learn even basic lessons.

Is this the response expected from a huge nation of 1.2 billion to such a grave threat? Every time a terrorist attack takes place, our politicians almost proudly and openly announce that a neighboring country, Pakistan, is behind it. It is almost as if they are telling the nation that they have done their job by blaming Pakistan, which is all they can do, and that the nation has no choice but to meekly continue accepting this evil. Having identified the source two decades back, why has no effective response been formulated yet? Why do we continue to wail like a helpless, defenceless woman who is being repeatedly raped by a small boy 1/6th her size?

Just imagine a scenario in which Pakistan was six times our size rather than the 1/6th it is. What would it have done by now? Do I need to spell out? We probably would have long been splintered and devoured as a nation by that country, and run over by Talibani extremists. And what have we done? For six decades, we have aimlessly and apathetically allowed a tiny Pakistan to fearlessly keep trying to do precisely that, and have not yet formulated a terminal response that can put an end to this cancer that is going larger and that will, inevitably, afflict our own Muslims in the long run, just as is being planned.

We seem to know well only how to rush quickly to the high moral ground of fatal weakness that our first Prime Minister taught us, and camouflage the overriding concern for electoral victory that his Italian grand daughter-in-law is pursuing with deathly determination.

Till this debilitating paradigm remains in place, the ordinary people of Mumbai, indeed the whole of India, will continue to live with the fear that they may not return home in the evening, that their blood soaked bodies will be dumped like garbage at the back of trucks.
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KASHMIR: AFTER THE GALE, BACK TO SQUARE ONE

A disease can only be cured if it is diagnosed correctly. We all know that. The odd diagnostic error does take place despite the best available tools but never when the same symptoms keep recurring through the life of an individual. Their should be no exception to this rule. But there is one, albeit in different type of body, and it beats understanding and defies logic. Never in the history of the world has there been a continuum of errors in diagnosing an ailment like this. They first led to an imperfect and incomplete amputation of a substantial part of India's body and later to vicious attacks, still continuing, on the still-healthy main body.

I sometimes wonder whether it is worth the while repeating what I have been saying for long, over and over again. The effort, beyond a point, drains me as very little creative energy is needed to dig out old stuff, spruce it up and pass it off as new. For some of us who pick up a pen to pour out something that energises us from within, repetitiveness becomes a burdensome chore. But, there are some issues which keep hitting you in the face again and again without any loss of force, that refuse to go away or get stale. In fact, the impact actually gets magnified, as does the frustration and dismay, because what seems to be as clear as the proverbial day light to you and many others, inexplicably remains invisible to or unaddressed by the powerful few, not because they cannot see it but because they, in most cases, choose to keep their eyes wide shut.

Kashmir, the fish bone that Nehru mindlessly left in India's throat, is still stuck there, 63 years after he committed his first Himalayan Blunder. And it is stuck there only because at a very fundamental level, we refuse to admit that it is there and why. Despite all that has happened and is happening, we want to keep fooling ourselves into believing that the increasing pain that we are feeling is only temporary and will go away on its own if we keep feeding soothing lozenges to the bone. Over time, goes the asinine argument of the coward couched in comfort in India's capital, it will become part of our body and even strengthen it. But it hasn't and it won't.

Every time there is an upsurge of violence in the tiny Valley of Kashmir by ethnic Kashmiri Muslims, those who frame and influence India's policy masochistically bring it centre stage and engage in astonishing denial and self-flagellation. And come up with outlandish suggestions which they know have never worked and are not going to ever. 64 years of bribing Kashmiris at the expense of other, hard working, non-complaining Indians has only helped the problem and the riches of corrupt Kashmiri politicians and officials bulge. Yet some of us who should know better can do no better than continuing to suggest an increase in what is a glorified 'hafta'. Some others talk loosely of a political settlement, of giving 'genuine' autonomy, whatever that means -- and it means little considering how little the writ of the state already runs in a fully Islamised and purged-of-Hindus Valley. Now even that little it is under threat -- Syed Shah Gilani has decreed that Friday, not Sunday will be observed as holiday in Islamic Kashmir -- but everyone wants to pretend otherwise, even though they can see that his word is law, that he, as MJ Akbar says, is in power while Chief Minister Omar Abdullah is in government.

When Rahul Gandhi compelled Farooq Abdullah to abdicate in favour of his son Omar after the elections in 2008, India's national media was euphoric. More than the youth factor that had been exciting them only because Rahul Gandhi was young, it was the PLU connection that set their pulses racing. The beginning of a new dawn, they all proclaimed excitedly, thrilled that India was finally passing into the hands of photogenic, English-speaking, TV studio-friendly, feudalistic politicians who were on their social wavelength.

No one then bothered about the irritating detail that there was no enthusiasm at all where it mattered; the ground had shifted so much in 20 years of terrorism that Omar was actually irrelevant where he should have been relevant. No one thought that it was of any importance that Omar could barely speak Kashmiri and was considered an outsider by the people in the Valley. Also overlooked was the fact that thanks to the Pakistan-injected radicalism and jihad, the Abdullah family had come to be hated by many in the Valley as being stooges of India, that even Sheikh Abdullah's grave was being protected by India's security forces. Omar sounded good on TV and was a good friend of some Delhi journalists. He in a sense represented their victory and for them that was all the qualification that was needed to be a great CM in any state in India.

No wonder they have all been taken by surprise by the magnitude of the latest violence; the myth lies shattered once again. The stones thrown by protestors shouting 'azadi' have hit Omar and India hard. This unexpected development has jolted everyone who was equating tourist arrivals -- a vital economic activity for the Valley -- with peace and was lauding India's 'nuanced' handling -- read criminal inertia -- of the Kashmir issue, and Omar's connect with the youth of the Valley.

But, as always, at the end of yet another boil, nothing has changed. We are back to playing the same games that we have been for years and that have led to this mess. The PM has made an emotional speech that he very well knows will have no takers; there have been the usual, stereotyped discussions in TV studios from which nothing new has emerged because no one wants to confront the problem at the root, even though nearly every single Kashmiri who appears on TV says that it is not autonomy and development that they want but 'azadi'. Knowing fully well that is not an option available through plebiscite under which they can choose either India or Pakistan, everyone knows that azadi from India equals merger with Pakistan. In fact that is precisely what Gilani, the man who is the de facto ruler of the Valley, the one who has once again asked Kashmiris to cheer Pakistan's Independence Day, has been saying openly for decades.

Yet, when the Mirwaiz tells Prannoy Roy that Musharraf's dangerous plan on Kashmir was only an interim one and not the final solution to the issue of self-determination, the latter is surprised and says that Musharraf had told him that it was final. Evidently, even that sell-out deal that nearly went through and its implications have not been given the attention that they deserve, and Musharraf's word, Kargil notwithstanding, has been swallowed with naïve PLU trust. Similarly, when asked about Jammu and Ladakh which are ethnically completely different, even though Lone dismisses the stake of the Ladakhis by saying the population is small and that of the Jammuites by saying 'they', read Hindus, can take two-two and a half districts, and when every leader says that no resolution is possible without involving Pakistan, the likes of Barkha Dutt who are abnormally sympathetic to separatists refuse to budge from the disingenuous liberal line that the problem is political, not religious.

A few sane and informed voices like MJ Akbar and General Shankar Roychowdhuri who have voiced the plain truth that the anger and agitation in the Valley has been precisely orchestrated by a Pakistan which, among other things, wants to take revenge for Bangladesh and which will not let the problem be solved ever except on its terms, have been conveniently drowned out once again. Listening to them means abandoning the disastrous template of inaction that India has been sticking to and adopting a radically different, result-oriented one. That no one is prepared to do.

That is why a pacifist, economist Prime Minister is led to admit almost helplessly that India has no choice but to talk to Pakistan. That is why we keep seeing the sorry spectacle of Pakistan continuing to brazenly prosecute its proxy war and humiliate India at the same time. That is why the Foreign Secretary has to make the dumb declaration, much to Pakistan's joy, that talks are the "most intelligent means" to stop cross-border terror. Surely we must be the only people on the planet who believe that eloquence can defeat the power that grows from the barrel of a gun.

India simply has no Plan B, much less a Plan C or D, to get Pakistan to stop terror in Kashmir and elsewhere. The elementary realisation has not sunk in that unless the cost to Pakistan for waging a proxy war is raised substantially, it will never stop it. Why should it cease fighting a cheap war that is eroding the will of a hapless Indian government that believes that "doing nothing" equals being "most intelligent"? That this is the sorry state after two decades is a humiliation that only India can live with. And still nurse dreams of becoming a super power.

Pakistan's generals and jihadi masterminds in Pakistan are counting the number of those killed in police firing with glee even as India's rulers and opinion makers are feeling sorry and guilty, and rightly, for the loss of precious lives. Once again, the actions and reactions have blown over. But there is no one in any doubt that this is just another lull and that another gale will hit, at an unexpected time and with unexpected fury, and the whole dreary drama will be repeated.

Semantics apart, let us be clear that no solution, even interim, is possible between the now almost totally radicalised Kashmiri Muslim led by Gilani, and India without involving and conceding substantial ground to Pakistan. Going back to the 1953 position of near total autonomy, even if it were possible, is not going to settle the matter; that was a problem even then, as was Pakistan a player, much smaller than it has been thoughtlessly allowed to become now. There is no way that any government in Delhi can get away by making even the slightest of concessions because that will be viewed by Pakistanis as the victory of jihad and the defeat of "Hindu" India, and will lead to impossible demands and much greater violence.

Where does that leave us? Back to where we started. This is a recipe for disaster. The longer the drift, the better it is for Pakistan because it will push India more and more into a corner as the anger and violence and dead count rise, thanks primarily to Pakistan's relentless efforts. What better way for Pakistan to fight its war than by letting a few Pakistani jihadis and ordinary Kashmiris loose against India?

Kashmiris are mere pawns and their leaders are puppets on a Pakistani string. India is fighting the wrong people. The findings of the Chatham House survey on Kashmir substantiate this view. If they are correct then, as I had written earlier, for India it is very good news.

As per the survey, virtually no ethnic Kashmiri Muslim wants to join Pakistan. That is an extremely significant finding because it shows that having seen the way India and Pakistan have shaped up since Partition, Kashmiris realise that being swallowed in and by Pakistan is a far worse proposition than what they have experienced with and as part of India, despite decades of violence sparked and sustained by Pakistan. Most want Independence. So, when Kashmiri separatist leaders, except those for who believe Pakistan is the natural home of Kashmiris, say that talks with India should start with azadi -- secession -- and then worked backwards, the unspoken sub-text is that they want India to not only give them near total Independence but also thereafter become its guarantor!

Thus, at one level, they have a common cause with India against Pakistan. Or at least they want to leverage India's power to protect their Independence from a nation that they see going rapidly down a slippery slope. Paradoxically, if Pakistan is actually weakened to the extent that it can no longer wage a proxy war, the bargaining power of Kashmiri leaders will get substantially eroded and their demands will become realistic.

That again brings us back to the original position that no lasting solution acceptable to India is possible till Pakistan's ability to torpedo it is not totally eroded. Therefore, as long as we do not address this core issue, we will remain stuck in the vortex that we are in and will keep getting sucked deeper and deeper till something gives.

The war over and in Kashmir, as I have said earlier too, is, for Pakistan, the beginning, not the end, a pit stop, not the finish line. India is fighting the Fourth Battle of Panipat there. Loss is not an option; victory is vital. The sooner we understand that, the better. Talks with Pakistan will be the most intelligent option after that, not before.

PAKISTAN'S SLIDE INTO EXTREMISM IS REAL AND DANGEROUS

The Pew Global Attitudes Project report about Pakistan is the latest in a string of quick and unexpected developments that have confirmed what was widely known about Pakistan's tryst with terror and its denial about its duplicity. In fact, if the findings of Pew are accurate, then what they reveal is even more dangerous than what Wikileaks and Headley have.

But before we get to the Pew report, a quick recapitulation of developments during the last couple of years will be useful.

Despite 26/11 and the subsequent efforts of the Pakistani establishment to brazenly protect those involved in carrying out the attack, many of India's numerous Pakistan experts and leading journalists have been telling India that it is in India's best interest to continue to talk to Pakistan and also give it concessions so that the democratic government there can be strengthened. If we fail to do that and don't trust its civilian leaders, so has been the warning, that nation could be overrun by the Talibanis who will then flood into India and create mayhem.

This line of argument has, unfortunately, for long conveniently glossed over the fact that jihadi extremists, no matter which group they belong to, have not emerged on their own; they are also not thriving -- at least those who have not turned against the state -- despite an establishment that is against them: the military that effectively rules Pakistan actually treats them as their frontline troops. It has also ignored the fact that the radicalisation of Pakistan is a direct consequence of an obsessed-with-India establishment deliberately promoting a radical version of Islam, violent extremism and hatred for "Hindu" India, not just through Saudi-funded Wahhabi Madrassas but also through education being imparted in regular schools. One reason for pursuing this path is that, as Thomas Friedman says pithily, Pakistan "exists not to be India".

The Pew report confirms that the results of this assiduously pursued ideological transformation of the society have been spectacularly and, for India and possibly the rest of the civilised world, disturbingly successful. And almost irreversible.

At the time of Partition, both India and Pakistan inherited secular laws that the British had laid down. Pakistan, like India, still follows the same criminal justice system. But, thanks to decades of efforts put in by the state, most Pakistanis now want the same medieval laws that the Talibanis have imposed in areas under their influence to be implemented in the whole country: "Pakistanis overwhelmingly support making segregation of men and women in the workplace the law in their country (85%), and comparable percentages favor instituting harsh punishments such as stoning people who commit adultery (82%), whippings and cutting off of hands for crimes like theft and robbery (82%), and the death penalty for those who leave the Muslim religion (76%). Support for gender segregation and for severe punishments is pervasive across all demographic and regional groups." This finding is corroborated by the finding that "Pakistani Muslims overwhelmingly welcome Islamic influence over their country’s politics. Nearly nine-in-ten (88%) of those who see Islam playing a large role say that is a good thing. Similarly, 79% of those who say Islam’s role is small say that is a bad thing for their country. This pattern is true across all demographic groups."

The other significant finding, as far as India is concerned, is that although half or more Pakistanis hold and 'unfavourable' view of various militant groups like the Al Qaida, Afghan Taliban and the Pakistan Taliban, the picture with regard to the anti-India LeT is quite different. It enjoys the highest 'favourable' rating of 25%, the lowest 'unfavourable' rating of 35% and, most importantly, the highest 'Don't Know', 40%. More importantly, in Punjab, the state that defines Pakistan, with 40% of its population and 90% of its military, the LeT gets its most positive ratings with an equal number, 34%, expressing a positive and negative view. Seen in conjunction with the startling finding that only 8% of Pakistani Muslims consider suicide bombing justifiable, possibly because Pakistan has recently been hit by such attacks, it can be said that favourable views about terror outfits, particularly the LeT, would have been much higher but for the overwhelming opposition to such attacks. This deduction is further strengthened by the the finding that against a national average of 71%, 95% Punjabis and 91% Mohajirs consider Kashmir a very big problem. Kashmir, let there be no doubt any longer, does "flow in the blood" of the Pakistanis who really matter.

As everyone knows in Pakistan, the LeT is the military's sword arm as far as India is concerned, and not just with regard to Kashmir. Pakistanis have also seen decades of military rule and are experiencing one now behind a civilian façade. Liberal wisdom, often elitist, tells us that people love democracy and hate dictators because of the oppressive restrictions they place on their freedom etc; India rejected the Emergency, did it not? Do Pakistanis confirm that view? The surprising answer is, no. 84% of them, in fact, have positive views about their military; not just that, they think it is better than all other institutions of the state. Compare this to only 25% who think well of the national government and the multi-dimensional significance of this result will hit you in the face.

That the Pakistanis trust their military much more than they do their politicians is not surprising considering that shorn of the cloak of religion, the sub-continental dna is the same. But what should be a cause of some concern to India is that this means that there is serious public support for the hawkish anti-India policy that the military has adopted almost right from the time Pakistan was born, and that the radicalisation of society has now reached a critical mass, possibly close to a tipping point. Add to this the finding that they view India as Pakistan's biggest threat and Kashmir as its biggest problem, and you cannot, no matter how hard you try, escape the dreadful deduction that there is no way that Pakistan is either going to back off on Kashmir or wind up the LeT and other terror outfits employed by it to wage war against India.

Our analysts, journalists and spooks have, evidently, been talking to the wrong people, lapping up the wrong answers and pushing India's leaders on the wrong path.

An Arvind Adiga is not asked his religion, not nationality, on landing in Pakistan accidentally. The coffin of a Hindu member of Pakistan's Youth Parliament killed in an air crash near Pakistan's capital is not marked "Kafir" absent-mindedly. The moderate Pakistani that we have been led to believe represents the silent majority in Pakistan is heading the dodo's way. Charmed by hugs and smiles and song and drama, some of us continue to believe that all is well in mainstream Pakistan, that Karachi is just like Mumbai, that we are the same people. Concerned about the rise of terror groups, we innocently even warn Pakistan that it faces a grave danger from these elements and that unless they are reined in and de-fanged, they will run over and ruin the country.

There is no chance of Pakistan being run over by a few thousand men, most under tight control of the ISI, and armed with light weapons. A half-million men army that has not hesitated to employ maximum force, including artillery and air power, against it own people that it considers armed and dangerous, is not going to be run over like this. But, sooner rather than later, it will be run over by -- compelled to adopt if you like -- the very anti-change and regressive ideology it has employed to define Pakistan's identity as well as motivate its people to become jihadis.

When 80% of a country's citizens want a change that its leaders have themselves been encouraging, its time can be said to have come. That is real message that is coming out of the Pew report, one that should wake India's leaders up.

Will Pakistan collapse when that happens? Of course it will not. It will travel back in time along many dimensions. But it will not go under. At least not immediately.

What happens within Pakistan should normally not be of any concern to any country. But, as developments over the last few decades have shown, if the whole country is clothed in the colours that now only adorn militants, the terror threat to India will increase manifold. Worse, it is likely to spur some Indian Muslims to follow the same path, considering the fact that Pakistanis themselves draw ideological sustenance from the Deoband seminary. One has only to read the resolution adopted last year by the Jamaat Ulama-I-Hind to get an idea of the direction that Muslim religious and political leaders are giving to India's Muslims. The banning of co-education in Madrassas in UP, the cutting off of the hand of a Kerala professor and the hounding of a lady professor in West Bengal for refusing to wear a burqa while teaching are pointers to the dangerous growth of intolerance, fundamentalism an isolationism in India's secular society.

Tavleen Singh, one of the few Indian journalists who has the courage to say what needs to be, is on the dot with her warning: "Of all the fanatical religious movements that have come and gone in this country, there is not the faintest shadow of a doubt that the Jihad is the most dangerous. If jihadi organisations are allowed to spread their poisonous propaganda...it is only a matter of time before the situation becomes as uncontrollable as it has in Pakistan...turn India into a breeding ground for the Taliban. We cannot allow the jihad in India because its ideology is the antithesis of the idea of India."

A strong and extremist Pakistan cannot be in India's interest. Whichever angle one may look at it from. That such a Pakistan will self-destruct, as Fatima Bhutto believes, in the long run can be of little comfort to India. Because till that happens, India and, to a lesser extent, the rest of the civilised world are going to be hit with ferocious violence and increasing and uncompromising intolerance. It is time our leaders shed their meekness concealed under false moral cloaks and do everything that needs to be done, including balkanising Pakistan if necessary, so that this unprecedented threat is not allow to grow any bigger than it already has primarily because they have let it.
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NO ANSWER TO PAKISTAN'S FORMIDABLE FORCE MUTLIPLIER

One has got to admire Pakistan. Is there any other example in history where a small nation has simultaneously taken on two much bigger countries, one a super power and the other deluding itself into believing that it going to become one along its present trajectory, for such a painful ride, for so long, with barely concealed disdain and deceit?

Pakistan's audacity backed by sheer brilliance in execution is the stuff history is made of. That it has been able to pull off a seemingly impossible double is as much a tribute to its leaders, both military and civil, as to the one instrument without peer that they have created: the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI). This covert arm of the military has been developed and honed, with some help from the CIA in 1980s, to become a huge force multiplier that has almost re-written the rules of war. It is this institution alone that has given Pakistan the luxury of playing the Jekyll and Hyde game on battlefields of its choosing in a manner that it wants, without exposing its troops to danger and its culpability to the enemy.

Pakistanis see ISI as their first line of defence. What is often overlooked is that their Pakistan includes Afghanistan and Kashmir too. So for them, the ISI is not engaged in any hostile or offensive actions there, like the American and Indians believe. It is only legitimately defending Pakistan against their aggression and is doing all that is needed to defeat and throw them out. Add to its armoury the powerful tool of jihad and you have brilliant and motivated minds employing perfectly brainwashed foot soldiers itching to fight to death or blow themselves up for a cause they are made to see as religious and holy, not political.

When the US invaded Afghanistan after 9/11, it probably thought it was going for a stroll in a park bombed flat by it. Actually it would have. But it failed to factor in Pakistan's tenacity and duplicity, or may be chose to ignore it because expanding the war was not an option. Either way, the Pakistanis assessed the situation far more accurately than the Americans thought they were capable of, put the ISI on the job, and the net result is that the Americans have got into a deep hole and are now desperately looking for a way to get out without loss of face.

Thanks to manner in which the ISI sheltered, trained, equipped and controlled Talibanis have hounded American troops and ground their offensive to an embarrassing halt, the US is now ready to hand over power -- shared if you find that uncomfortable -- to the very guys that it sent its troops to defeat and destroy. Laden and Mullah Omar remain untraceable still. Hillary Clinton can keep saying that she believes that elements in the Pakistan government and military know their whereabouts. Pakistan not only does not give a damn, at the end of the day it even gets a $500 million cheque from her! That is how confident Pakistan's leaders are of the ability of the ISI to conceal elephants right under America's nose.

The US is not losing its Afghan war to the Pathans who, as per lore, have never lost to an aggressor. This is a myth being propagated and lapped up to obfuscate reality. It is being defeated by a very clever and determined Pakistan. The divided Pashtuns were trounced by the ISI after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, without a bullet being fired. From wanting to wrest from Pakistan Pashtun areas on its side of the Durand Line, Afghan Pashtuns have become Pakistan's pathetic pawns, thanks primarily to the violent extremist Islamic ideology that the ISI sowed in them when the Soviets invaded their country and the manner in which the ISI deeply infiltrated into and controlled the Taliban. That helped defeat the Soviets alright but, more significantly, placed Afghanistan firmly into the Pakistani lap, giving it the strategic depth that it was looking for then and is well on the way to recreating now.

Despite the serious challenge posed by the presence and pressure of the Americans in Afghanistan, the ISI has not let up it campaign in Kashmir primarily though the LeT. Or even in the rest of India. If anything, it has only strengthened it. The tactical reduction in terror attacks there to con the Americans does not mean that there has been any let up in the strengthening of the terror network in India or in augmenting its ability to launch even more devastating attacks when ISI's razor sharp top brass gives the green signal. But, as always, the reduction in violence had the effect of lulling the Indians into complacency, till the Valley erupted again last month in a manner that it simply could not have in select pockets by leaderless, unorganised youth, no matter how 'angry'. The ISI, as has been demonstrated yet again, has developed deep enough roots in the Valley to be able turn on the tap of violence when and in the manner that it wants to. What it would be doing in the rest of India, given Pakistan's oft voiced concern about the condition of Muslims in India, is something that only romantics can skim over.

26/11 was the turning point that should have compelled India's leaders to open their eyes. If that attack was not bad enough, the dramatics that have followed since, starting from denying that Kasab was a Pakistani to mocking India's dossiers as literature and now to its aggressive and insulting reactions after Headley's confessions, should have made the Indians realise that they are dealing with an exceptionally clever, ruthless and never-say-die leadership that will use every means at its disposal to put pressure on India to make fatal concessions on Kashmir. It will not let, forget ask, the ISI to take its foot even slightly off the terror pedal in and against India. But, just as the Americans failed to learn the right lessons from what Pakistan was doing to India, the Indians seem to have failed to learn too from it has done to the Americans in Afghanistan.

Headley's startling exposure that the 26/11 attack was controlled and coordinated by the ISI from start to finish, and that the attackers were trained by Pakistan's Navy, was the sort of information that Pakistan would have twisted with a knife in India's gut had India's RAW been the guilty party. But what did Pakistan do? It not only did not concede an inch to India during the recent talks in Islamabad at the Foreign Minister level, it actually demanded that any progress on 26/11 investigations be linked to progress on Siachen, Sir Creek etc. Worse, SM Qureshi publicly humiliated a bumbling SM Krishna. Once again, India was caught flatfooted on the negotiating table and left not only defeated but feeling guilty for it!

It to seems to have escaped notice of the Indians that the de facto ruler of Pakistan, Army Chief Kiyani, was the head of the ISI till October 2008, a month before the Mumbai attack. So, in effect, Headley lays the blame for 26/11, and by deduction other terror attacks too, right on his doorstep. That is so damning that it is a wonder that India still believes that it can smoke the peace pipe with a leadership that sees and promotes acts of war committed covertly as the only way to resolve all disputes, short and long-term, in its favour. As far as Pakistan is concerned, one cannot but infer that the only purpose of talks is to keep progressively legitimising on paper the gains that ISI's well disguised military successes make on ground and in Indian minds.

More damning than Headley's revelation is the realisation that India's own covert operations outfit, rightly named RAW in a rare moment of enlightenment, failed to nail the ISI in such manner, despite being on this very job for decades, with a huge budget to boot. This is further proof that the ISI conducts its dangerous business with clinical professionalism and knows how to keep it under wraps from amateur Indian eyes. Worse is the fact that it exposes another huge and unacceptable chink in India's armour against Pakistan: RAW is a poorly-led-by-police-officers and driven-by-babu-culture set up that lacks the political direction, professionalism, commitment and motivation required to face, tackle and defeat a fanatic force multiplier like the ISI that is directly led and controlled by the rulers of Pakistan.

All this bodes ill for India. Once Pakistan achieves the primacy it is on its way to in Afghanistan, all but drives India out from there, and makes full use of the infrastructure that India's much touted 'soft power' has created in that country, the ISI's energies, spurred by its spectacular success in Afghanistan, will focus almost wholly on India. Some of us comfort ourselves by fantasising that Pakistan will be soon be swallowed by the very jihadi elements its has spawned. What makes us believe that its leaders are so against that happening? If they have completely radicalised Afghanistan and almost achieved the same in the Valley, why would they be wary of gradually Islamising the whole of Pakistan too in the same manner? It is not a few thousand fighters of the Taliban or the LeT, radicalised and controlled by the ISI, who will run over Pakistan's half a million strong Army. Logically, it is the Army itself that will adopt the ideology that already drives the ISI at some point of time.

Is India even thinking of preparing to meet these challenges or do our leaders still fancy that the only way to defend India and protect it is to sit across the table and make one concession after the other? Does India have a plan to prevent and/or defeat the challenges that it is almost certain to face? The way some of our leaders brainlessly dismiss any other option, no matter what Pakistan does, by invoking the fear that Pakistan is a nuclear powered state, tells a story that the Pakistanis have read Indian minds well and know that they can get away with everything short of a declared war and that India will do little more than make some meaningless noises to assuage public opinion.

The ISI is the outstanding product of their near perfect appreciation that has been proved unerringly right for decades. It is an innovative and powerful instrument of war, an invisible and formidable force multiplier, that has already brought US troops to the brink of defeat. At the same time it is relentlessly chipping away at India's weak will, to counter which India has not been able to find an answer till now and is not going to find one in future too. Much as India's ineptitude hurts me as an Indian, I have to admire what Pakistan has achieved through the ISI even in near impossible situations, including the one in Afghanistan. Its successes have been nothing short of spectacular. Wish we could learn a thing or two.
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Related reading:
1. India stoned: the enemy is in our midst
2.Dealing with Pakistan: lessons from history
3. Kashmir deal: solution or surrender?
4. A year after 26/11, calls for a strong Pakistan
5. Don't "beggar-my-buggering-neighbour", make him bigger
6. Musharraf's shockers on terror, Kashmir and Indian Muslims
7. The world is changing; Talibani mindset is not
'

INDIA STONED: THE ENEMY IS IN OUR MIDST

"I congratulate Pakistani journalist Barza Butt on her humane views on tragedy of Baluchistan and brutalities of Pakistan Army." Can you even conceive of such a tweet being sent by, say, India's Home Minister to the most well-known Pakistani TV journalist and the premier media voice of the Pakistani establishment? Worse, can you even imagine that Pakistan government's de facto PRO will ever dare to show her country and its military in such poor light to its only enemy and rival? And not once but repeatedly for years, applauded by the very government on whose orders young sons of India lay down their lives without questioning why?

Anyone who knows Pakistan will know that such an anti-national journalist will be totally shunned by the establishment -- if not made to 'disappear' -- much less allowed to become a star.

But, India is a different country altogether. Here, leading journalists and others not only routinely subvert minds of Indians but are apparently actually encouraged to do so by a government for whom pursuit of a narrow political agenda that aims at pulling in the last Muslim vote supersedes all other considerations. The vote must come, even if is drenched with the blood of India's unsung sons, even if India has to kneel before its implacably hostile neighbour Pakistan. Some of us may not see what is happening, the plot unfolding, the stage being set to sell India for a few votes more. But, sharp eyes across the border miss nothing. They take in every byte and every image because that helps them fine tune their relentless war against India, to surprise it with monotonous regularity, to remain a few hundred steps ahead of an establishment that can barely react, much less act proactively to defeat its challenge.

An enemy always refrains from publicly acknowledging and appreciating elements in the opposite camps that are working in its interest; they must be kept looking authentic and honest. But, sometimes, the joy over their success is so difficult to contain that one lets one's feeling out before sense returns. And Twitter lets you do that before you can even pause for a breath.

The tweet that you read in the first paragraph is not fictitious. It was sent to Barkha Dutt by the Governor of Punjab, Pakistan. Just replace 'Baluchistan' with 'Kashmir' and 'Pakistan Army' with' Indian Army'. Pakistan's Punjab, for those of you who may not know, is not just another province; it is Pakistan. 90% of Pakistan's military is Punjabi, as is the LeT that is leading Pakistan's jihad in Kashmir.

Unfortunately for India, Dutt is not alone in this defaming, this deforming, this defeating of India. The so-called liberal media and the academia are full of such people that the state seems to have bought through the many means at its command. They have been working over time even after 26/11 to convince India that Pakistan actually needs to be strengthened and that India must make fatal concessions to that country to buy peace. Friendship is what these people talk of all the time, even though Pakistan shows no sign or interest whatsoever in letting up on its proxy war. That, some believe, is primarily because they are convinced that any tough talk, forget action, against a rogue state that needs to be whipped blue, will cost votes of Indian Muslims and thereby the throne of Delhi.

The violence which erupted in the Valley during the last month took everybody by surprise, when it should never have. This is not the first time that India has been so surprised. Worryingly, it will keep getting caught unprepared because those who should keep their senses alert when dealing with Pakistan readily trust --at least pretend to -- the smiles and the blatantly fraudulent explanations that they are given, whether by leading Pakistani journalists -- the rare exceptions can be spotted from miles -- or the establishment, whose voice the former articulate with some sophistication.

More damaging than the stones that youth of a few districts of Kashmir Valley have been throwing at India are the ones that some Indian have thrown at their own country. To cite one more example, Amitabh Mattoo, a Kashmiri Pandit who should know better than most about the roots of the Kashmir problem and the extent of religious extremism that has fuelled the Pakistan controlled proxy war there, has almost mirrored what separatists are saying, and all but given Pakistan a clean chit. He has, surprisingly, not applied his mind even to refute the allegations made by them that no one died during the Bharat Bandhle while scores did in Kashmir; every one knows that nowhere during the bandh was the police targeted directly by organised and hired stone-pelting mobs with the clear aim of forcing it to react and create martyrs. But not Mattoo.

The tragedy of India is that such fellows who have little qualms about betraying their own people made refugees by violent religious extremism -- what to talk of India -- are made members of the National Security Advisory Board and other national institutions. Should that surprise us any more? Can, in Pakistan, people with these kind of views even dream of finding such favour of the ruling establishment?

Let us not be under any illusion that the problem in Kashmir will go away if Manmohan Singh implements the Youth Empowerment Scheme that Matto is selling, even though he knows better, or if India signs the sell-out deal with Pakistan that Musharraf had proposed. Autonomy and azaadi are red herrings that will yield no return whatsoever; they have not in 63 years, will not in a hundred. The proposed deal with Pakistan will only result in handing over the Valley on a platter to it, with the rest of the state also being lost. As I and many others have been saying, there will be no peace in Kashmir till Pakistan swallows it. And -- this is vital -- if it does, there will be no peace in the rest of India.

This time it is stone pelting. Next time it will be something else, sudden, unexpected. After the Americans leave Afghanistan, it will be full-blown terrorism of unprecedented ferocity and violence. As long as Pakistan exists, blood will flow. Pakistan is not in a hurry. To its jihadi mindset, the dead give life; the more the better. There is no room for sentiment. To the emotional and soft Indian, tears are enough to wipe away the sight of what lies behind them. Pakistanis and Kashmiris know it all too well. As do Indians who are shaping national policy and public opinion. Kashmiris only have to pelt a few stones at India's hapless defenders. Mindless, even dishonest Indians are waiting to pick and throw them and some of their own too, at their own country, and earn fulsome praise of its only enemy.

India is fighting the Fourth Battle of Panipat in Kashmir. The next stop is Delhi. So those who are asking India to capitulate there are effectively asking India to surrender as a nation. Let us remember that the Deoband seminary from which the LeT and the Pakistan Taliban draw ideological inspiration and guidance, is in India, not Pakistan. Indian Muslims, more in number than Pakistani Muslims, are loyal Indians no doubt, but only a fool will believe that if Pakistan succeeds in creating the conditions that it is aiming to, the pull of religion will not prove to be irresistible again.

India is being stoned by Indians. The enemy is in our midst. We cannot defeat Pakistan till we defeat him. The sooner we do it, the better.
----------------------------------------------------
Readers may also read:
1.Tavleen Singh: The jihad comes to Kashmir
2. Kanchan Gupta: Let's not defame the armed forces
3. Dealing with Pakistan: Lessons from history
4. Kashmir Deal: Solution or surrender?
5. Don't 'beggar my buggering neighbour; make him bigger'
6. Akbar turns Jinnah, asks for Muslim state
7. Reorganise J&K on a linguistic basis

THE AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN-KASHMIR CONUNDRUM

The Afghanistan-Pakistan-Kashmir conundrum continues to confound. In Afghanistan, the Americans are more confused now than they were ever before, with their military campaign stalled and increasingly looking like getting nowhere; in Kashmir the Indians have been confused and paralysed for decades, and continue to remain so. Both are unable to hit upon the winning formula that will either give them victory or, at the very least, a face-saving solution that is more than a gift-wrapped defeat. At the heart of it, the reason for this sorry state is as clear as acknowledgement of it is dangerous. Because to then act may lead to violence and destruction on a forbidding scale, but to not act will leave both countries without any illusion of workable options, and no place to hide either.

As you may have noticed above, Pakistan is bang in the centre of this problem, and not just physically. It is in the ideological, political and military centre too. Unfortunately, the Americans don't want to see it that way because they think they need Pakistan that needs Kashmir. So, they have conveniently lopped off Kashmir from their maps and are treating it as a discrete problem between India and Pakistan with little or no direct linkage with what they are facing in Afghanistan. On their part, the Indians have done the same with Afghanistan, but for very different reasons: for the last 63 years they have studiously avoided looking, forget intervening, beyond their borders, no matter how intimately the problems that they have faced may have been linked to developments there.

In the former case, the view is due to strategic convenience; in the latter, strategic blindness. In both cases, the beneficiary has been, and remains, the nerve-centre, Pakistan.

Pakistan, one needs to reiterate, is an expansionist state, with ambitions that far exceed its size. To its west, it wants to usurp Afghanistan and to its east Kashmir, to begin with. This is the fundamental cornerstone of its state policy. I do not intend to go again into the history of how and why this has happened, and how it has taken the shape of violent Islamic extremism or jihad, as the Pakistanis like to call it.

The key point that I want to highlight again is that what is happening in both Afghanistan and Kashmir is a continuum that is part of a carefully orchestrated and coordinated campaign that has for long been pursued by the Pakistani military and its clandestine sword arm, the infamous ISI, in relentless pursuit of this strategic objective on both fronts.

The Pakistanis will not allow the US to achieve victory in Afghanistan, come what may, just as they will not allow India to emerge victorious in Kashmir. For them neither time is a constraint nor the number of dead. The cloak of jihad takes care of the latter pretty effectively; there is no pressure of pubic opinion to worry about. The moment we get a clear fix on this, no room for doubt is left that Pakistan has indeed been "playing a double-game of astonishing magnitude", as Matt Waldman puts it, with the Americans from Day One, to ensure its defeat while pretending to be its partner. Some analysts have been pointing this out for long but without sufficient evidence. However, given the fact that the Pakistanis have perfected the art of deniability of the involvement of the state in hostile actions, sufficient evidence is not going to come by easily. That has helped the Americans look the other way, to try and find easy ways around this problem that can bring their war in Afghanistan to successful conclusion. The result is before us.

Even Waldman, in the LSE Development Institute report 'Sun in the sky', has bought Pakistan's line to recommend that the US should address the "fundamental causes of its insecurity, including its latent and enduring conflict with India...resolution of the Kashmir dispute". He conveniently ignores what a Taliban commander told him: "The ISI are helping the Taliban a lot, but they only give for their own gain. There is a reciprocal issue: Kashmir. The root of the problem in Afghanistan is the Pakistan-India competition." This is not a revelation; this is something that has been known for long to many Pakistanis. It is no secret that Taliban terrorists have been deployed in Kashmir by Pakistan earlier. And there is little doubt that if the Americans are made to leave Afghanistan with Pakistan calling the shots in that country, they will be used again by Pakistan in its proxy war against India in Kashmir and elsewhere.

For 63 years, India has been trying to win the hearts and minds of Kashmiri Muslims with the development and autonomy cards, starting with article 370 of the constitution. Huge subsidies, bribes by another name, and economic packages have also been thrown in over the years. But all efforts have come to naught. The Americans are using the same failed strategy, but despite the new roads, schools and other developmental efforts, it too has failed win the Afghans over and wean them from the Taliban.

Why have these strategies tanked in both places? There are two main reasons, one of which India has obdurately refused to acknowledge and address because it strikes at the core of its secular facade and will compel it to look at other, real options that raise difficult questions that no one wants to discuss candidly or face squarely.

The first is that any amount of development or bribing will not unhinge Kashmiri Muslims from Islam. Religion is central to them and is above and more important than anything else, including ethnicity. Now this is nothing new. This is what caused the Partition of India. To this day, the Punjabi Muslim of Pakistan places his religion above his ethnic bond with the Punjabi Hindu and Sikh, is the chief protagonist of the anti-India face of the state of Pakistan and the prime participant in terror outfits like the LeT. In Indian Kashmir, Kashmiri pandits have been driven out of the Valley by their ethnic Muslim brethren.

But the Hindu elite of India refuse to accept this stark reality. That is because it takes a little more than a McDonald's burger -- to put it very crudely -- to make them disown, even disdain, their religious identity and acquire and flaunt an alien one. They continue to believe that Kashmiri Muslims also will react similarly and that even if some want to wear their religious identity on their sleeve, like secular Sikhs do, it is not to be seen as anti-secular or extremist in any manner whatsoever. The net result is that they have been misleading themselves, fellow Indians and the world into believing that the issue in Kashmir is political, not religious.

The second, and the most critical, is the existence and role of the state of Pakistan in its present shape. An artificial, multi-ethnic nation created solely on the basis of religion has, not surprisingly, chosen to paper the lack of logic in it existence by defining it on the basis of Islam alone, even though the religion has failed to be the glue to so politically unite even the Arabs who despite one race, one language and one religion are divided into 22 nations. This identity has been further fine-tuned through Islamic fundamentalism to breed implacable hatred towards India. From that has flown a similar attitude towards the rest of the world, making Pakistan the most natural nursery for the likes of Al Qaida. It is only a question of time before India-specific terror outfits like the LeT acquire global ambitions.

Unfortunately, India's policy makers have done absolutely nothing to dissuade Pakistan from employing terror as a tool to wrest Kashmir from India. And this has been going on for over 20 years. Pakistan's earlier efforts to achieve its objective did not use radical Islam as a force multiplier. That is why they died with military defeat. That is why the ongoing war shows no signs of getting over. And the Indians are getting fatigued fighting the wrong enemy.

The same thing is happening with the Americans in Afghanistan. There too the bribe strategy has failed. There too the war is not getting over. There too Pakistan is conducting the orchestra. There is a canard being lapped up that the proud Afghans have never been defeated and that the Americans, like the Soviets and the British before them will face defeat in their country. My understanding of history tells me that the Pashtuns are actually a conquered, humiliated, defeated, cursed and hopelessly exploited people whose condition is pitiable. Forget the medieval times when their backs were first broken and their civilisation swamped. Have we forgotten the ease with which the ISI and the Pakistani military converted most of their country into an extension of Pakistan after the Soviets left?

If the Americans cut their losses and scoot as the Pakistanis are pushing them to, their problem will not die. They will only get postponed, to resurface from Pakistan in an even more dangerous jihadi avatar, possibly armed with nukes. If they are under any illusion that they will be off the terror radar if they get India to make concessions to Pakistan on Kashmir, it will be their biggest blunder. Such a deal will just be the heady motivator that the Pakistani establishment needs to convince existing and potential jihadis that their cause is divine, that bigger victories await them, that the Great Satan America will fall, as will India.

America's war -- and India's -- is being fought in the wrong place, against the wrong people. They are puppets who will crumble like cookies if Pakistan's ability to motivate, train, arm, finance, use and sustain them is eroded completely. The key is Pakistan. The war has to be won there. As history has shown again and again, there is really no other way to ensure that the problem that Pakistan has created is dealt with decisively so that it cannot not raise its ugly head again in any meaningful manner. How is the question that strategists need to find an answer to.
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Readers may also read:
1. Kashmir Deal: Solution or surrender?
2. Dealing with Pakistan: lessons from history
'

MANMOHAN GETS LEMON, KIYANI BIRYANI

After 26/11, there have been a number of commentators who have been selling the line to ordinary Indians that a strong Pakistan in India's supreme national interest and that if the former implodes, India will have to face the frightening prospect of heavily armed Talibanis and other jihadis running into India and creating mayhem here. A strong Pakistan, according to them, will be just the dove that India wants as a neighbour; its democratic government, judiciary, page three junkies and journalists will be enough to ensure that its military and 'non-state' actors are kept in check, Kashmir will then become a border-less ocean of amity and 'Aman ki Asha' will cease to be a tamasha.

Coincidentally, Pakistan has also been selling the 'strong' line to the United States. However - and this is the crucial difference we always deliberately miss - it has not been doing it so that it can live in peace with India, but to ensure that it retains the military balance that is vital for it to continue to prosecute its jihadi agenda in Kashmir and the rest of India till India falls. Worse, it has not even pretended to use fake moralistic arguments, the kind India has all but patented. On the contrary, it has deviously fought against and simultaneously promoted various terror groups to ram home the message to the Americans that their war in Afghanistan cannot be won without the help of Pakistan. More importantly, it has also demonstrated with deathly effect that once the Americans leave Afghanistan, no one else but Pakistan can ensure that the territory of that nation is not used to launch attacks against American interests across the world as well as on the mainland, and violently demanded that India must have no role to play there.

India, on the other hand, has, as always, displayed a paralysis that does not befit a nation of its size and potential. All that it has done to secure its national interests and keep America on its side is to talk of democracy, shared values, NRIs doing well in the US and, above all, its willingness to play the poor friend in awe. Remember Dr Manmohan Singh's famous words to Bush: "Indians love you deeply"? Unfortunately, that, as we should have learned by now, is the surest way to ensure the exact opposite in the long run and remain almost helplessly trapped in the reactive mode that has repeatedly cost us heavily. In 25 years, China has moved from being in awe of the US to getting the US to begin to look at it in awe; in the same period, India has just gaped as China has gone well past it and as Pakistan has closed the power gap that had opened up as a result of the creation of Bangladesh in 1971.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of contrived sentimentalism that drives India's frightening lack of response to the challenge that it continues to face from Pakistan. What does a nation do when a senior politician and former diplomat like Mani Shankar Aiyar says that Pakistanis are our own people but for Partition, an "accident of history"? There are many other influential voices, particularly in the media, singing the same song. No doubt there are a few such voices across that Radcliffe Line too - which we revel in highlighting - but the crucial difference is that unlike here, they do not drive or even remotely influence national policy and objectives, particularly as they relate to India. As a result, while we keep tying ourselves into doing virtually nothing as a nation, Pakistan's temerarious strategists operating behind the smokescreen continue to pursue their agenda, to surprise India with monotonous regularity.

The US discovered long back that the real power in Pakistan lies in the hands of the military and not the democratically elected government. Pragmatic as a nation should be, it wasted no time to get into a substantive engagement with Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kiyani and the military brass, while ceremoniously humouring civilian leaders and giving them doles.

India, on the other hand, has stuck to the proxy route, not knowing how to deal directly with the military. The problem which India's policy makers have created for the country is that with the kind of structures that they have put in place with cadre rather than national interest in mind, India can deal directly with the military only if there is military rule. But when there is a civilian façade, then there is no one who can engage with and understand the language of the Army Chief and DG ISI. Since the long established balance of power in Pakistan is not going to change in the foreseeable future, India should have long back had, at the very least, a retired General as the National Security Advisor and a serving one as the DG of RAW. Then, not only would have the PM not have had to lament that he did not know whom to talk to in Pakistan, but the Pakistani military would have also known that it had serious business to attend to and not dismiss vacuous political statements that had no meaning whatsoever for it.

The US is laying out the red carpet for Pakistan's Army Chief as he visits the US this week. Although the delegation is headed by the Foreign Minister, no one is in any doubt about who the real boss is. And no one - except a few romantic Indians and fewer similarly inclined Pakistanis - is disturbed about this mockery of democracy. Kiyani has a huge shopping list of arms, the objective of which is completely unambiguous: India, six times Pakistan's size, must not be allowed to disturb the power parity that Pakistan has painstakingly established over the last few decades. And he is not pleading to America's love or sense of fair play or some such nonsense to accede to his demands. As has been mentioned above, shorn of semantics, he is talking cold barter, if not old fashioned blackmail: he will help the US out of the Afghanistan imbroglio, but at a steep price.

The expensive war in Iraq followed by the economic slowdown has weakened the US more rapidly than anyone could have imagined when Bush was in the White House. Far from being able to fight two wars without feeling the pinch, the US is now not in a position to sustain even the war in Afghanistan for long. It has to pull out in the next three to four years. But without being seen to be defeated. It is primarily because of this constraint that the US has changed strategy mid-course and looks set to adopt what would have been its least preferred, almost unacceptable option a couple of years back. That is why a non-assertive, confused and almost pleading India is not only finding itself out of the loop, thanks to some brilliant maneuvering by Pakistan's military that has read the situation well, but is also going to find itself under increasing US pressure to yield ground to Pakistan on Kashmir.

The situation is changing so rapidly that the US is now reportedly actively considering giving to Pakistan the same exclusive Nuclear Deal that it has to India. This has got some analysts to condemn Dr Manmohan Singh for signing the deal with Bush. They overlook the important fact, among many, that if the deal had not been good, Pakistan would not have been demanding it for all these years. The deal does not become bad if Pakistan gets it too. What will become distasteful then is that India will lose the advantage that it had got by signing it, and get hyphenated with Pakistan again. India's leaders and policy makers need to be castigated for allowing this to happen, if it does. It is only coincidental that the Congress is in power at the moment. Be sure that nothing would have been any different had it been the BJP or any other party. It is a systemic failure because as a nation we yet have no strategic vision, no strategic objectives, no idea about how our backyard, our neighbourhood, our sphere of influence should look like and behave.

There is also strident criticism of President Obama for being 'anti-Indian'. While the imprint of a President's personality cannot be denied, let us not forget that in the US the President does not take decisions affecting national security based on the advice of an ill-informed kitchen cabinet or on a personal whim. The changes that we are witnessing now in America's Af-Pak and India policies have emerged after factoring in America's visibly reduced economic might and ability to wage war post the Wall Street collapse. Just last month, Fareed Zakaria had given an indication of the impending shift in US Af-Pak policy by giving it another spin altogether. Since India failed to exploit the golden opportunity provided by 9/11 to decisively settle problems created by Pakistan in Afghanistan, Kashmir and the rest of India, the US is now left with little choice but to prop Pakistan, the creator of the problem, and bribe it to become its solver too. This must teach India that timeless lesson about "permanent interests", but will probably not, again.

These developments cannot be good news for India at all. All those who have been romantically and brainlessly clamouring for a strong Pakistan are, if things continue in the direction they appear to be moving in now, going to have their wishes more than fulfilled in the next few years. Then we will not have leaderless jihadis of a weak nation or nations attacking India, but extremely motivated killing machines wreaking havoc here, guided by a powerful military that believes it can bloody India's nose should it take the fight into Pakistan, and helped by an even more petrified Indian leadership that will be thinking not about responding "swiftly and decisively" but about giving even more concessions to buy temporary respite and wish the immediate threat away. But the growing monster won't go anywhere, not when it is ready to 'fight for a thousand years'. Or till its ability to wage war is destroyed.

No use blaming the US for giving Manmohan a lemon and serving biryani to Kiyani. No use blaming even Pakistan for doing what it believes is in its national interest. It is we who are inviting a horrific disaster to unleash its fury on us. Eyes wide shut.
'

INDIA AND PAK: MUZZLED GREAT DANE AND AGGRESSIVE DASCHUND

Can anyone even imagine Dr Manmohan Singh or Nirupama Rao doing in Beijing what Musharraf did in Agra and Bashir has done in New Delhi now? In Beijing, Manmohan will be even more docile and servile than he normally is while Rao will readily jump out of bed at 2:30 AM in response to a Chinese call.

Why will they do it? Because China has drive fear into our bones. It is not what happened in 1962 that scares us now but what China has done in the years since to make itself look bigger even as India has readily allowed itself to become even smaller.

Pakistan, on the other hand, despite its dismemberment in 1971, has consciously made itself much bigger than it was then, while India has stuck to the idiotic belief that between nations, strength is determined not by the penis, as it were, but by many layers of clothes of morality, trust and goodwill; the peanut beneath them is a useless appendage meant for peeing alone, so what if it is in the pants.

Another round of talk between India and Pakistan has concluded. One more time, India has allowed Pakistan to aggressively project India as the wrongdoer and itself as the victim. After meekly allowing Pakistan to wage a low-cost, low-intensity war against itself for over two decades, India has yet again not only not failed to get that nation to concede even an inch of its stated objective of liberating Kashmir, it has actually let it - that too after 26/11 - point additional accusing fingers at it with respect to Baluchistan and water.

Ever since the capture of Ajmal Kasab exposed the involvement of the Lashkar -e-Toiba in the terror attack on Mumbai on November 26, 2008, India has been demanding the arrest and prosecution of mastermind Hafiz Saeed. Dossiers containing evidence have been submitted - this time too - but the state of Pakistan says they contain no evidence at all. To cut the very long story of Pakistan's carefully calibrated deception short, not only does Saeed continue to roam free but his anti-India tirades have become even more belligerent after the Mumbai attack.

Is it a mere coincidence that a couple of weeks before the latest round of talks, the Jamat-ud-Dawa held a huge rally in Lahore - the first after 26/11 - and similar rallies in 36 other cities of Pakistan to renew calls for jihad against India? Is it of no significance that, with thousands of supporters brandishing Ak47s on Mall Road, Saeed yelled that one Mumbai was not enough and asked his cheering followers to wage jihad against India? Was it mere rhetoric that Saeed demanded that a dialogue with India must not only include Kashmir but also the sending of Indian troops into East Pakistan and even Partition, with respect to Jamnagar and Monawadar, the two princely states that had declared accession to Pakistan? Has it been forgotten that the same Saeed had, as far back as 2000, declared that Kashmir was a mere 'gateway to the capture of India' and has been reiterating that intention time and again?

Only the naïve will believe that such a huge Pakistani Punjabi anti-India jihadi rally would have taken place in Lahore without the blessings - even at the instance - of the military that effectively rules Pakistan and lays down the agenda for any engagement by the puppet civilian regime with India. Only the blind will not see that the grand design of the Pakistani state is being thoughtfully voiced through organisations like the JuD and individuals like Hafiz Saeed presently only to prepare ground so that once a significant breach is made against India, beginning with Kashmir, it can be more openly adopted by the state itself.

Unfortunately for India, there is a powerful clutch of journalists and analysts who have ether been asked by India's political leaders with a votes-only outlook or who have themselves willingly clouded their own analytical abilities by their peculiar concept of secularism, to pretend to see little wrong in anything said or done by anyone if there is a danger of it having the effect of consolidating majority opinion in India. The direct effect of this warped and dangerous, almost anti-India stance is that it always hastens to blank out or suppress anything that points to Muslim Pakistan's pathologically communal anti-India position because of the fear that it will reduce the vote share of the Congress party, with whose non-ideology these guys are comfortable and due to whose patronage many of them have benefited along more dimensions than one.

The net result of the hopeless muddle that India has got itself into, and is not even thinking of finding a way to get out of, is that it is always reacting, always defending, always pacifist, always conciliatory, always looking at the hug and not the dagger, always hoping that Pakistan, thanks to its own existential problems, will pull it out, always believing that Uncle Sam will get Pakistan to fall in line. In short, there is no strategy whatsoever to proactively compel Pakistan to behave its size and stop bleeding this country. The only 'strategy', if one abuses the word, is of inaction, in the dumb hope that, like it happened with insurgencies in the North East that got solved simply because the people got tired, in this case too, Pakistan will eventually tire, throw away that bloodied khanjar, and embrace India.

As the self-inflicted disaster of the latest round of talks shows once again, Pakistan believes it has scored a major victory with 26/11. The 14-month gap in terror attacks after 26/11 was not reflective, as some of our corrupted-by-Pakistani-kebabs journalists and analysts want the nation to believe, of any fundamental change in Pakistan's congenital stance towards India. It was a well-thought out strategy to blunt the outcry that followed and that too because of the looming presence and pressure of America. The dishonest cry of the Pakistanis that they too were victims of terror was only to lull believing, goodwill-dependent, paralytic Indians into complacence.

Many Indians readily forget that for Pakistan, terrorists are primarily Pashtuns and Baluchis who are fighting against Pakistan; Punjabis fighting against India in Kashmir and the rest of India were, are and will remain its frontline soldiers even though, for very elementary reasons, they cannot be formally inducted into the military or openly owned up. Yet. That is why we keep falling into Pakistan's trap again and again. That is why our diplomats keep making the mistake of imagining that Pakistani diplomats sitting across the table are also there without any map and that they too are hoping that some direction will emerge out of those parleys or rote discussions in Indian TV studios. Like diplomats are meant to, Pakistan's diplomats employ their training and skills to further their nation's India strategy as laid down - have no doubt - by its Generals. Indian diplomats, on the other hand, not only have no national strategy to pursue, but, in the absence of any political and military vision, have appropriated for themselves the role of formulating and projecting it. It is due to this that we continue to witness, in fits and starts, reactive, disjointed, incoherent plans that lack any objective. That is why a much smaller Pakistan, rather than being scared, remains aggressive and hostile.

Pakistan smelled the coward in India decades ago. After Indira Gandhi, India has not had a leader with balls. Worse, we had the misfortune of having an unfit Prime Minister, Inder Gujral, who not only formulated a juvenile 'Gujral Doctrine' that was totally out of touch with reality but also was so morally appalled by India's feeble covert operations in Pakistan that he wound them up. That blunder has not only not been undone, even bigger blunders have been made, the most striking being those by Atal Bihari Vajpayee whose vision was debilitatingly impaired by a completely absurd understanding of the 'reality' of geography.

Manmohan and his team are continuing in that tradition that will have no parallel in history outside of the subcontinent. That is why we are continuing to witness this pitiable spectacle that is akin to a muzzled and chained Great Dane being incessantly surprised, bullied and bitten by a Daschund who has been allowed to think that he is a tiger. The Dane, rendered incapable of any worthwhile reaction by his masters, continues to wag his tail in the belief that he is too big, can live with the minor discomfort of tiny bites and that the much smaller Daschund, no matter how hard he tries, has no chance of winning.

But the Pakistanis have read their history well. They have not forgotten Prithviraj Chauhan. They can see that India is following in his footsteps, in fact doing worse; they have understood that India will keep letting Pakistan bite, pause, bite again, ad infinitum, without biting back. They also know that all that they need is one good grip on the jugular. Even if it takes a thousand years. Till that happens, India must also be harassed and forced to talk and yield, even if it is a little, each time.
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Readers may also read:
1. Don't 'bugger-my-buggering-nation', strengthen him
2. A year after 26/11, calls for a strong Pakistan
3. No price is too high, just 'love Pakistan'
4. Musharraf's shockers on terror, Kashmir and Indian Muslims

JIHADIS: ISI, ARMY, CIA FINE; WHERE ARE OUR ROGUE ELEMENTS?

Guest post by Shyamal Barua

FBI's interrogation of David Coleman Headley aka Syed Daood Gilani, has once again confirmed what has been widely known forever: Pakistan's army is working with the jihadis who have been targetting India. What is not so well known however, is that, it once ran training camps for the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant group with the apparent knowledge of the CIA, an example of complicity that raises questions about the current state of the nuclear-armed nation. So says former French investigating magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguiere, author of a new book that provides rare insight both into alleged past army support for the defunct Lashkar-e-Taiba and to the group's connections to a global network linked to al-Qaeda.

The question of Pakistani military support for Islamist militants is crucial for the United States as it tries to work out how to stabilise the country and neighbouring Afghanistan. Bruguiere bases the information in his book on international terrorism, "Ce que je n'ai pas pu dire" ("What I could not say") on testimony given by jailed Frenchman Willy Brigitte, who spent two and a half months in a Lashkar-e-Taiba training camp in 2001-02. In an interview, Bruguiere said he was convinced Lashkar-e-Taiba, first set up to fight India in its part of the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir, had become part of an international network tied to Al-Qaeda. "Lashkar-e-Taiba is no longer a Pakistani movement with only a Kashmir political or military agenda. Lashkar-e-Taiba is a member of al-Qaeda. Lashkar-e-Taiba has decided to expand violence worldwide," he told Reuters.

That's pretty much a given, isn't it? They provide training facilities and cadres for Al-Qaeda. Three of them were arrested in Bangla in Nov 14th news plotting to boom the U.S. embassy in Dhaka in an expression of the Bangla people's outrage at our existence. He was "very, very anxious about the situation" in Pakistan, where militants are staging a series of bloody urban attacks to avenge a government offensive against their strongholds.

"The problem right now is to know if the Pakistanis have sufficient power to control the situation," he said. They don't. If they change their ways they might in the future, but they're not really changing their ways. They're trying to go after the Pak Taliban but not the Al-Qaeda infrastructure or the Afghan Taliban infrastructure in Balochistan and North Wazoo. The problem was also "to know if all the members of the military forces and the ISI are playing the same game. I am not sure," he added. I'm sure they're not, and I'm also sure that the ones who aren't are not rogue.

Pakistan has long been accused of giving covert support to Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was blamed for last year's attack on Mumbai in which 166 people were killed. It denies the allegation and has banned the organisation. But Hafiz Saeed isn't in jug, the charges against him were dropped and he never did more than house arrest. Pak military trainers provided training and logistical assistance the Mumbai killers and LeT is about as "defunct" as I am, maybe less so. New form of terrorism: Bruguiere said he became aware of the changing nature of international terrorism while investigating attacks in Paris in the mid-1990s by the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA). These included an attempt to hijack a plane from Algiers to Paris in 1994 and crash it into the Eiffel Tower -- a forerunner of the Sept 11, 2001 attacks. The plane was diverted to Marseilles and stormed by French security forces.

This new style of international terrorism was quite unlike militant groups he had investigated in the past, with their pyramidal structures and political objectives. "After 1994/1995, like viruses, all the groups have been spreading on a very large scale all over the world, in a horizontal way and even a random way," he said. It doesn't cost much to be a terrorist. The November 14th-Red Brigades-Baader Meinhof model works perfectly well for small-scale operations, and even big blow-outs like killing Aldo Moro, if you're willing to take the casualties. Note that Jemaah Islamiyah, for instance, was effectively wiped out after the Bali bombings.

An early encounter with Lashkar-e-Taiba came while he was investigating shoe-bomber Richard Reid, who tried to set off explosives on a transatlantic flight from Paris in 2001. This investigation led to a man, who Bruguiere said was the Lashkar-e-Taiba's representative in Paris, and who was suspected of helping Reid -- an accusation he denied. Bruguiere said the link to Reid was not proved in court. Brigitte, a Frenchman originally from France's Caribbean department of Guadeloupe, had gone to Pakistan shortly after Sept 11 to try to reach Afghanistan. Unable to make it, he had been sent to a Lashkar centre outside Lahore. A man named Sajid Mir became his handler. "He quickly understood that Sajid belonged to the regular Pakistan army," wrote Bruguiere. After one and a half months, he was taken with four other trainees, two British and two Americans, to a Lashkar camp in the hills in Punjab province. The Toyota pick-up which took them there passed through four army checkpoints without being stopped.

During his two and a half months stay at the camp, Bruguiere says, Brigitte realised the instructors were soldiers on detachment. Military supplies were dropped by army helicopters. Brigitte said he and other foreigners were forced four times to leave the camp and move further up into the hills to avoid being caught by CIA officers. They were believed to be checking if Pakistan had kept to a deal under which the Americans turned a blind eye to Lashkar camps in Punjab provided no foreigners were trained there. In return, Bruguiere said, Pakistan under then president Pervez Musharraf helped track down leaders of Al-Qaeda.

Western countries were at the time accused by India of double standards in tolerating Pakistani support for Kashmir-focused organisations while pushing it to crack down on militant groups which threatened Western interests. Diplomats say that attitude has since changed, particularly after bombings in London in 2005 highlighted the risks of "home-grown terrorism" in Britain linked to militant groups based in Pakistan's Punjab province. After leaving the camp accompanied by Sajid, Brigitte was sent back to France. Sajid then ordered him to fly to Australia where he joined a cell later accused of plotting attacks there. Tipped off by French police, Brigitte was deported from Australia in 2003 and convicted by a French court of links to terrorism. Bruguiere said he had personally questioned Brigitte in the presence of his lawyer to check his testimony. Information provided by Brigitte was also crosschecked by French police based on mobile phone and e-mail traffic. Bruguiere went to Pakistan himself in 2006 as part of his investigations into the deaths of 11 Frenchmen in a bombing outside a hotel in Karachi in 2002. He stepped down as France's best-known counter-terrorism expert in 2007 and now represents the EU on the Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme in Washington.

So much about the rogue ISI and CIA, but just consider these facts of escape by dreaded LeT leader Ilyas Kashmiri, the first time in late 1994 from the Ghaziabad safe house, cordoned by Indian cops, upon being tipped off by a milkman who saw some men with guns inside, but while Omar Saeed Sheikh, and Maulana Masood Azhar was captured, later freed during the IA's Kandahar hijack episode, and the second time, he was apprehended by Indian Army in Poonch and jailed in 1995 only to escape from the prison in 2 years, and later conducted operations against India, and reportedly being rewarded personally with cash by then Army Chief General Pervez Musharraf for presenting the head of an Indian army sepoy to him.

Kashmiri is the common thread that runs between Sheikh and Headley. Both were Pakistan-born anglicized youth, equally committed and skilled in understanding and adapting to the ways of the West. They did not fit the traditional description of a jihadi terrorist, yet were very effective in planning attacks. The inter-connections between Omar Sheikh, Ilyas Kashmiri, David Headley, Zakiur Rahman Lakhvi, Bahaziq, 26/11, 9/11, LeT, ISI, CIA etc., are so intricate that it will become almost impossible to state where ISI ends and where global terrorism begins, though all leads indicates it to be CIA/MI6/Mossad.

What is more worrisome, however, is that from the Mumbai blasts of 1993 to the carnage of 26/11, despite many evidences about the involvement of number of rogue and corrupt elements in our society, both at the govt level including in the intelligence & security apparatus, and civilian including celebrities in the world of showbiz, not many have been punished. It's high time that we identify the rogue elements amidst us, to help prevent repeat of such massacres in future, and not take the official version of the intelligence shared from the FBI,CIA or MI6, who have their own compulsion for concealing, suppressing, and even distorting facts to their advantage, and to save their skin.
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