The situation in Mumbai last week has gathered a lot of press and understandably all eyes are on the government of India as to what sort of response they'll be able to come up with. India is a democracy that has a history of kicking out incumbent governments, understandably so most of the country has a skeptical attitude to its politicians but kicking out incumbents in favour of opponents that are just as compromised has never been an effective solution and so the struggle continues.
It would be silly to think that LK Advani's BJP would be any better at dealing with the terrorist threat than Singh & Gandhi's Congress Party. The BJP, if anything, has a history of fanning the flames of terrorism. LK Advani's presence and involvement in the destruction of the Babri mosque in Gujarat in 1992 and the parties
hindutva (roughly translated as Hinduism, it is an ideology of Hindu Nationalism) politics is doing nothing to unite the country or to bring its sizeable muslim minority (120m) in from the cold. Let's be clear, although it has been claimed that the 10 gunmen that terrorised Mumbai were from Pakistan, let us not forget the spate of other bombings that has occurred in India this year. We're talking about Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Delhi, Bangalore, etc... all the work of an local Indian group known as the Indian Mujahideen. This is home-grown terrorism of the worst order and the real danger for India lies not in what comes from across the border but in its own disaffected Muslim population. 120m malcontents with Indian passports is a recipe for a civil war and the BJP's
hindutva (along with their allies like the Shiv Sena) is no solution to it.
On Pakistan, Manmohan Singh has opted for a policy of support for Asif Ali Zardari's democratically-elected government which is most certainly a better option than war. Singh knows that if he were to engage Zardari in a military conflict it would mean Pakistan pulls its troops out of the North-West Frontier Province and the border areas with Afghanistan, given that these are the number one terrorist hotbeds in India, it would not be a wise move for either Pakistan or India at this stage, nor would a costly cross-border war be a good idea in this economic climate. Singh also knows that weakening Zardari's government by undermining it diplomatically will also not do any good, Zardari may be weak but he's India's only real hope in Pakistan at the moment.
Zardari is showing promising signs, his government is finally shutting down the offices of
Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the so-called philanthropic front organisation for the outlawed Lakshar-e-Taiba, the latter being the terrorist outfit supposedly responsible for the Mumbai attacks. However it will take a lot more work to reverse decades of backing by Pakistan's largely independent and powerful military and intelligence services. The problem with Zardari, of course, is that like his compatriot Karzai in Afghanistan, though to a much lesser extent, he is only a civil servant with a position title... not really someone with real power in Pakistan.
India should not expect either that Zardari will agree to hand over Pakistani nationals, whatever they have been accused of, to India. That would be political suicide for Zardari. People in Pakistan are already skeptical of his incredibly friendly (on a historical basis at least) attitude to India, so he is treading a fine line as it is.
It will be interesting to see what the Obama administration will do bolster Zardari and to improve the political situation in Pakistan. Hopefully they will take on a less military approach than the Bush administration and work with the grassroots in the country, bombing the crap out of it will not solve anything. Only improving law & order and governance will. Obama has repeatedly stated that he is looking for an integrated, regional solution to the problem of Afghanistan, Pakistan and India and depending on the way this would be implemented, it sounds like the way to go. Unfortunately it would not be easy as diplomatically relations between these countries are still strained.
But the focus for India should be at home, the Indian Mujahideen are proof of that and although their methods were not so sophisticated and not so brazen as those of Mumbai last week, and though the Government claims to have dismanteld their organisation... they represent the real danger for India. One would expect that there would be a breaking point for the multitudes of largely unedcuated, empoverished and isolated muslims in India... and that breaking point will not be pretty.
Labels: india, pakistan
The National covers the latest round of staggered voting in Kashmir and asks an interesting question. How do we reconcile the voter turnout in Kashmir against the peoples' repeated calls for
azaadi (independence)? The National asks people at the polls with varying results but one man, Mr Bhat, a Patelbagh paddy farmer, hits the nail on the head:
“The mainstream politicians cheat people and among the separatists there are no good leaders,” he said. “[Politicians’] children are studying in another country, in the US, but look at ours — they have no education, no future. What kind of leadership is that?”George Bush has also embarked on
a farewell tour of Iraq, and has two shoes thrown at him by a man at a press conference.
The journalist sitting in the third row jumped up, shouting: “It is the farewell kiss, you dog,” and threw his shoes one after the other towards Mr Bush. Mr al Maliki made a protective gesture towards the US president, who was not hit. The farewell kiss indeed, Bush is touring the country after the surge of around 30,000 troops last year seems to have provided a marked improvement in the security situation. Only time will tell, however, whether a conflict that has claimed the lives of over 4,000 US soldiers and tens or hundreds of thousands of Iraqis (depending on who's estimates you believe) will find a lasting peace any time soon.
Labels: india, iraq, kashmir, world happenings
Some more cool stuff from the internets today. If anyone else is into stencil art, here is an
absolutely amazing set from C215, a Pais-based stencil artist, set in Karol Bagh, India. He may be the first stencil artist to have stencilled the streets of India... but either way his work is absolutely awesome.
According to Anchorage Daily News,
"A legislative investigation has concluded that Gov. Sarah Palin abused her power in pushing for the firing of an Alaska state trooper who was once married to her sister, or by failing to prevent her husband Todd from doing so."
For those that are not so clued in on this story called
Troopergate
"Branchflower was investigating Palin's involvement in an effort to get state trooper Mike Wooten fired. Wooten was involved in a nasty divorce from Palin's sister. Palin and her husband, Todd, have accused Wooten of threatening Palin's father."
A recent symposium called
al-Qaeda 3.0 has established some worrying facts about the situation with al-Qaeda these days. The general consensus around
the Washington establishment is that the Surge and the recent "successes" in the war on Iraq have weakened al-Qaeda but it seems that this is hardly the case.
Check this from
the Wonk Room's Matt Duss
:
"Because of the redirection of focus and resources to Iraq, Al Qaeda’s top leadership was allowed to escape to Pakistan, from where they continue to support insurgency in Afghanistan, and continue to plan attacks on the West. Also reiterated at today’s event was the extent to which the invasion and occupation of an Arab Muslim country has served to confirm bin Laden’s propaganda, which appeals to a sense of grievance among many young Muslims. Another consequence of the Iraq war — one which has yet to be widely reported but which I think is going to become extremely important in the next few years as its effects become more apparent– is the phenomenon of fighters leaving Iraq, bringing their ideology and experience and establishing new fronts in other countries."
Considering that the Washington Establishment is so misguided about the impact of this War, or, at the very least, is so eloquently and elaborately continuing to try to pull the wool over the eyes of the American people (and the People of the World), what will it take to end this? Many of the people that started this war and continue to be proponents of it now serve as advisors on the McCain campaign. When will people wake up?
Labels: art, india, street art, US Elections 2008, world happenings
Because Islam has held the monopoly on suicide bombers for far too long...
So recently two bombs were planted in Bombay auditoriums Thane and Vashi. One was diffused by police and the other went off and injured 7 people. Well there may have been universal condemnation in Indian media but it was not all quite for the right reasons.
“
When we heard that Hindus have been making bombs, we were happy. But we felt ashamed when we read that the blast injured were Hindus,” says the editorial for the Bombay paper Saamna, a mouthpiece for the Hindu Nationalist
Shiv Sena party. In fact the piece was titled: titled
"The dud bombs of Hindus! Why embarrass us?". Yes those shoddy bomb-makers put upon all Hindus a grave shame, the shame of not being good enough to even put together a decent bomb, let alone have the guts to go and blow their guts all over the place with it like their Muslim brothers.
That's right folks, Hindus need suicide bombing squads to compete these days!
"
Islamic terrorism is on the rise in India and in order to counter Islamic terrorism, we should match it with Hindu terrorism," the unsigned editorial said in Marathi. "
Just like Islamic extremism, to safeguard the country and Hindus we must create Hindu suicide squads if Hindu society is to be saved."
One has to wonder, this is a Hindu nationalist party... and isn't Hinduism meant to be a peaceful reilgion? I mean there may have been a lot of bloodshed in the past but does this make sense? I mean how far back into samsara do you think one gets thrown? They probably get reincarnated as cockroaches. And what happened to the great Hindu tradition of ahimsa, or peaceful resistance? I think Gandhi has turned in his grave so many times by now that he's burrowed a hole to the centre of the earth.
Let's look at the Goverment's reactions? The Congress Party, aka. staunch defender of secularism says "The Congress strongly condemns the remarks said to have been made by Mr Bal Thackeray with regard to the formation of suicide squads. This is a clear call not only to lawlessness and violence but will be also the death knell for peaceful democracy," its spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan told reporters in New Delhi. I agree, India is a secular democracy, not a Hindu nation.
And the BJP? Aka. the moderate Hindu nationalist party that used to hold Government in India and is still a major contender? Criticising the comments, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday advised its ally to respect the law. “People should not take law into their hands. It is the duty of the government to counter terror,” BJP Vice President Venkaiah Naidu said. Fairly weak response designed to not lose any Shiv Sena supporters. Nice.
So seeing as the monopoly may be broken are we going to see Mormon terrorism now? Jehova's Witness extremism? Scientological suicide attacks? I'd like to see Tom Cruise blow himself up on Oprah's couch, that'd be something. Or maybe he'd do it Last Samurai style and go nuts with a big sword? OK I know I shouldnt be making light of this but seriously this is ridiculous. Has Inda not seen enough bloodshed during partition? What about Bombay? The riots? When will people learn?
HT Times coverage here and here for the Government reaction. The Age coverage here (yes it made the Aussie papers).
Labels: india, politics, religion, world happenings
