India - Holier Than Thou

It is a well established fact in both academic circles as well as in the public discourse that India is weak on foreign policy. This weakness, kicked off in splendor by Nehru running to the newly formed UN on the Kashmir issue in the early years of India's independence, has lately been front and center in the news. While the country's citizens wait with bated breath on what particular steps the Government will take in response to the Mumbai terrorist attacks, the opposition has severely criticized what in their view has been a rather mild response until now.

Calls for forceful and bold moves on the outward have come from retired government and army persons, who having failed to act in even close to so belligerent a manner are now quick to criticize their successors. These calls, ranging from a suspension of the composite dialogue to a call for bringing back the military option to the table, do not appear to elicit much response from the government, which seems keen to march to its own drumbeat. Having prematurely taken off the military option from the table, it appears to be floundering between considering at least upping the ante by mobilizing along the border on the one hand and asking for more international support on the other.

India’s reaction to foreign policy crises is like a stuck tape recorder, repeating worn out clichés and stating equivocal policy steps. Unable to come up with a coherent and effective reply to almost any crisis, it moves from one to another coming up with suitable steps along the way that are considered seriously for about 15 days before all necessity dies down and the status quo is established once again.

It is a recurring source of amazement and consternation to all concerned as to why India, famous for its Machiavellian internal political struggles is perennially unable to replicate the shrewdness in international relations. What is it that precludes India’s foreign ministry and its hordes of diplomats from embracing a more robust foreign policy stance and acting in an explicitly tough manner? This answer has eluded analysts since India’s independence and there are no signs of an answer any time soon.

A retired general had this to say about India’s weakness in the foreign policy sphere, “India suffers from a weak strategic culture; most of our political leaders conjuring up the idea of a morally superior India professing peace and harmony in a world where nations indulge in cut throat competition. Value based politics is morally superior, but as we all know, that does not reflect the international realism.”

India’s recent condemning of Israeli action in the Gaza strip is an excellent case in point. This is no time for a country, in the course of reacting to the largest terror attack on its soil, to be condemning anybody else’s military actions. Nobody condones entirely what Israel is doing, but it is strategically weak for India to take a moral standpoint on the matter. India should be keeping the military option on the table, it should be considering strikes against terror camps in PoK and elsewhere, it should be learning a lesson in counterstrikes from the Israelis and formulating its own devastating reply to the terrorists.

This is no time for moral posturing and a ridiculous obsequiousness to god knows whom; Iran? Saudi Arabia? It is high time India knew its friends from its enemies and engaged in realistic foreign policy. No longer must it remain holier than thou.

On "Stateless" Pakistanis

So today “stateless” Ajmal Kasab, the surviving member of the 26/11 terrorist attack team beind held by Indian authorities, has written a letter to the Pakistani High Commissioner, claiming his Pakistani nationality and even asking the Pakistani government to assist him in legal proceedings. Meanwhile Ajmal Kasab’s father has come on television from Pakistan claiming Ajmal to be his son. And furthermore, the Pakistani media has even searched out and found the village where Ajmal Kasab hails from in Punjab in Pakistan. Even Pakistan’s opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif, a far more belligerent fellow than the present government, has asked the Pakistani government to just accept that this “stateless’ Ajmal Kasab is from Pakistan. So we can hardly blame the Pakistani government for still claiming they have seen no adequate evidence to show that “stateless” Ajmal Kasab is from Pakistan. This is what they do best: finding novel and increasingly bewildering methods for denying the obvious. For the Pakistani government, reality is just a challenge best ignored.

As Pakistan’s government continues to lose credibility in the eyes of the entire international community, the country is losing allies across the globe, or at least losing the respect of allies, whatever semblance of respect the government had to begin with. In the recent UN Security Council ruling regarding the Jama’at-ud Dawa, all eleven member countries, including such Muslim members as Libya and Indonesia supported the bill, and even Pakistan’s perennial ally China voted in favour of the resolution. From Pakistan’s biggest critics to its most stalwart allies, the whole world is saying to the Pakistani government: for God’s sakes, do something.

Pakistan’s isolation and international humiliation is apparent. Yet, at the end of the day, Pakistan is still, for all diplomatic purposes, a sovereign state, and needs to be treated as such. No doubt the Pakistani government has proven ineffective at best in proving that they are sincere in breaking down the terrorist networks and bringing the terrorists to justice. And no doubt, India has every reason to be dissatisfied with Pakistan. Yet, at the end of the day, the Indian government needs to give the Pakistani government a little more to work with. Evidence and intelligence does need to be shared and shared in a way clearly visible to the public. A simple letter from a terrorist under intense interrogation cannot, in any scenario, be considered adequate evidence to justify military action, even if it contains the absolute truth. Why is this evidence sharing so necessary, when the responsibility of this Pakistan-based organization seems so obvious, and the danger it poses to the world seems so clear? Because, to a Pakistani population deeply suspicious of the words and intentions of other states, especially their historic enemy, India; all this is not so obvious. This is a delicate situation. These rogue terrorist elements may be operating from Pakistan because of the complicity and duplicity of Pakistan’s government, armed forces and intelligence services. Yet, if Pakistan’s government were to go after them, with no real explanation or attempt at selling the war to the Pakistani people, such a war would suffer the same fate of unpopularity and ineffectiveness the war in Waziristan has suffered. Once more, popular perception would characterize such a crackdown as another questionable war on Pakistan’s own people, for another foreign non-Muslim country. There needs to be a very visible display of cooperation and evidence and intelligence sharing on India’s behalf so that, to some extent at least, the Pakistani people’s suspicions can be assuaged. Perhaps India feels that it should not have to be this understanding of Pakistan’s situation, given this scenario. Perhaps they are right, but it definitely is in their best interest to be. And as for the Pakistani government; Ajmal Khasab:Stateless? Get Real! And Take Action.

Welcome to the 21st Century

Nation-states are formed when a state is established on the principle that the people or the nation is the sovereign within a state. However, the notion that a nation is the sovereign in a state, means any other nation is seen as an ‘outsider’ to that nation. Nations feel threatened by other surrounding nations within their states and other nation states and the need arises to ensure the nation’s security. National security, an idea built on an “us vs them” conception of the position of the nation, became the logic behind making the nation-state as strong as possible, to ward off any threats to the security of the state. Powerful elites used the idea of national security to consolidate control over the nation-state. The idea of national security depends on the presence of threats, enemies and conflicts, and, when national security comes to dominate a state’s policy the security apparatus of the state, that is the army etc, become among the most preeminent institutions within the state, as the guardian’s of the nation’s security.

Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century, as nationalism spread, and nation-states formed all over the world, so did the idea of national security become a focal point of state policy around the world. The new international system was dominated by ideas of balance of power, alliances, and encirclement, strategies that were used to ensure a nation-state’s security against potential threats from other states.

However, with the end of the Cold War, the apogee of the old international system, a new international landscape has emerged. New challenges have come forth, such as international terrorist networks like Al-Qaeda, which belong to no single nation-state, and which no strategies of enriclement, balance of power, and state-to-state confrontation can eliminate, as the failures of George W. Bush's War on Terror made strikingly clear. In this new world order, states confer parts of their sovereign control to international institutions, co-dependency on both a regional and a global level is accepted, and security and stability of a state cannot be ensured through treating everything beyond the nation-state as a potential threat to the nation. With the twentieth century the ‘us vs them’ philosophy, the dictum of the national security state had died.

It is time that the peoples and states of South Asia realize this as well. The country of Pakistan is in an especially problematic position. A country built on the very ideal of national security, that the Indian Muslim population required security from a Hindu-dominated Indian state, Pakistan’s existence was premised on national security, and hence, so was the direction the country took. The state apparatus right from the beginning was taken over by the army, and since then the military has continually used external enemies as a rationale to perpetuate its power. Pakistan is a state devoid of an internal identity, and merely exists, on the premise that the people within its borders need to be protected. Hence, all policy is built around manufacturing ‘us vs them’ scenarios, and adopting strategies accordingly. From confronting Indian aggression, to preventing Indian and Afghani encirclement, to holding up against American hegemony, Pakistan’s establishment depends on constant external conflicts, and uses it to keep the nation in line.

Today, Pakistan is a failing state, unable to find its place in the world of the twenty-first century. The horrific attacks of 26/11 in Mumbai, the culpability of Pakistan’s security apparatus, and the ineffectiveness of Pakistan’s fledgling civilian administration, along with the paranoia of conspiracy and encirclement in the Pakistani people, all speaks volumes of the state of this nation-state.

On the other hand, we have India. India is a state, so vast, diverse and multi-faceted that it is difficult for the state to create a comprehensive narrative and identity, of what the Indian nation is. Yet, in spite of its massive problems, popular sovereignty prevails, and India is a state on the fast-track to taking its place among the most powerful and influential states in the twenty-first century. If it is to do this, the one thing it cannot do is behave like a twentieth-century power. True, there is a need for the government of India to take a stand against the terrorist attacks of 26/11. Yet, in the aftermath of the attacks, a newly awakened elite speaks of solutions such as increasing the power of the state to promote national security within the country, as well as take military action against Pakistan. This is the wrong conversation to be having in the twenty-first century, and will only help undermine any real effort the country wants to make in fighting terrorism, and ensuring the safety and prosperity of India.

The condition and position of Pakistan should be a strong warning to India, not to fall into the trap of moving any further in the direction of a national security state. The people of Pakistan need to realize that the condition of their country is primarily their own doing, and blaming the rest of the world, will be its own undoing.

Leaderless

Indians, as I write about them, defines a very small sub-group of a populous nation. Definitely urban, university educated, upper middle class and mostly born in the 1980s. The last feature is important as it defines us as being a generation of Indians who do not carry the scars of Partition, of wars, of the Emergency, of the horrors of caste, sectarian and religious violence of the late eighties and early nineties. (Kargil and Gujarat seem anomalies to us that we hope are not repeated in our lifetimes.) The factor that has really left a scar on many of us is the complete absence of inspiring leadership ever since we can recall conversations and reports about our country and its contemporary politics.

A unifying voice, a leader ready to stand by countrymen first and party later, a thinker any one of us (as defined above) would like to sit down with and pick their way of planning and processing if I may put it down literally. Our generation has tragically not seen any policymaker and political leader rise to such standards. Over the last decade we feel enthused to unleash the creative energy within us in every other field besides political affairs.

‘I cannot even imagine which party I would vote for next year.’ – A pertinent conundrum at every gathering. Over the last three years I know some who have asked bureaucrats, academics and business leaders – ‘What advice would you give to a young Indian wishing to run for elections, become a political leader?’ After smiles of pity at our naivety, the answer has shockingly been– ‘Why?’

Not only do we have a situation in the world’s largest democracy that a large section of its educated youth has not seen a single political leader they can trust, we also have a situation where considering a run for political office, big or small, is laughed upon.

So will one person already part of the state’s policy making apparatus step up and show us that we must not despair? Can we have an honest, rational, unifying leader? And can we seriously consider joining their line of work?

You Say You Want A Revolution...

You say you want a revolution...
Well, you know
We all want to change the world...

India has never in its glorious and storied past had a people's revolution. It has never happened. The independence movement itself went on far too long and in several disparate avatars to be seriously considered a revolution in the traditional sense of the word. The notion of India coming together as a country is an absurd one to say the least in that it has no obvious precedent. Homogeneous solely by religion as the land of the "Hindus" and at times hardly even that, there has been a distinct lack of a common, uniting, societal factor almost throughout its history.

Even 60 years on from independence there is a glaring vacuum in most Indians' minds as to what such a uniting factor could be. It is not just that nobody would have an answer for such a question but that most people are yet to ask themselves this question. What is India's national interest? What are its collective aspirations? Why indeed does it exist under the rubric of a state? What, if any, are the factors that might unite an Assamese, a Malayali, a Gujjar and a Garhwali?
Jawaharlal Nehru in his oft quoted 'Tryst with Destiny' speech gave India a sense of purpose it badly needed after the centuries of foreign rule. But would not India need clearly stated ideals and principles, more elaborate than sovereignty and secularism, upon which these senses of purpose would have to be built? A distinct sense of collective aspiration has emanated from most, if not all great powers in the world, in history. India has been unique because of its extreme diversity and such collective ideals are hard to come by. And so India's diversity precludes any talk of a people's revolution. What kind of a revolution would we want if not a people's revolution? We must be careful what we wish for;

You say you want a revolution..
We all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out..

In light of recent events, impulse would have us believe that a concern for national security might fill this aspirational void we have on our hands as a country. But what does national security mean in relation to India? Is it an extension, in the form of a sum being greater than its parts, of individual and communal security? Or does it end with individual and communal security itself? When there is no clearly defined national interest what would national security entail exactly? If we were to consider national security as a collective aspiration, how would we go about it?

If India is to emerge as a strategically important power in the world as has been suggested and is becoming increasingly evident, these questions will have to be answered. This will have to be an individualistic movement as we strive to create a national interest, the lack of which presently, does not allow us to have a national revolution. To use a Gandhian cliche to make my point, " You must be the change you wish to see in the world". If Indians individually would become intolerant of violence, this is sure to lead to a slow, but steady societal revolution that we all desire. In this of course, the rich and the privileged will have to lead the way like in all other endeavors. A people's revolution in our country is unprecedented, but that is not to say it shall not be possible in the future. As we integrate more and more, a national interest will emerge. In this we ask for your help....

You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We'd all love to see the plan
Don't you know it's gonna be all right...all right...

Lead the Revolution

On Wednesday evening, I went to a march at the Gateway of India. I was drawn by the urge to pay my respects but also a morbid sense of curiosity to see the sight of attack. RJP and I walked past traffic jams caused by the descent of thousands into one cramped little street. We walked right in and tried to push past people to get to the Gateway as fast as we could but to no avail. Thousands upon thousands surrounded us in all directions. Some held candles and some placards and banners to express their emotions. Noone was silent. The chanting and shouting was omnipresent. Vande Mataram, Hindustan Zindabad and other patriotic chants rang out from all corners. Women stood up on a platform using a megaphone to get us to sing ‘Hum Honge Kamiyaab’.

The anti-Pakistan chants described the focal point of the anger but we saw it change in front of us. Within minutes of our arrival the chants against Pakistan morphed into anger against our own politicians and the feeling of ‘enough is enough’. Rousing cries of ‘Inquilab Zindabad’ led to thousands cheering and pumping their fists in the air. We all stopped in our tracks at one point and spontaneously broke out into the National Anthem. I understood for once what an electric atmosphere means. I got some semblance of understanding how Parisians in 1789 and Russians in 1917 felt in those crowds. And that is what united us. The sheer frustration of being helpless in our own land with incompetent leadership. It was a frustration shared by the young and old, men and women, rich and poor, North Bombay and South Bombay residents and people of all religions. Our anger was not just at a need for security but for our politicians to actually serve the people honestly.

We were experiencing the beginning of a revolution yet it will simply fall on the wayside. Two hundred thousand people showed up and expressed solidarity. Yet these movements aren’t being replicated on a similar scale anywhere else in India. Why don’t we feel the same anger everywhere in the country? Why don’t we demonstrate in the same way? Heck, this won’t even happen in Bombay again. The revolutionary zeal that was in full flow will dissipate in front of our eyes. All because we lack a leader to bring us together, to focus our energies and to lead us to the reform we so desperately seek. Why will no one rise up and claim that mantle? Impassioned pleas for a responsible leader seem bound to fail. So we must step up to the plate ourselves. We need to reform our attitudes and ourselves first. Question the guard at the mall that doesn’t check your bags properly. Pay the traffic cops the full price of the ticket instead of getting off with a smaller bribe. Find out how our taxes are being spent on a local level, look up promises that politicians make and question publicly why they haven’t followed through with them. Make sure you vote. How many thousands gave up their lives so that we could be independent and vote for our leadership? Don't defile their memory. We can’t bring such pressure to bore effectively on the PM but let us at least try to corner our MLAs. All of us need to lead this revolution and do our little bit. It is time to look in the mirror, hold ourselves accountable and take action. It is no use saying enough is enough anymore.