Farmers And Post Taleban Region: Will PM Be Equally Supple?

Farmers And Post Taleban Region: Will PM Be Equally Supple?

                                                                                         Saeed Naqvi

There have been two game changing events in the region demanding Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s focused attention – the farmer’s agitation and the ascent of Taleban in Kabul. The way he has switched gears on the three controversial farm laws has caused raised eyebrows.

The Prime Minister has a reputation for being tough, firm, uncompromising, determined, even obstinate, secure in the massive mandate of 2019. And yet he paused after having pitted the government against the farmers almost to the point of no return. Ofcourse elections are round the corner in UP, and elsewhere, and the outcome of these elections will have a bearing on the 2024 General Elections.

Whatever the compulsions for the PM to make a tactical withdrawal on the farmers’ demands, he has, in the course of doing so, signaled something Modi watchers had not expected: the Prime Minister can change. He has demonstrated a suppleness and this, precisely, is what will be required in full measure in coping with the regional challenges precipitated by the messy US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Clearly Modi’s men had such faith in the Americans and their handpicked Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, that they chose not to notice much else – the, Taleban, for instance, who they saw as an extension of Pakistan. This gloomy, self defeating appraisal, imposed a kind of immobility on policy. This would inevitably have led New Delhi to a dead end.

One purpose of the Regional Security Dialogue organized by the National security Adviser, Ajit Doval, was to break out of this isolation. No one expected Pakistan to attend the meeting but their National Security Adviser Moeed Yusuf could have refused in better language. In a situation of such flux all doors should be left ajar, by Pakistan as well as India and others in play.

At the New Delhi conference, Iran’s NSA Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani had a field day, tearing into the US military training skill: look how the much touted 3,00,000 strong Afghan National Army collapsed. Indeed, they spread out the red carpet for the Taleban to take over.

Apart from anti American invective, there was much else in Shamkhani’s presentation which Doval must have highlighted for the Prime Minister’s consideration – that Islamic State or Daesh mercenaries were being flown to Afghanistan. This was not new. For several years now Iranians, including supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have been giving details of Afghanistan being readied as a centre for terrorism.

More recently Vladimir Putin gave similar details to a group of ex military officers. His foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in 2016 that the US was training militants in Syria. Donald Trump corroborated all of this in his conversation with CNN’s Jake Tapper. In fact he named Obama and Hilary Clinton: they were spending millions in arming militants, he said.

Is the centre of gravity for Islamic terror shifting to Afghanistan? In the recent past, these stories were emanating from the West Asian theatre, countries like Syria which were relatively “remote” from South Asia. Militancy gestating next door, in Afghanistan and in the notice of closest friend, the Americans, places New Delhi in an awkward bind.

The situation today is exactly the opposite of what it was on 7 October 2001 when the US launched missile attacks on Afghanistan to destroy Al Qaeda and its head, Osama bin Laden. It is an amazing coincidence of history that it was exactly on that date, basking in the post 9/11 Islamophobia, that Modi arrived in Ahmedabad to take charge as Gujarat Chief Minister. The Gujarat pogrom of February 2002, almost blended with the hysterical global anti Islamism unleashed by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and a host of others.

In 2001 New Delhi’s plaint was against the Americans having incorporated Pakistan as “the” frontline state in the “global war on terror”. It was painfully ironical because New Delhi’s much amplified chant was against “cross border terrorism” from Pakistan. New Delhi’s tormentor was now being chaperoned by the US as democracy’s protector. The 13 December 2001 attack on Indian Parliament was a terrible event, but it went some distance in restoring New Delhi’s self image as a victim of Pakistani terror.

In the past 20 years, the world and the region have changed radically. It was its “sole super power” moment which propelled the US to attack, invade, occupy Afghanistan. The departure from that country showed the US at its Nadir.

Imagine a tennis racquet. The round frame with a network of tight strings is, for our image, Afghanistan surrounded by Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, China, Russia and Pakistan, all shoulder to shoulder, quite literally on the Afghan issue. Even Kazakhstan, which does not have a border, has been holding military exercises with Uzbekistan on the Afghan border.

At the end of the racquet’s handle, across two oceans, is the US. That leaves us somewhere near the “Y” holding the racquet’s head. The geography, the contiguity of the states peering into Afghanistan, dictates its own policy of convergence.

In the recent three hour long virtual summit between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden, there is nothing for the hawks to celebrate. Biden reiterated the “one China” policy and the two leaders talked of “managing” their “competition”; they will not allow it to spiral out of control.

It would be foolish to expect any ostensible change in neighbourhood policy until the February-March state elections. But there has to be an inevitable quest for a co-operative approach post the state elections. Some good signs may already be there. A junior Pakistan hockey team is in India. Prime Minister Imran Khan has made an exception: Indian trucks can carry food assistance to Afghanistan via Pakistan territory.

TV anchors are not busting their lungs out on a new Chinese village in Arunachal Pradesh. This allows cool headed policies to take shape. The US is a good enough friend to tolerate a shift in nuance – from fixation to consistency.

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Decisions By A Prime Minister Which An Ambassador Could Reverse

Decisions By A Prime Minister Which An Ambassador Could Reverse

                                                                                          Saeed Naqvi

Not many ambassadors have lived to tell the story but Ambassador to Washington, Shankar Bajpai, who died from Covid last year, can claim the credit for having two of Rajiv Gandhi’s dramatic foreign policy initiatives reversed. Since I was the journalist covering both instances, let me begin with the first story.

Suddenly last week Polisario, or Western Sahara was across two pages of The Economist. This triggered my memory. America’s willingness to stand with its friends, in this instance Morocco, was on test. I had visited Polisario country after disengaging myself from the media team which had accompanied the Prime Minister to Algeria in June 1985, on his way to meet President Reagan in Washington.

Just the previous month, Gandhi had visited Mikhail Gorbachev, the new Secretary General of the Soviet communist party. Algerian President, Chadli Bendjedid, totally in the Soviet camp, discussed the non-aligned movement and, holding Gandhi’s hand, stressed the importance of Western Sahara and the liberation struggle waged for nine years by the Polisario Front. Gandhi was obviously impressed.

Until the death of Spanish dictator, Francisco Franco in 1975, the territory was named Spanish Sahara. After Franco it became the most hotly contested real estate between a West backed Morocco and the Polisario, the latter supported entirely by Algeria at a time when the Cold War was at is fiercest.

After Rajiv Gandhi’s meeting with Bendjedid when the Polisario decision was tacitly taken, I decided to stay back in Algiers. Next morning I caught the flight to Tindouf, 1900 kms south-west, deep in the Sahara desert. The capital of Polisario was a fairytale city consisting of rows upon rows of tents. It was a poor man’s version of the tented township Shah of Iran had erected near Shiraz to celebrate 2,500 years of Persian civilization.

My quarter was a tent in exquisite taste. Mercifully it had an attached toilet. Others, highest and the lowest, went to the sand dunes for their ablutions. The purest rays of “Shams”, the sun, burnt everything, which then became indistinguishable from the sand. The leader of Polisario, Mohamed Abdelaziz was a charismatic figure and something of a favourite with Cuba’s Fidel Castro. Polisario recruits were being trained in Cuba.

Though short on cash, the Saharwi Republic opened an embassy in New Delhi. But within months, a very shaken Polisario representative came to me. “Your government does not talk to me.” It would have been embarrassing to close the embassy, but a defacto de recognition was on. The Polisario story faded out slowly from 1985 to 2000 when Jaswant Singh as foreign minister finally closed the embassy.

Well, the Polisario man who came to me with tears in his eyes, may today find his spirits uplifted. The powers that backed Morocco’s case on Western Sahara are giving out signals that they may no longer be interested in playing imperialism. In fact, Russia and the US are inching towards a referendum in the territory.

A hilarious image in my mind is that of Ambassador K.V. Rajan, trapped right in the middle of this sport of recognition and non recognition. After Gandhi had communicated his positive decision to Bendjedid, a high powered delegation of the Polisario floated into the Prime Minister’s chambers to thank him. It was all sealed but the decision would only be announced after the Washington visit for obvious reasons.

During the return journey, Foreign Secretary Ramesh Bhandari called up ambassador Rajan. “Hold your horses on the Polisario issue; there has been a change of heart.” But before the “change of heart” had been communicated, an elated Bendjedid invited Rajan and kissed him on both his cheek in true Arab style. When an ambassador is in the embrace of the President of a country of his (the ambassador’s) accreditation, he must not flinch. Just as Bendjedid began to celebrate, word reached Rabat. King Mohammad V was hopping mad. Former foreign secretary, M.K. Rasgotra, was flown to Rabat to mollify the King. It was an opera on a high scale.

John Kennedy’s handling of the Cuban missile crisis yielded a classic, Essence of a Decision, by Professor Grahame Allison. What kind of scholarship would be possible on the decision and indecision under South Block’s masterly handling of the Polisario affair?

Today, let me add in parenthesis, the Polisario story is on a cusp of a change once again. And this change is a function of basic rethinking in Washington the first glimpse of which was available in President Obama’s interview to Atlantic magazine in March 2016. He talked of “America’s inability to be everywhere.”

Another dramatic decision which was abruptly reversed also carried Rajiv Gandhi’s imprimatur. Ambassador Bajpai played a key role in having this decision reversed too.

A year after the Polisario fiasco, the US bombed Benghazi and Tripoli in April 1986, killing among scores of others, Qaddafi’s baby daughter. This somewhat inexplicable military action caused the foreign ministers of non aligned countries in conference in New Delhi to sit up and take note.

With Rajiv Gandhi’s “wholehearted” endorsement, a delegation of four foreign ministers, with India’s Bali Ram Bhagat as leader, left for Tripoli to commiserate with Qaddafi. After what Bhagat thought was a successful meeting in Tripoli, Bhagat possibly expected to be feted by the Prime Minister. May be the foreign office would hold a press conference.

Unbeknown to Bhagat, another script was being played out between Shankar Bajpai and the foreign office. Bajpai posed the question starkly: was India willing to forego a flourishing relationship with Reagan who, having laid the red carpet for Gandhi in June 1985 was laying yet another one in October 1987? And all in exchange for a “sentimental visit to Tripoli”? The answer to Bajpai’s query was contained in Rajiv Gandhi’s decisive action: Bhagat was shown the door out of the foreign office.

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US’s Afghan Terror “Assets” Will Weaken New Delhi’s Anti Pak Plaints

US’s Afghan Terror “Assets” Will Weaken New Delhi’s Anti Pak Plaints

                                                                                        Saeed Naqvi

 

National Security Adviser Ajit Doval must be given credit for resuming the Regional Security Dialogue to consider the radically new situation in Afghanistan after the messy US withdrawal. The initiative signals New Delhi’s entry in the playfield of Afghanistan from where its ambassador had hurriedly walked away at the first sight of the Taleban in Kabul. We were too deeply embedded with President Ashraf Ghani’s establishment, particularly former spy chief, and Tajik leader Amrallah Saleh.

And now reports suggests, the US may be proceeding towards a de facto recognition of Taleban, something Russia and countries around Afghanistan have been suggesting with one major proviso: the Taleban must include all ethnic groups in the government.

That Taleban was the ascendant power in Afghanistan was clear to New Delhi’s patron saints in Washington for years. Why else would the US Representative to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad sign a peace deal with Taleban in February, 2020? Surely the US had shared every detail with New Delhi on the navigation of the Doha talks. Nothing less should have been expected by Prime Minister Narendra Modi after his stellar performance at the Howdy Modi event in September 2019 at Houston, Texas. “Abki baar Trump Sarkar” Modi had proclaimed.

True, Pakistan and China, key players, were not present in the New Delhi meet. But so was not the US which, had it attended, would have got an earful from the Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani, NSA from Iran.

“The whole world saw how the US military – based army and security system collapsed, like the US itself, causing the US to flee the country in disgraceful defeat. It is a lesson for everyone: instead of relying on their own resources they rely on a ‘weak power’ like the US.” He continued at his invective best. “The US has been deceitful in prohibiting Afghans access to what is their property”, namely the assets frozen in the US. Shamkhani pulled no punches on what he alleged was the US handiwork: the presence and expansion of Daesh (Islamic State) and other Takfiri terrorist groups in Afghanistan.

Others, like Russia and China have said it quite as openly elsewhere, but the Iranian NSA laid all the blame for “relocating terrorist groups” at the US door in a conference hosted by New Delhi.

I have in recent columns written about the US establishment’s role in promoting terrorism as an unstated asset. The distillate of this wisdom is available extensively in the columns of the New York Time’s Thomas Friedman.

The Friedman line of punditry maintains that fighting a group like the ISIS or Al Qaeda is self defeating because such outfits are sworn enemies of Assad in Syria, Shia militia’s in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon and, their ultimate trophy, the Ayatollahs in Iran – all “our enemies” says Friedman. Shall we add China to Friedman’s list to complete this narrative?

New Delhi must have a view on this particularly now that the centre of gravity of the terrorism-as-an-asset doctrine is shifting next door to Afghanistan.

“Ab yeh sholay tere rukhsar tak aa pahunchey hain.”

(Now these flames are about to singe your face.)

The traditional belief in South and North block has been that this particular menace emanates from Pakistan. I generally fall back on an incident as a kind of parable to point out the conceptual limitation in New Delhi’s appraisal of terrorism.

Robert Blackwill was the US ambassador when George W Bush’s fireworks in Afghanistan began in October 2001. President Musharraf made a U-turn to fight the creatures and progeny of the very militants Pakistan had helped create, along with Saudi Arabia and the US to oust the Soviets from Afghanistan. By 1989 that mission was accomplished.

Unemployed Mujahideen (plural for jehadis) fired by Islamic zeal, barged into Kashmir, Egypt, Algeria. They expanded and found a wholesale market for themselves in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Sudan. In Afghanistan they gestated, mutated, fought a fierce civil war until, under US patronage once again, they found their feet and overran Afghanistan. TAPI or the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline began to look like a feasible proposition. Incidentally, at the NSA’s meet in New Delhi, Charymyrat Amanov of Turkmenistan hawked TAPI again, now that the territory is “hopefully” stable under Taleban.

At this point, let me revert to my parable. A somewhat carelessly self assured Taleban became hosts to Osama bin Laden. After 9/11 Osama became the prime target for the US war machine now gearing up for the global war on terror. When bombs rained on Afghanistan, Taleban’s Supreme leader, Mullah Omar and Ambassador to Islamabad, Abdul Salam Zaeef would brief the world media on the Pakistan side of the Durand line. Quite abruptly these cross border press conferences ended.

Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage bullied Musharraf to fall in line for the global war on terror as the coalition’s “frontline state”. When Robert Blackwill informed guests at his routine round table lunch about the “cheerful” news, he never expected angry retorts from such guests as the late Pranab Mukherjee, then an opposition leader. “For years we have been plagued by cross border terrorism from Pakistan”, said he with anger. “How can you incorporate Pakistan as the frontline state in your war on terror?”

Instead of remaining quiet, Blackwill twisted the knife. “Your’s is a regional quarrel with Pakistan” he said. “Pakistan has joined us in the global war on terror.” And now that reports are picking up in frequency about export of terrorism to Xinxiang, are these part of the US strategic calculus?

This extended diversion is to focus on India’s post Taleban dilemma. New Delhi may habitually keep pointing fingers at possible Pak perfidy against us in coordination with Taleban. But which way will New Delhi turn when our best friend the US develops an abiding interest in its terror “assets” to destabilize Xinxiang, China, with whom we are enlarging our conflictual stakes? And China’s inseparable friend is Pakistan, our sworn enemy. We meanwhile are squarely in the American camp. Does all of this not make the head swim?

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Nostalgia For Real Ram In Days Of Full Page Ads

Nostalgia For Real Ram In Days Of Full Page Ads

                                                                                  Saeed Naqvi

The diyas or earthen lamps with which we decorate our walls and cornices every Diwali, and are outshone by electric bulbs around us, may not be such an anachronism any longer because they can now be home delivered by Amazon.

Full page newspaper ads announcing new Ram temples everywhere cause me to recede into nostalgia of Ram of my childhood, memories of that short, squat man in white who walked past our house chanting:

“Kahu kahu ma magan

Kahu kahu ma magan

Hum apne Ram, Ram karey ma magan

Jaa se laagi hai lagan”

(People are happy with this, or with that

I am happy chanting Ram Ram

Because He has settled in my heart.)

Dawn was not dawn without this chant fading away towards the Gomti River.

Aseemun, that splendid singer who graced our house in Mustafabad, had, in her repertoire, a song in which the master of the house marches off to Ayodhya to place before Ram a dispute he cannot settle. The man’s sister is demanding his wife’s “kangan” or gold bangle because she, the sister, has been praying for her sister in law to give birth to a “Lallana”. Now that the birth has taken place, the sister insists on a “neg” or an auspicious gift. Her eye is settled on the bangle the sister-in-law has brought as part of her “dahej” or trousseau. “My father gave it to me” she resists. “I cannot part with the only sentimental gift from my father.” The dispute goes to Ayodhya.

How exquisitely the Rama and Krishna legends mingle in Aseemun’s song.

Sheikh Ali Hazeem of Isfahan, who settled in Benaras, could never free himself of its spell:

“Az Benaras na rawam

Maabade aam ast eenja

Har Barahman pisar e Lakshman

O Ram ast eenja”

(I cannot leave Benaras

It is the kaaba for all.

Every Barahman here looks like

the very son of Ram and Lakshman)

I doubt if all those taking out ads for Ram would know that Abdul Rahim Khan e Khana is the author of the following verse on Ram written in Sanskrit:

“Ahalya, who had turned to stone because of a curse, became human when you touched her, O’Lord.”

You created an army of the righteous, Vanar Sena, from the animal kingdom;

You elevated a lowly “chaandal”.

“Despite my boundless adoration,

Lord, why do you not bestow on me the boon of your affections.”

How Ram Bhakti transforms itself into Hindi chauvinism is one of the many distortions of our time. In fact it is not even Hindi chauvinism but brazen anti Urdu politics. Enthusiasts who objected to “jashn” in a Fabindia ad are clearly unaware that Bharatendu Harishchand, who was in the vanguard of Khari Boli, today’s Hindi, was an accomplished poet of Urdu and Persian ghazal.

Like much else in Hindu civilization, Ram is a continuous part of Urdu poetry written by Muslims and Hindus. Two of the greatest poets of Awadhi are, chronologically, Malik Mohammad Jaisi and Tulsidas. The scent of this cultural soil permeates marsias or elegies focused on the battle of Karbala. The master of this genre, Mir Anees, who wrote in musaddas or sestet, becomes a model for Pandit Brij Narain Chakbast’s description of Ram’s banishment.

“Rukhsat hua woh baap se lekar khuda ka naam,

Raahe wafa in manzil e awwal hui tamaam”

(Head bowed, he parted from his father, it was God’s will

This was the first step on his fourteen year long journey)

I have found an excellent compilation by Rakhshanda Jalil. She quotes some poets I had not heard of –– Zafar Ali Khan, for example:

“Naqsh e tehzeeb e Hunood aaj numayan hai agar

To woh Sita se hai, Lakshman se hai aur Ram se hai.”

(Much that shines in Hindu civilization

Derives from Sita, Lakshman and Ram.)

There are plaints galore when politicians misuse Ram.

“Rasm o rivaj e Ram se aari hain shar pasand,

Raavan ki nitiyon ke pujari hain sher pasand.”

“Shar pasand” means those who derive advantage from conflict.

(Those promoting conflict have abandoned Ram’s message of love.)

Much before the Mandir-Masjid issue exploded, Josh Malihabadi describes a distraught Lakshman at any sign of social strife.

“Lakshman ka dil hai shiddat e ghum se phata hua,

Hai dar pe Ram Chandra ke Raavan data hua”

(Lakshman’s heart is shattered at the spectacle of hate;

The gate to Ram’s palace in Ayodhya is guarded by Raavan)

The phenomenon of Raavan doing duty at the gate has been particularly pronounced since December 6, 1992 when the Babari Masjid was demolished. There is no better footage of the immediate aftermath than a VHS copy of Newstrack, a pioneering effort by the India Today group. There is no relationship between the two, but Economic Liberalization and Babari Masjid demolition happened more or less at the same time.

Except Doordarshan, there was no independent TV channel. Liberalization boosted the market for consumer goods. Multiple channels were required to support the burgeoning advertising. But none of this was in place when the mosque was demolished. India Today launched a VHS Newstrack for home viewing. On one such cassette is an extraordinary record of celebrations in the vicinity of the rubble.

The first scene shows girls seated in a circle, clapping rhythmically to a song “Ab yeh jhanda lehrayaga saare Pakistan pe.” (This flag will flutter over Pakistan.) Next is a shot of fierce looking young men, virtually thrusting their lances into the camera” Bum girega Pakistan pe.” (Bombs will fall on Pakistan.) Next a Swami with wavy hair booms, “Abhi hamein Lahore jaana hai; Rawalpindi jaana hai.” (We have to reach Lahore, Rawalpindi) Where in all this is Ram?

That Ram Bhakt of my childhood in Lucknow, chanting his way to the Gomti River, would never have understood all that was happening in the name of his adorable God.

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