Ukraine: West In Disarray. Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan In Embrace

Ukraine: West In Disarray. Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan In Embrace

                                                                                       Saeed Naqvi

The moment I saw BBC’s Lyse Doucet in Kiev, Ukraine, before the Russian invasion, my mind made the strangest connection with Corbett Park. The Mahout hushes everyone on the howdah, puts his fingers on his lips and whispers, “call ho rahi hai”, which means that monkeys on the highest branches are warning the jungle that a tiger is on the prowl. This is the surest signal that a tiger might well be sighted. As soon as I saw Doucet I knew that “action” would begin.

My experience of post-Soviet wars beginning with Operation Desert Storm, 1991, has followed a pattern: rolling of war drums on the media was no guarantee that military action would begin until Lyse Doucet, Wolf Blitzer, Christiane Amanpour, Nick Robertson appeared on the scene. They appeared in, say, Afghanistan, Iraq, any war involving Israel, Lebanon, Bosnia, always thoroughly briefed by their respective military intelligence, and fireworks were guaranteed.

In fact, all post Soviet wars, mostly western action in various theatres, have been custom made for TV. In the sole super power moment, these wars were an amplification of what was essentially Anglo American dominance. This became quite clear during Desert Storm: there were two separate briefings for the US and British journalists. Europeans, indeed all others twiddled their thumbs on the periphery.

French President Francois Mitterrand was, until the last minute, reluctant to join the “coalition of the willing” drummed up by Margaret Thatcher and President Bush Senior. One of its purposes was to retain the Anglo Saxon grip on global power, something Mitterrand sensed. Redistribution of power, with a reunified Germany knocking at the door, looked imminent. A question mark was being placed on the need for NATO, now that the Soviet Union was gone and Francis Fukuyama had written the End of History.

Desert Storm it was that gave birth to the new information order with the global media at its pinnacle, one that was to come into play even in Ukraine. From the terrace of the Al Rasheed hotel, Peter Arnett of the CNN brought a war live into our drawing rooms, for the first time in history. This newly discovered power was put to considerable use in all the post 9/11 wars.

Since perceptions supercede reality in the way international affairs are played today, Ukraine will give vent to an almighty propaganda campaign. The western media will go full throttle to demonize Putin. He will be painted in the same lurid colours as Saddam Hussain was – Hitler, thug, Satan, brute, gangster whose oligarchs have to be emasculated. The chorus against oligarchs in the House of Commons will embarrass Boris Johnson because he rather enjoyed flying to Tuscany, escaping the security detail he was entitled to as Foreign Secretary, and all to attend parties thrown by his Russian oligarch friends like Evgeny Lebedev. Little wonder he whimpered in the Commons, “All Russians are not bad.”

For Lyse Doucet the job becomes that much more difficult to project Britain’s response to Putin’s “barbarism”. The job is difficult because her Prime Minister is an unconvincing war leader. In the US, the situation is no better. The right wing in the US senate says a lot of irresponsible things which a newspapers like the New York Times plays down. That is why NYT columnist, Thomas Friedman quoting these senators when they talk of President Biden’s “dementia” is unusual.

Otherwise it is an excellent column with a heading which sums up the situation succinctly: “This is Putin’s War. But America and NATO Aren’t Innocent Bystanders.” Friedman ferrets out a priceless interview with one of the finest minds on strategy and foreign policy, George Kennan. These observations were made by Kennan in 1998 just when the senate ratified NATO’s expansion eastward in violation of promises made to Russia.

“I think it is the beginning of a new cold war. I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the founding fathers of this country turn over in their graves.

“What bothers me is how superficial and ill informed the whole Senate debate was. I was particularly bothered by the references to Russia as a country dying to attack Western Europe.”

“Don’t people understand? Our differences in the Cold War were with the Soviet Communist regime. And now we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime. And Russia’s democracy is as far advanced, if not farther, as any of these countries we’ve just signed up to defend from Russia. Of course there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia, and then [the NATO expanders] will say that we always told you that is how the Russians are — but this is just wrong.” How prescient Kennan was.

In normal times Donald Trump’s ringing applause for Vladimir Putin’s “genius” in the way the Russian strongman has handled the crisis would be dismissed as rant by an irresponsible politician. At the moment Trump’s ratings are rising just as Biden’s are diminishing. Trump cannot be ignored.

On Ukraine, the West screamed “wolf” persistently. But when the “wolf” materialized, US and Britain left President Volodymyr Zelensky high and dry with routine sanctions on Russia. This is like denying breakfast to an errant schoolboy. France and Germany were always opposed to baiting Putin.

The global scorecard looks something like this – disarray in western ranks. On the other side Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan firmly clasping each other’s hands. Capitals like New Delhi and Jerusalem sunk in deep thought.

We shall be exposed to a barrage of anti Putin propaganda by the western TV, focusing on skirmishes and building them up as major rebellion. Russian TV with its limited viewership will go hammer and tongs at Biden and Johnson. What a wonderful initiative by India Today to fly out a team hopefully to give us balanced reporting.

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UP Elections: A View From Mustafabad – My Village

UP Elections: A View From Mustafabad – My Village

                                                                                    Saeed Naqvi

The mild mannered men of Mustafabad near Lucknow in Rae Bareli, furrow their brows, pause in deep thought and, with anxious resignation say “dekhiye”, a somewhat elongated “let’s see”. Their style of resignation has not changed since 1952 when UP Chief Minister, Pandit Govind Ballabh Pant took away their lands, in strict adherence to the Congress promise of land reforms, despite Nehru’s promises to the contrary. “Reforms may be delayed so the Muslims can create a middle class, just as the Hindus have done.” Mustafabadis abide by loyalties. “He was obviously overruled.”

I turn up in Mustafabad, all wrapped in nostalgia when UP elections are in full swing.

I have always enjoyed covering elections. Restrained by a month long covid spell, I was feeling particularly left out even as traffic picked up of returning pundits and progeny, all journalists, with stories of fierce fights. It was too much to resist. So I persuaded my wife to join me on a long drive.

New caste combinations were being forged, requiring attention. This is primarily a function of the caste pyramid being so cleverly designed as to leave provision for every layer to have layers below it. Hindutva enthusiasts are quite clear that democracy, indeed, the Constitution, does not really suit the social structure created in ancient times. The BJP’s social engineers are meanwhile working with tooth-chisel and hammer to create cleavage at the micro level. Ironically, with its own hands, the BJP, is ripping apart the tapestry of caste.

This contradicts the basic purpose of those who wish to keep the cast pyramid intact. If the other backward castes are to be broken up into Yadavs, Kurmis and Lodhs, and so on, the strategic aim of Hindu consolidation is instantly compromised.

Communalism in the past 30 years has been a political trick to control caste disruption. The Muslim was targeted as the “enemy” to keep the caste hierarchy in line. The emergence of Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati in UP; Laloo Prasad Yadav, Nitish Kumar and Ram Vilas Paswan in UP and Bihar was traumatic for the two ruling class parties, the BJP and the Congress.

Even so, the spread of communalism in Bihar has been milder compared to UP, for which there is a reason. Since Independence, the power structure in UP was coterminous with the classical caste pyramid. UP had a spate of Brahmin Chief Ministers beginning with Pant. Prime Ministers, likewise, were Brahmins upto Atal Behari Vajpayee. Brief spells of Chandrashekhar, V.P. Singh, Charan Singh, Inder Kumar Gujaral and Dewe Goda were aberrations. The traditional caste logic did not attend their rise to the highest office. This is why terms were short.

Bihar power structure was not a cone but two parallel columns – Srikrishna Sinha, a Bhumihar and Anugrah Narain Sinha, a Thakur. The Congress was not Brahmin dominated. The other fact which helped tone down communalism in the state is seldom noticed. When the Communist Party split into CPI and CPM, Bihar was the only state where the party remained unified, under a host of leaders many of them Bhumihars. This is where Kanhaiya Kumar comes from. Now, ofcourse, he has snapped his CPI ties to help strengthen Rahul Gandhi’s left flank.

In Mustafabad, my random interlocuters range from Lala, a Maurya by caste attached to the family for generations and scions of the fading ruling class. Discussions yield three broad assessments. One suggests that Yogi Adityanath faces strong head winds. The pandemic, floating bodies in the Ganga, economic distress, unemployment, poor health care, angry farmers and police excesses on dalits and Muslims are all cited as reasons.

The other group hedges its bets: the wave is against the BJP but the party will retain power. How does one explain that? Absence of millions of names from the electoral roles, a conniving bureaucracy and police, fiddling with postal ballot, and Pegasus-like interference with voting machines. The third view is the most convincing: people, not the opposition, are fighting the BJP this time. If true, the scale of victory might surprise even Akhilesh.

Scenarios are easy to sketch but they are liable to miss strands in an intricate mosaic. With the informality available only in villages and qasbahs, three youngmen from the neighbourhood amble in, their mouths full of news laced with gossip. Farman Haider Naqvi, 23, is a bright block level Congress worker from Mustafabad. He has just met a “senior Congress leader” who came all the way from Rae Bareli to “enthuse” party workers. The “senior” Congressman was none other than Kishori Lal Sharma, a retainer of the Gandhi family who has looked after the Rae Bareli and Amethi constituencies for the family for decades. Local gossip casts Sharma as a “Brahman wadi”, or one who protects Brahmin interests. It follows, therefore, that Sharma had come to Mustafabad (in Unchahar assembly segment) not to support Atul Singh the Thakur Congress candidate, but to clandestinely tilt the scales in favour of a fellow Brahmin, Manoj Pandey of the Samajwadi party. This leaves two groups miffed, Yadavs and Mauryas for different reasons.

Yadavs, whose natural habitat should be the SP, is on this occasion livid with SP candidate, Pandey, who, in the past, has been harsh on Yadavs in a high profile criminal case. Maurya are hopping mad for a different reason: instead of fielding Ashok Maurya, Akhilesh has given the SP ticket to Pandey. Yadavs and Mauryas have coined a joint slogan:

“Akhilesh tujhse bair naheen

Manoj Pandey teri khair naheen”

(We are not against you, Akhilesh,

We are settling scores with Manoj Pandey)

This cameo provides a worm’s eye view of elections in UP. The nine hour drive back to New Delhi gave me a more elevated view when my wife handed me the latest issue of The Economist. Two pieces, spread over five pages will not amuse Narendra Modi. The report focused on UP speculates that the Yogi may well have to resume his traditional “temple duties” when results are in.

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Lata Mangeshkar Is Eternal: Multiculturalism Which Shaped Her Is Gone

Lata Mangeshkar Is Eternal: Multiculturalism Which Shaped Her Is Gone

                                                                                      Saeed Naqvi

Lata Mangeshkar’s art was shaped by the fervour which accompanied independence when music, indeed culture, was freeing itself from feudal patronage, opening up spaces for democratization and a wider participation.

Sarod maestro Ustad Amjad Ali Khan’s father, Ustad Hafiz Ali Khan, never allowed his performances to be recorded because he did not want his music to be “played at paan shops.”

When All India Radio brought music to the “paan shops”, Hafiz Ali Khan was confined to courtly enclaves. Radio predated cinema which is where Lata’s genius flowered and proceeded to overwhelm radio too.

Partition was painful; a new optimism had to be rediscovered. This was when a young Kaifi Azmi was writing:

“Naye Hindostan mein hum nayi jannat banayenge”

(We shall create a new paradise in this new India of ours)

“Hum abki zarre zarre ki jabeen par taj rakh denge”

(“zarre” means particles) In Kaifi’s new India “the common man shall wear a crown.”

This poetic exaggeration disguises an aspiration for human dignity, equality, egalitarianism. Kaifi did not write as many songs for Lata as, say, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Sahir Ludhianwi and others. An unnoticed fact is that all these lyricists were Urdu poets from one ideological school – Communist Party of India. The new lyrics demanded clear pronunciation. Lata took lessons in Urdu.

The man who brought this pool of talent into the cultural mainstream, was the Secretary General of the CPI, P.C. Joshi. The Progressive Writers Association and The Indian Peoples Theatre Association or IPTA, circled around the commune established by Joshi in Bombay. Party “whole timers”, short of cash, found an outlet with the biggest mass entertainment industry – cinema was opening up. The commune, in other words, was the source from where lyricist came out to write songs which Lata sang.

Cinema required actors, story writers, directors, lyricists and, ofcourse, singers, influencing each other in the work place. The primary vision conditioning this collective was that of a secular, socialist, democratic republic quite markedly left inclined.

Chetan Anand was no raving Marxist but his path breaking Neecha Nagar was structured on intense class struggle, carried over by Bimal Roy into Do Bigha Zameen. Lata sang for both. Balraj Sahni had come out of the IPTA stable when he played the first angry young man in Hum Log and a dispossessed small farmer in Do Bigha Zameen. Lata was associated with both.

Progressive writers like Islmat Chugtai were writing stories for films like Ziddi and Arzoo of which Lata’s songs were a premier part. Chanda re ja re, ja re” (go away o’ moon) was among Lata’s earliest hits.

Influences on Lata came from a myriad other sources and traditions. After all her own father Pandit Dinanath Mangeshkar was an actor, director and singer for what was famous as Marathi Natya Sangeet. He even acted in a play written by Veer Savarkar. But the region extending from North Goa, Hubli, Dharwar and Pune had come under the spell of another eclectic influence in music.

The migration of Hindustani music gharanas or schools of music from UP and Rajasthan to these regions rich with classical sangeet, is a fascinating phase of cultural cross fertilization. Wealthy patrons of music invited ustads like Alladiya Khan of the Jaipur-Atrauli gharana, Abdul Karim Khan of Kirana gharana (also named Kairana currently in the eye of a communal storm) for two prime purposes: to train musical talent for Marathi Natya Sangeet and to groom singers for the “mehfils” of the patrons.

Kesarbai Kerkar, Mallikarjun Mansur, Mogubai Kurdikar, and scores of others, were gifts bestowed on Hindustani classical sangeet by Alladiya Khan. Abdul Karim Kahn’s Kirana Gharana was adorned by Hirabai Barodekar, Gangubai Hangal, Bhimsen Joshi. The entire lot came from the same area where Lata was put through her first paces in singing by her father.

Unlike Kesarbai, who left behind no protégé, Mogubai trained her daughter, Kishori Amonkar into one of the foremost classical singer. Lata, by her own admission, was an admirer of Kishori. When Mogubai and her daughter placed flowers annually on Guru Alladiya Khan’s grave in Mumbai on March 16, his death anniversary, the syncretism of the ritual was not lost on Lata.

Hindus and Muslims were no factors. The music director who spotted the genius in Lata was music director, Ghulam Haider. Later, Naushad placed her on a pedestal where she remained to the very end.

Heavier voice, in a lower octave, was in fashion those days. Lata was initially resisted but the silken serenity of her voice set her on a path which was irreversible. There were no leaping flames in her singing. Poet Momin compares the “taan” or the melodic line to a lamp:

“Shola sa lapak jaaye hai awaz to dekho”

“The leaping flame” of Momin’s songstress was no description of Lata’s singing. More apt would be Josh Malihabadi word picture:

“narmi se nadi guzar rahi hai goya”

Serenity of a gentle flowing stream, would be a close translation.

Majrooh, who wrote numerous lyrics which she sang was moved to write a poem on Lata filled with the sincerity and affection for which he was known.

“Mere lafzon ko jo chhu leti hai awaz teri,

Sarhadein tod ke ur jaatey hain ashaar mere”

(The mere touch of your voice gives wings to my words which fly, breaking all boundaries of mind and space)

Patriotism, unlike the one being simulated today, was spontaneously a part of the post-independence fervour. “Watan ki raah mein watan ke naujawan shaheed ho”, was the hit song from Shaheed, one of Dilip Kumar’s earlier films. Music was by Ghulam Haider who, as mentioned earlier, first saw Lata’s talent. Chronologically this was the period when Lata met Dilip Kumar, two aspirants setting out at the same time for different careers in the film industry. Dilip remembered days of meagre earnings: “we could just have tea in the studio canteen.”

A rakhi for Dilip Kumar was mandatory every Rakshabandhan until he was afflicted by Alzheimer.

Lata Mangeshkar will be part of lives of generations. Sadly, the milieu which shaped her is gone.

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Pegasus, The Magical Horse; It’s An Asset Or Cause For Remorse?

Pegasus, The Magical Horse; It’s An Asset Or Cause For Remorse? 

                                                                                       Saeed Naqvi 

Dated: 04.02.2022 

 

It would be wrong to compare apples and oranges, but if the wish is to hold onto power in undemocratic ways, Pegasus is far superior to Aladdin’s lamp. 

 

The over 7,000 word investigation by Ronen Bergman and Mark Mazzetti for The New York Times magazine on January 29, beams searchlights on Sheikhs and dictators spying on human rights activists, journalists, dissidents and foreign missions. Among this galaxy of dictators are two nations which, atleast at the time of writing, are listed as the world’s oldest and the largest modern democracies – the US and India. The India angle is explored at length in Siddharth Vardarajan, interview in The Wire with Ronen Bergman, one of the NYT reporters who investigated Pegasus spygate. The US has now blacklisted Pegasus and its owners, but only after the CIA gifted the spyware to the US puppets in Djibouti, known for human rights abuses. Who stops New Delhi from sharing the technology with friendly leaders outside India? 

 

Pegasus is, by the NYT’s reckoning, the world’s most powerful cyber weapon, a premier spying tool owned by NSO. You would imagine, NSO is something akin to NSA. Nothing, of the sort. The name consists of the first letter of three names who own Pegasus. 

 

For the buyer as well as the seller, Pegasus is a win-win several times over. Plus it is a multi-edged tool. Mexico was able to capture notorious drug gangster El Chapo, but the tool was also used against the opposition. Israel gained diplomatically: influencing Mexican and Panamanian vote at the UN in its favour. 

 

In July 2017, Narendra Modi made the first ever visit to Israel by an Indian Prime Minister. Modi and Benjamin Netanyahu pranced about like old chums on the local beach. Never had Israel signed a bigger arms contract - $2 billion, which included the crown jewel, Pegasus, which could turn the nation’s smartphones into an “intelligence goldmine”. 

 

The pert talking head who sought to connect Pegasus brought by the regime in 2017 with the record breaking election results in 2019, was singularly short on any proof. True, proof is not a commodity easily available when spy agencies are involved. Even so, the two plausible dates are just that – plausible, not factual. 

 

Why was India burdened so much with gratitude for having being gifted Pegasus that it went out of its way to change its vote at the UN in 2019? It voted against a Palestinian human rights organization being given observer status. There are a host of other instances. 

 

Pegasus to Poland was always a puzzling proposition because Poland beats Europe and the US, in the gory sport of rising anti-Semitism. One reason for anti-Semitism in Poland centers around property disputes between Poles and Jews. Powerful Jewish lobbies brought to bear pressure on Polish authorities to recover properties Jews had lost during the Nazi occupation of Poland. Polish anger simmered. A law was brought in to put an end to the transfer of properties claimed by Jews. Israel cried foul. 

 

Transfer of Pegasus to a regime in Poland was a sort of carrot to tone down anti-Jewish sentiment. When the carrot did not work, the stick was brought out. Some years ago, Israeli Foreign Minister, Israel Katz turned up in Warsaw to attend an international conference. Provoked by heaven knows what, Kurtz rammed into the Poles for anti-Semitism. “Poles suckle anti-Semitism from their mother’s milk”, he thundered. 

 

Pegasus remains something of a gamble as far as the Poles concerned although we have no means of knowing to what extent was Polish policy against the Jews toned down because of the spyware. After all, the blackmailing powers of Pegasus must not be underestimated.  

 

Experience with Viktor Orban of Hungary was better. A self-confessed “illiberal”, Orban put Pegasus to good use –– shackling his people, muzzling their voices. Israel reaped rewards as in the following instance. 

 

When the EU foreign ministers tried to reach a consensus seeking a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, something Israel was not terribly keen on, Orban came to Israel’s aid: Hungary refused to go along with 26 other nations. This was the spell Pegasus had cast on Europe’s most dictatorial regime. 

 

These have been Pegasus’s peripheral uses compared to its ambition to transform the West Asian architecture, particularly the chunk involving Israel-GCC and Iran. First, the spyware made a strategic entry into UAE to placate Sheikh Mohammad bin Zayed who was so furious with Israel for having murdered, by poisoning a Hamas operative in 2010 in a Dubai hotel, that he severed relations with Israel. In 2013 Netanyahu offered him Pegasus on a silver salver. The magic worked. Relations were restored. 

 

Since the founding of the Jewish state, the principal faultline dividing Israel and the Arabs has been the Palestinian issue. Dents did appear in the Arab line up as, for instance, when Anwar Sadat of Egypt visited Israel in 1977. But the role of Pegasus was considerable in altering the Arab-Israeli discourse altogether. Arab-Israeli conflict focused on the Palestinian issue was gradually transformed into Sunni states confronting a Shia arc with Tehran at its center. Pleased as punch, the Israelis were totally on the side of the GCC. Each one of them had been gifted Pegasus to suppress dissent and people’s restiveness but to somehow remain in power, if only for Israel’s sake. 

 

When Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman arrested and kept 381 of the Kingdom’s most important people, including 11 Princes in Riyadh’s Ritz Carlton hotel transformed into a prison, who knows how much of the certitude with which he took the gamble rested on the spyware’s snooping. 

 

When MBS had journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi murdered and his body dismembered in Istanbul, there was a furore, worldwide. Pegasus was taken away from him. A distressed MBS ran to seek Netanyahu’s help. A British company, Novalpina, purchased shares of $1 billion from NSO and returned Pegasus to MBS on Netanyahu’s prodding. Netanyahu was overjoyed because his secret diplomacy to sign the Abraham accords would turn to dross if MBS sulked out of what Netanyahu thought were epoch making accords. There is a limits to all power. Pegasus was no exception. Netanyahu, its principal peddler, is no longer Prime Minister of Israel. 

 

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