When Arabs Followed The Leadership Of A Hindu They Adored
Saeed Naqvi
“Jap raha hai aaj maala ek Hindu ki Arab.
Barhaman-zaadey mein shaan-e-dilbari aisi to ho!”
(The Arab world is chanting the name of a Hindu!
A Brahmin with such ability to win hearts and minds?)
“Hikmat-e-Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru ki Qasam!
Mar mitey Islam jispe, kaafiri aisi to ho!”
(Consider the vision of Pandit Nehru!
A non believer and yet the world of Islam lies at his feet!)
I wonder what would the poet, Raees Amrohvi, (Amroha is in UP) say about India’s Arab policy today.
The poem, one of numerous written in that period, expresses admiration for the spell Nehru had cast by his deft navigation of foreign policy between the two blocs not for India alone but a whole group. A dignified detachment from the cold war was at the heart of this policy. His policy was not an invitation to an Ashram for the recluse. From Asian Relations conference in 1947 to the Afro-Asian bloc to the non-aligned was an evolution of a nation shuffling out of the colonial past.
The anti colonial rhetoric could have been shrill. Nehru kept the measure. While leading nations out of colonialism, he remained in the British Commonwealth. For this he was chastised by the Left whose values he otherwise shared.
Majrooh Sultanpuri wrote:
“Commonwealth ka das yeh Nehru,
Aur tabahi laaney na payee
Maar ley saathi, Jaaney na paaye!”
(Finish him, this Nehru, lackey of the Commonwealth, before he destroys our nation.)
India was then a poor country but it was in the hands of leaders who imparted to its conduct in world affairs a certain dignity, self respect, attracting universal admiration. Rejecting foreign advice without offending; accepting it without fawning.
After your flip flop votes in the Security Council and the General Assembly and now turning up in Tunisia, cap in hand, to join the Friends of Syria Group, (which like the Libyan Contact Group, will end up arming the rebels), do you think you come across to the rest of the world as a nation with a Central Nervous System?
Journalist all over the World must be pained at the death of two Western journalists in Baba Amro enclave of Homs near the Lebanon border. Journalists from the BBC are appealing for help. One of them is injured.
Ten Indian journalists with proper visas have finally reached Damascus. Reports are that six French, British and German military advisers (without visas) are either in detention or cornered in Baba Amro. This is in addition to the 49 Turkish soldiers whose release Ankara is trying to organize through Iran and Moscow.
The situation is not very different from what happened in Libya at about this time last year. Britain’s Defence Secretary Liam Fox confirmed in the House of Commons that British diplomats, intelligence officers and special forces had been held in Benghazi.
Are these small, negligible matters? Foreign diplomats, intelligence and special forces being caught with pants down first, in Libya, and now in Syria, and the world is supposed to look the other way?
Just imagine a scenario on these lines: Post 1989 cross border terrorism is at its peak in Kashmir. This is precisely the period when Sahibzada Yaqub Khan materializes at the Pakistan High Commissioner’s House on Tilak Marg. Veteran journalists like Pran Chopra, Inder Malhotra, K.K. Katyal are all there, listening to the Pakistan Foreign Minister teach us French Expressions which meant “the war of liberation is at an irreversible level”. Do remember those days!
Supposing along with the terrorists, journalists, embedded with special forces and equipped with modern communication machines, were also to appear, what would New Delhi do?
Roll out the red carpet or knock the hell out of the cheeky adventurists, summoning the armed forces of which India has aplenty in Kashmir? Well, Syrians have thrown their army right into the foreigners holed up in Baba Amro. Can New Delhi complain?
But on this occasion we appear to be siding with the foreigners and calling them Friends of Syria.
Or has New Delhi fallen for Israeli Energy Minister Uzi Landau’s blandishments on strategy and energy. After all, in the Great Levant Basin, the US geological survey has confirmed 1.74 billion barrels of Recoverable oil and 122 billion cubic feet of Gas. Indian application for survey were being favourably considered by Damascus which, alas, is shackled by sanctions. Israel is much the more powerful player. Who knows we may have been very clever! I doubt if all this would inspire poetry about Arabs watching Indian statesmanship with breathless adoration!
# # # # # #
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Monday, February 20, 2012
Assad’s Troops Close In On Foreign Mercenaries
Assad’s Troops Close In On Foreign Mercenaries
Saeed Naqvi
A feature of the Syrian crisis which must please those ostensibly seeking the regime’s ouster is that it is turning out to be a long drawn one. So long drawn, in fact, that the world is beginning to develop an amnesia about the Palestinian issue. This must a happy enough state of affairs for some. It certainly provides respite, a digression with a potential to keep attention away from embarrassing themes even as the puppeteers improvise one crisis after another.
There are now journalists, ferried into Syria by reliable smugglers, testifying to “cross-border terrorism” from Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon into Syria. The “brutal” Syrian response makes headlines but “cross-border terrorism” does not. The expression should be in New Delhi’s recollection atleast.
Governments are sometimes secretive and muffle their responses. But cross-border terrorism does not echo even with the Indian media and those who imagine they trigger public discourse? Debate rages in the US whether assassinating Iranian scientists serves a useful purpose. But the intelligentsia in this mother of civilizations expresses no astonishment that the ethical dimension, whether organizing assassination of scientists is right or wrong, is nowhere in the discourse. Is this state of affairs an improvement on Anthony Trollope’s description of a Tasmanian settler who, when asked whom he would kill first if he saw a snake and an aborigine, replied with stunning candour: “the question should not arise!”
Already, the Syrian story has had many shocking twists. The Arab League sends a mission to Syria but its report is turned down because the “Sudanese” head of the mission is too “balanced” between state brutality and the protesters’ violence. That Al Qaeda and Taleban operatives from Libya, Afghanistan and Pakistan have found their way into Syria has been reported even in the West. But Taleban from Qatar? Is Qatar, a hub for a dialogue with the Taleban, also beginning to double up as a recruitment center for Syrian operations? If so, these operations have the blessings from the highest Al Qaeda authority, Ayman al Zawahiri.
In other words the United States, Europe, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar are openly in Al Qaeda’s company in Syria. Launch a global war on terror in Afghanistan and Pakistan and set up Al Qaeda in new theatres like Libya and Syria! I suppose, the global war on terror will be redirected to these theatres once Afghanistan and Pakistan have been cleansed – a sort of second phase in a two-stroke operation.
Bana kar mitana
Mita kar banana
(Build, destroy, build again)
Meanwhile, the Syrian game has been immeasurably complicated by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s visit to Damascus along with Russian Intelligence personnel. Photographic proof has been compared of all the outside build up of violent dissent inside Syria.
Evidently, Bashar al Assad has been given a fortnight within which to “clean up” such centers of rebellion as Homs, not far from the Lebanese border.
Espionage related diplomacy is proceeding parallel to the Homs operations. For example, the rebels captured nine Iranian pilgrims taking the land route through Alleppo to Hama and onto the Zainab shrine, in Damascus. At about the same time, the Syrian Army arrested 49 Turkish soldiers. Ankara asked Teheran to arrange for their release. Turkish Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu rushed to Moscow for help. To facilitate a swap, the free Syrian army (a rebel outfit) released the Iranian pilgrims on the Turkish side of the border. The pilgrims have returned to Teheran.
An infinitely more serious situation has arisen in a part of Homs where Foreign Mercenaries and special forces are surrounded by the Syrian Army. Rather than bomb the Baba Amro area, the Syrian strategy is to capture the foreigners alive and turn the tables on the Western media war. A clue to the veracity of this story came from French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe who is seeking Russian help to create “humanitarian corridors” to allow access to “civilians caught up in the violence”. In fact an effort is on to have the “corridors” idea included in a new Security Council Resolution the west is trying to rope the Russians into.
The Syrians meanwhile are keeping their eyes on the clock and hastening slowly towards tightening the cordon on the Baba Amro locality in Homs. As further good news for them, Jordanian sources confirm the arrest by the Jordanian army of seven terrorists crossing into Syria.
# # # # # #
Saeed Naqvi
A feature of the Syrian crisis which must please those ostensibly seeking the regime’s ouster is that it is turning out to be a long drawn one. So long drawn, in fact, that the world is beginning to develop an amnesia about the Palestinian issue. This must a happy enough state of affairs for some. It certainly provides respite, a digression with a potential to keep attention away from embarrassing themes even as the puppeteers improvise one crisis after another.
There are now journalists, ferried into Syria by reliable smugglers, testifying to “cross-border terrorism” from Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon into Syria. The “brutal” Syrian response makes headlines but “cross-border terrorism” does not. The expression should be in New Delhi’s recollection atleast.
Governments are sometimes secretive and muffle their responses. But cross-border terrorism does not echo even with the Indian media and those who imagine they trigger public discourse? Debate rages in the US whether assassinating Iranian scientists serves a useful purpose. But the intelligentsia in this mother of civilizations expresses no astonishment that the ethical dimension, whether organizing assassination of scientists is right or wrong, is nowhere in the discourse. Is this state of affairs an improvement on Anthony Trollope’s description of a Tasmanian settler who, when asked whom he would kill first if he saw a snake and an aborigine, replied with stunning candour: “the question should not arise!”
Already, the Syrian story has had many shocking twists. The Arab League sends a mission to Syria but its report is turned down because the “Sudanese” head of the mission is too “balanced” between state brutality and the protesters’ violence. That Al Qaeda and Taleban operatives from Libya, Afghanistan and Pakistan have found their way into Syria has been reported even in the West. But Taleban from Qatar? Is Qatar, a hub for a dialogue with the Taleban, also beginning to double up as a recruitment center for Syrian operations? If so, these operations have the blessings from the highest Al Qaeda authority, Ayman al Zawahiri.
In other words the United States, Europe, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar are openly in Al Qaeda’s company in Syria. Launch a global war on terror in Afghanistan and Pakistan and set up Al Qaeda in new theatres like Libya and Syria! I suppose, the global war on terror will be redirected to these theatres once Afghanistan and Pakistan have been cleansed – a sort of second phase in a two-stroke operation.
Bana kar mitana
Mita kar banana
(Build, destroy, build again)
Meanwhile, the Syrian game has been immeasurably complicated by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s visit to Damascus along with Russian Intelligence personnel. Photographic proof has been compared of all the outside build up of violent dissent inside Syria.
Evidently, Bashar al Assad has been given a fortnight within which to “clean up” such centers of rebellion as Homs, not far from the Lebanese border.
Espionage related diplomacy is proceeding parallel to the Homs operations. For example, the rebels captured nine Iranian pilgrims taking the land route through Alleppo to Hama and onto the Zainab shrine, in Damascus. At about the same time, the Syrian Army arrested 49 Turkish soldiers. Ankara asked Teheran to arrange for their release. Turkish Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu rushed to Moscow for help. To facilitate a swap, the free Syrian army (a rebel outfit) released the Iranian pilgrims on the Turkish side of the border. The pilgrims have returned to Teheran.
An infinitely more serious situation has arisen in a part of Homs where Foreign Mercenaries and special forces are surrounded by the Syrian Army. Rather than bomb the Baba Amro area, the Syrian strategy is to capture the foreigners alive and turn the tables on the Western media war. A clue to the veracity of this story came from French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe who is seeking Russian help to create “humanitarian corridors” to allow access to “civilians caught up in the violence”. In fact an effort is on to have the “corridors” idea included in a new Security Council Resolution the west is trying to rope the Russians into.
The Syrians meanwhile are keeping their eyes on the clock and hastening slowly towards tightening the cordon on the Baba Amro locality in Homs. As further good news for them, Jordanian sources confirm the arrest by the Jordanian army of seven terrorists crossing into Syria.
# # # # # #
Monday, February 13, 2012
Indian Vote at UN Notwithstanding, Syria Not Falling Soon
Indian Vote at UN Notwithstanding, Syria Not Falling Soon
Saeed Naqvi
Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece, Roshomon, is an examination of the same reality from different perspectives.
Syria today would lend itself admirably to the Roshomon treatment. Iran, Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and the supervising deity of all the Arab regimes who are most reliably in the US camp, Saudi Arabia, all have distinct perspectives on Syria, with some overlaps.
Powers arrayed against Bashar al Assad of Syria are exactly the ones which transformed a no-fly-zone into regime change in Libya.
In fact, like road repair gangs working on different stretches of a highway, one stretch at a time, the same gang of Arabs and their western minders are proceeding from Libya to Syria to…..sorry, hang on. Syria is proving to be a much tougher project than earlier imagined.
There are various reasons why Assad has to be brought to his knees.
The West and Israel obviously find it easier to manage a Mid-East without independent minded trouble makers like Qaddafi and Assad who had a history of being on the wrong side during the cold war. The Soviet Union is history but habits acquired during that period, the kneejerk anti Americanism for instance, will not go away unless these regimes are smashed and Israel plus energy interests are secured against their caprice.
The Israeli experience during the 2006 Israel-Hizbullah war has taught all friends of Israel a lesson: Hizbullah derives its muscle from Iran and Syria. This cannot be given the emotive label of a “Shia arc” because Iran, Syria, Hizbullah link up eventually with Hamas in Gaza, a patently Sunni outfit in Israel’s underbelly and which Israel dubs as “terrorist”.
The removal of Syria from this chain weakens Hamas, Hizbullah, Iran, all in one strike.
The removal of Assad, an Alawi (moderate variant of Shiaism) would result in power being distributed among the majority Sunni population of Syria. An enlargement of Sunni power has become an article of faith with the Saudi regime.
During the earlier phase of the cold war the Shah of Iran and the Saudi King sat on the same western lap. But with the coming of the Ayatullahs to power in Teheran in 1979, the Shia-Sunni divide resurfaced.
The most scary of Saudi nightmares materialized when American occupation of Iraq in 2003 resulted in the rise of Shia power next door in Baghdad. To check this turn of events, Al Qaeda type terrorism was introduced into Iraq on America’s watch to keep the new Shia rulers off balance.
In strengthening Sunni regimes, the Saudis are the most enthusiastic players but they have competition in the business. This competition comes from Turkey.
Until 2000, Turkey was comprehensively in the grip of secularism as dictated by the founder of the Republic, Mustafa Kemal Pasha Ataturk. The west (unknowingly) helped weaken this secularism by allowing the five year siege of Sarajevo (no UN resolutions then), the massacre at Sebrenica and the unspeakable cruelties of the Bosnian war – all on live TV. Sarajevo derives from the Turkish word Sarai which means “resting place”. The region is part of Turkish nostalgia.
The consequence was the rise of the Islamist Refah party with Nikmetin Arbakan as Prime Minister. The Army, guarantor of Turkey’s secularism, scuttled the regime. A softer version of a tolerant, secular Muslim group, the Peace and Development party under Prime Minister Tayyep Erdogan has broken all records by increasing its vote share dramatically through three elections.
Naturally, Erdogan sees himself, (not the Saudis) as a model in the context of the Arab Spring. Hence Turkish pressure on Assad to accommodate the Muslim Brotherhood in the changes Syria must undertake. When Erdogan turned up in Tripoli to say his prayers after Qaddafi’s fall he was building up this Arab constituency.
There are three obstacles in his way. He must gain popularity in the Arab street if he has to offer himself as an acceptable model. For this he must stand upto Israeli-US polices on Palestine, a stance which has made Iran, Hizbullah and Syria Pariahs in West’s eyes.
The second obstacle is a deep seated Arab aversion to the Ottoman Empire which Turkey’s high profile would evoke.
The third is a very tricky one: Syria, Iran, Iraq all have Kurds which can be powerful pressure points on Ankara.
But where does all this lead to? In brief neither Syria, nor Assad are falling anytime soon, secure as they are in a strong, largely united Alawi Army, a two million strong Baath party, on all sides of sectarian divides, notwithstanding an Indian vote for a resolution seeking a repeat of Libya.
# # # # # #
Saeed Naqvi
Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece, Roshomon, is an examination of the same reality from different perspectives.
Syria today would lend itself admirably to the Roshomon treatment. Iran, Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and the supervising deity of all the Arab regimes who are most reliably in the US camp, Saudi Arabia, all have distinct perspectives on Syria, with some overlaps.
Powers arrayed against Bashar al Assad of Syria are exactly the ones which transformed a no-fly-zone into regime change in Libya.
In fact, like road repair gangs working on different stretches of a highway, one stretch at a time, the same gang of Arabs and their western minders are proceeding from Libya to Syria to…..sorry, hang on. Syria is proving to be a much tougher project than earlier imagined.
There are various reasons why Assad has to be brought to his knees.
The West and Israel obviously find it easier to manage a Mid-East without independent minded trouble makers like Qaddafi and Assad who had a history of being on the wrong side during the cold war. The Soviet Union is history but habits acquired during that period, the kneejerk anti Americanism for instance, will not go away unless these regimes are smashed and Israel plus energy interests are secured against their caprice.
The Israeli experience during the 2006 Israel-Hizbullah war has taught all friends of Israel a lesson: Hizbullah derives its muscle from Iran and Syria. This cannot be given the emotive label of a “Shia arc” because Iran, Syria, Hizbullah link up eventually with Hamas in Gaza, a patently Sunni outfit in Israel’s underbelly and which Israel dubs as “terrorist”.
The removal of Syria from this chain weakens Hamas, Hizbullah, Iran, all in one strike.
The removal of Assad, an Alawi (moderate variant of Shiaism) would result in power being distributed among the majority Sunni population of Syria. An enlargement of Sunni power has become an article of faith with the Saudi regime.
During the earlier phase of the cold war the Shah of Iran and the Saudi King sat on the same western lap. But with the coming of the Ayatullahs to power in Teheran in 1979, the Shia-Sunni divide resurfaced.
The most scary of Saudi nightmares materialized when American occupation of Iraq in 2003 resulted in the rise of Shia power next door in Baghdad. To check this turn of events, Al Qaeda type terrorism was introduced into Iraq on America’s watch to keep the new Shia rulers off balance.
In strengthening Sunni regimes, the Saudis are the most enthusiastic players but they have competition in the business. This competition comes from Turkey.
Until 2000, Turkey was comprehensively in the grip of secularism as dictated by the founder of the Republic, Mustafa Kemal Pasha Ataturk. The west (unknowingly) helped weaken this secularism by allowing the five year siege of Sarajevo (no UN resolutions then), the massacre at Sebrenica and the unspeakable cruelties of the Bosnian war – all on live TV. Sarajevo derives from the Turkish word Sarai which means “resting place”. The region is part of Turkish nostalgia.
The consequence was the rise of the Islamist Refah party with Nikmetin Arbakan as Prime Minister. The Army, guarantor of Turkey’s secularism, scuttled the regime. A softer version of a tolerant, secular Muslim group, the Peace and Development party under Prime Minister Tayyep Erdogan has broken all records by increasing its vote share dramatically through three elections.
Naturally, Erdogan sees himself, (not the Saudis) as a model in the context of the Arab Spring. Hence Turkish pressure on Assad to accommodate the Muslim Brotherhood in the changes Syria must undertake. When Erdogan turned up in Tripoli to say his prayers after Qaddafi’s fall he was building up this Arab constituency.
There are three obstacles in his way. He must gain popularity in the Arab street if he has to offer himself as an acceptable model. For this he must stand upto Israeli-US polices on Palestine, a stance which has made Iran, Hizbullah and Syria Pariahs in West’s eyes.
The second obstacle is a deep seated Arab aversion to the Ottoman Empire which Turkey’s high profile would evoke.
The third is a very tricky one: Syria, Iran, Iraq all have Kurds which can be powerful pressure points on Ankara.
But where does all this lead to? In brief neither Syria, nor Assad are falling anytime soon, secure as they are in a strong, largely united Alawi Army, a two million strong Baath party, on all sides of sectarian divides, notwithstanding an Indian vote for a resolution seeking a repeat of Libya.
# # # # # #
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Where’s The Other Side Of Story In Mid East?
Where’s The Other Side Of Story In Mid East?
Saeed Naqvi
One of the great tragedies of our time is the near total decline in the credibility of the Western media. There are some exceptions but only some. Since much of the global media, including India, is largely imitative, indeed, completely dependent on Western sources for its international news, the lack of credibility attaches to it too.
The harm this does in the arena of foreign policy is incalculable: influential sections of the elite become passive recipients of images or stories doled out by the traditional metropolitan centers of control serving their interests.
Happily, this imbalance is being corrected by the alternative media which is increasingly taking the internet route. This media will not, for a while, have the means for news gathering on the scale the mainstream media has. But, in time, it will.
Almost the first consequence of the collapse of the Soviet Union was the emergence of the global electronic media. Peter Arnett of the CNN clambered onto the terrace of the Al Rashied hotel in Baghdad to inaugurate the era of wars being brought live into our living rooms. This was operation Desert Storm. Two months later, BBC World Service TV was born.
Naturally, this dramatic live coverage projected the Anglo-American approach, something which came across to the Arab world as the most visible form of Arab humiliation, an Arab defeat in the Arab drawing room.
I am surprised how this turn in coverage of wars and conflicts – Bosnia, the two Intefadas, Israel-Hezbullah war, occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq – is not mentioned as one of the potent catalysts for what came to be further amplified as Islamic terror.
It was to provide ventilation to Arab suffocation that the rulers of Qatar, at that stage not on the best of terms with Saudi Arabia, launched Al Jazeera. This coincided with the BBC World Service retrenching staff providing the new Qatari outfit with world class technical and editorial media personnel.
Since open societies like India would not resile from habits inherited from the colonial period – for foreign affairs turn to AP, Reuters and BBC – the rulers of Qatar filled in the gap.
From its inception there was a question mark on Al Jazeera. Qatar, after all was the regional headquarter of the US Central Command which was prosecuting all US military action from Iraq to Afghanistan. How could Al Jazeera co-exist with CENTCOM? How could it “independently” cover CENTCOM military action. This coverage would stoke Anti Americanism on Arab, indeed, Muslim street.
Libertarians like Prof. Fouad Ajami of Johns Hopkins University wrote scathing articles against Al Jazeera “harming” the US project. Why blame Ajami alone: even Tom Friedman was describing Iraq as the greatest project the US had undertaken in the interest of peace and democracy. Why, Najaf’s Ayatullah Sistani was being recommended for the Nobel Peace Prize! And all this wonderful work was being undone by Al Jazeera. Secretary Colin Powell went ballistic. So agitated was Pentagon that Al Jazeera office in Kabul was bombed. Its principal correspondent was jailed in Spain. Guantanamo Bay was probably not ready then.
To arrest the impact of Al Jazeera, Saudis launched their own channel – Al Arabia. Al Jazeera became the global voice of dissent. Its credibility was priceless.
Its credibility having plummeted, the Western media needed Al Jazeera’s credibility. The Arab Spring provided the opportunity. As dictators began to fall in Tunis and Cairo, the Kings and Sheikhs got together in a scrum. Forgotten was the Saud-Qatar antipathy. The two got together, first to coax a resolution out of the Arab league seeking a no fly zone over Libya and are now helping manufacture regime change, hand-in-hand in Syria.
In both these enterprises they have thrown in the media they control –Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera, its “priceless” credibility placed at the US’s command.
This confluence of the Western and Arab media has been brilliantly choreographed by military strategists. If a story is less credible or a downright concoction, it can always be sourced to the Arab channels. This the BBC and the CNN can then quote without harming their own bruised reputations further.
Peter Arnett inaugurated the era of live coverage of wars from Baghdad. Which face have you become familiar with in all the footage from Libya or Syria? You are told footage has been smuggled or flashed out by mobile cameras.
The only face etched on my mind is of an eager young BBC reporter in Libya leaning triumphantly over the body of Qaddaffi lying in a refrigerated warehouse meant for slaughtered animals.
# # # # # #
Saeed Naqvi
One of the great tragedies of our time is the near total decline in the credibility of the Western media. There are some exceptions but only some. Since much of the global media, including India, is largely imitative, indeed, completely dependent on Western sources for its international news, the lack of credibility attaches to it too.
The harm this does in the arena of foreign policy is incalculable: influential sections of the elite become passive recipients of images or stories doled out by the traditional metropolitan centers of control serving their interests.
Happily, this imbalance is being corrected by the alternative media which is increasingly taking the internet route. This media will not, for a while, have the means for news gathering on the scale the mainstream media has. But, in time, it will.
Almost the first consequence of the collapse of the Soviet Union was the emergence of the global electronic media. Peter Arnett of the CNN clambered onto the terrace of the Al Rashied hotel in Baghdad to inaugurate the era of wars being brought live into our living rooms. This was operation Desert Storm. Two months later, BBC World Service TV was born.
Naturally, this dramatic live coverage projected the Anglo-American approach, something which came across to the Arab world as the most visible form of Arab humiliation, an Arab defeat in the Arab drawing room.
I am surprised how this turn in coverage of wars and conflicts – Bosnia, the two Intefadas, Israel-Hezbullah war, occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq – is not mentioned as one of the potent catalysts for what came to be further amplified as Islamic terror.
It was to provide ventilation to Arab suffocation that the rulers of Qatar, at that stage not on the best of terms with Saudi Arabia, launched Al Jazeera. This coincided with the BBC World Service retrenching staff providing the new Qatari outfit with world class technical and editorial media personnel.
Since open societies like India would not resile from habits inherited from the colonial period – for foreign affairs turn to AP, Reuters and BBC – the rulers of Qatar filled in the gap.
From its inception there was a question mark on Al Jazeera. Qatar, after all was the regional headquarter of the US Central Command which was prosecuting all US military action from Iraq to Afghanistan. How could Al Jazeera co-exist with CENTCOM? How could it “independently” cover CENTCOM military action. This coverage would stoke Anti Americanism on Arab, indeed, Muslim street.
Libertarians like Prof. Fouad Ajami of Johns Hopkins University wrote scathing articles against Al Jazeera “harming” the US project. Why blame Ajami alone: even Tom Friedman was describing Iraq as the greatest project the US had undertaken in the interest of peace and democracy. Why, Najaf’s Ayatullah Sistani was being recommended for the Nobel Peace Prize! And all this wonderful work was being undone by Al Jazeera. Secretary Colin Powell went ballistic. So agitated was Pentagon that Al Jazeera office in Kabul was bombed. Its principal correspondent was jailed in Spain. Guantanamo Bay was probably not ready then.
To arrest the impact of Al Jazeera, Saudis launched their own channel – Al Arabia. Al Jazeera became the global voice of dissent. Its credibility was priceless.
Its credibility having plummeted, the Western media needed Al Jazeera’s credibility. The Arab Spring provided the opportunity. As dictators began to fall in Tunis and Cairo, the Kings and Sheikhs got together in a scrum. Forgotten was the Saud-Qatar antipathy. The two got together, first to coax a resolution out of the Arab league seeking a no fly zone over Libya and are now helping manufacture regime change, hand-in-hand in Syria.
In both these enterprises they have thrown in the media they control –Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera, its “priceless” credibility placed at the US’s command.
This confluence of the Western and Arab media has been brilliantly choreographed by military strategists. If a story is less credible or a downright concoction, it can always be sourced to the Arab channels. This the BBC and the CNN can then quote without harming their own bruised reputations further.
Peter Arnett inaugurated the era of live coverage of wars from Baghdad. Which face have you become familiar with in all the footage from Libya or Syria? You are told footage has been smuggled or flashed out by mobile cameras.
The only face etched on my mind is of an eager young BBC reporter in Libya leaning triumphantly over the body of Qaddaffi lying in a refrigerated warehouse meant for slaughtered animals.
# # # # # #
Monday, January 30, 2012
Have Taleban Promised US That Women Will Be Treated Kindly?
Have Taleban Promised US That Women Will Be Treated Kindly?
Saeed Naqvi
President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address to the US Congress begins with America’s recent military engagement in self congratulatory terms. Among the more modest claims is: “For the first time in two decades, Osama bin Laden is not a threat to this country”.
The speech ends with a graphic account of the SEAL Team’s mission “to get bin Laden”. He says “one of my proudest possessions is the flag that the SEAL Team took with them on the mission”.
Between these extended bits of military triumphalism, are other substantive themes that will play themselves out in great detail upto the Presidential election in November 2012.
Part of the choreography being structured for the campaign is the conference on Afghanistan due in May in Chicago, with NATO seated on the front benches along with others including all those present at the first Bonn conference. In his speech Obama talked of the 10,000 troops who have already returned. He then said that “23,000 more will leave by the end of summer”.
The Chicago conference will be in the Spring. The 23,000 US troops will not have left Afghanistan by then. That will happen only by the “end of summer”, say August or September, weeks short of polling day. If troops can really be brought back by then, the resultant photo ops can be given a favourable spin. Some sort of success can be projected.
Between the announcement of the exact date of the next phase of troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and the actual departure of troops, there can always be a hitch which will enable departure to be delayed beyond November 5, leaving the next administration to devise a more plausible policy for Afghanistan or for that hyphenated Af-Pak region. That expression has been gradually shed as Richard Holbrooke recedes from memory.
I suppose it is the prerogative of the powerful to blandish daily improvisations as carefully crafted, deeply thought out foreign policy. Put it down to my inadequate grasp of events, but in recent years I have not been able to spot anything resembling policy towards Af-Pak.
Remember when Peter Galbraith was posted to Kabul as Holbrooke’s sidekick? Soon after Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s re election in August 2009 he packed up and left because the elections had been “rigged”.
Those were the days when every visiting American journalist, briefed either at Bagram or the US’s Kabul embassy, described Karzai as something less than the Mayor of Kabul, one who could not even step out of the Palace.
Then came General Stanley McChrystal who was disarmingly blunt: India’s socio-economic development work in Afghanistan “creates complications and distracts Pakistan from its war on terror”. This is what I was told in Kabul.
Was this derived from some policy? If so, how do I square it with well placed Americans in Islamabad, during that period, fairly vocal about the Pak army playing “both sides of the street” in their war on terror?
One has lived so long with the absence of a coherent US policy in the region, that the frenetic activity between Washington, Kabul, Islamabad and now Qatar cannot by any stretch of imagination be seen as part of a deep design. It smacks of yet another improvisation.
The limited short term objective is to prepare a script for Chicago where “success” in Afghanistan can be credibly “promised”. Success cannot be “announced” because “success” cannot happen in a short time frame.
What is the implication of this Qatar digression?
Have the Taleban, a “nightmare” of the 1990s, been transformed into harbingers of a sparkling new dawn for Afghanistan, by the sheer passage of time?
In the 90s, Holbrooke and friends were passing through New Delhi. US ambassador Frank Wisner held a dinner for the group before escorting them to Bhutan for a holiday. By a coincidence, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour happened to be in Kabul. Her powerful reportage of the Taleban’s harsh treatment of women changed Washington’s policy so abruptly that, just then, Holbrooke received a call from the White House on this subject. He returned to the group shaking his head. “Washington is unhappy with the way Afghan women are being treated.” Someone in the group succinctly observed: “Afghan policy has now got embroiled in US gender politics.” Another improvisation was affected. The policy was changed. Facilitators of an American hydrocarbon pipeline through Afghanistan became pariahs overnight.
Will the Taleban this time sign statements on oath that they will be kind to their women?
# # # # # #
Saeed Naqvi
President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address to the US Congress begins with America’s recent military engagement in self congratulatory terms. Among the more modest claims is: “For the first time in two decades, Osama bin Laden is not a threat to this country”.
The speech ends with a graphic account of the SEAL Team’s mission “to get bin Laden”. He says “one of my proudest possessions is the flag that the SEAL Team took with them on the mission”.
Between these extended bits of military triumphalism, are other substantive themes that will play themselves out in great detail upto the Presidential election in November 2012.
Part of the choreography being structured for the campaign is the conference on Afghanistan due in May in Chicago, with NATO seated on the front benches along with others including all those present at the first Bonn conference. In his speech Obama talked of the 10,000 troops who have already returned. He then said that “23,000 more will leave by the end of summer”.
The Chicago conference will be in the Spring. The 23,000 US troops will not have left Afghanistan by then. That will happen only by the “end of summer”, say August or September, weeks short of polling day. If troops can really be brought back by then, the resultant photo ops can be given a favourable spin. Some sort of success can be projected.
Between the announcement of the exact date of the next phase of troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and the actual departure of troops, there can always be a hitch which will enable departure to be delayed beyond November 5, leaving the next administration to devise a more plausible policy for Afghanistan or for that hyphenated Af-Pak region. That expression has been gradually shed as Richard Holbrooke recedes from memory.
I suppose it is the prerogative of the powerful to blandish daily improvisations as carefully crafted, deeply thought out foreign policy. Put it down to my inadequate grasp of events, but in recent years I have not been able to spot anything resembling policy towards Af-Pak.
Remember when Peter Galbraith was posted to Kabul as Holbrooke’s sidekick? Soon after Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s re election in August 2009 he packed up and left because the elections had been “rigged”.
Those were the days when every visiting American journalist, briefed either at Bagram or the US’s Kabul embassy, described Karzai as something less than the Mayor of Kabul, one who could not even step out of the Palace.
Then came General Stanley McChrystal who was disarmingly blunt: India’s socio-economic development work in Afghanistan “creates complications and distracts Pakistan from its war on terror”. This is what I was told in Kabul.
Was this derived from some policy? If so, how do I square it with well placed Americans in Islamabad, during that period, fairly vocal about the Pak army playing “both sides of the street” in their war on terror?
One has lived so long with the absence of a coherent US policy in the region, that the frenetic activity between Washington, Kabul, Islamabad and now Qatar cannot by any stretch of imagination be seen as part of a deep design. It smacks of yet another improvisation.
The limited short term objective is to prepare a script for Chicago where “success” in Afghanistan can be credibly “promised”. Success cannot be “announced” because “success” cannot happen in a short time frame.
What is the implication of this Qatar digression?
Have the Taleban, a “nightmare” of the 1990s, been transformed into harbingers of a sparkling new dawn for Afghanistan, by the sheer passage of time?
In the 90s, Holbrooke and friends were passing through New Delhi. US ambassador Frank Wisner held a dinner for the group before escorting them to Bhutan for a holiday. By a coincidence, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour happened to be in Kabul. Her powerful reportage of the Taleban’s harsh treatment of women changed Washington’s policy so abruptly that, just then, Holbrooke received a call from the White House on this subject. He returned to the group shaking his head. “Washington is unhappy with the way Afghan women are being treated.” Someone in the group succinctly observed: “Afghan policy has now got embroiled in US gender politics.” Another improvisation was affected. The policy was changed. Facilitators of an American hydrocarbon pipeline through Afghanistan became pariahs overnight.
Will the Taleban this time sign statements on oath that they will be kind to their women?
# # # # # #
Friday, January 27, 2012
Rushdie Not A Problem For Muslims But For Politicians
Rushdie Not A Problem For Muslims But For Politicians
Saeed Naqvi
The Maulana from the Darul Uloom seminary at Deoband who threatened the Jaipur Literary Festival with disruption, in case Salman Rushdie participated, is only the latest in a long list of spoilsports appointed by God.
When Pakistan was beginning to take shape and had not yet acquired the Islamic passion it is currently famous for, the country’s second Prime Minister, Haji Sir Khwaja Nazimuddin, organized a cultural evening where the great Sarangi player, Ustad Bundu Khan, was the star attraction. Among the invitees was a Maulana.
When it was time for the guests to depart, master of ceremonies “Patras” Bukhari, himself a great wit and man of letters, escorted the Maulana to a limousine. Since Ustad Bundu Khan lived in the same direction, Patras requested the Sarangi maestro to accompany the Maulana.
Next morning the Prime Minister found himself facing a Maulana shaking with rage. “How dare Patras expect me to accompany a Sarangi player!”
The PM promptly called Patras and acquainted him with the delicacy of the matter. “You must do what is proper and report to me.”
Patras informed the PM the following day that he had taken suitable action. “I have apologized to Ustad Bundu Khan!” The Maulana on one side Patras and Bundu Khan on the other have rolled along parallel tracks from medieval times.
In 1988, Rajiv Gandhi, in political difficulties, needed the Muslim vote. This was the reason he succumbed to pressure from the so called Muslim leaders and banned Satanic Verses.
Even in those days opinion among Muslims was divided. Clearly Rushdie had, while talking about the Prophet’s wives, transgressed from the sort of irreverence which is part of literary license to hurtful rudeness.
There were those who thought the book should be banned but there were many more who argued that banning of books was immoral and counter productive.
Supposing Satanic Verses had not been banned in India. Well, there would have been no global hullabaloo about the book and no Iranian Fatwa, all of which cumulatively helped boost sales.
And now the Jaipur festival is taking place in the middle of the UP election campaign in which the Muslim vote is again on a premium. Coincidentally, an internal power struggle is on in Deoband itself in which the nephew is challenging the uncle. In this situation either can raise the stakes to embarrass the other by raking up the Rushdie issue.
Rajasthan Chief Minister, Ashok Gehlot is, meanwhile, smarting under Congress High command displeasure for tardy action in Gopalgarh where the police shot Muslims in a mosque. Since Rahul Gandhi is busting his guts campaigning for the party in neighbouring UP, one false note on the Rushdie issue can cause the Muslim vote to bolt and for Gehlot to be shown the door. Or, so the partymen, in a state of funk, seem to believe.
Supposing the organizers ignored Deoband and went ahead with Rushdie’s well advertised programme. Would the country’s Muslims take over the nation’s roads in fiery agitating? Ofcourse not.
Rajiv Gandhi’s decision to upgrade relations with Israel (ultimately Narasimha Rao implemented it) has a lesson for the Congress. Muslim leaders, the usual suspects, advised him against upgrading relations. Muslims would be annoyed, they said.
Others argued that there are other negatives in upgrading relations with Israel, but one thing is clear: Israel is not a priority issue for Indian Muslims. Continuous projection of Rushdie like issues, as vital to Muslims, comes in the way of development as their priority requirement. They become a mindless religious herd in popular perception.
The wide acceptance of this perception is partly related to the decline of Urdu and the composite culture on which their identity is built. This cultural identity has in the season of vote banks been replaced by a bland religious identity. Religious identity is easier to stoke for minority mobilization. Cultural identity derives from Sufi traditions, music, architecture and, above all, poetry which has challenged religious dogma frontally.
Sab tere siwa kafir
Aakhir iska matlab kya?
Sar phira de Insaan ka
Aisa khabt e mazhab kya?
(Every one other than you is an impious kafir? what kind of non sense is this? Shun religion which is illogical)
There is not a passage in Urdu poetry which gives any quarter to orthodoxy or the clergy but poets make a clear distinction between irreverence and disrespect.
# # # # # #
Saeed Naqvi
The Maulana from the Darul Uloom seminary at Deoband who threatened the Jaipur Literary Festival with disruption, in case Salman Rushdie participated, is only the latest in a long list of spoilsports appointed by God.
When Pakistan was beginning to take shape and had not yet acquired the Islamic passion it is currently famous for, the country’s second Prime Minister, Haji Sir Khwaja Nazimuddin, organized a cultural evening where the great Sarangi player, Ustad Bundu Khan, was the star attraction. Among the invitees was a Maulana.
When it was time for the guests to depart, master of ceremonies “Patras” Bukhari, himself a great wit and man of letters, escorted the Maulana to a limousine. Since Ustad Bundu Khan lived in the same direction, Patras requested the Sarangi maestro to accompany the Maulana.
Next morning the Prime Minister found himself facing a Maulana shaking with rage. “How dare Patras expect me to accompany a Sarangi player!”
The PM promptly called Patras and acquainted him with the delicacy of the matter. “You must do what is proper and report to me.”
Patras informed the PM the following day that he had taken suitable action. “I have apologized to Ustad Bundu Khan!” The Maulana on one side Patras and Bundu Khan on the other have rolled along parallel tracks from medieval times.
In 1988, Rajiv Gandhi, in political difficulties, needed the Muslim vote. This was the reason he succumbed to pressure from the so called Muslim leaders and banned Satanic Verses.
Even in those days opinion among Muslims was divided. Clearly Rushdie had, while talking about the Prophet’s wives, transgressed from the sort of irreverence which is part of literary license to hurtful rudeness.
There were those who thought the book should be banned but there were many more who argued that banning of books was immoral and counter productive.
Supposing Satanic Verses had not been banned in India. Well, there would have been no global hullabaloo about the book and no Iranian Fatwa, all of which cumulatively helped boost sales.
And now the Jaipur festival is taking place in the middle of the UP election campaign in which the Muslim vote is again on a premium. Coincidentally, an internal power struggle is on in Deoband itself in which the nephew is challenging the uncle. In this situation either can raise the stakes to embarrass the other by raking up the Rushdie issue.
Rajasthan Chief Minister, Ashok Gehlot is, meanwhile, smarting under Congress High command displeasure for tardy action in Gopalgarh where the police shot Muslims in a mosque. Since Rahul Gandhi is busting his guts campaigning for the party in neighbouring UP, one false note on the Rushdie issue can cause the Muslim vote to bolt and for Gehlot to be shown the door. Or, so the partymen, in a state of funk, seem to believe.
Supposing the organizers ignored Deoband and went ahead with Rushdie’s well advertised programme. Would the country’s Muslims take over the nation’s roads in fiery agitating? Ofcourse not.
Rajiv Gandhi’s decision to upgrade relations with Israel (ultimately Narasimha Rao implemented it) has a lesson for the Congress. Muslim leaders, the usual suspects, advised him against upgrading relations. Muslims would be annoyed, they said.
Others argued that there are other negatives in upgrading relations with Israel, but one thing is clear: Israel is not a priority issue for Indian Muslims. Continuous projection of Rushdie like issues, as vital to Muslims, comes in the way of development as their priority requirement. They become a mindless religious herd in popular perception.
The wide acceptance of this perception is partly related to the decline of Urdu and the composite culture on which their identity is built. This cultural identity has in the season of vote banks been replaced by a bland religious identity. Religious identity is easier to stoke for minority mobilization. Cultural identity derives from Sufi traditions, music, architecture and, above all, poetry which has challenged religious dogma frontally.
Sab tere siwa kafir
Aakhir iska matlab kya?
Sar phira de Insaan ka
Aisa khabt e mazhab kya?
(Every one other than you is an impious kafir? what kind of non sense is this? Shun religion which is illogical)
There is not a passage in Urdu poetry which gives any quarter to orthodoxy or the clergy but poets make a clear distinction between irreverence and disrespect.
# # # # # #
Saturday, January 14, 2012
In UP, Keep Your Eyes On The Peace Party
In UP, Keep Your Eyes On The Peace Party
Saeed Naqvi
Home Minister P. Chidambaram and Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh have consistently taken divergent stands on the Batla House police encounter. Chidambaram says the issue cannot be re opened because it was a proper encounter in which lives were lost including that of a policeman. The Prime Minister supports the Home Minister’s stand in the name of national security.
Digvijay Singh maintains it was a “fake” encounter. In other words, it was a deliberate attack on Muslim youth who had come from Azamgarh and were registered at the Jamia Millia University. Is this why Digvijay Singh raised the Batla House issue in Azamgarh where Rahul Gandhi was campaigning?
The Muslim has always been in focus in North India either as a potential voter or a foil against which Hindu consolidation can be attempted.
Hindu consolidation was a ploy (as during Mandir-Masjid) when BJP was a rising power. In days when Hindutva wore the “Shakti” mantle, Muslims, in search of security sought shelter in the Congress verandah. But after Babari Masjid the verandah came crumbling down and Muslim ran helter skelter even supporting caste formations.
Currently, disgusted with caste formations too, the Muslim is re evaluating his strategy. “Muslims will vote tactically” goes the refrain among tired Lucknow analysts. This means they will vote for anyone who can defeat the BJP candidate. This line of thinking pre supposes there is something like a muscular BJP around to scare the minority. Such a BJP does not exist any longer.
The absence of BJP as ogre is a new electoral problem for the Congress grown accustomed to the minorities quaking with fright come election time.
A possible way out of the jam is to create conditions of tension by constantly harping on issues which would soften the Muslim vote. Batla House is one such.
But all this sophistry is obsolete because what has emerged through six decades of trial and error is a Muslim vote in UP extremely suspicious.
That is why the Digvijay Singh – P. Chidambaram point-counterpoint is having a resonance among a large number of Muslim voters which is totally at variance from my earlier analysis. I thought Digvijay Singh would be quite the darling of the minority voters. That is not the case, among Muslims who are abandoning the Congress for a rapidly growing outfit called the Peace Party. The party has positioned itself not as a Muslim party but with Muslims, among others, in leadership positions.
The formula resembles the BSP’s approach tailored by Kanshi Ram and Mayawati. The BSP structure is built on Dalit as the base vote. Give seats to all the communities and on polling day transfer Dalit votes to augment the BSP candidate’s vote share.
The leader of the Peace Party is a bright medical doctor Mohammad Ayub. He has latched onto the theory of the Muslim “base” vote which, according to official estimates is 18.5 per cent. Dr. Ayub believes the percentage is higher – say, 22 percent.
Dr. Ayub has deftly steered clear of the easy temptation to create a Muslim party. His Peace Party has Brahmins, Thakurs, the most backward groups like Khatiks, Valmiki, Dasi and so on. There are six Peace Party members in the present UP assembly of whom three are thakurs and three most backwards.
In its step by step approach, the Peace Party has adopted the politics of horizontal growth, a gradual enlargement of the vote share. In this fashion, rival parties are denied space and the Peace Party then make slow vertical growth, a sort of “appam” effect.
It is not possessed by unrealistic ambition. “We will certainly get 25 to 35 seats”, says Dr. Ayub. There is likely to be such a multiplicity of parties in the fray that “no government can be formed without our support”. The searing ambition is to be in the government – “any government with any combination even the BJP”. Power is what the Peace Party is aiming at! Since the Peace Party seeks to balance various Hindu interests with Muslims in the lead, communal harmony is high priority.
This, precisely is the reason that in the PC – Digvijay Singh stand-off, Muslims in the Peace Party find Chidambaram’s approach more helpful. “In Malegaon, Mecca Masjid and all such incidents” Chidambaram is quietly proceeding against the Hindutva forces.
Digvijay Singh’s heart is in the right place, but by raising the decibel level on these issues he ends up “provoking the forces” the Peace Party would rather have in deep slumber.
# # # # # #
Saeed Naqvi
Home Minister P. Chidambaram and Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh have consistently taken divergent stands on the Batla House police encounter. Chidambaram says the issue cannot be re opened because it was a proper encounter in which lives were lost including that of a policeman. The Prime Minister supports the Home Minister’s stand in the name of national security.
Digvijay Singh maintains it was a “fake” encounter. In other words, it was a deliberate attack on Muslim youth who had come from Azamgarh and were registered at the Jamia Millia University. Is this why Digvijay Singh raised the Batla House issue in Azamgarh where Rahul Gandhi was campaigning?
The Muslim has always been in focus in North India either as a potential voter or a foil against which Hindu consolidation can be attempted.
Hindu consolidation was a ploy (as during Mandir-Masjid) when BJP was a rising power. In days when Hindutva wore the “Shakti” mantle, Muslims, in search of security sought shelter in the Congress verandah. But after Babari Masjid the verandah came crumbling down and Muslim ran helter skelter even supporting caste formations.
Currently, disgusted with caste formations too, the Muslim is re evaluating his strategy. “Muslims will vote tactically” goes the refrain among tired Lucknow analysts. This means they will vote for anyone who can defeat the BJP candidate. This line of thinking pre supposes there is something like a muscular BJP around to scare the minority. Such a BJP does not exist any longer.
The absence of BJP as ogre is a new electoral problem for the Congress grown accustomed to the minorities quaking with fright come election time.
A possible way out of the jam is to create conditions of tension by constantly harping on issues which would soften the Muslim vote. Batla House is one such.
But all this sophistry is obsolete because what has emerged through six decades of trial and error is a Muslim vote in UP extremely suspicious.
That is why the Digvijay Singh – P. Chidambaram point-counterpoint is having a resonance among a large number of Muslim voters which is totally at variance from my earlier analysis. I thought Digvijay Singh would be quite the darling of the minority voters. That is not the case, among Muslims who are abandoning the Congress for a rapidly growing outfit called the Peace Party. The party has positioned itself not as a Muslim party but with Muslims, among others, in leadership positions.
The formula resembles the BSP’s approach tailored by Kanshi Ram and Mayawati. The BSP structure is built on Dalit as the base vote. Give seats to all the communities and on polling day transfer Dalit votes to augment the BSP candidate’s vote share.
The leader of the Peace Party is a bright medical doctor Mohammad Ayub. He has latched onto the theory of the Muslim “base” vote which, according to official estimates is 18.5 per cent. Dr. Ayub believes the percentage is higher – say, 22 percent.
Dr. Ayub has deftly steered clear of the easy temptation to create a Muslim party. His Peace Party has Brahmins, Thakurs, the most backward groups like Khatiks, Valmiki, Dasi and so on. There are six Peace Party members in the present UP assembly of whom three are thakurs and three most backwards.
In its step by step approach, the Peace Party has adopted the politics of horizontal growth, a gradual enlargement of the vote share. In this fashion, rival parties are denied space and the Peace Party then make slow vertical growth, a sort of “appam” effect.
It is not possessed by unrealistic ambition. “We will certainly get 25 to 35 seats”, says Dr. Ayub. There is likely to be such a multiplicity of parties in the fray that “no government can be formed without our support”. The searing ambition is to be in the government – “any government with any combination even the BJP”. Power is what the Peace Party is aiming at! Since the Peace Party seeks to balance various Hindu interests with Muslims in the lead, communal harmony is high priority.
This, precisely is the reason that in the PC – Digvijay Singh stand-off, Muslims in the Peace Party find Chidambaram’s approach more helpful. “In Malegaon, Mecca Masjid and all such incidents” Chidambaram is quietly proceeding against the Hindutva forces.
Digvijay Singh’s heart is in the right place, but by raising the decibel level on these issues he ends up “provoking the forces” the Peace Party would rather have in deep slumber.
# # # # # #
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