Bahrain Key If Saudi-Iran Lock Is To Be Opened

Bahrain Key If Saudi-Iran Lock Is To Be Opened

                                                                                Saeed Naqvi

President Mohammad Morsi has barely been ousted and, lo and behold, the Palestinian-Israeli peace process is already on track. It was important that Morsi vacated the scene for the process to be salvaged because the Muslim Brotherhood had firm links with Hamas with whom talks were unthinkable. So the losers along with the Brothers in Egypt are all the Brotherhood enthusiasts in the region – Qatar, Turkey, Hamas, Tunisia. This reverses key political trends in the region.

European Union’s Foreign Policy Chief, Catherine Ashton, obtained from Gen. Abdul Fattah el Sissi the permission to meet Morsi who is confined in a secret location. This “reasonableness” on the part of the army chief “humanizes” him just enough for the US to abide by the financial commitments to Egypt which underpin the country’s 1979 Peace Treaty with Israel. Little wonder, Israelis have been imploring Washington not to declare Morsi’s ouster a coup. Under US law, Gen. Sissi would forfeit American largesse if he is seen to be a “coup leader”.

After her meeting with Morsi, Ms. Ashton suggested to Egypt’s Defence Minister that the Brothers be part of any future power structure. There is no evidence her suggestion has been taken seriously.

Ms. Ashton ought to know that in the region, much more important than her views are the views of Saudi Arabia. In the case of Egypt, the Saudis have hammered in the point. As soon as the tide turned against Morsi, they along with their GCC Sheikhdoms, handed twelve billion dollars to the Egyptian army by way of gratitude. Billions more will follow. Saudis do not like systems where “popular will” is constantly invoked. They would be most comfortable with Gen. Sissi transformed into President Sissi. Mark my word.

There are some obvious expectations the present regime in Cairo has of Riyadh. One expectation, the Saudis have already fulfilled – financial, along which almost automatically comes political support. Saudis will also be expected to leverage their influence on the Salafists or the al Noor party so that the post Morsi structure is not destabilized by extremism.

In Syria the opposition backed by Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Britain, France, Israel and the United States are on the losing side. Shouldn’t a journalist who predicted this outcome two years ago be applauded? As the regime in Damascus makes gains each day, the chances of Geneva II recede farther into the background. In fact the very idea of Geneva II is embarrassing for the US, Saudi, Israel led coalition. Bashar al Assad can organize a delegation in a jiffy, but who will put together a delegation from the countless groups losing the fight in Syria?

Meanwhile, the inauguration of President Hassan Rouhani in Teheran on August 4 will provide an embarrassing contrast to the anti democratic Arab scene. Britain’s ex Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw and ex EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana will attend the ceremonies. This will be signal enough to others who will doubtless follow. India has already upgraded its representation – Vice President Hamid Ansari who has been ambassador to Iran.

There is enough good sense in Riyadh to realize that sectarian conflict is no substitute for strategy towards Teheran. Competition between Riyadh and Teheran is inevitable. Equally, open hostility is unsustainable.

The key to a Riyadh-Teheran rapprochement is Bahrain. A 37 Km causeway links Saudi Arabia’s oil bearing, Shia dominated Eastern province to this small Kingdom, which is also home to the US Fifth Fleet. Neither the Saudis nor the Americans will abandon their key interests. This much is clear.

Likewise, it is inhuman that the staunchly Sunni regime in Bahrain, should treat 80 per cent of the population, all Shias, as the “opposition”. This majority population has faced state repression for demanding their human rights since the Arab Spring first stirred.

Two years ago, the US had taken an initiative to broker an agreement between the two sides.

For over 200 years, the Khalifa family have been emirs of Bahrain. A decade ago, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa declared himself king. Kingship has a built in dynastic possibility: a crown prince, in this case Prince Salman bin Hamad bin Isa al Khalifa. There is also room for reform. Bahrain can easily become a constitutional monarchy, should circumstances so demand.

With royal courts come court intrigues. The King’s uncle, Khalifa Ibn Salman al Khalifa has been Prime Minister from the day the king ascended the throne. It is universally acknowledged in Bahrain that not only is he the most powerful man in the kingdom but also the most corrupt. I heard this from all sides in Bahrain.

When the Arab Spring first swept through Tunisia and Egypt in 2011, people came out on the streets in almost every West Asian capital. In no instance was the state structure exposed as being more tilted against its own people. As demonstrations invited brutal crackdown by the armed police, mostly Pakistani conscripts, Bahrain’s friends began to see the structure as untenable.

Americans took a welcome initiative. US envoy Jeffery Feltman, sketched a compromise agreement between Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad bin Isa al Khalifa and a moderate Shia leader, Sheikh Ali Salman. Sheikh Salman was in tears when I met him. “The Prime Minister has killed all chances of peace.”

Before the agreement could even be discussed, which would give the Shias reasonable representation in the state structure, the Prime Minister mobilized the support of the then Saudi hard line Interior Security Chief, Prince Nayef. Saudi tanks and GCC armoured personnel carriers rolled down the Saudi-Bahrain causeway. That was the knee jerk response two years ago. The Saudis are much wiser now that the Spring has turned to Autumn. Should not the Feltman initiative be picked up now that both the Americans and the Saudis may be looking to open the Iranian lock of which Bahrain is the key?

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Is American Withdrawal From Afghanistan In 2014 Cast In Stone?

Is American Withdrawal From Afghanistan In 2014 Cast In Stone?

                                                                                                  Saeed Naqvi

Is the US really about to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014? There are reasons why I have been a sceptic so far.

On December 22, 2001, at the Bonn conference, convened by the UN, Hamid Karzai was placed at the head of a “provisional government” in Kabul. But after having been President for nine years, the “provisional” leader established his own indispensability: at the Kabul Conference on July 20, 2010, he obtained a mandate to remain President until 2014.

At the time he declared himself President until 2014, the stated policy in Washington was that the US would leave Afghanistan by 2011. But those in the US establishment whose job it was to supervise US withdrawal had started inserting caveats: 2011 was not cast in stone; withdrawal will be dictated by ground realities; the Afghan National Army has to be ready to takeover; only combat troops will be withdrawn. (By the way, is the ANA, earlier tainted by allegations of incompetence and Green-on-blue attack, now a squeaky clean reliable fighting force to warrant early American departure?)

Then, as now, American military leaders were quite straightforward on the centrality of Pakistan to the withdrawal process.

In fact Gen. Stanley McChrystal had expressed exasperation at the success of India’s socio-economic, development work because it distracted Pakistan from its war-on-terror focus. So what should India do? Go out of its way to become unpopular in Afghanistan so that Pakistan can single mindedly dedicate itself to the task of facilitating US withdrawal? This, believe it or not, was the implication of Gen. McChrystal’s lament.

Even after McChrystal was removed and parked in the groves of academe, at Yale, for his deep thought, his successor Gen. Petraus, also found it useful to take a swipe at India’s “cold start” strategy which has been in cold storage for years. This, he thought, would win him friends in Islamabad.

Building roads, hospitals, schools, providing training to Afghan civil servants, accepting students in Indian institutions, providing hospital facilities in New Delhi – all this had added to India’s image in Afghanistan. This, in addition to Bollywood, which has kept Afghans riveted for decades. All of this was of interest to US ambassadors in the region who are answerable to the State Department. But the heavy military presence in Afghanistan continues to have the power to trump normal diplomatic ideas and initiatives in the region. In 2011 the Pentagon’s priority was to enlist Pakistani support for US withdrawal. This, exactly, is the priority now, even as the clamour grows in Washington – withdraw by 2014 end, withdraw by 2014 end.

The interesting detail that should not be overlooked is this: even as Messrs McChrystal and Petraus were talking “withdrawal” in 2011, Karzai had already contrived an extension until 2014. Karzai established his indispensability at a time when the Western media had written him off as “not even the mayor of Kabul” one “whose writ does not run beyond the Presidential palace”.

If there was no consistent American stand on withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2010, why should we be convinced that the 2014 deadline is cast in stone?

Recent one-step-forward and two-steps-back on Afghan policy happened in Qatar where with considerable fanfare the US set up a meeting last month with the Taleban and Karzai’s representatives. The meeting did not take place because the Taleban delegation fluttered the flag of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Karzai threw a fit in his palace.

Supposing, the Qatar initiative was not botched up and Karzai did set into motion a dialogue with the Taleban, what outcome were the Americans expecting?

Karzai and the Taleban are both Pushtoons, concentrated in the South and South-East with durable links across the border with Pakistan. This would leave Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras out of the power structure which would then be overwhelmingly Pushtoon. Pushtoonistan would not necessarily be an automatic outcome but a Pushtoon entity, equidistant from Kabul and Islamabad, would begin to loom.

This would result in the consolidation of the northern alliance sentiment in the rest of the country.

Pushtoon in Pushto means Afghan. It follows that anyone living within the geographical limits of Afghanistan is an Afghan. Emir Amanullah, greatly influenced by Turkey’s Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, knitted the afghan state by transferring Pushtoon populations to Tajik, Uzbek, Hazara dominated areas. Likewise, other ethnicities were transplanted in Pushtoon areas. This patchwork of nationalities, even on a limited scale, has been something of a deterrent against the state’s breakup. Islands of minorities would become targets in the event of ethnic nationalism coming on top.

However, much of this discussion could well be purely theoretical because there is an almighty standoff among the Pushtoons themselves.

Pushtoon are divided into two principal clans – Durranis and Ghilzais. When the Saur revolution of 1978 brought the Afghan Communist parties, Khalq and Parcham, to power, Afghan history took a turn and not only because President Mohammad Daud was killed. His death made way for Noor Mohammad Taraki as Prime Minister. This meant that for the first time in 200 years, a Durrani yielded power to a Ghilzai. Afghanistan’s communists and Talebans, both, derive from the Ghilzai stream. Having wielded power more or less for the past 36 years, Ghilzais will fight tooth and nail to block the return of a Durrani.

Yes, Karzai happens to be a Populzai which is a Durrani sub clan. But he was imposed as a “provisional” ruler in 2001. He has lasted this long only because of US support which helped him rig the 2009 elections so badly that Peter Galbraith resigned his job in Kabul in a huff.

Recently Americans have talked of the “zero option”. Which means that come what may, they will vacate Afghanistan by 2014 end even if Karzai does not sign a Status of Forces Agreement for US non combatants beyond that date. Can the US really pick up the chips and leave the game? Ofcourse, not. Why then are the Americans allowing him to hold up their departure arrangements by pretending to be angry. I am using the term “pretending” advisedly because Karzai is too much of a creature of the US to be able to luxuriate in long sulks without a tacit understanding with them.

Maj. Gen. Kurt J Stein, Commander of First Theater Sustainment command has in a recent interview to the New York Times cited a major hurdle in Afghan withdrawal: “Getting the Gear Out”.

After 11 year of war, the US has accumulated 600,000 pieces of equipment valued at $28 billion. In the 18 months that remain until December 2014, can the Americans obtain from Pakistan a promise that they will be helped to glide out, across Balochistan without a glitch? Or are we looking at another deadline well beyond 2014? And, remember, getting men and material out is not the only mission unaccomplished.

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Modi Will Lose Now To Win Hereafter, In Biblical Style

Modi Will Lose Now To Win Hereafter, In Biblical Style

                                                                                 Saeed Naqvi

When the Monsoon session of Parliament opened in August 2010, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh invited opposition leaders for dinner. The BJP declined because central agencies were proceeding against Gujarat Home Minister, Amit Shah. This stand by the principal opposition instilled great fear in the ranks of the Treasury Benches. Note how the BJP rallied behind Narendra Modi, the rising star.

Such was the state of funk in the ruling party that the Monsoon session passed without Amit Shah’s name being mentioned even once. For this act of grace, there was repayment in kind. Foreign Policy, Palestine, Economy, Nuclear Liability, forward trading in food grains, Kashmir, even Pakistan – all these issues remained uncontested.

That was then. Last week, there was something of a dejavu. Outlook magazine had a bold cover story: “UPA’s Rs.54,500 crore Gas Rip-off”. That was not all. The three deck headline rested on another line in bold fonts: “And the BJP’s Shocking Silence”.

How “shocking” BJP’s silence is on this and other issues – for instance, the list on which Foreign Direct Investment has been most generously allowed – will become clear in the coming Monsoon session.

Today Modi is not just a rising, but a risen star. If coordination between major parties is the name of the game it would be appropriate to understand the level of coordination for all round benefit. All round benefit means benefit to India Inc (headquartered in Mumbai), Congress, BJP and the Multinationals who have gauged India as a trillion dollar market which could be utilized for global economic recovery, after which we may have time to consider the Indian People too.

It is elementary that Modi is no coalition builder. Since only a coalition, a UPA-III or an NDA-II, are possible after the 2014 General Elections, why is Modi being projected? And what is he being projected as? There is an Urdu expression, “mubham”, or “vague” which does not quite convey the meaning. French drivers have a vivid expression for dusk, “neither wolf nor dog”.

The BJP has not announced Modi as the Prime Ministerial candidate. He is the chief of the party’s campaign panel, a position earlier held by Pramod Mahajan and Arun Jaitley. And yet, there he goes flying, higher and higher, on the winged horse called the media.

Shikar or hunting is out of fashion in India but the sport offers an interesting insight on current politics. The easiest bird to shoot is the one in flight. Place Modi in that analogy and he makes for an easy target for all the party leaders who threw a ginger fit at his elevation in the Goa conclave. Gaining height prematurely is risky politics.

It is also something of a puzzle, though, that all the leaders who had trooped into L.K. Advani’s Prithviraj Road residence, imploring him not to resign and who established instant contact with RSS supremo Mohan Bhagwat to intervene and restore the balance away from Modi, have, one by one, fallen in line with the elevation given to the Gujarat strongman.

Have they fallen in line with the Goa decision because they have realized that Modi is not the party’s Prime Ministerial candidate for 2014? A serious candidate for the top job will have to be a coalition builder, one who can deliver NDA-II. This Modi certainly is not.

What is he then? A Mahatma in the making because he is indifferent to power? That would be the implication if he is indifferent to coalitions. A leader of ideological purity, one who calls a spade a spade, who does not obsequiously discard the puppy image when referring to Muslims, whose larger than life posters in Mumbai proudly proclaim him as a “Hindu Nationalist”?

Since 2007, just before the Assembly elections, Modi’s Public Relations has been globally managed by APCO Worldwide which boasts of former US ambassador to New Delhi, Timothy Roemer, as a hands on manager with offices in Mumbai and New Delhi. APCO has an impressive record of servicing dictators like Sani Abacha in Nigeria, for instance.

APCO’s extraordinary projection of Modi could well polarize the national mood and yet augment the UPA’s vote share in the short run. By this logic, UPA-III seems to be the emerging outcome in 2014. Which will be fine for the Corporates and their multinational links provided key enabling legislations are pushed through Parliament by the two parties.

Another reason why Modi’s support team have been able to impose a fait accompli on the BJP is because of an acute fear that Modi and his Sancho Panza will, sooner or later, trip up in the course of investigations under way in Gujarat. Modi’s fall will then be the BJP’s fall too. But if Modi is allowed to fly high on a platform of Hindu nationalism, his being grounded will be blamed on intrigue by the forces of “pseudo secularism”. This pits Modi as an embodiment of an idea shaded in dark saffron, projected in Presidential style, against the secular formations, pale and wan, poised precariously on a rickety Parliamentary platform.

The real battle, then, is not being envisaged for 2014 but more like 2016.

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Egypt After The Coup: A Primer On the Aftermath

Egypt After The Coup: A Primer On the Aftermath

                                                                                 Saeed Naqvi

(Q) Saudi Arabia is the first country to congratulate Egypt’s military rulers. They and their GCC followers have already announced $8 billion to the new regime in Cairo. More will follow. Why are the Saudis pleased with Morsi’s ouster?

(A) Saudi King Abdullah was livid when he returned from hospital in Europe in February 2011 and saw allies like Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and Ben Ali in Tunisia toppled. Monarchies and Sheikhdoms are uncomfortable with Peoples Power. For them military dictatorships mean stability. Hence Saudi relief.

Also, Saudis hate Muslim Brotherhood which aims to replace Monarchies and dictatorship with popular Islamists regimes.

(Q) But Qatar, the second richest Kingdom in the region, had invested in President Mohammad Morsi and the Brothers. Does the Egyptian coup d’état spell the end of the Saudi – Qatari co ordination in the region?

(A) They had come together on Egypt; they are parting on Egypt. Earlier, there were rivalries between the two regimes. They came together to thwart the “Arab Spring” which having consumed Egypt’s Mubarak, began to threaten monarchies in the region – Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Bahrain, GCC, Saud, Qatar.

But they differed on how to proceed, now that the “Spring” had been stalled.

While the Saudis were weighed down by their own internal succession stakes, the Qataris were knitting linkages with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Turkey, Hamas in Gaza. Saudis could not have been happy with Qatar punching above its weight and according hospitality to the Brothers who are anathema to Riyadh.

(Q) But the Americans were with Morsi and the Brothers. During demonstrations leading to Morsi’s ouster, people burnt effigies of Barack Obama and US ambassador Anne Patterson. Are the Saudis and the Americans at cross purposes?

(A) Between American and Saudi diplomatic choreography the “hidden” is often more important than the “apparent”. American effigies being burnt in Cairo by anti Morsi crowds shows the American hand is still in the hand of the Brothers. But Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel talking to coup leader Gen. Abdul Fatah al-Sissi on the phone, points to exactly the opposite. Heads I win, tails you lose. Don’t forget, Americans have lived with Egypt’s army for 50 years. That’s the important equation. So don’t worry, Americans and the Saudis are in bed under the same sheet.

(Q) The army and the Brothers are the two organized formations in Egypt. In an extreme situation which one will the Americans choose?

(A) Obviously the Americans would not like to alienate the most powerful Arab Army. They would like to keep the army together. But they would like to scatter the Brothers, divide them.

They have been caught flat footed, not for the first time in recent past. They placed all their eggs apparently in the Brotherhood basket. They will now pick out their eggs one by one. They are already hedging their bets. Washington has applauded the “roadmap” towards democracy in seven months. They have avoided describing Morsi’s ouster as a coup, so aid can continue to flow to the army.

(Q) What should India do?

(A) Support the enlightened Egyptian. Remember, in the latest round Egyptian civilization, its culture has clashed with political Islam. The army has helped the former. India should strengthen modernist tendencies. Go now where the Americans will go tomorrow. In fact, they’re already there, silly. They have to fly under the radar at the moment because Brothers in Turkey have to be managed.

(Q) But the Saudis are an obscurantist, Wahabi state. Why would they support modernism and democracy in Egypt?

(A) They are not supporting modernism. They are keeping the Muslim Brothers out because they, the Brothers, are a threat. They want the army to stay as a stabilizing force.

(Q) What are the implications of Qatar and Saudi Arabia proceeding on separate paths post the Egyptian coup?

(A) First, consider Al Jazeera TV as a Qatari asset in the Saudi, Western kitty.

When the US occupied Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11, Al Jazeera exposed the BBC and CNN propaganda by reporting independently. Its offices in Kabul and Baghdad were bombed by the allies who included Saudi Arabia. Its reputation for independence skyrocketed.

But when the Arab Spring threatened to topple the monarchies, Qataris were persuaded to pool in their Al Jazeera resource to supplement the bruised credibility of the CNN and BBC. Al Jazeera came in handy in the Libyan and Syrian expeditions. Now that the foreign supported civil war in Syria is beginning to sour, the uses of Al Jazeera are also diminishing. In Cairo, Al Jazeera was running for cover, booted out of their offices.

When Al Jazeera was riding high, former US Vice President Al Gore sought to merge his Current TV channel with Al Jazeera which would have a projected viewership of 50 million in the US.

(Q) If the Saudis are now opposed to Qatar. Will they allow Qatar to have such a powerful toehold in the US?

(A) The Saudi-Qatari rivalry should not be taken as a fight to the finish.

Saudi-US relations are almost as secure as US-Israel relations. Recently, Qataris have been playing a regional role, encouraged by the US – in Syria, Turkey, Hamas, Egypt, Libya, even Afghanistan. They may have over reached themselves with Taliban much to Saudi annoyance.

It must not be forgotten, that Qatar is the headquarters of the US operational command in the region – CENTCOM.

Recently, Qatar’s Emir, at the age of 60, handed over power to his son Tamim al Thani who is only 33. It is not a simple transition in the Emir’s palace. The world’s most powerful military command would have to be involved. Who knows the transition in Qatar may bring the Sheikhdom in line with Riyadh where the emergence of a new King is awaited.

Regional realignments do relieve the pressure on Bashar al Assad. These very re alignments mount the pressure on Turkey where Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has burnt his fingers trying to topple Assad in neighbouring Syria. He has nothing to show for his efforts, except an unsettled Turkey.

And, for the conservative Arab regimes, Israel and the West, there is one galling spectacle. While the Arabs are in a mess, the most successful democratic elections have brought President Hassan Rouhani to power in Iran.

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Magical Romance Of Mangoes And The Koel Song

Magical Romance Of Mangoes And The Koel Song

                                                                                  Saeed Naqvi

Around this season every year, friends and relatives, turn up at our house in South Delhi with mangoes wrapped in newspapers, gunny bags, even discarded bed sheets.

There are problem with this ritual. Good mangoes have to be separated from the bad. There are subtleties involved in this separation – over ripe and stale. The seasoned mango carrier takes care not to travel with ripe mangoes. They will get pulpy in passage. The untrained will make just this mistake: arrive with pulp, so smelly as to turn you off mangoes for a few seasons.

It is relatively simple to differentiate good mangoes from bad. What requires expertise of a high order is to establish a hierarchy of flavours from excellent to the barely tolerable within each genere of mangoes: Langra, Chausa, Dussehri, Malihabadi Safeda. And, if you cast your net nationwide, Malda from Bengal and Hemayat and Benishan from Hyderabad – and scores of others.

Our Avadh chauvinism is bruised when we are reminded that the finest langras, the king of mangoes with a tang in its sweetness, comes from areas east of Avadh – Varanasi, for instance. Langra means lame and it is just possible that this most delicious of fruits was grafted or developed by a mango enthusiast who did not have a leg or who limped like Timur who was called Timur the lame and whose cruelty figures in the poetry of Majaz in Lucknow and much more elaborately in Christopher Marlowe’s classic, Tamburlaine.

This year mango trafficking from our catchment area of Avadh has been hectic because there have been many more visitors to see Mother who, at 97, is trying to conquer Esophageal malignancy with radiation therapy.

Last week my sister turned up from our village, Mustafabad, in Rae Bareli, with a ritual bagful of the mandatory mangoes. My mother was pleased. Even though she cannot swallow, she did hold a mango in both her hands, smelt it like a wine expert, and lay back having approved of the quality.

I was a little astonished at what I saw. It was all make belief. At least that is what it seemed to me.

“Where are these mangoes from?” I asked.

“From Mustafabad”

“You mean you bought them in Mustafabad?”

“From our house in Mustafabad.”

This is what I thought was make-belief.

During our early schooldays, which is a long time ago, summer holidays were mango-time in Mustafabad. Our adorable grandfather, Abbajan, who, after graduating from Aligarh, had settled in the ample family house as something of an anchor when all else was lost beginning from his grandfather’s days, slowly, in installments, since 1857.

In anticipation of our arrival, some twenty or thirty cousins from Lucknow, Kanpur, Allahabad, Fatehpur, Pratapgarh, Rae Bareli, Kara, Patti, Abbajan would arrange for raw mangoes of varying lineage to be piled up in the four corners of a go down meant for foodgrain. A water proof sheet was placed on each pile which was then plastered with a thick paste of mud and water. This was called “paal”, a method of ripening mangoes.

It required expertise to know which pile would ripen first and which last. This was essential to space out the opening of each “paal” so that a steady supply of mangoes lasted our holidays. The suspense that preceded the opening of each “paal” was nail biting as we sat outside Abbajan’s verandah in small circles around buckets filled with water to cool the mangoes, steaming inside the caked mud which would be cracked open, anytime now, as we waited, counting the seconds. The orgy of mango eating followed Ghalib’s dictum: “they should be sweet and in plenty”.

It is a quaint coincidence that Ambassador of Tajikistan, Saidov Saidbeg was recently in the vicinity of my village which prompted him to write a verse on mango, in Persian.

Abbajan must have had a mystical link with India’s first Prime Minster. No one, not even Abbajan’s peers could address Nehru as anything but “Pandit Nehru”. Abbajan died on the same day as Nehru: May 27, 1964.

By this time the frequency of mango summers in Mustafabad had dwindled to almost nil not the least becuae of a sad realization. Abbajan had kept up an illusion that mangoes for our holidays came from groves in so and so village, all part of the property under his supervision. In fact most groves had been sold particularly after Zamindari abolition in 1955. He would lease trees for our holidays from groves already sold.

That is why the ritual gift of mangoes my sister brought from Mustafabad surprised me. Yes, beyond the pond outside our house, in a small patch of land stretching upto the railway tracks, there was one tree with an exquisite mango called Kalua. But over the years Kalua had withered away and the wood from it had been sold.

So, where did my sister’s gift come from? After all, my mother did feel the mango with some tenderness.

Despite rampaging urbanization, commercialization, dehumanizing pursuit of wealth, the rural countryside retains some of its lyric, its idyllic romance of which the mango is a part.

“Ambua ki daari se boley Koelia”

(the Koel sings from the branch of a mango tree)

This will remain the most popular “bandish” or composition whenever raga Bageshwari is sung. Indian textile, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, will always be adorned by the motif of the mango which, resembling the seed of so many other fruit, symbolizes fertility and regeneration. It was this eternal reality that my mother had seized upon. Right behind the Kalua tree, she had quietly planted a sapling of langra, which has now begun to yield a sufficient crop to enable my sister to turn up with a bagful of langras.

Acres upon acres of wheat and maize make for a bright foreground against which the dark, green mango groves bring the sort of relief that monsoon clouds bring. This is the scene from my village right upto Allahabad which falls outside the cultural boundaries of Avadh but is, nevertheless, good for mangoes.

When Akbar Allahabadi sent a box of choice Langras to Allama Iqbal in Lahore, Iqbal sent him a couplet by way of receipt:

“Asar hai teri aijaz e masihaee ka ae Akbar

Allahaabad se Langra chale Lahore tak pahunche”

(Akbar, this is the miracle of your healing powers – like those of Jesus. Langra – the lame – traveled from Allahabad and has reached Lahore!)

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Mandela And His Comrades Of Indian Origin

Mandela And His Comrades Of Indian Origin

                                                                         Saeed Naqvi

Nelson Mandela striding out of the Victor Vorester prison, outside Cape Town, on a sultry February 11, 1990 will remain etched on my mind as the everlasting image of “Freedom” in the 20th century. “Your piece to camera, Saeed Bhai; your piece to camera please” implored Akhtar Ali Khan, my cameraman. I came back with a start, so absorbed was I in the moment of history I was witnessing.

Later, it took me years of travel as a journalist to fix that historic moment in a broader perspective, both, South African, as well as global.

The role of the last white South African President, F.W. de Klerk in unbanning the African National Congress and taking a decision to release Mandela, cannot be overlooked. The release was preceded by secret Mandela – de Klerk meetings in 1989, even as the cold war was winding down.

White opposition to de Klerk came to a head when Andries Treurnicht, addressed 60,000 ultra rightists at the Voortrekker Monument outside Pretoria. Afrikaans would resort to armed conflict to defend their right to a “White Fatherland”, he thundered. This, soon after the massacre of black protesters at Thabong, near the gold mining town of Welkom, in the Orange Free State. Mandela threatened to call off negotiations unless the police, raised on generations of prejudice, were brought under control. History of the negotiations which preceded Mandela’s release must be accessed to find out so much. For instance, what was the position of Pretoria, Washington and Moscow on South Africa’s nuclear arsenal which, in the event, the African National Congress did not make an issue of?

It is elementary, that the withdrawal of Soviet Troops from Afghanistan in 1989 and the beginning of the secret Mandela-de Klerk dialogue was not just a coincidence. It had become clear that the Soviet Union was doomed but any post Soviet gameplan could not be contemplated so long as the grotesque image of Apartheid dangled from the Western neck like an albatross. But the West continued to drag its feet.

When Rajiv Gandhi led six Commonwealth leaders into a conference in London in 1986 with Mrs. Margaret Thatcher for concerted action against the Apartheid regime, she shrugged her shoulders. “Constructive Engagement” was the West’s chant those days to avert total isolation of the racist superstructure in Pretoria.

Had Mikhail Gorbachev not facilitated the demise of the Soviet Union, would Mandela have been set free when he was set free?

The years 1988-90 leading upto Mandela’s release offered a mixed fare for the world. In Somalia, President Siyad Barre and the opposition Somali National Movement had, between them, killed 50,000 civilians.

The reverberations of the post-Cold War tectonic shifts were felt even on the remote Gruinard Island off the North-West coast of Scotland. In 1942, the British government had embarked on a top secret biological warfare experiment and produced large quantities of Anthrax. In other words, Britain had planned to use Anthrax against Germany atleast three years before Hiroshima was nuked. Well, in the aftermath of the events of 1990, Gruinard was opened up again for sheep grazing.

In India, Punjab was destabilized. The Sri Lankan conflict was casting its shadow on Tamil Nadu where a 1,00,000 Sri Lankan Tamils had crossed over as refugees. The Indian Peace Keeping Force, after having lost over 1,000 soldiers, was returning home, heads bowed.

In West Asia, preparations were underway for Operation Desert Storm after Iraq’s President had obliged by occupying Kuwait. That sequence is still playing itself out in the region. A pity, Mandela will not be around to give us his perspective of the march of global events since his release. A South African journalist asked his hosts quite mischievously the other night: “supposing in his last will and testament, Mandela recommends “Constructive Engagement” with President Hasan Rouhani, President Bashar al Assad and Hasan Nasrallah, would the International community oblige or would it consider these gents worse than the Apartheid regime?”

I was quite precisely the first Indian to travel to South Africa on an Indian passport, specially prepared to cover Mandela’s release. I can therefore report with some certainty that New Delhi at that stage had no clear profile of the million strong Indian diaspora concentrated mostly in the Durban region. There was an overhyped, romantic link with Gandhiji’s long innings in South Africa, but no serious cataloguing of his 21 years in that country. Nice of Mandela that he agreed to re enact the scene at Pietermaritzburg railway station where Gandhi was thrown out from a compartment meant for whites only. It is indeed a dramatic event bringing out the harsh reality of prejudice that Indians faced and on whose behalf Gandhi led his struggle. Gandhi’s struggle, let us be clear, was for Indians, not for black South Africans. A social profile of Indians who invited the young Gujarati barrister from Britain to represent them in the Apartheid courts is missing from this narrative. Gandhi was invited by Gujarati Muslim traders, led by Dada Abdullah, and it is among them that he spent most of his years not just in South Africa but even in Mauritius, where he stopped while travelling to India. In a letter Gandhi writes: “I stayed in Mauritius for about ten days when my boat was lying at anchor. I stayed in the house of some Muslim friends.” I have not seen any research on who these “Muslim friends” were.

When Mandela’s first team of officials, including cabinet ministers was announced in 1994, there were nine important slots taken up by descendents of Gujarati traders. Only Mac Maharaj and Jay Naidoo were of non Gujarati origin. The second most important man in Pretoria, in Mandela’s team, was Ahmad Kathrada. Later, in Thabo Mbeki’s cabinet, the minister in the Presidency was Essop Pahad.

South Block may have had no knowledge of the two but both knew where Ajoy Bhawan, headquarters of the Communist Party of India, was because they had probably spent some of their “underground” days in this building. As members of the South African Communist party in their years of anti apartheid struggle, some comrades in the Mandela and Mbeki cabinets had personally known stalwarts of the Indian communist movement.

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Slips Possible Between Rouhani’s Election And Inauguration In August

Slips Possible Between Rouhani’s Election And Inauguration In August
                                                                                                              Saeed Naqvi

To the various puzzles America pores over has been added one more: Iran’s President elect, Hassan Rouhani. As an opening gambit, he is being described as “moderate”.

It is being speculated that he will be “moderate” on the nuclear issue even though he has deep roots in the country’s conservative establishment whose views on the issue are known and not liked.

Years ago, “moderation” in all discourse concerning West Asia had a distinct meaning. It was an adjectival expression approving of states which were willing to tow the Western line on the Israeli-Palestinian question. The antonym for moderate those days was “rejectionist”. Had Rouhani been around then, he would have been an arch “rejectionist” as he doubtless will be should Palestine ever be allowed to swim into the West Asian ken as an issue.

The obscuring of the principal issue in West Asia, namely Palestine, can, at best, be a tactic. Strategic minds like Turki al Faisal, former Saudi Ambassador to the US, have said so repeatedly. He wrote in the New York Times: Unless the US throws its weight behind “an early two-state” solution for Palestine, “Pariah states like Syria and Iran would gain”.

Turki is not alone in listing Iran in the category of “pariah”. Iranian participation on any debate on the Israel-Palestine issue will immediately invite choice invective from Jerusalem and Washington and, in discreet, deniable whispers, from Riyadh. The rhetoric will immediately be ratcheted up and all the speculation about President-elect, Rouhani’s expected “moderation” will evaporate. He will become the leader of a “pariah state”, part of the “Axis of Evil”.

Iran’s nuclear intentions are among the last of the issues that will ever be settled between the West and the Islamic Republic. And that settlement will not exhaust the formidable agenda dictated by Iran’s strategic vision: it is a major power in the Persian Gulf region. If a dictator like the Shah was accorded that status, why not the Islamic Republic? This is the way Qom thinks.

When the US needed Iranian help in the earliest stages of its occupation of Afghanistan, Washington sent Zalmay Khalilzad as its Persian speaking Ambassador to Kabul. Believe it or not, at one stage Khalilzad was among the list of prospective Presidents of the country.

For his successes in Kabul, Khalilzad was rewarded. He was promoted as ambassador to Baghdad. Since Iran had a long border with Iraq, as it did with Afghanistan, a Teheran friendly envoy was needed.

As expected, Khalilzad set up an impressive, wide ranging agenda with Iran. But, lo and behold, the Deep State in the US pulled the rug from under his feet. Who asked you to engage the Iranians across the spectrum? We want them on the mat only on the nuclear issue. So, like Humpty Dumpty, poor Khalilzad had a great fall!

During Khalilzad’s brief spell, the nuclear issue was posed to block what might well have been a promising normalization process. That is why chants of “moderate, moderate” that have greeted Rouhani in anticipation of his nuclear policy should, at best, be received with a shrug.

Iraq, Arab Spring, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain have all diverted attention from pivotal issues which, in Iranian perception is Palestine and in Western, diversionary projection, the nuclear question.

And now at this moment some of the real issues of immediate concern to both the West and Iran are Afghanistan and Syria.

In Syria, the situation on the ground has swung in favour of the regime. Planes are dropping leaflets over Alleppo, asking the internal opposition to surrender and they are complying. It is in the nature of conflicts in which various states have diverse interests, that the conflict be suitably prolonged so that no one side emerges victorious.

In the final spasms, there will be Israeli provocations in Southern Lebanon and Syrian rockets on the Golan Heights and so on. Yes, between Rouhani’s election and his inauguration in August there is chance of many a slip.

As it is, Rouhani’s election hailed by Supreme leader, Ali Khamenei on the one hand and Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami on the other, consolidates the clergy behind the new leader. There has been no comparably clean election in the Muslim world in recent history except perhaps in Turkey in 2011. Rouhani has been hailed internationally as a leader who provides a moment of hope in a beleaguered region. Turkey’s Tayyip Erdogan on the other hand has spilt the goodwill he had collected.

None of these reports on Iran can be honeyed music to Saudi Arabia and Qatar. How would these two contemplate the run of good luck Iran has had this decade. The removal of Taleban from Kabul, Saddam Hussain’s departure and a Shia-led regime in Baghdad, Huthis in Yemen, Hezbullah in Lebanon, the Shia-Sunni divide in Kuwait, the overwhelming Shia majority in Bahrain, and the new turn of events in Syria are all extremely worrisome for Riyadh and Qatari.

The latter, ofcourse, has egg all over its face because the full blown embassy of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in Doha must be looking very forlorn in the absence of delegations. Americans had very nearly pulled off a first in the annals of diplomatic history – umpiring a dialogue between the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the Islamic Emirate both claiming control of the same country. And Americans claiming control over both.

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