Needed A Non Doctrinaire Left To Carry Gauri Lankesh Vision

Needed A Non Doctrinaire Left To Carry Gauri Lankesh Vision

                                                                                       Saeed Naqvi

Encouraged by the spontaneous outpouring of sympathy and resolve across the country after Gauri Lankesh’s murder, I began to ferret out my last year’s notebook. The thousands who came out in marches need a regular formation to lean against – a non doctrinaire left. Are such movements stirring globally? I fell back on my coverage of events, including elections in the US, Spain, France, the UK and the mayhem in virtually every West Asian country.

Because there is no tradition of coverage of international affairs by Indian journalists, we sometimes miss out on external affairs impacting on our political and social currents.

Let me give you just one example. The post 9/11 global war on terror generated a wave of Islamophobia which, as a reaction, augmented by geometrical progression, cesspools where more terror bred.

When Narendra Modi turned up in Gujarat in October 2001 as Chief Minister, he was not even a member of the state assembly. On October 7, 2001 began the US airstrikes against Afghanistan. Even as the world – India included – remained riveted on the menacing fireworks for months, Islamophobia and terrorism grew apace. The global anti Muslim atmosphere amplified on world TV was a Godsend for Modi to shape his majoritarian platform in the state and beyond.

New Delhi found itself in the embrace of a global power, buoyed by its recent triumph over the Soviet Union. This victory was marketed not as a victory for human values, but as a triumph of unbridled capitalism. This self image took something of a knock in 2007-08 when the very citadel of capitalism, Lehman Brothers, collapsed. Then other citadels fell.

Indians did not quite see the writing on the wall as starkly as the more creative folks in the West did.

Corporate American greed and crime became the theme of a play which set West End in London ablaze. Enron, based on the power project in Maharashtra, shrouded in corruption, became the most talked about script by playwright Lucy Pebbles. It had an extended run at Broadway as well. The irony, ofcourse, is that the play is based on Enron’s Indian scandal. But India had buried its head in the sand. No libertarian theatre group has ever thought of producing the play in Mumbai or New Delhi.

The post 2008 political restiveness in the West is there for all to see. The word “establishment” has acquired a particularly negative connotation and establishments are under attack from both flanks, Left as well as the right. Everywhere, even in countries where it has held on to power, it has done so by throwing everything into the battle – money and media above all.

In the US even this combination has not worked.

For the Democratic nomination, a liberal Left, Bernie Sanders was way ahead of others in the race but he was grounded citing a 1962 law. It did not matter whom the Republicans nominated because Hillary Clinton, being the darling of the Establishment, would trounce whoever the Republican candidate might be. In their obstinate determination to have Hillary as their nominee, the authors of the script forgot the cardinal point: an anti Establishment electorate was by the Democratic Party’s choice, being required to elect a candidate who was nothing if not the very core of the establishment. Well, they helped manufacture Trump.

Today, in September 2017, opinion polls describe Sanders as the most popular American politician by a long shot. But we also know that the ghost of Joseph McCarthy oversees much of what the establishment does. Will this establishment versus the people deadlock ever be resolved?

The Establishment versus the popular will debate in UK, is poised for an outcome which is healthy for democracy. Oddly enough, my gloom at Gauri Lankesh’s murder, was dispelled by a four deck headline, in large fonts, as the front page lead story in Britain’s most right wing, establishment newspaper – the Sunday Telegraph. The headline read: Tory Rebels Told: Back Brexit or get Corbyn”. When the establishment begins to project the leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, as the bogeyman, it is reasonable to assume that the establishment does not find itself in good electable health. In any case umpteen polls in recent months give Corbyn a huge advantage.

The novelty of the surprise 39 year old Centre-right Emmanuel Macron provided has worn out quite as rapidly as it had caused the French to be in its thrall. Three months into his Presidency, he is being seen increasingly as power hungry and inexperienced. What has made him look a little silly recently is the $36,000 bill paid to a “make-up” team which helps him conserve his “boyish” looks. His ratings have plummeted, encouraging debate that the more “authentic” peoples’ candidates, if not the establishment’s, may well have been the Left’s Jean-Luc Mélenchon and, for the right, Marine Le Pen.

The Establishment in Spain, a descendent of the Franco era, is doggedly keeping the notoriously corrupt Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy in power by management of the arithmetic in the assembly. Even so Pablo Iglesias of the Podemos, (Communist) has been holding his own.

Syriza or Communist party, which had come to power in Greece, was badgered into compliance by Germany and EU on issues like austerity, exactly the policies the party had opposed to come to power. So it will someday be replaced by its rightist counterpart in the coming elections.

The point I am making is this: the Gauri Lankesh murder has not taken place in an atmosphere of total helplessness for folks who have their heart in the right place. The pre 2008 drab, right wing uniformity is under challenge. A new, non doctrinaire, Left is on the ascendant in many places. Eruptions taking place elsewhere will, in the medium to long run impact on India. The traditional Left in India is, ofcourse, on the retreat but the ideology responsible for Gauri’s murder will remain under challenge by regional forces in Bihar, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka etcetera.

The BJP’s defeat at the hands of AAP in Delhi, Ahmad Patel’s victory in Gujarat, an unprecedentedly massive rally in Bihar, the embarrassment on demonetization, are clearly not making the rulers smell of roses. Slowly coming into focus, is a real question mark on the longevity of the structure which evidently shelters killers of Govind Pansare, Narendra Dabholkar, M.M. Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh.

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BRICS Summit Against Backdrop Of Plummeting Washington-Moscow Relations

BRICS Summit Against Backdrop Of Plummeting Washington-Moscow Relations

                                                                                              Saeed Naqvi

 

Two recent events will influence attitudes at the 9^th BRICS summit at Xiamen, China, from September 3 to 5 – Doklam and Trump’s decision to send more troops to Afghanistan.

Beijing and Moscow have grave anxieties about terrorist groups, in the name of militant Islam, threatening their Xinxiang and Caucasus regions. They would therefore like terrorism to be an important theme at the summit.

So would New Delhi, but the Indian focus would be on Pakistan as the source of terror. The complication is that Pakistan has looked upon China as an all weather friend in recent years. Has skillful diplomacy, on all sides, defused the Doklam standoff sufficiently to prevent divergent approaches to Pakistan on terrorism come to the fore at the summit?

Moscow is cautious. Who knows how durable is the understanding reached over Doklam between Beijing, New Delhi.

That a RIC (Russia, India, China) Foreign Ministers conference is billed in New Delhi is a good sign. It was postponed in April because of heated exchanges between China and India over Dalai Lama’s weeklong visit to Arunachal Pradesh. Also, New Delhi had refused to attend the Belt and Road conference Beijing placed great store by. Indeed, New Delhi also prevailed on Thimpu not to attend.

Moscow and Beijing view Afghanistan as the centre where terrorist groups like the Islamic State can breed and threaten countries in the neighbourhood and beyond.

Since April 2016 a group of countries under the auspices of what came to be known as the Moscow initiative began to analyze the Taleban as an Afghan, nationalist category which was not fired by transnational aspirations like the IS and Al Qaeda. The Taleban, in other words, should be brought into the tent, to borrow Lyndon Johnson’s colourful expression.

This is a transformational design because so far the government in Kabul, Afghan security Forces, US and NATO Forces have targeted the Taleban as the enemy.

The use of this massive firepower, with western troop levels waxing and waning over the past 16 years, has not brought the alliance anywhere near victory. To the contrary, the terrain under Taleban control has grown exponentially. Defence Secretary James Mattis became only the umpteenth US official to declare before the media, his face in the lower mould: “we are losing.”

This candid acceptance of defeat in the longest war (16 years) ever waged by the US, has coincided with the Moscow led initiative to bring the Taleban into the Kabul power structure.

The Moscow initiative was designed against the backdrop of Trump’s chant of walking away from previous US policies of intervention and nation building. Since the US was withdrawing, as Trump kept reminding all and sundry, it made sense for Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, Islamabad and the Central Asian Republics, to shape their Afghan policies according to their strategic requirements.

In a White House where the Deep State is demonstrably the ventriloquist and Trump the puppet, a flip-flop in Afghan policy was announced last week: there will be no withdrawal but a minimal troop surge (less than 4,000 to augment 11,000 already on the ground) to enable Kabul to recover some of the vast swathes of the country from Taleban control. Somewhere in this pursuit of a military solution, a carrot has also been inserted: a channel for talks with Taleban will also be opened.

To dignify this US initiative, the Moscow initiative has to be rubbished. Russians have been arming the Taleban, goes the allegation from Washington. Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, clarified this and more at a Moscow Press conference.

When the US State Department made this accusation, he said, the Department should have known better. “Because at a news conference in the State Department, journalists asked the official spokesperson to present facts. Not a single fact was presented just like there was not a single fact to confirm our interference in the US election or breaking into sites.”

Lavrov contrasted Moscow’s policy with that of Washington on contacts with Taleban. He gives two reasons for such contacts. First, Moscow needs to resolve practical issues on which security of Russian citizens and offices in Afghanistan depend.

“Second we are striving to encourage a dialogue between the Taleban and the government on the basis of criteria (this is important, he insists) established by the UN Security Council.”

According to this “criteria” the Taleban must break ties with terrorists, end the armed struggle and respect the Constitution of Afghanistan. Washington’s abrupt policy of connecting with Taleban is without any conditions.

The fine print the Russians read in the US script on Afghanistan is not difference from what Lavrov has openly said in other theatres of conflict. The US is not out to douse fires of militancy: it intends to preserve some of it as “assets” against rivals and enemies. Breeding of the Mujahideen to evict the Soviets from Afghanistan in the 80s was not a one time trick.

Trump’s Afghan surge, despite himself, also comes at a time when he has been persuaded by his hawks to ratchet up tensions with Russia. The Russian Consulate in San Francisco has been closed and two other Russian properties in Washington and New York have been ordered to be shut by September 2.

This being the big-power play in the region, how should New Delhi respond to Trump’s cajolery in Afghanistan? To frame policy, friends in South Block have to do no more than visit Saket in South Delhi. You cannot walk into Max hospital without coming face to face with an Afghan. By universal consent of doctors and other hospital staff, they are the most gentle patients. This outreach cannot be matched.

In front of the hospital, in Hauz Rani, a row of Afghan eating places has come up.

Pakistanis stepping out of Kabul’s Serena hotel do not wear Peshawari sandals and Pathan suits. They feel safer in trousers and bush shirts, looking like Indians. Hospitals, schools, roads and, above all, Bollywood have already won Afghan hearts. Nothing should be done to upturn this low key, common sense policy. Expeditious completion of Chabahar port in Iran, linking to Central Asia by a road through Afghanistan will be brilliant for commerce and for winning hearts and minds.

What must not be overlooked is the change in US policy towards New Delhi’s role. When President Barack Obama announced troop withdrawals from July 2011, the assumption was that Afghanistan would have been reasonably stabilized by that date.

US Force Commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal created something of a flutter in New Delhi. He said New Delhi’s popularity among the Afghans – because of development works – creates complications because it distracts Pakistan from its war on terror focus.

Washington’s new blandishments make one feel good but they would be more valuable if the reliability quotient of the occupant of the White House was a shade higher.

The principals sitting around the table at the Xiamen summit likewise will carry in their minds the image of what to each one of them is a very different kind of Presidency in Washington. No one quite knows what to make of it.

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Talaq Judgement: Muslim Women A Play Thing In Communal Politics?

Talaq Judgement: Muslim Women A Play Thing In Communal Politics?

                                                                                     Saeed Naqvi

Put it down to my acute perversity, because as soon as celebrations broke out and I glanced at the Supreme Court’s Triple Talaq judgement, Josh Malihabadi’s rubayee (quatrain) swam into my ken:

“Ae rind kya yehi hai baaghe rizwaan?

Na hooron ka kaheen pata na ghilma ka nishaan

Ek kunj mein maayuus-o-mulool-o-tanha

Bechare tahel rahey hain Allah mian”

(O’ Tavern companion, where have we come? Is this the promised garden?

I see no beautiful houris, nor handsome men.

In a gloomy corner, crestfallen,

Sad and lonely, Allah Mian paces ponderously)

Josh is mocking at Man’s distortion of God’s purpose.

Ofcourse, this is escapism on my part, but I can hardly help it because in all my 75 plus years I have never known anyone, even by remote association, who discarded his wife by pronouncing “talaq, talaq, talaq.” Since Muslims are supposed to be in the grip of this all pervasive practice, I may be forgiven for feeling a little left out.

The defiance and passion with which the General Secretary of Jamiat Ulema e Hind Maulana Mahmood Madani, has reacted leaves me breathless:

“If you wish to punish the person (for pronouncing triple talaq) you may do so but such a talaq will be recognized” by Jamiat and society at large. The Maulana, to his credit, advises Muslims not to resort to triple talaq but he insists that the courts or the state not be allowed to interfere with Muslim practices, presumably based on Muslim law.

Do I stand with the Maulana to keep my Muslim identity intact? Or do I ignore him as I have ignored all clerical edicts throughout my life?

That a five judge bench of the Supreme Court has struck down the obviously abhorrent practice, should find me in the ranks of those thunderously applauding the judgement. But that too is not my chosen path.

I spot triumphalism in this national exultation led by Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath and leaders of other parties in supporting roles. The Muslim male has been administered a double-fisted punch on his chin and his women freed from his basement harems.

Chief Justice Kehar has accorded protection to 90 percent of Muslims from the barbaric practice.

Do I belong to this 90 percent or was I always protected, being among the 10 percent who, by His Lordship’s calculus, were outside the dark canopy of shoddy Islamic laws?

Since most surveys seem to suggest talaq-talaq afflicts not more than one percent, does it behove their Lordships to paint the entire community with one brush?

Should not the Ministry of Social Welfare, the Minority Commission, instead of sitting on their haunches, do a survey to establish the extent to which the practice is prevalent?

Beef is a sensitive word these days. But beef (not buffalo but cow) is slaughtered and eaten by Muslims, non Muslims and dalits in the North East, West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu etcetera. Would their Lordships judge Hindus as beefeaters along with Muslims across the country or would a clarification be in order that the practice is prevalent only in specific regions of the country?

Does the universal celebration over the judgement inspire optimism? Now that the Indian establishment across the board is so demonstrably filled with the milk of human kindness towards the divorced Muslim woman, it probably augurs well not just for the Muslim “Suhagan” (happily married) but for the entire Muslim community, all 180 million of them.

In his very first speech in Parliament in May 2014, Narendra Modi became the only Prime Minister to openly say what never came naturally to Congressmen that among the many burdens that weighed the nation down was “1,200 years of foreign subjugation”. Congressmen said this privately but never publicly.

The official party line, the one that the Congressmen went public with was about “200 years” of British rule. The Muslim period was glossed over. There was no public debate.

In fact at the earlier stages, soon after 1947, a common and particularly galling allegation was: “Muslims partitioned the country and then stayed on.”

There is no record of Congress leaders ever offering a clarification for this canard. So implicated were they in the country’s fracture, that they refrained from encouraging debate on this issue lest it turn upon them.

The Congress was not the only guilty party. Even socialists like Ram Manohar Lohia talked of the “spirit of Haldighati” as a panacea for boosting Hindu morale. He went along with the version of history which credits Maharana Pratap with victory over Akbar, a highly disputed proposition.

Since I stayed with JP in his Kadam Kuan residence in Patna, I saw firsthand how the Bihar movement was put together by Nanaji Deshmukh of the RSS and his close friend, Ramnath Goenka, publisher, owner of Indian Express. Socialists, conservative Congress leaders who had broken away from Indira Gandhi (or whom she had disbanded) all came together in the Janata Party government. Subsequent politics during Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi years had become manifestly sensitive to this reality: varying shades of Hindu majoritarianism were an essential requirement for the electoral game. It was on this trajectory that Narendra Modi gained exceptional height in 2014. Has he peaked?

The other day my sister and her daughter travelled by AIR INDIA. She had asked for a vegetarian diet, her daughter for non vegetarian. The printout of her ticket said: “Vegetarian Hindu meal”. The other printout was equally explicit: non vegetarian “Muslim meal”. Their Lordships may wish to find out if institutionalized apartheid is creeping upon us?

This is the background against which the nation and its media are amplifying the turn that the Supreme Court has given to the plight of Muslim women, divorced by recourse in an ungodly method. Intentionally or unintentionally on the part of their Lordships, the situation created by their judgement is fraught with politics, even though only one percent of Muslim women who have escaped talaq, talaq have reasons to rejoice. If propaganda is the name of the game, these ladies should be facilitated on their way to Mecca for Haj, by way of thanksgiving. This is a photo op not to be missed.

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