High-tech US Drone Shot Down By Iranian Technology Causes Concern

High-tech US Drone Shot Down By Iranian Technology Causes Concern

                                                                                     Saeed Naqvi

If folks in rural UP knew anything about Donald Trump, they would describe him as “chatur Bawraha” or “cunning crackpot”. Extreme caution would be in order dealing with such a form of life.

If one has nerves of steel like the Iranian leadership, it is a different matter altogether.

The depth of CIA involvement with Iran, cooperative and adversarial, is not matched by the US equation with any country except Israel and, perhaps, Pakistan during the beginning of the Cold War. Close cooperation between the Savak, Mossad and the CIA is well known during the Shah’s rule. Relations plummeted when the Islamic Revolution captured power in 1979. Never in history had such a comprehensive siege been laid to a thriving US embassy. The siege lasted 444 days.

Unbelievable though it may seem, but within five years Iran, US and Israel were in an intricate cloak and dagger operation called the Iran-Contra affair. US-Israeli arms would be sold to Iran. The proceeds from the deal would finance the Contras being helped by the US to oust the Communist Sandinistas in Nicaragua. For the record, the Communist Daniel Ortega is still in harness.

It is interesting to study the contrasting attitudes of the US establishment then and now when the Deep State is pushing comparable clandestine operations in different theatres. During the Nicaragua operations, CIA Director William Casey, ordered the mining of Central American ports without informing Congress. Senator Barry Goldwater, as chairman of the select committee on Intelligence, rapped Casey hard on the knuckles. He wrote: “All this past week I have been trying to figure out how I can most easily tell you my feelings about the discovery of the President having approved mining of some of the harbours of Central America. It gets down to one, little, simple phrase: I am pissed off!”

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, as Deputy Chairman of the committee, took an even more dim view. He called it the CIA’s assault on constitutional government. What would he say about the Deep State’s unprecedented preeminence today?

Compare the Nicaragua operation to the mess in the Strait of Hormuz these past weeks. Foreign Minister of Iran, Javad Zarif piles accusations on the Trump administration for trying to trigger a war by false flag operations. These operations targeted Japanese tankers. This happened so soon after Japanese Prime Minister Shinto Abe’s visit to Teheran as to be almost laughable. In his tweet Zarif communicated to the White House that the Iranians had accumulated all intercepts about the Deep State’s frenetic efforts to purchase speed boats to attack tankers in order to pin the blame on Iran. In one instance “Trump’s B team was moments away from trapping Donald Trump into war”, reveals Zarif.

What the Iranians have done to the US’s most advanced surveillance drone, Global Hawk, when it crossed into their air space on June 20, is the stuff that legends are made of. The high tech equipment, worth about $223 million was actually brought down by an indigenously assembled Iranian drone which cost Tehran barely $2,600 per piece.

The lazy assumption that the technologies in the Iranian arsenal must trace their origins to allies Russia and China is wrong. The truth is that Beijing and Moscow are as surprised at Tehran’s technological advance as the rest of the world is.

Indeed, Trump could not resist thanking Tehran for having spared a US aircraft ferrying 39 “terrorists” to heaven knows where. The “terrorists” in question are actually soldiers. The term “terrorists” is Iranian tit for tat, a reciprocal insult because Trump had designated Iranian National Guard as “terrorist”.

The story of the manned US plane which flew in close proximity to the fateful drone is interesting for another reason. After the drone was shot down, Iranian Air Force connected with the second aircraft carrying 39 US soldiers. It issued a simple instruction: “turn back immediately or meet the same fate as the drone.” This gesture, as mentioned earlier was appreciated by Trump.

Given these exchanges, is war with Iran on the horizon? Trump’s almost daily threats echo King Lear in the final stages of his madness. “I will do such things – what they are, yet I know not but they shall be the terrors of the earth.”

Let us, for the sake of amusement list a few. Remember when Trump was stoking the fires to soften Kim Jong-un? He announced a “flotilla was on its way to the sea of Japan to teach the “rocketman”, a lesson. It transpired that the Flotilla in question was sailing towards Australia. “with Mr. Trump himself playing up the show of force” said a Pentagon official “rolling back the story became difficult”.

Remember how Trump had plucked out from the skies Juan Guaido as a replacement for President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela? This totally arbitrary decision had the support of a dozen European countries. Today, Mister Guaido is something of a laughing stock presumably plotting coups on some secure beach.

Was Trump’s first policy decision not to pull back all troops from Afghanistan? Even the frenetic movements of special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad between Doha, Kabul, Islamabad appear to have slowed down.

A theory of terrorism as an asset, inaugurated in Afghanistan to oust the Soviet’s, employed in Syria for a failed effort at regime change, is being polished. Russians and Iranians have already accused the US of ferrying groups like Jabhat al Nusra, under new labels, to destinations like northern Afghanistan.

The alacrity with which Tehran has provided evidence that the drone which was shot down took off from a base in the UAE, surprised the Americans. Indeed, the UAE ambassador to Tehran was given an earful by the Foreign office.

Meanwhile, Iran’s arch regional rival, Saudi Arabia, is fighting the Houthis of Yemen now on its own territory. The Saudi air base of Najran in the South is in Houthi control. In these circumstances, show me the macho leader feeling muscular enough to plunge headlong into war? Note Zarif’s terse warning: he who starts the war shall not finish it.

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India – Pakistan ODI: Notes From Days When Cricket Wasn’t War

India – Pakistan ODI: Notes From Days When Cricket Wasn’t War

                                                                                     Saeed Naqvi

This Sunday, 16 June, I look forward to being seated with friends in an arc around the TV set, ready to exult at the outcome of the Indo-Pak ODI at the Old Trafford in Manchester. But two friends who have surprised me with their adoption of saffron, will not just rejoice but clench their fists and grind their teeth in an expression which is a little more visceral. Their’s will not be the slow hand clap. In victory I am with them, sometimes ahead of them, it is when I see triumphalism that I feel weak in the pit of my stomach.

Much water has flown down the Irwell, in Manchester and the Gomti, in Lucknow where as an eager schoolboy, armed with an autograph book, I found myself in the player’s pavilion, thanks to a cousin who introduced me to Habul Mukherjee, the famous hockey coach, who supervised the construction of the cricket stadium. I was rewarded with “access” to the players’ pavilion for having accomplished the most challenging of tasks. I had to produce a wooden plank, painted white, with a legend in thick black: “Ladies Urinal”. Really, to what lengths an autograph hungry schoolboy will not go?

Difficult to believe, in today’s atmosphere, but the Pakistan team were a bigger draw, among Hindus and Muslims alike, largely because of a 16 year old batting prodigy, Hanif Mohammad. Students from Islamia College, not far from the Royal hotel where the team stayed, invaded the hotel’s lobby. They found to their horror that the Pakistanis they saw, were very different from the ones they expected. There, on the bar stool, was “Maxi” abbreviation for Maqsood Ahmad, holding a mug frothing over with beer.

On the cricket ground, I shall never forget the two bearded Maulanas, wearing caps of the same cloth as their respective Sherwanis, monitoring every ball through their antiquated army binoculars. Polly Umrigar missed a ball from Fazal Mahmood and wicket keeper Imtiaz Ahmad snapped it. The slip cordon appealed. “No” said the umpire emphatically. One agitated Maulana, turned to the other looking distinctly unhappy.

“Kilick to hua tha.” (I heard the click), he said to his friend. Safdar, one of the wits who were part of Lucknow’s elegant decadence, leaned over, touched the Maulana’s binoculars and asked loudly enough to send all those in the vicinity into peals of laughter.

“Maulana, ismein sunayii bhi deta hai?” (Maulana you can also hear through that binocular?)

Beer drinking Pakistanis registered with Islamia College students as something of a disappointment. The college catered to the lower end of the Muslim middle class. It dawned on me much later that defining the Muslim middle class in the twilight of the feudal order was not easy: elegant speech and manners went hand in hand with abject penury. With penury came religiosity.

As centres of culture, most people use a faulty balance to compare Lucknow and Lahore. Lucknow had begun to die as early as 1857 for their affront to the British. The great centre of culture paid a heavy price. The state’s High Court was set up in Allahabad as was UP’s premier university. Industry was dispatched to what the British called Cawnpore. Lucknow was left with Taluqdars who had made peace with the British. The population was gifted with the art of conversation which seemed quaint and out of place, given their impecunious living. The declining aristocracy held their libraries to their bosom but refrained from polo, tennis or cricket, almost in cultural defiance of the Raj.

Lahore derived its vigour upto 1947 from its “Punjabiat” (though a great centre of Urdu) and its high comfort level with the British. There was even a sartorial difference between the Sherwani clad Urdu poets of Awadh (Lucknow) and those of Lahore. Faiz Ahmad Faiz was the only prominent Urdu poet on the subcontinent who wore a jacket and tie. Unlike Lucknow, where poets and scribes drank furtively in the cubicles of China Bar and Restaurant, Lahore was more open with its bars which cricketers like “Maxi” frequented. That is why “Maxi” and one or two of his team mates were comfortable walking around Lucknow’s Royal hotel bar lounge with their beer mugs full to the brim.

Saffron spread in India very slowly; Islamization of Pakistan was more rapid. By the time the team with Imran Khan turned up in the 80s, the players were drinking whiskey with their glasses draped in white napkins to avoid detection. These days, ofcourse, they would probably be treated as alleged beef eaters are in the Indian cow belt.

Maqsood’s cameo knock in Lucknow, in October 1952 was one of three great ones etched on my mind, all played between Lucknow and Kanpur, circumscribed itinerary for a cricket crazy schoolboy in the 50s. Two batsmen were out when Maqsood walked to the middle and stroked the very first ball for four, bisecting point and cover, next between cover and extra cover. In his cameo of 40 odd runs he made a precise arc, bisecting fielders from point to square leg. The next knock was Rohan Kanhai’s in Kanpur in 1958. India and the West Indies had scored 222 each in the first inning. In the second innings, Polly Umrigar, in his unlikely avatar as opening bowler, caused an eerie silence to descend on Green Park. He removed Hunte and Holt for a duck. This is when Kanhai strode in: first ball driven for four, second cut past gully. In about 30 minutes he scored a pretty 44 and left, bringing Gary Sobers in, who proceeded to score 198. But it is Kanhai’s knock that I have kept as a gem.

The last brief knock on my nostalgia for cricket was a masterly 51 because of the circumstances. Off spinner Jasu Patel had taken 9 wickets on a pitch which Australian captain Richie Benaud described as a “mud heap” much to the annoyance of “vizzy”, Maharaj Kumar of Vizianagram, commentator and patron of cricket. The great left handed batsman, Neil Harvey, provided an object lesson on how to jump out and hit at half volley before the ball turns.

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Media Crawled During Emergency. Today Is Its Spine Straight?

Media Crawled During Emergency. Today Is Its Spine Straight?

                                                                                         Saeed Naqvi

It is not a complaint but rather a reflection on the general state of play: in my 50 years of journalism, Narendra Modi happens to be the only Prime Minister I have never met. Whenever I tried meeting him years ago I was directed to Vinay Sahasbudhe of the RSS. In his very polite way he was able to transmit the message: meetings with Modi were not going to be the order.

New Delhi, once the world’s favourite haunts for journalistic banter, could now be among the world’s least informed capitals. Newswise, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Lucknow became livelier. In the absence of information, anchors and journalists fell back on the tedium of speculating on the outcome of this by-election, that state election, gathbandhan or Mahagathbandhan, caste or communal and so on.

For the unending war, now in its 18^th year in Afghanistan, show me one discussion on the electronic media. Or, for that matter, in print. Wait patiently until the Indian Express reproduces the main editorial of The Economist explaining the state of play in what is our backyard.

Afghanistan is not an exception. The once Hindu Kingdom of Nepal has been explained to us by BBC, CNN, New York Times, Reuters. The vibrant arenas for cockfights which pass for our news channels have no bureaus in Afghanistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, China, Russia, the UK, US, nowhere. Just one formula:

Udhar raqeeb idhar hum bulay jaatey hain

Ki daana daal ke murghe laraye jaatey hain

(Me from this side, rival from the other

Toss some corn, and there begins the cockfight)

The Prime Minister in his very first speech in the Lok Sabha in May, 2014, had talked of ridding the country of “ghulami” or intellectual servitude. If the Prime Minister is as good as his word, he should immediately take note of this monopoly of the foreign media. Gandhiji was all for windows to be kept open so that influences from all sides can enter – and depart. The Prime Minister swears by nationalism; I call it self-esteem. Both are bruised if India’s ruling elite is captive to Anglo-American media only, in the coverage of International Affairs.

Despite the fact that Russia, China and Iran are not liberal democracies, all three have a large number of bureaus across the globe. They make effective interventions whenever the Western media slants the story against them. In the 2019 elections the world media went to town against “the Divider in Chief”. Did Modi’s cohorts ever think of challenging the affront? If they tried to they would discover that the world’s largest democracy does not have the means to reach audiences beyond its shores.

Modi’s experience with the media is limited. In his earliest stages his exposure was to a hostile media which implicated him in the Gujarat pogrom of 2002. Later his core team with inputs from such groups as APCO, an international consultant, helped build brand Modi which did not need the media in its normal newsgathering and column writing avatar. The process of branding did not require him to dwell on the economy, which he knew was in a shambles. He was advised by his marketers to dwell on an “intangible” theme, which had emotive power. Pakistan was amplified as a hate object and publicly flogged at Balakot; Modi’s rhetoric served as the accompanying sound effect. “Ghar mein ghus ke mara” or “bash him in his house” is the language of gangsters but then even Robin Hood was an adorable outlaw.

Does Modi need the media at all? Ofcourse he does. The Modi project would be stillborn without the media, but he needs a “captive” media, not a “critical”, independent one.

This entails a two tier media policy. Modi will be exempt from media interrogation. He will make appearances calculated by his core team only to enhance his charisma and serve some critical purpose.

Where interaction with the media will be essential is, say, the Ministry of External Affairs. Otherwise unfiltered material will saturate the alternative space. Moreover being on talking terms with the media enhances a general sense of ventilation. Let me give an example of a seemingly innocuous story which served the national purpose in an unexpected way.

A Joint Secretary from the MEA, my Deep Throat, working with Prime Minister Morarji Desai’s team, accosted me outside his office and invited me to his room for coffee. His princely friends from Jaisalmer and Barmer had sent him photographs (which he showed me) of private jets from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE landing at air force runways. These luxury aircraft were lined with scores of hooded falcons and equipment for palatial tents to be erected in the desert.

The Shaikhs of Araby had identified the desert around Jaisalmer and Barmer as the world’s finest hunting ground for the Great Indian Bustard, the most handsome of birds. Environmentalists had seen a sharp drop in the bustard population. If falconry was not discontinued the bird would be extinct. Deep throat managed to obtain written orders to the district authorities in Rajasthan. The story appeared on page one. A senior MEA official travelled all the way to the Shaikh’s luxurious hunting ground. They were requested to pack up their tents. I had not realized the story would spread like forest fire. It gathered momentum as a national campaign. The Great Indian bustard was saved and all because of one conscientious objector. All nature lovers owe him a word of thanks. Just as the Deep Throat of Watergate was eventually revealed, I think there is no harm in revealing the savior of the Great Indian Bustard. He is an ailing man today. Infact, quite ironically, Deep Throat has lost his voice. His name is Vinod Grover, once our ambassador to Ankara, The Hague and Nairobi.

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Minions Could Have Sportingly Leaked Portfolios In A Carnival of Democracy

Minions Could Have Sportingly Leaked Portfolios In A Carnival of Democracy

                                                                                          Saeed Naqvi

The great TV anchors, God’s gift to Indian journalism, who have been Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s shrill town criers these past five years, looked sheepish covering the spectacular swearing in ceremony at the forecourt of the Rashtrapati Bhavan. These media stars from the loyalist school of journalism kept state secrets so deep in their hearts that they revealed not one portfolio, not even the time when the portfolios would be announced. There is an Arab saying: he knows not and knows not that he knows is a fool to be avoided.

It would ofcourse be a matter of concern to the profession that after five years of supplication, short of Shashtang, the anchors and their cohorts did not have a hint on government formation. There is a simple lesson for the anchors: a supine media does not invite the state’s respect. Why would the state take into confidence those who are at its pleasure?

It was brave of the pundits whom the anchors had assembled to keep up the pretense of being in the loop. Some of the pundits who looked particularly distraught for having made no contribution to the discussions, leapt with excitement when a lady in a dark sari strode towards the lectern. “Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti” one exclaimed. “The Sadhvi of the haramzada fame” added his neighbour helpfully. In the midst of solemnity, this struck a discordant note. The anchor could have explained that the Sadhvi while trying to rhyme Ram Zada with Haram Zada, had quite inadvertently ended up describing Muslims as “bastards”.

The manner in which the cabinet cards were held close to the chest reveals two things: the government’s singular lack of rapport with the media. The lack of transparency in government formation would have been understandable if the Prime Minister had to juggle and balance multiple coalition partners. He has a brute majority and the allies who are part of the NDA are in no position to dictate terms. Actually, it is his absolute dispensability in the present establishment that is the source of Nitish Kumar’s infuriation. It was this pique that caused him to demand more than one seat in the cabinet. We shall see more of his craft in days to come.

Too clever by half, he had got into the game with a singular plan: for the BJP to need him in a split verdict. He would then have made a statement about the lack of a clear verdict. That would have freed him to play the field to further his soaring ambitions. How does he now get out of the situation of being in the NDA’s safe keeping?

Sitting tight on the cabinet list quite innocuously, what signal is Modi sending to his cabinet, party, media, indeed the country? That he runs a tight ship? But we know that.

In the ultimate analysis the message is loud and clear: Information is power and this power, like all the others, is held by Modi and Modi alone. Remember his pitch during the campaign: wherever you press the flower button, “the vote will come to Modi” (pointing his finger at himself).

Information as power for a leader or a party is one thing. But when the power to shape the minds of the Indian ruling elites on International affairs is placed exclusively in the hands of external agencies and news sources, surely the Prime Minister’s idea of nationalism is in danger of being bruised. The sellout, which happened during Congress rule, can surely be discontinued now. Pardon the digression.

The multiplicity of the media and its rapid expansion to accommodate the post liberalization advertising, altered the state-media equation. This happened in the 90s. But relations between the media and the state were so vitiated much earlier by Indira Gandhi’s Emergency that these relations could never be truly composed. A section of the media compromised with the regime imagining the emergency would last. But much the larger section fought Indira Gandhi tooth and nail. Journalists in the latter category, altered the basic terms of endearment. In a classical framework, the independent media was expected to have an “adversarial” attitude towards the government. But the fierce antipathy generated during the emergency caused a simple replacement of the term “adversarial” by “oppositional”.

The feisty publisher of the Indian Express, Ramnath Goenka who had staked his newspaper Empire fighting Indira Gandhi, sought to make peace with her when she returned to power in 1980. Alarmed at this turn, Romesh Thapar and other champions of civil liberties pleaded with RNG. “You and Arun Shourie have been a two-man opposition to Mrs. Gandhi.” They implored him to keep up the struggle. RNG’s response was pithy: a newspaper cannot function like an opposition party.

Indian journalism, accustomed to a Congress culture since 1947, had to cope with something radically different since 2014. Atal Behari Vajpayee was an interregnum of an unexpected order. He was the best Prime Minister the Congress never had.

The fawning media is, ofcourse, a function of crony capitalism. The media is a secondary investment by business houses which they place at the disposal of the state in order to buy favours for their principal businesses. The alternative media, manned by journalists of caliber, are on subsistence living, their durability subject to fluctuations. All concerned must have a conversation. Are the channels and the Information and Broadcasting Minister open to a dialogue?

To be on talking terms, the sides have to fall back on the classical dictum. “In a democracy, people elect a government of any hue. The role of the independent media is to support the people’s choice on an issue by issue basis.” The stance is not oppositional but adversarial. For example, the media would reserve the right to tear into the administration whenever vigilantes lynch alleged beef sellers or young couple who cross lines of caste and community. And, applaud where applause is due.

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Muslims And Election: They Also Serve Who Only Stand And Wait

Muslims And Election: They Also Serve Who Only Stand And Wait

                                                                                      Saeed Naqvi

India’s 187 million Muslims deserve a round of applause for the diligent docility with which they have allowed themselves to be the “other” against which the divisions within Hindu society have been composed into an ever increasing expanse of saffron. In geological time there will also be harmony in this expanse.

By stealth, the Congress created the platform from which the BJP is now finishing the game with a flourish. We must not forget, it was Rajiv Gandhi who broke locks of the Ram Temple, promised Ram Rajya from Ayodhya on the eve of 1989 elections and allowed the brick laying ceremony for the Ram Temple in total violation of a court verdict and so on.

The seed of what we are witnessing today was sowed at the very outset, in 1947. My school friend, the late Vinod Mehta, as honest an editor as ever entered the once hallowed profession, put his finger on the nub of the matter. “We have had 800 years of Muslim rule, 200 years of British rule and we have given the Muslims a brand new country, Pakistan.” He paused. “What would you say if the Hindu sometimes feels short changed?”

Having known Vinod as a buddy for 60 years, I knew exactly where Vinod was coming from. The full import of that conversation would take up a book. Let me come to the point on which we came to an agreement in the sense that we lowered our voices. If the Congress was so fiercely opposed to the two-nation theory which stated that Hindus and Muslims constituted two nations, how did it suddenly accept the creation of a Muslim Pakistan? Clearly a vast majority of Hindus would feel cheated because if Pakistan was kosher, so too should Hindustan have been?

An honest Hindu state would have been better than a dishonest secular one which brought Muslims down to the lowest possible rungs of the socio economic ladder reflected in the Sachar Committee report of 2005. It is argued that a Hindu India would have been an illiberal theocracy. Is Modi supervising a model secular state? Britain is an Anglican Monarchy which guarantees equal opportunity to all its citizens, irrespective of colour and creed. Sadiq Khan is the Mayor of London and Sajid Javid, as Home Secretary, is technically in line to become the Prime Minister.

Instead of gliding seamlessly from British Raj to Hindu Raj (Hindustan), Jawaharlal Nehru insisted on secularism to which his colleagues were opposed. Purushottam Das Tandon, Babu Rajendra Prasad, Vallabhbhai Patel never shared Nehru’s vision. Indeed, even Mahatma Gandhi differed with Nehru. “I support Khilafat because that is Mohammad Ali’s religion.” he said “And he will hold back the Muslim from killing the cow which is my religion.” Gandhi was a Hindu to the core but he also preached a secularism that was sustainable in a deeply religious land. His eccentricities, his tolerance of caste, one would have grappled with, but his would have been a benign Hinduism. That admirers of his murderers are now in Parliament is mind boggling.

The boost to this variety of Hinduism was provided by Prime Minister V.P. Singh when he, for political reasons, implemented the Mandal Commission report, “reserving” government jobs for the “Other Backward Castes” (OBCs). The rigid caste system, exposed to democracy and egalitarianism, was wobbly enough. Mandal Commission, invited a Hindutva response in the form of a national movement to build the Ram Temple on the spot where Rama was born. On this spot stood the Babari Masjid – a situation custom made for lethal communalism.

The first beneficiary of this politics was BJP’s Atal Behari Vajpayee. As Prime Minister, he moderated the national mood by accelerating relations with Pakistan, reaching out to Kashmir and being on talking terms with Muslims. He lost in 2004, opening the way to Manmohan Singh’s ten years as Prime Minister.

Modi appeared on the scene when the post 9/11 world was in the grip of wild Islamophobia. Modi saw advantage in sailing with this current. His hard line communalism fitted neatly with the global mood. He followed a hard line with Pakistan and Kashmir, a high tolerance level for Muslims being lynched by mobs for allegedly selling and eating beef and marrying non Muslims. Brutalities against dalits increased because they turned to caste leaders opposed to the BJP. Also, their increasing self-esteem angered castes above them on the scale.

Despite this state of law and order, dismal economic performance, rural distress, record unemployment and countless other failures, how did Modi come back to power with a thumping majority?

In the communal politics of the 90s, a searing slogan was “Garv se kaho hum Hindu hain” or “let us proclaim with pride that we are Hindu”. In his very first speech in Parliament in May 2014, Modi put his finger on the cause for this inferiority complex. He took upon his shoulders the task of lifting the Hindu “from 1,200 years of ghulami”, which means “serfdom” or “subjugation”. The score of 1,200 years of Muslim and British rule had to be settled to reclaim self-esteem. A national mood of resentment, valour leading to pride, had to be sustained.

The media was monopolized for this purpose. This is where crony capitalism comes in. A personality cult reserved only for Saints or Gods was to be promoted. That is the key. The Hindu mind elevates what in other societies would be known as “respect” to the level of “reverence” which leads to deification. Imagine a visage beamed repeatedly on every channel, of a leader whose relentless incantation is the following: “your every vote will go into Modi’s account”. This he says by pointing his finger at himself. People sit around their TV sets as around an altar or a God, mesmerized.

The Congress, in its arrogance, played a supporting role by sparing Modi and targeting allies like SP-BSP in UP, Trinamool Congress in West Bengal and AAP in Delhi exactly the ones in the thick of battle. Family and friends have set Rahul Gandhi on a wild goose chase. He is only 48; by the time he is 68, Prime Ministership will be his for the asking, he is being told. Good luck.

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Jimmy Carter Chastises Trump: “US Most Warlike Nation In History”

Jimmy Carter Chastises Trump: “US Most Warlike Nation In History”

                                                                                          Saeed Naqvi

You may not have noticed it, but America’s war with Iran started some days ago, and may not be going too well for the world’s mightiest power. This is not a war that President Trump, as Commander in Chief, is enthusiastic about. The eager beavers, the trigger happy foursome lurching towards war are what Iran’s Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif describes as Trump’s “B” team – Bibi Netanyahu, John Bolton, bin Salman and bin Zayed.

The Chief of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards thumps the table and declares in Iran’s Majlis, “Ofcourse oil tankers of all the countries will pass through the straits of Hormuz if Iranian tankers pass, but if Iranian tankers cannot pass then no tankers will sail through the water way.” Clearly, David is daring Goliath. There has been no response from the would-be belligerents. Two of the Arab “Bs” have fingers on their lips. There is a simple disincentive for Trump, always keeping a hawk eye on US economic interest, not to go for the final war with Iran. With the Iranian threat removed, who in the region will buy US arms?

If all of this turns into a major conflagration, the message to the world will be loud and clear: the US has been dragged into a conflict which Israel and Israel alone really wanted.

In fact there are military strategists who fear that Israel too may at this moment be in a chastened mood. It may be nursing wounds recently inflicted by the missile barrage from Hamas on the first day of Ramadan. Ofcourse, Israelis retaliated fiercely but why did this exchange not develop into a major pummeling of Gaza? It appears the Gazans, with help from Hezbullah and Iran, have assembled ingenious devices which can penetrate what was advertised as an invincible missile defence system. The, system, Iron Dome, has been manufactured by Rafael Advanced Defence Systems and Israel aerospace Industries.

For Israeli Military Elite, the Iron Dome’s vulnerability is as unnerving as the destruction of the “world’s most invincible Merkava tank” by Hezbullah in an earlier engagement inspiring the New York Times to a memorable headline: “Israel is powerful, Yes. But not so invincible.”

Iron Dome’s alleged vulnerability must inspire caution. It may well be seen as a restraining factor, one that would cause the belligerents to hold back their horses. And horses have been pulled back by the Arab B team. After all, two Saudi tankers were hit off the coast of Fujairah. And what was the B team’s response? Silence. If this were not sufficient provocation, the embattled Houthis in Yemen shocked the Saudis by hitting and disabling their oil facility in Saudi Arabia not by a missile but a drone which dodged the radar and struck key Saudi oil installations. Saudi’s have taken revenge by bombing the Yemeni capital, the ancient city of Sanaa. Diplomatic grapevine is abuzz that Riyadh has communicated to their US interlocutors that the latest bombing was part of their ongoing war with Yemen. Iran was not in the bargain.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo turned up in Brussels expecting to be kissed on both his cheeks by European leaders for having set up a showdown with Tehran. He had probably forgotten that just last week he had ditched Angela Merkel after having set up a meeting in Berlin, his first with the German leadership. Germans don’t like being stood up. Negative German vibrations must have reached Brussels. But this was not the only reason for the cold reception Pompeo received. Ofcourse, there were no takers for tightening the screws on Iran. There was on the other hand, great concern that President Hassan Rouhani had, on the anniversary of Trump backing away from their commitment to the nuclear deal, indicated that Iran would begin to dismantle the agreement too if Europeans did not hold their nerve in the face of US bullying.

It hurts the US most when their cousins across the Atlantic begin to chastise them. UK Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt echoed the mood in Brussels. “We are very worried about the risks of a conflict by accident”. The international community is on edge because it has a sense of history. The First World War was accidentally triggered when Archduke Ferdinand was shot dead in Sarajevo by a Serbian militant.

Conversation veers around to anxieties on these lines after US intelligence spotted missiles on small boats placed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. The difficulty in reading the Iranians at this point is twofold: is this escalation by Iran or a defensive move on its part. Even more worrying is a huge question mark on the reliability of the Deep State: what intelligence does it have and what is its agenda?

Time was when CIA had a reputation for well processed intelligence data, but the record all along has been mixed. How many times has the CIA misled the administration? Did not the US intelligence say with great authority during the Korean War that China will not cross the Yalu River? It did. Neither the Soviets no the Chinese will help Vietnam. They did. Assad will go. Has he? Maduro will go. Has he gone?......the list is inexhaustible.

Trump should feel a little humbled by President Jimmy Carter’s description of the US “as the most warlike nation in the history of the world”, Carter revealed in the course of a talk in his Church in Plains, Georgia, a recent exchange with Trump. President Trump expressed his anxiety to Carter about “China’s growing economy”. He was anxious: “China is getting ahead of us.” Carter replied “since 1979 China has been at war with nobody, and we have stayed at war.” In Carter’s words there may be something for New Delhi to ponder too. Also, a sensible power would balance its relations with others and not give any nation the right to veto relations with Iran which all Prime Minister including the BJP’s Atal Behari Vajpayee have consistently considered India’s natural ally.

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A New Vogue: Authoritarian Leader Don’t Easily Accept Defeat

A New Vogue: Authoritarian Leader Don’t Easily Accept Defeat

                                                                                        Saeed Naqvi

If numbers go against him, will Narendra Modi accept defeat? Sounds like an absurd question but it worried me after I read the sub headline on the Op-ed page of the New York Times of May 8:

“Yes, there’s very good reason to worry President Trump won’t concede if he’s narrowly defeated in 2020.” Dignified by the NYT, such speculation begins to ring alarm bells.

The reason why Trump is being singled out for such speculation is because his political instincts resemble that of some others – Turkey’s strongman Tayyip Erdogan for instance. In an interview, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi expressed her fears quite explicitly: “If President Trump is defeated in 2020 by a narrow enough margin, he will refuse to accept the legitimacy of the election.” What is the basis for Pelosi’s alarming prediction? Well, the example of Erdogan, his unwillingness to believe he can be defeated.

Unable to accept the fact that the electoral verdicts of two key Mayoral elections have gone against his candidates, Erdogan is throwing a fit. The result is that the country’s national election board has been pressurized by his cohorts to announce fresh elections in Istanbul.

Time was when leaders were sensitive to world opinion, particularly that of the US. In Trump’s America it is now a virtue to develop a hide as thick as a rhinoceros. As it is Americans were impervious to what others thought of them. That was American exceptionalism. A thick skin in the White House is an add-on.

The result is the US can play the world order as it pleases. It has the right to declare Erdogan a pariah and yet endorse a truly fraudulent election of Felix Tshisekedi in the Congo. Gambia’s Yahya Jammeh, who claims to cure aids by prayer, refuses to accept defeat. And the world ignores it.

Why, did not Indira Gandhi pack the Supreme Court so that she could beat the system and stay on as Prime Minister? We all know who stole the 2000 election in Florida. The point is that there is an increasing tolerance level for electoral democracy losing its sheen.

Of the names listed above, the leader who most resembles Narendra Modi is Erdogan. The politics of both is determined by their core religious beliefs. It is astonishing what little notice was taken of Modi’s first speech in Parliament in May 2014. His responsibility, he said, was to free the Hindu mind of 1,200 years of “ghulami”, which, in imperfect translation, means “serfdom”. Put it down to Congress good sense, or hypocrisy, that the Muslim rule in India was never considered “foreign”. Muslim rulers made India their home, unlike the British who ruled from London.

Let us remember, Modi’s RSS training distances him by belief from the basic tenets of electoral democracy. Notions of social justice, upward mobility, liberal democracy are anathema to votaries of a rigid caste structure. As the great sociologist M. N. Srinivas noted: “What is Hinduism without caste?” Given this absolute reality, a votary of Hindutva which is what Modi is, can only use the democratic system for as long it is useful. There have been others in history.

In Muslim practice Taqaiyya is a tactic of self-preservation. In other words a group can project an image which need not tally with its core beliefs. Modi is no democrat but is firmly on the democratic bandwagon, by way of taqaiyya. Once he has exhausted the limits of this system and has all the institutions of the state in his control, he can unfurl his ultimate agenda – begin to remove the constitutional prohibition on declaring a Hindu Rashtra. The goal is as clear as it is impossible to achieve in a country of bewildering variety where every currency note has its denomination indicated in 17 languages, many of them with classical literatures predating Christ.

Erdogan’s taqaiyya followed a distinct script. Brutalities inflicted on Bosnian Muslims, ignored by Europe, had a direct impact on the Turkish elections of 1995. Bosnia was, after all, once a province of the Ottoman Empire. The Islamist Refah party under Necmettin Erbakan, guru to Erdogan, was a mismatch with Ataturk’s uncompromising, secular constitution. Erbakan was removed, his party disbanded. That is when Abdullah Gul and Erdogan founded the secular, AKP or Justice and Development party. This was their taqaiyya.

Basically, Erdogan is Muslim Brotherhood in his deep heart’s core. Brothers would be a torrent in Egypt and Turkey but have been held in check by a US and Israel backed army in Egypt and Ataturk’s secular constitution and a western elite (albeit declining) in Ankara and Istanbul. In both the countries Brothers cannot be held back in perpetuity. Which means that Erdogan’s goal may be distant but doable after a frightful roller coaster ride. Turkey will not remain the Turkey we know. His anti-democratic urge will cause Europe to jam the turnstile. Unless Erdogan is replaced by a moderate.

Modi’s Hindu Rashtra aspiration is not only undoable but, in pursuit of the goal, dangerously divisive. Hindutva growing into full blown oak in the Hindi belt will make this belt look very different to, say, the South. To the already frightful caste and communal polarization we will have introduced a dangerous North-South faultline.

As I said at the outset an anti-democratic wave is building up across the globe threatening even the norms of electoral democracy. The outcome of 2019 falling prey to megalomania in this category will throw the nation into tumult. The cause of that questionable quantity called Hindutva will not advance a jot.

Years ago I had described the Sari, Sangeet and Sanskrit as the triple S matrix which is emblematic of the civilizational strength that binds us all in a larger civilizational Hinduism, totally different from the narrow, sectarian mischief which Amit Shah describes as “transformational”.

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