BBC Documentary: Thames Not On Fire, Why Is The Jamuna?

BBC Documentary: Thames Not On Fire, Why Is The Jamuna?

                                                                                       Saeed Naqvi

Sky high excitement about the BBC documentary, “India: the Modi factor”, caused me to connect with friends in London who I imagined would help me balance the column by comparing the British reaction to the war dance going on here.

First, let me clarify. This section of the column concerns the first part of the documentary which focuses on Godhra and, quite brazenly accuses the then Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi for having a hand in the killings. Reports of this episode having been telecast in London disturbed New Delhi. In one leap of uninformed decision making, New Delhi banned and blocked the screening of the documentary in India.

Ban a TV show, and you are guaranteed a record audience. These audiences materialized, falling back on every ingenious trick to download the contraband. What boosted the demand even more was the vocabulary employed by the spokesman. He accused the BBC of a “colonial mindset” which threatened India’s sovereignty and integrity.

Is the colonial affliction in the mind of the BBC? By diligent research and a range of interviews giving both sides of the story, it made a documentary which no Indian journalist even attempted? There have been brave hit-and-run cinema efforts but no journalism. Or is it an Indian malaise? On the pain of being repetitious, may I point to the NDTV setting aside a prime-time slot every week for a news episode canned by the BBC. Does India’s premier channel imagine that its BBC association enhances its prestige?

The overreaction in India is not without its irony. In the first paragraph to this column I had mentioned friends in London I contacted to gauge how widespread was the damage among BBC viewers in Britain.

Let me reproduce verbatim the conversation with a Labour party member of South Asian origin.

Q: How is the BBC documentary faring in Britain?

A: Which documentary? What’s it about?

Q: India: the Modi question. Part one blames Modi for having encouraged the riots by restraining the police from stopping the carnage. It was telecast in Britain last night. Surely there is some reaction in the British papers?

A: Nothing that I have seen.

The mist lifted only partly when I asked someone from the BBC. Yes, the India episode was telecast but only on BBC II which is even less inviting at 9.00 pm. So, there you are. The British TV viewer far from taking a malicious interest in India being shown in dismal light, took no interest in the show at all. The jitters, the banning, the consequent inflated viewership for the episode – all took place here.

The hullabaloo that followed telecasting of part one of the documentary which blamed Modi for having helped the riots were singularly absent during the part two telecast even though it was much more damaging to the regime for a simple reason: it focused on beef lynching, love jihad, hijab, disproportionate number of Muslim youth in jail without trial for years and decades – all contemporary, works in progress. The government escaped public ire because the public got to see the episode only sparingly. Why? Because there was no high voltage official reaction.

The official signals are mixed: hyper reaction to the first episode and dismissive indifference to the second which as I have said, being contemporary, is much more damaging.

This is not the way Navin Kumar of the growing portal “Article 19” sees the events. He sees the BBC effort not being different from the “Godi media”, or a media which is Modi’s lapdog.

Navin Kumar’s reasoning is straightforward. Elections to nine state assemblies are round the corner and joblessness, price rise, dubious record with the Chinese on the border are the unflattering bundle of issues Modi carries on his head. Modi and his cohorts are most comfortable with divisive, identity politics heavily focused on Hindu-Muslim issues which acquire an added edge of nationalism when Kashmir and Pakistan are added to the mix. How the BJP drums up its campaign will establish how prescient Navin Kumar has been.

New Delhi’s drawing rooms, particularly short on information in recent decades, have broadly divided themselves into two categories of chatterati. One is addicted to the social media like The Wire, The Print, The Citizen, News Laundry etcetera.

The other, with more tinsel upholstery, derives its intellectual staple from the channels and mainstream newspapers plastered with page one ads of the Prime minister, Chief Ministers, captains of industry and star students from the coaching class industry.

If there are a handful of takers for Navin Kumar’s conspiracy theory, there are others who see the documentary as a response to some persistent nagging by South Asian voters populating the constituencies of MPs belonging to the two main political parties. Remember, constituencies in the UK are much smaller, enabling greater direct contact between individual voters and party leaders.

Assuming this factor was at play, why a 21 year gap between Godhra and the screening of the episode? Jack Straw, who was the Labour Party Foreign Secretary at the time of the massacre, was revealing in his interview with Karan Thapar after the Godhra episode was telecast last week.

When the Gujarat pogrom erupted, as the country which had played a role in India, “we felt obliged to find out what had happened in Gujarat.” The British High Commission in New Delhi mounted a detailed inquiry, but the final report remained a confidential document in the Foreign Office presumably because Britain was averse to risking excellent relations with New Delhi. Modi, then only a Chief Minister was rapped on the knuckles. His visa was cancelled.

The Gujarat story was resurrected now possibly because the 2002 report was probably leaked to the BBC. A 21 year old report had to be padded with recent details which makes for part two of the documentary.

There is no end to speculation. The latest being that the BBC was the cat’s paw for the foreign office: Modi was being punished for having veered away from the Western line on Ukraine.

#          #          #          #

Reviving Yatra on October 2 bad idea: Soufflé Rises Only Once

Reviving Yatra on October 2 bad idea: Soufflé Rises Only Once

                                                                                      Saeed Naqvi

There is a certain poetic power in politics of renunciation. As an immediate example just look at New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden: how elegantly she stepped out of the Prime Minister’s office into something possibly more permanent like a life of love and family.

It is difficult to apply the Jacinda model on Rahul Gandhi for two reasons: there is no Prime Ministership to renounce and no one has yet spotted an interest in marital love in his eyes. And yet a renunciation of “conventional” politics becomes Rahul more than a simulated aspiration for an elusive Prime Ministership.

In fact he may have found his vocation in leading the Bharat Jodo Yatra which has softened the national mood. It would be problematic to invoke in this context the movement inaugurated by Jayaprakash Narayan in the mid 70s.

JP was in political retirement when global and internal interests coalesced to search for a power centre other than Indira Gandhi. Détente was going badly for the West. Portuguese decolonization had brought communists directly into power in Angola, Mozambique and even Ethiopia. Euro communism was bubbling over. Nearer home, Sri Lanka sought Indian military help to quell the JVP (left) revolt in 1971.

A fact less noticed in Indian journalism is that communists were already in power in Kerala in 1957 and crawling towards a three decade long rule in Bengal and Tripura since the late 60s.

Indira Gandhi had become dangerous for the West after she split the Congress in 1969 and clasped the hand of communists like S.A. Dange, Secretary General of the CPI. The Times, London’s correspondent Peter Hazlehurst hit the nail on the head: “Indira Gandhi is slightly left of self interest.”

The JP movement targeted Indira Gandhi as the centerpiece in the growing pattern of leftism. While the JP movement targeted the left tendencies in the Congress, Bharat Jodo Yatra is creating an atmosphere in which the Congress can politically challenge the right – the obscurantist, divisive core of BJP’s politics. As far as economic policies are concerned, I doubt if much change has come in the thinking of the two major parties from the days of P. Chidambaram as Manmohan Singh’s Finance Minister. At a congregation of economists at the Nehru library, Chidambaram addressing his BJP counterpart, Arun Jetley seated in the front row said: “there is hardly any difference in our economic policies.” Whatever there is can be easily sandpapered.

The core Congress interests liaising with the Yatra probably had this in mind when they choreographed former Reserve Bank Governor, Raghuram Rajan seated by the roadside with Rahul even as the Yatra flowed by. Rajan spoke acceptable Hindi too for wider play. He has backers who have long insisted on some sort of second innings for him. I have seen Prannoy Roy of NDTV implore him in Davos: “Please, Sir, come back to India.”

Rahul’s Yatra is now in its final phase, dedicated to fly the national flag at Srinagar’s Lal Chowk. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has bitter memories of another flag hoisting in Srinagar by the then BJP President Murli Manohar Joshi in 1992, when militancy was at its peak in the valley. Joshi’s Rath was stalled in Udhampur. Eventually he had to be flown to Srinagar for the flag hoisting. P.V. Narasimha Rao as Prime Minister was softer on the BJP then the BJP is likely to be on Rahul. Modi was an RSS volunteer accompanying Joshi. Will he concede a point to Rahul?

After completing the Kashmir leg of the Yatra, Rahul will come under inexorable pressure from those in the Yatra and those waiting in the tent with Congress President, Mallikarjun Kharge. In the run upto the 2024 General Elections, there are nine state elections which, by the narrative of Congressmen, will demand Rahul’s attention.

Recently, asked how the Yatra has affected him. Rahul gave an astonishing response. “I have killed Rahul Gandhi, he doesn’t exist anymore. The person you are looking at is not Rahul Gandhi – read Hindu scriptures – read about Lord Shiva, you will understand. Don’t be shocked. Rahul Gandhi is in your head, not mine. He is in the BJP’s head, not mine….” Is this not dangerous transformation?

The sheer momentum of walking thousands of miles with adoring crowds will be difficult to terminate. Congressmen aching to extract electoral advantage from a mood altering event will end up spilling whatever gains Bharat Jodo Yatra has bestowed on the party. Renunciation will begin to look like greed.

Rasping Congressmen will ask, “What then was this Yatra for?” Well, to combat the all pervasive politics of divisiveness and hate. Rahul puts it quite effectively. “I have seen people across caste and communal lines reach out to each other, embrace, converse, share – throughout these miles I have seen no hatred.” He contrasts this mood along the entire stretch of the Yatra to what he watches on the national TV. “24X7 Hindu-Muslim, Hindu-Muslim.” Some more effort is required for the capitalist controlling the media to note Rahul’s lament?

The widespread Congress party structure has clearly been enervated by the march. It should be able to extract advantage from an improved national mood without impeding the Yatra’s momentum.

And yet, Rahul, after all, is only human, his rapid pushups, incredible stamina notwithstanding. He can’t be expected to walk endlessly although at 52, he should keep past stalwarts in mind. Janata Party’s Chandrashekhar undertook a similar journey in chappals at the age of 63. Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984 forced him to terminate his yatra. Some transport including the old Congress symbol of yoked bullocks can be brought into play in subsequent laps. In reasonable time the air will be cleansed to accommodate politics of issues not for two parties alone but for a federal India.

There is a suggestion that an East to West stretch of the march should be launched from Gandhiji’s birthday on October 2. Those who have bought this idea do not know that the soufflé rises only once, that a bhatura does not inflate twice.

#          #          #          #

When 6,00,000 Indians Lost Power In Fiji, Did India Take Note?

When 6,00,000 Indians Lost Power In Fiji, Did India Take Note?

                                                                                   Saeed Naqvi

How would the Indian media respond if 6,00,000 people of Indian origin lost power in perpetuity in a remote Pacific island? Even if they had been incarcerated, I suspect the reaction would have been the same – ask Reuters to file more details.

When I read last week in The Economist a 1,000 word report on Fijian strongman Sitiveni Rabuka installed as the island nation’s Prime Minister for the third time, my mind went back to the frightful anti Indian coup staged by this very gent in 1987.

A series of coups and Prime Ministerships has made Rabuka a familiar figure. Searching for him in the summer of 1987 was like looking for the yeti.

What had happened was this. After the first ship bringing Indian labourers to Fiji under the indenture system in the 19^th century, clearly devised to circumvent the abolition of slaves in 1833, the Indian population just grew and grew. There was plenty of work on the sugar plantations and plenty of Ngona, Fijian bhang to relax on.

The Imperial centre of authority began to decolonize – but not if colonies rejected freedom. Fiji refused to accept independence in the 60s: “Please let us be with you.” The Chiefly order implored the Queen.

Willy nilly, in 1970 Fiji was free, creating space for the 6,00,000 people of Indian origin to dream of elections. Finally in 1987, the occasion found the man: Timoci Bavadra a Fijian medical doctor, gave Indians equal participation in the Labour Party he founded. Mahendra Chaudhry and Dr. Satendra Nandan were others in the vanguard.

Then the historic cabinet was announced – eight ministers of Indian origin and eight local, Melanesian Fijians. Just when the island was celebrating multiculturism for the first time in history, came the rumbling of armoured carriers. Parliament House was pulverized. Slowly, hotels were filled with journalists from Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Malaysia and the usual western news centres. Even though the entire story was about disenfranchising Indians, not a solitary Indian journalist showed up.

Silly of me to have hoped that Indian journalists would show up. They never do. It is an article of faith with Indian journalists that they never will see world events with their own eyes.

Eversince power came into the hands of TV channels, things have become much worse. Each one of the channels has an arrangement with CNN, Reuters, BBC, Fox News and so on. Indian channels cover Indian news while the International channels dole out footage on major events like the Ukraine war at its peak. Well before the takeover of NDTV by Adani, the channel with inexplicable obsequiousness, telecast a weekly, prime time programme by BBC. “Atmnirbhar” (self sufficient), did someone say?

As I said if 6,00,000 people of Indian origin were to be disenfranchised overnight, it is unlikely the news would make a splash. Remember 1987 was about five years away from the channels explosion. Against this backdrop, for me to exert every muscle to interview the coup leader, Rabuka, made little sense. But then some of us are habitual journalists, competing against ourselves for stories.

My meeting with Rabuka took shape quite accidentally after my meeting with the Governor General, Ratu Penaiya, a man so tall that his shank muscles looked the size of Moghul columns. I have always wondered why cricket was never introduced in the most “loyal” of British colonies? In Fiji, Joel Garner would be counted among players of moderate height. If a Melanesian fast bowler, 7+ in height, delivered the hard cricket ball from the height of a minaret, injury to any batsman would be fatal. I suspect that is why the British discouraged the native Fijians from cricket. It would have been suicidal. Instead, they were encouraged to play Rugby.

The Rabuka interview was manufactured on the way out of the Governor General’s mansion. I was being escorted by one of Ratu Penaiya’s staff, wearing kilts like a Scottish highlander. When I turned to him for the phone number of Rabuka’s staff, he somehow thought that I had the clearance from CG to obtain the top secret number. To secure the interview, I made a call from the CG’s office. In the Chiefly System this would be persuasive.

In the context of times, the interview revealed a great deal. It was elementary that a system controlled by Melanesian chiefs who owned all the lands, would never accept an Indian parity, leave alone Indian preponderance in the power structure. Yes, Rabuka said it in so many words. There was no guile or diplomacy about everything else he revealed.

In the Cold War, ANZUS, a defence arrangement involving US, Australia and New Zealand, was crucial. Fiji was too strategically important to be “sub contracted to Indians.”

Fiji’s geopolitics today is conditioned by different players.

In 1987, the Cold war was with the Soviet Union. Today Rabuka sees himself as a bulwark against ever increasing Chinese investments. For instance, one Chinese company owns the goldmines. Another is well on its way to monopolizing bauxite. Chinese concessional loans are responsible for new roads and bridges, poking Australia in the eye, Quad or no Quad.

In 1987, the Audio cassette containing the interview was priceless for Australia and New Zealand. I can never forget the eager face of Graeme Waters, New Zealand High Commissioner in New Delhi, imploring me for a copy of the interview. The Australians were chasing me through their High Commission in New Delhi. Sonia Shand was the political secretary most interested in what Rabuka said.

I thought I would share it with my Indian friends first. It turned out, that none of them were interested in the affairs of a remote island in the pacific. But 6,00,000 people of Indian origin? The Indian population now has shrunk to 3,50,000. These were progeny of Indian indentured labour, two generations removed. The diaspora in the US would be another kettle of fish. How can you compare, silly – isn’t the US the land of milk and honey where we like to park all our offspring and ourselves?

#          #          #          #

Rahul’s Yatra Changing National Mood; Don’t Chase Electoral Rewards In Hurry

Rahul’s Yatra Changing National Mood; Don’t Chase Electoral Rewards In Hurry

                                                                                   Saeed Naqvi

At 52, one thing Rahul Gandhi has confirmed is his physical fitness by walking 2000 miles for his Bharat Jodo Yatra and looking none the worse for it.

This he had established beyond any shadow of a doubt during his visit to Tamil Nadu. Priests and teachers of St Joseph’s Higher Secondary school watched Gandhi outshine their champion athlete in rapid pushups. Just in case there were school partisans still rooting for their champion, Rahul went down for a one hand push-up like a gymnast. For him to have walked nearly 2,000 miles already, at 15 miles every day deserves a round of applause.

Equipped with extraordinary stamina and fitness, Rahul Gandhi is embarked on a Kanyakumari to Kashmir march which has acquired the potential of altering the national mood. Heaven knows if one thing needs to be changed it is the foul national mood. That is the critical point the coteries clustering around him must realize. The yatra if marketed as an electoral asset, will fall flat. What the yatra has achieved is way beyond what the skeptics anticipated. They have been proved wrong and I include myself in the category. A suffocated nation was waiting for some such happening.

Ironically, it is the apparent invincibility of the BJP with its ever increasing hate culture that is turning out to be an asset for the “Bharat Jodo” Yatra. Hindutva and hate provide a stark backdrop to the march. Had the hate content been minimized, choked emotions would not have been powerful enough to become a movement galvanized on a platform of love and cohesion. It cannot yet be classed as a movement but that is the direction in which it is headed provided Rahul can keep the affairs of the Congress party and those of the yatra in separate channels. One will influence the other, ofcourse, but one has not been made for the other.

There is a party hierarchy regularized under Mallikarjun Kharge, whose job it must be to extract whatever advantage it can from the national mood which the yatra is changing.

Clues have been available to us from much earlier about the thoughts gestating in Rahul’s mind, but he was never able to quite articulate them. For instance his performance at the Confederation of Indian Industries in April 2013. For full 75 minutes, Rahul walked up and down the stage at the CII, where a hall packed with captains of industry were eager to know his mind on economic reforms and foreign policy. But Rahul was on his own song.

“Not more than 200 select the 5,000 or so candidates who are elected Members of Parliament and State Assemblies.” His point was that an abysmal gap exists between the country’s elected representatives and the 1.2 billion they represent. Unless the party system embraced the village panchayats in its policy making mechanism, the Congress would remain a party alienated from the people.

What Rahul said was not wrong, but he showed himself up as someone devoid of a sense of occasion. At another function he held forth on his train journey from Gorakhpur to Mumbai. Again completely out of place. On the way he met Girish the carpenter, with stars in his eyes, in whom Rahul spotted high aspirational levels. His homespun yarn did not create much of an impression. But what became clear was his disinterest in drawing room chatter. Indeed his desire to connect with the ordinary people of India was clear from the very beginning. And now, he must have had a surfeit of it in the course of Bharat Jodo Yatra.

And the things he has been able to say would not have been possible without the popular upsurge backing him. A speech like the one he made at the Red Fort would have been met by heavy police bandobast had Rahul not won hearts and minds by leading the March.

He described the establishment (in which he counted Adani, Ambani by name) as “pick-pockets” who have mobilized the entire media to telecast “Hindu-Muslim, Hindu-Muslim, Hindu-Muslim 24x7 to saturation point.” I suspect he is making the same mistake with the “pick-pocket” image which he did with “Chowkidar chor hai” during Rafale. To differentiate himself from the rabble rousers on the opposite side, he must be careful about his vocabulary.

“I have walked thousands of miles and met hundreds of thousands of people of all faith mingling, embracing each other, shaking hands, making friends – it has been an open yatra. Not once was there even an iota of hate – It was friendliness and bonhomie all along. And then, you watch our TV – the same hate, Hindu-Muslim.”

“Do you know what a pick pocket needs most to pick your pockets?”

“Razor blade” screams the audience. Razor blades comes into operation later: first the pick pocket must distract your attention. Hindu-Muslim is just that distraction so that he can cheat you out of your economic stakes, jobs, prices, shortages, education…..”

“Look behind you” he said pointing to the Jain Mandir, Shiv Mandir, Gurudwara, Jama Masjid: “this harmony is India.”

Now comes Amit Shah’s announcement. “Ram Mandir will be opened on January 1, 2024.” He may as well have added – “preparatory to the General Elections.”

The Hindu-Muslim content in the TV debates which Rahul has brought out in such bold relief have revealed what Hindutva will harp on during 2024 elections: Gyan Vapi and the Shahi Masjid for instance. The strategy of “pick pockets” continues.

Kharge and all the senior Congress leaders must begin to strategize accordingly. This, however, is not the time for Rahul to terminate the yatra. One realizes that the human machine must show signs of wear and tear. In which case, we must think of alternate ways to travel from East India to the West. The aim to fly the tricolor in Srinagar may be challenged by the establishment. Rahul’s leadership will be on test. Then, he must complete the East-West loop and not be impatient with a priceless opportunity.

#          #          #          #

A Proxy War Could Not Oust Assad; Can It Defeat Russia?

A Proxy War Could Not Oust Assad; Can It Defeat Russia?

                                                                                     Saeed Naqvi

Ukraine President Vladimir Zelensky’s nearly three hour talks with President Biden in the White House ended with a press conference. Biden, replying to a question, showed a chink in his armour which his western cheerleaders have for obvious reasons not amplified.

Just as the US President was carrying on about the assistance in arms, including Patriot anti missile batteries, a reporter chipped in: “When the full scale invasion started, US officials said that Ukraine cannot receive Patriot because it might be seen as unnecessary escalation. And now, right now it is happening. Clearly Ukraine desperately needs more capabilities, including long range missiles.”

The reporter then produced the punchline:

“Can we make this long story short and give to Ukraine all the capabilities it needs to liberate all the territories sooner rather than later?”

This stumped Biden. Short of words, he points to Zelensky – “well…his answer is yes.” This produces laughter. Reporters on beats like the White House or those travelling with their President, generally have a “whiff” of details not otherwise available. Laughter at that particular juncture, when the President is tongue tied and weakly points to Zelensky, is revealing. Obviously during the talks Zelensky asked for arms more lethal than Patriots and Biden said no.

Biden then proceeded to explain to the press his restraint in supplying “everything” for Ukraine’s victory.

The US is “not giving Ukraine everything for two reasons. One, there is an entire alliance supporting Ukraine which must not break up. And the idea that we will give Ukraine material that is fundamentally different from what is already going there (this shift) would have the prospect of breaking up NATO and breaking up the European Union and the rest of the world.”

“We’re going to give Ukraine what it needs to defend itself, to be able to succeed in the battlefield.”

Second, Biden said, that he had “spent several hundred hours, face-to-face with our European allies and heads of state of their countries” towards one goal: to persuade them how it is fundamentally in their interest that they continue to support Ukraine in this war.

Then comes Biden’s key utterance: while they understand the importance of western unity, “they’re not looking to go to war with Russia. They’re not looking for a third world war.” He concludes, “I think it can all be avoided by making sure that Ukraine is able to succeed in the battlefield.” Zelensky is being bluffed?

The US President, faced with a blunt question from a reporter, blurted out things a diplomat would have kept to himself.

Why would Biden spend “several hundred hours face-to-face with” his European allies trying to convince them that it was “overwhelmingly in their interest to continue to support Ukraine?” How reluctant must the allies have been to warrant this kind of persuasion by the world’s most powerful nation?”

Quite unmistakably the impression is that allies or partners did not quite follow the Pied Piper; they were nudged if not dragged into this predicament. In diplomatic parlance, it was heavy arm twisting that they were subjected to. As a consequence, chants of “unusual western unity” are marketed as not cacophonous with France, Germany, Hungary, Italy etcetera singing their own, individual hymns of a post Ukraine vision.

Ukraine, Europe and the US are dancing together but to different rhythms. I have already quoted Biden: yes World War III will be avoided but Ukraine will be helped to win in the battlefield. In other words, the US, with very deep pockets, is looking for a never ending war, a war of attrition. Having failed to defeat Putin, the idea is to outspend him, bleed him economically. What will happen to Europe in this process? Considering that there is no evidence of Russia on its knees quite yet, what does one make of lamentations all over Europe? An endless war will certainly break up the alliance.

Differences within the alliance had begun to surface at the very outset, in fact the moment it dawned that the war was not about Ukraine but about a new world order.

In the vanguard of those with blueprints of a multipolar world order was France’s Emanuel Macron. As early as September this year he told a conclave of French diplomats that the “300 year old western hegemony was coming to an end.”

He could not help taking a jibe at Biden. For the past three centuries of western dominance, he said, France, England and the US had contributed, in that order, culture, industry and “war”. Within western countries, “the many wrong choices the United States has made in the face of crisis have deeply shaken our hegemony.”

Where Macron differs from his Anglo-Saxon partners is his frank admission that “China and Russia have achieved great success” under “different leadership styles.” Totally absent from his serene stance are expletives like “butcher, butcher” which Biden employed once for Putin, rather like a street fighter.

In Macron’s framework European security is unthinkable without Russia being integral to it. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, host to 20,000 US troops since World War II, cannot unhinge himself from the US. He delineates a security architecture for Europe of which the US is a critical part. This, despite the historical Anglo-American suspicion of the German Nation.

Not to learn from its own recent wars must be put down as another category of American exceptionalism. The day Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, with an imperious wave of the hand asked Bashar al Assad to “get out of the way”, the telecast coincided with my column on Syria. Reversals in Afghanistan and Iraq after decades of occupation should have taught the Americans a lesson. If war aims could not be achieved by full fledged occupation, how would cross border terrorism oust Assad? True, Syria like Iraq and Libya, has been destroyed, but Assad still rules the country. If Assad cannot be ousted by a proxy war, can Russia’s formidable war machine be neutralized by one?

#          #          #          #

Messi, Mbappe, World Cup Are Nuggets On Qatar’s Super Exceptionalism

Messi, Mbappe, World Cup Are Nuggets On Qatar’s Super Exceptionalism

                                                                                     Saeed Naqvi

The family sat around the TV set as around an altar or a God during the football matches until the curtain came down on history’s greatest final in front of the 88,966 strong in the Lusair stadium in Qatar and an audience of incalculable billions worldwide.

The Cassandras were proved wrong as Qatar successfully continued to wear its own brand of exceptionalism on its sleeve. History will remember it as a superbly arranged event.

Qatar’s exceptionalism is quite breathtaking. Central Command is calmly headquartered in Qatar. Riyadh was in the eye of a storm because Osama bin Laden would not tolerate US troops in the Kingdom.

GCC had come into being in 1980, with major US prodding, as a group in simulated fear of the Iranian revolution which had replaced the West-friendly Shah. To the Arabs, indeed to the West, the Ayatullahs came across as a strange apparition. Except the Vatican, nowhere else in the world had the clergy taken over reins of power for the country’s governance.

Iran has a tremendous sense of self as a civilization and a modern westward looking state. In both senses, clerical rule sits uncomfortably on the society. Since Iran under the Ayatullahs was an ideological Shia state, this fact itself rang alarm bells in, say, Riyadh.

Emergence of the Islamic state introduced a certain bipolarity in the Muslim world. Wahabi Riyadh, with its control of Mecca and Medina was challenged by Shia Tehran as a pillar of the Islamic world. Tehran’s first attack was on the House of Saud – Islam in its genesis was anti monarchy.

This put the fear of God into Saudi hearts. They promptly declared themselves not Kings but Keepers of the Holy Shrines. Over time this title has once again fallen into disuse.

Qatari exceptionalism was in play all along. When all of the GCC was quaking at Iran’s emergence, Qatar maintained very practical trade relation with Iran. Relations with Iran burgeoned when the GCC, out of inexplicable pique, cut off land routes to the Sheikhdom.

Since Riyadh was the leader of the GCC an awkwardness in relation with Qatar had muddied the equation from the very beginning. Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the present ruler, ascended the throne by staging a coup against his father. This was a terrible example for all the monarchies. Saudis even planned to reverse the situation militarily. Against that background it is impossible to imagine the two in a loving embrace.

Qatar, meanwhile, will not stop wearing its exceptionalism even on sensitive Israeli-Palestinian issues. For instance it pokes the global establishment in the eye and thereby also their GCC colleagues by being exceptionally chummy with Hamas, leaving the Americans and the Saudis flat footed. Israelis even more so because they, along with the Americans have a puppet in Mahmoud Abbas whose writ does not run even in Ramallah.

Since the day Israel was created as a Jewish homeland, the principal issue pre occupying the Arab world and beyond, has been the Palestinian cause. It turns out to be an unforeseeable reality of a world in flux that the birth of an Islamic Iran caused lobbies working for Israel to divert attention to Shia-Sunni schism as the principal faultline dominating the Arab mind. A regular Shia axis was delineated – Iran, Hezbullah, Syria, Hamas, which threatened Israel. How, pray, does Hamas strengthen the Shia axis? Gaza is saturated with Hamas which happens to be a virulent form of the Muslim Brothers, Sunni to the core, focused on Israel which it believes dispossessed it of its lands.

By befriending this variety of Brotherhood, Qatar was once again declaring its exceptionalism. If Iran is a thorn in all sides including the Saudi’s, the Brothers are even more so. The 1979 Islamic revolution of Iran coincided almost exactly with a truly traumatic event for the Muslim Umma. This was the occupation of Islam’s holiest mosque at Mecca by Juhayman al-Otaybi and hundreds of his supporters. Their demand was not dissimilar to the Iranian’s. Islam was opposed to Kingship. The “King” of Saudi Arabia could therefore not be the Keeper of the Holy Shrines.

To complicate matters further, Saudis did not have the technology to flush the militants out. French soldiers commandeered for the purpose, ran into another obstacle. Non Muslims are not allowed to enter the holiest of all mosques. Instantly, a few Mullahs were enlisted to make the Frenchmen recite the “Kalima” which would qualify them to enter the mosque as bonafide Muslims.

Otaybi’s companions were all an extremist wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. This influential organization is widespread in Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. It is thus a greater threat to the House of Saud and other monarchies and Sheikhdoms. Rather than point to the much more dangerous threat at home, the Saudis, advised by the Israelis and the Americans, have chosen to target Iran for strategic reasons. Qatari exceptionalism plays footsie with the Brothers as well as Iran.

It was Saudi wealth which created the Mujahideen in the 80s to oust the Soviets from Afghanistan, and function as a Wahabi bulwark against Shia Iran. Those Mujahideen have mutated into today’s Taleban. And lo and behold when matters come to a head it is the exceptional Qatar which gives life to the Doha process, even as the Saudis look on.

There is no end to Saudi mortification even in the field of the media. Does the Al Arabiya channel launched by the Saudis have any credibility? By contrast, Qatari exceptionalism has done the impossible with Al Jazeera. It has persuaded the connoisseurs of liberalism in the West to believe that an authoritarian Sheikhdom can own a “liberal” TV channel with an almighty proviso: don’t criticize Qatar nor its close interests.

But its leap of exceptionalism reached glorious heights with the World Cup which will linger long in the minds of billions. It will become a collective nostalgia decorated by Messi, Mbappe, the orderly crowds and wondrous Qatari order and management – exceptionalism again.

#          #          #          #

An Eerie Silence Over Afghanistan Could End With A Bang

An Eerie Silence Over Afghanistan Could End With A Bang

                                                                                          Saeed Naqvi

Ever since the Americans left Afghanistan, in August 2022 after a 20 year occupation, the country has become something of a black hole, informationwise. Sporadically wire services report that armed gunmen had targeted a hotel in Kabul popular with the Chinese. Earlier Russian journalism were searching for details on a blast in the Russian Embassy. The embassy has never been so targeted.

Shia places of worship have been frequently attacked, a sacrilege that must distract neighbouring Iran which has been in the grip of protests which do not seem to end.

Am I cherry picking by mentioning China, Russia, Iran, all countries which the West has lined up on the other side for the new Cold War? You will notice that the incidents mentioned above are short on details. Isn’t it strange that for the entire 20 years when the Americans occupied that wonderful country there was considerable media presence, mostly from the US and the UK. At the outset, when the US signaled comprehensive global dominance by fireworks on an unprecedented scale, the stars of the western media were paraded from Kabul to Tora Bora caves. The journalist who remained etched on my mind – and I have written about him often – was Geraldo Rivera who would flourish a gun in front of the camera. “This is to shoot dead Osama bin Laden.”

As the initial triumphalism of which the Rivera exuberance was a part, gave way to a sense of being bogged down, the Anglo-Saxon media did not quite feel upto reporting stories of diminishing US popularity. As Green on Blue picked up in frequency, US military appeared to have put a blanket on all negative stories. Green on Blue was a term used to describe Afghan soldiers, trained by the NATO alliance, open fire and kill western soldiers.

By any yardstick this was a story to be analyzed: Afghan self respect and pride and the incapacity of the Americans to strike any rapport with the local population except with middlemen and touts. In other words, stories which glorified the West were amplified, the ones that embarrassed were toned down and killed. Against the backdrop of the high moral ground the West occupies as the sole protectors and promoters of democracy, western hypocrisy stood out.

Most international news since the collapse of the Soviet Union has been about western military action – incursions, invasions, air strikes. These stories automatically become a western monopoly. If the US is waging war against a third world country, western military protection becomes an essential precondition for a western journalist to function.

Dick Cheney regularized a system of embedded journalists to cover the April 3, 2001 invasion of Iraq. It did not affect, say, Indian journalists because there was no Indian journalist covering foreign affairs. He mechanically extended his hand to seek alms by way of news from any western source – AP, Reuters, AFP, BBC, VOA, New York Times, etcetera. Did not the great editors spot an almighty gap, the singular absence of an Indian perspective in the coverage of foreign affairs? Is it not a shame that the India media has no bureaus in any SAARC country which includes Afghanistan?

It is the black hole of Kabul which I find so frustrating that I have meandered all over the place throwing mud on the western media which has failed us in a crucial story.

The other day I was introduced to a “diplomat from Afghanistan”. Who do you report to? Taleban is not recognized by any state. So, who does the diplomat do his diplomacy with and on whose behalf? The diplomat finally spoke, “we represent Afghanistan.”

Youtube the next day was quite startling. The Afghan Ambassador to New Delhi was being interviewed by a reporter in the Chanakyapuri embassy premises. The Afghan flag fluttered behind him. The Taleban do not recognize this flag. More incongruous was the photograph of President Ashraf Ghani mounted behind him. But Ashraf Ghani fled Afghanistan with a helicopter full of dollars? What on earth was going on?

The mystery gets deeper when you are told that 70 such ambassadors are floating around. The Afghan seat occupied at the UN has not been vacated by the Ambassador of the defunct regime.

Who pays for their upkeep? The other day, the US representative for Afghanistan, Thomas West, Zalmay Khalilzad’s replacement, was conferring with the Ambassador at the UN. According to my UN source he was travelling to New Delhi and then to Japan which he visits often. There is obviously considerable pressure on Japan to make investments in Afghan infrastructure, a field in which the Chinese are running away with the show.

Conjecture comes in when facts are absent or vague. There is after all, Quad to be activated. The purpose of Quad was to neutralize China. India too is in Quad.

Meanwhile diplomats are mulling over the talks in Moscow last month between India, Russia, and Iran. Why was Iran not so pampered when the National Security Adviser, Ajit Doval invited other Central Asian states to discuss Afghanistan.

It turns out, then, that news from Afghanistan is percolating through very slowly. At the same time reasonable diplomacy is afoot but without any tangible outcome. The Taleban has not incorporated other ethnicities into the Kabul apparatus. This, ostensibly, is the reason why Kabul under Taleb government has not been recognized by other states. Not for the first time, Indian representatives have been meeting Taleban but there is no movement which promises the emergence of a multi ethnic entity in Kabul.

In essence Russia, China, India, Iran and other central Asian republics are trying to stabilize Kabul. The US and its NATO allies are touching bases towards their strategic ends to deftly neutralize Russia and China. What was the outcome of Xi Jinping’s meet with the Japan Prime Minister Fumio Kishida? Does that neutralize US initiatives or is Japan playing both sides of the street. Why have regional diplomats been mentioning the Durand line ominously?

#          #          #          #