Surrender or fight?

Subroto Roy
The Statesman, 4 December

War is not a cricket match or Bollywood movie. Can India fight China if it must?

Armies of the subcontinent, all deriving from rather antiquated British military traditions, have only once since 1947 fought an external army ~ when China’s Communists, using Lin Biao’s military doctrines, attacked India in 1962 and India lost territory, soldiers and self-respect, gaining ignominy for half a century instead. India and Pakistan have fought wars against each other, India’s army has fought Kashmiri, Naga and other rebels, Pakistan’s army has brutalised Bangladeshi and Baluchi civilians and fought Pashtuns in Waziristan, Bangladeshi soldiers have brutalised tribal minorities and shot at Indian border guards, Sri Lanka’s military has fought Tamil rebels, Nepal has fought communist rebels, etc. Other than the 1962 Chinese attack, all warfare in the subcontinent has been domestic and internecine.

Official 1962 history

The official Government of India history of the 1962 war frankly says: “The Indian Army trained and fought like the British Army, unimaginative, elephantine, rule-bound and road-bound. Armies of Germany, Japan, USSR or China were vastly better war machines, and patterned very differently.” During the 1962 war, the US Ambassador JK Galbraith wrote to President Kennedy: “The great question is what the Chinese intend…. The Indians have consistently underestimated Chinese intentions…. the Indian Army in its command, organisation, tactics and equipment is extremely old-fashioned. The individual soldiers carry personal arms that are sixty years old and this can hardly give them the feeling of equality with opponents carrying modern light automatic weapons. The tactics are stuffy and rigid… Some of the commanders are very good. More still are the amiable frauds that rise to the top in any peacetime Army… ”

When diplomacy is exhausted and international conflict arises, there is always an option of surrendering or yielding sovereignty instead of standing up to fight, e.g. Vichy France yielding before Nazi Germany. There is always a choice between submission and fighting. Pakistan’s military has geared itself over decades only to fight India, and chosen to serve the West and China as desired towards that end. Whatever America wants in Pakistan, America gets, e.g., if American missiles need to enter Pakistani airspace to hit Afghan targets, the US Government does not seek Pakistani permission but merely informs them not to think offensive missiles have been sent from India, and they say okay.
India’s Army may be under some suspicion of being similarly geared to fight only Pakistan ~ and when India and Pakistan are armed and obsessed only with fighting one another, they can hardly think of taking on other adversaries. “India’s soldiers now stand sentinel along India’s frontiers; but they perform guard-duties and are not spear-heads for her advancing armies”, Peter Lyon in FS Northedge (ed), Foreign Policies of the Powers, 1973.

Certainly India’s military has not seemed keen to have anything but a highly defensive posture against Communist China. On 23 March 1991, Rajiv Gandhi at his residence released a fat book by a retired Army Chief on Indian military defence titled Prepare or Perish. The book’s author and the present author had been working together for Rajiv, and the former was asked why in the hundreds of pages of the book there was barely a mention of Indian military preparation against China. He replied that our strategy against China would have to be a defensive holding action which relied on the international community’s intervention before matters escalated ~ revealing a rather wild optimism about the efficacy of international relations. Another Army Chief years before him, General Thimayya himself, is reported to have said “as a soldier he could not think of a total war with China and would leave the dispute to be settled by the diplomats” (BN Mullick, The Chinese Betrayal, p. 318).

Thimayya realised India was weak after World War II facing Mao’s Communists who had two and a half million armed men, had acquired large stocks of American and Japanese weapons after defeating Chiang Kaishek, and were aggressive and experienced after decades of fighting culminating in the Korean war. (Three divisions were trained in India by the Americans and sent for Chiang in 1942-45 with supplies along the Stilwell Road or flown across the “hump”.) Indian soldiers had fought mostly under British or American commanders; in 1947, they disintegrated in chaos into the new armies of India and Pakistan who went to war with one another immediately over J&K.
Not only was India militarily weak until 1962, our political and diplomatic policies since 1949 had been consistently ones of flattery and appeasement, betraying our interests as well as our relationships with Chiang’s Nationalist Chinese and, most cruelly of all, with the Tibetans who shared India’s culture. Our first Ambassador to Beijing was a communist sympathiser, his son-in-law a leading Indian communist. India was the first country outside the Soviet bloc to recognise Communist China, the first to help Mao diplomatically in the Korean war, the pioneer of many UN resolutions to have Communist China admitted as a veto-holding Security Council member in place of Chiang’s Nationalists. We bent over backwards to accommodate and appease them over Tibet. All this got us less than nothing ~ Communist China soon enough joined hands with Pakistan’s greedy generals against us.
Zhou Enlai was said to be “one of those men who never tell the truth and never tell a lie. For them there is no distinction between the two. The speaker says what is appropriate to the circumstances. Zhou Enlai was a perfect gentleman; he was also a perfect Communist” (Father Laszlo Ladany, The Communist Party of China and Marxism, 1921-1985, Stanford 1988). Zhou enforced India’s political and diplomatic surrender, and then we failed to fight adequately on the military front. Communist China thus established its dominance over India. After Nixon and Kissinger made their devious opening to Mao and Zhou using Pakistan, American policy changed too, almost betraying Taiwan and certainly stamping American approval on the idea that between Communist China and India, China shall be seen as dominant.
For recent Chinese Ambassadors to New Delhi to brazenly use today the same language as Zhou did half a century ago is not a good sign but an indication of Communist China’s wish not to have a relationship with modern India on the basis of sovereign equality. For them to say Tawang must be theirs because the monastery there was where the sixth Dalai Lama was born and the Dalai Lama is Chinese and not Indian, is to reveal an aggressive subconscious against us. We may next hear it said Buddha himself was Chinese since he was probably born in Nepal, as an excuse for further Communist encroachment.

Diplomatic relations

The last time China’s Communists attacked India the world was distracted by the Cuban missile crisis just as it is distracted today with Iran and Iraq. The Tawang monastery issue today is symbolic of India’s entire relationship with China since 1949. There is no economic reason why bilateral trade in goods and services cannot continue but it may be high time India gathers some remaining self-respect and downgrades and then considers ending diplomatic relations with this aggressive dictatorship, awaiting instead the development of democracy and a free society for all of China’s great people, perhaps on the Taiwan-model. The Dalai Lama was greeted with great warmth in Taiwan and there is no doubt a free democratic China will seek a healthy new relationship with Tibet as befits great cultures. Militarily, India must indeed prepare for the next Communist aggression or perish, which requires real modernisation and efficiency in the armed forces and an end to corruption, indiscipline and incompetence.

(The author is Contributing Editor, The Statesman)

Wheeling ‘N’ dealing - Matter Of National Security And Sovereignty, Not Inter-Party Politicking

Sumer Kaul
The Statesman, 24 November

What the dickens is happening on the nuclear deal? Is it on or off? Or neither? Or both? Some day in the near future we will know. Right now, given the pirouetting party politics, it is impossible to say.
Actually, pirouette is not the right word. Considering that there is more swing than spin on view, trapeze may be a better description. First the Left swung into action and the Manmohan Singh government swerved from its position. Now the Left has swerved from its position and the government has swung into action!

To change the metaphor, after being in intensive care of the government, the deal suffered a seemingly terminal shock, courtesy the Left, and was duly shifted to the morgue, causing its principal protagonist to philosophize about life after death, etc. Then, last week, it was resuscitated, courtesy the same Left, and was promptly shifted to the post-trauma recovery room.

‘N’ for Nandigram

With a view quickly to restore it to good health, the government has dispatched post-haste AEA chief Dr Kakodkar and team to Vienna to negotiate on India-specific safeguards, so-called, with the IAEA. The first of a three-stage follow-up to operationalise the Indo-US deal (other two being a formal “yes” by the Nuclear Suppliers Group and approval by the American Congress), it was this very step that the Left had vetoed just last month.

To change the metaphor once again (forgive me, but then Indian politics itself is a bizarre mosaic of metaphors), what prompted Karat and company to change the red signal? True, they have as yet changed it only to amber; they say they will examine the agreement with the IAEA before deciding whether to make it green or go back to red. Needless to say, they are at liberty to do and undo their acts but people at large certainly want to know what happened in the span of a month to cause the Left to abandon its earlier position.

Could it be a different N-deal ~ N for Nandigram, the bruised and battered area in West Bengal that easily qualifies as the ideologically licentious state CPI-M’s crowning disgrace? The BJP thinks so. There are others too who believe that the Left concession on the IAEA negotiations has to do with the fear that the Centre may break its intriguing restraint and come out with an appropriately adverse reaction, if not also some action, on Nandigram. Although opportunistic trade-off are now a staple of Indian politics, particularly the politics of coalition dharma, the N-deal for N-deal allegation may not be true, or wholly true.

Buying time appears to be as likely a reason for the Left's semi-somersault on Vienna: Time for its ruling formation in West Bengal, time for the UPA government and time for the deal operationalisation time-table to elapse. This impression is strengthened by the fact that even after agreeing to the IAEA talks, the Left has reiterated its opposition to the 123 Agreement and the Hyde Act. An unnamed “senior Left source” has been quoted as saying that in case the safeguards agreement is signed, “the government will be on autopilot”, adding for good measure, “we will not allow the government to go to the NSG”.
If this is the case Mr Karat, why did you retreat on the question of approaching the IAEA? And if, on its part, the Manmohan Singh government knows the Left’s post-Vienna mind, and it cannot but know, why is it going through the motions? Given the Bush administration’s deadline, surely the Left’s okay to the safeguards parleys cannot safeguard the UPA’s full term. In the event, what is the frantic Kakodkar activity all about?

Does it have something to do with the government’s alleged wooing of the also anti-deal BJP as an alternative back-up for its survival in office? One can of course never tell what tidings ~ and turnabouts ~ tomorrow may bring! But as of today, the BJP says it won’t budge. Advani said the same to the visiting Henry Kissinger.

That brings us to the strange and rather disagreeable happenings between the Left’s hundred per cent unconditional “no” last month and its thirty-three per cent conditional “yes” last week. While the first hurt the government and the Prime Minister in particular, the second has the potential to deeply dismay the keen-to-profit NSG and particularly the Washingtonian co-architect of the deal and his overeager nuclear tradesmen.

Involved in seeing the deal through are high-pedestal personal prestige (on both sides) and immense corporate profits. The GoI has expended megabucks on lobbying for the deal in the US Congress (plus quite some “small change” on printing quintals of pro-deal literature). Big money and big effort to boot; among other things, the protagonists stringed together a group of retired high-ranking civil and military functionaries to canvas support for the deal through an open epistle to members of Parliament ~ obviously as a counterblast to a similar move by anti-deal nuclear scientists. Difficult to say what effect, if any, these missives have had on the netalog (we may come to know during the impending debate on the issue), but such activity has rarely been seen before.

Nor can one recall a precedent for what the Bush administration did and is doing to push the deal in India. Even as the under secretary of state, the overtalking Nicholas Burns has been burning the proverbial midnight oil to virtually admonish India to proceed with the deal and do it within the prescribed timeframe, the US ambassador has reportedly been meeting with the political naysayers in a bid to bring them in line.
In this game of overt meddling in India’s political affairs, the man who stole the limelight was Henry Kissinger. Claiming that his visit had nothing to do with the deal, he nevertheless made it a point to tell us how good the deal is for us, throwing in the “friendly” warning that if it gets nixed now, it will not be easy to salvage it. So we had better quickly go ahead with it!

Nobody can accuse him of any impropriety. He holds no official position and is free to visit a free country and meet people and air his views. But one is surprised that some leading politicians of both the Right and the Left let him try to brainwash them about the deal and, worse, feel elated that he chose to meet them.

To the morgue

This Machiavellian former US Secretary of State (under a tricky dick President), the secret bombardier-in-chief of Cambodia, the man who made no (diplomatic) bones about being anti-India, called us bastards and our then Prime Minister a bitch, and sent the US nuclear warship to the Bay of Bengal during the Bangladesh war ~ this man should have been treated as a persona non grata, certainly not as “an honoured dignitary”, as one major politician beamingly called him after their meeting.

Questionable as all this activity on the part of the Bush regime and our hospitality to the interference are, we shall let it pass in the confident hope that the UPA-USA pressure blitz will not alter the stand of the political (as well as non-political) opponents of the deal. Messrs Karat and Advani ~ and the merrily fence-sitting leaders of other parties ~ must realise that the deal is not a party quarrel; it is an issue of the utmost national import.

Whatever its dubious plusses, it has huge minus points for India’s security and sovereignty. It must be sent to the morgue.

The author is a veteran columnist and former editor

CPM supporters to governor: Where were you all these months? CRPF hatao

PRONAB MONDAL AND ANSHUMAN PHADIKAR
The Telegraph, 3 December

Nandigram, Dec. 2: Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi today held countless hands and a cricket bat in Nandigram, inviting comparisons with the Gandhigiri cliche.

But another — and blunter — version of Gandhigiri was waiting for him when his white Qualis drove up to Tekhali bridge, across which lay Nandigram, at 11.10am.

Around 100 people, including 50 women, formed a human wall, forcing the 30- vehicle convoy to stop.

“Where were you in the past 11 months? Why have you come now? Do you know what we had to face here?” shouted Atashi Jana, a resident of the nearby Gokulnagar, leading the crowd towards Gandhi’s car.

As the governor rolled down the window, Atashi cried out: “We want the CRPF to withdraw immediately.” The others joined in a chorus: “CRPF choley jaak. CRPF hatao (let the CRPF go. Throw them out).”

The governor, patiently listening to them, tried to reason with Atashi. “Ora to bhalor jonnei achhe (they are here for your good).”

He added: “People gained confidence after the CRPF deployment and they will remain here.”

But for that hint of steel, the governor — the highest-ranking authority yet to visit Nandigram — was largely restrained during his tour.

A discordant note was struck with the stated position of the Bengal government when he said Nandigram had a great future for agriculture, and the state and the Centre should look into it for the area’s sustainable growth.


Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had repeatedly cited diminishing returns from farming to say industrialisation was the only alternative to fight poverty.

“I have seen fishing and farming going on side by side. I think Nandigram can be a lesson of a very different kind for India,” Gandhi said, pointing to the multitude of water bodies there.

But the comment was mild compared with his Diwali statement that termed the CPM’s recapture of Nandigram “unlawful and unacceptable”. Today, Gandhi said: “I made the statements that were required at that point of time.”

At Tekhali, the CPM local leadership had decided to block the governor’s car to air “grievances”. “The blockade was a part of that effort,” said Ashoke Bera, the Nandigram I panchayat samiti president.

Before leaving, the governor leaned forward to tell the DIG (Midnapore range), N. Ramesh Babu: “Be impartial.”

The cavalcade then rolled towards Satengabari. The governor covered a 1km dusty road by foot to reach ransacked houses belonging to Bhoomi Uchchhed Pratirodh Committee supporters.

“Sir, where will we live? My daughters and I have only a tarpaulin sheet for shelter,” said Rabeya Biwi, 28, mother of Mumtaz, 3, and Saira, 5, clasping his hands.

Soaked in sweat, Gandhi consoled her: “Reconstruct your house for the sake of your children.”

Without warning, Najma Biwi, 32, ran up to him and fell at his feet. “Sir, please don’t leave our fate in the hands of local police. CRPF ke jete deben na (don’t allow the CRPF to go).”

“The CRPF will not go, they will be here for your security,” Gandhi told her.

When Gandhi was about to leave, a group of CPM supporters whose houses were ransacked 11 months ago blocked his way. “You will have to visit our houses, too,” said Manoranjan Manna. Gandhi promptly agreed.

Outside Manna’s house, two groups started accusing each other. Maneka Biwi caught Gandhi’s hands and started pulling him to her house.

“Aapni oder obostha dekhlen aar amar ta dekhben na? (You have seen their condition and will not see ours?)”

“Of course, I will,” said Gandhi and followed her.

The two groups started pointing fingers at each other, saying: “Sir, he is the person who set my house ablaze. Arrest him,” shouted a villager.

The governor stood in silence, looking at the policemen around him.

Later, at Sonachura, he stepped into the house of Sankar Samanta, a CPM panchayat member who was hacked to death on January 6. Sankar’s widow Sabita and father Sudarshan embraced him and broke down.

“You came to the Raj Bhavan... I recognise you. How is your daughter?” he asked Sabita.

Gandhi told reporters that the process of restoring peace has begun, but it would take time. “What is abhay (fearlessness)? (It is) not just a land without fear, but also a land where fear does not lurk. We should have fearlessness in Nandigram.”

NEVER A FREE LUNCH - India’s dependence on foreign fund inflows is cause for worry

S.L. Rao
The Telegraph, 3 December

The sensitive index of the Bombay Stock Exchange has risen from 5591 at the end of 2003-2004 to 6493 in 2005, 11280 in 2006, a range of 8929 to 14652 in 2007 and in the year 2007-8 so far between 12455 and 18814. Most Indian investors must now believe that there is a Santa Claus after all. Even the small fall last week was followed by another large rise. But is this likely to be sustained? Conditions have become much more difficult, markets have probably reached their peak range, the only direction for the next few months is erratically downwards, and that may be true for gross domestic product growth as well.

Indian economic growth rates stimulated the stock markets. Average growth in the last three years was 8.6 per cent while the investment rate rose by 30 per cent, financed largely by domestic savings, not by savings of others overseas (unlike the United States of America that uses savings of others by a high current account deficit). Our current account deficit — highest among comparable countries despite the rise in the balance of trade deficit (imports in relation to exports) — is lower than before. Expansion in domestic demand accounts for all the growth. The result of this rising demand is that supply constraints rule today in every sphere — tradable manufactured goods, physical infrastructure and social infrastructure.

The last time this happened was in the late Nineties when there were substantial capacity additions as a result of capacity shortages. These capacities became surplus when demand fell and overall growth declined. It was 2003 before new investments took place and additional capacities were created.

That may not be repeated. This time there is substantial and growing public as well as private investment in infrastructure, and a consumption boom. Interest rates came down sharply towards the late Nineties and despite rate increases since, are far lower than in earlier years. However they remain higher than in developed economies. With relaxations in external commercial borrowings, overseas borrowings have surged. Borrowings have been invested in new capacities and domestic and overseas acquisitions. Overseas acquisitions obviously add to the risks of default if the acquisitions fail to produce early rewards or are not serviced on schedule. Defaults will hurt India’s credit ratings.

Equity investments by overseas investors have risen sharply and they have added a continuing and substantial inflow of foreign funds into stock markets. The low interest rates in the US and Japan, the India growth story, relatively lower price/earnings (almost half) ratios in India as compared to China, the perceived security of Indian investments, the easy repatriation of funds, have all combined to produce this inflow. In addition there are the ECBs which have added to liquidity.

The Reserve Bank of India has tried to soften the inflationary impact of this liquidity by hesitant raising of interest rates, and more often by raising the cash reserve ratio. The surge in liquidity continues, with its inflationary potential.

So far, despite the expansion of liquidity (21 per cent in money supply over the year), inflation has been contained. This is largely due to declining import costs, but chiefly due to subsidized fuel and power prices despite rising imported crude prices. Fuel subsidies alone add about Rs 80,000 crore to oil company losses. By leaving them out of the deficit calculation, the government is able to show a fictitiously lower fiscal deficit which is yet higher than that in comparable developing countries.

Apart from concealing inflation numbers by subsidizing consumer prices for fuels, prices of primary products (food and so on) are rising. Hence the claimed inflation in the wholesale price index hides the reality. The wholesale price index shows a much lower rise in price than what most consumers actually pay.

The RBI is obviously concerned by this fictitiously low inflation rate. It has already restrained ECBs and further RBI actions can be expected soon to restrain liquidity. The RBI is unlikely to easily raise interest rates because that will attract further foreign fund inflows, add to liquidity and, also, adversely affect industrial growth.

The question is whether rising stock prices, large foreign fund inflows, apparently low inflation, high levels of GDP growth are sustainable for long. The astonishing rise in equity prices (by 50 per cent in one year) could turn negative because of many factors — a decline in domestic and export demand, rising rupee exchange value reducing export margins, swamping of the domestic market with cheap imports, a monsoon failure, collapse in foreign economies and rise in oil prices. Brazil and China have had much higher rises in stock prices but may not be as vulnerable.

China has for many years managed to hold its currency values at stable levels despite much larger inflows of funds. This is perhaps because a greater part of Chinese inflows are in more stable direct investments and also because of substantial export surpluses. If the inflows into financial markets increase as they are now doing, the volatility of such funds might make currency stability more difficult to maintain.

Export surpluses might fall if the American economy declines, as it shows signs of doing. China may have to impose higher interest rates to contain the adverse impact of decline in the dollar. China also cannot switch to the euro as other countries can, because of its huge dollar holdings, whose value will be hit if it makes such a switch. However, a decline in exports may not hurt the Chinese economy too adversely because the value added within China by exports is relatively small.

In India, the easy availability of cheap foreign funds, the boom in equity markets, and substantially increased government investment in physical infrastructure, social spending and agriculture have stimulated industrial investment, domestic demand and not exports. Hence a decline in the US economy will not have too much of an adverse effect on India. What will hurt us however, is a decline in foreign funds inflows. This can happen if interest rates rise in the US, Japan and Europe; if domestic demand declines; if the monsoon fails (unlikely since it has been quite good till late in the season); if the RBI constrains liquidity by too much or raises interest rates to contain inflation; and if there is political instability.

Equity prices have risen too fast, too quickly. Unlike in the past, Indian shares are responding more to future expectations than current performance. Slowing down of industrial production, rising crude prices — adding to already high government deficits if correctly calculated, rising rupee values, rising imports, falling exports are worrying signs. If fuel subsidies are cut, inflation will rise. If subsidized prices continue, government spending on other sectors must inevitably be reduced. This will hurt growth. Rating agencies might downgrade India into a higher risk category. This will also hit Indian company borrowings and foreign fund inflows. If the US raises interest rates to moderate inflation and improves the exchange value of the dollar, fund inflows will be hit again. If American demand for imports declines, we might not be as badly affected, but will face increased competition from cascading Chinese imports into India.

Thus, while we are insulated to some extent from an American economic downturn, our dilemma is our heavy dependence on volatile foreign fund inflows, and the sharp increase in crude prices. We may exult about our foreign exchange reserves. But reining them in could hurt economic growth. Growth has vastly increased government tax revenues and stimulated public investment in physical and social infrastructure. These could significantly improve the human condition in India.

The Indian economic situation is not as good as it seems. Oil prices are very high and we will have to manage them without raising inflation. The government will have to restrain growth and reduce dependence on volatile foreign funds. Perhaps the next government will have to take this action. The stock markets are unlikely, until the world economy stabilizes, to show the spectacular increases of the last year.

The author is former director-general, National Council for Applied Economic Research

Pliant legal eagles - Pakistan Can Move On, At Least A Little

Sayeed Hasan Khan and Kurt Jacobsen
The Statesman, 30 November

In the late 19th century a satirical American newspaper character named “Mr Dooley,” a fictional Chicago bartender, commented in common man’s terms on the burning questions of the day, including a shrewd observation that “the Supreme Court follows the election returns.” The lofty judges, despite their show of impartiality and objectivity, are usually influenced by shifts of power and public opinion. This was not necessarily a bad thing, just a fact of political life. Putting an ear to the ground arguably is even a democratic act. Tempering cold formal legality with a sensible bow to widespread political sentiment is sometimes a wise course, particularly if it serves the long term interests of the citizenry. The law is mostly a work in progress.

Supreme Courts lately have not exhibited much in the way of impressive intellect, political sensitivity or moral fibre. Or so it seems. Need we remind anyone that the endlessly disastrous presidency of George W Bush first lurched forward in 2000 when the US Supreme Court arbitrarily prevented a recount in Florida that would have made the recent Nobel laureate Al Gore President instead? Five ultra-conservative justices plainly voted their partisan interest over the letter of the law. The irony is that Bush blithely proceeded to disregard all court rulings that threatened to interfere in any way with his administration’s wild whims abroad or at home.

Stunning pettiness

In India, too a few years ago, Supreme Court justices declared activist Arundhati Roy in criminal contempt for criticising their decision in the Narmada dam dispute. The justices claimed that she brought the court as an institution into disrepute ~ as if anyone could surpass the damage they inflicted upon themselves by their stunning display of pettiness. They came awfully close to the stance that L’etat, c’est moi. This is what comes of insulating upper crust justices from the everyday knockabout lives of the majority. Keeping elites apart from the wider experience of the populace does not seem to breed sound decisions or, for that matter, good mental health.

The Pakistan Supreme Court, for all its adulatory press lately, is no exception. Througout the year, it has been portrayed abroad as stalwart saviors of the nation. Hardly. Through egotistical dithering, mixed with pointless personal vindictiveness, the justices stoked the very troubles they are celebrated for solving. The justices grandly acted as though they, not the nation, were all that mattered in implementing a delicate bargain to restore some semblance of democracy. All they needed to do to avoid imposition of the 3 November emergency’ and all the ensuing mayhem, was to play along with the negotiated arrangement ~ a quick validation of Musharraf as President for the next five years, then a general election in January, and the shedding of Musharraf’s odious epaulettes afterward. If ever there was a moment for prudent realism this was it. They preferred posturing instead.

It is not as if the justices were renowned for their personal probity and courageous devotion to the law. Even former Chief Justice Iftikhar Hussein Chaudhry, whose dismissal in March kicked off the crisis, was eager to collect personal perks. Indeed Pakistan’s judiciary, up and down the ladder, scarcely is seen by citizens as a reliable dispenser of justice. Most moneyed people who approach the courts have memorized the informal price lists for a favourable decision through an appropriate lawyer. Why were they so suddenly and stupidly unyielding? Perhaps the storyline in the foreign press of noble justices facing down a wicked dictator made the impressionable judges giddy. Perhaps a sudden bestowal of saintliness is too much for anyone.

Then again, perhaps the situation was too simple for convoluted legalistic mentalities to grasp. Recall that Bhutto, Musharraf and several small opposition parties worked out a deal for transition to democracy, with the US acting as mediator. All Musharraf needed was assurance of his Presidency. Instead, the court dangerously dithered, leaving Musharraf who was clearly looking for a safe exit, with the unpleasant prospect of being stripped bare before a legion of enemies. Could anyone be so dumb as to ignore what was at stake? The judges evidently calculated that even though they risked sabotaging the transition deal, that they still would be hailed as heroes worthy of bird-stained statues in public parks. The formula ~ General bad, lawyers good ~ was a rare moment where lawyers find themselves in good odour anywhere. Such moments don’t last.

If things are working out in the end, with Musharraf doffing the uniform before instead of after the elections (who cares so long as he does it?), it is no thanks to the preening legal eagles. So President Musharraf repopulated the Supreme Court, is releasing the detainees, and got his way ~ with the nervous blessing of the US. Did anyone really imagine a better practical solution was in the offing? Pakistan can move on, at least a little. So what next ?

In the four provinces caretaker governments are in place which effectively are the nominees of Musharraf or of collaborating political parties, which include the Muslim League (Q) and MQM, a regional party in Sind representing the partition wave of migrants from India, and some smaller parties. The Peoples Party is strong in southern Punjab while Nawaz Sharif’s Muslim League (N) dominates Lahore.

Imran Khan will most likely end up in bed with Nawaz Sharif and secure a seat with his backing. In Sindh the majority of seats will be grabbed by the PPP while urban constituencies will go to MQM, with the PML (Q) coming in third.

The wild card factor is Benazir Bhutto. Her duplicitous behaviour from the start of her negotiations with Musharraf has done damage to her party and benefited Nawaz Sharif. If there were a third side of her mouth she’d be speaking out of it. Benazir spouts populist slogans asking Musharaf to depart and swivels in a trice to issue statements supportive of a cozy partnership.

What matters most to the US is insurgency on the borders. The stormy North West Frontier Province is governed since 2002 by a fundamentalist coalition and is facing the insurgency as well. The JUI, led by Maulvi Fazalurahman, was the major coalition partner. The Baluchistan government too is run by the PML (Q) in partnership with Fazalurahman’s party. The mullahs will make electoral inroads in Baluchistan and the Frontier. An agreement the government made a year ago with local armed groups in Waziristan collapsed after the Lal Masjid stirred retaliatory assaults on soldiers there.

Civil war

No future government can survive if the civil war continues. So a political dialogue with the Taliban insurgency, no matter how repulsive to US eyes, is on the cards and Fazalurahman is the only leader who can initiate a credible dialogue. He was the leader of the opposition in the last parliament and Musharraf could not have kept any lid on violence without his support. Bhutto and Sharif reluctantly allow that they need Musharraf to placate the Americans. In this acknowledgement they show precious little trust in the Pakistani people.

No leader is willing to harness the resulting resentment and apply it for ameliorative change in policies. The tragic farce is that no one represents the poor who are two-thirds of the nation. Some will resort to religious militancy until, like many US evangelicals today, they realize they are being used by cynical elites, and also learn that sharia cannot solve economic needs.

Meanwhile, the spectacle of American advisors coming to Pakistan to promote democracy that they are busy undermining in their own country is beyond burlesque. But that is 'high politics' for you.

The authors are freelance journalists and researchers. Their book No Clean Hands was published recently

The ugly truth - A State Being Driven Towards Social Strife

Ravindra Kumar
The Statesman, 23 November

The Government of West Bengal and its Chief Minister can perhaps be excused for failing to anticipate that a protest organized by an occasionally strident but generally benign Muslim organization could turn violent, especially when the ostensible grouse was the continued presence of an author from across the border.

The Government of West Bengal cannot be excused for ignoring words of caution sounded by several persons, some of them of the highest eminence, including the Governor of West Bengal and a retired judge of the Supreme Court who until the other day was the repository of Marxist wisdom and the best known practitioner of judicial circumlocution. There were others, too, such as this writer, of far lesser consequence but no less earnest in the belief that the state was being driven towards social strife.

Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee ignored everyone who tried to show him the error of his ways; failed to assess why Mr Gopalkrishna Gandhi felt a sense of “cold horror”. His colleague in the Communist Party of India (Marxist), and the party’s state secretary, Mr Biman Bose, did worse by heaping scorn on those who offered constructive, but unpalatable advice.
Disastrous politics

Early last month, this writer had warned of the consequences of the Government’s disastrous policies: “But does Mr Bhattacharjee realize what he is doing? To the cause of administration? To the cause of stable, strife-free civil society? Indeed to the cause of his political party? To understand this, it is necessary to evaluate what this government has accomplished in the months since Mr Bhattacharjee’s party was returned to power in 2006... It has managed to alienate Muslims by a show of brute force in stifling opposition to plans for a chemical hub in Muslim-dominated Nandigram. It would require an incredibly naïve administrator to assume there would be no consequences of such actions in a state where one of four citizens is a Muslim. This, too, is a festering wound, for while plans for a chemical hub in Nandigram may have been shelved the trauma of having lived in fear will not dissipate in a hurry.”

In March, I had asked, “Who would have thought that the CPI(M) would face so much opposition to its programmes from its own allies, to the extent that some of them would even think about calibrating their support? Or that significant numbers of the state’s Muslims, hitherto considered a safe vote bank, would actually resist a Marxist administration in the manner that they have?”

That article eight months ago added: “Worse, his administration has been hopelessly ham-handed, even dishonest in dealing with crises. The rape and killing of a girl in Singur was brushed under the carpet; the suicide of a farmer was described as the outcome of family squabbles; the first wave in killings in Nandigram were attributed to Muslim fundamentalists, and the police action this week is sought to be justified as a necessary consequence of the administration imposing its will on the people. In the midst of all this, there has not been one gesture of humility, not one show of spontaneous humanitarian concern for those who died, not one piece of evidence to suggest that Mr Bhattacharjee is capable of owning up to a mistake.”

It is inarguably in the poorest taste to repeat oneself, or to suggest in the midst of tragedy that I told you so. The protest on Wednesday may well have been aimed at Taslima Nasreen but it was staged ~ or from a Marxist perspective, hijacked ~ by people seething over the violence in Nandigram and the conduct of Mr Bhattacharjee’s administration in the days following the death of Rizwanur Rehman. More than anything else, it was the reaction of people who felt they had been taken for granted, for far too long.

In the Rizwan case and with Nandigram, the High Court had to intervene, and on both occasions, the Left Front was seen as accepting judicial pronouncements less than gracefully. Indeed, some leaders had the gall to suggest that the court’s orders ~ on petitions from ordinary, affected people ~ were an interference with the powers of the executive! In the face of such monumental arrogance, how could Mr Bhattacharjee, Mr Bose and Mr Benoy Konar not have expected people to erupt some day? It was bound to happen, and it did.

The CPI-M prides itself on its meetings and its conclaves. Do the party’s leaders now realize that these meetings are now little more than platforms for powerful leaders to mouth pre-settled positions, and are not the interactive sessions they would have us believe they are? If these meetings, in the party’s headquarters in New Delhi and in Alimuddin Street, were truly interactive sessions someone would have told Mr Bhattacharjee he was playing with fire. The party general secretary would have had him on the mat, and given him the dressing down he so clearly deserves.

Instead a handful of leaders, representing a confluence of vested interests, kept getting into huddles and kept saying the same or similar things ~ the Maoists are responsible, the reactionary Right is responsible, the Governor should join the Trinamul Congress, the media ought to have been shut down and the judiciary is crossing all bounds.

Maoists? In Communist-ruled West Bengal, thirty years after the silent revolution of the proletariat? If indeed there are Maoists advocating armed struggle in this egalitarian paradise of Mr Jyoti Basu and Mr Bhattacharjee, Marxism must have failed. Yet, it requires an especially compromised intellect to blame the Maoists over and over again for every failure of administration.

But perhaps the greatest tragedy for West Bengal is that the ruling party in the state is an intrinsic part of the coalition ruling at the Centre. Dependent on the Left's support, the Centre has failed to play the role it is expected to when the administration in the state has blundered. Such a role need not necessarily involve the invocation of Articles 355 or 356, but could even be a reprimand ~ gentle or severe as the circumstances may warrant ~ from the Prime Minister or Home Minister.

Problem to crisis

Instead, we have had at various times, and as the state regressed from problem to crisis, the Prime Minister first praising the Chief Minister and then, in the face of overwhelming evidence of incompetence, only mildly rebuking him. We have had the Home Minister waffle on in the Lok Sabha and the Information and Broadcasting minister indulge in the most palpable kind of fence-sitting. In the matter of West Bengal, Dr Manmohan Singh has shown himself to be a weakling, indeed an embarrassment, although it must be said in fairness to him that he has yet to receive his cue from Mrs Sonia Gandhi.

For whatever reason, the state government did react to the problems in central Kolkata on Wednesday. It called the Army out, and this is not the time to ponder if such alacrity was prompted by the desire to distance its police from any possible action against Muslims, or whether the reaction was excessive. The important thing is that violence has not spread. However, the Army will return to its barracks, and West Bengal will have to confront once again the ugly scar the Marxist administration has left on the psyche of its people. That is the ugly truth we have to live with.

The writer is Editor, The Statesman.

Himachal’s third force

Vepa Rao
The Statesman, 1 December

The Bahujan Samaj Party could not have timed its major foray into Himachal politics better. It has put both the big parties ~ the Congress and BJP ~ on their guard and has injected into them a dose of insecurity. Discuss the forthcoming, second phase of Assembly election with any one, it ends on a sardonic note: “Let’s see what the BSP will do to the voting patterns. Except the die-hard workers in both the camps who “publicly” dismiss its impact, the general feeling is, “kuch bhi ho sakta hai (anything can happen)”. Such is the magic of Ms Mayawati's well-orchestrated “social engineering” that it is catching the ordinary people’s imagination.

It is also catching in its sprawled out net many disgruntled but experienced leaders (from the bigger parties) who have to either bow to party impositions or face political wilderness. Its role as a sanctuary for “rebels” from the Congress and BJP ~ especially those denied party tickets ~ is becoming more defined by the day.

Many from both the big parties camping in Delhi for tickets were in regular touch with the BSP so that they could switch over and fight the elections under its banner, instead of sitting out in the cold for another five years. The concept of “social engineering” with its exalted “inclusive” philosophy can provide just the right face-saving umbrella to come under.

It’s the power struggle within the Congress and the BJP that has weakened the two big parties and provided the ideal breeding conditions for the “third force” in Himachal Pradesh. The regular mud-slinging matches between the warring factions are the stuff of gossip everywhere, thereby lowering the two big parties’ image and their stalwarts' stature in the public eye. Both the big parties have ruled at different times, causing disillusionment among the people, as also the inevitable “anti-incumbency” factor. Bad experiences of some people during not only the present regime but also all the previous tenures of the BJP could be a force to reckon with. Memories of good deeds die quickly; but bad memories fester and infect the public faster.

Congress spokesmen claim that the BSP will cut into only the BJP votebanks; while its counterparts in the BJP have been returning the “compliment”! They also hope that this effort to set up “the third front” will fail ~ just like the two other attempts in the past by disgruntled Congress leaders, who eventually returned to the Congress fold.
Many sceptics quote figures from the last Assembly election (in 2003). The BSP had put up only 23 candidates (in a total of 68 constituencies) ~ they all lost, polling a total of only 21,469 votes. The BSP’s choice of the former Congress leader Major Vijay Singh Mankotia ~ the Rajput hailing from Kangra ~ as its chief in Himachal Pradesh may not inspire confidence among the Dalit voters.

The Schedule Caste population in District Kangra (with the largest number of Assembly seats) alone is about 22 per cent, while the OBCs account for 30 per cent. There are also doubts about how well and how long Ms Mayawati and Major Mankotia could work together ~ their political cultures and styles of functioning are so different. The fact remains that the BSP has not done much work at the grass-roots level in the state and has woken up to the coming election a bit late.

But at the same time, the main leaders in the Congress and the BJP are also unable to ignore the BSP’s threat to their parties’ supremacy in Himachal politics. That they issue statements underplaying the BSP’s importance regularly amounts to their admission of the new player’s potential to upset their applecarts in many constituencies ~ especially where victories hang by thin margins.

Of course, no one would think of the BSP forming the government, or even winning many seats. Political stalwarts in the state were amused when Ms Mayawati anointed Major Mankotia as Himachal's “next chief minister”, while launching her party’s electoral bid at an impressive public rally at Dharamshala in July.

Even she, a shrewd politician, would not be nursing illusions of capturing the state so soon. But power-sharing could be possible, just the way the former Union minister Mr Sukh Ram’s Himachal Vikas Congress helped the BJP to form the government with a wafer-thin majority in 1998. Even such a small gain could be one more step in the big elephant’s march towards Delhi.

This much-bandied prospect of Ms Mayawati becoming the Prime Minister sooner or later has also become another attraction. “Who knows” and “why not” are typical responses we hear often. The fiery Dalit lady who rose from a humble background to vanquish political giants and is now seen to be uniting all castes (unlike other parties that have been playing divisive politics) has somewhere touched a chord in many people’s hearts.

Ms Mayawati’s charisma among women voters cannot be underestimated ~ especially because in male-monopolised Himachal politics, both the Congress and the BJP have been treating women as mere appendages. Besides, who wouldn’t hitch his or her wagon to a fast rising national star like Ms Mayawati!

It is also believed that the BSP is ready to unload cash in plenty for the election campaign. Some say it would be more than about Rs 50 crore ~ a whopping amount in a small, cash-starved state this. The party has ferried around Major Mankotia and company in a hired chopper during the recent polls in the tribal areas. Whispers were doing the rounds that large envelopes containing currency notes and advertisement material were handed to journalists at Ms Mayawati’s Press conference in Dharamshala in July. In this state where honesty and simplicity still prevail, such bits of gossip make people sit up. To be fair, they may even be wild allegations. But during election time, such widespread perceptions in the public may count.

Data suggests that on an average only Rs 3 lakh was spent officially by 80 per cent of the winning candidates in Himachal’s last Assembly election in 2003 ~ against the Rs 7 lakh limit fixed by the Election Commission. And, the value system here, too, is no longer insulated ~ there must be many worthies who will go after the scent of big money. There are all the signs that money will wield more influence in the coming elections than before.

Himachal is on the threshold of an industrial boom. Mushrooming industries with money-bags in regions like Baddi and Barotiwala are waiting to fish in troubled waters. The BSP’s think-tank and its experienced managers are probably better equipped to handle such “opportunities” as local, self-conscious leaders. Add to it, the prospects of what people refer to as “UP-style politics” (aggressive, no-holds-barred efforts) entering the state!

The BSP’s role in the coming polls should be understood against this wider, emerging canvas of life in the state ~ not merely in terms of a few seats it may win or its inroads into other parties’ votebanks. Its potential to modify the composition of, and attitudes in, the other two big parties is considerable.

It can change Himachal’s political culture and chemistry in the long run. Provided of course, it works for long-term gains in the state, instead of lapsing into silence after the polls.

(The author is The Statesman’s Shimla-based correspondent.)

More than the govt lobby

Vepa Rao
The Statesman, 28 November

An objective assessment of governing agencies, other political institutions and individuals is difficult in a vast, complex democracy like ours. Opinion polls and other “studies” have been found to be either inadequate or motivated. Ours is a society where facts are marshalled to support or contradict opinions ~ instead of allowing facts to precede conclusions. The ordinary, apolitical voter stands amidst the simmering confusion bred by brazen, conflicting political campaigns and exercises his “right” in the darkness of bias. He has no access to truth. No wonder, Satyameva jayate had to be "stated" as a part of our national credo, instead of its being part of life.

Himachal Pradesh’s voter, too, is in the grip of such no-holds-barred propaganda from all parties involved in the power war. Allegations, counter-allegations, unsubstantiated charges and claims fly around. Nobody knows the truth. Even the Press with its limited agenda and resources, has to go more by what the politicians “say” than what they “do”. But in recent times, voters across the state seem to be developing a subjective, individualistic approach compounded by its sheer size into an “objective” assessment of sorts. With education and modernity creeping in, the herd-mentality of voting en masse at the behest of group leaders is diminishing. Caste and regional affinities and family ties continue to matter, even dominate rural voting patterns ~but they can no longer be taken for granted. Instead, “visible” development (like roads, health and educational facilities, employment generating projects) that affects their lives “directly” counts more than the state’s "overall development" which cannot be verified or vouched for to be in the people’s best interests.
The average voter does not have the acumen and resources for large-sized evaluations. He is sceptical when you talk of ideologies, GNP, nuclear policies, such concepts as socialism and secularism, except when translated into visible activities affecting his life “directly”. These voters have extended this element of “directness”. It appears, the voter is influenced by how his own “personal” life (and that of family members and friends) has been affected by a party in governance. Has an unemployed member been given a job? Were you given a “good” posting in service? Were you transferred to a place far from home? Did your representation for the wife’s transfer closer to home succeed, though the MLA or the minister had promised to help? Did the authorities concerned or the leaders of a party help you when you had a problem? How was their behaviour with you? Who graced your home at your daughter's wedding or bereavement in your family?

Such factors may look trivial ~ but put together, they acquire a momentum. Besides, life is hard in the hills where “little matters” do affect daily existence. Ask the hill-folk who have to carry patients on their shoulders for miles on the rugged mountain tracks to reach a road-head and then travel long distances towards a hospital. Ram Sethu and Rahul Gandhi are not the issues here; road connectivity and health care are.

The candidates as “individuals” in constituencies are coming under scrutiny (of “individual” voters) rather than their party promises and manifestos. Politicians accept in private that their speeches about values, traditions and culture are received with increasing boredom and may even boomerang. The electronic media, too, has been bringing about silent transformation in attitudes in Himachal Pradesh. Comparisons with life-styles and facilities in the more affluent sections in big cities have a quiet but incisive effect on the people. The status of “contentment”, once considered a virtue and a philosophy here, is slowly making way for ambition, consumerism and a desire for modern facilities, gadgets, technologies and showy lifestyles.

Why should a person be content with a two-wheeler, when many neighbours own cars? Why should a wife sit down to wash clothes on the floor when washing machines can do the job? Why should a young man be content with a Rs-5,000 salary within the state, when his friends are earning more and have bigger prospects? Economic prosperity tops a family’s agenda. The rapid growth of industries in Baddi-Barotiwala region, hydel-power projects and other plants across the state are giving a fillip to people’s ambitions. Till recently, moving out of the state in search of employment was considered avoidable, and government service was the favoured option. Politicians here are yet to change the strategy that once leaned heavily on pleasing the all-powerful lobbies of government employees. While a bulk of the voting in the state may follow traditional patterns for the time being, the volume of these voters in transition has been increasing rapidly.

The Assembly election on 19 December should also be utilised for understanding the social transition in Himachal Pradesh.

(The author is The Statesman’s Shimla-based correspondent.)

Rajapaksa entrapped - Military Prepares To Liquidate LTTE

Sam Rajappa
The Statesman, 1 December

The Sri Lankan President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, finds himself entrapped. As he completed two years in office on 19 November, the first and foremost of his achievements was the heightened alienation of Tamil citizens from the Sri Lankan state. His hawkish brothers and the increasingly confident defence forces on one side and the Sinhala chauvinist, Janatha Vimukthi Perumana, with whose support he won the presidential race and the JHU of the Buddhist monks on the other are egging him on to go for the decapitation of the LTTE supreme, Velupillai Pirapaharan.

The assassination of Suppiah Paramu Tamilchelvan, leader of the political wing of the LTTE and its chief peace negotiator, has given a new-found confidence to the Sri Lankan armed forces that it could execute Pirapaharan also in a similar air raid using general purpose bomb called Mark 84 supplied by the USA. The pressure bomb, filled with high explosives capable of penetrating 11 ft. of concrete, caused lethal fragmentation to a radius of 400 metres and killed Tamilchelvan who was sleeping in the lower compartment of a two-layered well camouflaged and fortified concrete bunker at Thiruvaiyaaru, about three km from Kilinochchi town. Seven of his companions sleeping in the upper layer of the bunker were also killed. Kilinochchi is where the LTTE has its political headquarters, Peace Secretariat and Strategic Communications unit.

The message

Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, brother of the President who is the Defence Secretary, gloating over the decapitation of Tamilchelven facilitated by precise intelligence and aerial surveillance, said: “This is to convey a message that we know where the LTTE leaders are. We know the location of all the leaders. When the time comes, we’ll take them one by one.”

Expressing grief over the death of Tamilchelvean who had began his career as one of the bodyguards of Pirapaharan, the LTTE supremo said in a statement: “Sinhala nation did not open its heart and send a peace message. On the contrary, it is sending war-vultures that are dropping giant bombs. It has cruelly killed our peace dove.” Third in the LTTE hierarchy after Pirapaharan and Poddu Amman, its intelligence wing chief, Tamilchelvan, who joined the organisation in Chennai in 1984 at the age of 17 in the wake of the 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom in Sri Lanka sponsored by the United National Party government of JR Jayawardene, passed out of the fourth batch of young recruits trained by India. He was the only LTTE leader not involved in any major act of terrorism either on Indian territory or in Sri Lanka though he did take part in the fight against the IPKF.

India’s silence at his killing and criticism of the Tamil Nadu chief minister and leader of the DMK, M Karunanidhi, for composing an elegy to mourn his loss, have created an impression in Colombo that New Delhi is not averse to the elimination of the LTTE.

In his vision for Sri Lanka outlined in Mahinda Chintana, Rajapaksa envisions changing the country into a modern state while “fostering the national heritage and culture with peaceful cooperation among the Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims and others, instilling economic growth and prosperity and maintaining friendly relationship with all nations.” His actions during the two years of his presidency reveal that he has not been able to even make a beginning in fulfilling his vision. The initiative during the last two years have passed on to the powerful Defence Secretary and the armed forces. But he has succeeded in making himself the undisputed leader and saviour of the Sinhala community. While the alienation of Tamils from the ruling Sinhalas goes back to the 1950s, the alienation of the Muslim community from the ruling class can be attributed as one of Rajapaksa’s achievements. By pulling the wool over the eyes of President Bush and singing paeans of praise of the “global war on terrorism”, he managed to suppress the ethnic struggle of the Tamils for their legitimate place in Sri Lanka’s political firmament. But for the liberal supply of arms and ammunition by the USA, Sri Lanka would not be able to escalate its war effort.

The armed forces have found a champion in Rajapaksa who will hear no evil, see no evil or speak ill of them no matter what atrocities they commit.

When the armed forces on 23 October stripped the bodies of LTTE commandos, including women, killed in the devastating attack on the Anuradhapura air base, and paraded their mutilated naked corpses placed on trailers normally used to collect garbage for the Sinhala residents to see, in clear violation of Geneva convention, the first reaction of the government was to deny it. Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara’s response, as quoted by Reuter, was: “We are professional soldiers. We do not want to do things like that.” Then who did it?
Rajapaksa’s decision to allow the armed forces to carry out systematic military operations without revoking the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement entered into with the LTTE by the previous UNP government of Ranil Wickremasinghe has made the roles of Norway who facilitated the peace process and the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission irrelevant. Though Rajapaksa claims to be a friend of Tamils and gives instances of his close family members marrying into Tamil families in Sri Lanka, in the short span of two years of his stewardship, the Sinhala-Tamil relationship has touched the nadir.

Right from the time he issued his election manifesto, it was clear that his overwhelming ambition was to consolidate the Sinhala vote bank and emerge as the sole leader and protector of the major community. In this, he has succeeded admirably. A Sinhala chauvinist party like the JVP which won 37 seats in the 2004 parliamentary election, and the JHU of the Buddhist monks have been rendered almost irrelevant. Even the main opposition party, the UNP, seems to have lost its appeal as the party’s MPs have been defecting to Rajapaksa’s SLFP in droves.

Worst record

In the process of consolidating his hold over the majority community, Rajapaksa has given a free rein to the armed forces which has brutalised civil society. Sri Lanka today holds the worst record in human rights violation which the armed forces consider a necessary evil in the so-called global war on terrorism. Newspapers and media persons not toeing the government line are dealt with summarily by unidentified goons travelling in vans with no number plates. Air Marshal Roshan Goonatilleka, Commander of the SLAF, had said in an interview that it was not difficult to get at Pirapaharan as he was confined to a very limited area of land in Wanni. Asserting the days of the LTTE leader was numbered, he said: “I do not think it is difficult for us to get at him. Somehow we will find him soon.” Commending the fullest support of the President to the military operations, he said; “It is very easy to work with him because we are free to make our own decisions without any problem.”

Even if the armed forces succeed in wiping out the LTTE, the ethnic problem will remain unresolved unless a political formula could be found to satisfy the aspirations of the Tamil people of the Northern and the Eastern Provinces. The LTTE thrives on Tamil discontent. A genuine power-sharing based on a negotiated settlement with the Tamils is the only way out for Sri Lanka. Rajapaksa seems to have missed the boat. If he reactivates the All Party Representative Committee from its deep slumber to produce a peace document satisfying the Tamils, the armed forces will not let him proceed with it. Sri Lanka is in real danger of a military takeover.

(The author, a veteran journalist who retired from The Statesman, is based in Chennai.)

10 hurt as groups clash over Posco

The Statesman, 26 November

JAGATSINGHPUR Nov. 25- Anti and pro-Posco groups clashed at Noliasahi today injuring at least 10 persons. The violent clash is said to be a sequel to the abduction of seven persons recently during which a local priest was assaulted by anti-Posco activists.The attack on the priest, on 22 November, when he had accompanied the seven officials of a dredging company to perform puja had enraged Nuagaon villagers. This led to today's violence.The anti-Posco group had decided to hold a meeting at Balithutha today and were mobilising support when angry villagers of Nuagaon pelted stones.

Both sides fought a pitched battle chasing and pelting stones at each other. At least 10 persons were injured.

Anti Posco leader Mr Nimai Sahoo said four persons were injured including Duryadhan Nayak, Narsingh Mallick, Prafulla Biswal and Champabati Nayak while the pro-Posco group said six from their side were hurt.

Two persons Narsingh Mallick and Prafulla Biswal have been shifted to SCB medical college and hospital, Cuttack for treatment.

IIC of Kujang police station Mr Anil Mishra said no FIR has been lodged in police station as yet.In fact the police failed to enter the village as anti Posco activists blocked the road at Balitutha bridge.

It may be noted here that Kujang police had registered a case against anti-Posco group and their leader Mr Abhaya Sahoo in connection with the 22 November incident.