Monday, November 30, 2009

THE AL-QAEDA CONNECTION BY IMTIAZ GUL

The Al Qaeda Connection by Imtiaz Gul; Published by Penguin ; Pages 308 ; Price Rs499/-
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An adviser to Commander Petreus wrote presciently,“Pakistan has 173 million people, 100 nuclear weapons, an army bigger than the US Army, and al-Qaeda headquarters sitting right there in the two-thirds of the country the government doesn’t control…if Pakistan went out of control, it would ‘dwarf’ all the crises in the world today.”.This is precisely the backdrop to this frightening account of Al Qaeda by Imtiaz Gul, a highly respected Pakistani journalist who has covered Islamist groups in Afghanistan for a long time and written authoritatively for several papers.He is a star participant on Al Jazeera and frequently takes part in discussions in Indian and Pakistan T.V channels on Afghanistan, Pakistan’s tribal areas and military isues. Author of two books, Gul heads the Centre for Research and Security Studies in Islamabad.
In the book under review Gul recounts his personal reporting experience and meticulously records the developments in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) from the time Pakistan became a party to the US-led “war on terror”, to the present time. The FATA regions are governed by the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR), which the British introduced in 1901. They wanted a buffer zone between Afghanistan and United India because they failed to conquer Afghanistan. After Partition in 1947, Pakistan did not pay any attention to the area. With no centralised law enforcement, the FATA regions increasingly cater to drug running and offer shelter to people who have committed crimes in federally
administered Pakistan as well as Afghanistan. According to the author ,“This allows the militants to find a foothold. It began in the early 1980s when the Soviets were in Afghanistan. The CIA in partnership with Inter Services Intelligence launched a jihad against the Russians. These FATA areas were used as the launching pad.” Things deteriorated when more and more criminals and militants entered the area, particularly after 9/11. Most of the Taliban came and took shelter, posing a threat to the Americans. The al-Qaeda militants moved to North and South Waziristan and took shelter there. More and more militant groups started converging particularly on Waziristan because this province shares a long border with Afghanistan. It looked at that time as if this area would turn into a major focus because al-Qaeda started regrouping there. Imtiaz Gul feels such groups crop up because of the absence of governance. The indifference of the ruling elite and the tribal chiefs numbering around 35,000 who work as a bridge between the government and the tribal people is one main reason for the mushrooming of these groups. These people have a vested interest in ensuring that these areas remain away from mainstream Pakistan. The fact that Pakistani laws do not extend to these tribes make things worse.
Since 2006, 3,500 soldiers and policemen have died at the hands of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, which has links with Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Toiba. “Many Kashmiri militants are trained in the area. So Pakistani territory is being used for all these purposes which have become a real threat to Pakistan.”

These groups were partners till recently because of their interest in Afghanistan, with which Pakistan shares a 2,560-km border. The turning point was when the army woke up to the realisation that FATA would slip out of its hands during March 2004, when it came under attack from these groups for the first time.
The attempt earlier this year by the Taliban to conquer the Swat region came as a blessing in disguise. “It was then that everyone realised that their only objective was to occupy the state and implement their political agenda, not because they want to establish an Islamic justice system,” However, the extremist ideology is spreading. “People are increasingly getting influenced by this strain day by day and the main reason is poor governance. When the state fails, non-state actors cash in. The government is not doing enough because of internal political turmoil.” If we turn our attention to the western border we find 27,220 square kilometres of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas – Bajaur, Khyber, Kurram, Mohmand, North and South Waziristan, and Orakzai – are beyond Pakistan’s control. Some 5,337 sq km of Swat and the areas around it are, by virtue of the presidential approval of the Nizam-e Adl Regulation 2009, beyond the Constitution of Pakistan de jure. At the same time, Pakistan’s writ in most of Balochistan, a total of 452,243 sq km, or 58 percent of Pakistan’s landmass, is increasingly challenged and getting weaker by the day. Forces mow down police and paramilitary forces at will, and sow terror in the hearts and minds of security forces and people at large.
Colossal is the list of failures to account for, the gravest being the failure to integrate FATA, and the Federally Administered Northern Areas , since 1970 into mainstream Pakistan. The surrender of Swat is the latest addition to the areas characterised as “ungovernable” by the state of Pakistan itself.
A number of studies conducted in Washington- and London maintain that Pakistan itself is unable to handle the spiral of violence unleashed by Al Qaeda and its local associates. If the West does not help the country might splinter into Taliban fiefdoms. “It is their incompetence, absence of commitment and vision, as well as sheer indifference, backed up by a pliant and conniving bureaucracy, that has brought this country to the brink; conjectures about Pakistan’s survival or disintegration have become an inevitable element of discussions even at home.”
The situation in vast parts of the NWFP (Swat and Buner in particular) and FATA shows clearly what preceded and followed the Taliban emergence in Afghanistan: governance broke down, central authority melted away, and the country degenerated into medieval fiefdoms controlled by individual warlords, who at times also operated in a well-knit network under one umbrella.
“Will this combination of little governance, increasing insecurity and incapacity and a continuous state of denial take the country down into disintegration or still keep it teetering in instable conditions?. The answer lies with the ruling elite: both military and civilian rulers have to demonstrate unflinching resolve regarding these real and perceived threats. The crisis today warrants extraordinary unity of command to prevent Pakistan from falling apart.”
Gul documents, with painstaking detail, how many of these areas fell victim to the Al Qaeda and the Taliban after the latter were forced out of Afghanistan. A combination of big money, the seductive power of radical Islam and the de facto patronage of elements of Pakistan’s establishment created the conditions for Al Quaedism to find roots in FATA.
As is well known, during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the ISI used American and Saudi money to train and motivate many of these groups. But even after 9/11, the relationship is far from over. The ISI is convinced that the West will abandon Afghanistan in a few years, and then these “strategic assets” will need to be reactivated. For instance, as Gul states: “after their retreat from Afghanistan, the majority of foreigners had settled down in the North and South Waziristan and Bajaur region, where networks operated by Afghan war veterans Jalaluddin Haqqani and Gulbudin Hekmetyar became instrumental in securing shelter for bin Laden’s surviving fighters. Haqqani and Hekmetyar also acted as the umbrella group for the reorganisation of the Al Qaeda.” Both Hekmatayar and Haqqani are still considered to be ISI’s important assets with the latter blamed for the bombing of the Indian embassy in Afghanistan.
What is the solution? King Nadir Shah of Afghanistan said in 1931: “In my opinion, the best and most fruitful policy that one can imagine for Afghanistan is a policy
of neutrality. Afghanistan must always entertain good relations with its neighbours as well as all the friendly powers that are not opposed to the national interest of the country. Afghanistan must give its neighbours assurances of its friendly attitudes while safeguarding the right of reciprocity. Such a line of conduct is the best one for the interests of Afghanistan.” In other words, the only way out is for Afghanistan’s neighbours and the great powers to guarantee its neutrality.
Imtiaz Gul’s account is a penetrating analysis of the face of terror that recounts graphically the transformation of the militant groups and the death and destruction that they have caused. He provides a rare list of the leaders who are based in FATA-the breeding ground of Al Qaeda.
P.P.Ramachandran

GANDHI'S CONSCIENCE KEEPER

Gandhi’s Conscience Keeper by Vasanthi Srinivasan; Published by Permanent Black ; Pages; Price Rs. 695/-

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The author of this book on Rajagopalachari, Dr. Vasanthi Srinivasan is a Ph.D. from Carleton University, Ottawa. She belonged to the faculty of the College of Humanities in Ottawa. She has specialised in comparative political thought and the link between technology and politics. She is presently a Reader in Political History at the University of Hyderabad, She is a recipient of a New India Foundation fellowship.
It is a matter for regret that Rajagopalachari or Rajaji has not obtained the recognition he deserved for his role in India’s freedom movement. There are very few books on this elder statesman.Gandhi had described him as his “Conscience Keeper” from which the author has adopted the title of her book. Undoubtedly he was the most powerful politician of Madras who was Chief Minister of Madras twice.He was also the first Governor of Bengal and the first Indian Governor-General.

Rajaji refused to write an autobiography on the grounds that “one cannot help trying to show oneself in good light”.Comparing himself to a matchstick, he described his smallness as his strength and argued that one must realise the insignificance of one’s own life in the vastness of space.
Minoo Masani and Rajaji founded the Swatantra party which was perhaps the only ideological opponent to Nehru.It was in Bombay that Rajaji became the first politician to espouse the case for Pakistan and this led to his becoming Public Enemy Number One for several leaders including Gandhi. Actually his prescience was laudable as in the event India was dismembered and Pakistan was born in 1947. He is remembered for his vociferous opposition to linguistic provinces, religious outlook and above all his eternal bluntness. What Samuel Johnson said about Edmund Burke’s parliamentary conduct could be applied to Rajaji, “it was commonly observed that he spoke too often in Parliament; but nobody could say he did not speak well, though too frequently and familiarly”.
The book under review is the first extended study that portrays Rajaji as an intellectual and political thinker. It a thorough study of Rajaji’s ideas as expounded inhis books and in Khasa Subba Rao’s weekly “Swarajya”. Dr Srinivasan has succeeded in assessing the political milieu of Rajaji’s political era. The reader will be impressed by the depth of understanding,the great scholarship of Rajaji, his complete command over Tamil and English. Rajaji was noted for his precise,brief and highly effective language. Rajaji’s role in the revival of Hinduism is highly laudable. His versions of Ramayana and Mahabharata and the Upanishads, brought out by the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan continue to command our attention and capture our imagination. These books are the highest selling books of Bhavan.
The author calls Rajaji’s policies ”theocentric liberalism”. However, this combined with his native shrewdness led him to be described as the “Chanakya” or “Machiavelli” of Indian polity. She writes eloquently of Rajaji, “He was always arguing, persuading, cajoling,praising, criticising and acting on behalf of what he thought was the public good and the national interest, even though some of his views elicited only hostility and derision among his colleagues and intellectuals of that time.” He had a theoretical bent of mind but believed in no single theory, quoting Plato, Socrates,Burke,Cicero and other thinkers selectively and for the purposes at hand. Rajaji did not hesitate to change his views and sometimes incurred obloquy.She quotes Rajaji, “I venture to confess that I have an accomodating mind, but one that does not forget truth or the public weal at any point.”

Rajaji’s Swatantra Party was packed with fat and overfed Maharajas and capitalists and this led to a certain amount of ridicule. In spite of Rajaji’s scrupulous honesty and undoubted integrity he and his party were open to suspicion and he proved to be his own enemy.Nehru stated that Rajaji’s party belongs “ to the middle ages of Lords, castles and Zamindars.”
Conscience keepers, as a class, are kept at a safe distance since they give utterance to unacceptable ideas and make one repentant.They oppose what is politically wrong but acceped by the majority. They meet the fate of Socrates.In India we have had several conscience keepers like J.P for the Janata Party, quite recently Chandrababu Naidu for the N D A. It was Gandhi who called Rajaji his conscience-keeper, though Rajaji treated Gandhi as his Guru. The author states that Gandhi thought of a nationwide satyagraha against the Rowlatt Act after he visited Rajaji in 1919.
Vasanthi Srinivasan says that taking India’s border conflict with China in 1962 as an example, Rajaji asserted that non-violence was not an absolute value. Rajaji argued that Gandhi did not advocate a pacifism that rejected national borders and that he actually preferred armed resistance for good causes when there was no reasonable chance for non-violent resistance. According to her, Rajaji did not share Gandhi’s holistic approach that looked to religion for both the form and content of politics. Rajaji was more tuned to the fact that political contingencies may call for choosing the lesser evil and waiting for opportune moments to push for the greater good.
As the author mentions in her preface, Rajaji articulated how the Mahatma’s ideas and practices could be reconciled with the needs and aspirations of a modern nation-state in a manner and ideological orientation strikingly different from that of Nehru. Drawing upon his voluminous political writing, Vasanthi Srinivasan analyses Rajaji’s views on democracy, free enterprise, the market economy, foreign policy and social diversity. Courage and moderation were the hallmarks of his approach to politics.
In an interesting preface Ramachandra Guha and Sunil Khilnani write, “Srinivasan places Rajaji in a variety of different contexts—the economic argument of his time, religious debates, and the deep question of justice for India’s women and dalits…He was by turns subversive, conservative, and radical. Through a series of fascinating studies of his writings as well as his practice, Srinivasan elicits, for us, the fundamental coherence of Rajaji’s intellect and action…He sought to be a practitioner of that classically most prized and elusive of all political virtues—prudence, practical wisdom. This is a book that anyone interested in our intellectual and political history will be eagerly grateful for. It is also a book full of insights, oblique and explicit about our current political predicament”. It is impossible to disagree with Dr Srinivasan’s summing up—“Rajaji was vilified as a wily South Indian Brahmin, but he was in essence a theocentric liberal. There is much to be learnt from his political vision and practice:for there is more within his theocentric liberalism than is dreamt of in Indian political life today”
P.P.Ramachandran