FORCE Newsmagazine

Camp Fire

2011-07-06T01:40:00.000-07:00

FORCE had gone to Chhattisgarh in 2006 and met Mahendra Karma who was the strength behind Salva Judum. At that time, FORCE had criticised the movement and had called it disastrous for long term peace. The article is reproduced here, along with the interview with Mahendra Karma.

Salva Judum members may end up being nowhere people

Variously called the Peace March, Fight from Freedom and Purification Hunt, Salva Judum — a group of people in Chhattisgarh who have risen against the Maoists — has managed to attract both admiration and criticism from various quarters. The story of how it came into existence in June 2005 is now part of Bastar folklore. Depending upon who the narrator is, the tale swings between heroic and exploitative. Though there aren’t many contradictions about its origin, the difference lies in the nuances and interpretation.

It is quite simple actually. In June 2005, a tractor carrying police ration was driving from Kutru to Bedre police station in west Bastar. Members of the Maoist Sangham (People’s Militia), who primarily were the local tribals, looted the tractor and disappeared in the jungle. When the police found out, it swooped upon the village where the actual looting took place, caught a few tribals, including senior, respectable members of the community and beat them up. A few were put behind bars. This angered the tribals no end. Curiously, this anger was not directed against the police who had beaten the senior members of the tribe, but against the Sangham who looted the police tractor, thereby forced the police to beat them up. Anyway, the narrative goes that seeing the resentment of the tribals, the police let them off with the challenge that if indeed they had not looted the police ration then they must bring the culprits to the police. To prove their innocence, the tribal seniors caught hold of the Sangham members and handed them over to the police. This angered Naxals. They attacked the village and killed a few tribals. The tribal anger against the Naxals boiled over. They decided to take matters in their hands. Forming groups, they started having meetings to work out a plan against the Naxals. One meeting was held in Tarmendri in June 2005, where Maoists attacked and killed 10-15 villagers. Next meeting was held in Matwara on June 18. Following this, a group comprising 10,000-12,000 tribals went to Kotrapal village for another meeting. Maoists struck again, kidnapping 10-15 villagers and killing five of them. By now the tribals were raging. A few days later, another meeting was held in Bijapur which was attended by 25,000 people. Even as the people were constantly travelling across villages and mobilising support, Congress leader and the head of the Congress Legislative Party in Chhattisgarh, Mahendra Karma, who belongs to the same tribe which spearheaded the campaign saw an opportunity here and extended his leadership to the movement. He christened it Salva Judum.

Another version says that the local tribals got angry with the Maoists because being atheist they showed no respect to their gods and other religious practices. The repeated insults of their totems, religio-socio practices and the corrosion of their social structures led them to protest. A senior police official says that since Maoists’ sway was slightly weak in this area, south of river Indrawati (Abujmarh is north of river Indrawati) they were in a hurry to establish their control and did not take the sensibilities of these tribals into account. The tribal protests were met with violence by some trigger-happy Maoists and gradually resentment started building up.

Yet, it appears improbable that illiterate tribals could have mobilised in such huge numbers without somebody urging them to do so. It also seems improbable that Maoists would have deliberately been committing excesses against the very people who form their cadre. What seems more likely is that, when some tribals handed over a few Sangham members to the police, probably out of fear of the police, they had not bargained for the retribution from the Naxals. Once that happened, local political workers, including Karma’s brother who is one of the tribal leaders, must have seen the political advantage of fanning anti-Naxal feeling among the tribals. The fact that a large number of these people belong to Karma’s tribe and almost all of them form his constituency reinforce the idea that it was perhaps a move to consolidate his base and increase his leverage vis a vis the state government.

Whatever may have been the motive, today Salva Judum includes such tribes as Gond, Dorla, Halba and some OBC groups. Karma convinced the state government that support and security must be given to this group as it is standing up against the Naxal terrorism. Since, the villagers had risen against the Maoists it was no longer possible for them to continue living in their villages. Consequently, the villagers were moved to camps outside their villages. In two years, the number of camps has increased to 25 with the total people living in them being around 45,000. Dornapal, south of Jagdalpur, is the largest camp with 15,000 refugees and now almost looks like a village, with houses, a community centre, solar lights and a school. The women undergo some vocational training in handicrafts and so on inside the camp and some international non-governmental organisations run periodic health camps. The government officials take pride in these camps and frequently quote visiting UN officials who compared the camps with those run by the UN. For their own security, camp residents are not allowed to go out of the camp periphery, lest they are targeted by the Maoists.

Of these 45,000 people, the police have recruited nearly 4,000 young men and women as Special Police Officers with the salary of Rs 1,500 per month. Some have been trained to use 303 rifles. The DGP, Chattisgarh feels confident that once they master 303s they can graduate to better weapons. Each camp is guarded by a company of the police or the Para-military along with the SPOs. The SPOs also work as the eyes and ears of the security forces and most often accompany them in their operations against the Maoists as they know the area well. Encouraged by the exemplary courage shown by many SPOs against the Maoists, the state government has sanctioned the raising of two SPO battalions.

While it is true that SPOs are proving to be useful to the security forces in their anti-Maoists operations, Salva Judum by itself is turning out to be an exploitative movement. Human rights activists have been voicing their concern about the consequences of militarisation of the tribals. The Independent Citizen’s Initiative group comprising Ramachandra Guha and B.G. Verghese among others had gone on a fact-finding mission to Chhattisgarh. In their report titled, ‘War in the Heart of India’ they fear that the situation may spiral out of control with some kind of a civil war breaking out among the various tribes. “The creation and support of the Salva Judum has divided entire villages and families, perhaps irreversibly. They are forced to either choose the Maoists or the Salva Judum… A cycle of retribution and revenge has been set in motion, with the Salva Judum targeting villagers believed to be sympathetic to the Maoists and the Maoists in turn killing those active in Salva Judum,” says the report.

The spiral of violence was only to be expected once Salva Judum got the government and police patronage. As violence escalated from both sides, the Central government was forced to focus on Salva Judum and Mahendra Karma who leads it was asked to slow down the Judum activities. In a note sent to the Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Karma admits that, “It may be mentioned that Salva Judum activists are too much angry against Naxalites and their supporters (Sangham members) because of killing of Salva Judum activists, burning their houses, looting of their belongings, etc… At times, the overzealous Salva Judum activists act in vengeance against Sangham members.” Elsewhere in the same note he writes, “It is quite likely that over-enthusiastic Salva Judum activists might have burnt some houses of known Sangham members or regular supporters of CPI (Maoist). But then, the CPI (Maoist) cadre also burnt/looted houses of many Salva Judum activists. Such violent incidents are many more committed by Naxalites than by the Salva Judum activists.”

Clearly, for the state government, Salva Judum is a handy tool to discredit the Maoists’ as mere terrorists who do not enjoy the support of the local people. The consequences of this line of propaganda are very clear: The government need not work towards alleviating the socio-economic grievances of the people because there are none. The only grievance is terrorism unleashed by the Maoists for which strong action by the police and the Para-military is required. The Salva Judum also enables the state government earn brownie points with other states. As both Netam and Karma repeatedly told FORCE, “In no other state have people risen against the Naxalites as they have done in Chhattisgarh. This is a historic movement and not only shows the courage of the local people, but also their urge to become part of the Indian democratic process.” Given that traditionally there has been very little presence of the government in these areas and the majority of tribals do not even know what government means beyond their tribal customs, it is remarkable that both the ruling as well as the opposition party can speak the same language.

None realise that in their short-sightedness they have forced nearly 45,000 people to become refugees in their own state with an uncertain future. Karma thunders at this suggestion, “Throughout the history, whenever people have fought a just war they have had to make sacrifices. Displacement of people always takes place in a conflict situation.” Usually people chose the refugee-like existence to avoid violence. They move out to what they think are safe places, even if they end up living in camps with bare minimum facilities. The Salva Judum case is completely different though. The displaced people continue to live in the war zone, albeit not in their villages but inside the camps which are guarded. They are easy targets for the Maoists who have been attacking the camps with regular periodicity. The government claim that villagers want to live in the camps because they fear going to their villages is belied by the fact that male tribals frequently slip out of the camps to till their fields even at the cost of getting killed by the Naxals. Even while the FORCE team was in Jagdalpur, five farmers living in Salva Judum camps were killed in one day in different instances and parts of Bastar.

The war against the Maoists has to be fought by the security forces and other organs of the government machinery. It is always unfortunate that some innocent people get caught in bad situations. But the government in Chhattisgarh has actually collected innocent people as fodder between the security forces and the Maoists. This, more than civilians rising against Naxalites, is unprecedented. In any conflict area, be it Kashmir or the Northeast, innocent people always find a way around surviving in such situations, whether by paying security money to the terrorists or by spying for the security forces. They do not leave their homes and hearths with their wives and children to live in camps in a signal to the terrorists that they are waging an unarmed war against them.

As of now, future does not seem to hold very much for the inhabitants of the Salva Judum camps. The government has no policy for their rehabilitation except that more money from the state/Central welfare funds would be pumped in the camps as majority of inhabitants have no means of earning. Home minister Netam says, “We have not yet thought of a plan to rehabilitate the Salva Judum tribals. They will go back to their villages once the crisis is resolved and it is safe for them to live there.” How many years, does the minister think it may be before they can go back home? “That will depend upon how serious the Centre is about resolving the problem,” he says. Considering that Chhattisgarh is not exactly flushed with funds and has a huge shortfall in the police ranks one wonders how long the state government can sustain the Salva Judum camps, let alone provide security to them.

Interview

‘Whenever Common People are Faced with Political Terrorism they are Always Forced to Flee’

Mahendra Karma, leader of opposition, Chhattisgarh State Assembly

Why is there so much Naxal violence in your state than in others?

The objective of Naxalites is usurpation of power by any means. They have nothing to do with the common people. Earlier Naxalites did speak of issues like development which concerned ordinary citizens, but not any longer. With the help of clever sloganeering, they mobilised people and quickly armed them. While many states of India have suffered from Naxal violence, the situation in Chhattisgarh worsened because here the people decided to fight them.

Why did the people of Bastar decide to fight the Naxalites?

Nobody has been able to enslave the tribal people. I know this, because I am also a tribal. Independence of spirit is second nature to us, which is why we do not adhere to any ‘isms’. We believe in our traditions and customs that have been handed down to us through generations. We are governed by our own rules and religious practices. But Naxals did not respect our tribal customs. Even when the Panchayati Raj was introduced in the tribal belts, it happened gradually and did not disturb our traditional form of administration, but with Naxals that was not the case. They tried to subvert our socio-religious institutions.

Naxals first entered Bastar in the early Eighties. Why did it take so long for the tribals to get angry? Why did Salva Judum start only in 2005?

The tribals never supported the Naxals. In the early Nineties also, there was a Jan Jagran Abhiyaan. I had started that and the Naxals were forced to leave Bastar. They came back once the movement died down. (According to the police, it was a small rebellion which was crushed by the Maoists) But yes, Salva Judum started in 2005 and the main reason for that was that the tribals got tired of atrocities by both the police and the Naxals. So they decided to oppose the Naxals in a peaceful manner. Salva Judum means peace march.

What role did you play in the creation of Salva Judum?

I was in Delhi when the first meetings of the tribals were held in June 2005. When I learnt that more and more people are joining the movement, I feared that they may go astray. I returned to Raipur on 23 June 2005 and met with the home minister. I told him that the government must support the people who are raising their voice against the Naxals. I reached Kanker on June 25 and addressed my first meeting in Kotrapal on June 26.

If indeed it is a peace march then why are you giving weapons to the tribals and making them Special Police Officers?

This was a government’s decision. But what is wrong in that? The weapons are for self-defence. Moreover, through this scheme they are also getting employment and are now part of the police force.

What about the displacement of so many people who are now forced to live in the camps?

Whenever common people are faced with political terrorism they are always forced to flee. Take the case of Afghanistan, Bangladesh or closer home Kashmir. This is a very natural process. Instead of using displacement of the people as an excuse to criticise Salva Judum, people should appreciate the fact that these tribals are fighting the Naxalites. And for this reason, the government has to stand guarantee for their security. Besides, those who are not living in the Salva Judum camps today are living the Naxal camps. It is amazing that instead of everybody putting their heads together to think of ways to overcome the problem of Naxalism, critics of Salva Judum are talking about the displacement of the people.

Osama Bin Laden and Beyond

2011-05-09T00:56:00.000-07:00

With Afghanistan in his pocket, Kayani agreed to bin Laden’s dramatic killing

By Pravin Sawhney and Ghazala Wahab

To look forward beyond Osama bin Laden, it is essential that the present be known. This is the hard part, as both the United States and Pakistan, equally complicit in the bin Laden killing plot, are hiding more than revealing. While stakes for both are high, the Pakistanis hold better cards in the aftermath of bin Laden exit. For the US, it was important to kill bin Laden in as spectacular fashion as he did the 9/11. This would boost US’ chances of getting its boys home from Afghanistan earlier than expected. However, the condition was that the Pakistan Army could not be trampled upon. This is the reason for the song and dance by US President Barack Obama and his key advisors absolving its dubious partner of insincerity.

In his opening announcement on bin Laden killing, Obama did not forget to mention Pakistan’s cooperation in counter-terrorism. His chief counter-terrorism advisor, John Brennan, while standing before cameras within 48 hours of bin Laden killing, refused to accuse Pakistan of anything; much out of context, he noted that Pakistan, since 9/11 had captured and killed more terrorists than any country. Once the domestic heat built upon the Pakistan Army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani and his ISI buddy, Lt. General Shuja Pasha for complicity or incompetence, the US National Security Advisor, Tom Donilon decided to forego his Sunday holiday on May 8 and appeared on five of six US talk shows. He hammered the single point that the US had no information to suggest that Pakistani security establishment knew of bin Laden’s whereabouts in their midst.

Regarding incompetence, the US has put out stories of their radar-evading helicopters and brilliant human-intelligence that led to bin Laden. This theory has been seconded by former Pakistan Army chief, General Pervez Musharraf, who disclosed that Pakistani air defence systems on the Afghanistan front are weak if not non-existent. Contrary to the Abraham Lincoln wisdom that you cannot fool all people all the time, the US and Pakistan seems to have pulled the feat, at least for now. However, FORCE, which has followed the story, has a different view of what happened. With minor variations on details, we believe that the Pakistan Army (ISI is a part of it, and not an independent entity) has sold a stone for a precious diamond; Osama bin Laden had not only outlived his usefulness, but was an impediment in the follow-on plot of reconciliation with the Taliban in Afghanistan. He had to be dispensed with.

While it may be true that the US got a vague lead on bin Laden six months ago through a Guantanamo detainee, it could not have zeroed-in on to bi Laden’s house in Abbottabad without Kayani’s complicity. The story about CIA hiring a neighbourhood house to watch bin Laden’s activities is simply incredible. It would also be wrong to suggest that Kayani succumbed to the US pressure to confirm bin Laden’s abode; had he wanted he could have moved bin Laden and his entourage to another place. Osama bin Laden was moved to the military cantonment under Kayani’s (then, ISI chief) watch six years ago, to be used as a triumph card subsequently against the US. Another reason was to maintain a watch and hold on the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, the leader of the Quetta Shura, who had sacrificed Afghanistan for bin Laden’s friendship. During the protracted banishment, once friends, bin Laden and Mullah Omar drifted apart ideologically. Osama bin Laden propagated global Jihad while Mullah Omar was fighting to regain Afghanistan from the US (reports emerging after bin Laden’s killing clearly suggest that the two had not communicated since years).

Washington, with overstretched military capabilities amidst a recession, and with NATO allies threatening to quit the war, wanted an honourable exit from Afghanistan. The way out for the US was to have a reconciliation government (Hamid Karzai and Taliban) in Afghanistan, an invisible US military presence to keep the Taliban and Pakistani misadventures in check, and to be part of a regional assistance effort for Afghanistan. While Pakistan has an essential role in the formation of the reconciliation Afghanistan government, the CIA with proven predator capability and in cooperation (whatever possible) with the ISI would maintain US intelligence footprint in Pakistan. It is not a coincidence that the US overall forces commander, General David Petraeus will be the new CIA chief.

Four recent events settled the Afghanistan chessboard with the US, Pakistan, Taliban and Karzai as key players. The first was the unprecedented April 16 meeting in Kabul in which Kayani and Shuja Pasha took Premier Yusuf Raza Gilani to meet President Karzai. Until now the two sides were talking separately with the US; it was time to settle Afghanistan, politically and from security perspective, face-to-face. Once the future of Afghanistan was agreed in which both Karzai and Mullah Omar would have prominent roles, it was time to free senior Taliban leaders from captivity. Within days, news came of the Kandahar jail break-out where 450 Talibans helped themselves to freedom. This was assurance for Mullah Omar that he was onboard. These developments pleased Kayani so much that the usually reticent Pakistan Army chief could not suppress his glee during his April 23 visit to Kakul Military Academy; stone throw from bin Laden’s house. His remarks that Pakistan had broken the back of terrorism sounded out of context on that day. The final event was curtains for bin Laden. To make it dramatic, the US insisted that bin Laden had to die in his present house; he could not be shifted elsewhere. With so much in his pocket, Kayani agreed. He could not be unaware of the risks he was taking; his own and his army’s reputation was at stake. After all, he would have delivered Afghanistan to Pakistan.

It will be a while before frayed nerves in the US and Pakistan calm down. The US Congress needs to know why an unreliable ally should be rewarded, just as Pakistanis are asking hard questions about the holy cow, its army. The coming months will see a lot. The formation of the Afghanistan reconciliation government, the announcement of a quick US drawdown of troops from the war zone, financial and military assistance for Pakistan, and release of US armed drones for the Pakistan Army to name a few. Where does this leave India which has invested over USD1.3 billion in development in Afghanistan and had hoped that the US military presence would remain in the war torn country long enough for a regional effort to emerge. The latter will still happen, but having been fence-sitters, India will be sidelined by Pakistan, China and Iran for the regional role in Afghanistan.

US Fighters out of MMRCA Race

2011-04-29T01:19:00.000-07:00

By Pravin Sawhney

With both United States aircraft, Boeing’s Super Hornet and Lockheed Martin’s Super Viper IN (F-16) out of the race for the over USD 10billion Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) deal, relations between India and the US are headed for a nosedive, requiring a major holistic review by both sides. ...read more

By timing his resignation announcement on 28 April 2011 within hours of the Indian defence ministry rejecting the US aircraft, US ambassador to India, Timothy J. Roemer has on behalf of his government made known the displeasure.

There is little gainsaying that it was the US defence industry that gave the needed push to see the Indo-US nuclear agreement through in the US Congress. This was because the George W. Bush administration had made it clear that the bilateral 10-years Defence Framework signed on 28 June 2005 was the centre-piece of the civil nuclear agreement penned three weeks later on 18 July 2005. The new bilateral cosiness had sprung from the sudden announcement made by US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice in Delhi on 16 March 2005 that the US would help India become a major power. While the US never publicly spelt out what it meant, comfort was drawn from Rice’s article written in Foreign Affairs magazine (January-February 2000) that: ‘There is a strong tendency conceptually to connect India and Pakistan and to think only of Kashmir or the nuclear competition between the two states. But India is an element in China’s calculation, and should be in America’s too.’ Neither side gave much thought to the fundamental issue that a strategic relationship between the US and India would be unequal: the US mantra was non-proliferation, while India harped on civil nuclear energy. Regarding defence, India wanted high technology, while the US desired a tighter embrace. The US wanted deeper bilateral military ties leading to commonality of equipment, implying majority Indian combat equipment be of US origin. Mutual frustration was writ large in the partnership.

Specific to the MMRCA, there are two issues, operational and strategic. From the IAF’s viewpoint, while the US aircraft may have fulfilled all desired mission requirements, both US entries have vintage designs. Thus, it is unrealistic to expect them to have superb aerodynamics flexibility for the entire 40-years life of MMRCA. Both short-listed finalists, Eurofighter and Rafale are new designs. But India knew this all along, then why was this not said earliest, is the question the US will ask. Reacting to the news of down selection, Boeing has said that it will seek a de-brief from the IAF and then decide its options. This matter, thus, will not settle amicably; the Original Equipment Manufacturer’s (OEM) grudge will be that it spent over USD 500,000 for technical evaluations. The other issue that the IAF will not say openly, but would have impressed upon the defence ministry is the reliability factor. Who would stand guaranty for assured product support of US combat aircraft in case of a war with either Pakistan or China? Then, there will be issues of OEM inspection (specific to the US) of its sold aircraft to India, and the fact that India has not signed certain critical US agreements (Logistics Supply Agreement, Communication Interoperability and Security Memorandum Agreement, and Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geo-Spatial Cooperation) for sale of high technology. What happens when the IAF would want to upgrade US combat aircraft with state-of-art technology are questions for which the government will have few answers.

At the strategic level, New Delhi feels repeatedly let-down by the US. On the one hand, the US is asking much more than India can give on the implementation of the civil nuclear deal. On the other hand, the US has conveniently blinked on the illegal gifting of two more nuclear reactors to Pakistan by China. It is known that Pakistan’s nuclear programme is for building nuclear weapons alone, and US Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, Admiral Mike Mullen has admitted that Pakistan’s fissile material stocks are growing exponentially. Then, there are terrorism and Afghanistan issues, where the US has often snubbed India in favour of an unreliable ally. Is the MMRCA pay-back time for India? Ironically, what the US aircraft OEMs do in the coming months will have a definitive impact on the Indian indigenous industry. After all, it is the US defence industry’s arrival in India that has seen awakening of the indigenous defence industry.

Battle of the Pulpit

2011-04-29T01:15:00.000-07:00

By Ghazala Wahab

A new breed of puritan Muslims are emerging in Kashmir. They are young, often educated, wear regular clothes (not ankle revealing trousers), no skull caps and hardly wear beard. They stand apart from the regular Salafis in terms of both appearance as well as conduct. They rarely proselytise openly and detest drawing attention to themselves. A retired police officer of the J&K cadre calls them ‘ultra radicals’ or the ‘secret radicals’.

“They are more Wahhabi than the Wahhabis,” he says. While a large number of them are members of Jamiat-e-Ahl-e-Hadis, what makes them a reason to worry is that they do not believe in the separation of religion and politics to the extent that they are convinced that as faithful Muslims, it is their job to work towards the creation of a land for the Muslims. Given Maulana Shaukat’s — the recently assassinated president of Jamiat-e-Ahl-e-Hadis — tentative forays in politics, which he frequently tempered with his all-placating, moderate beliefs, a large number of young members were getting impatient with him. “At one time, the Maulana was very popular in his organisation, both in Kashmir as well as the rest of the country,” says the unnamed bureaucrat. “But once he started hobnobbing with the Hurriyat a few years ago, he was ticked off by the national executive of Jamiat-e-Ahl-e-Hadis in Delhi, which did not want the organisation, otherwise focussed on religion and education, to be dragged into politics.”

In Kashmir, while a segment within Ahl-e-Hadis wanted the organisation to show more commitment to the cause of Kashmir, another group wanted it to retain its core competency. For a long while, Maulana Shaukat struggled to strike a balance between the two. Distancing himself gradually from politics, despite his close association with JKLF’s Yasin Malik, Maulana Shaukat was focussing on building an Islamic university in Kashmir for which he had got funding from Saudi Arabia. The university itself was going to be affiliated with the Medina university of Saudi, which specialises in Islamic studies offering Bachelor’s and Master’s degree courses. Though talking to FORCE on 10 October 2010, Maulana Shaukat said, “Our Islamic university will also teach secular subjects like science and mathematics. Our focus will not be religion alone. We want to give quality education to our children so that they are able to compete with the best in the world.” Maulana Shaukat also claimed that he was already in talks with several educationists in Delhi for creating a superior faculty for the Islamic university. Interestingly, the Kashmir chapter of Jamiat-e-Ahl-e-Hadis claims to have a cadre base of 15 lakh and runs 150 schools all over the state. It also does charity work.

According to a senior government official, most of this consolidation of assets and creation of a network of educational institutions happened during Maulana Shaukat’s tenure, who became the president in 2001. “In the beginning, Maulana was very popular and he won the elections for the president thrice by overwhelming majority. But in the last elections, he just about managed to get enough votes,” says the government official. “The younger lot within the Jamiat were not happy with him. Moreover, he controlled lot of funds, ostensibly for the religious and educational purposes.”

Without casting aspersions on the work that late Maulana Shaukat did in Kashmir, it is important to place Jamiat-e-Ahl-e-Hadis in context to understand its role in Kashmir and the future potential of the organisation. Despite its professed religious and educational character, the organisation, from time to time flirted with militant groups like (according to Kashmir police) Tehreek-ul-Mujahideen, which was once affiliated with Jamiat-e-Ahl-e-Hadees. In a press conference after the police claimed to arrest the killers of Maulana Shaukat, IGP, S.M. Sahai said that a radical religious organisation, Saut-ul-Haq hatched the conspiracy to kill the Maulana. Subsequently, a Kashmiri journalist familiar with both Jamiat-e-Ahl-e-Hadees and Saut-ul-Haq told FORCE that the latter was the ultra radical offshoot of the former and several young people were members of both organisations.

It is not difficult to presume why Ahl-e-Hadees flirted with politics. One of the earliest orthodox groups to find its way in Kashmir was Jamaat-e-Islami founded in 1941 by Aurangabad-born Maulana Maududi who in those days was opposed to the idea of Partition. He dreamt of a Muslim India. However, once Pakistan became a reality, he moved en masse to Pakistan and Jamaat-e-Islami shrunk in India. A chapter was formed in Kashmir instead, even though there were not many takers in the early days. The syncretic Islam that Kashmiris followed was an amalgamation of Islamic and pre-Islamic traditions and culture, including visiting shrines and adhering to tenets of Sufism; hence the puritan nature of Jamaat-e-Islami’s Wahhabi- or Salafi-inspired Islam did not appeal to them much. It was far too dry.

Gradually, however, Jamaat’s influence started to grow in areas where Jamaatis managed to lure educationists and local politicians. Educational and political patronage helped in establishing its own mosques and madrassas in the state. Jamiat-e-Ahl-e-Hadees followed by registering itself in 1953. It also started building its own mosques and madrassas. Incidentally, prayer (namaz) can be offered anywhere. The only reason, various sects build their own mosques is to keep their flock together and also to constantly indoctrinate them through sermons which follow the Friday afternoon prayers. Sermons are seldom purely religious. Even in a place like Delhi, Imam Bukhari of the Jama Masjid was once infamous for his hugely political and religiously rousing oratory. Today, in Kashmir, people prefer going to their sect-specific mosques, which completely negates the spirit of Islam, which envisioned a class and sect-less society.

In the early years, the advantage that Jamaat-e-Islami had was its close ties with Pakistan, which gave it a better political leverage, especially among the Separatist elements in J&K, with SAS Geelani being its more recognisable face. Once violence rebellion broke out in Kashmir, Jamaat-e-Islami supported and funded the creation of religiously radical pro-Pakistan Hizbul Mujahideen to arrest the rise of secular, pro-independence JKLF. However, once the democratic political process started in the late Nineties, Jamaat-e-Islami started playing both sides of the fence. It leaned over towards Mufti Mohammed Sayeed’s People’s Democratic Party, so much so, that in the last assembly elections Jamaat-e-Islami instructed its cadre to collectively vote for the PDP.

Jamiat-e-Ahl-e-Hadees lost this early advantage because of lack of political patronage. However, during Maulana Shaukat’s tenure it tried to do a similar balancing act by cultivating JKLF’s Yasin Malik on the one hand and befriending Congress’ Ghulam Nabi Azad on the other. One of the biggest Jamiat-e-Ahl-e-Hadees’ mosque in Srinagar is located in Maisuma, which is where Yasin Malik lives and wields influence. Maulana Shaukat died at the steps of this mosque. On the other hand, Maulana Shaukat’s closeness with Azad got him government land for the proposed Islamic university. Congress, which has a history of tangoing with religious groups (in Punjab, it first cultivated Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and later Sant Longowal) for political gains, probably had its eyes on the 15 lakh cadre of Jamiat-e-Ahl-e-Hadees, which is not a measly number.

From the perspective of the religious organisations, their interest lies in increasing their numbers and influence. “It’s a battle of pulpit,” says the retired police officer. And the games that political parties play only add to their clout. However, all this is happening at the cost of a society which is increasingly getting radicalised and aligning itself with the larger Muslim world outside Kashmir. “The younger generation today does not believe in shrines or Kashmiriyat any longer,” says the officer.

A young superintendent of police in Sopore, Altaf Ahmed Khan, reinforces this when he says, “A lot of young people in Kashmir are kicked about the idea of global jihad. A very systematic process of indoctrination has been going on in the state. Altaf is one of those rare police officers who have been observing these trends very closely. According to him, “Rampant religious radicalisation is happening in Kashmir which is dangerous for our future. Unless we address it seriously now, time will run out.” Altaf has been brushing up his knowledge of Islam and Islamic traditions because as he says, “One has to counter religious arguments in favour of Jihad through religion. People do not realise that there are 35 verses on Jihad in Quran, out of which 31 have nothing to do with violence. Young impressionable people do not understand the difference between state of Islam and Islamic state.”

The biggest threat of radicalisation is that it creates a sense of religious exclusivism and superiority. While not all radicals turn to terrorism, their world view makes them susceptible to recruitment by terrorist groups. Altaf admits that in his area of operation he has come across several instances of young radical boys being lured by terrorists outfit. “Last year 22 boys from Sopore, mainly Jamaat-e-Islami followers, went missing. I believe at least 16 of them are already terrorists.”

Old Kashmiris are still nostalgic about their Kashmiri Pandit brothers and the old way of life. But those who were born in the Nineties have no connection with that part of their heritage, which is increasingly being laid to waste. Urdu poet Kaifi Azmi (of the famous Azamgarh district) used to say that if each Muslim boy had three-four non-Muslim friends and each Hindu boy had at least one Muslim friend, the problem of religious extremism would disappear from India. A new generation of Kashmiris no longer have this advantage. They find themselves closer to the mujahideens in Afghanistan and Pakistan than their Pandit brothers. If the Kashmiri culture of tolerance and syncretism is lost completely it will be a tragedy for Kashmir, and a threat for India.

Flying the F-16

2011-04-06T03:33:00.000-07:00

By Ghazala Wahab

When the call from the doctor didn’t come it was clear that clinically I have been declared fit to fly Lockheed Martin’s flagship fighter F-16. The only thing left to do now was adequate psyching up to take the pressure off. So, when a colleague expressed envy at ‘my chance of the lifetime’ to fly the fighter during Aero India 2011, I shrugged. After all, despite the choice of words, I wouldn’t really be flying, I reasoned. I would be a mere passenger. “All you know,” I joked frequently over the next few days, “I would doze off in the backseat.” This was a good strategy. It settled my nerves and gave me an air of nonchalance.

On the third day of Aero India, at three in the afternoon, I sauntered inside the Lockheed Martin stand with the feeling of semi-detachment. My flight was scheduled to take-off at five in the evening and touch down at 6.18pm. There was much bonhomie at the Lockheed stand, a bit of locker-room spirit, cheers and some back-slapping. Without much fuss, I was ushered into the small room with the flight simulator for preliminary familiarisation.

Jeff Paulk, tasked for the job, was the person I had met a year ago in Delhi. With him at the helm, I had done simulator flying for fun at that time. However, now there was purposefulness in his manner. “We have done this before,” he said in a business-like voice. “I hope you remember some of this,” he continued helping me clamber onto the simulator. My smile, which I am told by many is reasonably winsome, didn’t help as Jeff expected an answer. Sure, the simulator looked extremely familiar, but what’s with remembering commands after a year!

Anyhow, he gave me a quick rundown of the layout of the cockpit: stick on my right, throttle on my left, multi-function displays in the front. “You better pay attention,” he said. “You would be doing some amount of flying.” He can’t be serious. A few minutes of cockpit familiarisation and I would be trusted with a fighter? He thought it was a lame joke and continued explaining various aspects of the flight, target acquisition, dropping bombs, dog-fight, ground-mapping and so on. “There will be a lot of commands that will be with you,” he warned, even as he urged me to push forward the throttle. Talk of pressure. With much trepidation, I clutched the throttle and pushed. Full after-burners and the fighter took-off. I regained some of my composure. After all, what is the worst that can happen inside a simulator? But Jeff had other ideas. No sooner had I started to enjoy simulated cruising, he drew my attention to an unfriendly aircraft close by. I also had to take care of some targets on the ground.

I blinked at the series of buttons in front of me and looked at Jeff nervously. He rapidly issued instructions, most of which I pretended to understand. It didn’t help that my photographer was busy taking pictures reinforcing the idea that I was on a picnic. Since I could not shoot the enemy aircraft, I shot at my photographer instead. Subdued, he retired to one corner as I awaited further annihilation. Finally, it was over and Jeff smiled. “You did not do so badly,” he pronounced pushing me out of the room. “You will be fine,” he said as we walked towards the golf cart that was to take us to the flight line. “Everyone comes back from the flight smiling,” he said. I felt better.

My relief, however, was short-lived. The crew room at the flight line was a friendly place. There were several Lockheed Martin executives and former USAF pilots lounging around. Jeff quickly introduced me to the pilot in whose hands my life was going to be entrusted: Jim ‘Benson’ Hedges. Nothing to do with cigarettes, he assured me. With a surname like ‘Hedges’, it was only natural that he would end up with ‘Benson’ as his call sign. Jim Hedges quit the USAF a few years ago and now works with Lockheed as chief of F-16 Block 60 Pilot Training Development based in Abu Dhabi, UAE. He basically instructs the Arab pilots on F-16 Block 60. Since the F-16IN Super Viper, which the Lockheed is offering to the Indian Air Force is based on the Block 60, Jim hopes to shift base to India if F-16 is selected.

Jim was warm and particular about putting me at ease. “You can call me either Jim or Benson,” he said with an engaging smile. “Let me tell you, I am not just a pilot, I am a photographer too and I will be taking my camera with me on the flight,” he said glancing at the FORCE photographers who had by now got into a competitive mood as to who will take how many photos. But nothing dissuaded determined photographers and they stood their ground; which was more than what I was doing. Despite the general bonhomie and efforts at making me feel comfortable, I could sense pressure mounting. And it was not in my mind alone.

After a brief banter, Jim handed me over to Ricky, who was to help with fighter pilot’s gear, overalls, boots, ‘G’-suit, helmet, oxygen mask and the works. Ricky was almost paternal in his demeanour and he set about his job in a very concerned manner. Once I was kitted in and ready to go, Ricky gestured me towards the closest chair. Very patiently, he started to explain things that can go wrong during the flight and various rescue routines. “There could be a problem with the aircraft on the runway itself,” he said sombrely, “the engine could be on fire and you would have to abort the flight. If this happens, you will hear Jim’s voice in your headphones, saying egress, egress, egress. On the third call, remember the 2-1-2 routine,” he said matter-of-factly. The routine basically involved unhooking two shoulder plugs, one seat belt and two side hooks, all of which collectively pin you down to your seat.

Jim, who was passing through, piped in with his advice. “I’ll probably be able to unhook myself faster so I will be able to help you,” he said, adding, “Nevertheless, you will have to leap onto the fuel tank and jump off the aircraft.” Jump? Without the ladder? “Of course,” he said. “There will be no time for the ladder. And you will have to get off the runway as fast as you can. More pilots have been hurt by the rushing fire-tankers than jumping off the aircraft.” Having made his point, Jim carried on as Ricky gave me a sympathetic look.

Patting my knee, he continued. “There can be an emergency during the flight where you will be required to eject. You will hear Jim’s voice saying eject, eject, eject. On the third call, the canopy will fly open and before you can even blink, you will be in the air, merrily cruising towards the ground with your parachute.” Jim returned. “However, your worse nightmare would be a bird-hit that knocks me off,” Jim said. “You’ll know it because you will see feathers all over the cockpit.” Sure, I wouldn’t have noticed that we were going to crash. “In such a situation, you will have to eject us both. Once you are in the aircraft you will notice the ejection cord between your legs.”

Ricky patted both my knees. “Whatever happens, you must remember the most important thing,” he said gently. “You must have fun.” Yeah, between emergencies on the ground and emergencies in the air, I will certainly have fun. Time for the ‘G’ suit, Ricky announced and produced a contraption that looked more like a manacle. It fitted snugly around my waist, thighs and calves with a loop at the back to provide seat in case I return to earth on a parachute. Walking with the ‘G’ suit was odd, forget about the added weight. By now I had internalised all the emergencies routines and was actually looking forward to the flight. Or maybe I wanted to get it over with fast.

Walking towards the aircraft, I asked Jim, “Is it necessary to fly for an hour and 18 minutes?” “We can do less if you want,” he said quickly. As I weighed my answer, he added, “I have kept an hour and 18 minutes for you. Let me know how you feel during the flight and we will decide then.” Ricky accompanied us to the aircraft, primarily to ensure that I was fitted in snugly. I was given tiny ear muffs to ward off the noise over which I pushed down the helmet which plastered my hair to my scalp. Then came the oxygen mask which pressed so hard against my cheek bones that I had to constantly hold it down. Watching me do this, Ricky got anxious. “Are you claustrophobic, he enquired. “Not at all,” I said firmly putting the mask back, cheekbones be damned.

“Though you won’t be flying at altitudes where you will require oxygen,” Ricky explained, “you need to wear the mask to speak with Jim during the flight because the mouth-piece is fitted in inside.” By this time Jim had settled down in the front seat and we quickly went over all the commands and instructions once again.

As we waited for the ATC clearance, Jim ran me through the stuff we were going to do in the air. There would be some basic manoeuvres, like rolls and loops, target acquisition and so on. Jim also assured me that he will create a few emergencies for me to respond to. For instance, at some stage during the flight he will pretend to be a rookie pilot who has got disoriented after a couple of loops. He will allow the aircraft to free fall and call out to me for help. All I’ll have to do is remove my hand from the stick and push a button called PARS on the right-hand side panel. PARS stands for Pilot Activated Recovery System, and according to Jim is unique to F-16 Block 60.

However, the most important aspect of this flight was going to be the AESA radar. Jim said, “The F-16 Block 60 is the only fighter in the MMRCA competition that has operational AESA radar. This is the reason we have brought the leased the aircraft from the UAE Air Force with the AESA radar. No other aircraft at Aero India is flying with AESA radar.” Hence, a good portion of the flight would focus on demonstrating the capabilities of Northrop Grumman’s APG-80 AESA radar.

Finally, we got the green signal, the canopy closed and we started to taxi. As Jim kept up the chatter it took him a few minutes to realise that he could not hear me. Take-off was aborted, canopy was raised and Ricky came running with a new mask. This one worked and we resumed taxiing. However, having lost a few minutes, we missed our take-off window and had to wait for a couple of landings and a take-off before we could take off. While we were waiting, Jim got IAF’s An-32 on the radar screen much before we could see it in the sky against the setting sun. We kept tracking the aircraft on the MFD till it landed. Jim said that we could lock on to the aircraft much before it became aware of our presence.

After a wait of nearly 20 minutes we were cleared to fly. As the fighter accelerated on the runway and I was pinned against by back-rest, Jim asked me to arm my seat which basically means making it ejection-ready by hooking it onto the parachute. No sooner had I pushed the lever, F-16 left the ground in one smooth swoop. Whoops! I nearly screamed looking down the glass cockpit. Sweeping at an angle, the aircraft continued to rise with the sun behind us. Jim first rolled to the right and without giving me a chance to recover rolled to the left. It was exhilarating. When I told Jim that it was fun, he urged me to wield the stick and do the barrel roll on my own. “And keep your eyes on the central display,” he said. “That is where you track the ‘G’s”. The stick operates almost on suggestions. A gentle tug to the right and the aircraft started to roll. “Faster, faster,” yelled Jim. “Now pull the stick,” he said and the aircraft went nose up in air. On the central display, the figures went from 2G to 3G. I felt my g-suit inflate a bit pushing against my stomach and thighs, blood draining from my hands momentarily, but it was over quickly.

“How do you feel?” asked Jim. I was alright. Encouraged, Jim said that I seemed ready for 5G. I didn’t want to commit myself to 5G, so I let Jim interpret my silence. He interpreted it as an affirmative. And once again we went nose up. The G-suit inflated, pushing the air out of my lungs. I remembered what Ricky told me about breathing. I clenched my thighs and abdomen and started to suck in and push the air out fiercely. Goggle-eyed I stared at the MFD: 2G... 3G... 4G... 5G... “We have done five,” I screamed in the mouthpiece. ...6G “Are we doing more than five?” I screamed again. My hands barely had any sensation. Equally suddenly the fighter nose-dived straight towards the ground.

We had completed the loop. Before I could savour the sensation of having done over 5G, Jim’s voice crackled, “I am disoriented, you will have to set the aircraft right. You know what to do, don’t you.” Oh yes, I smiled to myself as I caught sight of the PARS button. But my hand refused to go there. My body cannot give up on me just when my spirit was soaring. Using my left hand to give the right one a shove, I pushed the PARS button just in time. In one swing movement, the fighter rose again till it was flying parallel to the ground.

We were now flying directly towards the sun; though the sun-visor on the helmet protected the eyes, the visibility was pretty hazy. Jim turned the radar on. Among various other things, APG-80 AESA radar can perform three functions simultaneously: it can search and acquire air to air targets, it can acquire air to ground targets and it can map the terrain at the same time. Jim tracked one aircraft and zoomed in for my benefit. At the same time, on the other screen I could see a cluster of buildings in which Jim searched for the purported target. The third screen was mapping the terrain, comprising a hillock and what looked like mines.

I had practised target acquisition and bomb-dropping in the simulator but doing this while in the air gave a completely different meaning to fighter flying. It was a good thing we were flying without weapons. After a few more twists and turns we dived again to land. Just as quickly as we had taken off we landed. Despite the speed, there was no thud. It was the gentlest ever touch-down. Putting the seat back in the safe mode, I finally took off the oxygen mask and the helmet. The canopy opened and I was happy to feel the cool evening breeze on my face. The sun had set, leaving a red stain in the sky.

In the fading lights of the day, Jim and I walked towards the crew room. “I believe,” he said, “the F-16 that we are offering to India is the best for its needs.” I wanted to sit down for a moment, maybe rest awhile. Jim nodded. “You must be feeling tired,” he said gently. “It happens when you fly for the first time. I smiled at him. He was ready for another flight.

IN GADDAFI'S LAND

2011-04-05T00:44:00.000-07:00

By Ghazala Wahab

The Libyan supreme commander Col Muammar Gaddafi has turned out to be more obdurate than what the world imagined. Perhaps, there should have been no surprise in this. Gaddafi, who has ruled Libya with a messianic fervour, believes that he is God’s chosen one; which is why he rules without holding any office. Offices, with their attendant powers and responsibilities are for the ordinary, not for the one who rules by divine sanction. Hence, anyone who opposes Gaddafi opposes the will of God and must be silenced with whichever means possible.

In this spring of freedom, the biggest dictators have bowed down to the domestic will coupled with international pressure. Sure, they did not go easily. Both Zine El Abidine of Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt tried to suppress the uprising in the initial days. And those who did not go have made promises of civil liberties and better life to their people, whether they will be kept or not is another story. But none deployed the air force or heavy armoury against their own people, except of course Gaddafi.

But I shouldn’t have been surprised. In 1996, I had an opportunity to visit Libya. One dubious Delhi-based non-government organisation put together a delegation comprising relatives and friends to give a peace award to Gaddafi. To give this delegation a degree of credibility and professionalism, a few journalists were invited to jump on the bandwagon. Clearly, both the award and the delegation were sponsored by Libya. I presume, most respectable journalists would have declined to become part of this racket. Hence, my editor asked me, a newcomer to the profession, to go on this five-day jamboree, during which we were supposed to meet Gaddafi. Because of the sanctions, no international flights were allowed into Libya. Hence, from India we flew to Paris, spent the night there, took a flight to Tunis City in Tunisia the following day, yet another flight to the beach town of Djerba and finally from Djerba we drove to Libya at night.

Even in darkness, we knew the moment we crossed into Libya. Giant posters of Gaddafi, lit up at night welcomed us at the border where our passports were confiscated by the border security. Since we reached our hotel in Tripoli in the early hours, we were encouraged to sleep in. Later that day, an escort team came to show us around Tripoli. The first stop was the war museum, the old Presidential palace which was bombed 10 years ago by the US. Each broken column and shrapnel was preserved. It was a fascinating walk till we reached what used to be the private quarters of Qaddafi. In the middle of the room was a baby cot, complete with duvet and mosquito net.

“This is where His Excellency’s adopted daughter Hanna was asleep when the American bomb killed her,” said the escort in hushed tone, in obvious deference to dead. Wasn’t it strange, I asked him, when everyone, Gaddafi and each of his children had the opportunity to run away before the bombing (they were warned about the impending bombing either by the Italian or the Maltese government), how come no one remembered to pick up the infant? The escort ignored the question and we moved into the next room. I whispered to my accompanist, “Obviously, the girl was not picked up because she was an adopted child and good propaganda material.” He looked at me with horror. The escort was looking directly at us.

That evening I had visitors in my room: Our day escort came with a woman who he introduced as his wife. “You are an enthusiastic journalist. I am sure you want to know more about Libya. You can ask us anything.” His ‘wife’ did not speak a word of English. She gave a sort of oral presentation in rapid Arabic, which the escort duly translated. There was no room for any questions. In any case, neither of us knew what the other was saying and had to depend completely on the escort. After a few minutes, I realised that I was being tutored on how great the supreme commander is and what sacrifices he has made for the people of Libya. Before leaving he gave me a copy of the ‘Green Book’, Gaddafi’s gospel, with the instructions that I must read it before I ask more questions.

We were supposed to meet Gaddafi the next day, but he suddenly decided to retreat to his desert camp for a few days. We were told by our escort that we should use this time to get to know Libya better. In any case, there wasn’t much to do. There was no television, no international calling in our rooms and we were not allowed to go out of the hotel on our own. In the day time we used to do sight-seeing and in the evening, I was singled out for further education. Every evening our escort used to bring a different person to my room to give me a lecture on Libya. One evening, he brought along a poet who was declared the national poet of Libya by the supreme commander himself. Needless to say, his collection of work included several paeans to Gaddafi.

After five days, I was tired and homesick. I requested the head of the delegation if I could return to India. He first tried to persuade me to stay on, but when I told him that I was missing my family far too much as I had not been able to even talk with them, he assured me that he would do his best to help me. That evening nobody came to my room. But after midnight, somebody knocked on my door. There were two men, looking reasonably menacing. They warned me that if I insist on returning before the completion of the tour they would put me on a ship to Malta. I was truly shaken up. As part of the delegation was an elderly journalist, who knew the Indian ambassador in Tripoli. Next morning, at breakfast I narrated the incident to him. He promised to get a word across to the Indian ambassador. The biggest hurdle was that we did not have our passports. That night, there were knocks on my door again. The following morning the escort came to see me. He told me to reconsider my decision, failing which he shrugged, “Very well,” he said. “This is a free country. If you want to go we cannot stop you.” I got my passport back during the day and was told to prepare to leave the next morning. I slept fitfully that night.

It was still dark when I was woken up by forceful thumping on my door. It was the escort who came to accompany me till Djerba. As I came down with my luggage, I realised that I would be alone with him and the chauffeur all through the journey. All sorts of dreadful possibilities raced through my mind as we drove in silence for a few hours. Finally, just as the day broke, we reached Djerba airport. The escort gave me my return tickets and drove off. Finally, I could breathe again.

Games DRDO Plays

2011-04-04T21:51:00.000-07:00

By Pravin Sawhney

Tall claims and empty boasts seem to have become the hallmark of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). The proclivity of the Director General, DRDO, Dr V.K. Saraswat and his team to exaggerate its achievements would be amusing to discerning people. Unfortunately, this amusement has grave national security implications and Dr Saraswat, a ballistic missile expert with the indigenous Prithvi ballistic missile being his crowning glory, should know this better than most.

As the director general, DRDO, he is leading the nation’s home-grown Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) programme. The claims made by him about the recently tested-fired Dhanush and Prithvi II ballistic missiles on March 11 and the BMD Endo-atmospheric interceptor test on March 6 are exaggerated beyond imagination. These should have been put into perspective by the Indian defence correspondents and experts, not only for domestic but international consumption as well, because the Pakistani establishment, while ignoring DRDO’s claims on Prithvi, utilises the boasts about the BMD to its strategic advantage.

Making use of Saraswat’s chest-thumping, Pakistan is going ahead full throttle to more than match India’s humble BMD technological achievements; if at all, the programme is decades away from fruition. According to US intelligence, while ahead of India in ballistic missiles capabilities since 2001, General Headquarters, Rawalpindi continues to increase its inventory of nuclear weapons’ land vector by citing India’s BMD claims as a destabilising factor. This writer had first-hand experience of this a few months ago. During the alumni meet at the Cooperative Monitoring Centre (Sandia National Laboratory) at Albuquerque, US in October 2010, a former director of Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division, Brigadier Feroz Khan argued that India’s growing BMD capability had forced Pakistan to build more ballistic missiles.

Given its unbridled inventory, it is a matter of time before the Pakistan Army will alter its war-fighting doctrine to align it with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army thinking. While supplementing air power, the difference between combat aircraft and ballistic missiles will narrow down to tighter control of the latter. This will upset the Indian Air Force combat numbers superiority over the Pakistan Air Force and force the Indian Army to review its operational level pro-active strategy, referred to as the Cold Start doctrine in the media, against the Pakistan Army. Given such implications, the defence minister needs to restrain Saraswat and the DRDO from making irresponsible statements. Apparently after the recent claims on the BMD project, defence minister A.K. Antony has expressed his displeasure to Saraswat.

Prithvi and Dhanush

A brief history and technological limitations of the indigenous Prithvi ballistic missile are in order. The development of surface-to-surface Prithvi ballistic missile was sanctioned by the government in 1983 under the Integrated Guided Missiles Development Programme. As Prithvi was an offshoot of ISRO’s civilian Space Launch Vehicle (SLV), its development commenced without the General Staff Qualitative Requirements (GSQR) — technical requirements given by the user, that is, defence services, to the research organisation — implying that the defence services were neither consulted nor were they interested (ballistic missiles were still unknown to them) in the programme. As happens with most indigenous programmes, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi personally goaded the army in 1988 to accept Prithvi in order to encourage the indigenous product. Considering the Prime Minister had intervened regarding a weapon system, it was easy for the DRDO to arm-twist the other two services, the navy and the air force to seek the missile with a few minor and not design changes to suit its medium of operations.

Thus, three versions of the same missile were created. The army’s Prithvi has a range of 150km with a 1,000kg payload. Working on the trade-off between weight of the warhead and the missile range, the IAF was offered the Prithvi (Prithvi II) with 250km range and 500kg payload. The IAF argued that it had little use for this missile, after all what was the point of a ballistic missile (with dubious accuracy) knocking off a few of enemy building (in a 500kg payload, 30 per cent space by volume would be occupied by the arming and fusing mechanisms, and onboard digital autopilot) and causing collateral damage.

The DRDO then took two steps. It announced to the media that Prithvi would be nuclear capable as well — this statement took care of the accuracy issue as with nuclear warheads accuracy becomes less important — and it decided to increase the warhead by making the payload weight 750kg instead of 500kg. This was sought to be achieved by using boosted liquid propellant to generate greater thrust-to-weight ratio. Technically, if there is a 20 per cent change in the warhead weight or range, a ballistic missile requires a series of fresh testing. Then Prithvi project director, Saraswat, the present DG, DRDO, ruled out extensive testing saying that the air force variant will not be a new design. What is more, he claimed a Circular Error Probability, a measure of accuracy and consistency, of 25metres at full range (‘Boosting the Arsenal’ India Today, 29 February 1996), which is untrue even today. This labelled Prithvi a dual-use missile, which could be used with both conventional and nuclear warheads.

Enormous pressure was put on successive air force chiefs to accept the Prithvi II, so much so that the air force chief in 2006, when asked in a press conference (by me), was prompted to say that the IAF would get a squadron of Prithvi II missiles. Contrary to popular understanding, the reality is that the IAF does not have Prithvi II missiles, and to fast-forward the story, will never get them as Prithvi’s production has stopped. The few Prithvi II made by the DRDO are held by DRDO on behalf of the Strategic Forces Command (SFC), which was created on 4 January, 2003. The much publicised Prithvi II test-firing by the SFC on 11 March, 2011 was from these holdings.

To digress a bit, there is ambiguity about the SFC as well. Being a strategic command, the SFC should have under its command only those ballistic missiles (Agni series) which will be used with nuclear warheads. For example, the status of Army’s Prithvi missiles is unclear: two Prithvi missile units are held by the two artillery divisions suggesting they will be used with conventional warheads. However, their annual firing practice is under the aegis of SFC, which should mean they will have nuclear warheads. A dangerous situation has thus been created where the adversary (Pakistan) is uncertain whether Prithvi is indeed a dual-use missile. Moreover, as India does not have an understanding or agreement with Pakistan on the usage of various ballistic missiles (it was bilaterally sought under the Memorandum of Understanding signed as part of the 1999 Lahore Declaration), a misreading or a miscalculation about the warhead would have grave consequences.

Meanwhile, learning from the IAF’s doggedness, the DRDO agreed to do a number of test-firings for the naval version, Dhanush, with a purported range of 300km carrying a 1,000kg payload. It is worth noting that the first test of Dhanush done atop a surface ship on 11 April 2000 was a failure. This validated the IAF’s point that a new design requires extensive test-firings. Given the operational limitations of the missile (discussed later), the navy, like the IAF, has never been enthusiastic about Dhanush. The 11 March 2011 Dhanush test done from INS Suvarna is part of the validation process. Commenting on the recent tests of Prithvi II and Dhanush, Saraswat reportedly claimed that the missile had a CEP of less than 10 metres, implying that if the missile is fired at its full range, 82 per cent of the hits will be within a radius of 10 metres drawn around the bulls-eye. Not to be left behind, DRDO chief controller for life sciences (who has little to do with ballistic missiles), W. Selvamurthy claimed that the SFC, according to its strategy, can now attack a target from land and sea simultaneously. Considering that the land-based Prithvi version, given Pakistan’s elongated geography, can hit almost all valuable targets, what is the need for the navy to fire Dhanush? If indeed Dhanush was a successful nuclear weapon vector, what was the need for India to spend billion of rupees on developing the sea-based deterrence INS Arihant and its follow-on vessels?

Coming back to the army’s Prithvi, it has, at least, four major technical and operational limitations. One, when all countries with ballistic missiles use solid propellants, Prithvi uses liquid propellant, which is difficult to handle in the field and during tactical movements. While pre-filled Prithvi has shelf-life limitation (once filled, the liquid propellant cannot be emptied out and the missile will need to be destroyed), topping the missile in the field requires large preparatory time and utmost care (as the liquid propellant is highly corrosive to human skin), a luxury unavailable in the din of war. Two, the terminal velocity of the Prithvi is low, and hence high explosive monolith conventional warhead will not be able to penetrate the hardened fortifications on the international border between India and Pakistan. The reason for Prithvi’s low terminal velocity is that unlike the Chinese M-11 (which Pakistan has), the body of the Prithvi does not separate from the warhead. The pre-fragmented warhead will be effective against ‘soft targets’, but compared with the multi-barrel rocket launchers like Smerch and Pinaka, which the artillery has, the Prithvi fire will not be cost-effective and flexible. For this reason, the DRDO never developed the other advertised conventional warheads like pre-fragmented monolith, bomblet sub-munitions, and blast cum earth-shock munitions for Prithvi. Three, as Prithvi lacks a proven terminal guidance system, its accuracy and consistency for use with conventional warheads is unacceptable. As a general guideline, Prithvi’s CEP is 100m for 150km. All Prithvi tests have been done from pre-surveyed sites and hence are stage-managed. It can be argued that even in war, Prithvi could be fired from pre-surveyed sites, but this will be at the cost of battlefield flexibility. Considering that the BrahMos Land Attack Cruise Missile (LACM) gives a less than 10m CEP at full advertised range of 290km (its range is much more, but has been kept suppressed to adhere to Missile Technology Control Regime limits) with supersonic speed, the army has found it a far better option that Prithvi for depth and strategic targeting. And lastly, the Prithvi missile signature is huge as it rises upon firing; the enemy will find its general location with ease for counter bombardment.

Once the army acquired the BrahMos LACM, Smerch and Pinaka MBRLs, the future of Prithvi in its present design, with all its shortcomings, was sealed and its production stopped. As an aside, the IAF, which did not accept the Prithvi II, has acquired a regiment of BrahMos LACM. The government has decreed that the existing two regiments of Prithvi with the Indian artillery will eventually be replaced by Agni missiles (Agni-V whenever it enters service) and will be given to the SFC. Prithvi in all its manifestations is a dead dog that continues to be flogged by the DRDO for meaningless glory.

Ballistic Missile Defence

To place the 6 March 2011 Endo-atmospheric interception test at 15km altitude into perspective, a brief backgrounder on BMD is necessary. Any BMD has six essential elements. The first is the early warning system that is capable of signalling the launch of enemy’s ballistic missile as early as possible. Earliest detections are best done by satellite and by aircraft (AWACS and AEW&C), capabilities which India presently does not have. It is hoped that AEW&C networked capability should be available by 2015, which then will provide dual-advantage of providing early warning and early cue to the Long Range Tracking Radar (LRTR). The second element is the LRTR, with a range of mere 600km; called Swordfish, this is the DRDO’s name for acquired Israeli Green Pine radars. The third element is the Multi Functional Fire Control Radar (MFFCR), a short range, short wavelength radar which takes over from the LRTR, detects the small cross section of the hostile missile and passes the relevant information to the control centre, where necessary computations are done and hostile missile coordinates are relayed to the interceptor missiles. The DRDO has the Thales MFFCR will a range of 350km capable of detecting radar cross-section of 0.3sqm. The control centre called the battle management and command, control, communication and intelligence (BM/C3I) is the fourth element of the BMD system. The fifth and sixth elements are the two interceptors, one each in the Endo and Exo-atmosphere to simultaneously hit and kill the ballistic missile before its nuclear warhead gets activated.

As a general rule, the nuclear chain reaction, which then cannot be controlled, gets activated about 10km (airburst is achieved with proximity fuse for maximum casualties) above the earth. If the hostile payload that has the nuclear warhead gets a direct hit before the payload drops to this low height, the nuclear core will not get activated and it will not burst. It is evident that interceptor missiles with conventional warhead should be used only if it has 100 per cent accuracy to hit the bull’s eye. Otherwise, the preferred option for interceptor missile warhead is a nuclear warhead which while engaging the hostile missile ideally in Exo-atmosphere detonates its warhead by its blast (it need not be a direct hit), with the nuclear debris then suspended in space. In short, it should be nuclear warhead for nuclear warhead to destroy enemy’s long range missiles.

Moreover, 30km height is the dividing line between the atmosphere and space; below 30km is atmosphere and above 30km is space, two medium with different characteristics. It is evident that both the interceptors should be designed to hit the hostile missile as high as possible so that the destroyed missile’s debris falls as much away as possible from friendly territory. Thus, the Exo-interceptor should be able to engage at heights of 200km plus with hypersonic speeds to hit long range hostile missiles with ranges up to 5,000km coming at high speeds. If this hit is not achieved, the Endo-interceptor should then kill the missile the moment it is at 30km height and enters the atmosphere.

Given these facts, let’s examine what has been achieved by the DRDO. The indigenous BMD programme started in 1995, the trigger were reports that Pakistan had acquired M-11 ballistic missiles from China. The M-11 has 400km range, but the advertised range was kept at 280km to meet MTCR limits. In quick time, Pakistan also acquired the Chinese M-9 ballistic missiles with 600km range. Keeping sights low and not bothering for subsequent Pakistani missiles acquisitions with ranges of 2,000km plus (no one thought about Chinese ballistic missiles), the DRDO started its work on the BMD. The Israeli LRTR with 600km and the Thales 350km range radars met the immediate need. The Exo-interceptor is PAD, a derivative of the indigenous Prithvi ballistic missile, and the Endo-interceptor is AAD, inspired by the indigenous medium range surface-to-air Akash missile with a 25km maximum slant range. The PAD, later called PAD-I, is a two stage interceptor missile, a solid propellant second stage rocket is mounted on top of the liquid propellant Prithvi. To achieve high terminal speed, a liquid ‘divert-thruster’ is placed on top of the second stage solid propellant. The ‘divert-thruster’ and the payload are fired simultaneously towards the target once they are within the seeker range (Radio Frequency) of 30 to 40km.

Three technical infirmities in PAD-I are: it can achieve a maximum height of 80km only and hence it cannot intercept missiles with more than 1,000km ranges; it has RF seeker which is unlikely to ‘acquire for hit’ fast speed long range missiles; and it uses a conventional warhead armed with proximity fuse, which while exploding within 20metres of the hostile missile may not hit it. If the hostile missile with nuclear warhead does not get a direct hit, it will continue on its trajectory path and its nuclear warhead will detonate at designated height. The PAD-I has done two successful interceptions at 48km and 80km heights in space. Understanding the severe shortcoming of PAD-I, Saraswat told me a year ago (FORCE, March 2010) that PAD-I would be modified to PAD-II or PDV with two changes: the first stage of PAD-I (Prithvi) which is a liquid motor will be replaced by a solid motor stage with high energy levels. The second stage will also be modified for higher interception accuracy and the RF seeker will be replaced by an Imaging Infra Red (IIR) seeker. He had said that PDV would be test-fired by end of 2010; this crucial test has still not happened.

After the 6 March 2011 Endo-atmospheric test, Saraswat announced that, “one more interception will be done to intercept a 2,000km range incoming missile at an altitude of 150km. With this test, which will be done in 2011, the BMD Phase one will be over.” Saraswat added that, “India’s plans for putting in place the first phase of the two-layered ballistic missile defence shield by 2012 and the second phase by 2016 are on course.” Saraswat was referring to the long overdue PDV test.

The two-phased BMD programme that he talks about is: in Phase I, with one more test of PDV, the two interceptors (Exo and Endo) will be ready for production by 2012. Between 2012 and 2013, the DRDO will put together the required number of interceptors as well as other elements like radars and control centres. Thus, by 2013, Indian BMD will be ready to successfully intercept hostile ballistic missiles armed (with nuclear warheads) with 2,000km ranges. In Phase II, which Saraswat says will be ready by 2016, whose interceptors are to be validated by 2015, the BMD would take on ballistic missiles with 5,000km ranges. Dr Saraswat is kite-flying. His targets are unreal and his BMD achievements are gross exaggerations.

Talking about Phase I meant to hit 2,000km range ballistic missiles, there are five major unresolved issues. First, the choice of Prithvi missile as the target (in all the interceptions done so far) is wrong as the missile (discussed above) has slow speed. It ought to be remembered that Pakistan does not have Prithvi missiles; all its missiles with 2,000km ranges (like the Chinese CSS-5, renamed Ghauri, as even M-11 and M-9) have faster speeds. Saraswat would do well to designate indigenous Agni-I with 700km and Agni-II with 2,000km range as the hostile missiles and then demonstrate successful interceptions. Second, the PAD-I, validated thus far, can attain a maximum height of 80km, which is insufficient to intercept 2,000km range missiles in Exo-atmosphere. Moreover, there is a need to demonstrate high speed interceptor than the present PAD-I intercepting Prithvi missile. The answer is the PDV interceptor demonstration which has been delayed, obviously because it is not ready yet. Therefore, would it not be better for DRDO to hold the claims till PDV is successfully test-fired against Agni-II missile? Let the tests do the talking.

Third, given the fact that the interceptors are armed with conventional warheads, there is the need to demonstrate simultaneous Exo and Endo-atmospheric tests; if one misses the target, the other should be able to kill it. This has not been done. Fourth, the DRDO has not said whether the latest March 6 test and the earlier tests were indeed direct hits. Considering that the interceptors have RF seekers and the IIR seekers have still not been demonstrated, and the proximity fuse on the warhead will explode within 20m of the target, even with a slow target like Prithvi, the interceptions may not have achieved a ‘kill’. And fifth, all interceptor tests have been conducted from known designed sites, and have thus been stage managed. All Prithvi missiles depicting hostile missiles have been fired from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur, Orissa, and the interceptors from the Wheeler’s Island 70km apart. In actual war, such ideal situations will be unavailable. There is thus a need to do further tests in the above suggested configurations for successful interceptions of missiles with 2,000km ranges.

The BMD phase II will obviously be more challenging and it is unreal to now announce its accomplishment date of 2016. To thwart 5,000km range missiles (meant against China), the DRDO will need the following: the present Swordfish LRTR will need to be replaced with minimum 1,500km range radar. This will require foreign collaboration; it is doubtful if Israel will be able to help in this. Ideally, India will need satellite capability for early warning, which it does not have. The interceptors, Exo and Endo, will require higher speed, better seekers, and importantly should be able to attain up to 200km heights, which at present is a tall order. Probably, the biggest challenge will be to consider a nuclear warhead on the Exo-atmospheric interceptor to kill a 5,000km range nuclear missile. Considering the 1998 series of nuclear tests done by India, the question is, can India produce compact nuclear warheads with high yields and assurance for the low-diameter interceptors? It needs to be remembered that even with the best BMD programmes, the assurance level of ‘killing’ all hostile ballistic missiles is never more than 80 per cent.

What has been accomplished so far is nothing more than small baby steps in BMD development. But, Saraswat does not think so. After the March 6 test, he told the media that “Only the US, Russia, France, Israel and India have the capability to put in place a ballistic missile defence shield. China is still developing it.” Alluding to the successful Chinese anti-satellite test done in 2007, he said that, “India now has all the technologies and building blocks which can be used for anti-satellite missions in the low earth and polar orbits.”

He earlier gave me (FORCE, March 2010) a lengthy explanation on the subject. According to him, “Demonstrating satellite interception is not something that is necessary to acquiring this capability. Satellite, as you know, has a predictable path, whether it is in the polar, low earth or any other orbit. To check my interception capability, I can always simulate the satellite path electronically. I will generate an electronic scenario at the launch pad as if I am getting the data from another satellite or ground-based radar and take that as the inputs to my mission-control centre and then launch an interceptor. Since the path is known, I can know if I have accurately hit the target or not, unlike the ballistic missiles, where the path can be unpredictable because of aero-dynamic and many other reasons. So technically, we have concluded that we do not need to check our building blocks to ascertain whether we have satellite interception capability.”

When I asked him, why the Chinese had thought it necessary to demonstrate anti-satellite capability, he replied, “I do not know. Only they can answer this question.” Probably the answer lies in the cold statistics. Satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) are at heights of 300km above the earth, as they will not be stable otherwise. The Polar orbit is at height of 843km. The demonstrated capability of DRDO’s Exo-interceptor is only 80km above the earth. How does this claim square up? Even if the DRDO were able to make an interceptor which could reach the height of 300km, it needs to be remembered that satellites in LEO move at speeds of 28,000km per hour. Thus, to demonstrate assurance, there is a need to do a successful anti-satellite test, which the Chinese did, and got the US anxious about their increasing space capabilities. The US, which has demonstrated capability to kill a satellite in LEO and Polar orbits with laser on aircraft, is already thinking about the inevitability of space militarisation. Both the early warning and interception of satellites and long range missiles (5,000km onwards) by laser beams is best done through space capabilities. China is planning the catch-up with the US. Where does this leave India where the DRDO has happily declared that intercepting satellites and ballistic missiles are the same thing? Worse, no one has questioned the wisdom of the Indian BMD, its implications and future.

Government Fails

2010-04-07T03:07:00.000-07:00

The butchering of the CRPF men in the Dantewada forests near Jagdalpur in the Bastar district of Chhattisgarh is not the failure of the CRPF but of the government. The government has not only failed the Paramilitary force which was designated as India's premier anti-insurgency force a few years ago, but has failed the people who reposed trust in its grand plan to take on the Maoists. All that the CRPF has is a fancy designation as the main counter-insurgency force and a breathtaking sweep of role from Kashmir to Naxal-affected states. It has neither specialised equipment to execute its new role, nor it is an integral intelligence wing which is crucial for such operations. Even worse, it is not part of the government's grand strategy to take on the Naxals. It depends on the state police forces for operational intelligence as well as logistics. The specialised force that was culled from the CRPF to take on the Naxals, Combat Battalions for Resolute Action (CoBRA) and since been renamed as Special Action Force because certain politicians and state governments objected to this acronym. However, renaming has not changed anything. CoBRA or SAF do not even have bullet-proof jackets and helmets, let alone any other kind of specialised equipment which a special force should ideally have. Even in terms of deployment, they do the same operations as regular CRPF or the state police. Given this, what would be the morale of this force? By upping the ante against the Maoists, wasn't the home minister sending out the message that the government meant business when all it was doing was indulging in empty rhetoric. And the priced is being paid by hapless soldiers. Whose failure is it then? Where does the buck stops now?

Still at Sea

2009-08-05T00:01:00.000-07:00

The crowd never thins at the Gateway of India in Mumbai, the commemorative monument that will now be remembered more for the terrorists who stepped through it to ravish the city than for King George V and Queen Mary, in whose honour it was built in 1911. While several lean back on the meandering low wall next to the Gateway and gaze at the Taj Mahal hotel, more look out to the sea: The wrathful waves lash at the walls before crashing against the rocks. Like coastal people everywhere else, sea has been a comforting source of livelihood, romance, poetry and sometimes unexpected accidents in Mumbai, but it was never expected to have connived with the enemy. Just how did the insulating folds of the waves become instruments of hostility?
A senior officer from the Indian Navy says, “Between the 26th and the 29th of November last year, the violent and tragic death of some 180 Indian citizens and foreigners in Mumbai, cruelly underscored one of the most abiding lessons of the history of India, in that whenever we have neglected maritime security, the effects have been painful and long-lasting.” The effects on 26/11 will certainly be long-lasting, especially if the government refuses to learn the right lessons. And already there are signs that indeed this might be happening.
Just as the Kargil conflict, that brought home the glaring gaps in intelligence gathering/sharing and border management among other things, forced the government to look at the entire gamut of national security in a holistic way (and led to the creation of various committees under the group of ministers focussing on issues like intelligence, border and management and so on), 26/11 led to a similar exercise. Ironically, the post-Kargil holistic exercise promised to deliver in two areas, border management and intelligence (with higher defence management remaining in cold storage), and it was these two that failed yet again. After the hard-won Kargil conflict, the government of the day realised that there was a serious lack of communication between all the multifarious intelligence agencies — turf war, lack of trust, or sheer pettiness that the other should not get the credit —, hence the government created a 24-hour Multi Agency Centre (MAC) within the Intelligence Bureau to work as a coordinator between all the intelligence agencies like R&AW, military intelligence, state police, Para-military forces and so on. The idea was to create a seamless network of intelligence flow from the collector to the interpreter, analyser and the executor. But MAC remained still born. The individual personalities, egos and absence of executive direction collectively buried what could have been a beginning of inter-agency cooperation.
Border management fared a little better, but was hampered by the land-locked vision. So while the government enunciated and executed the policy of one border one force on the land, the coastal border remained at sea. Despite the surprised breach of the Himalayan frontier, nobody in the government seriously thought that sea would be no protection either. An ad hoc arrangement carried on between the Indian Navy, Coast Guard (ICG) and a half-baked entity called the marine police to guard what was vaguely called the coastal border of India. Since the whole system was amorphous there was no accountability. And nobody knew where the buck stopped.
How lose the structures were and how petty institutional leadership was, was evident when a blame game started between various agencies after the November 26 attack. Deliberate leaks were fed to the media by the intelligence agencies apportioning the blame on the Indian Navy, which in turn defended itself by rubbishing the claims of timely intelligence by saying that it was not actionable. Meanwhile, coast guard offered its stock of explanations for why the lapse was not on their part. And nobody even bothered about the marine police because clearly nothing was expected of them. Since everyone was on their own in this, there was no accountability and no fixing of responsibility. “But because the terrorists came from the sea, people at large assumed that the navy should be held accountable. Do you hold the army accountable when the terrorists come by road, like in the case of Indian Parliament?” asks one senior naval officer.
Perhaps, it is a harsh indictment on the people, given that the government or the Indian State itself did not completely appreciate the concept of what comprises coastal security, or even the maritime border. India has a coastline running into 7,516km. But this is not really the maritime ‘border’, which lies a further 12 miles seaward from the declared baseline of the country. A baseline is drawn along the furthest points of a country’s coast, taking into account all the promontories as some coastlines are not linear, for instance, Bangladesh. Given this, the baselines also often are a little away from the actual coast. This 12-mile sea belt is called the territorial waters, which are as much part of the country as the land itself. Interestingly, Pakistan, given certain promontories on its coast has drawn its baselines way off the coast, thereby giving itself territorial waters of almost 32 miles in certain parts. While Indian Navy did raise objections to this, but they have been at best half-hearted. Two hundred nautical miles beyond the territorial waters lie the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
In terms of securing this vast expanse of sea, before November 26, the ICG was responsible for, in the words of director general ICG, Vice Admiral Anil Chopra, “Continuous surveillance of over 2.2 million sqkm of India’s EEZ, and respond to distress calls in the Indian Search and Rescue Region which spans over four million square kilometers.” Territorial waters in India, which are merely the aqueous form of the country, were the responsibility of the marine police. Using the analogy of continental security to explain coastal security, a naval officer says, “Within the borders of India, the ‘dissuasive’, ‘deterrent’, ‘preventive’ and ‘curative’ functions of the State are carried out along a ‘degrade path’ upon which the principal mechanism is the police. When the police fails, the State proceeds down its ‘degrade path’ and calls upon its ‘armed police’, then its ‘Paramilitary forces’. It is only once all these mechanisms have failed that the State calls upon its military. Since the laws of the Republic of India apply in full measure to uphold the majesty of the State throughout the 12-mile limit of the territorial waters of India, the principal mechanism by which the State must carry out its ‘dissuasive’, ‘deterrent’, ‘preventive’ and ‘curative’ functions, remains the police. The degrade path here will be the same, and the paramilitary option, if required, would be exercised through the deployment of the Indian Coast Guard. Thus, for the government to proceed right to the end of its ‘degrade path’ to the navy, within its territory, can only be an interim solution and certainly not a permanent or even a long-lasting one. The mere fact of variations in the physical character of the territory (‘land’ versus ‘water’) can hardly be taken to be a valid determinant. If, for instance, a violation of the country’s laws were to have occurred in Nainital lake, should the government call in the navy, simply because the medium of the territory is water? Why then should it be any different within the sovereign-territory of India that happens to abut its coastline?”
Given this, if indeed there was intelligence about a vessel in the Indian territory, it had to be shared with the police and perhaps after that the ICG. But such was the confusion, when the attack took place that everyone jumped in the fray, including the marine commandos, who given their location in Mumbai were the first to respond. Given the situation, they could have hardly sat on procedures, but the point is, there were no procedures for anyone to follow, despite the supposed revamp of border security after the surprise in Kargil. Mention of this endemic confusion found its way in the report FBI submitted to the US Senate committee. According to the report: The Indian response to the Mumbai terror attack was hamstrung by lack of coordination between ‘different levels of the government’ and the local police’s inadequate training and lack of ‘powerful’ weapons. It further says that, ‘Unified command system is of paramount importance if governments are to respond to terrorist attacks quickly and effectively.’
In a few months, we would be ready to commemorate the first anniversary of the November 26 attacks in Mumbai. Long enough time for lessons to be learned, inter-agency differences to be papered off, security gaps to be plugged in and the consciousness about the exact nature of threats India faces to sink in. And once again it seems that there is a post-Kargil like holistic review, this time, because the attackers came from the sea and not the mountains, with the coast in mind. And yet again, there is a fear that once the immediacy ceases, things will relapse into the happy state of complacency.
However, before that happens, here is what the government has done. Among the very first things that the new minister of home affairs, P. Chidambaram did (he succeeded Shivraj Patil, who paid the price for the 26/11 attack) was announce the creation of something called National Intelligence Agency (NIA), which many view as a rival to the IB. Till now, the NIA continues to look for basic facilities to house the organisation. The comatose MAC was revived and various organisations were asked to depute a representative to it. Looking seaward, it has now come up with a maritime security plan, under which the navy is the ‘designated authority’ responsible for complete maritime security, with both coastal and offshore security under its control. The ICG will no longer patrol the EEZ, but instead focus on the territorial waters under the navy’s supervision. As the DG ICG says (see interview), “Post 26/11, the Coast Guard has now been given additional responsibility of coastal security in India’s territorial waters i.e., up to 12 miles from our coastline.” In addition to this, yet another effort is being made to overhaul the moribund marine police, who will now stay close to the shore and if need be patrol the seas up to three to four kilometers. In an effort to fix responsibility, under the overall command of the navy, the ICG will be designated as the authority for coastal security in territorial waters, including areas patrolled by state coastal police. The DG, ICG will be designated as commander of coastal command that would be responsible for overall coordination between state and central agencies.
Making these announcements in February 2009, the Union defence minister, A.K. Antony also said that, “The navy will control all navy and coast guard joint operations. This will ensure that the assets are optimally deployed and there is synergy between the two organisations.” To facilitate this, a national command, control, communication and intelligence network will be set up to ensure smooth coordination between the navy and the coast guard. That apart, joint operation centres will come up in Mumbai, Kochi, Vishakhapatnam and Port Blair. Also on the anvil are nine additional coast guard stations to integrate with coastal police stations located at Karwar, Ratnagiri, Vadinar, Gopalpur, Minicoy, Androth, Karaikal, Hut Bay and Nizampatnam. New posts of additional director general and three deputy DGs have also been sanctioned in addition to 20 per cent increase in ships and 30 per cent increase for shore support.
Despite these tactical-level initiatives, the government has come in for criticism for not creating formalised structures that would oversee and evolve the concepts in maritime security which goes beyond coastal security. Like the creation of the Chief of Defence Staff, the government is dragging its feet on Maritime Security Advisory Board and maritime security advisor. Says a naval officer, “Our efforts to constitute a single agency to oversee, coordinate, and regulate all activities at sea, had been characterised by a desire to arrive at a compromise-solution, which would avoid generating turf-sensitivities, and, one that would, therefore, be acceptable to the majority of stake-holders. While noble in intent and pragmatic in approach, such a solution is inevitably long-drawn in its formulation and acceptance, and, more importantly, sub-optimally efficient in its execution. In view of the imperative of avoiding any repetition of the Mumbai tragedy, this ‘compromise-formula’-based approach is clearly no longer a viable one. Yet, the government has been unable (or unwilling) to create a suitably empowered maritime security advisor who would be able to meaningfully assist the National Security Advisor, within the maritime domain.”
To make up for this, what is going to be created is a high-level committee headed by Cabinet secretary K.M. Chandrasekhar to regularly review coastal security. This committee will include the navy chief, secretaries of such ministries as defence, home and petroleum as well as chief secretaries of all coastal states. Clearly, the government wants the bureaucrats to remain at the top. And equally clear in these series of measures is the inherent confusion that will prevail eventually. Maybe, because in India, turfs are difficult to come by, and nobody wants to let go of what it has, and the government is simply delicately tottering around these sensitivities.
Assuaging the navy, the defence minister in an interaction with the media in February 2009 said that, “In the future, we have to give more support to the Navy. We have to be more careful in the seas, as 90 per cent of India’s international trade is carried out through the sea route.” As a mark of government’s commitment towards coastal security, several interceptor boats, off-shore patrol vessels, radars and surveillance aircraft and helicopters have been sanctioned. In all, 194 high-speed interceptor boats are supposed to be procured on a fast track basis. But this is easier said than done, because boats cannot be bought off the shelf. Moreover, all procurements have to follow the laid down procurement procedure, which of course is time-consuming, lest some irregularities are discovered (like kickbacks, for instance) a few years later. Which is why, a senior naval officer scoffs at the idea of ‘fast-track’. According to him, “The need for the speedy procurement of adequate numbers of suitable patrol-craft is well recognised. Yet, the monies allocated for this purpose are public funds and need to be expended with due fiscal prudence. This brings in ‘procedures’, with their attendant, and often significant, delays, especially at the bureaucratic overseeing levels.”
It is not just the MoD that is looking for the boats. The ministry of home affairs is also keen to procure them at the earliest for the state police. In early July, home minister P Chidambaram held a meeting to review the indigenous manufacturing of high-speed interceptor boats. As of now, 13 boats have been supplied to Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Orissa, Goa, Lakshadweep and Pondicherry. These dual jet engine boats are equipped with GPS, a radar, a powerful search light and binoculars. Duplication of assets seems imminent, but obviously this is not the time to talk about it. That will be the job of Comptroller and Auditor General a few years later.
What is exercising the navy is that the government is focussing only on coastal or border security and not maritime security which has a different connotation altogether. Just as it is trying to fence all the land borders, it is trying to achieve the marine equivalent of fencing on the coast as well with the focus on 24/7 patrolling and seamless radar coverage, which incidentally still has a long way to go. The navy looks at coastal security, not in terms of ‘fencing ourselves in’, but in terms of enhancing the maritime surveillance capability: Continuous, omnipresent, gapless surveillance. As one officer says, “At the regional and extra-regional level, this translates into a continuous scanning of the primary and secondary areas of maritime interest..., the determining of ‘who’ is doing ‘what’, ‘when’, ‘where’, ‘how’ and ‘why’... the identification of potential threats while they are still distant from our shores and in an embryonic stage of development, rather than when they are full-blown and at our doorstep. This involves Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) of a high order and over a very large maritime expanse.”
Further expanding on the theme, he says, “On the coast itself, this translates into a fully networked chain of coastal-radars, integrated with AIS (Automatic Identification System) and LRIT (Long Range Identification and Tracking) receivers, as also receivers for the ISRO-designed transmitting beacons which are expected to shortly be fitted aboard fishing and other small craft, the entire chain being controlled through a hierarchy of shore-based nodes (Joint Operations Rooms) in which the ‘picture’ from each of these and other sensors can be collected, collated (synthesised), cross-referenced, displayed and disseminated. These sensors would be augmented by space-based, airborne and ship-borne surveillance-means. Integrating all these inputs is the challenge that needs to be overcome and it is here that we can benefit most from the experiences of foreign navies, such as those of Australia, France, Israel, etc.” The greater challenge is not equipment, but trained man-power, because even when equipment is procured, developing human skills will take time, particularly when it comes to the police forces, which not only need to learn to use different kinds of weaponry but also acquire a different mental make-up.
While the government supports navy’s expansive concept of MDA being intrinsic to maritime security in fits and starts, it does not fully appreciates the virtues of such an idea to give it sustained attention, especially after 26/11 when there is a fear that the navy may be required to do more policing in tune with the government’s defensive policy on the land borders. Naval officers are at pains to emphasise that its visions of MDA does not imply lack of concern for border security. “Indeed,” says one, “the navy’s prime responsibility, like that of the Indian Army and the Indian Air Force, is to protect the country from such external threat as might undermine the territorial integrity of the country.”
“However,” he says, “The manner in which this needs to be done is quite different from that of the army’s protection of the country’s land borders. In maritime terms, ‘neighbours’ can be acquired with an ease and speed that tend to overwhelm a purely continental mindset.” He uses the model devised by Rear Admiral K. Raja Menon to illustrate his point. According to Admiral Menon: “Current technology allows a modern, Carrier Strike Group (CSG) to exert its power to a range of 400 nautical miles (740 km) around it. This circle may be considered to define the area of superiority within which the air and sea space may be said to almost ‘belong’ to the nation owning that Carrier Strike Group. To all practical (although not legal) intents and purposes, therefore, this is a moving area of ‘sovereignty’. When such a CSG’s circle of superiority impinges upon – say, the Indian coast – we have suddenly acquired a new and powerful ‘neighbour’ who (as long as he remains where he is) may even be superior to us. Now we could choose to counter this superiority by building, say, an air-base at this point. However, what needs to be appreciated is that such Carrier Strike Groups can move up to a 1,000 km in a single day, and have a disconcerting habit of disappearing and appearing in odd places with little or no warning. It is, therefore, impossible to site relatively static defensive formations, such as airfields, cantonments, etc, all along our coast. This would, in any case, be poor strategy. Instead, the capability of another country to appear, threaten, coerce, and/or influence us, can only be countered by our own mobile force.”
This thinking encompasses what the navy calls strategic reach, or the ability to influence things way beyond its maritime boundaries. This calls for not just a different capability (certainly not defensive) but thinking as well. Unless coastal security forms part of the overall maritime security, the enemy will continue to find the gaps or weak links. After all, soldiers can hardly stand arm in arm all along the coastline.

In the Name of God

2009-04-04T03:24:00.000-07:00

It is an unlikely headquarters for an organisation that transcends continents and enjoys membership of nearly a billion devout in places as diverse as Brazil and South Korea. The white mosque, called Masjid Banglewali, which towers over the surrounding buildings in the neighbourhood of the famed Nizamuddin Dargah and overlooks the Urs Mahal, the erstwhile abode of the revered Sufi saint Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya in New Delhi is the international headquarters of Tablighi Jamaat, roughly translated as the group for the propagation of Islam in its truest spirit. The address couldn’t have been more ironic.
The 13th century Sufi Nizamuddin Auliya was and is revered by men, women and children of all religious persuasions who throng his tomb. Such divinity was associated with him that even noblemen and women, including a Mughal Princess, sought to be buried close to him to benefit from the holiness permeating the area. To be located in such a neighbourhood is ironic for the Tablighi Jamaat because the Jamaatis do not believe in Sufism and refuse to accept the divinity accorded to the sufi saints. Moreover, the entire neighbourhood of Nizamuddin West is redolent with all things that are anathema to the Tablighis but were the staple of the Sufis: devotional music, flowers, road side eateries and a general air of celebration of life. But ironies, such as these, are lost in the busy lanes (that criss-cross the headquarters) housing small shops selling a range of goods from raw meat, fruits and flowers to colourful caps and audio cassettes featuring songs and qawwalis associated with Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya, mainly composed by his most-devoted disciple Amir Khusro. All kinds of people swarm the lanes — locals, tourists and the visitors to the dargah. Yet, members of the Tabligh stand out because of their thick moustache-less beards, skull caps and white pyjamas, which ends just short of the ankles. For Tablighis all over the world, this is a uniform, a kind of an identification badge that sets them apart from the rest of the non-Tablighi world.

The Elusive Amir
Zuhar, the Friday afternoon prayer, is a busy time at Masjid Banglewali. Apart from the locals, Tablighis from all over India come here. The mosque is important, not only because it is the headquarters but also because Maulana Saad, the descendent of the founder of the Tablighi movement, Maulana Muhammed Ilyas Kandhalwi, and the current head resides here. Even though Maulana Saad is no longer called the Amir, the position was abolished after the death of Maulana Inamul Hasan a few years back, for most Tablighis praying at the mosque at least once in a lifetime and listening to the discourses of Maulana Saad holds a special place. Hence, on most Fridays, apart from the locals, many outsiders also come to the mosque for the afternoon prayer. Manzar Alam, a shopkeeper from Amroha, a small town in Uttar Pradesh, comes as regularly to Delhi to pray at the mosque as possible. “We live in bad times,” he says stepping out of the mosque, his face bend slightly with his eyes boring in the ground. Under the Tabligh’s regulation, he cannot look at any adult woman who is neither his first blood relation nor his wife. “There aren’t many holy men around to inspire one to stay on the path of righteousness. I come here because I find Maulana Sahib’s presence very illuminating. His bayaan (sermon) fills me with a sense of lightness,” he says. In his forties, Alam continues in this vein for a few more minutes occasionally playing with his beard, when he suddenly sees light. Turning away, he refuses to talk any further. “I am sorry, but you are making me commit a sin,” he explains hurriedly. “When the veil was made mandatory for women, even their voices were silenced. Hearing the voice of an unrelated woman is as much a sin as looking at her unveiled face.” Saying this he storms back into the mosque.
Looking completely conspicuous despite modest clothes complete with a headscarf, I skulk around the mosque looking for someone who could help facilitate an audience with Maulana Saad, who being the senior most member of the Shura, the governing council, and a descendent of the founder has assumed some kind of a leadership role. Since his sermon is going on, I am advised to go to his living quarters to confabulate with his wife. A teenaged Tablighi with barely-there beard, who probably has still not learnt that it is a sin to escort an unrelated woman into a lane helps me reach his residence behind the mosque but we are stopped by a burly, bearded Tablighi. Perhaps, out of the novelty of meeting a woman reporter or maybe because of the goodness of his heart, the teenager persuades the burly man to go inside and request the lady (Maulana Saad’s wife) to see me. Grumpily, the burly man goes in and comes back with a curt, “She does not want to see any press reporters.” But may I just come inside and wait for the Maulana to return from the mosque so that she can conduct a three-way conversation between us as the Maulana would not hear my voice, I plead. The teenager joins me in pleading with him. But the burly bearded man remains unmoved. Since his faith does not allow him to physically push me away, he remains at the gate, blocking the way with his eyes boring into the ground. “I have committed enough sin by talking to you. Please go away now. The Maulana does not like talking to the press,” he says, moving towards shutting the gate. The teenager shrugs helplessly and leaves. Turning back, I stumble inside a bookshop selling books on Islam just opposite the mosque. The shelves are lined with books in English, Hindi and Urdu on such subjects as Islamic jurisprudence, role and rights of women in Islam, Muslims’ relationship with Jews and Christians (the other people of the book), Islamic banking and so on. Right next to the door is a shelf full of books on Tablighi Jamaat and the teachings for Maulana Ilyas in a number of languages, including French, German and Spanish. I pick up an English language version. The shopkeeper says, “These translations are very popular among foreign Jamaatis who come here.” How often do they come here? “Very often,” he says, “Sometimes, once a month.” Where do they stay? “Inside the mosque. It is very huge and can accommodate a large number.”

Early Start
It was a good thing that I did not get discouraged by the brief encounter outside Masjid Banglewali. Over the next few days, in places as diverse as Moradabad, Agra, Aligarh and Mumbai, I discovered Jamaatis of various hues and devotion. And not all unwilling to talk to a woman. Though many people discover religion in old age after having lived a full life, the most committed Tablighis are those who start early. According to Salim Khan, a Moradabad-based exporter and an occasional Tablighi, “The Tablighi members watch out for young boys who have finished their board examinations. It is not difficult to find out from the neighbourhood mosque as to which boys have taken the examination that year. Once the holidays begin, they start frequenting those houses, urging the fathers to send their young sons to the mosque. Since it is such an innocuous request and since most Muslims in any case pray at the neighbourhood mosque at least once a week, the youngsters do come too. Gradually, for want of anything else, they listen to the sermons as well.” However, the real initiation happens when the youngsters are persuaded to accompany a travelling party of Tablighis on a proselytising mission.
For Salim Khan, the initiation happened at the age of 15 and almost had an air of adventure. “It was the first time in my life that I was travelling outside Moradabad without my parents. A few of my friends also came along, so it was like an excursion. We visited villages, bathe at the tube-wells and ate sugarcanes in the fields.” The group went to a small place called Joya close to Amroha for a three-day proselytising trip. During such trips, the Jamaatis stay at the local mosques, do all their chores, like washing, cooking and cleaning themselves and whenever there is time from all this and praying they visit the houses of the local Muslims inviting (dawa) them to come to the mosque for some sermons. Probably because of his enthusiasm, Khan did not find the trip strenuous, though the elders in the group usually ensure that the boys are on their toes most of the time.
An ordinary day of the travelling proselytiser starts at 3am for a special prayer session called Tahajjud, after which those who want are allowed to go back to sleep while the rest continue to pray. Finally, everyone is required to get up by five in the morning for Fajr, the first prayer of the day. This is followed by a religious discourse or taalim for about 20 minutes. Then yet another prayer after sunrise called Ishraq after which breakfast is served. For the next one hour, the Tablighis are free to either rest or go out in the neighbourhood with a guide or rahbar to invite people to the mosque. More rest follows for an hour and a half, which doubles up as personal time. At 10, a group meeting is held to discuss the plans for the next 24 hours. Called mashwara or deliberation, here all members of the visiting Jamaat are free to give their suggestions about how best to rope in more and more local people. After the meeting, it is back to taalim for two hours which culminates in lunch just before the Zuhar prayer immediately after noon. Since many local people also come to the mosque for the afternoon prayers, they are requested to stay back for a 20 minute bayaan or sermon session with the Amir of the travelling Jamaat. Some rest followed by more taalim at 3pm both through religious books and a Tablighi Jamaat primer called the ‘Six Numbers’ which was evolved by Maulana Ilyas and fine-tuned by Maulana Zakaria Kandhalwi in his book Fazail-e-Amal. This lists six principals which all Tablighi members must adhere to. Borrowed from the basic principals of Islam in general, in the hands of the Tablighis, they acquire a missionary objective. The six principals are:
1. Kalimah, which is an article of faith for all Muslims exhorting that there is no God but Allah and Prophet Muhammad is His messenger.
2. Salaat refers to five compulsory prayers or namaz in a day: Fajr, Zuhar, Asar, Maghrib and Isha.
3. Ilm and Zikr literally mean knowledge and preaching of Islam. Zikr usually happens in the mosque after the namaz when a senior member of the Tabligh sermonises the assembled congregation.
4. Ikram-i-Muslim enumerates the responsibilities of Muslims towards co-religionists.
5. Ikhlas-i-Niyat refers to reforming oneself so that one leads a pious life in the service of Allah without any personal desires and ambitions.
6. Tafrigh-i-Waqt involves devoting time and efforts not only to leading a life of piety but also in inviting and encouraging others to do the same by travelling not only within the country but outside as well.
This session continues for over an hour after which the Jamaatis just have time to have a quick tea before the Asar prayer which is again followed by a bayaan and neighbourhood visits inviting people to come to the mosque to listen to the sermons during the next prayer Maghrib. More bayaan continues for nearly an hour with the locals who heed the call and come to the mosque. Post dinner, there is Isha namaz after which the group breaks off and goes on individual proselytising rounds in the area focussing on whom they think did not attend the bayaan. By 10 it is lights out as the next day would again begin at three.
Clearly, life in the Jamaat hardly leaves one with time for anything else. But then as Atiq Sheikh, a Mumbai-based member of the Jamaat says, “Jamaat recharges your religious batteries. As long as you are praying you are not sinning. So if you are a committed Tablighi you have less opportunity to sin.” If only the post 9/11 world had this simplistic view of the Tablighi Jamaat.

New Fears
Though most analysts who have studied the Tablighi movement maintain that it is a benign and a quietist organisation, in the last few year members of the Jamaat have come under suspicion in different countries for different reasons. The trademark Jamaat dress code — ankle-exposing lower garment, moustache-less beard and a skull cap — that sets them apart now often causes suspicion. Last year, a Jamaat from Moradabad travelling to Brazil was detained at Delhi’s international airport. The airlines, Al Italia, which they were taking to the Brasilian capital via Rome, refused to board them. Though it did not specify why, but probably the appearance of the Jamaat members and the refusal of other passengers to board the same aircraft played a role. Their tickets were cancelled and though they were refunded on the spot, the Jamaatis had to wait in Delhi for a couple of days before they could take the South African airlines. This was not an isolated case. Following the bomb blasts on the local trains in Mumbai in July 2006, the Indian investigating agencies working on the Bangladeshi terrorist angle detained a group of bearded Muslims from Mumbai in Assam on the suspicion of being terrorists. After a few days of detention and interrogation they were allowed to leave as no evidence linked them to the blast. They were members of a Tablighi Jamaat from Mumbai who had gone to Assam on a proselytising mission. Similarly, when the Pakistani cricket coach Bob Woolmer was found dead in mysterious circumstances in his hotel room during the last Cricket World Cup, the most popular conspiracy theory being circulated was that a member of the Tablighi Jamaat may have killed him as Woolmer was not happy about the Jamaat’s influence over the Pakistani cricket team. Nearly half of Pakistani cricket team, including captain Inzamam-ul-Haq are members of Tablighi Jamaat and take prayer breaks even during play. It is another matter that subsequently it turned out that Woolmer was not murdered after all. But the controversy once again put the Tabligh under spotlight with speculations about their links with such terrorist groups as al Qaeda, Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiyyaba.
Outside Asia also, members of the Tablighi Jamaat have frequently come under cloud. In the last few years, individual terrorists indicted in the US such as Richard Reid (shoe bomber), Jose Padilla (dirty bomber) and Lyman Harris who tried to blow the Brooklyn Bridge were all found to have been members of the Tablighi Jamaat at some stage. In Europe and North Africa, a large number of terrorists arrested for the Casablanca blasts of 2003 were also found to have had connections with the local chapters of the Tabligh. Yusef Fikri, the leader of the Moroccan terrorist organisation At-Takfir wal-Hijrah, who was sentenced to death for his role in the Casablanca attack by the Moroccan authorities, was also a member of Tablighi Jamaat. Basing their assessments on such examples, some analysts tend to portray Tabligh as a sinister organisation, a breeding ground for terrorists, whose ultimate objective in the words of French Tablighi expert Marc Gaborieau is nothing short of a ‘planned conquest of the world’ in the spirit of jihad. To support their arguments and to further their conspiracy theories, such analysts give the example of conversions to Islam taking place in the US. According to rough estimates, some 30,000 African-Americans convert to Islam in the US prisons every year. Writing in Middle East Quarterly in 2005, Alex Alexiev said that, “As a result of Tablighi and Wahhabi proselytising, African Americans comprise between 30 and 40 per cent of the American Muslim community, and perhaps 85 per cent of all American Muslim converts. Much of this success is due to a successful proselytising drive in the penitentiary system. Prison officials say that by the mid-1990s, between 10 and 20 per cent of the nation’s 1.5 million inmates identified themselves as Muslims.”

Early Days
While such assessments are exaggerated and portray Tablighi Jamaat as a sinister body, the fact is that the nature of the organisation itself does nothing to allay these suspicions. Founded by Maulana Muhammed Ilyas Kandhalwi in the 1920s in India, the primary objective of the Tablighi Jamaat was to reform Islam, not in a progressive but a regressive way. In the early 20th century, Muslims in India were extremely backward, economically, socially and politically. The modernising movement of Sir Sayyid Ahmed, the founder of the Aligarh Muslim University, was encouraging Muslims to take to English education so that they could compete for government jobs. He and other liberals created a class of Muslims who were less conservative and more Westernised in their lifestyle. A majority of these Muslims had embraced secular values and were more inclined towards social mobility than ritualistic religion. All this deeply troubled Maulana Ilyas. In one of his early discourses, he said, “The evil and harm that goes with ‘Molvi Fadil’ examinations (MA, PhD etc degrees) offered by the government is not fully realised by us. These examinations are given so that the candidates may get certificates in order to find employment in English schools... There can be no greater injustice to religious education that the fact that those who are equipped with it, ultimately become instruments in serving the interest of the enemies of Islam.”
To save the souls of the fellow Muslims, Maulana Ilyas started the Tabligh movement. According to him, merely following the tenets of Islam, like prayer, fasting, charity and pilgrimage was not enough. Propagation of Islam was even more important and the glory of the religion would not be possible unless spread through personal examples. His emphasis was on anti-modern and a regressive form of Islam. He emphasised only on religious education shunning modern subjects and preached complete segregation of sexes. The Tabligh focussed only on religious obligations of individual Muslims, ignoring the social responsibilities, thereby not undertaking any social or charitable work. A Deobandi by belief, Maulana Ilyas’ inspiration was Wahhabism of Saudi Arabia, which laid down a strict code of conduct for both men and women. But unlike Deobandis, he also envisaged a proselytising role for the Muslims, which by extension had controversial overtones. However, to enable the movement to grow it was important that it did not attract any controversies; hence Tabligh tried to remain completely apolitical in its approach. The only visible mark of the Jamaat was the dress code. Says Saifullah, an Agra-based Jamaati who became a Tablighi member three years ago, “What is wrong in having a visible identity, don’t the Sikhs have it too? Moreover, we are not blindly aping rock stars and film stars. We are only trying to copy the style of our Prophet.”
Right from the beginning, Tabligh tried to remain a secretive organisation, sometimes giving the impression of being almost amorphous. Yet, it had a proper structure, which over the years has been replicated in all the chapters of Tablighs throughout the world. At the top is the Amir or president, who heads the seven-member Shura (governing council) based in the international headquarters at New Delhi. The Tablighs are subsequently broken into regions, countries, districts, cities and localities, with each having its own shura and amir. There is substantial delegation of power and individual shuras generate their own resources and take their own decisions. The headquarters in Delhi is more of an inspirational rather than an executive body. However, according to Khan, from time to time the headquarters in Delhi summons amirs from different regions to review the progress of the movement. Regions which register poor performance get additional focus from the head office. This explains why Jamaats from all over the world visit Delhi periodically.
During the lifetime of Maulana Ilyas, the Tablighi Jamaat strengthened within India and parts of South Asia. However, once his son Maulana Yusuf took over as the second Amir in 1946, the group expanded its reach. With the Partition of India, a chapter was established in Pakistan and through the collective efforts of Jamaats in India and Pakistan the group started reaching out to Southwest and Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America, initially working through the India Diaspora but subsequently through conversions as well. While Dewsbury in UK became the centre of activities for Europe, Al-Falah mosque in Queens, New York became the hub for the Americas. While the leadership of the Tabligh remained in the family of Maulana Ilyas, the office of the Amir was abolished after the death of Maulana Inamul Hasan, which is why the present incumbent Maulana Saad is not called the Amir.
At the most basic level, that of a city, the Jamaat is dominated by the elder members, buzurgwan, who form the shura. They appoint the Amir from among themselves on a rotation basis for that city who takes decisions by consensus. This body decides the travel (for proselytising) plans of the Jamaat and organises funds to support the travel. Each travelling member is required to meet his own expenses. The travelling or the chilla can be for three days, 40 days or four months. Only those Jamaatis who have travelled for four months at a stretch within the country, leaving their homes and businesses are eligible to travel abroad. However, these are not rigid rules, and those who can pay for their passage and stay and perhaps sponsor some fellow Tablighi as well can travel abroad for propagation of Islam. Summing up the thinking of a Jamaati, Usman Khan, Aligarh-based trader who has been committed to the Tabligh for the last 15 years and goes on a four months’ chilla every year says, “When you join the Tabligh you leave all your worries to Allah. He takes care of your family and work. When I travel with the Jamaat, I never worry about my wife and children because I entrust them to Allah.”

Areas of Concern
When the war on terror started, a large number of Islamic organisations, even those which have a passing allegiance with the Deobandi or the Wahhabi school of thought came under scrutiny, courtesy al Qaeda and its offshoots like Lashkar-e-Taiyyaba and Jaish-e-Mohammed. Tabligh has evolved from the Deobandi school and propagates a very exclusive and conservative form of Islam which by its very idea suggests intolerance for other religions. Maulana Ilyas’ worldview comprised Muslims and enemies of Islam, and by definition enemy suggests conflict. Moreover, Tabligh preaches non-participation in social and political activities, which make Jamaatis misfits and almost outsiders in the society. An escapist vision of religion and fantasies of an Islamic utopia renders hardcore Jamaatis unemployable and hence easy fodder for anti-social activities.
Though Tabligh does not preach sedition, visions of an Islamic world or Islamic domination of the world frequently figure in their discourses. In response to a question on why Muslims were not granted leadership of the world, Maulana Ilyas had said, “When we do not fulfil the commandments of Allah and refrain from the forbidden in our personal lives over which we have full control… then how is it possible that we be entrusted with the governing of this world. It is only through the decision of Allah that the believers may be granted government on the earth so that they may seek His pleasure and establish His laws in the world.” (Malfoozaat: Discourses of Maulana Ilyas) Establishing a Muslim empire is a recurring theme throughout Tablighi preachings. Notwithstanding the historical inaccuracies, Saifullah says, “Three hundred years ago Muslims ruled the world, but then they started wavering from the path of Allah and lost power. If we strictly adhere to the right path, inshallah we will rule the world again.” Tablighi Jamaats do not propagate Jihad-e-Asghar (the struggle waged with sword), only Jihad-e-Akbar (the greater Jihad that one wages with oneself to lead a more upright and pious life), but their intense indoctrination which often starts at a very young age robs the person of individual thinking and the capacity for logical reasoning. By repeatedly emphasising on the superiority of Islam as opposed to other religions and by strict gender segregation, the Tabligh intensifies the intolerance level of the individuals. Gilles Kepel in his book The War for Muslim Minds: Islam and the West, writes, “The intense indoctrination preached by the sheikhists reduces their flock’s capacity for personal reasoning, which makes these followers easy prey for a clever jihadists’ preacher.” Moreover, since committed Jamaatis travel with the groups for four months at a stretch, they clearly cannot hold regular jobs, which to some extent speak of their and their family’s economic security thereby adding to their overall vulnerability.
However, the biggest cause of concern is its slightly nebulous organisational structure which makes it vulnerable to exploitation by vested interests. According to Salim Khan, Tabligh has no mechanism for background checks of its members. Since it is entirely a voluntary project, members come and go as they wish. Besides, during chillas, anybody can come and attend the bayaan at the mosque. In fact, the annual Tablighi Jamaat congregation at Raiwind in Pakistan has become some kind of a fishing pond for terrorist groups like Jaish and Lashkar. At the 2006 congregation which was attended by nearly a million people, members of Jaish and Lashkar not only mingled with the Jamaatis freely but also addressed quite a few sessions. It is not certain how many members they managed to rope in for terrorist activities, but it is not difficult to imagine how people brought up on a staple of Islamic superiority would react when told about the sufferings of fellow Muslims at the hand of the enemies of Islam. This is particularly worrisome for India as in any case the normal rhetoric in Pakistan is anti-India; when combined with religious zeal and images of Muslim sufferings in Gujarat, Kashmir and other places it can be a lethal cocktail.

Holding Out
Yet, it would be a bit of an over-reaction to immediately jump up and impose restrictions on Tablighi Jamaat or proscribe it. Despite individual cases, there has not been a single instance so far of the involvement of Tabligh as an organisation in any terrorist activity. But given its nebulous structure and the complete absence of accountability it is important that the veil of secrecy be lifted. Even though it is difficult to do a background check on all its travelling members, but some form of internal screening should be put into place. Since Tablighi members travel in groups, their travel arrangements, including passports and Visas are issued as a group, where individual checks are often neglected. This makes Tabligh a good cover for terrorists and anti-social elements. There is also a need for better accountability in the areas of funding as well. At the moment, Jamaats keep no record of any money received or spent. They claim that they function purely on the donations of their members, but there is no mechanism to check if they receive donations from patrons abroad as well and how that money is spent. By abjuring social responsibilities and focussing solely of religious propagation, Tabligh creates intellectually stunted, selfish people who consider themselves outsiders in a society. A large group, running into millions, believing itself to be an outsider is certainly not good news for any society.

Uncivil War

2009-01-11T23:07:00.000-08:00

More than a month after the terrorist attack in Mumbai, India and the world has still not figured out how to make Pakistan accept the responsibility of fuelling terrorism. Forget about trying to make Pakistan pay for its perfidy, the world actually needs to be grateful to it for at least showing the decency of denying that the Mumbai attackers were its citizens. So now we all can step back, after weak protestations, with a semblance of our dignity intact. Imagine had Pakistan accepted that it was behind the terrorist attacks and challenged the world with its brazenness where would that have left India and the US.
Given the way things are in Pakistan at the moment, this is not a far-fetched prospect. The Pakistan military, which the Indian soldiers have often referred to as a professional outfit, has now slipped so far down the realms of the civilised world that possibility of redemption looks bleak. Unfortunately, we all must accept blame for this deterioration. Because we accepted and dignified uncivilised and inhuman behaviour by giving it the name irregular warfare, as if it was a perfectly soldierly act to throw a bomb in a public place or to kill unarmed non-combatants. Once this was accepted by us as part of war, the Mumbai attack was just a step further. No one, not even an average Pakistani truly believes that the 10 men who indiscriminately fired at public places and lined up people against the wall before shooting them in cold blood, were not Pakistani citizens. The father of the surviving terrorist has recognised him, the former prime minister Nawaz Sharif has accepted him as his fellow countryman and even President Zardari admitted that the attackers were Pakistani by saying that they were non-state actors, before doing a volte-face under Army Chief Kayani’s glare. To still maintain the façade of waiting for evidence is nothing but brazenness.
However, the worrying thing here is not India and its security. India is a big country with the capacity to absorb much more than 1,000 cuts. The worrying thing is Pakistan and the civil society there, which is getting so completely manipulated by the military that it is failing to distinguish between civilised and uncivilised, between Islamic and unIslamic, between just and convenient. All that the military leadership has to do is raise the spectre of war with India and the entire country immediately cowers behind it. The military tells the country that only it can save it from rampaging India and the gullible society not only believes this but join in the war cry, like mindless juveniles in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies.
The level of brutalisation of the society can be judged by the fact that in peaceful times, Pakistani intellectuals like Ahmed Rashid, Pervez Hoodbhoy, Hassan Abbas, Husain Haqqani, Zahid Hussain and so on write about the dangers of radicalisation of the Pakistani society and military, about how ISI created and nurtured the Taliban and how it closely works with LeT and JeM which it has created specifically for terrorising India, about how Pakistani military has consistently double-crossed the world on its nuclear programme, how deeply entrenched the Jihadists are with the army and so on. Yet, the moment the military raises the India-threat card, they all shuffle in line behind what is now turning out to be a rogue army in both worlds: the secular and the Islamic.
Rogue in the secular world, because no army trains to kill unarmed civilians; professional militaries are not the domain for trigger-happy sadists. They are the bastions for honourable soldiers who value human life above all. And rogue in the Islamic world, because Islam codified the whole concept of war-fighting. It properly laid down rules for engagement, surrender and treatment of prisoners of war (PoWs). War can only be waged between armed combatants and only if the opponent wants to fight. If he does not want to fight, then no matter how just your cause is you cannot fight with him. If he surrenders, you cannot kill him and if he is your prisoner you have to accord him the dignity of a surrendered warrior.
The tragedy is not the decline of the Pakistan military. The tragedy is the decline of the society and those who are lulled into sleep by a sense of security that the enemy is outside and the military can take care of it, because the enemy is quietly creeping inside their hearts and homes. I mourn it because once we were one.
At the height of tensions with India a few years ago, Pakistani poet Late Ahmed Faraz came to Delhi to participate in the annual January 26 Mushaira at Red Fort. He concluded his poem ‘Dosti ka Haath’ (hand of friendship) saying: “Tumhare des mein aaya hoon doston abke/ Na saaz-o-naghme ki mehfil na shaiiyri ke liye/Agar tumhari ana hi ka hai sawal toh phir/ Chalo main haath badhata hoon dosti ke liye”. My hand is still held out, but don’t shake it because it is convenient. Reach out only when you are confident of my intent and at peace with your strengths and insecurities.

Weep India Weep

2009-01-11T23:04:00.000-08:00

Never before have issues of internal security and terrorism been as undermined as they have been done in the last few weeks. The entire debate on security, the multifarious nature of terrorism and strengthening of the response mechanism has been reduced to two words by the political class: Hang Afzal. What does it say about India as a country that for the biggest Opposition party and the man who would be prime minister, one fringe person has become symbolic of the nation’s commitment, or lack of it, to ensure security of its people. How much more will issues of national security and national integrity be trivialised at the altar of electoral politics before it is understood that certain subjects should be beyond party politics. Now that we are faced with a new threat, in the form of extremist-Hindutva forces, in addition to the already existing extremist-Islamic forces, it is absolutely critical that Indian political class rise above petty, short-terms objectives. Today, terrorism is not a threat to life and property alone but to the very fabric of Indian nationhood.
There has always been a school of thought that believed that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is the most dangerously divisive force in the country. From time to time, the divisiveness has been cleverly couched in educational, social and cultural activities. By assiduously keeping out of politics, the RSS has remained an almost invisible umbrella under which groups like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Bharatiya Janata Party, Bajrang Dal and so on were born and nurtured. And all these years it insidiously penetrated the educational stream in the country (which shapes not only the mind but prejudices too), starting with nursery schools and gradually even colleges. Such has been the reach and success of the RSS-run educational institutions that one constantly bumps into professional people who have, at some stage or the other, been to one or the other of these schools, colleges or post-graduate institutes. They hold their prejudices (especially against the Muslims who remain outsiders for them) very deeply despite their station in life. It is no secret what version of history is taught in these institutes or what lessons in patriotism are imparted to the young impressionable cadets. There have been several reports from time to time about how the government should exercise better control over the education imparted at these institutions. Given how secretive and shadowy RSS has been and that it has been banned by the government in the past, it is a wonder that during its non-banned phases, government has not insisted upon greater transparency and accountability.
The RSS need not be a terrorist organisation, because what it has been doing and envisages to do is even more destructive then what a mere terrorist attack can do. It has succeeded in converting a large number of people (fortunately, they are still a minority) to its line of exclusivist and divisive thinking, so much so, that the BJP today is convinced that raising the Hindutva banner once again will get it the winning votes. Despite former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee admitting that not sacking the Narendra Modi government was a mistake, Modi has consistently been the BJP star campaigner, even in Delhi. The purported prime minister to be, Lal Krishen Advani, has hitched his political fortunes onto the suspects in the terror strike in Malegaon, even when the investigations are on. He has obviously been advised that this move will propel him to the top job. So unlike the last campaign where the BJP was sticking to economic issues by way of India Shining, today the biggest totem is terrorism, with ‘hang Azfal’ being Advani’s clarion call in his public meetings.
Instead of getting worried and doing some soul-searching about the long term impact of RSS making inroads in the Indian armed forces to such an extent that the officer who takes an oath to protect his motherland indulges in acts of war and sedition against the state for the sake of religion, the BJP has reduced the discussion to Hindu terrorist versus Muslim terrorist. That RSS holds sway over certain officers of the armed forces has been well-known for a while now, given the numbers who flock to the BJP after retirement. But at least, they abided by the honour of the office they held and the uniform they wore as long as they were in service. But the recent Malegaon incident has robbed us of this comfort as well. So far we had to contend with the prejudiced sections among the police, now the spectre of this prejudice creeping in the last bastion of nobility looms.
At the time of writing this piece on November 27, the gun-battle was still going on in Mumbai following the terrorist attack the previous night. Will this attack still be called terrorism or an act of war will have to be seen, but whatever it may be, one thing is clear, terrorism cannot be fought by reaping electoral harvest over the dead. Is it at all possible that in this season of electioneering, we do not trivialise these anti-national activities?

The Battle has Come Home: Madrassas cannot provide a balanced world-view

2008-10-04T03:06:00.000-07:00

Kaifi Azmi, the Urdu poet who passed away a few years ago, had a single line solution to the communal problem in India. He used to say that if every Hindu has two to three Muslim friends and every Muslim has six to seven Hindu friends their understanding about each other would increase so much that they would never think along communal lines. As the media attempts social and religious profiling of the people accused of carrying out the terror blasts in Delhi and else where, Kaifi Azmi’s solution came back to me. Ironically, Kaifi Azmi, hailed as being one of the torch-bearers of progressive (read Leftist) poetry in India belonged to the Mijwan village of Azamgarh district, now in the news for reasons that would have been anathema to the dead poet.
Like others in the media, even I have been trying to profile the terrorist: the person who does not shiver before throwing a bomb in the public place, who does not die of remorse when he sees the images of the carnage wrought by him, who does not worry that one of his own could be the inadvertent victim. What drives him? What could be his motivation? The police have spoken of wads of money that the suspect Atif who was killed in the Batla House shoot-out used to dole out. But can money be enough motivation for young boys to take such chances with their lives and those of their loved ones? Indoctrination by the ISI-run modules has been put forward as another reason for young people to barter regular life for that of a fugitive. But how can a person get so susceptible to indoctrination unless there exists a void in his brain that just needs filling up.
I think the problem is much deep-rooted than this. It lies in the upbringing of these people. Going through the profiles of the suspects held by the police, one common thread that stands out starkly is the exclusivist nature of their education and upbringing. All of them went to either a madrassa or an Islamic school and subsequently a Muslim-run college. This is not to suggest that these educational institutions teach terrorist violence, but they do not give them the right exposure to the world that they live in. Consider this. You are born in a particular religion, not only your immediate family but even the extended one is from the same religion. You live in an area where only people from your religion live. Then you go to the school with fellow religionists and subsequently college of the similar nature. No doubt you acquire professional knowledge, you may even become an engineer, but what is your world view. In your most formative years when you make friends, form opinions, develop a personality you have not even met a person from another religion. You neither know the facts about them, nor understand why they do what they do. All that you have picked up about them are rumours repeated ad nauseam by various people at home and in your friends’ circle. Your friends are also not different from you because they all come from the same stock.
It is easy to generalise about the Muslims with frog-in-the-well-like upbringing because I have come across many Hindus with similar kind of attitude. They believe the most ridiculous stories as facts about Islam or even Christianity. But what makes such Muslims more susceptible to bad influences is that they also live and grow with a sense of victim-hood and injustice. And because they only interact and socialise with fellow Muslims this feeling only get more aggravated. Such youngsters, brimming with the recklessness and immaturity of youth combined with a sense of persecution are easy targets for exploiters. If only they had non-Muslim friends their discourses could have gone beyond their religion and community. And they could have developed a balanced world-view. This is the reason why Kaifi Azmi’s solution should be taken seriously. Policing and even better intelligence gathering have their limitations. Eventually, we will have to address the root.
There is no doubt that madrassas have their merits. They are a source of free education for those who cannot afford to pay for their children’s education. But despite introduction of subjects like computer science and mathematics, madrassa cannot provide learning that a regular school can, simply because it is too closely linked with religious education. Non-Muslim children will not come there and Muslim children will be at the mercy of half-literate mullahs who in any case have a skewed world-view. Besides, most madrassas get developmental funding from outside the country. Maybe, there is a need to not only monitor the source of this funding but also audit their balance sheets to see how the money is spent.
There is no point now in complaining about the excesses by the police or the non-implementation of the Sachar Committee report. Religious profiling is the price we have to pay for ignoring these subversive elements over the years, for denying our children the right to balanced lives. If we seriously want to save our children from further harm we will have to be in the forefront fighting terrorism. And this time, the battle begins at home.

Uneasy Kashmir

2008-09-05T00:40:00.000-07:00

All stake holders in Kashmir are uneasy about the sudden outbursts of azadi (freedom) reverberating in the air: the security forces are uneasy because of the mood of the people; the separatists are uneasy as they lack the platform that can keep them together for long; the regional political parties are uneasy as they appear to have been rendered unnecessary; New Delhi is uneasy about the implications of large peaceful congregations chanting azadi; and Pakistan is uneasy as it is woefully unprepared to exploit it. The uneasiness is about how to interpret azadi. Is it a secessionist call for independence from India? Is it a catchy slogan meant to achieve more than autonomy but less than complete independence? Is it meant to boo the authorities who are perceived to be high-handed and unreasonable; or is it an answer to vandalism in Jammu.
While the answer could be any of the above, two issues are indeed striking: just when everyone thought that things were back to normal and that the people were contend going about their lives, reality dawned that the sentiment of azadi was still alive. It simply needed a good reason to come to the fore. And importantly, majority of people chanting and swaying to the azadi tune were youngsters born in late Eighties; really the children who had known azadi as their lullaby.
But things are not as ominous as they appear. For one, the situation is certainly not back to the Nineties. What sparked the present unrest was really the anger of the fruit growers who after hours of wait were unable to meet the visiting Union home minister. Sensing the opportunity, the separatists organised the ‘Muzzaffarabad Chalo’ march under the hastily formed Kashmir Co-ordination Committee, a motley gathering of separatists of all hues and various other associations of fruit growers, merchants, lawyers, students and so on. In essence thus, the crowds were not spontaneous but spurred by the Separatists, who after the success of the Muzzaffarabad march were hard pressed to stay together for the Pampore and Idgah marches, and had announced the sit-in protest at Lal Chowk as well. The rallies did not trouble Governor N.N. Vohra, who believed that the calming of Jammu would automatically take the wind off the sails of the Kashmir unrest. However, this is not how New Delhi read the situation. After the visit of the National Security Advisor, M.K. Narayanan to Kashmir, it was reasoned that more rallies would help the Separatists craft a common minimum programme. Consequently, the azadi calls would assume a hardened connotation, and hence people could not be allowed a field day.
The security forces are certainly not unhappy with New Delhi’s decision. The singular worry of the state police has been the mood of the people; how to control crowds that may unwittingly go out of hand and suddenly run amok. Another concern was the local police force that coming from the same stock may begin to sympathise with the unarmed crowd. Thus the best bet would be no rallies and no crowds. The Central Reserve Police Force, in support of the police, thinks the same way, especially when they have already tasted the people’s anger. Most of their static bunkers in Srinagar have been demolished and Hurriyat flags were flown on the debris of a few by the people who participated in the Separatists’ rallies. All this is in stark contrast to the Nineties, when militancy and not law and order worried the police and paramilitary forces. A senior police officer told FORCE that Syed Salauddin of the United Jehad Council based in Pakistan was making a virtue out of necessity by his call to militants within Kashmir to let the Separatists’ rallies remain peaceful. Not more than 800 hardened militants in the whole of Kashmir are little match to the well-trained, motivated and equipped state police and the CRPF. This is how things have changed: the CRPF and to a little extent the police are today confident of undertaking anti-terrorist operations, but are uncomfortable about hardcore policing duties which they have not done in recent years. The army has contributed immensely towards the present confidence level of the police and the CRPF by ensuring that infiltration across the LC remains a trickle, and the hinterland is sanitised. Even as the United Headquarters does not meet regularly, the real synergy for anti-terrorist operations is provided by the district core groups comprising representatives of the army, police, CRPF, intelligence, and district authorities.
Even as terrorists are enervated, the Separatists are equally at sea. There are just too many ideological differences amongst them: Geelani wants merger with Pakistan, Mirwaiz desires a tripartite solution between Kashmir, Pakistan and India, Yasin Malik prefers independence, and Sajad Lone has written a good document called ‘Achievable Nationhood’ which speaks of many possibilities outside the Indian Constitution. More than anything, Sajad wants continuation of dialogue as the way forward. The tallest separatist leader, Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, if one goes by the crowd pulling power, is uncertain for yet another reason. He had the full support of Pakistan’s military ruler, Pervez Musharraf, and with him gone the Mirwaiz stands alone disappointed by the existing political system in Pakistan. It is unclear what Asif Ali Zardari meant when he said that India and Pakistan need to focus equally on large issues like trade for improved bilateral relations. It is certain that he did not have the clearance from his Army Chief to say this. Were it not for the sudden unrest in Kashmir as a fall out of Jammu events, the Mirwaiz was reported to be leaving for a fellowship to the United States. Now, he mulls over how much things have changed since 1994 when the Hurriyat was formed to provide the negotiating face to terrorism at its peak. Today, terrorism into Kashmir stands at its nadir, with not much hope of escalation as the Pakistan Army and the ISI are fighting for their nation’s survival in the western provinces of FATA and NWFP. Let alone the army reserves meant against India which have gone back to their locations in Peshawar and Quetta, there has been a substantive thinning of permanent Pakistani forces of headquarters 10 corps in Rawalpindi on the LC. Indian intelligence assessments suggest that there are glaring operational gaps in Pakistani defences on the LC. Under such circumstances, the Pakistan Army is not likely to disregard the November 2003 ceasefire on the military line. Sporadic firings and infringements are another matter. These are being done at the behest of the ISI that wants to push as many infiltrators into Kashmir as possible before the state goes for assembly elections. But their efforts will not amount to much, as the Indian Army is in total control of its area of responsibility.
Interestingly, the only Kashmiri leader who seems to have played his cards with dexterity is Omar Abdullah. Throughout the period of rallies in Kashmir, he consistently made a moot point: the government should engage the Hurriyat as they could garner more crowds than anyone else in recent times. When asked whether this would render his National Conference irrelevant, Abdullah said that NC would always remain relevant as long as Kashmir remains a part of India. What he was saying is that either way he would remain important: if the government held only the assembly elections which would cater for the basic daily needs of the people. Or, if the government went further and addressed the azadi sentiment, the NC with a large following within Indian Kashmir would count aplenty. Ideally, he suggested that the NC’s proposal of autonomy, a half-way mark between the two options, was most relevant today than ever before.
The big question emerging out of the whole episode is that what next for New Delhi? Unfortunately, its thinking will be mired in the past with few lessons learnt. New Delhi’s game-plan is simple: keep Kashmir incident free with curfews, detentions and whatever else it takes until the Jammu issue gets resolved. Once that happens, the Hurriyat will become toothless and it will be life as usual. This will be a mistake for many reasons. Kashmir has experienced a real or perceived economic blockade which it will not forget in a hurry. It has also sensed the rising communalism in Jammu, where there were umpteen media reports, some true and most fabricated, of Muslim exodus from Jammu to the Valley. And most importantly, the young Kashmiri generation has found resonance in the azadi sentiment. This should not be dismissed lightly as the crowds were non-violent with a steely determination for self-sacrifice. All these are serious matters.
A good action plan must seek to open trade between Kashmir and Muzzafarabad at the earliest. If this does not happen by October 31, the agreed dates between India and Pakistan, the Prime Minister, as suggested by the Mirwaiz, should publicly hold Pakistan responsible for the delay. The next urgent thing is to hold assembly elections at the earliest in the state. It does not require a genius to appreciate that a state government would have calmed the situation faster. It would have made the ‘Muzzaffarabad Chalo’ call unnecessary, and if it did happen, it would have ensured that the numbers did not multiply or reached anywhere close to Baramullah. Now comes the most difficult part. There is a need for a permanent resolution of the Kashmir issue. Musharraf was indeed our best bet and his four-point formula, with modifications, was doable. With confusion prevalent in Pakistan, New Delhi will do well to at least engage our own Separatists in a dialogue, who then can reach out to Kashmiris in Pakistan. Azadi in Kashmir is the wake-up call for a multi-pronged and a concerted action with understanding, rather than say that it is time for New Delhi to think the unthinkable.

What Terrorism?

2008-09-03T03:13:00.000-07:00

After dithering on the idea for a long time and grappling with semantics even longer, the Dar-ul-Uloom seminary in Deoband finally found the words to denounce terrorism in February this year. In the presence of a large number of Muslim scholars from all over India, the head of Dar-ul-Uloom, Maulana Marghoobur Rahman, said, “There is no place for terrorism in Islam”. Calling Islam a religion of love and peace, he described terrorism as a thoughtless act of violence against innocent people, whether committed by an individual, an institution or a government and is against the teachings of Islam.
Given the mildness of the statement, it was surprising how a big deal was made of this pronouncement. Analysts argued that though it was long overdue, the fact that Dar-ul-Uloom had finally condemned terrorism would be a big blow to the likes of al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiyyaba, Jaish-e-Mohammed and other such groups which claim theological affiliation with the biggest Islamic seminary in South Asia (some insist it is the second most important in the world after al Azhar University of Egypt, as it has influenced in some way or the other maximum schools of Islamic thought). Many also said that this fatwa would discourage those who were being brain-washed in various madarassas, especially in Pakistan, from joining these terrorist groups. Apparently, when these groups go out on recruitment drives to these madarassas, they carry the name of Dar-ul-Uloom as a reference letter. So now that it has officially been said that terrorism has no place in Islam, the fence-sitters will not fall prey to the exhortations of the recruiters and see through the ‘fake-ness’ of their reference letters.
Ironically, the religious leaders of various Muslims bodies who had attended the ‘historic’ meeting in February and threw their weight behind the fatwa felt differently as far as its reasons and import were concerned. According to them, they felt compelled to issue the fatwa because many non-Muslims were associating terrorism with Islam. So it was meant to clear these misconceptions. Moreover, in the last few years because of the convenience of arresting bearded and skull-capped Muslims in the aftermath of any terrorist attack, those who had even a passing connection with Deoband or its ancillary units had become particularly vulnerable to police actions. The pronouncement was also meant as a means to protect innocent Muslims from harassment and torture at the hands of the police.
Even if these artless Maulanas hadn’t said as much, it is clear that the significance of such a fatwa is extremely limited. Just as no Muslim in the world believes that Islam supports or condones terrorism, no terrorist thinks that he is committing an act of terror, which is why the famous line that ‘one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist’. A person who picks up the gun or ties an explosive-laden belt around his body does so believing that his is a righteous path and his sacrifice will improve the lot of his people.
Though today, as the US flounders on its war on terrorism, it is being urged that no distinction should be made on the grounds of good or bad terrorists, the fact remains that barring very few groups, most of the so-called terrorists are waging political battles, even if they resort to what may be called acts of terror. Since they do not consider themselves terrorists, and neither do their supporters, how can the fatwa on terrorism deter them.
Now, if there was a fatwa on Jihad, it would have had a different impact altogether, because for Osama bin Laden and his ilk, the operative word is Jihad and not terrorism. And Jihad has a religious sanction. Instead of denouncing terrorism, had Dar-ul-Uloom held a high level discussion and debate on the concept of Jihad, both Akbar and Asghar, perhaps it would have been more useful. From time to time, sundry Muslim scholars have said that Jihad-e-Akbar (the struggle within, to ensure that one is a better human being) is a greater and nobler cause in comparison to Jihad-e-Asghar which is a violent one meant to be waged against the oppressors. Though very important, this is a benign distinction, which can easily be distorted by vested and clever people. Moreover, the concept of an oppressor is very vague, hence waging a violent Jihad does not require much convincing. This is the reason why if Dar-ul-Uloom seriously wants to set the record straight, it needs to initiate a discussion on Jihad and the importance of distinguishing between the two kinds. Dar-ul-Uloom needs to clearly spell out what Jihad-e-Asghar means, under what circumstances, under whose command and against whom can it be waged. And most importantly, can killing on the sly or non-combatants be accepted as a form of Jihad? Not that most people do not know this, but if a stand against terrorism has to be taken, we might as well start from the root. And while they are at it, they might as well clarify that a fatwa is a mere opinion, not an order that can be enforced, so that a few analysts who are now mulling as to how the Deoband fatwa against terrorism can be enforced are saved the trouble.

Such a Long Journey

2008-09-03T03:10:00.000-07:00

What is one to make of the repeated statement by the US ambassador in New Delhi, David C. Mulford, that the hoped Nuclear Supplier Group’s waiver will be ‘clean’ and not ‘unconditional’. We heard this for the first time after the Manmohan Singh government won the trust vote on the nuclear deal in Parliament on July 22 at great cost; the biggest being that the opposition parties will exploit it to the hilt during the coming general elections if the deal fails ratification by the present US Congress. It can be argued that the US envoy did not desire to say this before he was certain that New Delhi, after dumping the Left parties, was indeed serious about talks with the NSG. It is also being said that the US’ strategy is to move the goalposts one issue at a time so as not to overwhelm New Delhi into exasperated rejection. I believe the latter to be the truth. The whole issue, after all, is extremely complicated as it concerns finding common grounds within the strategic interests of two unequal partners; one determined to remain the foremost world leader, and the other unsure of a regional role. The matter really is not whether India gets accepted as an equal partner by the NSG member countries that work on consensus. The matter is what cost the US will extract by making India a junior partner in its scheme of things for Asia and the world. For three full years starting the signing of the 18 July 2005 agreement, Washington has worked passionately on India through the White House, State Department and the Pentagon with the stated twin purpose of non-proliferation, and to achieve military interoperability through sales of arms, military exercises and regular visits. The unstated purpose has been to bring India into its embrace so as to influence its foreign policy and national security choices.
Reports suggest that while there are as many as 50 amendments proposed by the member countries to the US-India drafted NSG waiver text, the sticking points are three: a nuclear testing penalty clause, need for periodic review of India’s compliance, and complete ban on transfer of enrichment and reprocessing (E&R) technologies. Let us see what these three issues really mean. The nuclear testing penalty is really a back-door Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which once agreed will lead to greater pressure on India for fissile material cut-off before the treaty is even agreed upon. The so-called periodic review implies stringent Additional Protocol by the IAEA to monitor India’s safeguarded facilities. The IAEA employs three safeguard methods: material accountancy, containment, and surveillance, by making use of four procedures, namely, design review, maintenance of plant operating records, reports on plant operations, and on-site inspections. To undertake the above, two types of inspections are undertaken, routine and special. It is clear that if the NSG members succeed in the periodic review of Indian facilities, in addition to the routine and special inspections, the IAEA will be allowed ad-hoc inspections as well. The third sticking point of ban on E&R technologies has ramifications that go beyond the Indian safeguarded nuclear reactors.
By the E&R technologies, the uranium fuel that will be imported along with the nuclear reactors can be utilised fully and better, as otherwise India will be left with loads of unutilised spent fuel. The enrichment technology uses the nuclear fuel fully, and the main objective of reprocessing is to separate uranium and plutonium from fuel which has been irradiated in a reactor. If the burn-up time in a nuclear reactor is kept low, weapon-grade plutonium is obtained, and by high burn-up time, reactor-grade plutonium is procured. The reactor-grade plutonium thus got can be used in breeder reactors as well. Thus, without the E&R technologies, the imported fuel will not be used fully.
The worry of the NSG members is that even if India is unable to procure weapon-grade plutonium and uranium by controlling the burn-up time of imported E&R technologies, there would be enough internal proliferation. This means that Indian scientists working on E&R technologies at safeguarded facilities will carry the knowledge to the unsafeguarded Indian nuclear reactor facilities to enhance indigenous fissile material production. The other issue connected with allowing export of E&R technologies to India would suggest fewer controls over selling of high and dual use technologies to India. The NSG will certainly not desire that India has access to technologies like formal nuclear weapon states. And this is what Mulfold meant by ‘clean’ and not ‘unconditional’ exception. After all, in the 123 agreement also, the export of reprocessing technologies is to be discussed and formalised after the agreement is reached between India and the US. And last but not the least China has yet not disclosed its cards on the NSG exception for India. It has maintained that global non-proliferation requirement should be respected, which if one goes by the NPT definition, there are only two categories of states, nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states. Beijing will definitely not be a cake-walk.Considering that New Delhi has come this far, any strings by the NSG will be unacceptable domestically. What the US would now work upon is to do its best to see India get an acceptable waiver from the NSG. The strings will be worked out in the larger strategic arena away from media glare.

Kashmir: azadi or call to talks

2008-09-03T02:39:00.000-07:00

The September issue of FORCE is out. The cover story is on Kashmir. As the current crisis started, liberals in New Delhi started saying that it is time to think about giving Kashmiris the azadi that they seem so intent upon. But the realities of Kashmir are far different from what they appear on television channels. FORCE team spend about a week in August and witnessed the historic rally at Idgah in downtown Srinagar. True, there were chants of freedom and anti-India sloganeering, but for most Kashmiris, azadi today implies freedom from fear: fear of oppression, fear of torture, fear of midnight disappearances. Very few people, including the Separatist/Hurriyat leadership, today thinks of an independent Kashmir, especially in view of the crisis in Afghanistan and Pakistan. They understand that independent Kashmir is no longer a viable option. As president National Conference, Omar Abdullah told FORCE in Srinagar, "I keep telling the people that Kashmir can gain independence should Pakistan and India agree; but Kashmir can never gain freedom. There is a huge difference between independence and freedom. People are realising this and the economic blockade would have further reinforced this that you cannot live in isolation. If you are independent and India and Pakistan decide to close off your roads what would you do?" By screaming azadi, the people of Kashmir are urging the government of India to start a dialogue with them. As Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front's Chairman Yasin Malik said, "The government of India should not discredit the institution of dialogue." The government has to realise the fact that there is a need for a final resolution of Kashmir, and that resolution does not imply independence. Time for ad hoc policies is over.