Insulting our heroes – Congress way

शहीदों की चिताओ पर लगेंगे हर बरस मेले, वतन पर मिटनेवालों का यही बाकी निशान होगा.

These lines were penned by an Indian few decades ago to honour Indian martyrs and heroes. Ironically they no longer hold true in Indian context. We have made it a habit to relegate our true heroes to forgotten pages of history. This belief was confirmed – ONCE AGAIN – when recently I came to know that Kargil conflict has been given a really interesting name by Congress. Mr. Rashid Alvi from Congress chose to call it “BJP’s war”. It couldn’t get any more political or uglier than that. For the uninitiated, NDA led by BJP was in power during the Kargil conflict. Under the stewardship of A B Vajpayee – then the PM of India – talks were initiated with Pakistan to sort out the differences. To show our good intentions, A B Vajpayee and scores of other VIPs went to Lahore by bus. This became famous as “Lahore bus yatra / bus diplomacy” in political circles. Pakistan, true to its nature welcomed our leaders on one hand and on the other it was preparing for capturing our territory. All in all, it was a classic case of backstabbing.

Few months after Lahore trip, Pak. Army regulars sans uniform occupied key peaks in Indian Territory. Not only that, they built tracks and even helipads to ensure uninterrupted supply of men and materiel. They had enough time and resources to build fortified bunkers on peaks and enough supplies to allow them to fight and survive for months. Clearly they were confident that they would occupy those peaks for few months and their politicians would play their cards, hence altering the LOC (Line of Control). Permanently.

It was an IMPOSSIBLE task to attack and recapture those peaks given the terrain and enemy’s advantageous position. But the organization named Indian Army has been well-versed with doing the impossible and surprising the entire world. Their saying goes something like this. Hard jobs get done easily. It is only the impossible that takes time. Braving enemy fire, carrying a heavy load on his back and fighting the elements was the Indian soldier – respected for his bravery across the globe – charging ahead. He was the key to achieving the impossible and recapturing those towering peaks. On day of victory, he stood taller than the icy peak he had captured. Some of these bravehearts were not with their buddies to relish those proud moments. They had made the supreme sacrifice and were looking down from the heavens.

They sacrificed their lives and became immortal, their souls watching over us and guarding frontiers of our nation. And did we give them anything in return? Oh yes. We sure did give them a lot. We dishonored them by forgetting that Vijay Diwas is the day to commemorate our brave soldiers and not to gain political brownie points. Instead of coming together to celebrate this day, our politicians are busy blaming others for the conflict. Let us not forget that mistakes were made by incumbent politicians, but that does not mean that we don’t honour our soldiers. Another Congress MP went a step further by asking “what is Vijay Diwas all about?” hats off to you sir. You just reaffirmed my confidence on politicians.

These retards don’t attend cremation ceremony of our brave men for fear of incurring wrath of “certain communities”. Why can’t they spell out “Muslims”? If they think that Muslims would be angry at them for honouring our brave soldiers, aren’t they are branding all Muslims as traitors? A terrorist is a terrorist regardless of religion. A bomb or a bullet doesn’t stop to ask your religion. It just kills you. So please stop giving lame excuses for not honouring our boys and girls. Such traitors should be bundled off to Saltoro Ridge. To be pushed down. Or better still, put a Smerch rocket up their rear and fire them off towards Pakistan. May be that’s where they belong irrespective of their religion.

Before pointing fingers at BJP for Kargil conflict, Congress would do good to read up on history. As we all know, Kargil is situated in J&K and thanks to a PM from Congress, we lost and good portion of J&K because of his utopian beliefs. Once bitten twice shy. Nah, that doesn’t apply to our beloved Jawahar Lal Nehru. He was totally disconnected from reality and hence made the mistake of trusting China. Slogans of “hindi chini bhai bhai” ended up with India saying “bye-bye” to vast territory. Jawahar Lal Nehru and his crony Lt. Gen. B M Kaul ensured that we did everything to enrage China without being prepared for upcoming war. If we go by Congress’ logic, these debacles should be called “Congress ki ladai”. Mind you that our armed forces were never found lacking, but it was the incumbent political leadership that was confused and impractical. When we commemorate a war, we pay our tributes to the soldiers who fought against all odds. It is not to commemorate or glorify a political party that was in power at that time. In fact making such comments about a war – where our boys did the impossible – borders on the verge of treason. In Kargil conflict at least we could re-capture our occupied territory, while the areas captured in 48 and 62 are still occupied by our neighbours. Instead of allowing our boys to chase away invaders from occupied areas, lotus eater Jawahar Lal Nehru took the matter to UN and messed it up big time. We all know how effective UN resolutions have been.

It is the simple and hardy Jawan of our forces who fights a battle not of his choosing. He fights for you and me without expecting anything in return. It is him whom we remember and honour for the wars. It is his spirit that helped him fight battle against great odds and snatch victory from defeat’s jaws. These politicians should learn something from Col. Thapar. His son – Lt. Vijayant Thapar – was only 22 years old when he made the supreme sacrifice during battle for Tololing Top. To pay his tributes to his son and others like him who perished in those mountains,Col. Thapar climbs that peak every year.

I am venting out all this here because I believe that a country that forgets its heroes does not have any future. I don’t want future generations to study in history that “there was a country called India, split to pieces because she forgot her heroes”.

Pichle Saat dinon mein

We have had the UK and China stall India’s move to blacklist Jaish-e-Mohammad founder Maulana Masood Azhar. Meanwhile another terrorist the Chief of Jamaat-ud-Dawa Hafiz Saeed has been released by a Pakistani court. The Pakistani authorities like their UK and Chinese counterparts want ‘more evidence’. It appears Indian Express still does not know what happened to the Indian move to ‘ban’ Abdul Rehman Makki, another Lashkar ideologue.

The Indian government has clearly received two major setbacks in its so called diplomatic offensive against terrorism. How will it respond? Will it merely ready it-selves to absorb the aftermath of these failures? Is there a Plan B?

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On another note some foreign relations watchers peddle the thought of PM Singh attending SCO Conference as a hedge against Western influence.   They would do well to be reminded of China’s efforts at NSG during negotiations for passing a waiver for nuclear trade. And then China’s obstruction to banning the Jamaat-ud-Dawa post Mumbai attacks. The north eastern neighbor had also upped the ante on Arunachal Pradesh.

It appears we’re stuck in our engagement with China.  Much of the energy wasted in pointless resolutions and other diplomatic niceties against terrorism can be redirected to engage China. Our approach need not necessarily be confrontational…maybe pragmatic and bold?

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On the domestic front, I really liked this piece by MJ Akbar.  We whine and cringe about the lack of a moderate voice amongst the Muslims and when one turns up we blissfully ignore it!

Akbar argues that the Hindu Civil Code enshrined in the constitution provides for the emancipation of the Hindu society. It safeguards the weaker sections against regressive elements. However on the other side political leadership has always given in to the demands of regressive elements of Muslim society. A Muslim Code could have helped Indian Muslims – says Akbar.

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Meanwhile further down South - Nitin Ghokale is angry at the double standards of the West. He believes that the West are simply unable to digest the Sri Lankan victory over the LTTE.

B Raman explains that there appears to be a campaign against India/Sri Lanka accusing Sri Lanka of mass murders of Tamils and India of quiet complicity. Shri Raman clearly explains why many in India do not believe the LTTE propagandist theory of a ruthless SLA slaughtering every Tamil in the way. He further states that Indians have earned some genuine goodwill amongst the Sri Lankans.

Perhaps this could be exploited in persuading Rajapakse to come out with this political ‘package’ for the Tamils as soon as possible? There is a clear role for India in Sri Lanka in the coming days. With the LTTE eliminated we do not have anymore excuses. Time to change gear.

Personally I look forward to the President Rajapakse’s upcoming visit to New Delhi sometime in the next seven days.

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Wait for another 26/11 : Kavitha Karkare

A ‘committe’ is finally going to absolve the state government of any lapses. No lapse on providing state of art firearms, bullet-proof vests, adeqaute population-police ratio, intel reforms….nothing at all. Everything is fine.
When will we learn? When will our institutions reform?

Wait for another 26/11 says Kavitha Karkare.

The ‘Khalistan’ Connection.

It turns out Khalistani forces were behind the recent killings in Vienna. Appears there are more than one group of Khalistani forces operating outside India – Khalistan Zindabad Force(KZF) and Babbar Khalsa International (BKI).

KZF has claimed it carried out the attacks whereas BKI appears to condemn it.

KZF claims responsibility for Vienna attack; Babbar Khalsa condemns killing

The KZF is said to have claimed that the incident occurred because “these people did not heed to the warnings that they should not disrespect Guru Granth Sahibji by sitting parallel to Sri Guru Granth Sahibji; letting people bow before them in the Guru Sahib’s presence and committing various unacceptable anti-maryada (Sikh code of conduct) acts. As they continued to commit such sins, the KZF was forced to take this action.”

Do these attacks reveal a faultline in the Sikh society post-Dera Sacha Sauda riots?

No Role for LTTE in the future.

Gottabaya has firmly rejected any possiblity of LTTE factions entering domestic political process. Selvarajah Pathmanathan alias KP is yet to impress anybody in Colombo of his intentions.

Tamil leadership will clearly have to come from existing Tamil political parties.

Sri Lanka rejects Tigers’ offer

Mr Rajapaksa – the most senior civilian official in charge of the war against the Tamil Tigers – told the BBC in a wide-ranging telephone interview that he was “not interested in LTTE at all.”

He said: “I do not believe the LTTE can enter a democratic process after years of their violent activities.” He added that there were “enough democratic Tamil political parties in the country” to represent the Tamil minority.

New Age Diplomacy

Mao, the great leader of China once said “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun”. When he said that, he might not have known how his successors would stand true to it. China’s biggest export after toys and cheap electronics is arms and ammunition. Interesting that this business is mostly illegal and conducted with under-developed or developing countries. Most of the time these weapons are given out for free or at very cheap prices (China’s forte) to various nations. Countries that benefit from such deals are usually poor African nations or pariah states like Zimbabwe or North Korea. Looks forget the military aspect of such deals and concentrate on political implications.

Most nations purchasing their military equipment from China are usually short on cash or politically sensitive. These weapons are not the latest weapons but based on old Soviet era designs. As we all know, China has a thing about reverse engineering everything may it be a simple pistol or a complex system like a fighter aircraft. Since they have been building such dated equipment for a long time, their production cost is very low. Low cost allows China to give military equipment as gift to a really poor nation. By providing such gifts, China ensures that receiving nation depends on China to keep its armed forces operational. Such an arrangement not only gives China leverage over that nation but also creates a market for their goods. In most cases, these impoverished nations have political problems and countries with bloated moralities – like India – are not willing to trade with them. In such a case, military aid and civilian goods are a blessing for them. Another interesting fact is that China is never shy of dealing with any country. They are not really bothered about legitimacy of rulers or political inclination of their client state. Unlike erstwhile USSR, China has no intentions of spreading communism or meddling with internal affairs of a country. A very recent example would be recent operations conducted by Sri Lanka against LTTE. Although China is a major supplier of arms to Sri Lanka, they never sent military advisors to advise them or train them. Instead it was Pakistan that sent its officers to train Sri Lankan forces. And Pakistani officers have been training them for last three years (phew).

Point of all my rants is, India also has large production lines for churning out Soviet era equipment and some newer equipment too. Moreover we help many countries with foreign aid and stuff, but we hardly provide them with any military equipment. Instead of just putting our money down the drains – that’s the case when you help some very poor nations – we would do better to provide them with military equipment like weapons, military vehicles and aircrafts/helicopters. This way we can literally get a bang for our bucks in terms of diplomatic advantage. Closer ties lead to more business with such countries, both in terms of military equipment and civilian goods. We need more and more such deals and there is a financial angle to it. While we import military equipment worth Rs. 30,000 crores every year, our defence exports are pathetic 1% of our imports. Yes our export figures just stand between Rs. 300-400 crores. Most of our military imports consist of cutting edge systems. So it only makes sense to export military hardware and use that money to fund building our own defence industry and churning out latest equipment for our forces. This way we can not only save lot of foreign exchange but can build competencies and generate more employment.

Exporting weapons to such rag-tag countries busy killing each other might sound unethical to many. Yes it is unethical if you just look at the smaller picture. But it is completely OK if you consider interests of our country and her citizens. In case such deals have to be kept under the wraps so as not to invite international attention, such deals can be conducted under names of shady organizations. Try and watch Lord of War starring Nicholas Cage to get an insight in the world of illegal arms trade. In earlier times, countries used to play gunboat diplomacy, where they would send their powerful warships to ‘persuade’ non-complying nations. Since times have changed can play gun-trade diplomacy to extend our sphere of influence. All said and done; our bureaucrats are doing a wonderful job of killing such exports. Recently one such deal worth Rs. 300 crores with Bolivia was shot down by Ministry of External Affairs on stupid grounds. If that deal had gone through, our military exports would have just doubled.

O Lord, protect my country from those suffering from myopia.

What after LTTE?

The recent past has been very painful for the Tamils of Sri Lanka. Thousands of them have been displaced, forced into IDP camps and will remain confined for some time to come. I’m not going to blame just one side – all civil wars are ugly fights. The Tamil cause has been floundered.

Meanwhile a split in the remaining ranks of the LTTE appears imminent. The erstwhile K.P now re-christened Selvarajah Pathmanathan has admitted the demise of LTTE supremo. The LTTE apparently will now adopt non-violent means. It could be that SP/KP is positioning himselves to succeed Prabakaran’s position. There appears to be some resistance to this from other surviving middle-level leaders that continue to deny the demise of VP.

The Rajpakse regime will probably field Karuna as the next Tamil leader to fill the vacuum left behind by Prabakaran. This would be unacceptable for Tamils who see Karuna as a betrayer of the Tamil cause.

The Tamil National Alliance could be persuaded to adopt a less militant line than what it had adopted during the militancy era. The warring ex-LTTE factions may not have much credibility left. It is important that the new leadership is civilian and seen as reasonable on both sides.

The old ’smarter by half’ ways of the LTTE have clearly failed. A return to the days of Thimpu principles is unacceptable.It will cause immense suffering to the thousands of Tamils. Tamil chauvinism is not the right answer for Sinhalese chauvinism. It is time for a new beginning under a new leadership.

Karnataka BJP should stop this nonsense.

A report in the media quotes Karnataka state primary and secondary education minister Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri saying that the government under no circumstances will allow schools to have English as the medium of instruction.

This is unacceptable.

The government does not have a case that would pass the scrutiny of the Supreme Court. If I recally correctly the government of Tamil Nadu made a drama out of the same issue but the case was finally thrown out of court. It shall be the wardens/children themsevles who will decide. The government cannot impose a language on the population.

The case probably has the support of all parties in Karnataka and yet this is when BJP can for once make a sensible decision.

The government of Karnataka is fully welcome to encourage education in native tongues but it may not force the issue.

Unshackle the judiciary..

A journalist threw a shoe at the Minister because he was enraged that the Minister would not even provide sensible answers as to why some of the most heinous crimes in India have gone unpunished for more than two decades.

P.Chidambaram is one of India’s best paid lawyers. He knows why the journalists anger was justified and he knows the solutions. But allow this author to speculate: the elite like him do not care.

After every terror attack or a heinous crime we see the executive set-up special courts and pass it off as an attempt to deliver speedy justice. The TADA special court set-up to try the accused in 1991 blasts case took a decade to deliver justice. In the case of Coimbatore blasts it was nine years. Thankfully the special courts managed to deliver justice in under a year for the Parliament attack case.

The Supreme Court alone has about 40,000 cases pending Justice.

High Courts across the country have been unable to settle 3 crore cases. They remain pending needing time and resources. To put things in their perspective : one in every thirty Indians await justice from our courts. (Probably for more than a decade now)

One would expect that the courts are working over-time to resolve cases pending before them for years together. One would expect manifold increase in infrastructure, staffing and more importantly making an attempt to hear cases in native languages or provide translations for the parties in the case of proceedings in higher courts. When demand exceeds supply – and in a country like India – demand for justice is always going to be high – one would think the system responds to the high demand and increases the capacity of the judiciary.

Yet despite so much solutions that can be trotted out with a little common sense one is hard pressed to find a systematic attempt made either at the national level or at the state level to modernize the judiciary.

On the contrary the judiciary enjoys atleast six weeks of summer vacations.

The supreme court being the highest judiciary body in this country gets away with a seven week summer vacation every year. A British Colonial legacy faithfully followed. By the most educated class in India!

Only vacation courts operate in this period. There will be a court office working part-time – technically one cannot say the courts are shut! The High Courts also follow suit although the exact duration of vacations vary.

The people running the Judiciary and the people that take part in its day to day operations are the creamy layer of the Indian populace. It is them that are supposed to best understand the Constitution. Is it not justified for the general populace to look up to them?

All that is asked is that the judiciary run 12 months a year. That would cut the pending cases by atleast 8-15%.

One expects the Judiciary to work towards legal reforms and get the government to assist the judiciary for setting up the infrastructure required. The argument that it is the government that legislates the number of courts is absurd. The Supreme Court, correct me if I’m wrong, has never in my memory initiated any suo-moto action that it is entitled to hear the governments opinions on capacity increase in the judiciary.

Forget complex issues – why take two month holidays on tax payers expense when one in every thirty citizens await justice?

Yet these are some of the most educated people in India.

The judiciary has also been accused of corruption and refusal to divulge information under the right to information act amongst other things.

The response from the highest seat of justice in the country has been ossified , obfuscating and skirting the issue of reform. To a tax paying citizen like me it appears like the judiciary is serving its own vested interests and only trying to pay lip service to the the citizenry.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who guards the guards of the Indian republic?

To be fair it is equally the responsiblity of the legislature and the executive to have modernized the judiciary but the author is disappointed at the relative indifference of the judiciary. The expectations are high – it is after all the institution that gave us the likes of Nani Palkiwala, Nariman and Arun Shourie.

Will the judiciary live up to the expectations?

Celebrating the political diversity in India

It’s a new age in India where New Delhi is governed from the states.

But why does the voter keep pushing the button for regional parties or caste based parties? Surely if everybody voted for just two parties every other time we wouldn’t have all this mess? Just why can’t they figure this out?

Why the hell does the Indian vote for a party that identifies with his community? Why not a pan-India concensus?

Catch hold of an ordinary chap – a non-member of BJP/IUML/Akali Dal and find out why he votes for the party. It might appear the guy votes for the party that appears to be aligning itself with the individuals religion but more than that it is economic benefit that decides the vote at the end of the day. A vast majority of votes that go to the BJP or IUML are cast with an eye on the percieved economic benefits the party promises to bring.

No amount of hardline Hindutva would keep Modi in power if he had a disfunctional government.

Within the Indic faith systems voting patterns are decided primarily by caste and economic development. That is why athiest CPI and DMK have been able to capture power in TN/Kerala. It gets irritating when people talk of development having suddenly become an agenda in politics. The DMK and to a good extent even the INC under Kamraj since the 1950’s were great harbingers of economic prosperity and used that plank for votes – although parties like DMK concentrated on specific sections of the society and also worked their caste cards. After Kamraj the INC simply didn’t have a leader that could appeal to the masses and know their issues. And thus they fell.

Some of the representatives of one of the most casteist parties are available 24/7 for his constituency. I know of many cases where MLA’s turned up at the Police Stations or hospitals in under a few hours to help ‘his people’. Bank loans, education loans, emergencies – the MLA is simply a phone call away!

So it’s not all that people keep pushing the button just because of caste or religion. It’s practically very very hard to get people to do that.

When the voter climbs up in the economic ladder he see no further direct gain by voting for a party, he realises his net gain by either parties running the show is nil – he has had his education, employment and probably a makaan settled all for himself. And this mobility will keep his progeny in the same lane. So when he percieves no further gain he becomes disinterested and slowly ceases to participate in the process. Urban India has never voted more than rural India!

Maybe the advent of IT and 24X7 media is going to influence more urban voters – you never know. This election will be a landmark one because it’s the first nationwide poll after delimitation took place. The last delimitation took place in 1973! The process has ensured adeqate representation for urban/rural sections – a good base on which future election predictions can be made.

I don’t see how all the predictions are made as if nothing changed!

End of day every political party means to or atleast pretends to want to serve a certain constituency. The constituency may either be based on caste, religion or perhaps even ethnicity or language. The party gets recognised and elected only if the constituency believes it has been served well. It is a fallacy to treat caste based politics with utter contempt – they thrive because they are efficient workers, they are able to identify easily with their constituency and convince the people that they have served them well.

As usual you see the liberal crowd – the sort that has had an education but failed to get educated are condescending towards regional parties and other small parties that have managed to get it big. (The new ‘liberals’ are condescending towards everybody anyway.)

We are a really big country. In terms of ethnic and communal diversity we are par none in the world – we simply have too many varieties of people.

It takes an ignorant politician to think a single political party leadership sitting in New Delhi is going to be able to tailor make service-solutions to citizens of every color and hue in this country. How can people sitting in New Delhi know the solutions for day to day issues in Tamil Nadu, Manipur, Meghalaya, Madhya Pradesh and Andaman?

The BJP or INC or the Communists are never going to get pan-India support for their national agendas unless there is some sort of a phenomenon that sweeps across the country. The last such ‘wave’ was the Rajiv Gandhi assasination ’sympathy wave’. The alternative is they develop state-level leaders that are truly ’sons of the soil’ – Shivraj Singh Chaucan and Shela Dixit are good examples, leaders that know and understand the state. The sort that is able to feel the pulse of people from their offices. It is these leaders that will then pass on the mandate to New Delhi.

With a flaundering Congress and a still born BJP state-based regional parties were an unavoidable phenomenon in India.

Modi, Karunanidhi, Lalu Prasad, Jyoti Basu and every other successul leader in the country has become what he or she has because they have been able to more easily identify and work with the local contituency.

If anything we must celebrate this diversity.

I find it a great honor to tell a videshi that my countrymen speak more than 20 major languages, that many food cultures, that many cultural systems and state-level societies.

From now on I’ll also tell them about the number of political parties we have. I will tell them about Laloo, Karuna and the Naidu’s of Andhra. I’m celebrating yet another dimension of the Indian diversity.

(Though it might help if parties stick to alliances and try providing a stable government in New Delhi. The bigger picture is equally important!)