pakistan's problems and india

Much is being made these days of Pakistan's newly-found resolve in fighting the Taliban. Wherever he goes, President Zardari is being praised by the same Western leaders who used to believe that Pervez Musharraf was the only man who could save the region from extremism. Now Zardari has taken up this role, and whereas one can certainly see something positive in the way opposition to extremism has been mobilized in the society, doubts must remain about the efficiency of the military "operation" against the Taliban: There is a huge cost in terms of civilian victims, displaced or even killed; the "operation" is taking place without observers, with total impunity for the army to do what they want; and the army doesn't seem to have abandoned its tactics of pitting one tribal leader against the other.

These are old tactics, but is there a new vision and a new policy as far as extremist groups are concerned? For this, one would have to compare the actions against the "Pakistani Taliban" with what Pakistan is doing about other militant groups which haven't turned against Islamabad, but are apparently still seen by some in the establishment there as useful strategic assets internationally: The Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) aka Jama'at-ud-Dawa (JuD), which is blamed by India for the Mumbai attacks in November, and the Afghan Taliban, many of whose leaders are reported to have found refuge in the Pakistani city of Quetta.

So far, the situation is far from clear here. A case in point is that Hafiz Saeed, the head of the banned LeT/JuD, had to be released from house arrest because the government had failed to present a case against him. There are strong indications that not much will change unless something happens in the relationship between Pakistan and India. In a perceptive recent analysis for Reuters titled "Can Pakistan take on the Lashkar-e-Taiba?", Myra MacDonald calls it

the Catch 22 of India-Pakistan relations. Without peace, Pakistan may never fully turn against the LeT. And India will not offer peace talks until it does so.

Anyone who has seen the latest UK Channel 4 "Dispatches" documentary on the Mumbai attacks, containing the recordings of intercepted phone conversations between the attackers and their handlers in Pakistan (at least that's the claim in the video -- which seems to have disappeared from youtube due to copyright issues...) will certainly understand why India has difficulties in resuming the dialogue with Pakistan before action is taken against LeT.

But is this Indian position helpful and constructive? In a brilliant speech earlier this year on relations between India and Pakistan, Stephen P. Cohen, one of the leading American experts on the region, was very critical of New Delhi. Some excerpts:

Structurally, the India-Pakistan relationship is toxic. It is a classic case of what I call a “paired minority conflict.” In these situations both sides see themselves as vulnerable, threatened, encircled, and at risk. They have a “minority” or “small power” complex (...)
It is easy to see why Pakistanis have a classic small power complex: they are indeed smaller than India, increasingly less capable, their friends are fickle, and when from time to time Indian politicians and officials concede that Pakistan is a legitimate country, Pakistanis feel even more insecure. But why India? (...) India is groping now for a national identity that would allow it to approach Pakistan with confidence, but there is no consensus on how to mesh India’s identity with that of Pakistan’s. Indians do not know whether they want to play cricket and trade with Pakistan, or whether they want to destroy it. There is still no consensus on talking with Pakistan: sometimes the government and its spokesman claim that they do not want to deal with the generals, but when the generals are out of the limelight, they complain that the civilians are too weak to conclude a deal. The default option seems to be that Pakistan is now someone else’s problem--in this case the United States’. (...) There is also an absence of imaginative strategic thinking in India—most officials and politicians seem to follow the advice of P.V. Narasimha Rao, who said that inaction is always preferable, that time will fix most problems.

This is not about "blaming" India for Pakistan's problems. But I find Cohen's argument highly persuasive that "Rising India has a Pakistan Problem" (the title of his speech), and that it is mainly in India's own interest to overcome the deadlock. India is the stronger one in this pair, why shouldn't it be "confident" and "imaginative"?

the different faces of bollywood

During my recent visit to Mumbai, I was once again intrigued about the contradictions of Bollywood. Mumbai's dream factory has been accused of all kinds of crimes, and in fact a recent cover story in Tehelka magazine presents a very intelligent indictment: Nisha Susan argues that Bollywood movies and other branches of commercial popular culture in India (TV, advertising, the fashion industry) have been streamlining the idea of "who is an Indian?" in such a way that actually the vast majority of the population is excluded from it! According to her observations, backed up by many interviews, especially the female icons of Bollywood are almost exclusively presented as fair-skinned, rich North Indian Hindus from cities. Which is bound to make everyone else wonder why they don't look like them. Susan quotes a hockey player from Jharkhand state who plays for India: 

Sarita Lakra says her childhood years were spent wondering how the movies could always be about happy and beautiful people. Sarita says, “They made me feel little and nonexistent. They still make me feel little.”

Even in South India, where the vast majority of people are dark-skinned, film heroines have to be fair - and people with different looks don't get a chance: The culture industry shows its cruel face. 

And yet, there are lots of creative and critical people in Bollywood. For all kinds of reasons, but mainly because they want to make films - and they actually make some very good ones. Let me mention just two new movies which I saw in India over the last week: "Firaaq" and "Gulaal". Both of them have nothing to do with the clichés of the entertainment industry, and each in its own way, the both are extremely thought-provoking. "Firaaq" by Nandita Das is a story set in the aftermath of the anti-Muslim pogroms in Gujarat in 2002. It doesn't have song-and-dance sequences and its narrative is rather straightforward, so it comes across more like a European or American movie. Both topic and treatment are challenging for any audience. "Gulaal" by Anurag Kashyap, on the other hand, is about anger, student politics, separatism and love. It's gripping until the last moment, but also a very difficult movie, heavy with allusions, quotes and metaphors, almost like in a stage drama. Its innovative elements include a political mujra, a jester type character and a modern remix of the 1950s "Pyaasaa" hit "Ye duniya agar mil bhi jaye". Again, there is no way you can leave the cinema without questions.

Here in Germany, we have the advertising slogan: "Bollywood macht glücklich" - "Bollywood makes you happy". Might be. But Bollywood also makes you think. Bollywood also makes you angry. Bollywood also makes you stupid.

toilets, but no water

The Indian media widely reported a tragic incident some days ago: A 45-year-old barber died as he was trying to escape from a squad enforcing a ban on open defecation. It is common especially for Indian villagers to relieve themselves in the open, e.g. in the fields or alongside railway tracks. There are simply not enough toilets in the country. As access to sanitation is to be improved as part of the UN millenium goals programme, India has stepped up construction of toilets, and is also trying to enforce their use: Old habits die slowly... Thus, the village council in Supe Road in the western state of Maharashtra introduced fines of up to 1,200 Rupees for anyone caught in the open. And they established the "Good Morning Squad" tasked with catching offenders. Barber Sunil Jadhav was trying to flee from the squad when he had a heart attack.
The "Telegraph" newspaper explains the problem behind the incident:

Jadhav’s village, Supe Road, has public toilets that residents said couldn’t be used because they had no water in summer.

Water shortage is already a severe problem in larger parts of India and is bound to get worse due to population growth. The only real solution can be toilets that don't use water flush, but store and recycle the urine and excrements for producing manure for agriculture or cooking gas. China has already introduced more than a million of these alternative or "ecosan" toilets in areas with water shortage; but in India, taboos and the lack of political will have so far prevented their large-scale introduction. Maybe barber Jadhav's death will lead to a change of mind there...

resolution against the taliban?

As Barack Obama turns his attention towards Afghanistan, it is looking more and more uncertain that he can count on any real support from Pakistan in fighting the Taliban. According to many reports, the Pakistani army has all but ceded control of the Swat valley (which is only about 160 kms from Islamabad) to the extremists. And whereas for the first time in months, there is something like a public outcry in Pakistan against Taliban practices such as the closing of all girls' schools, the actions by the government and the army are half-hearted at best. Dawn writes:

The National Assembly on Tuesday unanimously adopted a resolution condemning the ‘ban’ imposed by militants on girls’ education and destruction of schools in Swat. The resolution, moved by Information and Broadcasting Minister Sherry Rehman, called for rebuilding the schools and protecting schoolgoing children. Observers, however, noted that the resolution contained no plan to combat extremists, who have destroyed more than 200 schools so far.

It became clear soon after the Mumbai attacks in India that, once again, something went seriously wrong in Pakistan. Reports came out that the sole surviving terrorist was from Pakistan. The Pakistani daily Dawn's reporters visited the village of Faridkot in Punjab and managed to trace down the family. The paper wrote:

the man who said he was Amir Kasab confirmed to Dawn that the young man whose face had been beamed over the media was his son. For the next few minutes, the fifty-something man of medium build agonized over the reality that took time sinking in, amid sobs complaining about the raw deal the fate had given him and his family.“I was in denial for the first couple of days, saying to myself it could not have been my son,” he told Dawn in the courtyard of his house in Faridkot, a village of about 2,500 people just a few kilometres from Deepalpur on the way to Kasur. “Now I have accepted it.“This is the truth. I have seen the picture in the newspaper. This is my son Ajmal.”

And yet, the Pakistani government continued to obfuscate the matter. A "Washington Post" reporter visiting the village found that every movement was closely monitored by Pakistani intelligence agencies. Why, if they had nothing to hide? When a report by GEO TV confirmed the Dawn story, a politician filed a case against the TV channel for "anti-state activity". Only when it was really no longer possible, the government accepted that Ajmal Kasab was from Pakistan.

So what about the so-called Pakistani "crackdown" on Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, aka Jama'at-ud-Dawa - the extremist groups said to be behind the Mumbai attacks? Just an eyewash again, according to media reports. It is safe to assume that ever since 9/11, the vast majority of the so-called "clampdowns" on extremists in Pakistan were at best symbolic, and often enough those to be "attacked" were warned beforehand. In a recent detailed article about why the US remains worried about Pakistan's nuclear weapons, New York Times reporter David E. Sanger narrates the example how Pakistan's Prime Minister Gillani intended to impress his hosts with the news of an attack against an extremist madrassa when he visited the US last summer:

Though Gilani never knew it, Bush was aware of this gift in advance. The National Security Agency had picked up intercepts indicating that a Pakistani unit warned the leadership of the school about what was coming before carrying out its raid... When the “attack” on the madrassa came, the Pakistani forces grabbed a few guns and hauled away a few teenagers. Sure enough, a few days later Gilani showed up in the Oval Office and conveyed the wonderful news to Bush: the great crackdown on the madrassas had begun. The officials in the room — Bush; his national security adviser, Stephen Hadley; and others — did not want to confront Gilani with the evidence that the school had been warned... Indeed, Gilani may not even have been aware that his gift was a charade: Bush and Hadley may well have known more about the military’s actions than the prime minister himself.

Pakistan's military and political establishment is still playing silly games with the extremists instead of fighting them. Unfortunately, all indications from Swat, the tribal areas and other places are that these tactics have made the Taliban too strong already - and it won't be possible to get rid of them any time soon.

the changing world of the indian village

Some impressions from my recent "exposure" stay in an Indian village -- in Nasik district, Maharashtra: Having lived in Indian villages before, I was really surprised to see how much the Indian countryside is changing these days.

growing capsicum in the greenhouse

First of all how much the production is targeted to far-away markets, how much the village is part of the global economy. Many farmers in Maharashtra produce grapes for export these days, wine is being made for customers abroad, and genetically modified "BT cotton" is grown. These farmers are very active, constantly on the look for new technologies and markets. They use a lot of "modern" technology such as fertilizers, machines, pesticides, sophisticated irrigation and GM plants. They take huge loans to invest in their crops, and many earn "lakhs" of Rupees (thousands of Euros) after paying back their loans with the harvest. At the same time, the landless labourers (in this village 70 per cent of the population) still have to live on 40 Rs. (women) or 55-60 Rs. (men) of daily earnings - less than one Euro a day... 

environmental concerns

But innovation is also going in other directions: There is a growing number of organic farmers in Maharashtra who stop using pesticides and chemical fertilizer. This 73-year-old farmer has developed his own theory of "natural farming": He doesn't even buy organic fertilizer, and claims he is still making money. As an additional activity, he has planted hundreds of thousands of trees and is distributing the saplings free of cost to anyone who wants them. 

a model village

Most interesting about the particular village I lived in was to see how much the villagers had done for development over the last few years: They had managed to convince everyone there to build a toilet in their house, and to use it, too... They had established small savings and loans groups for women. As a reward, they got water connections for every house from the state government (which has given up the top-down approach to development and requests the citizens to share responsibilities). They were proud that they didn't have elections for the village council (which led to infighting in neighbouring villages), but nominated only as many candidates as there were posts on the basis of consensus...

harmony, not rivalry

The villagers tried to sort out conflicts themselves through a special committee, and had managed to keep the police out of the village in this way. They stressed that political parties and caste rivalries don't matter. Of course, there have always been symbols of harmony in the Indian countryside, and I found a nice one there, too: In this village without any Muslim inhabitant, the Hindu villagers maintained, decorated and worshipped the tomb of a Muslim saint.

a witch-hunt of indian muslims?

Five bombs exploded in the Indian capital Delhi on Saturday. The attackers targeted well-known markets where the well-off middle class citizens go for their weekend shopping and entertainment. No wonder, then, in a way, that the mainstream Indian media put pressure on the government to do more against terrorism. But on the other hand, there's a growing sense that the fear of terrorist attacks is being used to target the Muslim minority in India. Asghar Ali Engineer, a leading Muslim social scientist and activist from Mumbai, writes:

This is alienating the community besides allowing real culprits to escape and it has grave consequence in the sense that bomb explosions continue as real culprits are never nabbed.

As Yogi Sikand writes on the website The South Asian,

it appears that powerful elements within the state apparatus are deeply implicated, along with Hindu terrorist groups, in a witch-hunt of India's Muslim citizens.

Ajit Sahi, a journalist with Tehelka magazine, recently did a three-month investigation into SIMI, the "Students Islamic Movement of India", which has been routinely accused of masterminding terrorist attacks in India. But, writes Sahi:

The government had seven years to bring proof of its claims about SIMI, but it hasn’t yet done so and it appears doubtful it will bring some dramatic proof anytime soon.

Tehelka has published Sahi's findings about the "SIMI fictions" in great detail on their website. There are touching stories about youngsters such as a doctor, who have quite obviously been falsely implicated in terrorism cases, but continue to be stigmatized. But why don't the mainstream media talk about all this? In a recent interview, Ajit Sahi said:

I am just a simple journalist. Doing these investigations into the SIMI affair and exposing the heaps of lies of the police and the state about the blasts and the arrested persons has made me feel purposeful as never before. I am 42 now, and so far I have been chasing money and highly-paid jobs. But now, after going through all this in the course of the investigations I have been doing into charges against innocent Muslims, I have more clarity as to my purpose in life... Every decent journalist should ... investigate the truth. I have to speak out the truth and expose the lies that the government and its agents are so blatantly spreading.

Well said, and not only for India...