US fazed as Russia renews the Cold War

It is like watching history reverse itself. An age has elapsed since the Cold War ended and both sides resolved to work towards burying the bitterness. Then, suddenly, something stirred, both sides closed their minds and went back to where they had been twenty years ago. The Russian action in Georgia and the hostilities that followed have left the world brooding over what comes next… another Cold War at best and a nuclear holocaust at worst?

The actual events are trivial; it is all about the attitudes that sustained and deepened the divide. The violence could have been avoided, perhaps, if Georgia had not sent troops into South Ossetia to subdue the rebels and kill ten Russian peacekeepers in the process. But the rebels in South Ossetia and Abkhazia would not have been a real threat unless the Kremlin had issued a slew of Russian passports to the local population. And Russia would not have muscled its way ruthlessly into Georgia unless the West had welcomed Kosovo into its lap. One could go on forever… in the aftermath of the Georgian crisis, the Americans need not have sent humanitarian aid on military vessels and the Russians need not have bothered to step up their Black Sea fleet. It is impossible to fix the blame on anyone.

1. The Russian attitude: Russia has become a nation of opportunities, but in the process, it has, sadly, lost its only ever chance at becoming a democracy. With prices of both major Russian exports, oil and food, soaring in markets across the world, Putin, the former KGB agent, has had little trouble uniting his “resurgent Russia”. His politics is a cauldron of patriotism, a sense of wounded national pride and cold hard coercion. At the risk of sounding exaggerated, one must point out that some of these very things went into Nazi philosophy. The idea that Russia never really lost the Cold War… and will live another day to fight it … is one of Putin’s main arguments. Does that sound familiar?

Although some will protest his policy of blood and iron towards his detractors, the Russians are, by and large, content with Putin’s rule. The steep decline and chaos that marked the last decade of the previous century has been arrested and most Russians can look towards a prosperous future. The Russian people owe some of this to Vladimir Putin, a former KGB man, who knew just how to set a tottering nation back on its feet, some of this to the fortuitous rise in oil and food prices and finally, some of this to a reckless America that bate off more than it could chew. Dictators are dangerous and this is even truer of popular dictators like Putin. The latter has lost no time in making the most of Russia’s wounded pride and declaring himself Russia’s absolute ruler. The most impressive show of power came earlier this year, when Putin confidently shoved a puppet Medvedyev into the President’s chair and continued to rule as Russia’s Prime Minister.

Putin and his people agree on one key aim that defines his rule: the desire to reinstall Russia as a superpower. The first step to becoming a superpower is, of course, acquiring a “sphere of influence”. The obvious targets for the Russians are the former Soviet republics and their million fragments. These areas are literally crawling with conflicting ethnic identities, nations without a sense of direction and people without a future. As such, petty squabbles swell into blood feuds and ragtag rebels provoke major conflicts. The monetary and military cost of power projection in these troubled areas is minimal.

Putin realized that Russia could afford this. The Europeans are too dependent on Russian oil to retaliate economically, while recent misadventures have made the US take the military option off the table. As the West celebrated Kosovo, Putin plotted revenge. Above all, he wanted to show the world the might of the Russian military. He wanted to match …uh, well…the United States in defying world opinion.

2. The American attitude: The US has been wholly caught unawares by the sudden possibility of power shifts in the world. This goes not only for the inept foreign policy advisors of the Bush administration, but also for the ruling elite in all political quarters, the intelligentsia and the common folk. But this is not to imply that the United States and its strategic partners have not done anything to provoke or exacerbate the situation. The evidence points to the fact that the US has often acted recklessly in the last ten years, too assured of having won the Cold War and too often sparing too little thought for the egos of others.

It would be preposterous to accuse the US of trying to encircle Russia with a definite view towards a future war. In fact, the US and the rest of the world might have to pay dearly for America’s reluctance to disable its Cold War machinery. Although the Warsaw Pact and the Comintern ceased to exist long ago, NATO has continued to expand, amassing ever more military power, building larger and larger missiles, persuading more and more countries into its fold. This is despite Bill Clinton’s promise that NATO would maintain a respectful geographical distance from Russia. From the point of view of the Kremlin, it is impossible not to see the constant wooing of Romania and Ukraine, the patronization of Georgia, the harbouring of Kosovans and the militarization of Poland as mean spirited at best and hostile at worst.

Caught unawares by the events in Georgia, and that too in a time of Olympic festivities in Beijing, the Bush administration took some time to respond. Beyond letting the two thousand Georgian troops return to their country from their posts in Iraq, the US could think of little else. Valuable time was lost as the US groped for a response; causing immense damage to America’s credibility as a strategic ally and deepening the impression in the Kremlin that the overcautious democracies would be too careful to act (incidentally, this is an impression that all dictators share).

Once things had settled down, some saber rattling was in order. The US immediately cleared a controversial missile deal with Poland and sent humanitarian aid in military vessels. Ukraine was prodded to raise the rent for the Russian Navy that has a twenty year lease to control the Ukrainian port of Sebastopol. The NATO vessels in the Black Sea soon outnumbered the Russian fleet; and this little to defuse the situation. In fact, the Russian commander of the Black Sea fleet commented that the NATO fleet could be destroyed in “about fifteen minutes”. The world has not heard such language for a long time.

3. The European attitude: They are the ones caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand they have an organic dislike for the Russians and on the other; they realize that their dependence on Russian oil puts them in a difficult situation. Above all, the spectre of war is taken all too seriously in Europe. Little surprise then, that President Sarkozy was all too eager to broker the peace deal between Russia and Georgia.

By creating the European Union, the Europeans have managed to set into motion a wonderful process of human integration and civilization building. However most EU constituents have their NATO obligations and privileges, which they would not want to give up in a hurry. Europe also owes a debt of gratitude to America for its economic revival after the ruinous decade of the 40s. In most of Eastern Europe, Russia is seen as the traditional hegemon and in Western Europe, Russia is seen as the traditional enemy. However, the increased prices of oil and food and the steep rise of Russia after the ruin of the 1990’s have made it impossible for Europe to break away economically from Russia. In the tussle between America and Russia, Europe runs the risk of suffering the most.

The solution for the Europeans is, of course, to strengthen the EU. A strong Europe, without weak, disparate, smaller states, would be an economic, political and military entity just as eminent as the United States, too big either to be shoved around by America or to be seen as a soft target for Russian expansionism. This will effectively rule out the possibility of the emergence of yet another bipolar world.




In conclusion, we note that it is a major tragedy to watch Russia slip right back into the hands of dictators. And dictators do have a tendency to attribute the conflict of opinions in the democratic world to a weakness of will. Even so, one must point out that the responsibility for history lies with the democratic world. The solution for the free world is to tear itself even further from all forms of bigotry, build stronger democratic institutions and develop even more respect for the life of the human being. Cold War tragedies happen when Great Powers see people in “lesser nations” as “expendable”. This is exactly how Russia sees the people of Georgia and of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The US is about to subscribe to the same system of thought, with regards to the people of Poland and Ukraine.

Holy wrath: Hindu Intifada in Jammu

When Islamic extremists in Kashmir spilled out onto the streets, desecrating Indian flags and calling for death to the Indian state, the overwhelming feeling was that of déjà vu. Then, a strange thing happened; ordinary Hindus, bitter and betrayed, wrested themselves from the drudgery of everyday life, and demanded, with reckless bravado, that the oneness and integrity of India, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, be proclaimed with pride and without fear.

The sense was surreal. With no real prodding from the RSS or any other branch of the Sangh Parivaar, the Hindu movement sprung up from the grassroots and took on a life of its own. In fact, so far reaching was the movement that the fundamentalist organizations were almost taken by surprise. Congress politicians from the Jammu region, fearful of their electoral future, openly broke with their party’s position and tried to mend fences with the Hindu majority by running a series of highly pathetic advertisements in local newspapers. The BJP suffered once again due to a lack of political reflexes. The party tried to make up for lost time by calling for a nationwide bandh, but it failed to make an impact outside of BJP ruled states and, of course, Jammu. The Amarnath Sangharsh Samiti openly rebuffed the BJP’s offer of “help”, while the major embarrassment came on August 20, when the Samiti announced that it had no plans at all to hold a rally on August 25, which was supposed to have been addressed by both Advani and Rajnath Singh.

No one could have foreseen the perfect storm. For several years now, the state of J&K had been largely peaceful; tourism and resumed and there was even a trickle of industry, investments; some talk of building universities and renewing hope. With a hi-tech electric fence marking the Line of Control and Pakistan finally facing the brunt of its homegrown monsters, Kashmir could breathe easy. Ghulam Nabi Azad’s government cleared a decision to handover some land to the Amarnath Shrine Board, so that it could be used to facilitate the hundreds of thousands who travel to Amarnath each year. In a rational universe, this would have been viewed as a regular administrative decision, a stride on the natural path of progress. In response, the people of Kashmir threw a violent fit of rage, protesting vehemently over the “Indian conspiracy to change the demographics of the Kashmir valley”. We all know that the mind sees what it chooses to see.

Ghulam Nabi Azad is a dedicated Congressman; he swears by the ideology of appeasement expounded by his party in general and the Gandhi family in particular. By revoking the land transfer, he placed himself in the august company of party luminaries such as Rajiv Gandhi. The people of Jammu would not hear of it any more. Kashmir has always had the bulk of government largesse, the lion’s share of seats in the Legislative Assembly and larger representation in Parliament, notwithstanding the fact that Jammu has a larger population. The people of Jammu do not like Schedule 21; they do not want to be part foreigners in their own country. Although the scale of Hindu protests in Jammu was unprecedented, it was certainly not unwarranted.

In this fiasco, the PDP has won the distinction of being the single most hypocritical political party in the country. The initial proposal to transfer the land to the shrine board passed the State Cabinet in sight of all, including the PDP affiliated Forest Minister, whose office cleared the decision as well as several other senior PDP ministers. In spite of that, the party pulled down the Government over this decision and joined in the Kashmiri movement against it. To enforce its separatist credentials, the party joined in a provocative march to Muzzaffarabad with moderate leader Sheikh Abdul Aziz, determined to cause bloodshed. In what followed, the Army performed its task of mowing down the enemies of the state and the PDP got its wish as well. There are at least three reasons why the march to Muzzaffarabad was an overreaction at best and a conspiracy against peace at worst. First, the so called “economic blockade” of the Kashmir region was nowhere as effective as alleged, as can easily be confirmed from Govt. figures on trucks entering and leaving the region. Second, a demand from the Fruit Growers’ Association, no matter how pressing, is not sufficient grounds for attempting to forcibly cross an international border, much less an India-Pakistan border. And third, it would have been only too easy to give the tense border bridge a miss and head for Jammu instead, if the real purpose of the mission was to sell apples.

The role of the National Conference has been dubious. Ever since the Amarnath controversy broke upon the scene, there has been a somewhat deliberate attempt on behalf of both father and son to obfuscate. Omar Abdullah made an inspired speech in Parliament on the day of the confidence vote, expressing pride in being both Indian and Muslim. The senior Abdullah has also made similar noises about a settlement to the Amarnath dispute that is acceptable to all. But this did not prevent both leaders from toeing the separatist line at countless other media appearances. Quite possibly, the National Conference believes that, being the opposition party, its role is restricted to backing every possible argument in turns, thus leading to an overall escalation of the political mayhem.

We have always had a sense of the fact that the Muslims of Kashmir want to part ways with India. The events of the last few months have left no doubt as to what is the will of the people of the valley. As such, the question arises as to what is the duty of democratic India to the people of Kashmir. A closer investigation is required: first, the plight of the Kashmiri pandits cannot be ignored. Due to ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri pandits, popular opinion in the Kashmir valley no longer enjoys the moral authority of a democratic majority. The separatist majority in Kashmir is built not upon consensus, but upon coercion. In particular, when the perpetrators of genocide accused India of “trying to alter the demographics of Kashmir”, the hypocrisy could not have been more damning. Secondly, we must investigate the grounds for the separatist demands. The separatist demand is not based on a desire to acquire the right to vote or to enjoy civil liberties, but on communal hatred. Is it fair to admit a demand for liberty that is based on communal hatred? And thirdly, there is a practical concern. An independent Kashmir would be turned, almost immediately, into a radical Islamic state, obsessed with jihad against India. It is better to retain administrative control of the territory than not.

One nation...above all!

India: A tribute






The Ten Greatest Achievements of India

Challenged... again

Given that this article was posted so long after the tragic blasts in Ahmedabad and Bangalore, we have the advantage of hindsight. In some ways, the Gujarat Chief Minister has already answered the question posed to him in the headline above. Twice now, anti-national elements have thrown the gauntlet before Modi and both times the iron man has risen to the occasion. Having had the delight of watching the perpetrators of the Gujarat blasts pulled out of their foxholes in Andhra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, UP and Kerala on national television, we begin this post by praising the genius of the man who combines a powerful will for development with a determination to crush the enemies of the state; as well as by hailing the Gujarat police for delivering this major success. In less than one month after the Gujarat blasts, the police has not only laid bare the plot behind the events in Ahmedabad, but also solved the Bangalore blasts, exposed the identity of the Indian Mujahiddeen as well as the extent and depth of their all India network.

The political fallout of the Gujarat blasts was minimal; while the BJP harped on its demand for reinstatement of POTA, the ruling Congress hedged the issue with hackneyed arguments over human rights and “secularism”. The result, of course, is that India, the nation which has the distinction of suffering the highest number of terrorist attacks per year, does not have a law dealing explicitly with terrorism. Instead, a cynical Digvijay Singh told reporters: “Whenever the BJP is in trouble, blasts take place”. How can we fight terrorism if the ruling polity will not even acknowledge the existence of terrorism in the country?

The recent spate of blasts reflects the lack of Government will to fight terror. It is safe to say that had this happened in the US, Canada or any of the nations of Europe, there would have been overwhelming pressure on the Government to act, in any way possible, in a knee jerk manner if so be. It is a pity that we the people of India, on the other hand, did not find such punitive action to be necessary, much less a pressing concern; it is a sign that despite the fact that our national esteem has grown manifold in the last few years, we continue to undervalue our lives, our rights and entitlements as citizens of a powerful democratic state. The courts cannot act unless the government gives it the laws to work with. While the UPA government continues to see the repeal of POTA as one of its “achievements”, GUJCOC (a clone of POTA that applies only to Gujarat) gathers dust in the office of the President. The lack of will to fight applies not only to terrorists, but also to Maoist guerrillas. Despite Prime Minister Dr. Singh having referred to Naxals as the “greatest internal security threat”, his government has done precious little to contain and crush this movement as it proceeds across state lines, cutting deep into the Indian tribal heartland. The proposed all India mechanism for fighting the Naxals has remained only on paper. The lone hero of the battle against red terror has been Chief Minister Y S Reddy, who seems to have stemmed the raging tide of Naxal violence in his state, particularly in the Telengana region. In the absence of Central forces to fight Maoist guerrillas, the Raman Singh government has had to go for a dangerous gamble by creating the Salwa Judum. Although the Salwa Judum has strengthened the hand of the state in Chhattisgarh, the fact that it exists and is necessary undermines the fact that we live in a modern nation where citizens are supposed to be protected by legitimate armed forces.

The Gujarat blasts, as well as all other terrorist attacks, make it necessary to start a frank discussion on Islam in India. While the media made much over the rise of the “Indian Mujahiddeen”, this is only manufactured news. It would be naïve to think that the terrorist attacks in India to this date have been conceived, plotted and executed entirely by enemy elements from Pakistan and Bangladesh, with no cooperation from local Muslims. However, this idea does fit into the preferred framework for the Left Wing and pseudo-secular press, which, for all its professed liberal internationalism, sees terrorism in India entirely as a response to the Babri demolition and the Gujarat riots, rather than as part of a larger global conspiracy against civilization. Frontline led the way in this regard, stopping just short of saying that “Gujaratis are bad people who deserve to die anyway”. But then, these are people who would rather believe in the continued existence of the “Project for a new American century” rather than in the existence of Al-Qaeeda.

The Indian state is secular and cannot bother to concern itself with the nuances of every conceivable religion. The Indian state should be concerned with ensuring the dignity of security of its citizens. As such, it is the primary duty of the Muslims in India to spill out onto the streets spontaneously and disown terrorism. The state need not know what Islam “really” is; or for that matter, what the “real” version Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Scientology and sundry others is. The state needs to make sure that our children have a chance to study modern science, our women can assert themselves fully and achieve their entire potential and that our citizens enjoy their rights and liberties free from discrimination and coercion. We need to ask tough questions: why do we have an “All India Muslim Personal Law Board”? It is disrespectful to Indians in general and Muslims in particular to have their democratic interests represented by a self appointed organization. And even if they were to be elected, did we not agree long ago that Muslims are NOT a separate nation within India; and that India is ONE nation devoid of all dual identities?

Thank you boys ... for the entertainment - II

We continue with our post on the drama surrounding the no confidence vote.

3. The BJP: Originally, it was the BJP and more generally, the Opposition NDA that stood to gain most from the certain embarrassment and possible fall of the Government. Instead, the BJP emerged from Parliament looking grumpy and bitter, having played pathetic, desperate and sensationalist politics. The epic weakness of the UPA government has offered the BJP many opportunities over the years and each time the latter has been found wanting in political acumen. One can only conclude that Advani jis famed political instincts are losing their edge.

The BJP is yet to fully acknowledge that indiscipline is rife in party ranks. No party leader or party unit, including the formidable Narendrabhai has been spared the brunt of this growing phenomenon. As yet another example, 26 MLAs belonging to the party in Uttarakhand moved to New Delhi to press for the removal of Chief Minister B C Khanduri yesterday. Of course, the solution is not stifle the voices of discontent, but to create a larger system of inner party democracy, as in the US or Canada. Despite being the world's largest democracy, our political parties have never been democratic on the inside. The Consitutional requirement that all political parties hold free and fair organizational elections is fulfilled only in name and rarely ever in spirit. A system where the High Command rules by decree is no longer tenable, particularly in running a national party like the BJP. A senior BJP leader lamented: "No longer does the power lie with the organization men in the state units; the focus is on the prabhari for the state, directly nominated by the coterie of top leaders". The Congress, despite being equally large, has a distinct personality cult that is a miracle to all. As such, it does not face the challenges the BJP does.

One must also concede that the BJP was fighting heavy odds in the horse trading market for MPs votes. A number of BJP MPs will lose their seats due to delimitation and therefore, once the current Lok Sabha is dissolved, they face an uncertain political future. With the business community generally favouring stability and survival of the Manmohan Singh government over an immediate shuffling of political cards; as with Amar Singh's hands right inside Anil Ambani's deep pockets, arranging astronomical sums of money for the defecting MPs was never a challenge.

Even so, the BJP was caught blissfully unaware of the situation. It should have taken the precaution of moving its MPs into a safe house, or at the very least, some of them. The shame is that virtually all the defectors came right out of BJP ranks; while smaller parties, the more obvious suspects in terms of cross voting, took only minor hits. The BJP made an abortive bid to shame the government by waving wads of cash in Parliament, after allegedly having taped the conversation in which they were offered money to abstain. Instead the episode turned into an embarrassment for the BJP and the 3 MPs concerned looked more tainted than ever. Obviously, the BJP MPs should have known better than to trust Congress mouthpiece CNN-IBN with exposing the Government. The channel sat on the tapes even as the political class in Delhi exploded over the cash for votes controversy, leaving the 3 MPs looking like fraudsters.

4. The SP and the BSP: Interestingly, both rivals seem to have fulfilled their political objectives. The SP has managed to gain immediate political relevance and a possible alliance with Congress in the next General Elections. On the other hand, with the BJP looking ridiculous, Mayawati has bolstered her image as a viable alternative. It has also given her breathing space to prepare political ground for the next elections.

5. And finally, the people: What about them? The Oracle opines that stability is good for the economy and the people. The Prime Minister is a well meaning man and now that the backbiting from the Left is at end, he has ample opportunity to put India on a superhighway of economic reform. The people of India will have an opportunity to speak as well, when the next elections take place in due time. The lesson we need to learn is that it takes self restraint in order to become a successful democracy as well as a successful economic power.