Cat And Mouse With Al Qaeda
Fraser Nelson, The Asian Age
March 22, 2008
Introduction: Money has brought M15 upto fighting strength - yet government resources cannot buy a Muslim civil society which has a functioning immune system.
To defeat an enemy, one must first understand him - and this, for years, has been Britain's principal problem in the war on terror. The identity and profile of the typical British jihadi was a mystery. Many argued he did not exist at all - until the July 2006 London bombings spectacularly proved otherwise. In those days M15 was tracking just 400 terror suspects. Now the figure is 2000, and rising. The security service's understanding of the fundamentalist menace has been transformed, the anti-terror strategy quietly rewritten and plans for a national security council unveiled by the Prime Minister this week. In the months ahead, much is expected to be disclosed about the full, alarming scale of the threat. In anticipation of that, I have been speaking to a range of Whitehall and political sources about the enemy within.
One thing is certain: there are no more complaints about lack of manpowerin Thames House, M15's headquarters. Instead, the joke is that it takes ages to get into a lift because they are so full taking staff between floors. The service will have 3500 staff by the end of next monthy, with another 600 to come in the next three years. Field agents who were in training during the July bombings are now in place, and sending in a steady flow of intelligence. There is a sense that they are finally catching up with the threat.
After 12 thwarted plots and three failed ones, the picture of the enemy has never been clearer. The typical British terrorist is not angry about poverty (as Cabinet Office guidance suggested four years ago) but is usually an apparently well-integrated Muslim who is likely to have a degree, often in engineering. Frequently, however, he will be in a relatively low-prestige job and may find a macabre attraction in the profile of a suicide bomber. What is common to all is a psychological trait it is all but impossible to screen for the need for a substitute family, a willingness to be brainwashed by Al Qaeda.
Throughout government, AQ is referred to by its initials - referring to both a structure and a phenomenon. The foreign office (which last year internally advertised a job entitled "Head: Al Qaeda") believes the group has essentially a tripartite structure. At the top is what it calls "core AQ": people like Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri, his reputed deputy, who make proclamations and distribute videos. The second tier is affiliated groups, which take instructions from the core Al-Qaeda but are not directly linked.
But the third and largest part comprises the self-starting groups which have, as one official puts it "bought into the Al-Qaeda franchise". They are groupings of like-minded aspirant terrorists who will act in Bin Laden's name, but on their own initiative. The video recorded by Mohammad Sidique Khan, leader of the London attacks, had a clip of Al-Zawahiri afterwards - but this is understood to be an editing trick. There is no indication that the 7/7 killers had any direct contact with Al-Qaeda. His last words were, "We are at war and I am a soldier." For this reason, the phrase "war on terror" has been retired from the official vocabulary at all levels: there is no desire to give the murderers the warrior status they crave.
So this is not the traditional "cellular" structure associated with the IRA, which had a relatively stable command hierarchy: recognisable paymasters, quartermasters, an army council. The spontaneity with which AQ groups emerge and change - their fiendishly organic quality - makes them all the more difficult to detect. The Madrid bombers, for example, started out as a fundraising group and mutated, as their ambitions grew, into fully fledged bomb-makers. The more common British pattern is for a group of like-minded young men to group together, start talking, raise the stakes progressively until one of them broaches the subject of a terrorist attack. They discover that they have particular talents or resources (money, materials, cars). Their behaviour then resembles that of a playground gang and their bond becomes something close to the psychology of a group dare. None wants to be the first to abandon the project - and thus it develops its own murderous momentum.
For all the lack of central coordination, there are common themes and shared goals. Attacking Britain's links with America remains the principal objective of jihadis in this country - and no target is more perfect than a transatlantic flight. The alleged liquid bomb plot at Heathrow two years ago (whose 11 defendants are expected to come to trial soon) triggered a worldwide airport response for a reason. These are jetset jihadis, mesmerised by the dream of an aircraft strike. While some British terrorists have confessed to being trained in African camps, Pakistan remains the global finishing school for terrorists. President Musharraf's intelligence service remains cooperative with M16, and has handed over video footage of suspects arriving in Islamabad. But the writ of Musharraf's government simply does not extend over the north-west tribal areas in so-called Waziristan. He has signed accords agreeing to withdraw his army. And this is where the Al Qaeda training camps flourish. The consequences of this de facto autonomy were seen a few months ago when video footage was disclosed of a graduation ceremony for 300 suicide bombers.
The US fires the occasional missile into the area, to remind Al Qaeda that it has not been forgotten. Yet Waziristan has already become what 7,000 British troops are trying to stop Afghanistan from turning into: a safe heaven for terrorists. And its graduates are being exported straight back to British streets - waiting to engage M15 and counter-terrorism police in a game of cat-and-mouse.
In the Cold War, there was a formula to defection. The enemy agent was offered money, safety and political sanctuary in return for co-operation. Come over to us, Smiley would say to Karla's spies, and we will give you a better life. In this conflict, the enemy believes he is destined for Paradise if he completes his deadly mission.
That is not to say that the new AQ groups are unbeatable: far from it. They are certainly harder to find than IRA cells. But once they are detected, their loose-knit structure means they are easier to disrupt. The constant problem for the intelligence services is at what point to send in the police : too soon, and there will be no evidence to prosecute. Too late, and the unthinkable may happen.
Yet the smart strategy is to stop young Muslim males getting to this stage in the first place. Most surveys of British Muslim opinion show that the vast majority (normally about four fifths) denounce terrorist activity. This still leaves a depressingly large 20 per cent who say they disagree with terrorist attacks in Britain - but consider such tactics acceptable in Israel, Chechnya or Kashmir. Ministers who have been involved in dealing with Muslim radicalisation attest to the scale of the problem. British Islam, they fear, suffers from weak institutions which are easily infiltrated by the more organised and articulate extremist bodies. And, outside the mosques, the most articulate and persuasive voice tends to be that of Hizb-ul-Tahrir, a radical Sunni group whose aim is the restoration of the caliphate.
The government is increasingly losing confidence in the Muslim Council of Britain, whose members have a habit of saying "yes, but ... "when asked to condemn terrorist attacks. It is filled with people who prefer to equivocate, and are slow to call Palestinian terrorism in Israel by its name. Sir Iqbal Sacranie, until recently the Council's chairman, once observed that death was "perhaps too easy" for Salman Rushdie.
The paradox is that mainstream British Muslims, precisely because they are relatively well integrated, have little interest in forming ghetto groups. They give a wide berth to the bearded men who nominate themselves as community leaders. Who can blame them?
This structural weakness is what makes Britain a Petri dish for radical Islam - and increasingly recognised as such around the world. When Michael Chertoff, the US national security secretary, said in January that Europe had become a growing source of extremism it was Britain that he was referring to. Indeed, Britain has replaced Bosnia at the head of the CIA's league table of threats from European Islamism. M15 may well be catching many balls - 12 plots intercepted in eight years is an impressive record - but realises it will be fighting a losing game unless the supply of jihadis is choked off.
The template which Tony Blair looked to was America and the likes of Hamza Yusuf, an American convert and moderate Muslim who denounces extremism and is charismatic enough to fill halls with audiences of 5,000 people. If only we had chaps like him, Mr. Blair thought. But when his government imported them (like Professor Tariq Ramadan) uproar soon followed, usually when their views about homosexuality or Israel became known. And - in any case - any cleric tarnished by the government instantly loses credibility with Muslim youths.
Better, then, to remove the perceived taint of government altogether. This is, in effect, what Mark Carrol did when he stepped down as the government's director for cohesion and tackling extremism to pursue the same agenda by setting up a charity, the Catalyst Foundation. His argument is that Muslims tend to live in deprived neighbourhoods, and to set up the moderate civil institutions they need 'support from wider society'.
Most charity workers would kill to run a government division with a horn of plenty budget. Yet Mr. Carrol has walked away from Whitehall believing that more can be done if the money comes from elsewhere. There are a few similar moderate groups such as the Muslim City Circle group of Islamic businessmen and Markfield Institute which offers Islamic studies to people whom it hopes will be the imams of tomorrow. But they are, at present, lonely and underfunded combatants in a battlefield where Hizb ul Tahrir dominates.
Money has brought M15 upto fighting strength - yet government resources cannot buy a Muslim civil society which has a functioning immune system. As Mr. Brown often laments, the ideology of multiculturalism conspired to channel state funding to groups which were inherently separatist. The government is up against an enemy promiscuous and cunning in its techniques: Al-Qaeda propagates its mediaeval message using 21st century techniques. It has mastered the Web and was quick to cotton on to the power of viral ads. With just a few clicks of the mouse you can find videos persuading Muslims to enlist in a holy war.
In both Britain and America, the understanding is that the terrorists believe they are winning. Their timeframe is not defined by the electoral cycle but by the passing of generations - and they have put their faith in the West's lack of attention span and stomach for the fight. Britain's protectors, in turn, place their faith in the inherent virtues of freedom and democracy (supported by a standing army and intelligence service). Thus, the war on terror has become a new Cold War, a mixture of war games and mind games, played out on several fronts. And no one on our side would yet dare say that we are winning.
The question of Tibet
Editorial, The Hindu
March 26, 2008
http://www.thehindu.com/2008/03/26/stories/2008032655431000.htm
If you go by western media reports, the propaganda of the so-called ‘Tibetan government-in-exile’ in Dharamsala and the votaries of the ‘Free Tibet’ cause, or by the fulminations of Nancy Pelosi and the Hollywood glitterati, Tibet is in the throes of a mass democratic uprising against Han Chinese communist rule. Some of the more fanciful news stories, images, and opinion pieces on the ‘democratic’ potential of this uprising have been put out by leading western newspapers and television networks. The reality is that the riot that broke out in Lhasa on March 14 and claimed a confirmed toll of 22 lives involved violent, ransacking mobs, including 300 militant monks from the Drepung Monastery, who marched in tandem with a foiled ‘March to Tibet’ by groups of monks across the border in India. In Lhasa, the rioters committed murder, arson, and other acts of savagery against innocent civilians and caused huge damage to public and private property. The atrocities included dousing one man with petrol and setting him alight, beating a patrol policeman and carving out a fist-size piece of his flesh, and torching a school with 800 terrorised pupils cowering inside. Visual images and independent eyewitness accounts attest to this ugly reality, which even compelled the Dalai Lama to threaten to resign. There was violence also in Tibetan ethnic areas in the adjacent provinces of Gansu and Sichuan, which, according to official estimates, took an injury toll of more than 700. Western analyses have linked these incidents to the March 10 anniversary of the failed 1959 Tibetan uprising, non-progress in the talks between the Dalai Lama’s emissaries and Beijing, China’s human rights record, and the Beijing Olympic Games, which will of course be held as scheduled from August 8 to 24.
Recent accounts, however, express unease and sadness over the containment of the troubles, the ‘large-scale,’ if belated and politically slow, response by Beijing, and the ‘brutal ease’ with which the protests have been ‘smothered’. In another context, say Pakistan under Pervez Musharraf, such a response would have been called exemplary restraint. As evidence accumulates, the realisation dawns that it is too much to expect any legitimate government of a major country to turn the other cheek to such savagery and breakdown of public order. So there is a shift in the key demand made on China: it must ‘initiate’ a dialogue with the Dalai Lama to find a sustainable political solution in Tibet.
But this is precisely what China has done for over three decades. The framework of the political solution is there for all to see. There is not a single government in the world that either disputes the status of Tibet; or does not recognise it as a part of the People’s Republic of China; or is willing to accord any kind of legal recognition to the Dalai Lama’s ‘government-in-exile.’ This situation certainly presents a contrast to the lack of an international consensus on the legal status of Kashmir. Nevertheless, there remains a Tibet political question, represented by the ideology and politics of the Dalai Lama and the ‘independence for Tibet’ movement, and it has an international as well as a domestic dimension.
This is an era of unprecedented development for the Chinese economy, which has grown at nearly 10 per cent a year for three decades. Tibet itself is on an economic roll: it has sustained an annual growth rate of more than 12 per cent over the past six years and is now on a 13-14 per cent growth trajectory. A new politics of conciliation towards the Dalai Lama’s camp has been shaped by this era, and since 2002, six rounds of discussion have taken place between the representatives of the Dalai Lama and the Chinese government. The former have stated that the Dalai Lama’s current approach is to “look to the future as opposed to Tibet’s history to resolve its status vis-À-vis China,” and that the crux of his ‘Middle Way’ approach is to “recognise today’s reality that Tibet is part of the People’s Republic of China … and not raise the issue of separation from China in working on a mutually acceptable solution for Tibet.”
The real problem arises from two demands pressed by the Dalai Lama. The first is his concept of ‘high-level’ or ‘maximum’ autonomy in line with the ‘one country, two systems’ principle. The Chinese government points out that this is applicable only to Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan, and that the kind of autonomy that the Dalai Lama demanded in November 2005 cannot possibly be accommodated within the Chinese Constitution. Secondly, the 2.6 million Tibetans in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), which constitutes one-eighth of China’s territory, form only 40 per cent of the total population of Tibetans in China. The Chinese government makes the perfectly reasonable point that acceptance of the demand for ‘Greater Tibet’ or ‘one administrative entity’ for all 6.5 million ethnic Tibetans means breaking up Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan, and Yunnan provinces, doing ethnic re-engineering, if not ‘cleansing’, and causing enormous disruption and damage to China’s society and political system. This demand too is ruled out, as any comparable demand to break up States in India would be.
Multi-ethnic India is no stranger to such challenges to its territorial integrity: just consider the armed insurgency challenges, in some cases with external fuelling, in Jammu & Kashmir and in several parts of the North-East. Although the United Progressive Alliance government has made some statements about the Tibet incidents that hew close to the Washington line, it will be pleased that the studied official Chinese response has been to highlight India’s “clear and consistent” stand on the status of Tibet as part of the People’s Republic of China. New Delhi has allowed too much latitude to the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan discontents for their political activities on Indian soil, which go against the stand that they are not allowed “to engage in anti-China political activities in India,” a principle reaffirmed by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee in Washington on March 24. The time has come for India to use the leverage that comes with hosting the Dalai Lama and his followers since 1959 to persuade or pressure him to get real about the future of Tibet — and engage in a sincere dialogue with Beijing to find a reasonable, just, and sustainable political solution within the framework of one China.
Editorial, The Hindu
March 26, 2008
http://www.thehindu.com/2008/03/26/stories/2008032655431000.htm
If you go by western media reports, the propaganda of the so-called ‘Tibetan government-in-exile’ in Dharamsala and the votaries of the ‘Free Tibet’ cause, or by the fulminations of Nancy Pelosi and the Hollywood glitterati, Tibet is in the throes of a mass democratic uprising against Han Chinese communist rule. Some of the more fanciful news stories, images, and opinion pieces on the ‘democratic’ potential of this uprising have been put out by leading western newspapers and television networks. The reality is that the riot that broke out in Lhasa on March 14 and claimed a confirmed toll of 22 lives involved violent, ransacking mobs, including 300 militant monks from the Drepung Monastery, who marched in tandem with a foiled ‘March to Tibet’ by groups of monks across the border in India. In Lhasa, the rioters committed murder, arson, and other acts of savagery against innocent civilians and caused huge damage to public and private property. The atrocities included dousing one man with petrol and setting him alight, beating a patrol policeman and carving out a fist-size piece of his flesh, and torching a school with 800 terrorised pupils cowering inside. Visual images and independent eyewitness accounts attest to this ugly reality, which even compelled the Dalai Lama to threaten to resign. There was violence also in Tibetan ethnic areas in the adjacent provinces of Gansu and Sichuan, which, according to official estimates, took an injury toll of more than 700. Western analyses have linked these incidents to the March 10 anniversary of the failed 1959 Tibetan uprising, non-progress in the talks between the Dalai Lama’s emissaries and Beijing, China’s human rights record, and the Beijing Olympic Games, which will of course be held as scheduled from August 8 to 24.
Recent accounts, however, express unease and sadness over the containment of the troubles, the ‘large-scale,’ if belated and politically slow, response by Beijing, and the ‘brutal ease’ with which the protests have been ‘smothered’. In another context, say Pakistan under Pervez Musharraf, such a response would have been called exemplary restraint. As evidence accumulates, the realisation dawns that it is too much to expect any legitimate government of a major country to turn the other cheek to such savagery and breakdown of public order. So there is a shift in the key demand made on China: it must ‘initiate’ a dialogue with the Dalai Lama to find a sustainable political solution in Tibet.
But this is precisely what China has done for over three decades. The framework of the political solution is there for all to see. There is not a single government in the world that either disputes the status of Tibet; or does not recognise it as a part of the People’s Republic of China; or is willing to accord any kind of legal recognition to the Dalai Lama’s ‘government-in-exile.’ This situation certainly presents a contrast to the lack of an international consensus on the legal status of Kashmir. Nevertheless, there remains a Tibet political question, represented by the ideology and politics of the Dalai Lama and the ‘independence for Tibet’ movement, and it has an international as well as a domestic dimension.
This is an era of unprecedented development for the Chinese economy, which has grown at nearly 10 per cent a year for three decades. Tibet itself is on an economic roll: it has sustained an annual growth rate of more than 12 per cent over the past six years and is now on a 13-14 per cent growth trajectory. A new politics of conciliation towards the Dalai Lama’s camp has been shaped by this era, and since 2002, six rounds of discussion have taken place between the representatives of the Dalai Lama and the Chinese government. The former have stated that the Dalai Lama’s current approach is to “look to the future as opposed to Tibet’s history to resolve its status vis-À-vis China,” and that the crux of his ‘Middle Way’ approach is to “recognise today’s reality that Tibet is part of the People’s Republic of China … and not raise the issue of separation from China in working on a mutually acceptable solution for Tibet.”
The real problem arises from two demands pressed by the Dalai Lama. The first is his concept of ‘high-level’ or ‘maximum’ autonomy in line with the ‘one country, two systems’ principle. The Chinese government points out that this is applicable only to Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan, and that the kind of autonomy that the Dalai Lama demanded in November 2005 cannot possibly be accommodated within the Chinese Constitution. Secondly, the 2.6 million Tibetans in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), which constitutes one-eighth of China’s territory, form only 40 per cent of the total population of Tibetans in China. The Chinese government makes the perfectly reasonable point that acceptance of the demand for ‘Greater Tibet’ or ‘one administrative entity’ for all 6.5 million ethnic Tibetans means breaking up Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan, and Yunnan provinces, doing ethnic re-engineering, if not ‘cleansing’, and causing enormous disruption and damage to China’s society and political system. This demand too is ruled out, as any comparable demand to break up States in India would be.
Multi-ethnic India is no stranger to such challenges to its territorial integrity: just consider the armed insurgency challenges, in some cases with external fuelling, in Jammu & Kashmir and in several parts of the North-East. Although the United Progressive Alliance government has made some statements about the Tibet incidents that hew close to the Washington line, it will be pleased that the studied official Chinese response has been to highlight India’s “clear and consistent” stand on the status of Tibet as part of the People’s Republic of China. New Delhi has allowed too much latitude to the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan discontents for their political activities on Indian soil, which go against the stand that they are not allowed “to engage in anti-China political activities in India,” a principle reaffirmed by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee in Washington on March 24. The time has come for India to use the leverage that comes with hosting the Dalai Lama and his followers since 1959 to persuade or pressure him to get real about the future of Tibet — and engage in a sincere dialogue with Beijing to find a reasonable, just, and sustainable political solution within the framework of one China.
Tibet: Global Amnesia On Chinese Genocide Generates Grave Strategic Implications
Dr. Subhash Kapila, South Asia Analysis Group
March 26, 2008
http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cpapers27%5Cpaper2645.html
Introductory Observations
Tibet has once again been thrust in the global consciousness by the widespread Tibetan uprising of March 2008 just a year before the 50th anniversary of the first major uprising of the Tibetan nation against China and nearly the 60th anniversary of China’s military invasion and occupation of the sovereign, spiritual and pacifist nation of Tibet.
The global community needs to be reminded that Tibet till its military occupation by China was an independent nation with its own currency and other trappings of a sovereign nation including independent foreign relations. So much so that US President Franklin Roosevelt in early 1940s sent emissaries to Lhasa to seek permission to traverse Tibetan territory for US supplies to China’s Nationalist regime battling Japan. If Tibet was really a part of China the United States would not have sought Lhasa’s permission.
This having been noted, it also needs to be recorded that in these last five decades the global community developed a marked amnesia over China’s military occupation of Tibet and the ethnic, religious and cultural genocide that China has relentlessly inflicted on the hapless Tibetan nation. The Tibetan nation was pacifist, peace-loving and spiritual in character. These were the very attributes which emerged as weaknesses in Chinese Communists perceptions and prompted their military subjugation of Tibet.
China’s military annexation of Tibet has been akin to the military annexation of Manchuria by Japan in the first half of the 20th Century. The global community then too developed a strategic amnesia and watched idly until strategic realities dawned and World Was II was necessitated.
China’s military annexation of Tibet would never have taken place had the United States and India with substantial strategic stakes in Tibet had not allowed a “strategic vacuum” to develop in Tibet as a result of the end of British India Empire which ensured that Tibet continued as a sovereign buffer state.
Even if the United States and India were reluctant to militarily commit themselves in Tibet in the period 1947-1949 they could have through the United Nations got Tibet declared as a “neutral country” like Switzerland and further under United Nations protection.
Sadly, the United States and India have turned out to be the most significant strategic sufferers by the “strategic inactivity” of the United States and pathetic “strategic timidity” of India as we shall see later in the Paper.
To cover up their strategic follies both the United States and India developed a strange political and strategic amnesia on Tibet. The rest of the global community followed suit.
Emboldened by the global amnesia on Tibet, the Chinese Government has been tempted to pursue an unrestricted policy of ethnic, religious and cultural genocide in Tibet. The periodic Tibetan uprisings in virtually every decade were brutally suppressed by China confident that no international murmurs would follow.
The March 2008 Tibetan uprisings have been widespread and violent and no longer only directed against Chinese security forces in Tibet. This time the swelling Han Chinese population in Tibet too was targeted. This is ominous.
The global community can no longer afford to continue with its amnesia on Tibet and should take the March 2008 Tibetan uprisings as a wake-up call for concerted action to restore Tibet’s sovereignty.
A lot of papers and analyses have flowed-in on the Tibet issue since March 10, 2008 dealing with every conceivable political aspect and events. This Paper therefore would confine itself to analyze the grave strategic implications that could be generated if the global community continues to be permissive of the Chinese cultural genocide in Tibet. Also would be highlighted the strategic losses suffered by the United States and India as a result of their Tibet policies.
* This paper therefore would like to focus attention on the following issues:
* India's Strategic Losses Accruing From Timid Tibet Policies.
* United States Strategic Losses Accruing From “China-Permissive” Policies
* Tibet: The Contemporary Strategic Significance.
* Tibet’s “Total Independence” is a Global Strategic Imperative
* The United States, NATO and India's Convergence of Strategic Interests on Tibet.
Some readers may be dismissive over some of the issues stated above on the grounds that they are too far fetched and not falling in the realm of possibility. The answers to such dismissiveness would be that in international relations nothing is impossible. How many foresaw the disintegration of the Soviet Union, how many thought that the disintegration of Yugoslavia would be facilitated by United States and NATO military intervention on humanitarian grounds and how many thought that the unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo with NATO protection would not generate strong international murmurs.
Therefore the strategic implications on Tibet outlined above arising from the Chinese genocide in Tibet, cannot be ruled out. Analytically, historical strategic losses may stir USA, NATO, India and others towards full independence of Tibet as a global strategic imperative. Hence the discussion that follows.
India's Strategic Losses Accruing From Timid Tibet Policies
India's political leadership in the last 60 years has refused to learn strategic lessons from the Nehruvian foreign policy approaches towards China. The responses of the Indian Government to the March 8, 2008 political unrest are again pathetic and in the Nehruvian mould, India's political leadership as opposed to India at large, has a palpable fear of China and saying anything against China.
It is pitiable that India as an emerging global power should be reveling in statements from Chinese Foreign Ministry officials certifying that India is a good neighbor because the Indian Government has refused to condemn China over its ongoing cultural genocide in Tibet.
In stark contrast, when has China been sensitive to India's strategic sensitivities in the last 60 years in its South Asian policies. In fact China has constantly adopted stances adversarial to India's national security interests, right till to date and India’s political leadership has just lumped it.
India at large needs to know the strategic losses that have accrued to India as a result of India's political leadership’s timidity beginning from Nehru.
Briefly outlined these can be enumerated as follows:
* Tibet as buffer state essential for India's security was gifted away by Nehru’s total obliviousness to India's strategic interests. And this too without a murmur. In passing it needs to be said that once again another Congress Government has gifted away Nepal as a buffer state to Nepalese Maoists.
* Military occupation of Tibet by China with India's permissiveness brought China’s military presence on India's doorsteps for over 3000 kilometers
* Emboldened by India's passivity, China raised territorial disputes all along India's borders with Tibet, ultimately resulting in the Sino-Indian War of 1962 and Chinese military occupation of vast tracts of Indian territory.
* Nehru’s strategic and political timidity resulted in India being unprepared for war with China and a military debacle heaped by China from Tibet on the illustrious Indian Army for which culpability lies solely on India's political leadership.
* Tibet’s annexation by China facilitated it to emasculate India strategically within South Asian confines.
* If India had contested China’s annexation of Tibet, India would not have had to face Pakistan as a country with Chinese nuclear weapons and Chinese long range missiles.
* The Karakoram Highway which outflanks India strategically, courtesy Pakistan would not have come up if Tibet was helped by India to retain its independence. Karkoram Highway is a Chinese life-support system to Pakistan to strategically confront India
* India would not have lost thousands of kilometers of Indian territory in Aksai Chin and the North East as a result of Chinese aggression facilitated by China’s military annexation of Tibet.
These are inexcusable strategic losses caused by India’s political leadership’s timidity. India today is well placed to join others in undoing many of the negative aspects of India's strategic losses by working towards full independence of Tibet
United States Strategic Losses Accruing From “China Permissive” Policies
The United States as many American authors maintain has for the better part of the 20th Century had a narcissistic obsession with China hoping to convert China into a Westernized and Americanized Asian nation.
The Communist take over in 1949 brought the United States face to face with China's propensity for armed conflict first in Korea and then later in Vietnam.
The United States continued to view China solely through its strategic utility in relation to drawing China away from the Soviet orbit. The United States did manage to do so for a brief period in the 1970s. However, China’s strategic utility to USA was over by early 1980s and thereafter United States-China relations have been decidedly adversarial, notwithstanding the rhetoric that emanates from both nations.
The “China-Permissive” policies of the United States as such led first to the military annexation of Tibet by China and now the emergence of the “China Threat” to US security.
The United States strategic losses accruing as a result of its “China-Permissive” policies can be recounted as follows:
* Tibet as the heartland of Asia was allowed by United States permissiveness to be annexed by China and its militarization is now a threat to USA and NATO interests.
* Had the United States prevented the Chinese annexation of Tibet and which it was in a position to do so militarily, Chinese military intervention in Korea against the United States may not have taken place.
* Chinese hold over Tibet facilitates an extended Westward deployment of Chinese strategic nuclear missiles by thousands of kilometers. Such Westward deployment of Chinese strategic weapons facilitates effective coverage of South Asia, South West Asia, Central Asia and NATO countries – all areas strategic for United States and NATO security interests.
* China’s annexation of Tibet facilitated it to convert Pakistan into a more durable strategic ally of China than the United States by using land routes for unrestricted supply of Chinese nuclear weapons and missiles via the Karakoram Highway built by China.
* China’s development of Gwadur port in the vicinity of the Gulf and its being linked with Karakoran Highway to Tibet and thereon to China outflanks USA strategically in the vital Gulf Region, Afghanistan etc.
* The above gives China a vital counter-pressure point strategically to counter USA strategic moves against China in East Asia.
* China as an emerging superpower contending with the United States enjoys significant strategic advantages as long as it holds on to Tibet. In a way it not only imparts greater flexibility to China against USA but also reinforces Chinese deterrence capabilities against USA.
China’s strategic utility to the United States in the global chess-game became redundant in the 1980s.
It is China which is now in the process of check-mating the United States and this is facilitated by China’s continued military occupation of Tibet.
The United States needs to review its China strategic policies and especially on Tibet more specifically and forcefully. Full independence for Tibet should now emerge as the prime US aim, strategically.
Tibet: The Contemporary Strategic Significance
Tibet with its vast expanse of the Asian heartland is no longer some remote hermit kingdom which the global community can rule it out of its strategic consciousness.
The world has shrunk with globalization and globalization cannot be confined to the political and economic dimensions. Strategic shrinkages have also accrued as a result of the globalization process.
In terms of global strategic shrinkage, events and turbulent unrest in Tibet has global strategic implications on a number of grounds, when it is taken into account that it is in Tibet that a sizeable component of China’s nuclear arsenal and long range nuclear missiles are deployed.
Sixty years of China’s forcible suppression of Tibetan uprisings has failed to subdue the Tibetan nation’s aspirations for independence. This is likely to intensify further.
If ever China’s rises to emerge as a threatening military superpower and needs to be checkmated, it is Tibet from where the process of checkmating has to start.
China minus Tibet and Xinjiang is reduced strategically to an East Asian regional power, more in the nature of Japan and without pretensions to sit equally with USA and Russia.
With China’s military annexation of Tibet undone, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia will fall like dominos from China’s control.
Strategically, the global community has to recognize that Tibetan unrest with China has not yet acquired the contours of suicide bombers and insurgency against China. It cannot be ruled out even if external support is not forthcoming. The global community has to prepare itself for the contingency of military intervention in Tibet on humanitarian grounds if such an eventuality emerges.
Tibet’s “Total Independence” is a Global Strategic Imperative
The discussion in the paper so far would have amply highlighted that “total independence: of Tibet is a global strategic imperative.
This issue is deliberately injected into this discussion as the global community can be tempted to settle for less by “greater political autonomy” for Tibet under China’s political and strategic control. This temptation could arise as His Holiness, the Dalai Lama now seems to be inclined to accept this as a compromise solution.
Strategically, Tibet’s “greater political autonomy” under China would not facilitate the withdrawal of China’s nuclear weapons arsenal and strategic missiles arsenal from Tibet. China’s global strategic weight arising from the geo-strategic advantages imparted by military control of Tibet is not reduced.
In strategic terms, China is counting on the demise of the present Dalai Lama. The Tibetan younger generation is aware of it and are becoming restive. They are also impatient with the Dalai Lama’s peaceful “Middle Way” policy approaches to China as in the last five decades it has neither brought peace to Tibet nor independence to Tibet. They demand complete independence from China now.
The global community needs to pay serious attention to this aspiration of the Tibetan nation, if not on grounds of human rights and liberties, but at least on strategic grounds.
The United States, NATO and India's Convergence of Strategic Interests on Tibet
No further effort in analysis is required to highlight that there are strong convergence of strategic interests on Tibet which should bind the United States, NATO and India for assisting the Tibetan nation’s re-emergence as an independent sovereign nation until it was military annexed by China in 1949.
Complying with China’s insistence that all countries should politically adhere to the “One China” policy is a travesty of both history and strategic realities.
The Tibetan nation has a distinct ethnic, religious and cultural character which in no way is anywhere close in ethnicity and culture to China. The Tibetan nation is as distinct from China as China let us say is distinct from India. The “One China” policy is only applicable to China and not to Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia. The global community has so far gone along with this fraudulent concept as a result of its China appeasement policies. The time has come to call off this fraud.
Fortunately, the United States and NATO countries have shown indications to call of this fraud.
The present German Chancellor was strong enough to receive the Dalai Lama officially in her office in September 2007 in defiance of Chinese protestations.
The French President has not ruled out boycotting the Olympics should China not change its policies in Tibet.
The visit and meetings with The Dalai Lama this month of the US Speaker, Ms Nancy Pelosi to the Headquarters of the Tibetan Government-in-exile at Dharamsala in India were rich in political symbolism. The US Speaker made no bones about expressing the following to highlight American support for the Tibetan nation:
* “If freedom loving people throughout the world do not speak out against China and China’s oppression in Tibet, we have lost all moral authority to speak on human rights anywhere in the world”.
* “The situation in Tibet is a challenge to the conscience of the world”.
* “We are here at this time to join you in shedding bright light on what is happening in Tibet”.
* “I am here to support the Dalai Lama on behalf of the people of the United States."
Sadly, India is yet to forcefully come out with such strong support for the cause of Tibetan independence, when India's strategic stakes in Tibet are far more higher.
More pathetically, the present Indian Government has not permitted any contact by its political leaders or government officials with the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government-in exile in India out of supine deference to China’s sensitivities.
It is high time that India's political establishment recognizes that such stances impinge heavily on India's image as an aspiring global power. How can the world respect India's emerging power when its leaders project the deficiency of political will in speaking out forcefully on issues which effect India's national security.
Concluding Observations
The Tibetan revolt against China in March 2008 on a widespread scale and in unprecedented intensity sends ominous signals to the global community, in that while the United States, NATO countries and India and others may fear China’s military rise, the Tibetan nation and its people no longer fear China and challenged and will continue to challenge China’s colonization of Tibet which is akin to Manchuria's annexation by Japan in the 1930s.
The prevailing global strategic balance, despite China’s military modernization and expansion of her strategic assets is still not tilted in China’s favor so as to deter USA, NATO countries and India from strong strategic and political postures on Tibet.
Political and strategic excuses could be found in the 1950s to justify their passivity in acquiescing to China’s military annexation of Tibet. In 2008 when globalization has also led to global strategic shrinkage, the global community should not watch idly the continued cultural genocide by China in Tibet and the resultant spin-off of suicide bombings and insurgency which the younger generation may resort to for total independence. They are convinced that China will not relinquish its annexation of Tibet without the use of force.
In the 1930s the global community did not stand up to events on Manchuria. Munch and Sudetenland. The end results were devastating.
Can the United States, NATO countries and India afford strategically a repeat of the above events by China’s continued annexation of Tibet and from where it targets critical strategic regions of the world with her nuclear weapons and long range strategic nuclear missiles?
(The author is an International Relations and Strategic Affairs analyst. He is the Consultant, Strategic Affairs with South Asia Analysis Group. Email:drsubhashkapila@yahoo.com)
Dr. Subhash Kapila, South Asia Analysis Group
March 26, 2008
http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cpapers27%5Cpaper2645.html
Introductory Observations
Tibet has once again been thrust in the global consciousness by the widespread Tibetan uprising of March 2008 just a year before the 50th anniversary of the first major uprising of the Tibetan nation against China and nearly the 60th anniversary of China’s military invasion and occupation of the sovereign, spiritual and pacifist nation of Tibet.
The global community needs to be reminded that Tibet till its military occupation by China was an independent nation with its own currency and other trappings of a sovereign nation including independent foreign relations. So much so that US President Franklin Roosevelt in early 1940s sent emissaries to Lhasa to seek permission to traverse Tibetan territory for US supplies to China’s Nationalist regime battling Japan. If Tibet was really a part of China the United States would not have sought Lhasa’s permission.
This having been noted, it also needs to be recorded that in these last five decades the global community developed a marked amnesia over China’s military occupation of Tibet and the ethnic, religious and cultural genocide that China has relentlessly inflicted on the hapless Tibetan nation. The Tibetan nation was pacifist, peace-loving and spiritual in character. These were the very attributes which emerged as weaknesses in Chinese Communists perceptions and prompted their military subjugation of Tibet.
China’s military annexation of Tibet has been akin to the military annexation of Manchuria by Japan in the first half of the 20th Century. The global community then too developed a strategic amnesia and watched idly until strategic realities dawned and World Was II was necessitated.
China’s military annexation of Tibet would never have taken place had the United States and India with substantial strategic stakes in Tibet had not allowed a “strategic vacuum” to develop in Tibet as a result of the end of British India Empire which ensured that Tibet continued as a sovereign buffer state.
Even if the United States and India were reluctant to militarily commit themselves in Tibet in the period 1947-1949 they could have through the United Nations got Tibet declared as a “neutral country” like Switzerland and further under United Nations protection.
Sadly, the United States and India have turned out to be the most significant strategic sufferers by the “strategic inactivity” of the United States and pathetic “strategic timidity” of India as we shall see later in the Paper.
To cover up their strategic follies both the United States and India developed a strange political and strategic amnesia on Tibet. The rest of the global community followed suit.
Emboldened by the global amnesia on Tibet, the Chinese Government has been tempted to pursue an unrestricted policy of ethnic, religious and cultural genocide in Tibet. The periodic Tibetan uprisings in virtually every decade were brutally suppressed by China confident that no international murmurs would follow.
The March 2008 Tibetan uprisings have been widespread and violent and no longer only directed against Chinese security forces in Tibet. This time the swelling Han Chinese population in Tibet too was targeted. This is ominous.
The global community can no longer afford to continue with its amnesia on Tibet and should take the March 2008 Tibetan uprisings as a wake-up call for concerted action to restore Tibet’s sovereignty.
A lot of papers and analyses have flowed-in on the Tibet issue since March 10, 2008 dealing with every conceivable political aspect and events. This Paper therefore would confine itself to analyze the grave strategic implications that could be generated if the global community continues to be permissive of the Chinese cultural genocide in Tibet. Also would be highlighted the strategic losses suffered by the United States and India as a result of their Tibet policies.
* This paper therefore would like to focus attention on the following issues:
* India's Strategic Losses Accruing From Timid Tibet Policies.
* United States Strategic Losses Accruing From “China-Permissive” Policies
* Tibet: The Contemporary Strategic Significance.
* Tibet’s “Total Independence” is a Global Strategic Imperative
* The United States, NATO and India's Convergence of Strategic Interests on Tibet.
Some readers may be dismissive over some of the issues stated above on the grounds that they are too far fetched and not falling in the realm of possibility. The answers to such dismissiveness would be that in international relations nothing is impossible. How many foresaw the disintegration of the Soviet Union, how many thought that the disintegration of Yugoslavia would be facilitated by United States and NATO military intervention on humanitarian grounds and how many thought that the unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo with NATO protection would not generate strong international murmurs.
Therefore the strategic implications on Tibet outlined above arising from the Chinese genocide in Tibet, cannot be ruled out. Analytically, historical strategic losses may stir USA, NATO, India and others towards full independence of Tibet as a global strategic imperative. Hence the discussion that follows.
India's Strategic Losses Accruing From Timid Tibet Policies
India's political leadership in the last 60 years has refused to learn strategic lessons from the Nehruvian foreign policy approaches towards China. The responses of the Indian Government to the March 8, 2008 political unrest are again pathetic and in the Nehruvian mould, India's political leadership as opposed to India at large, has a palpable fear of China and saying anything against China.
It is pitiable that India as an emerging global power should be reveling in statements from Chinese Foreign Ministry officials certifying that India is a good neighbor because the Indian Government has refused to condemn China over its ongoing cultural genocide in Tibet.
In stark contrast, when has China been sensitive to India's strategic sensitivities in the last 60 years in its South Asian policies. In fact China has constantly adopted stances adversarial to India's national security interests, right till to date and India’s political leadership has just lumped it.
India at large needs to know the strategic losses that have accrued to India as a result of India's political leadership’s timidity beginning from Nehru.
Briefly outlined these can be enumerated as follows:
* Tibet as buffer state essential for India's security was gifted away by Nehru’s total obliviousness to India's strategic interests. And this too without a murmur. In passing it needs to be said that once again another Congress Government has gifted away Nepal as a buffer state to Nepalese Maoists.
* Military occupation of Tibet by China with India's permissiveness brought China’s military presence on India's doorsteps for over 3000 kilometers
* Emboldened by India's passivity, China raised territorial disputes all along India's borders with Tibet, ultimately resulting in the Sino-Indian War of 1962 and Chinese military occupation of vast tracts of Indian territory.
* Nehru’s strategic and political timidity resulted in India being unprepared for war with China and a military debacle heaped by China from Tibet on the illustrious Indian Army for which culpability lies solely on India's political leadership.
* Tibet’s annexation by China facilitated it to emasculate India strategically within South Asian confines.
* If India had contested China’s annexation of Tibet, India would not have had to face Pakistan as a country with Chinese nuclear weapons and Chinese long range missiles.
* The Karakoram Highway which outflanks India strategically, courtesy Pakistan would not have come up if Tibet was helped by India to retain its independence. Karkoram Highway is a Chinese life-support system to Pakistan to strategically confront India
* India would not have lost thousands of kilometers of Indian territory in Aksai Chin and the North East as a result of Chinese aggression facilitated by China’s military annexation of Tibet.
These are inexcusable strategic losses caused by India’s political leadership’s timidity. India today is well placed to join others in undoing many of the negative aspects of India's strategic losses by working towards full independence of Tibet
United States Strategic Losses Accruing From “China Permissive” Policies
The United States as many American authors maintain has for the better part of the 20th Century had a narcissistic obsession with China hoping to convert China into a Westernized and Americanized Asian nation.
The Communist take over in 1949 brought the United States face to face with China's propensity for armed conflict first in Korea and then later in Vietnam.
The United States continued to view China solely through its strategic utility in relation to drawing China away from the Soviet orbit. The United States did manage to do so for a brief period in the 1970s. However, China’s strategic utility to USA was over by early 1980s and thereafter United States-China relations have been decidedly adversarial, notwithstanding the rhetoric that emanates from both nations.
The “China-Permissive” policies of the United States as such led first to the military annexation of Tibet by China and now the emergence of the “China Threat” to US security.
The United States strategic losses accruing as a result of its “China-Permissive” policies can be recounted as follows:
* Tibet as the heartland of Asia was allowed by United States permissiveness to be annexed by China and its militarization is now a threat to USA and NATO interests.
* Had the United States prevented the Chinese annexation of Tibet and which it was in a position to do so militarily, Chinese military intervention in Korea against the United States may not have taken place.
* Chinese hold over Tibet facilitates an extended Westward deployment of Chinese strategic nuclear missiles by thousands of kilometers. Such Westward deployment of Chinese strategic weapons facilitates effective coverage of South Asia, South West Asia, Central Asia and NATO countries – all areas strategic for United States and NATO security interests.
* China’s annexation of Tibet facilitated it to convert Pakistan into a more durable strategic ally of China than the United States by using land routes for unrestricted supply of Chinese nuclear weapons and missiles via the Karakoram Highway built by China.
* China’s development of Gwadur port in the vicinity of the Gulf and its being linked with Karakoran Highway to Tibet and thereon to China outflanks USA strategically in the vital Gulf Region, Afghanistan etc.
* The above gives China a vital counter-pressure point strategically to counter USA strategic moves against China in East Asia.
* China as an emerging superpower contending with the United States enjoys significant strategic advantages as long as it holds on to Tibet. In a way it not only imparts greater flexibility to China against USA but also reinforces Chinese deterrence capabilities against USA.
China’s strategic utility to the United States in the global chess-game became redundant in the 1980s.
It is China which is now in the process of check-mating the United States and this is facilitated by China’s continued military occupation of Tibet.
The United States needs to review its China strategic policies and especially on Tibet more specifically and forcefully. Full independence for Tibet should now emerge as the prime US aim, strategically.
Tibet: The Contemporary Strategic Significance
Tibet with its vast expanse of the Asian heartland is no longer some remote hermit kingdom which the global community can rule it out of its strategic consciousness.
The world has shrunk with globalization and globalization cannot be confined to the political and economic dimensions. Strategic shrinkages have also accrued as a result of the globalization process.
In terms of global strategic shrinkage, events and turbulent unrest in Tibet has global strategic implications on a number of grounds, when it is taken into account that it is in Tibet that a sizeable component of China’s nuclear arsenal and long range nuclear missiles are deployed.
Sixty years of China’s forcible suppression of Tibetan uprisings has failed to subdue the Tibetan nation’s aspirations for independence. This is likely to intensify further.
If ever China’s rises to emerge as a threatening military superpower and needs to be checkmated, it is Tibet from where the process of checkmating has to start.
China minus Tibet and Xinjiang is reduced strategically to an East Asian regional power, more in the nature of Japan and without pretensions to sit equally with USA and Russia.
With China’s military annexation of Tibet undone, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia will fall like dominos from China’s control.
Strategically, the global community has to recognize that Tibetan unrest with China has not yet acquired the contours of suicide bombers and insurgency against China. It cannot be ruled out even if external support is not forthcoming. The global community has to prepare itself for the contingency of military intervention in Tibet on humanitarian grounds if such an eventuality emerges.
Tibet’s “Total Independence” is a Global Strategic Imperative
The discussion in the paper so far would have amply highlighted that “total independence: of Tibet is a global strategic imperative.
This issue is deliberately injected into this discussion as the global community can be tempted to settle for less by “greater political autonomy” for Tibet under China’s political and strategic control. This temptation could arise as His Holiness, the Dalai Lama now seems to be inclined to accept this as a compromise solution.
Strategically, Tibet’s “greater political autonomy” under China would not facilitate the withdrawal of China’s nuclear weapons arsenal and strategic missiles arsenal from Tibet. China’s global strategic weight arising from the geo-strategic advantages imparted by military control of Tibet is not reduced.
In strategic terms, China is counting on the demise of the present Dalai Lama. The Tibetan younger generation is aware of it and are becoming restive. They are also impatient with the Dalai Lama’s peaceful “Middle Way” policy approaches to China as in the last five decades it has neither brought peace to Tibet nor independence to Tibet. They demand complete independence from China now.
The global community needs to pay serious attention to this aspiration of the Tibetan nation, if not on grounds of human rights and liberties, but at least on strategic grounds.
The United States, NATO and India's Convergence of Strategic Interests on Tibet
No further effort in analysis is required to highlight that there are strong convergence of strategic interests on Tibet which should bind the United States, NATO and India for assisting the Tibetan nation’s re-emergence as an independent sovereign nation until it was military annexed by China in 1949.
Complying with China’s insistence that all countries should politically adhere to the “One China” policy is a travesty of both history and strategic realities.
The Tibetan nation has a distinct ethnic, religious and cultural character which in no way is anywhere close in ethnicity and culture to China. The Tibetan nation is as distinct from China as China let us say is distinct from India. The “One China” policy is only applicable to China and not to Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia. The global community has so far gone along with this fraudulent concept as a result of its China appeasement policies. The time has come to call off this fraud.
Fortunately, the United States and NATO countries have shown indications to call of this fraud.
The present German Chancellor was strong enough to receive the Dalai Lama officially in her office in September 2007 in defiance of Chinese protestations.
The French President has not ruled out boycotting the Olympics should China not change its policies in Tibet.
The visit and meetings with The Dalai Lama this month of the US Speaker, Ms Nancy Pelosi to the Headquarters of the Tibetan Government-in-exile at Dharamsala in India were rich in political symbolism. The US Speaker made no bones about expressing the following to highlight American support for the Tibetan nation:
* “If freedom loving people throughout the world do not speak out against China and China’s oppression in Tibet, we have lost all moral authority to speak on human rights anywhere in the world”.
* “The situation in Tibet is a challenge to the conscience of the world”.
* “We are here at this time to join you in shedding bright light on what is happening in Tibet”.
* “I am here to support the Dalai Lama on behalf of the people of the United States."
Sadly, India is yet to forcefully come out with such strong support for the cause of Tibetan independence, when India's strategic stakes in Tibet are far more higher.
More pathetically, the present Indian Government has not permitted any contact by its political leaders or government officials with the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government-in exile in India out of supine deference to China’s sensitivities.
It is high time that India's political establishment recognizes that such stances impinge heavily on India's image as an aspiring global power. How can the world respect India's emerging power when its leaders project the deficiency of political will in speaking out forcefully on issues which effect India's national security.
Concluding Observations
The Tibetan revolt against China in March 2008 on a widespread scale and in unprecedented intensity sends ominous signals to the global community, in that while the United States, NATO countries and India and others may fear China’s military rise, the Tibetan nation and its people no longer fear China and challenged and will continue to challenge China’s colonization of Tibet which is akin to Manchuria's annexation by Japan in the 1930s.
The prevailing global strategic balance, despite China’s military modernization and expansion of her strategic assets is still not tilted in China’s favor so as to deter USA, NATO countries and India from strong strategic and political postures on Tibet.
Political and strategic excuses could be found in the 1950s to justify their passivity in acquiescing to China’s military annexation of Tibet. In 2008 when globalization has also led to global strategic shrinkage, the global community should not watch idly the continued cultural genocide by China in Tibet and the resultant spin-off of suicide bombings and insurgency which the younger generation may resort to for total independence. They are convinced that China will not relinquish its annexation of Tibet without the use of force.
In the 1930s the global community did not stand up to events on Manchuria. Munch and Sudetenland. The end results were devastating.
Can the United States, NATO countries and India afford strategically a repeat of the above events by China’s continued annexation of Tibet and from where it targets critical strategic regions of the world with her nuclear weapons and long range strategic nuclear missiles?
(The author is an International Relations and Strategic Affairs analyst. He is the Consultant, Strategic Affairs with South Asia Analysis Group. Email:drsubhashkapila@yahoo.com)
Change will come from within China
Claude Arpi, Rediff.com
March 26, 2008
http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/mar/26claude.htm
Since the unrest started in Tibet, I am often asked: "What is the solution for Tibet?" Invariably, I answer: "I don't know". I am aware that there have never been so many 'experts' and 'knowledgeable commentators' who have ready-made solutions, but having spent 37 years trying to understand the intricacies of the Tibet issue, "I don't know" is the only honest response.
Of course, one can think of different scenarios such as the "fall of the Berlin wall" or the "collapse of the former Soviet Union". I still remember the Dalai Lama 'prophesying' at the end of the eighties (before the Tiananmen events), that China may go through a similar fate as the Soviet Union within five years. When several years later, I asked him about his 'prophesy', he just laughed and said that it was a 'big mistake'. He added that it was not a 'spiritual' prophesy, but just logical thinking. It is true that things could have gone differently had the Elders not sent tanks to crush thousand of students on the Square.
Another remark of the Dalai Lama comes to my mind. It was in 1986, during an interview, he told me: "We Tibetans can't do anything, except to keep their culture alive. A change will come from within China; it is our only hope".
Twenty two years later, I believe that this statement is the closest to a possible future scenario or 'solution'. In this context, it was heartening to read the statement of 29 Chinese intellectuals: 'We hold that we must eliminate animosity and bring about national reconciliation, not continue to increase divisions between nationalities. A country that wishes to avoid the partition of its territory must first avoid divisions among its nationalities. Therefore, we appeal to the leaders of our country to hold direct dialogue with the Dalai Lama.'
Though one can only applaud the courage of the academics and artists, there is a more important aspect to consider: the debate at the top echelon of the Party. Presuming that the Chinese Communist Party is here to stay for some more time, the key word for a possible solution is 'nationalities'. Although one has the impression that the CCP is a monolithic organisation with a strict hierarchy and no discussion is allowed, it is far from true. One example is a series of three letters written a couple of years back by a Tibetan Communist veteran to President Hu Jinatao on the issue of nationalities which could have far-reaching consequences for Tibet.
Bapa Phuntso Wangyal is not an ordinary Tibetan. He was the first Tibetan Communist in the forties and in September 1951, he led the Chinese troops into Lhasa. In his recent letters, Wangyal, known as Phunwang by the Tibetans, accused some of the hardliners (alias 'leftists') within the Party of being insincere: 'They make a living, are promoted and become rich by opposing splittism,' he wrote to Hu.
Though the 'leftists' are bound to prevail till the Olympic Games, many watchers believe that Phunwang's theoretical position on nationalities may trigger a debate within the Party hierarchy on 'the correct handling of the situation in Tibet' and a possible return of the Dalai Lama.
In one of his letters written in 2006, Phunwang pointed his finger at the retired General Yin Fatang, a former party boss in Tibet, for sticking to 'wrong' leftist policies still implemented today in Tibet. He told the Chinese President that the Dalai Lama had said he wants greater autonomy, not independence: 'But Chinese and Tibetan leftists, or conservatives, are convinced otherwise and regularly denounce him for trying to split Tibet from the Chinese motherland.'
Historically and interestingly, Communist leaders have not always responded with the same brutality that we see today. Some officials had a more sensitive approach. One of these leaders is Hu Yaobang. In May 1980, the politburo decided to send a high-level fact-finding delegation to the 'Tibet Autonomous Region'. The delegation was headed by Hu Yaobang, then General Secretary of the CCP. Reaching Lhasa, Hu Yaobang was shocked to see the level of poverty in Tibet. During a meeting with the Party cadres, he asked 'whether all the money Beijing had poured into Tibet over the previous years had been thrown into the Yarlung Tsangpo [Brahmaputra] river'. He said the situation reminded him of colonialism. Hundreds of Chinese Han cadres were transferred back to China.
Unfortunately this more intelligent policy did not last long. In 1988, Hu Jintao (today President) took over as Tibet Party Chief. On March 5, when some demonstrations erupted, the People's Armed Police 'took control of the situation'. A Chinese journalist Tang Daxian witnessed the events. He later wrote in The Observer that on March 6 alone, 387 Tibetans were massacred around the Central Cathedral in Lhasa. Twenty years ago, there were no mobile phones and video cameras to witness the carnage. The hardliners had won.
Phunwang told also Hu that Beijing was mistaken to believe that the Tibetan issue would be solved with the death of the present Dalai Lama: 'Any notion of delaying the problem until after the 14th Dalai Lama dies a natural death is not only naive, it is also unwise and especially tactically wrong.'
He reminded the Chinese President about his own objective to establish a harmonious society. If he strived for the return of hundreds of thousands of exiled Tibetans, he could turn 'confrontation into harmony'. Phunwang concluded:'wrong leftist policies continue on ethnic and religious issues especially Tibetan issues� it should cease.'
Phunwang knows Tibet well. In May 1951, he was instrumental in brokering the famous deal (known as the 17-Point Agreement) between the 'local' government of Tibet and the 'central' government in Beijing. At that time, he was close to the central leadership in Beijing, particularly Mao. But he soon discovered that some Chinese officials suffered from the same disease as the Nationalists: The Great Han Chauvinism. This disturbed him a great deal.
When the Dalai Lama left for a six-month visit to China in 1954, Mao ordered Phunwang to accompany the young monk everywhere. During his long talks with the young Tibetan leader, he managed to convince him that Communism was a good thing for Tibet. The Dalai Lama was touched by his sincerity and love for Tibet.
Phunwang continued to work for his dream: a modern and socialist Tibet, but in April 1958, he was unexpectedly arrested and told that he needed to 'cleanse his thinking'. During the following 18 years, he was interrogated, tortured and kept in solitary confinement in the most atrocious conditions. To not lose his mental balance he started to study. As he was allowed Communist literature only, he took the opportunity to deepen his knowledge of the Marxist theory and became the foremost expert on 'nationalities' in the CCP.
According to him: 'In Marxism, the relationship between nationalities in multiethnic states should be one of complete equality. Marxism draws a basic distinction between nationalities embedded in class-based societies and those in communist societies. In class-based societies, separatist activities by minority nationalities are not considered negatively because they are caused by the oppressive policies of the majority nationality and the government it monopolizes.'
In a society where all the nationalities have equal status, the State 'vigorously opposes the struggles of minority nationalities against the State, labeling these pejoratively as 'splittist'. This is not the case of Tibet where the majority nationality (the Chinese Han) is oppressing the minority nationalities (the Tibetans). It is therefore 'correct and justified' for the minority to struggle.
Phunwang adds: 'In the absence of true equality, 'splittism' is a valid response for minority nationalities in class-based societies. It is, in fact, characteristic of class-based multiethnic nations. By contrast, in socialist states, the majority nationality does not (or should not) oppress the minority nationalities. All should be equal'. His conclusion is 'Nationality unity, therefore, requires not suppression but new policies that provide real equality [between nationalities].' In this context, true autonomy is primordial.
The fact that this interpretation of Marxism orthodoxy was sent to the Chinese President by a senior member of the Party, means that the theoretical basis for the Chinese repression in Tibet is still open to interpretation; though the tough guys are today prevailing, they have not grasped the intricacies of the 'nationality' theory of Marx and Stalin.
Michael Sheridan, The Time Far East correspondent, calls them the Faceless Trio. Sheridan wrote: 'The architects of Chinese repression in Tibet are three senior bureaucrats little known to the outside world but destined to be the focus of condemnation from human rights groups in the months ahead.'
The infernal trio is led by Wang Lequan, Party Chief in Xinjiang and member of the Politburo of the CCP. On March 10, in a rare interview he said: 'No matter what nationality, no matter who it is, wreckers, separatists and terrorists will be smashed by us. There's no doubt about that.'
The second one, Zhang Qingli, Party Chief in Tibet, who knows that Hu Jintao owes his phenomenal ascension in the Party to his hard stand in Tibet at the end of the 80s. Zhang called the Dalai Lama 'a wolf in monk's clothes, a devil with a human face' and declared: 'Those who do not love the motherland are not qualified to be human beings'.
According to Sheridan, the third toughie is Li Dezhu, the party's racial theoretician. For him, China's objective is no longer to preserve minority cultures such as the Tibetans, but to refashion them.
All of them try to emulate their master, Hu Jintao, who reached the top by smashing 'nationalities'.
The question remains, can a new Hu Yaobang emerge after the Olympics? Can China find a Gorbachev who could take the Middle Kingdom towards a more harmonious society? It may take several months before we get an answer to these questions, but they are valid queries.
Claude Arpi, Rediff.com
March 26, 2008
http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/mar/26claude.htm
Since the unrest started in Tibet, I am often asked: "What is the solution for Tibet?" Invariably, I answer: "I don't know". I am aware that there have never been so many 'experts' and 'knowledgeable commentators' who have ready-made solutions, but having spent 37 years trying to understand the intricacies of the Tibet issue, "I don't know" is the only honest response.
Of course, one can think of different scenarios such as the "fall of the Berlin wall" or the "collapse of the former Soviet Union". I still remember the Dalai Lama 'prophesying' at the end of the eighties (before the Tiananmen events), that China may go through a similar fate as the Soviet Union within five years. When several years later, I asked him about his 'prophesy', he just laughed and said that it was a 'big mistake'. He added that it was not a 'spiritual' prophesy, but just logical thinking. It is true that things could have gone differently had the Elders not sent tanks to crush thousand of students on the Square.
Another remark of the Dalai Lama comes to my mind. It was in 1986, during an interview, he told me: "We Tibetans can't do anything, except to keep their culture alive. A change will come from within China; it is our only hope".
Twenty two years later, I believe that this statement is the closest to a possible future scenario or 'solution'. In this context, it was heartening to read the statement of 29 Chinese intellectuals: 'We hold that we must eliminate animosity and bring about national reconciliation, not continue to increase divisions between nationalities. A country that wishes to avoid the partition of its territory must first avoid divisions among its nationalities. Therefore, we appeal to the leaders of our country to hold direct dialogue with the Dalai Lama.'
Though one can only applaud the courage of the academics and artists, there is a more important aspect to consider: the debate at the top echelon of the Party. Presuming that the Chinese Communist Party is here to stay for some more time, the key word for a possible solution is 'nationalities'. Although one has the impression that the CCP is a monolithic organisation with a strict hierarchy and no discussion is allowed, it is far from true. One example is a series of three letters written a couple of years back by a Tibetan Communist veteran to President Hu Jinatao on the issue of nationalities which could have far-reaching consequences for Tibet.
Bapa Phuntso Wangyal is not an ordinary Tibetan. He was the first Tibetan Communist in the forties and in September 1951, he led the Chinese troops into Lhasa. In his recent letters, Wangyal, known as Phunwang by the Tibetans, accused some of the hardliners (alias 'leftists') within the Party of being insincere: 'They make a living, are promoted and become rich by opposing splittism,' he wrote to Hu.
Though the 'leftists' are bound to prevail till the Olympic Games, many watchers believe that Phunwang's theoretical position on nationalities may trigger a debate within the Party hierarchy on 'the correct handling of the situation in Tibet' and a possible return of the Dalai Lama.
In one of his letters written in 2006, Phunwang pointed his finger at the retired General Yin Fatang, a former party boss in Tibet, for sticking to 'wrong' leftist policies still implemented today in Tibet. He told the Chinese President that the Dalai Lama had said he wants greater autonomy, not independence: 'But Chinese and Tibetan leftists, or conservatives, are convinced otherwise and regularly denounce him for trying to split Tibet from the Chinese motherland.'
Historically and interestingly, Communist leaders have not always responded with the same brutality that we see today. Some officials had a more sensitive approach. One of these leaders is Hu Yaobang. In May 1980, the politburo decided to send a high-level fact-finding delegation to the 'Tibet Autonomous Region'. The delegation was headed by Hu Yaobang, then General Secretary of the CCP. Reaching Lhasa, Hu Yaobang was shocked to see the level of poverty in Tibet. During a meeting with the Party cadres, he asked 'whether all the money Beijing had poured into Tibet over the previous years had been thrown into the Yarlung Tsangpo [Brahmaputra] river'. He said the situation reminded him of colonialism. Hundreds of Chinese Han cadres were transferred back to China.
Unfortunately this more intelligent policy did not last long. In 1988, Hu Jintao (today President) took over as Tibet Party Chief. On March 5, when some demonstrations erupted, the People's Armed Police 'took control of the situation'. A Chinese journalist Tang Daxian witnessed the events. He later wrote in The Observer that on March 6 alone, 387 Tibetans were massacred around the Central Cathedral in Lhasa. Twenty years ago, there were no mobile phones and video cameras to witness the carnage. The hardliners had won.
Phunwang told also Hu that Beijing was mistaken to believe that the Tibetan issue would be solved with the death of the present Dalai Lama: 'Any notion of delaying the problem until after the 14th Dalai Lama dies a natural death is not only naive, it is also unwise and especially tactically wrong.'
He reminded the Chinese President about his own objective to establish a harmonious society. If he strived for the return of hundreds of thousands of exiled Tibetans, he could turn 'confrontation into harmony'. Phunwang concluded:'wrong leftist policies continue on ethnic and religious issues especially Tibetan issues� it should cease.'
Phunwang knows Tibet well. In May 1951, he was instrumental in brokering the famous deal (known as the 17-Point Agreement) between the 'local' government of Tibet and the 'central' government in Beijing. At that time, he was close to the central leadership in Beijing, particularly Mao. But he soon discovered that some Chinese officials suffered from the same disease as the Nationalists: The Great Han Chauvinism. This disturbed him a great deal.
When the Dalai Lama left for a six-month visit to China in 1954, Mao ordered Phunwang to accompany the young monk everywhere. During his long talks with the young Tibetan leader, he managed to convince him that Communism was a good thing for Tibet. The Dalai Lama was touched by his sincerity and love for Tibet.
Phunwang continued to work for his dream: a modern and socialist Tibet, but in April 1958, he was unexpectedly arrested and told that he needed to 'cleanse his thinking'. During the following 18 years, he was interrogated, tortured and kept in solitary confinement in the most atrocious conditions. To not lose his mental balance he started to study. As he was allowed Communist literature only, he took the opportunity to deepen his knowledge of the Marxist theory and became the foremost expert on 'nationalities' in the CCP.
According to him: 'In Marxism, the relationship between nationalities in multiethnic states should be one of complete equality. Marxism draws a basic distinction between nationalities embedded in class-based societies and those in communist societies. In class-based societies, separatist activities by minority nationalities are not considered negatively because they are caused by the oppressive policies of the majority nationality and the government it monopolizes.'
In a society where all the nationalities have equal status, the State 'vigorously opposes the struggles of minority nationalities against the State, labeling these pejoratively as 'splittist'. This is not the case of Tibet where the majority nationality (the Chinese Han) is oppressing the minority nationalities (the Tibetans). It is therefore 'correct and justified' for the minority to struggle.
Phunwang adds: 'In the absence of true equality, 'splittism' is a valid response for minority nationalities in class-based societies. It is, in fact, characteristic of class-based multiethnic nations. By contrast, in socialist states, the majority nationality does not (or should not) oppress the minority nationalities. All should be equal'. His conclusion is 'Nationality unity, therefore, requires not suppression but new policies that provide real equality [between nationalities].' In this context, true autonomy is primordial.
The fact that this interpretation of Marxism orthodoxy was sent to the Chinese President by a senior member of the Party, means that the theoretical basis for the Chinese repression in Tibet is still open to interpretation; though the tough guys are today prevailing, they have not grasped the intricacies of the 'nationality' theory of Marx and Stalin.
Michael Sheridan, The Time Far East correspondent, calls them the Faceless Trio. Sheridan wrote: 'The architects of Chinese repression in Tibet are three senior bureaucrats little known to the outside world but destined to be the focus of condemnation from human rights groups in the months ahead.'
The infernal trio is led by Wang Lequan, Party Chief in Xinjiang and member of the Politburo of the CCP. On March 10, in a rare interview he said: 'No matter what nationality, no matter who it is, wreckers, separatists and terrorists will be smashed by us. There's no doubt about that.'
The second one, Zhang Qingli, Party Chief in Tibet, who knows that Hu Jintao owes his phenomenal ascension in the Party to his hard stand in Tibet at the end of the 80s. Zhang called the Dalai Lama 'a wolf in monk's clothes, a devil with a human face' and declared: 'Those who do not love the motherland are not qualified to be human beings'.
According to Sheridan, the third toughie is Li Dezhu, the party's racial theoretician. For him, China's objective is no longer to preserve minority cultures such as the Tibetans, but to refashion them.
All of them try to emulate their master, Hu Jintao, who reached the top by smashing 'nationalities'.
The question remains, can a new Hu Yaobang emerge after the Olympics? Can China find a Gorbachev who could take the Middle Kingdom towards a more harmonious society? It may take several months before we get an answer to these questions, but they are valid queries.
Is UPA bungling? Will loan waiver help it win polls?
Swapan Dasgupta, Free Press Journal
March 25, 2008
It is often claimed that high growth doesn't win an election in India but high inflation helps lose it. The euphoria over loan write-offs and higher exemption limits for income taxpayers is certain to be either drowned in a backlash of unfulfilled expectations or simply forgotten by the time the Finance Bill is passed.
Last Monday was a terrible day for the global capital markets. The Dow Jones index slipped below the 12,000 mark, the Footsie 100 plunged by almost two per cent to a two-year low, and the Sensex took a 951 point pounding and fell below the 15,000 mark. The immediate provocation for the slump was the distress sale of US investment bank Bear Stearns over the weekend-it was sold for less than one per cent of what it was worth just a year ago-but the larger fear was of a global recession, with the US as the epicentre.
The implications of what happened at Bear Stearns and, two months ago, in the British mortgage company Northern Rock (which prompted the first nationalisation in Britain in more than three decades) are still being dissected. As an offering to that exercise, Bill Emmott, a former editor of The Economist, suggested that "The biggest and most important casualty...is going to be the culture of easy lending to companies and to households that has lain behind America's economic growth in the past six or seven years. As a result, even if the Fed cuts US short-term interest rates again..., credit conditions in America will still tighten." This is already happening in Britain where, despite interest rate cuts, banks are scrapping two and three-year fixed rate mortgages and re-negotiating their loans to home-owners at a much higher rate because of the inherent risks involved.
"On the Richter scale of financial crises" wrote a financial commentator, "the present implosion now registers as a full force nine 10 being of the never-before-recorded variety." A feature of this global downturn is the pro-active role of all Governments. The hitherto cautious Federal Reserve has cut interest rates dramatically over the past quarter and the Bank of England injected a whopping #5 billion into the strained money markets. In a dramatic move last Sunday, the Fed invoked Article 13 (3) of the Federal Reserve Act, last used during the depression of the 1930s, which allows it to shower money on almost anybody it wishes by a vote of five governors in "unusual and exigent circumstances". The contrast between the sense of urgency being displayed by authorities in the world's financial centers and the cynicism of those at the helm in India, is striking. For the past three months at least, there have been early warnings of the GDP growth slipping below the targeted nine per cent.
There have also been fears (subsequently confirmed) of the inflation rate rising above the Reserve Bank of India's five per cent danger mark-a reason why the much-awaited cut in interest rates was shelved. In addition, there were strong indications that recessionary conditions in the US, the appreciation of the Rupee and high domestic interest rates could see a slowdown in the annual growth of Indian exports from an estimated 8.7 per cent in 2008 to 7.8 per cent in 2009. In short, the writing on the wall pointed to the compelling need to tighten belts, eschew profligacy and focus single-mindedly on maintaining India's competitive strengths in a difficult environment.
In recent times, only Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has had the gumption to defy political wisdom and refuse a blanket amnesty to many thousands of farmers who were charged with power theft. Most incumbent governments have followed the line of least resistance and made extravagant populist gestures that have cost the exchequer dearly and yet not guaranteed re-election. The UPA Government fell effortlessly into a self-made populist trap in this year's Budget. With single-minded dedication to bolstering Sonia Gandhi's image as India's Lady Bountiful, the Finance Minister earned a bagful of political brownie points with his awesome debt-waiver programme that is expected to cost anywhere close to Rs 75,000 crore, spread out over three years. It was bad enough that this gesture of utter irresponsibility was announced at a time when the global economy is so delicately perched. What is even more astonishing is that there has been a subsequent clamour, led by heir-apparent Rahul Gandhi and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar.
The national burden of the UPA's vote purchase scheme is quite steep. If the faltering National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme is added to the loan-waiver scheme, India will have to expend nearly two per cent of its GDP to prevent the Congress and its allies from going under politically. The all-important distinction between private money and public funds appears to have been obliterated by this Budget. This is more so when, by the Finance Minister's own admission, "leakages" in the public distribution system are in the region of 36.38 per cent, i.e. more than a third of public money never reaches the targeted beneficiary. It is often claimed that high growth doesn't win an election in India but high inflation helps lose it. The euphoria over loan write-offs and higher exemption limits for income taxpayers is certain to be either drowned in a backlash of unfulfilled expectations (there are reports from Orissa that some villagers have been told that loans taken for marriage expenses have also been waived by a benevolent Sonia) or simply forgotten by the time the Finance Bill is passed. However, what will endure is the soaring rate of inflation caused by foodstuff shortages and higher prices of items such as naptha.
The pressure on prices is likely to be maintained by the dramatic rise in money supply (M3) which grew by roughly 22 per cent between 2007 and 2008. At the time the NDA demitted office in May 2004, the broad money supply growth was around 12 per cent. Add to this the "fudgy math" of the Government. Official estimates say that the central fiscal deficit will decline from 3.1 to 2.5 per cent of the GDP. But, as many economists have pointed out, this figure doesn't include off-Budget subsidies on food, fertiliser and petroleum products, the deficit of states, and the fiscal costs of the debt-waiver.
According to a Goldman Sachs study, the consolidated fiscal deficit will grow from 6.6 per cent of GDP in 2008 to 6.9 per cent in 2009. Finance Minister Chidambaram may consider himself a trifle unlucky that the global downturn happened just as the election season began in India. A government desirous of maintaining elementary standards of rectitude would have attempted to balance its political imperatives with a sense of national responsibility.
More important, it would have tried to repair India's leaky roof during the glorious sunshine of the past four years by facilitating dramatic improvements in infrastructure. Neither was attempted, not least because of the Left's ideological cussedness. For the past four years, India's success story has been entrepreneur-driven. The Government hasn't been able to help much but it has, at least, not come in the way. Now, when a modicum of state intervention is imperative, the Congress has decided it is time to party at the taxpayers' expense. No wonder they call it Incredible India.
Swapan Dasgupta, Free Press Journal
March 25, 2008
It is often claimed that high growth doesn't win an election in India but high inflation helps lose it. The euphoria over loan write-offs and higher exemption limits for income taxpayers is certain to be either drowned in a backlash of unfulfilled expectations or simply forgotten by the time the Finance Bill is passed.
Last Monday was a terrible day for the global capital markets. The Dow Jones index slipped below the 12,000 mark, the Footsie 100 plunged by almost two per cent to a two-year low, and the Sensex took a 951 point pounding and fell below the 15,000 mark. The immediate provocation for the slump was the distress sale of US investment bank Bear Stearns over the weekend-it was sold for less than one per cent of what it was worth just a year ago-but the larger fear was of a global recession, with the US as the epicentre.
The implications of what happened at Bear Stearns and, two months ago, in the British mortgage company Northern Rock (which prompted the first nationalisation in Britain in more than three decades) are still being dissected. As an offering to that exercise, Bill Emmott, a former editor of The Economist, suggested that "The biggest and most important casualty...is going to be the culture of easy lending to companies and to households that has lain behind America's economic growth in the past six or seven years. As a result, even if the Fed cuts US short-term interest rates again..., credit conditions in America will still tighten." This is already happening in Britain where, despite interest rate cuts, banks are scrapping two and three-year fixed rate mortgages and re-negotiating their loans to home-owners at a much higher rate because of the inherent risks involved.
"On the Richter scale of financial crises" wrote a financial commentator, "the present implosion now registers as a full force nine 10 being of the never-before-recorded variety." A feature of this global downturn is the pro-active role of all Governments. The hitherto cautious Federal Reserve has cut interest rates dramatically over the past quarter and the Bank of England injected a whopping #5 billion into the strained money markets. In a dramatic move last Sunday, the Fed invoked Article 13 (3) of the Federal Reserve Act, last used during the depression of the 1930s, which allows it to shower money on almost anybody it wishes by a vote of five governors in "unusual and exigent circumstances". The contrast between the sense of urgency being displayed by authorities in the world's financial centers and the cynicism of those at the helm in India, is striking. For the past three months at least, there have been early warnings of the GDP growth slipping below the targeted nine per cent.
There have also been fears (subsequently confirmed) of the inflation rate rising above the Reserve Bank of India's five per cent danger mark-a reason why the much-awaited cut in interest rates was shelved. In addition, there were strong indications that recessionary conditions in the US, the appreciation of the Rupee and high domestic interest rates could see a slowdown in the annual growth of Indian exports from an estimated 8.7 per cent in 2008 to 7.8 per cent in 2009. In short, the writing on the wall pointed to the compelling need to tighten belts, eschew profligacy and focus single-mindedly on maintaining India's competitive strengths in a difficult environment.
In recent times, only Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has had the gumption to defy political wisdom and refuse a blanket amnesty to many thousands of farmers who were charged with power theft. Most incumbent governments have followed the line of least resistance and made extravagant populist gestures that have cost the exchequer dearly and yet not guaranteed re-election. The UPA Government fell effortlessly into a self-made populist trap in this year's Budget. With single-minded dedication to bolstering Sonia Gandhi's image as India's Lady Bountiful, the Finance Minister earned a bagful of political brownie points with his awesome debt-waiver programme that is expected to cost anywhere close to Rs 75,000 crore, spread out over three years. It was bad enough that this gesture of utter irresponsibility was announced at a time when the global economy is so delicately perched. What is even more astonishing is that there has been a subsequent clamour, led by heir-apparent Rahul Gandhi and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar.
The national burden of the UPA's vote purchase scheme is quite steep. If the faltering National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme is added to the loan-waiver scheme, India will have to expend nearly two per cent of its GDP to prevent the Congress and its allies from going under politically. The all-important distinction between private money and public funds appears to have been obliterated by this Budget. This is more so when, by the Finance Minister's own admission, "leakages" in the public distribution system are in the region of 36.38 per cent, i.e. more than a third of public money never reaches the targeted beneficiary. It is often claimed that high growth doesn't win an election in India but high inflation helps lose it. The euphoria over loan write-offs and higher exemption limits for income taxpayers is certain to be either drowned in a backlash of unfulfilled expectations (there are reports from Orissa that some villagers have been told that loans taken for marriage expenses have also been waived by a benevolent Sonia) or simply forgotten by the time the Finance Bill is passed. However, what will endure is the soaring rate of inflation caused by foodstuff shortages and higher prices of items such as naptha.
The pressure on prices is likely to be maintained by the dramatic rise in money supply (M3) which grew by roughly 22 per cent between 2007 and 2008. At the time the NDA demitted office in May 2004, the broad money supply growth was around 12 per cent. Add to this the "fudgy math" of the Government. Official estimates say that the central fiscal deficit will decline from 3.1 to 2.5 per cent of the GDP. But, as many economists have pointed out, this figure doesn't include off-Budget subsidies on food, fertiliser and petroleum products, the deficit of states, and the fiscal costs of the debt-waiver.
According to a Goldman Sachs study, the consolidated fiscal deficit will grow from 6.6 per cent of GDP in 2008 to 6.9 per cent in 2009. Finance Minister Chidambaram may consider himself a trifle unlucky that the global downturn happened just as the election season began in India. A government desirous of maintaining elementary standards of rectitude would have attempted to balance its political imperatives with a sense of national responsibility.
More important, it would have tried to repair India's leaky roof during the glorious sunshine of the past four years by facilitating dramatic improvements in infrastructure. Neither was attempted, not least because of the Left's ideological cussedness. For the past four years, India's success story has been entrepreneur-driven. The Government hasn't been able to help much but it has, at least, not come in the way. Now, when a modicum of state intervention is imperative, the Congress has decided it is time to party at the taxpayers' expense. No wonder they call it Incredible India.
VHP in biz makeover mode, publishes special diary to woo corporates
Ajay Khape, ExpressIndia.com
March 25, 2008
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/VHP-in-biz-makeover-mode-publishes-special-diary-to-woo-corporates/288049/
If the Rashtriya Sevak Sangh (RSS) is reaching out to the software professionals through its IT- Milan programme, the city unit of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has decided it’ll settle for nothing less than embracing the entire corporate sector. And the tool it has chosen to achieve this goal is a uniquely styled business diary with April 1 2008 as the first day and ends with March 31 2009 ¿ the entire financial year.
“It is first of its kind initiative by VHP. We want to reach as many business professionals as possible,” city VHP chief Ranjit Natu told The Indian Express.
The diary begins with a cover note: “This is a goodwill gift from VHP to you and we wish you a very happy new financial year” and letter ends with the remarks of “We are sure this diary will be some aid to you in your business and we look forward to your good wishes to all our future activities.”
He said the initiative is on an experimental basis and only 1,500 copies will be printed this year. “We are not going to distribute the diary at random, but have prepared a list of business houses as well as the professionals to whom the diaries will be given freely,” Natu said.
It is styled like a businessman’s handbook, complete with due dates and reminders for statutory compliances under most of the laws ¿ such as the last date of income tax payment. TDS return for Q2, VAT payment and return, service tax, excise tax payment and so on. Also included are dates as per the Hindu calendar and contents of Hindu panchang .
“In order to provide some enlightenment on various non-publicised aspects of VHP we have included some “Did You Knows” on 30th day of every month,” Umesh Bhosale, Chief of Editorial Board for the diary said.
He said the diary mentions the festivals of other religions along with Hindu religious festivals whenever there is a national holiday.
Senior national VHP leader Dr Surendra Jain said this is the best diary that he has come across as it caters to professionals ¿ their daily needs and their spiritual and religious needs.
Ram Setu and Ram Mandir
On the page dated March 30, it says Ram Setu in Tamil Nadu was an operational bridge between India and Sri Lanka till around fifteenth century CE, Maharani Padmini of Chhitod was the princess of Sri Lanka. Maharana of Chhitod had traveled over the setu with the barat of his marriage.
On the page dated October 30, the diary mentions the details of Shri Ram Janmabhumi proposed mandir and information related to its construction.
Ajay Khape, ExpressIndia.com
March 25, 2008
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/VHP-in-biz-makeover-mode-publishes-special-diary-to-woo-corporates/288049/
If the Rashtriya Sevak Sangh (RSS) is reaching out to the software professionals through its IT- Milan programme, the city unit of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has decided it’ll settle for nothing less than embracing the entire corporate sector. And the tool it has chosen to achieve this goal is a uniquely styled business diary with April 1 2008 as the first day and ends with March 31 2009 ¿ the entire financial year.
“It is first of its kind initiative by VHP. We want to reach as many business professionals as possible,” city VHP chief Ranjit Natu told The Indian Express.
The diary begins with a cover note: “This is a goodwill gift from VHP to you and we wish you a very happy new financial year” and letter ends with the remarks of “We are sure this diary will be some aid to you in your business and we look forward to your good wishes to all our future activities.”
He said the initiative is on an experimental basis and only 1,500 copies will be printed this year. “We are not going to distribute the diary at random, but have prepared a list of business houses as well as the professionals to whom the diaries will be given freely,” Natu said.
It is styled like a businessman’s handbook, complete with due dates and reminders for statutory compliances under most of the laws ¿ such as the last date of income tax payment. TDS return for Q2, VAT payment and return, service tax, excise tax payment and so on. Also included are dates as per the Hindu calendar and contents of Hindu panchang .
“In order to provide some enlightenment on various non-publicised aspects of VHP we have included some “Did You Knows” on 30th day of every month,” Umesh Bhosale, Chief of Editorial Board for the diary said.
He said the diary mentions the festivals of other religions along with Hindu religious festivals whenever there is a national holiday.
Senior national VHP leader Dr Surendra Jain said this is the best diary that he has come across as it caters to professionals ¿ their daily needs and their spiritual and religious needs.
Ram Setu and Ram Mandir
On the page dated March 30, it says Ram Setu in Tamil Nadu was an operational bridge between India and Sri Lanka till around fifteenth century CE, Maharani Padmini of Chhitod was the princess of Sri Lanka. Maharana of Chhitod had traveled over the setu with the barat of his marriage.
On the page dated October 30, the diary mentions the details of Shri Ram Janmabhumi proposed mandir and information related to its construction.
The sacrifice of Tibet: Extraordinary delusions and temporary insanity
Rajeev Srinivasan, Rediff.com
March 25, 2008
http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/mar/25rajeev.htm
On November 18 every year, I silently salute the brave souls of C Company, 13th Kumaon Regiment, who in 1962 died practically to the last man and the last bullet defending Ladakh against the invading Chinese Army. These brave 114 inflicted heavy casualties and prevented the Chinese from overrunning Leh, much like Spartans at Thermopylae held the line against the invading Persians many moons ago.
But have you ever wondered why these brave men had to sacrifice themselves? One answer seems to be that is because of the extraordinary delusions that affected a number of the dramatis personae on the Indian side: notably Jawaharlal Nehru, KM Panikkar and VK Krishna Menon.
A deadly combination of blind faith, gross megalomania, and groupthink led to the debacle in the war in1962; but its genesis lay in the unbelievable naivete that led these worthies to simply sacrifice a defenseless sister civilisation to brutal barbarians.
Furthermore, they were far more concerned about China's interests than about India's! Generations to come will scarcely believe that such criminal negligence was tolerated in the foreign policy of a major nation.
In a well-researched book, timed for the one hundredth anniversary of the opening of Tibet by the British, Claude Arpi, born in France but a long-term resident of India, and one of India's leading Tibet and China experts, argues that India's acquiescence to the enslavement of Tibet has had disastrous consequences. The book is Born in Sin: The Panchsheel Agreement subtitled The Sacrifice of Tibet, published by Mittal Publications, New Delhi, 2004, pp. 241, Rs. 495, ISBN 81-7099-974-X. Unless otherwise noted, all of the quotations here are from this book.
Arpi also touches upon the difficulty scholars face with piecing together what actually happened in those momentous years leading to the extinction of Tibet and the India-China war of 1962, because the majority of the source materials are held as classified documents in the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund or the Ministry of External Affairs.
The historian is forced to depend on the sanitised Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru and the restricted Official Report of the 1962 War. If the relevant documents were made public at the very least we might learn something from them. Where is Aruna Roy, crusading champion of the people's right to know who has now accepted a sinecure under the UPA? Why are the Nehru Papers controlled by Sonia Gandhi?
The story really begins exactly one hundred years ago, in September 1904, when the British Colonel Francis Younghusband entered Tibet and forced the hitherto insular kingdom open at the point of a gun. The Lhasa Convention of 1904, signed by the British and the Tibetans, put the seal of British overlordship over Tibet. The parallels with Commodore Perry of the US and his black ships opening up Japan are obvious. However, unlike Japan, which under the Meiji Restoration took vigorously to westernisation, Tibet continued to distance itself from the outside world, much to its later disadvantage.
Perhaps we need to look further in history, as Arpi did in his earlier book, The Fate of Tibet: When Big Insects Eat Small Insects. The Tibetans were a feared, martial and warlike race that had always, in its impregnable mountain fastnesses, held the expansionist Han Chinese at bay. However, in the 7th century CE, Buddhism came to Tibet, and they became a pacifist nation. Says Arpi: 'Tibet's conversion had another consequence on its political history: a nonviolent Tibet could no longer defend itself. It had to look outside for military support to safeguard its frontiers and for the protection of its Dharma. This help came first from the Mongol Khans and later the Manchu Emperors when they became themselves followers of the Buddha's doctrine.'
The sum and substance of China's alleged historical claim to Tibet is this: that the Mongol Khans had conquered both China and Tibet at the same time. This is patently absurd, because by the same token India should claim Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong as its own, because India and these territories were under British rule at the same time.
In fact, since the Mongol Khans and the Manchu Emperors accepted the Dalai Lama as their spiritual preceptor, it is clear that it was China that was giving tribute to Tibet, not vice versa: so Tibet could claim Han China as its vassal.
The Lhasa Convention was followed by the Simla Convention in 1914 that laid out the McMahon Line defining both the Indo-Tibetan border, and the division of Tibet into 'Outer Tibet' (which lies along the border with India) and 'Inner Tibet' which includes Amdo Province and part of Kham Province. It is worthwhile to note that the Chinese were not invited to discuss the McMahon line, nor was their acceptance of this line sought. Tibetans signed this treaty as an independent nation. The British government emphasised this in a note to the Chinese as late as 1943: 'Since the Chinese Revolution of 1911,... Tibet has enjoyed de facto independence.'
When India became independent, K M Panikkar wrote: 'A China [organised as a Communist regime annexing Mongol, Muslim and Tibetan areas] will be in an extremely powerful position to claim its historic role of authority over Tibet, Burma, Indo-China and Siam. The historic claims in regard to these are vague and hazy�' Yet soon thereafter Panikkar became the principal spokesperson for China's interests, even though his job was Indian Ambassador to China!
As soon as the Communists came to power, in 1950, they started asserting their claims: 'The tasks for the People's Liberation Army for 1950 are to liberate [sic] Taiwan, Hainan and Tibet.' A Scottish missionary in Tibet said the PLA officers told him that once Tibet was in their hands, they would go to India.
On October 7, 1950, Mao Tse-Tung's storm troopers invaded Tibet. But under Panikkar's influence, Nehru felt that the loss of Tibet was worth the price of liberating Asia from 'western dominance'. Panikkar said: 'I do not think there is anything wrong in the troops of Red China moving about in their own country.'
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was one of the few in the Indian government who recognised the menace from China. He wrote:
'We also have to take note of a thoroughly unscrupulous, unreliable and determined power practically at our doors. [It is clear that] we cannot be friendly with China and must think in terms of defense against a determined, calculating, unscrupulous, ruthless, unprincipled and prejudiced combination of powers, of which the Chinese will be the spearhead. [It is obvious to me that] any friendly or appeasing approaches from us would either be mistaken for weakness or would be exploited in furtherance of their ultimate aim.'
How prophetic Patel was! Unfortunately, he died soon after he wrote this. Interestingly, the very same words apply in their entirety to India's dithering over Pakistan today, 54 years later. The Pakistanis are also exploiting India's appeasement and friendliness.
But Nehru, it appears, had decided to sacrifice Tibet, partly in order to appease China, partly because of his distaste for what he considered 'imperialist treaties' (in this case the Lhasa Convention that gave enormous rights in Tibet to the British, and, as their successor, to the Indian government) and partly in order to act as mediator between China and the West over the Korean War.
Observers could see what was going to happen. The American ambassador Henderson noted: 'The UK High Commission would like to be able to argue with Indian officials that if GoI bows to Communist China's blackmail re Tibet, India will eventually be confronted with similar blackmail not only re Burma but re such areas as Assam, Bhutan, Sikkim, Kashmir, Nepal.' Absolutely correct, for this is exactly what is happening today.
Nehru and Panikkar simply did not see the threat from China, so enamoured were they of the great Communist Revolution there. Nehru said: 'The biggest event since the last War is the rise of Communist China'. Part of his admiration arose from his distaste for the Buddhist culture of Tibet: 'We cannot support feudal elements in Tibet, indeed we cannot interfere in Tibet'. Now doesn't that sound exactly like Xinhua propaganda, which Nehru seems to have internalised?
A Canadian high commissioner had a different theory: '[Panikkar] had no illusions about the policies of the Chinese government and he had not been misled by it. He considered, however, that the future, at least in his lifetime, lay with the communists, and he therefore did his best to get on well with them by misleading Nehru'. That might be considered treason in certain circles.
Whatever the reason, we can see why Zhou-en Lai is rumored to have referred to the Indians in general and Nehru in particular as 'useful idiots'. (There is no reference to this in the Arpi book). In every discussion with Panikkar, the Chinese hosts smilingly avoided the question of settling the border, but they made sure that India acknowledged Chinese hegemony over Tibet. The Indians were thoroughly outsmarted, partly because they were willing victims dazzled by the idea of Communism.
When confronted with the question of the undefined border, Nehru said, "All these are high mountains. Nobody lives there. It is not very necessary to define these things." And in the context of whether the Chinese might invade India, here's Nehru again: "What might happen is some petty trouble in the borders and unarmed infiltration. To some extent this can be stopped by checkposts� Ultimately, however, armies do not stop communist infiltration or communist ideas. Any large expenditure on the army will starve the development of the country and social progress."
The naivete leaves the neutral observer speechless. What might be even more alarming is that there are supposedly serious Old Left analysts today, in 2004, who mouth these same inanities about not spending money on the Indian Army. Why they do not take their cue from China, with its enormous Army, is mysterious, because in all other respects they expect India to emulate China. Except that is, no nukes, no military might for India.
By not asserting India's treaty rights in Tibet, which would have helped Tibet remain as a neutral buffer zone, Nehru has hurt India very badly. For, look at what is happening today. Nepal is under relentless attack by Maoists, almost certainly supported by Chinese money. Large parts of India are infested with violent Maoists. Much of West Bengal is under the iron grip of Marxists, who clearly take orders from Beijing.
It is in this context that the so-called Panchsheel Agreement was written. Given that the Indian side had a priori decided to surrender all its rights to the Chinese, in return for vague promises of brotherhood, it is perhaps the most vacuous treaty ever signed. However, Nehru opined: "in my opinion, we have done no better thing than this since we became independent. I have no doubt about this�I think it is right for our country, for Asia and for the world."
Famous last words.
Nehru believed that the five principles which are referred to as Panchsheel were his personal, and major, contribution to world peace. Based on his impression of his stature in the world, he thought that the Panchsheel model could be used for treaties all over the world, and that it would lead to a tremendous breaking out of peace everywhere.
Nehru was sadly mistaken. There was nothing particularly remarkable about the principles themselves: they were not his invention, but were merely common-sense provisions used widely. And he had a megalomaniac idea of his own influence around the world: he did not realise that he cut a slightly comical figure. In his own mind, and in the minds of his toadies, he was the Emperor Ashoka returned, to bring about World Peace.
Here are the Five Principles:
1. Mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty
2. Mutual non-aggression
3. Mutual non-interference in each other's internal affairs
4. Equality and mutual benefit
5. Peaceful co-existence
The Chinese immediately violated every one of these principles, and have continued to do so happily. For instance, even while the treaty was being negotiated, the Chinese were building a road through Aksai Chin in Jammu and Kashmir, and in perhaps the most unbelievable aspect of this whole sorry mess, India was actually supplying rice to the Chinese troops building the road through Indian territory! This is distinctly surreal!
The problem was that Nehru had no sense of history. He should have read RC Majumdar: "There is, however, one aspect of Chinese culture that is little known outside the circle of professional historians� It is characteristic of China that if a region once acknowledged her nominal suzerainty even for a short period, she would regard it as a part of her empire for ever and would automatically revive her claim over it even after a thousand years whenever there was a chance of enforcing it."
And this was the 'ally' Nehru found against the 'imperialists' of the West! He went so far as to decline a seat at the UN Security Council because the China seat was held by Taiwan. He did not want India to be in the Security Council until China was there too!
Since many people are curious about this, here is chapter and verse: it is in the Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Series II, Vol. 29, Minutes of meeting with Soviet Leaders, Moscow, 22 June 1955, pp. 231. Here is the conversation between Nehru and Soviet Premier Marshal Bulganin:
"Bulganin: While we are discussing the general international situation and reducing tension, we propose suggesting at a later stage India's inclusion as the sixth member of the Security Council.
Nehru: Perhaps Bulganin knows that some people in USA have suggested that India should replace China in the Security Council. This is to create trouble between us and China. We are, of course, wholly opposed to it. Further, we are opposed to pushing ourselves forward to occupy certain positions because that may itself create difficulties and India might itself become a subject of controversy. If India is to be admitted to the Security Council it raises the question of the revision of the Charter of the UN. We feel that this should not be done till the question of China's admission and possibly of others is first solved. I feel that we should first concentrate on getting China admitted."
The casual observer might wonder whether Nehru was India's prime minister, or China's. Besides, the Chinese have now repaid all this support. India insisted that India should not be in the Security Council until China was in it, too. Now China insists that India should not be in the Security Council until Pakistan is in it, too. Seems fair, doesn't it?
What is the net result of all this for India? It is a strategic disaster. Forget the fact that the Tibetan civilisation has been decimated, and it is an Indic civilisation with practically no relationship to Han Chinese civilisation. Strictly from India's security perspective, it is an unmitigated catastrophe.
Analyst Ginsburg wrote in the fifties: 'He who holds Tibet dominates the Himalayan piedmont; he who dominates the Himalayan piedmont, threatens the Indian subcontinent; and he who threatens the Indian subcontinent may well have all of Southeast Asia within his reach, and all of Asia.'
Look at the situation in Tibet today.
* The Chinese are planning the northward diversion of the Brahmaputra, also known as the Tsangpo. This would make North India a desert
* The Chinese have on several occasions used 'lake bombs' to flood Indian territory: as the upper riparian state based on their occupation of Tibet, they are able to do this, for example on the Sutlej
* Hu Jintao, who was the Butcher of Tibet, is now a top strongman in Beijing. Under his sponsorship, a railway line will be finished in 2007 linking Lhasa to eastern China. This would be an excellent mechanism for bringing in both large numbers of Han immigrants to swamp the remaining Tibetan people, and also to deploy mobile nuclear missiles
* The Chinese are deploying advanced nuclear missiles in Tibet, aimed at India, Russia and the US. With the railway line, they will be able to move these around and even conceal them quickly in tunnels and other locations
* The Chinese dump large amounts of nuclear waste in Tibet, which will eventually make its way down to India via the rivers
* The India-Tibet border is still not demarcated.
It is difficult to imagine a more disastrous foreign policy outcome than what happened between India and China. Claude Arpi is owed a debt of gratitude by all of us in India who care about the nation's progress and even its survival.
If the rather well-thought-of founding prime minister of the country was so uncaring about India's interests, one shudders to think what might be going on today with some of the ministers who are accused in criminal cases.
But even more than that, Arpi's detailed analysis and painstaking research on the process through which Tibet was enslaved is an instructive case study in how barbarians are always at the gates, and how, as Will Durant said, 'Civilisation is a precious good, whose delicate complex order and freedom can at any moment be overthrown by barbarians invading from without and multiplying from within'.
One of the profound lessons to be taken away is that it is the lack of respect for the spiritual that has led to this cataclysm. As Ministry of External Affairs observer, Apa Pant, pointed out about Tibet and the Han Chinese colonisation: 'With all its shortcomings and discomforts, its inefficiencies and unconquered physical dangers, here was a civilisation with at least the intention of maintaining a pattern of life in which the individual could achieve liberation� The one so apparently inefficient, so human and even timid, yet kind and compassionate and aspiring to something more gloriously satisfying in human life; the other determined and effective, ruthless, power-hungry and finally intolerant... In the corridors of power [in official India], Tibet, Buddhism, the Dalai Lama, were all regarded as ridiculous, too funny for words; useless illusions that would logically cease to exist soon, thanks to the Chinese, and good riddance.'
In the final analysis, Tibet was lost because those in power in India were dismissive of matters spiritual. It is the Empire of the Spirit that has made India what she has been all these millennia, and once the rulers start dismissing that, it is clear that we are in the Kali Yuga, the Dark Ages. It is the end of living, and the beginning of survival.
Rajeev Srinivasan, Rediff.com
March 25, 2008
http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/mar/25rajeev.htm
On November 18 every year, I silently salute the brave souls of C Company, 13th Kumaon Regiment, who in 1962 died practically to the last man and the last bullet defending Ladakh against the invading Chinese Army. These brave 114 inflicted heavy casualties and prevented the Chinese from overrunning Leh, much like Spartans at Thermopylae held the line against the invading Persians many moons ago.
But have you ever wondered why these brave men had to sacrifice themselves? One answer seems to be that is because of the extraordinary delusions that affected a number of the dramatis personae on the Indian side: notably Jawaharlal Nehru, KM Panikkar and VK Krishna Menon.
A deadly combination of blind faith, gross megalomania, and groupthink led to the debacle in the war in1962; but its genesis lay in the unbelievable naivete that led these worthies to simply sacrifice a defenseless sister civilisation to brutal barbarians.
Furthermore, they were far more concerned about China's interests than about India's! Generations to come will scarcely believe that such criminal negligence was tolerated in the foreign policy of a major nation.
In a well-researched book, timed for the one hundredth anniversary of the opening of Tibet by the British, Claude Arpi, born in France but a long-term resident of India, and one of India's leading Tibet and China experts, argues that India's acquiescence to the enslavement of Tibet has had disastrous consequences. The book is Born in Sin: The Panchsheel Agreement subtitled The Sacrifice of Tibet, published by Mittal Publications, New Delhi, 2004, pp. 241, Rs. 495, ISBN 81-7099-974-X. Unless otherwise noted, all of the quotations here are from this book.
Arpi also touches upon the difficulty scholars face with piecing together what actually happened in those momentous years leading to the extinction of Tibet and the India-China war of 1962, because the majority of the source materials are held as classified documents in the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund or the Ministry of External Affairs.
The historian is forced to depend on the sanitised Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru and the restricted Official Report of the 1962 War. If the relevant documents were made public at the very least we might learn something from them. Where is Aruna Roy, crusading champion of the people's right to know who has now accepted a sinecure under the UPA? Why are the Nehru Papers controlled by Sonia Gandhi?
The story really begins exactly one hundred years ago, in September 1904, when the British Colonel Francis Younghusband entered Tibet and forced the hitherto insular kingdom open at the point of a gun. The Lhasa Convention of 1904, signed by the British and the Tibetans, put the seal of British overlordship over Tibet. The parallels with Commodore Perry of the US and his black ships opening up Japan are obvious. However, unlike Japan, which under the Meiji Restoration took vigorously to westernisation, Tibet continued to distance itself from the outside world, much to its later disadvantage.
Perhaps we need to look further in history, as Arpi did in his earlier book, The Fate of Tibet: When Big Insects Eat Small Insects. The Tibetans were a feared, martial and warlike race that had always, in its impregnable mountain fastnesses, held the expansionist Han Chinese at bay. However, in the 7th century CE, Buddhism came to Tibet, and they became a pacifist nation. Says Arpi: 'Tibet's conversion had another consequence on its political history: a nonviolent Tibet could no longer defend itself. It had to look outside for military support to safeguard its frontiers and for the protection of its Dharma. This help came first from the Mongol Khans and later the Manchu Emperors when they became themselves followers of the Buddha's doctrine.'
The sum and substance of China's alleged historical claim to Tibet is this: that the Mongol Khans had conquered both China and Tibet at the same time. This is patently absurd, because by the same token India should claim Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong as its own, because India and these territories were under British rule at the same time.
In fact, since the Mongol Khans and the Manchu Emperors accepted the Dalai Lama as their spiritual preceptor, it is clear that it was China that was giving tribute to Tibet, not vice versa: so Tibet could claim Han China as its vassal.
The Lhasa Convention was followed by the Simla Convention in 1914 that laid out the McMahon Line defining both the Indo-Tibetan border, and the division of Tibet into 'Outer Tibet' (which lies along the border with India) and 'Inner Tibet' which includes Amdo Province and part of Kham Province. It is worthwhile to note that the Chinese were not invited to discuss the McMahon line, nor was their acceptance of this line sought. Tibetans signed this treaty as an independent nation. The British government emphasised this in a note to the Chinese as late as 1943: 'Since the Chinese Revolution of 1911,... Tibet has enjoyed de facto independence.'
When India became independent, K M Panikkar wrote: 'A China [organised as a Communist regime annexing Mongol, Muslim and Tibetan areas] will be in an extremely powerful position to claim its historic role of authority over Tibet, Burma, Indo-China and Siam. The historic claims in regard to these are vague and hazy�' Yet soon thereafter Panikkar became the principal spokesperson for China's interests, even though his job was Indian Ambassador to China!
As soon as the Communists came to power, in 1950, they started asserting their claims: 'The tasks for the People's Liberation Army for 1950 are to liberate [sic] Taiwan, Hainan and Tibet.' A Scottish missionary in Tibet said the PLA officers told him that once Tibet was in their hands, they would go to India.
On October 7, 1950, Mao Tse-Tung's storm troopers invaded Tibet. But under Panikkar's influence, Nehru felt that the loss of Tibet was worth the price of liberating Asia from 'western dominance'. Panikkar said: 'I do not think there is anything wrong in the troops of Red China moving about in their own country.'
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was one of the few in the Indian government who recognised the menace from China. He wrote:
'We also have to take note of a thoroughly unscrupulous, unreliable and determined power practically at our doors. [It is clear that] we cannot be friendly with China and must think in terms of defense against a determined, calculating, unscrupulous, ruthless, unprincipled and prejudiced combination of powers, of which the Chinese will be the spearhead. [It is obvious to me that] any friendly or appeasing approaches from us would either be mistaken for weakness or would be exploited in furtherance of their ultimate aim.'
How prophetic Patel was! Unfortunately, he died soon after he wrote this. Interestingly, the very same words apply in their entirety to India's dithering over Pakistan today, 54 years later. The Pakistanis are also exploiting India's appeasement and friendliness.
But Nehru, it appears, had decided to sacrifice Tibet, partly in order to appease China, partly because of his distaste for what he considered 'imperialist treaties' (in this case the Lhasa Convention that gave enormous rights in Tibet to the British, and, as their successor, to the Indian government) and partly in order to act as mediator between China and the West over the Korean War.
Observers could see what was going to happen. The American ambassador Henderson noted: 'The UK High Commission would like to be able to argue with Indian officials that if GoI bows to Communist China's blackmail re Tibet, India will eventually be confronted with similar blackmail not only re Burma but re such areas as Assam, Bhutan, Sikkim, Kashmir, Nepal.' Absolutely correct, for this is exactly what is happening today.
Nehru and Panikkar simply did not see the threat from China, so enamoured were they of the great Communist Revolution there. Nehru said: 'The biggest event since the last War is the rise of Communist China'. Part of his admiration arose from his distaste for the Buddhist culture of Tibet: 'We cannot support feudal elements in Tibet, indeed we cannot interfere in Tibet'. Now doesn't that sound exactly like Xinhua propaganda, which Nehru seems to have internalised?
A Canadian high commissioner had a different theory: '[Panikkar] had no illusions about the policies of the Chinese government and he had not been misled by it. He considered, however, that the future, at least in his lifetime, lay with the communists, and he therefore did his best to get on well with them by misleading Nehru'. That might be considered treason in certain circles.
Whatever the reason, we can see why Zhou-en Lai is rumored to have referred to the Indians in general and Nehru in particular as 'useful idiots'. (There is no reference to this in the Arpi book). In every discussion with Panikkar, the Chinese hosts smilingly avoided the question of settling the border, but they made sure that India acknowledged Chinese hegemony over Tibet. The Indians were thoroughly outsmarted, partly because they were willing victims dazzled by the idea of Communism.
When confronted with the question of the undefined border, Nehru said, "All these are high mountains. Nobody lives there. It is not very necessary to define these things." And in the context of whether the Chinese might invade India, here's Nehru again: "What might happen is some petty trouble in the borders and unarmed infiltration. To some extent this can be stopped by checkposts� Ultimately, however, armies do not stop communist infiltration or communist ideas. Any large expenditure on the army will starve the development of the country and social progress."
The naivete leaves the neutral observer speechless. What might be even more alarming is that there are supposedly serious Old Left analysts today, in 2004, who mouth these same inanities about not spending money on the Indian Army. Why they do not take their cue from China, with its enormous Army, is mysterious, because in all other respects they expect India to emulate China. Except that is, no nukes, no military might for India.
By not asserting India's treaty rights in Tibet, which would have helped Tibet remain as a neutral buffer zone, Nehru has hurt India very badly. For, look at what is happening today. Nepal is under relentless attack by Maoists, almost certainly supported by Chinese money. Large parts of India are infested with violent Maoists. Much of West Bengal is under the iron grip of Marxists, who clearly take orders from Beijing.
It is in this context that the so-called Panchsheel Agreement was written. Given that the Indian side had a priori decided to surrender all its rights to the Chinese, in return for vague promises of brotherhood, it is perhaps the most vacuous treaty ever signed. However, Nehru opined: "in my opinion, we have done no better thing than this since we became independent. I have no doubt about this�I think it is right for our country, for Asia and for the world."
Famous last words.
Nehru believed that the five principles which are referred to as Panchsheel were his personal, and major, contribution to world peace. Based on his impression of his stature in the world, he thought that the Panchsheel model could be used for treaties all over the world, and that it would lead to a tremendous breaking out of peace everywhere.
Nehru was sadly mistaken. There was nothing particularly remarkable about the principles themselves: they were not his invention, but were merely common-sense provisions used widely. And he had a megalomaniac idea of his own influence around the world: he did not realise that he cut a slightly comical figure. In his own mind, and in the minds of his toadies, he was the Emperor Ashoka returned, to bring about World Peace.
Here are the Five Principles:
1. Mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty
2. Mutual non-aggression
3. Mutual non-interference in each other's internal affairs
4. Equality and mutual benefit
5. Peaceful co-existence
The Chinese immediately violated every one of these principles, and have continued to do so happily. For instance, even while the treaty was being negotiated, the Chinese were building a road through Aksai Chin in Jammu and Kashmir, and in perhaps the most unbelievable aspect of this whole sorry mess, India was actually supplying rice to the Chinese troops building the road through Indian territory! This is distinctly surreal!
The problem was that Nehru had no sense of history. He should have read RC Majumdar: "There is, however, one aspect of Chinese culture that is little known outside the circle of professional historians� It is characteristic of China that if a region once acknowledged her nominal suzerainty even for a short period, she would regard it as a part of her empire for ever and would automatically revive her claim over it even after a thousand years whenever there was a chance of enforcing it."
And this was the 'ally' Nehru found against the 'imperialists' of the West! He went so far as to decline a seat at the UN Security Council because the China seat was held by Taiwan. He did not want India to be in the Security Council until China was there too!
Since many people are curious about this, here is chapter and verse: it is in the Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Series II, Vol. 29, Minutes of meeting with Soviet Leaders, Moscow, 22 June 1955, pp. 231. Here is the conversation between Nehru and Soviet Premier Marshal Bulganin:
"Bulganin: While we are discussing the general international situation and reducing tension, we propose suggesting at a later stage India's inclusion as the sixth member of the Security Council.
Nehru: Perhaps Bulganin knows that some people in USA have suggested that India should replace China in the Security Council. This is to create trouble between us and China. We are, of course, wholly opposed to it. Further, we are opposed to pushing ourselves forward to occupy certain positions because that may itself create difficulties and India might itself become a subject of controversy. If India is to be admitted to the Security Council it raises the question of the revision of the Charter of the UN. We feel that this should not be done till the question of China's admission and possibly of others is first solved. I feel that we should first concentrate on getting China admitted."
The casual observer might wonder whether Nehru was India's prime minister, or China's. Besides, the Chinese have now repaid all this support. India insisted that India should not be in the Security Council until China was in it, too. Now China insists that India should not be in the Security Council until Pakistan is in it, too. Seems fair, doesn't it?
What is the net result of all this for India? It is a strategic disaster. Forget the fact that the Tibetan civilisation has been decimated, and it is an Indic civilisation with practically no relationship to Han Chinese civilisation. Strictly from India's security perspective, it is an unmitigated catastrophe.
Analyst Ginsburg wrote in the fifties: 'He who holds Tibet dominates the Himalayan piedmont; he who dominates the Himalayan piedmont, threatens the Indian subcontinent; and he who threatens the Indian subcontinent may well have all of Southeast Asia within his reach, and all of Asia.'
Look at the situation in Tibet today.
* The Chinese are planning the northward diversion of the Brahmaputra, also known as the Tsangpo. This would make North India a desert
* The Chinese have on several occasions used 'lake bombs' to flood Indian territory: as the upper riparian state based on their occupation of Tibet, they are able to do this, for example on the Sutlej
* Hu Jintao, who was the Butcher of Tibet, is now a top strongman in Beijing. Under his sponsorship, a railway line will be finished in 2007 linking Lhasa to eastern China. This would be an excellent mechanism for bringing in both large numbers of Han immigrants to swamp the remaining Tibetan people, and also to deploy mobile nuclear missiles
* The Chinese are deploying advanced nuclear missiles in Tibet, aimed at India, Russia and the US. With the railway line, they will be able to move these around and even conceal them quickly in tunnels and other locations
* The Chinese dump large amounts of nuclear waste in Tibet, which will eventually make its way down to India via the rivers
* The India-Tibet border is still not demarcated.
It is difficult to imagine a more disastrous foreign policy outcome than what happened between India and China. Claude Arpi is owed a debt of gratitude by all of us in India who care about the nation's progress and even its survival.
If the rather well-thought-of founding prime minister of the country was so uncaring about India's interests, one shudders to think what might be going on today with some of the ministers who are accused in criminal cases.
But even more than that, Arpi's detailed analysis and painstaking research on the process through which Tibet was enslaved is an instructive case study in how barbarians are always at the gates, and how, as Will Durant said, 'Civilisation is a precious good, whose delicate complex order and freedom can at any moment be overthrown by barbarians invading from without and multiplying from within'.
One of the profound lessons to be taken away is that it is the lack of respect for the spiritual that has led to this cataclysm. As Ministry of External Affairs observer, Apa Pant, pointed out about Tibet and the Han Chinese colonisation: 'With all its shortcomings and discomforts, its inefficiencies and unconquered physical dangers, here was a civilisation with at least the intention of maintaining a pattern of life in which the individual could achieve liberation� The one so apparently inefficient, so human and even timid, yet kind and compassionate and aspiring to something more gloriously satisfying in human life; the other determined and effective, ruthless, power-hungry and finally intolerant... In the corridors of power [in official India], Tibet, Buddhism, the Dalai Lama, were all regarded as ridiculous, too funny for words; useless illusions that would logically cease to exist soon, thanks to the Chinese, and good riddance.'
In the final analysis, Tibet was lost because those in power in India were dismissive of matters spiritual. It is the Empire of the Spirit that has made India what she has been all these millennia, and once the rulers start dismissing that, it is clear that we are in the Kali Yuga, the Dark Ages. It is the end of living, and the beginning of survival.
Can India save the world?
Kishore Mahbubani, Hindustan Times
March 21, 2008
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=b256bfa5-2b67-4cd0-8113-224240a01d87
Humanity is embarking on a bizarre journey into the future. Subconsciously, we all believe (or would like to believe) that we live in a rational, well-ordered universe. The reality is closer to the opposite. If this sounds unbelievable, consider the following analogy. Imagine 660 passengers boarding a ship that is sailing into unchartered waters. After boarding, all 660 retreat into their cabins. No captain or crew is taking care of the ship as a whole.
Sadly, this is a literal, not metaphorical description of how spaceship Earth is sailing into the future. Globalisation has shrunk the world. All 6.6 billion inhabitants now live in a single interdependent universe. From financial crises to health epidemics, from borderless terrorism to global warming, we are moving into a world where more global governance (not global government) is needed to manage the growing interdependence. Instead, precisely when more is needed, humanity is either shrinking or weakening global governance. This essay will explain why. It will also argue that perhaps only one country can solve this crisis — India.
Global governance is shrinking because the West, which spun a rich web of multilateral institutions and norms after World War II, is losing faith in multilateralism. The Western powers were happy to be custodians of the main rules and processes of the global order because they were convinced that a more rules-bound universe, accompanied by greater trade liberalisation, would benefit the Western economies the most since they had the world’s most competitive economies. This conviction of economic superiority led the West to bring down trade barriers. They had no doubt that the West would win on an open economic playing field.
John F Kennedy illustrated this confidence when he said in 1962, “A more liberal trade policy will in general benefit our most efficient and expanding industries.” The boundless optimism of Kennedy has been replaced by the boundless pessimism of Lou Dobbs, who is convinced that American workers cannot compete with Chinese or Indian workers. Sadly, Lou Dobbs is not an isolated phenomenon. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have joined the race to the bottom by declaring that each is more protectionist than the other. This reflects the new psyche of the American population. Europe is not much better.
If both America and Europe lose confidence in their ability to compete, how can they remain custodians of the rules that ensure fairness and equity? To be fair, humanity should thank both first for creating the 1945 rules-based order at the end of World War II. To understand how visionary the Western founding fathers of this order were, just contrast what they did after World War II with what was done after World War I. After World War I, the world order forced Germany and Japan to go to war as they tried to expand their political and economic space. After World War II, both Germany and Japan significantly expanded their political and economic space without going to war.
If humanity can sustain this 1945 rules-based order, this will enable both China and India to emerge as new great powers peacefully, just as Germany and Japan did. But there are differences now. Both Germany and Japan emerged when America and Europe (including Germany) believed that an open global order would naturally benefit the West. Today, China and India are emerging at a time when the West is losing faith in an open global order. This growing lack of faith explains the strange behaviour of both America and Europe towards global governance.
America has taken cynicism towards multilateralism to a whole new level. Just look at the issue of America and Iran. Every few months, America goes back to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to get a resolution against Iran. It hopes to use the legitimacy of the UN to send a message to Iran that the world disapproves of its behaviour. America is right. The UN does enjoy this legitimacy in the eyes of the world’s population, despite the many flaws of the UN. But the world has also become sceptical of America’s efforts to use the UN because America had violated the spirit, if not the letter, of the UN’s principles by going to war in Iraq without an enabling UNSC resolution. Most international lawyers and Kofi Annan believe that the American invasion of Iraq was illegal. Can a violator of UN principles become an enforcer? Can a thief become a judge?
In an act of even greater cynicism, America sent an Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, who believed that his mission was not to strengthen but to weaken the UN. He famously declared that “if the UN building lost ten stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference”.
A favourite American expression is that there is no such thing as a free lunch. There is also no such thing as cost-free cynicism. The rampant American cynicism towards the UN in particular and multilateralism in general could now dangerously erode and destroy the 1945 rules-based order when the world has never needed it more. Both China and India will be the biggest losers if this happens. Its destruction could well prevent and derail their peaceful re-emergence of both these great powers.
It is as difficult to explain the critical importance of multilateralism to a lay audience as it is to illustrate the importance of oxygen. We know that without oxygen we would suffocate but we only truly understand this if we are thrown into a room without oxygen. By then, it may be too late. Similarly, one reason why the world is a reasonably stable place is because a sea of norms has been created in all fields to manage growing global interdependence. This sea of norms is a valuable heritage that humanity has developed.
But no norms can survive on their own. Neither would a sea of norms. Norms need custodianship. With America and Europe losing faith in multilateral norms, the responsibility should pass on to the new rising powers, China and India, to maintain these norms. Indeed, both China and India want to preserve them, but only India can provide the leadership to do so. China cannot, for a simple geopolitical reason. The rise of India is not generating alarm in Washington DC. The rise of China is. Hence, China, in an effort to assuage American concerns, is deliberately trying to avoid assuming any kind of global leadership. When the Cancun trade meetings failed, Indian Trade and Industry Minister Kamal Nath could confidently explain India’s position and challenge the American and European perspectives. The Chinese Trade Minister said nothing.
By default, the weight of global leadership may fall on India’s shoulders. Fortunately, India is well-qualified to provide such leadership. Its credentials as the world’s largest democracy; its open, tolerant and inclusive culture; its unique geopolitical and cultural position as a bridge between East and West provides it a unique opportunity to provide the leadership for forging new forms of global governance that spaceship Earth desperately needs as it sails into the future.
Kishore Mahbubani is Dean, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.
He is the author of The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East.
Kishore Mahbubani, Hindustan Times
March 21, 2008
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=b256bfa5-2b67-4cd0-8113-224240a01d87
Humanity is embarking on a bizarre journey into the future. Subconsciously, we all believe (or would like to believe) that we live in a rational, well-ordered universe. The reality is closer to the opposite. If this sounds unbelievable, consider the following analogy. Imagine 660 passengers boarding a ship that is sailing into unchartered waters. After boarding, all 660 retreat into their cabins. No captain or crew is taking care of the ship as a whole.
Sadly, this is a literal, not metaphorical description of how spaceship Earth is sailing into the future. Globalisation has shrunk the world. All 6.6 billion inhabitants now live in a single interdependent universe. From financial crises to health epidemics, from borderless terrorism to global warming, we are moving into a world where more global governance (not global government) is needed to manage the growing interdependence. Instead, precisely when more is needed, humanity is either shrinking or weakening global governance. This essay will explain why. It will also argue that perhaps only one country can solve this crisis — India.
Global governance is shrinking because the West, which spun a rich web of multilateral institutions and norms after World War II, is losing faith in multilateralism. The Western powers were happy to be custodians of the main rules and processes of the global order because they were convinced that a more rules-bound universe, accompanied by greater trade liberalisation, would benefit the Western economies the most since they had the world’s most competitive economies. This conviction of economic superiority led the West to bring down trade barriers. They had no doubt that the West would win on an open economic playing field.
John F Kennedy illustrated this confidence when he said in 1962, “A more liberal trade policy will in general benefit our most efficient and expanding industries.” The boundless optimism of Kennedy has been replaced by the boundless pessimism of Lou Dobbs, who is convinced that American workers cannot compete with Chinese or Indian workers. Sadly, Lou Dobbs is not an isolated phenomenon. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have joined the race to the bottom by declaring that each is more protectionist than the other. This reflects the new psyche of the American population. Europe is not much better.
If both America and Europe lose confidence in their ability to compete, how can they remain custodians of the rules that ensure fairness and equity? To be fair, humanity should thank both first for creating the 1945 rules-based order at the end of World War II. To understand how visionary the Western founding fathers of this order were, just contrast what they did after World War II with what was done after World War I. After World War I, the world order forced Germany and Japan to go to war as they tried to expand their political and economic space. After World War II, both Germany and Japan significantly expanded their political and economic space without going to war.
If humanity can sustain this 1945 rules-based order, this will enable both China and India to emerge as new great powers peacefully, just as Germany and Japan did. But there are differences now. Both Germany and Japan emerged when America and Europe (including Germany) believed that an open global order would naturally benefit the West. Today, China and India are emerging at a time when the West is losing faith in an open global order. This growing lack of faith explains the strange behaviour of both America and Europe towards global governance.
America has taken cynicism towards multilateralism to a whole new level. Just look at the issue of America and Iran. Every few months, America goes back to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to get a resolution against Iran. It hopes to use the legitimacy of the UN to send a message to Iran that the world disapproves of its behaviour. America is right. The UN does enjoy this legitimacy in the eyes of the world’s population, despite the many flaws of the UN. But the world has also become sceptical of America’s efforts to use the UN because America had violated the spirit, if not the letter, of the UN’s principles by going to war in Iraq without an enabling UNSC resolution. Most international lawyers and Kofi Annan believe that the American invasion of Iraq was illegal. Can a violator of UN principles become an enforcer? Can a thief become a judge?
In an act of even greater cynicism, America sent an Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, who believed that his mission was not to strengthen but to weaken the UN. He famously declared that “if the UN building lost ten stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference”.
A favourite American expression is that there is no such thing as a free lunch. There is also no such thing as cost-free cynicism. The rampant American cynicism towards the UN in particular and multilateralism in general could now dangerously erode and destroy the 1945 rules-based order when the world has never needed it more. Both China and India will be the biggest losers if this happens. Its destruction could well prevent and derail their peaceful re-emergence of both these great powers.
It is as difficult to explain the critical importance of multilateralism to a lay audience as it is to illustrate the importance of oxygen. We know that without oxygen we would suffocate but we only truly understand this if we are thrown into a room without oxygen. By then, it may be too late. Similarly, one reason why the world is a reasonably stable place is because a sea of norms has been created in all fields to manage growing global interdependence. This sea of norms is a valuable heritage that humanity has developed.
But no norms can survive on their own. Neither would a sea of norms. Norms need custodianship. With America and Europe losing faith in multilateral norms, the responsibility should pass on to the new rising powers, China and India, to maintain these norms. Indeed, both China and India want to preserve them, but only India can provide the leadership to do so. China cannot, for a simple geopolitical reason. The rise of India is not generating alarm in Washington DC. The rise of China is. Hence, China, in an effort to assuage American concerns, is deliberately trying to avoid assuming any kind of global leadership. When the Cancun trade meetings failed, Indian Trade and Industry Minister Kamal Nath could confidently explain India’s position and challenge the American and European perspectives. The Chinese Trade Minister said nothing.
By default, the weight of global leadership may fall on India’s shoulders. Fortunately, India is well-qualified to provide such leadership. Its credentials as the world’s largest democracy; its open, tolerant and inclusive culture; its unique geopolitical and cultural position as a bridge between East and West provides it a unique opportunity to provide the leadership for forging new forms of global governance that spaceship Earth desperately needs as it sails into the future.
Kishore Mahbubani is Dean, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.
He is the author of The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East.
A Tale of Two Peoples
Dennis Prager, FrontPageMagazine.com
March 25, 2008
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=A2DBDBAC-3D26-4348-9E70-37242532C88F
The long-suffering Tibetans have been in the news. This happens perhaps once or twice a decade. In a more moral world, however, public opinion would be far more preoccupied with Tibetans than with Palestinians, would be as harsh on China as it is on Israel, and would be as fawning on Israel as it now is on China.
But, alas, the world is, as it has always been, a largely mean-spirited and morally insensitive place, where might is far more highly regarded than right.
Consider the facts: Tibet, at least 1,400 years old, is one of the world's oldest nations, has its own language, its own religion and even its own ethnicity. Over 1 million of its people have been killed by the Chinese, its culture has been systematically obliterated, 6,000 of its 6,200 monasteries have been looted and destroyed, and most of its monks have been tortured, murdered or exiled.
Palestinians have none of these characteristics. There has never been a Palestinian country, never been a Palestinian language, never been a Palestinian ethnicity, never been a Palestinian religion in any way distinct from Islam elsewhere. Indeed, "Palestinian" had always meant any individual living in the geographic area called Palestine. For most of the first half of the 20th century, "Palestinian" and "Palestine" almost always referred to the Jews of Palestine. The United Jewish Appeal, the worldwide Jewish charity that provided the nascent Jewish state with much of its money, was actually known as the United Palestine Appeal. Compared to Tibetans, few Palestinians have been killed, its culture has not been destroyed nor its mosques looted or plundered, and Palestinians have received billions of dollars from the international community. Unlike the dying Tibetan nation, there are far more Palestinians today than when Israel was created.
None of this means that a distinct Palestinian national identity does not now exist. Since Israel's creation such an identity has arisen and does indeed exist. Nor does any of this deny that many Palestinians suffered as a result of the creation of the third Jewish state in the area, known -- since the Romans renamed Judea -- as "Palestine."
But it does mean that of all the causes the world could have adopted, the Palestinians' deserved to be near the bottom and the Tibetans' near the top. This is especially so since the Palestinians could have had a state of their own from 1947 on, and they have caused great suffering in the world, while the far more persecuted Tibetans have been characterized by a morally rigorous doctrine of nonviolence.
So, the question is, why? Why have the Palestinians received such undeserved attention and support, and the far more aggrieved and persecuted and moral Tibetans given virtually no support or attention?
The first reason is terror. Some time ago, the Palestinian leadership decided, with the overwhelming support of the Palestinian people, that murdering as many innocent people -- first Jews, and then anyone else -- was the fastest way to garner world attention. They were right. On the other hand, as The Economist notes in its March 28, 2008 issue, "Tibetan nationalists have hardly ever resorted to terrorist tactics…" It is interesting to speculate how the world would have reacted had Tibetans hijacked international flights, slaughtered Chinese citizens in Chinese restaurants and temples, on Chinese buses and trains, and massacred Chinese schoolchildren.
The second reason is oil and support from powerful fellow Arabs. The Palestinians have rich friends who control the world's most needed commodity, oil. The Palestinians have the unqualified support of all Middle Eastern oil-producing nations and the support of the Muslim world beyond the Middle East. The Tibetans are poor and have the support of no nations, let alone oil-producing ones.
The third reason is Israel. To deny that pro-Palestinian activism in the world is sometimes related to hostility toward Jews is to deny the obvious. It is not possible that the unearned preoccupation with the Palestinians is unrelated to the fact that their enemy is the one Jewish state in the world. Israel's Jewishness is a major part of the Muslim world's hatred of Israel. It is also part of Europe's hostility toward Israel: Portraying Israel as oppressors assuages some of Europe's guilt about the Holocaust -- "see, the Jews act no better than we did." Hence the ubiquitous comparisons of Israel to Nazis.
A fourth reason is China. If Tibet had been crushed by a white European nation, the Tibetans would have elicited far more sympathy. But, alas, their near-genocidal oppressor is not white. And the world does not take mass murder committed by non-whites nearly as seriously as it takes anything done by Westerners against non-Westerners. Furthermore, China is far more powerful and frightening than Israel. Israel has a great army and nuclear weapons, but it is pro-West, it is a free and democratic society, and it has seven million people in a piece of land as small as Belize. China has nuclear weapons, has a trillion U.S. dollars, an increasingly mighty army and navy, is neither free nor democratic, is anti-Western, and has 1.2 billion people in a country that dominates the Asian continent.
A fifth reason is the world's Left. As a general rule, the Left demonizes Israel and has loved China since it became Communist in 1948. And given the power of the Left in the world's media, in the political life of so many nations, and in the universities and the arts, it is no wonder vicious China has been idolized and humane Israel demonized.
The sixth reason is the United Nations, where Israel has been condemned in more General Assembly and Security Council resolutions than any other country in the world. At the same time, the UN has voted China onto its Security Council and has never condemned it. China's sponsoring of Sudan and its genocidal acts against its non-Arab black population, as in Darfur, goes largely unremarked on at the UN, let alone condemned, just as is the case with its cultural genocide, ethnic cleansing and military occupation of Tibet.
The seventh reason is television news, the primary source of news for much of mankind. Aside from its leftist tilt, television news reports only what it can video. And almost no country is televised as much as Israel, while video reports in Tibet are forbidden, as they are almost anywhere in China except where strictly monitored by the Chinese authorities. No video, no TV news. And no TV, no concern. So while grieving Palestinians and the accidental killings of Palestinians during morally necessary Israeli retaliations against terrorists are routinely televised, the slaughter of over a million Tibetans and the extinguishing of Tibetan Buddhism and culture are non-events as far as television news is concerned.
The world is unfair, unjust and morally twisted. And rarely more so than in its support for the Palestinians -- no matter how many innocents they target for murder and no matter how much Nazi-like anti-Semitism permeates their media -- and its neglect of the cruelly treated, humane Tibetans.
Dennis Prager, FrontPageMagazine.com
March 25, 2008
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=A2DBDBAC-3D26-4348-9E70-37242532C88F
The long-suffering Tibetans have been in the news. This happens perhaps once or twice a decade. In a more moral world, however, public opinion would be far more preoccupied with Tibetans than with Palestinians, would be as harsh on China as it is on Israel, and would be as fawning on Israel as it now is on China.
But, alas, the world is, as it has always been, a largely mean-spirited and morally insensitive place, where might is far more highly regarded than right.
Consider the facts: Tibet, at least 1,400 years old, is one of the world's oldest nations, has its own language, its own religion and even its own ethnicity. Over 1 million of its people have been killed by the Chinese, its culture has been systematically obliterated, 6,000 of its 6,200 monasteries have been looted and destroyed, and most of its monks have been tortured, murdered or exiled.
Palestinians have none of these characteristics. There has never been a Palestinian country, never been a Palestinian language, never been a Palestinian ethnicity, never been a Palestinian religion in any way distinct from Islam elsewhere. Indeed, "Palestinian" had always meant any individual living in the geographic area called Palestine. For most of the first half of the 20th century, "Palestinian" and "Palestine" almost always referred to the Jews of Palestine. The United Jewish Appeal, the worldwide Jewish charity that provided the nascent Jewish state with much of its money, was actually known as the United Palestine Appeal. Compared to Tibetans, few Palestinians have been killed, its culture has not been destroyed nor its mosques looted or plundered, and Palestinians have received billions of dollars from the international community. Unlike the dying Tibetan nation, there are far more Palestinians today than when Israel was created.
None of this means that a distinct Palestinian national identity does not now exist. Since Israel's creation such an identity has arisen and does indeed exist. Nor does any of this deny that many Palestinians suffered as a result of the creation of the third Jewish state in the area, known -- since the Romans renamed Judea -- as "Palestine."
But it does mean that of all the causes the world could have adopted, the Palestinians' deserved to be near the bottom and the Tibetans' near the top. This is especially so since the Palestinians could have had a state of their own from 1947 on, and they have caused great suffering in the world, while the far more persecuted Tibetans have been characterized by a morally rigorous doctrine of nonviolence.
So, the question is, why? Why have the Palestinians received such undeserved attention and support, and the far more aggrieved and persecuted and moral Tibetans given virtually no support or attention?
The first reason is terror. Some time ago, the Palestinian leadership decided, with the overwhelming support of the Palestinian people, that murdering as many innocent people -- first Jews, and then anyone else -- was the fastest way to garner world attention. They were right. On the other hand, as The Economist notes in its March 28, 2008 issue, "Tibetan nationalists have hardly ever resorted to terrorist tactics…" It is interesting to speculate how the world would have reacted had Tibetans hijacked international flights, slaughtered Chinese citizens in Chinese restaurants and temples, on Chinese buses and trains, and massacred Chinese schoolchildren.
The second reason is oil and support from powerful fellow Arabs. The Palestinians have rich friends who control the world's most needed commodity, oil. The Palestinians have the unqualified support of all Middle Eastern oil-producing nations and the support of the Muslim world beyond the Middle East. The Tibetans are poor and have the support of no nations, let alone oil-producing ones.
The third reason is Israel. To deny that pro-Palestinian activism in the world is sometimes related to hostility toward Jews is to deny the obvious. It is not possible that the unearned preoccupation with the Palestinians is unrelated to the fact that their enemy is the one Jewish state in the world. Israel's Jewishness is a major part of the Muslim world's hatred of Israel. It is also part of Europe's hostility toward Israel: Portraying Israel as oppressors assuages some of Europe's guilt about the Holocaust -- "see, the Jews act no better than we did." Hence the ubiquitous comparisons of Israel to Nazis.
A fourth reason is China. If Tibet had been crushed by a white European nation, the Tibetans would have elicited far more sympathy. But, alas, their near-genocidal oppressor is not white. And the world does not take mass murder committed by non-whites nearly as seriously as it takes anything done by Westerners against non-Westerners. Furthermore, China is far more powerful and frightening than Israel. Israel has a great army and nuclear weapons, but it is pro-West, it is a free and democratic society, and it has seven million people in a piece of land as small as Belize. China has nuclear weapons, has a trillion U.S. dollars, an increasingly mighty army and navy, is neither free nor democratic, is anti-Western, and has 1.2 billion people in a country that dominates the Asian continent.
A fifth reason is the world's Left. As a general rule, the Left demonizes Israel and has loved China since it became Communist in 1948. And given the power of the Left in the world's media, in the political life of so many nations, and in the universities and the arts, it is no wonder vicious China has been idolized and humane Israel demonized.
The sixth reason is the United Nations, where Israel has been condemned in more General Assembly and Security Council resolutions than any other country in the world. At the same time, the UN has voted China onto its Security Council and has never condemned it. China's sponsoring of Sudan and its genocidal acts against its non-Arab black population, as in Darfur, goes largely unremarked on at the UN, let alone condemned, just as is the case with its cultural genocide, ethnic cleansing and military occupation of Tibet.
The seventh reason is television news, the primary source of news for much of mankind. Aside from its leftist tilt, television news reports only what it can video. And almost no country is televised as much as Israel, while video reports in Tibet are forbidden, as they are almost anywhere in China except where strictly monitored by the Chinese authorities. No video, no TV news. And no TV, no concern. So while grieving Palestinians and the accidental killings of Palestinians during morally necessary Israeli retaliations against terrorists are routinely televised, the slaughter of over a million Tibetans and the extinguishing of Tibetan Buddhism and culture are non-events as far as television news is concerned.
The world is unfair, unjust and morally twisted. And rarely more so than in its support for the Palestinians -- no matter how many innocents they target for murder and no matter how much Nazi-like anti-Semitism permeates their media -- and its neglect of the cruelly treated, humane Tibetans.
Ancient Yoga is new mantra for weight loss
IANS, Navhind Times
March 24, 2008
Move over crash diets, tummy tucker belts and fat-loss pills. The latest craze in the battle against the bulge is Yoga.
Those who are practicing Yoga are aware that they are not only getting rid of obesity but preventing major diseases like diabetes and coronary heart disease. Yet others are practicing this ancient discipline to lose fat and to gain a figure that would cause envy' to others. "Last year, about 4,300 people took training and therapy at the institute. Fifty per cent of them were there due to obesity," informed Ishwar Basavaraddi, the director of the Morarji Desai National Institute of Yoga, an autonomous body under the department of AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy). AYUSH comes under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
Basavaraddi said people are increasingly feeling that Yoga is the best preventive method to deal with flab. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), approximately 1.6 billion adults (above 15) were overweight globally in 2005 and at least 400 million were obese. It predicts that by 2015, approximately 2.3 billion adults will be overweight and more than 700 million will be obese. WHO recently said that the economic consequences of obesity are as bad as those due to malnutrition.
Listing heredity, faulty lifestyle, stress and hormonal imbalances as the main reasons for obesity, Basavaraddi said Yoga could easily tackle any lifestyle disease. "One just needs to do a few asanas like forward and backward bending, lateral bending, twisting and topsy-turvy. If people do these asanas for just 15 every day, they will feel the difference themselves," he said. If obesity is due to psychological factors, then meditation is the best way, he added.
"Yoga means freedom from all kinds of suffering. It is the ultimate method. It not only treats the individual but the disease, too. It is an important application to cure the body, mind and soul." Such is the demand for Yoga that Basavaraddi said his institute had to request some of its old students to take classes. "We are bombarded with requests for Yoga classes both by government and private institutes. And most people attend these classes because they are obese." "I have seen that women in the age group of25 to 40 are more concerned about their weight," said Satwinder Kaur, 27, a trainer who passed out from the institute, two years ago. She said people are aware of obesity-related problems and are keen to be disease-free. "They know that obesity could lead to other diseases and believe that Yoga would be able to help them out."
This could be the reason why Rekha Kapur took to Yoga. Both her mother and grandmother are diabetic and she was scared that she would become its victim. "I am very conscious of my health and don't want to take any chances. My friends are taking classes to stay slim and fit. As I am overweight and bordering on obesity, I know I have chances of getting diabetes. So I joined Yoga," she said.
Anup Misra, director and head of the Department of Diabetes and Metabolic Diseases at Fortis Flight Lieutenant Rajan Dhall Hospital, said Yoga could be a good option to reduce obesity. But, he said, it needs to be scientifically proved that Yoga could deal with obesity. "Yoga has been tested to help diabetes and hypertension patients. But there has been no clear-cut study to prove it could tackle excess weight and obesity," said Misra.
He said a study 'is needed as the urbill1 prevalence of obesity has increased alarmingly. Almost· 50 per cent of adult Indians in Delhi fulfill criteria for either obesity or abdominal obesity. "The' prevalence of obesity in children has increased from 16 per cent in 2003-2004 to 29 per cent in 2006," said Misra. It leads to 30 different conditions, including cardiovascular diseases, mainly heart diseases and stroke, diabetes, cancers of breast and' colon, he added.
But for Satwinder Kaur and her hundreds of students, the belief in Yoga is very strong. "Yoga is the perfect answer for a person looking for a cost-effective method, which not only cures them but keeps them fit and thus healthy," she said.
IANS, Navhind Times
March 24, 2008
Move over crash diets, tummy tucker belts and fat-loss pills. The latest craze in the battle against the bulge is Yoga.
Those who are practicing Yoga are aware that they are not only getting rid of obesity but preventing major diseases like diabetes and coronary heart disease. Yet others are practicing this ancient discipline to lose fat and to gain a figure that would cause envy' to others. "Last year, about 4,300 people took training and therapy at the institute. Fifty per cent of them were there due to obesity," informed Ishwar Basavaraddi, the director of the Morarji Desai National Institute of Yoga, an autonomous body under the department of AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy). AYUSH comes under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
Basavaraddi said people are increasingly feeling that Yoga is the best preventive method to deal with flab. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), approximately 1.6 billion adults (above 15) were overweight globally in 2005 and at least 400 million were obese. It predicts that by 2015, approximately 2.3 billion adults will be overweight and more than 700 million will be obese. WHO recently said that the economic consequences of obesity are as bad as those due to malnutrition.
Listing heredity, faulty lifestyle, stress and hormonal imbalances as the main reasons for obesity, Basavaraddi said Yoga could easily tackle any lifestyle disease. "One just needs to do a few asanas like forward and backward bending, lateral bending, twisting and topsy-turvy. If people do these asanas for just 15 every day, they will feel the difference themselves," he said. If obesity is due to psychological factors, then meditation is the best way, he added.
"Yoga means freedom from all kinds of suffering. It is the ultimate method. It not only treats the individual but the disease, too. It is an important application to cure the body, mind and soul." Such is the demand for Yoga that Basavaraddi said his institute had to request some of its old students to take classes. "We are bombarded with requests for Yoga classes both by government and private institutes. And most people attend these classes because they are obese." "I have seen that women in the age group of25 to 40 are more concerned about their weight," said Satwinder Kaur, 27, a trainer who passed out from the institute, two years ago. She said people are aware of obesity-related problems and are keen to be disease-free. "They know that obesity could lead to other diseases and believe that Yoga would be able to help them out."
This could be the reason why Rekha Kapur took to Yoga. Both her mother and grandmother are diabetic and she was scared that she would become its victim. "I am very conscious of my health and don't want to take any chances. My friends are taking classes to stay slim and fit. As I am overweight and bordering on obesity, I know I have chances of getting diabetes. So I joined Yoga," she said.
Anup Misra, director and head of the Department of Diabetes and Metabolic Diseases at Fortis Flight Lieutenant Rajan Dhall Hospital, said Yoga could be a good option to reduce obesity. But, he said, it needs to be scientifically proved that Yoga could deal with obesity. "Yoga has been tested to help diabetes and hypertension patients. But there has been no clear-cut study to prove it could tackle excess weight and obesity," said Misra.
He said a study 'is needed as the urbill1 prevalence of obesity has increased alarmingly. Almost· 50 per cent of adult Indians in Delhi fulfill criteria for either obesity or abdominal obesity. "The' prevalence of obesity in children has increased from 16 per cent in 2003-2004 to 29 per cent in 2006," said Misra. It leads to 30 different conditions, including cardiovascular diseases, mainly heart diseases and stroke, diabetes, cancers of breast and' colon, he added.
But for Satwinder Kaur and her hundreds of students, the belief in Yoga is very strong. "Yoga is the perfect answer for a person looking for a cost-effective method, which not only cures them but keeps them fit and thus healthy," she said.
North East’s Politico-Terrorist Nexus
Anil Bhat, Himalayan Affairs
http://www.himalayanaffairs.org/articledetails.asp?id=370
Incidents in Assam and Manipur in 2007 yet again blew the lid on the nexus between politicians and insurgent-turned –terrorist groups. Guwahati based Samudra Gupta Kashyap wrote in The Indian Express of March 06, 2007 that less than a month after the outlawed United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) ‘allowed’ the Congress-led government in Assam to peacefully hold the much-delayed 33rd National Games, L K Advani, senior BJP leader and Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha once again reopened the issue of an alleged nexus between the government and the militant group virtually stirring a hornet''s nest with Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi daring the veteran BJP leader and former Union Home Minister to prove his charges. “But it remains a fact that political parties have by and large tried to get the "blessings" of the ULFA and other militant groups from time to time, the most favourite time being during elections. Even the militant group has admitted that political parties make use of the ULFA during elections. The ULFA had a few weeks ago complained that the Congress government made its peace moves and held a few rounds of discussions with an ULFA-nominated body only to tide over the state assembly elections”, wrote Kashyap. He also referred to that famous report saying politicians (and bureaucrats) not only help divert development funds in the Northeast to militant groups, but also that some politicians even take their assistance during election times. An expert group appointed by the Union Home Ministry a few years ago had prepared this report. No wonder political parties in the state do not openly criticize or oppose the ULFA.
On November 10, 2007 Manipur Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh warned of stern action against lawmakers if they were found hobnobbing with separatist militants. The warning followed a series of police raids on official residences of state legislators in the capital city of Imphal in recent months and arrests of hardcore militants sheltered by politicians. "The government would immediately withdraw personal security guards from the house of any MLA found providing shelter to militants. Legal action would also be initiated against anybody found aiding or abetting militancy," a senior government official said. A week earlier Manipur police had raided the official residence of Borajao, a sitting CPI MLA, in Imphal and arrested a hardcore militant of the outlawed People''s Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (Prepak). Similarly, on Aug 11, the police raided the official residences of Congress party MLAs Brajabidhu Singh, Bijoy Koijam and K. Meghachandra and apprehended 12 militants, mostly of the Kanglei Yawoi Kanna Lup (KYKL) group and seized a huge cache of arms and ammunitions from them.
Politician-militant nexus in Manipur is not new. The state has been home to about 19-odd rebel groups whose demands range from secession to greater autonomy to the right to self-determination. As usual, the politicians denied the charges when questioned by the police. "They were all construction workers from my constituency brought to Imphal for renovation of my official residence," Brajabidhu Singh told the police when asked how the KYKL rebels entered his residence. Bijoy Koijam too had an excuse. "The militant arrested from my residence is my driver and he had since long joined the mainstream after shunning insurgency," Koijam was reported to have told the investigators. Another set of incidents which brought out the nexus and politicizati on of the State police was the attacks on Hmar and Kuki tribals by United National Liberation Front (UNLF), in connivance with Myanmar Army as well as replacement of Assam Rifles with India Reserve Battalions, in connection with these incidents.
Despite operations against these groups in both States, militants have been able to launch one of the worst attacks so far and at least seven people were killed and 25 injured when a packed passenger bus hit a landmine in Manipur in December 2007. Manipur has 19 active insurgent groups, almost all of them seeking separate homelands, but none claimed responsibility for the attack. On March 08, 2008, an explosive device was lobbed inside the assembly building in Manipur''s State capital Imphal, damaging the building. While no one was reported injured there is no sign of the culprits.
In Assam, according to South Asia Intelligence Report, quoting Home Ministry and Assam Police, with 439 insurgency-related fatalities in 500 incidents of violence, the State remained the most violent theatre of conflict in India’s North East in 2007. The year 2006 had recorded a marginal decline in total fatalities over the previous year, heralding hopes of ‘stabilization’ in the State . While the army has been making a concerted effort to prevent ULFA from regrouping, with about 900 ULFA operatives or linkmen either captured or surrendered in the past 15 odd months, its uncapured ones, or those on the run have been able to strike here and there. If 2007 was a bad year for these two States, there are no indications of 2008 being any better.
The author, a strategic analyst, is Editor, WordSword Features & Media.
Anil Bhat, Himalayan Affairs
http://www.himalayanaffairs.org/articledetails.asp?id=370
Incidents in Assam and Manipur in 2007 yet again blew the lid on the nexus between politicians and insurgent-turned –terrorist groups. Guwahati based Samudra Gupta Kashyap wrote in The Indian Express of March 06, 2007 that less than a month after the outlawed United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) ‘allowed’ the Congress-led government in Assam to peacefully hold the much-delayed 33rd National Games, L K Advani, senior BJP leader and Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha once again reopened the issue of an alleged nexus between the government and the militant group virtually stirring a hornet''s nest with Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi daring the veteran BJP leader and former Union Home Minister to prove his charges. “But it remains a fact that political parties have by and large tried to get the "blessings" of the ULFA and other militant groups from time to time, the most favourite time being during elections. Even the militant group has admitted that political parties make use of the ULFA during elections. The ULFA had a few weeks ago complained that the Congress government made its peace moves and held a few rounds of discussions with an ULFA-nominated body only to tide over the state assembly elections”, wrote Kashyap. He also referred to that famous report saying politicians (and bureaucrats) not only help divert development funds in the Northeast to militant groups, but also that some politicians even take their assistance during election times. An expert group appointed by the Union Home Ministry a few years ago had prepared this report. No wonder political parties in the state do not openly criticize or oppose the ULFA.
On November 10, 2007 Manipur Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh warned of stern action against lawmakers if they were found hobnobbing with separatist militants. The warning followed a series of police raids on official residences of state legislators in the capital city of Imphal in recent months and arrests of hardcore militants sheltered by politicians. "The government would immediately withdraw personal security guards from the house of any MLA found providing shelter to militants. Legal action would also be initiated against anybody found aiding or abetting militancy," a senior government official said. A week earlier Manipur police had raided the official residence of Borajao, a sitting CPI MLA, in Imphal and arrested a hardcore militant of the outlawed People''s Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (Prepak). Similarly, on Aug 11, the police raided the official residences of Congress party MLAs Brajabidhu Singh, Bijoy Koijam and K. Meghachandra and apprehended 12 militants, mostly of the Kanglei Yawoi Kanna Lup (KYKL) group and seized a huge cache of arms and ammunitions from them.
Politician-militant nexus in Manipur is not new. The state has been home to about 19-odd rebel groups whose demands range from secession to greater autonomy to the right to self-determination. As usual, the politicians denied the charges when questioned by the police. "They were all construction workers from my constituency brought to Imphal for renovation of my official residence," Brajabidhu Singh told the police when asked how the KYKL rebels entered his residence. Bijoy Koijam too had an excuse. "The militant arrested from my residence is my driver and he had since long joined the mainstream after shunning insurgency," Koijam was reported to have told the investigators. Another set of incidents which brought out the nexus and politicizati on of the State police was the attacks on Hmar and Kuki tribals by United National Liberation Front (UNLF), in connivance with Myanmar Army as well as replacement of Assam Rifles with India Reserve Battalions, in connection with these incidents.
Despite operations against these groups in both States, militants have been able to launch one of the worst attacks so far and at least seven people were killed and 25 injured when a packed passenger bus hit a landmine in Manipur in December 2007. Manipur has 19 active insurgent groups, almost all of them seeking separate homelands, but none claimed responsibility for the attack. On March 08, 2008, an explosive device was lobbed inside the assembly building in Manipur''s State capital Imphal, damaging the building. While no one was reported injured there is no sign of the culprits.
In Assam, according to South Asia Intelligence Report, quoting Home Ministry and Assam Police, with 439 insurgency-related fatalities in 500 incidents of violence, the State remained the most violent theatre of conflict in India’s North East in 2007. The year 2006 had recorded a marginal decline in total fatalities over the previous year, heralding hopes of ‘stabilization’ in the State . While the army has been making a concerted effort to prevent ULFA from regrouping, with about 900 ULFA operatives or linkmen either captured or surrendered in the past 15 odd months, its uncapured ones, or those on the run have been able to strike here and there. If 2007 was a bad year for these two States, there are no indications of 2008 being any better.
The author, a strategic analyst, is Editor, WordSword Features & Media.
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