Indira Gandhi’s assassination: condolences in Blacksburg

October 31, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

From Facebook:

Subroto Roy  recalls holding a condolence service on the Va Tech campus in Blacksburg following the assassination of Indira Gandhi by her own bodyguards 25 years ago today. She was a complicated and enigmatic leader with faults and virtues perhaps equally matched.

Posted in Indira Gandhi, Indira Gandhi's assassination, Virgnia Tech. Leave a Comment »

India is not a monarchy! We urgently need to universalize the French concept of “citoyen”! (2009)

March 28, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

Each of the two sons of Feroze and Indira Gandhi died tragically  in his prime, years ago, and it is unbecoming to see their family successors squabble today. Everyone may need to be constantly reminded that this handful of persons are in fact ordinary citizens in our democratic polity, deserving India’s attention principally in such a capacity.

What did, indeed, Feroze Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sanjay Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi “live and die for”?  It was not any one identifiable thing or any set of common things, that seems certain.

Feroze Gandhi from all accounts stood for integrity in Indian politics and journalism; it is not impossible his premature death was related to  his wife’s negligence because she had returned to her father’s side instead.  Jawaharlal Nehru did not do well as a father to promote his daughter so blatantly as his assistant either before 1947

nehruindira70yearsago1

or after.

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Nehru did not achieve political power until well into middle age; his catastrophic misjudgment of communist ideology and intentions, especially Chinese communist ideology and intentions, contributed to an Indian defeat at war, and led soon thereafter to his health collapsing and his death. He and Indira somewhat nonchalantly made a visit to Ceylon even as the Chinese attack was commencing; a high point of my own childhood was saying namaste on October 13 1962 at Colombo airport when they arrived.

nehru

Feroze and Indira’s younger son evidently came to die in a self-inflicted aeronautical mishap of some sort.  What did Sanjay Gandhi “live for”?  The book Foundations of India’s Political Economy: Towards an Agenda for the 1990s created twenty years ago in America

indvol

has a chapter titled “The State of Governance” by the political scientist James Manor which says:

“After 1973 or so, personal loyalty tended increasingly to become the main criterion for advancement in the Congress Party. People who appeared to be loyal often replaced skilled political managers who seemed too independent.  Many of these new arrivals did not worry, as an earlier generation of Congress officials  had done, that excessive private profiteering might earn the wrath of party leaders.  In 1975, Sanjay Gandhi suddenly became the second most powerful figure in Indian politics.  He saw that the parties of the left and right had strong organizations that could put large numbers of militants into the streets for demonstrations while Congress had no such capacity.  In the belief that Congress should also have this kind of muscle, he began recruiting elements from urban centres including the criminal underworld.  The problem of corruption was exacerbated by demands that State-level Congress leaders place large sums of money at the disposal not of the national party but of the persons who presided over it.  Congress chief ministers realized that a fulsome response to these demands went a long way toward insulating them from interference from New Delhi, and a monumental system of fund-raising sprang up.  When so many people were being drawn into semi-institutionalized malfeasance, which seemed to be condoned by higher authorities, it was inevitable many would skim off portions of the funds raised for personal benefit.  Corruption soared. The problem was compounded by the tendency for people to be dismissed from public and party offices abruptly, leading many Congress politicians to fear that their time in power might be quite short.”

I do not have reason to disagree with this  opinion  contained in the book  that I and WE James created  at the University of Hawaii twenty years ago.   If anything, Sanjay’s political model may have spread  itself across  other Indian  political parties in one way or another.

What does strike me as odd in light of current  political controversy is that  several  of Sanjay’s friends and colleagues  are now part-and-parcel of the   Sonia Congress – one must ask, were they such fair-weather  friends that they never  lent a hand or a shoulder to his young widow and her infant son especially against the cruelties Sanjay’s mother bestowed upon them?  Did they offer help or guidance to Sanjay’s son, have they tried to guide him away from becoming the bigoted young politician he seems to wish to be today?

Indira’s major faults included playing favourites among her bahus and her grandchildren with as much gusto as any mother-in-law portrayed on the tackiest TV-serial today.

What were her good deeds?  There was one, and it was an enormously large one, of paramount significance for the country and our subcontinent as a whole: her statesmanship before, during and to some extent after the war that created Bangladesh.  My father has preserved a classic photograph over the years of Indira’s finest period as an international stateswoman, when she visited Paris and other foreign capitals including Washington in the autumn of 1971.

scan0024

She tried to prevent the Yahya Khan/Tikka Khan  genocide in Bangladesh when many  Bangladeshis came to be sacrificed at the altar of the Nixon-Kissinger visits to Mao and Zhou.  She made a major diplomatic effort in world capitals to avert war with West Pakistan over its atrocities in East Pakistan. But war could not be averted, and within a few weeks, in December 1971, Bangladesh was born.

“Indira Gandhi’s one and paramount good deed as India’s leader and indeed as a world leader of her time was to have fought a war that was so rare in international law for having been unambiguously just. And she fought it flawlessly. The cause had been thrust upon her by an evil enemy’s behaviour against his own people, an enemy supported by the world’s strongest military power with pretensions to global leadership. Victims of the enemy’s wickedness were scores of millions of utterly defenceless, penniless human beings. Indira Gandhi did everything right. She practised patient but firm diplomacy on the world’s stage to avert war if it was at all possible to do. She chose her military generals well and took their professional judgment seriously as to when to go to war and how to win it. Finally, in victory she was magnanimous to the enemy that had been defeated. Children’s history-books in India should remember her as the stateswoman who freed a fraternal nation from tyranny, at great expense to our own people. As a war-leader, Indira Gandhi displayed extraordinary bravery, courage and good sense.” (From my review article of Inder Malhotra’s Indira Gandhi, first published in The Statesman May 7 2006.)

“She had indeed fought that rarest of things in international law: the just war. Supported by the world’s strongest military, an evil enemy had made victims of his own people. Indira tried patiently on the international stage to avert war, but also chose her military generals well and took their professional judgment seriously as to when to fight if it was inevitable and how to win. Finally she was magnanimous (to a fault) towards the enemy ~ who was not some stranger to us but our own estranged brother and cousin.  It seemed to be her and independent India’s finest hour. A fevered nation was thus ready to forgive and forget her catastrophic misdeeds until that time….” (From  “Unhealthy Delhi” first published in The Statesman June 11 2007).

What did Indira die for?  I have said it was “blowback” from domestic and/or international politics, similar to what happened to Rajiv Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto in later years.

“Indira Gandhi died in “blowback” from the unrest she and her younger son and others in their party had opportunistically fomented among Sikh fundamentalists and sectarians since the late 1970s.  Rajiv Gandhi died in “blowback” from an erroneous imperialistic foreign policy that he, as Prime Minister, had been induced to make by jingoistic Indian diplomats, a move that got India’s military needlessly involved in the then-nascent Sri Lankan civil war.  Benazir Bhutto similarly may be seen to have died in “blowback” from her own political activity as prime minister and opposition leader since the late 1980s, including her own encouragement of Muslim fundamentalist forces.  Certainly in all three cases, as in all assassinations, there were lapses of security too and imprudent political judgments made that contributed to the tragic outcomes.” From “An Indian Reply to President Zardari”.

And then there was Rajiv.  He did not know me except in his last eight months. It has now emerged that Dr Manmohan Singh’s first bypass operation was in 1990-1991, coinciding precisely with the time I gave Rajiv the results of the perestroika-for-India project that I had led at the University of Hawaii since 1986, an encounter that sparked the 1991 economic reform as has been told elsewhere. Dr Singh was simply not in that loop, nor has he himself ever claimed to have been in it — regardless of what innumerable flatterers, sycophants and other straightforwardly mendacious characters in Delhi’s high power circles have been making out over the years since.  Facts are rather stubborn things.

As a 35-year old newcomer to Delhi and a complete layman on security issues, I did what little I knew  how to try to reduce the vulnerability that I felt  Rajiv  faced from unknown lists of assassins.

“That night KR dropped me at Tughlak Road where I used to stay with friends. In the car I told him, as he was a military man with heavy security cover for himself as a former Governor of J&K, that it seemed to me Rajiv’s security was being unprofessionally handled, that he was vulnerable to a professional assassin. KR asked me if I had seen anything specific by way of vulnerability. With John Kennedy and De Gaulle in mind, I said I feared Rajiv was open to a long-distance sniper, especially when he was on his campaign trips around the country.  This was one of several attempts I made since October 1990 to convey my clear impression to whomever I thought might have an effect that Rajiv seemed to me extremely vulnerable. Rajiv had been on sadhbhavana journeys, back and forth into and out of Delhi. I had heard he was fed up with his security apparatus, and I was not surprised given it seemed at the time rather bureaucratized. It would not have been appropriate for me to tell him directly that he seemed to me to be vulnerable, since I was a newcomer and a complete amateur about security issues, and besides if he agreed he might seem to himself to be cowardly or have to get even closer to his security apparatus. Instead I pressed the subject relentlessly with whomever I could. I suggested specifically two things: (a) that the system in place at Rajiv’s residence and on his itineraries be tested, preferably by some internationally recognized specialists in counter-terrorism; (b) that Rajiv be encouraged to announce a shadow-cabinet. The first would increase the cost of terrorism, the second would reduce the potential political benefit expected by terrorists out to kill him. On the former, it was pleaded that security was a matter being run by the V. P. Singh and then Chandrashekhar Governments at the time. On the latter, it was said that appointing a shadow cabinet might give the appointees the wrong idea, and lead to a challenge to Rajiv’s leadership. This seemed to me wrong, as there was nothing to fear from healthy internal contests for power so long as they were conducted in a structured democratic framework. I pressed to know how public Rajiv’s itinerary was when he travelled. I was told it was known to everyone and that was the only way it could be since Rajiv wanted to be close to the people waiting to see him and had been criticized for being too aloof. This seemed to me totally wrong and I suggested that if Rajiv wanted to be seen as meeting the crowds waiting for him then that should be done by planning to make random stops on the road that his entourage would take. This would at least add some confusion to the planning of potential terrorists out to kill him. When I pressed relentlessly, it was said I should probably speak to “Madame”, i.e. to Mrs. Rajiv Gandhi. That seemed to me highly inappropriate, as I could not be said to be known to her and I should not want to unduly concern her in the event it was I who was completely wrong in my assessment of the danger. The response that it was not in Congress’s hands, that it was the responsibility of the V. P. Singh and later the Chandrashekhar Governments, seemed to me completely irrelevant since Congress in its own interests had a grave responsibility to protect Rajiv Gandhi irrespective of what the Government’s security people were doing or not doing. Rajiv was at the apex of the power structure of the party, and a key symbol of secularism and progress for the entire country. Losing him would be quite irreparable to the party and the country. It shocked me that the assumption was not being made that there were almost certainly professional killers actively out to kill Rajiv Gandhi — this loving family man and hapless pilot of India’s ship of state who did not seem to have wished to make enemies among India’s terrorists but whom the fates had conspired to make a target. The most bizarre and frustrating response I got from several respondents was that I should not mention the matter at all as otherwise the threat would become enlarged and the prospect made more likely! This I later realized was a primitive superstitious response of the same sort as wearing amulets and believing in Ptolemaic astrological charts that assume the Sun goes around the Earth — centuries after Kepler and Copernicus. Perhaps the entry of scientific causality and rationality is where we must begin in the reform of India’s governance and economy. What was especially repugnant after Rajiv’s assassination was to hear it said by his enemies that it marked an end to “dynastic” politics in India. This struck me as being devoid of all sense because the unanswerable reason for protecting Rajiv Gandhi was that we in India, if we are to have any pretensions at all to being a civilized and open democratic society, cannot tolerate terrorism and assassination as means of political change. Either we are constitutional democrats willing to fight for the privileges of a liberal social order, or ours is truly a primitive and savage anarchy concealed beneath a veneer of fake Westernization…..  the news suddenly said Rajiv Gandhi had been killed. All India wept. What killed him was not merely a singular act of criminal terrorism, but the system of humbug, incompetence and sycophancy that surrounds politics in India and elsewhere. I was numbed by rage and sorrow, and did not return to Delhi. Eleven years later, on 25 May 2002, press reports said “P. V. Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh lost their place in Congress history as architects of economic reforms as the Congress High command sponsored an amendment to a resolution that had laid credit at the duo’s door. The motion was moved by…. Digvijay Singh asserting that the reforms were a brainchild of the late Rajiv Gandhi and that the Rao-Singh combine had simply nudged the process forward.” Rajiv’s years in Government, like those of Indira Gandhi, were in fact marked by profligacy and the resource cost of poor macroeconomic policy since bank-nationalisation may be as high as Rs. 125 trillion measured in 1994 rupees. Certainly though it was Rajiv Gandhi as Leader of the Opposition in his last months who was the principal architect of the economic reform that came to begin after his passing.”

(I have had to say that I do not think the policies pursued by Dr Singh thus far have been consistent with the direction I believe Rajiv,  in a second term as PM, would have wished to take. See, for example, “India’s Macroeconomics”, “Fallacious Finance”, “Against Quackery”, “Mistaken Macroeconomics”, and other articles listed and linked at “Memo to Dr Kaushik Basu”.  See also https://independentindian.com/2006/05/21/the-politics-of-dr-singh/ https://independentindian.com/2008/04/25/assessing-manmohan-the-doctor-of-deficit-finance-should-realise-the-currency-is-at-stake/  https://independentindian.com/2013/08/23/did-jagdish-bhagwati-originate-pioneer-intellectually-father-indias-1991-economic-reform-did-manmohan-singh-or-did-i-through-my-encounter-with-rajiv-gandhi-just-as-siddhartha-shan/)

The treatment of Indira or Rajiv or Sanjay or their family successors as royalty of any kind whatsoever in India was, is, and remains absurd, reflecting stunted growth of Indian democracy.  I remember well the obsequiousness I witnessed on the part of old men in the presence of Rajiv Gandhi.

Tribal and mansabdari political cultures still dominate Northern and Western regions of the Indian subcontinent (descending from the Sikhs, Muslims, Rajputs, Mahrattas etc).

Nehru in his younger days was an exemplary democrat, and he had an outstanding democratically-minded young friend in Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah.

abdullahnehru1947

But Nehru and Abdullah as Westernized political liberals were exceptions  in the autocratic/monarchical political cultures of north India (and Pakistan) which continue today and stunt the growth of any democratic mindset.

What we may urgently need is some French  Liberté, égalité, fraternité ! to create a simple ordinary citoyen universally in the country and the subcontinent as a whole!  May we please import a Marquis de Lafayette?

Bengal and parts of Dravidian India have long lost fondness for monarchy and autocracy —  Western political liberalism began to reach  Kolkata  almost two centuries ago after all (see e.g. Tapan Raychaudhuri’s  fine study Europe Reconsidered). Both Nepal and Pakistan have been undergoing radical transformation towards democracy in recent  months, as Bengali Pakistanis had done 40 years earlier under Sheikh Mujib.  I said last year and say again that there may be a dangerous  intellectual vacuum around the throne of Delhi.

Subroto Roy

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An Indian Reply to President Zardari: Rewarding Pakistan for bad behaviour leads to schizophrenic relationships

December 19, 2008 — drsubrotoroy

An Indian Reply to President Zardari:

 

Rewarding Pakistan for bad behaviour leads to schizophrenic relationships

 

by

Subroto Roy

 

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari’s recent argument in the New York Times resembles closely the well-known publications of his ambassador to the United States, Mr Husain Haqqani.  Unfortunately, this Zardari-Haqqani thesis about Pakistan’s current predicament in the world and the world’s predicament with Pakistan is shot through with clear factual and logical errors. These  need to be aired because true or useful conclusions cannot be reached from mistaken premises or faulty reasoning.

1.  Origins of Pakistan, India, J&K, and their mutual problems

Mr Zardari makes the following seemingly innocuous statement:

“…. the two great nations of Pakistan and India, born together from the same revolution and mandate in 1947, must continue to move forward with the peace process.”

Now as a matter of simple historical fact, the current entities in the world system known as India and Pakistan were not “born together from the same revolution and mandate in 1947”.  It is palpably false to suppose they were and Pakistanis indulge in wishful thinking and self-deception about their own political history if they suppose this.

India’s Republic arose out of the British Dominion known as “India” which was the legal successor of the entity known previously in international law as “British India”.  British India had had secular governance and so has had the Indian Republic.

By contrast, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan arose out of a newly created state in international law known as the British Dominion of Pakistan, consisting of designated territory carved out of British India by a British decision and coming into existence one day before British India extinguished itself. (Another new state, Bangladesh, later seceded from Pakistan.)

The British decision to create territory designated “Pakistan” had nothing to do with any anti-British “revolution” or “mandate” supported by any Pakistani nationalism because there was none.  (Rahmat Ali’s anti-Hindu pamphleteering in London could be hardly considered Pakistani nationalism against British rule.  Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan’s Pashtun patriots saw themselves as Indian, not Pakistani.)

To the contrary, the British decision had to do with a small number of elite Pakistanis — MA Jinnah foremost among them — demanding not to be part of the general Indian nationalist movement that had been demanding a British departure from power in the subcontinent.   Jinnah’s separatist party, the Muslim League, was trounced in the 1937 provincial elections in all the Muslim-majority areas of British India that would eventually become Pakistan.  Despite this, in September 1939, Britain, at war with Nazi Germany, chose to elevate the political power of Jinnah and his League to parity with the general Indian nationalist movement led by MK Gandhi.  (See, Francis Robinson, in William James and Subroto Roy (eds), Foundations of Pakistan’s Political Economy: Towards an Agenda for the 1990s.)  Britain needed India’s mostly Muslim infantry-divisions — the progenitors of the present-day Pakistan Army — and if that meant tilting towards a risky political idea of “Pakistan” in due course, so it would be.  The thesis that Pakistan arose from any kind of “revolution” or “mandate” in 1947 is  fantasy — the Muslim super-elite that invented and endorsed the Pakistan idea flew from Delhi to Karachi in chartered BOAC Dakotas, caring not a hoot about the vulnerability of ordinary Muslim masses to Sikh and Hindu majority wrath and retaliation on the ground.

Modern India succeeded to the rights and obligations of British India in international law, and has had a recognized existence as a state since at least the signing of the Armistice and Treaty of Versailles in 1918-1919.  India was a founding member of the United Nations, being a signatory of the 1945 San Francisco Declaration, and an original member of the Bretton Woods institutions.  An idea put forward by Argentina that as of 1947 India and Pakistan were both successor states of British India was rejected by the UN (Argentina withdrew its own suggestion), and it was universally acknowledged India was already a member of the UN while Pakistan would have to (and did) apply afresh for membership as a newly created state in the UN.  Pakistan’s entry into the UN had the enthusiastic backing of India and was opposed by only one existing UN member, Afghanistan, due to a conflict that continues to this day over the legitimacy of the Durand Line that bifurcated the Pashtun areas.

Such a review of elementary historical facts and the position in law of Pakistan and India is far from being of merely pedantic interest today.  Rather, it goes directly to the logical roots of the conflict over the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) — a state that itself originated as an entity in the world system a full century before Pakistan was to do so and more than half a century before British India did, but which would collapse into anarchy and civil war in 1947-1949.

Britain (or England) had been a major nation-state in the world system recognized since Grotius first outlined modern international law. On March 16 1846, Britain entered into a treaty, the Treaty of Amritsar, with one Gulab Singh, and the “State of Jammu & Kashmir” came to arise as a recognizable entity in international law for the first time. (See my “History of Jammu and Kashmir” published in The Statesman, Oct 29-30 2006, available elsewhere here.)

Jammu & Kashmir continued in orderly existence as a state until it crashed into legal and political anarchy and civil war a century later.  The new Pakistan had entered into a “Standstill Agreement” with the State of Jammu & Kashmir as of August 15 1947. On or about October 22 1947, Pakistan unilaterally ended that Standstill Agreement and instead caused military forces from its territory to attack the State of Jammu & Kashmir along the Mansehra Road towards Baramula and Srinagar, coinciding too with an Anglo-Pakistani coup d’etat in Gilgit and Baltistan (see my “Solving Kashmir”; “Law, Justice & J&K”; “Pakistan’s Allies”, all published in The Statesman in 2005-2006 and available elsewhere here).

The new Pakistan had chosen, in all deliberation, to forswear law, politics and diplomacy and to resort to force of arms instead in trying to acquire J&K for itself via a military decision.  It succeeded only partially.  Its forces took and then lost both Baramula and Kargil; they may have threatened Leh but did not attempt to take it; they did take and retain Muzaffarabad and Skardu; they were never near taking the summer capital, Srinagar, though might have threatened the winter capital, Jammu.

All in all, a Ceasefire Line came to be demarcated on the military positions as of February 1 1949.  After a war in 1971 that accompanied the secession of Bangladesh from Pakistan, that Ceasefire Line came to be renamed the “Line of Control” between Pakistan and India. An ownerless entity may be acquired by force of arms — the erstwhile State of Jammu & Kashmir in 1947-1949 had become an ownerless entity that had been dismembered and divided according to military decision following an armed conflict between Pakistan and India.  The entity in the world system known as the “State of Jammu & Kashmir” created on March 16 1846 by Gulab Singh’s treaty with the British ceased to exist as of October 22 1947.  Pakistan had started the fight over J&K but there is a general rule of conflicts that he who starts  a fight does not get to finish it.

 

Such is the simplest and most practical statement of the history of the current problem.  The British, through their own compulsions and imperial pretensions, raised all the talk about a “Lapse of Paramountcy” of the British Crown over the “Native Princes” of “Indian India”, and of how, the “Native Princes” were required to “accede” to either India or Pakistan.  This ignored Britain’s own constitutional law.  BR Ambedkar pointed out with unsurpassed clarity that no “Lapse of Paramountcy” was possible even for a single logical moment since “Paramountcy” over any “Native Princes” who had not joined India or Pakistan as of August 15 1947, automatically passed from British India to its legal successor, namely, the Dominion of India.   It followed that India’s acquiescence was required for any subsequent accession to Pakistan – an acquiescence granted in case of Chitral and denied in case of Junagadh.

 

What the Republic of India means by saying today that boundaries cannot be redrawn nor any populations forcibly transferred is quite simply that the division of erstwhile J&K territory is permanent, and that sovereignty over it is indivisible. What Pakistan has claimed is that India has been an occupier and that there are many people inhabiting the Indian area who may not wish to be Indian nationals and who are being compelled against their will to remain so ~  forgetting to add that precisely the same could be said likewise of the Pakistani-held area. The lawful solution I proposed in “Solving Kashmir, “Law, Justice and J&K” and other works has been that the Republic of India invite every person covered under its Article 370, citizen-by-citizen, under a condition of full information, to privately and without fear decide, if he/she has not done so already, between possible Indian, Iranian, Afghan or Pakistani nationalities ~ granting rights and obligations of permanent residents to any of those persons who may choose for whatever private reason not to remain Indian nationals. If Pakistan acted likewise, the problem of J&K would indeed come to be resolved. The Americans, as self-appointed mediators, have said they wish “the people of the region to have a voice” in a solution: there can be no better expression of such voice than allowing individuals to privately choose their own nationalities and their rights and responsibilities accordingly. The issue of territorial sovereignty is logically distinct from that of the choice of nationality by individual inhabitants.

 

 

2.  Benazir’s assassination falsely compared to the Mumbai massacres

Secondly, President Zardari draws a mistaken comparison between the assassination last year of his wife, Benazir Bhutto, and the Mumbai massacres a few weeks ago.  Ms Bhutto’s assassination may resemble more closely the assassinations in India of Indira Gandhi in 1984 and Rajiv Gandhi in 1991.

 

Indira Gandhi died in “blowback” from the unrest she and her younger son and others in their party had opportunistically fomented among Sikh fundamentalists and sectarians since the late 1970s.  Rajiv Gandhi died in “blowback” from an erroneous imperialistic foreign policy that he, as Prime Minister, had been induced to make by jingoistic Indian diplomats, a move that got India’s military needlessly involved in the then-nascent Sri Lankan civil war.  Benazir Bhutto similarly may be seen to have died in “blowback” from her own political activity as prime minister and opposition leader since the late 1980s, including her own encouragement of Muslim fundamentalist forces.  Certainly in all three cases, as in all assassinations, there were lapses of security too and imprudent political judgments made that contributed to the tragic outcomes.

 

Ms Bhutto’s assassination has next to nothing to do with the Mumbai massacres, besides the fact the perpetrators in both cases were Pakistani terrorists.  President Zardari saying he himself has lost his wife to terrorism is true but not relevant to the proper diagnosis of the Mumbai massacres or to Pakistan-India relations in general.  Rather, it  serves to deflect criticism and condemnation of the Pakistani state’s pampered handing of Pakistan’s terrorist masterminds, as well as the gross irresponsibility of Pakistan’s military scientists (not AQ Khan) who have been recently advocating a nuclear first strike against India in the event of war.

 

 

3.  Can any religious nation-state be viable in the modern world?

President Zardari’s article says:

 

“The world worked to exploit religion against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan by empowering the most fanatic extremists as an instrument of destruction of a superpower. The strategy worked, but its legacy was the creation of an extremist militia with its own dynamic.”

 

This may be overly simplistic.  As pointed out in my article “Pakistan’s Allies”,  Gregory Zinoviev himself  after the Bolshevik Revolution had declared that international communism “turns today to the peoples of the East and says to them, ‘Brothers, we summon you to a Holy War first of all against British imperialism!’ At this there were cries of Jehad! Jehad! And much brandishing of picturesque Oriental weapons.” (Treadgold, Twentieth Century Russia, 1990, p. 213).   For more than half of the 20th century, orthodox Muslims had been used by Soviet communists against British imperialism, then by the British and Americans (through Pakistan) against Soviet communism.  Touché! Blowback and counter-blowback!  The real question that arises from this today may be why orthodox Muslims have allowed themselves to be used either way by outside forces and have failed in developing a modern nation-state and political culture of their own.  Europe and America only settled down politically after their religious wars were over.  Perhaps no religious nation-state is viable in the modern world.

 

 

4.  Pakistan’s behaviour leads to schizophrenia in international relations

 

President Zardari pleads for, or perhaps demands, resources from the world:

“the best response to the Mumbai carnage is to coordinate in counteracting the scourge of terrorism. The world must act to strengthen Pakistan’s economy and democracy, help us build civil society and provide us with the law enforcement and counterterrorism capacities that will enable us to fight the terrorists effectively.”

Six million pounds from Mr Gordon Brown, so much from here or there etc —  President Zardari has apparently demanded 100 billion dollars from America and that is the price being talked about for Pakistan to dismantle its nuclear weapons and be brought under an American “nuclear umbrella” instead.

I have pointed out elsewhere that what Pakistan seems to have been doing in international relations for decades is send out “mixed messages” – i.e. contradictory signals,  whether in thought, word or deed.  Clinical psychologists following the work of Gregory Bateson would say this leads to confusion among Pakistan’s interlocutors (a “double bind”) and the symptoms arise of what may be found in schizophrenic relationships.  (See my article “Do President-elect Obama’s Pakistan specialists believe…”; on the “double bind” theory,  an article I chanced to publish in the Journal of Genetic Psychology, 1986, may be of interest).

Here are a typical set of “mixed messages” emanating from Pakistan’s government and opinion-makers:

“We have nuclear weapons
“We keep our nuclear weapons safe from any misuse or unauthorized use
“We are willing to use nuclear weapons in a first strike against India
“We do not comprehend the lessons of Hiroshima-Nagasaki
“We do not comprehend the destruction India will visit upon us if we strike them
“We are dangerous so we must not be threatened in any way
“We are peace-loving and want to live in peace with India and Afghanistan
“We love to play cricket with India and watch Bollywood movies
“We love our Pakistan Army as it is one public institution that works
“We know the Pakistan Army has backed armed militias against India in the past
“We know these militias have caused terrorist attacks
“We are not responsible for any terrorist attacks
“We do not harbour any terrorists
“We believe the world should pay us to not use or sell our nuclear weapons
“We believe the world should pay us to not encourage the terrorists in our country
“We believe the world should pay us to prevent terrorists from using our nuclear weapons
“We hate India and do not want to become like India
“We love India and want to become like India
“We are India and we are not India…”

Etc.

A mature rational responsible and self-confident Pakistan would have said instead:

“We apologise to India and other countries for the outrageous murders our nationals have committed in Mumbai and elsewhere
“We ask the world to watch how our professional army is deployed to disarm civilian and all “non-state” actors of unauthorized firearms and explosives
“We do not need and will not demand or accept a dollar in any sort of foreign aid, military or civilian, to solve our problems
“We realize our economic and political institutions are a mess and we must clean them up
“We will strive to build a society imbued with what Iqbal described as the spirit of modern times..”

As someone who created at great personal cost at an American university twenty years ago the book Foundations of Pakistan’s Political Economy: Towards an Agenda for the 1990s, I have a special interest in hoping that Pakistan shall find the path of wisdom.

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