Pakistan’s & India’s Illusions of Power (Psychosis vs Vanity)

March 3, 2015 — drsubrotoroy

Preface: This paper culminates my line of argument since our University of Hawaii Pakistan book in the mid 1980s, through my work on the Kashmir problem in the 1990s, published in The Statesman in 2005/2006 etc and  in my undelivered Lahore lectures of 2011.  https://independentindian.com/2011/10/13/my-seventy-one-notes-at-facebook-etc-on-kashmir-pakistan-and-of-course-india-listed-thanks-to-jd/ The paper has faced resistance from both Indian and Pakistani newspapers for obvious reasons.  I would like to especially thank Beena Sarwar and Gita Sahgal in recent weeks for helpful comments.  (And Frank Hahn, immediately saw when I mentioned it to him in 2004 that my solution was Pareto-improving…etc)

 

The *Bulletin of Atomic Scientists* recently reported an Urdu book *Taqat ka Sarab* (‘*Illusion of Power*) published in Pakistan in December 2014 edited by the physicist Dr AH Nayyar. The book “aims to educate Pakistanis about the attitudes of their leadership toward nuclear weapons”. It says “Pakistan’s people have come to believe that the successful acquisition of nuclear capability means that their nation’s security is forever ensured”. Pakistani politicians, scientists and officials who created these weapons have used them to justify a “right to unlimited authority for ruling over Pakistan”. “Consequently, free discussion and honest opinion about nuclear weapons have been nearly prohibited, under the premise that any such talk poses a basic threat to national security.”

Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri’s order to Indian forces to cross the Punjab border towards Lahore in 1965 in response to President Ayub Khan’s attack in Kashmir genuinely shocked Pakistan’s political and military establishment at the time. It may have continued to do so ever since. Everyone in Lahore for those few days in September 1965 was ready to battle the invasion of infidel India considered imminent when Indian forces reached the Ichogil canal.

“Hindu-dominated India wants to occupy us and destroy the Pakistan Principle for which our martyrs died” has been the constantly heard Pakistani refrain. After 1965 it did not take long for Pakistan, via the ignominy of the 1971 surrender in Dhaka, to acquire by any means the technology to develop its own nuclear weapons, even under the noses of its American friends.

Now Pakistan is said to have some 110 nuclear warheads, mostly in a disassembled state but with a few on fighter-jets in hidden air-bases in Balochistan (made by the USA decades ago) always at the ready, waiting for that Indian attack that will never come. It may all have been psychotic delusion.

India has never initiated hostilities against Pakistan. Not once. Not in 1947, 1965, 1971, 1999, 2008.

In 1971 India undoubtedly supported the Mukti Bahini, and I myself, as a schoolboy distributing supplies to refugees from East Pakistan/Bangladesh, was personally witness to Indian military involvement as of August 1971. Even so, hostilities between the countries formally began on 3 December 1971 with the surprise Pakistani air attack on Indian bases in Punjab and UP.

Though India has never attacked first, the myth continues in Pakistan that wicked Hindu-dominated India wants to attack and suppress their country. What is closer to the truth is that the New Delhi elite is barely able to run New Delhi, and the last place on earth they would want to run is Pakistan.

On our Indian side, the Indian military has been allowed a budgetary carte blanche for decades, especially with foreign exchange resources. (Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on 28 February 2015 has allocated some 2,467 billion INR to the military.)

Despite our vast spending, a band of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba terrorists tyrannized Mumbai for days on end while we seem perpetually without strategy against the People’s Republic of China’s recurrent provocations.

The two world powers with traditional interests in India — Russia and Britain — place their long-term agents in Delhi’s high politics and places with impunity, getting done all they need to in particular cases. The USA, France, Israel and others follow suit – all mainly to do with selling India very expensive military weapons, aircraft etc. that they have in excess inventory.  India now has the notorious distinction of being the world’s largest weapons’ importer.

weaponsimportsfinal

Yet we are hardly a trading or monetary superpower.  We have large current account and budgetary deficits, and we are essentially buying whatever weapons, aircraft, shopping malls etc. that we do on foreign credit that we may or may not have. (Pakistan does the same.)

India’s illusions of power have to do with boasting a very large military that can take on the imperialists. We do not realize the New Imperialism that may control Delhi is not of a Clive or Dupleix but of clandestine or open foreign lobbyists and agents who get done what their masters need to have done on a case-by-case basis. The result is a corrosion of Indian power, sovereignty, and credit, little by little, and may lead to a collapse or grave crisis in the future. Even the BJP/RSS Government of Mr Modi (let aside the Sonia-Manmohan Congress and official Communists) may not realize how it all came about.

The way forward for both Pakistan and India is to seek to break the impasse between ourselves.

And there is no doubt the root problem remains Kashmir, and the hysteria and terrorism it has spawned over the years.  A resolution of these fundamental issues calls for some hard scholarship, political vision and guts. The vapid gassing of stray bureaucrats, journalists, diplomats or generals has gotten everyone precisely nowhere thus far.

I have argued at length in previous publications that the *de facto* boundary that was the Ceasefire Line in 1949, and was later renamed the Line of Control in 1972, is indeed also the *de jure* boundary between India and Pakistan.

Jammu & Kashmir came into existence as a legal entity on 16 March 1846 under the Dogra Gulab Singh, friend of the British during the Sikh wars, and a protégé earlier of the great Sikh Ranjit Singh.

Dogra J&K ended its existence as an entity recognized in international law on 15 August 1947. (Hari Singh, the fourth and last Dogra ruler where Gulab Singh had been the first, desperately sought Clement Attlee’s recognition but did not get it.)  Thanks to British legal confusion, negligence or cunning, the territory of what had been known as Dogra Jammu & Kashmir became sovereign-less or ownerless territory in international law on that date, with the creation of the new Pakistan and new India.

The new Pakistan as of August-September 1947 immediately started to plan to take the territory by force, and sought to implement that plan as of 22 October. Had the Pakistani attackers not stopped to indulge in the Rape of Baramullah, they would have taken Srinagar airport by 26 October, and there would have been no Indian defence of the territory possible. As matters turned out, the ownerless territory of what had been Dogra Jammu & Kashmir came to be divided by “military decision” (to use the UN’s term) between the new Pakistan and new India. Kargil and Drass were taken by Pakistan and then lost. Skardu was held by India and later lost. Neither military ever since is going to permit the other to take an inch from itself either by war or by diplomacy.

The *de facto* boundary over ownerless territory divided by military force is the *de jure* boundary in the Roman law that underlies all international law. Once both sides recognize that properly, we may proceed to the next stages. 

On the Pakistani side, recognizing Indian sovereignty over Indian territory in what had been J&K requires stamping out the LeT etc – perhaps not so much by force as by explaining to them that the fight is over, permanently. There is no jihad against India now or ever. Indian territory is not dar-ul-harb but dar-ul-aman: where more than one hundred million Muslim citizens of India freely and peacefully practice their faith.

On the Indian side, if, say, SAS Geelani and friends, under conditions of individual privacy, security and full information, wish to renounce Indian nationality, become stateless, and apply for some other nationality (like Pakistani or Afghan or Iranian) while continuing to live lawfully and law-abidingly on Indian territory, do we have a problem with that? We can’t really. The expatriate children of the Indian elite have renounced Indian nationality in America, Britain, Australia etc upon far weaker principles or beliefs. India has many foreign nationals living permanently on its territory peacefully and law-abidingly (Sir Mark Tully perhaps the most notable) and can add a few more.

The road would be gradually opened for an exchange of consulates between India and Pakistan in Srinagar and Muzaffarabad (leave aside vice-consulates or tourist offices in Jammu, Gilgit, Skardu, Leh). And the remaining Hurriyat, as new Pakistani nationals living in India, can visit the Pakistani consul in Srinagar for tea every day if they wish, to discuss Pakistani matters like Afridi’s cricket or Bilawal’s politics or whatever. 

The militaries and potentially powerful economies on both sides could then proceed towards real strength and cooperation, having dispelled their current illusions of power.

Viz  https://independentindian.com/2011/10/13/my-seventy-one-notes-at-facebook-etc-on-kashmir-pakistan-and-of-course-india-listed-thanks-to-jd/

 

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Pakistan’s Point of View (Or Points of View) on Kashmir: My As Yet Undelivered Lahore Lecture–Part I

November 22, 2011 — drsubrotoroy

Preface

27 April 2015 from Twitter: “My Pakistani hosts never managed to go thru w their 2010/11 invitation I speak in Lahore on Kashmir. After ‪#‎SabeenMahmud‬ s murder, I decline”

October 2015 from Twitter: I have started a quite thorough critique under #kasuri etc at Twitter of the extremely peculiar free publicity given in Delhi and  Mumbai power circles to the dressed up (and false) ISI/Hurriyat narrative of KM Kasuri; the Musharraf “demilitarisation/borderless” idea that Mr Kasuri promotes is originally mine from our Pakistan book in America in the 1980s, which I brought to the attention of both sides (and the USA) in Washington in 1993 but which I myself later rejected as naive and ignorant  after the Pakistani aggression in Kargil in 1999, especially the murder of Lt Kalia and his platoon as POWs. https://independentindian.com/2006/12/15/what-to-tell-musharraf-peace-is-impossible-without-non-aggressive-pakistani-intentions/  https://independentindian.com/2008/11/15/of-a-new-new-delhi-myth-and-the-success-of-the-university-of-hawaii-1986-1992-pakistan-project/ 

see too https://independentindian.com/2011/10/13/my-seventy-one-notes-at-facebook-etc-on-kashmir-pakistan-and-of-course-india-listed-thanks-to-jd/

I have also now made clear how and why my Lahore lecture (confirmed by the Pakistani envoy to Delhi personally phoning me of his own accord at home on 3 March 2011, followed the next day by the Indian Foreign Secretary phoning to give me an appointment to brief her about my talk upon my return) came to be sabotaged by two Pakistanis and two Indian politicians associated with them. (Both of the Indian politicians had bad karma catch up immediately afterwards!)

 

Original Preface  22 November 2011: Exactly a year ago, in late October-November 2010, I received a very kind invitation from the Lahore Oxford and Cambridge Society to speak there on this subject.  Mid March 2011 was a tentative date for this lecture from which the text below is dated.  The lecture has yet to take place for various reasons but as there is demand for its content, I am releasing the part which was due to be released in any case to my Pakistani hosts ahead of time — after all, it would have been presumptuous of me to seek to speak in Lahore on Pakistan’s viewpoint on Kashmir, hence I instead  planned to release my understanding of that point of view ahead of time and open it to the criticism of my hosts.  The structure of the remainder of the talk may be surmised too from the Contents.  The text and argument are mine entirely, the subject of more than 25 years of research and reflection,  and are under consideration of publication as a book by Continuum of London and New York.  If you would like to comment, please feel free to do so, if you would like to refer to it in an online publication, please give this link, if you would like to refer to it in a paper-publication, please   email me.  Like other material at my site, it is open to the Fair Use rule of normal scholarship.

 

On the Alternative Theories of Pakistan and India about Jammu & Kashmir (And the One and Only Way These May Be Peacefully Reconciled): An Exercise in Economics, Politics, Moral Philosophy & Jurisprudence

 by

Subroto (Suby) Roy

Lecture to the Oxford and Cambridge Society of Lahore

March 14, 2011 (tentative)

“What is the use of studying philosophy if all that does for you is to enable you to talk with some plausibility about some abstruse questions of logic, etc., & if it does not improve your thinking about the important questions of everyday life?”  Wittgenstein, letter to Malcolm, 1944

“India is the greatest Muslim country in the world.”

Sir Muhammad Iqbal, 1930, Presidential Address to the Muslim League, Allahabad

 “Where be these enemies?… See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate,… all are punish’d.” Shakespeare

Dr Roy’s published works include Philosophy of Economics: On the Scope of Reason in Economic Inquiry (London & New York: Routledge, 1989, 1991); Pricing, Planning & Politics: A Study of Economic Distortions in India (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1984); and, edited with WE James, Foundations of India’s Political Economy: Towards an Agenda for the 1990s (Hawaii MS 1989, Sage 1992)  &  Foundations of Pakistan’s Political Economy: Towards an Agenda for the 1990s (Hawaii MS 1989, Sage 1992, OUP Karachi 1993); and, edited with John Clarke, Margaret Thatcher’s Revolution: How it Happened and What it Meant (London & New York: Continuum 2005).  He graduated in 1976 with a first from the London School of Economics in mathematical economics, and received the PhD in economics at Cambridge in 1982 under Professor Frank Hahn for the thesis “On liberty & economic growth: preface to a philosophy for India”. In the United States for 16 years he was privileged to count as friends Professors James Buchanan, Milton Friedman, TW Schultz, Max Black and Sidney Alexander.  From September 18 1990 he was an adviser to Rajiv Gandhi and contributed to the origins of India’s 1991 economic reform.  He blogs at http://www.independentindian.com.

CONTENTS

Part I

  1. Introduction

  2. Pakistan’s Point of View (or Points of View)

(a)    1930  Sir Muhammad Iqbal

(b)    1933-1948 Chaudhury Rahmat Ali

(c)    1937-1941 Sir Sikander Hayat Khan

(d)    1937-1947 Quad-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah

(e)    1940s et seq  Maulana Abul Ala Maudoodi

(f)     1947-1950 Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan, 1966 President Ayub Khan, 2005 Govt of Pakistan, 2007 President Musharraf, 2008 FM Qureshi, 2011 Kashmir Day

Part II

  1. India’s Point of View: British Negligence/Indifference during the Transfer of Power, A Case of Misgovernance in the Chaotic Aftermath of World War II

(a)    Rhetoric: Whose Pakistan?  Which Kashmir?

(b)    Law: (i) Liaquat-Zafrullah-Abdullah-Nehru United in Error Over the Second Treaty of Amritsar! Dogra J&K subsists Mar 16 1846-Oct 22 1947. Aggression, Anarchy, Annexations: The LOC as De Facto Boundary by Military Decision Since Jan 1 1949.  (ii) Legal Error & Confusion Generated by 12 May 1946 Memorandum. (iii) War: Dogra J&K attacked by Pakistan, defended by India: Invasion, Mutiny, Secession of “Azad Kashmir” & Gilgit, Rape of Baramulla, Siege of Skardu.

  1. Politics: What is to be Done? Towards Truths, Normalisation, Peace in the 21st Century

The Present Situation is Abnormal & Intolerable. There May Be One (and Only One) Peacable Solution that is Feasible: Revealing Individual Choices Privately with Full Information & Security: Indian “Green Cards”/PIO-OCI status for Hurriyat et al: A Choice of Nationality (India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran).  Of Flags and Consulates in Srinagar & Gilgit etc: De Jure Recognition of the Boundary, Diplomatic Normalisation,  Economic & Military Cooperation.

  1. Appendices:

(a)    History of Jammu & Kashmir until the Dogra Native State

(b)    Pakistan’s Allies (including A Brief History of Gilgit)

(c)    India’s Muslim Voices

(d)    Pakistan’s Muslim Voices: An Excerpt from the Munir Report

Part I

1.  Introduction

For a solution to Jammu & Kashmir to be universally acceptable it must be seen by all as being lawful and just. Political opinion across the subcontinent — in Pakistan, in India, among all people and parties in J&K, those loyal to India, those loyal to Pakistan, and any others — will have to agree that, all things considered, such is the right course of action for everyone today in the 21st Century, which means too that the solution must be consistent with the principal known facts of history as well as account reasonably for all moral considerations.

I claim to have found such a solution, indeed I shall even say it is the only such solution (in terms of theoretical economics, it is the unique solution) and plan with your permission to describe its main outlines at this distinguished gathering.  I have not invented it overnight but it is something  developed over a quarter century, milestones along the way being the books emerging from the University of Hawaii “perestroika” projects for India and Pakistan that I and the late WE James led 25 years ago, and a lecture I gave at Washington’s Heritage Foundation in June 1998, as well as sets of newspaper articles published between 2005 and 2008, one in Dawn of Karachi and others in The Statesman of New Delhi and Kolkata.

Before I start, allow me for a moment to remind just how complex and intractable the problem we face has been, and, therefore, quite how large my ambition is in claiming today to be able to resolve it.

“Kashmir is in the Supreme National Interest of Pakistan”, says Pakistan.

“Kashmir is an Integral Part of India”, says India.

“Kashmir is an Integral Part of Pakistan”, says Pakistan.

“Kashmir is in the Supreme National Interest of India”, says India.

And so it goes, in what over the decades has been all too often a Dialogue of the Deaf.  How may such squarely opposed positions be reconciled without draining public resources even further through wasteful weaponry and confrontation of standing armies, or, what is worse, using these weapons and armies in war, plunging the subcontinent into an abyss of chaos and destruction for generations to come?  How is it possible?

I shall suggest a road can be found only when we realize Pakistan, India and J&K each have been and are going to remain integral to one another — in their histories, their geographies, their economies and their societies.  The only place they may need to differ, where we shall want them to differ, is their politics and political systems. We should not underestimate how much mutual hatred and mutual fear has arisen naturally on all sides over the decades as a result of bloodshed and suffering all around, and the fact must also be accounted for that people simply may not be in a calm-enough emotional state to want to be part of processes seeking resolution; at the same time, it bears to be remembered that although Pakistan and India have been at war more than once and war is always a very serious and awful thing, they have never actually declared war against the other nor have they ever broken diplomatic relations – in fact in some ways it has always seemed like some very long and protracted fraternal Civil War between us where we think we know one another so well and yet come to be surprised more by one another’s virtues than by one another’s vices.

Secondly, with any seemingly intractable problem, dialogue can stall or be aborted due to normal human failings of impatience or lack of good will or lack of good humour or lack of a scientific attitude towards finding facts, or plain mutual miscomprehension of one another’s points of view through ignorance or laziness or negligence.  In case of Pakistan and India over J&K, there has been the further critical complication that we of this generation did not cause this problem — it has been something inherited by us from not even our fathers but our grandfathers!  It is two generations old.  Each side must respect the words and deeds of its forebears but also may have to frankly examine in a scientific spirit where errors of fact or judgment may have occurred back then.  The antagonistic positions have changed only slightly over two generations, and one reason dialogue stalls or gets aborted today is because positions have become frozen for more than half a century and merely get repeated endlessly.  On top of such frozen positions have been piled pile upon pile of further vast mortal complications: the 1965 War, the 1971 secession of East Pakistan, the 1999 Kargil War, the 2008 Mumbai massacres.  Only cacophony results if we talk about everything at once, leaving the status quo of a dangerous expensive confrontation to continue.

I propose instead to focus as specifically and precisely as possible on how Jammu & Kashmir became a problem at all during those crucial decades alongside the processes of Indian Independence, World War II, the Pakistan Movement and creation of Pakistan, accompanied by the traumas and bloodshed of Partition.

Having addressed that — and it is only fair to forewarn this eminent Lahore audience that such a survey of words, deeds and events between the 1930s and 1950s tends to emerge in India’s favour — I propose to “fast-forward” to current times, where certain new facts on the ground appear much more adverse to India, and finally seek to ask what can and ought to be done, all things considered, today in the circumstances of the 21st Century.   There are four central facts, let me for now call them Fact A, Fact B, Fact C and Fact D, which have to be accepted by both countries in good faith and a scientific spirit.  Facts A and B are historical in nature; Pakistan has refused to accept them. Facts C and D are contemporary in nature; official political India and much of the Indian media too often have appeared wilfully blind to them. The moment all four facts come to be accepted by all, the way forward becomes clear.  We have inherited this grave mortal problem which has so badly affected the ordinary people of J&K in the most terrible and unacceptable manner, but if we fail to understand and resolve it, our children and grandchildren will surely fail even worse — we may even leave them to cope with the waste and destruction of further needless war or confrontation, indeed with the end of the subcontinent as we have received and known it in our time.

2. Pakistan’s Point of View (Or Points of View)

1930  Sir Muhammad Iqbal

This audience will need no explanation why I start with Sir Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938), the poetic and spiritual genius who in the 20th Century inspired the notion of a Muslim polity in NorthWestern India, whose seminal 1930 presidential speech to the Muslim League in Allahabad lay the foundation stone of the new country that was yet to be.   He did not live to see Pakistan’s creation yet what may be called the “Pakistan Principle” was captured in his words:

“I would like to see the Punjab, Northwest Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single state. Self-government within the British Empire or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated North West Indian Muslim state appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims at least of Northwest India… India is the greatest Muslim country in the world.  The life of Islam as a cultural force in this living country very largely depends on its centralization in a specified territory”.

He did not see such a consolidated Muslim state being theocratic and certainly not one filled with bigotry or “Hate-Hindu” campaigns:

“A community which is inspired by feelings of ill-will towards other communities is low and ignoble. I entertain the highest respect for the customs, laws, religious and social institutions of other communities… Yet I love the communal group which is the source of my life and my behaviour… Nor should the Hindus fear that the creation of autonomous Muslim states will mean the introduction of a kind of religious rule in such states…. I therefore demand the formation of a consolidated Muslim state in the best interests of India and Islam. For India it means security and peace resulting from an internal balance of power, for Islam an opportunity to rid itself of the stamp that Arabian Imperialism was forced to give it, to mobilise its law, its education, its culture, and to bring them into closer contact with its own original spirit and the spirit of modern times.”[1]

Though Kashmiri himself, in fact a founding member of the “All-India Jammu & Kashmir Muslim Conference of Lahore and Simla”, and a hero and role model for the young Sheikh Abdullah (1905-1982), Allama Iqbal was explicitly silent about J&K being part of the new political entity he had come to imagine.  I do not say he would not have wished it to be had he lived longer; what I am saying is that his original vision of the consolidated Muslim state which constitutes Pakistan today (after a Partitioned Punjab) did not include Jammu & Kashmir.  Rather, it was focused on the politics of British India and did not mention the politics of Kashmir or any other of the so-called “Princely States” or “Native States” of “Indian India” who constituted some 1/3rd of the land mass and 1/4th of the population of the subcontinent.  Twenty years ago I called this “The Paradox of Kashmir”, namely, that prior to 1947 J&K hardly seemed to appear in any discussion at all for a century, yet it has consumed almost all discussion and resources ever since.

Secondly, this audience will see better than I can the significance of Dr Iqbal’s saying the Muslim political state of his conception needed

“an opportunity to rid itself of the stamp that Arabian Imperialism was forced to give it”

and instead seek to

“mobilise its law, its education, its culture, and to bring them into closer contact with its own original spirit and the spirit of modern times”.

Dr Iqbal’s Pakistan Principle appears here the polar opposite of Pakistan’s 18th & 19th Century pre-history represented by Shah Waliullah (1703-1762)[2] saying

“We are an Arab people whose fathers have fallen in exile in the country of Hindustan, and Arabic genealogy and Arabic language are our pride”

 or Sayyid Ahmed Barelwi (1786-1831) saying

“We must repudiate all those Indian, Persian and Roman customs which are contrary to the Prophet’s teaching”.[3]

Some 25 years after the Allahabad address, the Munir Report in 1954 echoed Dr Iqbal’s thought when it observed about medieval military conquests

“It is this brilliant achievement of the Arabian nomads …that makes the Musalman of today live in the past and yearn for the return of the glory that was Islam… Little does he understand that the forces which are pitted against him are entirely different from those against which early Islam had to fight… Nothing but a bold reorientation of Islam to separate the vital from the lifeless can preserve it as a World Idea and convert the Musalman into a citizen of the present and the future world from the archaic incongruity that he is today…” [4]

 

1933-1947  Chaudhury Rahmat Ali

Dr Iqbal’s young follower, the radical Cambridge pamphleteer Chaudhury Rahmat Ali (1895-1951) drew a picture not of Muslim tolerance and coexistence with Hindus in a peaceful India but of aggression towards Hindus and domination by Muslims over the subcontinent and Asia itself.  Rahmat Ali had been inspired by Dr Iqbal’s call for a Muslim state in Northwest India but found it vague and was disappointed Iqbal had not pressed it at the Third Round Table Conference.  In 1933, reportedly on the upper floor of a London omnibus, he invented for the then-imagined political entity the name “PAKSTAN”, P for his native Punjab, A for Afghania, K for Kashmir, S for Sind, and STAN for Balochistan.  He sought a meeting with Mr Jinnah in London — “Jinnah disliked Rahmat Ali’s ideas and avoided meeting him”[5] but did meet him.  There is a thesis yet to be written on how Europe’s inter-War ideologies affected political thinking on the subcontinent.  Rahmat Ali’s vituperative views about Hindus were akin to others about Jews (and Muslims too) at the time, all models or counterfoils for one another in the fringes of Nazism.  He referred to the Indian nationalist movement as a “British-Banya alliance”, declined to admit India had ever existed and personally renamed the subcontinent “Dinia” and the seas around it the “Pakian Sea”, the “Osmanian Sea” etc. He urged Sikhs to rise up in a “Sikhistan” and urged all non-Hindus to rise up in war against Hindus. Given the obscurity of his life before his arrival at Cambridge’s Emmanuel College, what experiences may have led him to such views are not known.

All this was anathema to Mr Jinnah, the secular constitutionalist embarrassed by a reactionary Muslim imperialism in that rapidly modernising era that was the middle of the 20th Century.  When Rahmat Ali pressed the ‘Pakstan’ acronym, Mr Jinnah said Bengal was not in it and Muslim minority regions were absent.  At this Chaudhury-Sahib produced a general scheme of Muslim domination all over the subcontinent: there would be “Pakstan” in the northwest including Kashmir, Delhi and Agra; “Bangistan” in Bengal; “Osmanistan” in Hyderabad; “Siddiquistan” in Bundelhand and Malwa; “Faruqistan” in Bihar and Orissa; “Haideristan” in UP; “Muinistan” in Rajasthan; “Maplistan” in Kerala; even “Safiistan” in “Western Ceylon” and “Nasaristan” in “Eastern Ceylon”, etc.  In 1934 he published and widely circulated such a diagram among Muslims in Britain at the time.  He was not invited to the Lahore Resolution which did not refer to Pakistan though came to be called the Pakistan Resolution.  When he landed in the new Pakistan, he was apparently arrested and deported back and was never granted a Pakistan passport.  From England, he turned his wrath upon the new government, condemning Mr Jinnah as treacherous and newly re-interpreting his acronym to refer to Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir, Iran, Sindh, Tukharistan (sic), Afghanistan, and Balochistan.  The word “pak” coincidentally meant pure, so he began to speak of Muslims as “the Pak” i.e. “the pure” people, and of how the national destiny of the new Pakistan was to liberate “Pak” people everywhere, including the new India, and create a “Pak Commonwealth of Nations” stretching from Arabia to the Indies.  The map he now drew placed the word “Punjab” over J&K, and saw an Asia dominated by this “Pak” empire. Shunned by officialdom of the new Pakistan, Chaudhury-Sahib was a tragic figure who died in poverty and obscurity during an influenza epidemic in 1951; the Master of Emmanuel College paid for his funeral and was apparently later reimbursed for this by the Government of Pakistan.  In recent years he has undergone a restoration, and his grave at Cambridge has become a site of pilgrimage for ideologues, while his diagrams and writings have been reprinted in Pakistan’s newspapers as recently as February 2005.

1937-1941 Sir Sikander Hayat Khan

Chaudhary Rahmat Ali’s harshest critic at the time was the eminent statesman and Premier of Punjab Sir Sikander Hayat Khan (1892-1942), partner of the 1937 Sikander-Jinnah Pact, and an author of the Lahore Resolution.  His statement of 11 March 1941 in the Punjab Legislative Assembly Debates is a classic:

“No Pakistan scheme was passed at Lahore… As for Pakistan schemes, Maulana Jamal-ud-Din’s is the earliest…Then there is the scheme which is attributed to the late Allama Iqbal of revered memory.  He, however, never formulated any definite scheme but his writings and poems have given some people ground to think that Allama Iqbal desired the establishment of  some sort of  Pakistan.  But it is not difficult to explode this theory and to prove conclusively that his conception of  Islamic solidarity and universal brotherhood is not in conflict with Indian patriotism and is in fact quite different from the ideology now sought to be attributed to him by some enthusiasts… Then there is Chaudhuri Rahmat Ali’s scheme (*laughter*)…it was widely circulated in this country and… it was also given wide publicity at the time in a section of the British press.  But there is another scheme…it was published in one of the British journals, I think Round Table, and was conceived by an Englishman…..the word Pakistan was not used at the League meeting and this term was not applied to (the League’s Lahore) resolution by anybody until the Hindu press had a brain-wave and dubbed it Pakistan…. The ignorant masses  have now adopted the slogan provided by the short-sighted bigotry of the Hindu and Sikh press…they overlooked the fact that the word Pakistan might have an appeal – a strong appeal – for the Muslim masses.  It is a catching phrase and it has caught popular imagination and has thus made confusion worse confounded…. So far as we in the Punjab are concerned, let me assure you that we will not countenance or accept any proposal that does not secure freedom for all (*cheers*).  We do not desire that Muslims should domineer here, just as we do not want the Hindus to domineer where Muslims are in a minority. Now would we allow anybody or section to thwart us because Muslims happen to be in a majority in this province.  We do not ask for freedom that there may be a Muslim Raj here and Hindu Raj elsewhere.  If that is what Pakistan means I will have nothing to do with it.   If Pakistan means unalloyed Muslim Raj in the Punjab then I will have nothing to do with it (*hear, hear*)…. If you want real freedom for the Punjab, that is to say a Punjab in which every community will have its due share in the economic and administrative fields as partners in a common concern, then that Punjab will not be Pakistan but just Punjab, land of the five rivers; Punjab is Punjab and will always remain Punjab whatever anybody may say (*cheers*).  This, then, briefly is the future which I visualize for my province and for my country under any new constitution.

Intervention (Malik Barkat Ali): The Lahore resolution says the same thing.

Premier: Exactly; then why misinterpret it and try to mislead the  masses?…”

1937-1947  Quad-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah

During the Third Round Table Conference, Dr Iqbal persuaded Mr Jinnah (1876-1948) to return to India; Mr Jinnah, from being settled again in his London law practice, did so in 1934.  But following the 1935 Govt of India Act, the Muslim League failed badly when British India held its first elections in 1937 not only in Bengal and UP but in Punjab (one seat), NWFP and Sind.

World War II, like World War I a couple of brief decades earlier, then changed the political landscape completely. Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939 and Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September.  The next day, India’s British Viceroy (Linlithgow) granted Mr Jinnah the political parity with Congress that he had sought.[6]  Professor Francis Robinson suggests that until 4 September 1939 the British

“had had little time for Jinnah and his League.  The Government’s declaration of war on Germany on 3 September, however, transformed the situation. A large part of the army was Muslim, much of the war effort was likely to rest on the two Muslim majority provinces of Punjab and Bengal. The following day, the Viceroy invited Jinnah for talks on an equal footing with Gandhi…. As the Congress began to demand immediate independence, the Viceroy took to reassuring Jinnah that Muslim interests would be safeguarded in any constitutional change. Within a few months, he was urging the League to declare a constructive policy for the future, which was of course presented in the Lahore Resolution[7]…. In their August 1940 offer, the British confirmed for the benefit of Muslims that power would not be transferred against the will of any significant element in Indian life. And much the same confirmation was given in the Cripps offer nearly two years later…. Throughout the years 1940 to 1945, the British made no attempt to tease out the contradictions between the League’s two-nation theory, which asserted that Hindus and Muslims came from two different civilisations and therefore were two different nations, and the Lahore Resolution, which demanded that ‘Independent States’ should be constituted from the Muslim majority provinces of the NE and NW, thereby suggesting that Indian Muslims formed not just one nation but two. When in 1944 the governors of Punjab and Bengal urged such a move on the Viceroy, Wavell ignored them, pressing ahead instead with his own plan for an all-India conference at Simla. The result was to confirm, as never before in the eyes of leading Muslims in the majority provinces, the standing of Jinnah and the League. Thus, because the British found it convenient to take the League seriously, everyone had to as well—Congressmen, Unionists, Bengalis, and so on…”[8]

 Mr Jinnah was himself amazed by the new British attitude towards him:

“(S)uddenly there was a change in the attitude towards me. I was treated on the same basis as Mr Gandhi. I was wonderstruck why all of a sudden I was promoted and given a place side by side with Mr Gandhi.”

Britain, threatened for its survival, faced an obdurate Indian leadership and even British socialists sympathetic to Indian aspirations grew cold (Gandhi dismissing the 1942 Cripps offer as a “post-dated cheque on a failing bank”).  Official Britain’s loyalties had been consistently with those who had been loyal to them, and it was unsurprising there would be a tilt to empower Mr Jinnah soon making credible the real possibility of Pakistan.[9]  By 1946, Britain was exhausted, pre-occupied with rationing, Berlin, refugee resettlement and countless other post-War problems — Britain had not been beaten in war but British imperialism was finished because of the War.  Muslim opinion in British India had changed decisively in the League’s favour.   But the  subcontinent’s political processes were drastically spinning out of everyone’s control towards anarchy and blood-letting.  Implementing a lofty vision of a cultured progressive consolidated Muslim state in India’s NorthWest descended into “Direct Action” with urban mobs  shouting Larke lenge Pakistan; Marke lenge Pakistan; Khun se lenge Pakistan; Dena hoga Pakistan.[10]

We shall return to Mr Jinnah’s view on the legal position of the “Native Princes” of “Indian India” during this critical time, specifically J&K; here it is essential before proceeding only to record his own vision for the new Pakistan as recorded by the profoundly judicious report of Justice Munir and Justice Kayani a mere half dozen years later:

“Before the Partition, the first public picture of Pakistan that the Quaid-i-Azam gave to the world was in the course of an interview in New Delhi with Mr. Doon Campbell, Reuter’s Correspondent. The Quaid-i-Azam said that the new State would be a modern democratic State, with sovereignty resting in the people and the members of the new nation having equal rights of citizenship regardless of their religion, caste or creed.  When Pakistan formally appeared on the map, the Quaid-i-Azam in his memorable speech of 11th August 1947 to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, while stating the principle on which the new State was to be founded, said:—‘All the same, in this division it was impossible to avoid the question of minorities being in one Dominion or the other. Now that was unavoidable. There is no other solution. Now what shall we do? Now, if we want to make this great State of Pakistan happy and prosperous we should wholly and solely concentrate on the well-being of the people, and specially of the masses and the poor. If you will work in co-operation, forgetting the past, burying the hatchet, you are bound to succeed. If you change your past and work together in a spirit that every one of you, no matter to what community he belongs, no matter what relations he had with you in the past, no matter what is his colour, caste or creed, is first, second and last a citizen of this State with equal rights, privileges and obligations., there will be no end to the progress you will make.  “I cannot emphasise it too much. We should begin to work in that spirit and in course of time all these angularities of the majority and minority communities—the Hindu community and the Muslim community— because even as regards Muslims you have Pathana, Punjabis, Shias, Sunnis and so on and among the Hindus you have Brahmins, Vashnavas, Khatris, also Bengalis, Madrasis and so on—will vanish. Indeed if you ask me this has been the biggest hindrance in the way of India to attain its freedom and independence and but for this we would have been free peoples long long ago. No power can hold another nation, and specially a nation of 400 million souls in subjection; nobody could have conquered you, and even if it had happened, nobody could have continued its hold on you for any length of time but for this (Applause). Therefore, we must learn a lesson from this. You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed— that has nothing to do with the business of the State (Hear, hear). As you know, history shows that in England conditions sometime ago were much worse than those prevailing in India today. The Roman Catholics and the Protestants persecuted each other. Even now there are some States in existence where there are discriminations made and bars imposed against a particular class. Thank God we are not starting in those days. We are starting in the days when there is no discrimination, no distinction between one community and another, no discrimination between one caste or creed and another. We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one State (Loud applause). The people of England in course of time had to face the realities of the situation and had to discharge the responsibilities and burdens placed upon them by the Government of their country and they went through that fire step by step. Today you might say with justice that Roman Catholics and Protestants do not exist: what exists now is that every man is a citizen, an equal citizen, of Great Britain and they are all members of the nation. “Now, I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State’. The Quaid-i-Azam was the founder of Pakistan and the occasion on which he thus spoke was the first landmark in the history of Pakistan. The speech was intended both for his own people including non-Muslims and the world, and its object was to define as clearly as possible the ideal to the attainment of which the new State was to devote all its energies. There are repeated references in this speech to the bitterness of the past and an appeal to forget and change the past and to bury the hatchet. The future subject of the State is to be a citizen with equal rights, privileges and obligations, irrespective of colour, caste, creed or community. The word ‘nation’ is used more than once and religion is stated to have nothing to do with the business of the State and to be merely a matter of personal faith for the individual.”

1940s et seq  Maulana Abul Ala Maudoodi, Amir Jama’at-i-Islami

The eminent theologian Maulana Abul Ala Maudoodi (1903-1979), founder of the Jama’at-i-Islami, had been opposed to the Pakistan Principle but once Pakistan was created he became the most eminent votary of an Islamic State, declaring:

 “That the sovereignty in Pakistan belongs to God Almighty alone and that the Government of Pakistan shall administer the country as His agent”.

 In such a view, Islam becomes

“the very antithesis of secular Western democracy. The philosophical foundation of Western democracy is the sovereignty of the people. Lawmaking is their prerogative and legislation must correspond to the mood and temper of their opinion… Islam… altogether repudiates the philosophy of popular sovereignty and rears its polity on the foundations of the sovereignty of God and the viceregency (Khilafat) of man.”

Maulana Maudoodi was asked by Justice Munir and Justice Kayani:

 “Q.—Is a country on the border of dar-ul-Islam always qua an Islamic State in the position of dar-ul-harb ?

A.—No. In the absence of an agreement to the contrary, the Islamic State will be potentially at war with the non-Muslim neighbouring country. The non-Muslim country acquires the status of dar-ul-harb only after the Islamic State declares a formal war against it”.

“Q.—Is there a law of war in Islam?

A.—Yes.

Q.—Does it differ fundamentally from the modern International Law of war?

A.—These two systems are based on a fundamental difference.

Q.—What rights have non-Muslims who are taken prisoners of war in a jihad?

A.—The Islamic law on the point is that if the country of which these prisoners are nationals pays ransom, they will be released. An exchange of prisoners is also permitted. If neither of these alternatives is possible, the prisoners will be converted into slaves for ever. If any such person makes an offer to pay his ransom out of his own earnings, he will be permitted to collect the money necessary for the fidya (ransom).

Q.—Are you of the view that unless a Government assumes the form of an Islamic Government, any war declared by it is not a jihad?

A.—No. A war may be declared to be a jihad if it is declared by a national Government of Muslims in the legitimate interests of the State. I never expressed the opinion attributed to me in Ex. D. E. 12:— (translation)‘The question remains whether, even if the Government of Pakistan, in its present form and structure, terminates her treaties with the Indian Union and declares war against her, this war would fall under the definition of jihad? The opinion expressed by him in this behalf is quite correct. Until such time as the Government becomes Islamic by adopting the Islamic form of Government, to call any of its wars a jihad would be tantamount to describing the enlistment and fighting of a non-Muslim on the side of the Azad Kashmir forces jihad and his death martyrdom. What the Maulana means is that, in the presence of treaties, it is against Shari’at, if the Government or its people participate in such a war. If the Government terminates the treaties and declares war, even then the war started by Government would not be termed jihad unless the Government becomes Islamic’.

….

“Q.—If we have this form of Islamic Government in Pakistan, will you permit Hindus to base their Constitution on the basis of their own religion?

A—Certainly. I should have no objection even if the Muslims of India are treated in that form of Government as shudras and malishes and Manu’s laws are applied to them, depriving them of all share in the Government and the rights of a citizen. In fact such a state of affairs already exists in India.”

.…

“Q.—What will be the duty of the Muslims in India in case of war between India and Pakistan?

A.—Their duty is obvious, and that is not to fight against Pakistan or to do anything injurious to the safety of Pakistan.”

1947-1950 PM Liaquat Ali Khan, 1966 Gen Ayub Khan, 2005 Govt of Pakistan et seq

In contrast to Maulana Maudoodi saying Islam was “the very antithesis of secular Western democracy”,  Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan (1895-1951)[11] during his first official visit in 1950 to North America was to say the new Pakistan, because it was Muslim, held Asia’s greatest democratic potential:

“At present there is no democracy in Asia which is more free and more unified than Pakistan; none so free from moral doubts and from strains between the various sections of the people.”

He told his audiences Pakistan was created because Hindus were people wedded to caste-differences where Pakistanis as Muslims had an egalitarian and democratic disposition:

“The Hindus, for example, believe in the caste system according to which some human beings are born superior to others and cannot have any social relations with those in the lower castes or with those who are not Hindus.   They cannot marry them or eat with them or even touch them without being polluted.   The Muslims abhor the caste system, as they are a democratic people and believe in the equality of men and equal opportunities for all, do not consider a priesthood necessary, and have economic laws and institutions which recognize the right of private ownership and yet are designed to promote the distribution of wealth and to put healthy checks on vast unearned accumulations… so the Hindus and the Muslims decided to part and divide British India into two independent sovereign states… Our demand for a country of our own had, as you see, a strong democratic urge behind it.  The emergence of Pakistan itself was therefore the triumph of a democratic idea.  It enabled at one stroke a democratic nation of eighty million people to find a place of its own in Asia, where now they can worship God in freedom and pursue their own way of life uninhibited by the domination or the influence of ways and beliefs that are alien or antagonistic to their genius.” [12]

President Ayub Khan would state in similar vein on 18 November 1966 at London’s Royal Institute of International Affairs:

“the root of the problem was the conflicting ideologies of India and Pakistan. Muslim Pakistan believed in common brotherhood and giving people equal opportunity.  India and Hinduism are based on inequality and on colour and race.  Their basic concept is the caste system… Hindus and Muslims could never live under one Government, although they might live side by side.”

Regarding J&K, Liaquat Ali Khan on November 4 1947 broadcast from here in Lahore that the 1846 Treaty of Amritsar was “infamous” in having caused an  “immoral and illegal” ownership of Jammu & Kashmir.  He, along with Mr Jinnah, had called Sheikh Abdullah a “goonda” and “hoodlum” and “Quisling” of India, and on February 4 1948 Pakistan formally challenged the sovereignty of the Dogra dynasty in the world system of nations.  In 1950 during his North American visit though, the Prime Minister allowed that J&K was a “princely state” but said

“culturally, economically, geographically and strategically, Kashmir – 80 per cent of whose peoples like the majority of the people in Pakistan are Muslims – is in fact an integral part of Pakistan”;

“(the) bulk of the population (are) under Indian military occupation”.

Pakistan’s official self-image, portrayal of India, and position on J&K may have not changed greatly since her founding Prime Minister’s statements.   For example, in June 2005 the website of the Government of Pakistan’s Permanent Mission at the UN stated:

“Q: How did Hindu Raja (sic) become the ruler of Muslim majority Kashmir?

A: Historically speaking Kashmir had been ruled by the Muslims from the 14th Century onwards.  The Muslim rule continued till early 19th Century when the ruler of Punjab conquered  Kashmir and gave Jammu to a Dogra Gulab Singh who purchased Kashmir from the British in 1846 for a sum of 7.5 million rupees.”

“India’s forcible occupation of the State of Jammu and Kashmir in 1947 is the main cause of the dispute. India claims to have ‘signed’ a controversial document, the Instrument of Accession, on 26 October 1947 with the Maharaja of Kashmir, in which the Maharaja obtained India’s military help against popular insurgency.   The people of Kashmir and Pakistan do not accept the Indian claim.   There are doubts about the very existence of the Instrument of Accession.  The United Nations also does not consider Indian claim as legally valid: it recognises Kashmir as a disputed territory.   Except India, the entire world community recognises Kashmir as a disputed territory. The fact is that all the principles on the basis of which the Indian subcontinent was partitioned by the British in 1947 justify Kashmir becoming a part of Pakistan:  the State had majority Muslim population, and it not only enjoyed geographical proximity with Pakistan but also had essential economic linkages with the territories constituting Pakistan.”

India, a country dominated by the hated-Hindus, has forcibly denied Srinagar Valley’s Muslim majority over the years the freedom to become part of Muslim Pakistan – I stand here to be corrected but, in a nutshell, such has been and remains Pakistan’s official view and projection of the Kashmir problem over more than sixty years.[13]

Part II

  1. India’s Point of View: British Negligence/Indifference during the Transfer of Power, A Case of Misgovernance in the Chaotic Aftermath of World War II

(a)    Rhetoric: Whose Pakistan?  Which Kashmir?

(b)    Law: (i) Liaquat-Zafrullah-Abdullah-Nehru United in Error Over the Second Treaty of Amritsar! Dogra J&K subsists Mar 16 1846-Oct 22 1947. Aggression, Anarchy, Annexations: The LOC as De Facto Boundary by Military Decision Since Jan 1 1949.  (ii) Legal Error & Confusion Generated by 12 May 1946 Memorandum. (iii) War: Dogra J&K attacked by Pakistan, defended by India: Invasion, Mutiny, Secession of “Azad Kashmir” & Gilgit, Rape of Baramulla, Siege of Skardu.

  1. Politics: What is to be Done? Towards Truths, Normalisation, Peace in the 21st Century

The Present Situation is Abnormal & Intolerable. There May Be One (and Only One) Peacable Solution that is Feasible: Revealing Individual Choices Privately with Full Information & Security: Indian “Green Cards”/PIO-OCI status for Hurriyat et al: A Choice of Nationality (India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran).  Of Flags and Consulates in Srinagar & Gilgit etc: De Jure Recognition of the Boundary, Diplomatic Normalisation,  Economic & Military Cooperation.

  1. Appendices:

(a)    History of Jammu & Kashmir until the Dogra Native State

(b)    Pakistan’s Allies (including A Brief History of Gilgit)

(c)    India’s Muslim Voices

(d)    Pakistan’s Muslim Voices: An Excerpt from the Munir Report

 

[1] EIJ Rosenthal, Islam in the Modern National State, 1965, pp.196-197.

[2] A contemporary of Mohammad Ibn Abdal Wahhab of Nejd.

[3] Francis Robinson in  WE James & Subroto Roy, Foundations of Pakistan’s Political Economy: Towards an Agenda for the 1990s, 1993, p. 36.  Indeed Barelwi had created a proto-Pakistan in NorthWest India one hundred years before the Pakistan Movement. “In the later 1820s the movement became militant, regarding jihad as one of the basic tenets of faith.  Possibly encouraged by the British, with whom the movement did not feel powerful enough to come to grips at the outset, it chose as the venue of jihad the NW frontier of the subcontinent, where it was directed against the Sikhs.  Barelwi temporarily succeeded in carving out a small theocratic principality which collapsed owing to the friction between his Pathan and North Indian followers; and he was finally defeated and slain by the Sikhs in 1831″ (Aziz Ahmed, in  AL Basham (ed) A Cultural History of India 1976, p. 384).   Professor Robinson answered a query of mine in an email of 8 August 2005: “the fullest description of this is in Mohiuddin Ahmad, Saiyid Ahmad Shahid (Lucknow, 1975), although practically everyone who deals with the period covers it in some way. Barelwi was the Amir al-Muminin of a jihadi community which based itself north of Peshawar and for a time controlled Peshawar.  He called his fellowship the Tariqa-yi Muhammadiya.  Barelwi corresponded with local rulers about him.  After his death at the battle of Balakot, it survived in the region, at Sittana I think, down to World War One.”

[4] Rosenthal, ibid., p 235

[5] Germans

[6] Events remote from India’s history and geography, namely, the rise of Hitler and the Second World War, had contributed between 1937 and 1947 to the change of fortunes of the Muslim League and hence of all the people of the subcontinent.  The British had long discovered that mutual antipathy between Muslims and Hindus could be utilised in fashioning their rule; specifically that organisation and mobilisation of Muslim communal opinion was a useful counterweight to any pan-Indian nationalism emerging to compete with British authority. As early as 1874, long before Allan Octavian Hume ICS conceived the Indian National Congress, John Strachey ICS observed “The existence side by side of these (Hindu and Muslim) hostile creeds is one of the strong points in our political position in India. The better classes of Mohammedans are a source of strength to us and not of weakness. They constitute a comparatively small but an energetic minority of the population whose political interests are identical with ours.” By 1906, when a deputation of Muslims headed by the Aga Khan first approached the British pleading for communal representation, Minto the Viceroy replied: “I am as firmly convinced as I believe you to be that any electoral representation in India would be doomed to mischievous failure which aimed at granting a personal enfranchisement, regardless of the beliefs and traditions of the communities composing the population of this Continent.” Minto’s wife wrote in her diary the effect was “nothing less than the pulling back of sixty two millions of (Muslims) from joining the ranks of the seditious opposition.” (The true significance of Maulana Azad may have been that he, precisely at the same time, did indeed feel within himself the nationalist’s desire for freedom strongly enough to want to join the ranks of that seditious opposition.)

[7] “That geographically contiguous units are demarcated into regions which should be so constituted, with such territorial readjustments as may be necessary, that the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in a majority, as in the North-Western and Eastern zones of India should be grouped to constitute Independent States in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign”.

[8] Robinson ibid, pp. 43-44.

[9] In the “Indian India” of the Native Princes, Hari Singh and others who sent troops to fight as part of British armies (and who were nominal members of Churchill’s War Cabinet) would have their vanities flattered, while Sheikh Abdullah’s rebellion against Dogra rule would be ignored. See seq. And in British India, Mr Jinnah the conservative Anglophile and his elitist Muslim League would be backed, while the radicalised masses of the Gandhi-Bose-Nehru Congress suppressed as a nuisance.

[10] An anthology about Lahore reports memories of a murderous mob arriving at a wealthy man’s home to be placated  with words like  “They are Parsis not Hindus, no need to kill them…”

[11] An exact contemporary of Chaudhury Rahmat Ali.

[12] Pakistan, Harvard University Press, 1950.

[13] It is not far from this to a certain body of sentiments frequently found, for example, as recently as February 5 2011: “To observe the Kashmir Solidarity Day, various programs, rallies and protests will be held on Saturday (today) across the city to support the people of Kashmir in their struggle against the Indian occupation of their land.  Various religious, political, social and other organizations have arranged different programs to highlight the atrocities of Indian occupant army in held Jammu and Kashmir where about 800,000 Indian soldiers have been committing atrocities against innocent civilians; killing, wounding and maiming tens of thousands of people; raping thousands of women and setting houses, shops and crops on fire to break the Kashmiris’ will to fight for their freedom…Jamat-ud-Dawah…leaders warned that a ‘jihad’ would be launched if Kashmir was not liberated through civil agitation…the JuD leaders said first the former President, Pervez Musharraf, and now the current dispensation were extending the olive branch to New Delhi despite the atrocities on the Kashmiri people….the Pakistani nation would (never compromise on the issue of Kashmir and) would continue to provide political, moral and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri people.”

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Annals of Diplomacy & International Relations

November 29, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

From Facebook:

Subroto Roy  finds it odd in diplomatic law and protocol that two American Presidents in succession have said respectively to the same Indian Prime Minister “You’re a good man” and a person of “honesty and integrity”.

Subroto Roy thinks Asia (from Israel-Palestine to Japan & Indonesia) needs its own Metternich and Congress of Vienna, but won’t get it and hence may remain many many decades behind Europe in political development. (And why Asia won’t get what Europe did may be because Europe did what it did.)

Subroto Roy agrees with Professor Juan Cole’s summary position: “India and Russia want an Obama ‘surge’ in Afghanistan because they are afraid that if Muslim extremists take over the country, that development could threaten their own security. China is more or less bankrolling the Afghanistan War…In contrast, Pakistan does not seem… eager for the further foreign troops, in part because it wants to project power and influence into Afghanistan itself”.  But he would add Russia, China, India and Iran too are free-riders from the military standpoint (though India has built power-stations, roads etc for civilian economic development), while Pakistan remains schizophrenic as to whether it wishes to define itself by the lights of Iqbal and Jinnah or by the lunacy of Rahmat Ali.

Posted in Afghanistan, Congress of Vienna, Diplomacy, Diplomatic protocols, East Turkestan, India's Diplomacy, International diplomacy, International economics, International politics, Iran's modern history, Israel, Pakistan's military, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistani expansionism, Political Science, Politics, Power-elites and nomenclatura, Protocol, Schizophrenia in international relations, Serendipity and international relations, US Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Espionage, US Pakistan policy, War, World History, Xinjiang. Leave a Comment »

On the zenith and nadir of US-India relations

November 25, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

From Facebook:

Subroto Roy thinks the zenith of US-India relations (besides FDR pressing Churchill on Indian independence) was the landing of US military transports in Ladakh during the Communist Chinese aggression of 1962 thanks to JK Galbraith & JFK.  (The nadir was the Nixon-Kissinger support for Pakistani tyranny against Bangladesh in 1971.)


Posted in 1962 War, China-India Relations, Communist China, India's Bangladesh liberation war, India's Military Defence, India-China relations, India-Tibet Border, India-USA interests, Indian subcontinent, International diplomacy, JFK, JK Galbraith, Just war, Pakistan in international law, Pakistan's origins, Pakistan's military, Richard Nixon, Sino-Indian Border, Tibet, Tyranny, US China policy, US Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Espionage, US Military Doctrine, War, World History. 2 Comments »

And then there was Alexander Dubček in the Prague Spring of 1968

November 10, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

From Facebook:

Subroto Roy recalls that long before Gorbachev and Walesa, there was in the Prague Spring a man named Dubček…. this is a photograph published in his “Hope Dies Last”
ManandtankWenceslas

Posted in Alexander Dubček, Cold War, Communists, Comparative Government, Czechoslovakia, Democracy, Freedom, Good and Evil, Lech Walesa, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, Poland, Prague Spring of 1968, Tyranny, USSR, World History. Leave a Comment »

On the Existence of a Unique and Stable Solution to the Jammu & Kashmir Problem that is Lawful, Just and Economically Efficient

October 15, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

P Chidambaram may recall our brief interaction at the residence of the late Shri Rajiv Gandhi in September-October 1990, and also my visit in July 1995 when he was a member of Narasimha Rao’s Government.

I am delighted to read in today’s paper that he believes a “unique solution” exists to the grave mortal problem of Jammu & Kashmir.   Almost four years ago, I published in The Statesman my discovery of the existence of precisely such a  unique solution in the three-part article “Solving Kashmir”.

This came to be followed by “Law, Justice and J&K”, “History of Jammu & Kashmir”, “Pakistan’s Allies”, “What to tell Musharraf” and a few others.  The purpose of this open letter is to describe that solution which provides, I believe, the only just and lawful  path available to the resolution of what has been known universally as the Kashmir problem.

Very briefly, it involves recognizing that the question of lawful territorial sovereignty in J&K is logically distinct from the question of the choice of nationality by individual inhabitants.   The solution requires

(a) acknowledging that the original legal entity in the world system  of nations known as Jammu & Kashmir arose on March 16 1846 and ceased to exist on or about October 22 1947; that the military contest that commenced on the latter date has in fact resulted, given all particular circumstances of history, in the lawful and just outcome in international law;

(b) offering all who may be Indian nationals or stateless and who presently live under Article 370, a formal choice of nationality between the Republics of India, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan: citizen-by-citizen, without fear or favour, under conditions of full information, individual privacy and security; any persons who voluntarily choose to renounce Indian nationality in such private individual decisions would be nevertheless granted lawful permanent residence in the Indian Republic and J&K in particular.

In other words, the dismemberment of the original J&K State and annexation of its territories by the entities known today as the Republic of Pakistan and Republic of India that occurred since October 22 1947, as represented first by the 1949 Ceasefire Line and then by the 1972 Line of Control, is indeed the just and lawful outcome prevailing in respect of the question of territorial sovereignty and jurisdiction. The remaining democratic question has to do with free individual choice of nationality by inhabitants, under conditions of full information and privacy, citizen-by-citizen, with the grant of permanent residency rights by the Indian Republic to persons under its jurisdiction in J&K who might wish to choose, for deeply personal individual reasons, not to remain Indian nationals but become Afghan, Iranian or Pakistani nationals instead (or remain stateless).  Pakistan has said frequently its sole concern has been the freedom of Muslims of J&K under Indian rule, and any such genuine concern shall have been thereby fully met by India. Indeed if Pakistan agreed to act similarly this entire complex mortal problem of decades shall have begun to be resolved most appropriately. Pakistan and India are both wracked by corruption, poverty and bad governance, and would be able to mutually draw down military forces pit against one another everywhere, so as to begin to repair the grave damage to their fiscal health caused over decades by the deleterious draining away of vast public resources.

The full reasoning underlying this, which I believe to be the only lawful, just, efficient and stable solution that exists, is thoroughly explained in the following six articles. The first five, “Solving Kashmir”, “Law, Justice & J&K”, “History of J&K”, and “Pakistan’s Allies”, “What to Tell Musharraf” were published in The Statesman in 2005-2006 and are marked ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR and FIVE below, and are also available elsewhere here. The sixth “An Indian Reply to President Zardari”, marked SIX, was published for the first time here following the Mumbai massacres.

I believe careful reflection upon this entire body of reasoning may lead all reasonable men and women to a practically unanimous consensus about this as the appropriate course of action; if such a consensus happened to arise, the implementation of the solution shall only be a matter of (relatively) uncomplicated procedural detail.

Subroto Roy
October 15 2009

“ONE
SOLVING KASHMIR: ON AN APPLICATION OF REASON by Subroto Roy First published in three parts in The Statesman, Editorial Page Special Article, December 1,2,3 2005, http://www.thestatesman.net

(This article has its origins in a paper “Towards an Economic Solution for Kashmir” which circulated in Washington DC in 1992-1995, including at the Indian and Pakistani embassies and the Carnegie Endowment, and was given as an invited lecture at the Heritage Foundation on June 23 1998. It should be read along with other articles also republished here, especially “History of J&K”, “Law, Justice and J&K” , “Understanding Pakistan”, “Pakistan’s Allies” and “What to Tell Musharraf”. The Washington paper and lecture itself originated from my ideas in the Introduction to Foundations of Pakistan’s Political Economy, edited by WE James and myself in the University of Hawaii project on Pakistan 1986-1992.)

I. Give Indian `Green Cards’ to the Hurriyat et al

India, being a liberal democracy in its constitutional law, cannot do in Jammu & Kashmir what Czechoslovakia did to the “Sudeten Germans” after World War II. On June 18 1945 the new Czechoslovakia announced those Germans and Magyars within their borders who could not prove they had been actively anti-fascist before or during the War would be expelled — the burden of proof was placed on the individual, not the State. Czechoslovakia “transferring” this population was approved by the Heads of the USA, UK and USSR Governments at Potsdam on August 2 1945. By the end of 1946, upto two million Sudeten Germans were forced to flee their homes; thousands may have died by massacre or otherwise; 165,000 remained who were absorbed as Czechoslovak citizens. Among those expelled were doubtless many who had supported Germany and many others who had not — the latter to this day seek justice or even an apology in vain. Czechoslovakia punished none of its nationals for atrocities, saying it had been revenge for Hitler’s evil (”badla” in Bollywood terms) and the post Cold War Czech Government too has declined to render an apology. Revenge is a wild kind of justice (while justice may be a civilised kind of revenge).

India cannot follow this savage precedent in international law. Yet we must recognise there are several hundred and up to several hundred thousand persons on our side of the boundary in the State of Jammu & Kashmir who do not wish to be Indian nationals. These people are presently our nationals ius soli, having been born in territory of the Indian Republic, and/or ius sanguinis, having been born of parents who are Indian nationals; or they may be “stateless” whom we must treat in accordance with the 1954 Convention on Stateless Persons. The fact is they may not wish to carry Indian passports or be Indian nationals.

In this respect their juridical persons resemble the few million “elite” Indians who have in the last few decades freely placed their hands on their hearts and solemnly renounced their Indian nationality, declaring instead their individual fidelity to other nation-states — becoming American, Canadian or Australian citizens, or British subjects or nationals of other countries. Such people include tens of thousands of the adult children of India’s metropolitan “elite”, who are annually visited abroad in the hot summer months by their Indian parents and relatives. They are daughters and sons of New Delhi’s Government and Opposition, of retired generals, air marshals, admirals, ambassadors, cabinet secretaries, public sector bureaucrats, private sector businessmen, university professors, journalists, doctors and many others. India’s most popular film-actress exemplified this “elite” capital-flight when, after a tireless search, she chose a foreign husband and moved to California.

The difference in Jammu & Kashmir would be that those wishing to renounce Indian nationality do not wish to move to any other place but to stay as and where they are, which is in Kashmir Valley or Jammu. Furthermore, they may wish, for whatever reason, to adopt, if they are eligible to do so, the nationality of e.g. the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan or the Islamic Republic of Iran or the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

They may believe themselves descended from Ahmad Shah Abdali whose Afghans ruled or mis-ruled Kashmir Valley before being defeated by Ranjit Singh’s Sikhs in 1819. Or they may believe themselves of Iranian descent as, for example, are the Kashmiri cousins of the late Ayatollah Khomeini. Or they may simply have wished to be, or are descended from persons who had wished to be on October 26 1947, citizens of the then-new British Dominion of Pakistan — but who came to be prevented from properly expressing such a desire because of the war-like conditions that have prevailed ever since between India and Pakistan. There may be even a few persons in Laddakh who are today Indian nationals but who wish to be considered Tibetans instead; there is, however, no Tibetan Republic and it does not appear there is going to be one.

India, being a free and self-confident country, should allow, in a systematic lawful manner, all such persons to fulfil their desires, and furthermore, should ensure they are not penalised for having expressed such “anti-national” desires or for having acted upon them. Sir Mark Tully, the British journalist, is an example of someone who has been a foreign national who has chosen to reside permanently in the Republic of India — indeed he has been an exemplary permanent resident of our country. There are many others like him. There is no logical reason why all those persons in Jammu & Kashmir who do wish not to be Indians by nationality cannot receive the same legal status from the Indian Republic as has been granted to Sir Mark Tully. There are already thousands of Sri Lankan, Bangladeshi and Nepalese nationals who are lawful permanent residents in the Indian Republic, and who travel back and forth between India and their home countries. There is no logical reason why the same could not be extended to several hundred or numerous thousand people in Jammu & Kashmir who may wish to not accept or to renounce their Indian nationality (for whatever personal reason) and instead become nationals, if they are so eligible, of the Islamic Republics of Afghanistan, Iran or Pakistan, or, for that matter, to remain stateless. On the one hand, their renunciation of Indian nationality is logically equivalent to the renunciation of Indian nationality by the adult children of India’s “elite” settled in North America and Western Europe. On the other hand, their wish to adopt, if they are eligible, a foreign nationality, such as that of Afghanistan, Iran or Pakistan, and yet remain domiciled in Indian territory is logically equivalent to that of many foreign nationals domiciled in India already like Sir Mark Tully.

Now if you are a permanent resident of some country, you may legally have many, perhaps most, but certainly not all the rights and duties of nationals of that country. e.g., though you will have to pay all the same taxes, you may not be allowed to (or be required to) vote in national or provincial elections but you may in local municipal elections. At the same time, permanently residing foreign nationals are supposed to be equal under the law and have equal access to all processes of civil and criminal justice. (As may be expected though from human frailty, even the federal courts of the USA can be notorious in their injustice and racism towards “Green Card” holders relative to “full” American citizens.) Then again, as a permanently resident foreigner, while you will be free to work in any lawful trade or profession, you may not be allowed to work in some or perhaps any Government agencies, certainly not the armed forces or the police. Many Indians in the USA were engineering graduates, and because many engineering jobs or contracts in the USA are related to the US armed forces and require US citizens only, it is commonplace for Indian engineers to renounce their Indian nationality and become Americans because of this. Many Indian-American families have one member who is American, another Indian, a third maybe Canadian, a fourth Fijian or British etc.

The same can happen in the Indian State of Jammu & Kashmir if it evolves peacefully and correctly in the future. It is quite possible to imagine a productive family in a peaceful Kashmir Valley of the future where one brother is an officer in the Indian Armed Forces, another brother a civil servant and a sister a police officer of the J&K State Government, another sister being a Pakistani doctor, while cousins are Afghan or Iranian or “stateless” businessmen. Each family-member would have made his/her choice of nationality as an individual given the circumstances of his/her life, his/her personal comprehension of the facts of history, his/her personal political and/or religious persuasions, and similar deeply private considerations. All would have their children going to Indian schools and being Indian citizens ius soli and/or ius sanguinis. When the children grow up, they would be free to join, if they wished, the existing capital flight of other Indian adult children abroad and there renounce their Indian nationality as many have come to do.

II Revealing Choices Privately with Full Information
For India to implement such a proposal would be to provide an opportunity for all those domiciled in Kashmir Valley, Jammu and Laddakh to express freely and privately as individuals their deepest wishes about their own identities, in a confidential manner, citizen by citizen, case by case. This would thereby solve the fundamental democratic problem that has been faced ever since the Pakistani attack on the original State of Jammu & Kashmir commenced on October 22 1947, which came to be followed by the Rape of Baramulla — causing the formal accession of the State to the then-new Dominion of India on October 26 1947.

A period of, say, 30 months may be announced by the Government of India during which full information would be provided to all citizens affected by this change, i.e. all those presently governed by Article 370 of the Indian Constitution. The condition of full information may include, for example, easy access to Afghan, Iranian and Pakistani newspapers in addition to access to Indian media. Each such person wishing to either remain with Indian nationality (by explicitly requesting an Indian passport if he/she does not have one already — and such passports can be printed in Kashmiri and Urdu too), or to renounce Indian nationality and either remain stateless or adopt, if he/she is so eligible, the nationality of e.g. Afghanistan, Iran, or Pakistan, should be administratively assisted by the Government of India to make that choice.

In particular, he/she should be individually, confidentially, and without fear or favour assured and informed of his/her new rights and responsibilities. For example, a resident of Kashmir Valley who chooses to become a Pakistani citizen, such as Mr Geelani, would now enjoy the same rights and responsibilities in the Indian Republic that Mr Tully enjoys, and at the same time no longer require a visa to visit Pakistan just as Mr Tully needs no visa to enter Britain. In case individual participants in the Hurriyat choose to renounce Indian nationality and adopt some other, they would no longer be able to legally participate in Indian national elections or J&K’s State elections. That is something which they say they do not wish to do in any case. Those members of the Hurriyat who chose e.g. Pakistani nationality while still residing in Jammu & Kashmir, would be free to send postal ballots or cross the border and vote in Pakistan’s elections if and when these occur. There are many Canadians who live permanently in the USA who cross home to Canada in order to cast a ballot.

After the period of 30 months, every person presently under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution would have received a full and fair opportunity to privately and confidentially reveal his/her preference or choice under conditions of full information. “Partition”, “Plebiscite”, and “Military Decision” have been the three alternatives under discussion ever since the National Conference of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and his then-loyal Deputy, Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, helped the Indian Army and Air Force in 1947-1948 fight off the savage attack against Jammu & Kashmir State that had commenced from Pakistan on October 22 1947. When, during the Pakistani attack, the Sheikh and Bakshi agreed to the Muslim Conference’s demand for a plebiscite among the people, the Pakistanis balked — the Sheikh and Bakshi then withdrew their offer and decisively and irrevocably chose to accede to the Indian Union. The people of Jammu & Kashmir, like any other, are now bound by the sovereign political commitments made by their forebears. Even so, given the painful mortal facts of the several decades since, the solution here proposed if properly implemented would be an incomparably more thorough democratic exercise than any conceivable plebiscite could ever have been.

Furthermore, regardless of the outcome, it would not entail any further “Partition” or population “transfer” which inevitably would degenerate into a savage balkanization, and has been ruled out as an unacceptable “deal-breaker” by the Indian Republic. Instead, every individual person would have been required, in a private and confidential decision-making process, to have chosen a nationality or to remain stateless — resulting in a multitude of cosmopolitan families in Jammu & Kashmir. But that is something commonplace in the modern world. Properly understood and properly implemented, we shall have resolved the great mortal problem we have faced for more than half a century, and Jammu & Kashmir can finally settle into a period of peace and prosperity. The boundary between India and Pakistan would have been settled by the third alternative mentioned at the time, namely, “Military Decision”.

III. Of Flags and Consulates in Srinagar and Gilgit
Pakistan has demanded its flag fly in Srinagar. This too can happen though not in the way Pakistan has been wishing to see it happen. A Pakistan flag might fly in the Valley just as might an Afghan and Iranian flag as well. Pakistan has wished its flag to fly as the sovereign over Jammu & Kashmir. That is not possible. The best and most just outcome is for the Pakistani flag to fly over a recognised Pakistani consular or visa office in Srinagar, Jammu and Leh. In diplomatic exchange, the Indian tricolour would have to fly over a recognised Indian consular or visa office in Muzaffarabad, Gilgit and Skardu.

Pakistan also may have to act equivalently with respect to the original inhabitants of the territory of Jammu & Kashmir that it has been controlling — allowing those people to become Indian nationals if they so chose to do in free private decisions under conditions of full information. In other words, the “Military Decision” that defines the present boundary between sovereign states must be recognised by Pakistan sincerely and permanently in a Treaty relationship with India — and all of Pakistan’s official and unofficial protégés like the Hurriyat and the “United Jehad Council” would have to do the same. Without such a sovereign commitment from the Government of Pakistan, as shown by decisive actions of lack of aggressive intent (e.g. as came to be implemented between the USA and USSR), the Government of India has no need to involve the Government of Pakistan in implementing the solution of enhancing free individual choice of nationality with regard to all persons on our side of the boundary.

The “Military Decision” regarding the sovereign boundary in Jammu & Kashmir will be so recognised by all only if it is the universally just outcome in international law. And that in fact is what it is.

The original Jammu & Kashmir State began its existence as an entity in international law long before the present Republics of India and Pakistan ever did. Pakistan commences as an entity on August 14 1947; India commences as an entity of international law with its signing of the Treaty of Versailles on June 20 1918. Jammu & Kashmir began as an entity on March 16 1846 — when the Treaty of Amritsar was signed between Gulab Singh Dogra and the British, one week after the Treaty of Lahore between the British and the defeated Sikh regency of the child Daleep Singh.

Liaquat Ali Khan and Zafrullah Khan both formally challenged on Pakistan’s behalf the legitimacy of Dogra rule in Jammu & Kashmir since the Treaty of Amritsar. The Pakistani Mission to the UN does so even today. The Pakistanis were following Sheikh Abdullah and Jawaharlal Nehru himself, who too had at one point challenged Dogra legitimacy in the past. But though the form of words of the Pakistan Government and the Nehru-Abdullah position were similar in their attacks on the Treaty of Amritsar, their underlying substantive reasons were as different as chalk from cheese. The Pakistanis attacked the Dogra dynasty for being Dogra — i.e. because they were Hindus and not Muslims governing a Muslim majority. Nehru and Abdullah denounced monarchic autocracy in favour of mass democracy, and so attacked the Dogra dynasty for being a dynasty. All were wrong to think the Treaty of Amritsar anything but a lawful treaty in international law.

Furthermore, in this sombre political game of great mortal consequence, there were also two other parties who were, or appeared to be, in favour of the dynasty: one because the dynasty was non-Muslim, the other, despite it being so. Non-Muslim minorities like many Hindus and Sikhs in the business and governmental classes, saw the Dogra dynasty as their protector against a feared communalist tyranny arising from the Sunni Muslim masses of Srinagar Valley, whom Abdullah’s rhetoric at Friday prayer-meetings had been inciting or at least awakening from slumber. At the same time, the communalists of the Muslim Conference who had broken away from Abdullah’s secular National Conference, sought political advantage over Abdullah by declaring themselves in favour of keeping the dynasty — even elevating it to become an international sovereign, thus flattering the already pretentious potentate that he would be called “His Majesty” instead of merely “His Highness”. The ancestry of today’s Hurriyat’s demands for an independent Jammu & Kashmir may be traced precisely to those May 21-22 1947 declarations of the Muslim Conference leader, Hamidullah Khan.

Into this game stumbled the British with all the mix of cunning, indifference, good will, impatience, arrogance and pomposity that marked their rule in India. At the behest of the so-called “Native Princes”, the 1929 Butler Commission had hinted that the relationship of “Indian India” to the British sovereign was conceptually different from that of “British India” to the British sovereign. This view was adopted in the Cabinet Mission’s 12 May 1946 Memorandum which in turn came to be applied by Attlee and Mountbatten in their unseemly rush to “Divide and Quit” India in the summer of 1947.

It created the pure legal illusion that there was such a thing as “Lapse of Paramountcy” at which Jammu & Kashmir or any other “Native State” of “Indian India” could conceivably, even for a moment, become a sovereign enjoying the comity of nations — contradicting Britain’s own position that only two Dominions, India and Pakistan, could ever be members of the British Commonwealth and hence members of the newly created UN. British pusillanimity towards Jammu & Kashmir’s Ruler had even extended to making him a nominal member of Churchill’s War Cabinet because he had sent troops to fight in Burma. But the legal illusion had come about because of a catastrophic misunderstanding on the part of the British of their own constitutional law.

The only legal scholar who saw this was B R Ambedkar in a lonely and brilliant technical analysis released to the press on June 17 1947. No “Lapse of Paramountcy” over the “Native Princes” of Indian India could occur in constitutional law. Paramountcy over Indian India would be automatically inherited by the successor state of British India at the Transfer of Power. That successor state was the new British Dominion of India as well as (when it came to be finalised by Partition from India) the new British Dominion of Pakistan (Postscript: the deleted words represent a mistake made in the original paper, corrected in “Law, Justice & J&K” in view of the fact the UN in 1947 deemed India alone the successor state of British India and Pakistan a new state in the world system). A former “Native Prince” could only choose to which Dominion he would go. No other alternative existed even for a single logical moment. Because the British had catastrophically failed to comprehend this aspect of their own constitutional law, they created a legal vacuum whereby between August 15 and October 22-26 1947, Jammu & Kashmir became a local and temporary sovereign recognised only by the Dominion of Pakistan (until October 22) and the Dominion of India (until October 26). But it was not a globally recognised sovereign and was never going to be such in international law. This was further proved by Attlee refusing to answer the J&K Prime Minister’s October 18 1947 telegram.

All ambiguity came to end with the Pakistani attack of October 22 1947, the Rape of Baramulla, the secession of an “Azad Kashmir”declared by Sardar Ibrahim, and the Pakistani coup détat in Gilgit on October 31 1947 followed by the massacre of Sikh soldiers of the J&K Army at Bunji. With those Pakistani actions, Gulab Singh’s Jammu & Kashmir State, founded on March 16 1846 by the Treaty of Amritsar, ceased to logically exist as an entity in international law and fell into a state of ownerless anarchy. The conflict between Ibrahim’s Muslim communalists backed by the new Dominion of Pakistan and Abdullah’s secularists backed by the new Dominion of India had become a civil war within a larger intra-Commonwealth war that itself was almost a civil war between forces of the same military.

Jammu & Kashmir territory had become ownerless. The Roman Law which is at the root of all municipal and international law in the world today would declare that in the ownership of such an ownerless entity, a “Military Decision” was indeed the just outcome. Sovereignty over the land, waters, forests and other actual and potential resources of the erstwhile State of Jammu & Kashmir has become divided by “Military Decision” between the modern Republics of India and Pakistan. By the proposal made herein, the people and their descendants shall have chosen their nationality and their domicile freely across the sovereign boundary that has come to result.

TWO
LAW, JUSTICE AND J&K by Subroto Roy First published in two parts in The Sunday Statesman, July 2 2006 and The Statesman July 3 2006 http://www.thestatesman.net Editorial Page Special Article

I.
For a solution to J&K to be universally acceptable it must be seen by all as being lawful and just. Political opinion in Pakistan and India as well as all people and parties in J&K ~ those loyal to India, those loyal to Pakistan, and any others ~ will have to agree that, all things considered, such is the right course of action for everyone today in the 21st Century, which means too that the solution must be consistent with the facts of history as well as account reasonably for all moral considerations.

On August 14, 1947, the legal entity known as “British India”, as one of its final acts, and based on a sovereign British decision made only two months earlier, created out of some of its territory a new State defined in international law as the “Dominion of Pakistan”. British India extinguished itself the very next day, and the newly independent “Dominion of India” succeeded to all its rights and obligations in international law. As the legal successor of the “India” which had signed the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 and the San Francisco Declaration of 1945, the Dominion of India was already a member of the new UN as well as a signatory to many international treaties. By contrast, the Dominion of Pakistan had to apply afresh to sign treaties and become a member of international organisations. The theory put forward by Argentina that two new States, India and Pakistan, had been created ab initio, came to be rejected and was withdrawn by Argentina. Instead, Pakistan with the wholehearted backing of India was made a member of the UN, with all except Afghanistan voting in favour. (Afghanistan’s exceptional vote signalled presence of conflict over the Durand Line and idea of a Pashtunistan; Dr Khan Sahib and Abdul Ghaffar Khan were imprisoned by the Muslim League regime of NWFP which later supported the tribesmen who attacked J&K starting October 22, 1947; that conflict remains unresolved to this day, even after the American attack on the Taliban, the restart of a constitutional process in Afghanistan, and the purported mediation of US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice.)

Zafrullah Khan, Pakistan’s distinguished first ambassador to the UN, claimed in September 1947: “Pakistan is not a new member of UNO but a successor to a member State which was one of the founders of the Organisation.” He noted that he himself had led India to the final session of the League of Nations in Geneva in 1939, and he wished to say that Pakistan had been present “as part of India… under the latter name” as a signatory to the Treaty of Versailles. This was, however, logically impossible. The Treaty of Versailles long predated (1) Mohammad Iqbal’s Allahabad Address which conceptualised for the first time in the 20th Century a Muslim State in Northwest India; (2) Rahmat Ali’s invention of the word “PAKSTAN” on the top floor of a London omnibus; (3) M. A. Jinnah and Fazlul Haq’s Lahore Resolution; and (4) the final British decision of June 3, 1947 to create by Partition out of “British India” a Dominion named Pakistan. Pakistan could not have acted in international law prior to having come into being or been created or even conceived itself. Zafrullah Khan would have been more accurate to say that the history of Pakistanis until August 14, 1947 had been one in common with that of their Indian cousins ~ or indeed their Indian brothers, since innumerable North Indian Muslim families came to be literally partitioned, with some brothers remaining Indians while other brothers became Pakistanis.

Pakistan was created at the behest of Jinnah’s Muslim League though with eventual agreement of the Indian National Congress (a distant ancestor of the political party going by the same name today). Pakistan arose not because Jinnah said Hindus and Muslims were “two nations” but because he and his League wished for a State where Muslims would find themselves ruled by fellow-Muslims and feel themselves part of a pan-Islamic culture. Yet Pakistan was intended to be a secular polity with Muslim-majority governance, not an Islamic theocracy. That Pakistan failed to become secular was exemplified most poignantly in the persecution Zafrullah himself later faced in his personal life as an Ahmadiya, even while he was Pakistan’s Foreign Minister. (The same happened later to Pakistan’s Nobel-winning physicist Abdus Salaam.) Pakistan was supposed to allow the genius of Indo-Muslim culture to flourish, transplanted from places like Lucknow and Aligarh which would never be part of it. In fact, the areas that are Pakistan today had in the 1937 provincial elections shown scant popular Muslim support for Jinnah’s League. The NWFP had a Congress Government in the 1946 elections, and its supporters boycotted the pro-Pakistan referendum in 1947. The imposition of Urdu culture as Pakistan’s dominant ethos might have come to be accepted later in West Punjab, Sindh and NWFP but it was not acceptable in East Bengal, and led inevitably to the Pakistani civil war and creation of Bangladesh by Sheikh Mujib in 1971.

In August 1947, the new Dominions of India and Pakistan were each supposed to protect their respective minority populations as their first political duty. Yet both palpably failed in this, and were reduced to making joint declarations pleading for peace and an end to communal killings and the abduction of women. The Karachi Government, lacking the wherewithal and administrative machinery of being a nation-state at all, and with only Liaquat and an ailing Jinnah as noted leaders, may have failed more conspicuously, and West Punjab, the Frontier and Sindh were soon emptied of almost all their many Sikhs and Hindus. Instead, the first act of the new Pakistan Government in the weeks after August 14, 1947 was to arrange for the speedy and safe transfer of the North Indian Muslim elite by air from Delhi using chartered British aeroplanes. The ordinary Muslim masses of UP, Delhi and East Punjab were left in danger from or were subjected to Sikh and Hindu mob attacks, especially as news and rumours spread of similar outrages against Pakistan’s departing minorities.

In this spiral of revenge attacks and counter-attacks, bloodshed inevitably spilled over from West and East Punjab into the northern Punjabi plains of Jammu, though Kashmir Valley remained conspicuously peaceful. Zafrullah and Liaquat would later claim it was this communal civil war which had caused thousands of newly decommissioned Mirpuri soldiers of the British Army, and thousands of Afridi and other Frontier tribesmen, to spontaneously act to “liberate” J&K’s Muslims from alleged tyranny under the Hindu Ruler or an allegedly illegal Indian occupation.

But the main attack on J&K State that began from Pakistan along the Manshera-Muzaffarabad road on October 22, 1947 was admittedly far too well-organised, well-armed, well-planned and well-executed to have been merely a spontaneous uprising of tribesmen and former soldiers. In all but name, it was an act of undeclared war of the new Dominion of Pakistan first upon the State of J&K and then upon the Indian Dominion. This became obvious to Field Marshall Auchinlek, who, as Supreme Commander of the armed forces of both India and Pakistan, promptly resigned and abolished the Supreme Command in face of the fact that two parts of his own forces were now at war with one another.

The invaders failed to take Srinagar solely because they lost their military purpose while indulging in the Rape of Baramula. Thousands of Kashmiri women of all communities ~ Muslim, Sikh and Hindu ~ were violated and transported back to be sold in markets in Peshawar and elsewhere. Such was standard practice in Central Asian tribal wars from long before the advent of Islam, and the invading tribesmen shared that culture. India’s Army and Air Force along with the militias of the secular democratic movement led by Sheikh Abdullah and those remaining loyal units of J&K forces, fought off the invasion, and liberated Baramula, Naushera, Uri, Poonch etc. Gilgit had a British-led coup détat against it bringing it under Pakistan’s control. Kargil was initially taken by the Pakistanis and then lost by them. Leh could have been but was not taken by Pakistani forces. But in seeking to protect Leh and to retake Kargil, the Indian Army lost the siege of Skardu ~ which ended reputedly with the infamous communication from the Pakistani commander to his HQ: “All Sikhs killed; all women raped.”

Legal theory
Now, in this grave mortal conflict, the legal theory to which both the Indian and Pakistani Governments have been wedded for sixty years is one that had been endorsed by the British Cabinet Mission in 1946 and originated with the Butler Commission of 1929. Namely, that “Lapse of Paramountcy” over the “Indian India” of the “Native States” could and did occur with the extinction of British India on August 15, 1947. By this theory, Hyderabad, J&K, Junagadh and the several other States which had not acceded to either Dominion were no longer subject to the Crown’s suzerainty as of that date. Both Dominions drew up “Instruments of Accession” for Rulers to sign upon the supposed “Lapse” of Paramountcy that was to occur with the end of British India.

Ever since, the Pakistan Government has argued that Junagadh’s Ruler acceded to Pakistan and Hyderabad’s had wished to do so but both were forcibly prevented by India. Pakistan has also argued the accession to India by J&K’s Ruler was “fraudulent” and unacceptable, and Sheikh Abdullah was a “Quisling” of India and it was not his National Conference but the Muslim Conference of Ibrahim, Abbas and the Mirwaiz (precursor of the Hurriyat) which represented J&K’s Muslims.

India argued that Junagadh’s accession to Pakistan or Hyderabad’s independence were legal and practical impossibilities contradicting the wills of their peoples, and that their integration into the Indian Dominion was carried out in an entirely legitimate manner in the circumstances prevailing.

On J&K, India has argued that not only had the Ruler requested Indian forces to fight off the Pakistani attack, and he acceded formally before Indian forces were sent, but also that democratic principles were fully adhered to in the unequivocal endorsement of the accession by Sheikh Abdullah and the National Conference and further by a duly called and elected J&K Constituent Assembly, as well as generations of Kashmiris since. In the Indian view, it is Pakistan which has been in illegal occupation of Indian territory from Mirpur, Muzaffarabad and Gilgit to Skardu all the way to the Khunjerab Pass, Siachen Glacier and K2, some of which it illegally ceded to its Communist Chinese ally, and furthermore that it has denied the peoples of these areas any democratic voice.

Roman law
In June 1947, it was uniquely and brilliantly argued by BR Ambedkar in a statement to the Press that the British had made a catastrophic error in comprehending their own constitutional law, that no such thing as “Lapse” of Paramountcy existed, and that suzerainty over the “Native States” of “Indian India” would be automatically transferred in international law to the successor State of British India. It was a legal illusion to think any Native State could be sovereign even for a single logical moment. On this theory, if the Dominion of India was the sole successor State in international law while Pakistan was a new legal entity, then a Native State which acceded to Pakistan after August 15, 1947 would have had to do so with the consent of the suzerain power, namely, India, as may be said to have happened implicitly in case of Chitral and a few others. Equally, India’s behaviour in integrating (or annexing) Junagadh and Hyderabad, would become fully explicable ~ as would the statements of Mountbatten, Nehru and Patel before October 1947 that they would accept J&K going to Pakistan if that was what the Ruler and his people desired. Pakistan unilaterally and by surprise went to war against J&K on October 22, declared the accession to India “fraudulent”, and to this day has claimed the territory of the original State of J&K is “disputed”. Certainly, even if the Ambedkar doctrine is applied that no “Lapse” was possible under British law, Pakistan did not recognise India’s jurisdiction there as the suzerain power as of August 15, 1947. Altogether, Pakistan’s sovereign actions from October 22 onwards amounted to acting to annex J&K to itself by military force ~ acts which came to be militarily resisted (with partial success) by India allied with Sheikh Abdullah’s National Conference and the remaining forces of J&K. By these military actions, Pakistan revealed that it considered J&K territory to have descended into a legal state of anarchy as of October 22, 1947, and hence open to resolution by “Military Decision” ~ as is indeed the just outcome under Roman Law, the root of all municipal and international law today, when there is a contest between claimants over an ownerless entity.

Choice of nationality
Hence, the present author concluded (“Solving Kashmir”, The Statesman December 1-3, 2005) that the dismemberment of the original J&K State and annexation of its territories by India and Pakistan that has occurred since 1947, as represented first by the 1949 Ceasefire Line and then by the 1972 Line of Control, is indeed the just and lawful outcome prevailing in respect of the question of territorial sovereignty and jurisdiction. The remaining “democratic” question described has to do with free individual choice of nationality by the inhabitants, under conditions of full information and privacy, citizen-by-citizen, with the grant of permanent residency rights by the Indian Republic to persons under its jurisdiction in J&K who may choose not to remain Indian nationals but become Afghan, Iranian or Pakistani nationals instead. Pakistan has said frequently its sole concern has been the freedom of the Muslims of J&K under Indian rule, and any such genuine concern shall have been thereby fully met by India. Indeed, if Pakistan agreed to act similarly, this entire complex mortal problem of decades shall have begun to be peacefully resolved. Both countries are wracked by corruption, poverty and bad governance, and would be able to mutually draw down military forces pit against one another everywhere, so as to begin to repair the grave damage to their fiscal health caused by the deleterious draining away of vast public resources.

THREE
HISTORY OF JAMMU & KASHMIR by Subroto Roy First published in two parts in The Sunday Statesman, Oct 29 2006 and The Statesman Oct 30 2006, Editorial Page Special Article, http://www.thestatesman.net

At the advent of Islam in distant Arabia, India and Kashmir in particular were being visited by Chinese Buddhist pilgrims during Harsha’s reign. The great “Master of Law” Hiuen Tsiang visited between 629-645 and spent 631-633 in Kashmir (”Kia-chi-mi-lo”), describing it to include Punjab, Kabul and Kandahar. Over the next dozen centuries, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and again Hindu monarchs came to rule the 85 mile long 40 mile wide territory on the River Jhelum’s upper course known as Srinagar Valley, as well as its adjoining Jammu in the upper plains of the Punjab and “Little Tibet” consisting of Laddakh, Baltistan and Gilgit.

In 1344, a Persian adventurer from Swat or Khorasan by name of Amir or Mirza, who had “found his way into the Valley and in time gained great influence at the Raja’s court”, proclaimed himself Sultan Shamsuddin after the death of the last Hindu monarchs of medieval Kashmir. Twelve of his descendants formed the Shamiri dynasty including the notorious Sikander and the just and tolerant Zainulabidin. Sikander who ruled 1386-1410 “submitted himself” to the Uzbek Taimur the Lame when he approached Kashmir in 1398 “and thus saved the country from invasion”. Otherwise, “Sikander was a gloomy ferocious bigot, and his zeal in destroying temples and idols was so intense that he is remembered as the Idol-Breaker. He freely used the sword to propagate Islam and succeeded in forcing the bulk of the population to conform outwardly to the Muslim religion. Most of the Brahmins refused to apostatise, and many of them paid with their lives the penalty for their steadfastness. Many others were exiled, and only a few conformed.”

Zainulabidin who ruled 1417-1467 “was a man of very different type”. “He adopted the policy of universal toleration, recalled the exiled Brahmins, repealed the jizya or poll-tax on Hindus, and even permitted new temples to be built. He abstained from eating flesh, prohibited the slaughter of kine, and was justly venerated as a saint. He encouraged literature, painting and music, and caused many translations to be made of works composed in Sanskrit, Arabic and other languages.” During his “long and prosperous reign”, he “constructed canals and built many mosques; he was just and tolerant”.

The Shamiri dynasty ended in 1541 when “some fugitive chiefs of the two local factions of the Makri and the Chakk invited Mirza Haidar Dughlat, a relation of Babar, to invade Kashmir. The country was conquered and the Mirza held it (nominally in name of Humayan) till 1551, when he was killed in a skirmish. The line… was restored for a few years, until in 1559 a Chakk leader, Ghazi Shah, usurped the throne; and in the possession of his descendants it remained for nearly thirty years.” This dynasty marks the origins of Shia Islam in Srinagar though Shia influence in Gilgit, Baltistan and Laddakh was of longer standing. Constant dissensions weakened the Chakks, and in 1586, Akbar, then at Attock on the Indus, sent an army under Raja Bhagwan Das into Srinagar Valley and easily made it part of his Empire.

Shivaism and Islam both flourished, and Hindu ascetics and Sufi saints were revered by all. Far from Muslims and Hindus forming distinct nations, here they were genetically related kinsmen living in proximity in a small isolated area for centuries. Indeed Zainulabidin may have had a vast unspoken influence on the history of all India insofar as Akbar sought to attempt in his empire what Zainulabidin achieved in the Valley. Like Zainulabidin, Akbar’s governance of India had as its “constant aim” “to conciliate the Hindus and to repress Muslim bigotry” which in modern political parlance may be seen as the principle of secular governance ~ of conciliating the powerless (whether majority or minority) and repressing the bigotry of the powerful (whether minority or majority). Akbar had made the Valley the summer residence of the Mughals, and it was Jahangir, seeing the Valley for the first time, who apparently said the words agar behest baushad, hamee in hast, hamee in hast, hamee in hast: “if Heaven exists, it is here, it is here, it is here”. Yet like other isolated paradises (such as the idyllic islands of the Pacific Ocean) an accursed mental ether can accompany the magnificent beauty of people’s surroundings. As the historian put it: “The Kashmiris remained secure in their inaccessible Valley; but they were given up to internal weakness and discord, their political importance was gone…”

After the Mughals collapsed, Iran’s Turkish ruler Nadir Shah sacked Delhi in 1739 but the Iranian court fell in disarray upon his death. In 1747 a jirga of Pashtun tribes at Kandahar “broke normal tradition” and asked an old Punjabi holy man and shrine-keeper to choose between two leaders; this man placed young wheat in the hand of the 25 year old Ahmed Shah Saddozai of the Abdali tribe, and titled him “Durrani”. Five years later, Durrani took Kashmir and for the next 67 years the Valley was under Pashtun rule, a time of “unmitigated brutality and widespread distress”. Durrani himself “was wise, prudent and simple”, never declared himself king and wore no crown, instead keeping a stick of young wheat in his turban. Leaving India, he famously recited: “The Delhi throne is beautiful indeed, but does it compare with the mountains of Kandahar?”

Kashmir’s modern history begins with Ranjit Singh of the Sikhs who became a soldier at 12, and in 1799 at age 19 was made Lahore’s Governor by Kabul’s Zaman Shah. Three years later “he made himself master of Amritsar”, and in 1806 crossed the River Sutlej and took Ludhiana. He created a fine Sikh infantry and cavalry under former officers of Napoleon, and with 80,000 trained men and 500 guns took Multan and Peshawar, defeated the Pashtuns and overran Kashmir in 1819. The “cruel rule” of the Pashtuns ended “to the great relief of Kashmir’s inhabitants”.

The British Governor-General Minto (ancestor of the later Viceroy), seeing advantage in the Sikhs staying north of the Sutlej, sent Charles Metcalfe, “a clever young civilian”, to persuade the Khalsa; in 1809, Ranjit Singh and the British in the first Treaty of Amritsar agreed to establish “perpetual amity”: the British would “have no concern” north of the Sutlej and Ranjit Singh would keep only minor personnel south of it. In 1834 and 1838 Ranjit Singh was struck by paralysis and died in 1839, leaving no competent heir. The Sikh polity collapsed, “their power exploded, disappearing in fierce but fast flames”. It was “a period of storm and anarchy in which assassination was the rule” and the legitimate line of his son and grandson, Kharak Singh and Nao Nihal Singh was quickly extinguished. In 1845 the Queen Regent, mother of the five-year old Dalip Singh, agreed to the Khalsa ending the 1809 Treaty. After bitter battles that might have gone either way, the Khalsa lost at Sobraon on 10 February 1846, and accepted terms of surrender in the 9 March 1846 Treaty of Lahore. The kingdom had not long survived its founder: “created by the military and administrative genius of one man, it crumbled into powder when the spirit which gave it life was withdrawn; and the inheritance of the Khalsa passed into the hands of the English.”

Ranjit Singh’s influence on modern J&K was even greater through his having mentored the Rajput Gulab Singh Dogra (1792-1857) and his brothers Dhyan Singh and Suchet Singh. Jammu had been ruled by Ranjit Deo until 1780 when the Sikhs made it tributary to the Lahore Court. Gulab Singh, a great grand nephew of Ranjit Deo, had left home at age 17 in search of a soldierly fortune, and ended up in 1809 in Ranjit Singh’s army, just when Ranjit Singh had acquired for himself a free hand to expand his domains north of the River Sutlej.

Gulab Singh, an intrepid soldier, by 1820 had Jammu conferred upon him by Ranjit Singh with the title of Raja, while Bhimber, Chibal, Poonch and Ramnagar went to his brothers. Gulab Singh, “often unscrupulous and cruel, was a man of considerable ability and efficiency”; he “found his small kingdom a troublesome charge but after ten years of constant struggles he and his two brothers became masters of most of the country between Kashmir and the Punjab”, though Srinagar Valley itself remained under a separate Governor appointed by the Lahore Court. Gulab Singh extended Jammu’s rule from Rawalpindi, Bhimber, Rajouri, Bhadarwah and Kishtwar, across Laddakh and into Tibet. His General Zorawar Singh led six expeditions into Laddakh between 1834 and 1841 through Kishtwar, Padar and Zanskar. In May 1841, Zorawar left Leh with an army of 5000 Dogras and Laddakhis and advanced on Tibet. Defeating the Tibetans at Rudok and Tashigong, he reached Minsar near Lake Mansarovar from where he advanced to Taklakot (Purang), 15 miles from the borders of Nepal and Kumaon, and built a fort stopping for the winter. Lhasa sent large re-inforcements to meet him. Zorawar, deciding to take the offensive, was killed in the Battle of Toyu, on 11-12 December 1841 at 16,000 feet.

A Laddakhi rebellion resulted against Jammu, aided now by the advancing Tibetans. A new army was sent under Hari Chand suppressing the rebellion and throwing back the Tibetans, leading to a peace treaty between Lhasa and Jammu signed on 17 September 1842: “We have agreed that we have no ill-feelings because of the past war. The two kings will henceforth remain friends forever. The relationship between Maharajah Gulab Singh of Kashmir and the Lama Guru of Lhasa (Dalai Lama) is now established. The Maharajah Sahib, with God (Kunchok) as his witness, promises to recognise ancient boundaries, which should be looked after by each side without resorting to warfare. When the descendants of the early kings, who fled from Laddakh to Tibet, now return they will not be stopped by Shri Maharajah. Trade between Laddakh and Tibet will continue as usual. Tibetan government traders coming into Laddakh will receive free transport and accommodations as before, and the Laddakhi envoy will, in turn, receive the same facilities in Lhasa. The Laddakhis take an oath before God (Kunchok) that they will not intrigue or create new troubles in Tibetan territory. We have agreed, with God as witness, that Shri Maharajah Sahib and the Lama Guru of Lhasa will live together as members of the same household.” The traditional boundary between Laddakh and Tibet “as recognised by both sides since olden times” was accepted by the envoys of Gulab Singh and the Dalai Lama.

An earlier 1684 treaty between Laddakh and Lhasa had said that while Laddakh would send tribute to Lhasa every three years, “the king of Laddakh reserves to himself the village of Minsar in Ngarees-khor-sum, that he may be independent there; and he sets aside its revenue for the purpose of meeting the expense involved in keeping up the sacrificial lights at Kangree (Kailas), and the Holy Lakes of Mansarovar and Rakas Tal”. The area around Minsar village near Lake Mansarovar, held by the rulers of Laddakh since 1583, was retained by Jammu in the 1842 peace-treaty, and its revenue was received by J&K State until 1948.

After Ranjit Singh’s death in 1839, Gulab Singh was alienated from the Lahore Court where the rise of his brothers and a nephew aroused enough Khalsa jealousy to see them assassinated in palace intrigues. While the Sikhs imploded, Gulab Singh had expanded his own dominion from Rawalpindi to Minsar ~ everywhere except Srinagar Valley itself. He had apparently advised the Sikhs not to attack the British in breach of the 1809 Treaty, and when they did so he had not joined them, though had he done so British power in North India might have been broken. The British were grateful for his neutrality and also his help in their first misbegotten adventure in Afghanistan. It was Gulab Singh who was now encouraged by both the British and the Sikhs to mediate between them, indeed “to take a leading part in arranging conditions of peace”, and he formally represented the Sikh regency in the negotiations. The 9 March 1846 Treaty of Lahore “set forth that the British Government having demanded in addition to a certain assignment of territory, a payment of a crore and a half of rupees, and the Sikh Government being unable to pay the whole”, Dalip Singh “should cede as equivalent to one crore the hill country belonging to the Punjab between the Beas and the Indus including Kashmir and the Hazara”.

For the British to occupy the whole of this mountainous territory was judged unwise on economic and military grounds; it was not feasible to occupy from a military standpoint and the area “with the exception of the small Valley of Kashmir” was “for the most part unproductive”. “On the other hand, the ceded tracts comprised the whole of the hereditary possessions of Gulab Singh, who, being eager to obtain an indefeasible title to them, came forward and offered to pay the war indemnity on condition that he was made the independent ruler of Jammu & Kashmir.

A separate treaty embodying this arrangement was thus concluded between the British and Gulab Singh at Amritsar on 16 March 1846.” Gulab Singh acknowledged the British Government’s supremacy, and in token of it agreed to present annually to the British Government “one horse, twelve shawl goats of approved breed and three pairs of Kashmir shawls. This arrangement was later altered; the annual presentation made by the Kashmir State was confined to two Kashmir shawls and three romals (handkerchiefs).” The Treaty of Amritsar “put Gulab Singh, as Maharaja, in possession of all the hill country between the Indus and the Ravi, including Kashmir, Jammu, Laddakh and Gilgit; but excluding Lahoul, Kulu and some areas including Chamba which for strategic purposes, it was considered advisable (by the British) to retain and for which a remission of Rs 25 lakhs was made from the crore demanded, leaving Rs 75 lakhs as the final amount to be paid by Gulab Singh.” The British retained Hazara which in 1918 was included into NWFP. Through an intrigue emanating from Prime Minister Lal Singh in Lahore, Imamuddin, the last Sikh-appointed Governor of Kashmir, sought to prevent Gulab Singh taking possession of the Valley in accordance with the Treaty’s terms. By December 1846 Gulab Singh had done so, though only with help of a British force which included 17,000 Sikh troops “who had been fighting in the campaign just concluded”. (Contemporary British opinion even predicted Sikhism like Buddhism “would become extinct in a short time if it were not kept alive by the esprit de corps of the Sikh regiments”.)

The British in 1846 may have been glad enough to allow Gulab Singh take independent charge of the new entity that came to be now known as the “State of Jammu & Kashmir”. Later, however. they and their American allies would grow keen to control or influence the region vis-à-vis their new interests against the Russian and Soviet Empires.

FOUR
PAKISTAN’S ALLIES by Subroto Roy First published in two parts in The Sunday Statesman, June 4 2006, The Statesman June 5 2006, Editorial Page Special Article, http://www.thestatesman.net

From the 1846 Treaty of Amritsar creating the State of Jammu & Kashmir until the collapse of the USSR in 1991, Britain and later the USA became increasingly interested in the subcontinent’s Northwest. The British came to India by sea to trade. Barren, splendid, landlocked Afghanistan held no interest except as a home of fierce tribes; but it was the source of invasions into the Indian plains and prompted a British misadventure to install Shah Shuja in place of Dost Mohammad Khan leading to ignominious defeat. Later, Afghanistan was seen as the underbelly of the Russian and Soviet empires, and hence a location of interest to British and American strategic causes.

In November 1954, US President Dwight Eisenhower authorized 30 U-2 spy aircraft to be produced for deployment against America’s perceived enemies, especially to investigate Soviet nuclear missiles which could reach the USA. Reconnaissance balloons had been unsuccessful, and numerous Western pilots had been shot down taking photographs from ordinary military aircraft. By June 1956, U-2 were making clandestine flights over the USSR and China. But on May 1 1960, one was shot or forced down over Sverdlovsk, 1,000 miles within Soviet territory. The Americans prevaricated that it had taken off from Turkey on a weather-mission, and been lost due to oxygen problems. Nikita Kruschev then produced the pilot, Francis Gary Powers, who was convicted of spying, though was exchanged later for a Soviet spy. Powers had been headed towards Norway, his task to photograph Soviet missiles from 70,000 ft, his point of origin had been an American base 20 miles from Peshawar.

America needed clandestine “forward bases” from which to fly U-2 aircraft, and Pakistan’s ingratiating military and diplomatic establishment was more than willing to offer such cooperation, fervently wishing to be seen as a “frontline state” against the USSR. “We will help you defeat the USSR and we are hopeful you will help us defeat India” became their constant refrain. By 1986, the Americans had been permitted to build air-bases in Balochistan and also use Mauripur air-base near Karachi.

Jammu & Kashmir and especially Gilgit-Baltistan adjoins the Pashtun regions whose capital has been Peshawar. In August-November 1947, a British coup d’etat against J&K State secured Gilgit-Baltistan for the new British Dominion of Pakistan.

The Treaty of Amritsar had nowhere required Gulab Singh’s dynasty to accept British political control in J&K as came to be exercised by British “Residents” in all other Indian “Native States”. Despite this, Delhi throughout the late 19th Century relentlessly pressed Gulab Singh’s successors Ranbir Singh and Partab Singh to accept political control. The Dogras acquiesced eventually. Delhi’s desire for control had less to do with the welfare of J&K’s people than with protection of increasing British interests in the area, like European migration to Srinagar Valley and guarding against Russian or German moves in Afghanistan. “Sargin” or “Sargin Gilit”, later corrupted by the Sikhs and Dogras into “Gilgit”, had an ancient people who spoke an archaic Dardic language “intermediate between the Iranian and the Sanskritic”. “The Dards were located by Ptolemy with surprising accuracy on the West of the Upper Indus, beyond the headwaters of the Swat River (Greek: Soastus) and north of the Gandarae (i.e. Kandahar), who occupied Peshawar and the country north of it. This region was traversed by two Chinese pilgrims, Fa-Hsien, coming from the north about AD 400 and Hsuan Tsiang, ascending from Swat in AD 629, and both left records of their journeys.”

Gilgit had been historically ruled by a Hindu dynasty called Trakane; when they became extinct, Gilgit Valley “was desolated by successive invasions of neighbouring rulers, and in the 20 or 30 years ending with 1842 there had been five dynastic revolutions. The Sikhs entered Gilgit about 1842 and kept a garrison there.” When J&K came under Gulab Singh, “the Gilgit claims were transferred with it, and a boundary commission was sent” by the British. In 1852 the Dogras were driven out with 2,000 dead. In 1860 under Ranbir Singh, the Dogras “returned to Gilgit and took Yasin twice, but did not hold it. They also in 1866 invaded Darel, one of the most secluded Dard states, to the south of the Gilgit basin but withdrew again.”

The British appointed a Political Agent in Gilgit in 1877 but he was withdrawn in 1881. “In 1889, in order to guard against the advance of Russia, the British Government, acting as the suzerain power of Kashmir, established the Gilgit Agency”. The Agency was re-established under control of the British Resident in Jammu & Kashmir. “It comprised the Gilgit Wazarat; the State of Hunza and Nagar; the Punial Jagir; the Governorships of Yasin, Kuh-Ghizr and Ishkoman, and Chilas”. In 1935, the British demanded J&K lease to them for 60 years Gilgit town plus most of the Gilgit Agency and the hill-states Hunza, Nagar, Yasin and Ishkuman. Hari Singh had no choice but to acquiesce. The leased region was then treated as part of British India, administered by a Political Agent at Gilgit responsible to Delhi, first through the Resident in J& K and later a British Agent in Peshawar. J& K State no longer kept troops in Gilgit and a mercenary force, the Gilgit Scouts, was recruited with British officers and paid for by Delhi. In April 1947, Delhi decided to formally retrocede the leased areas to Hari Singh’s J& K State as of 15 August 1947. The transfer was to formally take place on 1 August.

On 31 July, Hari Singh’s Governor arrived to find “all the officers of the British Government had opted for service in Pakistan”. The Gilgit Scouts’ commander, a Major William Brown aged 25, and his adjutant, a Captain Mathieson, planned openly to engineer a coup détat against Hari Singh’s Government. Between August and October, Gilgit was in uneasy calm. At midnight on 31 October 1947, the Governor was surrounded by the Scouts and the next day he was “arrested” and a provisional government declared.

Hari Singh’s nearest forces were at Bunji, 34 miles from Gilgit, a few miles downstream from where the Indus is joined by Gilgit River. The 6th J& K Infantry Battalion there was a mixed Sikh-Muslim unit, typical of the State’s Army, commanded by a Lt Col. Majid Khan. Bunji controlled the road to Srinagar. Further upstream was Skardu, capital of Baltistan, part of Laddakh District where there was a small garrison. Following Brown’s coup in Gilgit, Muslim soldiers of the 6th Infantry massacred their Sikh brothers-at-arms at Bunji. The few Sikhs who survived escaped to the hills and from there found their way to the garrison at Skardu.

On 4 November 1947, Brown raised the new Pakistani flag in the Scouts’ lines, and by the third week of November a Political Agent from Pakistan had established himself at Gilgit. Brown had engineered Gilgit and its adjoining states to first secede from J&K, and, after some talk of being independent, had promptly acceded to Pakistan. His commander in Peshawar, a Col. Bacon, as well as Col. Iskander Mirza, Defence Secretary in the new Pakistan and later to lead the first military coup détat and become President of Pakistan, were pleased enough. In July 1948, Brown was awarded an MBE (Military) and the British Governor of the NWFP got him a civilian job with ICI~ which however sent him to Calcutta, where he came to be attacked and left for dead on the streets by Sikhs avenging the Bunji massacre. Brown survived, returned to England, started a riding school, and died in 1984. In March 1994, Pakistan awarded his widow the Sitara-I-Pakistan in recognition of his coup détat.

Gilgit’s ordinary people had not participated in Brown’s coup which carried their fortunes into the new Pakistan, and to this day appear to remain without legislative representation. It was merely assumed that since they were mostly Muslim in number they would wish to be part of Pakistan ~ which also became Liaquat Ali Khan’s assumption about J&K State as a whole in his 1950 statements in North America. What the Gilgit case demonstrates is that J&K State’s descent into a legal condition of ownerless anarchy open to “Military Decision” had begun even before the Pakistani invasion of 22 October 1947 (viz. “Solving Kashmir”, The Statesman, 1-3 December 2005). Also, whatever else the British said or did with respect to J & K, they were closely allied to the new Pakistan on the matter of Gilgit.

The peak of Pakistan’s Anglo-American alliance came with the enormous support in the 1980s to guerrilla forces created and headquartered in Peshawar, to battle the USSR and Afghan communists directly across the Durand Line. It was this guerrilla war which became a proximate cause of the collapse of the USSR as a political entity in 1991. President Ronald Reagan’s CIA chief William J. Casey sent vast sums in 1985-1988 to supply and train these guerrillas. The Washington Post and New Yorker reported the CIA training guerrillas “in the use of mortars, rocket grenades, ground-to-air missiles”. 200 hand-held Stinger missiles were supplied for the first time in 1986 and the New Yorker reported Gulbudin Hikmatyar’s “Hizbe Islami” guerrillas being trained to bring down Soviet aircraft. “Mujahideen had been promised two Stingers for every Soviet aircraft brought down. Operators who failed to aim correctly were given additional training… By 1986, the United States was so deeply involved in the Afghan war that Soviet aircraft were being brought down under the supervision of American experts”. (Raja Anwar, The Tragedy of Afghanistan, 1988, p. 234).

The budding US-China détente brokered by Pakistan came into full bloom here. NBC News on 7 January 1980 said “for the first time in history (a senior State Department official) publicly admitted the possibility of concluding a military alliance between the United States and China”. London’s Daily Telegraph reported on 5 January 1980 “China is flying large supplies of arms and ammunition to the insurgents in Afghanistan. According to diplomatic reports, supplies have arrived in Pakistan from China via the Karakoram Highway…. A major build-up of Chinese involvement is underway ~ in the past few days. Scores of Chinese instructors have arrived at the Shola-e-Javed camps.”

Afghan reports in 1983-1985 said “there were eight training camps near the Afghan border operated by the Chinese in Sinkiang province” and that China had supplied the guerrillas “with a variety of weapons including 40,000 RPG-7 and 20,000 RPG-II anti tank rocket launchers.” Like Pakistan, “China did not publicly admit its involvement in the Afghan conflict: in 1985 the Chinese Mission at the UN distributed a letter denying that China was extending any kind of help to the Afghan rebels” (Anwar, ibid. p. 234). Support extended deep and wide across the Arab world. “The Saudi and Gulf rulers … became the financial patrons of the Afghan rebels from the very start of the conflict”. Anwar Sadat, having won the Nobel Peace Prize, was “keen to claim credit for his role in Afghanistan…. by joining the Afghanistan jihad, Sadat could re-establish his Islamic credentials, or so he believed. He could thus not only please the Muslim nations but also place the USA and Israel in his debt.” Sadat’s Defence Minister said in January 1980: “Army camps have been opened for the training of Afghan rebels; they are being supplied with weapons from Egypt” and Sadat told NBC News on 22 September 1981 “that for the last twenty-one months, the USA had been buying arms from Egypt for the Afghan rebels. He said he had been approached by the USA in December 1979 and he had decided to `open my stores’. He further disclosed that these arms were being flown to Pakistan from Egypt by American aircraft. Egypt had vast supplies of SAM-7 and RPG-7 anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons which Sadat agreed to supply to Afghanistan in exchange for new American arms. The Soviet weapons, being light, were ideally suited to guerrilla warfare. … the Mujahideen could easily claim to have captured them from Soviet and Afghan troops in battle.… Khomeini’s Iran got embroiled in war (against Iraq) otherwise Kabul would also have had to contend with the full might of the Islamic revolutionaries.” (Anwar ibid. p. 235).

Afghanistan had been occupied on 26-27 December 1979 by Soviet forces sent by the decrepit Leonid Brezhnev and Yuri Andropov to carry out a putsch replacing one communist, Hafizullah Amin, with a rival communist and Soviet protégé, Babrak Karmal. By 1985 Brezhnev and Andropov were dead and Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev had begun his attempts to reform the Soviet system, usher in openness, end the Cold War and in particular withdraw from Afghanistan, which by 1986 he had termed “a bleeding wound”. Gorbachev replaced Karmal with a new protégé Najibullah Khan, who was assigned the impossible task of bringing about national reconciliation with the Pakistan-based guerrillas and form a national government. Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan in February 1989 having lost 14,500 dead, while more than a million Afghans had been killed since the invasion a decade earlier.

Not long after Russia’s Bolshevik Revolution, Gregory Zinoviev had said 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). Now instead, the Afghan misadventure had contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Empire itself, the USSR ceasing to be a political entity by 1991, and even Gorbachev being displaced by Boris Yeltsin and later Vladimir Putin in a new Russia.

What resulted for the people of the USA and Britain and the West in general was that they no longer had to live under threat of hostile Soviet tanks and missiles, while the people of Russia, Ukraine and the other erstwhile Soviet republics as well as Eastern Europe were able to throw off the yoke of communism that had oppressed them since the Bolshevik Revolution and instead to breathe the air of freedom.

What happened to the people of Afghanistan, however, was that they were plunged into further ghastly civil war for more than ten years. And what happened to the people of Pakistan was that their country was left resembling a gigantic Islamist military camp, awash with airfields, arms, ammunition and trained guerrillas, as well as a military establishment enlivened as always by perpetual hope that these supplies, provisions and personnel of war might find alternative use in attacks against India over J& K. “We helped you when you wished to see the Soviet Union defeated and withdrawing in Afghanistan”, Pakistan’s generals and diplomats pleaded with the Americans and British, “now you must help us in our wish to see India defeated and withdrawing in Kashmir”. Pakistan’s leaders even believed that just as the Soviet Union had disintegrated afterwards, the Indian Union perhaps might be made to do the same. Not only were the two cases as different as chalk from cheese, Palmerstone’s dictum there are no permanent allies in the politics of nations could not have found more apt use than in what actually came to take place next.

Pakistan’s generals and diplomats felt betrayed by the loss of Anglo-American paternalism towards them after 1989.

Modern Pakistanis had never felt they subscribed to the Indian nationalist movement culminating in independence in August 1947. The Pakistani state now finally declared its independence in the world by exploding bombs in a nuclear arsenal secretly created with help purchased from China and North Korea. Pakistan’s leaders thus came to feel in some control of Pakistan’s destiny as a nation-state for the first time, more than fifty years after Pakistan’s formal creation in 1947. If nothing else, at least they had the Bomb.

Secondly, America and its allies would not be safe for long since the civil war they had left behind in Afghanistan while trying to defeat the USSR now became a brew from which arose a new threat of violent Islamism. Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, whom Pakistan’s military and the USA had promoted, now encouraged unprecedented attacks on the American mainland on September 11 2001 ~ causing physical and psychological damage which no Soviet, Chinese or Cuban missiles ever had been allowed to do. In response, America attacked and removed the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, once again receiving the cooperative use of Pakistani manpower and real estate ~ except now there was no longer any truck with the Pakistani establishment’s wish for a quid pro quo of Anglo-American support against India on J&K. Pakistan’s generals and diplomats soon realised their Anglo-American alliance of more than a half-century ended on September 11 2001. Their new cooperation was in killing or arresting and handing over fellow-Muslims and necessarily lacked their earlier feelings of subservience and ingratiation towards the Americans and British, and came to be done instead under at least some duress. No benefit could be reaped any more in the fight against India over Jammu & Kashmir. An era had ended in the subcontinent.

FIVE

WHAT TO TELL MUSHARRAF: PEACE IS IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT NON-AGGRESSIVE PAKISTANI INTENTIONS by Subroto Roy, First published in The Statesman December 15 2006 Editorial Page Special Article, www.thestatesman.net

In June 1989 a project at an American university involving Pakistani and other scholars, including one Indian, led to the book Foundations of Pakistan’s Political Economy: Towards an Agenda for the 1990s published in Karachi, New Delhi and elsewhere. The book reached Nawaz Sharif and the Islamabad elite, and General Musharraf’s current proposal on J&K, endorsed warmly by the US State Department last week, derives from the last paragraph of its editorial introduction: “Kashmir… must be demilitarised and unified by both countries sooner or later, and it must be done without force. There has been enough needless bloodshed on the subcontinent… Modern Pakistanis and Indians are free peoples who can voluntarily agree in their own interests to alter the terms set hurriedly by Attlee or Mountbatten in the Indian Independence Act 1947. Nobody but we ourselves keeps us prisoners of superficial definitions of who we are or might be. The subcontinent could evolve its political identity over a period of time on the pattern of Western Europe, with open borders and (common) tariffs to the outside world, with the free movement of people, capital, ideas and culture. Large armed forces could be reduced and transformed in a manner that would enhance the security of each nation. The real and peaceful economic revolution of the masses of the subcontinent would then be able to begin.”

The editors as economists decried the waste of resources involved in the Pakistan-India confrontation, saying it had “greatly impoverished the general budgets of both Pakistan and India. If it has benefited important sections of the political and military elites of  both countries, it has done so only at the expense of the general welfare of the masses.”

International law

Such words may have been bold in the early 1990s but today, a decade and a half later, they seem incomplete and rather naïve even to their author, who was myself, the only Indian in that project. Most significantly, the position in international law in the context of historical facts had been wholly neglected. So had been the manifest nature of the contemporary Pakistani state.

Jammu & Kashmir became an entity in international law when the Treaty of Amritsar was signed between Gulab Singh and the British on March 16 1846. British India itself became an entity in international law much later, possibly as late as June 1919 when it signed the Treaty of Versailles. As for Pakistan, it had no existence in world history or international law until August 14 1947, when the British created it as a new entity out of certain demarcated areas of British India and gave it the status of a Dominion. British India dissolved itself on August 15 1947 and the Dominion of India became its successor-state in international law on that date. As BR Ambedkar pointed out at the time, the new India automatically inherited British India’s suzerainty over any and all remaining “princely” states of so-called “Indian India”. In case of J&K in particular, there never was any question of it being recognised as an independent entity in global international law.

The new Pakistan, by entering a Standstill Agreement with J&K as of August 15 1947, did locally recognise J&K’s sovereignty over its decision whether to join Pakistan or India. But this Pakistani recognition lasted only until the attack on J&K that commenced from Pakistani territory as of October 22 1947, an attack in which Pakistani forces were complicit (something which, in different and mutating senses, has continued ever since). The Dominion of India had indicated it might have consented if J&K’s Ruler had decided to accede to Pakistan in the weeks following the dissolution of British India. But no such thing happened: what did happen was the descent of J&K into a condition of legal anarchy.

Beginning with the Pakistani attack on J&K as of October 22 upto and including the Rape of Baramulla and the British-led Pakistani coup détat in Gilgit on one side, and the arrival of Indian forces as well as mobilization by Sheikh Abdullah and Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad of J&K’s civilians to repel the Pakistani invaders on the other side, the State of Jammu & Kashmir became an ownerless entity in international law. In Roman Law, from which all modern international and municipal law ultimately derives, the ownership of an ownerless entity is open to be determined by “military decision”. The January 1949 Ceasefire Line that came to be renamed the Line of Control after the 1971 Bangladesh War, demarcates the respective territories that the then-Dominions and later Republics of India and Pakistan acquired by “military decision” of the erstwhile State of J&K which had come to cease to exist.

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. It is only sheer ignorance on the part of General Musharraf’s Indian interviewer the other day which caused it to be said that Pakistan was willing to “give up” its claim on erstwhile J&K State territory which India has held: Pakistan has never had nor even made such a  claim in international law. 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.

Accordingly, the lawful solution proposed in these pages a year ago to resolve that matter, serious as it is, has been that the Republic of India invite every person covered under 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.

Military de-escalation

Equally significant though in assessing whether General Musharraf’s proposal is an  anachronism, is Pakistan’s history since 1947: through Ayub’s 1965 attack, the civil war and secession of Bangladesh, the Afghan war and growth of the ISI, the Kargil incursion, the 1999 coup détat, and, once or twice removed, the 9/11 attacks against America. It is not a history that allows any confidence to arise in Indians that we are not dealing with a country misgoverned by a tiny arrogant exploitative military elite who remain hell-bent on aggression against us. Like the USA and USSR twenty years ago, what we need to negotiate about, and negotiate hard about, is an overall mutual military drawdown and de-escalation appropriate to lack of aggressive intent on both sides. Is General Musharraf willing to discuss that? It would involve reciprocal verifiable assessment of one another’s reasonable military requirements on the assumption that each was not a threatening enemy of the other. That was how the USA-USSR drawdown and de-escalation occurred successfully. If General Musharraf is unwilling to enter such a discussion, there is hardly anything to talk about with him. We should wait for democracy to return.

SIX

“AN INDIAN REPLY TO PRESIDENT ZARDARI: REWARDING PAKISTAN FOR BAD BEHAVIOUR LEADS TO SCHIZOPHRENIC RELATIONSHIPS”

by Subroto Roy, December 17 2008

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.”

Posted in Academic economics, Academic research, Asia and the West, asymmetric information, Britain in India, Dogras, Economic Theory, Freedom, Governance, Government of India, Government of Pakistan, Imperialism, India's Constitution, India's Democracy, India's Diplomacy, India's Jurisprudence, India's Muslims, India's Partition, India's Polity, India's Rule of Law, India's secularism, India's Union-State relations, India-Pakistan peace process, International diplomacy, International Law, Jammu & Kashmir, Jammu & Kashmir in international law, Law, Liberalism/Libertarianism, Pakistan in international law, Pakistan's origins, Pakistan's psychology, Pakistan's military, Pakistan's terrorist masterminds, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistani expansionism, Pervez Musharraf, Political legitimacy, Political Philosophy, Political Science, Regional cooperation, Roman Law, Secular governance, Secularism in practice, Sheikh Abdullah, Sikhs, Sunnis and Shias, War, World History, Zafrullah Khan, Zainulabidin. Leave a Comment »

Comment on Mr Clemons’ note on the Pakistan military after the Rawalpindi attack

October 12, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

From Facebook:

Mr Clemons has made interesting and astute observations on Pakistan’s military following the Rawalpindi attack of the last few days.

But some political history is important. Pakistan’s military between 1947 and 1971 had built up an illusion that it could, with help from Patton tanks and Sabre jets and Starfighters, defeat India (one Pakistani is equivalent to 9 Indians etc etc).

In Dec 1971, despite the machinations of Nixon and Kissinger with the Pakistani strongman Yahya Khan, a free Bangladesh came to be born from the old colonized East Pakistan. 90,000 Pakistani POWS languished in Indian camps for more than a year (after being protected by India from Bangladeshi revenge).

The debacle led to some candid soul-searching and the official Pakistani inquiry commission squarely blamed debauchery and corruption in the Army from Yahya Khan downwards for bad generalship. Bangladesh seceded from West Pakistan essentially because of internal political contradictions, e.g. the imposition of Urdu on Bengali-speakers etc. Certainly Indian military help proved vital at the end but India did not cause the secession. (I was personally helping at a refugee camp as a schoolboy volunteer, when Ted Kennedy flew in to visit etc… stories for another time).

The Pakistan military has maintained a self-delusion that India caused the break-up of the original Pakistan and that India harbours similar designs to this day. India neither does nor has the capacity or motivation to do so.

The second factor was that Zia, who succeeded Yahya as military strongman and US ally, brought in Islamisation of the officer-corps as a counterweight to the trends of debauchery and corruption. These might be two crucial subjects for discussion if US discussants decide to go on a reflective retreat with Pakistan’s top military brass.

Posted in Bangladesh, India's military doctrine, India's Army, India's Bangladesh liberation war, India's Military Defence, India-Pakistan peace process, Pakistan in international law, Pakistan's history, Pakistan's military, Pakistan's terrorist training institutes, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistani expansionism, War, World History. Leave a Comment »

Crunch-time: Do New Delhi’s bureaucrats have guts enough to walk away from the ADB, World Bank etc? (And does India have a Plan B, or for that matter a Plan A, in dealing with Communist China?)

September 20, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

I have had slight experience with the so-called multilateral financial institutions — attending a conference and helping to produce a book on Asia & Latin America with the ADB back in Hawaii in the 1980s, and being a consultant for some months at the World Bank and the IMF in Washington DC in the 1990s. The institutions seemed to me gluttonous and incompetent though I did meet a dozen good economic bureaucrats and two or three who were excellent in Washington. The “Asian Development Bank” (under Japan’s sway as the Word Bank is under American sway and the IMF under European sway) was reputedly worst of the three, though the Big Daddy of wasteful intellectually corrupt international bureaucracies must be the UN itself, especially certain notorious UN-affiliates around the world.

Now there are newspapers reports the ADB has apparently voted, under Communist Chinese pressure, to prevent itself from

“formally acknowledging Arunachal Pradesh as part of India”.

This should be enough for any self-respecting Government of India to want to give notice to the ADB’s President that the Republic of India is moving out of its membership. Ongoing projects and any in the pipeline need not be affected as we would meet our debt obligations.  There is no reason after all why a treaty-defined entity may not conclude deals with non-members or former members and vice versa.

But New Delhi’s bureaucrats may not find the guts to think on these lines as they would have to overcome their personal interests involved in taking up the highly lucrative non-jobs that these places offer. They will need some political kicking from the top. Thus in 1990-91 I had said to Rajiv Gandhi that “on foreign policy we should ‘go bilateral’ with good strong ties with individual countries, and drop all the multilateral hogwash”… “We do not ask for or accept public foreign aid from foreign Governments or international organizations at “concessional” terms. Requiring annual foreign aid is an indication of economic maladjustment, having to do with the structure of imports and exports and the international price of the Indian rupee. Receiving the so-called aid of others, e.g. the so-called Aid-India Consortium or the soft-loans of the World Bank, diminishes us drastically in the eyes of the donors, who naturally push their own agendas and gain leverage in the country in various ways in return. Self-reliance from so-called foreign aid would require making certain economic adjustments in commercial and exchange-rate policies, as well as austerity in foreign-exchange spending by the Government….”

Today, nineteen years later, I would say the problem has to do less with the structure of India’s balance of payments than with trying to normalise away from the rotten state of our government accounts and public finances. I have thus said “getting on properly with the mundane business of ordinary government and commerce… may call for a gradual withdrawal of India from all or most of the fancy, corrupt international bureaucracies in New York, Washington, Geneva etc, focussing calmly but determinedly instead on improved administration and governance at home.” We need those talented and well-experienced Indian staff-members in these international bureaucracies to return to work to improve our own civil services and public finances of the Union and our more than two dozen States.

As for India developing a Plan B (or a Plan A) in dealing with Communist China, my ten articles republished here yesterday provide an outline of both.

Posted in Accounting and audit, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, China's expansionism, China's military, China's wars, China-India Relations, China-Tibet problem, Communist China, Government accounting, Government Budget Constraint, Government of India, India in international law, India's Government economists, India's military doctrine, India's bureaucracy, India's Diplomacy, India's Foreign Policy, India's Government Budget Constraint, India's Government Expenditure, India's Land, India's nomenclatura, India's Public Finance, India-China relations, International diplomacy, International Law, International politics, War, World History. Leave a Comment »

My Ten Articles on China, Tibet, Xinjiang, Taiwan in relation to India (2007-2009)

September 19, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

nehru
I have had a close interest in China ever  since the “Peking Spring” more than thirty years ago (if not from when I gave all my saved pocket money to Nehru in 1962 to fight the Chinese aggression) but I had not published anything relating to China until 2007-2008 when I published the ten articles listed below:

“Understanding China”, The Statesman Oct 22 2007

“India-US interests: Elements of a serious Indian foreign policy”, The Statesman Oct 30 2007

“China’s India Aggression”, The Statesman, Nov 5 2007,

“Surrender or Fight? War is not a cricket match or Bollywood movie. Can India fight China if it must? “ The Statesman, Dec 4 2007

“China’s Commonwealth: Freedom is the Road to Resolving Taiwan, Tibet, Sinkiang” The Statesman, December 17, 2007

“Nixon & Mao vs India: How American foreign policy did a U-turn about Communist China’s India aggression”. The Statesman, January 7 2008.

“Lessons from the 1962 War: there are distinct Tibetan, Chinese and Indian points of view that need to be mutually comprehended,” The Statesman, January 15, 2008

“China’s India Example: Tibet, Xinjiang May Not Be Assimilated Like Inner Mongolia, Manchuria”, The Statesman, March 25, 2008

“China’s force and diplomacy: The need for realism in India”, The Statesman, May 31, 2008

“Transparency and history” (with Claude Arpi), Business Standard, Dec 31 2008

With new tensions on the Tibet-India border apparently being caused by the Chinese military, these may be helpful for India to determine a Plan B, or even a Plan A, in its dealings with Communist China.

See also https://independentindian.com/1990/09/18/my-meeting-jawaharlal-nehru-2/

https://independentindian.com/2009/11/25/on-the-zenith-and-nadir-of-us-india-relations/

scan0010

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Seventy Years Today Since the British Government Politically Empowered MA Jinnah (2009)

September 4, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

Seventy Years Today Since the British Government Politically Empowered MA Jinnah

by

Subroto Roy

The bloated armies of Indian and Pakistani historians and pseudo-historians have failed to recognize the significance of the precise start of the Second World War upon the fortunes of the subcontinent.  Yet, twenty years ago, in the book I and WE James created at an American university, Foundations of Pakistan’s Political Economy: Towards an Agenda for the 1990s (now in pdf), one of our authors, Professor Francis Robinson of the University of London, had set out the principal facts most clearly as to what flowed from the September 4 1939 empowerment of MA Jinnah by the British Government.

Germany invaded Poland on September 1 1939 and Britain declared war on Germany on September 3. The next day, Linlithgow, the British Viceroy in India, started to treat MA Jinnah’s Muslim League on par with the Congress’s nationalist movement led by MK Gandhi. Until September 4 1939, the British “had had little time for Jinnah and his League. The Government’s declaration of war on Germany on 3 September, however, transformed the situation. A large part of the army was Muslim, much of the war effort was likely to rest on the two Muslim majority provinces of Punjab and Bengal. The following day, the Viceroy invited Jinnah for talks on an equal footing with Gandhi” (Robinson, in James & Roy (eds) Foundations of Pakistan’s Political Economy 1989, 1992).

Jinnah himself was amazed by the new British attitude towards him: “suddenly there was a change in the attitude towards me. I was treated on the same basis as Mr Gandhi. I was wonderstruck why all of a sudden I was promoted and given a place side by side with Mr Gandhi.”

Jinnah’s political weakness had been made obvious by the electoral defeats the Muslim League had suffered in the 1937 elections in the very provinces which more or less came to constitute West Pakistan and today constitute modern Pakistan. Britain, at war with Germany and soon Japan, was faced with the intransigence of the Congress leadership.  It was unsurprising this would contribute to the British tilt empowering Congress’s declared adversary, Jinnah and the Muslim League, and hence make credible the possibility of the Pakistan that they had demanded:

“As the Congress began to demand immediate independence, the Viceroy took to reassuring Jinnah that Muslim interests would be safeguarded in any constitutional change. Within a few months, he was urging the League to declare a constructive policy for the future, which was of course presented in the Lahore Resolution. In their August 1940 offer, the British confirmed for the benefit of Muslims that power would not be transferred against the will of any significant element in Indian life. And much the same confirmation was given in the Cripps offer nearly two years later…. Throughout the years 1940 to 1945, the British made no attempt to tease out the contradictions between the League’s two-nation theory, which asserted that Hindus and Muslims came from two different civilisations and therefore were two different nations, and the Lahore Resolution, which demanded that ‘Independent States’ should be constituted from the Muslim majority provinces of the NE and NW, thereby suggesting that Indian Muslims formed not just one nation but two. When in 1944 the governors of Punjab and Bengal urged such a move on the Viceroy, Wavell ignored them, pressing ahead instead with his own plan for an all-India conference at Simla. The result was to confirm, as never before in the eyes of leading Muslims in the majority provinces, the standing of Jinnah and the League. Thus, because the British found it convenient to take the League seriously, everyone had to as well—Congressmen, Unionists, Bengalis, and so on….”(Robinson in James & Roy (eds) Foundations of Pakistan’s Political Economy,  pp. 43-44).

Even British socialists who were sympathetic to Indian aspirations, would grow cold when the Congress seemed to abjectly fail to appreciate Britain’s predicament during war with Germany and Japan (Gandhi, for example, dismissing the 1942 Cripps offer as a “post-dated cheque on a failing bank”).

By the 1946 elections, Muslim mass opinion had changed drastically to seem to be strongly in favour of the creation of a Pakistan. The intervening years were the ones when urban mobs all over India could be found shouting the League’s slogans: “Larke lenge Pakistan; Marke lenge Pakistan, Khun se lenge Pakistan; Dena hoga Pakistan; Leke rahenge Pakistan” (We will spill blood to take Pakistan, you will have to yield a Pakistan.)

Events remote from India’s history and geography, namely, the rise of Hitler and the Second World War, had contributed between 1937 and 1947 to the change of fortunes of the Muslim League and hence of all the people of the subcontinent.

The British had long discovered that the mutual antipathy between Muslims and Hindus could be utilised in fashioning their rule; specifically that the organisation and mobilisation of Muslim communal opinion in the subcontinent was a useful counterweight to any pan-Indian nationalism which might emerge to compete with British authority. As early as 1874, well before Allan Octavian Hume, ICS, had conceived the Indian National Congress, John Strachey, ICS, was to observe “The existence side by side of these (Hindu and Muslim) hostile creeds is one of the strong points in our political position in India. The better classes of Mohammedans are a source of strength to us and not of weakness. They constitute a comparatively small but an energetic minority of the population whose political interests are identical with ours.” By 1906, when a deputation of Muslims headed by the Aga Khan first approached the British pleading for communal representation, Minto the Viceroy replied: “I am as firmly convinced as I believe you to be that any electoral representation in India would be doomed to mischievous failure which aimed at granting a personal enfranchisement, regardless of the beliefs and traditions of the communities composing the population of this Continent.” Minto’s wife wrote in her diary that the effect was “nothing less than the pulling back of sixty two millions of (Muslims) from joining the ranks of the seditious opposition.” (The true significance of MAK Azad may have been that he, precisely at the same time, did indeed feel within himself the nationalist’s desire for freedom strongly enough to want to join the ranks of that seditious opposition.)

If a pattern emerges as to the nature of the behaviour of the British political state with respect to the peoples of this or similar regions, it is precisely the economic one of rewarding those loyal to them who had protected or advanced their interests, and penalising those perceived to be acting against their will. It is wishful to think  of members of the British political state as benevolent paternalists, who met with matching deeds their often philanthropic words about promoting the general welfare of their colonial wards or subordinate allies. The slogan “If you are not with us you are against us” that has come to be used by many from the Shining Path Maoists of Peru to President George W. Bush, had been widely applied already by the British in India, especially in the form “If you dare not to be with us, we will be certainly with your adversaries”. It came to be used with greatest impact on the subcontinent’s fortunes in 1939 when Britain found itself reluctantly at war with Hitler’s Germany.

British loyalties lay with those who had been loyal to them.

Hence in the “Indian India” of the puppet princes, Hari Singh and other “Native Princes” who had sent troops to fight as part of the British armies would be treated with a pusillanimity and grandeur so as to flatter their vanities, Sheikh Abdullah’s rebellion representing the Muslim masses of the Kashmir Valley would be ignored. And in British India, Jinnah the conservative Anglophile and his elitist Muslim League would be backed, while the radicalised masses of the Gandhi-Bose-Nehru Congress would have to be suppressed as a nuisance.

(Similarly, much later, Pakistan’s bemedalled army generals would be backed by the United States against Mujibur Rehman’s impoverished student-rebels, and India’s support frowned upon regardless of how just the Bangladeshi cause.)

Altruism is a limited quality in all human affairs, never more scarce than in relations between nations. In “Pakistan’s Allies”, I showed how the strategic interests of Britain, and later Britain’s American ally, came to evolve in the Northwest of the subcontinent ever since the 1846 Treaty of Amritsar as long as a Russian and later a Soviet empire had existed. A similar evolution of British domestic interests in India is distinctly observable in British support for the Pakistan Movement itself, leading on August 14 1947 to the creation of the new Dominion of Pakistan.

Sheikh Abdullah’s democratic urges or  Nehru’s Indian nationalism or the general welfare of the subcontinent’s people had no appeal as such to the small and brittle administrative machinery in charge of Britain’s Indian Empire — even though individual Britons had come to love, understand and explain India for the permanent benefit of her people. This may help to explain how Britain’s own long democratic traditions at home could often be found so wonderful by Indians yet the actions of the British state abroad so incongruent with them.

 

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On the curious pre-9/11 quaintness of current criticism of India’s 1998 nuclear tests

August 28, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

I said towards the end of my June 4-5 2006 article in The Statesman “Pakistan’s Allies”

“…America and its allies would not be safe for long since the civil war they had left behind in Afghanistan while trying to defeat the USSR now became a brew from which arose a new threat of violent Islamism. Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, whom Pakistan’s military and the USA had promoted, now encouraged unprecedented attacks on the American mainland on September 11 2001 ~ causing physical and psychological damage which no Soviet, Chinese or Cuban missiles ever had been allowed to do….”

Earlier, in The Statesman of October 26 2005,  I had outlined a series of recent US espionage failures

“There have been three or four enormous failures of American espionage (i.e. intelligence and counter-intelligence) in the last 20 years. The collapse of the Berlin Wall and the end of Soviet communism were salubrious events but they had not been foreseen by the United States which was caught unawares by the speed and nature of the developments that took place. Other failures have been catastrophic.

First, there was the failure to prevent the attack that took place on the American mainland on September 11 2001. It killed several thousand civilians and caused vast, perhaps irreparable, psychological and physical destruction to the United States. The attack was without precedent. The December 7 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in Hawaii, though a surprise, was carried out by one military against another military and did not affect very many civilians (except that thousands of American civilians of Japanese ancestry came to be persecuted and placed in concentration camps for years by the US Government). And the last time the American mainland had been attacked before 2001 was in 1814 when British troops marched south from Canada and burnt down the Capitol and the US President’s house in Washington.

Secondly, there has been a failure to discover any reasonable justification for the American-led attack on Iraq and its invasion and occupation. Without any doubt, America has lost, at the very least, an incalculable amount of international goodwill as a result of this, let aside suffering two thousand young soldiers killed, fifteen thousand wounded, and an unending cost in terms of prestige and resources in return for the thinnest of tangible gains. India at great cost liberated East Pakistan from the brutal military tyranny of Yahya Khan and Tikka Khan in December 1971 but the average Bangladeshi today could hardly care less. Regardless of what form of government emerges in Iraq now, there is no doubt the mass of the Iraqi people will cheer the departure of the bulk of foreign troops and tanks from their country (even if a permanent set of a dozen hermetically sealed American bases remain there for ever, as appears to have been planned).

When things go wrong in any democracy, it is natural and healthy to set up a committee to investigate, and America has done that several times now. For such committees to have any use at all they must be as candid as possible and perhaps the most candid of the American committees has been the US Government’s 9/11 Commission. But it too has appeared no closer to finding out who was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks or who financed it and who, precisely, executed it. Osama Bin Laden may have been the ideological head of a movement allied to the perpetrators, and Bin Laden undoubtedly expressed his glee afterwards, but it beggars the imagination that Bin Laden could have been executive president in charge of this operation while crawling around Sudan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. If not him, then whom? Mossad the Israeli spy agency was supposed to have pointed to a super-secret invisible Lebanese terrorist but nobody really knows. The biggest modern mass murder remains unsolved.

As for solutions, the American 9/11 Commission went into the same politically correct formulae that came to be followed in 2005 by British PM Tony Blair’s New Labour Cabinet, namely, that “moderate” peace-loving Muslims must be encouraged and bribed not to turn to terrorism (indeed to expose those among them who do), while “extremist” Muslims must be stamped out with brute force. This rests on a mistaken premise that an economic carrot-and-stick policy can work in creating a set of external incentives and disincentives for Muslims, when in fact believing Muslims, like many other religious believers, are people who feel the power of their religion deep within themselves and so are unlikely to be significantly affected by external incentives or disincentives offered by non-believers.  Another committee has been the United States Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence which reported in July 2004, and from whose findings have stemmed as an offshoot the current matter about whether high government officials broke the law that is being investigated by Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald.

Bertrand Russell said in his obituary of Ludwig Wittgenstein that he had once gone about looking under all the tables and chairs to prove to Wittgenstein that there was not a hippopotamus present in the room. In the present case, however, there is in fact a very large hippopotamus present in the room yet the entire American foreign policy establishment has seemed to refuse to wish to see it. Saddam Hussain and OBL are undoubtedly certifiable members of the international gallery of rogues – but the central fact remains they were rogues who were in alliance with America’s defined strategic interests in the 1980s. Saddam Hussain’s Iraq invaded Iran in 1980 and gassed the Kurds in 1986; an Iraqi Mirage on May 17 1987 fired two Exocet missiles at the USS Stark killing 37 American sailors and injuring 21. The Americans did nothing. The reason was that Saddam was still in favour at the time and had not yet become a demon in the political mythology of the American state, and it was expedient for nothing to be done. Indeed Saddam’s Iraq was explicitly removed in 1982 from the US Government’s list of states sponsoring terrorism because, according to the State Department’s Patterns of Global Terrorism, it had “moved closer to the policies of its moderate Arab neighbours”.

The very large hippopotamus that is present in the room at the moment is April Glaspie, the highly regarded professional career diplomat and American Ambassador to Iraq at the time of the 1990 Gulf War. Saddam Hussein as President had a famous meeting with her on July 25 1990, eight days before he invaded Kuwait. The place was the Presidential Palace in Baghdad and the Iraqis videotaped the meeting:

U.S. Ambassador Glaspie – “I have direct instructions from President (George Herbert Walker) Bush to improve our relations with Iraq. We have considerable sympathy for your quest for higher oil prices, the immediate cause of your confrontation with Kuwait. (pause) As you know, I lived here for years and admire your extraordinary efforts to rebuild your country. We know you need funds. We understand that, and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country. (pause) We can see that you have deployed massive numbers of troops in the south. Normally that would be none of our business, but when this happens in the context of your threats against Kuwait, then it would be reasonable for us to be concerned. For this reason, I have received an instruction to ask you, in the spirit of friendship – not confrontation – regarding your intentions: Why are your troops massed so very close to Kuwait’s borders?

Saddam Hussein – As you know, for years now I have made every effort to reach a settlement on our dispute with Kuwait. There is to be a meeting in two days; I am prepared to give negotiations only this one more brief chance. (pause) When we (the Iraqis) meet (with the Kuwaitis) and we see there is hope, then nothing will happen. But if we are unable to find a solution, then it will be natural that Iraq will not accept death.

U. S. Ambassador Glaspie – What solutions would be acceptable?

Saddam Hussein – If we could keep the whole of the Shatt al Arab – our strategic goal in our war with Iran – we will make concessions (to the Kuwaitis). But, if we are forced to choose between keeping half of the Shatt and the whole of Iraq (i.e., in Saddam’ s view, including Kuwait ) then we will give up all of the Shatt to defend our claims on Kuwait to keep the whole of Iraq in the shape we wish it to be. (pause) What is the United States’ opinion on this?

U.S. Ambassador Glaspie – We have no opinion on your Arab – Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary (of State James) Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960’s, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America. (Saddam smiles)

Saddam had seen himself fighting Islamic Iran on behalf of the Kuwaitis, Saudis and other Arabs, and Islamic Iran was of course the sworn adversary of the USA at least since Khomeini had deposed America’s ally, the Shah. Therefore Saddam could not be all bad in the eyes of the State Department. On August 2 1990, the Iraqi troops seen by American satellites amassed on the border, invaded and occupied Kuwait. On September 2 1990, the Iraqis released the videotape and transcript of the July 29 Saddam-Glaspie meeting and Glaspie was confronted by British journalists as she left the Embassy:

Journalist 1 – Are the transcripts (holding them up) correct, Madam Ambassador? (No answer from Glaspie)

Journalist 2 – You knew Saddam was going to invade (Kuwait ) but you didn’t warn him not to. You didn’t tell him America would defend Kuwait. You told him the opposite – that America was not associated with Kuwait.

Journalist 1 – You encouraged this aggression – his invasion. What were you thinking?

U.S. Ambassador Glaspie – Obviously, I didn’t think, and nobody else did, that the Iraqis were going to take all of Kuwait.

Journalist 1 – You thought he was just going to take some of it? But, how could you? Saddam told you that, if negotiations failed , he would give up his Iran(Shatt al Arab waterway) goal for the whole of Iraq, in the shape we wish it to be. You know that includes Kuwait, which the Iraqis have always viewed as a historic part of their country!

Journalist 1 – America green-lighted the invasion. At a minimum, you admit signalling Saddam that some aggression was okay – that the U.S. would not oppose a grab of the al-Rumeilah oil field, the disputed border strip and the Gulf Islands (including Bubiyan) – the territories claimed by Iraq?

Glaspie said nothing, the car door closed behind her, the car drove off. Nothing has been apparently heard from Glaspie ever since, and we may have to wait for her memoirs in 25 years when they are declassified to come to know what happened. It is astonishing, however, that the 521 page report of the US Senate’s Select Committee on espionage about Iraq before the 2003 war finds no cause whatsoever to mention Glaspie at all (at least in its public censored version). It is almost as if Glaspie has never existed and her conversation with Saddam never happened. Glaspie has disappeared down an Orwellian memory-hole. Yet her conversation with Saddam was the last official, recorded conversation between the Americans and Saddam while they were still on friendly terms.

There may be many causes explaining how such serious failures have come to occur in a country where billions of dollars have been annually spent on espionage. Among them must be that while America’s great strengths have included creation of the finest advanced scientific and technological base on earth, America’s great intellectual weaknesses in recent decades have included an impatience with historical and philosophical reflection of all sorts, and that includes reflection about her own as well as other cultures. This is exemplified too in the third palpable failure of intelligence of the last 20 years, which has been to have not foreseen or prevented atomic weapons from being developed by America and Britain’s Islamist ally and client-state, Pakistan, and thence to have failed to prevent the proliferation of such weapons in general. The consequences of that may yet turn out to be the most grave.”

Now as it happens, a couple of days ago, eleven years after the Government of India’s May 1998 underground nuclear tests at Pokhran, an Indian scientist who had something to do with them has engaged in a general discussion about the tests’ efficacy. Indian newspapers duly reported this as part of an ongoing domestic discussion about nuclear policy.

Oddly enough, there has been an instantaneous reaction from American critics of India’s nuclear activities – beginning with Dr Jeffrey Lewis:

“Yes, Virginia, India’s H-bomb fizzled.  K Santhanam (who was director of test site preparations for India’s 1998 nuclear tests… has admitted what everyone else has known for a long time — that India’s 1998 test of a thermonuclear device was unsuccessful.…”

Followed by Mark Hibbs:

“Is this cool or what? I remember what happened when I wrote that article in the fall of 1998 saying in the headline that the US had concluded that the Indian “H-Bomb failed.” Almost overnight after the article was published I got a huge bundle of papers from BARC and DAE sent to me by diplomatic pouch from Mumbai informing me with all kinds of numbers that I was wrong.  I gave the papers to laboratory geoscientists at several European countries and the US. One main CTBTO monitoring scientist told me explicitly: “Nope. The stuff in these papers is shitty science. They haven’t shown that you are wrong.” That having been said, please note however that, as PK Iyengar had made the case to me back a decade ago, once again this “news” is surfacing in India because their bomb makers want to keep testing. Some things in India are changing fast. Other things aren’t.”

Followed by Charles Mead:

“I got into a huge pissing match with the Indians on this issue as I was the principal author of Barker et. al. 1998 which had the yield estimates far below the Indian press releases. A number of Indian scientists tried to submit a comment to Science rebutting our analysis. We asked them to provide the in-country seismic data on which they based their analysis, but they refused. Luckily, in the end, their comment was rejected and never published.  On a related note, I saw the other day that wikipedia has a glowing description of the Indian 1998 tests, citing the inflated yields and saying the tests were a huge technical accomplishment. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokhran-II In the next day or so, I plan to submit a corrected analysis.”

Mark Hibbs:

“Charles, I recall one of your co-authors back then explained to me in nitty-gritty detail your frustration on this with these guys. Please do correct the record for posterity.”

Charles Meade:

“Their arguments at the time were quite remarkable. They said that our seismic data didn’t reflect the true yield because of a complex interference pattern caused by the simultaneous tests. Under these circumstances, they said that one could only obtain the correct yield from near field data. We said, “fine, show it to us”. They refused and that was the end of their paper.”

Yale Simkin:

“The Indian argument: ‘For us to have a nuclear deterrent we must weaponise. For this, we must have fusion weapons, because these are smaller, lighter, and more efficient than fission weapons.’ is a lot of hooey.  They claim to be building a deterrent force, not a war-fighting arsenal with a counter-force capability.  For the size and mass of their likely early-generation fusion designs, they can instead use basic fission bombs yielding in the multi-dekakiloton range – multiples of the hell weapons that incinerated Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  That should be sufficient to deter any rational adversary. And if they aren’t rational, then you have no deterrent.”

Hmmm.  The choice of terminology even within such a brief discussion might reveal a little of the mind-set: “shitty science”, “pissing match”, “a lot of hooey”…

Rather uncool, really.

Specifically:

“A number of Indian scientists tried to submit a comment to Science rebutting our analysis. We asked them to provide the in-country seismic data on which they based their analysis, but they refused. Luckily, in the end, their comment was rejected and never published…. Their arguments at the time were quite remarkable. They said that our seismic data didn’t reflect the true yield because of a complex interference pattern caused by the simultaneous tests. Under these circumstances, they said that one could only obtain the correct yield from near field data. We said, “fine, show it to us”. They refused and that was the end of their paper.

Hmmm — once more.  The words that I have placed in bold above might be prima facie evidence of incorrect and hence unfair editorial procedures having been followed at Science (distinguished as its general reputation may be as a journal).  Why were these here-unnamed “Indian scientists” not allowed to speak for themselves, rather than have their now-unknown statements be bowdlerised out of their critics’ memories a decade later (when these critics themselves had been the subject of the rebuttal)?  Perhaps the rebuttal should not have been refused publication even if it came with an editorial caveat that all the data deemed necessary had not been provided (which may have been the case, for example, due to a Government gag-order).  Readers today would have been able to judge for themselves.

I am happy to claim zero expertise in the field known rather sweetly as “Crater Morphology”; but post 9/11, post-Iraq war, it does seem to me a rather quaint form of prejudice to be using such words as those quoted above  in discussing the precise tonnage of the Indian explosions and how, really, India’s scientists were not up to it.  Perhaps,  when matters of public policy or international diplomacy become involved, science  everywhere is too important to be left to the scientists.

Are all the available data out there in the public domain on which to judge whether the Indian explosions in 1998 were or were not what was precisely claimed at the time?  Apparently not.

Does it matter to anything today?  Hardly.  Not even to the credibility of the Government of India (something on which I have had a lot to say over decades).

Do Governments lie?  Yes Virginia, they do.

Governments the world over, whether Indian, American, Russian, Chinese, British, French, Israeli, Arab, Pakistani or whatever, let aside inter-Governmental bodies constituted by these Governments, are prone to exaggeration, propaganda, self-delusion, self-deception as well as deliberate mendacity, perhaps routinely on a daily basis.

(For myself as an individual, I have had to battle the demonstrated and deliberate mendacity of the government of one of the fifty States in the US federal courts for two decades now, as told of elsewhere…)

An Age of Government Mendacity has seemed to descend upon the world — which makes the smugness expressed so quickly today by the critics of India’s 1998 explosions seem, as I have said, quaint.

Is the current Indian debate indicating something about keeping open the possibility of more tests and isn’t this related to the Indo-US civil nuclear deal?   It may well be, I do not know.  My position for what it is worth has been clear and described in several articles in The Statesman in recent years e.g.

1) Atoms for Peace (or War)  (March 5 2006)

“Atoms for Peace” was Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 1953 speech to the UN (presided over by Jawaharlal Nehru’s sister) from which arose the IAEA. Eisenhower was the warrior par excellence, having led the Allies to victory over Hitler a few years earlier.

Yet he was the first to see “no sane member of the human race” can discover victory in the “desolation, degradation and destruction” of nuclear war. “Occasional pages of history do record the faces of the ‘great destroyers’, but the whole book of history reveals mankind’s never-ending quest for peace and mankind’s God-given capacity to build.” Speaking of the atomic capacity of America’s communist adversary at the time, he said: “We never have, and never will, propose or suggest that the Soviet Union surrender what rightly belongs to it. We will never say that the peoples of the USSR are an enemy with whom we have no desire ever to deal or mingle in friendly and fruitful relationship.” Rather, “if the fearful trend of atomic military build-up can be reversed, this greatest of destructive forces can be developed into a great boon, for the benefit of all mankind…. if the entire body of the world’s scientists and engineers had adequate amounts of fissionable material… this capability would rapidly be transformed into universal, efficient and economic usage”. Eisenhower’s IAEA would receive contributions from national “stockpiles of normal uranium and fissionable materials”, and also impound, store and protect these and devise “methods whereby this fissionable material would be allocated to serve the peaceful pursuits of mankind.…to provide abundant electrical energy in the power-starved areas of the world… to serve the needs rather than the fears of mankind.” When Eisenhower visited India he was greeted as the “Prince of Peace” and a vast multitude threw rose petals as he drove by in an open limousine.

Now, half a century later, Dr Manmohan Singh read a speech in Parliament on February 27 relating to our nuclear discussions with America. But it seems unclear even his speech-writers or technical advisers knew how far it was rhetoric and how far grounded in factual realities. There is also tremendous naivete among India’s media anchors and political leaders as to what exactly has been agreed by the Americans on March 2.

Churchill once asked what might have happened if Lloyd George and Clemenceau told Woodrow Wilson: “Is it not true that nothing but your fixed and expiring tenure of office prevents you from being thrown out of power?” The same holds for George W. Bush today. Wilson made many promises to the world that came to be hit for a six by US legislators. In December 2005, Edward Markey (Democrat) and Fred Upton (Republican) promised to scuttle Bush’s agreements with India, and once the pleasant memories of his India visit fade, Bush may quite easily forget most things about us. All the Americans have actually agreed to do is to keep talking.

It needs to be understood that submarine-launched ballistic missiles are the only ultimate military deterrent. Land and air forces are all vulnerable to a massive first-strike. Only submarines lurking silently for long periods in waters near their target, to launch nuclear warheads upon learning their homeland had been hit by the enemy, act as a deterrent preventing that same enemy from making his attack at all. Indeed, the problem becomes how a submarine commander will receive such information and his instructions during such a war. (For India to acquire an ICBM capability beyond the MRBM Agni rockets is to possess an expensive backward technology — as retrograde as the idea India should spend scarce resources sending manned moon missions half a century after it has already been done. The secret is to do something new and beneficial for mankind, not repeat what others did long ago merely to show we can now do it too.) A nuclear-armed submarine needs to be submerged for long periods and also voyage long distances at sea, and hence needs to be nuclear-powered with a miniature version of a civilian nuclear reactor aboard in which, e.g. rods of enriched uranium are bombarded to release enough energy to run hydroelectric turbines to generate power. Patently, no complete separation of the use of atomic power for peace and war may be practically possible. If India creates e.g. its own thorium reactors for civilian power (and we have vast thorium reserves, the nuclear fuel of the future), and then miniaturised these somehow to manufacture reactors for submarines, the use would be both civilian and military. In 1988 the old USSR leased India a nuclear-powered submarine for “training” purposes, and the Americans did not like it at all. In January 2002, Russia’s Naval Chief announced India was paying to build and then lease from 2004 until 2009 two nuclear-powered Akula-class attack submarines, and Jaswant Singh reportedly said we were paying $1 thousand crore ($10 bn) for such a defence package. Whether the transaction has happened is not known. Once we have nuclear submarines permanently, that would be more than enough of the minimum deterrent sought.

Indeed, India’s public has been barely informed of civilian nuclear energy policy as well, and an opportunity now exists for a mature national debate to take place — both on what and why the military planning has been and what it costs (and whether any bribes have been paid), and also on the cost, efficiency and safety of the plans for greater civilian use of nuclear energy. Government behaviour after the Bhopal gas tragedy does not inspire confidence about Indian responses to a Three Mile Island/Chernobyl kind of catastrophic meltdown.

That being said, the central question remains why India or anyone else needs to be nuclear-armed at all. With Britain, France or Russia, there is no war though all three are always keen to sell India weapons. Indeed it has been a perennial question why France and Britain need their own deterrents. They have not fought one another for more than 100 years and play rugby instead. If Russia was an enemy, could they not count on America? Or could America itself conceivably become an enemy of Britain and France? America owes her origins to both, and though the Americans did fight the British until the early 1800s, they have never fought the French and love the City of Paris too much ever to do so.

Between China and India, regardless of what happened half a century ago, nuclear or any war other than border skirmishes in sparse barren lands is unlikely. Ever since Sun Yat-sen, China has been going through a complex process of self-discovery and self-definition. An ancient nation where Maoism despoiled the traditional culture and destroyed Tibet, China causes others to fear it because of its inscrutability. But it has not been aggressive in recent decades except with Taiwan. It has threatened nuclear war on America if the Americans stand up for Taiwan, but that is not a quarrel in which India has a cogent role. China (for seemingly commercial reasons) did join hands with Pakistan against India, but there is every indication the Chinese are quite bored with what Pakistan has become. With Pakistan, our situation is well-known, and there has been an implicit equilibrium since Pokhran II finally flushed out their capacity. Had India ever any ambition of using conventional war to knock out and occupy Pakistan as a country? Of course not. We are barely able to govern ourselves, let aside try to rule an ideologically hostile Muslim colony in the NorthWest. Pakistan’s purported reasons for acquiring nuclear bombs are spurious, and cruelly so in view of the abject failures of Pakistan’s domestic political economy. Could Pakistan’s Government use its bombs against India arising from its own self-delusions over J&K? Gohar Ayub Khan in 1998-1999 threatened to do so when he said the next war would be over in two hours with an Indian surrender. He thereby became the exception to Eisenhower’s rule requiring sanity. An India-Pakistan nuclear exchange is, unfortunately, not impossible, leaving J&K as Hell where Jahangir had once described it as Heaven on Earth.

America needs to end her recent jingoism and instead rediscover the legacy of Eisenhower. America can lead everyone in the world today including Russia, China, Israel, Iran and North Korea. But she can do so only by example. America can decommission many of her own nuclear weapons and then lead everyone else to the conference table to do at least some of the same. Like the UN, the IAEA (and its NPT) needs urgent reform itself. It is the right time for serious and new world parleys towards the safe use of atoms for peace and their abolition in war. But are there any Eisenhowers or Churchills to lead them?

2) Our  energy interests ( Aug 27-28 2006)

Americans are shrewd and practical people in commercial matters, and expect the same of people they do business with. Caveat emptor, “let the buyer beware”, is the motto they expect those on the other side of the table to be using. Let us not think they are doing us favours in the nuclear deal ~ they are grown-ups looking after their interests and naturally expect we shall look after our own and not expect charity while doing business. Equally, let us not blame the Americans if we find in later years (long after Manmohan Singh and Montek Ahluwalia have exited from India’s stage) that the deal has been implemented in a bad way for our masses of ordinary people.

That said, there is a remarkable disjoint between India’s national energy interests (nuclear interests in particular), and the manner in which the nuclear deal is being perceived and taken to implementation by the two sides. There may be a fundamental gap between the genuine positive benefits the Government of India says the deal contains, and the motivations American businessmen and through them Indian businessmen have had for lobbying American and Indian politicians to support it. An atmosphere of being at cross-purposes has been created, where for example Manmohan Singh is giving answers to questions different from the questions we may want to be asking Montek Ahluwalia. The fundamental gap between what is being said by our Government and what may be intended by the businessmen is something anyone can grasp, though first we shall need some elementary facts.

In 2004, the International Energy Agency estimated the new energy capacity required by rising economic growth in 2020 will derive 1400 GW from burning coal (half of it in China and India), 470 GW from burning oil, 430GW from hydro, and 400 GW from renewable sources like solar or wind power. Because gas prices are expected to remain low worldwide, construction of new nuclear reactors for electricity will be unprofitable. By 2030, new energy expected to be required worldwide is 4700GW, of which only 150GW is expected from new nuclear plants, which will be in any case replacing existing plants due to be retired. Rational choice between different energy sources depends on costs determined by history and geography. Out of some 441 civilian reactors worldwide, France has 59 and these generate 78 per cent of its electricity, the rest coming from hydro. Japan has 54 reactors, generating 34% of its electricity from them. The USA has 104 reactors but generates only 20 per cent of its electricity from them, given its vast alternative sources of power like hydro. In India as of 2003, installed power generating capacity was 107,533.3MW, of which 71 per cent came from burning fuels. Among India’s energy sources, the largest growth-potential is hydroelectric, which does not involve burning fuels ~ gravity moves water from the mountains to the oceans, and this force is harnessed for generation. Our hydro potential, mostly in the North and North-East, is some 150,000MW but our total installed hydro capacity with utilities was only 26,910MW (about 18 per cent of potential). Our 14 civilian nuclear reactors produced merely 4 per cent or less of the electricity being consumed in the country. Those 14 plants will come under “international safeguards” by 2014 under the nuclear deal.

It is extremely likely the international restrictions our existing nuclear plants have been under since the 1970s have hindered if not crippled their functioning and efficiency. At the same time, the restrictions may have caused us to be innovative too. Nuclear power arises from fission of radioactive uranium, plutonium or thorium. India has some 8 million tonnes of monazite deposits along the seacoast of which half may be mined, to yield 225,000 tonnes of thorium metal; we have one innovatively designed thorium reactor under construction. Almost all nuclear energy worldwide today arises from uranium of which there are practically unlimited reserves. Fission of a uranium atom produces 10 million times the energy produced by combustion of an atom of carbon from coal. Gas and fossil fuels may be cheap and in plentiful supply worldwide for generations to come but potential for cheap nuclear energy seems practically infinite. The uranium in seawater can satisfy mankind’s total electricity needs for 7 million years. There is more energy in the uranium impurity present in coal than can arise from actually burning the coal. There is plenty of uranium in granite. None of these become profitable for centuries because there is so much cheap uranium extractable from conventional ores. Design improvements in reactors will also improve productivity; e.g. “fast breeder” reactors “breed” more fissile material than they use, and may get 100 times as much energy from a kilogram of uranium as existing reactors do. India has about 95,000 tonnes of uranium metal that may be mined to yield about 61,000 tonnes net for power generation. Natural uranium is 99.3 per cent of the U-238 isotope and 0.7 per cent of the radioactive U-235 isotope. Nuclear power generation requires “enriched uranium” or “yellow cake” to be created in which U-235 has been increased from 0.7 per cent to 4 to 5 percent. (Nuclear bombs require highly enriched uranium with more than 90 per cent of U-235.) Yellow cake is broken into small pieces, put in metal rods placed in bundles, which are then bombarded by neutrons causing fission. In a reactor, the energy released turns water into steam, which moves turbines generating electricity. While there is no carbon dioxide “waste” as in burning fossil fuels, the “spent” rods of nuclear fuel and other products constitute grave radioactive waste, almost impossible to dispose of.

The plausible part of the Government of India’s official line on the Indo-US nuclear deal is that removing the international restrictions will ~ through importation of new technologies, inputs, fuel etc ~ improve functioning of our 14 existing civilian plants. That is a good thing. Essentially, the price being paid for that improvement is our willingness to commit that those 14 plants will not be used for military purposes. Fair enough: even if we might become less innovative as a result, the overall efficiency gains as a result of the deal will add something to India’s productivity. However, those purchasing decisions involved in enhancing India’s efficiency gains must be made by the Government’s nuclear scientists on technical grounds of improving the working of our existing nuclear infrastructure.

It is a different animal altogether to be purchasing new nuclear reactors on a turn-key basis from American or any other foreign businessmen in a purported attempt to improve India’s “energy security”. (Lalu Yadav has requested a new reactor for Bihar, plus of course Delhi will want one, etc.) The central question over such massive foreign purchases would no longer be the technical one of using the Indo-US deal to improve efficiency or productivity of our existing nuclear infrastructure. Instead it would become a question of calculating social costs and benefits of our investing in nuclear power relative to other sources like hydroelectric power. Even if all other sources of electricity remained constant, and our civilian nuclear capacity alone was made to grow by 100 per cent under the Manmohan-Montek deal-making, that would mean less than 8% of total Indian electricity produced.

This is where the oddities arise and a disjoint becomes apparent between what the Government of India is saying and what American and Indian businessmen have been doing. A “US-India Business Council” has existed for thirty years in Washington as “the premier business advocacy organization promoting US commercial interests in India.… the voice of the American private sector investing in India”. Before the nuclear or any other deals could be contemplated with American business, the USIBC insisted we pay up for Dabhol contracted by a previous Congress Government. The Maharashtra State Electricity Board ~ or rather, its sovereign guarantor the Government of India ~ duly paid out at least $140-$160 million each to General Electric and Bechtel Corporations in “an amicable settlement” of the Dabhol affair. Afterwards, General Electric’s CEO for India was kind enough to say “India is an important country to GE’s global growth. We look forward to working with our partners, customers, and State and Central Governments in helping India continue to develop into a leading world economy”.

Also, a new “US-India CEO Forum” then came about. For two Governments to sponsor private business via such a Forum was “unprecedented”, as noted by Washington’s press during Manmohan Singh’s visit in July 2005. America’s foreign ministry announced it saying: “Both our governments have agreed that we should create a high-level private sector forum to exchange business community views on key economic priorities…” The American side includes heads of AES Corporation, Cargill Inc., Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, Honeywell, McGraw-Hill, Parsons Brinckerhoff Ltd, PepsiCo, Visa International and Xerox Corporation. The Indian side includes heads of Tata Group, Apollo Hospitals Group, Bharat Forge Ltd, Biocon India Group, HDFC, ICICI One Source, Infosys, ITC Ltd, Max India Group and Reliance Industries. Presiding over the Indian side has been Montek Ahluwalia, Manmohan’s trusted aide ~ and let it be remembered too that the Ahluwalias were Manmohan’s strongest backers in his failed South Delhi Lok Sabha bid. (Indeed it is not clear if the Ahluwalias have been US or Indian residents in recent years, and if it is the former, the onus is on them to clear any perception of conflict of interest arising in regard to roles regarding the nuclear deal or any other official Indo-US business.)

Also, before the Manmohan visit, the Confederation of Indian Industry registered as an official lobbyist in Washington, and went about spending half a million dollars lobbying American politicians for the nuclear deal. After the Manmohan visit, the US Foreign Commercial Service reportedly said American engineering firms, equipment suppliers and contractors faced a $1,000 billion (1 bn =100 crore) opportunity in India. Before President Bush’s visit to India in March 2006, Manmohan Singh signed vast purchases of commercial aircraft from Boeing and Airbus, as well as large weapons’ deals with France and Russia. After the Bush visit, the US Chamber of Commerce said the nuclear deal can cause $100 billion worth of new American business in India’s energy-sector alone. What is going on?

Finally, the main aspect of Manmohan Singh’s address to America’s legislature had to do with agreeing with President Bush “to enhance Indo-US cooperation in the field of civilian nuclear technology”. What precisely does this mean? If it means the Indo-US nuclear deal will help India improve or maintain its existing nuclear infrastructure, well and good. There may be legitimate business for American and other foreign companies in that cause, which also helps India make the efficiency and productivity gains mentioned. Or has the real motivation for the American businessmen driving the deal (with the help of the “CEO Forum” etc) been to sell India nuclear reactors on a turn-key basis (in collaboration with private Indian businessmen) at a time when building new nuclear reactors is unprofitable elsewhere in the world because of low gas prices? India’s citizens may demand to know from the Government whether the Manmohan-Montek deal-making is going to cause importation of new nuclear reactors, and if so, why such an expensive alternative is being considered (relative to e.g. India’s abundant hydroelectric potential) when it will have scant effect in satisfying the country’s energy needs and lead merely to a worsening of our macroeconomic problems. Both Manmohan Singh and Montek Ahluwalia have been already among those to preside over the growth of India’s macroeconomic problems through the 1980s and 1990s.

Lastly, an irrelevant distraction should be gotten out of the way. Are we a “nuclear weapons” state? Of course we are, but does it matter to anything but our vanity? Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev had control over vastly more nuclear weapons and they declared together twenty years ago: “A nuclear war cannot be won and must not be fought”, which is how the Cold War started to come to an end. We need to remind ourselves that India and Pakistan are large, populous countries with hundreds of millions of materially poor, ill-informed citizens, weak tax-bases, humongous internal and external public debts (i.e. debt owed by the Government to domestic and foreign creditors), non-investment grade credit- ratings in world financial markets, massive annual fiscal deficits, inconvertible currencies, nationalized banks, and runaway printing of paper-money. Discussing nuclear or other weapon-systems to attack one other with is mostly a pastime of our cowardly, irresponsible and yes, corrupt, elites.

3) Need for Clarity A poorly drafted treaty driven by business motives is a recipe for international misunderstanding  (August 19 2007)

Confusion prevails over the Indo-US Nuclear Deal. Businessmen, bureaucrats, politicians, diplomats, scientists and now the public at large have all joined in the cacophony in the last two years. On Wednesday August 15, America’s foreign ministry made the clearest most unequivocal statement possible as to the official American Government interpretation of the Indo-US nuclear deal: “The proposed 123 agreement has provisions in it that in an event of a nuclear test by India, then all nuclear co-operation is terminated, as well as there is provision for return of all materials, including reprocessed material covered by the agreement” (Sean McCormack). Yet our Prime Minister had told Parliament two days earlier: “The agreement does not in any way affect India’s right to undertake future nuclear tests, if it is necessary”. What is going on? Our politics are in uproar, and it has been suggested in these pages that the country go to a General Election to allow the people to speak on the matter. Clearly, we need some clarity.

Let us start at the beginning. How did it all originate? The private US nuclear industry prevailed upon India’s government bureaucrats and businessmen over several years that nuclear power is the way forward to solving India’s “infrastructure” problems. They would sell us, in words of the Manmohan-Montek Planning Commission’s energy adviser, “six to eight lightwater reactors” (especially as they may not be able to sell these anywhere else). Our usual prominent self-seeking retired bureaucrats started their waffling about the importance of “infrastructure”.

Then Manmohan Singh felt his foreign travels as PM could be hardly complete without a fife-and-drum visit to the White House. But before he could do so, Dabhol would have to be cleared up since American business in India was on a self-moratorium until GE and Bechtel were paid settlements of some $140-160 million each by the Governments of India and Maharashtra. GE’s CEO for India kindly said afterwards “India is an important country to GE’s global growth. We look forward to working with our partners, customers, and State and Central Governments in helping India continue to develop into a leading world economy”.

Also, before Manmohan’s USA trip, the Confederation of Indian Industry registered as an official Washington lobbyist and spent half a million dollars lobbying American politicians for the deal. (”Why?” would be a good question.)

So Dr Singh was able to make his White House visit, accompanied by US business lobbies saying the nuclear deal can generate $100 billion worth of new American business in India’s energy-sector alone. It is only when business has lubricated politics in America that so much agreement about the India-deal could arise. The “bottom-line” is that six to eight reactors must be sold to India, whatever politics and diplomacy it takes.

Now Dr Singh is not a PM who is a Member of the Lower House of Parliament commanding its confidence. He says his Government constitutes the Executive and can sign treaties on India’s behalf. This is unwise. If he signs a treaty and then the Congress Party loses the next General Election, a new Executive Government can use his same words to rescind the same treaty. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. One reason we are so confused is that India has not signed very many bilateral treaties, and there is barely a noted specialist in international law anywhere in the country. Dr Singh’s original mentor, PN Haksar, had gone about getting a treaty signed with the USSR back in 1971 which tided us over a war, though the USSR itself collapsed before that treaty ended.

Signing a treaty is much more than signing an international MOU. It requires a national consensus or a least a wide and deep understanding on the part of the public and the political class as to what necessitates the treaty. That plainly does not exist at present. Most people in India do not even know how nuclear power is generated, nor how small and insignificant nuclear power has been in India.

Natural uranium is 99.3 per cent of the U-238 isotope and 0.7 per cent the radioactive U-235 isotope. Nuclear power generation requires “enriched uranium” or “yellow cake” to be created in which U-235 has been increased from 0.7 per cent to 4 to 5 percent. (Nuclear bombs require “highly enriched” uranium with more than 90 per cent of U-235.) Yellow cake is broken into small pieces, put in metal rods placed in bundles, which are then bombarded by neutrons causing fission. In a reactor, the energy released turns water into steam, which moves turbines generating electricity. While there is no carbon dioxide “waste” as in burning fossil fuels, the “spent” rods of nuclear fuel and other products constitute grave radioactive waste, almost impossible to dispose of.

India’s 14 “civilian” nuclear reactors presently produce less than 4% of our total power. 70% of our power arises from burning fossil fuels, mainly coal. Much of the rest arises from hydro. We have vast hydroelectric potential in the North and Northeast but it would take a lot of serious political, administrative and civil engineering effort to organise all that, and there would not be any nice visits to Washington or Paris involved for politicians and bureaucrats.

Simple arithmetic says that even if all our principal energy sources stayed constant and only our tiny nuclear power sector grew by 100%, that would still hardly increase by very much our energy output overall. Placing a couple of expensive modern lightwater reactors around Delhi, a couple around Mumbai and a few other metros will, however, butter already buttered bread quite nicely and keep all those lifts and ACs running.

The agreed text of the “treaty” looks, from a legal standpoint, quite sloppily and hurriedly written ~ almost as if each side has cut and paste its own preferred terms in different places with a nod to the other side. For example, there is mention of “WMD” initially which is repeated as “weapons of mass destruction” just a little later. There is solemn mention of the “Government of India” and “Government of the United States of America” as the “Parties”, but this suddenly becomes merely “United States” and “India” in the middle and then reverts again to the formal usage.

Through the sloppiness comes scope for different interpretations. The Americans have said: try not to test, you don’t need to, we don’t test any more, and you have to know that if you do test, this deal is over, in fact it gets reversed. We have said, okay, we won’t test, and if we do test we know it is over with you but that does not mean it is over with others. Given such sloppy diplomacy and treaty-making, the scope for mutual misunderstanding, even war, remains immense long after all the public Indian moneys have found their way into private pockets worldwide. Will a future President Jeb Bush or Chelsea Clinton send F-22 bombers to bomb India’s nuclear facilities because India has carried out a test yet declined to return American equipment? Riding a tiger is not something generally to be recommended.

The answer to our present conundrum must be patience and the fullest transparency. What is the rush? If it is good or bad for us to buy six or eight new American reactors now, it will remain good or bad to do so a year or two from now after everyone has had a thorough think about everything that is involved. What the Manmohan-Montek Planning Commission needed to do first of all was a thorough cost-benefit analysis of India’s energy requirements but such elementary professionalism has been sorely lacking among our economists for decades.”

Subroto Roy

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Democracy Database for the Largest Electorate Ever Seen in World History

April 12, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

In four days, on April 16 2009, one thousand seven hundred and seven officially recognized candidates, representing 161 political parties and including 770 Independents, are contesting the polls in 124 constituencies (out of a total of 543 constituencies), across 15 States and two Union Territories  in Phase 1 of the General Election to India’s 15th Lok Sabha.   Between 16 April and 7 May in Phases 2, 3 and 4, that number of candidates contesting  India’s  General Elections rises to at least 4,637, average age 46.1, from 261 political parties, including 291 women and 2118  Independents across more than 150 further constituencies.  By 13 May, Phase 5 will be over and all 543 constituencies shall have been covered.  The size of the registered electorate of potential voters under adult franchise is 383,566,479, the largest in human history.

Did you know that? Of course not. None of our juvenile TV stations and only-slightly-less-juvenile newspapers would have been able to give you such numbers even if they had tried to; they would barely know where to begin. Besides, our Election Commission too has become a  sclerotic bureaucracy like everything else to do with India’s governance; its website — now updated and improving slightly every day — provides a lot of irrelevancies along with providing  the very least modicum of  raw data logically necessary for the conduct of the election.

Ten years ago, just prior to the 13th Lok Sabha Elections, I, as part of my academic research as a “full professor” at an “Institution of National Importance”, created an Excel spreadsheet containing every single Lok Sabha constituency at the time. I later sent it on to the EC for its free use and distribution. (Some of my academic colleagues were surprised and suspicious as one of their principal goals in life was to obtain lucrative government “consulting” contracts wherever possible — doing things for free set a worrisome example despite the slogan of being supposedly “dedicated to the service of the nation”!). Nothing happened because the EC in particular and the Government of India in general did not then and have not now appeared keen to know how to use spreadsheets  like Excel properly, despite our claims of  India  being  an information-technology powerhouse!

I have now had to re-create that 1999 spreadsheet again for the 15th Lok Sabha Elections because there has been a major parliamentary exercise of what is called “redistricting” in some countries and “delimitation” here in India. Many constituencies have been merged or have disappeared while new ones have appeared.  Plus  numerous innovative techniques  and formulae have had to be used by me with vital free help from Excel Forum users as well as providers of free add-ins around the world, to whom grateful acknowledgment is made.

The processed data below is based entirely on the raw data available from the EC as of April 11 2009.  As the EC updates its raw data, so shall I seek to update this processed data.   There are definite errors in the EC data (e.g. one Independent candidate has been listed 3 times, while 19 people have been listed as being99 years old; more significantly there seems to be at least one constituency in which there is only one candidate, etc etc.)   Whatever errors exist in the raw data must be carried over to these data here, I am afraid.  But I will as I have said update this as the EC updates its raw data.  If there are errors in my processing, I do not know of them, so please check and recheck against the EC’s data if you wish to use these data operationally.  [Update 1800 hours Sunday April 12: the EC has reduced the number of candidates from 4637 to 4631 which presumably means some obvious slight errors have been corrected; it is still far short of having announced all candidates for all 543 constituencies, so the overall number is destined to rise and drastically quite soon — I hope before the first polls open on Thursday!].

The first two indicators are the EC’s way of identifying a constituency; then there is the name of the State or Union Territory in a two-digit code followed by the name of the constituency  in capitals, the date that polling is due to take place, and the list of the candidates and their parties.   I have made every effort to see no error has been added by me in addition to any errors that might exist in the EC’s data.  But please check and double check yourself, and I cannot  take responsibility for the accuracy of the information, especially as it is being done in “real time”.

This is being provided as a free public service for India’s ordinary people, citizens, candidates, students, observers etc.   Any broadcast or republication or academic use must acknowledge it appeared first at this site in my work: just link to this post or quote “Democracy Database for the Largest Electorate Ever Seen in World History by Dr Subroto Roy”, and use away.

Why do I think it is important for every candidate in every constituency in India’s 2009 General Elections to have his/her name known and to receive due respect and a small salute in HTML even for a brief moment?

Because that is what democracy in a free republic is supposed to be about. India is not a monarchy or a mansabdari of some sort, no matter what the many corrupt people inhabiting our Government and our capital cities might have made themselves believe.

Our juvenile, sensationalist, irresponsible  Delhi-centred media might realize someday that there are thousands of real people all over  this country that is India contesting these elections  seriously and trying to thus participate in the political process as best they can.  The Delhi-centred media  remain focused on the few dozen fake celebrities that they flatter,  cultivate and pander to. (We must wait to see what depths of journalistic depravity our  TV stations reach in  covering the so-called IPL in South Africa more seriously than they cover India’s 2009 General Elections!  What would MK Gandhi, who, a century ago, was still in South Africa, have said about such a twist of India’s fate?)

Here instead are India’s names and India’s lives and India’s places and India’s peoples and India’s political parties for all of us to see and understand and hence  see and understand ourselves better.

Here’s a cheer to all those party-political symbols for or  against which India’s hundreds of millions of voters will make their decisions:

A lady farmer carrying paddy on her head,

Aeroplane,

Almirah

Arrow

Axe

Balloon

Banana

Basket

Bat

Batsman

Battery Torch

Bead Necklace

Bell

Bicycle

Black Board

Boat

Book

Bow & Arrow

Boy & Girl

Bread

Brick

Bridge

Brief Case

Brush

Bungalow

Bus

Cake

Camera

Candles

Car

Carrot

Cart

Ceiling Fan

Chair

Clock

Coat

Cock

Coconut

Comb

Conch

Cot

Cup & Saucer

Diesel Pump

Dolli

Drum

Ears of Corn And Sickle

Electric Pole

Elephant

Flag with Three Stars

Flowers and Grass

Fork

Frock

Frying Pan

Gas Cylinder

Gas Stove

Glass Tumbler

Haldhar Within Wheel (Chakra Haldhar)

Hammer, Sickle and Star

Hand

Hand Pump

Harmonium

Hat

Hurricane Lamp

Hut

Ice Cream

Ink Pot & Pen

Iron

Jug

Kettle

Kite

Ladder

Lady Purse

Letter Box

Lion

Lock and Key

Lotus

Maize

Nagara

Not Alloted

Pressure Cooker

Railway Engine

Ring

Rising Sun

Road Roller

Saw

Scissors

Sewing Machine

Shuttle

Slate

Spade & Stoker

Spoon

Stool

Table

Table Lamp

Television

Tent

Two Daos Intersecting

Two Leaves

Violin

Walking Stick

Whistle….

Here’s a cheer then to all the thousands of candidates, average age 46.1, including those Independents, and the hundreds of political parties who go to the contest  beginning  April 16:

Aadivasi Sena Party

A-Chik National Congress(Democratic)

Adarsh Lok Dal

Advait Ishwasyam Congress

Ajeya Bharat Party

AJSU Party

Akhand Bharti

Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha

Akhil Bharatiya Ashok Sena

Akhil Bharatiya Congress Dal (Ambedkar)

Akhil Bharatiya Hind Kranti Party

Akhil Bharatiya Jan Sangh

Akhil Bharatiya Manav Seva Dal

Akhil Bhartiya Manavata Paksha

Akhil Bhartiya Sindhu Samajwadi Party

Akhila India Jananayaka Makkal Katchi (Dr. Issac)

All India Forward Bloc

All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen

All India Minorities Front

All India Trinamool Congress

All Jharkhand Students Union

Alpjan Samaj Party

Ambedkar National Congress

Ambedkar Samaj Party

Ambedkarist Republican Party

Amra Bangalee

Apna Dal

Arunachal Congress

Asom Gana Parishad

Assam United Democratic Front

Autonomous State Demand Committee

Awami Party

B. C. United Front

Backward Classes Democratic Party, J&K

Bahujan Republican Ekta Manch

Bahujan Samaj Party

Bahujan Samaj Party(Ambedkar-Phule)

Bahujan Sangharsh Party (Kanshiram)

Bahujan Shakty

Bahujan Uday Manch

Bajjikanchal Vikas Party

Bharat Punarnirman Dal

Bharat Vikas Morcha

Bharatheeya Sadharma Samsthapana Party

Bharatiya Bahujan Party

Bharatiya Eklavya Party

Bharatiya Grameen Dal

Bharatiya Jagaran Party

Bharatiya Jan Berojgar Chhatra Dal

Bharatiya Jan Shakti

Bharatiya Janata Party

Bharatiya Jantantrik Janta Dal

Bharatiya Lok Kalyan Dal

Bharatiya Loktantrik Party(Gandhi-Lohiawadi)

Bharatiya Minorities Suraksha Mahasangh

Bharatiya Momin Front

Bharatiya Natiional Janta Dal

Bharatiya Peoples Party

Bharatiya Pichhra Dal

Bharatiya Praja Paksha

Bharatiya Rashtriya Bahujan Samaj Vikas Party

Bharatiya Republican Paksha

Bharatiya Sadbhawna Samaj Party

Bharatiya Samaj Dal

Bharatiya Samta Samaj Party

Bharatiya Sarvodaya Kranti Party

Bharatiya Subhash Sena

Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha

Biju Janata Dal

Bira Oriya Party

Bodaland Peoples Front

Buddhiviveki Vikas Party

Chandigarh Vikas Party

Chhattisgarh Vikas Party

Chhattisgarhi Samaj Party

Communist Party of India

Communist Party of India (Marxist)

Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)

Democratic Party of India

Democratic Secular Party

Dharam Nirpeksh Dal

Duggar Pradesh Party

Eklavya Samaj Party

Gondvana Gantantra Party

Gondwana Mukti Sena

Great India Party

Hill State People’s Democratic Party

Hindustan Janta Party

Indian Christian Secular Party

Indian Justice Party

Indian National Congress

Indian Peace Party

Indian Peoples Forward Block

Indian Union Muslim League

Jaganmay Nari Sangathan

Jago Party

Jai Bharat Samanta Party

Jai Chhattisgarh Party

Jai Vijaya Bharathi Party

Jammu & Kashmir National Panthers Party

Jammu & Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party

Jan Samanta Party

Jan Surajya Shakti

Jana Hitkari Party

Janata Dal (Secular)

Janata Dal (United)

Janata Party

Janvadi Party(Socialist)

Jawan Kisan Morcha

Jharkhand Disom Party

Jharkhand Jan Morcha

Jharkhand Janadikhar Manch

Jharkhand Mukti Morcha

Jharkhand Party

Jharkhand Party (Naren)

Jharkhand PeopleÂ’S Party

Jharkhand Vikas Dal

Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik)

Kalinga Sena

Kamtapur Progressive Party

Kannada Chalavali Vatal Paksha

Karnataka Rajya Ryota Sangha

Karnataka Thamizhar Munnetra Kazhagam

Kerala Congress

Kerala Congress (M)

Kosal Kranti Dal

Kosi Vikas Party

Kranti Kari Jai Hind Sena

Krantikari Samyavadi Party

Krantisena Maharashtra

Laghujan Samaj Vikas Party

Lal Morcha

Lok Bharati

Lok Dal

Lok Jan Shakti Party

Lok Jan Vikas Morcha

Lok Satta Party

Lok Vikas Party

Lokpriya Samaj Party

Loksangram

Loktanrik Sarkar Party

Loktantrik Samajwadi Party

Loktantrik Samata Dal

Mahagujarat Janta Party

Maharashtra Navnirman sena

Maharashtrawadi Gomantak

Mahila Adhikar Party

Mana Party

Manav Mukti Morcha

Manipur People’s Party

Marxist Communist Party of India (S.S. Srivastava)

Marxist Co-Ordination

Maulik Adhikar Party

Meghalaya Democratic Party

Moderate Party

Momin Conference

Muslim League Kerala State Committee

Muslim Majlis Uttar Pradesh

Nagaland Peoples Front

National Development Party

National Lokhind Party

National Loktantrik Party

National Secular Party

National Youth Party

Nationalist Congress Party

Navbharat Nirman Party

Nelopa(United)

Orissa Mukti Morcha

Party for Democratic Socialism

Paschim Banga Rajya Muslim League

Peace Party

Peoples Democratic Alliance

Peoples Democratic Forum

People’s Democratic Front

Peoples Guardian

People’s Party of Arunachal

Peoples Republican Party

Prabuddha Republican Party

Pragatisheel Manav Samaj Party

Praja Bharath Party

Praja Rajyam Party

Prajatantrik Samadhan Party

Proutist Sarva Samaj

Proutist Sarva Samaj Party

Purvanchal Rajya Banao Dal

Pyramid Party of India

Rajyadhikara Party

Rashtra Sewa Dal

Rashtravadi Aarthik Swatantrata Dal

Rashtravadi Communist Party

Rashtravadi Janata Party

Rashtrawadi Sena

Rashtriya Agraniye Dal

Rashtriya Bahujan Congress Party

Rashtriya Dehat Morcha Party

Rashtriya Gondvana Party

Rashtriya Janata Dal

Rashtriya Jan-Jagram Morcha

Rashtriya Jan-vadi Party (Krantikari)

Rashtriya Kranti Party

Rashtriya Krantikari Janata Party

Rashtriya Krantikari Samajwadi Party

Rashtriya Lok Dal

Rashtriya Lokhit Party

Rashtriya Lokwadi Party

Rashtriya Machhua Samaj Party

Rashtriya Mazdoor Ekta Party

Rashtriya Pragati Party

Rashtriya Praja Congress (Secular)

Rashtriya Raksha Dal

Rashtriya Samaj Paksha

Rashtriya Samajwadi Party (United)

Rashtriya Samanta Dal

Rashtriya Swabhimaan Party

Rayalaseema Rashtra Samithi

Republican Paksha (Khoripa)

Republican Party of India

Republican Party of India (A)

Republican Party of India (Democratic )

Republican Party of India (Khobragade)

Republican Presidium Party of India

Republician Party of India Ektawadi

Revolutionary Communist Party of India (Rasik Bhatt)

Revolutionary Socialist Party

Samajik Jantantrik Party

Samajtantric Party of India

Samajwadi Jan Parishad

Samajwadi Janata Party (Rashtriya)

Samajwadi Party

Samata Party

Samruddha Odisha

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Party

Sarvodaya Karnataka Paksha

Sarvodaya Party

Savarn Samaj Party

Save Goa Front

Shakti Sena (Bharat Desh)

Shivrajya Party

Shivsena

Shoshit Samaj Dal

Socialist Party (Lohia)

Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party

Sunder Samaj Party

Swabhimani Paksha

Swarajya Party Of India

Swatantra Bharat Paksha

Telangana Rashtra Samithi

Telugu Desam

The Humanist Party of India

Trilinga Praja Pragati Party

United Communist Party of India

United Democratic Party

United Goans Democratic Party

United Women Front

Uttar Pradesh Republican Party

Vanchit Jamat Party

Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katch

Vikas Party

Vishva Hindustani Sangathan

Yuva Vikas Party … and many many more….

S01    1    AP    ADILABAD    16-Apr-09    1    ADE TUKARAM    M    55    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    KOTNAK RAMESH    M    39    Indian National Congress

3    RATHOD RAMESH    M    43    Telugu Desam

4    RATHOD SADASHIV NAIK    M    50    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    MESRAM NAGO RAO    M    59    Praja Rajyam Party

6    ATHRAM LAXMAN RAO    M    47    Independent

7    GANTA PENTANNA    M    36    Independent

8    NETHAVAT RAMDAS    M    39    Independent

9    BANKA SAHADEVU    M    55    Independent

S01    2    AP    PEDDAPALLE    16-Apr-09    1    GAJJELA SWAMY    M    49    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    GOMASA SRINIVAS    M    41    Telangana Rashtra Samithi

3    MATHANGI NARSIAH    M    64    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    DR.G.VIVEKANAND    M    51    Indian National Congress

5    AREPELLI DAVID RAJU    M    36    Praja Rajyam Party

6    KRISHNA SABBALI    M    39    Marxist Communist Party of India (S.S. Srivastava)

7    AMBALA MAHENDAR    M    38    Independent

8    A. KAMALAMMA    F    36    Independent

9    GORRE RAMESH    M    42    Independent

10    NALLALA KANUKAIAH    M    39    Independent

11    B. MALLAIAH    M    32    Independent

12    K. RAJASWARI    F    38    Independent

13    D. RAMULU    M    51    Independent

14    G.VINAY KUMAR    M    51    Independent

15    S.LAXMAIAH    M    33    Independent

S01    3    AP    KARIMNAGAR    16-Apr-09    1    CHANDUPATLA JANGA REDDY    M    75    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    PONNAM PRABHAKAR    M    41    Indian National Congress

3    VINOD KUMAR BOINAPALLY    M    49    Telangana Rashtra Samithi

4    VIRESHAM NALIMELA    M    58    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    RAGULA RAMULU    M    40    Republican Party of India (A)

6    LINGAMPALLI SRINIVAS REDDY    M    39    Marxist Communist Party of India (S.S. Srivastava)

7    VELICHALA RAJENDER RAO    M    46    Praja Rajyam Party

8    T. SRIMANNARAYANA    M    68    Pyramid Party of India

9    K. PRABHAKAR    M    43    Independent

10    KORIVI VENUGOPAL    M    46    Independent

11    BARIGE GATTAIAH YADAV    M    32    Independent

12    GADDAM RAJI REDDY    M    48    Independent

13    PANAKANTI SATISH KUMAR    M    46    Independent

14    PEDDI RAVINDER    M    29    Independent

15    B. SURESH    M    32    Independent

S01    4    AP    NIZAMABAD    16-Apr-09    1    DR. BAPU REDDY    M    59    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    BIGALA GANESH GUPTA    M    39    Telangana Rashtra Samithi

3    MADHU YASKHI GOUD    M    50    Indian National Congress

4    YEDLA RAMU    M    53    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    DUDDEMPUDI SAMBASIVA RAO CHOUDARY    M    62    Lok Satta Party

6    P.VINAY KUMAR    M    51    Praja Rajyam Party

7    DR. V.SATHYANARAYANA MURTHY    M    51    Pyramid Party of India

8    S. SUJATHA    F    43    Trilinga Praja Pragati Party

9    AARIS MOHAMMED    M    46    Independent

10    KANDEM PRABHAKAR    M    44    Independent

11    GADDAM SRINIVAS    M    47    Independent

12    RAPELLY SRINIVAS    M    34    Independent

S01    5    AP    ZAHIRABAD    16-Apr-09    1    CHENGAL BAGANNA    M    66    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    M.VISHNU MUDIRAJ    M    35    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    SYED YOUSUF ALI    M    54    Telangana Rashtra Samithi

4    SURESH KUMAR SHETKAR    M    46    Indian National Congress

5    BENJAMIN RAJU    M    39    Indian Justice Party

6    MALKAPURAM SHIVA KUMAR    M    43    Praja Rajyam Party

7    MALLESH RAVINDER REDDY    M    39    Lok Satta Party

8    CHITTA RAJESHWAR RAO    M    45    Independent

9    POWAR SINGH HATTI SINGH    M    36    Independent

10    BASAVA RAJ PATIL    M    39    Independent

S01    6    AP    MEDAK    16-Apr-09    1    NARENDRANATH .C    M    45    Indian National Congress

2    P. NIROOP REDDY    M    50    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    VIJAYA SHANTHI .M    F    43    Telangana Rashtra Samithi

4    Y. SHANKAR GOUD    M    44    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    KOVURI PRABHAKAR    M    51    Pyramid Party of India

6    KHAJA QUAYUM ANWAR    M    43    Praja Rajyam Party

7    D. YADESHWAR    M    46    Bahujan Samaj Party(Ambedkar-Phule)

8    K. SUDHEER REDDY    M    37    Lok Satta Party

9    KUNDETI RAVI    M    32    Independent

S01    7    AP    MALKAJGIRI    16-Apr-09    1    NALLU INDRASENA REDDY    M    56    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    M.BABU RAO PADMA SALE    M    52    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    BHEEMSEN.T    M    60    Telugu Desam

4    SARVEY SATYANARAYANA    M    54    Indian National Congress

5    S.D.KRISHNA MURTHY    M    51    Trilinga Praja Pragati Party

6    T.DEVENDER GOUD    M    56    Praja Rajyam Party

7    NARENDER KUMBALA    M    39    Bharat Punarnirman Dal

8    PRATHANI RAMAKRISHNA    M    42    Rashtriya Krantikari Samajwadi Party

9    LION C FRANCIS MJF    M    56    Samajwadi Party

10    N V RAMA REDDY    M    54    Pyramid Party of India

11    DR.LAVU RATHAIAH    M    56    Lok Satta Party

12    KANTE KANAKAIAH GANGAPUTHRA    M    63    Independent

13    KOYAL KAR BHOJARAJ    M    35    Independent

14    CHENURU VENKATA SUBBA RAO    M    52    Independent

15    JAJULA BHASKAR    M    34    Independent

16    LT.COL. (RETD). DUSERLA PAPARAIDU    M    62    Independent

17    MD.MANSOORALI    M    31    Independent

18    S.VICTOR    M    40    Independent

19    K.SRINIVASA RAJU    M    44    Independent

S01    8    AP    SECUNDRABAD    16-Apr-09    1    ANJAN KUMAR YADAV M    M    47    Indian National Congress

2    BANDARU DATTATREYA    M    61    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    M. D. MAHMOOD ALI    M    55    Telangana Rashtra Samithi

4    M. VENKATESH    M    32    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    SRINIVASA SUDHISH RAMBHOTLA    M    40    Telugu Desam

6    ABDUS SATTAR MUJAHED    M    41    Muslim League Kerala State Committee

7    IMDAD JAH    M    64    Ambedkar National Congress

8    P. DAMODER REDDY    M    48    Pyramid Party of India

9    DR. DASOJU SRAVAN KUMAR    M    41    Praja Rajyam Party

10    S. DEVAIAH    M    59    Trilinga Praja Pragati Party

11    C.V.L. NARASIMHA RAO    M    51    Lok Satta Party

12    DR .POLISHETTY RAM MOHAN    M    57    Samata Party

13    MOHD. OSMAN QURESHEE    M    35    Ajeya Bharat Party

14    SHIRAZ KHAN    F    39    United Women Front

15    ASEERVADAM LELLAPALLI    M    51    Independent

16    AMBATI KRISHNA MURTHY    M    50    Independent

17    B. GOPALA KRISHNA    M    42    Independent

18    DEVI DAS RAO GHODKE    M    63    Independent

19    BABER ALI KHAN    M    51    Independent

20    M. BHAGYA MATHA    F    38    Independent

21    CH. MURAHARI    M    49    Independent

22    G. RAJAIAH    M    48    Independent

23    K. SRINIVASA CHARI    M    49    Independent

S01    9    AP    HYDERABAD    16-Apr-09    1    ZAHID ALI KHAN    M    66    Telugu Desam

2    P. LAXMAN RAO GOUD    M    55    Indian National Congress

3    SATISH AGARWAL    M    38    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    SAMY MOHAMMED    M    29    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    ASADUDDIN OWAISI    M    41    All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen

6    S. GOPAL SINGH    M    34    Akhil Bharatiya Jan Sangh

7    TAHER KAMAL KHUNDMIRI    M    52    Janata Dal (Secular)

8    FATIMA .A    F    41    Praja Rajyam Party

9    P. VENKATESWARA RAO    M    58    Pyramid Party of India

10    D. SURENDER    M    36    Trilinga Praja Pragati Party

11    AL-KASARY MOULLIM MOHSIN HUSSAIN    M    33    Independent

12    ALTAF AHMED KHAN    M    43    Independent

13    M.A. QUDDUS GHORI    M    43    Independent

14    ZAHID ALI KHAN    M    26    Independent

15    M.A. BASITH    M    55    Independent

16    MD. OSMAN    M    43    Independent

17    B. RAVI YADAV    M    33    Independent

18    N.L. SRINIVAS    M    31    Independent

19    M.A. SATTAR    M    29    Independent

20    D. SADANAND    M    45    Independent

21    SYED ABDUL GAFFTER    M    51    Independent

22    SARDAR SINGH    M    62    Independent

23    M.A. HABEEB    M    31    Independent

S01    10    AP    CHELVELLA    16-Apr-09    1    JAIPAL REDDY SUDINI    M    67    Indian National Congress

2    A.P.JITHENDER REDDY    M    54    Telugu Desam

3    BADDAM BAL REDDY    M    64    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    C.SRINIVAS RAO    M    39    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    KASANI GNANESHWAR    M    54    Mana Party

6    KUMMARI GIRI    M    28    Pyramid Party of India

7    DASARA SARALA DEVI    F    39    Marxist Communist Party of India (S.S. Srivastava)

8    DR.B.RAGHUVEER REDDY    M    42    Lok Satta Party

9    SAMA SRINIVASULU    M    34    Great India Party

10    S.MALLA REDDY    M    43    Independent

11    G.MALLESHAM GOUD    M    32    Independent

12    RAMESHWARAM JANGAIAH    M    58    Independent

13    LAXMINARAYANA    M    27    Independent

14    VENKATRAM NAIK    M    27    Independent

15    SAYAMOOLA NARSIMULU    M    30    Independent

S01    11    AP    MAHBUBNAGAR    16-Apr-09    1    KUCHAKULLA YADAGIRI REDDY    M    51    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    K. CHANDRASEKHAR RAO    M    55    Telangana Rashtra Samithi

3    DEVARAKONDA VITTAL RAO    M    57    Indian National Congress

4    PALEM SUDARSHAN GOUD    M    42    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    ABDUL KAREEM KHAJA MOHAMMAD    M    50    Lok Satta Party

6    ASIRVADAM    M    35    Great India Party

7    KOLLA VENKATESH MADIGA    M    37    Trilinga Praja Pragati Party

8    GUNDALA VIJAYALAKSHMI    F    61    Pyramid Party of India

9    B. BALRAJ GOUD    M    44    Mana Party

10    MUNISWAMY.C.R    M    32    Samajwadi Janata Party (Rashtriya)

11    USHAN SATHYAMMA    F    32    Independent

12    USAIN RANGAMMA    F    50    Independent

13    YETTI CHINNA YENKAIAH    M    47    Independent

14    YETTI LINGAIAH    M    52    Independent

15    KANDUR KURMAIAH    M    56    Independent

16    KARRE JANGAIAH    M    29    Independent

17    GANGAPURI RAVINDAR GOUD    M    28    Independent

18    GAJJA NARSIMULU    M    35    Independent

19    CHENNAMSETTY DASHARATHA RAMULU HOLEA DASARI    M    31    Independent

20    M.A. JABBAR    M    39    Independent

21    DEPALLY MAISAIAH    M    27    Independent

22    DEPALLY SAYANNA    M    47    Independent

23    K. NARSIMULU    M    52    Independent

24    NAGENDER REDDY. K    M    49    Independent

25    PANDU    M    29    Independent

26    BUDIGA JANGAM LAXMAMMA    F    30    Independent

27    MOHAMMAD GHOUSE MOINUDDIN    M    76    Independent

28    MALA JANGILAMMA    F    50    Independent

29    RAJESH NAIK    M    29    Independent

30    RAIKANTI RAMADAS MADIGA    M    40    Independent

31    V. VENKATESHWARLU    M    32    Independent

32    B. SEENAIAH GOUD    M    62    Independent

S01    12    AP    NAGARKURNOOL    16-Apr-09    1    GUVVALA BALARAJU    M    31    Telangana Rashtra Samithi

2    TANGIRALA PARAMJOTHI    M    50    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    DR. MANDA JAGANNATH    M    57    Indian National Congress

4    DR. T. RATNAKARA    M    50    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    DEVANI SATYANARAYANA    M    39    Praja Rajyam Party

6    S.P.FERRY ROY    M    27    Pyramid Party of India

7    G. VIDYASAGAR    M    60    Lok Satta Party

8    ANAPOSALA VENKATESH    M    27    Independent

9    N. KURUMAIAH    M    27    Independent

10    BUDDULA SRINIVAS    M    35    Independent

11    A.V. SHIVA KUMAR    M    42    Independent

12    SIRIGIRI MANNEM    M    36    Independent

13    HANUMANTHU    M    28    Independent

S01    13    AP    NALGONDA    16-Apr-09    1    GUTHA SUKENDER REDDY    M    55    Indian National Congress

2    NAZEERUDDIN    M    55    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    VEDIRE SRIRAM REDDY    M    39    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    SURAVARAM SUDHAKAR REDDY    M    67    Communist Party of India

5    A. NAGESHWAR RAO    M    59    Pyramid Party of India

6    PADURI KARUNA    F    58    Praja Rajyam Party

7    DAIDA LINGAIAH    M    51    Independent

8    MD. NAZEEMUDDIN    M    40    Independent

9    BOLUSANI KRISHNAIAH    M    45    Independent

10    BOLLA KARUNAKAR    M    33    Independent

11    MARRY NEHEMIAH    M    55    Independent

12    YALAGANDULA RAMU    M    41    Independent

13    K.V.SRINIVASA CHARYULU    M    30    Independent

14    SHAIK AHMED    M    57    Independent

S01    14    AP    BHONGIR    16-Apr-09    1    KOMATIREDDY RAJ GOPAL REDDY    M    41    Indian National Congress

2    CHINTHA SAMBA MURTHY    M    50    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    NOMULA NARSIMHAIAH    M    49    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

4    SIDDHARTHA PHOOLEY    M    39    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    CHANDRA MOULI GANDAM    M    48    Praja Rajyam Party

6    PALLA PRABHAKAR REDDY    M    64    Pyramid Party of India

7    RACHA SUBHADRA REDDY    F    59    Lok Satta Party

8    GUMMI BAKKA REDDY    M    75    Independent

9    POOSA BALA KISHAN BESTA    M    35    Independent

10    PERUKA ANJAIAH    M    46    Independent

11    MAMIDIGALLA JOHN BABU    M    40    Independent

12    MEDI NARSIMHA    M    31    Independent

13    RUPANI RAMESH VADDERA    M    31    Independent

14    SANGU MALLAYYA    M    66    Independent

15    SIRUPANGI RAMULU    M    55    Independent

S01    15    AP    WARANGAL    16-Apr-09    1    JAYAPAL. V    M    63    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    DOMMATI SAMBAIAH    M    45    Telugu Desam

3    RAJAIAH SIRICILLA    M    55    Indian National Congress

4    RAMAGALLA PARAMESHWAR    M    55    Telangana Rashtra Samithi

5    LALAIAH P    M    65    Bahujan Samaj Party

6    ONTELA MONDAIAH    M    58    Pyramid Party of India

7    DR. CHANDRAGIRI RAJAMOULY    M    49    Praja Rajyam Party

8    BALLEPU VENKAT NARSINGA RAO    M    37    Lok Satta Party

9    KANNAM VENKANNA    M    32    Independent

10    KRISHNADHI SRILATHA    F    33    Independent

11    SOMAIAH GANAPURAM    M    39    Independent

12    DAMERA MOGILI    M    34    Independent

13    DUBASI NARSING    M    46    Independent

14    PAKALA DEVADANAM    M    74    Independent

15    D. SREEDHAR RAO    M    37    Independent

S01    16    AP    MAHABUBABAD    16-Apr-09    1    KUNJA SRINIVASA RAO    M    31    Communist Party of India

2    GUMMADI PULLAIAH    M    58    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    B. DILIP    M    35    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    P. BALRAM    M    45    Indian National Congress

5    D.T. NAIK    M    61    Praja Rajyam Party

6    PODEM SAMMAIAH    M    31    Pyramid Party of India

7    BANOTH MOLCHAND    M    60    Lok Satta Party

8    KALTHI VEERASWAMY    M    52    Independent

9    KECHELA RANGA REDDY    M    44    Independent

10    DATLA NAGESWAR RAO    M    42    Independent

11    PADIGA YERRAIAH    M    64    Independent

12    P. SATYANARAYANA    M    32    Independent

S01    17    AP    KHAMMAM    16-Apr-09    1    KAPILAVAI RAVINDER    M    45    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    THONDAPU VENKATESWARA RAO    M    30    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    NAMA NAGESWARA RAO    M    50    Telugu Desam

4    RENUKA CHOWDHURY    F    54    Indian National Congress

5    JALAGAM HEMAMALINI    F    40    Praja Rajyam Party

6    JUPELLI SATYANARAYANA    M    61    Lok Satta Party

7    MANUKONDA RAGHURAM PRASAD    M    55    Pyramid Party of India

8    SHAIK MADAR SAHEB    M    40    Trilinga Praja Pragati Party

9    AVULA VENKATESWARLU    M    45    Independent

10    CHANDA LINGAIAH    M    58    Independent

11    DANDA LINGAIAH    M    59    Independent

12    BANOTH LAXMA NAIK    M    52    Independent

13    MALLAVARAPU JEREMIAH    M    63    Independent

S01    18    AP    ARUKU    16-Apr-09    1    KISHORE CHANDRA SURYANARAYANA DEO VYRICHERLA    M    62    Indian National Congress

2    KURUSA BOJJAIAH    M    56    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    GADUGU BALLAYYA DORA    M    38    Rashtriya Janata Dal

4    MIDIYAM BABU RAO    M    58    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

5    LAKE RAJA RAO    M    50    Bahujan Samaj Party

6    MEENAKA SIMHACHALAM    M    43    Praja Rajyam Party

7    VADIGALA PENTAYYA    M    56    Lok Satta Party

8    APPA RAO KINJEDI    M    48    Independent

9    ARIKA GUMPA SWAMY    M    60    Independent

10    ILLA RAMI REDDY    M    54    Independent

11    JAYALAKSHMI SHAMBUDU    F    39    Independent

S01    19    AP    SRIKAKULAM    16-Apr-09    1    YERRNNAIDU KINJARAPU    M    50    Telugu Desam

2    KILLI KRUPA RANI    F    47    Indian National Congress

3    TANKALA SUDHAKARA RAO    M    57    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    DUPPALA RAVINDARA BABU    M    38    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    KALYANI VARUDU    F    29    Praja Rajyam Party

6    NANDA PRASADA RAO    M    37    Pyramid Party of India

S01    20    AP    VIZIANAGARAM    16-Apr-09    1    APPALA NAIDU KONDAPALLI    M    41    Telugu Desam

2    GOTTAPU CHINAMNAIDU    M    56    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    JHANSI LAXMI BOTCHA    F    45    Indian National Congress

4    SANYASI RAJU PAKALAPATI    M    51    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    KIMIDI GANAPATHI RAO    M    52    Praja Rajyam Party

6    LUNKARAN JAIN    M    60    Pyramid Party of India

7    DATTLA SATYA APPALA SIVANANDA RAJU    M    34    Lok Satta Party

8    VENKATA SATYA NARAYANA RAGHUMANDA    M    28    Bharatiya Sadbhawna Samaj Party

9    MAHESWARA RAO VARRI    M    35    Independent

S01    21    AP    VISAKHAPATNAM    16-Apr-09    1    I.M.AHMED    M    41    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    DAGGUBATI PURANDESWARI    F    49    Indian National Congress

3    DR.M.V.V.S.MURTHI    M    70    Telugu Desam

4    D.V.SUBBARAO    M    76    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    PALLA SRINIVASA RAO    M    40    Praja Rajyam Party

6    BETHALA KEGIYA RANI    F    26    Bahujan Samaj Party(Ambedkar-Phule)

7    D.BHARATHI    F    53    Pyramid Party of India

8    D.V.RAMANA (VASU MASTER)    M    37    Trilinga Praja Pragati Party

9    RAMESH LANKA    M    49    Bharatheeya Sadharma Samsthapana Party

10    M.T.VENKATESWARALU    M    42    Lok Satta Party

11    APPARAO GOLAGANA    M    46    Independent

12    BANDAM VENKATA RAO YADAV    M    32    Independent

13    YADDANAPUDI RANGARAO    M    78    Independent

14    YALAMANCHILI PRASAD    M    54    Independent

15    RANGARAJU KALIDINDI    M    46    Independent

S01    22    AP    ANAKAPALLI    16-Apr-09    1    APPA RAO KIRLA    M    57    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    NOOKARAPU SURYA PRAKASA RAO    M    50    Telugu Desam

3    BHEEMISETTI NAGESWARARAO    M    41    Rashtriya Janata Dal

4    VENKATA RAMANA BABU PILLA    M    35    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    SABBAM HARI    M    55    Indian National Congress

6    ALLU ARAVIND    M    62    Praja Rajyam Party

7    PULAMARASETTI VENKATA RAMANA    M    28    Pyramid Party of India

8    BOYINA NAGESWARA RAO    M    52    Janata Dal (United)

9    NANDA GOPAL GANDHAM    M    60    Independent

10    PATHALA SATYA RAO    M    46    Independent

S02    1    AR    ARUNACHAL WEST    16-Apr-09    1    KIREN RIJIJU    M    37    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    TAKAM SANJOY    M    42    Indian National Congress

3    TABA TAKU    M    25    Lok Bharati

4    SUBU KECHI    M    36    Independent

S02    2    AR    ARUNACHAL EAST    16-Apr-09    1    LOWANGCHA WANGLAT    M    66    Arunachal Congress

2    NINONG ERING    M    50    Indian National Congress

3    TAPIR GAO    M    48    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    DR. SAMSON BORANG    M    33    People’s Party of Arunachal

S03    1    AS    KARIMGANJ    16-Apr-09    1    RAJESH MALLAH    M    43    Assam United Democratic Front

2    LALIT MOHAN SUKLABAIDYA    M    68    Indian National Congress

3    SUDHANGSHU DAS    M    41    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    UTTAM NOMOSUDRA    M    34    Independent

5    JOY DAS    M    37    Independent

6    DEBASISH DAS    M    36    Independent

7    PROBHASH CH. SARKAR    M    36    Independent

8    BIJON ROY    M    35    Independent

9    BIJOY MALAKAR    M    42    Independent

10    MALATI ROY    F    42    Independent

11    MILON SINGHA    M    42    Independent

12    RANJAN NAMASUDRA    M    41    Independent

13    RAJESH CHANDRA ROY    M    29    Independent

14    SITAL PRASAD DUSAD    M    55    Independent

15    HIMANGSHU KUMAR DAS    M    28    Independent

S03    2    AS    SILCHAR    16-Apr-09    1    KABINDRA PURKAYASTHA    M    74    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    DIPAK BHATTACHARJEE    M    69    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

3    BADRUDDIN AJMAL    M    54    Assam United Democratic Front

4    SONTOSH MOHAN DEV    M    75    Indian National Congress

5    KANTIMOY DEB    M    60    Independent

6    CHANDAN RABIDAS    M    34    Independent

7    JAYANTA MALLICK    M    36    Independent

8    JOY SUNDAR DAS    M    38    Independent

9    NAGENDRA CHANDRA DAS    M    28    Independent

10    NAZRUL HAQUE MAZARBHUIYAN    M    36    Independent

11    NABADWIP DAS    M    58    Independent

12    PIJUSH KANTI DAS    M    38    Independent

13    MANISH BHATTACHARJEE    M    62    Independent

14    YOGENDRA KUMAR SINGH    M    40    Independent

15    SUBIR DEB    M    41    Independent

16    SUMIT ROY    M    33    Independent

S03    3    AS    AUTONOMOUS DISTRICT    16-Apr-09    1    KULENDRA DAULAGUPU    M    36    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    BIREN SINGH ENGTI    M    64    Indian National Congress

3    HIDDHINATH RONGPI    M    45    Nationalist Congress Party

4    ELWIN TERON    M    48    Autonomous State Demand Committee

5    DR. JAYANTA RONGPI    M    54    Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)

6    KABON TIMUNGPI    F    56    Independent

S04    17    BR    GOPALGANJ    16-Apr-09    1    ANIL KUMAR    M    41    Rashtriya Janata Dal

2    JANAK RAM    M    37    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    PURNMASI RAM    M    52    Janata Dal (United)

4    RAMAI RAM    M    66    Indian National Congress

5    MADHU BHARTI    F    39    Loktantrik Samata Dal

6    RAM KUMAR MANJHI    M    30    Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party

7    RAMASHANKAR RAM    M    43    Rashtriya Jan-Jagram Morcha

8    SATYADEO RAM    M    39    Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)

9    ASHA DEVI    F    46    Independent

10    DINANATH MANJHI    M    31    Independent

11    DHARMENDRA KUMAR HAZRA    M    41    Independent

12    BANITHA BAITHA    F    25    Independent

13    RAJESH KUMAR RAM    M    28    Independent

14    RAM SURAT RAM    M    42    Independent

15    SHAMBHU DOM    M    41    Independent

16    SURENDRA PASWAN    M    28    Independent

S04    18    BR    SIWAN    16-Apr-09    1    PARASH NATH PATHAK    M    60    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    BRISHIN PATEL    M    60    Janata Dal (United)

3    VIJAY SHANKER DUBEY    M    60    Indian National Congress

4    HENA SHAHAB    F    36    Rashtriya Janata Dal

5    AMAR NATH YADAV    M    44    Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)

6    ASWANI KR. VERMA    M    28    Indian Justice Party

7    MADHURI PANDAY    F    35    Samajik Jantantrik Party

8    LAL BABU TIWARI    M    55    Rashtriya Krantikari Samajwadi Party

9    UMESH TIWARY    M    30    Independent

10    OM PRAKASH YADAV    M    43    Independent

11    NIDHI KIRTI    F    26    Independent

12    PRABHU NATH MALI    M    26    Independent

13    DR. MUNESHWAR PRASAD    M    68    Independent

14    RAJENDRA KUMAR    M    36    Independent

15    SHAMBHU NATH PRASAD    M    60    Independent

S04    19    BR    MAHARAJGANJ    16-Apr-09    1    UMA SHANAKER SINGH    M    61    Rashtriya Janata Dal

2    TARKESHWAR SINGH    M    51    Indian National Congress

3    PRABHU NATH SINGH    M    56    Janata Dal (United)

4    RAVINDRA NATH MISHRA    M    54    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    RAMESH SINGH KUSHWAHA    M    59    Loktantrik Samata Dal

6    SATYENDRA KR. SAHANI    M    41    Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)

7    GAUTAM PRASAD    M    30    Independent

8    DHURENDRA RAM    M    47    Independent

9    NAYAN PRASAD    M    53    Independent

10    PRADEEP MANJHI    M    32    Independent

11    BANKE BIHARI SINGH    M    25    Independent

12    RAJESH KUMAR SINGH    M    26    Independent

13    BREENDA PATHAK    M    63    Independent

S04    20    BR    SARAN    16-Apr-09    1    RAJIV PRATAP RUDY    M    48    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    LALU PRASAD    M    60    Rashtriya Janata Dal

3    SALIM PERWEZ    M    47    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    SANTOSH PATEL    M    39    Loktantrik Samata Dal

5    SOHEL AKHATAR    M    33    Bharatiya Momin Front

6    KUMAR BALRAM SINGH    M    56    Independent

7    DHUPENDRA SINGH    M    33    Independent

8    RAJKUMAR RAI    M    33    Independent

9    RAJAN HRISHIKESH CHANDRA    M    25    Independent

10    RAJARAM SAHANI    M    49    Independent

11    LAL BABU RAY    M    46    Independent

12    SHEO DAS SINGH    M    74    Independent

S04    32    BR    ARRAH    16-Apr-09    1    MEENA SINGH    F    44    Janata Dal (United)

2    RAMA KISHORE SINGH    M    46    Lok Jan Shakti Party

3    REETA SINGH    F    40    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    HARIDWAR PRASAD SINGH    M    64    Indian National Congress

5    AJIT PRASAD MEHTA    M    43    Jawan Kisan Morcha

6    ARUN SINGH    M    48    Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)

7    BHARAT BHUSAN PANDEY    M    35    Akhil Bharatiya Jan Sangh

8    RAMADHAR SINGH    M    48    Shivsena

9    SAMBHU PRASAD SHARMA    M    57    All India Forward Bloc

10    SANTOSH KUMAR    M    32    Rashtriya Dehat Morcha Party

11    SATYA NARAYAN YADAV    M    67    Rashtra Sewa Dal

12    SAIYAD GANIUDDIN HAIDER    M    42    Ambedkar National Congress

13    ASHOK KUMAR SINGH    M    38    Independent

14    BHARAT SINGH SAHYOGI    M    45    Independent

15    MAHESH RAM    M    45    Independent

16    SOBH NATH SINGH    M    39    Independent

S04    33    BR    BUXAR    16-Apr-09    1    KAMLA KANT TIWARY    M    67    Indian National Congress

2    JAGADA NAND SINGH    M    65    Rashtriya Janata Dal

3    LAL MUNI CHOUBEY    M    71    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    SHYAM LAL SINGH KUSHWAHA    M    54    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    MOKARRAM HUSSAIN    M    57    Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party

6    MOHAN SAH    M    33    Bharatiya Jantantrik Janta Dal

7    RAJENDRA SINGH MAURYA    M    32    Loktantrik Samata Dal

8    DR. VIJENDRA NATH UPADHYAY    M    37    Shivsena

9    SHYAM BIHARI BIND    M    46    Janvadi Party(Socialist)

10    SATYENDRA OJHA    M    27    Apna Dal

11    SUDAMA PRASAD    M    41    Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)

12    SURESH WADEKAR    M    38    Republican Party of India

13    KAMLESH CHOUDHARY    M    35    Independent

14    JAI SINGH YADAV    M    34    Independent

15    DADAN SINGH    M    45    Independent

16    PRATIBHA DEVI    F    40    Independent

17    PHULAN PANDIT    M    44    Independent

18    RAJENDRA PASWAN    M    33    Independent

19    LALLAN RUPNARAIN PATHAK    M    65    Independent

20    SHIV CHARAN YADAV    M    55    Independent

21    SUNIL KUMAR DUBEY    M    32    Independent

22    SURENDRA KUMAR BHARTI    M    38    Independent

S04    34    BR    SASARAM    16-Apr-09    1    GANDHI AZAD    M    62    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    MEIRA KUMAR    F    63    Indian National Congress

3    MUNI LAL    M    61    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    LALAN PASWAN    M    45    Rashtriya Janata Dal

5    DUKHI RAM    M    39    Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)

6    BABBAN CHAUDHARY    M    39    Loktantrik Samata Dal

7    BALIRAM RAM    M    43    Pragatisheel Manav Samaj Party

8    BHOLA PRASAD    M    38    Indian Justice Party

9    RADHA DEBI    F    28    Apna Dal

10    RAM NAGINA RAM    M    41    Rashtriya Krantikari Janata Party

11    RAM YADI RAM    M    72    Republican Party of India

12    PRAMOD KUMAR    M    26    Independent

13    BHARAT RAM    M    33    Independent

14    MUNIYA DEBI    F    41    Independent

15    RAM PRAVESH RAM    M    47    Independent

16    SURENDRA RAM    M    39    Independent

S04    35    BR    KARAKAT    16-Apr-09    1    AWADHESH KUMAR SINGH    M    53    Indian National Congress

2    UPENDRA KUMAR SHARMA    M    47    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    KANTI SINGH    F    54    Rashtriya Janata Dal

4    MAHABALI SINGH    M    54    Janata Dal (United)

5    AJAY KUMAR    M    32    Republican Party of India (A)

6    JYOTI RASHMI    F    30    Rashtra Sewa Dal

7    MUDREEKA YADAV    M    59    Apna Dal

8    RAJ KISHOR MISRA    M    30    Alpjan Samaj Party

9    RAJA RAM SINGH    M    53    Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)

10    MD.SHAMIULLAH MANSOORI    M    62    Shoshit Samaj Dal

11    ER.ABDUL SATAR    M    62    Independent

12    AMAVAS RAM    M    50    Independent

13    PRO. KAMTA PRASAD YADAV    M    46    Independent

14    GIRISH NARAYAN SINGH    M    48    Independent

15    SATISH PANDEY    M    27    Independent

16    HARI PRASAD SINGH    M    63    Independent

S04    36    BR    JAHANABAD    16-Apr-09    1    DR. ARUN KUMAR    M    49    Indian National Congress

2    JAGDISH SHARMA    M    58    Janata Dal (United)

3    RAMADHAR SHARMA    M    54    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    SURENDRA PRASAD YADAV    M    51    Rashtriya Janata Dal

5    AYASHA KHATUN    F    28    Loktantrik Samata Dal

6    PROF. JAI RAM PRASAD SINGH    M    70    Shoshit Samaj Dal

7    TARA GUPTA    F    62    Rashtriya Pragati Party

8    MAHANAND PRASAD    M    41    Communist Party of India(Marxist-Leninist)(Liberation)

9    RAMASRAY PRASAD SINGH    M    83    Rashtriya Lok Dal

10    MD. SAHABUDDIN JAHAN    M    36    Bharatiya Sarvodaya Kranti Party

11    SHRAVAN KUMAR    M    32    Lal Morcha

12    SADHU SINHA    M    68    All India Forward Bloc

13    SYED AKBAR IMAM    M    49    Akhil Bharatiya Ashok Sena

14    AJAY KUMAR VERMA    M    41    Independent

15    ABHAY KUMAR ANIL    M    41    Independent

16    DR. ARBIND KUMAR    M    52    Independent

17    ARVIND PRASAD SINGH    M    43    Independent

18    UPENDRA PRASAD    M    31    Independent

19    JAGDISH YADAV    M    40    Independent

20    PRIKSHIT SINGH    M    36    Independent

21    PRABHAT KUMAR RANJAN    M    32    Independent

22    RANJIT SHARMA    M    28    Independent

23    RAKESHWAR KISHOR    M    35    Independent

24    SIYA RAM PRASAD    M    40    Independent

25    SUMIRAK SINGH    M    50    Independent

S04    37    BR    AURANGABAD    16-Apr-09    1    ARCHANA CHANDRA    F    32    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    NIKHIL KUMAR    M    67    Indian National Congress

3    SHAKIL AHMAD KHAN    M    61    Rashtriya Janata Dal

4    SUSHIL KUMAR SINGH    M    43    Janata Dal (United)

5    ANIL KUMAR SINGH    M    36    Rashtra Sewa Dal

6    AMERIKA MAHTO    M    48    Shoshit Samaj Dal

7    RAM KUMAR MEHTA    M    37    Loktantrik Samata Dal

8    VIJAY PASWAN    M    48    Bharatiya Sarvodaya Kranti Party

9    ASLAM ANSARI    M    38    Independent

10    INDRA DEO RAM    M    58    Independent

11    UDAY PASWAN    M    41    Independent

12    PUNA DAS    M    34    Independent

13    RANJEET KUMAR    M    48    Independent

14    RAJENDRA YADAV    M    42    Independent

15    RAMSWARUP PRASAD YADAV    M    72    Independent

16    SANTOSH KUMAR    M    40    Independent

S04    38    BR    GAYA    16-Apr-09    1    KALAWATI DEVI    F    27    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    RAMJI MANJHI    M    49    Rashtriya Janata Dal

3    SANJIV PRASAD TONI    M    52    Indian National Congress

4    HARI MANJHI    M    47    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    DILIP PASWAN    M    41    Navbharat Nirman Party

6    NIRANJAN KUMAR    M    35    Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)

7    RAJESH KUMAR    M    27    Loktantrik Samata Dal

8    RAMDEV ARYA PAAN    M    67    Akhil Bharatiya Jan Sangh

9    AMAR NATH PRASAD    M    35    Independent

10    KRISHNA CHOUDHARY    M    26    Independent

11    KAIL DAS    M    66    Independent

12    DIPAK PASWAN    M    27    Independent

13    RAM KISHORE PASWAN    M    36    Independent

14    RAMU PASWAN    M    29    Independent

15    SHIV SHANKAR KUMAR    M    33    Independent

16    SHYAM LAL MANJHI    M    50    Independent

S04    39    BR    NAWADA    16-Apr-09    1    GANESH SHANKAR VIDYARTHI    M    85    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

2    BHOLA SINGH    M    70    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    MASIH UDDIN    M    36    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    VEENA DEVI    F    36    Lok Jan Shakti Party

5    SUNILA DEVI    F    38    Indian National Congress

6    UMAKANT RAHI    M    37    Shoshit Samaj Dal

7    KAILASH PAL    M    48    Bharatiya Sarvodaya Kranti Party

8    VIDHYAPATI SINGH    M    46    Loktantrik Samata Dal

9    SURENDRA KUMAR CHAUDHARY    M    45    Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party

10    AKHILESH SINGH    M    38    Independent

11    ANIL MEHTA    M    36    Independent

12    KAUSHAL YADAV    M    39    Independent

13    CHANCHALA DEVI    F    33    Independent

14    DURGA PRASAD DHAR    M    29    Independent

15    NAVIN KUMAR VERMA    M    38    Independent

16    RAJ KISHOR RAJ    M    43    Independent

17    RAJ BALLABH PRASAD    M    46    Independent

18    RAJENDRA VISHAL    M    44    Independent

19    RAJENDRA SINGH    M    60    Independent

20    SHAMBHU PRASAD    M    41    Independent

21    SUNIL KUMAR    M    28    Independent

S04    40    BR    JAMUI    16-Apr-09    1    ASHOK CHOUDHARY    M    42    Indian National Congress

2    GAJADHAR RAJAK    M    63    Communist Party of India

3    BHAGWAN DAS    M    61    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    BHUDEO CHOUDHARY    M    46    Janata Dal (United)

5    SHYAM RAJAK    M    56    Rashtriya Janata Dal

6    ARJUN MANJHI    M    45    Jago Party

7    UPENDRA RAVIDAS    M    30    Samata Party

8    OM PRAKASH PASWAN    M    62    Loktantrik Samata Dal

9    GULAB CHANDRA PASWAN    M    58    Rashtriya Krantikari Janata Party

10    NUNDEO MANJHI    M    54    Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik)

11    PRASADI PASWAN    M    37    Jharkhand Mukti Morcha

12    SUBHASH PASWAN    M    36    Samajtantric Party of India

13    KAPILDEO DAS    M    55    Independent

14    JAY SEKHAR MANJHI    M    48    Independent

15    PAPPU RAJAK    M    40    Independent

16    YOGENDRA PASWAN    M    37    Independent

17    VIJAY PASWAN    M    29    Independent

18    BILAKSHAN RAVIDAS    M    51    Independent

19    SARYUG PASWAN    M    65    Independent

S09    6    JK    JAMMU    16-Apr-09    1    S.TARLOK SINGH    M    59    Jammu & Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party

2    HUSSAIN ALI    M    48    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    LILA KARAN SHARMA    M    68    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    MADAN LAL SHARMA    M    56    Indian National Congress

5    UDAY CHAND    M    55    Duggar Pradesh Party

6    SURJIT SINGH ‘G’ SITARA    M    58    Rashtriya Krantikari Samajwadi Party

7    SANT RAM    M    73    Bharatiya Bahujan Party

8    SANJEEV KUMAR MANMOTRA    M    42    Lok Jan Shakti Party

9    QARI ZAHIR ABBAS BHATTI    M    39    All India Forward Bloc

10    ABDUL MAJEED MALIK    M    37    Backward Classes Democratic Party, J&K

11    ASHOK KUMAR    M    45    Independent

12    BALWAN SINGH    M    35    Independent

13    PARAS RAM POONCHI    M    56    Independent

14    RAMESH CHANDER SHARMA    M    36    Independent

15    SATISH POONCHI    M    60    Independent

16    SANJAY KUMAR    M    39    Independent

17    SHAKEELA BANO    F    32    Independent

18    LABHA RAM GANDHI    M    46    Independent

19    CH. MUSHTAQ HUSSAIN CHOUHAN    M    38    Independent

20    NARESH DOGRA    M    40    Independent

21    HILAL AHMED BAIG    M    29    Independent

S11    1    KL    KASARAGOD    16-Apr-09    1    P KARUNAKARAN    M    64    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

2    K.H.MADHAVI    F    35    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    SHAHIDA KAMAL    F    40    Indian National Congress

4    K. SURENDRAN    M    37    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    ABBAS MUTHALAPPARA    M    47    Independent

6    MOHAN NAYAK    M    73    Independent

7    P.K. RAMAN    M    48    Independent

S11    2    KL    KANNUR    16-Apr-09    1    P.P KARUNAKARAN MASTER    M    61    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    K.K BALAKRISHNAN NAMBIAR    M    52    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    K.K RAGESH    M    38    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

4    K. SUDHAKARAN    M    60    Indian National Congress

5    P.I. CHANDRASEKHARAN    M    53    The Humanist Party of India

6    JOHNSON ALIAS SUNNY AMBATT    M    48    Independent

7    K. RAGESH S/O. JANARDHANAN    M    33    Independent

8    PATTATHIL RAGHAVAN    M    82    Independent

9    K. SUDHAKARAN KAVINTE ARIKATH    M    39    Independent

S11    3    KL    VADAKARA    16-Apr-09    1    ADV.K. NOORUDHEEN MUSALIAR    M    56    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    MULLAPPALLY RAMACHANDRAN    M    64    Indian National Congress

3    K.P SREESAN    M    49    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    ADV. P. SATHEEDEVI    F    52    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

5    T.P CHANDRASEKHARAN    M    47    Independent

6    NAROTH RAMACHANDRAN    M    58    Independent

7    P.SATHIDEVI PALLIKKAL    F    36    Independent

8    SATHEEDEVI    F    42    Independent

S11    4    KL    WAYANAD    16-Apr-09    1    K. MURALEEDHARAN    M    51    Nationalist Congress Party

2    RAJEEV JOSEPH    M    40    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    C. VASUDEVAN MASTER    M    65    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    M.I. SHANAVAS    M    57    Indian National Congress

5    ADVOCATE. M. RAHMATHULLA    M    48    Communist Party of India

6    KALLANGODAN ABDUL LATHEEF    M    46    Independent

7    CLETUS    M    52    Independent

8    DR. NALLA THAMPY THERA    M    75    Independent

9    ADVOCATE. SHANAVAS MALAPPURAM    M    36    Independent

10    SHANAVAS MANAKULANGARA PARAMBIL    M    29    Independent

11    SUNNY PONNAMATTOM    M    58    Independent

12    M.P. RAHMATH    M    30    Independent

13    RAHMATHULLA POOLADAN    M    36    Independent

S11    5    KL    KOZHIKODE    16-Apr-09    1    A.K. ABDUL NASAR    M    35    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    ADV. P.A. MOHAMED RIYAS    M    33    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

3    V. MURALEEDHARAN    M    49    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    M.K. RAGHAVAN    M    57    Indian National Congress

5    ADV. P. KUMARANKUTTY    M    64    Independent

6    K. MUHAMMED RIYAS    M    27    Independent

7    P. MUHAMMED RIYAS    M    28    Independent

8    P.A. MOHAMMED RIYAS    M    37    Independent

9    MUDOOR MUHAMMED HAJI    M    44    Independent

10    K. RAGHAVAN    M    44    Independent

11    P. RAMACHANDRAN NAIR    M    63    Independent

12    M. RAGHAVAN    M    65    Independent

13    VINOD K.    M    33    Independent

14    ADV. SABI JOSEPH    M    60    Independent

15    DR. D.SURENDRANATH    M    60    Independent

16    RIYAS    M    31    Independent

S11    6    KL    MALAPPURAM    16-Apr-09    1    ADV.E.A. ABOOBACKER    M    52    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    ADV. N. ARAVINDAN    M    43    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    E. AHAMED    M    70    Muslim League Kerala State Committee

4    T.K. HAMSA    M    71    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

S11    7    KL    PONNANI    16-Apr-09    1    K. JANACHANDRAN MASTER    M    57    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    P.K. MUHAMMED    M    56    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    E.T. MUHAMMED BASHEER    M    62    Muslim League Kerala State Committee

4    ABDUREHMAN    M    32    Independent

5    DR. AZAD    M    45    Independent

6    PULLANI GOVINDAN    M    64    Independent

7    DR. HUSSAIN RANTATHANI    M    51    Independent

8    HUSSAIN EDAYATH    M    29    Independent

9    HUSSAIN KADAIKKAL    M    37    Independent

10    HUSSAIN PERICHAYIL    M    42    Independent

11    HUSSAIN    M    29    Independent

12    DR. HUSSAIN    M    40    Independent

13    K. SADANANDAN    M    62    Independent

S11    8    KL    PALAKKAD    16-Apr-09    1    ABDUL RAZAK MOULAVI    M    47    Nationalist Congress Party

2    CHANDRAN. V    M    63    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    C.K. PADMANABHAN    M    60    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    M.B. RAJESH    M    34    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

5    SATHEESAN PACHENI    M    41    Indian National Congress

6    A. AROKIASAMY    M    61    Independent

7    M.R. MURALI    M    43    Independent

8    N.V. RAJESH    M    35    Independent

9    VIJAYAN AMBALAKKAD    M    42    Independent

10    SATHEESAN. E.V    M    37    Independent

S11    9    KL    ALATHUR    16-Apr-09    1    P.K BIJU    M    34    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

2    M. BINDU TEACHER    F    35    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    DR. G SUDEVAN    M    61    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    N.K SUDHEER    M    44    Indian National Congress

5    K. GOPALAKRISHNAN    M    39    Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)

6    BIJU K.K    M    38    Independent

7    P.C BIJU    M    36    Independent

8    C.K RAMAKRISHNAN    M    43    Independent

9    K.K SUDHIR    M    44    Independent

S11    10    KL    THRISSUR    16-Apr-09    1    P C CHACKO    M    62    Indian National Congress

2    C N JAYADEVAN    M    58    Communist Party of India

3    ADV. JOSHY THARAKAN    M    42    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    REMA REGUNANDAN    F    48    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    AJAYAN KUTTIKAT    M    36    Janata Dal (United)

6    K ARUN KUMAR    M    39    Independent

7    KUNJAN PULAYAN    M    52    Independent

8    E A JOSEPH    M    49    Independent

9    N K RAVI    M    46    Independent

10    P C SAJU    M    35    Independent

11    ADV. N HARIHARAN NAIR    M    63    Independent

S11    11    KL    CHALAKUDY    16-Apr-09    1    ADV. U.P JOSEPH    M    45    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

2    K.P. DHANAPALAN    M    59    Indian National Congress

3    MUTTAM ABDULLA    M    49    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    ADV.K.V. SABU    M    47    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    HAMSA KALAPARAMBATH    M    47    Lok Jan Shakti Party

6    JOHNNY K CHEEKU    M    47    Independent

7    JOSE MAVELI    M    58    Independent

8    U.P JOSE    M    45    Independent

9    DR. P.S. BABU    M    42    Independent

10    T.S NARAYANAN MASTER    M    67    Independent

11    C.A. HASEENA    F    36    Independent

S11    12    KL    ERNAKULAM    16-Apr-09    1    PROF. K V THOMAS    M    61    Indian National Congress

2    A.N. RADHAKRISHNAN    M    49    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    SHERIF MOHAMMED    M    56    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    SINDHU JOY    F    32    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

5    SAJU THOMAS    M    43    Lok Jan Shakti Party

6    MARY FRANCIS MOOLAMPILLY    F    59    Independent

7    VISWAMBARAN    M    59    Independent

8    SAJI THURUTHIKUNNEL    M    37    Independent

9    SINDHU K.S    F    36    Independent

10    SINDHU JAYAN    F    38    Independent

S11    13    KL    IDUKKI    16-Apr-09    1    ADV. P.T THOMAS    M    59    Indian National Congress

2    ADV. K. FRANCIS GEORGE    M    54    Kerala Congress

3    ADV. BIJU M JOHN    M    40    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    SREENAGARI RAJAN    M    49    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    VASUDEVAN    M    39    Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katch

6    ADV. CHITTOOR RAJAMANNAR    M    50    Independent

7    JOSE KUTTIYANY    M    69    Independent

8    KANCHIYAR PEETHAMBARAN    M    45    Independent

9    BABY    M    51    Independent

10    M A SOOSAI    M    45    Independent

S11    14    KL    KOTTAYAM    16-Apr-09    1    JOSE K.MANI    M    44    Kerala Congress (M)

2    ADV. NARAYANAN NAMBOOTHIRI    M    48    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    ADV. SURESH KURUP    M    52    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

4    SPENCER MARKS    M    39    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    ADV. JAIMON THANKACHAN    M    39    Samajwadi Jan Parishad

6    ANTO P JOHN    M    41    Independent

7    JUNO JOHN BABY    M    34    Independent

8    JOSE    M    45    Independent

9    JOSE MATHEW    M    32    Independent

10    JOSE K. MANI    M    32    Independent

11    BABU    M    41    Independent

12    K.T MATHEW    M    50    Independent

13    MINI K PHILIP    F    41    Independent

14    M.S RAVEENDRAN    M    49    Independent

15    K. RAJAPPAN    M    57    Independent

16    SASIKUTTAN VAKATHANAM    M    53    Independent

17    SURESH N.B KURUP    M    26    Independent

18    SURESHKUMAR K    M    33    Independent

19    SURESHKUMAR T.R    M    36    Independent

20    SURESH KURUMBAN    M    36    Independent

S11    15    KL    ALAPPUZHA    16-Apr-09    1    DR. K.S MANOJ    M    43    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

2    K.C VENUGOPAL    M    46    Indian National Congress

3    K.S PRASAD    M    54    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    P.J KURIAN    M    63    Janata Dal (United)

5    S. SEETHILAL    M    45    Independent

6    SONY J. KALYANKUMAR    M    51    Independent

S11    16    KL    MAVELIKKARA    16-Apr-09    1    R.S ANIL    M    34    Communist Party of India

2    KODIKKUNNIL SURESH    M    46    Indian National Congress

3    DR. N.D MOHAN    M    56    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    P.M VELAYUDHAN    M    52    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    ANIL KUMAR    M    26    Independent

6    K.S SASIKALA    F    40    Independent

7    SOORANAD SUKUMARAN    M    60    Independent

S11    17    KL    PATHANAMTHITTA    16-Apr-09    1    ANANTHA GOPAN    M    61    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

2    ANTO ANTONY    M    52    Indian National Congress

3    KARUNAKARAN NAIR    M    78    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    MANI C.KAPPEN    M    51    Nationalist Congress Party

5    RADHAKRISHNA MENON    M    44    Bharatiya Janata Party

6    KUNJU PILLAI    M    60    Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)

7    ANTO    M    33    Independent

8    JYOTHISH M.R    M    37    Independent

9    THAMBI    M    40    Independent

10    NIRANAM RAJAN    M    47    Independent

11    PUSHPANGADAN    M    40    Independent

12    MATHEW PAREY    M    26    Independent

S11    18    KL    KOLLAM    16-Apr-09    1    ADVT. K M JAYANANDAN    M    52    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    N.PEETHAMBARAKURUP    M    66    Indian National Congress

3    VAYAKKAL MADHU    M    48    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    P.RAJENDRAN    M    58    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

5    ADV.ANU SASI    M    28    Independent

6    KRISHNAMMAL    F    59    Independent

7    K A JOHN    M    55    Independent

8    N.PEETHAMBARAKURUP    M    61    Independent

9    S.PRADEEP KUMAR    M    30    Independent

10    S.RADHAKRISHNAN    M    47    Independent

11    R.ZAKIEER HUSSAIN    M    37    Independent

S11    19    KL    ATTINGAL    16-Apr-09    1    PROF.G BALACHANDRAN    M    63    Indian National Congress

2    THOTTAKKADU SASI    M    54    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    ADV. A SAMPATH    M    46    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

4    J SUDHAKARAN    M    60    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    SREENATH    M    53    Shivsena

6    JAYAKUMAR    M    56    Independent

7    BALACHANDRAN    M    51    Independent

8    BALACHNDRAN C P    M    59    Independent

9    MURALI KUMAR    M    43    Independent

10    J VIJAYAKUMAR    M    49    Independent

11    VIVEKANANDAN    M    59    Independent

12    SHAMSUDEEN    M    56    Independent

13    SAJIMON    M    25    Independent

14    SAIFUDEEN M    M    55    Independent

S11    20    KL    THIRUVANANTHAPURAM    16-Apr-09    1    P K KRISHNA DAS    M    45    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    M.P.GANGADHARAN    M    74    Nationalist Congress Party

3    DR.A NEELALOHITHADASAN NADAR    M    61    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    ADV. P RAMACHANDRAN NAIR    M    57    Communist Party of India

5    SHASHI THAROOR    M    53    Indian National Congress

6    AJITHKUMAR.K    M    41    All India Trinamool Congress

7    JAIN WILSON    M    41    Bahujan Shakty

8    G ASHOKAN    M    47    Independent

9    T.GEORGE    M    40    Independent

10    DILEEP    M    28    Independent

11    U.NAHURMIRAN PEERU MOHAMMED    M    49    Independent

12    PRATHAPAN    M    54    Independent

13    MOHANAN JOSHWA    M    49    Independent

14    SASI – JANAKI SADAN    M    39    Independent

15    SASI – KALAPURAKKAL    M    51    Independent

16    SHAJAR KHAN    M    38    Independent

S13    5    MH    BULDHANA    16-Apr-09    1    JADHAV PRATAPRAO GANPATRAO    M    49    Shivsena

2    DANDGE VASANTRAO SUGDEO    M    55    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    SHINGNE DR.RAJENDRA BHASKARRAO    M    48    Nationalist Congress Party

4    AMARDEEP BALASAHEB DESHMUKH    M    27    Krantisena Maharashtra

5    QURRASHI SK.SIKANDAR SK. SHAUKAT    M    33    Democratic Secular Party

6    GAJANAN RAJARAM SIRSAT    M    27    Rashtriya Samaj Paksha

7    DHOKNE RAVINDRA TULSHRAMJI    M    44    Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha

8    FERAN CHADRAHAS JAGDEO    M    54    Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha

9    GANESH ARJUN ZORE    M    25    Independent

10    TAYDE VITTHAL PANDHARI    M    56    Independent

11    DEVIDAS PIRAJI SARKATE    M    35    Independent

12    SY. BILAL SY. USMAN    M    38    Independent

13    BHARAT PUNJAJI SHINGANE    M    40    Independent

14    RAJESH NIKANTHRAO TATHE    M    52    Independent

15    RATHOD CHHAGAN BABULAL    M    29    Independent

S13    6    MH    AKOLA    16-Apr-09    1    DHOTRE SANJAY SHAMRAO    M    50    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    BABASAHEB DHABEKAR    M    78    Indian National Congress

3    ATIK AHAMAD GU. JILANI    M    34    Democratic Secular Party

4    AMBEDKAR PRAKASH YASHWANT    M    56    Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha

5    GANESH TULSHIRAM TATHE    M    49    Kranti Kari Jai Hind Sena

6    DIPAK SHRIRAM TIRAKE    M    33    Rashtriya Samaj Paksha

7    AJABRAO UTTAMRAO BHONGADE    M    36    Independent

8    THAKURDAS GOVIND CHOUDHARI    M    39    Independent

9    MUJAHID KHAN CHAND KHAN    M    42    Independent

10    RAUT DEVIDAS ANANDRAO    M    45    Independent

11    WASUDEORAO KHADE GURUJI    M    68    Independent

S13    7    MH    AMRAVATI    16-Apr-09    1    ADSUL ANANDRAO VITHOBA    M    61    Shivsena

2    GANGADHAR GADE    M    62    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    UGLE SUNIL NAMDEV    M    32    Peoples Republican Party

4    UBALE SHRIKRISHNA CHAMPATRAO    M    62    Ambedkarist Republican Party

5    KESHAV DASHARATH WANKHADE    M    38    Kranti Kari Jai Hind Sena

6    GAWAI RAJENDRA RAMKRUSHNA    M    46    Republican Party of India

7    PRINCIPAL GOPICHAND SURYABHAN MESHRAM    M    52    Republican Paksha (Khoripa)

8    BARSE MANOHAR DAULATRAO    M    53    Indian Union Muslim League

9    SAU MAMATA VINAYAK KANDALKAR    F    31    Assam United Democratic Front

10    DR. HEMANTKUMAR RAMBHAU MAHURE    M    34    Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha

11    AMOL DEVIDASRAO JADHAV    M    25    Independent

12    UMAK SHRIKRUSHNA SHYAMRAO    M    57    Independent

13    BANDU SAMPATRAO SANE (BANDYA L.S.)    M    43    Independent

14    BHAURAO SHRIRAM CHHAPANE    M    38    Independent

15    MITHUN HIRAMAN GAIKWAD    M    51    Independent

16    PROF. MUKUND VITTHALRAO KHAIRE    M    51    Independent

17    DR. RAJIV GULABRAO JAMTHE    M    53    Independent

18    RAJU MAHADEVRAO SONONE    M    38    Independent

19    VISHWANATH GOTUJI JAMNEKAR    M    60    Independent

20    SUDHAKAR VYANKAT RAMTEKE (MAJI SAINIK)    M    25    Independent

21    ADV. SUDHIR HIRAMAN TAYADE    M    42    Independent

22    SUNIL PRABHU RAMTEKE    M    37    Independent

S13    8    MH    WARDHA    16-Apr-09    1    KANGALE BIPIN BABASAHEB    M    32    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    DATTA MEGHE    M    72    Indian National Congress

3    SURESH GANPATRAO WAGHMARE    M    48    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    DIWATE RAMESH MADHAORAO    M    46    Krantisena Maharashtra

5    NARAYANRAO RAMJI CHIDAM    M    68    Gondvana Gantantra Party

6    DR. NITIN KESHORAO CHAVAN    M    46    Peoples Republican Party

7    PYARE SAHAB SHEIKH KARIM    M    41    Democratic Secular Party

8    BHOSE KAILAS VISHWASRAO    M    36    Gondwana Mukti Sena

9    ADV. SURESH SHINDE    M    42    Indian Justice Party

10    SANGITA SUNIL ALIAS SONU KAMBLE    F    33    Ambedkarist Republican Party

11    ISHWARKUMAR SHANKARRAO GHARPURE    M    50    Independent

12    GUNWANT TUKARAMJI DAWANDE    M    70    Independent

13    JAGANNATH NILKANTHRAO RAUT    M    54    Independent

14    TAGADE VISHWESHWAR AWADHUTRAO    M    47    Independent

15    RAMTEKE PRAKASH BAKARAM    M    60    Independent

16    SARANG PRAKASHRAO YAWALKAR    M    31    Independent

S13    9    MH    RAMTEK    16-Apr-09    1    TUMANE KRUPAL BALAJI    M    43    Shivsena

2    PRAKASHBHAU KISHAN TEMBHURNE    M    34    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    WASNIK MUKUL BALKRISHNA    M    49    Indian National Congress

4    KUMBHARE SULEKHA NARAYAN    F    49    Bahujan Republican Ekta Manch

5    DESHPANDE SANJAY SAOJI    M    44    Hindustan Janta Party

6    NAGARKAR PRASHANT HANSRAJ    M    34    Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha

7    NANDKISHOR SADHUJI DONGRE    M    34    Gondvana Gantantra Party

8    BAGDE SUJEET WASUDEORAO    M    43    Janata Dal (Secular)

9    PROF. BORKAR PRADIP DARYAV    M    48    Republican Paksha (Khoripa)

10    MAYATAI CHAWRE (UTWAL)    F    37    Samajwadi Party

11    VISKAS RAJARAM DAMLE    M    41    Republican Party of India (Khobragade)

12    SEEMA JEEVAN RAMTEKE    F    36    Democratic Secular Party

13    SANDIP SHESHRAO GAJBHIYE    M    36    Gondwana Mukti Sena

14    ASHISH ARUN NAGARARE    M    28    Independent

15    KHUSHAL UDARAMJI TUMANE    M    53    Independent

16    DHONE ANIL    M    43    Independent

17    ADV. DUPARE ULHAS SHALIKRAM    M    42    Independent

18    BARWE MADHUKAR DOMAJI    M    43    Independent

19    ADV. YUVRAJ ANANDRAOJI BAGDE    M    34    Independent

20    RURESH MANGALDAS BORKAR    M    33    Independent

S13    10    MH    NAGPUR    16-Apr-09    1    PUROHIT BANWARILAL BHAGWANDAS    M    69    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    ENGINEER MANIKRAO VAIDYA    M    56    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    MUTTEMWAR VILASRAO BABURAOJI    M    60    Indian National Congress

4    ARUN SHAMRAO JOSHI    M    58    Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha

5    KUMBHARE SULEKHA NARAYAN    F    49    Bahujan Republican Ekta Manch

6    ADV. GAJANAN SADASHIV KAWALE    M    51    Republican Paksha (Khoripa)

7    DILIP MANGAL MADAVI    M    44    Gondvana Gantantra Party

8    MEHMOOD KHAN RAHEEM KHAN    M    27    Democratic Secular Party

9    DR. YASHWANT MANOHAR    M    66    Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha

10    RAUT RAMESHCHANDRA    M    56    Prabuddha Republican Party

11    RAJESH SUKHDEV GAIKWAD    M    32    Kranti Kari Jai Hind Sena

12    ADV. VASANTA UMRE    M    50    Democratic Party of India

13    SOMKUWAR VIJAY SITARAM    M    41    Ambedkarist Republican Party

14    AZIZUR REHMAN SHEIKH    M    46    Independent

15    ASHISH ARUN NAGRARE    M    28    Independent

16    ADV. UPASHA BANSI TAYWADE    M    67    Independent

17    JAGDISH RAGHUNATH AMBADE    M    44    Independent

18    PRATIBHA UDAY KHAPARDE    F    35    Independent

19    PREMDAS RAMCHANDRA RAMTEKE    M    48    Independent

20    BARPATRE CHANDRABHAN SOMAJI    M    48    Independent

21    BLASAHEB ALIAS PRAMOD RAMAJI SHAMBHARKAR    M    40    Independent

22    MOHAMAD HABIB REEZAVI    M    50    Independent

23    RAJESHKUMAR MOHANLAL PUGALIA    M    37    Independent

24    RAHUL MADHUKAR DESHMUKH    M    34    Independent

25    VIJAY DEVRAO DHAKATE    M    26    Independent

26    SUNIL GAYAPRASAD MISHRA    M    41    Independent

27    PROF. DNYANESH WAKUDKAR    M    52    Independent

S13    11    MH    BHANDARA – GONDIYA    16-Apr-09    1    GANVIR SHIVKUMAR NAGARCHI    M    56    Communist Party of India

2    JAISWAL VIRENDRAKUMAR KASTURCHAND    M    53    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    PATLE SHISHUPAL NATTHUJI    M    42    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    PATEL PRAFUL MANOHARBHAI    M    52    Nationalist Congress Party

5    UNDIRWADE HEMANT JAGIVAN    M    45    Prabuddha Republican Party

6    JAMAIWAR SUNIL PARASRAM    M    38    Rashtriya Samaj Paksha

7    PATHAN MUSHTAK LATIF    M    32    Democratic Secular Party

8    PRATIBHA VASANT PIMPALKAR    F    38    Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha

9    WASNIK SUNIL MANIRAM    M    38    Republican Paksha (Khoripa)

10    UKEY CHINDHUJI LAKHAJI    M    50    Independent

11    GAJBHIYE BRAMHASWARUP BABURAO    M    33    Independent

12    GAJBHIYE RAJENDRA MAHADEO    M    35    Independent

13    ADV. DHANANJAY SHAMLALJI RAJABHOJ    M    50    Independent

14    NANABHAU FALGUNRAO PATOLE    M    47    Independent

15    PATLE AKARSING SITARAM    M    36    Independent

16    PROF. DR. BHASKARRAO MAHADEORAO JIBHAKATE    M    63    Independent

17    MIRZA WAHIDBEG AHAMADBEG    M    33    Independent

18    YELE GANESHRAM SUKHRAM    M    54    Independent

19    RAHANGADALE MULCHAND OLGAN    M    56    Independent

20    DR. RAMSAJIVAN KAWDU LILHARE    M    60    Independent

21    SADANAND SHRAWANJI GANVIR    M    40    Independent

S13    12    MH    GADCHIROLI-CHIMUR    16-Apr-09    1    ASHOK MAHADEORAO NETE    M    45    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    ATRAM RAJE SATYAWANRAO    M    58    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    KOWASE MAROTRAO SAINUJI    M    59    Indian National Congress

4    NAMDEO ANANDRAO KANNAKE    M    50    Communist Party of India

5    PROFFESOR KHANDALE KAWDU TULSHIRAM    M    69    Kranti Kari Jai Hind Sena

6    ADV. DADMAL PRABHAKAR MAHAGUJI    M    54    Peoples Republican Party

7    PENDAM DIWAKAR GULAB    M    38    Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha

8    PENDAM PURUSHOTTAM ZITUJI    M    35    Democratic Secular Party

9    VIJAY SURAJSING MADAVI    M    39    Gondvana Gantantra Party

10    JAMBHULE NARAYAN DINABAJI    M    54    Independent

11    DINESH TUKARAM MADAVI    M    28    Independent

S13    13    MH    CHANDRAPUR    16-Apr-09    1    AHIR HANSARAJ GANGARAM    M    54    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    PUGALIA NARESH    M    60    Indian National Congress

3    ADV. HAZARE DATTABHAU KRUSHNARAO    M    52    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    KHARTAD LOMESH MAROTI    M    55    Rashtrawadi Sena

5    KHOBRAGADE DESHAK GIRISHBABU    M    38    Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha

6    CHATAP WAMAN SADASHIVRAO    M    58    Swatantra Bharat Paksha

7    JAWED ABDUL KURESHI ALIAS PROF. JAWED PASHA    M    47    Jharkhand Mukti Morcha

8    JITENDRA ADAKU RAUT    M    32    Akhil Bhartiya Manavata Paksha

9    DANGE NATTHU BHAURAO    M    41    Ambedkarist Republican Party

10    PATHAN A. RAZZAK KHAN HAYAT KHAN    M    44    Samajwadi Party

11    MASRAM NIRANJAN SHIVRAM    M    42    Gondvana Gantantra Party

12    KALE DAMODHAR LAXMAN    M    85    Independent

13    QURESHI IKHALAQ MOHD. YUSUF    M    51    Independent

14    GODE NARAYAN SHAHUJI    M    42    Independent

15    DEKATE BHASKAR PARASHRAM    M    55    Independent

16    MADHUKAR VITTHALRAO NISTANE    M    43    Independent

17    MESHRAM CHARANDAS JANGLUJI    M    65    Independent

18    RAMESH RAGHOBAJI TAJNE    M    45    Independent

19    VINOD DINANATH MESHRAM    M    34    Independent

20    VIRENDRA TARACHANDJI PUGLIA    M    53    Independent

21    SHATRUGHN VYANKATRAO SONPIMPLE    M    37    Independent

22    SANJAY NILKANTH GAWANDE    M    45    Independent

23    HIWARKAR SUDHIR MOTIRAMJI    M    43    Independent

S13    14    MH    YAVATMAL-WASHIM    16-Apr-09    1    YEDATKAR DILIP LAXMANRAO    M    50    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    BHAVANA GAWALI (PATIL)    F    36    Shivsena

3    HARISING RATHOD    M    54    Indian National Congress

4    UTTAM BHAGAJI KAMBLE    M    41    Prabuddha Republican Party

5    KURESHI SK. MEHBUB SK.FATTU    M    44    Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha

6    KWAJA NASIRODDINE KHAN    M    29    Democratic Secular Party

7    GAJANAN KASHIRAM PATIL (HEMBADE)    M    26    Krantisena Maharashtra

8    DHAGE VITTHAL MAHADEV    M    45    Rashtriya Samaj Paksha

9    MANIYAR YUNUS MAHMOOD ZAHMI    M    50    Assam United Democratic Front

10    MOHMMAD KHAN AZIZ KHAN    M    43    Samajwadi Party

11    ATHAWALE SADANAND PRALHADRAO    M    39    Independent

12    GAJANAN BURMAL DODWADE    M    36    Independent

13    NETAJI SITARAMJI KINAKE    M    58    Independent

14    NANDKISHOR NARAYANRAO THAKARE    M    34    Independent

15    PAWAR RAMESH GORSING    M    53    Independent

16    PURUSHOTTAM DOMAJI BHAJGAWRE    M    48    Independent

17    MADHUKAR SHIVDASPPA GORATE    M    67    Independent

18    MANOJ JANARDAN PATIL    M    38    Independent

19    MUKHADE SAU. LALITARAI SUBHASHRAO    F    32    Independent

20    MESHRAM BANDU GANPAT    M    40    Independent

21    MOHD. INAMURRAHIM MOHD. MUSA    M    51    Independent

22    RAVINDRA ALIAS RAVIPAL MADHUKARRAO GANDHE    M    32    Independent

23    RAJKUMAR NARAYAN BHUJADALE    M    35    Independent

24    RATHOD DEVISING RAMA    M    56    Independent

25    SD. VHIDODDIN SD. KRIMODDIN    M    44    Independent

26    VISHNU KASINATH TAWKAR    M    47    Independent

27    SURESH BABAN PEDEKAR    M    33    Independent

28    SURESH BHIVA TARAL    M    29    Independent

S13    15    MH    HINGOLI    16-Apr-09    1    DR. B.D. CHAVHAN    M    45    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    SUBHASH BAPURAO WANDHEDE    M    46    Shivsena

3    SURYAKANTA JAIWANTRAO PATIL    F    63    Nationalist Congress Party

4    UTTAMRAO DAGADUJI BHAGAT    M    65    Prabuddha Republican Party

5    AJAS NOORMINYA    M    32    Democratic Secular Party

6    NAIK MADHAVRAO BAHENARAO    M    65    Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha

7    VINAYAK SHRIRAM BHISE    M    27    Krantisena Maharashtra

8    GUNDEKAR SANJAY ADELU    M    35    Independent

9    PATHAN SATTAR KASIMKHAN    M    38    Independent

10    PACHPUTE RAMPRASAD KISHANRAO    M    41    Independent

11    MD. A. MUJIM ANSARI A.    M    33    Independent

S13    16    MH    NANDED    16-Apr-09    1    KHATGAONK PATIL BHASKARRAO BAPURAO    M    65    Indian National Congress

2    MD. MAKBUL SALIM HAJI MD. KHAJA    M    60    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    SAMBHAJI PAWAR    M    60    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    ALTAF AHMAD EAKBAL AHMAD    M    43    Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha

5    KHADE SANJAY WAMANRAO    M    29    Prabuddha Republican Party

6    TIWARI RAMA BHAGIRAT    F    40    Rashtriya Samaj Paksha

7    ADV. C.S. BAHETI    M    56    Janata Party

8    MORE RAJESH EKNATHRAO    M    34    Krantisena Maharashtra

9    A. RAEES A. JABBAR    M    36    Ambedkar National Congress

10    SHINDE PREETI MADHUKAR    F    27    Jan Surajya Shakti

11    SHUDHIR YASHWANT SURVE    M    40    Kranti Kari Jai Hind Sena

12    COM. ASHOK NAGORAO GHAYALE    M    40    Independent

13    ANAND JADHAV HOTALKAR    M    42    Independent

14    KOREWAR BALAJI NARSING    M    38    Independent

15    JADHAV VISHNU MAROTI    M    35    Independent

16    NAVGHARE ANAND PANDURANG    M    48    Independent

17    NARAYAN SURYAVANSHI DOANGONKAR    M    63    Independent

18    PATHAN ZAFAR ALI KHAN MAHEMUD ALI KHAN    M    63    Independent

19    ‘AIDS MAN’ PRAKASH TATERAO LANDGE    M    40    Independent

20    BHARANDE RAMCHANDRA GANGARAM    M    31    Independent

21    ADV. RAMRAO PANDURANG WAGHMARE    M    52    Independent

22    HANMANTE VIJAY CHANDRAO    M    35    Independent

S13    17    MH    PARBHANI    16-Apr-09    1    ADV. DUDHGAONKAR GANESHRAO NAGORAO    M    64    Shivsena

2    RAJSHRI BABASAHEB JAMAGE    F    46    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    WARPUDKAR SURESH AMBADASRAO    M    60    Nationalist Congress Party

4    AJIM AHMED KHAN AJIJ KHAN    M    32    Democratic Secular Party

5    ASHOKRAO BABARAO AMBHORE    M    46    Ambedkar National Congress

6    KACHOLE MANAVENDRA SAWALARAM    M    65    Swatantra Bharat Paksha

7    KALE VYANKATRAO BHIMRAO    M    31    Krantisena Maharashtra

8    NAMDEV LIMBAJI KACHAVE    M    68    Kranti Kari Jai Hind Sena

9    BHAND GANGADHAR SAKHARAM    M    70    Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha

10    MULE BABAN DATTARAO    M    41    Rashtriya Samaj Paksha

11    RUMALE TUKARAM DHONDIBA    M    51    Prabuddha Republican Party

12    SAYYAD EKRAMODDIN SAYYAD MUNIRODDIN    M    58    Lok Vikas Party

13    ASAD BIN ABDULLAHA BIN    M    43    Independent

14    JAMEEL AHMED SK. AHMED    M    44    Independent

15    DR. DESHMUKH KISHANRAO JANARDHANRAO (EX-SERVICEMAN)    M    74    Independent

16    RATHOD RAMRAO DHANSING SIR    M    58    Independent

17    SHINDE LAXMAN EKANATH    M    36    Independent

18    SAMAR GORAKHNATH PAWAR    M    41    Independent

19    SALVE SUDHAKAR UMAJI    M    47    Independent

S14    2    MN    OUTER MANIPUR    16-Apr-09    1    THANGSO BAITE    M    56    Indian National Congress

2    D. LOLI ADANEE    M    56    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    L.B. SONA    M    58    Nationalist Congress Party

4    M. JAMKHONGAM @ M. YAMKHONGAM HAOKIP    M    49    Rashtriya Janata Dal

5    THANGKHANGIN    M    53    Lok Jan Shakti Party

6    MANI CHARENAMEI    M    50    Peoples Democratic Alliance

7    VALLEY ROSE HUNGYO    F    53    Independent

8    MANGSHI (ROSE MANGSHI HAOKIP)    F    63    Independent

9    LAMLALMOI GANGTE    M    33    Independent

S15    1    ML    SHILLONG    16-Apr-09    1    DALINGTON DYMPEP    M    78    Communist Party of India

2    JOHN FILMORE KHARSHIING    M    46    United Democratic Party

3    VINCENT H PALA    M    41    Indian National Congress

4    P. B. M. BASAIAWMOIT    M    60    Hill State People’s Democratic Party

5    MARTLE N.MUKHIM    M    59    Meghalaya Democratic Party

6    DENIS SIANGSHAI    M    44    Independent

7    TIEROD PASSAH    M    45    Independent

S15    2    ML    TURA    16-Apr-09    1    AGATHA K. SANGMA    F    28    Nationalist Congress Party

2    DEBORA C. MARAK    F    43    Indian National Congress

3    BOSTON MARAK    M    28    A-Chik National Congress(Democratic)

4    ARLENE N. SANGMA    F    53    Independent

S16    1    MZ    MIZORAM    16-Apr-09    1    LALAWMPUIA CHHANGTE    M    42    Nationalist Congress Party

2    C.L.RUALA    M    72    Indian National Congress

3    DR. H. LALLUNGMUANA    M    65    Independent

4    RUALPAWLA    M    54    Independent

S17    1    NL    NAGALAND    16-Apr-09    1    K. ASUNGBA SANGTAM    M    62    Indian National Congress

2    C.M. CHANG    M    65    Nagaland Peoples Front

3    DR. RILANTHUNG ODYUO    M    39    All India Trinamool Congress

S18    1    OR    BARGARH    16-Apr-09    1    RADHARANI PANDA    F    48    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    SANJAY BHOI    M    35    Indian National Congress

3    SUNIL KUMAR AGRAWAL    M    37    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    DR. HAMID HUSSAIN    M    54    Biju Janata Dal

5    NILADRI BEHARI PANDA    M    29    Kosal Kranti Dal

6    SURENDRA KUMAR AGRAWAL    M    37    Independent

S18    2    OR    SUNDARGARH    16-Apr-09    1    JUAL ORAM    M    48    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    JEROM DUNGDUNG    M    39    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    LIVNUS KINDO    M    64    Jharkhand Mukti Morcha

4    SALOMI MINZ    F    48    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

5    HEMANANDA BISWAL    M    67    Indian National Congress

6    RAMA CHANDRA EKKA    M    61    Jharkhand Disom Party

7    SAGAR SING MANKEE    M    60    Kosal Kranti Dal

8    DALESWAR MAJHI    M    58    Independent

9    MANSID EKKA    M    63    Independent

S18    3    OR    SAMBALPUR    16-Apr-09    1    AMARNATH PRADHAN    M    51    Indian National Congress

2    GOBINDA RAM AGARWAL    M    59    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    ROHIT PUJARI    M    35    Biju Janata Dal

4    SURENDRA LATH    M    59    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    ASHOK KUMAR NAIK    M    53    Kosal Kranti Dal

6    BIJAYA KUMAR MAHANANDA    M    35    Republican Party of India

7    MD. ALI HUSSAIN    M    37    Independent

S18    10    OR    BOLANGIR    16-Apr-09    1    KALIKESH NARAYAN SINGH DEO    M    34    Biju Janata Dal

2    NARASINGHA MISHRA    M    68    Indian National Congress

3    BALHAN SAGAR    M    51    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    SANGITA KUMARI SINGH DEO    F    47    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    DINGAR KUMBHAR    M    41    Samruddha Odisha

S18    11    OR    KALAHANDI    16-Apr-09    1    NAKULA MAJHI    M    66    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    BIKRAM KESHARI DEO    M    57    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    BHAKTA CHARAN DAS    M    52    Indian National Congress

4    SUBASH CHANDRA NAYAK    M    62    Biju Janata Dal

5    PARAMESWAR KAND    M    47    Samajwadi Party

6    BALARAM HOTA    M    33    Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)

7    DAMBARUDHARA SUNANI    M    34    Independent

8    MAHESWAR BHOI    M    36    Independent

S18    12    OR    NABARANGPUR    16-Apr-09    1    CHANDRADHWAJ MAJHI    M    49    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    DOMBURU MAJHI    M    68    Biju Janata Dal

3    PARSURAM MAJHI    M    49    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    PRADEEP KUMAR MAJHI    M    33    Indian National Congress

S18    13    OR    KANDHAMAL    16-Apr-09    1    ASHOK SAHU    M    57    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    PAULA BALIARSING    M    52    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    RUDRAMADHAB RAY    M    71    Biju Janata Dal

4    SUZIT KUMAR PADHI    M    49    Indian National Congress

5    NAKUL NAYAK    M    46    Samajwadi Party

6    AJIT KUMAR NAYAK    M    26    Independent

7    KAMALA KANTA PANDEY    M    64    Independent

8    GHORABANA BEHERA    M    42    Independent

9    DEENABANDHU NAIK    M    45    Independent

S18    19    OR    ASKA    16-Apr-09    1    NITYANANDA PRADHAN    M    65    Biju Janata Dal

2    RAMACHANDRA RATH    M    63    Indian National Congress

3    SHANTI DEVI    F    71    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    KRISHNA DALABEHERA    M    43    Kalinga Sena

5    BIJAYA KUMAR MAHAPATRO    M    56    Revolutionary Socialist Party

6    SURJYA NARAYAN SAHU    M    37    Samruddha Odisha

7    KALICHARAN NAYAK    M    53    Independent

8    DEBASIS MISRA    M    48    Independent

9    K. SHYAM BABU SUBUDHI    M    73    Independent

S18    20    OR    BERHAMPUR    16-Apr-09    1    CHANDRA SEKHAR SAHU    M    58    Indian National Congress

2    PABITRA GAMANGO    M    35    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    BHARAT PAIK    M    50    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    SIDHANT MAHAPATRA    M    42    Biju Janata Dal

5    NIRAKAR BEHERA    M    35    Kalinga Sena

6    ALI RAZA ZIADI    M    30    Independent

7    KISHORE CHANDRA MAHARANA    M    61    Independent

8    A. RAGHUNATH VARMA    M    71    Independent

9    K. SHYAM BABU SUBUDHI    M    73    Independent

S18    21    OR    KORAPUT    16-Apr-09    1    UPENDRA MAJHI    M    29    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    GIRIDHAR GAMANG    M    56    Indian National Congress

3    JAYARAM PANGI    M    53    Biju Janata Dal

4    PAPANNA MUTIKA    M    65    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    KUMUDINI DISARI    F    34    Samruddha Odisha

6    MEGHANADA SABAR    M    40    Communist Party of India(Marxist-Leninist)(Liberation)

S24    63    UP    MAHARAJGANJ    16-Apr-09    1    AJEET MANI    M    41    Samajwadi Party

2    GANESH SHANKER PANDEY    M    51    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    PANKAJ CHAUDHARY    M    38    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    HARSH VARDHAN    M    61    Indian National Congress

5    ABDWURRUF ANSARI    M    45    National Lokhind Party

6    PAWAN KUMAR    M    39    Republican Party of India (A)

7    RAM KISHUN NISHAD    M    52    Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party

8    SATYA NARAYAN URF SATNARAYAN    M    58    Bharatiya Eklavya Party

9    OMPRAKASH CHATURVEDI    M    63    Independent

10    DILIP KUMAR    M    28    Independent

11    RAM NIVAS    M    37    Independent

12    LAL BIHARI    M    42    Independent

13    CHAUDHARY SANJAY SINGH PATEL    M    29    Independent

14    SHYAM SUNDER DAS CHAURASIA    M    28    Independent

15    HANUMAN    M    51    Independent

S24    64    UP    GORAKHPUR    16-Apr-09    1    ADITYANATH    M    36    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    MANOJ TIWARI MRIDUL    M    39    Samajwadi Party

3    LALCHAND NISHAD    M    67    Indian National Congress

4    VINAY SHANKAR TIWARI    M    41    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    AMAN    M    35    Ambedkar Samaj Party

6    JOKHAN PRASAD    M    46    Eklavya Samaj Party

7    DAYASHANKAR NISHAD    M    38    Apna Dal

8    RAJBAHADUR    M    28    Indian Justice Party

9    RAJMANI    M    46    Bharatiya Eklavya Party

10    RAJESH SAHANI    M    44    Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)

11    SRINATH    M    29    Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party

12    AJAY KUMAR    M    40    Independent

13    AWADHESH SINGH    M    32    Independent

14    OMPRAKASH SINGH    M    43    Independent

15    GOVIND    M    43    Independent

16    CHHEDILAL    M    59    Independent

17    NIRANJAN PRASAD    M    35    Independent

18    NEERAJ YADAV    M    31    Independent

19    DR. BRIJESH MANI TRIPATHI    M    44    Independent

20    MANOJ TIWARI    M    30    Independent

21    RAKESH KUMAR    M    38    Independent

22    RAJAN YADAV M.B.A.    M    31    Independent

23    RAMHIT NISHAD    M    53    Independent

24    LAL BAHADUR    M    68    Independent

25    VINOD SHUKLA    M    29    Independent

26    HARISHCHANDRA    M    42    Independent

S24    65    UP    KUSHI NAGAR    16-Apr-09    1    BRAMHA SHANKER    M    56    Samajwadi Party

2    KU. RATANJEET PRATAP NARAYAN SINGH    M    45    Indian National Congress

3    VIJAY DUBEY    M    41    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    SWAMI PRASAD MAURYA    M    54    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    ANIL    M    43    Republican Party of India (A)

6    KISHOR KUMAR    M    40    Indian Peace Party

7    K KUMAR    M    56    Purvanchal Rajya Banao Dal

8    JANGI    M    55    Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party

9    DHEERAJ SHEKHAR SHRIWASTAWA    M    49    Rashtriya Lokwadi Party

10    BABU LAL    M    40    Bharatiya Republican Paksha

11    MATIULLAH    M    43    National Lokhind Party

12    MADAN LAL    M    46    Maulik Adhikar Party

13    AMEERUDDIN    M    31    Independent

14    JAGDISH    M    57    Independent

15    JAI GOVIND    M    35    Independent

16    DAROGA    M    37    Independent

17    RAMESH    M    35    Independent

18    RAM BRIKSH    M    54    Independent

S24    66    UP    DEORIA    16-Apr-09    1    GORAKH PRASAD JAISWAL    M    72    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    BALESHWAR YADAV    M    55    Indian National Congress

3    MOHAN SINGH    M    58    Samajwadi Party

4    SHRI PRAKASH MANI TRIPATHI    M    64    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    GANGA PRASAD KUSHWAHA    M    70    Purvanchal Rajya Banao Dal

6    JAGDISH KUMAR VERMA    M    36    Lokpriya Samaj Party

7    DHARMENDRA KUMAR    M    33    Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party

8    MOTI LAL KUSHWAHA SHASTRI    M    59    Rashtriya Samanta Dal

9    SAFAYAT ALI    M    51    Peace Party

10    SARITA    F    27    Ambedkar Samaj Party

11    RAM KISHOR YADAV ALIAS VIDHAYAK    M    51    Independent

12    VIJAY JUAATHA    M    42    Independent

S24    67    UP    BANSGAON    16-Apr-09    1    KAMLESH PASWAN    M    33    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    MAHA BEER PRASAD    M    66    Indian National Congress

3    SHARADA DEVI    F    59    Samajwadi Party

4    SHREE NATH JI    M    58    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    CHANDRIKA    M    29    Rashtriya Jan-vadi Party (Krantikari)

6    RAMA SHANKER    M    37    Peace Party

7    RAM PRAVESH PRASAD    M    37    Eklavya Samaj Party

8    HARILAL    M    32    Bahujan Uday Manch

9    KU. KUNJAWATI    F    36    Independent

10    MANOJ KUMAR    M    29    Independent

11    RADHEYSHYAM    M    35    Independent

12    RAMKAWAL    M    56    Independent

13    RAMSAKAL    M    32    Independent

14    RAMA PASWAN    M    33    Independent

15    VINAI KUMAR    M    33    Independent

S24    68    UP    LALGANJ    16-Apr-09    1    DAROGA PRASAD SAROJ    M    60    Samajwadi Party

2    NEELAM SONKAR    F    33    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    DR. BALIRAM    M    56    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    HAREE PRASAD SONKER    M    50    Communist Party of India

5    MANBHAWAN    M    32    Bharatiya Republican Paksha

6    RAM DAYAL ALIAS MOHAN    M    32    Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party

7    ACHCHHELAL    M    42    Independent

8    URMILA DEVI    F    27    Independent

9    CHANDRA RAM ALIAS CHANDU SAROJ    M    36    Independent

10    DHARMRAJ    M    55    Independent

11    SUKHNAYAN    M    29    Independent

S24    69    UP    AZAMGARH    16-Apr-09    1    AKBAR AHMAD DUMPY    M    57    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    ARUN KUMAR SINGH    M    63    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

3    DURGA PRASAD YADAV    M    56    Samajwadi Party

4    RAMAKANT YADAV    M    49    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    SANTOSH KUMAR SINGH    M    49    Indian National Congress

6    JAI JAI RAM PRAJAPATI    M    36    Lokpriya Samaj Party

7    RAM BHAROS    M    34    Bahujan Uday Manch

8    VINOD    M    33    Janvadi Party(Socialist)

9    USMANA FARUQEE    F    27    Independent

10    KEDAR NATH GIRI    M    49    Independent

11    KHAIRUL BASHAR    M    56    Independent

12    DR. JAVED AKHTAR    M    54    Independent

13    DAAN BAHADUR YADAV    M    54    Independent

14    YADUNATH    M    31    Independent

15    RAM UJAGIR    M    45    Independent

16    RAM SINGH    M    35    Independent

S24    70    UP    GHOSI    16-Apr-09    1    ATUL KUMAR SINGH ANJAN    M    55    Communist Party of India

2    ARSHAD JAMAL ANSARI    M    43    Samajwadi Party

3    DARA SINGH CHAUHAN    M    50    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    RAM IQBAL    M    49    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    SUDHA RAI    F    54    Indian National Congress

6    AKHILESH    M    43    Janvadi Party(Socialist)

7    KAILASH YADAV    M    46    Peace Party

8    RAMESH ALIAS RAJU SINGH    M    41    Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party

9    RAM BADAN KAUL    M    60    Bahujan Shakty

10    LALJI RAJBHAR    M    44    Bharatiya Samaj Dal

11    HARISH CHANDRA    M    62    Rashtriya Jan-vadi Party (Krantikari)

12    ASHOK KUMAR    M    27    Independent

13    ZAKIR HUSSAIN    M    45    Independent

14    PALAKDHARI    M    41    Independent

15    RAKESH    M    34    Independent

16    SUJIT KUMAR    M    34    Independent

S24    71    UP    SALEMPUR    16-Apr-09    1    DR. BHOLA PANDEY    M    55    Indian National Congress

2    RAMASHANKAR RAJBHAR    M    48    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    HARIKEWAL    M    71    Samajwadi Party

4    IZHAR    M    48    Peace Party

5    ZUBAIR    M    39    Nelopa(United)

6    JANG BAHADUR    M    50    Bharatiya Samaj Dal

7    FATE BAHADUR    M    35    Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party

8    RAVISHANKAR SINGH “PAPPU”    M    38    Janata Dal (United)

9    RAMCHARAN    M    72    People’s Democratic Front

10    RAMDAYAL    M    57    Janvadi Party(Socialist)

11    RAMNAWAMI YADAV    M    37    Samajwadi Jan Parishad

12    RAMASHRAY CHAUHAN    M    55    Moderate Party

13    SRIRAM    M    50    Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)

14    HARISHCHAND    M    48    Eklavya Samaj Party

15    AMEER    M    53    Independent

16    PARASURAM    M    56    Independent

17    FULENDRA    M    40    Independent

18    MAN JI    M    50    Independent

19    MAHESH    M    70    Independent

20    RAJENDRA ALIAS RAJAN    M    33    Independent

21    VINDHACHAL    M    44    Independent

22    SHAILENDRA    M    36    Independent

23    SATISH    M    37    Independent

24    SARVDAMAN    M    26    Independent

25    SANJAY    M    36    Independent

S24    72    UP    BALLIA    16-Apr-09    1    NEERAJ SHEKHAR    M    40    Samajwadi Party

2    MANOJ SINHA    M    50    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    SANGRAM SINGH YADAV    M    48    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    ARVIND KUMAR GOND    M    30    Gondvana Gantantra Party

5    KANHAIYA PRAJAPATI    M    44    Rashtriya Samanta Dal

6    NARAYAN RAJBHAR    M    32    Bharatiya Samaj Dal

7    RAJESH    M    40    Janvadi Party(Socialist)

8    RAMSAKAL    M    48    Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party

9    ANANT    M    36    Independent

10    GANGADYAL    M    48    Independent

11    DIWAKAR    M    38    Independent

12    RAMJI    M    49    Independent

13    LALBABU    M    36    Independent

14    SHESHNATH    M    40    Independent

15    SHANKER RAM RAWAT    M    43    Independent

16    HARIHAR    M    73    Independent

S24    74    UP    MACHHLISHAHR    16-Apr-09    1    KAMLA KANT GAUTAM (K.K. GAUTAM)    M    66    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    TUFANI SAROJ    M    48    Samajwadi Party

3    RAJ BAHADUR    M    66    Indian National Congress

4    VIDYASAGAR SONKER    M    48    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    KRISHNA SEWAK SONKER    M    48    Janvadi Party(Socialist)

6    RAM CHARITRA    M    41    Apna Dal

7    VIJAYEE RAM    M    38    Ambedkar Samaj Party

8    SHEOMURAT RAM    M    71    Gondvana Gantantra Party

9    SUKHRAJ DINKAR    M    51    Rashtriya Swabhimaan Party

10    SUSHMA    F    29    Rashtriya Agraniye Dal

11    DINESH KUMAR    M    31    Independent

12    BALJIT    M    59    Independent

13    RAM DAWAR GAUTAM    M    41    Independent

14    VINOD KUMAR    M    40    Independent

15    SHYAM BIHARI KANNAUJIYA    M    39    Independent

16    SOHAN    M    46    Independent

S24    75    UP    GHAZIPUR    16-Apr-09    1    AFZAL ANSARI    M    55    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    PRABHUNATH    M    48    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    RADHEY MOHAN SINGH    M    43    Samajwadi Party

4    SURAJ RAM BAGI    M    52    Communist Party of India

5    ISHWARI PRASAD KUSHAWAHA    M    48    Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)

6    DINESH    M    42    Rashtriya Samanta Dal

7    NANDLAL    M    67    Ambedkar Samaj Party

8    SHYAM NARAYAN    M    54    Rashtravadi Aarthik Swatantrata Dal

9    SATISH SHANKAR JAISAWAL    M    28    National Lokhind Party

10    SARAJU    M    67    Lok Dal

11    SURENDRA    M    43    Janvadi Party(Socialist)

12    ANIL    M    32    Independent

13    ASHOK (DR.ASHOK KUMAR SRIVASTAVA)    M    54    Independent

14    BRAJENDRA NATH URF BIJENDRA    M    66    Independent

15    RAJESH    M    37    Independent

S24    76    UP    CHANDAULI    16-Apr-09    1    KAILASH NATH SINGH YADAV    M    46    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    JAWAHAR LAL JAISAWAL    M    51    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    RAMKISHUN    M    49    Samajwadi Party

4    SHAILENDRA KUMAR    M    40    Indian National Congress

5    CHANDRASHEKHAR    M    34    Republican Party of India

6    JAWAHIR    M    48    Pragatisheel Manav Samaj Party

7    JOKHU    M    45    Peoples Democratic Forum

8    TULASI    M    42    Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party

9    RAJNATH    M    35    Bharatiya Republican Paksha

10    RAJESH SINGH    M    27    Kranti Kari Jai Hind Sena

11    RAMAWATAR SHARMA ADVOCATE    M    38    Maulik Adhikar Party

12    RAMSEWAK YADAV    M    46    Rashtriya Lokhit Party

13    LALLAN    M    49    Indian Justice Party

14    SURENDRA PRATAP    M    36    Jai Bharat Samanta Party

15    DEVAROO    M    40    Independent

16    MUNNI LAL    M    66    Independent

17    SURAFARAJ AHMAD    M    29    Independent

18    HARI LAL    M    52    Independent

S24    77    UP    VARANASI    16-Apr-09    1    AJAY RAI    M    36    Samajwadi Party

2    MUKHTAR ANSARI    M    49    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    DR. MURLI MANOHAR JOSHI    M    73    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    DR. RAJESH KUMAR MISHRA    M    48    Indian National Congress

5    AWADHESH KUMAR KUSHWAHA    M    43    Rashtriya Samanta Dal

6    USHA SINGH    F    45    Rashtriya Agraniye Dal

7    KISHUN LAL    M    59    Indian Justice Party

8    VIJAY PRAKASH JAISWAL    M    43    Apna Dal

9    ER. SHYAM LAL VISHWAKARMA    M    61    Maulik Adhikar Party

10    ANAND KUMAR AMBASTHA    M    36    Independent

11    NARENDRA NATH DUBEY ADIG    M    36    Independent

12    PARVEZ QUADIR KHAN    M    38    Independent

13    PUSHP RAJ SAHU    M    47    Independent

14    RAJESH BHARTI    M    33    Independent

15    SATYA PRAKASH SRIVASTAVA    M    37    Independent

S24    79    UP    MIRZAPUR    16-Apr-09    1    ANIL KUMAR MAURYA    M    37    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    ANURAG SINGH    M    42    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    BAL KUMAR PATEL    M    48    Samajwadi Party

4    RAMESH DUBEY    M    66    Indian National Congress

5    AJAY SHANKER    M    33    Gondwana Mukti Sena

6    KAILASH    M    48    Bahujan Shakty

7    KHELADI    M    58    Gondvana Gantantra Party

8    JAGDISH    M    49    Apna Dal

9    PREM CHAND    M    45    Pragatisheel Manav Samaj Party

10    RADHE SHYAM    M    58    Bharatiya Republican Paksha

11    LALJI    M    48    Rashtriya Agraniye Dal

12    LALTI DEVI    F    54    Vikas Party

13    SHANKAR    M    38    Communist Party of India(Marxist-Leninist)(Liberation)

14    SHYAM LAL    M    41    Eklavya Samaj Party

15    MOHD. SAGIR    M    41    National Loktantrik Party

16    TRILOK NATH VERMA    M    61    Indian Justice Party

17    ANOOP KUMAR    M    34    Independent

18    KRISHNA CHAND    M    40    Independent

19    KRISHNA CHAND SHUKLA    M    40    Independent

20    CHHABEELE    M    41    Independent

21    DANGAR    M    52    Independent

22    DULARI    F    61    Independent

23    MANIK CHAND    M    37    Independent

24    MUNNA LAL    M    34    Independent

25    RAM GOPAL    M    53    Independent

26    RAM RAJ    M    37    Independent

27    HANS KUMAR    M    37    Independent

S24    80    UP    ROBERTSGANJ    16-Apr-09    1    PAKAURI LAL    M    57    Samajwadi Party

2    RAM ADHAR JOSEPH    M    43    Indian National Congress

3    RAM CHANDRA TYAGI    M    54    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    RAM SHAKAL    M    47    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    GULAB    M    31    Peoples Democratic Forum

6    CHANDRA SHEKHAR    M    34    Janvadi Party(Socialist)

7    MUNNI DEVI    F    42    Rashtriya Samanta Dal

8    RAMESH KUMAR    M    31    Apna Dal

9    SHRAWAN KUMAR    M    41    Rashtrawadi Sena

10    RAMBRIKSHA    M    39    Independent

S26    1    CG    SARGUJA    16-Apr-09    1    DHAN SINGH DHURVE    M    38    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    BAL SINGH    M    38    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

3    BHANU PRATAP SINGH    M    42    Indian National Congress

4    MURARILAL SINGH    M    49    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    ANOOP MINJ    M    28    Jharkhand Mukti Morcha

6    KUMAIT B.D.O.    M    64    Janata Dal (United)

7    BHUPNATH SINGH MARAVI    M    43    Gondvana Gantantra Party

8    RAMDEO LAKRA    M    32    Chhattisgarh Vikas Party

9    RAMNATH CHERWA    M    36    Shoshit Samaj Dal

10    SOMNATH BHAGAT    M    46    Lok Jan Shakti Party

11    AMRIT SINGH MARAVI    M    35    Independent

12    JUGESHWAR    M    29    Independent

13    DHANESHWAR SINGH    M    39    Independent

14    SARJU XESS ORANW    M    43    Independent

15    SUNIL KUMAR SINGH KANHARE    M    27    Independent

16    SURAJ DEO SINGH KHAIRWAR    M    35    Independent

S26    2    CG    RAIGARH    16-Apr-09    1    BAHADUR SINGH RATHIA    M    57    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    VISHNU DEO SAI    M    45    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    HRIDAYARAM RATHIYA    M    43    Indian National Congress

4    DARSHAN SIDAR    M    32    Gondvana Gantantra Party

5    MEERA DEVI SINGH TIRKEY    F    39    Chhattisgarh Vikas Party

6    SHIRACHAND EKKA    M    29    Jharkhand Mukti Morcha

7    AMRIT TIRKEY    M    30    Independent

8    KAMRISH SINGH GOND    M    59    Independent

9    SANJAY TIRKEY    M    29    Independent

10    HALDHAR RAM SIDAR    M    42    Independent

S26    3    CG    JANJGIR-CHAMPA    16-Apr-09    1    SHRIMATI KAMLA DEVI PATLE    F    43    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    DAURAM RATNAKAR    M    51    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    DR.SHIVKUMAR DAHARIYA    M    45    Indian National Congress

4    B.R. CHAUHAN    M    59    Republican Party of India (A)

5    NEELKANTH WARE    M    59    Chhattisgarhi Samaj Party

6    PREM SHANKAR MAHILANGE URF PREM INDIA    M    39    Lok Jan Shakti Party

7    SANJEEV KUMAR KHARE    M    26    Chhattisgarh Vikas Party

8    ANANDRAM GILHARE    M    35    Independent

9    CHAITRAM SURYAVANSHI    M    62    Independent

10    DR.CHHAVILAL RATRE    M    55    Independent

11    MAYARAM NAT    M    50    Independent

12    RAMCHARAN PRADHAN ADHIWAKTA    M    51    Independent

S26    4    CG    KORBA    16-Apr-09    1    KARUNA SHUKLA    F    59    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    CHARANDAS MAHANT    M    54    Indian National Congress

3    VIJAY LAXMI SHARMA    F    41    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    KEDARNATH RAJWADE    M    28    Jharkhand Mukti Morcha

5    CHAITI DEVI MAHANT    F    49    Chhattisgarhi Samaj Party

6    BUDHWAR SINGH UIKEY    M    34    Rashtriya Gondvana Party

7    DR. VIPIN SINHA    M    40    Chhattisgarh Vikas Party

8    SANGEETA NIRMALKAR    F    32    Bharatiya Pichhra Dal

9    HIRASINGH MARKAAM    M    74    Gondvana Gantantra Party

10    GEND DAS MAHANT    M    35    Independent

11    CHARAN DAS    M    25    Independent

12    PAWAN KUMAR    M    38    Independent

13    FULESHWAR PRASAD SURJAIHA    M    75    Independent

14    RAMDAYAL ORAON    M    49    Independent

15    RAMLAKHAN KASHI    M    68    Independent

16    SHAMBHU PRASAD SHARMA ADHIWAKTA    M    62    Independent

17    SATRUPA    F    37    Independent

18    SANTOSH BANJARE    M    25    Independent

S26    5    CG    BILASPUR    16-Apr-09    1    DILIP SINGH JUDEV    M    60    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    ADVOCATE T.R.NIRALA    M    42    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    DR.RENU JOGI    F    56    Indian National Congress

4    UTTAM PRASAD DANSENA    M    27    Sunder Samaj Party

5    DR.GOJU PAUL    M    40    Republican Party of India (A)

6    DR.BALMUKUND SINGH MARAVI    M    41    Gondvana Gantantra Party

7    BALARAM SAHU    M    46    Bharatiya Pichhra Dal

8    MUKESH KUMAR SAHU    M    32    Jharkhand Mukti Morcha

9    SAPNA CHAKRABORTY    F    37    Lok Jan Shakti Party

10    ARJUN SHRIVAS GANGUAA    M    63    Independent

11    ANUJ DHRITLAHRE    M    34    Independent

12    ABDUL HAMID SIDDIQUE    M    43    Independent

13    ASHOK SHRIVASTAVA    M    37    Independent

14    UMESH SINGH    M    31    Independent

15    TUKLAL GARG    M    40    Independent

16    DAYA DAS LAHRE    M    65    Independent

17    DR.DAYA RAM DAYAL    M    60    Independent

18    DILIP KUMAR    M    30    Independent

19    DILIP GUPTA    M    38    Independent

20    DILIP SINGH    M    41    Independent

21    MANOJ KUMAR BIRKO    M    34    Independent

22    RAMESH AHUJA    M    43    Independent

23    RAMESH KUMAR LAHARE    M    36    Independent

24    RAJENDRA SAHU    M    29    Independent

25    RAJESH PRATAP    M    32    Independent

26    RAMBILAS SHARMA    M    52    Independent

27    B.P.VISWAKARMA    M    57    Independent

28    SHYAM BIHARI TRIVEDI    M    56    Independent

S26    6    CG    RAJNANDGAON    16-Apr-09    1    DEVWRAT SINGH    M    39    Indian National Congress

2    PRADHUMAN NETAM    M    32    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    MADHUSUDAN YADAV    M    38    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    GANGARAM NISHAD    M    48    Eklavya Samaj Party

5    NARAD KHOTHALIYA    M    48    Chhattisgarh Vikas Party

6    AJAY JAISWAL    M    35    Independent

7    AJAY PALI    M    32    Independent

8    JALAL MOHAMMAD QURESHI    M    45    Independent

9    DERHARAM LODHI    M    37    Independent

10    DILIP RATHOR SAMPADAK    M    40    Independent

11    BHAG CHAND VAIDHYA    M    48    Independent

12    MADAN YADAV    M    34    Independent

13    MANGAL DAS BANGARE    M    52    Independent

14    D.R.YADAV PRACHARYA    M    66    Independent

S26    7    CG    DURG    16-Apr-09    1    PRADEEP CHOUBEY    M    55    Indian National Congress

2    RAGHUNANDAN SAHU    M    34    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    SAROJ PANDEY    F    40    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    DEVIDAS KURRE    M    43    Chandigarh Vikas Party

5    DR. PANKAJ GOSOMI (PANDIT)    M    37    Republican Party of India

6    ANAND GAUTAM    M    35    Independent

7    TARACHAND SAHU    M    30    Independent

8    TARACHAND SAHU    M    66    Independent

9    TARACHAND SAHU    M    62    Independent

10    MASOOD KHAN    M    43    Independent

11    RATAN KUMAR KSHETRAPAL    M    61    Independent

12    RAJENDRA KUMAR SAHU    M    38    Independent

13    LAXMAN PRASAD    M    31    Independent

14    GURU DADA LOKESH MAHARAJ    M    56    Independent

15    SHITKARAN MHILWAR    M    40    Independent

S26    8    CG    RAIPUR    16-Apr-09    1    BHUPESH BAGHEL    M    47    Indian National Congress

2    RAMESH BAIS    M    61    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    VIDHYADEVI SAHU    F    54    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    ER. ASHOK TAMRAKAR    M    56    Jai Chhattisgarh Party

5    IMRRAN PASHA    M    33    Loktantrik Samajwadi Party

6    P.R. KHUNTE    M    54    Chhattisgarh Vikas Party

7    MADHUSUDAN MISHRA    M    49    Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha

8    SHAILENDRA BANJARE (SHAKTIPUTRA)    M    34    Shakti Sena (Bharat Desh)

9    SHANKAR LAL VARANDANI    M    45    Pyramid Party of India

10    HARGUN MEGHWANI    M    56    Akhil Bhartiya Sindhu Samajwadi Party

11    ARUN HARPAL    M    35    Independent

12    JAFAR HUSSAIN, BABABHAI (PURVA MUTVALLI)    M    57    Independent

13    MOH. JILANI ALIAS TANI    M    30    Independent

14    NAND KISHOR DEEP    M    48    Independent

15    NARESH BHISHMDEV DHIDHI    M    31    Independent

16    NAVIN GUPTA    M    35    Independent

17    NARAD NISHAD    M    33    Independent

18    PRAVEEN JAIN    M    44    Independent

19    BHARAT BHUSHAN PANDEY    M    45    Independent

20    MATHURA PRASAD TANDON    M    42    Independent

21    YASHWANT SAHU    M    35    Independent

22    RAJENDRA KUMAR SAHU    M    38    Independent

23    RAJENDRA SINGH THAKUR (ADVOCATE)    M    34    Independent

24    RAMKRISHNA VERMA    M    49    Independent

25    RAMCHARAN YADAV    M    33    Independent

26    SHOBHARAM GILHARE    M    38    Independent

27    SIYARAM DHRITLAHARE    M    34    Independent

28    SMT. SUSIL BAI BANJARE    F    36    Independent

29    SYED RASHID ALI    M    62    Independent

30    SANJAY BAGHEL    M    29    Independent

31    HAIDAR BHATI    M    38    Independent

32    SHRIKANT KASER    M    41    Independent

S26    9    CG    MAHASAMUND    16-Apr-09    1    CHANDULAL SAHU (CHANDU BHAIYA)    M    49    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    MOTILAL    M    44    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    MOTILAL SAHU    M    44    Indian National Congress

4    DR. ANAND MATAWALE (GURUJI)    M    38    Lok Bharati

5    KIRAN KUMAR DHRUW    M    44    Jharkhand Mukti Morcha

6    BAUDDH KUMAR KAUSHIK    M    37    Chhattisgarh Vikas Party

7    DR. LATA MARKAM    F    26    Republican Party of India (A)

8    SHRIDHAR CHANDRAKAR (PATEL)    M    40    Apna Dal

9    KHEDUBHARTI “SATYESH”    M    33    Independent

10    CHAMPA LAL PATEL    M    43    Independent

11    NARENDRA BHISHMDEV DHIDHI    M    34    Independent

12    NARAYANDAS INQALAB GANDHI    M    63    Independent

13    BHARAT DIWAN    M    29    Independent

14    RAMPRASAD CHAUHAN    M    46    Independent

15    SULTANSINGH SATNAM    M    58    Independent

S26    10    CG    BASTAR    16-Apr-09    1    AYTU RAM MANDAVI    M    44    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    BALIRAM KASHYAP    M    73    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    MANISH KUNJAM    M    42    Communist Party of India

4    SHANKAR SODI    M    44    Indian National Congress

5    CHANDRA SHEKHAR DHRUV (SHEKHAR)    M    42    Independent

6    MAYARAM NETAM ALIAS (FULSING SILADAR)    M    60    Independent

7    SUBHASH CHANDRA MOURYA    M    35    Independent

S26    11    CG    KANKER    16-Apr-09    1    SMT. PHOOLO DEVI NETAM    F    35    Indian National Congress

2    MIRA SALAM    F    32    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    SOHAN POTAI    M    49    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    JALSINGH SHORI    M    30    Chhattisgarhi Samaj Party

5    N. R. BHUARYA    M    50    Gondwana Mukti Sena

6    BHOM LAL    M    59    Apna Dal

7    MAYARAM NAGWANSHI    M    48    Gondvana Gantantra Party

8    G. R. RANA    M    62    Jharkhand Mukti Morcha

9    DEVCHAND MATLAM    M    31    Independent

10    PRAFUL MANDAVI    M    35    Independent

11    MAYARAM NETAM (FULSINGH SILEDAR)    M    60    Independent

S27    4    JH    CHATRA    16-Apr-09    1    ARUN KUMAR YADAV    M    41    Janata Dal (United)

2    DHIRAJ PRASAD SAHU    M    50    Indian National Congress

3    NAGMANI    M    46    Rashtriya Janata Dal

4    SUGAN MAHTO    M    56    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    KESHWAR YADAV    M    47    Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)

6    PARAS NATH MANJHI    M    58    Akhil Bharatiya Manav Seva Dal

7    K.P. SHARMA    M    62    Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik)

8    SURENDRA YADAV    M    36    Jharkhand Party

9    INDER SINGH NAMDHARI    M    62    Independent

10    DHIRENDRA AGRAWAL    M    53    Independent

11    RATNESH KUMAR GUPTA    M    47    Independent

S27    5    JH    KODARMA    16-Apr-09    1    TILAKDHARI PD. SINGH    M    65    Indian National Congress

2    PRANAV KUMAR VERMA    M    29    Rashtriya Janata Dal

3    LAXAMAN SAWARNKAR    M    63    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    BISHNU PRASAD BHAIYA    M    47    Jharkhand Mukti Morcha

5    SABHAPATI KUSHWAHA    M    61    Bahujan Samaj Party

6    UMESH CHANDRA TRIVEDI    M    41    Jharkhand Party

7    PRAMESHWAR YADAV    M    49    Rashtriya Krantikari Samajwadi Party

8    BABULAL MARANDI    M    51    Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik)

9    RAJKISHOR PRASAD MODI    M    54    Jharkhand Vikas Dal

10    RAJ KUMAR YADAV    M    37    Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)

11    HADTAL DAS    M    43    Bahujan Shakty

12    ASHOK KUMAR SHARMA    M    35    Independent

13    KAMAL DAS    M    35    Independent

14    CHANDRA DHARI MAHTO    M    28    Independent

15    MANJOOR ALAM ANSARI    M    45    Independent

16    LAXAMAN DAS    M    37    Independent

S27    11    JH    KHUNTI    16-Apr-09    1    KARIYA MUNDA    M    72    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    NEIL TIRKEY    M    55    Indian National Congress

3    MARSHAL BARLA    M    36    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    THEODORE KIRO    M    58    Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik)

5    NITIMA BODRA BARI    F    41    Jharkhand Party (Naren)

6    NISHIKANT HORO    M    55    Jharkhand Party

7    ANAND KUJUR    M    27    Independent

8    UMBULAN TOPNO    M    49    Independent

9    KARLUS BHENGRA    M    41    Independent

S27    12    JH    LOHARDAGA    16-Apr-09    1    JOKHAN BHAGAT    M    43    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    RAMESHWAR ORAON    M    63    Indian National Congress

3    SUDARSHAN BHAGAT    M    40    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    DEOSHARAN BHAGAT    M    45    All Jharkhand Students Union

5    BAHURA EKKA    M    61    Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik)

6    BHUNESHWAR LOHRA    M    42    Lok Jan Vikas Morcha

7    RAMA KHALKHO    F    38    Jharkhand Janadikhar Manch

8    ARJUN BHAGAT    M    60    Independent

9    ETWA ORAON    M    45    Independent

10    GOPAL ORAON    M    56    Independent

11    CHAMRA LINDA    M    39    Independent

12    JAI PRAKASH BHAGAT    M    36    Independent

13    NAWAL KISHOR SINGH    M    51    Independent

14    PADMA BARAIK    F    25    Independent

15    SUKHDEO LOHRA    M    69    Independent

S27    13    JH    PALAMAU    16-Apr-09    1    KAMESHWAR BAITHA    M    56    Jharkhand Mukti Morcha

2    GHURAN RAM    M    42    Rashtriya Janata Dal

3    RADHA KRISHNA KISHORE    M    52    Janata Dal (United)

4    HIRA RAM TUPHANI    M    59    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    GANESH RAM    M    56    Jharkhand Party

6    JAWAHAR PASWAN    M    48    AJSU Party

7    NANDDEV RAM    M    70    Jharkhand Party (Naren)

8    PARVATI DEVI    F    34    Manav Mukti Morcha

9    PRABHAT KUMAR    M    31    Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik)

10    RAJU GUIDE MAJHI    M    30    Akhil Bharatiya Manav Seva Dal

11    RAM NARESH RAM    M    36    Rashtravadi Aarthik Swatantrata Dal

12    BIRBAL RAM    M    28    Rashtriya Lok Dal

13    SATYENDRA KUMAR PASWAN    M    30    Bharatiya Samta Samaj Party

14    SUSHMA MEHTA    F    31    Communist Party of India(Marxist-Leninist)(Liberation)

15    JITENDRA RAM    M    31    Independent

16    NARESH KUMAR PASWAN    M    29    Independent

17    BRAJMOHAN RAM    M    48    Independent

18    BHOLA RAM    M    32    Independent

19    MUNESHWAR RAM    M    58    Independent

20    RAM PRASAD RAM    M    58    Independent

21    SUNESHWAR BAITHA    M    54    Independent

S27    14    JH    HAZARIBAGH    16-Apr-09    1    KISHOR KUMAR PANDEY    M    35    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    BHUVNESHWAR PRASAD MEHTA    M    64    Communist Party of India

3    YASHWANT SINHA    M    71    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    SHIVLAL MAHTO    M    34    Jharkhand Mukti Morcha

5    SAURABH NARAIN SINGH    M    34    Indian National Congress

6    CHANDRA PRAKASH CHOUDHARY    M    40    All Jharkhand Students Union

7    DIGAMBER KU. MEHTA    M    42    Samajwadi Party

8    BRAJ KISHORE JAISWAL    M    67    Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik)

9    DEONATH MAHTO    M    29    Independent

10    MAHENDRA KISHORE MEHTA    M    38    Independent

11    MD. MOINUDDIN AHMED    M    32    Independent

12    LALAN PRASAD    M    34    Independent

13    SNEHLATA DEVI    F    49    Independent

U01    1    AN    ANDAMAN & NICOBAR ISLANDS    16-Apr-09    1    SMTI. R. S. UMA BHARATHY    F    44    Nationalist Congress Party

2    SHRI. KULDEEP RAI SHARMA    M    41    Indian National Congress

3    SHRI. P. R. GANESHAN    M    71    Rashtriya Janata Dal

4    SHRI TAPAN KUMAR BEPARI    M    51    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

5    SHRI. BISHNU PADA RAY    M    59    Bharatiya Janata Party

6    SHRI. M. S. MOHAN    M    50    Bahujan Samaj Party

7    SHRI. N. K. P. NAIR    M    54    Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)

8    SHRI. PRADEEP KUMAR EKKA    M    37    Jharkhand Disom Party

9    SHRI. T. ALI    M    37    Independent

10    DR. THANKACHAN    M    50    Independent

11    SHRI. VAKIATH VALAPPIL KHALID    M    40    Independent

U06    1    LD    LAKSHADWEEP    16-Apr-09    1    MUHAMMED HAMDULLA SAYEED A.B    M    26    Indian National Congress

2    DR. P. POOKUNHIKOYA    M    60    Nationalist Congress Party

3    DR. K P MUTHUKOYA    M    57    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    LUKMANUL HAKEEM    M    32    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

S14    1    MN    INNER MANIPUR    22-Apr-09    1    DR. THOKCHOM MEINYA    M    58    Indian National Congress

2    THOUNAOJAM CHAOBA    M    70    Manipur People’s Party

3    MOIRANGTHEM NARA    M    58    Communist Party of India

4    WAHENGBAM NIPAMACHA SINGH    M    78    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    L. KSHETRANI DEVI    F    50    Rashtriya Bahujan Congress Party

6    ABDUL RAHMAN    M    58    Independent

7    NONGMAITHEM HOMENDRO SINGH    M    45    Independent

S01    23    AP    KAKINADA    23-Apr-09    1    DOMMETI SUDHAKAR    M    51    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    M.M.PALLAMRAJU    M    46    Indian National Congress

3    BIKKINA VISWESWARA RAO    M    34    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    VASAMSETTY SATYA    M    44    Telugu Desam

5    ALURI VIJAYA LAKSHMI    F    64    Lok Satta Party

6    UDAYA KUMAR KONDEPUDI    M    36    Trilinga Praja Pragati Party

7    GALI SATYAVATHI    F    40    Republican Party of India

8    GIDLA SIMHACHALAM    M    50    Rashtriya Dehat Morcha Party

9    CHALAMALASETTY SUNIL    M    39    Praja Rajyam Party

10    NAMALA SATYANARAYANA    M    45    Rajyadhikara Party

11    N.PALLAMRAJU    M    52    Ajeya Bharat Party

12    BUGATHA BANGARRAO    M    48    Communist Party of India(Marxist-Leninist)(Liberation)

13    AKAY SURYANARAYANA    M    50    Independent

14    CHAGANTI SURYA NARAYANA MURTHY    M    44    Independent

15    DANAM LAZAR BABU    M    42    Independent

16    BADAMPUDI BABURAO    M    51    Independent

S01    24    AP    AMALAPURAM    23-Apr-09    1    KOMMABATTULA UMA MAHESWARA RAO    M    65    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    GEDDAM SAMPADA RAO    M    39    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    DOCTOR GEDELA VARALAKSHMI    F    55    Telugu Desam

4    G.V.HARSHA KUMAR    M    50    Indian National Congress

5    AKUMARTHI SURYANARAYANA    M    50    Trilinga Praja Pragati Party

6    KIRAN KUMAR BINEPE    M    43    Praja Bharath Party

7    P.V.CHAKRAVARTHI    M    54    Republican Party of India (Khobragade)

8    POTHULA PRAMEELA DEVI    F    55    Praja Rajyam Party

9    BHEEMARAO RAMJI MUTHABATHULA    M    39    Pyramid Party of India

10    MASA RAMADASU    M    46    Rashtriya Dehat Morcha Party

11    YALANGI RAMESH    M    45    Independent

S01    25    AP    RAJAHMUNDRY    23-Apr-09    1    ARUNA KUMAR VUNDAVALLI    M    54    Indian National Congress

2    M. MURALI MOHAN    M    68    Telugu Desam

3    VAJRAPU KOTESWARA RAO    M    43    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    SOMU VEERRAJU    M    51    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    UPPALAPATI VENKATA KRISHNAM RAJU    M    69    Praja Rajyam Party

6    DATLA RAYA JAGAPATHI RAJU    M    50    Pyramid Party of India

7    DR. PALADUGU CHANDRA MOULI    M    69    Lok Satta Party

8    MEDAPATI PAPIREDDY    M    30    Trilinga Praja Pragati Party

9    MEDA SRINIVAS    M    39    Rashtriya Praja Congress (Secular)

10    PARAMATA GANESWARA RAO    M    46    Independent

11    MUSHINI RAMAKRISHNA RAO    M    51    Independent

12    VASAMSETTY NAGESWARA RAO    M    46    Independent

13    SANABOINA SUBHALAKSHMI    F    44    Independent

S01    26    AP    NARSAPURAM    23-Apr-09    1    KALIDINDI VISWANADHA RAJU    M    39    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    THOTA SITA RAMA LAKSHMI    F    59    Telugu Desam

3    BAPIRAJU KANUMURU    M    61    Indian National Congress

4    BHUPATHIRAJU SRINIVASA VARMA    M    41    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    ALLURI YUGANDHARA RAJU    M    44    Pyramid Party of India

6    GUBBALA TAMMAIAH    M    61    Praja Rajyam Party

7    NAVUNDRU RAJENDRA PRASAD    M    44    Bharatheeya Sadharma Samsthapana Party

8    MANORAMA SANKU    F    62    Lok Satta Party

9    M V R RAJU    M    35    Rashtriya Dehat Morcha Party

10    KALIDINDI BHIMARAJU    M    73    Independent

S01    27    AP    ELURU    23-Apr-09    1    KAVURI SAMBASIVA RAO    M    65    Indian National Congress

2    KODURI VENKATA SUBBA RAJU    M    46    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    PILLELLLI SUNIL    M    35    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    MAGANTI VENKATESWARA RAO(BABU)    M    49    Telugu Desam

5    Y.V.S.V. PRASADA RAO (YERNENI PRASADA RAO)    M    61    Pyramid Party of India

6    KOLUSU PEDA REDDAIAH YADAV    M    67    Praja Rajyam Party

7    SAVANAPUDI NAGARAJU    M    48    Marxist Communist Party of India (S.S. Srivastava)

8    SIRIKI SRINIVAS    M    32    Rashtriya Dehat Morcha Party

9    KASI NAIDU KAMMILI    M    39    Independent

10    TANUKU SEKHAR    M    45    Independent

11    DODDA KAMESWARA RAO    M    54    Independent

12    DOWLURI GOVARDHAN    M    32    Independent

S01    28    AP    MACHILIPATNAM    23-Apr-09    1    KONAKALLA NARAYANA RAO    M    59    Telugu Desam

2    CHIGURUPATI RAMALINGESWARA RAO    M    33    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    BADIGA RAMAKRISHNA    M    66    Indian National Congress

4    BHOGADI RAMA DEVI    F    56    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    KOPPULA VENKATESWARA RAO    M    45    Lok Satta Party

6    CHENNAMSETTI RAMACHANDRAIAH    M    60    Praja Rajyam Party

7    YARLAGADDA RAMAMOHANA RAO    M    44    Bharatheeya Sadharma Samsthapana Party

8    VARA LAKSHMI KONERU    F    59    Pyramid Party of India

9    G.V. NAGESWARA RAO    M    25    Independent

10    YENDURI SUBRAMANYESWA RAO ( MANI )    M    50    Independent

S01    29    AP    VIJAYAWADA    23-Apr-09    1    LAGADAPATI RAJA GOPAL    M    45    Indian National Congress

2    LAKA VENGALA RAO    M    38    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    VAMSI MOHAN VALLABHANENI    M    38    Telugu Desam

4    SISTLA NARASIMHA MURTHY    M    63    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    DEVINENI KISHORE KUMAR    M    59    Lok Satta Party

6    RAGHAVA RAO JAKKA    M    60    Pyramid Party of India

7    RAJIV CHANUMOLU    M    43    Praja Rajyam Party

8    APPIKATLA JAWAHAR    M    44    Independent

9    KRISHNA MURTHY SUNKARA    M    46    Independent

10    JAKKA TARAKA MALLIKHARJUNA RAO    M    42    Independent

11    DEVERASETTY RAVINDRA BABU    M    35    Independent

12    DEVIREDDY RAVINDRANATHA REDDY    M    36    Independent

13    PERUPOGU VENKATESWARA RAO    M    41    Independent

14    BAIPUDI NAGESWARA RAO    M    30    Independent

15    BOPPA VENKATESWARA RAO    M    42    Independent

16    BOLISETTY HARIBABU    M    46    Independent

17    VEERLA SANJEEVA RAO    M    44    Independent

18    VENKATA RAO P.    M    44    Independent

19    SENAPATHI CHIRANJEEVI    M    36    Independent

20    SHAIK MASTAN    M    28    Independent

S01    30    AP    GUNTUR    23-Apr-09    1    MALLELA BABU RAO    M    61    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    YADLAPATI SWARUPARANI    F    51    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    RAJENDRA MADALA    M    42    Telugu Desam

7    SAMBASIVA RAO RAYAPATI    M    65    Indian National Congress

8    AMANULLA KHAN    M    37    Lok Satta Party

9    KOMMANABOINA LAKSHMAIAH    M    39    Rajyadhikara Party

11    THOTA CHANDRA SEKHAR    M    47    Praja Rajyam Party

12    YARRAKULA TULASI RAM YADAV    M    29    Samajwadi Party

13    VELAGAPUDI LAKSHMANA RAO    M    59    Pyramid Party of India

14    SRINIVASA RAO THOTAKURA    M    34    Ajeya Bharat Party

S01    31    AP    NARASARAOPET    23-Apr-09    1    BALASHOWRY VALLABHANENI    M    43    Indian National Congress

2    BEJJAM RATNAKARA RAO    M    48    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    VALLEPU KRUPA RAO    M    51    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    VENUGOPALA REDDY MODUGULA    M    42    Telugu Desam

7    GANUGAPENTA UTTAMA REDDY    M    30    Lok Satta Party

8    S.G. MASTAN VALI    M    31    Pyramid Party of India

9    RAMADUGU VENKATA SUBBA RAO    M    45    Samajwadi Party

11    SHAIK SYED SAHEB    M    65    Praja Rajyam Party

13    SAI PRASAD EDARA    M    42    Bharatheeya Sadharma Samsthapana Party

14    ATCHALA NARASIMHA RAO    M    39    Independent

15    ANNAMRAJU VENUGOPALA MADHAVA RAO    M    37    Independent

17    KATAMARAJU NALAGORLA    M    61    Independent

19    YAMPATI VEERANJANEYA REDDY    M    38    Independent

21    SRINIVASA REDDY KESARI    M    40    Independent

S01    32    AP    BAPATLA    23-Apr-09    1    DARA SAMBAIAH    M    62    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    PANABAKA LAKSHMI    F    50    Indian National Congress

3    BATTULA ROSAYYA    M    52    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    MALYADRI SRIRAM    M    55    Telugu Desam

5    GARIKAPATI SUDHAKAR    M    37    Rashtriya Dehat Morcha Party

6    NUTHAKKI RAMA RAO    M    61    Praja Rajyam Party

7    GUDIPALLI SATHYA BABUJI    M    40    Independent

8    GORREMUCHU CHINNA RAO    M    42    Independent

9    GOLLA BABU RAO    M    34    Independent

10    DEVARAPALLI BUJJI BABU    M    34    Independent

S01    33    AP    ONGOLE    23-Apr-09    1    MANDAVA VASUDEVA    M    56    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    MADDULURI MALAKONDAIAH YADAV    M    47    Telugu Desam

3    MAGUNTA SRINIVASULU REDDY    M    55    Indian National Congress

4    CHALUVADI SRINIVASARAO    M    38    Pyramid Party of India

5    DR,NARAYANAM RADHA DEVI    F    57    Lok Satta Party

6    PIDATHALA SAI KALPANA    F    50    Praja Rajyam Party

7    SHAIK SHAJAHAN    M    49    United Women Front

8    GARRE RAMAKRISHNA    M    34    Independent

9    DAMA MOHANA RAO    M    53    Independent

10    NALAMALAPU LAKSHMINARASAREDDY    M    40    Independent

11    YATHAPU KONDAREDDY    M    28    Independent

S01    34    AP    NANDYAL    23-Apr-09    1    NASYAM MOHAMMED FAROOK    M    57    Telugu Desam

2    S.MOHAMMED ISMAIL    M    39    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    S.P.Y.REDDY    M    59    Indian National Congress

4    ABDUL SATTAR . G    M    26    B. C. United Front

5    PICHHIKE NARENDRA DEV    M    39    Rashtriya Krantikari Samajwadi Party

6    BHUMA VENKATA NAGI REDDY    M    45    Praja Rajyam Party

7    RAMA JAGANNADHA REDDY TAMIDELA    M    34    Lok Satta Party

8    SADHU VEERA VENKATA RAMANAIAH    M    35    Rashtriya Dehat Morcha Party

9    AMBATI RAMESWARA REDDY    M    35    Independent

10    K.ARTHER PANCHARATNAM    M    44    Independent

11    B.P.KAMBAGIRI SWAMY    M    36    Independent

12    GALI RAMA SUBBA REDDY    M    33    Independent

13    A.U.FAROOQ    M    25    Independent

14    G.BALASWAMY    M    37    Independent

15    T.MAHESH NAIDU    M    28    Independent

16    B.V.RAMI REDDY    M    47    Independent

17    B.R.L.REDDY    M    40    Independent

18    VENNUPUSA VENKATESHWARA REDDY    M    35    Independent

19    SINGAM VENKATESHWARA REDDY    M    35    Independent

20    T.SRINUVASULU    M    38    Independent

21    V.SESHI REDDY    M    33    Independent

S01    35    AP    KURNOOL    23-Apr-09    1    KOTLA JAYA SURYA PRAKASH REDDY    M    57    Indian National Congress

2    GADDAM RAMAKRISHNA    M    56    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    B.T.NAIDU    M    36    Telugu Desam

4    RAVI SUBRAMANYAM K.A.    M    39    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    JALLI VENKATESH    M    38    Lok Satta Party

6    DR.DANDIYA KHAJA PEERA    M    55    Praja Rajyam Party

7    B.NAGA JAYA CHANDRA REDDY    M    35    Rashtriya Dehat Morcha Party

8    DR.P.R.PARAMESWAR REDDY    M    36    Pyramid Party of India

9    DEVI RAMALINGAPPA    M    44    Independent

10    V.V. RAMANA    M    38    Independent

11    RAJU    M    45    Independent

S01    36    AP    ANANTAPUR    23-Apr-09    1    ANANTHA VENKATA RAMI REDDY    M    52    Indian National Congress

2    AMBATI RAMA KRISHNA REDDY    M    41    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    KALAVA SRINIVASULU    M    44    Telugu Desam

4    GADDALA NAGABHUSHANAM    M    45    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    AMARNATH    M    32    Lok Satta Party

6    KRUSHNAPURAM GAYATHRI DEVI    F    36    Communist Party of India(Marxist-Leninist)(Liberation)

7    MANSOOR    M    56    Praja Rajyam Party

8    G HARI    M    29    Pyramid Party of India

9    T CHANDRA SEKHAR    M    30    Independent

10    DEVELLA MURALI    M    44    Independent

11    K P NARAYANA SWAMY    M    41    Independent

12    J C RAMANUJULA REDDY    M    52    Independent

S01    37    AP    HINDUPUR    23-Apr-09    1    KRISTAPPA NIMMALA    M    52    Telugu Desam

2    P KHASIM KHAN    M    53    Indian National Congress

3    NARESH CINE ACTOR    M    45    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    B.S.P.SREERAMULU    M    30    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    KADAPALA SREEKANTA REDDY    M    56    Praja Rajyam Party

6    NIRANJAN BABU. K    M    30    Lok Satta Party

7    S. MUSKIN VALI    M    26    Pyramid Party of India

8    K. JAKEER    M    40    Independent

9    B. NAGABHUSHANA RAO    M    76    Independent

10    P. PRASAD (PEETLA PRASAD)    M    32    Independent

S01    38    AP    KADAPA    23-Apr-09    1    JAMBAPURAM MUNI REDDY    M    31    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    Y.S. JAGAN MOHAN REDDY    M    36    Indian National Congress

3    PALEM SRIKANTH REDDY    M    45    Telugu Desam

4    VANGALA SHASHI BHUSHAN REDDY    M    37    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    KASIBHATLA SAINATH SARMA    M    38    Rajyadhikara Party

6    N. KISHORE KUMAR REDDY    M    38    Janata Dal (Secular)

7    KUNCHAM VENKATA SUBBA REDDY    M    42    Rayalaseema Rashtra Samithi

8    DR. KHALEEL BASHA    M    60    Praja Rajyam Party

9    GAJJALA RAMA SUBBA REDDY    M    57    Pyramid Party of India

10    GUDIPATI. PRASANNA KUMAR    M    55    Lok Satta Party

11    C. GOPI NARASIMHA REDDY    M    31    Janata Dal (United)

12    CHINNAPA REDDY KOMMA    M    41    Bharatiya Jan Shakti

13    Y. SEKHARA REDDY    M    47    Republican Party of India (A)

14    S. ALI SHER    M    47    Independent

15    THIMMAPPAGARI VENKATA SIVA REDDY    M    47    Independent

16    V. NARENDRA    M    39    Independent

17    S. RAJA MADIGA    M    46    Independent

18    YELLIPALAM RAMESH REDDY    M    35    Independent

19    SIVANARAYANA REDDY CHADIPIRALLA    M    39    Independent

20    J. SUBBARAYUDU    M    51    Independent

S01    39    AP    NELLORE    23-Apr-09    1    S. PADMA NAGESWARA RAO    M    58    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    BATHINA NARASIMHA RAO    M    65    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    MEKAPATI RAJAMOHAN REDDY    M    64    Indian National Congress

4    VANTERU VENU GOPALA REDDY    M    59    Telugu Desam

5    JANA RAMACHANDRAIAH    M    56    Praja Rajyam Party

6    VEMURI BHASKARA RAO    M    36    Lok Satta Party

7    SIDDIRAJU SATYANARAYANA    M    43    Pyramid Party of India

8    KARIMULLA    M    42    Independent

9    MUCHAKALA CHANDRA SEKHAR YADAV    M    40    Independent

10    VENKATA BHASKAR REDDY DIRISALA    M    37    Independent

11    SYED HAMZA HUSSAINY    M    46    Independent

S01    40    AP    TIRUPATI    23-Apr-09    1    CHINTA MOHAN    M    54    Indian National Congress

2    VARLA RAMAIAH    M    57    Telugu Desam

3    N.VENKATASWAMY    M    77    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    JUVVIGUNTA VENKATESWARLU    M    37    Lok Satta Party

5    DEGALA SURYANARAYANA    M    34    Pyramid Party of India

6    DHANASEKHAR GUNDLURU    M    41    Republican Party of India (A)

7    VARAPRASADA RAO. V    M    55    Praja Rajyam Party

8    OREPALLI VENKATA KRISHNA PRASAD    M    43    Independent

9    KATTAMANCHI PRABAKHAR    M    40    Independent

10    YALAVADI MUNIKRISHNAIAH    M    64    Independent

S01    41    AP    RAJAMPET    23-Apr-09    1    ANNAYYAGARI SAI PRATHAP    M    64    Indian National Congress

2    ALLAPUREDDY. HARINATHA REDDY    M    69    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    RAMESH KUMAR REDDY REDDAPPAGARI    M    44    Telugu Desam

4    SUNKARA SREENIVAS    M    42    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    DR. ARAVA. VENKATA SUBBA REDDY    M    38    Pyramid Party of India

6    ADI NARAYANA REDDY .V    M    40    Bharatheeya Sadharma Samsthapana Party

7    NAGESWARA RAO EDAGOTTU    M    38    Lok Satta Party

8    D.A. SRINIVAS    M    36    Praja Rajyam Party

9    SHAIK AMEEN PEERAN    M    39    Ambedkar National Congress

10    ASADI VENKATADRI    M    41    Independent

11    INDRA PRAKASH    M    32    Independent

12    KASTHURI OBAIAH NAIDU    M    55    Independent

13    B. KRISHNAPPA    M    32    Independent

14    PULA RAGHU    M    44    Independent

15    HAJI MOHAMMAD AZAM    M    82    Independent

S01    42    AP    CHITTOOR    23-Apr-09    1    JAYARAM DUGGANI    M    60    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    THIPPESWAMY M    M    55    Indian National Congress

3    NARAMALLI SIVAPRASAD    M    57    Telugu Desam

4    B.SIVAKUMAR    M    40    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    A. AMARNADH    M    37    Rashtriya Krantikari Samajwadi Party

6    TALARI MANOHAR    M    54    Praja Rajyam Party

7    G. VENKATACHALAM    M    29    Lok Satta Party

S03    4    AS    DHUBRI    23-Apr-09    1    ANWAR HUSSAIN    M    62    Indian National Congress

2    BADRUDDIN AJMAL    M    54    Assam United Democratic Front

3    ARUN DAS    M    39    Rashtrawadi Sena

4    ALOK SEN    M    37    Samajwadi Party

5    SOLEMAN ALI    M    45    Independent

6    SHAHJAHAN ALI    M    39    Independent

7    SOLEMAN KHANDAKER    M    53    Independent

8    TRIPTI KANA MAZUMDAR CHOUDHURY    F    45    Independent

9    NUR MAHAMMAD    M    61    Independent

10    MINHAR ALI MANDAL    M    61    Independent

S03    5    AS    KOKRAJHAR    23-Apr-09    1    SABDA RAM RABHA    M    39    Asom Gana Parishad

2    SANSUMA KHUNGGUR BWISWMUTHIARY    M    49    Bodaland Peoples Front

3    URKHAO GWRA BRAHMA    M    45    Independent

S03    6    AS    BARPETA    23-Apr-09    1    ABDUS SAMAD AHMED    M    41    Assam United Democratic Front

2    MD. AMIR ALI    M    42    Rashtriya Janata Dal

3    ISMAIL HUSSAIN    M    55    Indian National Congress

4    DURGESWAR DEKA    M    54    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

5    BHUPEN RAY    M    49    Asom Gana Parishad

6    ABU CHAND MAHMMAD    M    63    Republican Party of India (A)

7    ABDUL KADDUS    M    35    Samajwadi Party

8    KANDARPA LAHKAR    M    53    Rashtravadi Janata Party

9    MD. DILIR KHAN    M    42    Muslim League Kerala State Committee

10    MUIJ UDDIN MAHMUD    M    51    Lok Jan Shakti Party

11    ABDUL KADER    M    41    Independent

12    GOLAP HUSSAIN MAZUMDER    M    35    Independent

13    DEWAN JOYNAL ABEDIN    M    65    Independent

14    BHADRESWAR DAS    M    40    Independent

S03    7    AS    GAUHATI    23-Apr-09    1    AKSHAY RAJKHOWA    M    49    Nationalist Congress Party

2    BIJOYA CHAKRAVARTY    F    70    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    CAPT. ROBIN BORDOLOI    M    67    Indian National Congress

4    SONABOR ALI    M    58    Assam United Democratic Front

5    AMBU BORA    M    78    Revolutionary Communist Party of India (Rasik Bhatt)

6    DEEPAK KALITA    M    34    Samajwadi Party

7    SHIMANTA BRAHMA    M    48    Rashtrawadi Sena

8    AMIT BARUA    M    42    Independent

9    KAZI NEKIB AHMED    M    51    Independent

10    DEVA KANTA RAMCHIARY    M    46    Independent

11    BRIJESH ROY    M    30    Independent

12    RINA GAYARY DAS    F    41    Independent

S03    8    AS    MANGALDOI    23-Apr-09    1    BADIUJ ZAMAL    M    33    Assam United Democratic Front

2    MADHAB RAJBANGSHI    M    53    Indian National Congress

3    RAMEN DEKA    M    55    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    DINA NATH DAS    M    65    Bodaland Peoples Front

5    PARVEEN SULTANA    F    42    All India Minorities Front

6    RABINDRA NATH HAZARIKA    M    72    Jharkhand Mukti Morcha

7    RATUL KUMAR CHOUDHURY    M    38    Samajwadi Party

8    LANKESWAR ACHARJYA    M    45    Rashtriya Dehat Morcha Party

9    LUCYMAI BASUMATARI    F    58    Rashtriya Samaj Paksha

10    AROON BAROOA    M    53    Independent

11    PRODEEP KUMAR DAIMARY    M    42    Independent

12    BHUPENDRA NATH KAKATI    M    62    Independent

13    MANOJ KUMAR DEKA    M    55    Independent

S03    9    AS    TEZPUR    23-Apr-09    1    JITEN SUNDI    M    64    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

2    DEBA ORANG    M    54    Assam United Democratic Front

3    MONI KUMAR SUBBA    M    51    Indian National Congress

4    JOSEPH TOPPO    M    60    Asom Gana Parishad

5    ARUN KUMAR MURMOO    M    33    Bharat Vikas Morcha

6    PARASHMONI SINHA    M    33    Jharkhand Mukti Morcha

7    JUGANANDA HAZARIKA    M    42    Samajwadi Party

8    RUBUL SARMA    M    52    Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)

9    REGINOLD V. JOHNSON    M    45    Rashtriya Samaj Paksha

10    KALYAN KUMAR DEORI BHARALI    M    69    Independent

11    DANIEL DAVID JESUDAS    M    66    Independent

12    MD. NAZIR AHMED    M    56    Independent

13    DR. PRANAB KR. DAS    M    41    Independent

14    PRASANTA BORO    M    32    Independent

15    RUDRA PARAJULI    M    52    Independent

S03    10    AS    NOWGONG    23-Apr-09    1    ANIL RAJA    M    51    Indian National Congress

2    RAJEN GOHAIN    M    57    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    SIRAJ UDDIN AJMAL    M    52    Assam United Democratic Front

4    PHEIROIJAM IBOMCHA SINGH    M    60    All India Forward Bloc

5    BIPIN SAIKIA    M    55    Rashtriya Dehat Morcha Party

6    BIREN DAS    M    48    Rashtrawadi Sena

7    BHUPEN CHANDRA MUDOI    M    55    Republican Party of India (A)

8    LIAQAT HUSSAIN    M    40    Lok Jan Shakti Party

9    ASHIT DUTTA    M    47    Independent

10    NAZRUL HAQUE MAZARBHUIYAN    M    55    Independent

11    PUSPA KANTA BORA    M    49    Independent

12    BIMALA PRASAD TALUKDAR    M    46    Independent

13    HERAMBA MOHAN PANDIT    M    45    Independent

S03    11    AS    KALIABOR    23-Apr-09    1    GUNIN HAZARIKA    M    61    Asom Gana Parishad

2    DIP GOGOI    M    57    Indian National Congress

3    SIRAJ UDDIN AJMAL    M    52    Assam United Democratic Front

4    KAMAL HAZARIKA    M    48    Independent

5    PAUL NAYAK    M    40    Independent

6    PRADEEP DUTTA    M    42    Independent

7    BINOD GOGOI    M    38    Independent

8    MRIDUL BARUAH    M    37    Independent

S03    12    AS    JORHAT    23-Apr-09    1    KAMAKHYA TASA    M    34    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    DRUPAD BORGOHAIN    M    68    Communist Party of India

3    BIJOY KRISHNA HANDIQUE    M    77    Indian National Congress

4    ABINASH KISHORE BORAH    M    30    Rashtrawadi Sena

5    BIREN NANDA    M    48    Jharkhand Mukti Morcha

6    NAVAPROKASH SONOWAL    M    36    Independent

7    RAJ KUMAR DOWARAH    M    43    Independent

8    SUJIT SAHU    M    38    Independent

S03    13    AS    DIBRUGARH    23-Apr-09    1    SRI PABAN SINGH GHATOWAR    M    60    Indian National Congress

2    SRI ROMEN CH. BORTHAKUR    M    48    Nationalist Congress Party

3    SRI RATUL GOGOI    M    31    Communist Party of India

4    SRI SARBANANDA SONOWAL    M    47    Asom Gana Parishad

5    SRI GONGARAM KAUL    M    39    Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)

6    NIHARIKA BORPATRA GOHAIN GOGOI    F    30    Jharkhand Mukti Morcha

7    IMTIAZ HUSSAIN    M    31    Independent

8    FRANCIS DHAN    M    40    Independent

9    LAKHI CHARAN SWANSI    M    34    Independent

10    SIMA GHOSH    F    40    Independent

S03    14    AS    LAKHIMPUR    23-Apr-09    1    DR. ARUN KR. SARMA    M    52    Asom Gana Parishad

2    BHOGESWAR DUTTA    M    63    Communist Party of India

3    RANEE NARAH    F    45    Indian National Congress

4    GANGADHAR DUTTA    M    39    Shivsena

5    DEBNATH MAJHI    M    30    Communist Party of India(Marxist-Leninist)(Liberation)

6    PRAN JYOTI BORPATRA GOHAIN    M    26    Rashtrawadi Sena

7    MINU BURAGOHAIN    F    50    Samajwadi Party

8    RATNESWAR GOGOI    M    63    All India Forward Bloc

9    LALIT MILI    M    53    Rashtriya Dehat Morcha Party

10    SONAMONI DAS    M    39    Lok Jan Shakti Party

11    ASAP SUNDIGURIA    M    62    Independent

12    PRASHANTA GOGOI    M    35    Independent

13    BHUMIDHAR HAZARIKA    M    38    Independent

14    RANOJ PEGU    M    45    Independent

15    RABIN DEKA    M    54    Independent

S04    1    BR    VALMIKI NAGAR    23-Apr-09    1    DILIP VERMA    M    52    Nationalist Congress Party

2    BAIDYANATH PRASAD MAHTO    M    51    Janata Dal (United)

3    MANAN MISHRA    M    48    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    MOHAMMAD SHAMIM AKHTAR    M    37    Indian National Congress

5    RAGHUNATH JHA    M    63    Rashtriya Janata Dal

6    BIRENDRA PRASAD GUPTA    M    40    Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)

7    SHAILENDRA KUMAR GARHWAL    M    38    Loktantrik Samata Dal

8    AMBIKA SINGH    M    53    Independent

9    UMESH    M    36    Independent

10    DEORAJ RAM    M    31    Independent

11    FAKHRUDDIN    M    37    Independent

12    MAGISTER YADAV    M    42    Independent

13    MANOHAR MANOJ    M    40    Independent

14    RAMASHANKAR PRASAD    M    35    Independent

15    RAKESH KUMAR PANDEY    M    51    Independent

16    SATYANARAIN YADAV    M    28    Independent

S04    2    BR    PASCHIM CHAMPARAN    23-Apr-09    1    ANIRUDH PRASAD ALIAS SADHU YADAV    M    46    Indian National Congress

2    PRAKASH JHA    M    55    Lok Jan Shakti Party

3    RAMASHRAY SINGH    M    65    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

4    SHAMBHU PRASAD GUPTA    M    50    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    DR. SANJAY JAISWAL    M    44    Bharatiya Janata Party

6    FAIYAZUL AZAM    M    71    Janata Dal (Secular)

7    MANOJ KUMAR    M    44    Rashtriya Dehat Morcha Party

8    SYED SHAMIM AKHTAR    M    48    Loktantrik Samata Dal

9    NAFIS AHAMAD    M    35    Independent

10    SHRIMAN MISHRA    M    41    Independent

11    SYED IRSHAD AKHTER    M    32    Independent

S04    3    BR    PURVI CHAMPARAN    23-Apr-09    1    AKHILESH PD. SINGH    M    40    Rashtriya Janata Dal

2    ARVIND KR. GUPTA    M    29    Indian National Congress

3    GAGANDEO YADAV    M    59    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    RADHA MOHAN SINGH    M    59    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    RAMCHANDRA PD.    M    51    Communist Party of India

6    UMESH KR. SINGH    M    43    Samajwadi Janata Party (Rashtriya)

7    NAGENDRA SAHANI    M    33    Loktantrik Samata Dal

8    SURESH KR. RAJAK    M    45    Indian Justice Party

9    SURESH KR. RAI    M    41    Bajjikanchal Vikas Party

10    JHAGARU MAHATO    M    48    Independent

11    PARASNATH PANDEY    M    48    Independent

12    MD. MURTAZA ANSARI(DR. LAL)    M    40    Independent

S04    4    BR    SHEOHAR    23-Apr-09    1    MD. ANWARUL HAQUE    M    58    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    MD. TANVEER ZAFER    M    33    Communist Party of India

3    RAMA DEVI    F    60    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    LOVELY ANAND    M    35    Indian National Congress

5    SITARAM SINGH    M    60    Rashtriya Janata Dal

6    ARUN SAH    M    30    Bharatiya Loktantrik Party(Gandhi-Lohiawadi)

7    BASDEO SAH    M    36    Indian Justice Party

8    SHATRUGHANA SAHU    M    38    Bharatiya Jantantrik Janta Dal

9    AJAY KUMAR PANDEY    M    36    Independent

10    CHANDRIKA PRASAD    M    34    Independent

11    MOHAMMAD FIROZ AHAMAD    M    28    Independent

12    MOHSIN    M    29    Independent

13    YOGENDRA RAM    M    38    Independent

14    RAM ASHISH, MAHTO    M    64    Independent

15    SUNIL SINGH    M    44    Independent

S04    5    BR    SITAMARHI    23-Apr-09    1    ARJUN ROY    M    37    Janata Dal (United)

2    MAYA SHANKAR SHARAN    M    47    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    SAMIR KUMAR MAHASETH    M    49    Indian National Congress

4    SITARAM YADAV    M    61    Rashtriya Janata Dal

5    S. ABU DAUJANA    M    41    Loktantrik Samata Dal

6    CHITARANJAN GIRI    M    42    Rashtriya Pragati Party

7    MOHAMMAD AFZAL PAINTHER    M    44    Ambedkar National Congress

8    SHANKAR SINHA    M    51    Revolutionary Socialist Party

9    CHANDRIKA PRASAD    M    34    Independent

10    ZAHID    M    30    Independent

11    DINESH PRASAD    M    40    Independent

12    PAPPU KUMAR MISHRA    M    30    Independent

13    MUKESH KUMAR GUPTA    M    39    Independent

14    RAVINDRA KUMAR    M    36    Independent

15    RAM KISHORE PRASAD    M    71    Independent

16    SONE LAL SAH    M    61    Independent

S04    6    BR    MADHUBANI    23-Apr-09    1    ABDULBARI SIDDIKI    M    62    Rashtriya Janata Dal

2    LAXMANKANT MISHRA    M    48    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    DR SHAKEEL AHAMAD    M    52    Indian National Congress

4    HUKM DEO NARAYAN YADAV    M    72    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    DR HEMCHANDRA JHA    M    48    Communist Party of India

6    MINTU KUMAR SINGH    M    30    Jago Party

7    MISHRI LAL YADAV    M    39    Rashtriya Krantikari Janata Party

8    RAMCHANDRA YADAV    M    65    Krantikari Samyavadi Party

9    RAM SAGAR SAHANI    M    51    Indian Justice Party

10    MD ZINNUR    M    47    Independent

11    RAVINDRA THAKUR    M    40    Independent

12    RAJESHWAR YADAV    M    37    Independent

13    SANJAY KUMAR MAHTO    M    36    Independent

14    HARIBHUSHAN THAKUR “BACHOL”    M    44    Independent

S04    7    BR    JHANJHARPUR    23-Apr-09    1    KRIPANATH PATHAK    M    65    Indian National Congress

2    GAURI SHANKAR YADAV    M    36    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    DEVENDRA PRASAD YADAV    M    53    Rashtriya Janata Dal

4    MANGANI LAL MANDAL    M    60    Janata Dal (United)

5    DR KIRTAN PRASAD SINGH    M    50    Loktantrik Samata Dal

6    YOGNATH MANDAL    M    36    Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)

7    OM PRAKASH    M    27    Independent

8    NATHUNI YADAV    M    57    Independent

9    FIROZ ALAM    M    38    Independent

10    VIVEKA NAND JHA    M    33    Independent

11    SHANKAR PRASAD    M    26    Independent

S04    14    BR    DARBHANGA    23-Apr-09    1    AJAY KUMAR JALAN    M    49    Indian National Congress

2    MD. ALI ASHRAF FATMI    M    53    Rashtriya Janata Dal

3    KIRTI AZAD    M    48    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    YUGESHWAR SAHNI    M    55    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    KUMARI SURESHWARI    F    60    Rashtriya Mazdoor Ekta Party

6    MD. KHURSHID ALAM    M    46    Apna Dal

7    DURGANAND MAHAVIR NAYAK    M    37    Bharatiya Jantantrik Janta Dal

8    MD. NIZAMUDDIN    M    36    Indian Justice Party

9    SATYANARAYAN MUKHIA    M    41    Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)

10    ABDUR RAHIM    M    49    Independent

11    GOVIND ACHARAY    M    27    Independent

12    BHARAT YADAV    M    54    Independent

13    LALBAHADUR YADAV    M    35    Independent

14    PROF. HARERAM ACHARAY    M    49    Independent

S04    15    BR    MUZAFFARPUR    23-Apr-09    1    CAPTAIN JAI NARAYAN PRASAD NISHAD    M    78    Janata Dal (United)

2    BHAGWANLAL SAHNI    M    57    Lok Jan Shakti Party

3    VINITA VIJAY    F    41    Indian National Congress

4    SAMEER KUMAR    M    41    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    JITENDRA YADAV    M    35    Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)

6    DINESH KUMAR KUSHWAHA    M    32    Rashtriya Krantikari Samajwadi Party

7    DEVENDRA RAKESH    M    49    Bajjikanchal Vikas Party

8    NEELU SINGH    F    36    Proutist Sarva Samaj

9    MAHENDRA PRASAD    M    63    Rashtriya Pragati Party

10    MITHILESH KUMAR    M    40    Rashtra Sewa Dal

11    MOHAMMAD SHAMIM    M    31    Rashtriya Dehat Morcha Party

12    MD. RAHAMTULLAHA    M    37    Akhil Bharatiya Jan Sangh

13    RAM DAYAL RAM    M    48    All India Forward Bloc

14    REYAJ AHMAD ATISH    M    62    Jago Party

15    MD. SALEEM    M    36    Rashtravadi Janata Party

16    ASHOK KUMAR LALAN    M    37    Independent

17    AHMAD RAZA    M    31    Independent

18    GEORGE FERNANDES    M    78    Independent

19    TARKESHWAR PASWAN    M    38    Independent

20    VIJENDRA CHAUDHARY    M    42    Independent

21    VINOD PASWAN    M    35    Independent

22    SHAMBHU SAHNI    M    37    Independent

23    SADANAND KISHORE THAKUR    M    38    Independent

24    SYED ALAMDAR HUSSAIN    M    27    Independent

S04    16    BR    VAISHALI    23-Apr-09    1    RAGHUVANSH PRASAD SINGH    M    62    Rashtriya Janata Dal

2    VIJAY KUMAR SHUKLA    M    38    Janata Dal (United)

3    SHANKAR MAHTO    M    37    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    HIND KESRI YADAV    M    58    Indian National Congress

5    PUNAMRI DEVI    F    37    United Women Front

6    PRAMOD KUMAR SHARMA    M    27    Bajjikanchal Vikas Party

7    BADRI PASWAN    M    39    Rashtriya Krantikari Samajwadi Party

8    BALAK NATH SAHANI    M    39    Indian Justice Party

9    LALJI KUMAR RAKESH    M    35    Rashtra Sewa Dal

10    BINOD PANDIT    M    29    Lokpriya Samaj Party

11    INDARDEO RAI    M    46    Independent

12    JITENDRA PRASAD    M    34    Independent

S04    21    BR    HAJIPUR    23-Apr-09    1    DASAI CHOWDHARY    M    52    Indian National Congress

2    MAHESHWAR DAS    M    54    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    RAM VILAS PASWAN    M    61    Lok Jan Shakti Party

4    RAM SUNDAR DAS    M    88    Janata Dal (United)

5    DINESH CHANDRA BHUSHAN    M    36    Loktantrik Samata Dal

6    NAND LAL PASWAN    M    47    Independent

7    PRATIMA KUMARI    F    33    Independent

8    RAJENDRA KUMAR PASWAN    M    54    Independent

9    RAM TIRTH PASWAN    M    59    Independent

10    VISHWA VIJAY KUMAR VIDHYARTHI    M    30    Independent

11    SANJAY PASHWAN    M    30    Independent

S04    22    BR    UJIARPUR    23-Apr-09    1    ASWAMEDH DEVI    F    40    Janata Dal (United)

2    ALOK KUMAR MEHTA    M    40    Rashtriya Janata Dal

3    RAMDEO VERMA    M    62    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

4    VIJAYWANT KUMAR CHOUDHARY    M    60    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    SHEEL KUMAR ROY    M    40    Indian National Congress

6    CHANDRA DEO ROY    M    48    Socialist Party (Lohia)

7    JAI NARAYAN SAH    M    53    Bajjikanchal Vikas Party

8    JITENDRA KUMAR ROY    M    32    Shivsena

9    TOSHAN SAH    M    62    Rashtriya Pragati Party

10    MD. TAUKIR    M    40    Samata Party

11    MASSOD HASSAN    M    29    Muslim League Kerala State Committee

12    RAMNATH SINGH    M    36    Rashtra Sewa Dal

13    ARJUN SAHNI    M    28    Independent

14    PRADEEP KUMAR    M    41    Independent

15    BRAJESH KUMAR NIRALA    M    51    Independent

16    MANSOOR    M    42    Independent

17    MOHAN PAUL    M    47    Independent

18    MOHAMMAD KURBAN    M    43    Independent

19    RATAN SAHNI    M    46    Independent

20    RAM SAGAR MAHTO    M    45    Independent

21    SANJAY KUMAR JHA    M    36    Independent

22    SUJIT KUMAR BHAGAT    M    29    Independent

S04    23    BR    SAMASTIPUR    23-Apr-09    1    DR. ASHOK KUMAR    M    54    Indian National Congress

2    MAHESWER HAZARI    M    38    Janata Dal (United)

3    RAM CHANDRA PASWAN    M    47    Lok Jan Shakti Party

4    BINDESHWAR PASWAN    M    59    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    UPENDRA PASWAN    M    42    Loktantrik Samata Dal

6    JEEBACHH PASWAN    M    41    Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)

7    RANDHIR PASWAN    M    27    Independent

8    RAJA RAM DAS    M    56    Independent

9    REKHA KUMARI    F    29    Independent

10    SHIVCHANDRA PASWAN    M    31    Independent

11    SATISH MAHTO    M    33    Independent

S05    1    GA    NORTH GOA    23-Apr-09    1    CHRISTOPHER FONSECA    M    55    Communist Party of India

2    JITENDRA RAGHURAJ DESHPRABHU    M    53    Nationalist Congress Party

3    RAUT PANDURANG DATTARAM    M    62    Maharashtrawadi Gomantak

4    SHRIPAD YESSO NAIK    M    56    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    UPENDRA CHANDRU GAONKAR    M    48    Shivsena

6    NARACINVA SURYA SALGAONKAR    M    51    Independent

7    MARTHA D’ SOUZA    F    55    Independent

S05    2    GA    SOUTH GOA    23-Apr-09    1    COSME FRANCISCO CAITANO SARDINHA    M    62    Indian National Congress

2    ADV. NARENDRA KESHAV SAWAIKAR    M    42    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    ADV. RAJU MANGESHKAR ALIAS RAJENDRA NAIK    M    52    Communist Party of India

4    ROHIDAS HARICHANDRA BORKAR    M    63    Save Goa Front

5    MATANHY SALDANHA    M    60    United Goans Democratic Party

6    DIAS JAWAHAR    M    53    Independent

7    DERICK DIAS    M    41    Independent

8    FRANCISCO ANTONIO JOAO DE PHILOMENO FERNANDES    M    66    Independent

9    MULLA SALIM    M    25    Independent

10    SALUNKE SMITA PRAVEEN    F    38    Independent

11    HAMZA KHAN    M    57    Independent

S09    5    JK    UDHAMPUR    23-Apr-09    1    ADREES AHMAD TABBASUM    M    45    Communist Party of India

2    BALBIR SINGH    M    53    Jammu & Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party

3    PROF. BHIM SINGH    M    69    Jammu & Kashmir National Panthers Party

4    RAKESH WAZIR    M    29    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    CH. LAL SINGH    M    50    Indian National Congress

6    DR. NIRMAL SINGH    M    53    Bharatiya Janata Party

7    BODH RAJ    M    42    Backward Classes Democratic Party, J&K

8    RAJESH MANCHANDA    M    40    Rashtriya Krantikari Samajwadi Party

9    KANCHAN SHARMA    F    40    Bharatiya Bahujan Party

10    MASTER WILLIAM GILL    M    60    All India Forward Bloc

11    ATUL SHARMA    M    30    Independent

12    DEV RAJ    M    57    Independent

13    MOHD. YOUSUF    M    46    Independent

14    NARESH DOGRA    M    40    Independent

S10    1    KA    CHIKKODI    23-Apr-09    1    KATTI RAMESH VISHWANATH    M    44    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    PRAKASH BABANNA HUKKERI    M    62    Indian National Congress

3    SHIVANAND WANTAMURI SIDDAMALLAPPA    M    42    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    BANASHANKARI BHIMAPPA ITTAPPA    M    32    Independent

5    MALLAPPA MARUTI KHATANVE    M    60    Independent

6    YASHWANT MANOHAR SUTAR    M    32    Independent

7    SHAILA SURESH KOLI    F    37    Independent

S10    2    KA    BELGAUM    23-Apr-09    1    AMARSINH VASANTRAO PATIL    M    49    Indian National Congress

2    ANGADI SURESH CHANNABASAPPA    M    55    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    A. B. PATIL    M    56    Janata Dal (Secular)

4    RAMANAGOUDA SIDDANGOUDA PATIL    M    66    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    ALLAPPA RAMAPPA PATIL    M    31    Independent

6    KASTURI BASANAGOUDA BHAVI    F    40    Independent

7    MOHAN. H. GADIWADDAR    M    29    Independent

8    RAMCHANDRA MAREPPA TORGAL(CHALAWADI)    M    66    Independent

9    VIJAYKUMAR JEENDATTA UPADHYE    M    47    Independent

10    HANAJI ASHOK PANDU    M    28    Independent

S10    4    KA    BIJAPUR    23-Apr-09    1    ALMELKAR VILASABABU BASALINGAPPA    M    46    Janata Dal (Secular)

2    KANAMADI SUDHAKAR MALLESH    M    54    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    PRAKASH KUBASING RATHOD    M    48    Indian National Congress

4    RAMESH CHANDAPPA JIGAJINAGI    M    57    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    NARASAPPA TIPPANNA BANDIWADDAR    M    48    Sarvodaya Karnataka Paksha

6    LAMANI CHANDRAKANT RUPASING    M    38    Lok Jan Shakti Party

7    ARAKERI NIRMALA SRINIVAS    F    35    Independent

8    CHALAWADI RAMANNA    M    54    Independent

9    SEVALAL SOMASHEKAR PURAPPA    M    46    Independent

10    HARIJAN AMBANNA TUKARAM    M    33    Independent

S10    5    KA    GULBARGA    23-Apr-09    1    BABU HONNA NAIK    M    55    Janata Dal (Secular)

2    MALLIKARJUN KHARGE    M    67    Indian National Congress

3    MAHADEV. B. DHANNI    M    51    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    REVUNAIK BELAMGI    M    70    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    DR. K. T. PALUSKAR    M    53    Prabuddha Republican Party

6    RAVIKUMAR SHALIMANI SEDAM    M    34    Ambedkar National Congress

7    SHANKER KODLA    M    73    Janata Dal (United)

8    SHANKAR JADHAV    M    48    Bharatiya Peoples Party

9    H.V. DIWAKAR    M    46    Independent

10    SHIVAKUMAR . KOLLUR    M    44    Independent

S10    6    KA    RAICHUR    23-Apr-09    1    K.DEVANNA NAIK    M    56    Janata Dal (Secular)

2    PAKKIRAPPA.S.    M    51    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    RAJA VENKATAPPA NAIK    M    52    Indian National Congress

4    SHIVAKUMAR    M    42    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    COM II. V.H.MASTER    M    73    Independent

6    COMRADE V.MUDUKAPPA NAYAK    M    36    Independent

7    R.MUDUKAPPA NAYAK    M    44    Independent

8    K.SOMASHEKHAR    M    43    Independent

S10    7    KA    BIDAR    23-Apr-09    1    GURUPADAPPA NAGMARPALLI    M    25    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    JAGANNATH.R.JAMADAR    M    25    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    N.DHARAM SINGH    M    25    Indian National Congress

4    SUBHASH TIPPANNA NELGE    M    25    Janata Dal (Secular)

5    ADVOCATE MOULVI ZAMEERUDDIN    M    25    National Development Party

6    BHASKAR BABU PATERPALLI    M    25    Indian Christian Secular Party

7    SHRAVAN SANGONDA BHANDE    M    25    Rashtriya Samaj Paksha

8    SUBHASH CHANDRA G.KHAPATE    M    25    Laghujan Samaj Vikas Party

9    AMRUTHAPPA.M.D    M    25    Independent

10    MD ARSHAD AHMED ANSARI    M    25    Independent

11    KHAJA SAMEEUDDIN KHAJA MOINUDDIN    M    25    Independent

12    JADHAV VENKAT RAO GYANOBA RAO    M    25    Independent

13    DONGAPURE SHANT KUMAR    M    25    Independent

14    DEVENDRAPPA SANGRAMAPPA PATIL    M    25    Independent

15    NARSAPPA MUTHANGI    M    25    Independent

16    PARMESHWAR RAMCHANDRA    M    25    Independent

17    PASHAMIYA ESMAIL SAB    M    25    Independent

18    BASWARAJ PAILWAN OKALLI    M    25    Independent

19    MANJILE MIYYA PEER SAB QURESH    M    25    Independent

20    MD OSMAN ALI LAKHPATI    M    25    Independent

21    MUFTI SHAIKH ABDUL GAFFAR QASMI    M    25    Independent

22    YEVATE PATIL SHRIMANT    M    25    Independent

23    YASHWANTH NARSING    M    25    Independent

24    SHIVARAJ TIMMANNA BOKKE    M    25    Independent

25    SAMEEUDDIN BANDELI    M    25    Independent

26    SURESH SWAMY TALGHATKER    M    25    Independent

27    SYED QUBUL ULLA HUSSIANI SAJID    M    25    Independent

S10    8    KA    KOPPAL    23-Apr-09    1    ANSARI IQBAL    M    50    Janata Dal (Secular)

2    BASAVARAJ RAYAREDDY    M    53    Indian National Congress

3    SHIVAPUTRAPPA GUMAGERA    M    42    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    SHIVARAMAGOUDA SHIVANAGOUDA    M    56    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    ZAKEER    M    30    Lok Jan Shakti Party

6    BASAVARAJ KARADI WADDARAHATTI    M    27    Janata Dal (United)

7    BHARADWAJ    M    63    Communist Party of India(Marxist-Leninist)(Liberation)

8    ISHWARAPPA J    M    52    Independent

9    UPPARA HANUMANTAPPA    M    33    Independent

10    GOUSIA BEGUM    F    31    Independent

11    CHAKRAVARTI NAYAK T    M    70    Independent

12    CHANDRASHEKAR    M    37    Independent

13    NAJEER HUSAIN    M    41    Independent

14    PUJAR D.H    M    42    Independent

15    MAREMMA YANKAPPA    F    40    Independent

16    SHARABHAYYA HIREMATH    M    27    Independent

17    SHIVAKUMAR NAVALI SIDDAPPA TONTAPUR    M    44    Independent

18    HANDI RAFIQSAB    M    53    Independent

S10    9    KA    BELLARY    23-Apr-09    1    T. NAGENDRA    M    44    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    J. SHANTHA    F    35    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    N.Y. HANUMANTHAPPA    M    69    Indian National Congress

4    CHOWDAPPA    M    29    Communist Party of India(Marxist-Leninist)(Liberation)

5    D. GANGANNA    M    59    Independent

6    B. RAMAIAH    M    60    Independent

7    A. RAMANJANAPPA    M    41    Independent

S10    12    KA    UTTARA KANNADA    23-Apr-09    1    ANANTKUMAR HEGDE    M    40    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    ALVA MARGARET    F    67    Indian National Congress

3    HADAPAD BASAVARAJ DUNDAPPA    M    28    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    V D HEGADE    M    68    Janata Dal (Secular)

5    ELISH KOTIYAL    M    44    Janata Dal (United)

6    D M GURAV    M    49    Shivsena

7    ABDUL RASHEED SHAIKH    M    44    Independent

8    UDAY BABU KHALVADEKAR    M    57    Independent

9    KHAZI RAHMATULLA ABDUL WAHAB    M    60    Independent

10    L P M NAIK    M    39    Independent

11    YASHWANT TIMMANNA NIPPANIKAR    M    58    Independent

S10    18    KA    CHITRADURGA    23-Apr-09    1    JANARDHANA SWAMY    M    41    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    M JAYANNA    M    58    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    DR. B THIPPESWAMY    M    37    Indian National Congress

4    M RATHNAKAR    M    42    Janata Dal (Secular)

5    SHASHISHEKAR NAIK    M    46    Rashtriya Janata Dal

6    M KUMBAIAH    M    56    Independent

7    GANESHA    M    48    Independent

8    K H DURGASIMHA    M    61    Independent

9    RAMACHANDRA    M    49    Independent

10    B SUJATHA    F    33    Independent

11    HANUMANTHAPPA TEGNOOR    M    59    Independent

S10    19    KA    TUMKUR    23-Apr-09    1    ASHOK    M    59    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    P. KODANDARAMAIAH    M    69    Indian National Congress

3    G.S. BASAVARAJU    M    67    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    S.P. MUDDAHANUMEGOWDA    M    55    Janata Dal (Secular)

5    SREE GOWRISHANKARA SWAMIGALU    M    63    Samajwadi Party

6    D.R. NAGARAJA    M    53    Independent

7    G. NAGENDRA    M    34    Independent

8    NIRANJANA C.S    M    29    Independent

9    MOHAMED KHASIM    M    47    Independent

10    SHASIBHUSHANA    M    34    Independent

S10    23    KA    BANGALORE RURAL    23-Apr-09    1    H.D.KUMARASWAMY    M    49    Janata Dal (Secular)

2    TEJASVINI GOWDA    F    42    Indian National Congress

3    MOHAMED HAFEEZ ULLAH    M    54    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    C. P. YOGEESHWARA    M    45    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    C.THOPAIAH    M    56    Janata Dal (United)

6    I VENKATESWARA REDDY    M    55    Pyramid Party of India

7    AGNISHREENIVAS    M    30    Independent

8    D.KUMARASWAMY    M    43    Independent

9    KUMARASWAMY C    M    28    Independent

10    KRISHNAPPA    M    46    Independent

11    Y.CHINNAPPA    M    33    Independent

12    A CHOWRAPPA    M    44    Independent

13    DR. K PADMARAJAN    M    50    Independent

14    K.PUTTAMADEGOWDA    M    40    Independent

15    T.M.MANCHEGOWDA    M    62    Independent

S10    24    KA    BANGALORE NORTH    23-Apr-09    1    D. B. CHANDRE GOWDA    M    73    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    C. K. JAFFER SHARIEF    M    75    Indian National Congress

3    PADMAA K. BHAT    F    43    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    R. SURENDRA BABU    M    48    Janata Dal (Secular)

5    M. TIPPUVARDHAN    M    39    Bharatiya Praja Paksha

6    ANCHAN KHANNA    M    34    Independent

7    KANYA KUMAR    M    36    Independent

8    G S KUMAR    M    68    Independent

9    C. KRISHNAMURTHY    M    45    Independent

10    B K CHANDRA    M    38    Independent

11    T. R. CHANDRAHASA    M    45    Independent

12    ABDUL JALEEL    M    39    Independent

13    ZAFER MOHIUDDIN    M    48    Independent

14    JOSEPH SOLOMON    M    39    Independent

15    L. NAGARAJ    M    52    Independent

16    V. PRASANNA KUMAR    M    38    Independent

17    H. PILLAIAH    M    46    Independent

18    T. B. MADWARAJA    M    33    Independent

19    MEER LAYAQ HUSSAIN    M    42    Independent

20    K. A. MOHAN    M    51    Independent

21    S. M. RAJU    M    52    Independent

22    L. LAKSHMAIAH    M    64    Independent

23    MU. VENKATESHAIAH    M    50    Independent

24    VENKATESA SETTY    M    63    Independent

25    H. A. SHIVAKUMAR    M    30    Independent

26    K. SATHYANARAYANA    M    57    Independent

27    SYED AKBAR BASHA    M    50    Independent

28    N. HARISH GOWDA    M    33    Independent

S10    25    KA    BANGALORE CENTRAL    23-Apr-09    1    ZAMEER AHMED KHAN. B.Z    M    43    Janata Dal (Secular)

2    P. C. MOHAN    M    45    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    VIJAY RAJA SINGH    M    37    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    H.T.SANGLIANA    M    67    Indian National Congress

5    IFTHAQUAR ALI BHUTTO    M    37    Ambedkar National Congress

6    J.D.ELANGOVAN    M    64    Indian Justice Party

7    S M KRISHNA    M    44    Bharatiya Praja Paksha

8    B KRISHNA PRASAD    M    55    Proutist Sarva Samaj Party

9    A.S. PAUL    M    60    Akhila India Jananayaka Makkal Katchi (Dr. Issac)

10    D.C. PRAKASH    M    41    Karnataka Thamizhar Munnetra Kazhagam

11    K.PRABHAKARA REDDY    M    61    Kannada Chalavali Vatal Paksha

12    T.K.PREMKUMAR    M    45    Pyramid Party of India

13    ABHIMANI NARENDRA    M    50    Independent

14    M.A. ASHWATHA NARAYANA SETTY    M    64    Independent

15    K UMA    F    46    Independent

16    UMASHANKAR    M    42    Independent

17    K.S.S.IYENGAR    M    77    Independent

18    B.M.KRISHNAREDDY    M    64    Independent

19    S.KODANDARAM    M    50    Independent

20    C.V.GIDDAPPA    M    55    Independent

21    A.CHANDRASHEKAR    M    45    Independent

22    JAYARAMA    M    60    Independent

23    K.NARASIMHA    M    38    Independent

24    B.K NARAYANA SWAMY    M    52    Independent

25    P.PARTHIBAN    M    34    Independent

26    MEER LAYAQ HUSSAIN    M    42    Independent

27    B.MOHAN VELU    M    39    Independent

28    R. RAJ    M    49    Independent

29    E. RAMAKRISHNAIAH    M    50    Independent

30    K.H.RAMALINGAREDDY    M    41    Independent

31    VIJAYA BHASKAR N    M    61    Independent

32    DR.D. R.VENKATESH GOWDA    M    82    Independent

33    SHAFFI AHMED    M    50    Independent

34    S.N. SHARMA    M    67    Independent

35    SHASHIKUMAR A.R    M    43    Independent

36    K.SHIVARAMANNA    M    55    Independent

37    SHAIK BAHADUR    M    54    Independent

S10    26    KA    BANGALORE SOUTH    23-Apr-09    1    ANANTH KUMAR    M    49    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    KRISHNA BYRE GOWDA    M    36    Indian National Congress

3    NAHEEDA SALMA S    F    47    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    PROF.RADHAKRISHNA    M    63    Janata Dal (Secular)

5    B.M.GOVINDRAJ NAIK    M    38    Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha

6    P.JOHNBASCO    M    37    Akhila India Jananayaka Makkal Katchi (Dr. Issac)

7    VATAL NAGARAJ    M    60    Kannada Chalavali Vatal Paksha

8    B.SHIVARAMAPPA    M    62    Pyramid Party of India

9    ABHIMAANI NARENDRA    M    50    Independent

10    KHADER ALI KHAN    M    39    Independent

11    GANESH HANUMANTARAO MOKHASHI    M    58    Independent

12    CAPT. G.R. GOPINATH    M    57    Independent

13    K.C.JANARDHAN    M    46    Independent

14    DR.JAYALAKSHMI.H.G.    F    48    Independent

15    K.M.NARAYANA    M    54    Independent

16    MADESH.C    M    40    Independent

17    MURALIDHARA.D.J.    M    44    Independent

18    RAVI KUMARA.T.    M    26    Independent

19    SUGANDHARAJE URS    M    59    Independent

20    SANTHOSH MIN.B    M    33    Independent

S10    27    KA    CHIKKBALLAPUR    23-Apr-09    1    C.ASWATHANARAYANA    M    59    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    C.R.MANOHAR    M    29    Janata Dal (Secular)

3    M.VEERAPPA MOILY    M    69    Indian National Congress

4    HENNURU LAKSHMINARAYANA    M    49    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    M.RAMAKRISHNAIAH    M    40    Pyramid Party of India

6    M.VENKATESH    M    55    Bharatiya Praja Paksha

7    H.R.SHIVAKUMAR    M    39    Lok Jan Shakti Party

8    KRISHNAMURTHY .T    M    70    Independent

9    K.S.CHANDRASHEKARA RAO (AZAD)    M    54    Independent

10    L.NAGARAJ    M    52    Independent

11    G.NARAYANAPPA    M    62    Independent

12    A.N.BACHEGOWDA    M    50    Independent

13    G.B.MUTHUKUMAR    M    62    Independent

14    M.MUNIVENKATAIAH    M    64    Independent

15    M.RAMESH    M    30    Independent

16    RAVI GOKRE    M    32    Independent

17    G.N. RAVI    M    45    Independent

18    K.VENKATAREDDY    M    36    Independent

19    B.SHIVARAJA    M    40    Independent

20    Y.A.SIDDALINGEGOWDA    M    42    Independent

S10    28    KA    KOLAR    23-Apr-09    1    G.CHANDRANNA    M    56    Janata Dal (Secular)

2    K.H.MUNIYAPPA    M    61    Indian National Congress

3    N.MUNISWAMY    M    57    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    LAKSHMI SHANMUGAM    F    56    Nationalist Congress Party

5    D.S.VEERAIAH    M    60    Bharatiya Janata Party

6    K.R.DEVARAJA    M    51    Rashtriya Dehat Morcha Party

7    B.M.KRISHNAPPA    M    59    Independent

8    M.R.GANTAPPA    M    46    Independent

9    P.V.CHANGALARAYAPPA    M    38    Independent

10    P.CHANDRAPPA    M    42    Independent

11    V.JAYARAMA    M    59    Independent

12    JAYARAMAPPA    M    45    Independent

13    NAGARATHNA M.    F    47    Independent

14    M.NAGARAJA    M    35    Independent

15    NARAYANASWAMY    M    49    Independent

16    K.NARAYANASWAMY    M    37    Independent

17    C.K.MUNIYAPPA    M    43    Independent

18    M.RAVI KUMAR    M    36    Independent

19    M.VENKATASWAMY    M    55    Independent

20    K.VENKATESH    M    40    Independent

21    SRINIVASA T.O.    M    37    Independent

22    SRINIVASA P.    M    42    Independent

S12    8    MP    KHAJURAHO    23-Apr-09    1    JAYAWANT SINGH    M    49    Samajwadi Party

2    JEETENDRA SINGH    M    50    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    RAJA PATERYA    M    49    Indian National Congress

4    SEWA LAL PATEL    M    49    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    M. SHAKIL    M    38    Gondwana Mukti Sena

6    SAROJ BACHCHAN NAYAK    F    56    Janata Dal (United)

7    SURYA BHAN SINGH ‘YADAV GURUJI’    M    75    All India Forward Bloc

8    AKEEL KHAN    M    43    Independent

9    AKANCHHA JAIN    F    34    Independent

10    KRISHNA SHARAN SINGH (RAJA BHAIYA)    M    36    Independent

11    NARENDRA KUMAR    M    54    Independent

12    RAJENDRA AHIRWAR    M    43    Independent

13    RAM NATH LODHI    M    41    Independent

14    SHABNAM (MAUSI)    F    48    Independent

15    SHUKL SITARAM    M    48    Independent

S12    9    MP    SATNA    23-Apr-09    1    GANESH SINGH    M    46    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    PT. RAJARAM TRIPATHI    M    56    Samajwadi Party

3    SUKHLAL KUSHWAHA    M    46    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    SUDHIR SINGH TOMAR    M    41    Indian National Congress

5    ONKAR SINGH    M    56    Akhil Bharatiya Hind Kranti Party

6    GIRJA SINGH PATEL    M    49    Apna Dal

7    CHHOTELAL SINGH GOND    M    65    Gondwana Mukti Sena

8    PRAMILA    F    43    Republican Party of India (A)

9    B BALLABH CHARYA    M    38    Advait Ishwasyam Congress

10    RAJESH SINGH BAGHEL    M    41    Gondvana Gantantra Party

11    SHOBHNATH SEN    M    29    Lok Jan Shakti Party

12    SUNDERLAL CHAUDHARI    M    64    Indian Justice Party

13    ASHOK KUMAR KUSHWAHA    M    33    Independent

14    ASHOK KUSHWAHA    M    28    Independent

15    CHHOTELAL    M    59    Independent

16    BHAIYALAL URMALIYA    M    62    Independent

17    MANISH KUMAR JAIN    M    31    Independent

18    MUNNI KRANTI    F    44    Independent

19    RAMVISHWAS BASORE    M    38    Independent

20    RAM SAJIVAN    M    46    Independent

21    RAMAYAN CHAUDHARI    M    39    Independent

S12    10    MP    REWA    23-Apr-09    1    CHANDRA MANI TRIPATHI    M    62    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    DEORAJ SINGH PATEL    M    36    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    PUSHPRAJ SINGH    M    48    Samajwadi Party

4    SUNDER LAL TIWARI    M    51    Indian National Congress

5    BADRI PRASAD KUSHWAHA    M    47    Apna Dal

6    RAMKISHAN NIRAT (SAKET)    M    32    Republican Party of India (A)

7    RAMAYAN PRASAD PATEL    M    42    Yuva Vikas Party

8    VIMALA SONDHIA    F    53    Lok Jan Shakti Party

9    SALMA    F    33    All India Forward Bloc

10    MD. AKEEL KHAN (BACHCHA BHAI)    M    34    Independent

11    JAIKARAN SAKET    M    48    Independent

12    BRAHMDUTTMISHRA ALIAS CHHOTE MURAITHA    M    46    Independent

13    SUKHENDRA PRATAP    M    44    Independent

14    SUNDAR LAL    M    37    Independent

15    HIRALAL VISHWAKARMA    M    56    Independent

S12    11    MP    SIDHI    23-Apr-09    1    ASHOK KUMAR SHAH    M    34    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    INDRAJEET KUMAR    M    61    Indian National Congress

3    GOVIND PRASAD MISHRA    M    60    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    MANIK SINGH    M    43    Samajwadi Party

5    LOLAR SINGH URETI    M    29    Gondwana Mukti Sena

6    VEENA SINGH NETI    F    34    Gondvana Gantantra Party

7    BABOOLAL JAISWAL    M    39    Independent

8    MADAN MOHAN JAISWAL (ADVOCATE)    M    36    Independent

9    MAHENDRA BHAIYA (DIKSHIT)    M    42    Independent

10    RAMAKANT PANDEY MALAIHNA    M    63    Independent

11    VEENA SINGH (VEENA DIDI)    F    56    Independent

S12    12    MP    SHAHDOL    23-Apr-09    1    CHANDRA PRATAP SINGH (BABA SAHAB)    M    51    Samajwadi Party

2    NARENDRA SINGH MARAVI    M    29    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    MANOHAR SINGH MARAVI    M    46    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    RAJESH NANDINI SINGH    F    52    Indian National Congress

5    SADAN SINGH BHARIA    M    39    Communist Party of India

6    KRISHN PAL SINGH PAVEL    M    29    Lok Jan Shakti Party

7    GANPAT GOND    M    38    Gondwana Mukti Sena

8    RAM RATAN SINGH PAVLE    M    28    Gondvana Gantantra Party

S12    13    MP    JABALPUR    23-Apr-09    1    AZIZ QURESHI    M    64    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    ASHOK KUMAR SHARMA    M    40    Samajwadi Party

3    RAKESH SINGH    M    48    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    ADVOCATE RAMESHWAR NEEKHRA    M    61    Indian National Congress

5    MEERCHAND PATEL (KACHHVAHA)    M    63    Republican Party of India

6    RAVI MAHOBIA (KUNDAM)    M    29    Gondvana Gantantra Party

7    RAJKUMARI SINGH    F    40    Lok Jan Shakti Party

8    HARI SINGH MARAVI    M    36    Gondwana Mukti Sena

9    DR. MUKESH MEHROTRA    M    57    Independent

10    RAKESH SONKAR (PRAMUKH DHAI AKSHAR)    M    39    Independent

11    SUNIL PATEL    M    38    Independent

S12    14    MP    MANDLA    23-Apr-09    1    JALSO DHURWEY    F    25    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    FAGGAN SINGH KULASTE    M    49    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    BASORI SINGH MASRAM    M    59    Indian National Congress

4    UDAL SINGH DHURWEY    M    35    Loktanrik Sarkar Party

5    JHANK SINGH KUSHRE    M    37    Gondvana Gantantra Party

6    PREM SINGH MARAVI    M    35    Gondwana Mukti Sena

7    BHAGAT SINGH VARKEDE    M    45    Lok Jan Shakti Party

8    MANESHWARI NAIK    F    65    Republican Party of India (A)

9    SUNITA NETI    F    33    Rashtriya Dehat Morcha Party

10    CHANDRA SHEKHAR DHURWEY    M    46    Independent

11    CHAMBAL SING MARAWEE    M    62    Independent

12    DEV SINGH BHALAVI    M    25    Independent

13    SHIVCHARAN UIKEY    M    26    Independent

14    SAHDEO PRASAD MARAVI    M    43    Independent

S12    15    MP    BALAGHAT    23-Apr-09    1    AJAB LAL    M    35    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    KISHOR SAMRITE    M    42    Samajwadi Party

3    KANKAR MUNJARE    M    52    Rashtriya Janata Dal

4    K. D. DESHMUKH    M    60    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    VISHVESHWAR BHAGAT    M    57    Indian National Congress

6    KALPANA GOPAL WASNIK    F    38    Republican Party of India (A)

7    DARBU SINGH UIKEY    M    37    Gondwana Mukti Sena

8    BHAIYA BALKRISHNA    M    53    Gondvana Gantantra Party

9    ADVOCATE AZHAR UL ALIM    M    58    Independent

10    ANJU ASHOK UIKEY    F    34    Independent

11    GOVARDHAN PATLE URF HITLAR    M    75    Independent

12    JITENDRA MESHRAM    M    37    Independent

13    DHANESHWAR LILHARE    M    40    Independent

14    NYAZMIR KHAN    M    32    Independent

15    POORANLAL LODHI    M    37    Independent

16    MANSINGH BISEN    M    59    Independent

17    SANDEEP SANTRAM    M    31    Independent

18    SHRIRAM THAKUR    M    58    Independent

S12    16    MP    CHHINDWARA    23-Apr-09    1    KAMAL NATH    M    62    Indian National Congress

2    MAROT RAO KHAVASE    M    59    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    RAO SAHEB SHINDE    M    46    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    JOGILAL IRPACHI    M    48    Jharkhand Mukti Morcha

5    PARDHESHI HARTAPSAH TIRKAM    M    40    Gondwana Mukti Sena

6    BALVEER SINGH YADAV    M    30    Rashtriya Krantikari Samajwadi Party

7    RAMKISHAN PAL    M    62    Republican Party of India (A)

8    SATAP SHA UIKEY    M    35    Gondvana Gantantra Party

9    ABDUL SHAMAD KHAN    M    45    Independent

10    AMRITLAL PATHAK RAGHUVAR    M    70    Independent

11    ASHARAM DEHARIYA    M    33    Independent

12    KAMALNATH (MAYAWADI-PARASIA)    M    31    Independent

13    GANARAM UIKEY    M    53    Independent

14    AZAD CHANDRASHEKHER PANDOLE SAMAJ SEVAK    M    42    Independent

15    JAGDISH BAIS    M    35    Independent

16    TULSIRAM SURYAWANSHI    M    62    Independent

17    DUARAM UIKEY    M    40    Independent

18    DHANPAL BHALAVI    M    35    Independent

19    DHANRAJ JAMBHATKAR    M    37    Independent

20    NARESH KUMAR YUVNATI    M    33    Independent

21    NIKHILESH DHURVEY    M    30    Independent

22    PITRAM UIKEY    M    48    Independent

23    PRAVINDRA NAURATI    M    37    Independent

24    MANMOHAN SHAH BATTI    M    46    Independent

25    R.K. MARKAM    M    28    Independent

26    SHOAIB KHAN    M    44    Independent

27    SUKMAN INVATI    M    42    Independent

28    SUBHASH SHUKLA    M    40    Independent

S12    17    MP    HOSHANGABAD    23-Apr-09    1    UDAY PRATAP SINGH    M    44    Indian National Congress

2    ADV.B.M.KAUSHIK    M    35    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    HAJAEE SYID MUEEN UDDIN    M    47    Samajwadi Party

4    RAMPAL SINGH    M    53    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    DINESH KUMAR AHIRWAR    M    42    Independent

6    BHARAT KUMAR CHOUREY    M    29    Independent

7    MOHAMMD ABDULLA    M    54    Independent

8    RAKHI GUPTA    F    31    Independent

9    RAMPAL    M    62    Independent

10    SUDAMA PRASAD    M    55    Independent

S12    18    MP    VIDISHA    23-Apr-09    1    DR.PREMSHANKAR SHARMA    M    44    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    CHOUDHARY MUNABBAR SALIM    M    50    Samajwadi Party

3    SUSHMA SWARAJ    F    57    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    BHAI MUNSHILAL SILAWAT    M    25    Republican Party of India (A)

5    RAMGOPAL MALVIYA    M    35    Rashtriya Dehat Morcha Party

6    HARBHAJAN JANGRE    M    33    Lok Jan Shakti Party

7    GANESHRAM LODHI    M    44    Independent

8    RAJESHWAR SINGH YADAV (RAO)    M    39    Independent

S12    19    MP    BHOPAL    23-Apr-09    1    ER. ASHOK NARAYAN SINGH    M    53    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    KAILASH JOSHI    M    79    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    MHOD. MUNAWAR KHAN KAUSAR    M    44    Samajwadi Party

4    SURENDRA SINGH THAKUR    M    55    Indian National Congress

5    ASHOK PAWAR    M    47    Prajatantrik Samadhan Party

6    AHIRWAR LAKHANLAL PURVI    M    42    Republican Party of India (A)

7    KARAN KUMAR KAROSIA URF KARAN JEEJA    M    41    Gondvana Gantantra Party

8    RADHESHYAM KULASTE    M    38    Gondwana Mukti Sena

9    RAMDAS GHOSLE    M    54    Republican Party of India (Democratic )

10    SANJEEV SINGHAL    M    42    Savarn Samaj Party

11    ANIL SINGH    M    30    Independent

12    AMAR SINGH    M    72    Independent

13    KAPIL DUBEY    M    37    Independent

14    D. C. GUJARKAR    M    52    Independent

15    DARSHAN SINGH RATHORE    M    53    Independent

16    BRAJENDRA CHATURVEDI URF GAPPU CHATURVEDI    M    35    Independent

17    DR. MAHESH YADAV ‘AMAN GANDHI’    M    40    Independent

18    MUKESH SEN    M    32    Independent

19    MEHDI SIR    M    30    Independent

20    RAJESH KUMAR YADAV    M    42    Independent

21    RAM SAHAY YATRI (SHRIVASTAVA) URF RASHTRAVADI YATRI    M    79    Independent

22    SHAHNAWAZ    M    59    Independent

23    SHIV NARAYAN SINGH BAGWARE    M    60    Independent

S12    29    MP    BETUL    23-Apr-09    1    OJHARAM EVANE    M    54    Indian National Congress

2    JYOTI DHURVE    F    43    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    RAMA KAKODIA    M    50    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    DR. SUKHDEV SINGH CHOUHAN    M    42    Samajwadi Party

5    KALLUSINGH UIKEY    M    59    Gondwana Mukti Sena

6    KADMU SINGH KUMARE (K.S.KUMARE)    M    59    Gondvana Gantantra Party

7    GULABRAV    M    53    Rashtriya Dehat Morcha Party

8    MANGAL SINGH LOKHANDE    M    51    Samajwadi Jan Parishad

9    SUSHILKUMAR ALIS BALUBHAIYYA    M    39    Republican Party of India (A)

10    IMRATLAL MARKAM    M    58    Independent

11    KAMAL SING    M    45    Independent

12    KADAKSHING VADIVA    M    27    Independent

13    KRISHNA GOPAL PARTE    M    35    Independent

14    MOTIRAM MAVASE    M    48    Independent

15    ADHIVAKTA SHANKAR PENDAM    M    66    Independent

16    SUNIL KUMAR KAWADE    M    27    Independent

S13    1    MH    NANDURBAR    23-Apr-09    1    GAVIT MANIKRAO HODLYA    M    75    Indian National Congress

2    NATAWADKAR SUHAS JYANT    M    48    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    PADVI BABITA KARMSINGH    F    36    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    KOKANI MANJULABAI SAKHARAM    F    59    Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha

5    GAVIT SHARAD KRUSHNRAO    M    46    Samajwadi Party

6    ABHIJIT AATYA VASAVE    M    30    Independent

7    KOLI RAJU RAMDAS    M    34    Independent

S13    2    MH    DHULE    23-Apr-09    1    AMARISHBHAI RASIKLAL PATEL    M    56    Indian National Congress

2    RIZWAN MO.AKBAR    M    34    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    SONAWANE PRATAP NARAYANRAO    M    60    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    ANIL ANNA GOTE    M    61    Loksangram

5    ANSARI MOHD. ISMAIL MOHD. IBRAHIM    M    37    Bharatiya Minorities Suraksha Mahasangh

6    ARIF AHMED SHAIKH JAFHAR    M    99    Navbharat Nirman Party

7    KAVAYATRI-SONKANYA THAKUR RAJANI BAGWAN    F    49    Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha

8    NIHAL AHMED MOLVI. MOHAMMED USMAN    M    81    Janata Dal (Secular)

9    MD. ISMAIL JUMMAN    M    49    Independent

10    KISHOR PITAMBAR AHIRE    M    28    Independent

11    GAZI ATEZAD AHMED MUBEEN AHMED KHAN    M    57    Independent

12    GAIKWAD PATIL BHUSHAN BAJIRAO    M    28    Independent

13    DADASO. PANDITRAO PATIL KOKALEKAR    M    55    Independent

14    SHEVALE PATIL SANDEEP JIBHAU    M    31    Independent

15    SONAWANE PANDIT UTTAMRAO    M    42    Independent

S13    3    MH    JALGAON    23-Apr-09    1    A.T. NANA PATIL    M    47    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    ADV. MATIN AHMED    M    38    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    ADV. VASANTRAO JIVANRAO MORE    M    63    Nationalist Congress Party

4    ATMARAM SURSING JADHAV (ENGG.)    M    33    Kranti Kari Jai Hind Sena

5    JADHAV NATTHU SHANKAR    M    56    Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha

6    JANGALU DEVRAM SHIRSATH    M    65    Hindustan Janta Party

7    NANNAWARE CHAITANYA PANDIT    M    33    Prabuddha Republican Party

8    LAXMAN SHIVAJI SHIRSATH (PATIL)    M    42    Krantisena Maharashtra

9    ANIL PITAMBAR WAGH (SIR)    M    38    Independent

10    KANTILAL CHHAGAN NAIK (BANJARA)    M    39    Independent

11    WAGH SUDHAKAR ATMARAM    M    26    Independent

12    SHALIGRAM SHIVRAM MAHAJAN (DEORE)    M    49    Independent

13    SALIMODDIN ISAMODDIN SHE.(MISTARI)    M    56    Independent

S13    4    MH    RAVER    23-Apr-09    1    PATIL SURESH CHINDHU    M    48    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    ADV. RAVINDRA PRALHADRAO PATIL    M    54    Nationalist Congress Party

3    HARIBHAU MADHAV JAWALE    M    55    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    TELI SHAIKH ISMAIL HAJI HASAN    M    57    Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha

5    BAPU SAHEBRAO SONAWANE    M    45    Prabuddha Republican Party

6    MARATHE BHIMRAO PARBAT    M    51    Krantisena Maharashtra

7    SHIVAVEER DNYANESHWAR VITTHAL AMALE URPH AMALE SARKAR    M    26    Shivrajya Party

8    IQBAL ALAUDDIN TADVI    M    41    Independent

9    UTTAM KASHIRAM INGALE    M    36    Independent

10    KOLI SANTOSH GOKUL    M    25    Independent

11    FIRKE SURESH KACHARU EX ACP (CRPF)    M    58    Independent

12    MAKBUL FARID SK.    M    36    Independent

13    MOHD. MUNAWWAR MOHD. HANIF    M    45    Independent

14    MORE HIRAMAN BHONAJI    M    41    Independent

15    D.D. WANI (PHOTOGRAPHER) (DYNESHWAR DIWAKAR WANI)    M    43    Independent

16    VIVEK SHARAD PATIL    M    41    Independent

17    SHAIKH RAMJAN SHAIKH KARIM    M    40    Independent

18    SUJATA IBRAHIM TADAVI    F    45    Independent

19    SANJAY PRALADH KANDELKAR    M    34    Independent

S13    18    MH    JALNA    23-Apr-09    1    DR. KALE KALYAN VAIJINATHRAO    M    46    Indian National Congress

2    DANVE RAOSAHEB DADARAO    M    56    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    RATHOD RAJPALSINH GABRUSINH    M    35    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    AAPPASAHEB RADHAKISAN KUDHEKAR    M    29    Krantisena Maharashtra

5    KISAN BALVANTA BORDE    M    61    Prabuddha Republican Party

6    KHARAT ASHOK RAMRAO    M    51    Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha

7    TAWAR KAILAS BHAUSAHEB    M    45    Swatantra Bharat Paksha

8    DR. DILAWAR MIRZA BAIG    M    29    Indian Union Muslim League

9    BHOJNE BABASAHEB SANGAM    M    37    Rashtriya Samaj Paksha

10    MISAL TUKARAM BABURAOJI    M    48    Samajwadi Party

11    RATNAPARKHE ARCHANA SUDHAKAR    F    31    Republician Party of India Ektawadi

12    SUBHASH FAKIRA SALVE    M    43    Ambedkar National Congress

13    SAYYAD MAKSUD NOOR    M    42    Lok Jan Shakti Party

14    KOLTE MANOJ NEMINATH    M    26    Independent

15    KHANDU HARISHCHANDRA LAGHANE    M    30    Independent

16    NADE DNYANESHWAR DAGDU    M    41    Independent

17    BABASAHEB PATIL SHINDE    M    53    Independent

18    SONWANE ASHOK VITTHAL    M    45    Independent

19    S. HUSAIN AHEMAD    M    37    Independent

S13    19    MH    AURANGABAD    23-Apr-09    1    UTTAMSINGH RAJDHARSINGH PAWAR    M    58    Indian National Congress

2    CHANDRAKANT KHAIRE    M    57    Shivsena

3    SAYYED SALIM SAYYED YUSUF    M    56    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    JAHAGIRDAR MOHMAD AYUB GULAM    M    55    Samajwadi Party

5    JYOTI RAMCHANDRA UPADHAYAY    F    35    Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha

6    PANDURANG WAMANRAO NARWADE    M    39    Prabuddha Republican Party

7    BHIMSEN RAMBHAU KAMBLE    M    44    Republician Party of India Ektawadi

8    MANIK RAMU SHINDE    M    34    Krantisena Maharashtra

9    SHAIKH HARUN MALIK SAHEB    M    50    Rashtriya Samaj Paksha

10    UTTAM MANIK KIRTIKAR    M    30    Independent

11    EJAZ KHAN BISMILLAH KHAN    M    33    Independent

12    KAZI MUSHIRODDIN TAJODDIN    M    63    Independent

13    KRISHNA DEVIDAS JADHAV    M    25    Independent

14    JADHAV TOTARAM GANPAT    M    51    Independent

15    JADHAV VISHNU SURYABHAN    M    50    Independent

16    JADHAV SUBHASH RUPCHAND    M    33    Independent

17    BANKAR MILIND RANUJI    M    38    Independent

18    SHANTIGIRIJI MOUNGIRIJI MAHARAJ    M    50    Independent

19    SHAIKH RAFIQ SHAIKH RAZZAK    M    30    Independent

20    SHAIKH SALIM PATEL WAHEGAONKAR    M    38    Independent

21    SAYYED RAUF SAYYED ZAMIR    M    54    Independent

22    SUBHASH KISANRAO PATIL (JADHAV)    M    47    Independent

S13    20    MH    DINDORI    23-Apr-09    1    GAVIT JEEVA PANDU    M    60    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

2    GANGURDE DIPAK SHANKAR    M    36    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    CHAVAN HARISHCHANDRA DEORAM    M    57    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    ZIRWAL NARHARI SITARAM    M    50    Nationalist Congress Party

5    PAWAR SAMPAT WAMAN    M    30    Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha

6    GANGURDE BALU KISAN    M    37    Independent

7    BHIKA HARISING BARDE    M    75    Independent

8    VIJAY NAMDEO PAWAR    M    45    Independent

9    SHANKAR DEORAM GANGUDE    M    51    Independent

S13    21    MH    NASHIK    23-Apr-09    1    GAIKWAD DATTA NAMDEO    M    47    Shivsena

2    SAMEER BHUJBAL    M    35    Nationalist Congress Party

3    SHRIMAHANT SUDHIRDAS MAHARAJ    M    43    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    KAILAS MADHUKAR CHAVAN    M    28    Indian Justice Party

5    GODSE HEMANT TUKARAM    M    38    Maharashtra Navnirman sena

6    JADHAV NAMDEO BHIKAJI    M    57    Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha

7    RAYATE VIJAY SAKHARAM ( RAYATE SIR)    M    52    Hindustan Janta Party

8    AD. GULVE RAMNATH SANTUJI    M    42    Independent

9    DATTU GONYA GAIKWAD    M    50    Independent

10    PRAVINCHANDRA DATTARAM DETHE    M    42    Independent

11    BHARAT HIRMAN PARDESHI    M    37    Independent

12    RAJENDRA SAMPATRAO KADU    M    35    Independent

S13    32    MH    RAIGAD    23-Apr-09    1    ANANT GEETE    M    58    Shivsena

2    BARRISTER A.R. ANTULAY    M    80    Indian National Congress

3    MOHITE KIRAN BABURAO    M    34    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    EKANATH ARJUN PATIL    M    48    Rashtriya Samaj Paksha

5    ADV. PRAVIN MADHUKAR THAKUR    M    39    Independent

6    DR. SIDDHARTH PATIL    M    54    Independent

7    SUNIL BHASKAR NAIK    M    51    Independent

S13    33    MH    MAVAL    23-Apr-09    1    PANSARE AZAM FAKEERBHAI    M    48    Nationalist Congress Party

2    BABAR GAJANAN DHARMSHI    M    66    Shivsena

3    MISHRA UMAKANT RAMESHWAR    M    36    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    AYU. DEEPALI NIVRUTTI CHAVAN    F    35    Prabuddha Republican Party

5    PRADIP PANDURANG KOCHAREKAR    M    49    Rashtriya Samaj Paksha

6    ADV.SHIVSHANKAR DATTATRAY SHINDE    M    31    Krantisena Maharashtra

7    ISHWAR DATTATRAY JADHAV    M    46    Independent

8    JAGANNATH PANDURANG KHARGE    M    38    Independent

9    DOLE BHIMRAJ NIVRUTTI    M    38    Independent

10    ADVOCATE TUKARAM WAMANRAO BANSODE    M    64    Independent

11    TANTARPALE GOPAL YASHWANTRAO    M    43    Independent

12    ADVOCATE PRAMOD MAHADEV GORE    M    56    Independent

13    BHAPKAR MARUTI SAHEBRAO    M    38    Independent

14    MAHENDRA PRABHAKAR TIWARI    M    41    Independent

15    BRO. MANUAL DESOZA    M    45    Independent

16    YASHWANT NARAYAN DESAI    M    42    Independent

17    SHAKEEL RAJBHAI SHAIKH    M    38    Independent

18    HARIBHAU DADAJI SHINDE    M    70    Independent

S13    34    MH    PUNE    23-Apr-09    1    ANIL SHIROLE    M    59    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    KALMADI SURESH    M    64    Indian National Congress

3    D S K ALIAS D.S.KULKARNI    M    58    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    ARUN BHATIA    M    66    Peoples Guardian

5    GULAB TATYA WAGHMODE    M    47    Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha

6    BAGBAN JAVED KASIM    M    26    Indian Union Muslim League

7    VIKRAMADITYA OMPRAKASH DHIMAN    M    40    Rashtriya Samaj Paksha

8    VINOD ANAND SINH    M    55    Proutist Sarva Samaj Party

9    SHIROLE RANJEET SHRIKANT    M    32    Maharashtra Navnirman sena

10    SAVITA HAJARE    F    46    Pyramid Party of India

11    SANGHARSH ARUN APTE    M    28    Prabuddha Republican Party

12    AJAY VASANT PAITHANKAR    M    49    Independent

13    ADAGALE BHAUSAHEB RAMCHANDRA    M    48    Independent

14    ASHOK GANPAT PALKHE ALIAS SUTAR    M    45    Independent

15    KAMTAM ISWAR SAMBHAYYA    M    67    Independent

16    KULKARNI KAUSTUBH SHASHIKANT    M    26    Independent

17    KHAN AMANULLA MOHMOD AL    M    55    Independent

18    KHAN NISSAR TAJ AHMAD    M    44    Independent

19    P. K. CHAVAN    M    80    Independent

20    CHOUDHARI SUNIL GULABRAO    M    41    Independent

21    CHOURE VILAS CHINTAMAN    M    45    Independent

22    TATYA ALIAS NARAYAN SHANKAR WAMBHIRE    M    51    Independent

23    TAMBOLI SHABBIR SAJJANBHAI    M    52    Independent

24    DATTATRAYA GANESH TALGERI    M    61    Independent

25    BAGADE SACHIN MARUTI    M    29    Independent

26    BALU ALIAS ANIL SHIROLE    M    28    Independent

27    BHARAT MANOHAR GAVALI    M    65    Independent

28    BHAGWAT RAGHUNATH KAMBLE    M    35    Independent

29    RAJENDRA BHAGAT ALIAS JITU BHAI    M    29    Independent

30    VIKRAM NARENDRA BOKE    M    53    Independent

31    SHINDE RAJENDRA BABURAO    M    44    Independent

32    SHAIKH ALTAF KARIM    M    48    Independent

33    SHRIKANT MADHUSUDAN JAGTAP    M    33    Independent

34    SARDESAI KISHORKUMAR RAGHUNATH    M    42    Independent

35    ADV.SUBHASH NARHAR GODSE    M    59    Independent

36    SANTOSH ALIAS SOMNATH KALU PAWAR    M    38    Independent

S13    35    MH    BARAMATI    23-Apr-09    1    KUDALEPATIL VIVEK ANANT    M    40    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    KANTA JAYSING NALAWADE    F    56    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    SUPRIYA SULE    F    39    Nationalist Congress Party

4    MAYAWATI AMAR CHITRE    F    31    Bharatiya Minorities Suraksha Mahasangh

5    SHELAR SANGEETA PANDURANG    F    33    Krantisena Maharashtra

6    SACHIN VITTHAL AHIRE    M    29    Prabuddha Republican Party

7    SAMPAT MARUTI TAKALE    M    54    Rashtriya Samaj Paksha

8    GHORPADE SAVEETA ASHOK    F    29    Independent

9    TATYA ALIAS NARAYAN SHANKAR WAMBHIRE    M    51    Independent

10    TANTARPALE GOPAL YESHWANTRAO    M    43    Independent

11    DEEPAK SHANKAR BHAPKAR    M    26    Independent

12    BHIMA ANNA KADALE    M    31    Independent

13    MRUNALEENI JAYRAJ KAKADE    F    34    Independent

14    YOGESH SONABA RANDHEER    M    39    Independent

15    SHIVAJI JAYSING KOKARE    M    58    Independent

16    SURESH BABURAO VEER    M    62    Independent

17    SANGITA SHRIMAN BHUMKAR    F    30    Independent

S13    36    MH    SHIRUR    23-Apr-09    1    ADHALRAO SHIVAJI DATTATRAY    M    52    Shivsena

2    ZAGADE YASHWANT SITARAM    M    35    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    VILAS VITHOBA LANDE    M    47    Nationalist Congress Party

4    PALLAVI MOHAN HARSHE    F    27    Prabuddha Republican Party

5    SHELAR DNYANOBA SHRIPATI    M    57    Republican Presidium Party of India

6    SURESH MULCHAND KANKARIA (MAMA)    M    57    Rashtriya Samaj Paksha

7    ABHANG KONDIBHAU BHIMAJI    M    48    Independent

8    KARANDE CHANGDEO NAMDEO    M    43    Independent

9    KALURAM RAGHUNATH TAPKIR    M    52    Independent

10    RAM DHARMA DAMBALE    M    37    Independent

11    LANDE VILAS MHATARBA    M    37    Independent

S13    37    MH    AHMADNAGAR    23-Apr-09    1    KARDILE SHIVAJI BHANUDAS    M    50    Nationalist Congress Party

2    KARBHARI WAMAN SHIRSAT ALIAS K.V. SHIRSAT    M    65    Communist Party of India

3    GADAKH TUKARAM GANGADHAR    M    55    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    GANDHI DILIPKUMAR MANSUKHLAL    M    59    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    KAZI SAJID MUJIR    M    41    Republician Party of India Ektawadi

6    HAKE BHANUDAS KISAN    M    55    Rashtriya Samaj Paksha

7    HOLE BHANUDAS NAMDEO    M    48    Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha

8    ARUN KAHAR    M    45    Independent

9    AVINASH MALHARRAO GHODAKE    M    40    Independent

10    KHAIRE ARJUN DEORAO    M    39    Independent

11    GAIKWAD BALASAHEB RAMCHANDRA    M    35    Independent

12    NAUSHAD ANSAR SHAIKH    F    39    Independent

13    PROF. MAHENDRA DADA SHINDE    M    29    Independent

14    RAUT EKNATH BABASAHEB    M    56    Independent

15    RAJIV APPASAHEB RAJALE    M    39    Independent

S13    38    MH    SHIRDI    23-Apr-09    1    KACHARU NAGU WAGHMARE    M    60    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    WAKCHOURE BHAUSAHEB RAJARAM    M    59    Shivsena

3    ATHAWALE RAMDAS BANDU    M    52    Republican Party of India

4    DHOTRE SUCHIT CHINTAMANI    M    25    Krantisena Maharashtra

5    SATISH BALASAHEB PALGHADMAL    M    26    Prabuddha Republican Party

6    ADHAGALE RAJENDRA NAMDEV    M    39    Independent

7    KAMBALE RAMESH ANKUSH    M    32    Independent

8    GAIKWAD APPASAHEB GANGADHAR    M    64    Independent

9    BAGUL BALU DASHARATH    M    34    Independent

10    MEDHE PRAFULLAKUMAR MURLIDHAR    M    46    Independent

11    RAKSHE ANNASAHEB EKNATH    M    43    Independent

12    RUPWATE PREMANAND DAMODHAR    M    65    Independent

13    LODHE SHARAD LAXAMAN    M    42    Independent

14    WAGH GANGADHAR RADHAJI    M    60    Independent

15    VAIRAGHAR SUDHIR NATHA    M    38    Independent

16    SABALE ANIL DAMODHAR    M    40    Independent

17    SANDIP BHASKAR GOLAP    M    29    Independent

S13    39    MH    BEED    23-Apr-09    1    KOKATE RAMESH BABURAO (ADASKAR)    M    42    Nationalist Congress Party

2    MASKE MACHHINDRA BABURAO    M    54    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    MUNDE GOPINATHRAO PANDURANG    M    59    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    KHALGE KACHRU SANTRAMJI    M    48    Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha

5    GURAV KALYAN BHANUDAS    M    62    Rashtriya Krantikari Samajwadi Party

6    TATE ASHOK SANTRAM    M    50    Ambedkarist Republican Party

7    NIKALJE SHEELATAI MAHENDRA    F    34    Prabuddha Republican Party

8    PRAMOD ALIAS PARMESHWAR SAKHARAM MOTE    M    32    Krantisena Maharashtra

9    BABURAO NARAYANRAO KAGADE    M    63    Ambedkar National Congress

10    DR. SHIVAJIRAO KISANRAO SHENDGE    M    39    Rashtriya Samaj Paksha

11    KAMAL KONDIRAM NIMBALKAR    F    39    Independent

12    KAMBLE DEEPAK DYANOBA    M    32    Independent

13    KHAN SIKANDAR KHAN HUSSAIN KHAN    M    58    Independent

14    GUJAR KHAN MIRZA KHAN    M    28    Independent

15    ADV.NATKAR RAMRAO SHESHRAO    M    61    Independent

16    PATHAN GAFARKHAN JABBARKHAN    M    42    Independent

17    MAHAMMAD AKARAM MAHAMMAD SALIMUDDIN BAGWAN    M    34    Independent

18    RAMESH VISHVANATH KOKATE    M    32    Independent

19    SAYYED MINHAJ ALI WAJED ALI (PENDKHJUR WALE)    M    34    Independent

20    SAYYED SALIM FATTU    M    47    Independent

21    SARDAR KHAN SULTANABABA    M    26    Independent

S13    40    MH    OSMANABAD    23-Apr-09    1    GAIKWAD RAVINDRA VISHWANATH    M    49    Shivsena

2    DIVAKAR YASHWANT NAKADE    M    35    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    PATIL PADAMSINHA BAJIRAO    M    68    Nationalist Congress Party

4    JAGTAP BHAGWAN DADARAO    M    70    Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha

5    TARKASE DHANANJAY MURLIDHAR    M    34    Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha

6    TAWADE PRAKASH TANAJIRAO    M    28    Krantisena Maharashtra

7    BANSODE GUNDERAO SHIVRAM    M    73    Rashtriya Samaj Paksha

8    BABA FAIJODDIN SHAIKH    M    28    Nelopa(United)

9    BHOSLE REVAN VISHWANATH    M    45    Janata Dal (Secular)

10    MUJAWAR SHAHABUDDIN NABIRASUL    M    37    Prabuddha Republican Party

11    RAJENDRA RANDITRAO HIPPERGEKAR    M    38    Kranti Kari Jai Hind Sena

12    ANGARSHA SALIM BABULAL    M    62    Independent

13    GAIKWAD UMAJI PANDURANG    M    39    Independent

14    CHAVAN BABU VITHOBA    M    40    Independent

15    CHANDANE PINTU PANDURANG    M    35    Independent

16    DADASAHEB SHANKARRAO JETITHOR    M    50    Independent

17    NITURE ARUN BHAURAO    M    38    Independent

18    PATEL HASHAM ISMAIL    M    55    Independent

19    PAWAR HARIDAS MANIKRAO    M    35    Independent

20    PATIL MAHADEO DNYANDEO    M    50    Independent

21    BALAJI BAPURAO TUPSUNDARE    M    37    Independent

22    ADV. BHAUSAHEB ANIL BELURE (BEMBLIKAR)    M    29    Independent

23    MUNDHE PATRIL PADAMSINHA VIJAYSINHA    M    29    Independent

24    YEVATE-PATIL SHRIMANT    M    55    Independent

25    SANDIPAN RAMA ZOMBADE    M    41    Independent

S13    41    MH    LATUR    23-Apr-09    1    AAWALE JAYWANT GANGARAM    M    99    Indian National Congress

2    GAIKWAD SUNIL BALIRAM    M    99    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    ADV. BABASAHEB SADSHIVRAO GAIKWAD    M    99    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    ARAK ASHOK VIKRAM    M    99    Krantisena Maharashtra

5    V.K. ACHARYA    M    99    Prabuddha Republican Party

6    T.M. KAMBLE    M    99    Republican Party of India (Democratic )

7    GANNE TUKARAM RAMBHAU    M    99    Jan Surajya Shakti

8    BANSODE RAGHUNATH WAGHOJI    M    99    Peoples Republican Party

9    BABURAO SATYAWAN POTHHARE    M    99    Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha

10    RAMKUMAR RAIWADIKAR    M    99    Samajwadi Jan Parishad

11    SHRIKANT RAMRAO JEDHE    M    99    Rashtriya Samaj Paksha

12    SUSANE ATUL GANGARAM    M    99    Ambedkarist Republican Party

13    SAHEBRAO HARIBHAU WAGHMARE    M    99    Kranti Kari Jai Hind Sena

14    AAWCHARE VIJAYKUMAR BABRUWAN    M    99    Independent

15    KAMBLE BANSILAL RAMCHANDRA    M    99    Independent

16    NILANGAEKAR AVINASH MADHUKARRAO    M    99    Independent

17    MANE GAJANAN PANDURANG    M    99    Independent

18    SANJAY KABIRDAS GAIKWAD    M    99    Independent

S13    42    MH    SOLAPUR    23-Apr-09    1    GAIKWAD PRAMOD RAMCHANDRA    M    48    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    ADV. BANSODE SHARAD MARUTI    M    41    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    SHINDE SUSHILKUMAR SAMBHAJIRAO    M    67    Indian National Congress

4    ADV. KASABEKAR SHRIDHAR LIMBAJI    M    59    Rashtriya Samaj Paksha

5    RAJGURU NARAYAN YEDU    M    60    Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha

6    LAXMIKANT CHANDRAKANT GAIKWAD    M    37    Kranti Kari Jai Hind Sena

7    NARAYANKAR RAJENDRA BABURAO    M    44    Independent

8    NITINKUMAR RAMCHANDRA KAMBLE ALIAS NITIN BANPURKAR    M    37    Independent

9    BANSODE UTTAM BHIMSHA    M    50    Independent

10    BANSODE RAHUL DATTU    M    33    Independent

11    MILIND MAREPPA MULE    M    49    Independent

12    VIKRAM UTTAM KASABE    M    33    Independent

13    VIJAYKUMAR BHAGWANRAO UGHADE    M    38    Independent

S13    43    MH    MADHA    23-Apr-09    1    DESHMUKH SUBHASH SURESHCHANDRA    M    50    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    PAWAR SHARADCHANDRA GOVINDRAO    M    68    Nationalist Congress Party

3    RAHUL VITTHAL SARWADE    M    49    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    AYU GAIKWAD SATISH SUGRAV    M    28    Prabuddha Republican Party

5    CHAVAN SUBHASH VITTHAL    M    34    Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha

6    MAHADEO JAGANNATH JANKAR    M    40    Rashtriya Samaj Paksha

7    RAMCHANDRA NARAYAN KACCHAVE    M    40    Kranti Kari Jai Hind Sena

8    SASTE KAKASAHEB MAHADEO    M    48    Krantisena Maharashtra

9    SOU. NAGMANI KISAN JAKKAN    F    45    Independent

10    DR.M. D. PATIL    M    50    Independent

11    BANSODE BALVEER DAGADU    M    42    Independent

12    BHANUDAS BHAGAWAN DEVAKATE    M    70    Independent

13    DR. MAHADEO ABAJI POL    M    56    Independent

14    SURESH SHAMRAO GHADGE    M    36    Independent

15    DNYANESHWAR VITTHAL AMALE    M    26    Independent

S13    44    MH    SANGLI    23-Apr-09    1    PATEL M.JAVED M. YUSUF    M    38    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    PRATIK PRAKASHBAPU PATIL    M    35    Indian National Congress

3    ASHOK DNYANU MANE(BHAU)    M    37    Swatantra Bharat Paksha

4    MANOHAR BALKRISHNA KHEDKAR    M    58    Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha

5    MAHADEV ANNA WAGHAMARE    M    65    Rashtriya Samaj Paksha

6    AJITRAO SHANKARRAO GHORPADE    M    56    Independent

7    ANSARI SHABBIR AHEMED    M    61    Independent

8    GANPATI TUKARAM KAMBLE ALIAS G.T. KAMBLE    M    70    Independent

9    PANDHARE DATTATRAYA PANDURANG    M    51    Independent

10    KAVTHEKAR PRAVIN BHAGWAN KAVTHEKAR ALIAS JIVA MAHALE    M    47    Independent

11    MULANI BALEKHAN USMAN    M    46    Independent

12    VAGARE MARUTI MURA    M    34    Independent

13    SHAMRAO PIRAJI KADAM    M    64    Independent

14    SIDDESHWAR SHIVAPPA BHOSALE    M    36    Independent

S13    45    MH    SATARA    23-Apr-09    1    CHAVAN PRASHANT VASANT    M    34    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    PURUSHOTTAM BAJIRAO JADHAV    M    45    Shivsena

3    BHONSLE SHRIMANT CHH. UDYANRAJE PRATAPSINH    M    43    Nationalist Congress Party

4    BHAUSAHEB GANGARAM WAGH    M    51    Rashtriya Samaj Paksha

5    ALNKRITA ABHIJIT AWADE-BICHUKALE    F    29    Independent

S13    46    MH    RATNAGIRI – SINDHUDURG    23-Apr-09    1    DR.NILESH NARAYAN RANE    M    28    Indian National Congress

2    PARULEKAR JAYENDRA SHRIPAD    M    43    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    SURESH PRABHAKAR PRABHU    M    55    Shivsena

4    AJAY ALIAS AABA DADA JADHAV    M    28    Kranti Kari Jai Hind Sena

5    RAJESH PUSUSHOTTAM SURVE    M    41    Rashtriya Samaj Paksha

6    VILASRAO KHANVILKAR    M    54    Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha

7    SIRAJ ABDULLA KAUCHALI    M    60    Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha

8    KHALAPE AKBAR MAHAMMAD    M    55    Independent

9    SURENDRA BORKAR    M    62    Independent

S13    47    MH    KOLHAPUR    23-Apr-09    1    KAMBLE SUHAS NIVRUTI    M    41    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    CHHATRPATI SAMBHAJIRAJE SHAHU    M    38    Nationalist Congress Party

3    DEVANE VIJAY SHAMRAO    M    50    Shivsena

4    KAMBLE MARUTI RAVELU    M    34    Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha

5    CHOUGULE BHAI P.T.    M    64    Independent

6    DR. NEELAMBARI RAMESH MANDAPE    F    49    Independent

7    S.R. TATYA PATIL    M    70    Independent

8    BAJRANG KRISHNA PATIL    M    39    Independent

9    MAHAMMADGOUS GULAB NADAF    M    57    Independent

10    SADASHIVRAO MANDLIK DADOBA    M    74    Independent

S13    48    MH    HATKANANGLE    23-Apr-09    1    KANADE ANILKUMAR MAHADEV    M    37    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    MANE NIVEDITA SAMBHAJIRAO    F    45    Nationalist Congress Party

3    RAGHUNATH RAMCHANDRA PATIL    M    58    Shivsena

4    PATIL UDAY PANDHARINATH    M    39    Krantisena Maharashtra

5    BABURAO OMANNA KAMBLE    M    61    Rashtriya Samaj Paksha

6    MANE ARVIND BHIVA    M    43    Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha

7    SHETTI RAJU ALIAS DEVAPPA ANNA    M    41    Swabhimani Paksha

8    ARUN ALIAS SHAM BAJARNAG BUCHADE    M    28    Independent

9    THORAT ANANDRAO TUKARAM    M    46    Independent

10    SURNIKE ANANDRAO VASANTRAO (FOUJI BAPU)    M    48    Independent

S18    4    OR    KEONJHAR    23-Apr-09    1    ANANTA NAYAK    M    39    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    DHANURJAYA SIDU    M    43    Indian National Congress

3    YASHBANT NARAYAN SINGH LAGURI    M    38    Biju Janata Dal

4    LACHHAMAN MAJHI    M    42    Jharkhand Mukti Morcha

5    DR SUDARSHAN LOHAR    M    59    Bahujan Samaj Party

6    CHITTA RANJAN MUNDA    M    37    Independent

7    DR. FAKIR MOHAN NAIK    M    34    Independent

S18    5    OR    MAYURBHANJ    23-Apr-09    1    GAMHA SINGH    M    57    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    DROUPADI MURMU    F    50    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    LAXMAN TUDU    M    47    Biju Janata Dal

4    LAXMAN MAJHI    M    62    Indian National Congress

5    SUDAM MARNDI    M    43    Jharkhand Mukti Morcha

6    LAXMISWAR TAMUDIA    M    68    Samajwadi Party

7    SUNDAR MOHAN MAJHI    M    65    Jharkhand Disom Party

8    DEVI PRASANNA BESRA    M    61    Independent

9    NARENDRA HANSDA    M    26    Independent

10    RAMESWAR MAJHI    M    29    Independent

S18    6    OR    BALASORE    23-Apr-09    1    ARUN JENA    M    47    Jharkhand Mukti Morcha

2    ARUN DEY    M    63    Nationalist Congress Party

3    MAHAMEGHA BAHAN AIRA KHARABELA SWAIN    M    55    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    SHRADHANJALI PRADHAN    F    40    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    SRIKANTA KUMAR JENA    M    58    Indian National Congress

6    DEBASISH RANJAN DASH    M    37    Samruddha Odisha

7    RAKESH RANJAN PATRA    M    27    Jana Hitkari Party

8    GHASIRAM MOHANTA    M    66    Independent

9    LAXIMIKANTA BEHERA    M    51    Independent

S18    7    OR    BHADRAK    23-Apr-09    1    ANANTA PRASAD SETHI    M    58    Indian National Congress

2    ARJUN CHARAN SETHI    M    68    Biju Janata Dal

3    NITYANANDA JENA    M    29    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    RATH DAS    M    54    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    GOLAK PRASAD MALLIK    M    60    Independent

6    SUSANTA KUMAR JENA    M    31    Independent

S18    8    OR    JAJPUR    23-Apr-09    1    AMIYA KANTA MALLIK    M    50    Indian National Congress

2    PARAMESWAR SETHI    M    40    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    MOHAN JENA    M    52    Biju Janata Dal

4    AJIT KUMAR JENA    M    42    Samruddha Odisha

5    BABULI MALLIK    M    36    Orissa Mukti Morcha

6    BHIMSEN BEHERA    M    44    Jana Hitkari Party

7    UDAYA NATH JENA    M    29    Independent

8    KALANDI MALLIK    M    28    Independent

S18    9    OR    DHENKANAL    23-Apr-09    1    KRISHNA CHANDRA SAHOO    M    48    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    CHANDRA SEKHAR TRIPATHY    M    60    Indian National Congress

3    TATHAGATA SATPATHY    M    53    Biju Janata Dal

4    RUDRANARAYAN PANY    M    49    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    PRIYABRATA GARNAIK    M    28    Kalinga Sena

S18    14    OR    CUTTACK    23-Apr-09    1    ANADI SAHU    M    68    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    GOPAL CHANDRA KAR    M    63    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    BIBHUTI BHUSAN MISHRA    M    57    Indian National Congress

4    BHARTRUHARI MAHTAB    M    51    Biju Janata Dal

5    KAPILA CHARAN MALL    M    72    Bira Oriya Party

6    PRADIP ROUTRAY    M    40    Kalinga Sena

7    DEBANANDA SINGH    M    33    Independent

S18    15    OR    KENDRAPARA    23-Apr-09    1    JNANDEV BEURA    M    44    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    RANJIB BISWAL    M    38    Indian National Congress

3    LENIN LENKA    M    46    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    BAIJAYANT PANDA    M    45    Biju Janata Dal

5    PRATAP CHANDRA JENA    M    60    Samruddha Odisha

6    PRAVAKAR NAYAK    M    48    Kalinga Sena

7    RAMA KRUSHNA DASH    M    44    Communist Party of India(Marxist-Leninist)(Liberation)

8    SARAT CHANDRA SWAIN    M    49    Independent

S18    16    OR    JAGATSINGHPUR    23-Apr-09    1    BAIDHAR MALLICK    M    46    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    BIBHU PRASAD TARAI    M    42    Communist Party of India

3    BIBHUTI BHUSAN MAJHI    M    37    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    RABINDRA KUMAR SETHY    M    54    Indian National Congress

5    AKSHAYA KUMAR SETHI    M    25    Samruddha Odisha

S18    17    OR    PURI    23-Apr-09    1    JITENDRA KUMAR SAHOO    M    35    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    DEBENDRA NATH MANSINGH    M    59    Indian National Congress

3    PINAKI MISRA    M    49    Biju Janata Dal

4    BRAJA KISHORE TRIPATHY    M    62    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    KSHITISH BISWAL    M    80    Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)

6    SABYASACHI MOHAPATRA    M    35    Kalinga Sena

7    PRABHAT KUMAR BADAPANDA    M    42    Independent

S18    18    OR    BHUBANESWAR    23-Apr-09    1    AKSHAYA KUMAR MOHANTY    M    46    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    ARCHANA NAYAK    F    43    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    PRASANNA KUMAR PATASANI    M    66    Biju Janata Dal

4    SANTOSH MOHANTY    M    58    Indian National Congress

5    UMA CHARANA MISHRA    M    60    Jana Hitkari Party

6    NABAGHAN PARIDA    M    66    Bira Oriya Party

7    PRAFUL KUMAR SAHOO    M    38    Republican Party of India (A)

8    BASANTA KUMAR BEHERA    M    47    Kalinga Sena

9    BIJAYANANDA MISHRA    M    51    Lok Jan Shakti Party

10    JAGANNATH PRASAD LENKA    M    75    Independent

11    DHIRENDRA SATAPATHY    M    67    Independent

12    PRAMILA BEHERA    F    33    Independent

13    SASTHI PRASAD SETHI    M    47    Independent

S23    1    TR    TRIPURA WEST    23-Apr-09    1    NILMANI DEB    M    55    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    KHAGEN DAS    M    71    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

3    SUDIP ROY BARMAN    M    45    Indian National Congress

4    SANJIB DEY    M    32    Nationalist Congress Party

5    ARUN CHANDRA BHOWMIK    M    63    All India Trinamool Congress

6    RAKHAL RAJ DATTA    M    60    Amra Bangalee

7    PARTHA KARMAKAR    M    40    Communist Party of India(Marxist-Leninist)(Liberation)

8    TITU SAHA    M    32    Rashtriya Dehat Morcha Party

9    BINOY DEB BARMA    M    49    Independent

10    SUBRATA BHOWMIK    M    58    Independent

S23    2    TR    TRIPURA EAST    23-Apr-09    1    PULIN BEHARI DEWAN    M    69    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    BAJU BAN RIYAN    M    67    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

3    DIBA CHANDRA HRANGKHWAL    M    52    Indian National Congress

4    RITA RANI DEBBARMA    F    51    All India Trinamool Congress

5    KARNA DHAN CHAKMA    M    37    Amra Bangalee

6    FALGUNI TRIPURA    M    42    Communist Party of India(Marxist-Leninist)(Liberation)

7    RAJESH DEB BARMA    M    34    Independent

8    BINOY REANG    M    34    Independent

9    MEVAR KUMAR JAMATIA    M    40    Independent

S24    37    UP    AMETHI    23-Apr-09    1    ASHEESH SHUKLA    M    48    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    PRADEEP KUMAR SINGH    M    39    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    RAHUL GANDHI    M    38    Indian National Congress

4    BHUWAL    M    56    Janvadi Party(Socialist)

5    MOHD.HASAN LAHARI    M    35    Bharatiya Republican Paksha

6    SUNITA    F    26    Mahila Adhikar Party

7    SURYABHAN MAURYA    M    45    Rashtravadi Aarthik Swatantrata Dal

8    AAVID HUSSAIN    M    31    Independent

9    OMKAR    M    46    Independent

10    KAPIL DEO    M    30    Independent

11    DILIP    M    36    Independent

12    MIHILAL    M    52    Independent

13    MEET SINGH    M    65    Independent

14    RAMESH CHANDRA    M    30    Independent

15    RAM SHANKER    M    43    Independent

16    SWAMI NATH    M    25    Independent

S24    38    UP    SULTANPUR    23-Apr-09    1    ASHOK PANDEY    M    58    Samajwadi Party

2    MOHD.TAHIR    M    33    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    SURYA BHAN SINGH    M    54    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    DR.SANJAY SINGH    M    55    Indian National Congress

5    ANIL    M    35    Republican Party of India (A)

6    CHOTELAL MAURYA    M    40    Apna Dal

7    MOHD.UMAR    M    42    Peace Party

8    RAKESH    M    25    National Youth Party

9    RAJKUMAR PANDEY    M    36    Rashtriya Dehat Morcha Party

10    TRIVENI PRASAD BHEEM    M    52    Bharatiya Republican Paksha

11    ARVIND KUMAR    M    46    Independent

12    AWADHESH KUMAR    M    30    Independent

13    KRISHNA NARAYAN    M    33    Independent

14    JHINKURAM VISHWAKARMA    M    33    Independent

15    PRAKASH CHANDRA    M    35    Independent

16    HARI NARAYAN    M    70    Independent

S24    39    UP    PRATAPGARH    23-Apr-09    1    KUNWAR AKSHAYA PRATAP SINGH ‘GOPAL JI’    M    41    Samajwadi Party

2    RAJKUMARI RATNA SINGH    F    49    Indian National Congress

3    LAKSHMI NARAIN PANDEY ‘GURU JI’    M    57    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    PROF. SHIVAKANT OJHA    M    57    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    ATIQ AHAMAD    M    46    Apna Dal

6    ARUN KUMAR    M    48    Samajwadi Janata Party (Rashtriya)

7    A. RASHID ANSARI    M    54    Momin Conference

8    RAJESH    M    36    Kranti Kari Jai Hind Sena

9    ATUL DWIVEDI    M    29    Independent

10    UDHAV RAM    M    53    Independent

11    CHHANGALAL    M    56    Independent

12    JITENDRA PRATAP SINGH    M    40    Independent

13    DINESH PANDEY ALIAS D.K. PANDEY    M    34    Independent

14    BADRI PRASAD    M    48    Independent

15    MUNEESHWAR SINGH    M    65    Independent

16    RAMESH KUMAR    M    31    Independent

17    RAVINDRA SINGH    M    33    Independent

18    RANI PAL    F    58    Independent

19    RAMMURTI MISHRA    M    36    Independent

20    RAM SAMUJH    M    60    Independent

21    VINOD    M    29    Independent

22    SHIVRAM    M    51    Independent

23    SATRAM    M    42    Independent

S24    48    UP    BANDA    23-Apr-09    1    AMITA BAJPAI    F    39    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    BHAGAWAN DEEN GARG    M    47    Indian National Congress

3    BHAIRON PRASAD MISHRA    M    55    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    SANTOSH KUMAR    M    54    Communist Party of India

5    R. K. SINGH PATEL    M    49    Samajwadi Party

6    ASHOK KUMAR    M    40    Indian Justice Party

7    ANAND YADAV    M    45    United Communist Party of India

8    PARASHU RAM NISHAD    M    45    Apna Dal

9    LALIT KUMAR    M    37    Ambedkar Samaj Party

10    ANSH DHARI    M    29    Independent

11    JAGAN NATH SINGH    M    62    Independent

12    PRAKASH NARAYAN    M    32    Independent

13    BALENDRA NATH    M    38    Independent

14    MANOJ KUMAR    M    30    Independent

15    SHIV KUMAR    M    43    Independent

S24    50    UP    KAUSHAMBI    23-Apr-09    1    GIRISH CHANDRA PASI    M    39    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    GAUTAM CHAUDHARY    M    44    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    RAM NIHOR RAKESH    M    64    Indian National Congress

4    SHAILENDRA KUMAR    M    51    Samajwadi Party

5    UMESH CHANDRA PASI    M    40    Apna Dal

6    GULAB SONKAR    M    45    Indian Justice Party

7    GULAB CHANDRA    M    39    Independent

8    JAGDEO    M    53    Independent

9    MAN SINGH    M    28    Independent

10    RAM SARAN    M    56    Independent

S24    51    UP    PHULPUR    23-Apr-09    1    KAPIL MUNI KARWARIYA    M    42    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    KARAN SINGH PATEL    M    50    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    DHARMARAJ SINGH PATEL    M    50    Indian National Congress

4    SHYAMA CHARAN GUPTA    M    63    Samajwadi Party

5    CHANDRAJEET    M    28    Lok Dal

6    DEVENDRA PRATAP SINGH    M    38    Rashtriya Dehat Morcha Party

7    PRADEEP KUMAR SRIVASTAVA    M    49    Apna Dal

8    LALLAN SINGH    M    35    Rashtriya Swabhimaan Party

9    VIJAY KUMAR    M    56    Gondwana Mukti Sena

10    SATISH YADAV    M    34    Indian Justice Party

11    SANJEEV KUMAR MISHRA    M    30    Yuva Vikas Party

12    KRISHNA KUMAR    M    33    Independent

13    DR. NEERAJ    M    43    Independent

14    BHARAT LAL    M    52    Independent

15    DR. MILAN MUKHERJEE    M    67    Independent

16    MUNISHWAR SINGH MAURYA    M    65    Independent

17    RADHIKA PAL    F    34    Independent

18    RADHESHYAM SINGH YADAV    M    72    Independent

19    RAM JANM YADAV    M    31    Independent

20    RAMSHANKAR    M    47    Independent

21    VIRENDRA PAL SINGH    M    66    Independent

22    SHAILENDRA KUMAR PRAJAPATI    M    40    Independent

23    SAMAR BAHADUR SHARMA    M    40    Independent

24    DR. SONE LAL PATEL    M    59    Independent

S24    52    UP    ALLAHABAD    23-Apr-09    1    ASHOK KUMAR BAJPAI    M    58    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    YOGESH SHUKLA    M    39    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    KUNWAR REWATI RAMAN SINGH ALIAS MANI JI    M    65    Samajwadi Party

4    SHYAM KRISHNA PANDEY    M    65    Indian National Congress

5    OM PRAKASH    M    41    Rashtriya Machhua Samaj Party

6    GULAB GRAMEEN    M    47    Lok Dal

7    BIHARI LAL SHARMA    M    54    Apna Dal

8    BAIJAL KUMAR    M    48    Bahujan Sangharsh Party (Kanshiram)

9    RAMA KANT    M    47    Indian Justice Party

10    RAJESH PASI    M    32    Rashtriya Swabhimaan Party

11    RAM PARIKHAN SINGH    M    59    Janvadi Party(Socialist)

12    VIJAY SHANKAR    M    45    Bahujan Shakty

13    SARFUDDIN    M    32    Nelopa(United)

14    AKBAL MOHAMMD    M    34    Independent

15    AJUG NARAIN    M    33    Independent

16    ABHAY SRIVASTAVA    M    31    Independent

17    KM. KUSUM KUMARI AD    F    45    Independent

18    GOPAL SWROOP JOSHI    M    62    Independent

19    NARENDRA KUMAR TEWARI    M    47    Independent

20    BAJRANG DUTT    M    36    Independent

21    MUNNU PRASAD    M    44    Independent

22    RAVI PRAKASH    M    41    Independent

23    RAKESH KUMAR    M    47    Independent

24    RAJ BALI    M    51    Independent

25    RAM GOVIND    M    46    Independent

26    RAM JEET    M    38    Independent

27    RAM LAL    M    46    Independent

28    KM. SHASHI PANDEY    F    45    Independent

29    DR. MOHD. SALMAN RASHIDI    M    57    Independent

30    SADHNA AGARWAL    F    47    Independent

31    HIRA LAL    M    54    Independent

S24    54    UP    FAIZABAD    23-Apr-09    1    NIRMAL KHATRI    M    58    Indian National Congress

2    BIMLENDRA MOHAN PRATAP MISRA “PAPPU BHAIYA”    M    48    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    MITRASEN    M    76    Samajwadi Party

4    LALLU SINGH    M    54    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    AJAY KUMAR    M    25    Kranti Kari Jai Hind Sena

6    ATUL KUMAR PANDEY    M    39    The Humanist Party of India

7    AMAR NATH JAISWAL    M    44    Rashtriya Kranti Party

8    GIRISH CHANDRA VERMA    M    32    Apna Dal

9    GULAM SABIR    M    42    Navbharat Nirman Party

10    CHANDRASHEKHAR SINGH    M    36    Bharat Punarnirman Dal

11    NUSRAT QUDDUSI ALIAS BABLOO    M    41    Peace Party

12    MANISH KUMAR PANDEY    M    35    Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha

13    SAIYYAD MUSHEER AHMED    M    55    Awami Party

14    RAMESH KUMAR RAWAT    M    42    Maulik Adhikar Party

15    SUSHIL KUMAR    M    45    Bharatiya Lok Kalyan Dal

16    ATAURR RAHMAN ANSARI    M    52    Independent

17    AMARNATH VERMA    M    36    Independent

18    DINA NATH PANDEY    M    35    Independent

19    NASREEN BANO    F    38    Independent

20    BALAK RAM ALIAS SHIV BALAK PASI    M    34    Independent

21    RAM DHIRAJ    M    46    Independent

22    SWAMI NATH    M    29    Independent

23    SIYARAM KORI    M    50    Independent

S24    55    UP    AMBEDKAR NAGAR    23-Apr-09    1    RAKESH PANDEY    M    55    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    VINAY KATIYAR    M    49    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    SHANKHLAL MAJHI    M    54    Samajwadi Party

4    DINESH KUMAR RAJBHAR    M    33    Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party

5    BASANT LAL    M    53    Peace Party

6    BAL MUKUND DHURIYA    M    31    Communist Party of India(Marxist-Leninist)(Liberation)

7    BHARTHARI    M    44    Bharatiya Republican Paksha

8    MANSHARAM    M    40    Maulik Adhikar Party

9    LALMAN    M    34    Janvadi Party(Socialist)

10    VIJAY KUMAR MAURYA    M    38    Rashtravadi Aarthik Swatantrata Dal

11    SANTOSH KUMAR    M    50    Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha

12    IFTEKHAR AHMAD    M    37    Independent

13    KAILASH KUMAR SHUKLA    M    60    Independent

14    GAYADEEN    M    43    Independent

15    CHANDRA BHUSHAN    M    61    Independent

16    DEO PRASAD MISHRA    M    42    Independent

17    NABAB ALI    M    55    Independent

18    PARASHU RAM    M    49    Independent

19    PATANJALI JAITALI    M    58    Independent

20    RAM SUKH SAHOO    M    50    Independent

21    DR. LAL BAHADUR    M    42    Independent

22    SRIRAM AMBESH    M    61    Independent

S24    57    UP    KAISERGANJ    23-Apr-09    1    MOHD ALEEM    M    46    Indian National Congress

2    BRIJBHUSHAN SARAN SINGH    M    52    Samajwadi Party

3    DR LALTA PRASAD MISHRA ALIS DR L P MISHRA    M    59    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    SURENDRA NATH AWASTHI    M    53    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    ZAMEER AHAMAD    M    53    Ambedkar National Congress

6    DAYA RAM    M    41    Peoples Democratic Forum

7    MANOJ KUMAR    M    33    Lok Dal

8    RAM PRAKSH    M    39    Republican Party of India (A)

9    RAMENDER DEV PATHAK    M    60    Peace Party

10    HAFEEZ    M    47    Apna Dal

11    ANOKHI LAL    M    49    Independent

12    OM PRAKASH    M    35    Independent

13    UDAI RAJ    M    52    Independent

14    CHANDRA BHAN    M    42    Independent

15    JAGDISH    M    40    Independent

16    JAGDISH PRASAD    M    38    Independent

17    JITENDRA BAHADUR    M    57    Independent

18    PARAMHANS SINGH    M    33    Independent

19    RAJ KISHORE SINGH    M    38    Independent

20    RADHEYSHYAM BOAT    M    62    Independent

21    RAMFEER ALIS CHUNTI    M    59    Independent

22    VINESH KUMAR    M    32    Independent

23    VIMAL VERMA    M    30    Independent

S24    58    UP    SHRAWASTI    23-Apr-09    1    RIZVAN ZAHEER    M    46    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    RUBAB SAIDA    F    58    Samajwadi Party

3    VINAY KUMAR ALIAS VINNU    M    45    Indian National Congress

4    SATYA DEO SINGH    M    63    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    ARUN KUMAR    M    33    Ambedkar National Congress

6    KULDEEP    M    44    Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party

7    RAJESHWAR MISHRA    M    28    Peace Party

8    RAM ADHAR    M    62    Republican Party of India (A)

9    TEJ BAHADUR    M    32    Independent

10    RAM SUDHI    M    38    Independent

11    VINOD KUMAR PANDEY    M    27    Independent

S24    59    UP    GONDA    23-Apr-09    1    DR ACHUTANANDDUBE    M    64    Nationalist Congress Party

2    KIRTI VARDHAN SINGH RAJA BAIYA    M    43    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    BENI PRASAD VERMA    M    68    Indian National Congress

4    RAM PRATAP SINGH    M    58    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    VINOD KUMAR SINGH ALIAS PANDIT SINGH    M    42    Samajwadi Party

6    ASHIQ ALI    M    46    Peace Party

7    OM PRAKASH SINGH    M    54    Janvadi Party(Socialist)

8    PREM KUMAR    M    26    Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party

9    RAJENDRA PRASAD1    M    55    Ambedkar National Congress

10    RAM KEWAL    M    41    Vanchit Jamat Party

11    RAM LOCHAN    M    46    Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha

12    VIDYA SAGAR    M    36    Apna Dal

13    HARSH VARDHAN PANDEY    M    33    Lok Dal

14    AKILENDRA KUMAR PATHAK    M    34    Independent

15    ANURADHA PATEL    F    42    Independent

16    OM PRAKASH    M    47    Independent

17    GAGNGA DHAR SHUKLA    M    38    Independent

18    DEEPAK    M    31    Independent

19    NARENDRA SINGH    M    34    Independent

20    BAIJNATH    M    30    Independent

21    RAJENDRA PRASAD    M    28    Independent

22    RADHEY SHYAM    M    59    Independent

23    RAM PRASAD    M    61    Independent

24    RAM LAKHAN    M    54    Independent

25    SATYA PRAKASH    M    39    Independent

S24    60    UP    DOMARIYAGANJ    23-Apr-09    1    JAGDAMBIKA PAL    M    59    Indian National Congress

2    JAI PRATAP SINGH    M    55    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    MATA PRASAD PANDEY    M    72    Samajwadi Party

4    MOHD. MUQUEEM    M    59    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    INAMULLAH CHAUDHARY    M    66    Peace Party

6    JITENDRA PRATAP SINGH    M    46    Rashtriya Dehat Morcha Party

7    PINGAL PRASAD    M    41    Republican Party of India

8    BALKRISHNA    M    39    Bahujan Sangharsh Party (Kanshiram)

9    MUKHDEV    M    41    Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party

10    RAJDEV    M    35    Bharatiya Eklavya Party

11    RAM SAMUJH    M    41    Bharatiya Jan Berojgar Chhatra Dal

12    RAHUL SANGH PRIYA BHARTI    M    36    Indian Justice Party

13    HARISHANKAR    M    45    Lok Jan Shakti Party

14    MOTILAL VIDHYARTHI    M    59    Independent

15    RAM KRIPAL    M    58    Independent

16    SIRAJ AHAMAD    M    26    Independent

S24    61    UP    BASTI    23-Apr-09    1    ARVIND KUMAR CHAUDHARY    M    43    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    BASANT CHAUDHARY    M    43    Indian National Congress

3    RAJ KISHOR SINGH    M    38    Samajwadi Party

4    DR. Y. D. SINGH    M    64    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    OM PRAKASH    M    40    Vanchit Jamat Party

6    DAYASHANKAR PATWA    M    57    Peace Party

7    DALBAG SINGH    M    50    Bahujan Sangharsh Party (Kanshiram)

8    RAM NAYAN PATEL    M    49    Apna Dal

9    VINOD KUMAR RAJBHAR    M    33    Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party

10    SHIVDAS    M    50    Shoshit Samaj Dal

11    SANJEEV KUMAR NISHAD    M    27    Bahujan Uday Manch

12    SITARAM NISHAD    M    63    Janvadi Party(Socialist)

13    RAM LALAN YADAV    M    36    Independent

14    SHIV POOJAN ARYA    M    52    Independent

15    SATYADEV OJHA    M    70    Independent

16    SATISH CHANDRA SHARMA    M    40    Independent

S24    62    UP    SANT KABIR NAGAR    23-Apr-09    1    KAMLA KANT CHAUDHARY    M    41    Communist Party of India

2    FAZLEY MAHAMOOD    M    41    Indian National Congress

3    BHAL CHANDRA YADAV    M    42    Samajwadi Party

4    BHISMA SHANKAR ALIAS KUSHAL TIWARI    M    44    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    SHARAD TRIPATHI    M    35    Bharatiya Janata Party

6    INDRA KUMAR    M    37    Bahujan Uday Manch

7    KRISHNA NAND MISHRA    M    38    All India Minorities Front

8    KHELADI    M    35    Bharatiya Republican Paksha

9    JANTRI LAL    M    37    Janvadi Party(Socialist)

10    PANCHOO BELDAR    M    48    Ambedkar Samaj Party

11    RAJESH SINGH    M    37    Peace Party

12    RAM ACHAL    M    34    Maulik Adhikar Party

13    RAM AVADH NISHAD    M    62    Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party

14    LOTAN ALIAS LAUTAN PRASAD    M    47    Shoshit Samaj Dal

15    VINOD RAI    M    38    National Lokhind Party

16    ANJU    F    28    Independent

17    JOOGESH YADAV    M    35    Independent

18    NITYANAND MANI TRIPATHI    M    35    Independent

19    PHOOLDEO    M    49    Independent

20    RAMESH    M    26    Independent

21    VINAY PANDEY    M    31    Independent

22    SHRI BABA RAM CHANDRA    M    52    Independent

23    SUSHILA JIGYASU    F    29    Independent

24    HARISH CHANDRA    M    32    Independent

S24    73    UP    JAUNPUR    23-Apr-09    1    DHANANJAY SINGH    M    33    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    PARAS NATH YADAVA    M    54    Samajwadi Party

3    SEEMA    F    37    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    ACHHEYLAL NISHAD    M    61    Nelopa(United)

5    GIRAJA SHANKAR YADAVA    M    49    Gondvana Gantantra Party

6    GEETA SINGH    F    46    Rashtriya Dehat Morcha Party

7    BAHADUR SONKAR    M    48    Indian Justice Party

8    RAVI SHANKAR    M    38    Lok Jan Shakti Party

9    RAJKISHUN    M    26    Rashtriya Swabhimaan Party

10    RAJESH S/O RAMESHCHANDRA    M    30    Apna Dal

11    RAJESH S/O RAMYAGYA    M    32    Eklavya Samaj Party

12    RAMCHANDAR    M    52    Rashtravadi Aarthik Swatantrata Dal

13    SHEETALA PRASAD    M    51    Revolutionary Socialist Party

14    AJAY KASYAP – GUDDU    M    26    Independent

15    JAGDISH CHANDRA ASTHANA    M    62    Independent

16    TASLEEM AHMED REHMANI    M    45    Independent

S24    78    UP    BHADOHI    23-Apr-09    1    DR. AKHILESH KUMAR DWIVEDI    M    41    Nationalist Congress Party

2    GORAKHNATH    M    56    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    CHHOTELAL BIND    M    53    Samajwadi Party

4    DR. MAHENDRA NATH PANDEY    M    52    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    SURYMANI TIWARI    M    60    Indian National Congress

6    JAJ LAL    M    47    Rashtriya Krantikari Samajwadi Party

7    NANDLAL    M    56    Vikas Party

8    RAMRATEE BIND    M    74    Apna Dal

9    THAKUR SANTOSH KUMAR    M    27    Rashtriya Dehat Morcha Party

10    SHAHID    M    42    Pragatisheel Manav Samaj Party

11    GAURISHANKAR    M    38    Independent

12    JEETENDRA    M    30    Independent

13    TEJ BAHADUR YADAV ADVOCATE    M    56    Independent

S27    1    JH    RAJMAHAL    23-Apr-09    1    CHANDRA SHEKHAR AZAD    M    38    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    JYOTIN SOREN    M    59    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

3    THOMAS HASDA    M    58    Rashtriya Janata Dal

4    DEVIDHAN BESRA    M    69    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    HEMLAL MURMU    M    54    Jharkhand Mukti Morcha

6    AAMELIYA HANSDA    F    29    Revolutionary Socialist Party

7    CHARAN MURMU    M    33    Shivsena

8    DAUD MARANDI    M    25    Samajwadi Party

9    SUKHWA URAON    M    33    Rashtriya Krantikari Samajwadi Party

10    SUNDAR TUDU    M    45    Bharatiya Jagaran Party

11    SOM MARANDI    M    44    Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik)

12    STIPHEN MARANDI    M    55    Jharkhand Jan Morcha

S27    2    JH    DUMKA    23-Apr-09    1    CHURKA TUDU    M    44    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    PASHUPATI KOL    M    29    Communist Party of India

3    RAMESH TUDU    M    34    Rashtriya Janata Dal

4    SHIBU SOREN    M    64    Jharkhand Mukti Morcha

5    SUNIL SOREN    M    30    Bharatiya Janata Party

6    ARJUN PUJHAR    M    33    Samajwadi Party

7    NIRMALA MURMU    F    33    Revolutionary Socialist Party

8    PHATIK CHANDRA HEMBRAM    M    64    All Jharkhand Students Union

9    BITIYA MANJHI    F    53    Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)

10    RAMESH HEMBROM    M    39    Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik)

11    RAMJIVAN DEHRI    M    35    Samata Party

12    KALESHWAR SOREN    M    38    Independent

13    CHARLES MURMU    M    27    Independent

14    NANDLAL SOREN    M    55    Independent

15    PULICE HEMRAM    M    31    Independent

16    BIVISAN PUJHAR    M    50    Independent

17    CYRIL HANSDA    M    63    Independent

18    SONA MURMU    F    56    Independent

19    HOPNA BASKI    M    57    Independent

S27    3    JH    GODDA    23-Apr-09    1    IQBAL DURRANI    M    50    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    DURGA SOREN    M    39    Jharkhand Mukti Morcha

3    NISHIKANT DUBEY    M    37    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    FURKAN ANSARI    M    61    Indian National Congress

5    ASHOK SHARMA    M    39    Jharkhand Party

6    GEETA MANDAL    F    39    Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)

7    GOVIND LAL MARANDI    M    39    Revolutionary Socialist Party

8    JAWAHAR LAL YADAV    M    31    Lok Jan Shakti Party

9    NANDLAL YADAV    M    39    Samajwadi Party

10    NIRANJAN PRASAD YADAV    M    33    Rashtrawadi Sena

11    PRADEEP YADAV    M    42    Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik)

12    PRADEEP YADAV    M    25    Samata Party

13    BINOD MEHARIA    M    56    Bahujan Shakty

14    RAJ NARAYAN KHAWADE    M    42    AJSU Party

15    SANTOSH KUMAR RAY    M    26    All India Trinamool Congress

16    SURAJ MANDAL    M    61    Jharkhand Vikas Dal

17    JAYSWAL MANJHI    M    38    Independent

18    JAHIR MUSTAKIM    M    35    Independent

19    MANOJ KUMAR MANDAL    M    35    Independent

20    MITHILESH PASWAN    M    38    Independent

21    MD. MOAJJAM ALI CHANCHAL    M    38    Independent

22    SHANKAR PRASAD KESHARI    M    39    Independent

23    SANJEEV KUMAR    M    27    Independent

S27    6    JH    GIRIDIH    23-Apr-09    1    AKLU RAM MAHTO    M    65    Communist Party of India

2    TEKLAL MAHTO    M    57    Jharkhand Mukti Morcha

3    BIJAY SINGH    M    48    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    RAVINDRA KUMAR PANDEY    M    50    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    MD. HIMAYUN ANSARI    M    72    Rashtriya Janata Dal

6    MRINAL KANTI DEV    M    61    Socialist Party (Lohia)

7    RAVINDER MAHTO    M    43    Jharkhand Party (Naren)

8    SHIVA MAHTO    M    75    Marxist Co-Ordination

9    SABA AHMAD    M    62    Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik)

10    INDRA DEV MAHTO    M    45    Independent

11    UMESH RISHI    M    43    Independent

12    NAND KISHOR PRASAD    M    64    Independent

13    BUDDHI NATH TIWARY    M    41    Independent

14    MAHAVIR PRASAD    M    36    Independent

15    MASOOM RAJA ANSARI    M    27    Independent

16    LALOO KEWAT    M    46    Independent

17    SHANKAR RAJAK    M    38    Independent

S27    7    JH    DHANBAD    23-Apr-09    1    CHANDRASHEKHAR DUBEY    M    66    Indian National Congress

2    PASHUPATI NATH SINGH    M    60    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    SAMARESH SINGH    M    68    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    INDU SINGH    F    32    Samata Party

5    JANARDAN PANDEY    M    56    All India Forward Bloc

6    DIN BANDHU SINGH    M    56    Socialist Party (Lohia)

7    PAWAN KUMAR JHA    M    28    Janata Dal (Secular)

8    PHUL CHAND MANDAL    M    66    Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik)

9    M.K.MANDAL    M    62    Amra Bangalee

10    A.K. ROY    M    72    Marxist Co-Ordination

11    VIDESHI MAHATO    M    54    Jharkhand Vikas Dal

12    VIRENDRA PRADHAN    M    44    Lok Jan Shakti Party

13    SUNIL KUMAR    M    38    Indian Justice Party

14    MD. SULTAN    M    57    Jharkhand Party

15    HAFFIZUDDIN ANSARI    M    51    Samajwadi Party

16    ABDUL MUSTAFA    M    32    Independent

17    KARTIK MAHATO    M    44    Independent

18    JAI PRAKASH SINGH    M    39    Independent

19    JAIRAM SINGH    M    31    Independent

20    JITENDRA KUMAR SINGH    M    36    Independent

21    PHUL CHAND MAHATO    M    40    Independent

22    BAMA PADA BAURI    M    35    Independent

23    MADHUSUDAN RAJHANS    M    44    Independent

24    MANILAL MAHATO    M    27    Independent

25    MANOJ GANDHI    M    29    Independent

26    MANOJ PANDEY    M    29    Independent

27    MUNSI HEMBRAM    M    56    Independent

28    RAVI RANJAN SINHA    M    34    Independent

29    SHANKAR RAWANI    M    42    Independent

30    SALIM KHAN    M    42    Independent

31    SADHUSHARAN GOPE    M    46    Independent

32    SUSHIL KUMAR SINGH    M    57    Independent

S27    8    JH    RANCHI    23-Apr-09    1    RAJENDRA SINGH MUNDA    M    74    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

2    RAM TAHAL CHAUDHARY    M    66    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    MD. SARFUDDIN    M    46    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    SUBODH KANT SAHAY    M    57    Indian National Congress

5    AKHTAR ANSARI    M    53    Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik)

6    AFSAR EMAM    M    48    Jharkhand PeopleÂ’S Party

7    MD. AJAD ANSARI    M    47    National Lokhind Party

8    JIPALAL SINGH MUNDA    M    45    Jharkhand Party (Naren)

9    DAYANAND GUPTA    M    39    Jharkhand Vikas Dal

10    SURENDRA KUMAR SUMAN    M    36    Samata Party

11    ANJANI PANDEY    M    51    Independent

12    AGAM LAL MAHTO    M    34    Independent

13    AFTAB ALAM    M    42    Independent

14    ARTI BEHRA    F    32    Independent

15    UPENDRA PD. SRIVASTAVA    M    65    Independent

16    KESHAV NARAYAN BHAGAT    M    49    Independent

17    KAILASH PAHAN    M    40    Independent

18    JANARDAN TIWARI    M    42    Independent

19    JITENDRA MAHTO    M    27    Independent

20    DEVENDRA THAKUR    M    48    Independent

21    BIRSA HEMBRAM    M    31    Independent

22    RANJEET MAHTO    M    49    Independent

23    RAMPODO MAHTO    M    37    Independent

24    ROSHAN LAL MAHTO    M    28    Independent

25    ROSAN PRASAD    M    25    Independent

26    LAL BABA MASANI    M    65    Independent

S27    9    JH    JAMSHEDPUR    23-Apr-09    1    AJEET KUMAR    M    39    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    ARJUN MUNDA    M    41    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    SUMAN MAHTO    F    44    Jharkhand Mukti Morcha

4    ARVIND KUMAR SINGH    M    47    Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik)

5    ASHOK TRIPATHI    M    44    Samajwadi Party

6    KINKAR GOUR    M    41    Rashtravadi Aarthik Swatantrata Dal

7    KRISHN MURARI MISHRA    M    47    Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha

8    PARIKSHIT MAHATO    M    43    Lok Jan Shakti Party

9    MUBIN KHAN    M    50    Bahujan Shakty

10    RAJ KAPOOR MAHATO    M    35    Jharkhand Vikas Dal

11    SHARAT MAHATO    M    36    Jharkhand Party (Naren)

12    SHAILENDRA MAHTO    M    55    All Jharkhand Students Union

13    SHYAM NARAYAN SINGH    M    50    All India Trinamool Congress

14    SANDIP PAUL    M    43    Jharkhand Party

15    DR. SUNARAM HANSDA    M    41    Jharkhand Disom Party

16    HEMANT SINGH    M    37    Amra Bangalee

17    KRISHNA PRASAD    M    40    Independent

18    JOSAI MARDI    M    31    Independent

19    DILIP KALINDI    M    44    Independent

20    DILIP TUDU    M    41    Independent

21    PARAS NATH PRASAD    M    56    Independent

22    RAKESH KUMAR    M    30    Independent

23    RAJIV CHANDRA MAHATO    M    27    Independent

24    RAM CHANDRA PRASAD GUPTA    M    49    Independent

25    VICTOR A. LAZARUS    M    60    Independent

26    SITARAM TUDU    M    61    Independent

S27    10    JH    SINGHBHUM    23-Apr-09    1    BARKUWAR GAGRAI    M    41    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    BAGUN SUMBRUI    M    82    Indian National Congress

3    HIKIM CHANDRA TUDU    M    39    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    PREM SINGH MUNDRI    M    40    Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)

5    MANGAL SINGH BOBONGA    M    42    Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik)

6    SUKH RAM JONKO    M    62    Jharkhand Disom Party

7    ASHOK KUMAR TIU    M    47    Independent

8    MADHU KORA    M    38    Independent

9    HIKIM SOREN    M    46    Independent

S04    11    BR    KATIHAR    30-Apr-09    1    NIKHIL KUMAR CHOUDHARY    M    63    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    MUNNI DEVI    F    35    Independent

3    SHAH TARIQ ANWAR    M    58    Nationalist Congress Party

4    MADAN MOHAN NISHAD    M    62    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    MANOJ PARASAR    M    44    Jan Samanta Party

6    PHOOLO DEVI    F    40    Independent

7    AHMAD ASHFAQUE KARIM    M    53    Lok Jan Shakti Party

8    SUNIL KUMAR CHOUDHARY    M    39    Independent

9    MOHAMMAD HAMID MUBARAK    M    33    Independent

10    SHOBHA DEVI    F    40    Independent

11    MAHBOOB ALAM    M    52    Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)

12    HIMRAJ SINGH    M    49    Independent

13    RAJESH GURNANI    M    38    Loktantrik Samata Dal

14    RAJGIRI SINGH    M    53    Independent

15    OM PRAKASH PODDAR    M    38    Bharatiya Jantantrik Janta Dal

16    MANENDRA KUMAR    M    38    Independent

17    BHOLA NATH KEWAT    M    60    Jharkhand Mukti Morcha

18    CHANDU MURMU    M    43    Jharkhand Disom Party

19    SHIV PUJAN PASWAN    M    31    Buddhiviveki Vikas Party

20    SHAMBHU ROY    M    38    Independent

21    NITESH KUMAR CHOUDHARY    M    31    Independent

22    BABU LAL MARANDI    M    33    Independent

23    KISHAN LAL AGRAWAL    M    32    Independent

S04    13    BR    MADHEPURA    30-Apr-09    1    VINOD KUMAR JHA    M    42    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    OM PRAKASH NARAYAN    M    44    Communist Party of India

3    TARA NAND SADA    M    52    Indian National Congress

4    PROF RAVINDRA CHARAN YADAV    M    49    Rashtriya Janata Dal

5    SHARAD YADAV    M    61    Janata Dal (United)

6    RAJO SAH    M    30    Loktantrik Samata Dal

7    DHANOJ KUMAR    M    26    Rashtravadi Janata Party

8    RAVINDRA KUMAR    M    33    Rashtra Sewa Dal

9    NIRMAL KUMAR SINGH    M    66    Samata Party

10    SAKAR SURESH YADAV    M    32    Independent

11    KISHOR KUMAR    M    33    Independent

12    BALWANT GADHWAL    M    29    Independent

13    TIRO SHARMA    M    59    Independent

14    KARPOORI RISHIDEO    M    29    Independent

15    AMIT ACHARYA    M    26    Independent

16    PRASANNA KUMAR    M    54    Independent

17    DHRUWA KUMAR    M    43    Independent

18    MAHADEV YADAV    M    55    Independent

19    PARMESHWARI PRASAD NIRALA    M    68    Independent

S04    25    BR    KHAGARIA    30-Apr-09    1    SATYA NARAYAN SINGH    M    66    Communist Party of India

2    PRADUMAN KUMAR    M    31    Independent

3    DINESHCHANDRA YADAV    M    50    Janata Dal (United)

4    HARI NANDAN SINGH    M    61    Samajwadi Janata Party (Rashtriya)

5    GULABRAJ    M    31    Independent

6    ASARFI PRASAD MEHTA    M    63    Bahujan Samaj Party

7    SIKANDAR PRASAD SHARMA    M    56    Independent

8    SANGRAM KUMAR    M    27    Independent

9    SURESH PODDAR    M    47    Bharatiya Jantantrik Janta Dal

10    SANJAY YADAV    M    41    Independent

11    NEHA CHAUHAN    F    27    Independent

12    MANJU KUMARI    F    31    Rashtra Sewa Dal

13    CHAUDHRY MEHBOOB ALI KAISER    M    42    Indian National Congress

14    BHARAT KUMAR YADAV    M    52    Kosi Vikas Party

15    RAM NANDAN YADAV    M    45    Independent

16    NAYEEMUDDIN4    M    42    Independent

17    LAL BAHADUR HIMALAYA    M    38    Independent

18    BABULU PASWAN    M    35    Navbharat Nirman Party

19    PAWAN KUMAR “SUMAN”    M    33    Independent

20    RAVINDRA KU. RANA    M    62    Rashtriya Janata Dal

S04    27    BR    BANKA    30-Apr-09    1    GRIDHARI YADAV    M    44    Indian National Congress

2    JAI PRAKASH NARAYAN YADAV    M    55    Rashtriya Janata Dal

3    DAMODAR RAWAT    M    47    Janata Dal (United)

4    MUKESH KUMAR SINGH    M    45    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    SANJAY KUMAR    M    45    Communist Party of India

6    ANIL KUMAR ALIAS ANIL GUPTA    M    40    Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik)

7    AMRESHWAR KUMAR    M    29    Jago Party

8    ARBIND KUMAR SAH    M    42    Rashtriya Pragati Party

9    KEDAR PRASAD SINGH    M    61    Samajwadi Janata Party (Rashtriya)

10    MAHABUB ALAM ANSARI    M    50    Bharatiya Momin Front

11    RAJENDRA PANDIT NETAJI    M    57    Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (Ulgulan)

S06    1    GJ    KACHCHH    30-Apr-09    1    JAT POONAMBEN VELJIBHAI    F    37    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    DANICHA VALJIBHAI PUNAMCHANDRA    M    54    Indian National Congress

3    NAMORI MOHANBHAI LADHABHAI    M    50    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    CHAUHAN MOTILAL DEVJIBHA    M    49    Lokpriya Samaj Party

5    DR. TINA MAGANBHAI PARMAR    F    26    Bharatiya Natiional Janta Dal

6    DUNGARIYA BHARMALBHAI NARANBHAI    M    45    Samajwadi Party

7    PARMAR MUKESHBHAI MANDANBHAI    M    44    Indian Justice Party

8    BADIYA RAMESH GANGJI    M    44    Rashtriya Krantikari Samajwadi Party

9    KANJI ABHABHAI MAHESHWARI    M    55    Independent

10    GARVA ASMAL THAKARSHI    M    44    Independent

11    GOVIND JIVABHAI DAFADA    M    50    Independent

12    BADIA GANGJI FAKIRA    M    55    Independent

13    MAHESHWARI GANGJI DAYABHAI    M    55    Independent

14    MAHESHWARI DHANJIBHAI KARSHANBHAI    M    51    Independent

15    MUNSHI BHURALAL KHIMJIBHAI    M    40    Independent

16    MANGALIYA LILBAI JIVANBHAI    F    42    Independent

17    VANZARA HIRABEN DALPATBHAI    F    35    Independent

18    SARESA NANJI BHANJIBHAI    M    42    Independent

S06    2    GJ    BANASKANTHA    30-Apr-09    1    GADHVI MUKESHKUMAR BHERAVDANJI    M    47    Indian National Congress

2    CHETANBHAI KALABHAI SOLANKI    M    28    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    CHAUDHARI HARIBHAI PARTHIBHAI    M    54    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    AMRUTBHAI LAKHUBHAI PATEL(FOSI)    M    49    Mahagujarat Janta Party

5    KATARIYA HASMUKHBHAI RAVJIBHAI    M    34    Akhand Bharti

6    NAGORI JHUBERKHAN LIYAKATKHAN    M    33    Adarsh Lok Dal

7    LODHA ISHVARBHAI MAHADEVBHAI    M    57    Akhil Bharatiya Jan Sangh

8    SAVJIBHAI PATHUBHAI RAJGOR    M    34    Vishva Hindustani Sangathan

9    KARNAVAT YOGESHKUMAR BHIKHABHAI    M    31    Independent

10    PATEL NAGJIBHAI PRAGJIBHAI    M    43    Independent

11    PARSANI MAHMAD SIKANDAR JALALBHAI    M    30    Independent

12    PUROHIT ASHOKBHAI CHHAGANBHAI    M    32    Independent

13    PANSAL KALABHAI PUNMABHAI    M    49    Independent

14    MAJIRANA BHOPAJI AASHAJI    M    68    Independent

15    MALI JAGDISHKUMAR HASTAJI    M    30    Independent

16    ROOTHAR LEBUJI PARBATJI    M    32    Independent

17    SHARDABEN BHIKHABHAI PARMAR    F    45    Independent

18    SIPAI AAIYUBBHAI IBRAHIMBHAI    M    35    Independent

19    SHRIMALI ASHOKBHAI BALCHANDBHAI    M    40    Independent

S06    3    GJ    PATAN    30-Apr-09    1    KHOKHAR MAHEBOOBKHAN RAHEMATKHAN    M    50    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    JAGDISH THAKOR    M    51    Indian National Congress

3    BAROT SANJAYBHAI MAGANBHAI    M    50    Nationalist Congress Party

4    RATHOD BHAVSINHBHAI DAHYABHAI    M    68    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    PATAVAT MAHAMMADBHAI SHARIFBHAI    M    50    Independent

6    PATEL NARANBHAI PRAGDASBHAI    M    55    Mahagujarat Janta Party

7    KANUBHAI BHURABHAI MAHESHVARI    M    60    Independent

8    CHAUDHARY KIRTIKUMAR JESANGBHAI    M    30    Independent

9    CHAUDHARY MANSINHBHAI MANABHAI    M    32    Independent

10    JUDAL GANESHBHAI MEGHRAJBHAI    M    35    Independent

11    THAKOR NATUJI HALAJI    M    48    Independent

12    THAKOR BHUPATSINH KANTIJI    M    29    Independent

13    DIVAN YASIN AHMAD MAHAMADSHAH    M    47    Independent

14    PATEL KALPESHBHAI SHANKARLAL    M    27    Independent

15    PATEL KIRITKUMAR CHIMANLAL    M    38    Independent

16    PATEL DILIPKUMAR LILACHAND    M    31    Independent

17    PATEL MANORBHAI VIRAMDAS    M    68    Independent

18    PATEL RAMESHBHAI GOVINDBHAI    M    45    Independent

19    BRAHMKSHATRIYA NIRUPABEN NATVARLAL    F    35    Independent

20    BRAHMKSHATRIYA BHAGVATIBEN KHETSINH    F    55    Independent

21    RABARI BABUBHAI LALLUBHAI    M    56    Independent

22    RAJPUT JAGATSINH SAMANTSANG    M    29    Independent

23    RAVAL BHURABHAI MOTIBHAI    M    45    Independent

24    VAGHELA SHIVUBHA RAMSING    M    53    Independent

25    SUNSARA AAMINBHAI USMANBHAI    M    35    Independent

S06    9    GJ    SURENDRANAGAR    30-Apr-09    1    BHATIYA NARANBHAI KEHARBHAI    M    45    Independent

2    VAGHELA SATUBHA KANUBHA    M    75    Akhil Bharatiya Jan Sangh

3    BHARATBHAI RAMNIKLAL MAKWANA    M    43    Independent

4    KOLI PATEL SOMABHAI    M    68    Indian National Congress

5    DEVJIBHAI GOVINDBHAI FATEPARA    M    51    Indian National Congress

6    MER LALJIBHAI CHATURBHAI    M    53    Bharatiya Janata Party

7    SONI PRAKASHBHAI GOVINDBHAI    M    51    Bharatiya Janata Party

8    KORDIA ALTAFBHAI VALIBHAI    M    25    Independent

9    PATEL MOHANBHAI DAHYABHAI    M    56    Bahujan Samaj Party

10    TUNDIYA PREMJIBHAI VIRJIBHAI    M    53    Independent

11    NAYAKPRA HITSH BHAGVANGIBHAI    M    40    Independent

12    DABHI MOHANBHAI TULSHIBHAI    M    63    Independent

13    DERVALIA MEDHABHAI KALABHAI    M    51    Independent

14    PATEL KHEMABHAI ISHVARBHAI    M    43    Independent

15    RABA HARSURBHAI RAMBHAI    M    63    Independent

16    JADAV BHAGWANBHAI MATHURBHAI    M    56    Independent

17    UKABHAI AMARABHAI MAKWANA    M    40    Independent

18    JAGRUTIBEN BABULAL GADA (SHAH)    F    39    Mahagujarat Janta Party

19    PATADIYA KHIMJIBHAI HARAJIVANBHAI    M    52    Kranti Kari Jai Hind Sena

20    SOLANKI KARSHANBHAI JIVABHAI    M    38    Independent

21    PATEL ASHOKKUMAR CHIMANLAL    M    54    Independent

22    DHAVANIYA BACHUBHAI CHHAGANBHAI    M    58    Lokpriya Samaj Party

23    CHAVDA ASHOKBHAI KARSHANBHAI    M    33    Bahujan Samaj Party

24    SAVUKIYA LALJIBHAI MOHANLAL    M    50    Independent

25    MER MAVJIBHAI KUKABHAI    M    63    Independent

S06    10    GJ    RAJKOT    30-Apr-09    1    MULTANI SUBHANBHAI POPATBHAI    M    52    Independent

2    GOKALBHAI KHODABHAI PARMAR    M    53    Lokpriya Samaj Party

3    KIRANKUMAR VALJIBHAI BHALODIA    M    56    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    DHANSUKHBHAI CHUNIBHAI BHANDERI    M    46    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    DR. ZAKIRHUSEN MATHAKIYA    M    38    Samajwadi Party

6    ARVINDBHAI JADAVJIBHAI RATHOD    M    42    Independent

7    KUBAVAT BABUDAS CHHAGANDAS    M    63    Akhil Bharatiya Jan Sangh

8    PRAVINBHAI MEGHJIBHAI DENGADA    M    46    Independent

9    KUVARJIBHAI MOHANBHAI BAVALIA    M    54    Indian National Congress

10    JOSHI SUDHIRBHAI REVASHANKAR    M    67    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

11    JADEJA SATUBHA AMARSANG    M    41    National Secular Party

12    JADEJA NATUBHA AMARSANG    M    39    National Secular Party

13    DHEDHI DALEECHANDBHAI LIRABHAI    M    54    Bahujan Samaj Party

14    KHIMSURIYA BHANUBHAI RAMJIBHAI    M    47    Bahujan Samaj Party

15    NARENDRASINH TAPUBHA JADEJA    M    35    Rashtriya Krantikari Samajwadi Party

16    HIRABHAI GORDHANBHAI CHANGELA    M    58    Independent

17    HARSODA MAHESH HIRABHAI    M    25    Independent

18    BHIKHABHAI KURJIBHAI SADADIYA    M    57    Bahujan Samaj Party

19    GAR PRAKASH KHIMJIBHAI    M    40    Independent

20    DUDHATRA MUKUNDBHAI GOVINDBHAI    M    41    Independent

21    SAROLA GEETABEN MANJIBHAI    F    32    Independent

22    RABARI MOMAIYABHAI ALABHAI    M    60    Independent

23    AJITSINH HARISINH JADEJA    M    55    Independent

24    DR.RAJESHKUMAR SHANTIBHIA MANKADIA    M    35    Independent

25    RAJGURU INDRANIL SANJAYBHAI    M    43    Indian National Congress

26    NAYANBHI HASHMUKHBHAI UPADHYAY    M    42    Independent

27    KESHUBHAI DHANJIBHAI VEKARIYA    M    30    Independent

28    MATHAKIA USMAN HASAN    M    56    Independent

29    BABUBHAI DEVJIBHAI GHAVA    M    42    Lok Jan Shakti Party

30    PATADIA VINODBHAI KHODABHAI    M    45    Independent

31    CHAVDA LAKHMANBHAI DEVJIBHAI    M    49    Republican Party of India

32    VEKARIYA PRAGJIBHAI NATHUBHAI    M    60    Independent

33    BHIKHABHAI KURJIBHAI SADADIA    M    57    Independent

34    VEKARIA ALPESHBHAI KESHUBHAI    M    32    Mahagujarat Janta Party

35    JASVANTBHAI RANCHHODBHAI SABHAYA    M    38    Samajwadi Party

36    PIPALIA BHARATBHAI SAVJIBHAI    M    52    Mahagujarat Janta Party

37    GORI BHARTIBEN MAHENDRABHAI    F    26    Independent

S06    13    GJ    JUNAGADH    30-Apr-09    1    BARAD JASHUBHAI DHANABHAI    M    54    Indian National Congress

2    BHUVA KAMLESHBHAI LALJIBHAI    M    48    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    SOLANKI DINUBHAI BOGHABHAI    M    51    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    AKHED MAHESHBHAI VALLABHBHAI    M    48    Indian Justice Party

5    KUNJADIYA VALLABHBHAI RAMBHAI    M    46    Akhil Bharatiya Manav Seva Dal

6    CHANDULAL BHANUBHAI DHADUK    M    42    Mahagujarat Janta Party

7    DANGAR BRIJESH RAMBHAI    M    31    Rashtrawadi Sena

S06    15    GJ    BHAVNAGAR    30-Apr-09    1    GOHILMAHAVIRSINHBHAGIRATHSINH    M    52    Indian National Congress

2    VAGHANI PRAKSHBHAI ARJANBHAI    M    38    Indian National Congress

3    RANA RAJENDRASINH GHANSHYAMSINH    M    53    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    MANDAVIA MANSUKHBHAI LAXMANBHAI    M    42    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    BORICHA VALJIBHAI BAGHABHAI    M    51    Bahujan Samaj Party

6    REVAR MANSUKHBHAI KHODIDASBHAI    M    40    Bahujan Samaj Party

7    ZADAFIA GORDHANBHAI PRAGJIBHAI    M    54    Mahagujarat Janta Party

8    ZADAFIA GORDHANBHAI PRAGJIBHAI    M    54    Mahagujarat Janta Party

9    ZADAFIA GORDHANBHAI PRAGJIBHAI    M    54    Mahagujarat Janta Party

10    YADAV TULSHIBHAI RAMJIBHAI    M    67    Samajwadi Party

11    YADAV TULSHIBHAI RAMJIBHAI    M    67    Samajwadi Party

12    YADAV TULSHIBHAI RAMJIBHAI    M    67    Samajwadi Party

13    SAPARIA DINESHBHAI NANUBHAI    M    45    Lokpriya Samaj Party

14    SAPARIA DINESHBHAI NANUBHAI    M    45    Lokpriya Samaj Party

15    SAPARIA DINESHBHAI NANUBHAI    M    45    Lokpriya Samaj Party

16    PANDYA ATULBHAI HARSHADRAI    M    46    Bharatiya Natiional Janta Dal

17    PANDYA ATULBHAI HARSHADRAI    M    46    Bharatiya Natiional Janta Dal

18    PANDYA ATULBHAI HARSHADRAI    M    46    Bharatiya Natiional Janta Dal

19    GOHIL NANAJIBHAI MADHABHAI    M    38    Republican Party of India (A)

20    GOHIL NANAJIBHAI MADHABHAI    M    38    Republican Party of India (A)

21    CHAUHAN PREMJIBHAI SHAMJIBHAI    M    42    Akhil Bharatiya Congress Dal (Ambedkar)

22    MAKWANA HARINBHAI RAMNIKLAL    M    37    Independent

23    MAKWANA HARINBHAI RAMNIKLAL    M    37    Independent

24    MAKWANA HARINBHAI RAMNIKLAL    M    37    Independent

25    GOHIL KISHORSINH BALAVANTSINH    M    54    Independent

26    GOHIL KISHORSINH BALAVANTSINH    M    54    Independent

27    GOHIL KISHORSINH BALAVANTSINH    M    54    Independent

28    KATARIA ZINABHAI NAGAJIBHAI    M    49    Independent

29    KATARIA ZINABHAI NAGAJIBHAI    M    49    Independent

30    KATARIA ZINABHAI NAGAJIBHAI    M    49    Independent

31    PUNANI MUKESHBHI MAGANBHAI    M    43    Independent

32    PUNANI MUKESHBHI MAGANBHAI    M    43    Independent

33    PUNANI MUKESHBHI MAGANBHAI    M    43    Independent

34    CHAUHAN DHIRUBHAI KARSHANBHAI    M    39    Independent

35    CHAUHAN DHIRUBHAI KARSHANBHAI    M    39    Independent

36    CHAUHAN DHIRUBHAI KARSHANBHAI    M    39    Independent

37    SONANI NARESHBHAI NANAJIBHAI    M    36    Independent

38    SONANI NARESHBHAI NANAJIBHAI    M    36    Independent

39    SONANI NARESHBHAI NANAJIBHAI    M    36    Independent

40    CHUDASAMA MEPABHAI MAVJIBHAI    M    42    Independent

41    CHUDASAMA MEPABHAI MAVJIBHAI    M    42    Independent

42    CHUDASAMA MEPABHAI MAVJIBHAI    M    42    Independent

43    SOLANKI MAHAMADRAFIKBHAI IBRAHIMBHAI    M    50    Independent

44    SOLANKI MAHAMADRAFIKBHAI IBRAHIMBHAI    M    50    Independent

45    SOLANKI MAHAMADRAFIKBHAI IBRAHIMBHAI    M    50    Independent

46    DABHI DEVJIBHAI MEGHABHAI    M    29    Independent

47    DABHI DEVJIBHAI MEGHABHAI    M    29    Independent

48    DABHI DEVJIBHAI MEGHABHAI    M    29    Independent

49    PATEL KALPESHBHAI ASHOKBHAI    M    30    Independent

50    PATEL KALPESHBHAI ASHOKBHAI    M    30    Independent

51    PATEL KALPESHBHAI ASHOKBHAI    M    30    Independent

S06    18    GJ    PANCHMAHAL    30-Apr-09    1    MANSURI MUKHTYAR MOHAMAD    M    49    Akhil Bharatiya Manav Seva Dal

2    VAGHELA SHANKERSINH LAXMANSINH    M    68    Indian National Congress

3    PATEL PROSOTTAMBHAI MANGALBHAI    M    53    Indian National Congress

4    BAROT PRAKASHKUMAR MANEKLAL    M    53    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    CHAUHAN PRABHATSINH PRATAPSINH    M    67    Bharatiya Janata Party

6    MALIVAD KALUBHAI HIRABHAI    M    58    Bharatiya Janata Party

7    SHAIKH KALIM A.LATIF    M    42    Lok Jan Shakti Party

8    SHUKLA ARVINDKUMAR JYANTILAL    M    66    Bahujan Samaj Party

9    BHABHOR RASILABEN SAMSUBHAI    F    26    Indian Justice Party

S06    19    GJ    DAHOD    30-Apr-09    1    KATARA SINGJIBHAI JALJIBHAI    M    62    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

2    KALARA RAMSINGBHAI NANJIBHAI    M    37    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    DAMOR SOMJIBHAI PUNJABHAI    M    70    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    TAVIYAD DR. PRABHABEN KISHORSINH    F    54    Indian National Congress

5    MEDA KALSINGBHAI TAJSINHBHAI    M    57    Nationalist Congress Party

6    PARMAR DINESHBHAI NAGJIBHAI    M    28    Indian Justice Party

7    BARIYA NAVALSINGBHAI MADIABHAI    M    39    Mahagujarat Janta Party

8    MUNIA KAMALSINH CHHAGANBHAI    M    61    Samajwadi Party

S06    20    GJ    VADODARA    30-Apr-09    1    GAEKWAD SATYAJITSINH DULIPSINH    M    46    Indian National Congress

2    PUROHIT VINAYKUMAR RAMANBHAI    M    36    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    BALKRISHNA KHANDERAO SHUKLA    M    45    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    GIRISHBHAI MADHAVLAL BHAVSAR    M    42    Independent

5    THAVARDAS AMULRAI CHOITHANI    M    63    Independent

6    DASGUPTA TAPANBHAI SHANTIMAY    M    45    Independent

7    PARMAR BHARTIBEN KISHORCHANDRA    F    36    Independent

8    MALEK MAHEBUBBHAI RAHIMBHAI    M    42    Independent

9    VASAVA HARILAL SHANABHAI    M    46    Independent

S06    21    GJ    CHHOTA UDAIPUR    30-Apr-09    1    RATHWA RAMSINGBHAI PATALBHAI    M    57    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    RATHWA NARANBHAI JEMLABHAI    M    55    Indian National Congress

3    BHIL PRAKASHBHAI SOMABHAI    M    36    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    RATHWA SATISHBHAI RAMANBHAI    M    32    Janata Dal (United)

5    VASAVA(BHIL) VITTHALBHAI VENIBHAI    M    63    Independent

S06    22    GJ    BHARUCH    30-Apr-09    1    PATEL MEHRUNNISHA VALLIBHAI    F    40    Lok Jan Shakti Party

2    PATHAN JAHANGIRKHA AHEMADKHA    M    69    Indian National Congress

3    PATHAN JAHANGIRKHA AHEMADKHA    M    69    Indian National Congress

4    MANSUKHBHAI DHANJIBHAI VASAVA    M    52    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    UGHARATDAR UMARJI AHMED    M    64    Indian National Congress

6    UGHARATDAR UMARJI AHMED    M    64    Indian National Congress

7    UGHARATDAR UMARJI AHMED    M    64    Indian National Congress

8    UGHARATDAR UMARJI AHMED    M    64    Indian National Congress

9    MANSUKHBHAI DHANJIBHAI VASAVA    M    52    Bharatiya Janata Party

10    MANSUKHBHAI DHANJIBHAI VASAVA    M    52    Bharatiya Janata Party

11    MORI CHHATRASINH PUJABHAI    M    53    Bharatiya Janata Party

12    MORI CHHATRASINH PUJABHAI    M    53    Bharatiya Janata Party

13    MORI CHHATRASINH PUJABHAI    M    53    Bharatiya Janata Party

14    VASAVA SURESHBHAI GORDHANBHAI    M    40    Akhil Bharatiya Jan Sangh

15    VASAVA DILIPKUMAR GULSINGBHAI    M    32    Independent

16    PANDEY SANATKUMAR RAJARAMBHAI    M    32    Bahujan Samaj Party

17    BASHIRBHAI MAHAMEDBHAI FOJDAR    M    44    Independent

18    VASAVA CHHOTUBHAI AMARSINHBHAI    M    62    Janata Dal (United)

19    BHAGAT ANILKUMAR CHHITUBHAI    M    44    Janata Dal (United)

20    LAD MAHIPATBHAI MAGANBHAI    M    52    Independent

21    PATEL THAKORBHAI CHANDULAL    M    58    Independent

22    HEMANTKUMAR JERAMBHAI GOHIL    M    31    Independent

23    MANGROLA KANAKSINH MOHANSINH    M    58    Samajwadi Party

24    MANGROLA VIKRAMSINH KANAKSINH    M    28    Samajwadi Party

25    PATEL NARESHKUMAR BHAGVANBHAI    M    48    Mahagujarat Janta Party

26    PATEL NARESHKUMAR BHAGVANBHAI    M    48    Mahagujarat Janta Party

27    NARENDRASINH RANDHIRSINH VASHI    M    37    Loktantrik Samajwadi Party

28    PARMAR BALVANTSINH VIJAYSINH    M    53    Nationalist Congress Party

29    PATHAN NISHARKHAN ZAHIRKHAN    M    38    Independent

30    LAKDAWALA SHAKIL AHMED    M    43    Independent

31    PATEL USMANBHAI GULAMBHAI    M    26    Independent

S06    25    GJ    NAVSARI    30-Apr-09    1    NAIK YOGESHKUMAR THAKORBHAI    M    54    Nationalist Congress Party

2    C. R. PATIL    M    54    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    RAJPUT DHANSUKHABHAI BHAGVATIPRASAD    M    51    Indian National Congress

4    SHAILESHBHAI BISHESWAR SHRIVASTAV    M    37    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    AMULKUMAR DHIRUBHAI DESAI    M    46    Akhil Bharatiya Jan Sangh

6    AAZADKUMAR CHATURBHAI PATEL    M    33    Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Party

7    YADAV GANGAPRASAD LALANBHAI    M    55    Mahagujarat Janta Party

8    KANUBHAI DEVJIBHAI SUKHADIA    M    47    Independent

9    JASHAVANTBHAI DALPATBHAI PANCHAL    M    48    Independent

10    TARUNBHAI CHAMPAKBHAI PATEL    M    39    Independent

11    PATEL PRAVINCHANDRA MANILAL    M    52    Independent

12    PRAKASH MANHAR SHAH    M    45    Independent

13    PRAVINBHAI RANGILDAS KAPASIYAWALA    M    71    Independent

14    YADAV RAJENDRAKUMAR RAMRAJ    M    35    Independent

15    RATHOD GOVINDBHAI LAXMANBHAI    M    52    Independent

16    VARANKAR KAMALBEN KASHIRAM    F    50    Independent

17    SHATRUDHANDAS OMKARDAS SUGAT (BAIRAGI)    M    78    Independent

18    SATYAJIT JAYANTILAL SHETH    M    41    Independent

S06    26    GJ    VALSAD    30-Apr-09    1    DHIRUBHAI CHHAGANBHAI PATEL    M    53    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    NARESHBHAI MAGANBHAI PATEL    M    41    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    LAXMANBHAI CHHAGANBHAI VARLI    M    51    Independent

4    BHOYE NAYNESHBHAI MADHUBHAI    M    31    Samajwadi Party

5    GAVLI CHHAGANBHAI PILUBHAI    M    43    Bahujan Samaj Party

6    PATEL PANKAJKUMAR PRABHUBHAI    M    40    Aadivasi Sena Party

7    KISHANBHAI VESTABHAI PATEL    M    46    Indian National Congress

8    JEETUBHAI HARJIBHAI CHAUDHARI    M    45    Indian National Congress

9    RAMBHAI KOYABHAI PATEL    M    59    Independent

S10    3    KA    BAGALKOT    30-Apr-09    1    SHANKAR TELI    M    33    Independent

2    MANOHAR H.AYYANNAVAR    M    51    Independent

3    MALAKAJAPPANAVAR BASAYYA    M    49    Janata Dal (Secular)

4    KALLAPPA REVANASIDDAPPA KADECHUR    M    43    Independent

5    JAGADISH TIMMANAGOUDA PATIL    M    59    Indian National Congress

6    BASAVARAJ KALAKAPPA PUJAR    M    42    Nationalist Congress Party

7    HULLANAGOUDA CHANDANAGOUDA PATIL    M    70    Independent

8    GADDIGOUDAR PARVATGOUDA    M    56    Bharatiya Janata Party

9    PATIL JAGADISH    M    59    Indian National Congress

10    DANAPPA MALLAPPA ASANGI    M    38    Independent

11    CHINCHOLI SANTOSHKUMAR SAHEBGOUDA    M    25    Independent

12    GADADANNAVAR RAMANNA BHIMAPPA    M    47    Karnataka Rajya Ryota Sangha

13    CHANDRASHEKHAR HANAMANT BANDIWADDAR    M    29    Akhil Bharatiya Manav Seva Dal

14    PARASHURAM JALAGAR    M    48    Pyramid Party of India

15    PARASHURAM JALAGAR    M    48    Janata Dal (Secular)

16    KRISHNAGOUDA RANGANAGOUDA PATIL    M    56    Independent

17    R. RAMESH BABU    M    38    Janata Dal (Secular)

18    R.RAMESH BABU    M    38    Janata Dal (Secular)

19    BADASHA RAJESAB MUJAWAR    M    40    Independent

20    KRISHNAGOUDA RANGANAGOUDA PATIL    M    56    Independent

21    PATIL VIJAYKUMAR    M    46    Janata Dal (Secular)

22    PANDIT BODALI    M    33    Independent

23    GADADANNAVAR RAMANNA BHIMAPPA    M    47    Independent

24    GADADANNAVAR RAMANNA BHIMAPPA    M    47    Independent

25    R.RAMESH BABU    M    38    Independent

26    R.RAMESH BABU    M    38    Independent

27    RENUKARADHYA HIREMATH    M    29    Independent

28    SANNAGOUDAR GURURAJ SATYAPPAGOUDA    M    27    Independent

29    PAKALI FAROOQ    M    33    Bahujan Samaj Party

30    SINDHUR GURUBASAVARYA    M    48    Janata Dal (Secular)

31    NAZIR DUNDASI    M    31    Independent

32    SANGMESH .G. BHAVIKATTI    M    29    Independent

S10    10    KA    HAVERI    30-Apr-09    1    RAMACHANDRAPPA GUDDAPPA BILLAL    M    59    Independent

2    CHANDRAGOUDA HANUMANTA GOUDA PATIL    M    29    Independent

3    FAKKIRESH SHAMBHU BIJAPUR    M    39    Independent

4    SHIVAKUMAR CHANNABASAPPA UDASI    M    42    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    BASAVARAJ SHANKRAPPA DESAI    M    38    Independent

6    JAGADEESH YANKAPPA DODDAMANI    M    35    Independent

7    RAJESAB RAHAMANSAB SIDNEKOPPA    M    65    Independent

8    PRABHU K PATIL    M    31    Janata Dal (United)

9    JAVALI ASHOKAPPA MALLAPPA    M    43    Nationalist Congress Party

10    RAMACHANDRASA SAHASRARJUNSA HABIB    M    26    Independent

11    IGAL DILLPPA KARIYAPPA    M    52    Bahujan Samaj Party

12    KRISHNAJI RAGHAVENDRARAO OMKAR    M    32    Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha

13    MULLANAVAR ABDULRAJAK MODINSAB    M    49    Bahujan Samaj Party

14    MEHABUB KUTUBSAB NADAF    M    47    Independent

15    SALEEM AHAMAD    M    45    Indian National Congress

16    PATIL SHIVAKUMARGOUDA    M    42    Janata Dal (Secular)

17    MANJUNATH KALAVEERAPPA PANCHANAN    M    38    Independent

18    DESAI MALLIKARJUN BASAPPA    M    61    Independent

19    SALEEM AKBAR NAIK    M    30    Independent

20    DAYANAND RAMACHANDRA RATHOD    M    35    Independent

21    ALLABAX TIMMAPUR    M    34    Independent

22    BADIGER KOTESHWAR    M    28    Independent

23    VASTRAD VEERBHADRAYYA KALAKAYYA    M    47    Bharatiya Janata Party

S10    11    KA    DHARWAD    30-Apr-09    1    PRALHAD JOSHI    M    46    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    CHANNABASAPPA.S.KUSUGAL    M    48    Independent

3    RAJANNA.P.KADDLYANAVARAMATH    M    36    Independent

4    KUNNUR MANJUNATH CHANNAPPA    M    55    Indian National Congress

5    BAGWAN NASIR PAPULSAB    M    51    Janata Dal (Secular)

6    RAMACHANDRA KALINGAPPA MAHAR    M    59    Independent

7    TALAKALLAMATH MAHESH GURUPADAYYA    M    52    Nationalist Congress Party

8    ASHOK BADDI    M    38    Independent

9    KURUBAR BEERAPPA    M    38    Independent

10    BABUSAB KASHEEMNAVAR    M    61    Janata Dal (Secular)

11    PATIL GURUPADAGOUDA    M    62    Independent

12    JANUMALA BASKAR    M    39    Independent

13    BASANGOUDA HANSI    M    63    Independent

14    PANCH MAHALDAR    M    38    Independent

15    NIRJAN HANMANTSA    M    40    Janata Dal (United)

16    SHANKRAPPA YADAVANNAVAR    M    50    Independent

17    SONDUR RAGHAVENDRA SRINIVAS    M    46    Janata Dal (Secular)

18    ALLISAB SANDIMANI    M    30    Independent

19    KILLADAR ALLABAKSH    M    52    Nationalist Congress Party

20    TAKAPPA KALAL    M    59    Independent

21    MULLA KASHIMASAB    M    57    Bahujan Samaj Party

22    PREMANATH KASHAPPA CHIKKTUMBAL    M    31    Bahujan Samaj Party

23    MARUTI RAMAPPA HANASI    M    40    Independent

24    DADAPEER KOPPAL    M    50    Ambedkar National Congress

25    KALLIMANI IBRAHIM    M    32    Independent

26    IMAMHUSEN KUNDAGOL    M    46    Independent

27    GADAGKAR MOHAMMAD YOOSUF    M    56    Muslim League Kerala State Committee

28    SHANKRAPPA JINNAKAR    M    63    Independent

29    HULLI MOHAMMEDALI    M    67    Independent

30    JAMIRAHMEDKHAN    M    27    Independent

31    MOHAMMED ISMAIL BHADRAPUR    M    28    Independent

32    BIJAPUR JALALSAHEB    M    78    Independent

33    BALANNAVAR BASAVARAJ    M    30    Independent

34    KASHEEMNAVAR BABUSAB    M    61    Independent

35    PATIL GURUPADAGOUDA    M    62    Janata Dal (Secular)

S10    13    KA    DAVANAGERE    30-Apr-09    1    RAMESH HULI    M    35    Independent

2    MUJEEB PATEL M.H.K.    M    25    Independent

3    DR. SRIDHARA UDUPA    M    56    Independent

4    SUBHAN KHAN    M    45    Independent

5    SIDDESWARA G.M.    M    56    Bharatiya Janata Party

6    DR.RAJU C.    M    44    Independent

7    MALLIKARJUN S.S.    M    42    Indian National Congress

8    IDLI RAMAPPA    M    46    Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)

9    NAGARAJA    M    30    Independent

10    H K KENCHVEERAPPA    M    65    Independent

11    L.H. PATIL    M    41    Independent

12    RAJASHEKHARAYYA B.    M    62    Independent

13    DR. HIDAYATHUR RAHMAN KHAN    M    36    Bahujan Samaj Party

14    NINGAPPA A.    M    77    Independent

15    MALLIKARJUN L.S.    M    39    Independent

16    AMANULLA KHAN J.    M    35    Independent

17    JAYANNA ITAGI    M    38    Independent

18    ALUR M.G. SWAMY    M    62    Independent

19    SATHISH B.M    M    45    Independent

20    INAYAT ALI KHAN    M    31    Independent

21    YOGESHWARA RAO SINDHE    M    42    Independent

22    RAJASHEKAR    M    44    Independent

23    HANUMANTHAPPA    M    32    Independent

24    MANJUNATH K.    M    43    Independent

25    MAHESH Y.    M    40    Independent

26    EHSANULLA PATEL H.M.    M    53    Independent

27    SUDESH G.M.    M    31    Akhila India Jananayaka Makkal Katchi (Dr. Issac)

28    CHANDRASHEKARAPPA S.    M    59    Independent

29    VEERESH T.    M    35    Independent

30    SIDDESHI G.    M    42    Independent

31    MARUTHI H.    M    51    Independent

32    GNANA PRAKASH B.    M    30    Independent

33    ESWARAPPA H.    M    30    Independent

34    NAGARAJAPPA    M    46    Independent

35    KALLERUDRESHAPPA K.B.    M    49    Janata Dal (Secular)

S10    14    KA    SHIMOGA    30-Apr-09    1    UMESHKUMAR S    M    38    Janata Dal (United)

2    N DINESH KUMAR    M    40    Independent

3    M.P. SRIDHAR. BYNDOOR    M    44    Independent

4    AKHIL AHMED    M    45    Independent

5    H.S. SHEKARAPPA    M    47    Independent

6    J. JAYAPPA    M    40    Bahujan Samaj Party

7    S. BANGARAPPA    M    76    Indian National Congress

8    D.S. ESHWARAPPA    M    41    Independent

9    T. CHAKRAVARTI NAYAKA    M    70    Rashtriya Krantikari Samajwadi Party

10    MAINUDDIN.M.S    M    35    Independent

11    C. MURUGAN    M    29    Akhila India Jananayaka Makkal Katchi (Dr. Issac)

12    B,Y. RAGHAVENDRA    M    36    Bharatiya Janata Party

13    Y.H. NAGARAJA    M    51    Independent

14    MANJAPPA. S.    M    58    Independent

15    RANGANATHA T.L.    M    50    Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha

16    H.G. LOKESHA    M    47    Independent

17    V. SHAIK MEHABOOB    M    43    Independent

S10    15    KA    UDUPI CHIKMAGALUR    30-Apr-09    1    GANAPATHI SHETTIGARA    M    58    Independent

2    SRINIVASA    M    51    Independent

3    DENIAL FEDRIK RANGER    M    35    Independent

4    JAYAPRAKASH HEGDE    M    57    Indian National Congress

5    JAYAPRAKASH HEGDE    M    57    Indian National Congress

6    JAYAPRAKASH HEGDE    M    57    Indian National Congress

7    JAYAPRAKASH HEGDE    M    57    Indian National Congress

8    SMT. RADHA    F    49    Communist Party of India

9    SMT. RADHA    F    49    Communist Party of India

10    SMT. RADHA    F    49    Communist Party of India

11    DR. SRIDHAR UDUPA    M    56    Independent

12    UMESH KUMARA    M    38    Independent

13    B.VINAYAK MALLYA    M    26    Independent

14    STEVEN JOHN MENEZES    M    43    Bahujan Samaj Party

15    STEVEN JOHN MENEZES    M    43    Bahujan Samaj Party

16    ABDUL RASHEED    M    40    Independent

17    ABDUL RASHEED    M    40    Independent

18    VENKATRAMANA HEGADE.B    M    39    Jai Vijaya Bharathi Party

19    D.V.SADANANDA GOWDA    M    56    Bharatiya Janata Party

20    D.V.SADANANDA GOWDA    M    56    Bharatiya Janata Party

21    D.V.SADANANDA GOWDA    M    56    Bharatiya Janata Party

22    D.V.SADANANDA GOWDA    M    56    Bharatiya Janata Party

S10    16    KA    HASSAN    30-Apr-09    1    KOVI BABANNA    M    47    Rashtriya Krantikari Samajwadi Party

2    B. C. VIJAYAKUMAR    M    43    Independent

3    A. P. AHAMED    M    66    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    B. SHIVRAMU    M    58    Indian National Congress

5    K. H. HANUME GOWDA    M    78    Bharatiya Janata Party

6    S. HARISH(S. C. S)    M    37    Independent

7    AIJAZ AHAMED FAROOQI    M    52    Republican Party of India (A)

8    H. D. DEVEGOWDA    M    76    Janata Dal (Secular)

9    KODIHALLI CHANDRASHEKAR    M    51    Sarvodaya Karnataka Paksha

10    M. MAHESH URF HARSHA    M    38    Independent

11    K. SHANMUKHA    M    42    Independent

12    RAJANI NARAYANAGOWDA    M    34    Independent

13    K. REVANNA    M    34    Independent

14    G. P. SANTHOSH GUPTHA    M    28    Independent

15    B. LOHITHGOWDA KUNDURU    M    30    Bharatiya Janata Party

16    BOMMEGOWDA    M    62    Independent

17    T. R. VIJAYA KUMAR    M    33    Independent

18    DEVARAJ. P. B    M    26    Independent

19    DYAVEGOWDA    M    53    Independent

S10    17    KA    DAKSHINA KANNADA    30-Apr-09    1    SUPREETHA KUMAR POOJARY    M    31    Independent

2    JANARDHANA POOJARY    M    71    Indian National Congress

3    VASUDEVA M P    M    49    Independent

4    DR.THIRUMALA RAYA HALEMANE    M    55    Independent

5    G.MOHAMMED    M    48    Independent

6    K RAMA BHAT URIMAJALU    M    78    Independent

7    ABDUL RAZAK    M    50    Independent

8    MADHAVA B    M    71    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

9    MOHAMMED SALI    M    40    Independent

10    GIRISH A RAI    M    47    Bahujan Samaj Party

11    NALIN KUMAR KATEEL    M    42    Bharatiya Janata Party

12    K MONAPPA BHANDARY    M    57    Bharatiya Janata Party

13    C AHAMMAD JAMAL    M    54    Muslim League Kerala State Committee

14    ANANDA GATTY    M    59    Independent

15    SUBRAHMANYA KUMAR KUNTIKANA MATA    M    36    Independent

16    DR.U.P.SHIVANANDA    M    59    Independent

S10    20    KA    MANDYA    30-Apr-09    1    SHAMBHULINGEGOWDA    M    48    Independent

2    KOWDLEY CHANNAPPA    M    60    Janata Dal (United)

3    K S NANJAPPA    M    56    Independent

4    K S PUTTANNAIAH    M    60    Sarvodaya Party

5    N NANJUNDAIAH    M    57    Independent

6    S B SHIVALINGEGOWDA    M    62    Indian National Congress

7    SUMANTH    M    60    Independent

8    M KRISHNAMURTHY    M    35    Bahujan Samaj Party

9    VENKTESH R    M    37    Independent

10    T S ASHRAF    M    33    Independent

11    SHIVARAMU    M    41    Independent

12    L R SHIVARAMEGOWDA    M    53    Bharatiya Janata Party

13    SHAKUNTHALA    F    29    Independent

14    H S RAMANNA    M    45    Independent

15    H R CHANDRASHEKHARAIAH    M    43    Independent

16    BALASUBRAMANIAN    M    38    Independent

17    CHELUVARAYA SWAMY    M    49    Janata Dal (Secular)

18    M H AMARANATH @ AMBAREESH    M    57    Indian National Congress

19    CHANDRASHEKHARAIAH    M    46    Independent

20    N J RAJESH    M    35    Independent

21    KEMPEGOWDA    M    36    Independent

22    BOREGOWDA    M    57    Independent

23    M P MUNAVAR SHARIF    M    50    Independent

24    H V MADEGOWDA    M    47    Independent

25    K SHIVANAND    M    45    Independent

26    K KEMPEGOWDA    M    47    Independent

27    JHONSON CHINNAPPAN    M    32    Independent

S10    21    KA    MYSORE    30-Apr-09    1    C.H.VIJAYASHANKAR    M    53    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    SRINATH-PATHRIKE    M    39    Independent

3    M.BASAVANNA    M    30    Independent

4    S.P.MAHADEVAPPA    M    59    Independent

5    SYED NIZAM ALI    M    51    Bahujan Samaj Party

6    P.KARIGOWDA    M    63    Independent

7    P.PARASHIVAMURTHY    M    41    Rashtriya Krantikari Samajwadi Party

8    ADAGURU H VISHWANATH    M    59    Indian National Congress

9    M.ANWARJI    M    62    Independent

10    ARHSADULLA SHARIFF    M    40    Bharatiya Praja Paksha

11    M.V.SANTHOSHKUMAR    M    27    Independent

12    M.S.BALAJI    M    51    Ambedkar National Congress

13    SANTHOSH KUMAR.P    M    35    Akhila India Jananayaka Makkal Katchi (Dr. Issac)

14    S.P.GEETHA    F    36    United Women Front

15    RAJU    M    54    Independent

16    B.A.JIVIJAYA    F    71    Janata Dal (Secular)

17    M.LEELAVATHI    F    51    Independent

18    RAFEEQ    M    27    Independent

19    E.RAJU    M    42    Independent

20    M.NAGENDRA    M    42    Independent

21    DR.E.KESHAMMA    F    32    Rashtriya Dehat Morcha Party

22    K.P.CHIDANANDA    M    48    Janata Dal (United)

23    B.D.LINGAPPARAI    M    52    Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha

S24    33    UP    UNNAO    30-Apr-09    1    SHIVSHANKERKUSHWAHA    M    46    Akhil Bharatiya Ashok Sena

2    RAMESHKUMARSINGH    M    60    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    ANNUTANDON    F    51    Indian National Congress

4    DEEPAKKUMAR    M    40    Samajwadi Party

5    SUNILKUMAR    M    35    Independent

6    RASHIDQAMAR    M    28    Muslim League Kerala State Committee

7    BASUDEVVISHARAD    M    65    Vikas Party

8    ABHICHHEDILALYADAV    M    47    Rashtriya Samajwadi Party (United)

9    RAMASHREY    M    36    Independent

10    RAJKISHORESINGH    M    36    Rashtravadi Communist Party

11    LALA    M    40    Independent

12    UMESHCHANDRA    M    25    Apna Dal

13    RAJUKASHYAP    M    40    Vanchit Jamat Party

14    RAMAOTAR    M    63    Buddhiviveki Vikas Party

15    KRISHNAPALSINGHVAIS    M    62    Independent

16    CHANDRASHEKHARTIWARI    M    43    Independent

17    ARUNSHANKARSHUKLA    M    52    Bahujan Samaj Party

18    ASHOKKUMAR    M    39    Independent

19    CHHEDILAL    M    42    Republican Party of India (A)

20    RAMSEVAK    M    44    Ambedkar Samaj Party

21    UDAISHANKERTIWARI    M    64    Independent

22    JAVEDRAZA    M    39    Janata Dal (United)

23    KAILASHNATHMISHRA    M    66    Independent

24    DRCOLPRATAPSHANKARTIWARI    M    65    Rashtriya Raksha Dal

S24    34    UP    MOHANLALGANJ    30-Apr-09    1    R.K.CHAUDHARY    M    50    Rashtriya Swabhimaan Party

2    ASHA DEVI    F    38    Bharatiya Grameen Dal

3    JAI PRAKASH    M    50    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    SUSHILA SAROJ    F    58    Samajwadi Party

5    JAIPAL PATHIK    M    50    Rashtravadi Communist Party

6    NARENDRA KUMAR    M    38    Indian National Congress

7    DINESH KUMAR    M    38    Independent

8    SATTIDEEN    M    53    Uttar Pradesh Republican Party

9    RANJAN    M    38    Bharatiya Janata Party

10    RAM DHAN    M    42    Independent

11    RAJU SONKAR    M    46    Independent

12    AMRESH KUMAR    M    27    Rashtravadi Communist Party

13    SATISH SONKAR    M    40    Dharam Nirpeksh Dal

14    BINDU DEVI    F    33    Rashtriya Dehat Morcha Party

15    SARJU    M    52    Independent

S24    35    UP    LUCKNOW    30-Apr-09    1    RAVI SHANKAR    M    28    Bharat Punarnirman Dal

2    SUKHVEER SINGH    M    41    Independent

3    DR. AKHILESHWAR SAHAI    M    39    Independent

4    RAVI    M    32    Vikas Party

5    AMIT PANDEY    M    33    Independent

6    RAJESH KUMAR    M    25    Independent

7    PADAM CHANDRA GUPTA    M    35    Independent

8    DR. AKHILESH DAS GUPTA    M    48    Bahujan Samaj Party

9    SEHNAAZ SIDRAT    F    48    Independent

10    NAND KUMAR    M    44    Bharatiya Grameen Dal

11    DASHARATH    M    36    Rashtriya Mazdoor Ekta Party

12    MOHD. IRSHAD    M    40    Navbharat Nirman Party

13    A. HAROON ALI    M    48    Independent

14    LAL JI TANDON    M    73    Bharatiya Janata Party

15    ANUPAM MISHRA    M    37    Swarajya Party Of India

16    ZUBAIR AHMAD    M    32    Independent

17    PRAVEEN KUMAR MISHRA    M    32    Eklavya Samaj Party

18    RISAV KUMAR SHARMA    M    28    Maulik Adhikar Party

19    BAL MUKUND TIWARI    M    26    Independent

20    S.MD.AHAMAD    M    59    Independent

21    HARJEET SINGH    M    48    Independent

22    CHANDRA BHUSHAN PANDEY    M    60    Independent

23    S.R.DARAPURI    M    65    Independent

24    RADHEYSHYAM    M    37    Independent

25    NAFISA ALI SODHI    F    52    Samajwadi Party

26    DR.KHAN MOHMAD ATIF    M    64    Muslim Majlis Uttar Pradesh

27    AMBIKA PRASAD    M    49    Independent

28    MANOJ SINGH    M    37    Independent

29    VINAY PRAKASH    M    36    Independent

30    RAJESH KUMAR PANDEY    M    40    All India Trinamool Congress

31    RAJESH KUMAR NAITHANI    M    35    Independent

32    CHATURI PRASAD    M    56    Independent

33    MURLI PRASAD    M    56    Rashtriya Kranti Party

34    ASHOK KUMAR PAL    M    31    Rashtriya Swabhimaan Party

35    SITARAM    M    38    Uttar Pradesh Republican Party

36    NITIN DWIWEDI    M    25    Independent

37    MUSTAQ KHAN    M    38    Indian Justice Party

38    RAM KUMAR SHUKLA    M    62    Independent

39    SMT. JUGUNU RANJAN    F    47    Jaganmay Nari Sangathan

40    LT.COL.(RETD.) KUSH PRASAD MATHUR    M    55    Rashtriya Raksha Dal

41    RITA BAHUGUNA JOSHI    F    59    Indian National Congress

42    RAJIV RANJAN TIWARI    M    29    Independent

43    SUMAN LATA DIXIT    F    53    Independent

44    DHEERAJ    M    37    Independent

45    AMRESH MISHRA    M    43    Independent

46    DEVENDRA    M    25    Rashtriya Dehat Morcha Party

47    KEDAR MAL AGRAWAL    M    55    Independent

48    AMAR SINGH YADAV    M    53    Independent

49    SAYED MOH. LADEL    M    45    Independent

50    KAMAL CHANDRA    M    39    Gondvana Gantantra Party

51    SHARAD KUMAR CHAUDHARY    M    35    Bharatiya Rashtriya Bahujan Samaj Vikas Party

52    GIRISH CHANDRA    M    62    Independent

53    C.A. RAJESH RASTOGI    M    52    Independent

54    K.C. KARDAM    M    65    Independent

55    CHAMAN BIHARI TANDON    M    66    Independent

56    LADDAN    M    49    Independent

S24    53    UP    BARABANKI    30-Apr-09    1    KAMALA PRASAD RAWAT    M    47    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    P.L.PUNIA    M    64    Indian National Congress

3    RAM NARESH RAWAT    M    44    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    RAM SAGAR    M    62    Samajwadi Party

5    VED PRAKASH RAWAT    M    29    Bahujan Samaj Party

6    JEEVAN    M    26    Janvadi Party(Socialist)

7    DESHRAJ    M    49    Bharatiya Subhash Sena

8    BABADEEN    M    49    Bharatiya Republican Paksha

9    BHAGAUTI    M    54    Apna Dal

10    SANTRAM    M    40    Navbharat Nirman Party

11    KAMLESH KUMAR    M    38    Independent

12    GAYA PRASAD    M    50    Independent

13    DEPENDRA KUMAR RAWAT    M    25    Independent

14    PREM CHANDRA ARYA    M    33    Independent

15    RAM AUTAR    M    39    Independent

16    LAJJAWATI KANCHAN    F    43    Independent

17    VISHRAM DAS    M    67    Independent

S25    1    WB    COOCH BEHAR    30-Apr-09    1    ARGHYA ROY PRODHAN    M    37    All India Trinamool Congress

2    KRISHNA KANTA BARMAN    M    29    Party for Democratic Socialism

3    NIRANJAN BARMAN    M    42    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    NRIPENDRA NATH ROY    M    49    All India Forward Bloc

5    HITENDRA DAS    M    54    Independent

6    HAREKRISHNA SARKAR    M    37    Republican Party of India

7    BANGSHI BADAN BARMAN    M    41    Independent

8    BHABENDRA NATH BARMAN    M    61    Bharatiya Janata Party

9    DALENDRA ROY    M    50    Amra Bangalee

10    NUBASH BARMAN    M    46    Independent

S25    2    WB    ALIPURDUARS    30-Apr-09    1    MANOHAR TIRKEY    M    54    Revolutionary Socialist Party

2    ELIAS NARJINARY    M    56    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    BILKAN BARA    M    62    Samajwadi Jan Parishad

4    JOUCHIM BAXLA    M    55    Independent

5    DWIPEN ORAON    M    30    Kamtapur Progressive Party

6    KAMAL LAMA    M    49    Independent

7    THADDEVS LAKRA    M    60    Independent

8    PABAN KUMAR LAKRA    M    56    All India Trinamool Congress

9    MANOJ TIGGA    M    36    Bharatiya Janata Party

10    PAUL DEXION KHARIYA    M    55    Independent

S25    3    WB    JALPAIGURI    30-Apr-09    1    MAHENDRA KUMAR ROY    M    54    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

2    PRITHWIRAJ ROY    M    36    Independent

3    SHANTI KUMAR SARKAR    M    50    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    HARIBHAKTA SARDAR    M    54    Independent

5    SATYEN PRASAD ROY    M    46    Independent

6    SUKHBILAS BARMA    M    64    Indian National Congress

7    PABITRA MOITRA    M    58    Amra Bangalee

8    DR. DHIRENDRA NATH DAS    M    47    Nationalist Congress Party

9    SRI CHINMAY SARKAR    M    30    Independent

10    SRI MUNDRIKA RAM    M    51    Rashtriya Dehat Morcha Party

11    SRI DWIPENDRA NATH PRAMANIK    M    37    Bharatiya Janata Party

S25    4    WB    DARJEELING    30-Apr-09    1    JASWANT SINGH    M    70    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    JIBESH SARKAR    M    55    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

3    DAWA NARBULA    M    73    Indian National Congress

4    SHANTA KUMAR SINGHA    M    40    Nationalist Congress Party

5    HARIDAS THAKUR    M    62    Bahujan Samaj Party

6    ABHIJIT MAJUMDAR    M    48    Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)

7    TRILOK KUMAR DEWAN    M    63    Independent

8    NIRANJAN SAHA    M    50    Amra Bangalee

9    BAIDYANATH ROY    M    55    Indian Peoples Forward Block

10    ARUN KUMAR AGARWAL    M    48    Independent

11    NITU JAI    M    35    Independent

12    RAM GANESH BARAIK    M    44    Independent

13    HELARIUS EKKA    M    50    Independent

S25    5    WB    RAIGANJ    30-Apr-09    1    ANIL BISWAS    M    49    Independent

2    GOPESH CH. SARKAR    M    66    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    SULEMAN HAFIJI    M    51    Communist Party of India(Marxist-Leninist)(Liberation)

4    MANAS JANA    M    36    Independent

5    UPENDRA NATH DAS    M    47    Independent

6    AKHIL RANJAN MONDAL    M    62    Bahujan Samaj Party

7    BIRESWAR LAHIRI    M    61    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

8    NACHHIR ALI PRAMANIK    M    64    Independent

9    ABDUL KARIM CHOUDHURY    M    62    Independent

10    DEEPA DASMUNSHI    F    48    Indian National Congress

11    MATIUR RAHMAN    M    49    Janata Dal (United)

12    FAIZ RAHAMAN    M    45    Rashtriya Dehat Morcha Party

S25    6    WB    BALURGHAT    30-Apr-09    1    BIPLAB MITRA    M    57    All India Trinamool Congress

2    SAMU SOREN    M    48    Independent

3    PRASANTA KUMAR MAJUMDAR    M    68    Revolutionary Socialist Party

4    GOBINDA HANSDA    M    47    Bahujan Samaj Party

5    PRAHALLAD BARMAN    M    32    Independent

6    MRIDUL GHOSH.    M    30    Assam United Democratic Front

7    SUBHASH CH. BARMAN    M    50    Bharatiya Janata Party

8    CHAMRU ORAM    M    52    Jharkhand Mukti Morcha

S25    7    WB    MALDAHA UTTAR    30-Apr-09    1    AMLAN BHADURI    M    35    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    BIKASH BISWAS    M    54    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    MAUSAM NOOR    M    27    Indian National Congress

4    SAILEN SARKAR    M    68    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

5    ATUL CHANDRA MANDAL    M    39    Independent

6    MALLIKA SARKAR (NANDY)    F    50    Independent

7    MONOWARA BEGAM    F    39    Rashtriya Dehat Morcha Party

8    ASIM KUMAR CHOWDHURY    M    47    Independent

9    AMINA KHATUN    F    29    Independent

S25    8    WB    MALDAHA DAKSHIN    30-Apr-09    1    ABDUR RAZZAQUE    M    60    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

2    ABU HASEM KHAN CHOUDHURY    M    65    Indian National Congress

3    BHARAT CHANDRA MANDAL    M    52    Bahujan Samaj Party

4    DIPAK KUMAR CHOWDHURY    M    47    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    MOHAMMAD EJARUDDIN    M    74    Muslim League Kerala State Committee

6    MD. KAMAL BASIRUJJAMAN    M    32    Independent

7    RUSTAM ALI    M    39    Independent

8    MANIRUDDIN SAIKH    M    64    Paschim Banga Rajya Muslim League

9    MANJUR ALAHI MUNSHI    M    42    Independent

10    SHYAMAL DAS    M    38    Independent

S25    32    WB    GHATAL    30-Apr-09    1    MATILAL KHATUA    M    55    Bharatiya Janata Party

2    NARAYAN CHANDRA SAMAT    M    60    Bahujan Samaj Party

3    GURUDAS DASGUPTA    M    73    Communist Party of India

4    NURE ALAM CHOWDHURY    M    66    All India Trinamool Congress

5    LIYAKAT KHAN    M    31    Indian Justice Party

6    ARUN KUMAR DAS    M    40    Jharkhand Mukti Morcha

7    AHITOSH MAITY    M    53    Rashtriya Dehat Morcha Party

S25    33    WB    JHARGRAM    30-Apr-09    1    AMRIT HASNDA    M    63    Indian National Congress

2    NABENDU MAHALI    M    34    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    ADITYA KISKU    M    46    Independent

4    PULIN BIHARI BASKE    M    40    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

5    SUSIL MANDI    M    28    Independent

6    CHUNIBALA HANSDA    M    44    Jharkhand Party

7    PANCHANAN HANSDA    M    70    Bahujan Samaj Party

8    SUNIL MURMU    M    30    Independent

9    DARKU MURMU    M    56    Independent

S25    34    WB    MEDINIPUR    30-Apr-09    1    DIPAK KUMAR GHOSH    M    72    All India Trinamool Congress

2    SANJAY MISHRA    M    49    Independent

3    PRADIP PATNAIK    M    51    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    PARTHA ADDHYA    M    32    Independent

5    SRI AMIT MAITRA    M    63    Independent

6    PRABODH PANDA    M    63    Communist Party of India

7    ASOK KUMAR GOLDER    M    64    Bahujan Samaj Party

9    SUKUMAR DE    M    54    Independent

10    JOYNAL ABEDIN SEKH    M    52    Independent

11    MUKUL KUMAR MAITY    M    33    Rashtriya Dehat Morcha Party

12    NEPAL CHANDRA DAS    M    60    Jharkhand Mukti Morcha

S25    35    WB    PURULIA    30-Apr-09    1    ASIT BARAN MAHATO    M    38    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    NILKAMAL MAHATO    M    69    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    RENUKA SINGH DEV    F    60    Indian National Congress

4    SHANTIRAM MAHATO    M    56    Indian National Congress

5    SAYANTAN BASU    M    32    Bharatiya Janata Party

6    NARAHARI MAHATO    M    54    All India Forward Bloc

7    AJIT PRASAD MAHATO    M    56    Jharkhand Mukti Morcha

8    ABINASH SAREN    M    39    Independent

9    ABHIRAM BESRA    M    41    Jharkhand Disom Party

10    AMULYA RATAN MAHATO    M    68    Independent

11    UMACHARAN MAHATO    M    69    Independent

12    DHIREN CHANDRA MAHATO    M    48    Independent

13    DHIREN RAJAK    M    44    Jharkhand Party (Naren)

14    BISAMBAR MURA    M    42    Independent

15    MUKHES SAHU    M    36    All Jharkhand Students Union

16    MRITYUNJAY MAHATO    M    46    Independent

S25    36    WB    BANKURA    30-Apr-09    1    BASUDEB ACHARIA    M    67    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

2    LAKSHMI SARKAR    F    54    Independent

3    SUBRATA MUKHERJEE    M    63    Indian National Congress

4    BYASDEB CHAKRABORTTY    M    37    Janata Dal (United)

5    PARESH MARANDI    M    54    Independent

6    PRABIR BANERJEE    M    36    Independent

7    SUDHIR KUMAR MURMU    M    40    Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)

8    GANESH ROY    M    34    Bahujan Samaj Party

9    RAHUL (BISWAJIT) SINHA    M    45    Bharatiya Janata Party

10    ASWINI DULEY    M    51    Jharkhand Party (Naren)

11    TAPAN KUMAR PATHAK    M    27    Rashtriya Dehat Morcha Party

S25    37    WB    BISHNUPUR    30-Apr-09    1    SUSMITA BAURI    F    34    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

2    UMA KANTA BHAKAT    M    62    Samajwadi Janata Party (Rashtriya)

3    TAPAS DAS    M    31    Jharkhand Mukti Morcha

4    UTTAM BOURI    M    30    Independent

5    SEULI SAHA    F    39    All India Trinamool Congress

6    JAYANTA MONDAL    M    53    Bharatiya Janata Party

7    MANIK BAURI    M    43    Bahujan Samaj Party

U03    1    DN    DADAR & NAGAR HAVELI    30-Apr-09    1    DELKAR MOHANBHAI SANJIBHAI    M    46    Indian National Congress

2    PATEL SUMANBHAI THAKORBHAI    M    37    Indian National Congress

3    PATEL NATUBHAI GOMANBHAI    M    36    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    MADHA JATARIYABHAI BUDHIYABHAI    M    33    Bharatiya Janata Party

5    BIJ YOHANBHAI BHADIYABHAI    M    36    Bahujan Samaj Party

6    RAJESH PRABHUBHAI PATEL    M    38    Independent

7    MISHAL LAXMANBHAI NAVSUBHAI    M    39    Independent

8    GAVIT BARAKBHAI JAURBHAI    M    38    Independent

9    KHULAT BHIKALYABHAI VANSYABHAI    M    40    Independent

S07    2    HR    KURUKSHETRA    7-May-09    1    VISHNU BHAGWAN    M    61    Independent

S07    6    HR    SONIPAT    7-May-09    1    SHIV NARAYAN    M    45    Independent

2    JITENDER SINGH    M    40    Indian National Congress

3    JITENDER SINGH    M    40    Indian National Congress

S19    10    PB    FEROZPUR    7-May-09    1    MATHRA DASS    M    73    Proutist Sarva Samaj

S19    11    PB    BATHINDA    7-May-09    1    HARDEV SINGH ARSHI    M    59    Communist Party of India

2    HARDEV SINGH ARSHI    M    59    Communist Party of India

S19    12    PB    SANGRUR    7-May-09    1    TARSEM JODHAN    M    59    Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)

S20    3    RJ    CHURU    7-May-09    1    SALIM GUJAR    M    39    Independent

2    RAM SINGH KASWAN    M    63    Bharatiya Janata Party

3    KAMALA KASWAN    F    63    Bharatiya Janata Party

4    YUSUF KHAN    M    46    Independent

S20    15    RJ    PALI    7-May-09    1    PUSP JAIN    M    52    Bharatiya Janata Party

S20    18    RJ    JALORE    7-May-09    1    SUKHRAJ    M    66    Independent

2    SHANTI PARMAR    F    48    Independent

S20    23    RJ    BHILWARA    7-May-09    1    VIJAYENDRA PAL SINGH    M    61    Bharatiya Janata Party

S24    15    UP    ALIGARH    7-May-09    1    RAJ KUMARI CHAUHAN    F    46    Bahujan Samaj Party

S24    17    UP    MATHURA    7-May-09    1    UDYAN SHARMA    M    42    Samajwadi Party

2    PHAKKAD BABA    M    64    Independent

S24    40    UP    FARRUKHABAD    7-May-09    1    SWAMI SACHIDANAND HARI SAKSHI    M    53    Rashtriya Kranti Party

S24    42    UP    KANNAUJ    7-May-09    1    MAHESH CHANDRA    M    53    Bahujan Samaj Party

2    AKHILESH YADAV    M    35    Samajwadi Party

S25    27    WB    SRERAMPUR    7-May-09    1    KALYAN BANERJEE    M    52    All India Trinamool Congress

A toast to each and all of you in your endeavours in these hot summer months and Jai Hind.

Subroto Roy, Kolkata

Postscript:  I shall be grateful if any inadvertent errors or ommissions are kindly brought to notice by sending in a  comment on the post.  Thanks in advance.

Posted in 15th Lok Sabha, Academic research, Asia and the West, Democracy, Government of India, India's 2009 General Election, India's communists, India's Constitution, India's constitutional politics, India's Democracy, India's Election Commission, India's Electorate, India's grassroots activists, India's History, India's independence, India's Jurisprudence, India's Lok Sabha, India's Nationalism, India's Parliament, India's political parties, India's Politics, Political cynicism, Political Economy, Politics, Public Choice/Public Finance, Voting, World History. Leave a Comment »

Alfred Lyall on Christians, Muslims, India, China, Etc, 1908

April 6, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

“THE STATE IN ITS RELATION TO EASTERN AND WESTERN RELIGIONS”

By Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall (1835-1911)

Delivered as President of the Congress for the History of Religions, September 1908.—Fortnightly Review, November 1908.

“In considering the subject of my address, I have been confronted by this difficulty—that in the sections which regulate the order of our proceedings, we have a list of papers that range over all the principal religions, ancient and modern, that have existed and still exist in the world. They are to be treated and discussed by experts whose scholarship, particular studies, and close research entitle them all to address you authoritatively. I have no such special qualifications; and in any case it would be most presumptuous in me to trespass upon their ground. All that I can venture to do, therefore, in the remarks which I propose to address to you to-day, is to attempt a brief general survey of the history of religions from a standpoint which may possibly not fall within the scope of these separate papers.

The four great religions now prevailing in the world, which are historical in the sense that they have been long known to history, I take to be—Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Having regard to their origin and derivation, to their history and character, I may be permitted, for my present purpose only, to class the two former as the Religions of the West, and the two latter as the Religions of the East. These are the faiths which still maintain a mighty influence over the minds of mankind. And my object is to compare the political relations, the attitude, maintained toward them, from time to time, by the States and rulers of the people over which these religions have established their spiritual dominion.

The religion of the Jews is not included, though its influence has been incalculable, because it has been caught up, so to speak, into Christianity and Islam, and cannot therefore be counted among those which have made a partition of the religious world. For this reason, perhaps, it has retained to this day its ancient denomination, derived from the tribe or country of its origin; whereas the others are named from a Faith or a Founder. The word Nazarene, denoting the birthplace of Christianity, which is said to be still used in that region, was, as we know, very speedily superseded by its wider title, as the Creed broke out of local limits and was proclaimed universal. There has evidently been a foretime, though it is prehistorical, when, so far as we know, mankind was universally polytheistic; when innumerable rites and worships prevailed without restraint, springing up and contending with each other like the trees in a primeval forest, reflecting a primitive and precarious condition of human society.

I take polytheism to have been, in this earliest stage, the wild growth of superstitious imagination, varied indefinitely by the pressure of circumstance, by accident, by popular caprice, or by the good or evil fortunes of the community. In this stage it can now be seen among barbarous tribes—as, for instance, in Central Africa. And some traces of it still survive, under different pretexts and disguises, in the lowest strata of civilised nations, where it may be said to represent the natural reluctance of the vagrant human fancy to be satisfied with higher forms and purer conceptions that are always imperfectly assimilated by the multitude. Among primitive societies the spheres of human and divine affairs were intermixed and identical; they could not be disentangled. But with the growth of political institutions came gradual separation, or at any rate the subordination of religion to the practical necessities of orderly government and public morals.

That polytheism can exist and flourish in the midst of a highly intellectual and civilised society, we know from the history of Greece and Rome. But in ancient Greece its direct influence upon political affairs seems to have been slight; though it touched at some points upon morality. The function of the State, according to Greek ideas, was to legislate for all the departments of human life and to uphold the moral standard. The law prohibited sacrilege and profanity; it punished open impiety that might bring down divine wrath upon the people at large. The philosophers taught rational ethics; they regarded the popular superstitions with indulgent contempt; but they inculcated the duty of honouring the gods, and the observance of public ceremonial. Beyond these limits the practice of local and customary worship was, I think, free and unrestrained; though I need hardly add that toleration, as understood by the States of antiquity, was a very different thing from the modern principle of religious neutrality. Under the Roman government the connection between the State and religion was much closer, as the dominion of Rome expanded and its power became centralised. The Roman State maintained a strict control and superintendence over the official rituals and worships, which were regulated as a department of the administration, to bind the people together by established rites and worships, in order to cement political and social unity. It is true that the usages of the tribes and principalities that were conquered and annexed were left undisturbed; for the Roman policy, like that of the English in India, was to avoid giving offence to religion; and undoubtedly this policy, in both instances, materially facilitated the rapid building up of a wide dominion. Nevertheless, there was a tendency to draw in the worship toward a common centre. The deities of the conquered provinces were respected and conciliated; the Roman generals even appealed to them for protection and favour, yet they became absorbed and assimilated under Roman names; they were often identified with the gods of the Roman pantheon, and were frequently superseded by the victorious divinities of the new rulers—the strange deities, in fact, were Romanised as well as the foreign tribes and cities. After this manner the Roman empire combined the tolerance of great religious diversity with the supremacy of a centralised government. Political amalgamation brought about a fusion of divine attributes; and latterly the emperor was adored as the symbol of manifest power, ruler and pontiff; he was the visible image of supreme authority. This régime was easily accepted by the simple unsophisticated paganism of Europe. The Romans, with all their statecraft, had as yet no experience of a high religious temperature, of enthusiastic devotion and divine mysteries. But as their conquest and commerce spread eastward, the invasion of Asia let in upon Europe a flood of Oriental divinities, and thus Rome came into contact with much stronger and deeper spiritual forces. The European polytheism might be utilised and administered, the Asiatic deities could not be domesticated and subjected to regulation; the Oriental orgies and strange rites broke in upon the organised State worship; the new ideas and practices came backed by a profound and fervid spiritualism. Nevertheless the Roman policy of bringing religion under authoritative control was more or less successful even in the Asiatic provinces of the empire; the privileges of the temples were restricted; the priesthoods were placed under the general superintendence of the proconsular officials; and Roman divinities gradually found their way into the Asiatic pantheon. But we all know that the religion of the Roman empire was falling into multitudinous confusion when Christianity arose—an austere exclusive faith, with its army of saints, ascetics, and unflinching martyrs, proclaiming worship to be due to one God only, and sternly refusing to acknowledge the divinity of the emperor. Against such a faith an incoherent disorderly polytheism could make no better stand than tribal levies against a disciplined army. The new religion struck directly at the sacrifices that symbolised imperial unity; the passive resistance of Christians was necessarily treated as rebellion, the State made implacable war upon them. Yet the spiritual and moral forces won the victory, and Christianity established itself throughout the empire. Universal religion, following upon universal civil dominion, completed the levelling of local and national distinctions. The Churches rapidly grew into authority superior to the State within their own jurisdiction; they called in the temporal government to enforce theological decisions and to put down heresies; they founded a powerful hierarchy. The earlier Roman constitution had made religion an instrument of administration. When one religion became universal, the churches enlisted the civil ruler into the service of orthodoxy; they converted the State into an instrument for enforcing religion. The pagan empire had issued edicts against Christianity and had suppressed Christian assemblies as tainted with disaffection; the Christian emperors enacted laws against the rites and worships of paganism, and closed temples. It was by the supreme authority of Constantine that, for the first time in the religious history of the world, uniformity of belief was defined by a creed, and sanctioned by the ruler’s assent.

Then came, in Western Europe, the time when the empire at Rome was rent asunder by the inrush of barbarians; but upon its ruins was erected the great Catholic Church of the Papacy, which preserved in the ecclesiastical domain the autocratic imperial tradition. The primacy of the Roman Church, according to Harnack, is essentially the transference to her of Rome’s central position in the religions of the heathen world; the Church united the western races, disunited politically, under the common denomination of Christianity. Yet Christianity had not long established itself throughout all the lands, in Europe and Asia, which had once been under the Roman sovereignty, when the violent irruptions of Islam upset not only the temporal but also the spiritual dominion throughout Western Asia, and along the southern shores of the Mediterranean. The Eastern empire at Constantinople had been weakened by bitter theological dissensions and heresies among the Christians; the votaries of the new, simple, unswerving faith of Mohammed were ardent and unanimous.

In Egypt and Syria the Mohammedans were speedily victorious; the Latin Church and even the Latin language were swept out of North Africa. In Persia the Sassanian dynasty was overthrown, and although there was no immediate and total conversion of the people, Mohammedanism gradually superseded the ancient Zoroastrian cultus as the religion of the Persian State. It was not long before the armies of Islam had triumphed from the Atlantic coast to the Jaxartes river in Central Asia; and conversion followed, speedily or slowly, as the direct result of conquest. Moreover, the Mohammedans invaded Europe. In the south-west they subdued almost all Spain; and in the south-east they destroyed, some centuries later, the Greek empire, though not the Greek Church, and consolidated a mighty rulership at Constantinople. With this prolonged conflict between Islam and Christianity along the borderlands of Europe and Asia began the era of those religious wars that have darkened the history of the Western nations, and have perpetuated the inveterate antipathy between Asiatic and European races, which the spread of Christianity into both continents had softened and might have healed. In the end Christianity has fixed itself permanently in Europe, while Islam is strongly established throughout half Asia. But the sharp collision between the two faiths, the clash of armies bearing the cross and the crescent, generated fierce fanaticism on both sides. The Crusades kindled a fiery militant and missionary spirit previously unknown to religions, whereby religious propagation became the mainspring and declared object of conquest and colonisation.

Finally, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the great secession from the Roman Church divided the nations of Western Europe into hostile camps, and throughout the long wars of that period political jealousies and ambitions were inflamed by religious animosities. In Eastern Europe the Greek Church fell under almost complete subordination to the State. The history of Europe and Western Asia records, therefore, a close connection and community of interests between the States and the orthodox faiths; a combination which has had a very potent influence, during many centuries, upon the course of civil affairs, upon the fortunes, or misfortunes, of nations.

Up to the sixteenth century, at least, it was universally held, by Christianity and by Islam, that the State was bound to enforce orthodoxy; conversion and the suppression or expulsion of heretics were public duties. Unity of creed was thought necessary for national unity—a government could not undertake to maintain authority, or preserve the allegiance of its subjects, in a realm divided and distracted by sectarian controversies. On these principles Christianity and Islam were consolidated, in union with the States or in close alliance with them; and the geographical boundaries of these two faiths, and of their internal divisions respectively, have not materially changed up to the present day.

Let me now turn to the history of religion in those countries of further Asia, which were never reached by Greek or Roman conquest or civilisation, where the ancient forms of worship and conceptions of divinity, which existed before Christianity and Islam, still flourish. And here I shall only deal with the relations of the State to religion in India and China and their dependencies, because these vast and populous empires contain the two great religions, Hinduism and Buddhism, of purely Asiatic origin and character, which have assimilated to a large extent, and in a certain degree elevated, the indigenous polytheism, and which still exercise a mighty influence over the spiritual and moral condition of many millions. We know what a tremendous power religion has been in the wars and politics of the West. I submit that in Eastern Asia, beyond the pale of Islam, the history of religion has been very different. Religious wars—I mean wars caused by the conflict of militant faiths contending for superiority—were, I believe, unknown on any great scale to the ancient civilisations. It seems to me that until Islam invaded India the great religious movements and changes in that region had seldom or never been the consequence of, nor had been materially affected by, wars, conquests, or political revolutions. Throughout Europe and Mohammedan Asia the indigenous deities and their temples have disappeared centuries ago; they have been swept away by the forces of Church and State combined to exterminate them; they have all yielded to the lofty overruling ideal of monotheism.

But the tide of Mohammedanism reached its limit in India; the people, though conquered, were but partly converted, and eastward of India there have been no important Mohammedan rulerships. On this side of Asia, therefore, two great religions, Buddhism and Brahmanism, have held their ground from times far anterior to Christianity; they have retained the elastic comprehensive character of polytheism, purified and elevated by higher conceptions, developed by the persistent competition of diverse ideas and forms among the people, unrestrained by attempts of superior organised faiths to obliterate the lower and weaker species. In that region political despotism has prevailed immemorially; religious despotism, in the sense of the legal establishment of one faith or worship to the exclusion of all others, of uniformity imposed by coercion, of proselytism by persecution, is unknown to history: the governments have been absolute and personal; the religions have been popular and democratic. They have never been identified so closely with the ruling power as to share its fortunes, or to be used for the consolidation of successful conquest. Nor, on the other hand, has a ruler ever found it necessary, for the security of his throne, to conform to the religion of his subjects, and to abjure all others. The political maxim, that the sovereign and his subjects should be of one and the same religion, ‘Cujus regio ejus religio’, has never prevailed in this part of the world.

And although in India, the land of their common origin, Buddhism widely displaced and overlaid Brahmanism, while it was in its turn, after several centuries, overcome and ejected by a Brahmanic revival, yet I believe that history records no violent contests or collisions between them; nor do we know that the armed force of the State played any decisive part in these spiritual revolutions. I do not maintain that Buddhism has owed nothing to State influence. It represents certain doctrines of the ancient Indian theosophy, incarnate, as one might say, in the figure of a spiritual Master, the Indian prince, Sakya Gautama, who was the type and example of ascetic quietism; it embodies the idea of salvation, or emancipation attainable by man’s own efforts, without aid from priests or divinities. Buddhism is the earliest, by many centuries, of the faiths that claim descent from a personal founder. It emerges into authentic history with the empire of Asoka, who ruled over the greater part of India some 250 years before Christ, and its propagation over his realm and the countries adjacent is undoubtedly due to the influence, example, and authority of that devout monarch.

According to Mr. Vincent Smith, from whose valuable work on the Early History of India I take the description of Asoka’s religious policy, the king, renouncing after one necessary war all further military conquest, made it the business of his life to employ his autocratic power in directing the preaching and teaching of the Law of Piety, which he had learnt from his Buddhist priesthood. All his high officers were commanded to instruct the people in the way of salvation; he sent missions to foreign countries; he issued edicts promulgating ethical doctrines, and the rules of a devout life; he made pilgrimages to the sacred places; and finally he assumed the yellow robe of a Buddhist monk.

Asoka elevated, so Mr. Smith has said, a sect of Hinduism to the rank of a world-religion. Nevertheless, I think it may be affirmed that the emperor consistently refrained from the forcible conversion of his subjects, and indeed the use of compulsion would have apparently been a breach of his own edicts, which insist on the principle of toleration, and declare the propagation of the Law of Piety to be his sole object. Asoka made no attempt to persecute Brahmanism; and it seems clear that the extraordinary success of Buddhism in India cannot be attributed to war or to conquest. To imperial influence and example much must be ascribed, yet I think Buddhism owed much more to its spiritual potency, to its superior faculty of transmuting and assimilating, instead of abolishing, the elementary instincts and worships, endowing them with a higher significance, attracting and stimulating devotion by impressive rites and ceremonies, impressing upon the people the dogma of the soul’s transmigration and its escape from the miseries of sentient existence by the operation of merits. And of all great religions it is the least political, for the practice of asceticism and quietism, of monastic seclusion from the working world, is necessarily adverse to any active connection with mundane affairs.

I do not know that the mysterious disappearance of Buddhism from India can be accounted for by any great political revolution, like that which brought Islam into India. It seems to have vanished before the Mohammedans had gained any footing in the country.

Meanwhile Buddhism is said to have penetrated into the Chinese empire by the first century of the Christian era. Before that time the doctrines of Confucius and Laotze were the dominant philosophies; rather moral than religious, though ancestral worship and the propitiation of spirits were not disallowed, and were to a certain extent enjoined. Laotze, the apostle of Taoism, appears to have preached a kind of Stoicism—the observance of the order of Nature in searching for the right way of salvation, the abhorrence of vicious sensuality—and the cultivation of humility, self-sacrifice, and simplicity of life. He condemned altogether the use of force in the sphere of religion or morality; though he admitted that it might be necessary for the purposes of civil government. The system of Confucius inculcated justice, benevolence, self-control, obedience and loyalty to the sovereign—all the civic virtues; it was a moral code without a metaphysical background; the popular worships were tolerated, reverence for ancestors conduced to edification; the gods were to be honoured, though it was well to keep aloof from them; he disliked religious fervour, and of things beyond experience he had nothing to say.

Buddhism, with its contempt for temporal affairs, treating life as a mere burden, and the soul’s liberation from existence as the end and object of meditative devotion, must have imported a new and disturbing element into the utilitarian philosophies of ancient China. For many centuries Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism are said to have contended for the patronage and recognition of the Chinese emperors. Buddhism was alternately persecuted and protected, expelled and restored by imperial decree. Priesthoods and monastic orders are institutions of which governments are naturally jealous; the monasteries were destroyed or rebuilt, sacerdotal orders and celibacy suppressed or encouraged by imperial decrees, according to the views and prepossessions of successive dynasties or emperors. Nevertheless the general policy of Chinese rulers and ministers seems not to have varied essentially. Their administrative principle was that religion must be prevented from interfering with affairs of State, that abuses and superstitious extravagances are not so much offences against orthodoxy as matters for the police, and as such must be put down by the secular arm. Upon this policy successive dynasties appear to have acted continuously up to the present day in China, where the relations of the State to religions are, I think, without parallel elsewhere in the modern world. One may find some resemblance to the attitude of the Roman emperors towards rites and worships among the population, in the Chinese emperor’s reverent observance and regulation of the rites and ceremonies performed by him as the religious chief and representative before Heaven of the great national interests. The deification of deceased emperors is a solemn rite ordained by proclamation. As the Ius sacrum, the body of rights and duties in the matter of religion, was regarded in Rome as a department of the Ius publicum, belonging to the fundamental constitution of the State, so in China the ritual code was incorporated into the statute books, and promulgated with imperial sanction. Now we know that in Rome the established ritual was legally prescribed, though otherwise strange deities and their worships were admitted indiscriminately. But the Chinese Government goes much further. It appears to regard all novel superstitions, and especially foreign worships, as the hotbed of sedition and disloyalty. Unlicensed deities and sects are put down by the police; magicians and sorcerers are arrested; and the peculiar Chinese practice of canonising deceased officials and paying sacrificial honours to local celebrities after death is strictly reserved by the Board of Ceremonies for imperial consideration and approval. The Censor, to whom any proposal of this kind must be entrusted, is admonished that he must satisfy himself by inquiry of its validity. An official who performs sacred rites in honour of a spirit or holy personage not recognised by the Ritual Code, was liable, under laws that may be still in force, to corporal punishment; and the adoration by private families of spirits whose worship is reserved for public ceremonial was a heinous offence. No such rigorous control over the multiplication of rites and deities has been instituted elsewhere. On the other hand, while in other countries the State has recognised no more than one established religion, the Chinese Government formally recognises three denominations. Buddhism has been sanctioned by various edicts and endowments, yet the State divinities belong to the Taoist pantheon, and their worship is regulated by public ordinances; while Confucianism represents official orthodoxy, and its precepts embody the latitudinarian spirit of the intellectual classes. We know that the Chinese people make use, so to speak, of all three religions indiscriminately, according to their individual whims, needs, or experience of results. So also a politic administration countenances these divisions and probably finds some interest in maintaining them. The morality of the people requires some religious sanction; and it is this element with which the State professes its chief concern. We are told on good authority that one of the functions of high officials is to deliver public lectures freely criticising and discouraging indolent monasticism and idolatry from the standpoint of rational ethics, as follies that are reluctantly tolerated. Yet the Government has never been able to keep down the fanatics, mystics, and heretical sects that are incessantly springing up in China, as elsewhere in Asia; though they are treated as pestilent rebels and law-breakers, to be exterminated by massacre and cruel punishments; and bloody repression of this kind has been the cause of serious insurrections. It is to be observed that all religious persecution is by the direct action of the State, not instigated or insisted upon by a powerful orthodox priesthood. But a despotic administration which undertakes to control and circumscribe all forms and manifestations of superstition in a vast polytheistic multitude of its subjects, is inevitably driven to repressive measures of the utmost severity. Neither Christianity nor Islam attempted to regulate polytheism, their mission was to exterminate it, and they succeeded mainly because in those countries the State was acting with the support and under the uncompromising pressure of a dominant church or faith. Some writers have noticed a certain degree of resemblance between the policy of the Roman empire and that of the Chinese empire toward religion. We may read in Gibbon that the Roman magistrates regarded the various modes of worship as equally useful, that sages and heroes were exalted to immortality and entitled to reverence and adoration, and that philosophic officials, viewing with indulgence the superstitions of the multitude, diligently practised the ceremonies of their fathers. So far, indeed, his description of the attitude of the State toward polytheism may be applicable to China; but although the Roman and Chinese emperors both assumed the rank of divinity, and were supreme in the department of worships, the Roman administration never attempted to regulate and restrain polytheism at large on the Chinese system. The religion of the Gentiles, said Hobbes, is a part of their policy; and it may be said that this is still the policy of Oriental monarchies, who admit no separation between the secular and the ecclesiastic jurisdiction. They would agree with Hobbes that temporal and spiritual government are but two words brought into the world to make men see double and mistake their lawful sovereign. But while in Mohammedan Asia the State upholds orthodox uniformity, in China and Japan the mainspring of all such administrative action is political expediency. It may be suggested that in the mind of these far-Eastern people religion has never been conceived as something quite apart from human experience and the affairs of the visible world; for Buddhism, with its metaphysical doctrines, is a foreign importation, corrupted and materialised in China and Japan. And we may observe that from among the Mongolian races, which have produced mighty conquerors and founded famous dynasties from Constantinople to Pekin, no mighty prophet, no profound spiritual teacher, has arisen. Yet in China, as throughout all the countries of the Asiatic mainland, an enthusiast may still gather together ardent proselytes, and fresh revelations may create among the people unrest that may ferment and become heated up to the degree of fanaticism, and explode against attempts made to suppress it. The Taeping insurrection, which devastated cities and provinces in China, and nearly overthrew the Manchu dynasty, is a striking example of the volcanic fires that underlie the surface of Asiatic societies. It was quenched in torrents of blood after lasting some ten years. And very recently there has been a determined revolt of the Lamas in Eastern Tibet, where the provincial administration is, as we know, sacerdotal.

The imperial troops are said to be crushing it with unrelenting severity. These are the perilous experiences of a philosophic Government that assumes charge and control over the religions of some three hundred millions of Asiatics.

I can only make a hasty reference to Japan. In that country the relations of the State to religions appear to have followed the Chinese model. Buddhism, Confucianism, Shintoism, are impartially recognised. The emperor presides over official worship as high priest of his people; the liturgical ordinances are issued by imperial rescripts not differing in form from other public edicts. The dominant article of faith is the divinity of Japan and its emperor; and Shinto, the worship of the gods of nature, is understood to be patronised chiefly with the motive of preserving the national traditions. But in Japan the advance of modern science and enlightened scepticism may have diminished the importance of the religious department. Shinto, says a recent writer, still embodies the religion of the people; yet in 1877 a decree was issued declaring it to be no more than a convenient system of State ceremonial.[ The Development of Religion in Japan, G. W. Knox, 1907] And in 1889 an article of the constitution granted freedom of belief and worship to all Japanese subjects, without prejudice to peace, order, and loyalty.

In India the religious situation is quite different. I think it is without parallel elsewhere in the world. Here we are at the fountainhead of metaphysical theology, of ideas that have flowed eastward and westward across Asia. And here, also, we find every species of primitive polytheism, unlimited and multitudinous; we can survey a confused medley of divinities, of rites and worships incessantly varied by popular whim and fancy, by accidents, and by the pressure of changing circumstances. Hinduism permits any doctrine to be taught, any sort of theory to be held regarding the divine attributes and manifestations, the forces of nature, or the mysterious functions of mind or body. Its tenets have never been circumscribed by a creed; its free play has never been checked or regulated by State authority. Now, at first sight, this is not unlike the popular polytheism of the ancient world, before the triumph of Christianity. There are passages in St. Augustine’s Civitas Dei, describing the worship of the unconverted pagans among whom he lived, that might have been written yesterday by a Christian bishop in India. And we might ask why all this polytheism was not swept out from among such a highly intellectual people as the Indians, with their restless pursuit of divine knowledge, by some superior faith, by some central idea. Undoubtedly the material and moral conditions, and the course of events which combine to stamp a particular form of religion upon any great people, are complex and manifold; but into this inquiry I cannot go. I can only point out that the institution of caste has riveted down Hindu society into innumerable divisions upon a general religious basis, and that the sacred books separated the Hindu theologians into different schools, preventing uniformity of worship or of creed. And it is to be observed that these books are not historical; they give no account of the rise and spread of a faith. The Hindu theologian would say, in the words of an early Christian father, that the objects of divine knowledge are not historical, that they can only be apprehended intellectually, that within experience there is no reality. And the fact that Brahmanism has no authentic inspired narrative, that it is the only great religion not concentrated round the life and teachings of a person, may be one reason why it has remained diffuse and incoherent. All ways of salvation are still open to the Hindus; the canon of their scripture has never been authoritatively closed. New doctrines, new sects, fresh theological controversies, are incessantly modifying and superseding the old scholastic interpretations of the mysteries, for Hindus, like Asiatics everywhere, are still in that condition of mind when a fresh spiritual message is eagerly received. Vishnu and Siva are the realistic abstractions of the understanding from objects of sense, from observation of the destructive and reproductive operations of nature; they represent among educated men separate systems of worship which, again, are parted into different schools or theories regarding the proper ways and methods of attaining to spiritual emancipation. Yet the higher philosophy and the lower polytheism are not mutually antagonistic; on the contrary, they support each other; for Brahmanism accepts and allies itself with the popular forms of idolatry, treating them as outward visible signs of an inner truth, as indications of all-pervading pantheism. The peasant and the philosopher reverence the same deity, perform the same rite; they do not mean the same thing, but they do not quarrel on this account. Nevertheless, it is certainly remarkable that this inorganic medley of ideas and worships should have resisted for so many ages the invasion and influence of the coherent faiths that have won ascendancy, complete or dominant, on either side of India, the west and the east; it has thrown off Buddhism, it has withstood the triumphant advance of Islam, it has as yet been little affected by Christianity. Probably the political history of India may account in some degree for its religious disorganisation. I may propound the theory that no religion has obtained supremacy, or at any rate definite establishment, in any great country except with the active co-operation, by force or favour, of the rulers, whether by conquest, as in Western Asia, or by patronage and protection, as in China. The direct influence and recognition of the State has been an indispensable instrument of religious consolidation. But until the nineteenth century the whole of India, from the mountains to the sea, had never been united under one stable government; the country was for ages parcelled out into separate principalities, incessantly contending for territory. And even the Moghul empire, which was always at war upon its frontiers, never acquired universal dominion. The Moghul emperors, except Aurungzeb, were by no means bigoted Mohammedans; and their obvious interest was to abstain from meddling with Hinduism. Yet the irruption of Islam into India seems rather to have stimulated religious activity among the Hindus, for during the Mohammedan period various spiritual teachers arose, new sects were formed, and theological controversies divided the intellectual classes. To these movements the Mohammedan governments must have been for a long time indifferent; and among the new sects the principle of mutual toleration was universal. Towards the close of the Moghul empire, however, Hinduism, provoked by the bigotry of the Emperor Aurungzeb, became a serious element of political disturbance. Attempts to suppress forcibly the followers of Nanak Guru, and the execution of one spiritual leader of the Sikhs, turned the Sikhs from inoffensive quietists into fanatical warriors; and by the eighteenth century they were in open revolt against the empire. They were, I think, the most formidable embodiment of militant Hinduism known to Indian history. By that time, also, the Marathas in South-West India were declaring themselves the champions of the Hindu religion against the Mohammedan oppression; and to the Sikhs and Marathas the dislocation of the Moghul empire may be very largely attributed. We have here a notable example of the dynamic power upon politics of revolts that are generated by religious fermentation, and a proof of the strength that can be exerted by a pacific inorganic polytheism in self-defence, when ambitious rebels proclaim themselves defenders of a faith. The Marathas and the Sikhs founded the only rulerships whose armies could give the English serious trouble in the field during the nineteenth century. On the whole, however, when we survey the history of India, and compare it with that of Western Asia, we may say that although the Hindus are perhaps the most intensely religious people in the world, Hinduism has never been, like Christianity, Islam, and to some extent Buddhism, a religion established by the State. Nor has it suffered much from the State’s power. It seems strange, indeed, that Mohammedanism, a compact proselytising faith, closely united with the civil rulership, should have so slightly modified, during seven centuries of dominion, this infinitely divided polytheism. Of course, Mohammedanism made many converts, and annexed a considerable number of the population—yet the effect was rather to stiffen than to loosen the bonds that held the mass of the people to their traditional divinities, and to the institution of castes. Moreover the antagonism of the two religions, the popular and the dynastic, was a perpetual element of weakness in a Mohammedan empire. In India polytheism could not be crushed, as in Western Asia, by Islam; neither could it be controlled and administered, as in Eastern Asia; yet the Moghul emperors managed to keep on good terms with it, so long as they adhered to a policy of toleration. To the Mohammedan empire has succeeded another foreign dominion, which practises not merely tolerance but complete religious neutrality.

Looking back over the period of a hundred years, from 1757 to 1857, during which the British dominion was gradually extended over India, we find that the British empire, like the Roman, met with little or no opposition from religion. Hindus and Mohammedans, divided against each other, were equally willing to form alliances with, and to fight on the side of, the foreigner who kept religion entirely outside politics. And the British Government, when established, has so carefully avoided offence to caste or creed that on one great occasion only, the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, have the smouldering fires of credulous fanaticism broken out against our rule. I believe the British-Indian position of complete religious neutrality to be unique among Asiatic governments, and almost unknown in Europe. The Anglo-Indian sovereignty does not identify itself with the interests of a single faith, as in Mohammedan kingdoms, nor does it recognise a definite ecclesiastical jurisdiction in things spiritual, as in Catholic Europe. Still less has our Government adopted the Chinese system of placing the State at the head of different rituals for the purpose of controlling them all, and proclaiming an ethical code to be binding on all denominations. The British ruler, while avowedly Christian, ignores all religions administratively, interfering only to suppress barbarous or indecent practices when the advance of civilisation has rendered them obsolete. Public instruction, so far as the State is concerned, is entirely secular; the universal law is the only authorised guardian of morals; to expound moral duties officially, as things apart from religion, has been found possible in China, but not in India. But the Chinese Government can issue edicts enjoining public morality and rationalism because the State takes part in the authorised worship of the people, and the emperor assumes pontifical office. The British Government in India, on the other hand, disowns official connection with any religion. It places all its measures on the sole ground of reasonable expediency, of efficient administration; it seeks to promote industry and commerce, and material civilisation generally; it carefully avoids giving any religious colour whatever to its public acts; and the result is that our Government, notwithstanding its sincere professions of absolute neutrality, is sometimes suspected of regarding all religion with cynical indifference, possibly even with hostility. Moreover, religious neutrality, though it is right, just, and the only policy which the English in India could possibly adopt, has certain political disadvantages. The two most potent influences which still unite and divide the Asiatic peoples, are race and religion; a Government which represents both these forces, as, for instance, in Afghanistan, has deep roots in a country. A dynasty that can rely on the support of an organised religion, and stands forth as the champion of a dominant faith, has a powerful political power at its command. The Turkish empire, weak, ill-governed, repeatedly threatened with dismemberment, embarrassed internally by the conflict of races, has been preserved for the last hundred years by its incorporation with the faith of Islam, by the Sultan’s claim to the Caliphate. To attack it is to assault a religious citadel; it is the bulwark on the west of Mohammedan Asia, as Afghanistan is the frontier fortress of Islam on the east. A leading Turkish politician has very recently said: ‘It is in Islam pure and simple that lies the strength of Turkey as an independent State; and if the Sultan’s position as religious chief were encroached upon by constitutional reforms, the whole Ottoman empire would be in danger.’ We have to remember that for ages religious enthusiasm has been, and still is in some parts of Asia, one of the strongest incentives to military ardour and fidelity to a standard on the battlefield. Identity of creed has often proved more effective, in war, than territorial patriotism; it has surmounted racial and tribal antipathies; while religious antagonism is still in many countries a standing impediment to political consolidation. When, therefore, we survey the history of religions, though this sketch is necessarily very imperfect and inadequate, we find Mohammedanism still identified with the fortunes of Mohammedan rulers; and we know that for many centuries the relations of Christianity to European States have been very close. In Europe the ardent perseverance and intellectual superiority of great theologians, of ecclesiastical statesmen supported by autocratic rulers, have hardened and beat out into form doctrines and liturgies that it was at one time criminal to disregard or deny, dogmatic articles of faith that were enforced by law. By these processes orthodoxy emerged compact, sharply defined, irresistible, out of the strife and confusion of heresies; the early record of the churches has pages spotted with tears and stained with blood. But at the present time European States seem inclined to dissolve their alliance with the churches, and to arrange a kind of judicial separation between the altar and the throne, though in very few cases has a divorce been made absolute. No State, in civilised countries, now assists in the propagation of doctrine; and ecclesiastical influence is of very little service to a Government. The civil law, indeed, makes continual encroachments on the ecclesiastical domain, questions its authority, and usurps its jurisdiction. Modern erudition criticises the historical authenticity of the scriptures, philosophy tries to undermine the foundations of belief; the governments find small interest in propping up edifices that are shaken by internal controversies. In Mohammedan Asia, on the other hand, the connection between the orthodox faith and the States is firmly maintained, for the solidarity is so close that disruptions would be dangerous, and a Mohammedan rulership over a majority of unbelievers would still be perilously unstable. I have thus endeavoured to show that the historical relations of Buddhism and Hinduism to the State have been in the past, and are still in the present time, very different from the situation in the West. There has always existed, I submit, one essential distinction of principle. Religious propagation, forcible conversion, aided and abetted by the executive power of the State, and by laws against heresy or dissent, have been defended in the West by the doctors of Islam, and formerly by Christian theologians, by the axiom that all means are justifiable for extirpating false teachers who draw souls to perdition. The right and duty of the civil magistrate to maintain truth, in regard to which Bossuet declared all Christians to be unanimous, and which is still affirmed in the Litany of our Church, is a principle from which no Government, three centuries ago, dissented in theory, though in practice it needed cautious handling. I do not think that this principle ever found its way into Hinduism or Buddhism; I doubt, that is to say, whether the civil government was at any time called in to undertake or assist propagation of those religions as part of its duty. Nor do I know that the States of Eastern Asia, beyond the pale of Islam, claim or exercise the right of insisting on conformance to particular doctrines, because they are true. The erratic manifestations of the religious spirit throughout Asia, constantly breaking out in various forms and figures, in thaumaturgy, mystical inspiration, in orgies and secret societies, have always disquieted these Asiatic States, yet, so far as I can ascertain, the employment of force to repress them has always been justified on administrative or political grounds, as distinguishable from theological motives pure and simple. Sceptics and agnostics have been often marked out for persecution in the West, but I do not think that they have been molested in India, China, or Japan, where they abound, because they seldom meddle with politics.[ ‘Atheism did never disturb States’ (Bacon)]. It may perhaps be admitted, however, that a Government which undertakes to regulate impartially all rites and worship among its subjects is at a disadvantage by comparison with a Government that acts as the representative of a great church or an exclusive faith. It bears the sole undivided responsibility for measures of repression; it cannot allege divine command or even the obligation of punishing impiety for the public good. To conclude. In Asiatic States the superintendence of religious affairs is an integral attribute of the sovereignty, which no Government, except the English in India, has yet ventured to relinquish; and even in India this is not done without some risk, for religion and politics are still intermingled throughout the world; they act and react upon each other everywhere. They are still far from being disentangled in our own country, where the theory that a Government in its collective character must profess and even propagate some religion has not been very long obsolete. It was maintained seventy years ago by a great statesman who was already rising into prominence, by Mr. Gladstone. The text of Mr. Gladstone’s argument, in his book on the relations of the State with the Church, was Hooker’s saying, that the religious duty of kings is the weightiest part of their sovereignty; while Macaulay, in criticising this position, insisted that the main, if not the only, duty of a Government, to which all other objects must be subordinate, was the protection of persons and property. These two eminent politicians were, in fact, the champions of the ancient and the modern ideas of sovereignty; for the theory that a State is bound to propagate the religion that it professes was for many centuries the accepted theory of all Christian rulerships, though I think it now survives only in Mohammedan kingdoms. As the influence of religion in the sphere of politics declines, the State becomes naturally less concerned with the superintendence of religion; and the tendency of constitutional Governments seems to be towards abandoning it. The States that have completely dissolved connection with ecclesiastical institutions are the two great republics, the United States of America and France. We can discern at this moment a movement towards constitutional reforms in Mohammedan Asia, in Turkey, and Persia, and if they succeed it will be most interesting to observe the effect which liberal reforms will produce upon the relation of Mohammedan Governments with the dominant faith, and on which side the religious teachers will be arrayed. It is certain, at any rate, that for a long time to come religion will continue to be a potent factor in Asiatic politics; and I may add that the reconciliation of civil with religious liberty is one of the most arduous of the many problems to be solved by the promoters of national unity.”

Posted in Academic research, Afghanistan, Ahimsa, Akbar, Alfred Lyall, Asia and the West, Babar, Bhagavad Gita, Britain in India, Buddhism, China, China's History, China's religions, Chinese pilgrims to India, Christian forgiveness, Christianity, Confucius, Hindu political traditions, Hinduism, Hindus and Muslims, Imperialism, India's Caste/Ethnic Problems, India's Muslims, India's secularism, Indian subcontinent, Iran, Iran's modern history, Islam, Israel, Jainism, Japan, Judaism, Life and death, Manchu and Mongol Tartars, Pakistan's history, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Political Economy, Political Philosophy, Politics, Religion, Science, Science, Religion, Literature, Secular governance, Secularism in practice, Tibet, World History, Younghusband. Leave a Comment »

Map of India, Afghanistan, Russia, China c. 1897

February 16, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

mapofindiaafghanistanrussiachinac18972

Posted in Afghanistan, Anglo-Russian Treaty 1907, Asia and the West, Balochistan, Britain, Britain in India, British foreign policy, British history, China, China's Commonwealth, China's expansionism, China's History, China-India Relations, China-Pakistan relations, Gilgit and Baltistan, India's History, Jammu & Kashmir, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Persia, Russia, Siachen Glacier, Sinkiang, Sino-Indian Border, Srinagar, Tadjikistan, Uighurs, World History, Xinjiang. 2 Comments »

The “three-state solution” for the Middle East (and why has Tony Blair not resigned when Israel attacked Gaza?) 2009

January 13, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

A few thousand years ago, Moses (whom Freud identified as likely to have been a monotheistic Egyptian nobleman) led the Hebrews out of Egypt. A year ago, Hamas blew up the much-hated wall between the Gaza Strip and Egypt with explosives, after secretly over months cutting heavy metal using oxyacetylene torches. Some three hundred and fifty thousand Gazans poured into Egypt’s Rafah town and market to buy food, medicine, cigarettes, petrol, cows, goats, sheep, camel, televisions, mobile phones etc. Israel’s wicked blockade of Gaza was broken. Hosni Mubarak apparently instructed Egyptian border guards not to resist the Palestinian crowds from entering Egypt, and stated that as long as they returned without weapons they were free to trade as they wished. Egypt could hardly have done anything else – Cairo had seen pro-Palestinian demonstrations and Mubarak’s police had arrested some 500 members of the  Muslim Brotherhood. The official Israeli response was “the free passage of Palestinians into Egypt and back, without any supervision, significantly increases the threat coming from the Strip”. The Israeli Foreign Ministry said “it is the responsibility of Egypt to ensure that the border operates properly, according to the signed agreements. We expect the Egyptians to solve the problem. Obviously we are worried about the situation. It could potentially allow anybody to enter.” But Egypt can hardly solve this problem other than by offering to extend Egyptian sovereignty to the whole of the Gaza Strip. Something similar would have to be done with the West Bank becoming absorbed officially into Jordan. The Palestinian people would then not have their own state after all but have been divided between the formal territories of Egypt, Jordan and of course Israel itself (is not Israel technically a secular country without a state religion?). Gaza and the West Bank could be autonomous regions within Egyptian and Jordanian sovereignty respectively. The Palestinians at least would be able to buy flour and have normal lives and not have been made to live in the open-air prison that they do now. The people of Gaza would have been spared the Israeli atrocity that has been going on in the last several weeks.

 

 

There are and have been uncountable quasi-nationalities who have not had their own nation-states. Kurds are divided between Turkey, Iraq and Iran;  Baloch are divided between Iran and Pakistan; Pashtuns are divided between Afghanistan and Pakistan;  Kashmiris  (and for that matter Punjabis and Sindhis) are divided between Pakistan and India; Bengalis are divided between India and Bangladesh;  Tamils are divided between India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Singapore; Tibetans are divided between India and China etc etc, and that is only in half of Asia. There are multitudinous cases all over Europe (and Britain), Africa and also the Americas and elsewhere. The Palestinians would have become one such. And like Poland being divided between Germany and Russia, or between Prussia, Austro-Hungary and Russia even earlier (on this see the inimitable Joseph Conrad Notes on Life and Letters), a people who have been divided without a separate identity can sometimes find themselves independent again as history progresses.

 

 

Islamic Iran has wished a “one-state” solution with the Palestinians and Israelis living together harmoniously, something that seems utopian at best, devious at worst — though recall too Martin Buber’s letter to Tagore.   British foreign policy invented the “two-state” solution ever since the Balfour declaration. It has proved infeasible. Tony Blair became the so-called “Quartet envoy” or whatever immediately after being UK prime minister and was supposed to herald in the two-state solution. He palpably failed and should have resigned when Israel attacked Gaza last month but that may have been too much to expect. Israel today seems to want to impose the “zero-state” solution by extinguishing Gaza (though at one time, pre-PLO and pre-Arafat perhaps, Israel may have proposed itself the annexation of Gaza and the West Bank by Egypt and Jordan respectively).

 

 

All things considered, the “three-state” solution may be the only practical and civilized alternative in the circumstances. Palestine would indeed be remembered, as a place and a culture and a people, and at least the Palestinians would be able to live and thrive and not be attacked.

 

 

Subroto Roy

Posted in Afghanistan, Asia and the West, Balochistan, Bangladesh, Barack Obama, Britain, British foreign policy, British imperialism, Egypt, Gaza, Germany, International diplomacy, International Law, International politics, Iraq war, Israel, Israel's security policy, Israel-Iran conflict-resolution, Israeli attack on Gaza, Jews for and against Zionism, Jordan, Joseph Conrad, Judaism, Land and political economy, Laws of war, Martin Buber, Moses, Nationalism, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Palestine, Pashtuns, Poland, Russia, Secular governance, Sigmund Freud, Sri Lanka, UN/League of Nations, US Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Espionage, War, World History, Zionism. Leave a Comment »

How to solve Kashmir (2009)

January 7, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

see

https://independentindian.com/2015/03/03/pakistans-indias-illusions-of-power-psychosis-vs-vanity/

https://independentindian.com/2011/10/13/my-seventy-one-notes-at-facebook-etc-on-kashmir-pakistan-and-of-course-india-listed-thanks-to-jd/

Also

from Jan 2009
It is excellent news Omar Abdullah has become the constitutionally elected Head of Government of the great Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir after a historic vote.  I had the privilege of meeting his esteemed father briefly once on 23 March 1991 at the residence of the late Rajiv Gandhi though it would be understandable if he did not recall it.  Farooq Abdullah’s father Sheikh Abdullah was not merely a Lion of Kashmir but a genuine hero of Indian history, a true Bharat Ratna, someone whose commitment to constitutional principles of law and politics I admire more and more as I learn more of it…

The purpose of this open letter is to describe the broad path I believe to be the only just and lawful one available to the resolution of what has been known universally as the Kashmir problem.

Very briefly, it involves recognizing that the question of lawful territorial sovereignty in J&K is logically distinct from the question of the choice of nationality by individual inhabitants.  The solution requires

(a)    acknowledging that the original entity in the world system known as Jammu & Kashmir arising on March 16 1846 ceased to exist on or about October 22 1947, and that the military contest that commenced on the latter date has resulted in fact, given all particular circumstances of history, in the lawful and just outcome in international law;
(b)    offering all who may be Indian nationals or stateless and who presently live under Article 370, a formal choice of nationality between the Republics of India, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan: citizen-by-citizen, without fear or favour, under conditions of full information, individual privacy and security; any persons who voluntarily choose to renounce Indian nationality in such private individual decisions would be nevertheless granted lawful permanent residence in the Indian Republic and J&K in particular.

In other words, the dismemberment of the original J&K State and annexation of its territories by the entities known today as the Republic of Pakistan and Republic of India  that occurred since October 22 1947, as represented first by the 1949 Ceasefire Line and then by the 1972 Line of Control, is indeed the just and lawful outcome prevailing in respect of the question of territorial sovereignty and jurisdiction. The remaining democratic question has to do with free individual choice of nationality by inhabitants, under conditions of full information and privacy, citizen-by-citizen, with the grant of permanent residency rights by the Indian Republic to persons under its jurisdiction in J&K who might wish to choose, for deeply personal individual reasons, not to remain Indian nationals but become Afghan, Iranian or Pakistani nationals instead (or remain stateless).   Pakistan has said frequently its sole concern has been the freedom of Muslims of J&K under Indian rule, and any such genuine concern shall have been thereby fully met by India.  Indeed if Pakistan agreed to act similarly this entire complex mortal problem of decades shall have begun to be resolved most appropriately. Pakistan and India are both wracked by corruption, poverty and bad governance, and would be able to mutually draw down military forces pit against one another everywhere, so as to begin to repair the grave damage to their fiscal health caused over decades by the deleterious draining away of vast public resources.

The full reasoning underlying this solution, which I believe to be the only lawful, just, efficient and stable solution that exists, is thoroughly explained in the following five  articles. The first four, “Solving Kashmir”, “Law, Justice & J&K”, “History of J&K”, and “Pakistan’s Allies”, were published in The Statesman in 2005-2006 and are marked ONE, TWO, THREE, and FOUR below, and are also available elsewhere here.  The fifth “An Indian Reply to President Zardari”, marked FIVE, was published for the first time here following the Mumbai massacres.  I believe careful reflection upon this entire body of reasoning may lead all reasonable men and women to a practically unanimous consensus about this as the appropriate course of action; if such a consensus happened to arise, the implementation of the solution shall only be a matter of relatively uncomplicated procedural detail.

Subroto Roy
January 7 2009

“ONE
SOLVING KASHMIR: ON AN APPLICATION OF REASON by Subroto Roy First published in three parts in The Statesman, Editorial Page Special Article, December 1,2,3 2005, http://www.thestatesman.net

(This article has its origins in a paper “Towards an Economic Solution for Kashmir” which circulated in Washington DC in 1992-1995, including at the Indian and Pakistani embassies and the Carnegie Endowment, and was given as an invited lecture at the Heritage Foundation on June 23 1998. It should be read along with other articles also republished here, especially “History of J&K”, “Law, Justice and J&K” , “Understanding Pakistan”, “Pakistan’s Allies” and “What to Tell Musharraf”. The Washington paper and lecture itself originated from my ideas in the Introduction to Foundations of Pakistan’s Political Economy, edited by WE James and myself in the University of Hawaii project on Pakistan 1986-1992.)

I. Give Indian `Green Cards’ to the Hurriyat et al
India, being a liberal democracy in its constitutional law, cannot do in Jammu & Kashmir what Czechoslovakia did to the “Sudeten Germans” after World War II. On June 18 1945 the new Czechoslovakia announced those Germans and Magyars within their borders who could not prove they had been actively anti-fascist before or during the War would be expelled — the burden of proof was placed on the individual, not the State. Czechoslovakia “transferring” this population was approved by the Heads of the USA, UK and USSR Governments at Potsdam on August 2 1945. By the end of 1946, upto two million Sudeten Germans were forced to flee their homes; thousands may have died by massacre or otherwise; 165,000 remained who were absorbed as Czechoslovak citizens. Among those expelled were doubtless many who had supported Germany and many others who had not — the latter to this day seek justice or even an apology in vain. Czechoslovakia punished none of its nationals for atrocities, saying it had been revenge for Hitler’s evil (”badla” in Bollywood terms) and the post Cold War Czech Government too has declined to render an apology. Revenge is a wild kind of justice (while justice may be a civilised kind of revenge).

India cannot follow this savage precedent in international law. Yet we must recognise there are several hundred and up to several hundred thousand persons on our side of the boundary in the State of Jammu & Kashmir who do not wish to be Indian nationals. These people are presently our nationals ius soli, having been born in territory of the Indian Republic, and/or ius sanguinis, having been born of parents who are Indian nationals; or they may be “stateless” whom we must treat in accordance with the 1954 Convention on Stateless Persons. The fact is they may not wish to carry Indian passports or be Indian nationals.

In this respect their juridical persons resemble the few million “elite” Indians who have in the last few decades freely placed their hands on their hearts and solemnly renounced their Indian nationality, declaring instead their individual fidelity to other nation-states — becoming American, Canadian or Australian citizens, or British subjects or nationals of other countries. Such people include tens of thousands of the adult children of India’s metropolitan “elite”, who are annually visited abroad in the hot summer months by their Indian parents and relatives. They are daughters and sons of New Delhi’s Government and Opposition, of retired generals, air marshals, admirals, ambassadors, cabinet secretaries, public sector bureaucrats, private sector businessmen, university professors, journalists, doctors and many others. India’s most popular film-actress exemplified this “elite” capital-flight when, after a tireless search, she chose a foreign husband and moved to California.

The difference in Jammu & Kashmir would be that those wishing to renounce Indian nationality do not wish to move to any other place but to stay as and where they are, which is in Kashmir Valley or Jammu. Furthermore, they may wish, for whatever reason, to adopt, if they are eligible to do so, the nationality of e.g. the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan or the Islamic Republic of Iran or the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

They may believe themselves descended from Ahmad Shah Abdali whose Afghans ruled or mis-ruled Kashmir Valley before being defeated by Ranjit Singh’s Sikhs in 1819. Or they may believe themselves of Iranian descent as, for example, are the Kashmiri cousins of the late Ayatollah Khomeini. Or they may simply have wished to be, or are descended from persons who had wished to be on October 26 1947, citizens of the then-new British Dominion of Pakistan — but who came to be prevented from properly expressing such a desire because of the war-like conditions that have prevailed ever since between India and Pakistan. There may be even a few persons in Laddakh who are today Indian nationals but who wish to be considered Tibetans instead; there is, however, no Tibetan Republic and it does not appear there is going to be one.

India, being a free and self-confident country, should allow, in a systematic lawful manner, all such persons to fulfil their desires, and furthermore, should ensure they are not penalised for having expressed such “anti-national” desires or for having acted upon them. Sir Mark Tully, the British journalist, is an example of someone who has been a foreign national who has chosen to reside permanently in the Republic of India — indeed he has been an exemplary permanent resident of our country. There are many others like him. There is no logical reason why all those persons in Jammu & Kashmir who do wish not to be Indians by nationality cannot receive the same legal status from the Indian Republic as has been granted to Sir Mark Tully. There are already thousands of Sri Lankan, Bangladeshi and Nepalese nationals who are lawful permanent residents in the Indian Republic, and who travel back and forth between India and their home countries. There is no logical reason why the same could not be extended to several hundred or numerous thousand people in Jammu & Kashmir who may wish to not accept or to renounce their Indian nationality (for whatever personal reason) and instead become nationals, if they are so eligible, of the Islamic Republics of Afghanistan, Iran or Pakistan, or, for that matter, to remain stateless. On the one hand, their renunciation of Indian nationality is logically equivalent to the renunciation of Indian nationality by the adult children of India’s “elite” settled in North America and Western Europe. On the other hand, their wish to adopt, if they are eligible, a foreign nationality, such as that of Afghanistan, Iran or Pakistan, and yet remain domiciled in Indian territory is logically equivalent to that of many foreign nationals domiciled in India already like Sir Mark Tully.

Now if you are a permanent resident of some country, you may legally have many, perhaps most, but certainly not all the rights and duties of nationals of that country. e.g., though you will have to pay all the same taxes, you may not be allowed to (or be required to) vote in national or provincial elections but you may in local municipal elections. At the same time, permanently residing foreign nationals are supposed to be equal under the law and have equal access to all processes of civil and criminal justice. (As may be expected though from human frailty, even the federal courts of the USA can be notorious in their injustice and racism towards “Green Card” holders relative to “full” American citizens.) Then again, as a permanently resident foreigner, while you will be free to work in any lawful trade or profession, you may not be allowed to work in some or perhaps any Government agencies, certainly not the armed forces or the police. Many Indians in the USA were engineering graduates, and because many engineering jobs or contracts in the USA are related to the US armed forces and require US citizens only, it is commonplace for Indian engineers to renounce their Indian nationality and become Americans because of this. Many Indian-American families have one member who is American, another Indian, a third maybe Canadian, a fourth Fijian or British etc.

The same can happen in the Indian State of Jammu & Kashmir if it evolves peacefully and correctly in the future. It is quite possible to imagine a productive family in a peaceful Kashmir Valley of the future where one brother is an officer in the Indian Armed Forces, another brother a civil servant and a sister a police officer of the J&K State Government, another sister being a Pakistani doctor, while cousins are Afghan or Iranian or “stateless” businessmen. Each family-member would have made his/her choice of nationality as an individual given the circumstances of his/her life, his/her personal comprehension of the facts of history, his/her personal political and/or religious persuasions, and similar deeply private considerations. All would have their children going to Indian schools and being Indian citizens ius soli and/or ius sanguinis. When the children grow up, they would be free to join, if they wished, the existing capital flight of other Indian adult children abroad and there renounce their Indian nationality as many have come to do.

II Revealing Choices Privately with Full Information
For India to implement such a proposal would be to provide an opportunity for all those domiciled in Kashmir Valley, Jammu and Laddakh to express freely and privately as individuals their deepest wishes about their own identities, in a confidential manner, citizen by citizen, case by case. This would thereby solve the fundamental democratic problem that has been faced ever since the Pakistani attack on the original State of Jammu & Kashmir commenced on October 22 1947, which came to be followed by the Rape of Baramulla — causing the formal accession of the State to the then-new Dominion of India on October 26 1947.

A period of, say, 30 months may be announced by the Government of India during which full information would be provided to all citizens affected by this change, i.e. all those presently governed by Article 370 of the Indian Constitution. The condition of full information may include, for example, easy access to Afghan, Iranian and Pakistani newspapers in addition to access to Indian media. Each such person wishing to either remain with Indian nationality (by explicitly requesting an Indian passport if he/she does not have one already — and such passports can be printed in Kashmiri and Urdu too), or to renounce Indian nationality and either remain stateless or adopt, if he/she is so eligible, the nationality of e.g. Afghanistan, Iran, or Pakistan, should be administratively assisted by the Government of India to make that choice.

In particular, he/she should be individually, confidentially, and without fear or favour assured and informed of his/her new rights and responsibilities. For example, a resident of Kashmir Valley who chooses to become a Pakistani citizen, such as Mr Geelani, would now enjoy the same rights and responsibilities in the Indian Republic that Mr Tully enjoys, and at the same time no longer require a visa to visit Pakistan just as Mr Tully needs no visa to enter Britain. In case individual participants in the Hurriyat choose to renounce Indian nationality and adopt some other, they would no longer be able to legally participate in Indian national elections or J&K’s State elections. That is something which they say they do not wish to do in any case. Those members of the Hurriyat who chose e.g. Pakistani nationality while still residing in Jammu & Kashmir, would be free to send postal ballots or cross the border and vote in Pakistan’s elections if and when these occur. There are many Canadians who live permanently in the USA who cross home to Canada in order to cast a ballot.

After the period of 30 months, every person presently under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution would have received a full and fair opportunity to privately and confidentially reveal his/her preference or choice under conditions of full information. “Partition”, “Plebiscite”, and “Military Decision” have been the three alternatives under discussion ever since the National Conference of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and his then-loyal Deputy, Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, helped the Indian Army and Air Force in 1947-1948 fight off the savage attack against Jammu & Kashmir State that had commenced from Pakistan on October 22 1947. When, during the Pakistani attack, the Sheikh and Bakshi agreed to the Muslim Conference’s demand for a plebiscite among the people, the Pakistanis balked — the Sheikh and Bakshi then withdrew their offer and decisively and irrevocably chose to accede to the Indian Union. The people of Jammu & Kashmir, like any other, are now bound by the sovereign political commitments made by their forebears. Even so, given the painful mortal facts of the several decades since, the solution here proposed if properly implemented would be an incomparably more thorough democratic exercise than any conceivable plebiscite could ever have been.

Furthermore, regardless of the outcome, it would not entail any further “Partition” or population “transfer” which inevitably would degenerate into a savage balkanization, and has been ruled out as an unacceptable “deal-breaker” by the Indian Republic. Instead, every individual person would have been required, in a private and confidential decision-making process, to have chosen a nationality or to remain stateless — resulting in a multitude of cosmopolitan families in Jammu & Kashmir. But that is something commonplace in the modern world. Properly understood and properly implemented, we shall have resolved the great mortal problem we have faced for more than half a century, and Jammu & Kashmir can finally settle into a period of peace and prosperity. The boundary between India and Pakistan would have been settled by the third alternative mentioned at the time, namely, “Military Decision”.

III. Of Flags and Consulates in Srinagar and Gilgit
Pakistan has demanded its flag fly in Srinagar. This too can happen though not in the way Pakistan has been wishing to see it happen. A Pakistan flag might fly in the Valley just as might an Afghan and Iranian flag as well. Pakistan has wished its flag to fly as the sovereign over Jammu & Kashmir. That is not possible. The best and most just outcome is for the Pakistani flag to fly over a recognised Pakistani consular or visa office in Srinagar, Jammu and Leh. In diplomatic exchange, the Indian tricolour would have to fly over a recognised Indian consular or visa office in Muzaffarabad, Gilgit and Skardu.

Pakistan also may have to act equivalently with respect to the original inhabitants of the territory of Jammu & Kashmir that it has been controlling — allowing those people to become Indian nationals if they so chose to do in free private decisions under conditions of full information. In other words, the “Military Decision” that defines the present boundary between sovereign states must be recognised by Pakistan sincerely and permanently in a Treaty relationship with India — and all of Pakistan’s official and unofficial protégés like the Hurriyat and the “United Jehad Council” would have to do the same. Without such a sovereign commitment from the Government of Pakistan, as shown by decisive actions of lack of aggressive intent (e.g. as came to be implemented between the USA and USSR), the Government of India has no need to involve the Government of Pakistan in implementing the solution of enhancing free individual choice of nationality with regard to all persons on our side of the boundary.

The “Military Decision” regarding the sovereign boundary in Jammu & Kashmir will be so recognised by all only if it is the universally just outcome in international law. And that in fact is what it is.

The original Jammu & Kashmir State began its existence as an entity in international law long before the present Republics of India and Pakistan ever did. Pakistan commences as an entity on August 14 1947; India commences as an entity of international law with its signing of the Treaty of Versailles on June 20 1918. Jammu & Kashmir began as an entity on March 16 1846 — when the Treaty of Amritsar was signed between Gulab Singh Dogra and the British, one week after the Treaty of Lahore between the British and the defeated Sikh regency of the child Daleep Singh.

Liaquat Ali Khan and Zafrullah Khan both formally challenged on Pakistan’s behalf the legitimacy of Dogra rule in Jammu & Kashmir since the Treaty of Amritsar. The Pakistani Mission to the UN does so even today. The Pakistanis were following Sheikh Abdullah and Jawaharlal Nehru himself, who too had at one point challenged Dogra legitimacy in the past. But though the form of words of the Pakistan Government and the Nehru-Abdullah position were similar in their attacks on the Treaty of Amritsar, their underlying substantive reasons were as different as chalk from cheese. The Pakistanis attacked the Dogra dynasty for being Dogra — i.e. because they were Hindus and not Muslims governing a Muslim majority. Nehru and Abdullah denounced monarchic autocracy in favour of mass democracy, and so attacked the Dogra dynasty for being a dynasty. All were wrong to think the Treaty of Amritsar anything but a lawful treaty in international law.

Furthermore, in this sombre political game of great mortal consequence, there were also two other parties who were, or appeared to be, in favour of the dynasty: one because the dynasty was non-Muslim, the other, despite it being so. Non-Muslim minorities like many Hindus and Sikhs in the business and governmental classes, saw the Dogra dynasty as their protector against a feared communalist tyranny arising from the Sunni Muslim masses of Srinagar Valley, whom Abdullah’s rhetoric at Friday prayer-meetings had been inciting or at least awakening from slumber. At the same time, the communalists of the Muslim Conference who had broken away from Abdullah’s secular National Conference, sought political advantage over Abdullah by declaring themselves in favour of keeping the dynasty — even elevating it to become an international sovereign, thus flattering the already pretentious potentate that he would be called “His Majesty” instead of merely “His Highness”. The ancestry of today’s Hurriyat’s demands for an independent Jammu & Kashmir may be traced precisely to those May 21-22 1947 declarations of the Muslim Conference leader, Hamidullah Khan.

Into this game stumbled the British with all the mix of cunning, indifference, good will, impatience, arrogance and pomposity that marked their rule in India. At the behest of the so-called “Native Princes”, the 1929 Butler Commission had hinted that the relationship of “Indian India” to the British sovereign was conceptually different from that of “British India” to the British sovereign. This view was adopted in the Cabinet Mission’s 12 May 1946 Memorandum which in turn came to be applied by Attlee and Mountbatten in their unseemly rush to “Divide and Quit” India in the summer of 1947.

It created the pure legal illusion that there was such a thing as “Lapse of Paramountcy” at which Jammu & Kashmir or any other “Native State” of “Indian India” could conceivably, even for a moment, become a sovereign enjoying the comity of nations — contradicting Britain’s own position that only two Dominions, India and Pakistan, could ever be members of the British Commonwealth and hence members of the newly created UN. British pusillanimity towards Jammu & Kashmir’s Ruler had even extended to making him a nominal member of Churchill’s War Cabinet because he had sent troops to fight in Burma. But the legal illusion had come about because of a catastrophic misunderstanding on the part of the British of their own constitutional law.

The only legal scholar who saw this was B R Ambedkar in a lonely and brilliant technical analysis released to the press on June 17 1947. No “Lapse of Paramountcy” over the “Native Princes” of Indian India could occur in constitutional law. Paramountcy over Indian India would be automatically inherited by the successor state of British India at the Transfer of Power. That successor state was the new British Dominion of India as well as (when it came to be finalised by Partition from India) the new British Dominion of Pakistan (Postscript: the deleted words represent a mistake made in the original paper, corrected in “Law, Justice & J&K” in view of the fact the UN  in 1947 deemed  India alone the successor state of British India and Pakistan a new state in the world system).  A former “Native Prince” could only choose to which Dominion he would go. No other alternative existed even for a single logical moment. Because the British had catastrophically failed to comprehend this aspect of their own constitutional law, they created a legal vacuum whereby between August 15 and October 22-26 1947, Jammu & Kashmir became a local and temporary sovereign recognised only by the Dominion of Pakistan (until October 22) and the Dominion of India (until October 26). But it was not a globally recognised sovereign and was never going to be such in international law. This was further proved by Attlee refusing to answer the J&K Prime Minister’s October 18 1947 telegram.

All ambiguity came to end with the Pakistani attack of October 22 1947, the Rape of Baramulla, the secession of an “Azad Kashmir”declared by Sardar Ibrahim, and the Pakistani coup détat in Gilgit on October 31 1947 followed by the massacre of Sikh soldiers of the J&K Army at Bunji. With those Pakistani actions, Gulab Singh’s Jammu & Kashmir State, founded on March 16 1846 by the Treaty of Amritsar, ceased to logically exist as an entity in international law and fell into a state of ownerless anarchy. The conflict between Ibrahim’s Muslim communalists backed by the new Dominion of Pakistan and Abdullah’s secularists backed by the new Dominion of India had become a civil war within a larger intra-Commonwealth war that itself was almost a civil war between forces of the same military.

Jammu & Kashmir territory had become ownerless. The Roman Law which is at the root of all municipal and international law in the world today would declare that in the ownership of such an ownerless entity, a “Military Decision” was indeed the just outcome. Sovereignty over the land, waters, forests and other actual and potential resources of the erstwhile State of Jammu & Kashmir has become divided by “Military Decision” between the modern Republics of India and Pakistan. By the proposal made herein, the people and their descendants shall have chosen their nationality and their domicile freely across the sovereign boundary that has come to result.

TWO
LAW, JUSTICE AND J&K by Subroto Roy First published in two parts in The Sunday Statesman, July 2 2006 and The Statesman July 3 2006 http://www.thestatesman.net Editorial Page Special Article

I.
For a solution to J&K to be universally acceptable it must be seen by all as being lawful and just. Political opinion in Pakistan and India as well as all people and parties in J&K ~ those loyal to India, those loyal to Pakistan, and any others ~ will have to agree that, all things considered, such is the right course of action for everyone today in the 21st Century, which means too that the solution must be consistent with the facts of history as well as account reasonably for all moral considerations.

On August 14, 1947, the legal entity known as “British India”, as one of its final acts, and based on a sovereign British decision made only two months earlier, created out of some of its territory a new State defined in international law as the “Dominion of Pakistan”. British India extinguished itself the very next day, and the newly independent “Dominion of India” succeeded to all its rights and obligations in international law. As the legal successor of the “India” which had signed the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 and the San Francisco Declaration of 1945, the Dominion of India was already a member of the new UN as well as a signatory to many international treaties. By contrast, the Dominion of Pakistan had to apply afresh to sign treaties and become a member of international organisations. The theory put forward by Argentina that two new States, India and Pakistan, had been created ab initio, came to be rejected and was withdrawn by Argentina. Instead, Pakistan with the wholehearted backing of India was made a member of the UN, with all except Afghanistan voting in favour. (Afghanistan’s exceptional vote signalled presence of conflict over the Durand Line and idea of a Pashtunistan; Dr Khan Sahib and Abdul Ghaffar Khan were imprisoned by the Muslim League regime of NWFP which later supported the tribesmen who attacked J&K starting October 22, 1947; that conflict remains unresolved to this day, even after the American attack on the Taliban, the restart of a constitutional process in Afghanistan, and the purported mediation of US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice.)

Zafrullah Khan, Pakistan’s distinguished first ambassador to the UN, claimed in September 1947: “Pakistan is not a new member of UNO but a successor to a member State which was one of the founders of the Organisation.” He noted that he himself had led India to the final session of the League of Nations in Geneva in 1939, and he wished to say that Pakistan had been present “as part of India… under the latter name” as a signatory to the Treaty of Versailles. This was, however, logically impossible. The Treaty of Versailles long predated (1) Mohammad Iqbal’s Allahabad Address which conceptualised for the first time in the 20th Century a Muslim State in Northwest India; (2) Rahmat Ali’s invention of the word “PAKSTAN” on the top floor of a London omnibus; (3) M. A. Jinnah and Fazlul Haq’s Lahore Resolution; and (4) the final British decision of June 3, 1947 to create by Partition out of “British India” a Dominion named Pakistan. Pakistan could not have acted in international law prior to having come into being or been created or even conceived itself. Zafrullah Khan would have been more accurate to say that the history of Pakistanis until August 14, 1947 had been one in common with that of their Indian cousins ~ or indeed their Indian brothers, since innumerable North Indian Muslim families came to be literally partitioned, with some brothers remaining Indians while other brothers became Pakistanis.

Pakistan was created at the behest of Jinnah’s Muslim League though with eventual agreement of the Indian National Congress (a distant ancestor of the political party going by the same name today). Pakistan arose not because Jinnah said Hindus and Muslims were “two nations” but because he and his League wished for a State where Muslims would find themselves ruled by fellow-Muslims and feel themselves part of a pan-Islamic culture. Yet Pakistan was intended to be a secular polity with Muslim-majority governance, not an Islamic theocracy. That Pakistan failed to become secular was exemplified most poignantly in the persecution Zafrullah himself later faced in his personal life as an Ahmadiya, even while he was Pakistan’s Foreign Minister. (The same happened later to Pakistan’s Nobel-winning physicist Abdus Salaam.) Pakistan was supposed to allow the genius of Indo-Muslim culture to flourish, transplanted from places like Lucknow and Aligarh which would never be part of it. In fact, the areas that are Pakistan today had in the 1937 provincial elections shown scant popular Muslim support for Jinnah’s League. The NWFP had a Congress Government in the 1946 elections, and its supporters boycotted the pro-Pakistan referendum in 1947. The imposition of Urdu culture as Pakistan’s dominant ethos might have come to be accepted later in West Punjab, Sindh and NWFP but it was not acceptable in East Bengal, and led inevitably to the Pakistani civil war and creation of Bangladesh by Sheikh Mujib in 1971.

In August 1947, the new Dominions of India and Pakistan were each supposed to protect their respective minority populations as their first political duty. Yet both palpably failed in this, and were reduced to making joint declarations pleading for peace and an end to communal killings and the abduction of women. The Karachi Government, lacking the wherewithal and administrative machinery of being a nation-state at all, and with only Liaquat and an ailing Jinnah as noted leaders, may have failed more conspicuously, and West Punjab, the Frontier and Sindh were soon emptied of almost all their many Sikhs and Hindus. Instead, the first act of the new Pakistan Government in the weeks after August 14, 1947 was to arrange for the speedy and safe transfer of the North Indian Muslim elite by air from Delhi using chartered British aeroplanes. The ordinary Muslim masses of UP, Delhi and East Punjab were left in danger from or were subjected to Sikh and Hindu mob attacks, especially as news and rumours spread of similar outrages against Pakistan’s departing minorities.

In this spiral of revenge attacks and counter-attacks, bloodshed inevitably spilled over from West and East Punjab into the northern Punjabi plains of Jammu, though Kashmir Valley remained conspicuously peaceful. Zafrullah and Liaquat would later claim it was this communal civil war which had caused thousands of newly decommissioned Mirpuri soldiers of the British Army, and thousands of Afridi and other Frontier tribesmen, to spontaneously act to “liberate” J&K’s Muslims from alleged tyranny under the Hindu Ruler or an allegedly illegal Indian occupation.

But the main attack on J&K State that began from Pakistan along the Manshera-Muzaffarabad road on October 22, 1947 was admittedly far too well-organised, well-armed, well-planned and well-executed to have been merely a spontaneous uprising of tribesmen and former soldiers. In all but name, it was an act of undeclared war of the new Dominion of Pakistan first upon the State of J&K and then upon the Indian Dominion. This became obvious to Field Marshall Auchinlek, who, as Supreme Commander of the armed forces of both India and Pakistan, promptly resigned and abolished the Supreme Command in face of the fact that two parts of his own forces were now at war with one another.

The invaders failed to take Srinagar solely because they lost their military purpose while indulging in the Rape of Baramula. Thousands of Kashmiri women of all communities ~ Muslim, Sikh and Hindu ~ were violated and transported back to be sold in markets in Peshawar and elsewhere. Such was standard practice in Central Asian tribal wars from long before the advent of Islam, and the invading tribesmen shared that culture. India’s Army and Air Force along with the militias of the secular democratic movement led by Sheikh Abdullah and those remaining loyal units of J&K forces, fought off the invasion, and liberated Baramula, Naushera, Uri, Poonch etc. Gilgit had a British-led coup détat against it bringing it under Pakistan’s control. Kargil was initially taken by the Pakistanis and then lost by them. Leh could have been but was not taken by Pakistani forces. But in seeking to protect Leh and to retake Kargil, the Indian Army lost the siege of Skardu ~ which ended reputedly with the infamous communication from the Pakistani commander to his HQ: “All Sikhs killed; all women raped.”

Legal theory
Now, in this grave mortal conflict, the legal theory to which both the Indian and Pakistani Governments have been wedded for sixty years is one that had been endorsed by the British Cabinet Mission in 1946 and originated with the Butler Commission of 1929. Namely, that “Lapse of Paramountcy” over the “Indian India” of the “Native States” could and did occur with the extinction of British India on August 15, 1947. By this theory, Hyderabad, J&K, Junagadh and the several other States which had not acceded to either Dominion were no longer subject to the Crown’s suzerainty as of that date. Both Dominions drew up “Instruments of Accession” for Rulers to sign upon the supposed “Lapse” of Paramountcy that was to occur with the end of British India.

Ever since, the Pakistan Government has argued that Junagadh’s Ruler acceded to Pakistan and Hyderabad’s had wished to do so but both were forcibly prevented by India. Pakistan has also argued the accession to India by J&K’s Ruler was “fraudulent” and unacceptable, and Sheikh Abdullah was a “Quisling” of India and it was not his National Conference but the Muslim Conference of Ibrahim, Abbas and the Mirwaiz (precursor of the Hurriyat) which represented J&K’s Muslims.

India argued that Junagadh’s accession to Pakistan or Hyderabad’s independence were legal and practical impossibilities contradicting the wills of their peoples, and that their integration into the Indian Dominion was carried out in an entirely legitimate manner in the circumstances prevailing.

On J&K, India has argued that not only had the Ruler requested Indian forces to fight off the Pakistani attack, and he acceded formally before Indian forces were sent, but also that democratic principles were fully adhered to in the unequivocal endorsement of the accession by Sheikh Abdullah and the National Conference and further by a duly called and elected J&K Constituent Assembly, as well as generations of Kashmiris since. In the Indian view, it is Pakistan which has been in illegal occupation of Indian territory from Mirpur, Muzaffarabad and Gilgit to Skardu all the way to the Khunjerab Pass, Siachen Glacier and K2, some of which it illegally ceded to its Communist Chinese ally, and furthermore that it has denied the peoples of these areas any democratic voice.

Roman law
In June 1947, it was uniquely and brilliantly argued by BR Ambedkar in a statement to the Press that the British had made a catastrophic error in comprehending their own constitutional law, that no such thing as “Lapse” of Paramountcy existed, and that suzerainty over the “Native States” of “Indian India” would be automatically transferred in international law to the successor State of British India. It was a legal illusion to think any Native State could be sovereign even for a single logical moment. On this theory, if the Dominion of India was the sole successor State in international law while Pakistan was a new legal entity, then a Native State which acceded to Pakistan after August 15, 1947 would have had to do so with the consent of the suzerain power, namely, India, as may be said to have happened implicitly in case of Chitral and a few others. Equally, India’s behaviour in integrating (or annexing) Junagadh and Hyderabad, would become fully explicable ~ as would the statements of Mountbatten, Nehru and Patel before October 1947 that they would accept J&K going to Pakistan if that was what the Ruler and his people desired. Pakistan unilaterally and by surprise went to war against J&K on October 22, declared the accession to India “fraudulent”, and to this day has claimed the territory of the original State of J&K is “disputed”. Certainly, even if the Ambedkar doctrine is applied that no “Lapse” was possible under British law, Pakistan did not recognise India’s jurisdiction there as the suzerain power as of August 15, 1947. Altogether, Pakistan’s sovereign actions from October 22 onwards amounted to acting to annex J&K to itself by military force ~ acts which came to be militarily resisted (with partial success) by India allied with Sheikh Abdullah’s National Conference and the remaining forces of J&K. By these military actions, Pakistan revealed that it considered J&K territory to have descended into a legal state of anarchy as of October 22, 1947, and hence open to resolution by “Military Decision” ~ as is indeed the just outcome under Roman Law, the root of all municipal and international law today, when there is a contest between claimants over an ownerless entity.

Choice of nationality
Hence, the present author concluded (“Solving Kashmir”, The Statesman December 1-3, 2005) that the dismemberment of the original J&K State and annexation of its territories by India and Pakistan that has occurred since 1947, as represented first by the 1949 Ceasefire Line and then by the 1972 Line of Control, is indeed the just and lawful outcome prevailing in respect of the question of territorial sovereignty and jurisdiction. The remaining “democratic” question described has to do with free individual choice of nationality by the inhabitants, under conditions of full information and privacy, citizen-by-citizen, with the grant of permanent residency rights by the Indian Republic to persons under its jurisdiction in J&K who may choose not to remain Indian nationals but become Afghan, Iranian or Pakistani nationals instead. Pakistan has said frequently its sole concern has been the freedom of the Muslims of J&K under Indian rule, and any such genuine concern shall have been thereby fully met by India. Indeed, if Pakistan agreed to act similarly, this entire complex mortal problem of decades shall have begun to be peacefully resolved. Both countries are wracked by corruption, poverty and bad governance, and would be able to mutually draw down military forces pit against one another everywhere, so as to begin to repair the grave damage to their fiscal health caused by the deleterious draining away of vast public resources.

THREE
HISTORY OF JAMMU & KASHMIR by Subroto Roy  First published in two parts in The Sunday Statesman, Oct 29 2006 and The Statesman Oct 30 2006, Editorial Page Special Article, http://www.thestatesman.net

At the advent of Islam in distant Arabia, India and Kashmir in particular were being visited by Chinese Buddhist pilgrims during Harsha’s reign. The great “Master of Law” Hiuen Tsiang visited between 629-645 and spent 631-633 in Kashmir (”Kia-chi-mi-lo”), describing it to include Punjab, Kabul and Kandahar. Over the next dozen centuries, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and again Hindu monarchs came to rule the 85 mile long 40 mile wide territory on the River Jhelum’s upper course known as Srinagar Valley, as well as its adjoining Jammu in the upper plains of the Punjab and “Little Tibet” consisting of Laddakh, Baltistan and Gilgit.

In 1344, a Persian adventurer from Swat or Khorasan by name of Amir or Mirza, who had “found his way into the Valley and in time gained great influence at the Raja’s court”, proclaimed himself Sultan Shamsuddin after the death of the last Hindu monarchs of medieval Kashmir. Twelve of his descendants formed the Shamiri dynasty including the notorious Sikander and the just and tolerant Zainulabidin. Sikander who ruled 1386-1410 “submitted himself” to the Uzbek Taimur the Lame when he approached Kashmir in 1398 “and thus saved the country from invasion”. Otherwise, “Sikander was a gloomy ferocious bigot, and his zeal in destroying temples and idols was so intense that he is remembered as the Idol-Breaker. He freely used the sword to propagate Islam and succeeded in forcing the bulk of the population to conform outwardly to the Muslim religion. Most of the Brahmins refused to apostatise, and many of them paid with their lives the penalty for their steadfastness. Many others were exiled, and only a few conformed.”

Zainulabidin who ruled 1417-1467 “was a man of very different type”. “He adopted the policy of universal toleration, recalled the exiled Brahmins, repealed the jizya or poll-tax on Hindus, and even permitted new temples to be built. He abstained from eating flesh, prohibited the slaughter of kine, and was justly venerated as a saint. He encouraged literature, painting and music, and caused many translations to be made of works composed in Sanskrit, Arabic and other languages.” During his “long and prosperous reign”, he “constructed canals and built many mosques; he was just and tolerant”.

The Shamiri dynasty ended in 1541 when “some fugitive chiefs of the two local factions of the Makri and the Chakk invited Mirza Haidar Dughlat, a relation of Babar, to invade Kashmir. The country was conquered and the Mirza held it (nominally in name of Humayan) till 1551, when he was killed in a skirmish. The line… was restored for a few years, until in 1559 a Chakk leader, Ghazi Shah, usurped the throne; and in the possession of his descendants it remained for nearly thirty years.” This dynasty marks the origins of Shia Islam in Srinagar though Shia influence in Gilgit, Baltistan and Laddakh was of longer standing. Constant dissensions weakened the Chakks, and in 1586, Akbar, then at Attock on the Indus, sent an army under Raja Bhagwan Das into Srinagar Valley and easily made it part of his Empire.

Shivaism and Islam both flourished, and Hindu ascetics and Sufi saints were revered by all. Far from Muslims and Hindus forming distinct nations, here they were genetically related kinsmen living in proximity in a small isolated area for centuries. Indeed Zainulabidin may have had a vast unspoken influence on the history of all India insofar as Akbar sought to attempt in his empire what Zainulabidin achieved in the Valley. Like Zainulabidin, Akbar’s governance of India had as its “constant aim” “to conciliate the Hindus and to repress Muslim bigotry” which in modern political parlance may be seen as the principle of secular governance ~ of conciliating the powerless (whether majority or minority) and repressing the bigotry of the powerful (whether minority or majority). Akbar had made the Valley the summer residence of the Mughals, and it was Jahangir, seeing the Valley for the first time, who apparently said the words agar behest baushad, hamee in hast, hamee in hast, hamee in hast: “if Heaven exists, it is here, it is here, it is here”. Yet like other isolated paradises (such as the idyllic islands of the Pacific Ocean) an accursed mental ether can accompany the magnificent beauty of people’s surroundings. As the historian put it: “The Kashmiris remained secure in their inaccessible Valley; but they were given up to internal weakness and discord, their political importance was gone…”

After the Mughals collapsed, Iran’s Turkish ruler Nadir Shah sacked Delhi in 1739 but the Iranian court fell in disarray upon his death. In 1747 a jirga of Pashtun tribes at Kandahar “broke normal tradition” and asked an old Punjabi holy man and shrine-keeper to choose between two leaders; this man placed young wheat in the hand of the 25 year old Ahmed Shah Saddozai of the Abdali tribe, and titled him “Durrani”. Five years later, Durrani took Kashmir and for the next 67 years the Valley was under Pashtun rule, a time of “unmitigated brutality and widespread distress”. Durrani himself “was wise, prudent and simple”, never declared himself king and wore no crown, instead keeping a stick of young wheat in his turban. Leaving India, he famously recited: “The Delhi throne is beautiful indeed, but does it compare with the mountains of Kandahar?”

Kashmir’s modern history begins with Ranjit Singh of the Sikhs who became a soldier at 12, and in 1799 at age 19 was made Lahore’s Governor by Kabul’s Zaman Shah. Three years later “he made himself master of Amritsar”, and in 1806 crossed the River Sutlej and took Ludhiana. He created a fine Sikh infantry and cavalry under former officers of Napoleon, and with 80,000 trained men and 500 guns took Multan and Peshawar, defeated the Pashtuns and overran Kashmir in 1819. The “cruel rule” of the Pashtuns ended “to the great relief of Kashmir’s inhabitants”.

The British Governor-General Minto (ancestor of the later Viceroy), seeing advantage in the Sikhs staying north of the Sutlej, sent Charles Metcalfe, “a clever young civilian”, to persuade the Khalsa; in 1809, Ranjit Singh and the British in the first Treaty of Amritsar agreed to establish “perpetual amity”: the British would “have no concern” north of the Sutlej and Ranjit Singh would keep only minor personnel south of it. In 1834 and 1838 Ranjit Singh was struck by paralysis and died in 1839, leaving no competent heir. The Sikh polity collapsed, “their power exploded, disappearing in fierce but fast flames”. It was “a period of storm and anarchy in which assassination was the rule” and the legitimate line of his son and grandson, Kharak Singh and Nao Nihal Singh was quickly extinguished. In 1845 the Queen Regent, mother of the five-year old Dalip Singh, agreed to the Khalsa ending the 1809 Treaty. After bitter battles that might have gone either way, the Khalsa lost at Sobraon on 10 February 1846, and accepted terms of surrender in the 9 March 1846 Treaty of Lahore. The kingdom had not long survived its founder: “created by the military and administrative genius of one man, it crumbled into powder when the spirit which gave it life was withdrawn; and the inheritance of the Khalsa passed into the hands of the English.”

Ranjit Singh’s influence on modern J&K was even greater through his having mentored the Rajput Gulab Singh Dogra (1792-1857) and his brothers Dhyan Singh and Suchet Singh. Jammu had been ruled by Ranjit Deo until 1780 when the Sikhs made it tributary to the Lahore Court. Gulab Singh, a great grand nephew of Ranjit Deo, had left home at age 17 in search of a soldierly fortune, and ended up in 1809 in Ranjit Singh’s army, just when Ranjit Singh had acquired for himself a free hand to expand his domains north of the River Sutlej.

Gulab Singh, an intrepid soldier, by 1820 had Jammu conferred upon him by Ranjit Singh with the title of Raja, while Bhimber, Chibal, Poonch and Ramnagar went to his brothers. Gulab Singh, “often unscrupulous and cruel, was a man of considerable ability and efficiency”; he “found his small kingdom a troublesome charge but after ten years of constant struggles he and his two brothers became masters of most of the country between Kashmir and the Punjab”, though Srinagar Valley itself remained under a separate Governor appointed by the Lahore Court. Gulab Singh extended Jammu’s rule from Rawalpindi, Bhimber, Rajouri, Bhadarwah and Kishtwar, across Laddakh and into Tibet. His General Zorawar Singh led six expeditions into Laddakh between 1834 and 1841 through Kishtwar, Padar and Zanskar. In May 1841, Zorawar left Leh with an army of 5000 Dogras and Laddakhis and advanced on Tibet. Defeating the Tibetans at Rudok and Tashigong, he reached Minsar near Lake Mansarovar from where he advanced to Taklakot (Purang), 15 miles from the borders of Nepal and Kumaon, and built a fort stopping for the winter. Lhasa sent large re-inforcements to meet him. Zorawar, deciding to take the offensive, was killed in the Battle of Toyu, on 11-12 December 1841 at 16,000 feet.

A Laddakhi rebellion resulted against Jammu, aided now by the advancing Tibetans. A new army was sent under Hari Chand suppressing the rebellion and throwing back the Tibetans, leading to a peace treaty between Lhasa and Jammu signed on 17 September 1842: “We have agreed that we have no ill-feelings because of the past war. The two kings will henceforth remain friends forever. The relationship between Maharajah Gulab Singh of Kashmir and the Lama Guru of Lhasa (Dalai Lama) is now established. The Maharajah Sahib, with God (Kunchok) as his witness, promises to recognise ancient boundaries, which should be looked after by each side without resorting to warfare. When the descendants of the early kings, who fled from Laddakh to Tibet, now return they will not be stopped by Shri Maharajah. Trade between Laddakh and Tibet will continue as usual. Tibetan government traders coming into Laddakh will receive free transport and accommodations as before, and the Laddakhi envoy will, in turn, receive the same facilities in Lhasa. The Laddakhis take an oath before God (Kunchok) that they will not intrigue or create new troubles in Tibetan territory. We have agreed, with God as witness, that Shri Maharajah Sahib and the Lama Guru of Lhasa will live together as members of the same household.” The traditional boundary between Laddakh and Tibet “as recognised by both sides since olden times” was accepted by the envoys of Gulab Singh and the Dalai Lama.

An earlier 1684 treaty between Laddakh and Lhasa had said that while Laddakh would send tribute to Lhasa every three years, “the king of Laddakh reserves to himself the village of Minsar in Ngarees-khor-sum, that he may be independent there; and he sets aside its revenue for the purpose of meeting the expense involved in keeping up the sacrificial lights at Kangree (Kailas), and the Holy Lakes of Mansarovar and Rakas Tal”. The area around Minsar village near Lake Mansarovar, held by the rulers of Laddakh since 1583, was retained by Jammu in the 1842 peace-treaty, and its revenue was received by J&K State until 1948.

After Ranjit Singh’s death in 1839, Gulab Singh was alienated from the Lahore Court where the rise of his brothers and a nephew aroused enough Khalsa jealousy to see them assassinated in palace intrigues. While the Sikhs imploded, Gulab Singh had expanded his own dominion from Rawalpindi to Minsar ~ everywhere except Srinagar Valley itself. He had apparently advised the Sikhs not to attack the British in breach of the 1809 Treaty, and when they did so he had not joined them, though had he done so British power in North India might have been broken. The British were grateful for his neutrality and also his help in their first misbegotten adventure in Afghanistan. It was Gulab Singh who was now encouraged by both the British and the Sikhs to mediate between them, indeed “to take a leading part in arranging conditions of peace”, and he formally represented the Sikh regency in the negotiations. The 9 March 1846 Treaty of Lahore “set forth that the British Government having demanded in addition to a certain assignment of territory, a payment of a crore and a half of rupees, and the Sikh Government being unable to pay the whole”, Dalip Singh “should cede as equivalent to one crore the hill country belonging to the Punjab between the Beas and the Indus including Kashmir and the Hazara”.

For the British to occupy the whole of this mountainous territory was judged unwise on economic and military grounds; it was not feasible to occupy from a military standpoint and the area “with the exception of the small Valley of Kashmir” was “for the most part unproductive”. “On the other hand, the ceded tracts comprised the whole of the hereditary possessions of Gulab Singh, who, being eager to obtain an indefeasible title to them, came forward and offered to pay the war indemnity on condition that he was made the independent ruler of Jammu & Kashmir.

A separate treaty embodying this arrangement was thus concluded between the British and Gulab Singh at Amritsar on 16 March 1846.” Gulab Singh acknowledged the British Government’s supremacy, and in token of it agreed to present annually to the British Government “one horse, twelve shawl goats of approved breed and three pairs of Kashmir shawls. This arrangement was later altered; the annual presentation made by the Kashmir State was confined to two Kashmir shawls and three romals (handkerchiefs).” The Treaty of Amritsar “put Gulab Singh, as Maharaja, in possession of all the hill country between the Indus and the Ravi, including Kashmir, Jammu, Laddakh and Gilgit; but excluding Lahoul, Kulu and some areas including Chamba which for strategic purposes, it was considered advisable (by the British) to retain and for which a remission of Rs 25 lakhs was made from the crore demanded, leaving Rs 75 lakhs as the final amount to be paid by Gulab Singh.” The British retained Hazara which in 1918 was included into NWFP. Through an intrigue emanating from Prime Minister Lal Singh in Lahore, Imamuddin, the last Sikh-appointed Governor of Kashmir, sought to prevent Gulab Singh taking possession of the Valley in accordance with the Treaty’s terms. By December 1846 Gulab Singh had done so, though only with help of a British force which included 17,000 Sikh troops “who had been fighting in the campaign just concluded”. (Contemporary British opinion even predicted Sikhism like Buddhism “would become extinct in a short time if it were not kept alive by the esprit de corps of the Sikh regiments”.)

The British in 1846 may have been glad enough to allow Gulab Singh take independent charge of the new entity that came to be now known as the “State of Jammu & Kashmir”. Later, however. they and their American allies would grow keen to control or influence the region vis-à-vis their new interests against the Russian and Soviet Empires.

FOUR
PAKISTAN’S ALLIES  by Subroto Roy  First published in two parts in The Sunday Statesman, June 4 2006, The Statesman June 5 2006, Editorial Page Special Article, http://www.thestatesman.net

From the 1846 Treaty of Amritsar creating the State of Jammu & Kashmir until the collapse of the USSR in 1991, Britain and later the USA became increasingly interested in the subcontinent’s Northwest. The British came to India by sea to trade. Barren, splendid, landlocked Afghanistan held no interest except as a home of fierce tribes; but it was the source of invasions into the Indian plains and prompted a British misadventure to install Shah Shuja in place of Dost Mohammad Khan leading to ignominious defeat. Later, Afghanistan was seen as the underbelly of the Russian and Soviet empires, and hence a location of interest to British and American strategic causes.

In November 1954, US President Dwight Eisenhower authorized 30 U-2 spy aircraft to be produced for deployment against America’s perceived enemies, especially to investigate Soviet nuclear missiles which could reach the USA. Reconnaissance balloons had been unsuccessful, and numerous Western pilots had been shot down taking photographs from ordinary military aircraft. By June 1956, U-2 were making clandestine flights over the USSR and China. But on May 1 1960, one was shot or forced down over Sverdlovsk, 1,000 miles within Soviet territory. The Americans prevaricated that it had taken off from Turkey on a weather-mission, and been lost due to oxygen problems. Nikita Kruschev then produced the pilot, Francis Gary Powers, who was convicted of spying, though was exchanged later for a Soviet spy. Powers had been headed towards Norway, his task to photograph Soviet missiles from 70,000 ft, his point of origin had been an American base 20 miles from Peshawar.

America needed clandestine “forward bases” from which to fly U-2 aircraft, and Pakistan’s ingratiating military and diplomatic establishment was more than willing to offer such cooperation, fervently wishing to be seen as a “frontline state” against the USSR. “We will help you defeat the USSR and we are hopeful you will help us defeat India” became their constant refrain. By 1986, the Americans had been permitted to build air-bases in Balochistan and also use Mauripur air-base near Karachi.

Jammu & Kashmir and especially Gilgit-Baltistan adjoins the Pashtun regions whose capital has been Peshawar. In August-November 1947, a British coup d’etat against J&K State secured Gilgit-Baltistan for the new British Dominion of Pakistan.

The Treaty of Amritsar had nowhere required Gulab Singh’s dynasty to accept British political control in J&K as came to be exercised by British “Residents” in all other Indian “Native States”. Despite this, Delhi throughout the late 19th Century relentlessly pressed Gulab Singh’s successors Ranbir Singh and Partab Singh to accept political control. The Dogras acquiesced eventually. Delhi’s desire for control had less to do with the welfare of J&K’s people than with protection of increasing British interests in the area, like European migration to Srinagar Valley and guarding against Russian or German moves in Afghanistan. “Sargin” or “Sargin Gilit”, later corrupted by the Sikhs and Dogras into “Gilgit”, had an ancient people who spoke an archaic Dardic language “intermediate between the Iranian and the Sanskritic”. “The Dards were located by Ptolemy with surprising accuracy on the West of the Upper Indus, beyond the headwaters of the Swat River (Greek: Soastus) and north of the Gandarae (i.e. Kandahar), who occupied Peshawar and the country north of it. This region was traversed by two Chinese pilgrims, Fa-Hsien, coming from the north about AD 400 and Hsuan Tsiang, ascending from Swat in AD 629, and both left records of their journeys.”

Gilgit had been historically ruled by a Hindu dynasty called Trakane; when they became extinct, Gilgit Valley “was desolated by successive invasions of neighbouring rulers, and in the 20 or 30 years ending with 1842 there had been five dynastic revolutions. The Sikhs entered Gilgit about 1842 and kept a garrison there.” When J&K came under Gulab Singh, “the Gilgit claims were transferred with it, and a boundary commission was sent” by the British. In 1852 the Dogras were driven out with 2,000 dead. In 1860 under Ranbir Singh, the Dogras “returned to Gilgit and took Yasin twice, but did not hold it. They also in 1866 invaded Darel, one of the most secluded Dard states, to the south of the Gilgit basin but withdrew again.”

The British appointed a Political Agent in Gilgit in 1877 but he was withdrawn in 1881. “In 1889, in order to guard against the advance of Russia, the British Government, acting as the suzerain power of Kashmir, established the Gilgit Agency”. The Agency was re-established under control of the British Resident in Jammu & Kashmir. “It comprised the Gilgit Wazarat; the State of Hunza and Nagar; the Punial Jagir; the Governorships of Yasin, Kuh-Ghizr and Ishkoman, and Chilas”. In 1935, the British demanded J&K lease to them for 60 years Gilgit town plus most of the Gilgit Agency and the hill-states Hunza, Nagar, Yasin and Ishkuman. Hari Singh had no choice but to acquiesce. The leased region was then treated as part of British India, administered by a Political Agent at Gilgit responsible to Delhi, first through the Resident in J& K and later a British Agent in Peshawar. J& K State no longer kept troops in Gilgit and a mercenary force, the Gilgit Scouts, was recruited with British officers and paid for by Delhi. In April 1947, Delhi decided to formally retrocede the leased areas to Hari Singh’s J& K State as of 15 August 1947. The transfer was to formally take place on 1 August.

On 31 July, Hari Singh’s Governor arrived to find “all the officers of the British Government had opted for service in Pakistan”. The Gilgit Scouts’ commander, a Major William Brown aged 25, and his adjutant, a Captain Mathieson, planned openly to engineer a coup détat against Hari Singh’s Government. Between August and October, Gilgit was in uneasy calm. At midnight on 31 October 1947, the Governor was surrounded by the Scouts and the next day he was “arrested” and a provisional government declared.

Hari Singh’s nearest forces were at Bunji, 34 miles from Gilgit, a few miles downstream from where the Indus is joined by Gilgit River. The 6th J& K Infantry Battalion there was a mixed Sikh-Muslim unit, typical of the State’s Army, commanded by a Lt Col. Majid Khan. Bunji controlled the road to Srinagar. Further upstream was Skardu, capital of Baltistan, part of Laddakh District where there was a small garrison. Following Brown’s coup in Gilgit, Muslim soldiers of the 6th Infantry massacred their Sikh brothers-at-arms at Bunji. The few Sikhs who survived escaped to the hills and from there found their way to the garrison at Skardu.

On 4 November 1947, Brown raised the new Pakistani flag in the Scouts’ lines, and by the third week of November a Political Agent from Pakistan had established himself at Gilgit. Brown had engineered Gilgit and its adjoining states to first secede from J&K, and, after some talk of being independent, had promptly acceded to Pakistan. His commander in Peshawar, a Col. Bacon, as well as Col. Iskander Mirza, Defence Secretary in the new Pakistan and later to lead the first military coup détat and become President of Pakistan, were pleased enough. In July 1948, Brown was awarded an MBE (Military) and the British Governor of the NWFP got him a civilian job with ICI~ which however sent him to Calcutta, where he came to be attacked and left for dead on the streets by Sikhs avenging the Bunji massacre. Brown survived, returned to England, started a riding school, and died in 1984. In March 1994, Pakistan awarded his widow the Sitara-I-Pakistan in recognition of his coup détat.

Gilgit’s ordinary people had not participated in Brown’s coup which carried their fortunes into the new Pakistan, and to this day appear to remain without legislative representation. It was merely assumed that since they were mostly Muslim in number they would wish to be part of Pakistan ~ which also became Liaquat Ali Khan’s assumption about J&K State as a whole in his 1950 statements in North America. What the Gilgit case demonstrates is that J&K State’s descent into a legal condition of ownerless anarchy open to “Military Decision” had begun even before the Pakistani invasion of 22 October 1947 (viz. “Solving Kashmir”, The Statesman, 1-3 December 2005). Also, whatever else the British said or did with respect to J & K, they were closely allied to the new Pakistan on the matter of Gilgit.

The peak of Pakistan’s Anglo-American alliance came with the enormous support in the 1980s to guerrilla forces created and headquartered in Peshawar, to battle the USSR and Afghan communists directly across the Durand Line. It was this guerrilla war which became a proximate cause of the collapse of the USSR as a political entity in 1991. President Ronald Reagan’s CIA chief William J. Casey sent vast sums in 1985-1988 to supply and train these guerrillas. The Washington Post and New Yorker reported the CIA training guerrillas “in the use of mortars, rocket grenades, ground-to-air missiles”. 200 hand-held Stinger missiles were supplied for the first time in 1986 and the New Yorker reported Gulbudin Hikmatyar’s “Hizbe Islami” guerrillas being trained to bring down Soviet aircraft. “Mujahideen had been promised two Stingers for every Soviet aircraft brought down. Operators who failed to aim correctly were given additional training… By 1986, the United States was so deeply involved in the Afghan war that Soviet aircraft were being brought down under the supervision of American experts”. (Raja Anwar, The Tragedy of Afghanistan, 1988, p. 234).

The budding US-China détente brokered by Pakistan came into full bloom here. NBC News on 7 January 1980 said “for the first time in history (a senior State Department official) publicly admitted the possibility of concluding a military alliance between the United States and China”. London’s Daily Telegraph reported on 5 January 1980 “China is flying large supplies of arms and ammunition to the insurgents in Afghanistan. According to diplomatic reports, supplies have arrived in Pakistan from China via the Karakoram Highway…. A major build-up of Chinese involvement is underway ~ in the past few days. Scores of Chinese instructors have arrived at the Shola-e-Javed camps.”

Afghan reports in 1983-1985 said “there were eight training camps near the Afghan border operated by the Chinese in Sinkiang province” and that China had supplied the guerrillas “with a variety of weapons including 40,000 RPG-7 and 20,000 RPG-II anti tank rocket launchers.” Like Pakistan, “China did not publicly admit its involvement in the Afghan conflict: in 1985 the Chinese Mission at the UN distributed a letter denying that China was extending any kind of help to the Afghan rebels” (Anwar, ibid. p. 234). Support extended deep and wide across the Arab world. “The Saudi and Gulf rulers … became the financial patrons of the Afghan rebels from the very start of the conflict”. Anwar Sadat, having won the Nobel Peace Prize, was “keen to claim credit for his role in Afghanistan…. by joining the Afghanistan jihad, Sadat could re-establish his Islamic credentials, or so he believed. He could thus not only please the Muslim nations but also place the USA and Israel in his debt.” Sadat’s Defence Minister said in January 1980: “Army camps have been opened for the training of Afghan rebels; they are being supplied with weapons from Egypt” and Sadat told NBC News on 22 September 1981 “that for the last twenty-one months, the USA had been buying arms from Egypt for the Afghan rebels. He said he had been approached by the USA in December 1979 and he had decided to `open my stores’. He further disclosed that these arms were being flown to Pakistan from Egypt by American aircraft. Egypt had vast supplies of SAM-7 and RPG-7 anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons which Sadat agreed to supply to Afghanistan in exchange for new American arms. The Soviet weapons, being light, were ideally suited to guerrilla warfare. … the Mujahideen could easily claim to have captured them from Soviet and Afghan troops in battle.… Khomeini’s Iran got embroiled in war (against Iraq) otherwise Kabul would also have had to contend with the full might of the Islamic revolutionaries.” (Anwar ibid. p. 235).

Afghanistan had been occupied on 26-27 December 1979 by Soviet forces sent by the decrepit Leonid Brezhnev and Yuri Andropov to carry out a putsch replacing one communist, Hafizullah Amin, with a rival communist and Soviet protégé, Babrak Karmal. By 1985 Brezhnev and Andropov were dead and Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev had begun his attempts to reform the Soviet system, usher in openness, end the Cold War and in particular withdraw from Afghanistan, which by 1986 he had termed “a bleeding wound”. Gorbachev replaced Karmal with a new protégé Najibullah Khan, who was assigned the impossible task of bringing about national reconciliation with the Pakistan-based guerrillas and form a national government. Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan in February 1989 having lost 14,500 dead, while more than a million Afghans had been killed since the invasion a decade earlier.

Not long after Russia’s Bolshevik Revolution, Gregory Zinoviev had said 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). Now instead, the Afghan misadventure had contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Empire itself, the USSR ceasing to be a political entity by 1991, and even Gorbachev being displaced by Boris Yeltsin and later Vladimir Putin in a new Russia.

What resulted for the people of the USA and Britain and the West in general was that they no longer had to live under threat of hostile Soviet tanks and missiles, while the people of Russia, Ukraine and the other erstwhile Soviet republics as well as Eastern Europe were able to throw off the yoke of communism that had oppressed them since the Bolshevik Revolution and instead to breathe the air of freedom.

What happened to the people of Afghanistan, however, was that they were plunged into further ghastly civil war for more than ten years. And what happened to the people of Pakistan was that their country was left resembling a gigantic Islamist military camp, awash with airfields, arms, ammunition and trained guerrillas, as well as a military establishment enlivened as always by perpetual hope that these supplies, provisions and personnel of war might find alternative use in attacks against India over J& K. “We helped you when you wished to see the Soviet Union defeated and withdrawing in Afghanistan”, Pakistan’s generals and diplomats pleaded with the Americans and British, “now you must help us in our wish to see India defeated and withdrawing in Kashmir”. Pakistan’s leaders even believed that just as the Soviet Union had disintegrated afterwards, the Indian Union perhaps might be made to do the same. Not only were the two cases as different as chalk from cheese, Palmerstone’s dictum there are no permanent allies in the politics of nations could not have found more apt use than in what actually came to take place next.

Pakistan’s generals and diplomats felt betrayed by the loss of Anglo-American paternalism towards them after 1989.

Modern Pakistanis had never felt they subscribed to the Indian nationalist movement culminating in independence in August 1947. The Pakistani state now finally declared its independence in the world by exploding bombs in a nuclear arsenal secretly created with help purchased from China and North Korea. Pakistan’s leaders thus came to feel in some control of Pakistan’s destiny as a nation-state for the first time, more than fifty years after Pakistan’s formal creation in 1947. If nothing else, at least they had the Bomb.

Secondly, America and its allies would not be safe for long since the civil war they had left behind in Afghanistan while trying to defeat the USSR now became a brew from which arose a new threat of violent Islamism. Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, whom Pakistan’s military and the USA had promoted, now encouraged unprecedented attacks on the American mainland on September 11 2001 ~ causing physical and psychological damage which no Soviet, Chinese or Cuban missiles ever had been allowed to do. In response, America attacked and removed the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, once again receiving the cooperative use of Pakistani manpower and real estate ~ except now there was no longer any truck with the Pakistani establishment’s wish for a quid pro quo of Anglo-American support against India on J&K. Pakistan’s generals and diplomats soon realised their Anglo-American alliance of more than a half-century ended on September 11 2001. Their new cooperation was in killing or arresting and handing over fellow-Muslims and necessarily lacked their earlier feelings of subservience and ingratiation towards the Americans and British, and came to be done instead under at least some duress. No benefit could be reaped any more in the fight against India over Jammu & Kashmir. An era had ended in the subcontinent.

FIVE

“AN INDIAN REPLY TO PRESIDENT ZARDARI: REWARDING PAKISTAN FOR BAD BEHAVIOUR LEADS  TO SCHIZOPHRENIC RELATIONSHIPS”  by Subroto Roy, December 17 2008

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.”

 

Posted in Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Afghanistan, Akbar, anarchy and governance, Anglo-Russian Treaty 1907, Asia and the West, Balochistan, Bolsheviks, Britain, Britain in India, Britain's monarchy, British history, China-India Relations, China-Tibet problem, Constitutional law, Constitutional Politics, Diplomacy, Diplomatic recognition, Freedom, Gilgit and Baltistan, Himalayas, India in international law, India's Army, India's constitutional politics, India's Democracy, India's Diplomacy, India's History, India's independence, India's Land, India's Military Defence, India's Muslims, India's Nationalism, India's Partition, India's Polity, India's Rule of Law, India's secularism, India's Union-State relations, India-China relations, India-Pakistan cooperation against terrorism, India-Pakistan peace process, India-Tibet Border, International diplomacy, International Law, International politics, Iqbal, Iran, Islam, Jahangir, Jammu & Kashmir, Karakorum Pass, Laddakh, Land and political economy, Laws of war, Laws of war applied to international terrorists, Life and death, MA Jinnah, Mumbai massacres, Muslim and Hindu communalism, Natural Justice, Nobel Prizes, Pakistan in international law, Pakistan's diplomacy, Pakistan's nuclear weapons, Pakistan's politics, Pakistan's terrorist masterminds, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Pashtuns, Persia, Political Philosophy, Rajiv Gandhi, Regional cooperation, Roman Law, Russia, Schizophrenia in international relations, Secular governance, Secularism in practice, Sheikh Abdullah, Sinkiang, Sino-Indian Border, Srinagar, Sunnis and Shias, Tibet, US Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Espionage, US Pakistan policy, USA, United States, USSR, War, World History, Zafrullah Khan. 4 Comments »

My (armchair) experience of the 1999 Kargil war (Or, “Actionable Intelligence” in the Internet age: How the Kargil effort got a little help from a desktop)

January 5, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

My (armchair) experience of the 1999 Kargil war
(Or, “Actionable Intelligence” in the Internet age: How the Kargil effort got a little help from a desktop)

by Subroto Roy
First drafted July 20 1999,
revised and published January 5 2009

“The pilots who launched the strike and recce missions have caught the public eye but the backroom boys worked equally hard. Even in IAF stations far away from the action, the officers held brain-storming sessions and sent in their suggestions.” — Air Chief Marshall AY Tipnis, Indian Air Force press conference July 15 1999.

On the night of June 1/2 1999, I had been looking on the Internet for a good map of Jammu & Kashmir for use in a research paper.  I was in my office as a “full professor” at an “Institution of National Importance”.  A year earlier, on June  23 1998, I had been in the United States and given a talk at Washington DC’s Heritage Foundation titled “Towards an Economic Solution for Kashmir” based on my research originating in the late 1980s with the academic volume that WE James and I created, Foundations of Pakistan’s Political Economy: Towards an Agenda for the 1990s.  Now again there was a plan to talk and I needed a proper map.  We had lost two fighter aircraft and a helicopter in the Kargil fighting, and the Indian Army seemed to be facing reverses.  The country seemed despondent and tense yet in a trance too over the ongoing cricket World Cup.  Neither the Army nor the IAF seemed to quite know where the enemy had entrenched himself or in what strength. Television and newspapers were showing crude schoolboy sketches of the battlefield.  Could the Internet be of help in finding a better map, I asked myself?  I had been an early enthusiast of Google since its launch some months earlier and the Internet was still a wild and untutored place.

Imagine my surprise when before my eyes that night came to be unveiled the American CIA’s own detailed declassified contour maps, or “Tactical Pilotage Charts”, of  Kargil, Drass, Srinagar and the Line of Control; then to the west Muzaffarabad, Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Kahuta etc., and to the east, Ladakh, Aksai Chin and the Line of Actual Control with the Chinese.   Produced by the US Government’s Defense Intelligence Agency for the CIA, there they were now available to me at my desk thanks to the Internet!   The Pakistan map stated in bold letters that all aircraft planning to enter Pak airspace must request permission with at least 15 minutes notice.

Did our folks have these maps, was my first thought. Perhaps we didn’t, we had been caught unawares after all by the Pakistani attack, even if we had the maps somewhere perhaps they were unavailable right now, we had just lost aircraft and Squadron Leader Ahuja had been killed, our artillery fire at the time somehow seemed not as accurate as theirs; after years of close military collaboration with the West, Pakistan surely had all these maps in the original while we did not  —  that was an advantage that needed to be neutralized.   Such were the thoughts that rushed through as the maps downloaded slowly (very slowly, excruciatingly slowly) before me that night.

Yet here I was in my distant office just before midnight; how could these maps reach those they ought to reach?  I had not even a direct phone line outside campus or a phone directory.  Thinking aloud, I woke up the campus security chief who was a friend and a retired soldier; could he please phone the commander of a nearby IAF station, a Group Captain, and ask him to call me on campus straightaway because I had just downloaded American “Tactical Pilotage Charts” of Kargil and Drass onto my desktop computer?

The Group Captain knew me because he happened to be a distant cousin; he not only called back but responded to my plea to drive over at once to take a look at the maps.  He was a fighter pilot by training and I thought he, if anyone, would be able to assess their usefulness.  I did not wish to know from him if he thought we had them or did not but I was happy to give them to him anyway.  He taciturnly said these might be useful, so we printed out all the maps right then at 2 am, which he would send on first thing in the morning.

Campus bureaucrats later objected to Air Force officers having visited my office in the middle of the night and used computer-equipment (to print the maps) without higher bureaucratic authorization; I was told faculty-members ought not to meddle in such matters unless and until a formal inter-Ministry request had been received and approved.  This seemed to me bizarre if not absurd in the circumstances.  I replied that I was acting as a citizen and a professor in an area of my published research, and besides our government academic institution was supposedly “dedicated” to the national interest and, excuse me, but there just happened to be a war going on up north in Kargil right then!

Over the next several days, the Internet began to freely reveal all sorts of things which in years gone by would surely have been top secret – pure James Bond stuff.  Here from the Federation of American Scientists, maps included, were nuclear and missile facilities:  Chagai, Chashma, Dera Ghazi, Dera Nawab, Fateh Jung, Golra, Gujranwala, Isa, Islamabad, Jhang, Kahuta, Karachi, Kundian, Lahore, Lakki, Malute, Multan, Okara, Quetta, Rawalpindi, Sargodha, Sinhala, Wah.  Here was the Southern California supplier saying that Pakistan had gone about buying and manufacturing under license more than sixteen hundred armoured personnel carriers; why would you buy so many APCs?  Because you wanted a very large strike force in an attack on India.   Here were details of the latest submarine they had bought from France – a highly lethal machine that could play havoc.  Here too was information that their naval officers had been jailed for accepting bribes in the deal, on which the French Embassy in Islamabad had no comment to make.  Here was the yet-to-be-produced Chinese FC-1 fighter-bomber – which was going to be sold to Pakistan but whose production was stalled by apparent lack of funds.   Here were Pakistan’s own military providing news and propaganda — from whose mixed pronouncements it became clear Squadron Leader Ahuja had been captured alive by Pakistani border guards and then shot dead in cold blood as a surrendered POW.

Air HQ responded quickly enough, and on the evening of June 10th, with four young officers in my office, I sent on all this publicly available material by email.   In the meantime, on June 6, I released the contour map of Kargil to all faculty-members with a request to try to send it up to in any way they might know how to.  I figured that our adversary already had the map in the original, so it would only be to the good if every jawan and airman on our side did too. I also went to see a well-known computer science specialist on campus.  Connections had been established with the Air Force, I told him; now how do we get it to the Army?  He grasped the problem quickly and established a firm connection with an officer in the appropriate location who once had been a student of his.   On June 11, that officer wrote to me:

Dear Sir,
It is very heartening to note the kind of interest that you and Prof C are generating. I have done full justice to the info that you have sent me by sending them to the people to whom they matter. We really do appreciate your efforts in this regard. I am sure as a true patriot of our country, you will continue your valuable efforts and keep us posted… …(we) may lack a proper ‘actionable intelligence’ in terrains like Kargil and Dras simply because of the nature of the terrain and the inhospitable climatic conditions that prevail at such heights. And our countrymen are braving all these and fighting tooth and nail to give back a suitable reply to the infiltrators. What peps us is the solid backing that is given by the citizens of our country who come out in all forms to help assist us in overcoming such a crisis, such as your invaluable contribution. …. the quality of the maps that I had forwarded greatly help in interpreting things more clearly….

I wrote back on June 12:

Dear G,
.… We are very happy to know they are proving useful… It is all in the public domain…There is nothing clandestine about it. ……. there is definite if circumstantial evidence on the basis of Pakistani admissions that Squadron Leader Ahuja was captured alive by the Pakistan Army and then shot dead by them. This evidence consists of Pakistan admitting in the initial moments that they did not know his name but believed it to be UHJA of 6 Squadron out of Srinigar. Ask yourself, how did they make that mistake instead of AHUJA? They could not have made the mistake if they had read the name AHUJA from his flying suit after he had crashed dead, as they claim. The only way they can make that mistake is if they asked him personally what his name and squadron was; he told them, then they shot him. It is an international war crime which our government should take up immediately with the International War Crimes Tribunal. With regards

In creating the Foundations of Pakistan’s Political Economy book in the 1980s and 1990s while in America, I had been a most sympathetic student of Pakistan. Writing in Hawaii in 1989-1990, I had said in the Introduction to the book that “the arms race and elite rivalry has greatly impoverished the general budgets of both Pakistan and India. If it has benefited important sections of the political and military elites of both countries, it has done so only at the expense of the general welfare of the masses. So long as the arms-race continues, the economies of both countries are likely to remain severely distorted…” Some of this appeared too in my work for Rajiv Gandhi, as published in July 31-August 2 1991 of The Statesman‘s editorial pages. A few years later in 1993 in Washington DC, I articulated “An Economic Solution to Kashmir”.  About 1997 or 1998, the then-Pakistani envoy to India at a luncheon in Calcutta where I was not present, received a copy of the book gifted by me through a colleague who had been at the lunch. The book had been published in Karachi and Delhi in 1992-93, and had been quite intensely reviewed both in Pakistan and in India at the time.  But all my optimism about a peace process with Pakistan vanished during their Kargil aggression in the summer of 1999, and I was totally appalled and horrified by their sadistic torture and murder of Lt. Saurabh Kalia and his platoon, and their cold-blooded murder of Squadron Leader Ajay Ahuja while POWs.

In the July 1999 Kargil issue of New Delhi’s  Security and Political Risk Analysis Bulletin, I published an article titled “Was a Pakistani Grand Strategy Discerned in time by India?”.  A longer analysis and prescription dated June 11 1999 had been sent by me to the Vajpayee Government.  I began my analysis with the sentence: “When Pakistani military and political men make statements as they have done recently like (a)they can win a war against India (Pak COAS),(b)    they can hit any target in India and inflict unacceptable losses on us  (Pak nuclear and missile chief), (c) they are prepared to use any weapon (Pak foreign secretary), (d) a fourth war with India is imminent (“Prime Minister” POK),(e) Pakistan will be a responsible nuclear weapons’ country (Pak information minister), these should be taken seriously….” I ended my analysis with the sentence: “If the Pakistani military insists on plunging the entire subcontinent into an abyss of destruction and chaos for generations, then so be it.   There will be no Indian defeat in either Delhi or Kashmir because it will have been preceded by the end of Pakistan’s physical existence…. We must wake up immediately and go to battle-stations at once.  There is no time to lose.”

Now in 2009, as war clouds still linger after the Mumbai massacres, I am reminded of all this experience ten years ago.  If my proposal gets followed of a trial of the terrorist masterminds for piracy, murder and conspiracy, held by the Pakistan and Indian Navies jointly in international waters under maritime law, my hopes for civil government in Pakistan and peaceful cooperative relations may become restored.

January 2009

Posted in Atal Behari Vajpayee, Gilgit and Baltistan, Government of India, India in international law, India's airforce, India's Army, India's History, India's Land, India's Military Defence, India-Pakistan cooperation against terrorism, India-Pakistan naval cooperation, India-Pakistan peace process, International diplomacy, International Law, Jammu & Kashmir, Just war, Kargil war 1999, Law, Law of the Sea applied to international terrorists, Laws of war, Laws of war applied to international terrorists, Mumbai massacres, Nuclear conflict, Pakistan in international law, Pakistan's murder of Indian POWs, Pakistan's nuclear weapons, Pakistan's terrorist masterminds, Pakistan's terrorist training institutes, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Technological progress, US Pakistan policy, War, War crimes, World History. Leave a Comment »

Transparency & history: India’s archives must be opened to world standards (with Claude Arpi)

January 1, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

Transparency & history: India’s archives must be opened to world standards
by Claude Arpi & Subroto Roy
First published in Business Standard New Delhi December 31, 2008, 0:26 IST

 

The Government of India continues to hide India’s history from India’s people using specious excuses. An example is the Henderson-Brook report on the 1962 war, a single copy of which is said to exist locked away in the Defence Ministry. An anti-Indian author like Neville Maxwell is among the few ever given access to it; he has reiterated his factually incorrect theory (accepted by Henry Kissinger and Zhou Enlai and the US and Chinese establishments since) that the 1962 war was due to Nehru’s aggressive policy and China had no choice but launch a “pre-emptive attack”.

Even the 2005 Right to Information Act goes against transparency of research into India’s history. Article 8 (1) (a) says, “there shall be no obligation to give any citizen,— (a) information, disclosure of which would prejudicially affect the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security, strategic, scientific or economic interests of the State, relation with foreign State or lead to incitement of an offence.” This can cover all files of the MEA, Defence and Home; there seems to be no right to academic freedom for India’s people to research their own history.

China itself is more open with its archives. Since 2004, the Foreign Ministry in Beijing has begun a systematic process declassifying more than 40,000 items from its diplomatic records for the period 1949-1960. The Cold War International History Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington DC has recently published Inside China’s Cold War; the Project Director admits this has been possible due to China’s “archival thaw”.

In the USA, official documents are made available after 30 years or when a reasonable demand is made under the Freedom of Information Act. Numerous groups exist whose only work is to make sure the law is followed. The recently released Foreign Relations of the United States, Volume XVIII, China (1973-1976) published by the American foreign ministry reveals several interesting aspects of the India-USA-China relationship. Last year the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) posted some 320,000 declassified cables on-line. The text of once-secret diplomatic cables indexed is today retrievable from the NARA Website. It also includes withdrawal cards for documents still classified, so these can be requested under the Freedom of Information Act. Out of 119,356 documents for 1973 and 200,508 for 1974, some 7,484 were related to India. Indians scholars today have to rely on US documents for their own history!

In an open society, the ordinary citizen has reasonably easy access to any and all information relating to the public or social interest— whether the information is directly available to the citizen himself/herself, or is indirectly available to his/her elected representatives like MPs and MLAs. Different citizens will respond to the same factual information in different ways, and conflict and debate about the common good will result. But that would be part of the democratic process. In an open society, both good news and bad news is out there in the pubic domain— to be assessed, debated, rejoiced over, or wept about. Citizens are mature enough to cope with both— the experience causes a process of social maturation in formulating the common good as well as responses to problems or crises the community may face. People improve their civic capacities, becoming better-informed and more discerning voters and decision-makers, and so becoming better citizens.

The opposite of an open society is a closed society— in which a ruling political party or self-styled elite or ‘nomenclatura’ keep publicly important information to themselves, and do not allow the ordinary citizen easy or reasonably free access to it. The reason may be merely that they are intent on accumulating assets for themselves in the dark as quickly as possible while in office, or that they are afraid of public anger and want to save their own skins from demands for accountability. Or it may be they have the impression that the public is better off kept in the dark— that only the elite ‘nomenclatura’ is in a position to use the information to serve the national interest. Bad news comes to be suppressed and so good news gets exaggerated in significance. News of economic disasters, military defeats or domestic uprisings gets suppressed. News of victories or achievements or heroics gets exaggerated. If there are no real victories, achievements or heroics, fake ones have to be invented by government hacks— though the suppressed bad news tends to silently whisper all the way through the public consciousness in any case.

Such is the way of government propaganda everywhere. Closed society totalitarianism permitted the general masses to remain docile and unthinking while the ‘nomenclatura’ make the decisions. Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor said that is all that can be expected of the masses. Open society transparency was instead defined by Pericles for the Athenians: “Here each individual is interested not only in his own affairs but in the affairs of the state as well; even those who are mostly occupied with their own business are extremely well-informed on general politics— this is a peculiarity of ours: we do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all.”

Posted in 1962 War, Academic freedom, American democracy, Athenian democracy, China's expansionism, China's History, China's wars, China-India Relations, China-Tibet problem, Cold War, Dostoevsky, Freedom, Government of India, India's archives, India's History, India's Military Defence, India's nomenclatura, India's Parliament, India's political lobbyists, India's Polity, India-China relations, India-Tibet Border, International politics, Jawaharlal Nehru, Mendacity in politics, Open and Closed Societies, Pericles, Plato, Political corruption, Political cynicism, Political mendacity, Political Philosophy, Power-elites and nomenclatura, Sonia Gandhi, Transparency, USA, United States, USA, United States polity, War, World History, Zhou Enlai. Leave a Comment »

“Anger Management” needed? An Oxford DPhil recommends Pakistan launch a nuclear first strike against India within minutes of war

December 5, 2008 — drsubrotoroy

Some nine or ten years ago, Gohar Ayub Khan, as Pakistan’s foreign minister, had said the next war with India would be over in a few hours with an Indian surrender, presumably because Pakistan would immediately launch nuclear bombs. Now a leading Pakistani military scientist (who is said to have earned a doctoral degree in 1966 from Oxford University in Experimental Nuclear Physics) has apparently recommended his Government immediately launch nuclear bombs against India within minutes of a war.

[If the link does not work, as it seems not to, paste in http://dailytimes.com.pk

followed by

/default.asp?page=2008

followed by

12

followed by

05

followed by

story_5-12-2008_pg7_24

Viz., Daily Times, December 5 2008  “Nuclear missiles can be fired within minutes in case of war”.]

This is supposed to be responsible behaviour and talk from a serious nuclear weapons’ power ?  Whose leadership has assured its Western mentors and allies that its nuclear arsenal is kept in a disassembled state beyond the control of all irregular forces like potential terrorists?

And there is its cricket board suggesting business go about as usual with India!  While its liberal commentators go about shedding crocodile tears for victims of the systematic mass murder last week, describing it all as the “Mumbai incident” or the “Bombay event”!   Almost the Bombay soiree?

There is a sheer lack of reason, a lack of reasoning, and a lack of reasonableness here, as well as widespread need among Pakistan’s terrorist and military masterminds for what is known in popular psychology these days as “Anger Management”.

Posted in Air warfare, Asia and the West, India's Military Defence, India-Pakistan peace process, Mumbai massacres, Nuclear conflict, Pakistan's nuclear weapons, Pakistan's terrorist masterminds, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, War, World History. Leave a Comment »

India’s Muslim Voices (Or, Let us be clear the Pakistan-India or Kashmir conflicts have not been Muslim-Hindu conflicts so much as intra-Muslim conflicts about Muslim identity and self-knowledge on the Indian subcontinent)

December 4, 2008 — drsubrotoroy

India’s Muslim Voices

 

 

(Or, Let us be clear the Pakistan-India or Kashmir conflicts have not been Muslim-Hindu conflicts so much as intra-Muslim conflicts about Muslim identity and self-knowledge on the Indian subcontinent)

 

 

by

 

 

Subroto Roy

 

 

Ill-informed Western observers, especially at purported “think tanks” and news-portals, frequently proclaim the Pakistan-India confrontation and Jammu & Kashmir conflict to represent some kind of savage irreconcilable division between Islamic and Hindu cultures.

For example, the BBC, among its many prevarications on the matter (like lopping off J&K entirely from its recently broadcasted maps of India, perhaps under influence of its Pakistani staffers), frequently speaks of “Hindu-majority India” and “Indian-administered Kashmir” being confronted by Muslim Pakistan.

And two days ago from California’s Bay Area arose into the Internet Cloud the following profundity: “What we’re dealing with now, in the Pakistani-Indian rivalry, is a true war of civilizations, pitting Muslims against Hindus…. the unfathomable depths of the Muslim-Hindu divide….”.

Even President-elect Obama’s top Pakistan-specialists have fallen for the line of Washington’s extremely strong Pakistan lobby: “Pakistan… sees itself as the political home for the subcontinent’s Muslim population and believes India’s continued control over the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley and denial of a plebiscite for its inhabitants represent a lingering desire on India’s part to undo the legacy of partition, which divided the British Indian Empire into India and Pakistan.”

 

The truth on record is completely different and really rather simple: for more than a century and a half, Muslims qua Muslims on the Indian subcontinent have struggled with the question of their most appropriate cultural and political identity.

 

The starkest contrast may be found in their trying to come to terms with their partly Arabic and partly Hindu or Indian parentage (the words Hindu, Sindhu, Indus, Indian, Sindhi, Hindi etc all clearly have the same Hellenistic root).

For example, there was Wali Allah (1703-1762) declaring “We are an Arab people whose fathers have fallen in exile in the country of Hindustan, and Arabic genealogy and Arabic language are our pride”.

But here has been Mohammad Iqbal (1877-1938), in his 1930 Allahabad speech to the Muslim League, conceiving today’s Pakistan as a wish to become free of precisely that Arab influence: “I would like to see the Punjab, NWFP, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single state… The life of Islam as a cultural force in this living country very largely depends on its centralisation in a specified territory… For India it means security and peace resulting from an internal balance of power, for Islam an opportunity to rid itself of the stamp that Arabian Imperialism was forced to give it, to mobilise its law, its education, its culture, and to bring them into closer contact with its own original spirit and the spirit of modern times.”

In an article “Saving Pakistan” published last year in The Statesman and available elsewhere here, it was suggested Iqbal’s “spirit of modern times” may be represented most prominently today by the physicist/political philosopher Pervez Hoodbhoy: in a December 2006 speech Hoodbhoy suggested a new alternative to MA Jinnah’s “Faith, Unity, Discipline” slogan: “First, I wish for minds that can deal with the complex nature of truth…. My second wish is for many more Pakistanis who accept diversity as a virtue… My third, and last, wish is that Pakistanis learn to value and nurture creativity.” He has spoken too of bringing “economic justice to Pakistan”, of the “fight to give Pakistan’s women the freedom which is their birthright”, and of people to “wake up” and engage politically. But Pakistan’s Iqbalian liberals like Hoodbhoy still have to square off with those of their compatriots who sent the youthful squad into Mumbai last week with assault rifles, grenades and heroic Arabic code-names, as well as orders to attack civilians with the ferocity of the original Muslims attacking caravans and settlements in ancient Arabia.

 

What the extremely strong Pakistan lobbies within the British and American political systems have suppressed in order to paint a picture of eternal Muslim-Hindu conflict is the voice of India’s nationalist Muslims, who historically have had no wish to have any truck with any idea of a “Pakistan” at all.

 

Most eminent among them was undoubtedly Jinnah’s fiercest critic: Maulana Abul Kalam Azad whose classic 1946 statement on Pakistan is available in his India Wins Freedom, the final version published only in 1988.

 

“I have considered from every possible point of view the scheme of Pakistan as formulated by the Muslim League. As an Indian, I have examined its implications for the future of India as a whole. As a Muslim, I have examined its likely effects upon the fortunes of Muslims of India. Considering the scheme in all its aspects, I have come to the conclusion that it is harmful not only for India as a whole but for Muslims in particular. And in fact it creates more problems than it solves. I must confess that the very term Pakistan goes against my grain. It suggests that some portions of the world are pure while others are impure. Such a division of territories into pure and impure is un-Islamic and is more in keeping with orthodox Brahmanism which divides men and countries into holy and unholy — a division which is a repudiation of the very spirit of Islam. Islam recognizes no such division and the prophet says “God made the whole world a mosque for me”.

 

Further, it seems that the scheme of Pakistan is a symbol of defeatism, and has been built on the analogy of the Jewish demand for a national home. It is a confession that Indian Muslims cannot hold their own in India as a whole, and would be content to withdraw to a corner specially reserved for them.

 

One can sympathise with the aspiration of the Jews for such a national home, as they are scattered all over the world and cannot in any region have any effective voice in the administration.. The conditions of Indian Muslims is quite otherwise. Over 90 million in number, they are in quantity and quality a sufficiently important element in Indian life to influence decisively all questions of administration and policy. Nature has further helped them by concentrating them in certain areas.

 

In such a context, the demand for Pakistan loses all force. As a Muslim, I for one am not prepared for a moment to give up my right to treat the whole of India as my domain and to shape in the shaping of its political and economic life. To me it seems a sure sign of cowardice to give up what is my patrimony and content myself with a mere fragment of it.

 

As is well known, Mr. Jinnah’s Pakistan scheme is based on his two nation theory. His thesis is that India contains many nationalities based on religious differences, Of them the two major nations, the Hindus and Muslims, must as separate nations have separate States, When Dr Edward Thompson once pointed out to Mr. Jinnah that Hindus and Muslims live side by side in thousands of Indian towns, villages and hamlets, Mr. Jinnah replied that this is no way affected their separate nationality. Two nations, according to M Jinnah, confront one another in every hamlet, village and town, and he, therefore, desires that they should be separated into two States.

 

I am prepared to overlook all other aspects of the problem and judge it from the point of view of Muslim interest alone. I shall go still further and say that if it can be shown that the scheme of Pakistan can in any way benefit Muslims I would be prepared to accept it myself and also to work for its acceptance by others. But the truth is that even if I examine the scheme from the point of view of the communal interests of the Muslims themselves, I am forced to the conclusion that it can in no way benefit them or allay their legitimate fears.

Let us consider dispassionately the consequences which will follow if we give effect to the Pakistan scheme. India will be divided into two States, one with a majority of Muslims and the other of Hindus. In the Hindustan State there will remain 35 million Muslims scattered in small minorities all over the land. With 17 per cent in UP, 12 percent in Bihar and 9 percent in Madras, they will be weaker than they are today in the Hindu majority provinces. They have had their homelands in these regions for almost a thousand years and built up well known centres of Muslim culture and civilization there.

They will awaken overnight and discover that they have become alien and foreigners. Backward industrially, educationally and economically, they will be left to the mercies to what would become an unadulterated Hindu raj.

On the other hand, their position within the Pakistan State will be vulnerable and weak. Nowhere in Pakistan will their majority be comparable to the Hindu majority in the Hindustan States. ( NB Azad could hardly imagine even at this point the actual British Partition of Punjab and Bengal, let aside the later separation of Bangladesh from West Pakistan, SR. )

In fact, their majority will be so slight that will be offset by the economical, educational and political lead enjoyed by non-Muslims in these areas. Even if this were not so and Pakistan were overwhelmingly Muslim in population, it still could hardly solve the problem of Muslims in Hindustan. Two States confronting one another, offer no solution of the problem of one another’s minorities, but only lead to retribution and reprisals by introducing a system of mutual hostages. The scheme of Pakistan therefore solves no problems for the Muslims. It cannot safeguard their rights where they are in minority nor as citizens of Pakistan secure them a position in Indian or world affairs which they would enjoy as citizens of a major State like the Indian Union.

It may be argued that if Pakistan is so much against the interest if the Muslims themselves, then why should such a large section of Muslims be swept away by its lure? The answer is to be found in the attitude of certain communal extremists among the Hindus. When the Muslim League began to speak of Pakistan, they read into the scheme a sinister pan-Islamic conspiracy and began to oppose it out of fear that it foreshadowed a combination of Indian Muslim and trans-Indian Muslim States. The opposition acted as an incentive to the adherents of the League. With simple though untenable logic they argued that if Hindus were so opposed to Pakistan, surely it must be of benefit to Muslims. An atmosphere of emotional frenzy was created which made reasonable appraisement impossible and swept away especially the younger and more impressionable among the Muslims. I have, however, no doubt that when the present frenzy has died down and the question can be considered dispassionately, those who now support Pakistan will themselves repudiate it as harmful for Muslim interests.

The formula which I have succeeded in making the Congress accept secures whatever merits the Pakistan scheme contains while all its defects and drawbacks are avoided. The basis of Pakistan is the fear of interference by the Centre in Muslim majority areas as the Hindus will be in a majority in the Centre. The Congress meets this fear by granting full autonomy to the provincial units and vesting all residuary power in the provinces. It also has provided for two lists of Central subjects, one compulsory and one optional, so that if any provincial unit so wants, it can administer all subjects itself except a minimum delegated to the Centre. The Congress scheme threescore ensures that Muslim majority provinces are internally free to develop as they will, but can at the same time influence the Centre on all issues which affect India as a whole.

The situation in India is such that all attempts to establish a centralized and unitary government are bound to fail. Equally, doomed to failure is the attempt to divide India into two States. After considering all aspects of the question, I have come to the conclusion that the only solution can be on the lines embodied in the Congress formula which allows room for development both to the provinces and to India as a whole. The Congress formula meets the fear of the Muslim majority areas to allay which the scheme of Pakistan was formed. On the other hand, it avoids the defects of the Pakistan scheme which would bring the Muslims where they are in a minority under a purely Hindu government.

I am one of those who considers the present chapter of communal bitterness and differences as a transient phase in Indian life. I firmly hold that they will disappear when India assumes the responsibility of her own destiny. I am reminded of a saying of Mr. Gladstone that the best cure for a man’s fear of the water was to throw him into it. Similarly, India must assume responsibilities and administer her own affairs before fears and suspicious can be fully allayed.

When India attains her destiny, she will forget the chapter of communal suspicion and conflict and face the problems of modern life from a modern point of view. Differences will no doubt persist, but they will be economic, not communal. Opposition among political parties will continue, but it will based, not on religion, but on economic and political issues. Class and not community will be the basis oaf future alignments, and policies will be shaped accordingly. If it be argued that this is only a faith which events may not justify, I would say that in any case the 90 million Muslims constitute a factor which nobody can ignore and whatever the circumstances, they are strong enough to safeguard their own destiny.”

 

 

 

Next must be Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah’s classic February 1948 Speech to the UN Security  Council,  four months into the initial Pakistani attack on Kashmir:

 

 

“Aggression, not accession, is the issue: I have heard with patience, attention and respect the statements made by the representative of Pakistan and members of the Security Council, as well as the statements made on various occasions by the members of my own delegation. The Security Council will concede that I am probably the one man most concerned in the dispute because I happen to come from that land which has become the bone of contention between the two Dominions of India and Pakistan.

I have been quoted profusely on either side, and rightly so, because I have had the fortune-or, should I say, misfortune of leading my countrymen to freedom from 1931 onwards. In this task, I have suffered a great deal. I have been imprisoned not once or twice, but seven times, and the last imprisonment carried with it an aggregate sentence of nine years.

There are many troubles in Kashmir. I have heard patiently the debate in the Security Council, but I feel that I am rather confused. After all, what is the point in dispute? The point in dispute is not that the sovereignty of the Prince is in question, as the representative of Pakistan stated yesterday. After all, I have suffered the punishment of being sentenced to nine years imprisonment for saying what the representative of Pakistan said with regard to the Treaty of Amritsar of 1846. I am glad that he said in the Security Council, where he is immune from any punishment. Therefore, I am not disputing that point and that it is not the subject of the dispute before the Security Council.

The subject of the dispute before the Security Council is not the mal-administration of the Princely State of Kashmir. In order to set right that mal-administration, I think I have suffered the most, and today, when for the first time, I heard the representative of Pakistan supporting my case, it gave me great pleasure.

After all, what is the dispute between India and Pakistan? From what I have learned from the complaint brought before the Security Council by my own delegation, the dispute revolves around the fact that Kashmir acceded legally and constitutionally to the Dominion of India. There was some trouble about the demarcation of the Kashmir administration within the State, and the tribesmen from across the border have poured into my country. They have been helped and are being helped by the Pakistan Government, with the result that there is the possibility of a greater conflagration between India and Pakistan. India sought the help of Security Council so that Pakistan might be requested to desist from helping the tribesmen, and to desist from supporting the inside revolt, should I say, against the lawful authority.

I should have understood the position of the representative of Pakistan if he had come boldly before the Security Council and maintained: “Yes, we do support the tribesmen; we do support the rebels inside the State because we feel that Kashmir belongs to Pakistan and not to India, and because we feel that the accession of Kashmir to India was fraudulent.” Then we might have discussed the validity of the accession of the State of Kashmir to India. But that was not the position taken by the representative of Pakistan. He completely denied that any support was being given by the Government of Pakistan to either the tribesmen or those who are in revolt within the State against the constituted authority.

How am I to convince the Security Council that the denial is absolutely untrue? I am sitting before the Security Council at a distance of thousands of miles from my country. I have fought many battles, along with my own men, on the borders of Jammu and Kashmir. I have seen with my own eyes the support given by the Pakistan Government, not only in supplying buses but in providing arms, ammunition, direction and control of the tribesmen and I have even seen the Pakistan Army forces from across the border.

The denial has come so flatly that it becomes very difficult for me to disprove it here before the Security Council, unless the Security Council accedes to our request to send a commission to the spot and to find out first whether the allegations brought before the Security Council with regard to the aid given by the Government of Pakistan are correct or incorrect. If they are incorrect, the case falls; if they are correct, then the Security Council should take the necessary steps to advise the Government of Pakistan to desist from such support.

But then, this simple issue has been confused. On the one hand, the Pakistan Government says, “We are not a party to the trouble within the State. The trouble within the State exists because the people are fighting against the mal-administration of the Jammu and Kashmir Government.” Yes, we are fighting, we have been fighting against the mal-administration of that State since 1931. We have been demanding democratisation of the Government there. But how is it that today Pakistan has become the champion of our liberty? I know very well that in 1946, when I raised the cry “Quit Kashmir,” the leader of the Pakistan Government, who is the Governor-General now, Mr.Mohammed Ali Jinnah, opposed my Government, declaring that this movement was a movement of a few renegades and that Muslims as such had nothing to do with the movement.

The Muslim Conference, which has been talked about so much, opposed my movement and declared its loyalty to the Prince. The representative of Pakistan now says that Sheikh Abdullah, once the supporter of “Quit Kashmir”, has joined hands with the Maharaja of Kashmir, and that in one of my public speeches I declared that I wanted the Maharaja to be the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir-not the Maharaja of Jammu only, but the Maharaja of entire State.

I should like to correct the misreporting of my speech. I did deliver that speech in Jammu, which is the winter capital of our country, but it was in a different context. As the members of the Security Council have already heard from the head of my delegation, some massacres did occur in the Jammu Province. After the Kashmir Province was raided by the tribesmen, and after thousands of Hindus and Sikhs were uprooted from the villages and towns in the Kashmir Province and found their way into the Jammu Province, there was some very bad retaliation. I could not go to Jammu Province to control that situation because I was busy with the raiders in Kashmir Province. However, as soon as I had some time, I flew down to Jammu Province, addressed a gathering of 60,000 Hindus and Sikhs in Jammu city, and gave them some plain advice.

I told them clearly that this policy of retaliation would bring no good to them as Hindus and Sikhs and would bring no good to their leader, because while they could retaliate in one or two districts where they formed the majority, and could even wipe out the Muslim population in these one or two districts, the State happens to have a population which is 80 per cent Muslim, and it would be impossible for them to wipe out the entire Muslim population. The result would be that the Prince, whom they wanted to support, would remain the Prince of only two districts, and not of the entire State of Jammu and Kashmir. I told them that if they wanted him to be the Prince of Jammu and Kashmir, they would have to change their behaviour. That was the speech I delivered, and that was the context in which it was made.

However, I have already stated how this trouble started. It is probable that the representative of Pakistan would admit that when India was divided into two parts, my colleagues and I were all behind prison bars. The result of this division of India was to start massacre on either side. Where Muslims in the West Punjab formed the majority, the killing of Hindus and Sikhs started and this was retaliated in East Punjab. All along our border, massacres of Hindus and Sikhs, on the one hand, and Muslims on the other hand were a daily occurrence. But the State of Jammu and Kashmir, and its people, kept calm. The result was that thousands of refugees, both Muslims and Hindus, sought refuge in our State and we rendered every possible help to all of them.

Why was that so? It was because I and my organisation never believed in the formula that Muslims and Hindus form separate nations. We do not believe in the two-nation theory, nor in communal hatred or communalism itself. We believed that religion had no place in politics. Therefore, when we launched our movement of “Quit Kashmir”, it was not only Muslims who suffered, but our Hindu and Sikh comrades as well. That created a strong bond of unity between all the communities, and the result was that while Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims were fighting each other all along the border, the people of Jammu and Kashmir State — Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs alike-remained calm.

The situation was worsening day by day and the minority in our State was feeling very nervous. As a result, tremendous pressure was brought to bear upon the State administration to release me and my colleagues. The situation outside demanded the release of workers of the National Conference, along with its leader, and we were accordingly set free.

Immediately we were liberated from prison we were faced with the important question of whether Kashmir should accede to Pakistan, accede to India, or remain independent, because under the partition scheme these three choices were open us as, indeed, they were open to every Indian State. The problem was a very difficult one, but I advised the people of my country that although the question was very important to us, it was a secondary consideration. The all important matter for us was our own liberation from the autocratic rule of the Prince for which we were fighting and had been fighting for the past seventeen years. We had not achieved that goal, and therefore I told my people that we must do so first. Then, as free men we should have to decide where our interest lay. Being a frontier State, Kashmir has borders with both Pakistan and India, and there are advantages and disadvantages for the people of Kashmir attached to each of the three alternatives to which I have referred.

Naturally, as I have indicated, we could not decide this all important issue before achieving our own liberation, and our slogan became “Freedom before accession”. Some friends from Pakistan met mein Srinagar. I had a heart- to- heart discussion with them and explained my point of view. I told them in plain words that, whatever had been the attitude of Pakistan towards our freedom movement in the past, it would not influence us in our judgement. Neither the friendship of Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru and of Congress, nor their support of our freedom movement, would have any influence upon our decision if we felt that the interests of four million Kashmiris lay in our accession to Pakistan.

I requested them not to precipitate this decision upon us but to allow us time, supporting our movement for the while. I added that once we were free they should allow us an interval to consider this all important issue. I pointed out that India had accepted this point of view and was not forcing us to decide. We had, in fact, entered into a standstill agreement with both Pakistan and India, but the leader of the Indian delegation has already explained to the Security Council what Pakistan did to us.

While I was engaged in these conversations and negotiations with friends from Pakistan, I sent one of my colleagues to Lahore, where he met the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Mr. Liaqat Ali Khan, and other high dignitaries of the West Punjab Government. He placed the same point of view before them and requested that they should allow us time to consider this vital question, first helping us to achieve our liberation instead of forcing us to declare our decision one way or the other. Then, one fine morning while these negotiations were proceeding, I received news that a full-fledged attack had been carried out by the raiders on Muzaffarabad, frontier town in the Kashmir Province.

The representative of Pakistan has stated that immediately upon my release I went down to Delhi to negotiate the accession of Kashmir to India. That is not a fact. He probably does not know that while in jail I was elected President of the All India States People’s Conference, and that immediately upon my release I had to take up my duties. Accordingly, I had called a meeting of the executive of that Conference in Delhi, a fact which I had conveyed to the Prime Minister of Pakistan. Indeed, I had told the Prime Minister of Pakistan that immediately upon my return from Delhi I should take the opportunity of meeting him personally to discuss my point of view with him. I did not go to Delhi to conclude any agreement on behalf of Kashmir because, although released, I was still considered a rebel.

I might inform the representative of Pakistan that although I am beyond doubt the head of the Administration of Kashmir State, I am not the Prime Minister. I am head of the Emergency Administration, and that not because the Maharaja of Kashmir wished it. In fact, I do not know whether the Maharaja wishes it even now. I hold the position because the people of my country wish me to be at the helm of affairs in Jammu and Kashmir State.

When the raiders came to our land, massacred thousands of people—mostly Hindus and Sikhs, but Muslims, too—abducted thousands of girls, Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims alike, looted our property and almost reached the gates of our summer capital, Srinagar, the result was that the civil, military and police administrations failed. The Maharaja, in the dead of night, left the capital along with his courtiers, and the result was absolute panic. There was no one to take over control. In that hour of crisis, the National Conference came forward with its 10,000 volunteers and took over the administration of the country. They started guarding the banks, the offices and houses of every person in the capital. This is the manner in which the administration changed hands. We were de facto in charge of the administration. The Maharaja, later on, gave it a legal form.

It is said that Sheikh Abdullah is a friend of Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru. Yes, I admit that. I feel honoured that such a great man claims me as his friend. And he happens to belong to my own country;he is also a Kashmiri, and blood is thicker than water. If JawaharLal Nehru gives me that honour, I cannot help it. He is my friend. But that does not mean that, because of his friendship, I am going to betray the millions of my people who have suffered along with me for the last seventeen years and sacrifice the interests of my country. I am not a man of that calibre.

I was explaining how the dispute arose—how Pakistan wanted to force this position of slavery upon us. Pakistan had no interest in our liberation or it would not also have opposed our freedom movement. Pakistan would have supported us when thousands of my countrymen were behind bars and hundreds were shot to death. The Pakistani leaders and Pakistani papers were heaping abuse upon the people of Kashmir who were suffering these tortures.

Then suddenly, Pakistan comes before the bar of the world as the champion of the liberty of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. The world may believe this, but it is very difficult for me to believe. When we refused the coercive tactics of Pakistan, it started full fledged aggression and encouraged the tribesmen in this activity. It is absolutely impossible for the tribesmen to enter our territory without encouragement from Pakistan, because it is necessary to pass through Pakistan territory to reach Jammu and Kashmir. Hundreds of trucks, thousands of gallons of petrol, thousands of rifles, ammunition, and all forms of help that an army requires, were supplied to them. We know this. After all, we belong to that country. What Pakistan could not achieve by the use of economic blockade it wanted to achieve by full-fledged aggression.

What do we request? We request nothing more than that the Security Council should send some members to this area to see for themselves what is happening there. If Pakistan comes forward and says, “We question the legality of accession”, I am prepared to discuss whether or not the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India was legal. However, now they say, “We want a plebiscite, we want to obtain the free and unfettered opinion of the people of Kashmir. There should be no pressure exerted on the people and they should make the free choice as to the State to which they wish to accede.”

Not only this the offer that was made by the people of Kashmir to Pakistan long, long ago, but it is the offer made by the Prime Minister of India at a time, I think, he had not the slightest need for making it, as Kashmir was in distress.

We realised that Pakistan would not allow us any time, that we had either to suffer the fate of our kith and kin of Muzaffarabad, Baramulla, Srinagar and other towns and villages, or to seek help from some outside authority.

Under these circumstances, both the Maharaja and the people of Kashmir requested the Government of India to accept our accession. The Government of India could have easily accepted the accession and could have said, “All right we accept your accession and we shall render this help.” There was no necessity for the Prime Minister of India to add the proviso, when accepting the accession, that India does not want to take advantage of the difficult situation in Kashmir. We will accept this accession, without Kashmir’s acceding to the Indian Dominion, we are not in a position to render any military help. But once the country is free from the raiders, marauders and looters, this accession will be subject to ratification by the people. That was the offer made by the Prime Minister of India.

That was the same offer which was made by the people of Kashmir to the Government of Pakistan, but it was refused because at that time Pakistan felt that it could, within a week, conquer the entire Jammu and Kashmir State and then place the fait accompli before the world, just as happened some time ago in Europe. The same tactics were used.

But having failed in these tactics, Pakistan now comes before the bar of the world, pleading, “We want nothing, we only want our people to be given a free hand in deciding their own fate. And in deciding their own fate, they must have a plebiscite.”

They then continue and say, “No, a plebiscite cannot be fair and impartial unless and until there is a neutral administration in the State of Jammu and Kashmir.” I have failed to understand this terminology with reference to a “neutral administration”. After all what does “neutral administration” mean?

The representative of Pakistan has stated that Sheikh Abdullah, because he is a friend of Jawahar Lal Nehru, because he has had sympathy for the Indian National Congress, because he has declared his point of view in favour of accession to India, and because he is head of the Emergency Administration, cannot remain impartial. Therefore, Sheikh Abdullah must depart.

Let us suppose that Sheikh Abdullah goes, who is to replace Sheikh Abdullah ? It will be someone amongst the 4 million people of the State of Jammu and Kashmir. But can we find anyone among these 4 million people whom we can call impartial? After all, we are not logs of wood, we are not dolls. We must have an opinion one way or the other. The people of Kashmir are either in favour of Pakistan or in favour of India.

Therefore, Pakistan’s position comes down to this that the 4 million people of that State should have no hand in running the administration of their own country. Someone else must come in for that purpose. Is that fair ? Is that just ? Do the members of the Security Council wish to oust the people of Kashmir from running their own administration and their own country ? Then, for argument’s sake, let us suppose that the 4 million people of the State of Jammu and Kashmir agree to have nothing to do with the administration of their country; some one else must be brought into the country for this purpose. From where do the members of the Security Council propose that such a neutral individual may be secured? From India? No, from Pakistan? No, from anywhere in the world? No, frankly speaking, even if the Security Council were to request Almighty God to administer the State of Jammu and Kashmir during this interim period, I do not feel that He could act impartially. After all, one must have sympathy either for this side or that side.

If elections were to be held in the United Kingdom sometime after tomorrow with the Labour Government in power, would anyone say to Mr Attlee: “The elections are now going on. Because you happen to belong to Labour Party, your sympathies will be in favour of the Labour vote. Therefore, you had better clear out. We must have a neutral man as Prime Minister until our elections are finished?

However, we have been told that Sheikh Abdullah must walk out because he has declared his point of view in favour of India. Therefore, he cannot be impartial. We must have some impartial man we must have some neutral man.

As I have submitted to the members of the Security Council, Sheikh Abdullah happens to be there because the people wish it. As long as the people wish it, I shall be there. There is no power on earth which can displace me from the position which I have there. As long as the people are behind me, I will remain there.

We have declared once for all, that there shall be freedom of voting and for that purpose we have said, “Let anyone come in, we have no objection. Let the Commission of the Security Council on India come into our State and advise us how we should take a vote, how we should organize it, and how it can be completely impartial. We have no objection.” My Government is ready to satisfy, to the last comma, the impartiality of the vote.

But to have an impartial vote is one thing; to have a say in the administration of the State is a different thing entirely. After all, with what are we concerned? We are concerned only with the fact that no influence shall be exercised over the voters, either in one way or in another. The people shall be free to vote according to their own interests. We are ready to accede to that.

It is then said: “You cannot have freedom of voting as long as the Indian Army remains in the State of Jammu and Kashmir.” It is probably very difficult for me to draw a full picture of what is going on in that country. There is absolute chaos in certain parts of the country, fighting is going on and thousands of tribesmen are there ready to take advantage of any weakness on the part of the State of Jammu and Kashmir.

Once we ask the Indian Army, which is the only protective force in Kashmir against these marauders, to clear out, we leave the country open to chaos. After all, one who has suffered for the last seventeen years, in attempting to secure the freedom and liberation of his own country, would not like an outside army to come in and to remain in the country.

However, what is the present situation? If I ask the Indian Army to clear out, how am I going to protect the people from the looting, arson, murder and abduction with which they have been faced all these long months? What is the alternative? here need be no fear since the Indian Army is there, that this army will interfere in the exercise of a free vote. After all, a Commission of the Security Council will be there in order to watch. The Indian Army does not have to go into every village. It will be stationed at certain strategic points, so that in the event of danger from any border, the Army will be there to protect that border. The army is there to curb disorders anywhere in the State; that is all. The army will not be in each and every village in order to watch each and every vote.

It is then said: “Can we not have a joint control ? Can we not have the armies of Pakistan and India inside the State in order to control the situation ?” This is an unusual idea. What Pakistan could not achieve through ordinary means, Pakistan wishes to achieve by entering through the back door, so that it may have its armies inside the State and then start the fight. That is not possible. After all, we have been discussing the situation in Kashmir. I should say that we have been playing the drama of Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. The people of Kashmir are vitally interested in this question. Four million people in Kashmir are keenly interested in this entire affair. I have sympathies with the people of Poonch and Mirpur. The representative of Pakistan will probably concede that I have suffered greatly for the people of Poonch as well as for the people of Mirpur. There is no difference on this part of international democratisation of the administration between me, my party and the people of Poonch. We are one, we want our own liberty, we want our own freedom, we do not want autocratic rule. We desire that the 4 million people in Jammu and Kashmir—Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims— shall have the right to change their destiny, to control their country, and to administer it as best as they can. On that point there is absolutely no difference.

However, it is not a question of internal liberation. The Security Council should not confine the issue. The question is not that we want internal freedom, the question is not how the Maharaja got his State, or whether or not he is sovereign. These points are not before the Security Council. Whether Kashmir has lawfully acceded to India—complaints on that score have been brought before the Security Council on behalf of Pakistan—is not the point at issue. If that were the point at issue, then we should discuss that subject. We should prove before the Security Council that Kashmir and the people of Kashmir have lawfully and constitutionally acceded to the Dominion of India and Pakistan has no right to question that accession. However, that is not the discussion before the Security Council.

Indian and Kashmiri forces are ready to deal with tribesmen, to come to an understanding with the people of Kashmir and to establish ademocratic form of government inside the State. We shall do all that. We do not want Pakistan to lend us support to suppress an internal revolt or to drive out the tribesmen. We do not seek any support from Pakistan in that connection. Since Pakistan is a neighbouring country, we desire to remain on the friendliest possible terms with this sister Dominion. But we do ask that Pakistan shall have no hand, directly or indirectly, in this turmoil in Kashmir. The Government of Pakistan has said: “We have no hand in this turmoil.” The only course left to the Security Council is to send out the commission and to see whether or not Pakistan has any hand in this turmoil. If Pakistan has had any hand in this turmoil, then the Government of Pakistan should be asked to desist from such activity. If Pakistan has had no hand in this turmoil, then that can be proved.

This issue has been clouded by very many other issues and interests. I suggested at informal talks that according to my understanding there are two points at issue, first, how to have this neutral impartial administration; second, whether or not the Indian Army shall remain. It is not at all disputed that we must have a plebiscite and that the accession must be ratified by the people of Kashmir, freely and without any pressure on this or that side. That much is conceded, there is no dispute about that. The dispute arises when it is suggested that in order to have the free vote, the administration must be changed. To that suggestion we say, “No.”

I do not know what course future events will take. However, I may assure the Security Council that, if I am asked to conduct the administration of this State, it will be my duty to make the administration absolutely impartial. It will be my duty to request my brothers, who are in a different camp at this time, to come to lend me support. After all, they are my own kith and kin. We suffered together, we have no quarrel with them. I shall tell them: “Come on; it is my country; it is your country. I have been asked to administer the State. Are you prepared to lend me support? It is for me to make the administration successful; it is for me to make the administration look impartial.” It is not for Pakistan to say “No, we must have an impartial administration.” I refuse to accept Pakistan as a party in the affairs of the Jammu and Kashmir State. I refuse this point blank. Pakistan has no right to say that we must do this and we must do that. We have seen enough of Pakistan. The people of Kashmir have seen enough. Muzaffarabad and Baramulla and hundred of villages in Jammu and Kashmir depict the story of Pakistan to the people of Jammu and Kashmir. We want to have no more of this.

In concluding, I again request that in order to settle this issue of Kashmir, the Security Council should not confuse the point in dispute. The Security Council should not allow various other extraneous matters to be introduced. Very many extraneous matters have been introduced. The representative of Pakistan gave us the history of the Jammu and Kashmir State. He read to us some letters from Viceroys of India, asking the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir to behave, giving the Maharaja good advice, et cetera. However, we cannot forget that these States are the creation of British imperialism in India who has supported these states and this misrule for these 150 years? It is not going to convince me or the world for the representative of Pakistan to say: “These events have happened and these letters were written.” We know how the Princes have acted, how the states were brought into existence, and how the Princes were supported. This was all a game in the British imperialist policy. But this legacy has now fallen upon us. We are not here to discuss whether or not the Maharaja lawfully became the ruler of the State, whether or not there is moral administration in this State, whether or not the Maharaja is sovereign and whether or not Kashmir has legally acceded to India. These issues are not before the Security Council. The only issue before the Security Council is that Pakistan must observe its international obligations and must not support any outside raiders.

Pakistan should not encourage inside revolt. Pakistan has denied that it has in order to verify the statements made by the representatives of India and Pakistan, the Security Council must send a commission to the spot to see whether the complaint brought before the Security Council is valid or invalid. If the Security Council finds that the complaint brought before it by India is valid, then Pakistan should be asked to desist or India should be permitted to use its means to carry out the decision of the Security Council.

As far as I can speak on behalf of India, India does not want the help of the armies of Pakistan. What it wants from Pakistan is that Pakistan should not supply bases to the raiders on Pakistan territory across the border from Jammu and Kashmir State. All along the border on Pakistan territory, there are huge concentrations of these tribesmen who are Pakistani nationals. We request Pakistan not to allow its territory to be used by these raiders.

Pakistan should not provide ammunition, arms, direction and control to these tribesmen. It should stop the passage of these tribesmen through its territory. Pakistan should not supply arms and ammunition to the people who are fighting within the State because all these matters fall under an international obligation. Therefore, Pakistan should desist from that practice. That is all. We do not want any armed help from Pakistan. If Pakistan does what we have requested, the Indian Army, I am quite sure, will be capable of driving out the raiders and tribesmen. If Pakistan does not meddle in our affairs, we will be capable of solving all our own internal disputes with the Maharaja of Kashmir. However, as long as this unofficial war continues, it is very difficult for us to do any thing. Our hands are tied.

What is happening? The raiders are concentrated just across the border. They enter our State in large number—four or five thousand strong. They raid four or five villages, burn them, abduct women and loot property. When our army tries to capture them, they go across the border, and can not fire a single shot across the border, because if it does, there is the immediate danger of a greater conflagration. So our hands are tied.

We do not want to create this difficult situation without informing the Security Council and we felt honour-bound to inform it of the actual position. The Indian Army could easily have followed the raiders across the border and could have attacked the bases, which were all in Pakistan territory, but it desisted. We thought it would be better to inform the Security Council of the situation.

However, I did not have the slightest idea that when the case came before the Security Council, the representative of Pakistan would so boldly deny that Pakistan supplied all this help. Everybody knows that Pakistan is aiding these raiders and tribesmen and the people who are fighting with the State. However, Pakistan chose boldly to deny all these charges.

What is left for me to do? After all, I do not have any magic lamp so that I might bring the entire picture of Jammu and Kashmir State, along with the borders of Pakistan, before the eyes of the members of the Security Council so that they might see who is fighting and who is not fighting. Therefore, somebody must go to the spot. Then at that time it would be for us to prove that the charges we have brought before the Security Council are correct to the last word. That is the only help we want and no other help.”

 

 

 

Thirdly, though by no means lastly, may be placed the 14 August 1951 Memorandum of  prominent Muslims led by Dr Zakir Hussain to the UN Representative Dr. Frank P. Graham:

“It is a remarkable fact that, while the Security Council and its various agencies have devoted so much time to the study of the Kashmir dispute and made various suggestions for its resolution, none of them has tried to ascertain the views of the Indian Muslims nor the possible effect of any hasty step in Kashmir, however well-intentioned, on the interests and well- being of the Indian Muslims. We are convinced that no lasting solution for the problem can be found unless the position of Muslims in Indian society is clearly understood.

Supporters of the idea of Pakistan, before this subcontinent was partitioned, discouraged any attempt to define Pakistan clearly and did little to anticipate the conflicting problems which were bound to arise as a result of the advocacy of the two-nation theory. The concept of Pakistan, therefore, became an emotional slogan with little rational content. It never occurred to the Muslim League or its leaders that if a minority was not prepared to live with a majority on the sub- continent, how could the majority be expected t o tolerate the minority.

It is, therefore, small wonder that the result of partition has been disastrous to Muslims. In undivided India, their strength lay about 100 million. Partition split up the Muslim people, confining them to the three isolated regions. Thus, Muslims number 25 million in Western Pakistan, 35 million to 40 million in India, and the rest in Eastern Pakistan. A single undivided community has been broken into three fragments, each faced with its own problems.

Pakistan was not created on a religious basis. If it had been, our fate as well as the fate of other minorities would have been settled at that time. Nor would the division of the sub- continent for reasons of religion have left large minorities in India or Pakistan.

This merely illustrates what we have said above, that the concept of Pakistan was vague, obscure, and never clearly defined, nor its likely consequences foreseen by the Muslim League, even when some of these should have been obvious.

When the partition took place, Muslims in India were left in the lurch by the Muslim League and its leaders. Most of them departed to Pakistan and a few who stayed behind stayed long enough to wind up their affairs and dispose of their property. Those who went over to Pakistan left a large number of relations and friends behind.

Having brought about a division of the country, Pakistan leaders proclaimed that they would convert Pakistan into a land where people would live a life according to the tenets of Islam. This created nervousness and alarm among the minorities living in Pakistan. Not satisfied with this, Pakistan went further and announced again and again their determination to protect and safeguard the interests of Muslims in India. This naturally aroused suspicion amongst the Hindus against us and our loyalty to India was questioned.

Pakistan had made our position weaker by driving out Hindus from Western Pakistan in utter disregard of the consequences of such a policy to us and our welfare. A similar process is in question in Eastern Pakistan from which Hindus are coming over to India in a large and large number.

If the Hindus are not welcome in Pakistan, how can we, in all fairness, expect Muslims to be welcomed in India ? Such a policy must inevitably, as the past has already shown, result in the uprooting of Muslims in this country and their migration to Pakistan where, as it became clear last year, they are no longer welcome, lest their influx should destroy Pakistan’s economy. Neither some of the Muslims who did migrate to Pakistan after partition, and following the widespread bloodshed and conflict on both sides of the Indo-Pakistan border in the north- west, have been able to find a happy asylum in what they had been told would be their homeland. Consequently some of them have had to return to India, e.g. Meos who are now being rehabilitated in their former areas.

If we are living honourably in India today, it is certainly not due to Pakistan which, if anything, has by her policy and action weakened our position. The credit goes to the broadminded leadership of India, to Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, to the traditions of tolerance in this country and to the Constitution which ensures equal rights to all citizens of India, irrespective of their religion caste, creed, colour or sex.

We, therefore, feel that, tragically as Muslims were misled by the Muslim League and subsequently by Pakistan and the unnecessary suffering which we and our Hindu brethren have to go through in Pakistan and in India since partition, we must be given an opportunity to settle down to a life of tolerance and understanding to the mutual benefit of Hindus and Muslims in our country – if only Pakistan would let us do it. To us it is a matter of no small consequence.

Despite continuous provocations, first from the Muslim League and since then from Pakistan, the Hindu majority in India has not thrown us or members of other minorities out of Civil Services, Armed Forces, the judiciary, trade, commerce, business and industry. There are Muslim Ministers in the Union and State cabinets, Muslim Governors, Muslim Ambassadors, representing India in foreign countries, fully enjoying the confidence of the Indian nation, Muslim members in Parliament and state legislatures, Muslim judges serving on the Supreme Court and High Courts, high-ranking officers in the Armed Forces and the Civil services, including the police.

Muslims have large landed estates, run big business and commercial houses in various parts of the country, notably in Bombay and Calcutta, have their shares in industrial production and enterprise in export and import trade. Our famous sacred shrines and places of cultural interest are mostly in India.

Not that our lot is certainly happy. We wish some of the state Governments showed a little greater sympathy to us in the field of education and employment. Nevertheless, we feel we have an honourable place in India. Under the law of the land, our religious and cultural life is protected and we shall share in the opportunities open to all citizens to ensure progress for the people of this country.

It is, therefore, clear that our interest and welfare do not coincide with Pakistan’s conception of the welfare and interests of Muslims in Pakistan.

This is clear from Pakistan’s attitude towards Kashmir. Pakistan claims Kashmir, first, on the ground of the majority of the State’s people being Muslims and, secondly, on the ground, of the state being essential to its economy and defence. To achieve its objective it has been threatening to launch “Jihad” against Kashmir in India. It is a strange commentary on political beliefs that the same Muslims of Pakistan who like the Muslims of Kashmir to join them invaded the state, in October 1947, killing and plundering Muslims in the state and dishonouring Muslim women, all in the interest of what they described as the liberation of Muslims of the State. In its oft-proclaimed anxiety to rescue the 3 million Muslims from what it describes as the tyranny of a handful of Hindus in the State, Pakistan evidently is prepared to sacrifice the interests of 40 million Muslims in India – a strange exhibition of concern for the welfare of fellow- Muslims. Our misguided brothers in Pakistan do not realise that if Muslims in Pakistan can wage a war against Hindus in Kashmir why should not Hindus, sooner or later, retaliate against Muslims in India.

Does Pakistan seriously think that it could give us any help if such an emergency arose or that we would deserve any help thanks to its own follies ? It is incapable of providing room and livelihood to the 40 million Muslims of India, should they migrate to Pakistan. Yet its policy and action, if not changed soon, may well produce the result which it dreads.

We are convinced that India will never attack our interests. First of all, it would be contrary to the spirit animating the political movement in this country. Secondly, it would be opposed to the Constitution and to the sincere leadership of the Prime Minister. Thirdly, India by committing such a folly would be playing straight into the hands of Pakistan.

We wish we were equally convinced of the soundness of Pakistan’s policy. So completely oblivious is it of our present problems and of our future that it is willing to sell us into slavery – if only it can secure Kashmir.

It ignores the fact that Muslims in Kashmir may also have a point of view of their own, that there is a democratic movement with a democratic leadership in the State, both inspired by the progress of a broad minded, secular, democratic movement in India and both naturally being in sympathy with India. Otherwise, the Muslim raiders should have been welcomed with open arms by the Muslims of the State when the invasion took place in 1947.

Persistent propaganda about “Jihad” is intended, among other things, to inflame religious passions in this country. For it would, of course, be in Pakistan’s interests to promote communal rioting in India to show to Kashmiri Muslims how they can find security only in Pakistan. Such a policy, however, can only bring untold misery and suffering to India and Pakistan generally and to Indian Muslims particularly. Pakistan never tires of asserting that it is determined to protect the interests of Muslims in Kashmir and India. Why does not Pakistan express the same concern for Pathans who are fighting for Pakhtoonistan, an independent homeland of their own ? The freedom-loving Pathans under the leadership of Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan and Dr. Khan Sahib, both nurtured in the traditions of democratic tolerance of the Indian National Congress, are being subjected to political repression of the worst possible kind by their Muslim brethren in power in Pakistan and in the NWFP. Contradictory as Pakistan’s policy generally is, it is no surprise to us that while it insists on a fair and impartial plebiscite in Kashmir, it denies a fair and impartial plebiscite to Pathans.

Pakistan’s policy in general and her attitude towards Kashmir is particular thus tend to create conditions in this country which in the long run can only bring to us Muslims widespread suffering and destruction. Its policy prevents us from settling down, from being honourable citizens of a State, free from suspicion of our fellow-countrymen and adapting ourselves to changing conditions to promote the interests and welfare of India. Its sabre-rattling interferes with its own economy and ours. It expects us to be loyal to it despite its impotence to give us any protection, believing at the same time that we can still claim all the rights of citizenship in a secular democracy.

In the event of a war, it is extremely doubtful whether it will be able to protect the Muslims of East Bengal who are completely cut off from Western Pakistan. Are the Muslims of India and Eastern Pakistan to sacrifice themselves completely to enable the 25 million Muslims in Western Pakistan to embark upon mad, self-destructive adventures?

We should, therefore, like to impress upon you with all the emphasis at our command that Pakistan’s policy towards Kashmir is fraught with the gravest peril to the 40 million Muslims of India. If the Security Council is really interested in peace, human brotherhood and international understanding, it should heed this warning while there is still time.

Dr. Zakir Hussain (Vice Chancellor Aligarh University); Sir Sultan Ahmed (Former Member of Governor General’s Executive Council); Sir Mohd. Ahmed Syed Khan(Nawab of Chhatari, former acting Governor of United Provinces and Prime Minister of Hyderabad); Sir Mohd. Usman (Former member of Governor General’s Executive council and acting Governor of Madras); Sir Iqbal Ahmed (Former Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court); Sir Fazal Rahimtoola (Former Sheriff of Bombay); Maulana Hafz-ur-Rehman M.P.; Col. B.H. Zaidi M.P.; Nawab Zain Yar Jung (Minister Gcvernment of Hyderabad); A.K. Kawaja (Former President of Muslim Majlis); T.M. Zarif (General Secretary West Bengal Bohra Community)”.

Such have been the most eminent voices of India’s Muslims in times past. Sadly, they have no equivalent today when India’s Muslims need them with greater urgency. (Bollywood or cricketing celebrities hardly substitute!) This fault in the intellectual history of the modern subcontinent has been a principal factor causing the misapprehensions and distortions of Pakistan’s and J&K’s political reality to continue worldwide.

Posted in Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Arabs, Asia and the West, Balochistan, Bangladesh, BBC, Britain in India, Britain's immigrant communities, Dr Zakir Hussain, Hindus and Muslims, India's History, India's independence, India's Land, India's Muslims, India's Nationalism, India's Partition, India's Politics, India's Polity, India-Pakistan cooperation against terrorism, India-Pakistan peace process, International Law, International politics, Iqbal, Islam, Israel, Jammu & Kashmir, Jews for and against Zionism, MA Jinnah, Maulana Azad, Mumbai massacres, Muslim and Hindu communalism, Pakistan in international law, Pakistan's history, Pakistan's politics, Pakistan's terrorist masterminds, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistani expansionism, Palestine, Pervez Hoodbhoy, Secular governance, Secularism in practice, Sheikh Abdullah, US Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Espionage, USA, United States polity, War, World History, Zionism. 4 Comments »

In international law, Pakistan has been the perpetrator, India the victim of aggression in Mumbai

November 30, 2008 — drsubrotoroy

In international law, the attacks on Mumbai would probably reveal Pakistan to have been  the aggressor state, India the victim of aggression.   It is standard law that a “master” is responsible for the misdeeds of his “servant”. E.g., “Where the relation of master and servant clearly exists, the employer is responsible for injury occasioned by the negligent conduct of the servant in carrying out his orders.  And this rule is so extensive as to make the master liable for the careless, reckless and wanton conduct of his servant, provided it be within the scope of his employment”.   President Zardari and Prime Minister Gillani may declare truthfully they had no prior knowledge of the attacks on Mumbai, that these were not in any way authorized by them or their Government.  But it seems likely  on the basis of current evidence that  the young terrorists who attacked Mumbai were still in a “master-servant” relationship with elements of the Pakistani state and had been financed, trained, motivated and supplied by  resources arising, directly or indirectly, from the Pakistani exchequer.   Public moneys in Pakistan came to be used or misused to pay for aggression against India —  in a quite similar pattern to the October 1947 attack on Kashmir, Ayub Khan’s 1965 “Operation Grand Slam”, and Pervez Musharraf’s 1999 attack on Kargil.

And to think that these youth who were made into  becoming terroristic mass murderers were toddlers  when the USSR withdrew from Afghanistan, in primary school when the 1993 WTC bombing happened and adolescents at the time of the 9/11 attacks.

Posted in Afghanistan, India's Land, India's Military Defence, India's Polity, India-Pakistan peace process, International diplomacy, International Law, International politics, Jammu & Kashmir, Master and Servant Law, Mumbai massacres, Mumbai/Bombay, Nariman House massacre, Nuclear conflict, Pakistan's history, Pakistan's nuclear weapons, Pakistan's politics, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Pervez Musharraf, September 11 attacks, US Pakistan policy, USSR, War, World History. 2 Comments »

Of a new New Delhi myth and the success of the University of Hawaii 1986-1992 Pakistan project (with 2015 Postscript)

November 15, 2008 — drsubrotoroy

A leading Indian commentator says in this morning’s paper (November 15 2008) about Manmohan Singh:

“His formulation on Kashmir (“I have no mandate to change borders, but we can make borders irrelevant”), became the obvious solution once he articulated it.”

Such may be how  modern New Delhi’s myths and self-delusions  get born — since in fact there is no evidence that Manmohan Singh  or any of his acolytes had anything to do with originating the Pakistan-India peace process in recent decades, just as there has not been that Manmohan Singh or  any of his acolytes had anything to do with originating the  Congress Party’s new economic thinking in 1990-1991.

(Lest I be misunderstood I should add at the outset that I have the highest personal regard for Dr Singh, he has been  in decades past a friend of my father’s, he at my father’s request consented to discuss economics with me in Paris in 1973 when I was a callow lad of 18, he himself has not claimed the originality that has been frequently mis-attributed to him by others for whatever reason, etc.)

The origins of  the idea  about India-Pakistan and J&K expressed by Manmohan Singh’s words are to be found in the last paragraph of the Introduction by the Editors of a book which arose from the University of Hawaii’s 1986-1992 Pakistan project, which read:

“Kashmir… must be demilitarised and unified by both countries sooner or later, and it must be done without force. There has been enough needless bloodshed on the subcontinent… Modern Pakistanis and Indians are free peoples who can voluntarily agree in their own interests to alter the terms set hurriedly by Attlee or Mountbatten in the Indian Independence Act 1947. Nobody but we ourselves keeps us prisoners of superficial definitions of who we are or might be. The subcontinent could evolve its political identity over a period of time on the pattern of Western Europe, with open borders and (common) tariffs to the outside world, with the free movement of people, capital, ideas and culture. Large armed forces could be reduced and transformed in a manner that would enhance the security of each nation. The real and peaceful economic revolution of the masses of the subcontinent would then be able to begin.”

The University of Hawaii’s Pakistan project, involving Pakistani and other scholars, including one Indian, led to the volume Foundations of Pakistan’s Political Economy: Towards an Agenda for the 1990s published in Karachi, New Delhi and elsewhere. The book reached Nawaz Sharif and the Islamabad elite, including the most hawkish of Islamabad’s hawks, and Pervez Musharraf’s 2006 proposal on J&K, endorsed warmly by the US State Department,  may have grown from that paragraph. The Editors of the book, as economists themselves, decried the waste of resources involved in the Pakistan-India confrontation, saying it had

“greatly impoverished the general budgets of both Pakistan and India. If it has benefited important sections of the political and military elites of  both countries, it has done so only at the expense of the general welfare of the masses.”

Such words were impossibly bold in the  late 1980s-early 1990s.  However,  as stated in  a special editorial article “What to tell Musharraf”     in The Statesman of December 16 2006, they seemed  in recent years incomplete and rather naïve even to their author, who was myself, the only Indian in that project and the one who had conceived it. Most significantly, the position in international law in the context of historical facts had been wholly neglected. So had been the manifest nature of the Pakistani state (as it had become prior to the splendid 2008 elections).

The Hawaii project had involved top Pakistani economists, political scientists and other commentators but had deliberately chosen to keep the military and the religious clergy out of its chapters.  And it was the military and religious clergy who in fact came to dominate Pakistan’s agenda in the 1990s, at least until the 9/11 attacks in America indirectly  altered the political direction of the country.

The peaceful and mundane economic agenda outlined for Pakistan in the Hawaii project  has come into its own  by way of  relevance ever since.  A few weeks ago, the first trucks filled with fruit, woolens and many other goods traversed across the “Line of Control” in J&K for the first time in sixty years.   The Pakistan project that James and I led at the University of Hawaii in the late 1980s may be now declared a success.   Among other things, our book explained to Indians that there does exist a Pakistani point of view and perhaps explained to Pakistanis that there does exist an Indian point of view.  That  is something that had not existed before our book.

pak

Postscript 18 Nov 2015:  I have made clear at Twitter that I find the K.M. Kasuri book promoted and publicized in India by MS Aiyar, S Kulkarni, B Dutt and others in Delhi and Mumbai is mendacious where it is not merely self-serving.  Its clear intent is to get India to accept the (false) ISI/Hurriyat narratives about 1947, Kashmir, Bangladesh, terrorism etc.  Its purported ideas of demilitarisation and a borderless Kashmir are essentially lifted from my earlier 1980s work in America cited above — which I myself have rejected as naive since the Pakistani aggression in Kargil in 1999.  More anon.

Posted in Academic economics, Academic research, American academia, Asia and the West, Britain in India, British foreign policy, British history, British imperialism, Cold War, Congress Party, Diplomacy, Government of India, Government of Pakistan, India in international law, India's 1991 Economic Reform, India's Economy, India's History, India's independence, India's Polity, India-Pakistan peace process, Jammu & Kashmir, Jammu & Kashmir in international law, Land and political economy, Manmohan Singh, Pakistan in international law, Pakistan's economy, Pakistan's history, Pakistan's politics, Pakistan's terrorist masterminds, Pakistan's terrorist training institutes, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistani expansionism, Politics, September 11 attacks, University of Hawaii, USA, United States, World History. 3 Comments »

America’s divided economists

October 26, 2008 — drsubrotoroy


America’s divided economists

by

Subroto Roy

First published in

Business Standard 26 October 2008

Future doctoral theses about the Great Tremor of 2008 will ask how it was that the Fed chief, who was an academic economist, came to back so wholeheartedly the proposals of the investment banker heading the US Treasury. If Herbert Hoover and FDR in the 1930s started something called fiscal policy for the first time, George W Bush’s lameduck year has marked the total subjugation of monetary policy.

In his 1945 classic, History of Banking Theory, the University of Chicago’s Lloyd Mints said: “No reorganisation of the Federal Reserve System, while preserving its independence from the Treasury, can offer a satisfactory agency for the implementation of monetary policy. The Reserve banks and their branches should be made agencies of the Treasury and all monetary powers delegated by Congress should be given to the Secretary of the Treasury…. It is not at all certain that Treasury control of the stock of money would always be reasonable… but Treasury influence cannot be excluded by the creation of a speciously independent monetary agency that cannot have adequate powers for the performance of its task…” Years later, Milton Friedman himself took a similar position suggesting legislation “to end the independence of the Fed by converting it into a bureau of the Treasury Department…”(see, for example, Essence of Friedman, p 416).

Ben Bernanke’s Fed has now ended any pretence of monetary policy’s independence from the whims and exigencies of executive power. Yet Dr Bernanke’s fellow academic economists have been unanimous in advising caution, patience and more information and reflection upon the facts. The famous letter of 122 economists to the US Congress was a rare statement of sense and practical wisdom. It agreed the situation was difficult and needed bold action. But it said the Paulson-Bernanke plan was an unfair “subsidy to investors at taxpayers’ expense. Investors who took risks to earn profits must also bear the losses. Not every business failure carries systemic risk. The government can ensure a well-functioning financial industry, able to make new loans to creditworthy borrowers, without bailing out particular investors and institutions whose choices proved unwise.”

Besides, the plan was unclear and too far-reaching. “Neither the mission of the new agency nor its oversight are clear. If taxpayers are to buy illiquid and opaque assets from troubled sellers, the terms, occasions, and methods of such purchases must be crystal clear ahead of time and carefully monitored afterwards…. If the plan is enacted, its effects will be with us for a generation. For all their recent troubles, America’s dynamic and innovative private capital markets have brought the nation unparalleled prosperity. Fundamentally weakening those markets in order to calm short-run disruptions is desperately short-sighted.”

The House’s initial bipartisan “backbench revolt” against “The Emergency Economic Stabilisation Act of 2008” (ESSA) followed this academic argument and rejected the Bernanke Fed’s advice. Is there an “emergency”, and if so what is its precise nature? Is this “economic stabilisation”, and if so, how is it going to work? The onus has been on Dr Bernanke and his staff to argue both, not merely to assert them. Even if the House “held its nose” and passed the measure for now, the American electorate is angry and it is anybody’s guess how a new President and Congress will alter all this in a few months.

Several academic economists have argued for specific price-stabilisation of the housing market being the keystone of any large, expensive and risky government intervention. (John McCain has also placed this in the political discussion now.) Roughly speaking, the housing supply-curve has shifted so far to the right that collapsed housing prices need to be dragged back upward by force. Columbia Business School economists Glenn Hubbard and Chris Mayer, both former Bush Administration officials, have proposed allowing “all residential mortgages on primary residences to be refinanced into 30-year fixed-rate mortgages at 5.25 per cent…. close to where mortgage rates would be today with normally functioning mortgage markets….Lower interest rates will mean higher overall house prices…” Yale’s Jonathan Koppell and William Goetzmann have argued very similarly the Treasury “could offer to refinance all mortgages issued in the past five years with a fixed-rate, 30-year mortgage at 6 per cent. No credit scores, no questions asked; just pay off the principal of the existing mortgage with a government check. If monthly payments are still too high, homeowners could reduce their indebtedness in exchange for a share of the future price appreciation of the house. That is, the government would take an ownership interest in the house just as it would take an ownership interest in the financial institutions that would be bailed out under the Treasury’s plan.”

Beyond the short run, the US may play the demographic card by inviting in a few million new immigrants (if nativist feelings hostile to the outsider or newcomer can be controlled, especially in employment). Bad mortgages and foreclosures would vanish as people from around the world who long to live in America buy up all those empty houses and apartments, even in the most desolate or dismal locations. If the US’s housing supply curve has moved so far to the right that the equilibrium price has gone to near zero, the surest way to raise the equilibrium price would be by causing a new wave of immigration leading to a new demand curve arising at a higher level.

Such proposals seek to address the problem at its source. They might have been expected from the Fed’s economists. Instead, ESSA speaks of massive government purchase and control of bad assets “downriver”, without any attempt to face the problem at its source. This makes it merely wishful to think such assets can be sold for a profit at a later date so taxpayers will eventually gain. It is as likely as not the bad assets remain bad assets.

Indeed the University of Chicago’s Casey Mulligan has argued there is a financial crisis involving the banking sector but not an economic one: “We’re not entering a second Great Depression.” The marginal product of capital remains high and increasing “far above the historical average. The third-quarter earnings reports from some companies already suggest that America’s non-financial companies are still making plenty of money…. So, if you are not employed by the financial industry (94 per cent of you are not), don’t worry. The current unemployment rate of 6.1 per cent is not alarming, and we should reconsider whether it is worth it to spend $700 billion to bring it down to 5.9 per cent.”

Dr Bernanke has been a close student of A Monetary History of the United States in which Milton Friedman and Anna J Schwartz argued that the Fed inadvertently worsened the Great Contraction of 1929-1933 by not responding to Congress. Let not future historians find that the Fed, at the behest of the Treasury Secretary, worsened the Great Tremor of 2008 by bamboozling Congress into hasty action.

Posted in Accounting and audit, America's housing market, America's mortgage crisis, American academia, American democracy, American financial crises, American history, American politics, Anna Schwartz, asymmetric information, Banking, Ben Bernanke, Dynamic competition, Economic Policy, Economic quackery, Economic Theory, Economic Theory of Interest, Economic Theory of Value, Economics of Exchange Rates, Economics of housing markets, Economics of Public Finance, Economics of real estate valuation, Economics of Unemployment, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Federal Reserve Banks, Financial markets, Government accounting, Government Budget Constraint, Great Tremor of 2008, International immigration, Lehman Brothers crisis, Macroeconomics, Milton Friedman, Monetary Theory, Money and banking, October 1929 New York Stock Market Crash, Political cynicism, Political Economy, Pork-barrel politics, Professional ethics, Public Choice/Public Finance, Public property waste fraud, United States Congress, University of Chicago, US economy, US Federal Reserve System, US in World Trade, US Monetary and Fiscal Policy, US Presidential Election, US Republicans and Democrats, USA, United States, USA, United States polity, World History. 1 Comment »

Indira Gandhi in Paris, 1971

October 18, 2008 — drsubrotoroy

This is a photograph of Indira Gandhi emerging with Andre Malraux for a press-conference at the Embassy of India in Paris  in the Autumn of 1971.   (My father, pictured in the centre, had been posted to the Embassy  just a few weeks earlier in anticipation of the visit.  [My father recalls her asking him during or between one of these meetings, “Mr Roy, I am very hungry, can you please get me something to eat?”, and he went and grabbed a small hotel plate full of peanuts which she devoured…])  Indira was making the serious diplomatic effort that she did in world capitals to avert war with West Pakistan over its atrocities in East Pakistan.  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 judgement 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 and republished elsewhere here under “Revisionist Flattery”.)

 

“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 judgement 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,  republished elsewhere here).

Posted in Andre Malraux, Asia and the West, Bangladesh, France, India's Bangladesh liberation war, India's Diplomacy, India's Foreign Policy, India's Foreign Service, India's Polity, Indira Gandhi, Pakistan's history, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Paris, Richard Nixon, US China policy, US Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Espionage, War, World History. 3 Comments »

Govt of India: Please call in the BBC and ask them a question

September 27, 2008 — drsubrotoroy

The BBC has unilaterally decided that Jammu & Kashmir has nothing to do with India.  On its 1530 Indian Standard Time broadcast of purported “World News” today, it unilaterally lopped off all of J&K from the map of the Republic of India (shown attached to mention of a Delhi bomb-blast). Usually, the BBC at least makes pathetic reference to something it has invented called “Indian-Administered Kashmir”.

There are senior BBC staff-members who are dual Pakistani/British nationals and who may be counted on to have been pushing such a line within the organisation, but lopping off all of J&K unilaterally may be a novelty. There are several “Indian-origin” staff-members too but perhaps they have renounced their Indian nationality, and apparently they have no ability to make any editorial protest.

Does the Government of India have the sense, and the guts, to call in the local BBC and ask them for an explanation about their insult of history?   For that matter, what is the BBC’s formal position on the J&K  problem?  The same as that of the UK Government?  What is that of the UK Government for that matter?  Has it remained constant since Clement Attlee in October 1947?

BBC staff may like to refer to my articles “Solving Kashmir”, “Law, Justice and J&K”, “Pakistan’s Allies”, “History of Jammu & Kashmir”, etc for enlightenment.

Subroto Roy

Posted in Asia and the West, BBC, Britain, Britain in India, Government of India, India's Polity, Jammu & Kashmir, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, World History. 1 Comment »

October 1929? Not!

September 18, 2008 — drsubrotoroy

October 1929? Not!

by Subroto Roy

First published in

Business Standard, Editorial Page,

18 September 2008

Lehman Brothers filing for bankruptcy protection, Merrill Lynch taken over by Bank of America, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and now AIG being nationalised by the US Government, Bear Stearns getting a government bailout, many thousands of low-quality loans going bad … Does it all add up to an American financial crisis in the autumn of 2008 comparable to that in the autumn of 1929? Even Alan Greenspan himself has gone on record on TV saying it might.

 

But there are overriding differences. Most important, the American economy and the world economy are both incomparably larger today in the value of their capital stock, and there has also been enormous technological progress over eight decades. Accordingly, it would take a much vaster event than the present turbulence — say, something like an exchange of multiple nuclear warheads with Russia causing Manhattan and the City of London to be destroyed — before there was a return to something comparable to the 1929 Crash and the Great Depression that followed.

 

Besides, the roots of the crises are different. What happened back then? In 1922, the Genoa Currency Conference wanted to correct the main defect of the pre-1914 gold standard, which was freezing the price of gold while failing to stabilise the purchasing power of money. From 1922 until about 1927, Benjamin Strong of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York adopted price-stabilisation as the new American policy-objective. Britain was off the gold standard and the USA remained on it. The USA, as a major creditor nation, saw massive gold inflows which, by traditional gold standard principles, would have caused a massive inflation. Governor Strong invented the process of “sterilisation” of those gold inflows instead and thwarted the rise in domestic dollar prices of goods and services.

 

Strong’s death in 1928 threw the Federal Reserve System into conflict and intellectual confusion. Dollar stabilisation ended as a policy. Surplus bank money was created on the release of gold that had been previously sterilised.

 

The traditional balance between bulls and bears in the stock-market was upset. Normally, every seller of stock is a bear and every buyer a bull. Now, amateur investors appeared as bulls attracted by the sudden stock price rises, while bears, who sold securities, failed to place their money into deposit and were instead lured into lending it as call money to brokerages who then fuelled these speculative bulls. As of October 22, 1929 about $4 billion was the extent of such speculative lending when Chase National Bank’s customers called in their money.

 

Chase National had to follow their instructions, as did other New York banks. New York’s Stock Exchange could hardly respond to a demand for $4 billion at a short notice and collapsed. Within a year, production had fallen by 26 per cent, prices by 14 per cent, personal income by 14 per cent, and the Greatest Depression of recorded history was in progress — involuntary unemployment levels in America reaching 25 per cent.

 

That is not, by any reading, what we have today. Yes, there has been plenty of bad lending, plenty of duping shareholders and workers and plenty of excessive managerial payoffs. It will all take a large toll, and affect markets across the world.

 

But it will be a toll relative to our plush comfortable modern standards, not those of 1929-1933. In fact, modern decision-makers have the obvious advantage that they can look back at history and know what is not to be done. The US and the world economy are resilient enough to ride over even the extra uncertainty arising from the ongoing presidential campaign, and then some.

Posted in American financial crises, Banking, Benjamin Strong, Bulls and bears, Crash of 1929, Economic Policy, Economics of Exchange Rates, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Financial markets, Gold standard, Great Depression, Lehman Brothers crisis, Monetary Theory, Money and banking, New York Stock Exchange, October 1929 New York Stock Market Crash, US in World Trade, US Presidential Election, USA, United States, Wall Street financial crises, World History. Leave a Comment »

On Jimmy Carter & the “India-US Nuclear Deal”

September 12, 2008 — drsubrotoroy

I have always rather liked Jimmy Carter, who was President of the United States when I first went to Blacksburg from Cambridge in the summer of 1980.  It astonished me, perhaps because I was naiive, to find the depth of animosity against him among my American colleagues.  For example, I remember the late Wilson Schmidt (in one of several kindly gestures towards me until his untimely death) taking me to my first game of College Football — and there singing the Star Spangled Banner with the words “except Carter” added after “home of the brave”.   Of course it was the time of the Iranian hostage crisis which had then seemed to be a debilitating humiliation.

 

Jimmy Carter will need a good biographer to assess him properly, whether now or in years to come, and he may not get one; objective historians are simply too scarce, especially perhaps in America.  Certainly it was undignified of the Democratic Party not to give him any role whatsoever during the recent Convention appointing Barack Obama.

 

In the International Herald Tribune of September 11 2008, President Carter has said about the India-USA nuclear deal:

 

“different interpretations of the same pact can lead only to harsh confrontations if future decisions are made in New Delhi that contravene what has been understood in our country.”

 

 

I flatter myself to think he or his research-staff may have perhaps read my August 19 2007 article “Need for Clarity” available here where I said:

“The agreed text of the “treaty” looks, from a legal standpoint, quite sloppily and hurriedly written ~ almost as if each side has cut and paste its own preferred terms in different places with a nod to the other side…. Through the sloppiness comes scope for different interpretations. The Americans have said: try not to test, you don’t need to, we don’t test any more, and you have to know that if you do test, this deal is over, in fact it gets reversed. We have said, okay, we won’t test, and if we do test we know it is over with you but that does not mean it is over with others. Given such sloppy diplomacy and treaty-making, the scope for mutual misunderstanding, even war, remains immense long after all the public Indian moneys have found their way into private pockets worldwide. Will a future President Jeb Bush or Chelsea Clinton send F-22 bombers to bomb India’s nuclear facilities because India has carried out a test yet declined to return American equipment? Riding a tiger is not something generally to be recommended.”

Posted in India's Military Defence, India-United States business, India-US Nuclear Deal, India-USA interests, International politics, Iran, Jimmy Carter, US Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Espionage, US Military Doctrine, US Republicans and Democrats, US-Iran relations, USA, United States, USA, United States polity, War, World History. 1 Comment »

Map of Kashmir to Sinkiang 1944

June 8, 2008 — drsubrotoroy

Posted in 1962 War, Afghanistan, Aksai Chin, China, China's Commonwealth, China's History, China-India Relations, China-Tibet problem, Gilgit and Baltistan, India's History, India's Land, Jammu & Kashmir, Karakorum Pass, Kashgar, Kazakhstan, KPS Menon, Mountains and trekking, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Siachen Glacier, Sinkiang, Sino-Indian Border, Srinagar, Tadjikistan, Uzbekistan, World History, Xinjiang. 1 Comment »

Map of Sinkiang, Tibet and Neighbours 1944

June 7, 2008 — drsubrotoroy

The same map is shown here in four parts:


Posted in Afghanistan, Aksai Chin, Chiang Kaishek, China, China's Commonwealth, China's expansionism, China's History, China's military, China's wars, China-India Relations, China-Tibet problem, Gobi Desert, Inner Mongolia, Jammu & Kashmir, Kazakhstan, KPS Menon, Kuomintang, Mongolia, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Sinkiang, Sino-Indian Border, Tibet, Uighurs, World History, Xinjiang. Leave a Comment »

Leadership vacuum

June 7, 2008 — drsubrotoroy

First published in The Statesman, Editorial Page Special Article, June 7 2008, http://www.thestatesman.net

Leadership vacuum

Time & Tide Wait For No One In Politics: India Trails Pakistan & Nepal!

Subroto Roy

The Karnataka legislative elections, as well as to lesser extent the Bengal panchayat polls, have revealed the vacuum that exists across the leadership of India’s national-level politics today.

To start with the BJP: had India been a normal democratic country on the Western pattern, Mr Arun Jaitley would have rocketed to the top of his party’s leadership by now. Besides being articulate in both Hindi and English and in his fifties (the age-group of most leaders in democratic countries), Mr Jaitley’s political acumen and organisational skills have been acknowledged even by his Congress adversaries after the Karnataka result. He himself has been frank and expansive about his formula for winning in Karnataka, which was simply to focus on real issues, especially state-specific ones, as well as to project a single credible leader. Had the BJP been a normal political party in a normal country, Mr Jaitley would have been given the task of leading it to victory in the next General Election and, assuming he won a Lok Sabha seat, to become its prime ministerial candidate.

Dadagiri

Instead, the BJP chooses to remain backward, backward, backward in the majority of its thought-processes and behaviour-patterns ~ from its kneejerk anti-Muslim psychology via its hyperinflationary macroeconomics and protectionist trade to its embrace of astrology and bovine exclusiveness. The idea of uniting behind someone relatively modern-minded in his politics like Mr Jaitley would be simply unacceptable not merely to people in the party within his own age-cohort (including the present party president) but even more so to those in age-cohorts decades older (including the party’s present prime ministerial candidate).

The opposition of the first group would arise from, in a word, jealousy. The opposition of the second group would arise from, in a word, dadagiri, i.e. the gerontocratic idea that merely because one is older, one is owed respect, authority and the plums of office in precedence over someone who is younger. Jealousy is a universal emotion not something specific to Indian politics, but dadagiri and the lack of meritocracy in our political culture is one reason India remains an abnormal polity in the modern democratic world.

LK Advani, driven by his unfulfilled personal ambition, will likely lead the BJP in the next election and do so with Mr Jaitley’s explicit support; Mr Advani may lead it into defeat or even to a victory in which he, given his age, is not as successful a PM as a Jaitley might have been. Yet our sclerotic political culture is such that neither Mr Advani nor Mr Rajnath Singh will simply stand aside now and hand over the reins to a newer, more competent and progressive leadership.

The same idea of dadagiri pervades what passes for the official “Left” in India as exemplified by the CPI-M. Mr Jyoti Basu has in a recent letter to Harkishen Singh Surjeet reminisced of their times together, and in doing so remarked that he remained the Chief Minister of West Bengal for as many years as he did because the Party had instructed him to do so, and when he handed over power to Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, he did so with the Party’s agreement.

Those who believe in India’s parliamentary democracy might have thought that what our system requires is for a Chief Minister to hold the confidence of the legislative assembly from the bottom up but clearly that is not so because what a CM or PM seems to need are Party instructions from the top down. When Mr Bhattacharjee was anointed the new CM, the present author had remarked to the then Editor of The Statesman that the transition seemed to take place even without a formal vote of confidence in the Assembly. Does anyone in fact recall the last confidence vote debated and passed in the West Bengal Assembly? Democratic legislatures the world over routinely begin their new sessions with a debate and vote of no confidence being brought by the Opposition against the Government-of-the-day.

Does that happen with us, purportedly the world’s largest democracy? Let aside State legislatures, even our Parliament sees only the rare vote of confidence, and LK Advani specifically as Leader of the Opposition seems to have introduced none. Oppositions that do not wish to properly oppose are of course complicit in a government’s misdeeds.

It is the dadagiri culture shared by the official Communists that has caused the generational handover of power from Mr Basu and Mr Surjeet to the JNU coterie of the Karats and Mr Sitaram Yechuri. The “Left” like the “Right” and everyone else in Indian politics, can only handle cherubic “known” faces at the top ~ genuine grassroots activists like Binayak Sen or Medha Patkar must languish in jail or starve on hunger-strike in seeking to represent the politically and economically powerless in India while the entrenched dadas of Indian politics continue with their dissimulation.

Puppet-masters

In case of the Congress, it is an even deeper aspect of the Indian joint family system than dadagiri that has dominated its political culture, namely, the question who is the karta of the family and, if the karta is or seems too young or naïve or inexperienced, who will act as Regent on the karta’s behalf? Indira Gandhi was successfully guided in international politics for several years by a coterie led by PN Haksar. Rajiv Gandhi was attempted to be guided by several different competing coteries of senior party dadas ~ one of whom first brought up the name of Manmohan Singh in Indian politics on 22 March 1991 in a challenge addressed to the present author on liberalisation plans that Rajiv had authorised.

It is almost true to say that Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi have been in recent years played by puppet-masters of whose personal interests and intrigues they remain clueless. As has been said before by this author, the most salubrious thing Sonia Gandhi could have done for the Congress Party was to remain steadfast in her decision to stay out of Indian politics, and to have organised a fair, tough intra-party contest among its putative senior leaders based on differences of political and economic ideology.

Instead there is now paralysis in decision-making induced by Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh each mistakenly relying upon the other’s purported economic wisdom and political acumen. This confusion came to be most clearly illustrated in the choice of Head of State last year though that was something politically costless ~ the failures of which Karnataka is the current example may lead the Congress to lose what it, like other Indian parties, loves most of all, namely political power in Lutyens’ Delhi.

Indians should make no mistake: our good neighbours in Pakistan and Nepal (Muslim in Pakistan, Hindu and Buddhist and communist in Nepal) have been through healthy cathartic political experiences in recent months and years of a kind we have not. There continues to remain a dangerous intellectual vacuum around the throne of Delhi.

Posted in Asia and the West, Bengal, BJP, Communists, Congress Party, India's Constitution, India's Electorate, India's grassroots activists, India's Panchayat local democracy, India's Parliament, India's Personality Cults, India's Politics, India's Polity, India's Presidency, Indira Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, Medha Patkar, Nepal, Pakistan's history, Pakistan's politics, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Rajiv Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, World History. 1 Comment »

Serendipity and the China-Tibet-India border problem

June 6, 2008 — drsubrotoroy

Our carpenter completed some new book-cases and this led to our library being churned around a little. I found KPS Menon’s 1947 Delhi-Chungking: A Travel Diary about his 125-day 1944 journey from Delhi through Kashmir and Sinkiang/Xinjiang and “the 8th War Zone” to Chiang Kaishek’s capital at the time, Chung King/Chongqing. I had not read the book properly in decades. Looking at the contents, I found it said there were maps in the inside jacket — something I had never noticed before. Now I found the inner-jacket, put my hand in, and out came two Survey of India maps of Northern India (Kashmir, Baltistan), Sinkiang, China, Tibet….

I shall scan and upload them here within a day or so. It is clear that as of 1947 at least, China and Tibet were distinct on a map.

Posted in Aksai Chin, Chiang Kaishek, China, China's Commonwealth, China's expansionism, China's History, China's wars, China-India Relations, China-Tibet problem, India's Land, India's Polity, India-China relations, India-Tibet Border, Inner Mongolia, International Law, KPS Menon, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Serendipity and international relations, Siachen Glacier, Sinkiang, Sino-Indian Border, Tibet, World History, Xinjiang. Leave a Comment »

China’s force and diplomacy: The need for realism in India (2008)

May 31, 2008 — drsubrotoroy

China’s force & diplomacy: The need for realism In India

Subroto Roy

First published in The Statesman, Editorial Page Special Article, May 31, 2008

It is almost as large an error to overestimate Chinese military aims and capabilities as it has been to underestimate them. On 8 May 2008 at Tokyo’s Waseda University, China’s President Hu Jintao declared in a speech broadcast live “China has taken a defensive military policy and will not engage in any arms race. We will not become a military threat to any country and we will never assert hegemony or be expansionistic”. This was as clear and authoritative a reply as possible to the June 2005 statement in Singapore of the then American defence minister Donald Rumsfeld: “China appears to be expanding its missile forces, allowing them to reach targets in many areas of the world, not just the Pacific region, while also expanding its missile capacities here in the region. Since no nation threatens China, one must wonder: why this growing investment?”

By 2006, Rumsfeld’s generals were saying China had “the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States,” and could “field disruptive military technologies that could over time offset traditional US military advantages absent US counter strategies”. The “sizing” of China’s military by American and other Western analysts became a parlour game ~ one with major business implications since the threat perceived or misperceived from China affects American decisions on the size of its own military.

As recently as 13 May 2008, the Wall Street Journal carried opinion that China’s military expansion demanded America have a 1000-ship navy not a 280-ship one, 40 aircraft-carriers not 11, 1000 F-22 aircraft not 183. Exaggerating China’s military and the threat posed by it to the world can mean big business for militaries opposing it!

Dominating India

Communist China’s physical, political and psychological domination of independent India since the 1950s has been achieved more by diplomacy, subterfuge and threat of force than actual military conflict. In its first phase, the policy was expressed clearly by the Chinese Ambassador to New Delhi on 16 May 1959 when he told India’s Foreign Secretary: “Our Indian friends, what is your mind? Will you agree to our thinking regarding the view that China can only concentrate its main attention eastward of China but not south-westward of China, nor is it necessary for it to do so?…. Friends, it seems to us that you, too, cannot have two fronts. Is it not so? If it is, here then lies the meeting point of our two sides. Will you please think it over?” (BN Mullick, Chinese Betrayal, p. 229).

At the time, Pakistan was in military alliances with the USA through CENTO and SEATO, and the Pakistan-China alliance was still years away. The Chinese had used subterfuge to construct their road linking Tibet and Sinkiang through Aksai Chin, ignoring India’s sovereignty, and were now suggesting they had no interest in fighting India because their major military interests were to their east as India’s were towards Pakistan.

The second phase was the short border conflict itself in 1962-63, which consolidated China’s grip on occupied territory in Aksai Chin while establishing its threat to the Brahmaputra Valley that has been perpetuated to this day. The third phase is represented by the 27 November 1974 conversation between Henry Kissinger and Deng Xiaoping, recently made publicly available:

“Deng : There’s something very peculiar about Indian policy. For example, that little kingdom Sikkim. They had pretty good control of Sikkim. Why did they annex it?
Kissinger : It is a good thing India is pacifist, I hate to think (of what they would do) if they weren’t. (Laughs).
Deng : Sikkim was entirely under the military control of India.
Kissinger : I haven’t understood Sikkim. It is incomprehensible.
Deng : After the military annexation, their military position was in no way strengthened.
Kissinger : They had troops there already.
Deng : And they haven’t increased their troops since. We published a statement about it. We just spoke for the cause of justice.
Kissinger : Is it true that you set up loudspeakers to broadcast to the Indian troops on the border? It makes them very tense. (Laughs)
Deng : We have done nothing new along the borders, and frankly we don’t fear that India will attack our borders. We don’t think they have the capability to attack our borders. There was some very queer talk, some said that the reason why the Chinese issued that statement about Sikkim was that the Chinese were afraid after Sikkim that India would complete the encirclement of China. Well, in the first place we never feel things like isolation and encirclement can ever matter very much with us. And particularly with India, it is not possible that India can do any encirclement of China. The most they can do is enter Chinese territory as far as the Autonomous Republic of Tibet, Lhasa. And Lhasa can be of no strategic importance to India. The particular characteristic of Lhasa is that it has no air-because the altitude is more than 3,000 metres.
Kissinger : It’s a very dangerous area for drinking mao tai (a Chinese hard liquor).
Deng : Frankly, if Indian troops were able to reach Lhasa, we wouldn’t be able to supply them enough air! (Laughter)
Kissinger : I don’t think their intention is with respect to Tibet, their immediate intention is Nepal.
Deng : That is correct. They have been recently exercising pressure on Nepal, refusing to supply them oil. It is the dream of Nehru, inherited by his daughter, to have the whole subcontinent in their pocket.
Kissinger : And to have buffer zones around their border…. It is like British policy in the 19th Century. They always wanted Tibet demilitarized.
Deng : I believe even the British at that time didn’t make a good estimate of whether there was enough air. (Laughter)
Kissinger : I think an Indian attack on China would be a very serious matter that cannot be explained in terms of local conditions, but only in terms of a broader objective….”

Our self-delusion

The attitude that is revealed speaks for itself, and has been essentially continued by Deng’s successors in the next decades, especially Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. It is because China does not perceive a military threat from India that it has agreed to military exercises with us ~ exercises which, if anything, reinforce their psychological dominance by helping to spook our military’s morale. During this third phase also, China went about systematically creating a major military threat to India in its support of Pakistan’s military, exploiting our subcontinent’s communal conflicts fully to its own strategic advantage.

China has been engaged for more than a decade now in a massive exercise of modernisation of its armed forces, improving productivity, technology, organisation and discipline while trying to cut corruption. It has a right to do so, and such modernisation does not in and of itself signal aggressive intent. The last aggressive war China fought was almost 30 years ago against Vietnam. It is possible that what simply explains the military modernisation (besides conflict with Taiwan) is China’s awful history of being exploited by foreign powers over the centuries.

Indian analysts have expressed concern about nuclear submarines based in Hainan; but where else would China put them? We delude ourselves if we think we are the guardians of the Straits of Malacca. We may do better being concerned to try to modernise, improve productivity and reduce corruption in our own forces, as well as integrate them better with national goals as China has done instead of continuing to maintain them in a rather old-fashioned colonial / imperial manner.

Posted in 1962 War, Aksai Chin, Asia and the West, Assam, China, China's expansionism, China's History, China's military, China's nationalism, China-India Relations, China-Taiwan problem, China-Tibet problem, Cold War, Communist China, Communists, Deng Xiaoping, Himalayas, India's Foreign Policy, India's Land, India's Military Defence, India's Polity, India-China relations, International Law, Laddakh, NEFA Arunachal, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Sikkim, Tibet, US China policy, US Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Espionage, US Military Doctrine, USA, United States, War, World History, Xinjiang, Zhou Enlai. 2 Comments »

Two cheers for Pakistan!

April 7, 2008 — drsubrotoroy

Two cheers for Pakistan!

by

Subroto Roy

First published in The Statesman

Editorial Page Special Article, April 7, 2008

A century has passed since British rulers in India like Curzon and Minto became self-styled interlocutors between Muslims and Hindus of the subcontinent. Up through the 19th century there had been no significant national political conversation between India’s main communities. The “Chief Translator” of the High Court in Calcutta was highly prized for his knowledge of Sanskrit, Persian and English because at least three different sets of laws governed different people in the country. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad wrote of his experience in the Bankim-inspired revolutionary societies of Bengal who treated him with extreme suspicion because they could hardly believe a Muslim wanted to join them as an anti-British rebel.

Jinnah vs Azad

Then came MA Jinnah, Iqbal, Rahmat Ali and others, initial creators of Pakistan whether through greater or lesser motives. Azad, Zakir Hussain, Sheikh Abdullah and other Muslims were equally firm the Pakistan idea was not only bad for India in the world it was bad for Muslims in particular. The Azads condemned the Jinnahs as greedy megalomaniacs, the Jinnahs condemned the Azads as minions of the Hindus. Larke lenge Pakistan, marke lenge Pakistan, khoon se lenge Pakistan, dena hoga Pakistan was the mob-cry during the bloody Partition, while the British, weakened by war and economics and bereft of their imperial pretensions, made haste to leave “this beastly country” to its fate ~ rather hoping the bloodshed would be such someone might hire them to stay on.

Certainly, having used the Indian Army for imperial purposes in the War, Britain (represented locally by a series of smartly dressed blundering fools) behaved irresponsibly in not properly demobilizing that Army during a period of intense communal tension. There were no senior Indian officers ~ KM Cariappa became a Brigadier only in 1946, Ayub Khan was a Colonel under him. Then there were the fatuous “princes” the British had propped up in “Indian India”, few being more than cardboard creatures. Among them was J&K’s ruler who was a member of Churchill’s War Cabinet and had come to harbour illusions of international grandeur. Once J&K’s Muslim soldiers returned to their Mirpuri homes, Jammu and Punjab were in communal conflict, months before the decision that Pakistan would indeed be created out of designated areas of British India just before British India extinguished itself. Army-issued Bren guns came to be used by former soldiers in communal massacres of the convoys of refugees going in each direction.

Part of the problem over J&K since then has been that it seems a dialogue of the deaf. Pakistanis since Zafrullah Khan claimed it was communal violence against Muslims in Jammu and Punjab that prompted the Pashtun invasion of Srinagar Valley beginning 22 October 1947; Indians have always claimed the new (and partly British-officered) Pakistan Army organized and instigated the invasion, coinciding with the planned takeover of Gilgit.

As in all complex moral problems, there was truth on all sides though no one doubts the invasion was savage and that the Pashtuns carried off Kashmiri women, Hindu, Muslim and Sikh. J&K descended into civil war, Abdullah’s secularists backed by the new India, Ibrahim’s communalists by the new Pakistan. Field Marshall Auchinlek, who commanded both Indian and Pakistani armies, had the decency to resign when he realized his forces were at war with one another. That J&K could not be independent in international law was sealed when the 15 October 1947 telegram sent by Hari Singh’s regime went unanswered by Attlee. The tribal invasion from Pakistan caused the old State of J&K to become an ownerless entity in international law, whose territories were then carved up by force by the two new British Dominions (later republics) and the result has been the “LOC”.

ZA Bhutto was perhaps Pakistan’s only politician after that time. The years between the assassination of Liaquat Ali Khan and the rise of Bhutto saw Pakistan’s military begin its liaison with the Americans ~ from the US Ambassador’s daughter marrying the Pakistan President’s son to the leasing of Peshawar’s airfields for U-2 flights over the USSR. Yet Bhutto’s deep flaws also contributed to the loss of Bangladesh and to brutality, supported by the Shah of Iran’s American helicopters, against the Baloch.

Bhutto’s daughter now may have succeeded in death where she could not in life. Like Indira Gandhi, there seemed a shrill almost self-sacrificial air about Benazir in her last days, and, like Indira, her assassination caused all her countrymen including her enemies to undergo an existential experience. Perhaps the public death of a woman in public life touches some chivalrous chord in everyone.

Benazir’s husband was transformed from seeming a rather dubious self-seeker to becoming a national leader of some sobriety. Her old adversary Nawaz Sharif, brought to power by one Army Chief and removed by another, is now a constitutional democrat – seemingly adamant that there be the Rule of Law and not of generals. Most of all, Benazir’s death seemed to completely shut up that most loquacious of Pakistanis: Pervez Musharraf. Musharraf seemed stunned and promised free, fair and transparent elections; though no one believed he would deliver, he somehow did. He would like now to be a senior statesman though it seems as likely his countrymen will not forgive his misdeeds and instead exile him to America.

Afghanistan

Pakistan’s main international problem is not and has never been J&K. It has been and remains its unsettled western border and identity vis-à-vis Afghanistan (as India’s problem has been the eastern border with China). Dr Khan Sahib and Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan knew this but they were not allowed to speak by Pakistan’s Kashmir-obsessed elite. Zaheer Shah’s Afghanistan was the only country that voted against Pakistan joining the UN sixty years ago.

The present author has said before that Osama bin Laden may well be safely and comfortably in the deserts of North Africa while NATO and the Americans raise hell in Afghanistan and Waziristan pretending to look for him. It is not in India’s interest as it is not in Pakistan’s interest that Western militaries, who seem to have nothing better to do, brutalize Afghans of all descriptions in the name of nation-building or fighting “terrorism”. Afghan nation-building can only ultimately come from the Afghans themselves, no matter how many loya jirgas it takes. What Pakistan dislikes emerging from New Delhi is the sometimes rather supercilious and ignorant condescension that our officialdom is infamous for. Instead, with a new, seemingly clear-headed and well-intentioned Government in Pakistan elected for the first time ever, it may be time for all good people in the subcontinent to raise a glass of fruit juice and say “Two cheers for Pakistan!”

Posted in Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Academic research, Afghanistan, anarchy and governance, Asia and the West, Balochistan, Bangladesh, Benazir Bhutto, Blowback, Britain in India, British foreign policy, India's Diplomacy, India's Foreign Policy, India's History, India's independence, India-Pakistan peace process, International diplomacy, International politics, Iqbal, Jammu & Kashmir, Life and death, MA Jinnah, Maulana Azad, Men and women, Muslim and Hindu communalism, Nationalism, Nawaz Sharif, Osama bin Laden, Pakistan in international law, Pakistan's origins, Pakistan's psychology, Pakistan's constitutional politics, Pakistan's history, Pakistan's judiciary, Pakistan's military, Pakistan's nuclear weapons, Pakistan's politics, Pakistan's Rule of Law, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistani expansionism, Pashtuns, Pervez Musharraf, Politics, UN/League of Nations, US Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Espionage, US Military Doctrine, US Pakistan policy, War, World History. Leave a Comment »

China’s India Example: Tibet, Xinjiang May Not Be Assimilated Like Inner Mongolia, Manchuria (2008)

March 25, 2008 — drsubrotoroy

Note: My articles on related subjects recently published in The Statesman include “Understanding China”, “China’s India Aggression”, “China’s Commonwealth”,  “Nixon & Mao vs India”, “Lessons from the 1962 War”, “China’s force & diplomacy” etc https://independentindian.com/2009/09/19/my-ten-articles-on-china-tibet-xinjiang-taiwan-in-relation-to-india/

China’s India Example: Tibet, Xinjiang May Not Be Assimilated Like Inner Mongolia And Manchuria

 by

 Subroto Roy

 

First published in The Statesman, Editorial Page Special Article March 25, 2008

 

Zhang Qingli, Tibet’s current Communist Party boss, reportedly said last year, “The Communist Party is like the parent (father and mother) of the Tibetans. The Party is the real boddhisatva of the Tibetans.” Before communism, China’s people followed three non-theistic religious cultures, Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism, choosing whichever aspects of each they wished to see in their daily lives. Animosity towards the theism of Muslims and Christians predates the 1911 revolution. Count Witte, Russia’s top diplomatist in Czarist times, reported the wild contempt towards Islam and wholly unprovoked insult of the Emir of Bokhara by Li Hung Chang, Imperial China’s eminent Ambassador to Moscow, normally the epitome of civility and wisdom. In 1900 the slogan of the Boxer Revolts was “Protect the country, destroy the foreigner” and catholic churches and European settlers and priests were specifically targeted. The Communists have not discriminated in repression of religious belief and practice ~ monasteries, mosques, churches have all experienced desecration; monks, ulema, clergymen all expected to subserve the Party and the State.

Chinese nationalism

For Chinese officials to speak of “life and death” struggle against the Dalai Lama sitting in Dharamsala is astounding; if they are serious, it signals a deep long-term insecurity felt in Beijing. How can enormous, wealthy, strong China feel any existential threat at all from unarmed poor Tibetans riding on ponies? Is an Israeli tank-commander intimidated by stone-throwing Palestinian boys? How is it China (even a China where the Party assumes it always knows best), is psychologically defensive and unsure of itself at every turn?

The Chinese in their long history have not been a violent martial people ~ disorganized and apolitical traders and agriculturists and highly civilised artisans and scholars more than fierce warriors fighting from horseback. Like Hindus, they were far more numerous than their more aggressive warlike invading rulers. Before the 20th Century, China was dominated by Manchu Tartars and Mongol Tartars from the Northeast and Northwest ~ the Manchus forcing humiliation upon Chinese men by compelling shaved heads with pigtails. Similar Tartar hordes ruled Russia for centuries and Stalin himself, according to his biographer, might have felt Russia buffered Europe from the Tartars.

Chinese nationalism arose only in the 20th Century, first under the Christian influence of Sun Yatsen and his brother-in-law Chiang Kaishek, later under the atheism of Mao Zedong and his admiring friends, most recently Deng Xiaoping and successors. “Socialism with Chinese characteristics” is the slogan of the present Communist Party but a more realistic slogan of what Mao and friends came to represent in their last decades may be “Chinese nationalism with socialist characteristics”. Taiwan and to lesser extent Singapore and Hong Kong represent “Chinese nationalism with capitalist characteristics”. Western observers, keen always to know the safety of their Chinese investments, have focused on China’s economics, whether the regime is capitalist or socialist and to what extent ~ Indians and other Asians may be keener to identify, and indeed help the Chinese themselves to identify better, the evolving nature of Chinese nationalism and the healthy or unhealthy courses this may now take.

Just as Czarist and Soviet Russia attempted Russification in Finland, the Baltics, Poland, Ukraine etc., Imperial and Maoist China attempted “Sinification” in Manchuria and Inner Mongolia as well as Tibet and Xinjiang (Sinkiang, East Turkestan). Russification succeeded partially but backfired in general. Similarly, Sinification succeeded naturally in Manchuria and without much difficulty in Inner Mongolia. But it has backfired and backfired very badly in Tibet and Xinjiang, and may be expected to do so always.

In India, our soft state and indolent corrupt apparatus of political parties constitute nothing like the organized aggressive war-machine that China has tried to make of its state apparatus, and we have much more freedom of all sorts. India does not prohibit or control peasant farmers or agricultural labourers from migrating to or visiting large metropolitan cities; villagers are as free as anyone else to clog up all city life in India with the occasional political rally ~ in fact India probably may not even know how to ban, suppress or repress most of the things Communist China does.

 

 

Hindu traditions were such that as long as you did not preach sedition against the king, you could believe anything ~ including saying, like the Carvaka, that hedonism and materialism were good, spiritualism was bunkum and the priestly class were a bunch of crooks and idiots. Muslim and British rulers in India were not too different ~ yes the Muslims did convert millions by offering the old choice of death or conversion to vanquished people, and there were evil rulers among them but also great and tolerant ones like Zainulabidin of Kashmir and Akbar who followed his example.

 

India’s basic political ethos has remained that unless you preach sedition, you can basically say or believe anything (no matter how irrational) and also pretty much do whatever you please without being bothered too much by government officials. Pakistan’s attempts to impose Urdu on Bengali-speakers led to civil war and secession; North India’s attempts to impose Hindi on the South led to some language riots and then the three-language formula ~ Hindi spreading across India through Bollywood movies instead.

 

 

China proudly says it is not as if there are no declared non-Communists living freely in Beijing, Shanghai etc, pointing out distinguished individual academics and other professionals including government ministers who are liberals, social democrats or even Kuomintang Nationalists. There are tiny state-approved non-Communist political parties in China, some of whose members even may be in positions of influence. It is just that such (token) parties must accept the monopoly and dictatorship of the Communists and are not entitled to take state power. The only religion you are freely allowed to indulge in is the ideology of the State, as that comes to be defined or mis-defined at any time by the Communist Party’s rather sclerotic leadership processes.

 

 

Chinese passports

During China’s Civil War, the Communists apparently had promised Tibet and Xinjiang a federation of republics ~ Mao later reneged on this and introduced his notion of “autonomous” regions, provinces and districts. The current crisis in Tibet reveals that the notion of autonomy has been a complete farce. Instead of condemning the Dalai Lama and repressing his followers, a modern self-confident China can so easily resolve matters by allowing a Dalai Lama political party to function freely and responsibly, first perhaps just for Lhasa’s municipal elections and gradually in all of Tibet. Such a party and the Tibet Communist Party would be adequate for a two-party system to arise. The Dalai Lama and other Tibetan exiles also have a natural right to be issued Chinese passports enabling them to return to Tibet~ and their right to return is surely as strong as that of any Han or Hui who have been induced to migrate to Tibet from Mainland China. Such could be the very simple model of genuine autonomy for Tibet and Xinjiang whose native people clearly do not wish to be assimilated in the same way as Inner Mongolia and Manchuria. India’s federal examples, including the three-language formula, may be helpful. Once Mainland China successfully allows genuine autonomy and free societies to arise in Tibet and Xinjiang, the road to reconciliation with Taiwan would also have been opened.

Posted in Academic research, Akbar, Buddhism, Chiang Kaishek, China, China's Commonwealth, China's dissidents, China's Economy, China's expansionism, China's History, China's military, China's nationalism, China's Politics, China's religions, China's wars, China-India Relations, China-Taiwan problem, China-Tibet problem, Chinese pilgrims to India, Communist China, Communists, Confucius, Dalai Lama, Deng Xiaoping, Finland, Freedom, Hindu political traditions, Hinduism, Imperialism, India's Caste/Ethnic Problems, India's corruption, India's culture, India's Democracy, India's Nationalism, India's Politics, India's Polity, India-China relations, India-Tibet Border, Inner Mongolia, International diplomacy, International Law, International politics, Manchu and Mongol Tartars, Manchuria, Mao Zedong, Pakistan's history, Poland, Political Economy, Politics, Russia, Sinification, Sinkiang, Stalin, Sun Yatsen, Taiwan, Tibet, USSR, World History, Xinjiang, Zainulabidin. 7 Comments »

American Politics: Obama-Clinton Contest Affects the World

March 11, 2008 — drsubrotoroy

American Politics
Contest Between Obama And Clinton Affects The World

by Subroto Roy

First published in The Statesman, Editorial Page Special Article, March 11 2008

In 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War and protests about it, the Democratic Party Convention in Chicago was marked by bloodshed and rioting. The sitting (Democrat) President, Lyndon Johnson, had taken moral responsibility for the war and declined to run for re-election. His widely-respected Vice-President, Hubert Humphrey, was chosen in traditional “smoke-filled rooms” by party elders during the Convention. But the public had witnessed the Convention’s violence, and Humphrey lost to Richard Nixon. In the next election in 1972, Democrats banned party elders from any role and allowed the nominee to emerge solely from state-by-state primary elections. The result was the anti-war candidate George McGovern, who lost 49 out of 50 States to the incumbent Nixon.

Denver Convention

This year’s Democratic Party Convention in Denver in August may be the first to return to “smoke-filled rooms” (figuratively of course, given the absence of public smoking in modern America especially among “politically correct” Democrats). Almost 800 party elders, consisting of senators, congressional representatives, party functionaries etc, known as “superdelegates” may have to break the near dead heat tie among “primary delegates” who have committed to Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama after state-by-state elections.

It was not supposed to have been like this. A year ago Mrs Clinton had seemed an unstoppable favourite not only in the Democratic race but the overall Presidential race too, so much so that the incumbent Bush-Cheney Administration was dropping hints it would not mind seeing a new Clinton Administration taking over its foreign wars. (Mrs Clinton’s husband had become a friend of former President GHW Bush, President Bush’s father, in some relatively rare American nepotism at the top.)

Mrs Clinton had been so confident of being confirmed by now she spent her energy trying to show herself one of the boys, who could be Commander-in-Chief of the world’s largest military and who had voted in favour of Bush’s Iraq war. The idea seemed to be she would show herself just as tough as the Republicans and yet because she was female she would win in November 2008 by reminding women of her gender. Her support among middle-aged white women has remained solid and seems unshakeable but her strategy of being the presumptive anointed “pseudo-incumbent” has failed.

Mr Obama, attracting younger better-educated Democrats as well as the crucial set of cross-party independents and floating Republicans, besides African-Americans like himself, has taken ground Mrs Clinton left undefended; she has been painted by him as Republican-Lite, the archetypal Washington-insider, and a war-monger. Mrs Clinton has indeed recorded the largest contributions of any candidate from America’s “military industrial complex” of weapons’ manufacturers.

Mr Obama went into the recent Ohio and Texas primaries having narrowed large leads against him, and though he lost both has retained a lead in the delegate count. Last weekend he won Wyoming and is likely to win Mississippi — states normally remote in the political landscape but which have acquired significance to “momentum” now. It is expected that even after the major state Pennsylvania votes next month (likely in favour of Mrs Clinton) the contest will not end. A joint ticket could become unstoppable and has been hinted at by the Clintons. But Mr Obama has no reason to be an understudy because if he is not himself the Presidential candidate, it may be better to wait for the 2012 contest than be brushed by the Clinton negatives.

Republicans have surprisingly quickly agreed upon Arizona’s elderly senator John McCain as their candidate out of a raucous field. The single anti-war Republican candidate, Ron Paul, fizzled out. Mr McCain, like his main rivals Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, has been overtly jingoistic, strongly backed the Bush wars and has identified “radical Islamic extremism” as an American enemy. Mr McCain was a POW of the North Vietnamese decades ago and underwent torture, something he has not let anyone forget. His remark that America under him may fight “100 years” in Middle East wars, as well as President Bush’s endorsement of him, may put off a country that has been turning against war and is increasingly anxious about macroeconomics and international trade again.

Mr McCain may have to wait to see who emerges from among the Democrats before he announces his Vice-Presidential running-mate. Usual “ticket-balancing” considerations point to a young conservative or a senior woman or black political figure for obvious reasons.

Thus the Democratic Party leadership now unexpectedly finds itself in a crucial role in the next weeks and months. A raucous divisive Convention in August on the 1968 pattern will leave the Republicans gloating. Current controversy has to do with Michigan and Florida; both held unauthorized primaries ahead of time and were punished by the leadership in not being recognized. Mrs Clinton and Mr Obama both agreed not to campaign there. Will Michigan and Florida “delegates” be recognized and “seated” in Denver? Should they be split equally between the two candidates? Should there be a “do-over” primary via the mail in each now that the race has become heated, and if so, who will pay for it?

The crucial question for the Democratic Party is to decide who may defeat Mr McCain. Mr Obama’s youth, race and Muslim middle name Hussein, will undoubtedly be used by the Republicans to attack him. Mrs Clinton carries a lot of baggage from her husband’s time: there was an unpleasant air of sleaze and mendacity during the entire eight years of Bill’s rule in Washington DC and voters will be wary to allow a re-run of the same. (The 22nd Constitutional Amendment forbids more than eight years for any President, and the idea is novel and untested that a First Lady can run on her own to get around that.)

Israel policy
Mrs Clinton’s foreign and military policy will be quite close to Mr McCain’s in its aggressiveness. Mr Obama opposed the Iraq war and is certain to keep playing that trump-card against both. Mr Obama’s foreign policy “weakness” has to do with being perceived by the pro-Israeli lobby as not hardline enough. He has said clearly he is pro-Israel and strongly so and that he found Israel’s own debate “much more open” than the American one. Mrs Clinton and Mr McCain both pass the “Likud test” with flying colours; Mr Obama’s statement that being pro-Israel is not identical with being “pro-Likud” may mean he does not.

The Democratic Party will have to figure out in its decision between Mrs Clinton and Mr Obama where America’s voters in November 2008 are swinging on the issue of fighting aggressive wars. The other vital issue will be protectionism in international trade ~ some “superdelegates” have already started to demand pledges about trade-policies to “save American jobs”. The world will be affected by who wins between Mrs Clinton and Mr Obama along two important dimensions, viz., whether America will be more likely as a result to (a) launch new wars; (b) become more protectionist in trade.

 

Posted in American democracy, Barack Obama, Israel, Politics, Racism, Ron Paul, US Federal Law & Jurisprudence, US Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Espionage, US Military Doctrine, US Presidential Election, US protectionism, US Republicans and Democrats, USA, United States, Vietnam War, War, World History. Leave a Comment »

Pakistan’s Kashmir obsession

February 16, 2008 — drsubrotoroy

(Author’s Note: This article was preceded by several others e.g. “Saving Pakistan”, “Understanding Pakistan”, “Pakistan’s Allies”, “Law, Justice & J&K”, “Solving Kashmir” , and has been followed by “Two Cheers for Pakistan”.)

Pakistan’s Kashmir obsession
Sheikh Abdullah Relied In Politics On The French Constitution, Not Islam

Subroto Roy

First published in The Statesman, Feb 16 2008, Editorial Page Special Article

Indians would be naïve to suppose Pervez Musharraf has at any point shown friendliness towards India or willingness to come to a genuine permanent agreement over J&K fully consistent with law and justice. Musharraf tells everyone and himself every day that he is a soldier, and it is well to remember he is from the last generation of Pakistan military men motivated by visceral hatred of the Indian Union and a wish to inflict any kind of defeat upon us. Pakistan’s new Army Chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, being a decade younger than Musharraf, may have a less irrational, less belligerent outlook towards India, and it would be a wise Indian move to invite him officially to visit and receive the normal courtesies and honours due to a foreign military chief.

Musharraf, like Ariel Sharon, was visibly uncomfortable with the Hindu rituals we compel foreign leaders to carry out at Mahatma Gandhi’s Memorial; but General Kayani would visit purely as a military chief and not have to make any political gestures.

Lion of Kashmir

As long as Musharraf remains in power, we may expect him to continue to be motivated by his overtly anti-Indian 12 January 2002 speech. Yes, he said, Pakistan would cooperate against terrorism but it expected the USA to reciprocate by pressuring India on Jammu & Kashmir. “Kashmir runs in our blood. No Pakistani can afford to sever links with Kashmir… We will continue to extend our moral, political and diplomatic support to Kashmiris. We will never budge from our principle (sic) stand on Kashmir. Kashmir has to be resolved through dialogue in accordance with the wishes of the people of Pakistan (sic) and in accordance with the UN resolutions.” (BBC 12 January, 2002, Musharraf speech highlights). Pakistan’s first Prime Minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, during his 1950 visit to the USA had claimed “culturally… Kashmir ~ 80 per cent of whose people like the majority of the people in Pakistan are Muslims ~ is in fact an integral part of Pakistan”.

Now, as a matter of fact, Kashmir does not “run in the blood” of Pakistanis nor do the many diverse and ancient cultures of Jammu & Kashmir have much to do with that of a relatively newly created country like Pakistan. It was because Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah knew this and bluntly said so often enough, including at the UN, that Liaquat called him a “Quisling” and the Pakistan Government routinely defamed him as an “Indian stooge”. Yet the Sheikh was known by all in Srinagar Valley as the “Lion of Kashmir”, and had been the acknowledged voice of Muslim political awakening in the Valley ever since 1931.

J&K’s democracy today is the principal political legacy of Sheikh Abdullah. The Pakistan Government to this day denies legitimacy to the elected Government and Opposition of Indian J&K despite there never having been in the history of Pakistan a change of government more democratic in nature than that which occurred in J&K in 2002, bringing in the PDP-Congress Government in place of the National Conference.

Before Pakistan had started its series of military coups, Abdullah had led J&K to adopt an exemplary Constitution and ratify the State’s joining of the new Indian Union. The unbridgeable gulf between Abdullah and the Pakistan Government arose because Abdullah, a Koran scholar and devout Muslim known to intersperse his political speeches with Koranic wisdom, relied for J&K’s constitutional principles not on Islam but rather on the French Constitution. Pakistan’s constitutions by contrast say Pakistan’s sovereignty belongs to Almighty God, leading to perennial confusion over the mundane business of governance here on Planet Earth.

It was the tragic depraved Rahmat Ali, driven by his deep personal anti-Hindu bigotry, who put the “K” into “P, A, K, I, S, T, A, N” purportedly representing “Kashmir”. In his crank view of history, all of Punjab, Afghanistan, Iran, “Tukharistan” (sic) and more would be part of Pakistan too.

The new country might have been better named after a person (as are Colombia, America, Israel), viz., “Iqbalistan” after Mohammad Iqbal who conceived it. It was Iqbal’s seminal 1930 speech to the Muslim League at Allahabad that described the areas (aside from Indian Punjab) that actually constitute post-1971 Pakistan: “I would like to see the Punjab, Northwest Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single state. Self-government within the British Empire or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated North West Indian Muslim state appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims at least of Northwest India”. “Dar-e-Islami-Hind”, “Indus Islamic Republic”, “Indic Islamabad” or “Republic of North-Western India” also may have been alternatives to the random acronym Rahmat Ali coined in 1933 on a London bus.

Though Kashmiri himself, Iqbal made no reference to J&K or any of the so-called “princely states” (nor to what became East Pakistan). The legal theory later sold by Britain to both India and Pakistan was that a “Lapse of Paramountcy” over “princely states” would occur on 15 August 1947 before or after which their rulers must “accede” to one or other new Dominion of Britain’s Commonwealth. BR Ambedkar in a brilliant analysis showed this to be erroneous in law: “paramountcy” over any “princely states” which had not acceded passed automatically to the legal successor state of British India, and that was the Dominion of India.

The Dominion of Pakistan was a new state in international law, created out of certain designated territories of British India the day before British India extinguished itself. If, for example, Chitral or Junagadh acceded to Pakistan after that date, it would have to be with the acquiescence of British India’s legal successor, namely, the Dominion of India ~ an acquiescence granted in case of Chitral and denied in case of Junagadh. In case of J&K, all such matters became moot once hostilities broke out between India and Pakistan following the tribal invasion of J&K from Pakistan that commenced October 22 1947; Pakistan’s plan to take over Gilgit by force had been made months before that. The erstwhile State of J&K descended into civil war and chaos, becoming an ownerless entity whose territories came to be carved up by force of arms by both new countries (and in case of uninhabited Aksai Chin, by Communist China also some years later).

Bloated military
Pakistan’s failure to properly develop as a state today ~ in particular allowing its military to bloat in size relative to other social and political institutions and even to possess nuclear weapons intended against the Indian Union ~ has resulted out of the neurotic obsession with Kashmir. India owes a democratic responsibility to residents of the Indian State of J&K to choose their nationality freely under conditions of full information and individual privacy; if some, like Syed Geelani, choose to renounce Indian nationality and either remain stateless or seek the nationality of Pakistan, Iran or Afghanistan, they may still receive permanent residence in India and be legally akin to the many foreign nationals who live and work in India permanently and peacefully. That may be as much as India can realistically contribute to helping the Pakistan Government resolve its neurosis over Kashmir.

Pakistan’s military naturally possesses a fierce loyalty to Pakistan ~ the best way for that loyalty to be implemented in practice may be for General Kayani to allow the country’s public institutions to gradually normalize in size and function. Once Musharraf’s rule comes to an end or a legislature under new clear-headed leaders comes to exist some day, the military may be able to recognise that.

Posted in Balochistan, Bangladesh, Britain, Britain in India, Britain's immigrant communities, France, Gilgit and Baltistan, Government of India, Government of Pakistan, Hindus and Muslims, India in international law, India's Land, India's Muslims, India's Partition, India-Pakistan peace process, International diplomacy, International Law, International politics, Iqbal, Jammu & Kashmir, Kargil war 1999, Laddakh, Land and political economy, Pakistan's history, Pakistan's military, Pakistan's terrorist masterminds, Pakistan's terrorist training institutes, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistani expansionism, Pervez Musharraf, Serendipity and international relations, War, World History. Leave a Comment »

Lessons from the 1962 War: there are distinct Tibetan, Chinese and Indian points of view that need to be mutually comprehended (2007)

January 15, 2008 — drsubrotoroy

Prefatory Note: This is part of a series of articles published in The Statesman since October 2007 and republished here, viz., Understanding China, India-USA Interests, China’s India Aggression, Surrender or Fight?, China’s Commonwealth, Nixon & Mao vs India, China’s India Example and China’s Force and Diplomacy. See https://independentindian.com/2009/09/19/my-ten-articles-on-china-tibet-xinjiang-taiwan-in-relation-to-india/

 

 

Lessons from the 1962 War

Beginnings of a solution to the long-standing border problem: there are distinct Tibetan, Chinese and Indian points of view that need to be mutually comprehended.

SUBROTO ROY

First published in The Sunday Statesman, January 13 2008,  Editorial Page Special Article

WAR is an existential experience from which nations emerge altered, reflective and sometimes more mature. Germany tried to purge anti-Jewish hatred, Japan to adopt pacifism, Britain to break class-structures, Russia to explode Stalin’s cult. America learnt little from its Vietnam debacle, creating new tactics and technologies to reduce American casualties in war but not showing any improved capacity to comprehend the world beyond its shores and borders.

India after the 1962 defeat by Mao’s China learnt less than was possible and necessary to do. The Government’s official history concluded: “In a fundamental sense, the origins of the 1962 Sino-Indian conflict lay in Chinese expansionism and occupation of Tibet. The issue got further aggravated due to failure of the Chinese to win over the Tibetans. Indian asylum to the Dalai Lama raised Chinese suspicions about ultimate Indian intentions. On the other hand, India, while tacitly accepting the Chinese occupation of Tibet through a treaty in 1954, failed to obtain any quid pro quo on the border issue.” This is true enough but a deeper probe is also possible.

India’s 20th Century political and intellectual leadership may have grossly failed to comprehend critical world events in a realistic manner, specifically Vladimir Ulyanov’s German-assisted Bolshevik coup d’etat, the Kuomintang and Maoist takeovers in China, as well as India’s own struggle for Independence. After BG Tilak, Annie Besant, GK Gokhale and other founders of Indian nationalism passed from the scene, leaders arose like MK Gandhi, MA Jinnah, SC Bose and J Nehru who tended to be consumed, to lesser or greater extent, by their own hubris and were less able to see India’s fortunes and capacities in context of a larger world. None had military, administrative or public finance experience needed for practical government; instead there arose almost a new hereditary caste of the “professional politician” who has no other vocation or anything better to do in life. Nazi-admirers like Mashriqi and Rahmat Ali among Muslims and the Mahasabha and RSS among Hindus also lent mainstream Indian nationalism a harsh distasteful colouration.

Czechoslovakia’s great nationalist Masaryk (who famously denounced Austro-Hungary as a “corrupt, pretentious, senseless relic”) was said to be “a leader who planned further ahead than his contemporaries, understood the corroding effects of power, the vital need of restraint in the ruler, and above all the need for taking the nation into his confidence, educating it in the sense of drawing out all its innate qualities and sharing its manifold aspirations” (Seton-Watson). India’s clear-headed statesmen of that calibre were not among its most visible or ambitious. Vallabhbhai Patel, MAK Azad, C Rajagopalachari and others were left on the sidelines of free India’s politics ~ as Plato predicted, the genuine pilot of the ship of state will be hardly invited to take its wheel nor even want to do so.

Nehru alone, as chosen by Gandhi, came to wield actual power in the 1950s, having maneuvered Rajendra Prasad to being President. And Nehru, besotted in middle age with a married British woman, seemed awestruck by appearance of a victorious Maoist communism in China just as he had been adoring of Stalin’s Russia two decades earlier. The Congress’s friends among India’s official Communists and fellow-travelers never had much original indigenous grassroots support and always looked abroad for guidance. Non-alignment needed to be made of sterner stuff.

Nehru’s flawed management of the relationship with Communist China included not merely choosing a favourite like Krishna Menon to head India’s military, but also imagining himself a competent world diplomatist. Girja Shankar Bajpai would have been far superior as India’s first Foreign Minister. In 1952, Bajpai, then Governor of Bombay, wrote to Nehru saying India should inform Zhou Enlai the McMahon Line was firm in law and non-negotiable.

Was the McMahon Line firm and just? Nehru was no Curzon but it was as a Curzonian imperialist that Mao and Zhou saw him. All Chinese, whether Communist or Nationalist, chafed at the way the Manchu-dynasty’s Empire had been carved up. “China is our India” was Czarist Russia’s intent towards China itself. China had an awful political and military history from when foreign depredations began in the 1840s all the way until the Mao-Zhou era ended in the 1970s. Indeed China’s polity between the 1840s and 1940s suffered far greater chaos and anarchy than India’s in the same period.

From a Chinese standpoint, Younghusband’s diplomatic and military invasion of Gyantze and Lhasa in 1903-1904 was an insult they had been unable to militarily confront. Curzon sent Younghusband’s expedition because there appeared to be Russian intrigues with the Dalai Lama via the Russian/Mongolian agent Dorjiev who had transmitted Russian ideas of extending its new Siberian railway to Lhasa and posting Cossack soldiers there. The Russians seemed to want to adopt the Dalai Lama given his religious influence over Mongolia. The British were alarmed and determined to annihilate the influence of Dorjiev which they did. Thence came the Anglo-Russian Treaty of 1907 which specified British and Russian spheres of influence in Iran and Afghanistan, and stated Tibet would be dealt with internationally only through the Chinese Empire. The McMahon Line, as a recognition of the traditional boundary, flowed naturally from the legitimacy of the Anglo-Russian Treaty. As for Sinkiang, though a Chinese province since 1884 it came to be ruled by warlords under Russian influence.

The Mao-Zhou war machine was determined to take over and militarily hold both Sinkiang and Tibet as an assertion of new China’s self-definition against Russia and Britain; hence their denunciation of Nehru as a pawn first of Britain and then of Russia. China building a road surreptitiously between Sinkiang and Tibet through Aksai Chin was reminiscent of Russia’s coercive behaviour against China in building the Trans-Siberian Railway through Chinese territory to Vladivostok. At worst, the Indians would have to admit that erstwhile J&K State since October 1947 had become an ownerless entity whose unclaimed territory had been carved up by force by the new Pakistan, new India and new China.

From an Indian standpoint, the traditional recognised boundary placed Aksai Chin clearly in Ladakh and not Tibet. Aksai Chain is a salt pit without “a blade of grass” but for all anyone knows, it could be rich in minerals. Karakorum Pass is also newly valuable to the Chinese as they seek to develop a land-route from Baluchistan’s Gwadar Port through Pakistan to China. If India has lost Aksai Chin and Karakorum Pass by force of arms without compensation, force of arms may be the only means of retrieval. Due compensation from China could be Chumbi Valley between Sikkim and Bhutan, and China seems once to have mentioned mutual perpetual lease of Aksai Chin and Chumbi Valley.

From a Tibetan point of view, the Amban representing the Chinese Emperor was driven out of Lhasa in 1912 and Tibet was independent of China for 38 years. Tibet has as much of a claim to be independent of China as Poland or Ukraine have had to be of Russia. As for the McMahon Line, it is indeed legally non-negotiable between China and India as it flowed directly out of the Anglo-Russian Treaty of 1907, and it was under that Treaty that China received international recognition of its formal suzerainty over Tibet since 1720 until that time. Mao once likened Tibet to the palm of a hand with Ladakh, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan and Assam as five fingers. Modern China must decide between such a metaphor of Maoist expansionism (which India would have to militarily resist) and joining the world of international law created since Grotius. Democratic conditions in Tibet would also have to be insisted upon so the Dalai Lama and other Tibetans may return home from India in peace and freedom.

Posted in 1962 War, Aksai Chin, Anglo-Russian Treaty 1907, Annie Besant, Asia and the West, Assam, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Balochistan, Bhutan, Bolsheviks, C Rajagopalachari, Chiang Kaishek, China, China's expansionism, China's History, China's military, China's Politics, China's wars, China-India Relations, China-Tibet problem, Chumbi Valley, Communist China, Congress Party, Curzon, Dalai Lama, Dorjiev, Existentialism, Germany, Gilgit and Baltistan, Girja Shankar Bajpai, GK Gokhale, Good and Evil, Holocaust and its denial, India's Army, India's Foreign Policy, India's Military Defence, India's Polity, India-China relations, India-Tibet Border, International Law, International politics, Jammu & Kashmir, Japan, Jawaharlal Nehru, Karakorum Pass, Kuomintang, Laddakh, MA Jinnah, Mao Zedong, Maulana Azad, MK Gandhi, Nationalism, NEFA Arunachal, Nepal, Pakistan's history, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Plato, Politics, Rajendra Prasad, Russia, Sikkim, Sinkiang, Sino-Indian Border, Stalin, Tibet, Uighurs, US China policy, US Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Espionage, US Military Doctrine, USA, United States, Vallabhbhai Patel, Vietnam War, War, World History, Xinjiang, Younghusband, Zhou Enlai. Leave a Comment »

Map of Asia c. 1900

January 9, 2008 — drsubrotoroy

Posted in Asia and the West, Britain in India, British history, China, China's expansionism, China's History, China's nationalism, China's Politics, China's wars, China-Tibet problem, Imperialism, India's History, Inner Mongolia, International politics, Iran, Japan, Kashgar, Kazakhstan, Korea, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Russia, Sinkiang, Sino-Indian Border, Tibet, World History, Xinjiang. Leave a Comment »

Nixon & Mao vs India: How American foreign policy did a U-turn about Communist China’s India aggression

January 7, 2008 — drsubrotoroy

Nixon & Mao vs India

How American foreign policy did a U-turn about Communist China’s India aggression. The Government of India should publish its official history of the 1962 war.

by

SUBROTO ROY

First published in The Sunday Statesman, Jan 6 2008, The Statesman Jan 7 2008

Editorial Page Special Article

THE 1972-74 conversations between Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger on one hand and Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping on the other, especially about India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, have been public for a few years now. They make disturbing reading for Indians and Bangladeshis, and for Pakistanis too who may be concerned about the political health of their country. Yahya Khan, Pakistan’s debauched military dictator, made the Nixon-Mao meeting possible and received much praise from Zhou and support from Nixon and Kissinger. Pakistan’s official assessment of Yahya following the 1971 military defeat and secession of Bangladesh was far more candid and truthful, giving the lie to the praise bestowed upon him by Nixon and Zhou in their conversation.

Nixon and Kissinger were decidedly second-rate intellects in political power who believed themselves first-rate ~ a dangerous circumstance. Their policy caused Chiang Kaishek’s Republic of China to be expelled from the UN, its veto-wielding seat taken by Mao’s People’s Republic. The Government of India, under influence of communist sympathisers like Krishna Menon, KM Pannikar, KPS Menon et al, had been pleading the same case at the UN since 1949/1950, rebuffed each time by American veto. Now Nixon and Kissinger yielded to the idea to the delight of Mao-Zhou, and ganged up with Pakistan’s military against democratic India and the new Bangladesh.

Nixon went to Beijing at a time the catastrophic American involvement in Vietnam had reached a peak ~ something that itself was an outcome of the Dulles-Nixon doctrine of a “domino effect” in South East Asia. The Americans failed to comprehend Vietnamese nationalism against France or recognise how that had been historically directed at imperial China. Nixon’s carpet-bombing of Cambodia in needless extension of the Vietnam conflict was to cause the rise to power of Pol Pot and his vicious Khmer Rouge (to remove whom Vietnam attacked, causing China to attack Vietnam in 1979).

Nixon was in Beijing in February 1972 ostensibly to seek Chinese cooperation in ending the Vietnam War, as well as opening an Eastern Front in the Cold War against the USSR. Nixon fancied himself a Metternich-like statesman whose wisdom and brilliance would redesign the international order for a century. What was plain to unsentimental observers was that his underlying purpose was greedy and hardly statesmanlike, namely, winning re-election in November 1972 by outflanking domestic left-wing criticism using photos of having been toasted by Mao himself. That Nixon was no Machiavelli, Metternich or Bismarck but more likely just delusional and paranoid came to be revealed in his subsequent political debacle over Watergate.

The US attitude towards China’s 1959-1962 aggression against India changed drastically because of Nixon’s Beijing visit. Tibet’s people and culture had not been attacked and brutalised by Chiang Kaishek’s Nationalist Army nor by India’s soldiers ~ the Mao-Zhou Communist war machine, fresh from their Korean adventures, did that. There would have been no border conflict between China and India today in 2008 if Communist China had not first invaded and occupied Tibet.

All such fundamental facts used to be perfectly clear to the Americans as to everyone else. India’s Defence Ministry’s excellent official history of the 1962 war acknowledges the vital aid sent by President Kennedy with the help of Ambassador Galbraith. Ten years later, in 1972, Nixon and Kissinger in Beijing changed all that completely and did a U-turn against India using the dubious book of a single journalist as cover for their dissimulation:

“ZHOU: …. Actually the five principles (of peaceful coexistence) were put forward by us, and Nehru agreed. But later on he didn’t implement them. In my previous discussions with Dr Kissinger, I mentioned a book by Neville Maxwell about the Indian war against us, which proves this.
NIXON: I read the book.
KISSINGER: I gave it to the President.
NIXON: I committed a faux pas ~ Dr Kissinger said it was ~ but I knew what I was doing. When Mrs Gandhi was in my office before going back, just before the outbreak of the (1971) war, I referred to that book and said it was a very interesting account of the beginning of the war between India and China. She didn’t react very favourably when I said that. (Zhou laughs)
ZHOU: Yes, but you spoke the truth. It wasn’t faux pas. Actually that event was instigated by Khrushchev. He encouraged them. In looking at 1962, the events actually began in 1959. Why did he go to Camp David? In June of that year, before he went to Camp David, he unilaterally tore up the nuclear agreements between China and the Soviet Union. And after that there were clashes between Chinese and Indian troops in the western part of Sinkiang, the Aksai Chin area. In that part of Sinkiang province there is a high plateau. The Indian-occupied territory was at the foot of the Karakorums, and the disputed territory was on the slope in between.
KISSINGER: It’s what they call Ladakh.
NIXON: They attacked up the mountains.
ZHOU: We fought them and beat them back, with many wounded. But the TASS Agency said that China had committed the aggression against India…..They just don’t want to listen to reason. Anyway, the TASS Agency account had the effect of encouraging India. And also Maxwell mentioned in the book that in 1962 the Indian Government believed what the Russians told them that we, China, would not retaliate against them. Of course we won’t send our troops outside our borders to fight against other people. We didn’t even try to expel Indian troops from the area south of the McMahon Line, which China doesn’t recognize, by force. But if (Indian) troops come up north of the McMahon Line, and come even further into Chinese territory, how is it possible for us to refrain from retaliating? We sent three open telegrams to Nehru asking him to make a public reply, but he refused. He was so discourteous; he wouldn’t even do us the courtesy of replying, so we had no choice but to drive him out. You know all the other events in the book, so I won’t describe them, but India was encouraged by the Soviet Union to attack.
NIXON: I would like to ask the Prime Minister a question with regard to Bangladesh recognition. We have delayed recognition though Britain and other countries have done so.
ZHOU: France has also recognised Bangladesh.
NIXON: Before we make a decision on that, we have tried to find the attitude of (Zulfikar Ali) Bhutto. And Bhutto indicated he does not object to recognition. In fact he could see that we would have some advantage in not leaving the field clear to the Soviet Union in that region. It is our understanding that India is supposed to withdraw all its forces from Bangladesh by the 24th of March. And based on what we have for consideration, we have for consideration the possibility of recognising Bangladesh about that time….”
“ZHOU: …. we truly wish to see (India) truly withdraw their troops in East Pakistan, now called Bangladesh. We wish to see them truly do this and not just with words. Of course they can only do that superficially, because if they get some Bengali forces to remain and join Mujibar Rahman, there would be no way to be sure because the Bengalis all look the same. But that would trouble to the future of India and Mrs Gandhi herself. The Indians said they have no territorial ambitions, but the development of events is that they have remained in their place and refused to withdraw. Once again we can only cite the events of Indian aggression in the 1962 war. At that time our troops pressed to the foothills quite close to Tezpur in Assam, and when they reached that place, Chairman Mao ordered that all troops should turn back. We turned back to the Indians ~ this is in Maxwell’s book ~ and we withdrew all troops back north of the so-called McMahon Line because one must show one can be trusted and must not wait for others to act…. India should withdraw its troops from the areas it is occupying in West Pakistan, and Pakistan should also withdraw from the lesser areas it occupies in India. Bhutto agrees. These two things, at least, the Indian side should abide by. If the US recognises Bangladesh after this situation is brought about, then we believe this would raise the prestige of the US in the United Nations.
After all, what you want is to bring about the withdrawal of all troops from Bangladesh and West Pakistan. Also, you will be able to encourage Mr Bhutto and give him some assistance. That is what they need. You said your actions should be parallel to ours, and we don’t mind that. We said this both to Yahya, the former President, and to the present President. Both of us owe something to Yahya, although he didn’t show much statesmanship in leading his country, for (bridging) the link between our two countries.
NIXON: He is a bridge.
ZHOU: We should not forget and we cannot forget, especially that Dr Kissinger was able through him to come secretly for talks here. And when a man makes a contribution to the world, we should remember him.
KISSINGER: Actually the President sent a message to Bhutto that he should treat Yahya well in retirement and we would not look favourably on any retribution. It was a personal message from Pakistan.
ZHOU: …. At the time of the ceasefire they (the Pakistanis) still had 80,000 troops in East Pakistan. It was not a situation in which they couldn’t keep fighting….. Yahya should have concentrated his troops to win a victory, and once the Indians had suffered a defeat they would have stopped because West Bengal was not very secure either. So at that time even our Vice Foreign Minister still believed they could win the war. Bhutto too…. .
KISSINGER: (Reading from a cable) Mr President, you were speaking of military shipments. We have information that the Soviet Union has shipped since November 150 tanks from Poland and 100 armored personnel carriers from Czechoslovakia. They were shipped in two ships each month in November and December. In January a third ship was to bring military equipment to India.
NIXON: To India?
KISSINGER: To India.
NIXON: The problem is to find some way that West Pakistan can find some military equipment and assistance. On our side, what we will do is to supply substantial amounts of economic assistance to West Pakistan. That would enable West Pakistan to ~ we would think in the interest of its defence ~ to acquire arms from other sources. As a matter of fact, that is the tragedy of our policy in India. We supplied almost 10 billion dollars in assistance to India in the last 20 years ~ very little was military assistance, it was economic ~ and that relieved India so it could purchase very substantial amounts of arms from the Soviet Union, and also manufacture arms. That was not our intent, but that’s what happened. With regard to our aid to India on this point ~ economic assistance ~ we are going to move in a very measured way. I am resisting considerable pressure from the public and the press to rush in and resume economic assistance at former levels. We are going to wait and see what India does with regard to the border problem and our relations generally.
ZHOU: And India actually is a bottomless hole. (Nixon laughs)
NIXON: When the Prime Minister referred to the problem India has with Bangladesh, as I look at India’s brief history, it has had enough trouble trying to digest West Bengal. If now it tries to digest East Bengal it may cause indigestion which could be massive.
ZHOU: That’s bound to be so. It is also a great pity that the daughter (Madame Gandhi) has also taken as her legacy the philosophy of her father embodied in the book Discovery of India (in English). Have you read it?
KISSINGER: He was thinking of a great India empire?
ZHOU: Yes, he was thinking of a great Indian empire ~ Malaysia, Ceylon, etc. He would probably also include our Tibet. When he was writing that book in a British prison, but one reserved for gentlemen in Darjeeling. Nehru told me himself that the prison was in Sikkim, facing the Himalayan mountains. At the time I hadn’t read the book, but my colleague Chen Yi had, and called it to my attention. He said it was precisely the spirit of India which was embodied in the book. Later on when I read it I had the same thought.
NIXON: …. Germany and Japan, received US aid…. why (they) have done so well, it is because they have qualities of drive and are willing to work hard, whereas some other countries we have helped do not have this quality. This brings me to the point: it is not the help that is provided a country that counts, it is whether the people of that country have the will to use this help. If they don’t have that, the money just goes down a rathole. A pretty good example is aid to India. (Zhou laughs)… India is not able to do much with aid because as compared with Japan, it does not have the drive, or the spirit of determination that the Japanese people have…..”

Genocide
Every Bangladeshi knows the causal role Z A Bhutto had in Pakistan’s civil war yet it is upon the word of such a man that Nixon’s recognition of their nation seemed based. The famous “Archer Blood telegram” by the American Consul-General in Dhaka reporting the genocidal Yahya-Tikka assault on East Pakistan starting March 25 1971 meant nothing to Nixon and Kissinger. Benazir retained her charm in Washington’s power circles because she was Bhutto’s daughter. Similarly, as recently as the 1999 Kargil conflict, Bill Clinton flatteringly referred to China for advice on how to deal with India and Pakistan.

Perversely enough, many in New Delhi, Kolkata etc express so much confused love for both China and the United States that they have accepted as their own the biased baseless opinions about India expressed by Nixon, Kissinger and the Communist Chinese. They would do well to read instead the Defence Ministry’s excellently researched historical account of the 1962 war, which the Government of India should not only publish properly at once but have translated into Mandarin as well.

Dr Manmohan Singh has as recently as 29 November 2007 expressed the opinion: “The type of leadership that China has produced since the days of Deng, I think, is the greatest asset that China has”. Dr Singh might have said, but did not, that China’s greatest asset has been in fact the preservation of Confucian values despite decades of communist tyranny and destruction. With such deep misapprehension about post-1949 China on the part of India’s present Head of Government, it may be unlikely that New Delhi or Kolkata acquires a realistic view of our neighbour or of a healthy China-India relationship in the 21st Century.

Posted in Archer Blood, Asia and the West, Bangladesh, Benazir Bhutto, Bengal, Cambodia, Chiang Kaishek, China, China's expansionism, China's History, China's military, China's Politics, China-India Relations, China-Taiwan problem, China-Tibet problem, Cold War, Communist China, Communists, Confucius, Cross-Strait Relations, Dalai Lama, Deng Xiaoping, Good and Evil, Himalayas, India's Army, India's Foreign Policy, India's Industry, India's Military Defence, India's Nationalism, India-China relations, India-Tibet Border, India-USA interests, Indira Gandhi, International politics, Jawaharlal Nehru, Korea, Kuomintang, Laddakh, Manmohan Singh, Mao Zedong, Mujibur Rahman, Nationalism, NEFA Arunachal, Nikita Kruschev, Pakistan's history, Richard Nixon, Taiwan, Tibet, US China policy, US Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Espionage, Vietnam War, War, World History, Zhou Enlai. Leave a Comment »

China’s Commonwealth: Freedom is the Road to Resolving Taiwan, Tibet, Sinkiang (2007) (plus a link to a Mandarin translation)

December 17, 2007 — drsubrotoroy

China’s Commonwealth

Freedom is the Road to Resolving Taiwan, Tibet, Sinkiang

by

Subroto Roy

First published in The Statesman, December 17, 2007

Editorial Page special article

Mandarin translation: https://twishort.com/Bd7nc

 

 

 

War between China and Taiwan would lead to nothing but disaster all around. Everyone recognises this yet China’s military and political establishment threaten it sporadically when provoked by Taiwan’s leaders, and both sides continue to arm heavily and plan for such a contingency. China’s military is mostly congregated in its North West, North, East and South East with between one third and one half of its total forces facing Taiwan alone in an aggressive posture for an amphibious invasion. Taiwan faces 900 Chinese missiles targeted at it. China’s South West has been left relatively unguarded as no threat has been perceived from India or the Tibetans in fifty years.

Cross-strait relations

The 23 million people of Taiwan have made themselves relatively secure across the 100 miles of sea that separate them from the Mainland. A sea-borne Communist invasion following a heavy missile barrage and blockade would undoubtedly leave the Taiwanese badly bruised and bleeding. But there is enough experience from World War II to suggest that trying to invade and occupy islands turns out as badly for the invader as it does for the defender. The Taiwanese military are confident they may be able to defeat an attempted invasion after two or three weeks of fierce fighting even if their promised American ally fails to materialize by their side.

In any case, for China to succeed in forcibly establishing its rule someday over Taiwan would be a pyrrhic victory, since it would lead to tremendous political and economic costs upon all Chinese people. Gaining control after a terrible war would rule out the Hong Kong “One Country Two Systems” model, with nominal Chinese sovereignty being established over an otherwise unchanged Taiwan. Instead the Chinese would have to institute a highly repressive political system, which will incorrigibly damage Taiwan’s flourishing technologically advanced economy, as well as lead to drastic irreparable political and economic retrogression on the Mainland.

The alternative to war is “peaceful reunification” which is the official policy of the CPC, and which also has been a major plank of United States foreign policy since the time of George C Marshall. Unlike Britain, Japan, Russia, France, Germany, even Sweden and Belgium, the Americans were not among the 19th Century powers that exploited China, and that is something that has left some residual goodwill, implicit as it may be, since all Chinese despise the fact their country was humiliated by greedy foreign powers in the past. The USA has subscribed to “One China” and peaceful unification even after its cynical near-betrayal of Taiwan since 1972, having normal diplomatic and trade relations with Communist China while agreeing to help Taiwan if the Communists attempted a military invasion.

Communist China’s strategy towards peaceful reunification with Taiwan has been unlimited allurement: offer Taiwanese businessmen a free hand in investing in China, offer Taiwan students places in Mainland universities, offer Taiwanese airlines flying rights etc. The Taiwanese see their giant ominous neighbour offering such allurements on one hand and threatening a missile attack and invasion and occupation on the other, as if they are animals who will respond to the carrots and sticks of behaviourism.

Taiwan in recent decades has seen its own history and future much more clearly than it sees the Communists being able to see theirs. A marriage can hardly occur or be stable when the self-knowledge of one party greatly exceeds the self-knowledge of the other. It is thus no wonder that the Taiwan-China talks get stalled or retrogress, as the root problem has failed to be addressed which has to do with the political legitimacy of a combined regime.

Political China consisted historically of the agricultural plains and river-valleys of “China Proper” and the arid sparsely populated mountainous periphery of Inner Mongolia, Tibet and Sinkiang. The native people of Formosa (Taiwan) had their own unique character distinct from the Mainland until 1949 when Chiang Kaishek’s Kuomintang moved there after being defeated by Mao Zedong’s Communists.

Today the Hong Kong Model of “One Country Two Systems” can be generalized to “One Commonwealth/ Confederation of China, Six Systems”, whose constituents would be Mainland China, Chinese Taipei (Taiwan), Chinese Hong Kong, Tibet, Sinkiang and Inner Mongolia. A difference between a commonwealth and a confederation is that a commonwealth permits different heads of state whereas a confederation would have one head of state, who, in view of Mainland China’s predominance, could be agreed upon to be from there permanently.

Taiwan is the key to the peaceful creation of such a Chinese commonwealth or confederation, and Taiwan may certainly agree to “reunification” on such a pattern on one key condition ~ the abolition of totalitarian Communist one-party rule on the Mainland.

The CPC’s parent party was the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which became the Bolshevik Party which became the All-Union Communist Party in 1925. This still exists today but to its great credit it agreed sixteen years ago, more or less voluntarily, to abandon totalitarian power and bring in constitutional democracy in the former USSR. East European Communist Parties did the same, mostly transforming themselves back to becoming Social Democrat or Labour Parties ~ so much so that Germany’s present elected head of government is a former East German.

Hearts and minds

Mainland China must follow a similar path if it wishes to win the hearts and minds and political loyalties of all Chinese people and form a genuine confederation ~ which means the CPC must lead the way towards its own peaceful dissolution and transformation.

Historically, China’s people followed an admixture of three non-theistic religious cultures, namely, Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism, individually choosing whichever aspects of each that they wished to see in their daily lives. Lamaist Buddhism governed Tibet and Mongolia and deeply affected parts of Mainland China too. China’s theists include the Uighurs of Sinkiang who were and remain devout Muslims, as well as the many Catholics and other Christians since the first Jesuits arrived five hundred years ago. Sun Yatsen himself was a Christian. Marx, Engels, Stalin, Mao and even Deng have never really been able to substitute as a satisfactory new Chinese pantheon.

A free multi-party democracy in Mainland China, flying the Republican or some combined flag and tracing its origin to the 1911 Revolution, even one in which Communists won legitimate political power through free elections (as has been seen in India’s States), would earn the genuine respect of the world, and be able to confidently lead a new Chinese Confederation. The Chinese people who have been often forced against their will to resettle in Tibet and Sinkiang under the present totalitarian regime would be free to move or stay just as there are many Russians in Ukraine or Kazakhstan today. And of course the Dalai Lama would be able to return home in peace after half a century in exile. Freedom is the road to the peaceful resolution of China’s problems. Let freedom ring.

Posted in Asia and the West, Bolsheviks, Buddhism, Chiang Kaishek, China, China's Commonwealth, China's Economy, China's History, China's military, China's Politics, China-Taiwan problem, China-Tibet problem, Communist China, Communists, Confederation, Confucius, Cross-Strait Relations, Dalai Lama, Democracy, Deng Xiaoping, Freedom, Germany, India's Democracy, International Law, International politics, Kuomintang, Mao Zedong, Russia, Sinkiang, Sun Yatsen, Taiwan, Tibet, Uighurs, US China policy, US Foreign Policy, War, World History. 5 Comments »

Surrender or Fight? War is not a cricket match or Bollywood movie. Can India fight China if it must? (2007)

December 4, 2007 — drsubrotoroy

Surrender or fight?


War is not a cricket match or Bollywood movie. Can India fight China if it must?

By Subroto Roy

First published in The Statesman, Dec 4 2007, Editorial Page Special  Article

Armies of the subcontinent, all deriving from rather antiquated British military traditions, have only once since 1947 fought an external army ~ when China’s Communists, using Lin Biao’s military doctrines, attacked India in 1962 and India lost territory, soldiers and self-respect, gaining ignominy for half a century instead. India and Pakistan have fought wars against each other, India’s army has fought Kashmiri, Naga and other rebels, Pakistan’s army has brutalised Bangladeshi and Baluchi civilians and fought Pashtuns in Waziristan, Bangladeshi soldiers have brutalised tribal minorities and shot at Indian border guards, Sri Lanka’s military has fought Tamil rebels, Nepal has fought communist rebels, etc. Other than the 1962 Chinese attack, all warfare in the subcontinent has been domestic and internecine.

Official 1962 history

The official Government of India history of the 1962 war frankly says: “The Indian Army trained and fought like the British Army, unimaginative, elephantine, rule-bound and road-bound. Armies of Germany, Japan, USSR or China were vastly better war machines, and patterned very differently.” During the 1962 war, the US Ambassador JK Galbraith wrote to President Kennedy: “The great question is what the Chinese intend…. The Indians have consistently underestimated Chinese intentions…. the Indian Army in its command, organisation, tactics and equipment is extremely old-fashioned. The individual soldiers carry personal arms that are sixty years old and this can hardly give them the feeling of equality with opponents carrying modern light automatic weapons. The tactics are stuffy and rigid… Some of the commanders are very good. More still are the amiable frauds that rise to the top in any peacetime Army… ”

When diplomacy is exhausted and international conflict arises, there is always an option of surrendering or yielding sovereignty instead of standing up to fight, e.g. Vichy France yielding before Nazi Germany. There is always a choice between submission and fighting. Pakistan’s military has geared itself over decades only to fight India, and chosen to serve the West and China as desired towards that end. Whatever America wants in Pakistan, America gets, e.g., if American missiles need to enter Pakistani airspace to hit Afghan targets, the US Government does not seek Pakistani permission but merely informs them not to think offensive missiles have been sent from India, and they say okay.

India’s Army may be under some suspicion of being similarly geared to fight only Pakistan ~ and when India and Pakistan are armed and obsessed only with fighting one another, they can hardly think of taking on other adversaries. “India’s soldiers now stand sentinel along India’s frontiers; but they perform guard-duties and are not spear-heads for her advancing armies”, Peter Lyon in FS Northedge (ed), Foreign Policies of the Powers, 1973.

Certainly India’s military has not seemed keen to have anything but a highly defensive posture against Communist China. On 23 March 1991, Rajiv Gandhi at his residence released a fat book by a retired Army Chief on Indian military defence titled Prepare or Perish. The book’s author and the present author had been working together for Rajiv, and the former was asked why in the hundreds of pages of the book there was barely a mention of Indian military preparation against China. He replied that our strategy against China would have to be a defensive holding action which relied on the international community’s intervention before matters escalated ~ revealing a rather wild optimism about the efficacy of international relations. Another Army Chief years before him, General Thimayya himself, is reported to have said “as a soldier he could not think of a total war with China and would leave the dispute to be settled by the diplomats” (BN Mullick, The Chinese Betrayal, p. 318).

Thimayya realised India was weak after World War II facing Mao’s Communists who had two and a half million armed men, had acquired large stocks of American and Japanese weapons after defeating Chiang Kaishek, and were aggressive and experienced after decades of fighting culminating in the Korean war. (Three divisions were trained in India by the Americans and sent for Chiang in 1942-45 with supplies along the Stilwell Road or flown across the “hump”.) Indian soldiers had fought mostly under British or American commanders; in 1947, they disintegrated in chaos into the new armies of India and Pakistan who went to war with one another immediately over J&K.

Not only was India militarily weak until 1962, our political and diplomatic policies since 1949 had been consistently ones of flattery and appeasement, betraying our interests as well as our relationships with Chiang’s Nationalist Chinese and, most cruelly of all, with the Tibetans who shared India’s culture. Our first Ambassador to Beijing was a communist sympathiser, his son-in-law a leading Indian communist. India was the first country outside the Soviet bloc to recognise Communist China, the first to help Mao diplomatically in the Korean war, the pioneer of many UN resolutions to have Communist China admitted as a veto-holding Security Council member in place of Chiang’s Nationalists. We bent over backwards to accommodate and appease them over Tibet. All this got us less than nothing ~ Communist China soon enough joined hands with Pakistan’s greedy generals against us.

Zhou Enlai was said to be “one of those men who never tell the truth and never tell a lie. For them there is no distinction between the two. The speaker says what is appropriate to the circumstances. Zhou Enlai was a perfect gentleman; he was also a perfect Communist” (Father Laszlo Ladany, The Communist Party of China and Marxism, 1921-1985, Stanford 1988). Zhou enforced India’s political and diplomatic surrender, and then we failed to fight adequately on the military front. Communist China thus established its dominance over India. After Nixon and Kissinger made their devious opening to Mao and Zhou using Pakistan, American policy changed too, almost betraying Taiwan and certainly stamping American approval on the idea that between Communist China and India, China shall be seen as dominant.

For recent Chinese Ambassadors to New Delhi to brazenly use today the same language as Zhou did half a century ago is not a good sign but an indication of Communist China’s wish not to have a relationship with modern India on the basis of sovereign equality. For them to say Tawang must be theirs because the monastery there was where the sixth Dalai Lama was born and the Dalai Lama is Chinese and not Indian, is to reveal an aggressive subconscious against us. We may next hear it said Buddha himself was Chinese since he was probably born in Nepal, as an excuse for further Communist encroachment.

Diplomatic relations

The last time China’s Communists attacked India the world was distracted by the Cuban missile crisis just as it is distracted today with Iran and Iraq. The Tawang monastery issue today is symbolic of India’s entire relationship with China since 1949. There is no economic reason why bilateral trade in goods and services cannot continue but it may be high time India gathers some remaining self-respect and downgrades and then considers ending diplomatic relations with this aggressive dictatorship, awaiting instead the development of democracy and a free society for all of China’s great people, perhaps on the Taiwan-model. The Dalai Lama was greeted with great warmth in Taiwan and there is no doubt a free democratic China will seek a healthy new relationship with Tibet as befits great cultures. Militarily, India must indeed prepare for the next Communist aggression or perish, which requires real modernisation and efficiency in the armed forces and an end to corruption, indiscipline and incompetence.

Posted in 1962 War, Air warfare, Asia and the West, Balochistan, Bangladesh, British imperialism, British military doctrine and traditions, Chiang Kaishek, China, China's expansionism, China's History, China-India Relations, China-Taiwan problem, China-Tibet problem, Communist China, Communists, Dalai Lama, India's military doctrine, India's airforce, India's Army, India's Bangladesh liberation war, India's Diplomacy, India's History, India's Military Defence, India-China relations, India-Tibet Border, India-USA interests, Laddakh, Military doctrine, NEFA Arunachal, Nepal, Pakistan's history, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Pashtuns, Rajiv Gandhi, Sino-Indian Border, Taiwan, Tibet, UN/League of Nations, Unconscious Mind, US Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Espionage, War, World History, World War, Zhou Enlai. 1 Comment »

Map of India-Tibet-China-Mongolia 1959

November 15, 2007 — drsubrotoroy

This map reproduced from the 1964 edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica is said to have been prepared by the US CIA and is dated 1959.  It is something I published to accompany my November 5 2007 article “China’s India Aggression”.  The Government of India and Government of China have a hard time with maps in discussing the boundary-dispute; this might help them.

See also

https://independentindian.com/2009/06/08/map-of-sinkiangxinjiang-1967-could-this-be-the-best-available-in-the-public-domain/

https://independentindian.com/2008/06/07/map-of-sinkiang-tibet-and-neighbours-1944/

https://independentindian.com/2009/09/19/my-ten-articles-on-china-tibet-xinjiang-taiwan-in-relation-to-india/

Posted in Aksai Chin, Anglo-Russian Treaty 1907, Assam, Bhutan, China, China's Commonwealth, China's expansionism, China's History, China's Politics, China's wars, China-India Relations, China-Pakistan relations, China-Tibet problem, Cold War, Communist China, Dalai Lama, Gobi Desert, Government of India, Himalayas, India's Foreign Policy, India's History, India's Land, India's Military Defence, India-China relations, India-Tibet Border, Inner Mongolia, Jammu & Kashmir, Kanchenjunga, Karakorum Pass, Kashgar, Laddakh, Mongolia, Mountains and trekking, Sikkim, Sinkiang, Sino-Indian Border, Tibet, USSR, World History, Xinjiang. Leave a Comment »

China’s India Aggression (2007)

November 5, 2007 — drsubrotoroy

China’s India Aggression

German Historians Discover Logic Behind Communist Military Strategy

by

Subroto Roy

First published in The Statesman, Editorial Page Special Article, Nov 5 2007

There are four main aspects to the China-Tibet-India problem over the last century, some of which are only now becoming apparent. The first is historical prior to the 1949 Communist takeover, in which the British, Tibetans and Kuomintang were participants in background discussion and events. The second is historical too, namely, the appeasement by Nehru and his diplomats of the Mao-Zhou Communists and betrayal of normal Tibetan and Indian interests in the period 1949-1959. The third is political, to do with reaction, confusion and conflict among Indian Communists leading to the CPI/CPI-M split in response to Communist attacks upon Tibet and India. The fourth is military, to do with the 1962 war itself, the nature of the surprise Chinese attack and Indian defeat.

Chinese claims

A 1954 Beijing publication not only claimed Tibet but alleged vast areas of Asia to be Chinese: Ladakh, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, NEFA (Arunachal), Assam, the Andaman Islands, Burma (Myanmar), Malaya, Singapore, Thailand, Indo-China, the Sulu Islands, the Ryukyus, Korea, Formosa (Taiwan), the whole of East Turkestan (Sinkiang), Kazakhstan, Siberia west of the Amur River, maritime provinces east of the Amur down to Vladivostok, and Sakhalin (viz., Coral Bell in FS Northedge (ed) Foreign Policies of the Powers, 1973).

America’s CIA reported in a secret 1962 analysis, declassified in May 2007, that the Left faction of India’s Communists had been repeating what Mao Zedong said to Ajoy Ghosh: “that Tibet, Sikkim, Bhutan, and NEFA are provinces peopled by the same race, that China had a historic right to these territories, that the McMahon line was not valid, and that the Indian government’s raising of ‘the bogey of Chinese aggression’ had resulted from its realisation that Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan and India would be deeply affected by the social and economic revolution in Tibet” (CIA The Indian Communist Party and the Sino-Soviet Dispute, Feb 1962, page 76). Referring to Chinese designs on Mongolia, Kruschev’s USSR condemned its fellow-Communists: “… The true schemes of the Chinese leaders (are) obvious. They are permeated through and through with great-power chauvinism and hegemonism”, Pravda 2 Sep 1964, quoted by Bell, op.cit.

China’s 1962 India war was rationally consistent with carrying out precisely such an expansionist policy in Sinkiang and Tibet. As the German historians Hermann Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund have stated most succinctly, the NEFA conflict was merely a deliberate diversionary tactic which has worked brilliantly for decades:

“The consolidation of the Chinese hold on Tibet, as well as on other areas of Central Asia… (required military infrastructure) to maintain it and a ring road was constructed which led from China to Tibet and from there via the Karakorum Range to Sinkiang and Mongolia and then back to China. At a crucial point some Indian territory (Aksai Chin) obstructed this connection. Beyond Aksai Chin was the terrible desert, Takla Makan, which was a major obstacle. Faced with the dilemma of violating Indian territory or getting stuck in the desert, the Chinese opted for the first course and quietly built a road through Aksai Chin. In the meantime, they provoked incidents on the northeastern border so as to divert attention from their real aims. They also published maps which showed the border in Assam at the foot of the mountains rather than on the watershed. The watershed line had been settled by the McMahon border commission, which had also included a Chinese delegate who initialled the protocol, although it was not subsequently ratified by the Chinese government. Actually, there was no disagreement about the watershed line at that time when debate was focused on a different line, supposed to divide Tibet into an Inner and Outer Tibet on the same pattern as Inner and Outer Mongolia. Inner Tibet was to be under Chinese influence and Outer Tibet under British influence. But Communist China made use of the fact that the agreement had not been ratified and accused India of clinging to the imperialist heritage with regard to the Himalayan boundary. This harping on the legal position in the northeast was a tactical move made in order to build up a bargaining position with regard to Aksai Chin where the Chinese could not raise similar claims… Finally, a border war broke out in October 1962. It was a typical demonstration war conducted with great finesse by the Chinese. They completely perplexed the Indian generals by pushing a whole division through the mountains down to the valley of Assam and withdrawing it again as quickly as it had come. The Indian strategic concept of defending the Himalayan boundary by cutting off the supply lines of the enemy if it ventured too far beyond the border could not be put into operation: the Chinese were gone before the supply lines could be cut. But why did they do this? They wanted to divert attention from their moves in the northwest, where they did reach the Karakorum Pass in a swift offensive and did not withdraw as they had done in the east.” (History of India, 1998, pp 321-322).

Chinese casualties were some 1,460 dead, 1,697 wounded, Indian casualties some 3,128 dead, 3,968 captured, 548 wounded, each as reported by itself. JK Galbraith, the friendliest and fairest observer India may have hoped for, found our Army populated by “tragically old-fashioned” peacetime generals full of bluster, while brave soldiers under them remained woefully ill-equipped and came to be outgunned and out-manoeuvred.

Mao Zedong’s racist reference to the people populating NEFA being of Chinese origin was misguided, even nonsensical. On such a basis, China might claim Japan or Korea next, as might West Africa claim sovereignty over North and South American blacks or Mongolia over Turks and Afghans. NEFA’s five administrative divisions ~ Kameng, Subansiri, Siang, Lohit and Tirap ~ are populated by indigenous animistic tribes including the Momba, Mishmi, Abor, Miri, Dafla and Aka, each with defined areas. The 1883 Survey of India showed these areas administered de facto by British India from Assam. The 1908 Edinburgh Geographical Institute’s map by JG Bartholomew showed most of the same to be part of Bhutan, a British Indian protectorate, as did earlier 18th Century maps.

 

 

Less than legitimate

Communist China’s claims of sovereignty over NEFA (Arunachal) in any case derive from its claims of sovereignty over Tibet. Britain, India and other nations guided by international law have allowed that Lhasa, though long independent, may acknowledge Chinese suzerainty ~ but only subject to the condition of traditional autonomy. The 1907 Anglo-Russian Treaty stipulated Tibet would be dealt with officially through China, leading to the Henry McMahon Commission of 1914 which followed the normal international cartographic practise of the watershed defining the boundary in NEFA. That came to be generally followed by British and Indian maps of NEFA since. The CIA’s official 1959 map of the region concurred and the United States Government explicitly instructed Galbraith, its New Delhi Ambassador during the 1962 war, that the American position was the same as the British and Indian. There appears to be no record of any serious Chinese cartography of the region ever ~ Chinese maps prior to 1935 agreeing with the British Indian position but disputing it afterwards, placing Tibet’s boundary along the margin of the Assam plain. China was ravaged by war, civil war and revolutionary excesses during much of the 20th Century and hardly had well-preserved national archives at a time when its own capital and central government was changing several times.

China’s Communists, being themselves in political power for decades somewhat less than legitimately as a one-party dictatorship, have been loath to admit all such inconvenient facts, and instead continue in their hegemonic mode. A new liberal democratic China guided by law on the Taiwan pattern may have to be awaited before this conflict comes to be resolved.

See also https://independentindian.com/2009/09/19/my-ten-articles-on-china-tibet-xinjiang-taiwan-in-relation-to-india/

Posted in 1962 War, Aksai Chin, Anglo-Russian Treaty 1907, Asia and the West, Assam, Bhutan, Bolsheviks, Britain, Chiang Kaishek, China, China's expansionism, China's History, China's military, China's Politics, China's wars, China-India Relations, China-Taiwan problem, China-Tibet problem, Communist China, Communists, Dalai Lama, Deng Xiaoping, Freedom, Good and Evil, Himalayas, India's Diplomacy, India's Foreign Policy, India's History, India's Military Defence, India's Union-State relations, India-China relations, India-Tibet Border, India-USA interests, International Law, International politics, Kuomintang, Laddakh, Land and political economy, Mao Zedong, NEFA Arunachal, Racism, Sinkiang, Sino-Indian Border, Taiwan, Tibet, USSR, War, World History, Xinjiang, Zhou Enlai. 2 Comments »

India-USA interests: Elements of a serious Indian foreign policy (2007)

October 30, 2007 — drsubrotoroy

India-USA interests: Elements of a serious Indian foreign policy

by

 

Subroto Roy

 

First published in The Statesman, Editorial Page Special Article, Oct 30 2007

If there is a “natural alliance” between India and the United States, it arises to the extent that both are large democracies and more or less free societies that happen to be placed half way across the globe and pose no perceptible military threat to one another. The real long-term strategic and political dimensions of such an alliance are quite independent of the business interests driving the “nuclear deal” or selfish interests of the few million “elite” Indians who have fled to the USA as immigrants in recent decades. The interests of Indian immigrants in the USA and interests of the vast masses in India are, after all, quite distinct. Also, America derives most if its own energy not from nuclear reactors but from abundant hydroelectric resources. If the nuclear deal has been ill-conceived and fails in implementation at any stage, India will not import expensive nuclear reactors but can still learn much from the USA in developing hydroelectric power which constitutes India’s greatest energy potential as well.

 

 

China and Pakistan

Key strategic interests of India and the USA are fully convergent in East Asia, especially in respect of Communist China. But in West Asia, American attitudes and actions towards the Muslim world, specifically the invasion and occupation of Iraq and now a possible assault on Iran, have been deeply disconcerting for India which has some 120 million Muslim citizens.

 

It is not a coincidence that Pakistan, an overtly religious Muslim state, has had a marriage of convenience with Communist China, an overtly atheistic anti-religious state. Both have been militarist dictatorships that have seen democratic India as a strategic adversary, especially over territorial claims. It was Pakistan that facilitated President Nixon’s desired opening to Communist China and later permitted President Reagan’s attack on the soft underbelly of the USSR in the Afghan civil war (an attack in which China participated too). With the USSR’s collapse, the USA removed its main strategic adversary only to be left with two new adversaries: Islamic fundamentalism in the short run and China in the long run!

 

Indian diplomacy can credit a rare (indeed exceptional) success in having warned the USA from the early 1990s onwards of the dangers brewing in the jihadist camps in Pakistan sponsored by the ISI. The US Government has now declassified its assessments of those dangers and what it tried to do as early as 1995 and as late as 2000 through the Saudis with the Taliban’s Mullah Omar ~ who refused to hand over Osama Bin Laden to Saudi Arabia and openly spoke of plans for revenge against American interests. With a continuing Cold-War mindset, US policy-makers thought state-actors like Saddam Hussein were a graver risk to Israel than non-state or  pan-state actors like Osama could be to the American mainland. Having distracted itself with Saddam, the US Government’s response to Osama has been far too much far too late ~ the maddened bull chasing the matador’s cape, in Stephen Holmes’s recent metaphor.

 

Pakistan’s consistent motivation was one of gaining advantage with the Americans in the hope of undermining India, and indeed the nexus created in Washington by Pakistan’s bureaucrats, politicians and military over decades has been the envy of all lobbyists. But Pakistan overplayed its hand, and once the 9/11 genie was let out of the bottle it could not be put back in again. Meanwhile, Pakistan allowing Gwadar port to become a haven for China’s Navy would have obvious new strategic repercussions.

 

American interests in West Asia are to protect Israel, to protect trade-routes and to defend against non-state or pan-state terrorism. American interests in East Asia are to protect Japan, South Korea and Taiwan from communist attack, to protect trade-routes and to defend against new terrorism arising from places like Indonesia or the  Philippines. All American interests in Asia would be facilitated by appearance of genuine multiparty democracy and free societies in China and Pakistan.

 

China as a two-party or multi-party democracy and a free society, even on the Taiwan-model, is unlikely to be an expansionist militarist aggressor in the way it has been as a dictatorship and unfree society. Communist China in the early 21st Century makes the same outrageous unlawful claims on Indian territory as it did half a century ago. Only the USA came to India’s assistance in a tangible way when Communist China attacked in Ladakh and Arunachal in the late months of 1962. John Kenneth Galbraith was President Kennedy’s Ambassador in New Delhi and his memoirs tell the tale of the landings of C-130 aircraft in Kolkata carrying infantry weapons, light artillery and quartermaster stores for the beleaguered Indian Army in Tezpur and Leh.

 scan0010

Nehru, Krishna Menon and India’s whole political and diplomatic leadership revealed gross incompetence as did the Army’s top brass. Indian Communists virtually betrayed the country. The Chinese massed in the Chumbi Valley near Nathu La, and had they attacked all the way to Siliguri, India’s North East would have been cut off. As a demonstration, the Chinese in division strength took and held the whole of Arunachal for a month, withdrawing before there could be anyIndian attempt to retaliate or cut supply lines. The geography has not changed in fifty years. What can yet change is the ideology, away from the communism that has ruined China’s great people, to a new and bold commitment to liberal democracy and the Rule of Law.

 

As for Pakistan, its people under crude military rule have hardly allowed themselves to become the source of Muslim culture that Iqbal had dreamt of. Pakistan today is not a place even the most ardent pro-Pakistani person in Jammu & Kashmir can find very appealing or inspiring. If there was multiparty democracy and a free society in which the military had a normal small role of defence (as opposed to a large purportedly offensive role against India), Pakistan could calm down from its neuroses and become a normal country for the first time~ one in which the so-called “extremists” of today are transformed into a politically legitimate religious conservatism, who could seek to take power responsibly through the ballot box.

 

 

Neutrality

India should be a friendly neutral in the conflict between the West and Muslim world, doing whatever we can to bring better understanding between the two sides. Both have been invaders in Indian history, bringing both evil and good in their wake. India’s culture absorbed and assimilated their influences and became more resilient as a consequence. India also was a haven for Jews and Zoroastrians fleeing persecution. India as a country must condemn fanatical terrorist attacks on the West and bizarre reactionary attempts to return to a caliphate in the world of modern science. Equally, India must condemn vicious racist bombing and warfare unleashed by technologically advanced countries upon ancient societies and cultures struggling to enter the modern world in their own way.

 

As for the central issue of Israel in Palestine, Martin Buber (1878-1965), the eminent Zionist scholar and philosopher of Judaism, said to Rabindranath Tagore in 1926 that the Jewish purpose should be one of “pursuing the settlement effort in Palestine in agreement, nay, alliance with the peoples of the East, so as to erect with them together a great federative structure, which might learn and receive from the West whatever positive aims and means might be learnt and received from it, without, however, succumbing to the influence of its inner disarray and aimlessness.” If India could guide the region towards such a “great federative structure” of reason and tranquillity, while encouraging democracy in China and Pakistan, the aim of our “natural alliance” with the United States half way across the globe would have been fulfilled.

see also

https://independentindian.com/2006/01/31/diplomatic-wisdom/

https://independentindian.com/2006/10/09/new-foreign-policy-kiss-up-kick-down/
https://independentindian.com/2006/06/05/pakistans-allies/

https://independentindian.com/2011/10/13/my-seventy-one-notes-at-facebook-etc-on-kashmir-pakistan-and-of-course-india-listed-thanks-to-jd/

https://independentindian.com/2009/09/19/my-ten-articles-on-china-tibet-xinjiang-taiwan-in-relation-to-india/

https://independentindian.com/2007/08/19/to-clarity-from-confusion-on-indo-us-nuclear-deal/

https://independentindian.com/2009/11/25/on-the-zenith-and-nadir-of-us-india-relations/

 

Posted in Afghanistan, Air warfare, Arabs, Asia and the West, Balochistan, China, China's History, China-Taiwan problem, China-Tibet problem, Cold War, Communists, Democracy, Economics and Energy, Espionage, Freedom, Good and Evil, Himalayas, India's Diplomacy, India's Energy, India's Foreign Policy, India's Military Defence, India's Nationalism, India-Pakistan cooperation against terrorism, India-Pakistan peace process, India-Tibet Border, India-United States business, India-US Nuclear Deal, India-USA interests, International politics, Iqbal, Iran, Iraq war, Islam, Israel, Jammu & Kashmir, Japan, Jawaharlal Nehru, Judaism, Just war, Korea, Kuomintang, Laddakh, Martin Buber, NEFA Arunachal, Pakistan's history, Pakistan's politics, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Palestine, Rabindranath Tagore, Ronald Reagan, Russia, September 11 attacks, Taiwan, Tibet, US Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Espionage, US Military Doctrine, US Pakistan policy, US-Iran relations, USA, United States, War, World History, Zionism. Leave a Comment »

Understanding China (2007)

October 22, 2007 — drsubrotoroy

Understanding China

The World Needs to Ask China to Find Her True Higher Self

by Subroto Roy

First published in The Statesman, October 22, 2007, Editorial Page Special Article

The most important factors explaining China’s progress since the deaths of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai have been the spread and quick absorption of modern Western technology under conditions of relative peace and tranquillity. The “capitalist road” came to be taken after all and the once-denounced Liu Shaoqui was posthumously rehabilitated by his shrewd old friend Deng Xiaoping.

To be sure, the new technology itself has combined with democratic hatred felt by young Chinese against the corrupt elitist police-state gerontocracy, and this produced first a Wei Jingsheng and Democracy Wall and later the Tiananmen Square protests. There have been also in recent years many thousands of incidents of peasants resisting State-sponsored brutality, fighting to prevent their lands being stolen in the name of purported capitalist industrialisation, in an economy where, as in India, land is an appreciating asset and the paper-currency remains weak because inflation by money-printing is the basis of public finance. China’s multitudinous domestic tensions continue to boil over as if in a cauldron, and it seems inevitable Chinese Gorbachevs and Yeltsins will one day emerge from within the Communist Party to try to begin the long political march towards multiparty democracy and a free society ~ though of course they may fail too, and China will remain condemned to being a dictatorship of one sort or other for centuries more.

Absence of war

What has been seen in recent decades is the relative absence of war. The last military war the Chinese fought was a month-long battle against fellow-Communist Vietnamese in 1979, after Vietnam had run over and destroyed the Chinese (and Western) backed Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Before that, fellow-Communists of the USSR were fought in a border war in 1969. Before that was the border-war with India in 1959-1963 and occupation of Tibet 1950-1959.

The really savage, fierce large-scale fighting in 20th Century Chinese history was seen in the Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945, the Civil War of 1945-1949 and the Korean War of 1950-1953. The occupation of Tibet and fighting against India resulting from Tibet’s occupation were really, from a Chinese Communist point of view, merely light follow-ups to those major wars of the Mao-Zhou era, especially fighting the USA and UN in Korea. Peaceful Tibet and naïve non-violent India stood no chance against the aggressive highly experienced Mao-Zhou war-machine at the time.

It may even be that Mao could live only with incessant external tumult ~ after fighting military wars, he orchestrated domestic conflicts in the Little and Great Leap Forward of 1949-1963 and Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of 1964-1969, all among the failures of a cruel ill-educated man who led his people into social, political and economic disaster from which trauma they have been slowly recovering over the last thirty years.

Today, Communist China’s military is geared to fight the non-Communist Chinese of Taiwan in a continuation of the Civil War. It seems unlikely there will be an actual invasion for the simple reason that Taiwan, though much smaller, may not suffer eventual defeat but instead inflict a mortal wound upon invading forces. Mao succeeded in driving Chiang Kaishek across the Taiwan Straits but it is post-Chiang Taiwan that displays the model of how strong, prosperous, democratic and self-confident Chinese people really can strive to be in the modern world. Everyone agrees Taiwan and China must one day unite ~ the interesting question is whether Taiwan will get absorbed into China or whether China shall take Taiwan as its new model! Just as Liu Shaoqi had the last word over Mao on the question of taking the capitalist road, Chiang Kaishek may yet have the last word over Mao on the best constitutional method for modern China’s governance.

Peculiarly enough, China’s Kuomintang and Communists were both allies of Russian Bolshevism (not unlike India’s Congress Party and Communists). Sun Yatsen’s collaboration with Comintern’s founders began as early as 1921. By 1923 there was a formal agreement and Stalin sent Gruzenberg (alias Borodin) to China as an adviser, while Sun sent many including Chiang to Russia on learning expeditions. “In reorganising the party, we have Soviet Russia as our model, hoping to achieve a real revolutionary success”, said Sun hopefully. But by March 1926, Sun’s successor Chiang, had begun purging Communists from the Kuomintang-Communist alliance; in July 1927 Borodin returned to Russia after failing at reconciliation; and by July 1928 Chiang had unified China under his own leadership, and Moscow had repudiated the Kuomintang and ordered Chinese Communists to revolt, starting the Civil War and instability that invited the vicious Japanese aggression and occupation.

China’s problems today with Taiwan and with Tibet (and hence with India) will not come to be resolved until China looks hard in the mirror and begins to resolve her problems with herself. No major country today possesses a more factually distorted image of its own history, politics and economics than does China since the Communist takeover of 1949. “Protect the country, destroy the foreigner” was the motto of the Boxer revolts in 1900, a natural defensive reaction to the depredations and humiliations that Manchu-dynasty China suffered at the hands of the British, French, Germans, Russians, Japanese etc for more than a century. The Boxer motto seemed to implicitly drive Mao, Deng and his modern successors too ~ hence the “One China” slogan, the condemnation of “splittism” etc. But the ideology that Mao, Liu, Deng et al developed out of Stalin, Lenin and Marx seems base and stupid when it is unsentimentally compared to the great political philosophy and ethics of ancient China, which emerged out of wise men like Mo Tzu, Meng Ko (Mencius) and the greatest genius of them all, K’ung Fu Tzu, Confucius himself, undoubtedly among the few greatest men of world history.

Tibet

India has not been wrong to acknowledge Outer Tibet as being under China’s legal suzerainty nor in encouraging endogenous political reform among our Tibetan cousins. The Anglo-Russian treaty of 1907 undertook that Tibet would not be dealt with except through China, and the Indian Republic has been the legal successor of British India. Lhasa may be legitimately under Beijing as far as international relations goes ~ the more profound question is whether Beijing’s Communists since 1949 have not been themselves less than legitimate, and if so whether they can now transform themselves in the post Mao-Zhou era through good deeds towards greater legitimacy.

The root problem between China and India has not been the Tibet-India border which was almost always a friendly one and never a problem even when it remained imprecise and undefined over centuries. The root problem has been the sheer greed and aggressiveness of Chinese Communists ~ who now demand not merely Aksai Chin but also a minimum of some 2000 sq km of Tawang and Takpa Shiri in Arunachal. The CIA’s 1959 map of the region, which would be acceptable to the USA, UK, Taiwan and the international community in general as depicting the lawful position, shows the Communist Chinese territorial claim to be baseless and Indian position to be justified.

Nehru’s India was naïve to approach the Mao-Zhou Communists with the attitude of ahimsa and a common Buddhism. But Mao-Zhou Communism is dead, and the Deng capitalist road itself has lost its ethical way. What India and the world need to do now is ask China or help guide China to find her true higher self. China’s Tibet problem and hence border-dispute with India would have been solved peacefully by application of the ways of great men like Confucius, Mencius and Mo Tzu, who are and will remain remembered by mankind long after petty cruel modern dictators like Mao, Zhou and Deng have been long forgotten. Why China’s Communist bosses despise Taiwan may be because Taiwan has sought to preserve that memory of China’s true higher self.

see also https://independentindian.com/2009/09/19/my-ten-articles-on-china-tibet-xinjiang-taiwan-in-relation-to-india/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHUhy9pJyys

Posted in Asia and the West, Britain, Cambodia, Chiang Kaishek, China, China's Economy, China's expansionism, China's History, China's Politics, China-India Relations, China-Taiwan problem, China-Tibet problem, Communist China, Communists, Confucius, Dalai Lama, Deng Xiaoping, Himalayas, India's Foreign Policy, India's Land, India-China relations, India-Tibet Border, International Law, International politics, Jammu & Kashmir, Japan, Jawaharlal Nehru, Korea, Kuomintang, Laddakh, Mao Zedong, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, Political Economy, Political Philosophy, Politics, Russia, Sino-Indian Border, Stalin, Sun Yatsen, Taiwan, Tiananmen Square protests, Tibet, Vietnam War, War, Wei Jingsheng, World History, Zhou Enlai. 2 Comments »

Saving Pakistan: A Physicist/Political Philosopher May Represent Iqbal’s “Spirit of Modern Times”

August 13, 2007 — drsubrotoroy

Saving Pakistan: A Physicist/Political Philosopher May Represent Iqbal’s “Spirit of Modern Times”

by Subroto Roy

First published in The Statesman, Editorial Page Special Article, August 13 2007,

Pakistan’s Nobel winning particle physicist Abdus Salam (1926-1996) was, like Pakistan’s most eminent jurist Zafrullah Khan (1893-1985), treated badly by his country and compatriots merely because of his religious beliefs as an Ahmadiya/Qadiani. This itself may be an adequate reason for secular thinking when it comes to identifying Pakistan’s or any country’s interests. Pakistan has had eminent poets and writers but there have been no dedicated first-rate technical economists ~ and no serious political philosophers other than, recently, Pervez Hoodbhoy who is a physicist. Most political economy by Pakistanis about Pakistan has tended to be at the level of World Bank bureaucratic reports or traveller’s tales, which have their uses but hardly amount to profound insight or significant scholarship. (We in India also have had numerous minor World Bank/UN bureaucrats, with or without PhDs about anything, passing themselves off as experts on India’s political economy.)

Yet during Pakistan’s present national crisis (and Pakistan has continually faced crises ever since 1947) people must go back to first principles of political economy and ask questions like “Who are we?”; “What are we doing to ourselves?”; “What is our future?” etc ~ questions about national identity and national viability and national purpose.

Abu Dhabi Pact

On 29-30 July, a deal was reportedly struck in Abu Dhabi after a secret face-to-face meeting between Pervez Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto: he would stay on as President for five years, she would be PM and Head of Government, have prosecutions against her dropped and get back her enormous frozen wealth. Such would be the intended outcome of the long-touted return to fair competitive elections later this year. The deal was brokered by British, American, Saudi and other go-betweens outside Pakistan, and is an overt way of keeping Musharraf in power while also seeming to allow a large concession by way of the return of a purported symbol of democracy like Benazir.

But Benazir seems out of touch with reality. When she returned two decades ago as a young unmarried woman confronting General Zia ul-Haq, she was a genuine popular hero. Her father’s judicial execution at Zia’s hands was still fresh in public memory, and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, no matter how misguided his ideologies, had some makings of a serious modern Pakistani nationalist politician.

Benazir as a middle aged matron is not her father and has lost almost all political credibility with her flip-flopping opportunism, and is now seen merely as a face agreeable to the West. Her good looks were discussed on American TV by the comedian Bill Maher while Musharraf’s publicity agent had him sharing jokes on a rival TV comedy – however, American TV audiences are or should not be a Pakistani constituency.

Benazir also forgets that Zia had set up Nawaz Sharif as an ally of the Pakistan military against her own populism in the late 1980s, just as she is being set up now as an ally of the same military against people like Sharif, Javed Hashmi, Maulana Fazlur Rahman and Imran Khan. Musharraf overthrew Sharif and jailed Hashmi and they are his declared foes; the other two have expressed opinions hostile to Western military presence in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Maulana made a nationalistic overture towards India, while Imran has openly praised Indian democracy despite its faults. But Indian foreign policy has not responded and seems under manifest influence of the Western powers ~ had we felt and thought with genuine independence we could have, for example, easily declared and implemented large-scale humanitarian food-aid from the FCI’s wheat-stocks for the people of Afghanistan and Iraq as was suggested in these pages a year ago.

A Musharraf-Benazir alliance is hardly destined to save Pakistan and will be no more than a cynical example of short-term opportunism: we in India can expect them to use J&K as traditional rhetorical camouflage for their own continuing misgovernance and corruption. As in Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan, the Western powers face the dilemma that any government they support in Pakistan will be perceived as lacking legitimacy while a genuine hands-off policy could result in legitimate popular governments which seem to Western Governments beyond their control and hence seemingly adverse to Western interests.

The West has long ill-understood Pakistan, partly because it has seen Pakistan merely to be used as a source of convenient military manpower and real-estate for itself as and when necessary. American diplomats were reporting as early as November 1951 that Maulana Maududi’s Jamaat were hostile to the “evils” of Western materialism which they wanted to “do away with root and branch” in the country. In January 1976, American diplomats were reporting Pakistan’s “crash program to develop nuclear weapons”, and by June 1983 that Pakistan was close to nuclear test capability, intended to deter aggression by India “which remains Pakistan’s greatest security concern”. For Islamic revivalism to coincide with nuclear weapons in the last decade has been something long-predictable if there had been adequate will to do so.

Right wing politicians and religious fundamentalists have come to power in countries with nuclear weapons without untoward results, e.g., Likud in Israel or the BJP/RSS in India. (It is America’s present leaders, as well as all main Democrat and Republican presidential candidates except Ron Paul, who have unilaterally threatened nuclear attacks on a non-nuclear country that has not committed aggression against anyone.) There is no obvious reason why an elected legitimate “conservative” or right wing government in Pakistan must come to pose a special nuclear danger to anyone. If it is serious about governance (which Musharraf-Benazir may not be), it may even succeed in finding enough sobriety and political honesty to start to face up to Pakistan’s real economic and social problems which are vast in size and scope.

Wali Allah vs Iqbal

“We are an Arab people whose fathers have fallen in exile in the country of Hindustan, and Arabic genealogy and Arabic language are our pride,” said Wali Allah (1703-1762). Two centuries later, Mohammad Iqbal (1877-1938), in his 1930 Presidential Speech to the Muslim League in Allahabad conceptualising today’s Pakistan, wished precisely to become free of that Arab influence: “I would like to see the Punjab, NWFP, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single state… The life of Islam as a cultural force in this living country very largely depends on its centralisation in a specified territory… For India it means security and peace resulting from an internal balance of power, for Islam an opportunity to rid itself of the stamp that Arabian Imperialism was forced to give it, to mobilise its law, its education, its culture, and to bring them into closer contact with its own original spirit and the spirit of modern times.”

That “spirit of modern times” is today represented most prominently in Pakistan by Pervez Hoodbhoy. In a December 2006 speech, Hoodbhoy suggested a new alternative to MA Jinnah’s ”Faith, Unity, Discipline” slogan: “First, I wish for minds that can deal with the complex nature of truth…. My second wish is for many more Pakistanis who accept diversity as a virtue… My third, and last, wish is that Pakistanis learn to value and nurture creativity.” And he has spoken of bringing “economic justice to Pakistan”, of the “fight to give Pakistan’s women the freedom which is their birthright”, and of people to “wake up” and engage politically. We shall witness a most engaging battle if Benazir and her new military friends all representing the jaded and corrupt old political power structures, come to face in the elections a new conservative alliance of people like Sharif, Hashmi, Fazlur Rahman and Imran all infused with Hoodbhoy’s scientific liberalism representing Iqbal’s ”spirit of modern times”.

Posted in Arabs, Asia and the West, Balochistan, Benazir Bhutto, BJP, Britain, Democracy, Economic Policy, Elections, Freedom, Imperialism, India's Foreign Policy, International politics, Iqbal, Iran, Islam, Israel, Jammu & Kashmir, Nationalism, Pakistan's history, Pakistan's nuclear weapons, Pakistan's politics, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Pervez Hoodbhoy, Pervez Musharraf, Political Economy, Political Philosophy, Religion, Ron Paul, US Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Espionage, US Presidential Election, US Republicans and Democrats, World History. 1 Comment »

An Open Letter to Professor Amartya Sen about Singur etc (2007)

July 31, 2007 — drsubrotoroy

A letter to Prof. Sen (2007)

First published in The Statesman 31 July 2007, Editorial Page Special Article

Professor Amartya Sen, Harvard University

Dear Professor Sen,

Everyone will be delighted that someone of your worldwide stature has joined the debate on Singur and Nandigram; The Telegraph deserves congratulations for having made it possible on July 23.

I was sorry to find though that you may have missed the wood for the trees and also some of the trees themselves. Perhaps you have relied on Government statements for the facts. But the Government party in West Bengal represents official Indian communism and has been in power for 30 years at a stretch. It may be unwise to take at face-value what they say about their own deeds on this very grave issue! Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and there are many candid communists who privately recognise this dismal truth about themselves. To say this is not to be praising those whom you call the “Opposition” ~ after all, Bengal’s politics has seen emasculation of the Congress as an opposition because the Congress and communists are allies in Delhi. It is the Government party that must reform itself from within sua sponte for the good of everyone in the State.

The comparisons and mentions of history you have made seem to me surprising. Bengal’s economy now or in the past has little or nothing similar to the economy of Northern England or the whole of England or Britain itself, and certainly Indian agriculture has little to do with agriculture in the new lands of Australia or North America. British economic history was marked by rapid technological innovations in manufacturing and rapid development of social and political institutions in context of being a major naval, maritime and mercantile power for centuries. Britain’s geography and history hardly ever permitted it to be an agricultural country of any importance whereas Bengal, to the contrary, has been among the most agriculturally fertile and hence densely populated regions of the world for millennia.

Om Prakash’s brilliant pioneering book The Dutch East India Company and the Economy of Bengal 1630-1720 (Princeton 1985) records all this clearly. He reports the French traveller François Bernier saying in the 1660s “Bengal abounds with every necessary of life”, and a century before him the Italian traveller Verthema saying Bengal “abounds more in grain, flesh of every kind, in great quantity of sugar, also of ginger, and of great abundance of cotton, than any country in the world”. Om Prakash says “The premier industry in the region was the textile industry comprising manufacture from cotton, silk and mixed yarns”. Bengal’s major exports were foodstuffs, textiles, raw silk, opium, sugar and saltpetre; imports notably included metals (as Montesquieu had said would always be the case).

Bengal did, as you say, have industries at the time the Europeans came but you have failed to mention these were mostly “agro-based” and, if anything, a clear indicator of our agricultural fecundity and comparative advantage. If “deindustrialization” occurred in 19th Century India, that had nothing to do with the “deindustrialization” in West Bengal from the 1960s onwards due to the influence of official communism.

You remind us Fa Hiaen left from Tamralipta which is modern day Tamluk, though he went not to China but to Ceylon. You suggest that because he did so Tamluk effectively “was greater Calcutta”. I cannot see how this can be said of the 5th Century AD when no notion of Calcutta existed. Besides, modern Tamluk at 22º18’N, 87º56’E is more than 50 miles inland from the ancient port due to land-making that has occurred at the mouth of the Hooghly. I am afraid the relevance of the mention of Fa Hiaen to today’s Singur and Nandigram has thus escaped me.

You say “In countries like Australia, the US or Canada where agriculture has prospered, only a very tiny population is involved in agriculture. Most people move out to industry. Industry has to be convenient, has to be absorbing”. Last January, a national daily published a similar view: “For India to become a developed country, the area under agriculture has to shrink, urban and industrial land development has to take place, and about 100 million workers have to move out from agriculture into industry and services. This is the only way forward for bringing prosperity to the rural population”.

Rice is indeed grown in Arkansas or Texas as it is in Bengal but there is a world of difference between the technological and geographical situation here and that in the vast, sparsely populated New World areas with mechanized farming! Like shoe-making or a hundred other crafts, agriculture can be capital-intensive or labour-intensive ~ ours is relatively labour-intensive, theirs is relatively capital-intensive. Our economy is relatively labour-abundant and capital-scarce; their economies are relatively labour-scarce and capital-abundant (and also land-abundant). Indeed, if anything, the apt comparison is with China, and you doubtless know of the horror stories and civil war conditions erupting across China in recent years as the Communist Party and their businessman friends forcibly take over the land of peasants and agricultural workers, e.g. in Dongzhou.

All plans of long-distance social engineering to “move out” 40 per cent of India’s population (at 4 persons per “worker”) from the rural hinterlands must also face FA Hayek’s fundamental question in The Road to Serfdom: “Who plans whom, who directs whom, who assigns to other people their station in life, and who is to have his due allotted by others?”

Your late Harvard colleague, Robert Nozick, opened his brilliant 1974 book Anarchy, State and Utopia saying: “Individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights)”. You have rightly deplored the violence seen at Singur and Nandigram. But you will agree it is a gross error to equate violence perpetrated by the Government which is supposed to be protecting all people regardless of political affiliation, and the self-defence of poor unorganised peasants seeking to protect their meagre lands and livelihoods from state-sponsored pogroms. Kitchen utensils, pitchforks or rural implements and flintlock guns can hardly match the organised firepower controlled by a modern Government.

Fortunately, India is not China and the press, media and civil institutions are not totally in the hands of the ruling party alone. In China, no amount of hue and cry among the peasants could save them from the power of organised big business and the Communist Party. In India, a handful of brave women have managed to single-handedly organise mass movements of protest which the press and media have then broadcast that has shocked the whole nation to its senses.

You rightly say the land pricing process has been faulty. Irrelevant historical prices have been averaged when the sum of discounted expected future values in an inflationary economy should have been used. Matters are even worse. “The fear of famine can itself cause famine. The people of Bengal are afraid of a famine. It was repeatedly charged that the famine (of 1943) was man-made.” That is what T. W. Schultz said in 1946 in the India Famine Emergency Committee led by Pearl Buck, concerned that the 1943 Bengal famine should not be repeated following dislocations after World War II. Of course since that time our agriculture has undergone a Green Revolution, at least in wheat if not in rice, and a White Revolution in milk and many other agricultural products. But catastrophic collapses in agricultural incentives may still occur as functioning farmland comes to be taken by government and industry from India’s peasantry using force, fraud or even means nominally sanctioned by law. If new famines come to be provoked because farmers’ incentives collapse, let future historians know where responsibility lay.

West Bengal’s real economic problems have to do with its dismal macroeconomic and fiscal position which is what Government economists should be addressing candidly. As for land, the Government’s first task remains improving grossly inadequate systems of land-description and definition, as well as the implementation and recording of property rights.

With my most respectful personal regards, I remain

Yours ever

 

Suby

Posted in Amartya Sen, anarchy and governance, Asia and the West, Bangladesh, Bengal, Britain, China, Communist China, Communists, Congress Party, Democracy, Economics of real estate valuation, Ethics, FA Hayek, Freedom, Harvard University, India's Agriculture & Food, India's Democracy, India's Economy, India's farmers, India's Industry, India's Land, India's Politics, India's Polity, Liberalism/Libertarianism, Mamata Banerjee, Politics, Robert Nozick, Singur and Nandigram, Theodore W Schultz, US Agriculture, World History. 3 Comments »

America’s Pakistan-India Policy (2007)

July 27, 2007 — drsubrotoroy

US Pak-India Policy
Delhi & Islamabad Still Look West In Defining Their Relationship

First published in The Statesman, Editorial Page Special Article,

July 27, 2007

by

Subroto Roy

“Balance of power” between other nations while pursuing one’s own commercial and political self-interest, was the leitmotif of British foreign policy throughout the 19th Century and up until World War I. This came to be broadly absorbed and imitated by US foreign policy-makers afterwards. It remains the clear leitmotif of US policy between and towards Pakistan and India in recent years, especially since the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. Pakistan’s armed forces have been induced through the usual incentives of modern weapons like F-16s, comfortable officer-visits to US military academies, and hard cash to behave cooperatively with perceived American objectives.

Osama bin Laden
For some bizarre and unknown reason (though it might be as simple as ignorance and thoughtlessness), the USA has made itself believe that arch-enemy Osama bin Laden has remained in the Pashtun areas ever since the American attack took place on the-then Taliban Government in late 2001. The Taliban’s leader Mullah Omar certainly remained there or in Balochistan, but anyone who recalls the reported last conversation between Omar and Osama at the time may well have surmised that Osama was planning a long and permanent trip away from Afghanistan and Pakistan. The present author’s own speculation has been that Osama bin Laden probably moved westwards and has been in a safe and comfortable hideout somewhere in the deserts of North Africa ~ while everyone continues to frantically and ridiculously look for him very far away from where he is.

American policy towards Pakistan has been determined by the parameters of the new policy towards Afghanistan ~ which has been to prop up the Hamid Karzai Government in the hope a pro-American “moderate” “modern” Pashtun like Mr Karzai might one day become a constructive role model for all other Pashtuns, while NATO extends itself “pacifying” any new Pashtun insurgency and attacking poppy-crops on the pattern of the anti-narcotics war in Colombia, and US “Special Forces” continue to look for Osama and friends. Pakistan’s Musharraf has been expected to play along with this, and, in order for him to release and transfer some 80,000 soldiers towards that end, India has been requested not to give him a reason not to want to do so.

General Musharraf was one of the major beneficiaries of the officer-exchange programmes between the US and Pakistan militaries in the past. Like Benazir Bhutto, he is a “known” quantity, well-understood and hence rendered predictable by the American military and diplomatic establishment. Both are also explained and advocated for by their go-betweens, the extremely influential Pakistani bureaucrats within the Washington Beltway and their K-Street lobbyists. Musharraf’s departure to a nice retirement/exile in the USA helped by royalties from his book etc as well as his already-exported son, presumably constitutes a well-planned exit strategy for him personally.

The American problem is that Musharraf may be among the last if not the last of such pliable old-style Pakistani generals ~ the officer-exchange programmes came to slow down or end after the USA pulled out following the defeat of the USSR in Afghanistan, and at the same time Zia ul-Haq had initiated an overt Islamisation of younger officers of the Pakistan military. With such a level of uncertainty as to where the post-Musharraf Pakistan military can or would take itself (along with the country and its nuclear weapons), the only strategy has been to buy them out.

In the current Foreign Affairs, Daniel Markey of the US State Department and Council on Foreign Relations says as much (amid the usual little rhetoric about supporting Pakistani democracy): “Washington must win the trust and confidence of Pakistan’s army. This goal can only be achieved through closer working relationships and tangible investments that lock the United States into a long-term commitment to the region” (italics added).

If American policy towards Pakistan has been to pay to pacify Pakistan’s unpredictable nuclear-armed military, the policy towards India has been one of business, business, and more business. The “US-India Business Council” is merely an official Washington lobbyist protecting American business interests in India such as getting the Governments of India and Maharashtra to pay several hundred million dollars over the Dabhol-Enron fiasco. Yet that is where senior Indian politicians, like the Finance and Commerce Ministers, feel the need to routinely visit on pilgrimage if only to be made to feel important while in the USA. Even Dr Manmohan Singh felt the need to send a personal emissary to gift Condoleeza Rice a basket of Indian mangoes not at her office in the US State Department but when she was addressing a closed-door meeting of that business-lobbyist.

Certainly in case of the so-called “nuclear deal”, there is a political motivation on the American side that India must be prevented from conducting future nuclear explosions, although this may be something mostly symbolic as US intelligence agencies had notoriously failed to predict Pokhran I and Pokhran II. And there is doubtless some reliance that the Indian side to the negotiations has not really properly understood the intricacies of the American political and administrative system, e.g. the insignificance of a Presidential “signing statement”. Hence, if the deal goes through as seems likely now, it will certainly indicate the American side is more than comfortable that if a future Indian Government does not do what the US-side has intended in the nuclear deal (whether or not the Indian negotiators have understood that now), a future US Congress and President will be able to reverse the deal without too much difficulty.

What has mainly driven the deal on the American side is the prospect of very large nuclear business ~ specifically, that India will import six to eight American lightwater reactors. As I have said before in these pages, India’s national energy outlook will barely improve through the nuclear deal (given the miniscule size of the nuclear sector compared to coal and hydro), though a few favoured metros, and Delhi for sure, may see improvement after a decade or two when and if these expensive nuclear reactors become operational.

Short-sightedness
The short-sightedness and indeed sheer imbecility of Indian and Pakistani foreign policy is made clear by the fact we are unable to properly communicate with one another about our common interests as neighbouring countries with the same history and geography except through Washington. The elites of both countries have either fled already or would like to flee or at least travel to the USA to visit their exported adult children as often as possible. It is not dissimilar to our imperial relationship with Britain, where Indians had to travel to London to have their Round Table Conference, England being of course a place of national pilgrimage as the USA has now become. The result is not merely that the militaries and polities of Pakistan and India have wasted vast immeasurable resources in struggles against one another and continue to do so, but also and as importantly, have failed to define robust national identities after six decades.

 

Posted in Afghanistan, Asia and the West, Balochistan, Britain, Dabhol/Enron fiasco, Diplomacy, Government of India, Government of Pakistan, Imperialism, India's Diplomacy, India's Energy, India's Foreign Policy, India's Foreign Trade, India's Military Defence, India's Politics, India-Pakistan cooperation against terrorism, India-Pakistan peace process, India-United States business, India-US Nuclear Deal, International politics, Nuclear conflict, Osama bin Laden, Pakistan's diplomacy, Pakistan's history, Pakistan's military, Pakistan's terrorist masterminds, Pakistan's terrorist training institutes, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Pashtuns, September 11 attacks, US Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Espionage, US Military Doctrine, US Pakistan policy, US-Iran relations, USA, United States, War, World History. Leave a Comment »

Has America Lost? War Doctrines of Kutusov vs Clausewitz May Help Explain Iraq War

July 3, 2007 — drsubrotoroy

Has America Lost?
War Doctrines Of Kutusov vs Clausewitz May Help Explain Iraq War

First published in The Statesman, Editorial Page, Special Article, July 3 2007, http://www.thestatesman.net

By Subroto Roy

Has the United States lost the war in Iraq? How would we tell if it has or not? If American commanding officers of general rank, once they go into retirement, say the Iraq war is lost or if the vast majority of the American people say it is not worth fighting, does that mean the USA has lost? When someone loses someone else wins ~ there are no “draws” or runners-up in war. If America has lost, does that mean Saddam won? How can a man who was hanged in sight of the whole world win a war from beyond his grave? It is all very strange in this most abominable of all wars.

Battle of Borodino

In the Battle of Borodino in 1812, the Russians under Marshall Mikhail Kutusov withdrew and the French held the field of battle at end of day ~ the single bloodiest day of warfare in modern times with between 66,500 and 125,000 casualties including several dozen generals. Though the French won, it signalled the end of French power and fall of Napoleon. Borodino was a Pyrrhic victory.

Marshall Kutusov, against his generals’ advice, and courting extreme unpopularity with St Petersburg, continued to withdraw after Borodino and declined to give battle to defend Moscow itself. His remaining forces and most of the civilian population withdrew beyond Moscow. The city was emptied and allowed to burn. The French took it without a fight, Napoleon entered and tried to feel himself its ruler, his generals tried to create a cooperative local government from among the remaining residents.

Kutusov waited, waited and waited some more without giving battle. Then one day, some months later, just as Kutusov had been praying, news came that Napoleon and the French had gotten up and left. Napoleon’s retreat was the biggest catastrophe his Grande Armée suffered, and they were harassed by Russian attacks all the way to the border.

Saddam was reported to have had two Russian generals advising his army, who quietly left before the Anglo-American attack occurred. Russian generals learn about Kutusov on mother’s knee. Even Stalin invoked Kutusov’s name when his 1939 pact with Hitler had failed and Hitler attacked Russia on 22 June 1941. (Iraq had both Nazi and Soviet influences: Stalin tried to appease Hitler in June 1941 by recognising the then pro-Nazi Government of Iraq.)

Saddam’s propaganda spokesmen in the early stages of the March 2003 invasion alluded to a Kutusov-like defensive doctrine: “the US and British administrations have depended on their strategy and planning based on the information obtained from the traitors, whom they call opposition, and from some intelligence services of some Arab countries…. They said: ‘Let some missiles be fired for the maximum of three days and then everything would be over.’ Therefore, we find them in a state of confusion. They prevent the media from having access to the facts about the military operations under security pretexts. They say that they are heading towards Baghdad and that they covered more than 160 or 180 km towards Baghdad. I would like to tell them, that in the course that they are following, let them continue up to 300 km and let them mobilise all the tanks and marines they have, and we will not clash with them soon. We will give them enough time. However, in any contact with any Iraqi village or city, they will find what they are now witnessing in Umm Qasr and Suq al-Shuyukh.” Iraq’s Army did a vanishing act, men and materials disappeared, Baghdad fell without fighting.

By contrast, the USA has followed textbook doctrines from Baron Clausewitz’s On War ~ a work influenced by Napoleon’s successful campaigns though Clausewitz himself fought at Borodino as part of Kutusov’s armies. Like Napoleon and now the Americans, Clausewitz was unable to reconcile his notion of war as aggression and destruction with his notion of war as a means of politics. Clausewitz’s “Absolute War” is “an act of violence to compel our opponent to fulfil our will…as each side in war tries to dominate the other, there arises a reciprocal action which must escalate to an extreme”. Hence “disarming or destruction of the enemy … or the threat of this…must always be the aim in warfare”. But Clausewitz’s “Real War” sees war as “a political act… an effective political instrument, a continuation of political commerce and a carrying out of this by other means”

What we may have been witnessing ever since the Bush/Blair attack on Iraq is the outcome of a clash between the doctrines of Clausewitz on the American side and Kutusov on the Iraqi/ Russian side.

American forces began with “Shock and Awe”, followed by disbanding Iraq’s Army and banning the Baathists. Then came “Light Footprint” or “War Tourism”, where American forces left their bases only for specific jaunts outside, while attempting to create a new “Iraqi” Army in an American image. Recently, the purported strategy has changed again to “Clear, Hold, Build” requiring the current infantry “surge” of 30,000 extra troops to try to pacify specific Baghdad neighbourhoods and then “build” political institutions.

Thirty years ago, Professor WB Gallie pointed to the contradiction Clausewitz had been unable to reconcile: “All commentators are agreed that Clausewitz’s greatest difficulty was to explain the relationship between (Absolute War and War as a Political Instrument)”, Philosophers of peace and war, Cambridge Univesity Press 1978. War-making as destruction and war-making as politics are incompatible. The cruelties of Iraq may explain and demonstrate the root of this contradiction most clearly: defeated, disarmed and destroyed victims of an Absolute War are hardly going to feel themselves agreeable to then being manipulated into any political institutions or agreements designed by the perpetrators of the violence. You cannot declare “Absolute War” on Fallujah, kill or arrest every able-bodied male citizen there, and then expect Fallujah’s women, children and old people to participate happily in town hall meetings you wish them to hold. “America has lost because it has not behaved like a great nation”, said one ordinary Iraqi initially in favour of Saddam’s overthrow. America’s retired generals are saying Iraq has been America’s greatest strategic defeat.

Resistance

The result of the clash between the two doctrines of war has been 30,000 American casualties (dead and wounded at about 1:8), while Iraqi dead exceed 650,000 with millions more wounded, rendered homeless or made refugees. Future historians may speak of a genocide having occurred in Iraq.

Did Saddam win if the Americans have lost? Of course not. Iraq had its Mir Jafars, and Saddam was at most a Shiraj, not even that given his odious past. Iraq now has its Tippus, Bhagat Singhs and Khudi Rams as well.

“The Resistance is the natural reaction to any occupation. All occupations in history faced a resistance. Occupation is not for developing people and making them better. It is for humiliating people, and chaining them and taking their freedom and fortunes away. These are my convictions which make me feel that this occupation is an insult to me and my people.” Such was what an anonymous Resistance officer told the Australian journalist Michael Ware.

It seems impossible for one nation to govern another in the 21st Century. The cycle of imperialism followed by nationalism and socialism/ communism may merely restart. What Iraq needs urgently is for its Tilaks, Gokhales, Jinnahs, Gandhis, Jawaharlals and Vallabhais to arise, or it may be condemned to extinction and being consumed by its neighbours. As for the United States, its military may find a need to revise its war doctrines.

Posted in Air warfare, Asia and the West, Battle of Borodino, Clausewitz, France, Freedom, Germany, Good and Evil, Hitler, India's History, International politics, Iran, Iraq war, Kutusov, Moscow, Napoleon, Philosophy, Ron Paul, Russia, Saddam, Stalin, US Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Espionage, US Military Doctrine, US Presidential Election, US Republicans and Democrats, US-Iran relations, USA, United States, USA, United States polity, War, World History. 1 Comment »

American Turmoil: A Vice-Presidential Coup — And Now a Grassroots CounterRevolution?

June 18, 2007 — drsubrotoroy

American Turmoil: A Vice-Presidential Coup – And Now a Grassroots CounterRevolution?

First published in

The Statesman, Editorial Page, Special Article June 18 2007

by

Subroto Roy

The Cold War was lost by Soviet and East European communism, and the laurelled victor was the USA along with its loyal allies. Russia and East Europe then transformed themselves. Once there had been Dubcek in the Prague Spring and Sakharov in his apartment. Then there was Lech Walesa the electrician, who, on 14 August 1980, climbed over a fence and led an 18-day strike from which arose the first independent trade union ~ Walesa said “the very basic things: he stood on the shipyard gate and called things by their real names”. Then came Gorbachov and Yeltsin. The despised Berlin Wall was smashed into small saleable bits in November 1989 and people just walked across. That was the end of communism. An unknown student stood down the tanks in Tiananmen Square — though a dozen years earlier the death-watch of Chinese communism had begun with Wei Jingsheng’s “Democracy Wall”. Communist apparatchiks everywhere (except New Delhi and Kolkata) started to unlearn communism; communist societies and economies began to be placed on a road to health and taken off the road to misery.

Winner’s curse

What happened to the victors? Germany quietly unified. Italy’s politics stabilised a little. France achieved its wish of being undominated in Europe. Britain, already forlorn from loss of empire, was left trying to arbitrage between Europe and America (though there too there was new competition from the Irish Republic).

Some political learning, reconciliation and growth took place in Europe but there was none in America ~ the biggest victor of all, the one country but for whose efforts all of Europe might have become and remained communist. Instead, the USA chose to gorge itself on self-accolades, bloated, then started to choke on its own hubris.

The result is that as the 2008 Presidential election campaign gets underway, and the Second Iraq War is at its peak, America’s polity at its highest level may be in turmoil of a sort not seen since the student revolts at the peak of the Vietnam War.

Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter were an interregnum after the Vietnam and Watergate traumas. It was during the Reagan “restoration” that communism collapsed and Osama bin Laden was befriended. Carter’s military mission to rescue American hostages in Iran notoriously failed; Reagan restored American pride by sending in the US Army’s crack Rangers to defeat an almost non-existent enemy ~ in Grenada. It was the first successful American military action in a long time. But there was also failure in Beirut where Reagan withdrew after 241 US soldiers were killed by a suicide-bomber.

George Bush Sr glided into the Presidency in Reagan’s wake. He felt sure of being re-elected when Saddam’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait gave him a war with which to seal his chances. For his part, Saddam had primly and properly called in the US Ambassador to Iraq, the top career diplomat April Glaspie, and told her he had accounts to settle with Kuwait over the Iran-Iraq war. Glaspie, under instructions of the Bush-Baker State Department, famously told him the USA had no opinion on inter-Arab conflicts. Saddam took this to be a green signal, or at least not a red signal, from America and went ahead with his attack on Kuwait.

The American President worked himself into an angry indignation ~ and soon there were large numbers of American troops in Saudi Arabia, soon Iraq was forced to retreat with thousands slaughtered in a turkey-shoot from the air, soon there would be severe sanctions and bombings by the USA and UK. Bush was sure he would be re-elected in 1992, and indeed he led all the polls ~ except an oddball surprise Ross Perot pulled away his votes, and caused the third man running, a young governor of a minor State, to push through to victory instead. Bill Clinton was as surprised as anyone that he was President of the USA in 1992. Dissimulation and mendacity reached new heights during his time yet he came to be re-elected in 1996.

Osama bin Laden started to rant against his former ally. Remove your troops from our holy land, he said. Clinton and Madelaine (“It’s worth it”) Albright continued to bomb Saddam instead ~ who after all had launched a few backward Scuds at Israel during the First Iraq War of 1991. Somehow or other, Osama and/or someone else then designed the destruction of Manhattan’s tallest buildings on September 11 2001; it remains unclear what projectile hit the Pentagon or exactly what happened over a field in Pennsylvania the same morning. The mass murder of thousands remains unsolved.

America, under Bush’s elder son, attacked Osama’s hosts in Afghanistan (but not so as to upset their common Pakistani friends too much), then turned their really motivated firepower against their old foe, Saddam Hussein. Iraq by the summer of 2003 was destroyed as a nation-state, and today in 2007 under American occupation has been almost wholly destroyed as a culture and a society. The new US Embassy in Baghdad is as large as the Vatican. Fourteen permanent American military bases have been built. The US Government has spoken of moving troops from Saudi Arabia to Iraq, and of being in Iraq for ever on the Korean pattern.

United States history and political culture had never seen a Vice President as being anything more than an invisible silent shadow of the President of the land. That has changed drastically. Indeed in recent months there has been much serious Washington talk of the incumbent Vice President having unlawfully usurped political power from the President himself. Cheney’s people throughout the Bush Administration have been in almost open battle against the official foreign and diplomatic policy of Condoleeza Rice and the professional military represented by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Before the attack on Iraq they had overturned the CIA’s official intelligence assessments. There is a general perception that Cheney’s people have been far shrewder and more experienced of the Washington Beltway than Bush’s.

Attack on Iran?

Now the central issue has been whether to attack Iran, and if so how and when. Cheney’s people and their think-tank friends are determined America must do so, perhaps with a new Netanyahu Government in Israel early in 2008 or sooner. The President was apparently warned by his generals in December 2006 that such an attack would gravely endanger the supply lines of US troops who would face a Shia insurrection in Iraq; that may have been the sole reason no attack occurred, and also one reason for the present infantry “surge”. Three aircraft carrier battle groups in the Persian Gulf indicate a potential strike, and that level of force has been coming and going from there for months.

The main Democratic Presidential candidates, especially Mrs Clinton, have said nuclear weapons are “not off the table” in reference to striking Iran without provocation. Nine out of ten of the Republican Presidential candidates agree. The exception is Ron Paul who has recognised the United States was not intended by its founders to be launching aggressive nuclear war against non-nuclear countries in the 21st Century. The Reagan-era economist Paul Craig Roberts has said such war will leave America more reviled than Hitler’s Third Reich.

A grassroots democratic counter-revolution could be starting to overturn the elitist coup d’etat that may have occurred in Washington. “People power” beat organised State power in many times and places. Can it win here? Or could there be tanks in Dupont Circle forty years after the tanks in Wenceslas Square?

Posted in Asia and the West, Britain, China, Cold War, Communists, Democracy, European politics, Fascists, France, Freedom, Germany, Good and Evil, International politics, Iran, Iraq war, Israel, Lech Walesa, Liberalism/Libertarianism, Nuclear conflict, Osama bin Laden, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Politics, Ron Paul, Ronald Reagan, September 11 attacks, US Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Espionage, US Presidential Election, US Republicans and Democrats, US-Iran relations, USA, United States, USA, United States polity, Wei Jingsheng, World History. Leave a Comment »

Home Team Advantage (2007)

June 3, 2007 — drsubrotoroy

Home Team Advantage

On US-Iran talks and Sunni-Shia subtleties: Tehran must transcend its revolution and endorse the principle that the House of Islam has many mansions

First published in The Sunday Statesman Editorial Page, Special Article, June 3 2007


By SUBROTO ROY

On Monday 28 May in Baghdad,the American and Iranian Governments held their first official face-to-face talks in some 26 or 27 years. This sheer fact is a good thing. For more than two years there has been incessant sabre-rattling and gunboat diplomacy by the USA against Iran, as well as provocative words and deeds by Iran’s President against America’s Israeli ally (though it is apparently false his words included saying he wished Israel “wiped off the map”). Palmerston said there are no permanent allies among nations. The last unofficial transactions had to do with the notorious “Iran-contra” affair which blighted Ronald Reagan’s second term as President. Iran was sold American weapons from Israel (yes, the same Iran and same Israel) for use against Iraq (the same Saddam’s Iraq which had been Rumsfeld’s friend and which apparently received American intelligence and logistics help against yes, the same Iran); the moneys the Americans received were then used to pay for anti-Sandinista “contra” forces in Nicaragua (so they could, for example, buy American weapons too). Apart from that unofficial and embarrassing “Iran-contra” affair, the American and Iranian Governments had not had face-to-face discussion since diplomatic relations broke in 1980 during the “hostage crisis”.

Arthur Millspaugh, an American invited by the Iranians to help their public finances, once wrote: “Persia cannot be left to herself, even if the Russians were to keep their hands off politically.… Persia has never yet proved its capacity for independent self-government.” The title of his 1925 book America’s Task in Persia reflected the old paternalist attitude that an imperialist power must necessarily know better than local people what happens to be in their interest in the way a parent knows better than a child. Even that otherwise great libertarian JS Mill himself once suggested that contact with a “superior people” allowed rapid advancement. India’s “Lenin Peace Prize” winner and Soviet sympathiser KPS Menon Sr (grandfather of our present top diplomat) said the same after the 1979 invasion and occupation by the USSR of Afghanistan. Nationalists of all colours and times ~ from Tom Paine, Patrick Henry (“Give me liberty or give me death”) and George Washington to Bal Gangadhar Tilak (“Swaraj is my birthright and I shall have it”), Ho Chi Minh and Ayatollah Khomeini ~ would disagree.

Indeed, in the Iranian case, the Khomeini Revolution was the antithesis of the imperialist doctrine. But Iranian revolutionaries then seized the American Embassy on 4 November 1979 and took 66 hostages. Thirteen women and black Americans were released two weeks later; one man was released due to ill-health in July 1980. In a failed attempt to rescue the remaining 52, eight American military personnel died on 25 April 1980. The 52 hostages, including two women and one black, were released on 20 January 1981 under the “Algiers Accord”, a day before Reagan became President. Even if the US Embassy in Tehran had been a den of spies, as the Iranians claimed, the Revolutionary Government could have ordered them all to leave and ended diplomatic relations.

Instead hostages were taken in deliberate violation of international law. The United States Government under duress on 19 January 1981 had to sign the “Algiers Accord”, the first point of which stated: “Non-Intervention in Iranian Affairs: The United States pledges that it is and from now on will be the policy of the United States not to intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in Iran’s internal affairs.” That was the “blowback” from the coup d’etat against Iran’s democratic government under Mossadeq in 1953 which the CIA had engineered. Modern US-Iran relations have been about two wrongs ~ indeed multiple wrongs ~ not making a right.

From Algiers until the Baghdad meeting there was no official interaction between the USA and Iran (besides the Iran-contra affair and American relief supplies during an Iranian earthquake). The present US-Iran talks had to do with the catastrophic mess in Iraq, and were held via the current Al-Maliki Government of Iraq which is beholden to both as patrons.

Saddam’s Iraq had been officially secular not an “Islamic Republic”. But its Baathist national-socialism (with yes, a few silly Nazi aspects) had been populated mostly by Saddam’s fellow Sunnis, and there was some vicious anti-Shia persecution.
Doctrinally, the Sunni-Shia conflict may have originated during Prophet Muhammad’s lifetime. “In the words of al-Baghdadi, a Sunni is one who believes in the creation of the universe, the unity and pre-existence of its Maker, the apostolate of Muhammad, recognizes and observes the duties of the five prayers, fast of Ramazan, poor-rate and pilgrimage, and does not adulterate his faith with an abominable innovation which leads to heresy.” (Imtiaz Ahmad in Grewal ed. Religious Movements and Institutions in Medieval India, p.277). Shias claim that exegetical authorities, both Sunni and Shia, record the Prophet on 10 March 632 AD at the pool of Ghadir “while returning from his last pilgrimage to Mecca… delivered his farewell address” in which he declared Ali ibn Abi Talib his successor (S. Ali Nadeem Rezavi, ibid., p. 281). No logical contradiction between Sunnis and Shias seems obvious from this.

But there also have been racial and cultural aspects to the division. Arabs, though not Iraqi Arabs, are mostly Sunni while Iranians are mostly Shia. At the same time, Persian culture and history has had incorrigibly Zoroastrian roots just as Egypt was the land of the Pharoahs and Arabia of Meccan paganism. Mesopotamian culture has had Sumerian and Babylonian roots, and Indian Islam has grown among the cultures of Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs. Intra-Muslim conflict will be reduced only when it becomes generally recognised that the House of Islam has had many mansions.

Saddam’s war against Khomeini’s Iran was not a religious war but one between two putative nation-states. In Iraqi junior schools during the war, a class of 40 pupils could be divided by academic merit such that the top 20 would play brave Iraqis in the school-play ~ the hapless bottom 20 had to play the wicked Persians, leaving them in tears as well as in simulated defeat.

What the current US-UK invasion and occupation of Iraq has quite deliberately accomplished is the destruction of Iraq as a putative nation-state and the fanning of mostly suppressed Shia-Sunni differences instead. The idea of “regime-change” in Teheran in the old way of the CIA coup against Mossadeq also has not been far from Anglo-American thinking in the current confrontation with Iran. “Who lost Iran?” was an American political slogan in the 1980s, and there are day-dreamers in Washington think-tanks today who have fantasies of Iran being run by compliant “Iranian-American” émigrés from Los Angeles. But instead the destruction of Saddam’s regime inevitably has led to Iran’s strengthening, as all Iraqi Shia forces made dominant as a result are, at least from a doctrinal standpoint within Islam, united with Tehran to greater or lesser degree. A new Iraq-Iran war is hard to imagine as along as Shias dominate Baghdad’s Government. Iran for its part needs to demonstrate that it has transcended its revolution and that it unequivocally endorses the principle that the House of Islam has many mansions.

The British and Americans are great lovers of sports and inventors of many modern games played on fields around the world, from cricket and soccer to basketball. Their Governments seem to have forgotten in their foreign policy theorising that there is such a thing as “home-team advantage”. Imperialists ultimately can never defeat nationalists, because, at the end of the day, imperialists have to either go home or (as Conrad and Coppola knew) “go native”. In the new Iran-USA talks, both sides may have sensed Iran has the home-team advantage. The most the United States can do to Iran is bomb it and leave.

 

Posted in Asia and the West, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Britain, Buddhism, Hinduism, Imperialism, International Law, Iran, Iraq war, Islam, Israel, Jainism, Nationalism, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Religion, Secular governance, Sunnis and Shias, US Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Espionage, US-Iran relations, USA, United States, USA, United States polity, Vietnam War, War, World History. Leave a Comment »

Uttar Pradesh Polity and Finance

March 24, 2007 — drsubrotoroy

Uttar Pradesh Polity & Finance


A Responsible New Govt May Want To Declare A Financial Emergency

First published in The Statesman Editorial Page, March 24 2007

by

Subroto Roy

Uttar Pradesh goes to the polls beginning April 7. Nothing may succeed better in focusing the minds of its citizens and political candidates than some hard macroeconomic realities. Discussing UP’s public finances may be the first step to bringing cool rationality to the cauldron of its politics ~ consisting as it does of seemingly deep and irreconcilable divisions of religion, caste and personality.

UP shared initials of the old British “United Provinces of Agra and Oudh”, and in 1947 was mostly the same territory. It deserves better than to be known merely as our “Northern State”: UP has been India’s fulcrum, deeply affecting our history, culture and politics. There could have been today not merely a new Uttarakhand but also perhaps Agra, Bareilly (Rohilkhand), Jhansi (Bundelkhand), Meerut, Avadh (Ayodhya, Oudh), Kanauj, Varanasi etc.

History and politics

Each has had its history. Oudh was seen by the British before Dalhousie as a northern buffer for their Bengal possessions. Bareilly was “an important centre of disaffection” of Muslim soldiers against the British in 1857 and also where Hindus after Aurangzeb’s death in 1707 had “thrown off the imperial yoke” refusing to pay tribute to Delhi. The very idea of “Pakistan” was mostly a UP-invention. Long before Iqbal and Jinnah, Sayyid Ahmad Barelvi (1786-1831) initiated a mass migration of Muslims and created a theocratic principality in the NWFP (Tariqah-i-Muhammadiyah) which collapsed due to conflict between his Pashtun and North Indian followers. Pervez Musharraf’s family were frankly nostalgic during their India-visit, and indeed Pakistan’s Mohajirs long for fertile UP more than the arid country they in fact possess ~ even more than for J&K on which Pakistanis since Liaquat (UP’s most prominent Muslim legislator between 1926-1940) became fixated instead.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the “Ram Janambhoomi/Babri Masjid” dispute may have been mostly a gigantic, inchoate, incoherent national exercise in defining our identity: “Who are we?” or perhaps “Who are we not?” as modern Indians, questions that remain unanswered. Certainly, in 1908 the Imperial Gazetteer of India Vol XIX pp 279-280 reported: “After Babar had gained a footing in Hindustan by his victory at Panipat in 1526, and had advanced to Agra, the defeated Afghan house of Lodhi still occupied the Central Doab, Oudh, and the eastern districts of the present United Provinces. In 1527, Babar, on his return from Central India, defeated his opponents in Southern Oudh near Kanauj, and passed on through the Province as far as Ajodhya where he built a mosque in 1528, on the site renowned as the birthplace of Rama. The Afghans remained in opposition after the death of Babar in 1530, but were defeated near Lucknow in the following year.”

History books and doctoral theses should have been perhaps where all such old facts deserved to remain in a modern self-confident, self-aware India.

Yet UP’s pivotal role remains such that the healthiest development for Indian democracy today may be for the Lok Sabha Member from Rae Bareilly to close down 10 Janpath as a residence and office for herself, and live instead as an exemplary parliamentarian among the common people of her constituency, setting the example too for her son to do the same in Amethi. Their permanent departure from New Delhi, becoming prominent UP politicians instead, would be the desperately needed “tough love” required by the Congress Party ~ which finally, after many decades, would be compelled to grow up and elect a leadership for itself based on some real political principles and not mere sycophancy.

Focussing on UP’s Public Finances is the first constructive step towards a rational political economy arising in the interests of its many citizens. As with other States of our Union, it is not impossible to understand what is going on with UP’s finances, though it does take some serious effort. The State receives tax revenues, income from State operations (like bus fares etc), and grants transferred from the Union. Of these revenues, more than 70% arise from taxation. Of those taxes, about 45% is collected by the Union on behalf of the State according to the Finance Commission’s formulae; 55% is collected by the State itself, and about 50% of what the State collects is Sales Tax. On the expenditure side, some 43% has been going to repay the State’s debts plus interest owed on that debt. The remainder gets distributed as summarily shown in the table.

Audit and restructuring

 

As with the Union of India, as well as with other States like West Bengal, the wide difference between income and expenditure implies the Government must then issue new public debt, which typically has been a larger and larger sum every year, greater than the maturing debt being amortised or extinguished. The grave consequences of this will be obvious to any householder, and makes it imperative that calm, sober thought and objective analysis occur about UP’s financial condition and budget constraint. E.g., what is revealed at a higher level of detail is that in 2003-2004, Rs. 5.43 Bn (Rs 543 crores) were spent to collect Rs. 1.18 Bn (Rs. 118 crores) of land revenue! UP has also spent extraordinarily vast public resources (and World Bank loans) on electricity ~ yet its power supply remains dismal.

These kinds of facts may be enough for any responsible new Government of UP (perhaps even a “Unity Government”) to declare a financial emergency under Article 360 of the Constitution, followed by ordering the most stringent of audits of all government departments and projects using public resources as well as recognition of public assets, followed in turn by a restructuring of the public budget over a few years with the aim of cutting all waste, fraud and abuse, and directing public resources instead to areas of highest social usefulness.

The author is Contributing Editor, The Statesman

 

 

UP Government Finance 2003-2004
EXPENDITURE ACTIVITIES : Rs Billion (Hundred Crore)
government & local government
judiciary
police (including vigilance etc)
prisons
bureaucracy
collecting land revenue & taxes
government employee pensions
schools, colleges, universities, institutes
health, nutrition & family welfare
water supply & sanitation
roads, bridges, transport etc.
electricity
irrigation, flood cntrl., environ, ecology
agricultural subsidies, rural development
industrial subsidies
capital city development
social security, SC, ST, OBC, lab.welfare
tourism
arts, archaeology, libraries, museums
miscellaneous
debt amortization & debt servicing
total expenditure

30.33
3.17
25.81
1.13
11.63
8.41
29.00
62.79
18.97
6.04
16.13
200.22
29.98
16.07
8.19
1.08
18.36
0.20
0.37
0.53
373.60

3.52%
0.37%
2.99%
0.13%
1.35%
0.98%
3.36%
7.28%
2.20%
0.70%
1.87%
23.23%
3.48%
1.86%
0.95%
0.13%
2.13%
0.02%
0.04%
0.06%
43.34%

tax revenue
operational income
grants from Union
loans recovered
total income
268.74
22.82
24.82
124.98
Govt. Borrowing Requirement:
(total expenditure minus total income) 420.67
financd by:
new public debt issued
use of Trust Funds etc.

385.41
35.26
420.67

From the author’s research based on latest available data published by the C&AG of India

Posted in Babar, BJP, Congress Party, Economics of Public Finance, Government accounting, Government Budget Constraint, Hinduism, India's bureaucracy, India's Caste/Ethnic Problems, India's corruption, India's Democracy, India's Economy, India's Electorate, India's Finance Commission, India's Government Budget Constraint, India's Government Expenditure, India's Macroeconomics, India's peasants, India's Personality Cults, India's political lobbyists, India's Politics, India's Polity, India's pork-barrel politics, India's State Finances, India's Union-State relations, Iqbal, Islam, MA Jinnah, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Pervez Musharraf, Ram Janambhoomi, Science, Sonia Gandhi, Uttar Pradesh, World History. Leave a Comment »

On Land-Grabbing

January 14, 2007 — drsubrotoroy

ON LAND-GRABBING

Dr Singh’s India, Buddhadeb’s Bengal, Modi’s Gujarat have notorious US, Soviet and Chinese examples to follow ~ distracting from the country’s real economic problems

By SUBROTO ROY

First published in The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page Special Article, Jan 14 2007

AT a business meet on 12 January 2005, Dr Manmohan Singh showered fulsome praise on Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee as “dynamic”, “the Nation’s Best Chief Minister”, whose “wit and wisdom”, “qualities of head and heart”, “courage of conviction and passionate commitment to the cause of the working people of India” he admired, saying “with Buddhadeb Babu at the helm of affairs it appears Bengal is once again forging ahead… If today there is a meeting of minds between Delhi and Kolkata, it is because the ideas that I and Buddhadebji represent have captured the minds of the people of India. This is the idea of growth with equity and social justice, the idea that economic liberalization and modernization have to be mindful of the needs of the poor and the marginalized.”

With such support of a Congress Prime Minister (as well as proximity to Pranab Mukherjee), Mr Bhattacharjee could hardly have feared the local Congress and Trinamul would pose any threat in the 2006 Assembly Elections despite having more potential voters between them than the CPI-M.

Dr Singh returned to the “needs of the poor and the marginalized” at another business meet on 8 January 2007 promising to “unveil a new Rehabilitation Policy in three months to increase the pace of industrialisation” which would be “more progressive, humane and conducive to the long-term welfare of all stakeholders”, while his businessman host pointedly stated about Singur “land for industry must be made available to move the Indian manufacturing sector ahead”.

The “meeting of minds between Delhi and Kolkata” seems to be that agriculture allegedly has become a relatively backward slow-growing sector deserving to yield in the purported larger national interest to industry and services: what the PM means by “long-term welfare of all stakeholders” is the same as the new CPI-M party-line that the sons of farmers should not remain farmers (but become automobile technicians or IT workers or restaurant waiters instead).

It is a political viewpoint coinciding with interests of organised capital and industrial labour in India today, as represented by business lobbies like CII, FICCI and Assocham on one hand, and unions like CITU and INTUC on the other. Business Standard succinctly (and ominously) advocated this point of view in its lead editorial of 9 January as follows: “it has to be recognised that the world over capitalism has progressed only with the landed becoming landless and getting absorbed in the industrial/service sector labour force ~ indeed it is obvious that if people don’t get off the land, their incomes will rise only slowly”.

Land is the first and ultimate means of production, and the attack of the powerful on land-holdings or land-rights of the unorganised or powerless has been a worldwide phenomenon ~ across both capitalism and communism.

In the mid-19th Century, white North America decimated hundreds of thousands of natives in the most gargantuan land-grab of history. Defeated, Chief Red Cloud of the Sioux spoke in 1868 for the Apache, Navajo, Comanche, Cheyenne, Iroquois and hundreds of other tribes: “They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept any except one: they promised to take our land, and they took it.”

Half a century later, while the collapse of grain prices contributed to the Great Depression and pauperisation of thousands of small farmers in capitalist America in the same lands that had been taken from the native tribes, Stalin’s Russia embarked on the most infamous state-sponsored land-grab in modern history: “The mass collectivisation of Soviet agriculture (was) probably the most warlike operation ever conducted by a state against its own citizens…. Hundreds of thousands and finally millions of peasants… were deported… desperate revolts in the villages were bloodily suppressed by the army and police, and the country sank into chaos, starvation and misery… The object of destroying the peasants’ independence…was to create a population of slaves, the benefit of whose labour would accrue to industry. The immediate effect was to reduce Soviet agriculture to a state of decline from which it has not yet recovered… The destruction of the Soviet peasantry, who formed three quarters of the population, was not only an economic but a moral disaster for the entire country. Tens of millions were driven into semi-servitude, and millions more were employed as executants…” (Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism).

Why did Stalin destroy the peasants? Lenin’s wishful “alliance between the proletariat and the peasantry” in reality could lead only to the peasants being pauperised into proletarians. At least five million peasants died and (Stalin told Churchill at Yalta) another ten million in the resultant famine of 1932-1933. “Certainly it involved a struggle ~ but chiefly one between urban Communists and villagers… it enabled the regime to obtain much of the capital desired for industrialization from the defeated village… it was the decisive step in the building of Soviet totalitarianism, for it imposed on the majority of the people a subjection which only force could maintain” (Treadgold, 20th Century Russia).

Mr Bhattacharjee’s CPI-M is fond of extolling Chinese communism, and the current New Delhi establishment have made Beijing and Shanghai holiday destinations of choice. Dr Singh’s Government has been eager to create hundreds of “Special Economic Zones” run by organised capital and unionised labour, and economically privileged by the State. In fact, the Singur and Nandigram experiences of police sealing off villages where protests occur are modelled on creation of “Special Economic Zones” in China in recent years.

For example, Chinese police on 6 December 2005 cracked down on farmers and fishermen in the seaside village of Dongzhou, 125 miles North East of Hong Kong. Thousands of Dongzhou villagers clashed with troops and armed police protesting confiscation of their lands and corruption among officials. The police immediately sealed off the village and arrested protesters. China’s Public Security Ministry admitted the number of riots over land had risen sharply, reaching more than seventy thousand across China in 2004; police usually suppressed peasant riots without resort to firing but in Dongzhou, police firing killed 20 protesters. Such is the reality of the “emergence” of China, a totalitarian police-state since the Communist takeover in 1949, from its period of mad tyranny until Mao’s death in 1976, followed by its ideological confusion ever since.

Modern India’s political economy today remains in the tight grip of metropolitan “Big Business” and “Big Labour”. Ordinary anonymous individual citizens ~ whether housewife, consumer, student, peasant, non-union worker or small businessman ~ have no real voice or representation in Indian politics. We have no normal conservative, liberal or social democratic party in this country, as found in West European democracies where the era of land-grabbing has long-ceased. If our polity had been normal, it would have known that economic development does not require business or government to pauperise the peasantry but instead to define and secure individual property rights and the Rule of Law, and establish proper conditions for the market economy. The Congress and BJP in Delhi and CPI-M in Kolkata would not have been able to distract attention from their macroeconomic misdeeds over the decades ~ indicated, for example, by increasing interest-expenditure paid annually on Government debt as a fraction of tax revenues (see Table). This macroeconomic rot originated with the Indira Gandhi-PN Haksar capriciousness and mismanagement, which coincided with the start of Dr Singh’s career as India’s best known economic bureaucrat.

Posted in Bengal, BJP, Chief Red Cloud of the Sioux, China, China's Economy, China's Politics, Communists, Congress Party, Freedom, Good and Evil, India's agriculture, India's Agriculture & Food, India's Budget, India's Economy, India's grassroots activists, India's Land, India's Macroeconomics, India's Monetary & Fiscal Policy, India's peasants, India's Politics, India's Polity, India's Public Finance, India's State Finances, Indira Gandhi, Land and political economy, Liberalism/Libertarianism, Mamata Banerjee, Manmohan Singh, Medha Patkar, Native Americans, Political Economy, Politics, Russia, Singur and Nandigram, Stalin, USA, United States, USSR, Winston Churchill, World History. Leave a Comment »

What To Tell Musharraf: Peace Is Impossible Without Non-Aggressive Pakistani Intentions

December 15, 2006 — drsubrotoroy

What to tell Musharraf:

Peace Is Impossible Without Non-Aggressive Pakistani Intentions

First published in The Statesman December 15, 2006,

Editorial Page Special Article

by

SUBROTO ROY

In June 1989 a project at an American university involving Pakistani and other scholars, including one Indian, led to the book Foundations of Pakistan’s Political Economy: Towards an Agenda for the 1990s published in Karachi, New Delhi and elsewhere. The book reached Nawaz Sharif and the Islamabad elite, and General Musharraf’s current proposal on J&K, endorsed warmly by the US State Department last week, derives from the last paragraph of its editorial introduction: “Kashmir… must be demilitarised and unified by both countries sooner or later, and it must be done without force. There has been enough needless bloodshed on the subcontinent… Modern Pakistanis and Indians are free peoples who can voluntarily agree in their own interests to alter the terms set hurriedly by Attlee or Mountbatten in the Indian Independence Act 1947. Nobody but we ourselves keeps us prisoners of superficial definitions of who we are or might be. The subcontinent could evolve its political identity over a period of time on the pattern of Western Europe, with open borders and (common) tariffs to the outside world, with the free movement of people, capital, ideas and culture. Large armed forces could be reduced and transformed in a manner that would enhance the security of each nation. The real and peaceful economic revolution of the masses of the subcontinent would then be able to begin.”

The editors as economists decried the waste of resources involved in the Pakistan-India confrontation, saying it had “greatly impoverished the general budgets of both Pakistan and India. If it has benefited important sections of the political and military elites of  both countries, it has done so only at the expense of the general welfare of the masses.”

International law

Such words may have been bold in the early 1990s but today, a decade and a half later, they seem incomplete and rather naïve even to their author, who was myself, the only Indian in that project. Most significantly, the position in international law in the context of historical facts had been wholly neglected. So had been the manifest nature of the contemporary Pakistani state.

Jammu & Kashmir became an entity in international law when the Treaty of Amritsar was signed between Gulab Singh and the British on March 16 1846. British India itself became an entity in international law much later, possibly as late as June 1919 when it signed the Treaty of Versailles. As for Pakistan, it had no existence in world history or international law until August 14 1947, when the British created it as a new entity out of certain demarcated areas of British India and gave it the status of a Dominion. British India dissolved itself on August 15 1947 and the Dominion of India became its successor-state in international law on that date. As BR Ambedkar pointed out at the time, the new India automatically inherited British India’s suzerainty over any and all remaining “princely” states of so-called “Indian India”. In case of J&K in particular, there never was any question of it being recognised as an independent entity in global international law.

The new Pakistan, by entering a Standstill Agreement with J&K as of August 15 1947, did locally recognise J&K’s sovereignty over its decision whether to join Pakistan or India. But this Pakistani recognition lasted only until the attack on J&K that commenced from Pakistani territory as of October 22 1947, an attack in which Pakistani forces were complicit (something which, in different and mutating senses, has continued ever since). The Dominion of India had indicated it might have consented if J&K’s Ruler had decided to accede to Pakistan in the weeks following the dissolution of British India. But no such thing happened: what did happen was the descent of J&K into a condition of legal anarchy.

Beginning with the Pakistani attack on J&K as of October 22 upto and including the Rape of Baramulla and the British-led Pakistani coup détat in Gilgit on one side, and the arrival of Indian forces as well as mobilization by Sheikh Abdullah and Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad of J&K’s civilians to repel the Pakistani invaders on the other side, the State of Jammu & Kashmir became an ownerless entity in international law. In Roman Law, from which all modern international and municipal law ultimately derives, the ownership of an ownerless entity is open to be determined by “military decision”. The January 1949 Ceasefire Line that came to be renamed the Line of Control after the 1971 Bangladesh War, demarcates the respective territories that the then-Dominions and later Republics of India and Pakistan acquired by “military decision” of the erstwhile State of J&K which had come to cease to exist.

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. It is only sheer ignorance on the part of General Musharraf’s Indian interviewer the other day which caused it to be said that Pakistan was willing to “give up” its claim on erstwhile J&K State territory which India has held: Pakistan has never had nor even made such a  claim in international law. 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.

Accordingly, the lawful solution proposed in these pages a year ago to resolve that matter, serious as it is, has been that the Republic of India invite every person covered under 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.

Military de-escalation

Equally significant though in assessing whether General Musharraf’s proposal is an  anachronism, is Pakistan’s history since 1947: through Ayub’s 1965 attack, the civil war and secession of Bangladesh, the Afghan war and growth of the ISI, the Kargil incursion, the 1999 coup détat, and, once or twice removed, the 9/11 attacks against America. It is not a history that allows any confidence to arise in Indians that we are not dealing with a country misgoverned by a tiny arrogant exploitative military elite who remain hell-bent on aggression against us. Like the USA and USSR twenty years ago, what we need to negotiate about, and negotiate hard about, is an overall mutual military drawdown and de-escalation appropriate to lack of aggressive intent on both sides. Is General Musharraf willing to discuss that? It would involve reciprocal verifiable assessment of one another’s reasonable military requirements on the assumption that each was not a threatening enemy of the other. That was how the USA-USSR drawdown and de-escalation occurred successfully. If General Musharraf is unwilling to enter such a discussion, there is hardly anything to talk about with him. We should wait for democracy to return.

Posted in Bangladesh, BR Ambedkar, Britain, Gilgit and Baltistan, Good and Evil, Gulab Singh, India's Diplomacy, India's Economy, India's Foreign Policy, India's Jurisprudence, India's Land, India's Military Defence, India's Polity, India-Pakistan peace process, International Law, Iran, Jammu & Kashmir, Jurisprudence, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, Natural Justice, Pakistan's history, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Pervez Musharraf, Roman Law, Russia, Secular governance, September 11 attacks, Sheikh Abdullah, University of Hawaii, US Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Espionage, USA, United States, War, World History. Leave a Comment »

Mob Violence and Psychology (2006)

December 10, 2006 — drsubrotoroy

Mob Violence and Psychology

Mob violence remains a monthly occurrence in modern India; it gives the lie to our claims of political maturity and democratic development.

By SUBROTO ROY

First published in The Sunday Statesman Editorial Page Special Article

December 10 2006

Mob violence certainly signals collapse of the Rule of Law and absence of normal political conversation and decision-making. Mob violence in modern India remains a monthly occurrence: a child is killed by a speeding bus, the driver if he is caught is thrashed to death by a mob of onlookers and the bus burnt down; a factory closes and workers go on a rampage; a statue or political personality or religious figure is perceived to have been insulted or desecrated, and crowds take to the streets to burn vehicles and cause mayhem; a procession is said to be insulted, and rival mobs go to battle with one another. (In fact, elected legislators in Parliament and State Assemblies frequently conflate mob behaviour like slogan-shouting with political conversation itself, carrying into the House the political methods they have learned to employ outside it. And contrary to what our legislators may suppose, they do need to be constantly lectured to by the general citizenry whose paid servants they are supposed to be).

Such may be relatively simple cases to describe or diagnose. More complex cases include the deliberate burning alive of Graham Staines and his two young sons by a mob in 1999 as they slept in their vehicle in rural Orissa, or countless deeds of similar savagery during Partition and the innumerable other riots we have seen in the history of our supposedly tolerant and non-violent culture.

We are not unique in our propensity for evil. French women knitted and gossiped watching the guillotine do its bloody work during the Jacobin terror. Long before them, as the Catholic scholar Eamon Duffy reports in Faith of our fathers, Pope Gregory IX in 1233 had initiated the “Inquisition”: two anonymous witnesses could cause any person to be arrested as a heretic, tortured and then burnt alive. In 1484, Pope Innocent VIII endorsed “witches” to be burnt, causing “deaths of countless thousands of harmless or eccentric women over the next 300 years. In all, as many as 25,000 people, most of them women may have been burnt as witches in Germany” alone. American history has seen countless cases of mob violence, from witch-burnings and other religious violence to cold-blooded lynching on trees of individual black men by white mobs, black mobs looting inner cities, street clashes between political groups etc. Soviet Russia and Maoist China saw systematic ideologically driven violence by Party cadres and “Red Guards” against countless individuals ~ forced to confess to imaginary misdeeds, then assaulted or shot. Nazi Germany, Czarist Russia and many other countries saw mobs attacking, dispossessing or killing individual Jews and innumerable others, again in systematic ideologically motivated pogroms. Indeed as Hannah Arendt and others have noted, the similarities between totalitarian regimes as outwardly different as Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia or Communist China included the ideologically driven targeting of identifiable small minorities for systematic violence by majorities in power. Even Tony Blair’s supposedly Cool Britannia today, besides having the most notorious soccer hooligans in the world, is also a place where no individual, non-white or white, will pass a drunken mob of adolescent school-children on the streets on a Friday night without trepidation.

Every case of mob violence is different; yet what could be common is a temporary, if deliberate, suspension of the normal human sense of responsibility on part of a mob’s individual members. Reason and responsibility return if at all only after the evil has been accomplished ~ whether it is killing or assaulting someone or destroying something ~ and it can be accompanied by a sense of remorse and regret. Even where mob tyranny has been systematic, long-term, ideologically-driven and state-sponsored, as with the Inquisition or French Revolution or Nazi, Soviet or Chinese terrors, future generations look back at the past misdeeds of their ancestors and say: “That was wrong, very wrong, it should never have happened”. Moral learning does take place at some time or other, even if it is long after the evil has occurred. It is as if, when sobriety and rationality return, an individual participant in a mob realises and recognises himself/herself to have revealed a baser ignoble side which is shameful.

“Sometimes a society acts as if all power lay in the hands of the most babyish and animal members, and sometimes as if all power lay in the hands of strict old men, and sometimes it acts more as a whole ~ mostly when there’s a war on. Sometimes a man is not himself and acts as if a babyish or cunning animal had gained control ~ that’s the id ~ sometimes as if an exacting parent, a sarcastic schoolmaster, or an implacable deity possessed him ~ that’s the super-ego. Sometimes a man is more himself and acts more as a whole, a new whole which is not a combination but a synthesis of the id and the super-ego. Some are constantly at the mercy of the id, some are slaves to the super- ego, and in some first one and then the other gains an unhappy victory in a continual struggle, and in some conflict and control have vanished into cooperation…” Such was the description the Cambridge philosopher John Wisdom gave in Philosophy and Psychoanalysis in the 1940s and 1950s, when he translated into normal idiomatic language some of the difficult technical findings and theories of the mind propounded by Sigmund Freud in the previous half-century.

When the mob forms itself, its members individually choose to suppress their normal rational personalities and sense of adult responsibility, and permit instead their cunning animal or babyish instincts to take over and reign supreme within themselves. It must be a collective decision even if silently taken: for one person to behave in such a manner would look identifiably stupid and criminal but for him/her to do so in a group where everyone has simultaneously decided to abandon reason (whether spontaneously or shouting slogans together) allows the loss of individual responsibility to become hidden in the mass, and the collective to take on features of a hydra-headed monster, capable of the vilest deeds without the slightest self-doubt. The victim of their violence or abuse will often be an individual who stands out in some way ~ perhaps by natural or social attributes or even by heroic deeds: indeed Freud suggested that primitive tribes sometimes engaged in parricide and regicide, cannibalising their individual heroes in the belief that by consuming something of the hero’s remains those attributes might magically reappear in themselves.

In modern India, the presence of mob violence on a monthly basis somewhere or other in the country gives the lie to our claims of maturity of our political and democratic development. Those posing as our political leaders may make as many foreign trips and wooden prepared speeches on TV as they wish to, but their actual cowardice is manifest in having failed to address the real disjunction that exists in this country between political interests and political preferences at the grassroots on the one hand, and the lack of serious parliamentary conversation addressing these within our representative institutions on the other. The reliance by the Executive on often brutal police or paramilitary forces reflects failure of the Legislative and Judicial branches of our Government, as well as a lack of balance between them arising from our political and constitutional immaturity.

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Milton Friedman on the Mahalanobis-Nehru “Second Plan”

November 22, 2006 — drsubrotoroy

Note by Dr Subroto Roy: Milton Friedman, who died last week (obituary: page 7) , gave me this document (dated 15 February 1956) in 1984. I did not publish it in Hawaii in May 1989 in Foundations of India’s Political Economy along with his November 1955 Memorandum to the Government of India because it was rather more candid and personal in tone. The Berlin Wall had not yet fallen, and I was at the time being attacked by prominent Indian and foreign economists and political scientists for wanting to publish the 1955 Memorandum at all. Today, we in India are well on our way to making more objective studies of our intellectual and political history than was possible two decades ago. Friedman’s candid observations, from the Cold War era of Krushchev’s denunciation of Stalin, seem as fascinating as the tales of travellers from courts of olden times.

Mahalanobis’s  Plan
by Milton Friedman

First published in The Statesman front page http://www.thestatesman.net November 22 2006

“I met PC Mahalanobis in 1946 and again at a meeting of the International Statistical Institute in September 1947, and I know him well by reputation. He was absent during most of my stay in New Delhi, but I met him at a meeting of the Indian Planning Commission, of which he is one of the strongest and most able members.

Mahalanobis began as a mathematician and is a very able one. Able mathematicians are usually recognized for their ability at a relatively early age. Realizing their own ability as they do and working in a field of absolutes, tends, in my opinion, to make them dangerous when they apply themselves to economic planning. They produce specific and detailed plans in which they have confidence, without perhaps realizing that economic planning is not the absolute science that mathematics is. This general characteristic of mathematicians is true of Mahalanobis but in spite of the tendency he is willing to discuss a problem and listen to a different point of view. Once his decision is reached, however, he has great confidence in it.

Mahalanobis was unquestionably extremely influential in drafting the Indian five-year plan. There were four key steps in the plan. The first was the so-called “Plan Frame” drafted by Mahalanobis himself. The second was a tentative plan based on the “Plan Frame”. The third step was a report by a committee of economists on the first two steps, and the fourth was a minority report by BR Shenoy on the economists’ report. The economists had no intention of drafting a definitive proposal but merely meant to comment on certain aspects of the first two steps. Shenoy’s minority report, however, had the effect of making the economists’ report official.

The scheme of the Five Year Plan attributed to Mahalanobis faces two problems; one, that India needs heavy industry for economic development; and two, that development of heavy industry uses up large amounts of capital while providing only small employment.

Based on these facts, Mahalanobis proposed to concentrate on heavy industry development on the one hand and to subsidize the hand production cottage industries on the other. The latter course would discriminate against the smaller manufacturers. In my opinion, the plan wastes both capital and labour and the Indians get only the worst of both efforts. If left to their own devices under a free enterprise system I believe the Indians would gravitate naturally towards the production of such items as bicycles, sewing machines, and radios. This trend is already apparent without any subsidy.

The Indian cottage industry is already cloaked in the same popular sort of mist as is rural life in the US. There is an idea in both places that this life is typical and the backbone of their respective countries. Politically, the Indian cottage industry problem is akin to the American farm problem. Mohandas Gandhi was a proponent of strengthening the cottage industry as a weapon against the British. This reason is now gone but the emotions engendered by Gandhi remain. Any move to strengthen the cottage industry has great political appeal and thus, Mahalanobis’ plan and its pseudo-scientific support for the industry also has great political appeal.  I found many supporters for the heavy industry phase of the Plan but almost no one (among the technical Civil Servants) who really believes in the cottage industry aspects, aside from their political appeal.

In its initial form, the plan was very large and ambitious with optimistic estimates. My impression is that there is a substantial trend away from this approach, however, and an attempt to cut down. The development of heavy industry has slowed except for steel and iron. I believe that the proposed development of a synthetic petroleum plant has been dropped and probably wisely so. In addition, I believe that the proposed five year plan may be extended to six years. Other than his work on the plan, I am uncertain of Mahalanobis’ influence. The gossip is that he has Nehru’s ear and potentially he could be very influential, simply because of his intellectual ability and powers of persuasion. The question that occurs to me is how much difference Mahalanobis’ plan makes. The plan does not seem the important thing to me. I believe that the new drive and enthusiasm of the Indian nation will surmount any plan, good or bad. Then too, I feel a wide diversity in what is said and what is done. I believe that much of Nehru’s socialistic talk is simply that, just talk. Nehru has been trying to undermine the Socialist Party by this means and apparently the Congress Party’s adoption of a socialistic idea for industry has been successful in this respect.

One gets the impression, depending on whom one talks with, either that the Government runs business, or that two or three large businesses run the government. All that appears publicly indicates that the first is true, but a case can also be made for the latter interpretation. Favour and harassment are counterparts in the Indian economic scheme. There is no significant impairment of the willingness of Indian capitalists to invest in their industries, except in the specific industries where nationalization has been announced, but they are not always willing to invest and take the risks inherent in the free enterprise system. They want the Government to support their investment and when it refuses they back out and cry “Socialism”.”

 

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American Democracy

November 5, 2006 — drsubrotoroy

AMERICAN DEMOCRACY (2006)

 

Does America need a Prime Minister and a longer-lived Legislature?

by

Subroto Roy

First published in The Sunday Statesman

Editorial Page Special Article

Nov 5, 2006

see too https://independentindian.com/2016/11/24/fixing-washington-on-improving-institutional-design-in-the-united-states/

 

The politics of the United States in the last few decades has become so opaque, it is hard to see what goes on, beyond the banal superficialities. Competitive commercial television, an American institutional invention, is hardly the most suitable keeper of any nation’s historical and political heritage, nor a source of accurate collective political memory, and without political memory it is not possible to understand the present or anticipate the future. Yet most modern Americans are compelled by circumstances to comprehend the national or state-level politics of their enormous variegated land of 300 million people only through the very coarse filter provided by commercial television.

Television obviously demands passivity, dissipating a viewer’s ability to reason about or reflect on any information being offered. A newspaper report “Plane crash kills 120” in a front-page column, causes the information to be absorbed in context along with the rest of the day’s news. If the radio says “An aeroplane crashed today, and all 120 passengers aboard are feared dead”, the same event is felt through the invisible newsreader’s voice, the listener being left to imagine the awfulness of what happened. But for TV to report the same event requires pompous self-conscious studio-anchors, helicopters at the scene, interviews with weeping relatives, and instant analyses of the crash’s causes, all under a banner of “Breaking News”. The average viewer is left not so much sympathising with the victims as feeling enervated and anxious about air-travel and the world in general — besides being left ignorant of the rest of the day’s happenings.

In reaching mass-audiences with advertisements of commercial products, TV quickly obtained the general surrender of radio in American homes, though radio still controls what modern Americans hear in the time they spend in their automobiles (and they spend a larger fraction there than any other people). Newspapers signalled their abject surrender to TV by “dumbing down” their front-pages with large photographs as pathetic reminders of yesterday’s TV events, or headlines that sound racy, sensational, glamorous or with-it. Given the transient nature of all news and expense of printing it on newsprint, actually reading newspapers (as opposed to looking at advertising supplements) has become in the age of TV a minor middle class indulgence, although the editorial pages of a handful of “national” newspapers remains the last refuge of serious political discussion in the USA and elsewhere.

American politics filtered through commercial television has caused all issues and politicians, whether national, state and/or local, to tend to become like products and brands available to be bought and sold at the right price. Yet American television also produced a serious reaction to its own banalities by starting in the early 1980s news-reporting and analysis on “Public Television” and also on “C-Span”. “Public Television” (as opposed to commercial or cable networks) produced what came to be known as the “MacNeill-Lehrer NewsHour”, which set the benchmark for all political news and commentary in the USA and indeed across the globe to this day. C-Span took the unusual step of sending television cameras to silently record all political events, especially the seemingly least significant and most tedious of legislative committee meetings or political speeches, and then broadcasting these endlessly 24 hours a day along with very dry political analysis and comment. Both provided a little (“highbrow”) sobriety to the otherwise drunken political culture created by American commercial television. Along with a small number of newspapers like the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Christian Science Monitor and USA Today, MacNeill-Lehrer and C-Span and the odd Sunday morning news-show on commercial TV, gave America’s politically conscious classes their access to information and analysis about their own country and what was being done in its name in the wider world. At least that was so until the 2003 attack on Iraq — during which acceptance of the US military procedure of “embedded reporters” ruined America’s traditions of a free press. Since 2003, growth of political coverage on the Internet especially via “blogging” has caused more candour to penetrate American politics and to explode the dissimulations of the “mainstream media”.

Besides politics via television, the other main factor affecting the attention-deficit disorder, short time-horizon and lack of perspective and depth afflicting modern American discourse, has been the rigid time-table of a Constitution written for a long gone era. Every even-numbered year is an election year in America, and that election is held in the first week of November. Hence on 7 November 2006 America will go to the polls, as it did in November 2004 and as it will again in November 2008. Each requires the entire lower legislative house to be newly elected.

Now two years may have been a long time in the late 18th Century when the US Constitution was written, and transport and communications between the Capitol and the new States was hazardous or time-consuming. But in modern times two years are over in the blink of an eyelid. Members of the American House of Representatives must then spend their time either talking about public money and how to spend it (as only they are authorized to do), or private money and how to earn it in order to stay elected and be able to talk about how to spend the public money. Inevitably, these two activities get confused with each other. The two year term of the American lower house may well be the shortest anywhere in the world, and may deserve to be doubled at least.

The upper house elects two senior politicians from each of the 50 States (regardless of its size or importance) for a 6 year term each, with one-third of the house returning to face the electorate at each of the biennial national elections. These 100 Senators at any given time have often constituted a fine deliberative body, and, along with the executive governors of the larger States, the pool from which America’s presidents and vice-presidents get to be chosen. Yet the Senate has also often enough palpably failed in its “advice and consent” role vis-à-vis the American President — whether in the matter of America never becoming a member of the League of Nations because of Senate isolationism despite Woodrow Wilson having invented it (something the British and French found so bewildering and frustrating), or the modern Senate caving in to the jingoism unleashed by the father-son Bush Presidencies only to then say “Oops, we’ve made a mistake”.

Another fundamental institutional problem at the root of modern American politics today is the lack of separation between the Head of State and Head of Government. This not merely causes people with the wrong ambitions and abilities to want to become President (because they lust in juvenile fashion to fire cruise missiles or fly onto aircraft carriers), it also causes the business of serious governance to frequently stop getting done because of endless paralysis between the President and Legislature. Churchill perspicaciously observed: “The rigid Constitution of the United States, the gigantic scale and strength of its party machinery, the fixed terms for which public officers and representatives are chosen, invest the President with a greater measure of autocratic power than… by the Head of any great State. The vast size of the country, the diverse types, interests and environments of its enormous population, the safety-valve function of the legislatures of fifty Sovereign States, make the focussing of national public opinion difficult, and confer upon the Federal Government exceptional independence of it except at fixed election times. Few modern Governments need to concern themselves so little with the opinion of the party they have beaten at the polls; none secures to its supreme executive officer, at once the Sovereign and the Party Leader, such direct personal authority.” There is an argument to be made for the American President to become more of a constitutional figurehead representing the thoughtful will of the Union and all the 50 States, while an American Prime Minister comes to be elected by the Legislature as a more subdued, sober and competent Head of Government. It would be a healthy development for America’s domestic and international politics, and hence better for the rest of the world as well.

Posted in America's impatience, America's military-industrial complex, American academia, American democracy, American history, American philosophy, American politics, American society, Iraq war, Politics, Press and Media, Television, US Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Espionage, US Military Doctrine, US politics, US Presidential Election, US Republicans and Democrats, USA, United States, USA, United States polity, Vietnam War, Winston Churchill, World History. Leave a Comment »

History of Jammu & Kashmir (2006)

October 30, 2006 — drsubrotoroy

History of Jammu & Kashmir

by

Subroto Roy

First published in two parts in The Sunday Statesman, Oct 29 2006

and The Statesman Oct 30 2006, Editorial Page Special Article.

At the advent of Islam in distant Arabia, India and Kashmir in particular were being visited by Chinese Buddhist pilgrims during Harsha’s reign. The great “Master of Law” Hiuen Tsiang visited between 629-645 and spent 631-633 in Kashmir (“Kia-chi-mi-lo”), describing it to include Punjab, Kabul and Kandahar. Over the next dozen centuries, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and again Hindu monarchs came to rule the 85 mile long 40 mile wide territory on the River Jhelum’s upper course known as Srinagar Valley, as well as its adjoining Jammu in the upper plains of the Punjab and “Little Tibet” consisting of Laddakh, Baltistan and Gilgit.

In 1344, a Persian adventurer from Swat or Khorasan by name of Amir or Mirza, who had “found his way into the Valley and in time gained great influence at the Raja’s court”, proclaimed himself Sultan Shamsuddin after the death of the last Hindu monarchs of medieval Kashmir. Twelve of his descendants formed the Shamiri dynasty including the notorious Sikander and the just and tolerant Zainulabidin. Sikander who ruled 1386-1410 “submitted himself” to the Uzbek Taimur the Lame when he approached Kashmir in 1398 “and thus saved the country from invasion”. Otherwise, “Sikander was a gloomy ferocious bigot, and his zeal in destroying temples and idols was so intense that he is remembered as the Idol-Breaker. He freely used the sword to propagate Islam and succeeded in forcing the bulk of the population to conform outwardly to the Muslim religion. Most of the Brahmins refused to apostatise, and many of them paid with their lives the penalty for their steadfastness. Many others were exiled, and only a few conformed.”

Zainulabidin who ruled 1417-1467 “was a man of very different type”. “He adopted the policy of universal toleration, recalled the exiled Brahmins, repealed the jizya or poll-tax on Hindus, and even permitted new temples to be built. He abstained from eating flesh, prohibited the slaughter of kine, and was justly venerated as a saint. He encouraged literature, painting and music, and caused many translations to be made of works composed in Sanskrit, Arabic and other languages.” During his “long and prosperous reign”, he “constructed canals and built many mosques; he was just and tolerant”.

The Shamiri dynasty ended in 1541 when “some fugitive chiefs of the two local factions of the Makri and the Chakk invited Mirza Haidar Dughlat, a relation of Babar, to invade Kashmir. The country was conquered and the Mirza held it (nominally in name of Humayan) till 1551, when he was killed in a skirmish. The line… was restored for a few years, until in 1559 a Chakk leader, Ghazi Shah, usurped the throne; and in the possession of his descendants it remained for nearly thirty years.” This dynasty marks the origins of Shia Islam in Srinagar though Shia influence in Gilgit, Baltistan and Laddakh was of longer standing. Constant dissensions weakened the Chakks, and in 1586, Akbar, then at Attock on the Indus, sent an army under Raja Bhagwan Das into Srinagar Valley and easily made it part of his Empire.

After the Mughals collapsed, Iran’s Turkish ruler Nadir Shah sacked Delhi in 1739 but the Iranian court fell in disarray upon his death. In 1747 a jirga of Pashtun tribes at Kandahar “broke normal tradition” and asked an old Punjabi holy man and shrine-keeper to choose between two leaders; this man placed young wheat in the hand of the 25 year old Ahmed Shah Saddozai of the Abdali tribe, and titled him “Durrani”. Five years later, Durrani took Kashmir and for the next 67 years the Valley was under Pashtun rule, a time of “unmitigated brutality and widespread distress”. Durrani himself “was wise, prudent and simple”, never declared himself king and wore no crown, instead keeping a stick of young wheat in his turban. Leaving India, he famously recited: “The Delhi throne is beautiful indeed, but does it compare with the mountains of Kandahar?”

Kashmir’s modern history begins with Ranjit Singh of the Sikhs who became a soldier at 12, and in 1799 at age 19 was made Lahore’s Governor by Kabul’s Zaman Shah. Three years later “he made himself master of Amritsar”, and in 1806 crossed the River Sutlej and took Ludhiana. He created a fine Sikh infantry and cavalry under former officers of Napoleon, and with 80,000 trained men and 500 guns took Multan and Peshawar, defeated the Pashtuns and overran Kashmir in 1819. The “cruel rule” of the Pashtuns ended “to the great relief of Kashmir’s inhabitants”.

The British Governor-General Minto (ancestor of the later Viceroy), seeing advantage in the Sikhs staying north of the Sutlej, sent Charles Metcalfe, “a clever young civilian”, to persuade the Khalsa; in 1809, Ranjit Singh and the British in the first Treaty of Amritsar agreed to establish “perpetual amity”: the British would “have no concern” north of the Sutlej and Ranjit Singh would keep only minor personnel south of it. In 1834 and 1838 Ranjit Singh was struck by paralysis and died in 1839, leaving no competent heir. The Sikh polity collapsed, “their power exploded, disappearing in fierce but fast flames”. It was “a period of storm and anarchy in which assassination was the rule” and the legitimate line of his son and grandson, Kharak Singh and Nao Nihal Singh was quickly extinguished. In 1845 the Queen Regent, mother of the five-year old Dalip Singh, agreed to the Khalsa ending the 1809 Treaty. After bitter battles that might have gone either way, the Khalsa lost at Sobraon on 10 February 1846, and accepted terms of surrender in the 9 March 1846 Treaty of Lahore. The kingdom had not long survived its founder: “created by the military and administrative genius of one man, it crumbled into powder when the spirit which gave it life was withdrawn; and the inheritance of the Khalsa passed into the hands of the English.”

Ranjit Singh’s influence on modern J&K was even greater through his having mentored the Rajput Gulab Singh Dogra (1792-1857) and his brothers Dhyan Singh and Suchet Singh. Jammu had been ruled by Ranjit Deo until 1780 when the Sikhs made it tributary to the Lahore Court. Gulab Singh, a great grand nephew of Ranjit Deo, had left home at age 17 in search of a soldierly fortune, and ended up in 1809 in Ranjit Singh’s army, just when Ranjit Singh had acquired for himself a free hand to expand his domains north of the River Sutlej.

Gulab Singh, an intrepid soldier, by 1820 had Jammu conferred upon him by Ranjit Singh with the title of Raja, while Bhimber, Chibal, Poonch and Ramnagar went to his brothers. Gulab Singh, “often unscrupulous and cruel, was a man of considerable ability and efficiency”; he “found his small kingdom a troublesome charge but after ten years of constant struggles he and his two brothers became masters of most of the country between Kashmir and the Punjab”, though Srinagar Valley itself remained under a separate Governor appointed by the Lahore Court. Gulab Singh extended Jammu’s rule from Rawalpindi, Bhimber, Rajouri, Bhadarwah and Kishtwar, across Laddakh and into Tibet. His General Zorawar Singh led six expeditions into Laddakh between 1834 and 1841 through Kishtwar, Padar and Zanskar. In May 1841, Zorawar left Leh with an army of 5000 Dogras and Laddakhis and advanced on Tibet. Defeating the Tibetans at Rudok and Tashigong, he reached Minsar near Lake Mansarovar from where he advanced to Taklakot (Purang), 15 miles from the borders of Nepal and Kumaon, and built a fort stopping for the winter. Lhasa sent large re-inforcements to meet him. Zorawar, deciding to take the offensive, was killed in the Battle of Toyu, on 11-12 December 1841 at 16,000 feet.

A Laddakhi rebellion resulted against Jammu, aided now by the advancing Tibetans. A new army was sent under Hari Chand suppressing the rebellion and throwing back the Tibetans, leading to a peace treaty between Lhasa and Jammu signed on 17 September 1842: “We have agreed that we have no ill-feelings because of the past war. The two kings will henceforth remain friends forever. The relationship between Maharajah Gulab Singh of Kashmir and the Lama Guru of Lhasa (Dalai Lama) is now established. The Maharajah Sahib, with God (Kunchok) as his witness, promises to recognise ancient boundaries, which should be looked after by each side without resorting to warfare. When the descendants of the early kings, who fled from Laddakh to Tibet, now return they will not be stopped by Shri Maharajah. Trade between Laddakh and Tibet will continue as usual. Tibetan government traders coming into Laddakh will receive free transport and accommodations as before, and the Laddakhi envoy will, in turn, receive the same facilities in Lhasa. The Laddakhis take an oath before God (Kunchok) that they will not intrigue or create new troubles in Tibetan territory. We have agreed, with God as witness, that Shri Maharajah Sahib and the Lama Guru of Lhasa will live together as members of the same household.” The traditional boundary between Laddakh and Tibet “as recognised by both sides since olden times” was accepted by the envoys of Gulab Singh and the Dalai Lama.

An earlier 1684 treaty between Laddakh and Lhasa had said that while Laddakh would send tribute to Lhasa every three years, “the king of Laddakh reserves to himself the village of Minsar in Ngarees-khor-sum, that he may be independent there; and he sets aside its revenue for the purpose of meeting the expense involved in keeping up the sacrificial lights at Kangree (Kailas), and the Holy Lakes of Mansarovar and Rakas Tal”. The area around Minsar village near Lake Mansarovar, held by the rulers of Laddakh since 1583, was retained by Jammu in the 1842 peace-treaty, and its revenue was received by J&K State until 1948.

After Ranjit Singh’s death in 1839, Gulab Singh was alienated from the Lahore Court where the rise of his brothers and a nephew aroused enough Khalsa jealousy to see them assassinated in palace intrigues. While the Sikhs imploded, Gulab Singh had expanded his own dominion from Rawalpindi to Minsar ~ everywhere except Srinagar Valley itself. He had apparently advised the Sikhs not to attack the British in breach of the 1809 Treaty, and when they did so he had not joined them, though had he done so British power in North India might have been broken. The British were grateful for his neutrality and also his help in their first misbegotten adventure in Afghanistan. It was Gulab Singh who was now encouraged by both the British and the Sikhs to mediate between them, indeed “to take a leading part in arranging conditions of peace”, and he formally represented the Sikh regency in the negotiations. The 9 March 1846 Treaty of Lahore “set forth that the British Government having demanded in addition to a certain assignment of territory, a payment of a crore and a half of rupees, and the Sikh Government being unable to pay the whole”, Dalip Singh “should cede as equivalent to one crore the hill country belonging to the Punjab between the Beas and the Indus including Kashmir and the Hazara”.

For the British to occupy the whole of this mountainous territory was judged unwise on economic and military grounds; it was not feasible to occupy from a military standpoint and the area “with the exception of the small Valley of Kashmir” was “for the most part unproductive”. “On the other hand, the ceded tracts comprised the whole of the hereditary possessions of Gulab Singh, who, being eager to obtain an indefeasible title to them, came forward and offered to pay the war indemnity on condition that he was made the independent ruler of Jammu & Kashmir.

A separate treaty embodying this arrangement was thus concluded between the British and Gulab Singh at Amritsar on 16 March 1846.” Gulab Singh acknowledged the British Government’s supremacy, and in token of it agreed to present annually to the British Government “one horse, twelve shawl goats of approved breed and three pairs of Kashmir shawls. This arrangement was later altered; the annual presentation made by the Kashmir State was confined to two Kashmir shawls and three romals (handkerchiefs).” The Treaty of Amritsar “put Gulab Singh, as Maharaja, in possession of all the hill country between the Indus and the Ravi, including Kashmir, Jammu, Laddakh and Gilgit; but excluding Lahoul, Kulu and some areas including Chamba which for strategic purposes, it was considered advisable (by the British) to retain and for which a remission of Rs 25 lakhs was made from the crore demanded, leaving Rs 75 lakhs as the final amount to be paid by Gulab Singh.” The British retained Hazara which in 1918 was included into NWFP. Through an intrigue emanating from Prime Minister Lal Singh in Lahore, Imamuddin, the last Sikh-appointed Governor of Kashmir, sought to prevent Gulab Singh taking possession of the Valley in accordance with the Treaty’s terms. By December 1846 Gulab Singh had done so, though only with help of a British force which included 17,000 Sikh troops “who had been fighting in the campaign just concluded”. (Contemporary British opinion even predicted Sikhism like Buddhism “would become extinct in a short time if it were not kept alive by the esprit de corps of the Sikh regiments”.)

The British in 1846 may have been glad enough to allow Gulab Singh take independent charge of the new entity that came to be now known as the “State of Jammu & Kashmir”. Later, however. they and their American allies would grow keen to control or influence the region vis-à-vis their new interests against the Russian and Soviet Empires.

see also

A Brief History of Gilgit

My Seventy-One Articles, Notes Etc on Kashmir, Pakistan, & of course, India (plus my undelivered Lahore lectures)

Pakistan’s & India’s Illusions of Power (Psychosis vs Vanity)

Posted in Afghanistan, Akbar, Aksai Chin, Anglo-American relations, Anglo-Russian Treaty 1907, Asia and the West, Babar, Britain, Britain in India, Buddhism, China, China-India Relations, China-Tibet problem, Chinese pilgrims to India, Diplomatic recognition, Dogras, Gilgit and Baltistan, Gulab Singh, Himalayas, Hinduism, Hindus and Muslims, Imperialism, India in international law, India's History, India's Jurisprudence, India's Muslims, India's Polity, India's secularism, India-Pakistan peace process, India-Tibet Border, International Law, Iran, Islam, Jahangir, Jammu & Kashmir, Karakorum Pass, Laddakh, Pakistan, Pashtuns, Ranjit Singh, Religion, Russia, Secular governance, Sikhs, Sino-Indian Border, Srinagar, Sunnis and Shias, Tibet, USA, Uzbekistan, War, World History, Zainulabidin. 4 Comments »

New Foreign Policy? (8-9 Oct 2006)

October 9, 2006 — drsubrotoroy

NEW FOREIGN POLICY? “Kiss Up, Kick Down”?

Seven phases of Indian foreign policy may be identifiable since Nehru; the current phase seems to involve subservience to the strong, jingoism otherwise

 

by Subroto Roy

 

First published in The Sunday Statesman 8 Oct 2006, The Statesman 9 Oct 2006 Editorial Page Special Article

 

 

The outlines of a new tri-partisan Indian foreign policy may be becoming discernible. That it is “new” or that it commands near unanimity among the Congress, BJP and “Left” and their respective friends in the Indian media and political classes, does not make it sound or robust in any way. In fact, its basis in the history, geography and economics of India is wholly inadequate, and it is also entirely divorced from any clearly enunciated new Indian political ethics for the modern world.

 

 

The new policy, which may be fairly dubbed the Jaswant-Manmohan policy after the BJP and Congress politicians who have been its putative authors and leading practitioners, is as likely as not to lead to an India that is no longer a free decision-maker in any meaningful way in world affairs by 2047, one hundred years after Independence. Our great grandchildren may well be taught that for some decades in Indian history a sovereign unitary republic actually existed which then came to be effectively lost.

 

 

Indeed the new policy may amount to being less a coherent new doctrine of India’s role in international relations than a mere change in attitude on the part of politicians, bureaucrats and their intelligentsia friends: from seeming universally arrogant in the world to becoming pliant and subservient towards those world powers perceived (accurately or inaccurately) as strong, combined with a vainglorious jingoism towards all others. It is an application to international diplomacy and politics of the classic bureaucratic principle of “kiss up, kick down” in an organisation, and may reflect the fact the two main institutions the Mughals and British used to run their empires were the bureaucracy and military ~ both of which have grown and continued to run New Delhi (and Islamabad) afterwards, co-opting whatever domestic political development that has arisen. There is plenty of wishful waffling too about India becoming a “great power” or being a “swing state in the global balance of power”, and about how well the economy is supposedly doing ~ as if what Government spokesmen say about the economy is to be believed at face-value. Indian Leftists and their fellow-travellers ~ as great lovers themselves of bureaucracy, collectivist groupthink and propaganda on the USSR or PRC pattern, and fearful or envious of all individual criticism, creativity and achievement – have taken to the same principle like fish to water.

 

 

The first phase of Indian foreign policy was Nehruvian in that it began with Nehru’s Fabian misperception of Stalin’s USSR, and ended with the military debacle he led the country into at the hands of Zhou’s “human wave” armies in the mountains of Ladakh and NEFA.

 

 

A second phase was Kashmir-centric, overlapping with the first insofar as it may be traced to Karan Singh’s iniquitous dismissal of Sheikh Abdullah’s first Government, but really beginning after Nehru’s death with the Ayub-Abdullah summit, and being marked by Ayub’s 1965 attack in J&K ~ Shastri’s riposte reaching the Ichogil Canal signalled that no longer would war over J&K be confined to J&K.

 

 

A third phase was forced on India by the Pakistani civil war that led to Bangladesh’s creation, and was marked by the Indira/ Haksar alliance with Brezhnev’s USSR, as well as by Pokhran-I.

 

 

A fourth phase of Indian foreign policy may be identified in the late 1970s and 1980s, marked by rebellion of the fundamentalist Sikhs whom Indira and Sanjay Gandhi had provoked, which led in due course to her assassination. The turmoil that followed in Punjab and North India was financed by anti-Indian Sikhs from Vancouver,California and Britain, with gleeful help from the Pakistanis, and Indian diplomats had their hands full in trying to counter that phenomenon. It was during this phase of domestic Indian turmoil that New Delhi wholly missed the seismic changes occurring in the USSR, East Europe and international relations generally, and completely failed to predict its consequences for India.

 

 

The phase came to end when the Narasimha Rao Government (upon advice of a well-known communist cabal in the IFS and JNU) instantly showered praise on the anti-Yeltsin coup in August 1991. When Yeltsin returned to power, the new anti-communist Russians took their revenge on New Delhi, exacting hard dollars for the soft rouble-trade of friendlier times.

 

 

A fifth phase may be seen in retrospect as one of relative success.The main plank of Indian foreign policy in the late 1980s and early 1990s was to get Pakistan designated a “terrorist state” in American eyes, as well as to warn of the dangers of a Pakistani nuclear bomb. It had been prompted by the end of American involvement in the Afghan war, which caused the ISI to shift the jihadis to J&K, and the Indian policy was destined not to succeed. No matter how hard Kanwal Sibal tried in 1992-1993 as Minister-Political in the Washington Embassy to tell the Americans that their Pakistani friends were dangerous, he was destined to fail as the MEA had entirely failed to realise how far ahead the Pakistanis were in their lobbying power in Washington ~ the Pakistani super-elite has been entrenched among the K-Street lobbyists and in expensive real-estate along the Potomac River for more than two generations. Yet after the 9/11 attacks several years later, the Indians were able to look back at that fifth phase and say to the Americans, “We told you so”.

 

 

In the late 1990s came a short-lived sixth phase of Pokhran-II and the Lahore bus-trip, which may be credited as Vajpayee successes, and also contained the Kargil War and Kandahar hijacking, which were more dubious. This overlapped with the last and currently continuing seventh phase of Indian foreign policy with Jaswant Singh breaking the ice with the Americans when they had recovered from the fact the CIA’s failures included not foreseeing Pokhran-II; it coincided too with Osama bin Laden’s declarations of jihad against the USA. The Americans enlisting themselves on the side of the Northern Alliance to defeat the Taliban after 9/11 was beneficial from an Indian standpoint since Afghanistan had been effectively lost to secular Indian influence for two decades, and the Taliban had shown themselves no friends of India during the Kandahar hijacking.

 

 

But the BJP’s anti-Muslim thought processes quickly took over, as did its proximity to organised business lobbies. When Iraq was attacked and occupied in 2003, there was hardly a whimper from the BJP leadership, and instead their businessmen friends started to fly to Amman hopeful of “reconstruction” contracts. The Sonia/ Manmohan Congress/Leftist combine has effectively continued and expanded that trend, though now the business lobbies have been much more muted and subtle, especially in their backroom dealings and payoffs with respect to the nuclear deal. There is also an occasional burst of anti-Americanism from leftists though it is hard of course to beg for American foreign investment in Marxist-run areas while also being sincere in quaint street demos or agitprop.

 

 

Running through the new foreign policy is a fiction that it is driven by a new economic motivation to improve development and mass well-being in India. The bizarre idea of creating hundreds of so-called “Special Economic Zones” (reminiscent of 17th and 18th Century colonial fortifications) illustrates this. India’s ordinary anonymous masses ~ certainly the 850 million people entirely outside the organised sector ~ have little or nothing to do with any of this. Benefits will accrue only to the ten million Indian nomenclatura controlling or having access to the gaping exit holes to the outside world in the new semi-closed economy with its endless deficit finance paid for by unlimited printing of an inconvertible domestic currency.

 

 

It is as fallacious to think private investment from foreign or domestic businessmen will support public “infrastructure” creation as it is to think foreign exchange reserves are like tax revenues in being available for Government expenditure on “infrastructure”. Such fallacies are intellectual products of either those who know no economics at all or those who have forgotten whatever little they might have been once mistaught in their youth. What serious economics does say is that Government should generally have nothing to do with any kind of private business, and instead should focus on properly providing public goods and services, encourage competition in all avenues of economic activity and prevent or regulate monopoly, and see to it all firms pay taxes they are due to pay.

 

 

That is it. It is as bad for Government to be pampering organised foreign or domestic business or organised labour with innumerable subsidies, as has been happening in India for decades, as it is to make enterprise difficult with red tape and hurdles. Businessmen are grown ups and should be allowed to freely risk their capital and make their profits or their losses without public intervention.

 

 

An economics-based policy would have single-mindedly sought to improve the financial condition of every governmental entity in the country, with the aim of improving the provision of public goods and services to all 1,000 million Indians. If and when budgets of all governmental entities become sound, foreign creditors would automatically line up before them with loans to sell, and ambitious development goals can be accomplished. As long as public budgets (and public accounts) remain in an outrageous shambles, nothing can be in fact achieved and only propaganda, corruption and paper-money creation results instead. Whatever economic growth does occur is due to new enterprise and normal technological progress, and is mostly despite and not because of New Delhi’s bureaucrats (see “The Dream Team: A Critique”, The Statesman 6-8 January 2006).

 

 

The first aspect of the new Indian foreign policy has been for Government to become wholly ingratiating towards any and all “First World” members visiting India who may deign to consider any kind of collaboration whatsoever. The long line of foreign businessmen and heads of government having photo-ops with the Indian PM began with Vajpayee and has continued with Manmohan, especially when there is a large weapons’ or commercial aircraft or other purchase to be signed. The flip-side has been ministerial and especially Prime Ministerial trips abroad ~ from Vajpayee’s to a Singapore golf-cart immediately after commiserating Gujarat, to Manmohan receiving foreign honorary doctorates while still holding public office.

 

 

Subservience to foreign business interests in the name of economic policy extends very easily to Indian naval, military or diplomatic assets being used to provide policing or support services for the great powers as and when they may ask for it. Hence, Indian naval forces may be asked by the Americans to help fight pirates in the Indian Ocean, or escort this vessel or that, or India may be asked to provide refuelling or base facilities, or India may be requested to vote against Iran, Venezuela or whomever here or there. But there would be absolutely no question of India’s role in international politics being anything greater than that of a subaltern or comprador whose response must be an instant “Ji, Huzoor”. The official backing of the Tharoor candidacy was as futile and ridiculous as the quest for UN veto-power or the willingness to attend G-8 summits as an observer.

 

 

While subservience towards the First World’s business and military interests is the “kiss up” aspect of the new foreign policy, an aggressive jingoism towards others is the “kick down” aspect. One influential voice among the media friends of the new foreign policy states it as follows: “The search for `equity oil’ has been the single most important new element of Indian economic diplomacy in recent years… Equity oil raises India’s stakes in the stability of regimes or even individuals who preside over these resources… the big question is how far would India go in defence of `regime stability’ elsewhere? And if it’s assets fall into hostile hands, would India be prepared to consider promoting `regime change’?” Just as surely as a pacifist Fabian socialist Nehru misperceived Stalin’s USSR, New Delhi’s new capitalistic jingoists have misperceived the Cheney-Rumsfeld grab for “equity oil” and have even defined Bush-Blair adventurism as being “the side of the angels”. How they must love to want to project Indian military force ~ paratroopers in the Maldives perhaps, though they need to recall what happened with the LTTE too!

 

 

Multiple Jallianwalla Bagh massacres may have been occurring in front of us in Iraq, Afghanistan and Balochistan, and there may soon be an attack on Iran too. New Delhi’s new “kiss up, kick down” attitude has rendered India’s once-dignified and sober voice silent, our eyes closed or our face turned away.

 

 

The obvious alternative to bureaucratic “kiss up, kick down” would be “kick up, kiss down” loved by all individualists and anti-bureaucrats. In other words, it would be for India to take each case and circumstance in international politics on its merits; be seen to stand up seriously to the powerful in world politics wherever and whenever necessary; seek to protect those who may be vulnerable to international or other brutality in world affairs, while getting on properly with the mundane business of ordinary government and commerce at all other times. That mundane business may call for a gradual withdrawal of India from all or most of the fancy, corrupt international bureaucracies in New York, Washington, Geneva etc, focussing calmly but determinedly instead on improved administration and governance at home. Such was what Rajiv Gandhi was advised in January 1991 (see “Memos to Rajiv,” The Statesman 31 July-2 August 1991; Freedom First October 2001), when for one futile moment he even formed a peaceful bridge between the Americans and Saddam during the first Gulf War. The New Delhi establishment may be too intoxicated with power and insecure intellectually to be able to reflect on such sober alternatives.

Posted in Asia and the West, Atal Behari Vajpayee, Bangladesh, BJP, Communists, Congress Party, Economic Policy, Freedom, India's Diplomacy, India's Economy, India's Energy, India's Foreign Policy, India's Military Defence, India's Monetary & Fiscal Policy, India's Polity, Indira Gandhi, Iraq war, Jammu & Kashmir, Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Manmohan Singh, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Rajiv Gandhi, Russia, September 11 attacks, Sheikh Abdullah, Sikhs, Sonia Gandhi, Sri Lanka, US Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Espionage, USA, United States, War, World History. Leave a Comment »

Racism New and Old (2006)

September 8, 2006 — drsubrotoroy

Racism New and Old

Subroto Roy

Editorial page, The Statesman September 8, 2006

When Iraqi Sunni terrorists killed 11 Pakistani and three Indian Shia pilgrims on the same bus to Karbala the other day, they did not check passports or wait to hear discourses from their victims about the validity of Jinnah’s Two-Nations Theory or the RSS’s views on Akhand Bharat and Bharat-Mata. All Indians and Pakistanis of whatever religion are pretty much “Hindis” to the average Arab. If Pakistanis (much to their own chagrin) are indistinguishable from Indians in many Arab eyes, Hindus and Sikhs are (much to their own chagrin) indistinguishable from Muslims in many North American and British eyes. Matthai Chakko Kuruvila, the San Francisco Chronicle’s Religion Writer (and whose own splendid ethnicity may appear obvious to us from his name), reports Paul Silverstein, an American anthropologist, saying “Muslims are the new Jews… They are the object of a series of stereotypes, caricatures and fears which are not based in a reality and are independent of a person’s experience with Muslims.” Kuruvila says: “The Muslim caricature has ensnared Hindus, Mexicans and others” across the USA “with violence, suspicion and slurs”, giving new form to America’s “age-old dance around racial identity”.

Assimilation

The subcontinent’s Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Christians and others are from pretty much similar racial populations, so when we wish to distinguish ourselves from one another as we tend to do on the subcontinent, we wear turbans, beards, long hair, veils, bindis etc ~ symbols about which the average New Jersey “dot-buster” or British “Paki-basher” cares not a hoot. London last year even saw Jean Charles de Menezes, a young Brazilian electrician on his way to work in the morning, pinned down by an elite squad of Britain’s much-vaunted policemen and receive seven bullets point-blank in the back of his skull ~ merely for having “looked Asian”.

Subcontinental immigrant families in the West experience a defining moment when the wife first bobs her long hair and takes to wearing slacks, skirts or even shorts, just so she can leave home and assimilate better in the workplace or shopping mall. The saris, salwars and real jewellery are kept for the weekends when she meets people who will understand her as herself, namely, her friends and kith and kin in the immigrant community. When salwar or sari-clad women start fake-kissing one another in Western-style greeting at those weekends, the alternation of their identities (and confusion in their self-knowledge) may have become complete. A limiting point of such attempts at assimilation is reached perhaps when an Asian woman becomes a BBC or CNN newsreader, reading what she has been told to yet still narcissistically indulging in the extent of her external transformation.

Muslim-Hindu differences of religious and cultural beliefs and practices between racially similar peoples may be contrasted with the main fault-lines that have existed in Western societies in recent centuries: fault-lines of race and colour between European and African, and of race and religion between Jew and Gentile.

An eminent American legal scholar once said African slavery had been “the living lie” in America’s official heritage of democracy and individual freedom. Black America took one hundred years from Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation to Martin Luther King Jr., to begin to overcome the impossible odds against it. Sports, music, show-biz and the arts were obvious arenas for public demonstration of individual genius. Athletes like Jesse Owens, Joe Louis and Arthur Ashe, musicians like Duke Ellington, Nat King Cole and Eartha Kitt, “in-your-face” satirists like Sammy Davis Jr, Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy upto and including modern rapsters and many thousands of others demonstrated that Black America was not going away anywhere, certainly not returning to Liberia, was going to stay in and permanently alter American life and culture, and wondered if anyone thought otherwise. The degree of assimilation into non-black cultures would be a matter of personal choice, not social or economic compulsion. During the Bush invasion of Iraq, Harry Belafonte re-ignited an old controversy when he referred to his fellow West Indian and perfectly assimilated Colin Powell in context of the “plantation slave”/”house slave” dichotomy: plantation slaves were externally oppressed but felt free within while house slaves had more comforts but were docile compradors inside their souls.

Immigrant communities from the subcontinent have had their share of the same. It has been all too easy for young people to reach academic highs in New Delhi or Kolkata only to escape to obscure corners of America and lead docile subservient unfulfilling lives forever afterwards, in exchange for material and ultimately meaningless rewards. It might be called the Madhuri Dixit Phenomenon of being transformed from celebrity-status in India to becoming a complete unknown in America.

Jewish-Gentile divide

The Jewish-Gentile divide in Western civilisation has been more insidious and damaging to mankind, and potentially remains so as the anger it generates has been transferred onto modern Muslims instead. At its unspoken roots is the frank Jewish theological assessment that Jesus of Nazareth was at most a wise and honest rabbi, not Christ Immanent ~ a veracious blow that seems to remove the corner-stone of all European culture and civilisation. The length of mutual recriminations and miscomprehensions as well as self-deceptions and cruelties over the millennia that have resulted on both sides, remains endless. On the Christian side there has been the vile persecution of Jews for centuries. On the Jewish side, there has arisen the vast myth that today’s Israel has something to do with the ancient Hebrews, when contemporary Jews likely descend mostly from the conversion to Judaism of the Khazar Khanate in the second half of the 9th Century (see e.g. Paul Meerts, “Assessing Khazaria”, International Institute for Asian Studies July 2004). In between Jewish and Christian self-deceptions and mutual misunderstandings has arisen Anti-Semitism, Zionism, and also Anti-Zionism (many thoughtful Jews having opposed the creation of Israel). As George Eliot, Hannah Arendt and many others noticed, the assimilation of 19th Century Jews into elite society in Vienna or London was only permitted where some exceptional individual genius was displayed, most prominently perhaps in case of Benjamin Disraeli who became Victoria’s Prime Minister. Even that acceptance of assimilated “exceptional” Jews came to disintegrate into the horrors of the 20th Century, from which we are yet to recover. Modern American foreign policy has been partly driven by the East and West Coasts’ understanding or misunderstanding of that history.

Posted in Arabs, Asia and the West, Britain, Christianity, Fascists, India's Caste/Ethnic Problems, India's emigrants to the West, India's Polity, Iraq war, Islam, Israel, Judaism, MA Jinnah, Martin Luther King Jr, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Racism, Sikhs, USA, United States, World History. Leave a Comment »

Is Balochistan Doomed? (2006)

September 3, 2006 — drsubrotoroy

Is Balochistan Doomed?

by Subroto Roy

First published  in The Sunday Statesman Editorial Page Special Article Sep 3 2006

Nawab Mohammad Akbar Khan Bugti’s death (apparently in a cave that was precision-bombed by the Pakistani military using American equipment after he had spoken on a Thuraya satellite-phone) lengthens Pakistan’s list of political killings and assassinations, many still unsolved.  Liaquat Ali Khan, Dr Khan Sahib, ZA Bhutto and sons as well as their enemy Zia ul Haq, are prominent members of the list. The Rule of Law is better in India to the extent we tend to solve and punish our major assassinations.

Bugti’s killing is symptomatic of many of Pakistan’s continuing ills, not least of which is the continuing inability of the military to comprehend politics as a discipline that accommodates competing interests and uses two-way dialogue, not one-way instruction, as its method. There is also the personal failure of Pervez Musharraf, seven years after his coup détat, to transform himself into Pakistan’s first genuine statesman in many years. Musharraf is a well-read, well-spoken soldier who sees himself as a man of destiny but he has quite simply failed to recognise statesmanship requires far more than personal ambition; he has become a Napoleon at home and a Quisling abroad when what he aspired to become was Pakistan’s Attaturk.

The roots of Pakistan’s Balochistan problem are depthless. When Pakistan was first created, Punjabis constituted 25 per cent of the population but 77 per cent of the new armed forces. East Bengalis constituted 55% of the population ~ a fact inevitably leading to the idea of a “one-unit West Pakistan wing” governing itself independent of the numerical majority of Bengali-speakers. Equally inevitably perhaps, this led to Punjabi military domination of East Pakistan; the history of Bangladesh’s creation is too well-known to need recitation here except to say the Mukti Bahini, like Balochi separatists today, were incapable of taking on Pakistan’s military on their own.

After Bangladesh’s secession, Pakistan became the four areas originally named in Iqbal’s 1930 speech conceptualising a Muslim country in North Western India (which, incidentally, excluded J&K despite Iqbal having been Kashmiri). Pakistan’s Pashtun and Baloch highlanders were never of Hindu/Indian origin, whereas the plainsmen consisting of Punjabis, Sindhis and migrants from India were (despite protestations and pretensions), closely related to their Hindu/Indian cousins and neighbours. Muslim and Hindu religious and cultural beliefs and practices may be very different, but DNA testing would likely identify most of the subcontinent’s Muslims and Hindus as ethnically indistinguishable from a scientific point of view.

The central fact driving and explaining Pakistan’s political history has been that the idea of Pakistan arose in the subcontinent’s Muslim-minority areas, not among the peoples of the areas that today constitute Pakistan ~ least of all the Baloch (viz., F Robinson in WE James & S Roy (eds) Foundations of Pakistan’s Political Economy). Having created a country based on an ideology imported by a handful of super-elite Indian migrants like Jinnah and Liaquat, serious political conversation and democratic nation-building of a high order was required immediately from Pakistan’s national statesmen to make the enterprise a success. That was never forthcoming simply because there were no such national statesmen, only rather thick bungling soldiers and some corpulent corrupt politicians. In an alternative universe in which ZA Bhutto had been born a generation earlier, things might have been different. Musharraf’s efforts since his January 2002 speech to become an intelligent modern soldier-statesman amount to far too little, far too late, rather the way the French physiocrats were too late and came to be swept away by revolution.

The Baloch are a tribal people who defeated and later assimilated the Dravidian(?)-Brahui inhabitants of the area. For most of their modern history they were independent though owed nominal allegiance to the Afghan ruler in Kabul. The 19th Century British created a strip known as “British Balochistan” including Quetta and Sibi, but were interested in the region solely to the extent it controlled access to Afghanistan and otherwise left the Khan of Kalat to himself. The British also annexed Sindh from a Balochi dynasty. In the 21st Century, it has become Balochistan not Afghanistan which has immense economic potential and strategic value in international politics. Yet its future must be filled with foreboding because Musharraf’s military-business state, goaded on by Western and Chinese business and military interests, has recognised its potential and begun to behave ruthlessly against Balochis as a result. Balochistan contains Pakistan’s reserves of uranium, coal, gold, silver, copper, aluminium, and of course plentiful natural gas at Sui. The Makran Coast had been gifted by the Khan of Kalat to Oman, and was bought back by Pakistan in 1958. Development of Gwadar and Ormara ports and naval bases (whose strategic value is self-evident) and a road link through the Karakoram to Sinkiang have now become top Pakistani and Chinese military and business priorities.

Gwadar real-estate speculation is rampant among Lahore and Rawalpindi’s military-businessmen, while two Chinese workers were killed in Gwadar by Balochi nationalists in 2004 causing ruthless Punjabi reprisals. Also, the Americans have long had secret CIA-built bases in Pasni and Dalbandin in Baloch territory, which are being used presently in military operations in Afghanistan; their Pashtun/Taliban enemy also use Quetta and northern Balochistan for rest and recuperation while fighting in Afghanistan! And Balochistan’s caves are where Pakistan’s nuclear-armed F-16s against India are hidden. The Balochi are a small, poor, traditionally peaceful, politically divided tribal minority of perhaps 6.5 million people spread sparsely over this vast arid area that constitutes more than 48% of Pakistan’s present territory. Despite the pretensions of an articulate expatriate rebel elite (including even a self-styled Government-in-Exile based in Jerusalem dreaming of a secular free Balochistan), Baloch guerrilla fighters are wholly incapable of taking on the organised military might of the Pakistani state, armed by America and China. The expansion of Pakistan’s 74 million Punjabis, 30 million Sindhis and 17 million Pashtun into Balochistan seems as inevitable at present as the expansion of the Han Chinese into Tibet ~ a similarity doubtless noted by Musharraf’s Communist Chinese friends and advisers. Also, because there are two million Balochis in Iranian Balochistan, Pakistan’s Balochi nationalists have had a declared enemy to their west in the Iranian Government ~ the Pahlevi regime even provided Italian-made American Huey helicopter gunships with Iranian pilots to help Bhutto crush the Baloch rebellions of the early 1970s. In fact, Balochi rebels have had no military allies except the pre-communist Government of Afghanistan under Daud, who “ordered the establishment of a training camp at Qandahar for Baloch liberation fighters. Between 10,000 and 15,000 Baloch youths were trained and armed there” (R Anwar, The Tragedy of Afghanistan 1988, p. 78). The Governments of India or the United States lack motivation or capability to help, and Balochistan may be doomed to becoming a large human rights/genocidal disaster of the next decade.

An independent Balochistan may be unviable, being overwhelmed by its riches while having too small, uneducated and backward a population of its own, and powerful greedy neighbours on either side. In effect, a weak Balochistan has been divided rather like a weak Poland was divided by Hitler and Stalin in the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact.

Today, the Pashtun of Pakistan and Afghanistan (as well as perhaps Sindhis of Baloch origin) may be the only interlocutors who can prevent a genocide and mediate a peace between Balochi nationalists and Musharraf’s ruthless Punjabi military-businessmen determined to colonize Balochistan completely with Chinese help, effectively subsidising their misgovernance elsewhere with Balochistan’s riches. Like Bhutto and Zia, Musharraf has chosen military suppression and failed to see the only way forward for Pakistan is political accommodation of both Baloch and Pashtun aspirations and desires, while solving Pakistan’s grave fiscal and monetary problems separately. The terms of a peaceful accommodation could involve e.g., a vertical administrative division of Pakistan between its tribal highlander peoples and its Indus Valley plainsmen (viz., The Statesman 16 July 2006) followed by slow, steady, sustainable development and modernization consistent with tribal cultural wishes ~ not Shanghai or World Bank capitalism. To be a man of destiny, Musharraf must transcend the military-business complex he rules over and reduce its role in Pakistani life, not increase it. Statesmanship involves taking risks for a noble cause and these are the main risks he needs to address and build a national consensus upon. Instead, he has enhanced military capabilities and seems hell-bent (perhaps on advice of his MBA prime minister) on ruthless exploitation of Balochistan as a Lahore/ Rawalpindi colony. It is the road to catastrophe.

(NB The original article said grandsons of Nawab Bugti had been killed with him, but this is not confirmed.)

Posted in Balochistan, Bangladesh, Britain, China, Freedom, India's Foreign Policy, Iqbal, Iran, Jammu & Kashmir, MA Jinnah, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Pashtuns, Pervez Musharraf, Tibet, USA, United States, World History. 2 Comments »

Understanding Pakistan

July 31, 2006 — drsubrotoroy

UNDERSTANDING PAKISTAN

First published in The Sunday Statesman & The Statesman Editorial Page Special Article

30-31 July, 2006

by

Subroto Roy

 

 

 

 

Pakistan’s political institutions have failed to develop properly over sixty years. Yet in the last ten years or more, its Government has acquired weapons of mass destruction and in 1998-99 its Foreign Minister half-threatened to use these against India in a first strike. As a religious and cultural phenomenon and as a putative nation-state, Pakistan needs to be sought to be understood in as unbiased and objective a manner as possible, not least by Pakistanis themselves, as well as by Afghans, Bangladeshis, Chinese, Americans,Israelis, Arabs, Iranians etc. besides ourselves in India.

 

The slogan “Islam in danger” has always had some substance since orthodox Muslims constantly face temptations in the world existing around them from materialism, scepticism, syncretism, pantheism etc. Some responded defensively to the Westernisation/modernisation of India’s Hindus, Parsees and Christians by becoming insular and separatist in outlook, and anti-individualist or communal in behaviour.

 

“We are an Arab people whose fathers have fallen in exile in the country of Hindustan, and Arabic genealogy and Arabic language are our pride,” declared Wali Allah (1703-1762), a contemporary of Nejd’s founder of Wahhabism. “We must repudiate all those Indian, Persian and Roman customs which are contrary to the Prophet’s teaching”, declared Barelvi (1786-1831), who also initiated the idea of a religious mass migration of North Indian Muslims. His movement saw “jihad as one of the basic tenets of faith… it chose as the venue of jihad the NW Frontier of the subcontinent, where it was directed against the Sikhs. Barelvi temporarily succeeded in carving out a small theocratic principality which collapsed owing to the friction between his Pathan and North Indian followers…” (A. Ahmed, in Basham (ed) Cultural History of India).

 

Political and psychological tensions between Pakistan’s Pashtun/Baloch tribal people and Punjabi/ Urdu elite continue to this day, even when many of the former have integrated into industries and vocations controlled by the latter. The highlanders were never part of Hindu societies, while the plainsmen, whether they admit it or not, ethnically were converts for the most part from India’s native religions (though here again the religious syncretism of Sindhis, both Muslim and Hindu, may be contrasted with orthodoxy). Barelvi’s theocracy, named Tariqa-yi Muhammadiya, had remnants near Sittana until the First World War, and his followers are still a major component of Pakistan’s most orthodox today.

 

Muslim separatism in North India would have been futile without British political backing. As early as 1874, the British saw their advantage: “The existence side by side of these hostile creeds (Hindu and Muslim) is one of the strong points in our political position in India. The better classes of Mohammedans are a source of strength to us and not of weakness. They constitute a comparatively small but an energetic minority of the population whose political interests are identical with ours.” When the Agha Khan’s 1906 delegation first pleaded for communal representation, Minto agreed with them, and Minto’s wife wrote in her diary the effect was “nothing less than the pulling back of sixty two millions (of Muslims) from joining the ranks of the seditious opposition.” The slogan “If you are not with us you are against us” was always widely applied by the British in India in the form “If you dare to not be with us, we definitely will be with your adversaries”.

 

One obscure ideological current of today’s Pakistan came via the enigmatic personage of Inayatullah Mashriqi (1888-1963), who, from being a Cambridge Wrangler, became a friend of Adolf Hitler in 1926, received a Renault as a gift from Hitler (possibly housed in a Lahore museum today) and claimed to have affected Hitler’s ideology. Mashriqi created the Khaksars, modelled on the Nazi SA, and was often jailed for violence.

 

But the official ideology of today’s Pakistan came from Mohammad Iqbal (1877-1938), an admirer of Friedrich Nietzsche. Indeed, “Pakistan” would have been better named “Iqbalistan” and its nationals “Iqbalians”, just as countries like Colombia, the USA, Israel, Saudi Arabia etc. have been named after an individual person. Iqbal’s 1930 Presidential Speech to the Muslim League in Allahabad conceptualised the country that exists today: “I would like to see the Punjab, NWFP, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single state…the formation of a consolidated NW Indian Muslim state appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims at least of NW India… India is the greatest Muslim country in the world. The life of Islam as a cultural force in this living country very largely depends on its centralisation in a specified territory… “

 

Though Kashmiri himself, Iqbal was silent about J&K being any part of this new entity. Nor did he see this Muslim country being theocratic or filled with anti-Hindu bigotry: “A community which is inspired by feelings of ill-will towards other communities is low and ignoble. I entertain the highest respect for the customs, laws, religious and social institutions of other communities…. Yet I love the communal group which is the source of my life and my behaviour; and which has formed me what I am by giving me its religion, its literature, its thought, its culture,and thereby recreating its whole past, as a living operating factor, in my present consciousness… Nor should the Hindus fear that the creation of autonomous Muslim states will mean the introduction of a kind of religious rule in such states…. I therefore demand the formation of a consolidated Muslim state in the best interests of India and Islam. For India it means security and peace resulting from an internal balance of power, for Islam an opportunity to rid itself of the stamp that Arabian Imperialism was forced to give it, to mobilise its law, its education, its culture, and to bring them into closer contact with its own original spirit and the spirit of modern times.” Iqbal clearly wished to be rid of the same stamp of Arabian Imperialism that Wali Allah had extolled.

 

In 1937, Iqbal added an economic dimension referring to Shariat in order that “at least the right to subsistence is secured to everybody”. A “free Muslim state or states” was “the only way to solve the problem of bread for Muslims as well as to secure a peaceful India.”

 

Iqbal persuaded MA Jinnah (1876-1948), who had settled once again into his London law practice, to return to India in 1934. But when, following the 1935 Government of India Act, India experienced its first democratic elections in 1937, the Muslim League’s ideology promoted by Iqbal and Jinnah failed miserably in the very four provinces that Iqbal had named.

 

Three days after Hitler’s attack on Poland, the British chose to politically empower Jinnah. Until September 4 1939, the British “had had little time for Jinnah and his League. The Government’s declaration of war on Germany on 3 September, however, transformed the situation. A large part of the army was Muslim, much of the war effort was likely to rest on the two Muslim majority provinces of Punjab and Bengal. The following day, the Viceroy invited Jinnah for talks on an equal footing with Gandhi…. because the British found it convenient to take the League seriously, everyone had to as well” (F. Robinson, in James & Roy (eds) Foundations of Pakistan’s Political Economy). Jinnah himself was amazed: “suddenly there was a change in the attitude towards me. I was treated on the same basis as Mr Gandhi. I was wonderstruck why all of a sudden I was promoted and given a place side by side with Mr Gandhi.”

 

Britain at war was faced too with intransigence from the Congress — Gandhi, for example, rudely dismissing the 1942 Cripps offer as a “post-dated cheque on a failing bank”. It was unsurprising this would contribute to the British tilt towards Congress’s adversary. Suddenly, Rahmat Ali’s acronym “PAKSTAN” , supposedly invented on the top floor of a London bus, was becoming a credible possibility.

 

By 1946, Muslim electoral opinion had changed drastically in the League’s favour. By 1947, Iqbal’s lofty philosophical vision of a cultured Muslim state had degenerated into irrational street mobs shouting: “Larke lenge Pakistan; Marke lenge Pakistan; Khun se lenge Pakistan; Dena hoga Pakistan”.

 

Events remote from India’s history and geography, namely, Hitler’s rise and the Second World War, had contributed between 1937 and 1947 to the change of fortune of Jinnah’s League, and hence the fate of all the people of the subcontinent. Even so, thanks to AK Azad’s diplomacy, the May 1946 Cabinet Mission Plan denying Partition and Pakistan did come to be accepted by Jinnah’s Muslim League, and it was doubtless the obduracy and megalomania of Azad’s Congress colleagues which contributed equally to the failure to find a political solution ~ along with the vapid behaviour of a pompous, vacuous Mountbatten who caused infinite uncertainty until June 3 1947, as to what was going to happen to the lives of scores of millions of ordinary people within a few weeks.

 

In August 1947, the new Pakistani elite hardly felt or even wished to feel free of the British ~ they merely felt independent of what they saw as Congress domination, and had now acquired some power for themselves. Far from any nation-building taking place, Pakistan’s early years were marked by political, legal, constitutional and military chaos and trauma. Both Dominions made a grab for the Raj’s common assets, especially the armed forces.

 

Indeed, how did the Kashmir problem originate? As much as any other factor, it occurred because of the incompetent partitioning of military assets and hurried decommissioning of British Indian armies ~ causing thousands of Mirpuri soldiers to return to a communally inflamed Punjab/ Jammu region.

 

The first J&K war started within weeks of Partition and was in all but name a civil war ~ somewhat like the American Civil War. It was a civil war not merely between Kashmir’s National and Muslim Conferences but also between Army regiments who had been jointly fighting Britain’s enemies until very recently.

 

Pakistan’s leadership vacuum started at once. Jinnah was ill and died shortly. Liaquat Ali Khan was the only politician of any experience left. He faced on one side Pashtuns having no wish to be dominated by a new Karachi/ Rawalpindi elite, and on the other side, the Kashmir conflict. The most basic functions of governance never got started. Taking a Census has been one such function since Roman times, yet Pakistan has never had one. Writing a Constitution is another, but Maududi and others demanded “That the sovereignty in Pakistan belongs to God Almighty alone and that the Government of Pakistan shall administer the country as His agent”. As a result, Pakistan’s few constitutionalists have been battling impossibly ever since to overcome the ontological mistake made of assuming that any earthly government, no matter how pious, can be in communication with God Almighty as easily as it can be with foreign governments.

 

The Rule of Law is another basic function. But when Liaquat was himself assassinated in 1951, his assassin was killed on the spot yet the murder remained unsolved. Mashriqi was immediately arrested because of his hostility to the Muslim League, but later released. Because the assassin was Pashtun, Afghanistan was blamed but the Afghan Government proved otherwise. The investigating policeman was killed in an aircrash, and all documents went with him. Final suspicion pointed towards Akbar Khan, the renegade Army general who had led the attack on J&K and was in jail for the Rawalpindi conspiracy. Years later, Liaquat’s widow (the former Irene Pant of Naini Tal) rued the fact no one was ever prosecuted.

 

After Liaquat’s assassination, the period of Ghulam Mohammad, Nazimuddin, Mohammad Ali Bogra, Chaudhury Mohammad Ali, and most importantly, Iskander Mirza leading up to Ayub Khan’s Martial Law in 1958, was simply appalling in its display of the sheer irresponsibility of Pakistan’s new super-elite. Instead of domestic nation-building or fulfilling the basic functions of governance, close comprador relations came to be established with the US and British Governments ~ exemplified by Mirza’s elder son taking the American Ambassador’s daughter as his (first) wife and moving to a lifelong career with the World Bank in Washington. This comprador relationship between Washington, London and Pakistan’s super-elite flourishes and continues to this day. E.g., the current World Bank head and architect of the 2003 Bush invasion of Iraq, Paul Wolfowitz, remains in a mentoring relationship with Shaukat Aziz, a former American bank executive, who is General Musharraf’s Prime Minister. For better or worse, Pakistan’s Government will never veer from the side of Anglo-American policy while such comprador relationships remain intact.

 

Before the 1971 war, West Pakistan was in a frenzy from a propaganda campaign of “Crush India” and “Hang Mujib”. General Niazi’s surrender to General Arora in Dhaka Stadium ~ causing 90,000 PoWs whom India then protected from Bangladeshi revenge ~ shocked Pakistan and shattered the self-image of its Army. ZA Bhutto was the only populist politician of the country ever, and his few years held vanishing promise of a normal political agenda (no matter how economically misguided) finally arising. But Bhutto suppressed the new Baloch revolt with the Shah of Iran’s military help; at the same time he failed to protect his own back against Zia ul Haq’s coup, leading to his judicial murder in 1979. Zia tried to rebuild the Army’s shattered esprit de corps the only way he knew how, which was by indoctrinating the Punjabi officer corps with Sunni dogmatism. This coincided with the Afghan civil war, influx of refugees, and US-Saudi-Chinese plan to defeat the USSR. Pakistan’s super-elite in their comprador role were happy to allow themselves to be used again and be hung out to dry afterwards.

 

All normal branches of Pakistan’s polity, like the electorate,press, political parties, Legislature and Judiciary, have remained at best in ill-formed inchoate states of being. The economy remains, like India’s, one fed on endless deficit finance paid for by unlimited printing of inconvertible paper money, though Pakistan has had relatively more labour emigration and much less foreign investment and technological progress than India. Both are wracked by corruption, poverty, ignorance and superstition.

 

Over half a century, the military has acquired vast economic and political interests and agendas, on pretext of protecting Pakistan from India or gaining “Kashmeer” for it. With few and noble exceptions, academics, politicians and journalists have remained timid in face of fascistic State-power with its militarist/Islamist ideology ~ causing a transferance of the people’s anger and frustration onto an easier target, namely ourselves in India. Anti-Indianism (especially over J&K) remains the sole unifying factor of Pakistan’s super-elite, regardless of what history’s objective facts may have to say. Much political courage and understanding will be needed for that to be reversed.

 

All countries hunger for genuine national heroes who take upon themselves individual risks on behalf of ordinary people. Wali Khan stood up to his father’s jailors, and young Benazir of 1980s vintage to her father’s executioner. But Pakistan has had few such heroes,certainly none among its bemedalled generals. Why AQ Khan is seen as a hero is because he at least took some personal risks, and finally brought Pakistan a kind of respect and independence in the world with his Bomb.

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The Greatest Pashtun: Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan

July 16, 2006 — drsubrotoroy

THE GREATEST PASHTUN

First published in The Sunday Statesman Editorial Page Special Article, July 16 2006

By

SUBROTO ROY

Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1890-1988) was without a doubt the greatest political genius the Pashtun people have yet produced.

Understanding the political economy of the Pashto/Pakhto speaking peoples, as well as the Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, Turkmen and other inhabitants of Afghanistan, remains a top intellectual challenge for everyone including themselves. Afghans have hardly lived a peaceful decade since Genghiz Khan destroyed them avenging his grandson in the 13th Century.  Ghazni, Ghor, Peshawar etc. were launch-pads for attacks against the settled people of India’s fertile plains (most recently, the October 1947 attack on Kashmir Valley) while Herat saw wars by and against Iran.

Lyall, one of the architects of 19th Century British policy, thought Afghans “wretched”, “treacherous barbarians with whom it was an unfortunate necessity to have any dealings at all”… “I can only sympathise with the Afghan’s love for his country and his hatred against those who disturb him, although he has no scruple in disturbing others to the best of his savage ability”. Yet the British idea of Russian armies marching into India through Afghanistan was always a wild exaggeration, especially after joint boundary commissions demarcated the imperial spheres of influence. When the Russians did finally enter and occupy Afghanistan in 1978-79, they lived to regret it; and they arrived in independent India on passenger aircraft, were greeted as fraternal socialists selling weapons, and remain so today. Pakistan’s generals exaggerated the prospect of Russia seeking warm water ports, first to Nixon (as Vice President) then to Carter and Reagan, causing the Americans to happily supply weapons which the generals promptly turned against India.

Ghaffar Khan was and remains the only thoughtful figure in Pashtun history who invented a new, living political philosophy as a constructive force for his people’s peace and progress. Even though his ideology failed to take permanent root or survive among them, he commanded universal respect among all Pashtuns and Afghans and became “Badshah Khan” or “Bacha Khan” to them. Afghanistan’s civil war, in which the USSR was pit against the USA, Pakistan etc, stopped with a ceasefire in 1988 for his burial to take place in Jalalabad, with a funeral procession that was miles long.

Pashtun and other Afghan and Arab tribal people have become notorious today by their association with the dogmatism, intellectual insularity and retrograde ideology of Muslim extremism. Yet Osama bin Laden and his Taliban and other friends have been unable to make any moral argument for the cause of violence other than one built on revenge for perceived or misperceived injustices against Muslims. “Because you have done this and this to Muslim people, we are bound by the code of vengeance to do this to you” is just about the entire quantum of moral reasoning contained in Al-Qaida’s statements. “Revenge is a wild kind of justice” and circumstances can exist where injustice is so deep that only revenge suffices in rectification. The current case of the rape-murder of an Iraqi girl and her family by a group of renegade American soldiers may be one such, which explicitly led to the kidnap, torture and murder of some of the soldiers by Iraqis seeking vengeance. But justice too is a civilised kind of revenge, and the transition from a code of revenge to a code of justice is precisely the transition from tribal warfare to civilisation. In Western countries, it occurred recently enough when duelling with swords or pistols came to be banned, giving way to the law of torts.

Ghaffar Khan attempted to change the Pashtun code in this one fundamental and all-important direction by abolishing the right to revenge. In its place he brought the doctrine of non-violence. “I am going to give you such a weapon that the police and the army will not be able to stand against it. It is the weapon of the Prophet, but you are not aware of it. That weapon is patience and righteousness. No power on earth can stand against it.”Patience and righteousness are not political virtues that seem to find much mention in Islamic or Afghan folklore, and doubtless they arose in Ghaffar Khan’s thought and actions at least partly through his encounter with Christian altruism, first with Rev. Wigram his schoolmaster, and later in adult life with the Tolstoy-Thoreau doctrines applied along with Jain ahimsa by MK Gandhi in the movement for Indian independence.

“It is the weapon of the Prophet” was Ghaffar Khan making explicit he was and remained at all times the most devout of Muslims and none could say otherwise; “but you are not aware of it” was his new move to tell his people they had misled themselves by sacerdotalism and needed to read the Prophet’s life and message afresh. He once told M. K. Gandhi how he explained to amazed Punjabi Muslim Leaguers the precise evidence in favour of non-violence from the Prophet’s life in Mecca, leaving his audience speechless.

Today’s “Taliban” were named for their purported piety; Lashkar-e-Taiba even means “Army of the Pious”, the typical image being of pious studious youth seated memorising scriptures in a Pakistani madrassa, and later waving AK-47s in a moving truck. Ghaffar Khan’s Khudai Khidmatgar “Servants of God” were their polar opposite. Each of some 120,000 members of the order took a fierce oath to non-violence and renunciation: “I am a Servant of God, and as God needs no service, but serving his creation is serving him, I promise to serve humanity in the name of God; to refrain from violence and from taking revenge; to forgive those who oppress me or treat me with cruelty; to refrain from taking part in feuds and quarrels and from creating enmity; to treat every Pathan as my brother and friend; to refrain from antisocial customs and practices; to live a simple life, to practice virtue, and to refrain from evil; to practice good manners and good behaviour and not to lead a life of idleness… I will sacrifice my wealth, life, and comfort for the liberty of my nation and people… side with the oppressed against the oppressor… live in accordance with principles of nonviolence… serve all God’s creatures alike… my object shall be the attainment of the freedom of my country and my religion. … will never desire any reward whatever for my service. All my efforts shall be to please God, and not for any show or gain.”

In their founder’s words, the Khudai Khidmatgars were to be ready to lay down their own lives for their cause and never take any life doing so. They became far more forceful practitioners of non-violence than their Gandhian Indian counterparts in the struggle for political freedom from the British, and hundreds of them died in Peshawar under British brutality.

In 1893, Durand’s controversial boundary-line gave the British control over the three mountain passes between Afghanistan and India in exchange for raising the annual British subsidy to the Afghan Amir by 50% from Rs 8 lakhs to 12 lakhs. Today, the Durand Line roughly separates perhaps 10 million Pashtun comprising 40% of Afghanistan’s population from perhaps 8 million Pashtun who are Pakistani nationals (no one has exact figures as there has been no census). In the 1950s and 1960s, the Afghan Government backed by the USSR, on pretence that the Durand Line had not been freely accepted by Afghans, wished for a “Pakhtoonistan” under its sway.

Though jailed by the new and nervous Pakistanis, Ghaffar Khan was averse to any truck with the Afghan Government ~ he had not demanded erasing the Durand Line but had demanded a separate and distinct “Pashtunistan”. A mature self-confident federal Pakistan today would bifurcate itself vertically into one or two mountainous western provinces on one side, and two or three river valley eastern provinces on the other. The former could be named “East Pashtunistan” if the Baloch agreed, or East Pashtunistan and Baluchistan otherwise, and extend to the port of Gwadar, while the latter would remain Punjab, Sindh and “Northern Kashmir”.

Along with an Afghan “West Pashtunistan” and an Indian “Southern Kashmir”, a stable design of peaceful nation-states from Iran through Afghanistan and Pakistan to India would be then finally in place. Badshah Khan’s influence in death may yet become greater than his influence in life.

Posted in Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Afghanistan, Ahimsa, anarchy and governance, Anglo-Russian Treaty 1907, Asia and the West, Balochistan, Britain, Christianity, Cold War, Curzon, Gilgit and Baltistan, India's History, India's Philosophy, India's Polity, Iraq war, Islam, Jainism, Jammu & Kashmir, Laws of war, MK Gandhi, Nationalism, Osama bin Laden, Pakistan's history, Pakistan's terrorist training institutes, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistani expansionism, Pashtuns, Philosophy, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Russia, Science, Religion, Literature, Tadjikistan, US Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Espionage, US Military Doctrine, US Pakistan policy, US-Iran relations, USA, United States, Uzbekistan, War, World History. 2 Comments »

Law, Justice and J&K (2006)

July 3, 2006 — drsubrotoroy

LAW, JUSTICE AND J&K

by SUBROTO ROY

First published in two parts inThe Sunday Statesman, July 2 2006 and The Statesman July 3 2006 Editorial Page Special Article

 

I.

For a solution to J&K to be universally acceptable it must be seen by all as being lawful and just. Political opinion in Pakistan and India as well as all people and parties in J&K ~ those loyal to India, those loyal to Pakistan, and any others ~ will have to agree that, all things considered, such is the right course of action for everyone today in the 21st Century, which means too that the solution must be consistent with the facts of history as well as account reasonably for all moral considerations.

On August 14, 1947, the legal entity known as “British India”, as one of its final acts, and based on a sovereign British decision made only two months earlier, created out of some of its territory a new State defined in international law as the “Dominion of Pakistan”. British India extinguished itself the very next day, and the newly independent “Dominion of India” succeeded to all its rights and obligations in international law. As the legal successor of the “India” which had signed the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 and the San Francisco Declaration of 1945, the Dominion of India was already a member of the new UN as well as a signatory to many international treaties. By contrast, the Dominion of Pakistan had to apply afresh to sign treaties and become a member of international organisations. The theory put forward by Argentina that two new States, India and Pakistan, had been created ab initio, came to be rejected and was withdrawn by Argentina. Instead, Pakistan with the wholehearted backing of India was made a member of the UN, with all except Afghanistan voting in favour. (Afghanistan’s exceptional vote signalled presence of conflict over the Durand Line and idea of a Pashtunistan; Dr Khan Sahib and Abdul Ghaffar Khan were imprisoned by the Muslim League regime of NWFP which later supported the tribesmen who attacked J&K starting October 22, 1947; that conflict remains unresolved to this day, even after the American attack on the Taliban, the restart of a constitutional process in Afghanistan, and the purported mediation of US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice.)

Zafrullah Khan, Pakistan’s distinguished first ambassador to the UN, claimed in September 1947: “Pakistan is not a new member of UNO but a successor to a member State which was one of the founders of the Organisation.” He noted that he himself had led India to the final session of the League of Nations in Geneva in 1939, and he wished to say that Pakistan had been present “as part of India… under the latter name” as a signatory to the Treaty of Versailles. This was, however, logically impossible. The Treaty of Versailles long predated (1) Mohammad Iqbal’s Allahabad Address which conceptualised for the first time in the 20th Century a Muslim State in Northwest India; (2) Rahmat Ali’s invention of the word “PAKSTAN” on the top floor of a London omnibus; (3) M. A. Jinnah and Fazlul Haq’s Lahore Resolution; and (4) the final British decision of June 3, 1947 to create by Partition out of “British India” a Dominion named Pakistan. Pakistan could not have acted in international law prior to having come into being or been created or even conceived itself. Zafrullah Khan would have been more accurate to say that the history of Pakistanis until August 14, 1947 had been one in common with that of their Indian cousins ~ or indeed their Indian brothers, since innumerable North Indian Muslim families came to be literally partitioned, with some brothers remaining Indians while other brothers became Pakistanis.

Pakistan was created at the behest of Jinnah’s Muslim League though with eventual agreement of the Indian National Congress (a distant ancestor of the political party going by the same name today). Pakistan arose not because Jinnah said Hindus and Muslims were “two nations” but because he and his League wished for a State where Muslims would find themselves ruled by fellow-Muslims and feel themselves part of a pan-Islamic culture. Yet Pakistan was intended to be a secular polity with Muslim-majority governance, not an Islamic theocracy. That Pakistan failed to become secular was exemplified most poignantly in the persecution Zafrullah himself later faced in his personal life as an Ahmadiya, even while he was Pakistan’s Foreign Minister. (The same happened later to Pakistan’s Nobel-winning physicist Abdus Salaam.) Pakistan was supposed to allow the genius of Indo-Muslim culture to flourish, transplanted from places like Lucknow and Aligarh which would never be part of it. In fact, the areas that are Pakistan today had in the 1937 provincial elections shown scant popular Muslim support for Jinnah’s League. The NWFP had a Congress Government in the 1946 elections, and its supporters boycotted the pro-Pakistan referendum in 1947. The imposition of Urdu culture as Pakistan’s dominant ethos might have come to be accepted later in West Punjab, Sindh and NWFP but it was not acceptable in East Bengal, and led inevitably to the Pakistani civil war and creation of Bangladesh by Sheikh Mujib in 1971.

In August 1947, the new Dominions of India and Pakistan were each supposed to protect their respective minority populations as their first political duty. Yet both palpably failed in this, and were reduced to making joint declarations pleading for peace and an end to communal killings and the abduction of women. The Karachi Government, lacking the wherewithal and administrative machinery of being a nation-state at all, and with only Liaquat and an ailing Jinnah as noted leaders, may have failed more conspicuously, and West Punjab, the Frontier and Sindh were soon emptied of almost all their many Sikhs and Hindus. Instead, the first act of the new Pakistan Government in the weeks after August 14, 1947 was to arrange for the speedy and safe transfer of the North Indian Muslim elite by air from Delhi using chartered British aeroplanes. The ordinary Muslim masses of UP, Delhi and East Punjab were left in danger from or were subjected to Sikh and Hindu mob attacks, especially as news and rumours spread of similar outrages against Pakistan’s departing minorities.

In this spiral of revenge attacks and counter-attacks, bloodshed inevitably spilled over from West and East Punjab into the northern Punjabi plains of Jammu, though Kashmir Valley remained conspicuously peaceful. Zafrullah and Liaquat would later claim it was this communal civil war which had caused thousands of newly decommissioned Mirpuri soldiers of the British Army, and thousands of Afridi and other Frontier tribesmen, to spontaneously act to “liberate” J&K’s Muslims from alleged tyranny under the Hindu Ruler or an allegedly illegal Indian occupation.

But the main attack on J&K State that began from Pakistan along the Manshera-Muzaffarabad road on October 22, 1947 was admittedly far too well-organised, well-armed, well-planned and well-executed to have been merely a spontaneous uprising of tribesmen and former soldiers. In all but name, it was an act of undeclared war of the new Dominion of Pakistan first upon the State of J&K and then upon the Indian Dominion. This became obvious to Field Marshall Auchinlek, who, as Supreme Commander of the armed forces of both India and Pakistan, promptly resigned and abolished the Supreme Command in face of the fact that two parts of his own forces were now at war with one another.

II.

The invaders failed to take Srinagar solely because they lost their military purpose while indulging in the Rape of Baramula. Thousands of Kashmiri women of all communities ~ Muslim, Sikh and Hindu ~ were violated and transported back to be sold in markets in Peshawar and elsewhere. Such was standard practice in Central Asian tribal wars from long before the advent of Islam, and the invading tribesmen shared that culture. India’s Army and Air Force along with the militias of the secular democratic movement led by Sheikh Abdullah and those remaining loyal units of J&K forces, fought off the invasion, and liberated Baramula, Naushera, Uri, Poonch etc. Gilgit had a British-led coup détat against it bringing it under Pakistan’s control. Kargil was initially taken by the Pakistanis and then lost by them. Leh could have been but was not taken by Pakistani forces. But in seeking to protect Leh and to retake Kargil, the Indian Army lost the siege of Skardu ~ which ended reputedly with the infamous communication from the Pakistani commander to his HQ: “All Sikhs killed; all women raped.”

Legal theory

Now, in this grave mortal conflict, the legal theory to which both the Indian and Pakistani Governments have been wedded for sixty years is one that had been endorsed by the British Cabinet Mission in 1946 and originated with the Butler Commission of 1929. Namely, that “Lapse of Paramountcy” over the “Indian India” of the “Native States” could and did occur with the extinction of British India on August 15, 1947. By this theory, Hyderabad, J&K, Junagadh and the several other States which had not acceded to either Dominion were no longer subject to the Crown’s suzerainty as of that date. Both Dominions drew up “Instruments of Accession” for Rulers to sign upon the supposed “Lapse” of Paramountcy that was to occur with the end of British India.

Ever since, the Pakistan Government has argued that Junagadh’s Ruler acceded to Pakistan and Hyderabad’s had wished to do so but both were forcibly prevented by India. Pakistan has also argued the accession to India by J&K’s Ruler was “fraudulent” and unacceptable, and Sheikh Abdullah was a “Quisling” of India and it was not his National Conference but the Muslim Conference of Ibrahim, Abbas and the Mirwaiz (precursor of the Hurriyat) which represented J&K’s Muslims.

India argued that Junagadh’s accession to Pakistan or Hyderabad’s independence were legal and practical impossibilities contradicting the wills of their peoples, and that their integration into the Indian Dominion was carried out in an entirely legitimate manner in the circumstances prevailing.

On J&K, India has argued that not only had the Ruler requested Indian forces to fight off the Pakistani attack, and he acceded formally before Indian forces were sent, but also that democratic principles were fully adhered to in the unequivocal endorsement of the accession by Sheikh Abdullah and the National Conference and further by a duly called and elected J&K Constituent Assembly, as well as generations of Kashmiris since. In the Indian view, it is Pakistan which has been in illegal occupation of Indian territory from Mirpur, Muzaffarabad and Gilgit to Skardu all the way to the Khunjerab Pass, Siachen Glacier and K2, some of which it illegally ceded to its Communist Chinese ally, and furthermore that it has denied the peoples of these areas any democratic voice.

Roman law

In June 1947, it was uniquely and brilliantly argued by BR Ambedkar in a statement to the Press that the British had made a catastrophic error in comprehending their own constitutional law, that no such thing as “Lapse” of Paramountcy existed, and that suzerainty over the “Native States” of “Indian India” would be automatically transferred in international law to the successor State of British India. It was a legal illusion to think any Native State could be sovereign even for a single logical moment. On this theory, if the Dominion of India was the sole successor State in international law while Pakistan was a new legal entity, then a Native State which acceded to Pakistan after August 15, 1947 would have had to do so with the consent of the suzerain power, namely, India, as may be said to have happened implicitly in case of Chitral and a few others. Equally, India’s behaviour in integrating (or annexing) Junagadh and Hyderabad, would become fully explicable ~ as would the statements of Mountbatten, Nehru and Patel before October 1947 that they would accept J&K going to Pakistan if that was what the Ruler and his people desired. Pakistan unilaterally and by surprise went to war against J&K on October 22, declared the accession to India “fraudulent”, and to this day has claimed the territory of the original State of J&K is “disputed”. Certainly, even if the Ambedkar doctrine is applied that no “Lapse” was possible under British law, Pakistan did not recognise India’s jurisdiction there as the suzerain power as of August 15, 1947. Altogether, Pakistan’s sovereign actions from October 22 onwards amounted to acting to annex J&K to itself by military force ~ acts which came to be militarily resisted (with partial success) by India allied with Sheikh Abdullah’s National Conference and the remaining forces of J&K. By these military actions, Pakistan revealed that it considered J&K territory to have descended into a legal state of anarchy as of October 22, 1947, and hence open to resolution by “Military Decision” ~ as is indeed the just outcome under Roman Law, the root of all municipal and international law today, when there is a contest between claimants over an ownerless entity.

Choice of nationality

Hence, the present author concluded (“Solving Kashmir”, The Statesman December 1-3, 2005) that the dismemberment of the original J&K State and annexation of its territories by India and Pakistan that has occurred since 1947, as represented first by the 1949 Ceasefire Line and then by the 1972 Line of Control, is indeed the just and lawful outcome prevailing in respect of the question of territorial sovereignty and jurisdiction. The remaining “democratic” question described has to do with free individual choice of nationality by the inhabitants, under conditions of full information and privacy, citizen-by-citizen, with the grant of permanent residency rights by the Indian Republic to persons under its jurisdiction in J&K who may choose not to remain Indian nationals but become Afghan, Iranian or Pakistani nationals instead. Pakistan has said frequently its sole concern has been the freedom of the Muslims of J&K under Indian rule, and any such genuine concern shall have been thereby fully met by India. Indeed, if Pakistan agreed to act similarly, this entire complex mortal problem of decades shall have begun to be peacefully resolved. Both countries are wracked by corruption, poverty and bad governance, and would be able to mutually draw down military forces pit against one another everywhere, so as to begin to repair the grave damage to their fiscal health caused by the deleterious draining away of vast public resources .

Posted in Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Afghanistan, Air warfare, Asia and the West, BR Ambedkar, Britain, Gilgit and Baltistan, Good and Evil, Gulab Singh, Imperialism, India's Diplomacy, India's Foreign Policy, India's History, India's Jurisprudence, India's Land, India's Military Defence, India's Polity, India-Pakistan peace process, International Law, Iqbal, Islam, Jammu & Kashmir, Jurisprudence, Laddakh, MA Jinnah, Pakistan's history, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Pashtuns, Roman Law, Secular governance, Sheikh Abdullah, Sikhs, UN/League of Nations, US Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Espionage, War, World History, Zafrullah Khan. 1 Comment »

Pakistan’s Allies

June 5, 2006 — drsubrotoroy

PAKISTAN’S ALLIES

First published in two parts in The Sunday Statesman, June 4 2006, The Statesman June 5 2006, Editorial Page Special Article

by Subroto Roy

From the 1846 Treaty of Amritsar creating the State of Jammu & Kashmir until the collapse of the USSR in 1991, Britain and later the USA became increasingly interested in the subcontinent’s Northwest. The British came to India by sea to trade. Barren, splendid, landlocked Afghanistan held no interest except as a home of fierce tribes; but it was the source of invasions into the Indian plains and prompted a British misadventure to install Shah Shuja in place of Dost Mohammad Khan leading to ignominious defeat. Later, Afghanistan was seen as the underbelly of the Russian and Soviet empires, and hence a location of interest to British and American strategic causes.

In November 1954, US President Dwight Eisenhower authorized 30 U-2 spy aircraft to be produced for deployment against America’s perceived enemies, especially to investigate Soviet nuclear missiles which could reach the USA. Reconnaissance balloons had been unsuccessful, and numerous Western pilots had been shot down taking photographs from ordinary military aircraft. By June 1956, U-2 were making clandestine flights over the USSR and China. But on May 1 1960, one was shot or forced down over Sverdlovsk, 1,000 miles within Soviet territory. The Americans prevaricated that it had taken off from Turkey on a weather-mission, and been lost due to oxygen problems. Nikita Kruschev then produced the pilot, Francis Gary Powers, who was convicted of spying, though was exchanged later for a Soviet spy. Powers had been headed towards Norway, his task to photograph Soviet missiles from 70,000 ft, his point of origin had been an American base 20 miles from Peshawar.

America needed clandestine “forward bases” from which to fly U-2 aircraft, and Pakistan’s ingratiating military and diplomatic establishment was more than willing to offer such cooperation, fervently wishing to be seen as a “frontline state” against the USSR. “We will help you defeat the USSR and we are hopeful you will help us defeat India” became their constant refrain. By 1986, the Americans had been permitted to build air-bases in Balochistan and also use Mauripur air-base near Karachi.

Jammu & Kashmir and especially Gilgit-Baltistan adjoins the Pashtun regions whose capital has been Peshawar. In August-November 1947, a British coup d’etat against J&K State secured Gilgit-Baltistan for the new British Dominion of Pakistan.

The Treaty of Amritsar had nowhere required Gulab Singh’s dynasty to accept British political control in J&K as came to be exercised by British “Residents” in all other Indian “Native States”. Despite this, Delhi throughout the late 19th Century relentlessly pressed Gulab Singh’s successors Ranbir Singh and Partab Singh to accept political control. The Dogras acquiesced eventually. Delhi’s desire for control had less to do with the welfare of J&K’s people than with protection of increasing British interests in the area, like European migration to Srinagar Valley and guarding against Russian or German moves in Afghanistan. “Sargin” or “Sargin Gilit”, later corrupted by the Sikhs and Dogras into “Gilgit”, had an ancient people who spoke an archaic Dardic language “intermediate between the Iranian and the Sanskritic”. “The Dards were located by Ptolemy with surprising accuracy on the West of the Upper Indus, beyond the headwaters of the Swat River (Greek: Soastus) and north of the Gandarae (i.e. Kandahar), who occupied Peshawar and the country north of it. This region was traversed by two Chinese pilgrims, Fa-Hsien, coming from the north about AD 400 and Hsuan Tsiang, ascending from Swat in AD 629, and both left records of their journeys.”

Gilgit had been historically ruled by a Hindu dynasty called Trakane; when they became extinct, Gilgit Valley “was desolated by successive invasions of neighbouring rulers, and in the 20 or 30 years ending with 1842 there had been five dynastic revolutions. The Sikhs entered Gilgit about 1842 and kept a garrison there.” When J&K came under Gulab Singh, “the Gilgit claims were transferred with it, and a boundary commission was sent” by the British. In 1852 the Dogras were driven out with 2,000 dead. In 1860 under Ranbir Singh, the Dogras “returned to Gilgit and took Yasin twice, but did not hold it. They also in 1866 invaded Darel, one of the most secluded Dard states, to the south of the Gilgit basin but withdrew again.”

The British appointed a Political Agent in Gilgit in 1877 but he was withdrawn in 1881. “In 1889, in order to guard against the advance of Russia, the British Government, acting as the suzerain power of Kashmir, established the Gilgit Agency”. The Agency was re-established under control of the British Resident in Jammu & Kashmir. “It comprised the Gilgit Wazarat; the State of Hunza and Nagar; the Punial Jagir; the Governorships of Yasin, Kuh-Ghizr and Ishkoman, and Chilas”. In 1935, the British demanded J&K lease to them for 60 years Gilgit town plus most of the Gilgit Agency and the hill-states Hunza, Nagar, Yasin and Ishkuman. Hari Singh had no choice but to acquiesce. The leased region was then treated as part of British India, administered by a Political Agent at Gilgit responsible to Delhi, first through the Resident in J& K and later a British Agent in Peshawar. J& K State no longer kept troops in Gilgit and a mercenary force, the Gilgit Scouts, was recruited with British officers and paid for by Delhi. In April 1947, Delhi decided to formally retrocede the leased areas to Hari Singh’s J& K State as of 15 August 1947. The transfer was to formally take place on 1 August.

On 31 July, Hari Singh’s Governor arrived to find “all the officers of the British Government had opted for service in Pakistan”. The Gilgit Scouts’ commander, a Major William Brown aged 25, and his adjutant, a Captain Mathieson, planned openly to engineer a coup détat against Hari Singh’s Government. Between August and October, Gilgit was in uneasy calm. At midnight on 31 October 1947, the Governor was surrounded by the Scouts and the next day he was “arrested” and a provisional government declared.

Hari Singh’s nearest forces were at Bunji, 34 miles from Gilgit, a few miles downstream from where the Indus is joined by Gilgit River. The 6th J& K Infantry Battalion there was a mixed Sikh-Muslim unit, typical of the State’s Army, commanded by a Lt Col. Majid Khan. Bunji controlled the road to Srinagar. Further upstream was Skardu, capital of Baltistan, part of Laddakh District where there was a small garrison. Following Brown’s coup in Gilgit, Muslim soldiers of the 6th Infantry massacred their Sikh brothers-at-arms at Bunji. The few Sikhs who survived escaped to the hills and from there found their way to the garrison at Skardu.

On 4 November 1947, Brown raised the new Pakistani flag in the Scouts’ lines, and by the third week of November a Political Agent from Pakistan had established himself at Gilgit. Brown had engineered Gilgit and its adjoining states to first secede from J&K, and, after some talk of being independent, had promptly acceded to Pakistan. His commander in Peshawar, a Col. Bacon, as well as Col. Iskander Mirza, Defence Secretary in the new Pakistan and later to lead the first military coup détat and become President of Pakistan, were pleased enough. In July 1948, Brown was awarded an MBE (Military) and the British Governor of the NWFP got him a civilian job with ICI~ which however sent him to Calcutta, where he came to be attacked and left for dead on the streets by Sikhs avenging the Bunji massacre. Brown survived, returned to England, started a riding school, and died in 1984. In March 1994, Pakistan awarded his widow the Sitara-I-Pakistan in recognition of his coup détat.

The peak of Pakistan’s Anglo-American alliance came with the enormous support in the 1980s to guerrilla forces created and headquartered in Peshawar, to battle the USSR and Afghan communists directly across the Durand Line. It was this guerrilla war which became a proximate cause of the collapse of the USSR as a political entity in 1991. President Ronald Reagan’s CIA chief William J. Casey sent vast sums in 1985-1988 to supply and train these guerrillas. The Washington Post and New Yorker reported the CIA training guerrillas “in the use of mortars, rocket grenades, ground-to-air missiles”. 200 hand-held Stinger missiles were supplied for the first time in 1986 and the New Yorker reported Gulbudin Hikmatyar’s “Hizbe Islami” guerrillas being trained to bring down Soviet aircraft. “Mujahideen had been promised two Stingers for every Soviet aircraft brought down. Operators who failed to aim correctly were given additional training… By 1986, the United States was so deeply involved in the Afghan war that Soviet aircraft were being brought down under the supervision of American experts”. (Raja Anwar, The Tragedy of Afghanistan, 1988, p. 234).

The budding US-China détente brokered by Pakistan came into full bloom here. NBC News on 7 January 1980 said “for the first time in history (a senior State Department official) publicly admitted the possibility of concluding a military alliance between the United States and China”. London’s Daily Telegraph reported on 5 January 1980 “China is flying large supplies of arms and ammunition to the insurgents in Afghanistan. According to diplomatic reports, supplies have arrived in Pakistan from China via the Karakoram Highway…. A major build-up of Chinese involvement is underway ~ in the past few days. Scores of Chinese instructors have arrived at the Shola-e-Javed camps.”

Afghan reports in 1983-1985 said “there were eight training camps near the Afghan border operated by the Chinese in Sinkiang province” and that China had supplied the guerrillas “with a variety of weapons including 40,000 RPG-7 and 20,000 RPG-II anti tank rocket launchers.” Like Pakistan, “China did not publicly admit its involvement in the Afghan conflict: in 1985 the Chinese Mission at the UN distributed a letter denying that China was extending any kind of help to the Afghan rebels” (Anwar, ibid. p. 234). Support extended deep and wide across the Arab world. “The Saudi and Gulf rulers … became the financial patrons of the Afghan rebels from the very start of the conflict”. Anwar Sadat, having won the Nobel Peace Prize, was “keen to claim credit for his role in Afghanistan…. by joining the Afghanistan jihad, Sadat could re-establish his Islamic credentials, or so he believed. He could thus not only please the Muslim nations but also place the USA and Israel in his debt.” Sadat’s Defence Minister said in January 1980: “Army camps have been opened for the training of Afghan rebels; they are being supplied with weapons from Egypt” and Sadat told NBC News on 22 September 1981 “that for the last twenty-one months, the USA had been buying arms from Egypt for the Afghan rebels. He said he had been approached by the USA in December 1979 and he had decided to `open my stores’. He further disclosed that these arms were being flown to Pakistan from Egypt by American aircraft. Egypt had vast supplies of SAM-7 and RPG-7 anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons which Sadat agreed to supply to Afghanistan in exchange for new American arms. The Soviet weapons, being light, were ideally suited to guerrilla warfare. … the Mujahideen could easily claim to have captured them from Soviet and Afghan troops in battle.… Khomeini’s Iran got embroiled in war (against Iraq) otherwise Kabul would also have had to contend with the full might of the Islamic revolutionaries.” (Anwar ibid. p. 235).

Afghanistan had been occupied on 26-27 December 1979 by Soviet forces sent by the decrepit Leonid Brezhnev and Yuri Andropov to carry out a putsch replacing one communist, Hafizullah Amin, with a rival communist and Soviet protégé, Babrak Karmal. By 1985 Brezhnev and Andropov were dead and Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev had begun his attempts to reform the Soviet system, usher in openness, end the Cold War and in particular withdraw from Afghanistan, which by 1986 he had termed “a bleeding wound”. Gorbachev replaced Karmal with a new protégé Najibullah Khan, who was assigned the impossible task of bringing about national reconciliation with the Pakistan-based guerrillas and form a national government. Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan in February 1989 having lost 14,500 dead, while more than a million Afghans had been killed since the invasion a decade earlier.

Not long after Russia’s Bolshevik Revolution, Gregory Zinoviev had said 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). Now instead, the Afghan misadventure had contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Empire itself, the USSR ceasing to be a political entity by 1991, and even Gorbachev being displaced by Boris Yeltsin and later Vladimir Putin in a new Russia.

What resulted for the people of the USA and Britain and the West in general was that they no longer had to live under threat of hostile Soviet tanks and missiles, while the people of Russia, Ukraine and the other erstwhile Soviet republics as well as Eastern Europe were able to throw off the yoke of communism that had oppressed them since the Bolshevik Revolution and instead to breathe the air of freedom.

What happened to the people of Afghanistan, however, was that they were plunged into further ghastly civil war for more than ten years. And what happened to the people of Pakistan was that their country was left resembling a gigantic Islamist military camp, awash with airfields, arms, ammunition and trained guerrillas, as well as a military establishment enlivened as always by perpetual hope that these supplies, provisions and personnel of war might find alternative use in attacks against India over J& K. “We helped you when you wished to see the Soviet Union defeated and withdrawing in Afghanistan”, Pakistan’s generals and diplomats pleaded with the Americans and British, “now you must help us in our wish to see India defeated and withdrawing in Kashmir”. Pakistan’s leaders even believed that just as the Soviet Union had disintegrated afterwards, the Indian Union perhaps might be made to do the same. Not only were the two cases as different as chalk from cheese, Palmerstone’s dictum there are no permanent allies in the politics of nations could not have found more apt use than in what actually came to take place next.

 

 

Pakistan’s generals and diplomats felt betrayed by the loss of Anglo-American paternalism towards them after 1989.

Modern Pakistanis had never felt they subscribed to the Indian nationalist movement culminating in independence in August 1947. The Pakistani state now finally declared its independence in the world by exploding bombs in a nuclear arsenal secretly created with help purchased from China and North Korea. Pakistan’s leaders thus came to feel in some control of Pakistan’s destiny as a nation-state for the first time, more than fifty years after Pakistan’s formal creation in 1947. If nothing else, at least they had the Bomb.

Secondly, America and its allies would not be safe for long since the civil war they had left behind in Afghanistan while trying to defeat the USSR now became a brew from which arose a new threat of violent Islamism. Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, whom Pakistan’s military and the USA had promoted, now encouraged unprecedented attacks on the American mainland on September 11 2001 ~ causing physical and psychological damage which no Soviet, Chinese or Cuban missiles ever had been allowed to do. In response, America attacked and removed the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, once again receiving the cooperative use of Pakistani manpower and real estate ~ except now there was no longer any truck with the Pakistani establishment’s wish for a quid pro quo of Anglo-American support against India on J&K. Pakistan’s generals and diplomats soon realised their Anglo-American alliance of more than a half-century ended on September 11 2001. Their new cooperation was in killing or arresting and handing over fellow-Muslims and necessarily lacked their earlier feelings of subservience and ingratiation towards the Americans and British, and came to be done instead under at least some duress. No benefit could be reaped any more in the fight against India over Jammu & Kashmir. An era had ended in the subcontinent.

Posted in Afghanistan, Air warfare, anarchy and governance, Arabs, Asia and the West, Balochistan, Bangladesh, Britain, China, China's military, China's wars, China-Pakistan relations, Communist China, Communists, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Espionage, Gilgit and Baltistan, Gulab Singh, India's Land, India's Military Defence, International Law, Jammu & Kashmir, Karakorum Pass, Laddakh, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, Nuclear conflict, Osama bin Laden, Pakistan's history, Pakistan's politics, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Pashtuns, Pervez Musharraf, Politics, Ronald Reagan, Russia, September 11 attacks, Sikhs, Sinkiang, Tibet, US Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Espionage, US Military Doctrine, US Pakistan policy, USA, United States, War, World History, Xinjiang. 3 Comments »

Addendum to *Modern World History, 2006*

May 8, 2006 — drsubrotoroy

Subroto Roy adds  at Facebook to his 2006 essay *Modern World History* as follows:

“Throughout the 19th Century and spilling into the 20th, from the rise of Napoleon to the start of WWI, first France and then Britain were in rapid ascendancy in the world – only to decline (into near nothingness in case of France) in WWII before recovering to return to the rank of respectable powers in the second half of the 20thC. The 20th C saw rise of Germany, Japan, Communist Russia & the USA to world supremacy; Germany and Japan then vanquished themselves into near nothingness by wars they created, and Russia too, perhaps less so, by the (Leninist-Stalinist) ideology it had adopted as a cost of progress; the victor in each case was the USA and its allies Britain and France. At the close of the 20th C, the USA was unquestionably predominant in the world – only to receive a sudden and near-blinding blow in the eye by way of the 9/11 attacks from which it has taken a decade to recover. China, India and the Muslim world remain, in the main, defensive powers, not seeking foreign dominions themselves so much as seeking to prevent further foreign domination as they have suffered in the past – in this China, both Communist and Non-Communist, may be more successful than the others. Israel and Iran are indeed the new kids on the block and their unruly conflict does indeed portend the gravest risk to world tranquility in the 21st Century. Martin Buber’s statement suggesting Israel should seek to be an Asian and not a European power “pursuing the settlement effort in Palestine in agreement, nay, alliance with the peoples of the East, so as to erect with them together a great federative structure, which might learn and receive from the West whatever positive aims and means might be learnt and received from it, without, however, succumbing to the influence of its inner disarray and aimlessness”, holds an important key.

Posted in Academic research, America's impatience, American democracy, American financial crises, American history, anarchy and governance, Anglo-American relations, Anglo-Russian Treaty 1907, Britain, Britain in India, British foreign policy, British history, British imperialism, China, China's expansionism, China's History, China's nationalism, Cold War, Communist China, Communists, Comparative Government, Congress of Vienna, French Revolution, Germany, Hitler, Holocaust and its denial, Imperialism, India's History, International diplomacy, Iran's modern history, Iraq war, Israel, Israel's nuclear weapons and policy, Israel's security policy, Israel-Iran conflict-resolution, Japan, Russia, Saddam, September 11 attacks, UN/League of Nations, United States history, US-Iran relations, USSR, War, World History, World War, Zionism. Leave a Comment »

Revisionist Flattery of Indira Gandhi

May 7, 2006 — drsubrotoroy

Inder Malhotra’s Indira Gandhi : A Review Article
by Subroto Roy
First published in The Statesman May 7 2006

Indira Priyadarshini Nehru was fortunate to have been a handsome woman born to an eminent and indulgent father and grandfather. Despite her lack of higher education or significant worldly wisdom or experience, she acquired enough of an aura of being born to rule that she became Congress Party President in 1959 at age 41, and India’s most dramatic Prime Minister from 1966-1977 and again from 1980-1984 when she was assassinated. She was lucky too that the Zoroastrian man she married did not have one of the many long and colourful surnames Indian Zoroastrians can have, but coincidentally shared the same surname as modern India’s founder. Hence arose the iconic name and personage known as Indira Gandhi.

“The evil that men do lives after them, the good is often interred with their bones”, said Shakespeare. 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 judgement 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.

Unfortunately, this was the only arena in which these virtues of hers came to be expressed. India’s serious history-books, beyond those written for or read by children, need to record that her sheer ignorance of the fundamentals of domestic statecraft as well as her caprice, arrogance and hubris caused permanent harm to India’s polity in innumerable dimensions from which we have yet long to recover. On advice first of her childhood acquaintance, the proto-communist P. N. Haksar, and later of her ruffian unprincipled younger son Sanjay, she single-handedly destroyed India’s nascent parliamentary traditions, federalism, the Rule of Law, and its most important political party; the integrity of the civil services, judiciary, police, intelligence services and other public institutions; as well as monetary and fiscal prudence Beside this, she and her younger son Sanjay contributed to destroying communal harmony and political stability in the Punjab, while she and later her older son Rajiv contributed to do the same in Kashmir. She exulted in the personality cult, courtier culture and durbar politics of her father and grandfather.

Many pertinent questions about the personal and political life of Indira Gandhi have remained to be answered by any serious modern biographer. Her relationships with her husband and his rival for her time and affections, her father, remain in darkness, as does, after their deaths, her relationship between 1967- 1974 with Haksar, her key adviser. Her capacity and her failures as a mother to two very different sons also remain unclear. Her own lack of education was transmitted to them and neither succeeded at what he studied to be, though at least Rajiv became a gentleman. Her father had been an indifferent husband to Kamala and she an indifferent wife to Feroze — the most important thing her sons may have done with their lives was to have married women she did not choose for them, and then to have become well-loved spouses themselves. As mother-in-law, her petulant bullying of the young Sikh widow of Sanjay, mother of an infant child at the time, remains to be contrasted with her apparent warmth and generosity towards her Italian-born elder daughter-in-law. All such questions would be ones of feminine gossip or TV-soap operas in case of any ordinary woman but assume political significance for Indians because of the inordinate impact she, her father, her sons and their widows have had on India’s modern history. Why all of India’s national-level politics have acquired a gossipy joint-family tone about them is because she projected onto them no high and universally known political principles whatsoever, but merely her own personal experiences and desire for popularity.

The book at hand provides almost no new fact or insight on any relevant extant personal or political question about Indira Gandhi at all. The one exception has to do with a brief discussion of her relationship with Lal Bahadur Shastri which reveals her naked ambition most clearly, though the author is too ingratiating to wish to draw such a conclusion himself. He meekly deflects blame for her faults onto exogenous random shocks like monsoon failures, the rise in petroleum prices or other uncontrollable international events, or the ill-will of others. The most fawning apologists and cultists are quoted with approval: Sanjay was merely “inept”, the Emergency was brought on by its victims and not such a bad thing really, the Shah Commission resembled “a Chinese people’s court”, Maneka was a “rebellious chit of a girl”, etc. Two decades later, we must expect the greatest detachment and calm objectivity in any serious treatment of this complex stateswoman’s life. What we have instead received — at a time when Rajiv’s widow is in power in Delhi and Haksar’s protégé is her PM, while The Mitrokhin Archives II are published — is a clear attempt at revisionist flattery, complete with Indira’s face smiling at us at the start of every chapter and old propaganda photos from the PIB. This is deeply unfortunate coming from the National Book Trust. Indeed, neither she nor her father deserve further inquiry and reflection today more than do their respective spouses, Feroze Gandhi and Kamala Nehru, both of whom died prematurely.

Posted in Bangladesh, Freedom, Good and Evil, India's Diplomacy, India's Foreign Policy, India's Military Defence, India's Polity, Indira Gandhi, International Law, Jammu & Kashmir, Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Manmohan Singh, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Political Economy, Politics, Rajiv Gandhi, Sikhs, Sonia Gandhi, USA, United States, War, World History. Leave a Comment »

Modern World History

May 7, 2006 — drsubrotoroy

MODERN WORLD HISTORY

by Subroto Roy

First published in The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page Special Article May 7 2006

MUCH as we in India might like to think we were the central focus of Britain’s national life in the 19th and 20th Centuries, we were not. India’s matters were handled mostly by a senior cabinet minister to whom the governor-general or viceroy reported. Though possession and control of India gave the British a sense of mission, self-importance and grandeur, and events in India (mostly bad ones) could hog the newspapers for a few days, it was never the case that India dominated Britain’s political consciousness or national agenda for any length of time. British prime ministers and diplomatists, from Pitt through Canning, Palmerston, Peel, Gladstone, Granville, Disraeli and Salisbury, mostly had other concerns of foreign policy, mostly in Europe and also in the Americas, Africa, and the Near and Far East. India was peripheral to their vision except as a place to be held against any encroachment.

A French historian used to begin lectures on British history saying “Messieurs, l’Angleterre est une ile.” (“Gentlemen, Britain is an island.”) The period of unambiguous British dominance of world diplomacy began with Pitt’s response to the French Revolution, and unambiguously ended in 1917 when Britain and France could have lost the war to Germany if America had not intervened. Since then, America has taken over Britain’s role in world diplomacy, though Lloyd George and Churchill, to a smaller extent Harold Wilson, and finally Thatcher, were respected British voices in world circles. Thatcher’s successor Major failed by seeming immature, while his successor Blair has failed by being immature to the point of being branded America’s “poodle”, making Britain’s loss of prestige complete.

Between Pitt and Flanders though, Britain’s dominance of world affairs and the process of defining the parameters of international conduct was clear. It was an era in which nations fought using ships, cannon, cavalry and infantry. The machine-gun, airpower and  automobile had been hardly invented. Yet it is amazing how many technological inventions and innovations occurred during that era, many in Britain and the new America, vastly improving the welfare of masses of people: the steam-engine, the cotton gin, railways, electricity, telecommunications, systems of public hygiene etc. The age of American dominance has been one of petroleum, airpower, guided missiles and nuclear energy, as well as of penicillin and modern medicine.

It was during the period 1791-1991, between the French Revolution and the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, that world diplomacy created the system of “Western” nation-states, from Canning’s recognition of Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia etc to the emergence of the European Union. There is today peace in Europe and it has become unthinkable there will be war between e.g. France and Germany except on a soccer pitch. Even the unstable Balkans have stabilised. The transition from British to American dominance occurred during and because of the 1914-1918 World War, yet that war’s causes had nothing to do with America and hence America’s rise has been somewhat fortuitous. The War superficially had to do with those unstable Balkans in the summer of 1914 and the system of alliances developed over the previous 100 years; beneath was the economic rise of the new Germany.

Austro-Hungary went to war against Serbia, causing Germany its ally into war with Russia, Serbia’s ally. Belgium’s neutrality was guaranteed through British diplomacy by the Treaty of London in 1839 signed by Austria, France, Britain, Russia and Prussia. This “scrap of paper” Germany tore up to invade Belgium on 4 August 1914, because it was easier to attack France through Belgium than directly as most French generals had expected. Though Germany had no dispute with France, France was Russia’s ally, and the Germans had long-feared fighting on two fronts against larger but more slowly mobilising forces. Violation of Belgian neutrality caused Britain into war with Germany. So all Europe was at war from which it would fail to extricate itself without American intervention. This arrived in 1917 though it too had been provoked by German submarines sinking American ships in the Atlantic. The actual impact of American forces entering the battlefields was small, and it was after the Armistice, when the issue arose of reparations by Germany to everyone and repayments by Britain and France to America, that America’s role became dominant. New York took over from London as the world’s financial capital.

Woodrow Wilson longed to impose a system of transparent international relations on the Europeans who had been used to secret deals and intrigues. He failed, especially when America’s Senate vetoed America’s own entry into the League of Nations. America became isolationist, wishing to have nothing more to do with European wars ~ and remains to this day indifferent towards the League’s successor. But the War also saw Lenin’s Bolsheviks grab power after Russia extricated itself from fighting Germany by the peace of Brest-Litovsk. And the Armistice saw the French desire to humiliate and destroy German power for ever, which in turn sowed the seeds for Hitler’s rise. And the War also had led to the British making the Balfour Declaration that a Jewish “National Home” would arise in Palestine in amity and cooperation with the Arabs. The evolution of these three events dominated the remainder of the 20th Century ~along with the rise and defeat of an imperialist Japan, the rise of communist China, and later, the defeat of both France and America in Vietnam.

Hitler invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, and Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September. The next day in faraway India, the British in a panic started to place Jinnah on an equal footing as Gandhi ~ astounding Jinnah himself as much as anyone since his few supporters had lost the 1937 elections badly, especially in the provinces that today constitute the country he wished for. After the defeat and occupation of Germany and Japan, America’s economic supremacy was unquestionable. Utterly exhausted from war, the British had no choice but to leave India’s angry peoples to their own fates, and retreated to their fortified island again ~ though as brown and black immigration increased with the end of Empire, many pale-skinned natives boarded ships for Canada, Australia and New Zealand.  America came to have much respect for its junior British ally during the fight against Hitler and later in the political battle against the USSR. It was Thatcher who (after battling Argentina in the South Atlantic) led Reagan to make peace with Gorbachov. With the end of Soviet communism, Germany would be unified again. All across Christendom there was peace for the first time ever, and a militarily powerful nuclear-armed Israel had been created too in the old Palestine. In this new period of world history, the Security Council’s permanent members are the modern version of the “Great Powers” of the 19th Century. The American-led and British-supported destruction of Baathist Iraq, and threatened destruction of Khomeinist Iran mark the final end of the League of Nations’ ethos which had arisen from the condemnation of aggression. In Osama bin Laden’s quaint idiom, there seems a battle of “Crusaders” and “Zionists” against Muslim believers. Certainly Muslim believers (which means most Muslims as there are relatively few agnostics and atheists among them) think that it is obvious that the Universe was created, and that its Creator finally and definitively spoke through one human being in 7th Century Arabia. Many people from North Africa to the Philippines are not often able to conceive how things might have been otherwise. The new era of history will undoubtedly see all kinds of conversations take place about this rather subtle question.

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Lessons for India from Nepal’s Revolution

April 26, 2006 — drsubrotoroy

Lessons for India from Nepal’s Revolution

Subroto Roy

 

The Statesman, frontpage, April 26 2006

 

 

King Gyanendra of Nepal has lost legitimacy in the eyes of almost all his people. His days as a monarch are numbered. It is as inevitable as night follows day that his dynasty is over, and Nepal will sooner or later become a secular Republic. The practical questions that follow include what is to be done with him and his family, that is, which country should they seek exile in and at what pension, to whom exactly should sovereignty in Nepal pass immediately and in the long term, how may needless bloodshed, civil chaos and mayhem come to be avoided, and how soon can a viable democratic republic and a healthy economy and society emerge.

 

 

Salus populi suprema lex: the good of the people is the supreme law. And the good of the people in Nepal today requires Gyanendra to depart (that is, for exile in Britain), after abdicating in favour of his son ~ or better still his infant grandson, placing a Regent acceptable to the Seven-Party Alliance in charge of calling a Constituent Assembly as everyone and especially the Maoists have demanded.

 

 

The Government and people of India seem strangely ignorant or indifferent about what is happening right next door to us, even when that door is open. While the people of Nepal almost stormed their Bastille, we witnessed instead the bizarre televised parade of politicians and Bollywood personalities to visit another celebrity in hospital (we should be thankful they have not been allowed anywhere near him).

 

 

Our Prime Minister/foreign minister, with his “national security advisor” sitting next to him, flew off to a brief spring holiday in Europe to discuss importation of uranium and BMWs and other such posh things. The Congress Party has said the Prime Minister may have expressed “his own views” on the subject of supporting King Gyanendra’s Friday offer but that the Government of India always supported “multiparty democracy” and the Congress Party supported the government! Have people become even more detached from reality here? If it is the case the Prime Minister has become so utterly consumed by personal hubris that he is making impromptu remarks contrary to his own government’s policies, then it may be time for him to realise he has filled his quota of foreign trips and put in his papers. At the very least, MK Narayanan has been derelict in his duties by joining the Prime Minister in the European spring rather than remaining in India watching Nepal. The Prime Minister has been so negligent as his own foreign minister (for example, handing over his America policy to personal diplomacy by his favoured aide, Mr Montek Singh Ahluwalia) that he is making the country almost miss the foreign minister who had to be fired, an unfortunate thought!

 

 

In the last six months, Nepal’s non-Maoist opposition coalesced and the Maoists declared a unilateral cease-fire. India remained preoccupied with the vanities of its own petty dynasties. Why we Indians, despite our pretensions as the world’s largest democracy (in reality, the world’s largest voting public), may have been so dull and ignorant with respect to Nepal’s “trinamul” democratic movement is that we have never had any kind of revolution ourselves.

 

 

Revolution is anathema to the pompous bureaucrats of New Delhi, just as it is to the pompous generals of Islamabad. Partition was the one all-consuming trauma experienced by the Indian and Pakistani ruling classes, and they are simply unable to understand populist rebellions of the kind now being seen in Nepal or seen under Sheikh Mujib in East Pakistan almost 40 years ago. The Indira Gandhi brand of populism practised by India’s “democratic leaders” has to do with renting crowds and giving speeches while waving to the TV cameras, always making sure to fly back to air-conditioned comfort in Lutyens Delhi by the end of the day if at all possible. Lutyens Delhi is Royal India, and Royal India secretly sympathises with all Royalty and pseudo-Royalty. Ours has become a democracy upside down where it is not a question of how the interests of the people of India should be represented in New Delhi but how New Delhi’s interests can come to be projected upon the people of India.

 

 

In Nepal on the other hand, the questions now precisely have to do with the most difficult issues of sovereignty, political legitimacy and representation. The forced exile of the Shah of Iran was followed by the return of Ayatollah Khomeini from Qom and the brutality and bloodshed of the Islamic Revolution. The exile of Sihanouk of Cambodia was followed by the horrors of the Khmer Rouge. Can mass bloodshed and class war be averted if the exile of King Gyanendra is followed by a Maoist takeover in Nepal? The Maoists are indisputably led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal (Prachanda) who does not appear to be a murderous Pol Pot and has been projected as principled and statesmanlike. But will he be able to control his own creation or could he himself be swept aside? “Revolution is not a tea party” said Mao Zedong. There are at least two other proximate models that are more benign. One was the forced exile of Ferdinand Marcos and his odious family to the USA in 1986, leading to Mrs Benito Aquino becoming President of the Philippines. She and Fidel Ramos had led ordinary people to the most peaceful bloodless revolution ever seen until then, and coined the term “People Power”. Democracy has had its problems here but has survived intact ever since. Another relevant model has to do with the forced departure for Bombay of Hari Singh of Jammu and Kashmir (who pretended to “abdicate” in favour of his young son though in fact no such alternative existed in international law). Sheikh Abdullah knew his constitutional politics well enough and then led J&K to a reasonable Constituent Assembly. Our Pakistani cousins, cut from the same political cloth as ourselves, embarked haplessly saying “That the sovereignty in Pakistan belongs to God Almighty alone and that the Government of Pakistan shall administer the country as His agent”. In the words of Rashid Rida and Maulana Maududi, Islam becomes “the very antithesis of secular Western democracy. The philosophical foundation of Western democracy is the sovereignty of the people. Lawmaking is their prerogative and legislation must correspond to the mood and temper of their opinion… Islam… altogether repudiates the philosophy of popular sovereignty and rears its polity on the foundations of the sovereignty of God and the viceregency (Khilafat) of man.” Sheikh Abdullah by contrast told the J&K Constituent Assembly: “You are the sovereign authority in this State of Jammu & Kashmir; what you decide has the irrevocable force of law. The basic democratic principle of sovereignty of the nation, embodied ably in the American and French Constitutions, is once again given shape in our midst. I shall quote the famous words of Article 3 of the French Constitution of 1791: `The source of all sovereignty resides fundamentally in the nation. Sovereignty is one and indivisible, inalienable and imprescriptable. It belongs to the nation.’ We should be clear about the responsibilities that this power invests us with. In front of us li e decisions of the highest national importance which we shall be called upon to take. Upon the correctness of our decisions depends not only the happiness of our land and people now, but the fate as well of generations to come.”

 

 

The fact the young son of Hari Singh then caused or contributed to a putsch against Abdullah is among the most regrettable events contributing to the misfortunes of J&K’s recent history. Nepal is going through its own French Revolution in which Gyanendra is no longer able to claim the “Divine Right of Kings” simply because his people have permanently withdrawn their acceptance of his legitimacy.

 

In the circumstances, Nepalese of all political colours would do very well to remember that the greatest of them in the history of mankind was a Hindu prince who became the founder of Buddhism. As the Himalayan home of Hindus and Buddhists and many others, the Nepalese Revolution could be among the most exemplary in being peaceful without bloodshed. The aim of Indians and all other friends of Nepal must be to seek to ensure that.

Posted in Buddhism, Communists, Congress Party, France, Hinduism, India's Foreign Policy, India's Jurisprudence, India's Polity, Islam, Jammu & Kashmir, Liberalism/Libertarianism, Manmohan Singh, Natural Justice, Nepal, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Sheikh Abdullah, World History. Leave a Comment »

A Modern Military

April 16, 2006 — drsubrotoroy

A Modern Military
First published in The Statesman

Editorial Page Special Article

April 16 2006

by

Subroto Roy

THE first line of defence in a major modern war is the air force, and any air force is only as good as its pilots. A small number of determined pilots once beat Goering’s Nazi armada in the skies over the English Channel. The good, indeed excellent, news for Indians is that our air force’s fighter pilots and frontline military aircraft now have been internationally benchmarked and are being recognised as first-class. Objective assessments are becoming available of the joint exercises the IAF held with the United States Air Force in 2004 and 2005 in Alaska, Gwalior and Kalaikunda. Though there were mixed Indo-US teams during several exercises, on balance the Americans admitted being surprised and even defeated by the IAF’s aircraft, technical skills and tactics. The IAF literally “defeated” the USAF in the sense Indian “gun cameras” shot pictures of their opponents far more often than vice-versa thus indicating “hits”; and the IAF certainly destroyed for all time all the expectations the Americans may have had about exercising with an inferior fighting force. To be sure, American apologists have made several political and technical points since then. One of the cheapest is that the American squadrons sent were not top frontline squadrons whereas the IAF had sent its best. Another has been that the USAF literally wished to “throw” a fight because they have wanted American legislators to fund the super-advanced F-22, and one way to help do that was by getting the IAF’s Russian aircraft to “beat” American F-16s. Of more substance is the point that the IAF imposed a requirement of “old-fashioned dogfights”, which in this missile age means aircraft being within “visual range” of one another. Current USAF strategy relies more on “Beyond Visual Range” (BVR) capabilities where aircraft never get to see the enemy but launch their air-to-air weapons based on instructions, for example from advanced on-board instrumentation or from airborne controllers in Airborne Warning and Control (AWAC) aircraft. The Americans also use “fire-and-forget” missiles in this BVR warfare which they did not bring to the joint exercises with India. Lastly, American AWACs did operate in the Indo-US exercises but as a neutral party assigning targets to pilots from both air forces; this was the first experience Indian pilots had of working with AWACs and by American accounts they outperformed their counterparts despite lack of familiarity with the technology. However, in an actual war, the AWACs and other devices would have been used to jam or destroy an adversary’s communications, and India has no capability in that.

Even so, in most encounters between the USAF’s F-16s and F-15 C/D Eagles, and the IAF’s Sukhoi-30 MKIs, MiG-27s, MiG-29s, and even the refurbished MiG-21 Bisons, Indian pilots apparently came out winners. One American commander said: “We try to replicate how these aircraft perform in the air, and I think we’re good at doing that in our Air Force, but what we can’t replicate is what’s going on in their minds. They’ve challenged our traditional way of thinking on how an adversary, from whichever country, would fight.” And the USAF’s Chief of Air Combat Command, General Hal M. Hornburg told USA Today that as a result of defeats in the mock combat exercises with the Indians he felt: “We may not be as far ahead of the rest of the world as we thought we were”. As in case of the Bofors gun, despite the corruption scams surrounding the deal-making, the Sukhoi-30 has apparently been a sound military purchase.

If the competence of our pilots and their aircraft is the good news, the bad news has been their failure of morale. The IAF’s pilots in droves have wished to quit because of “poor working and living conditions”, family-separation, and a “culture of sycophancy” promoted by the top brass which has made it difficult for them to work or even to stay motivated. In 2002-2004, 263 pilots were allowed to seek premature retirement; in 2005, only 8 out of some 200 have been allowed (one of whom got an MP to support him). The High Court has ruled in favour of the Air Force that when the nation spends untold millions in each pilot’s training, he/she is required to fulfil his/her obligations in turn. Premature retirement cannot be given by the Air Force on “compassionate grounds” to everyone who might ask for it. The new commercial airlines also seem very alluring to both young pilots and older commanders Perhaps an exit strategy needs to be devised whereby Air Force pilots wanting to quit and join the private sector may be allowed to do so ~ once they have agreed to repay the Air Force a reasonable fraction of the millions that have been invested by the country in their training. If we extrapolate these kinds of facts in different directions, a modern picture of desirable Indian weaponry, armed forces and doctrine can begin to be sketched. The first step must be an objective assessment of military threats faced by the country. We have only one declared adversary with aggressive intent against us, and that is the military and political elite that has ruled over Pakistan for almost 60 years. For sake of argument, let us ask if we have any other identifiable external enemies. We might imagine China to be an enemy because of the border war decades ago but there is in fact no plausible war scenario with China today. There may be conceivable threats but hardly any large ones from Bangladesh, Nepal, Burma, the Tamil Tigers, Indonesia, or Iran. As for Afghanistan, we have our Pakistani cousins to thank for having unwittingly buffered us from the turmoil there over three decades, although of course the Pakistani establishment tried to use that chaos to its advantage against India. There are some traditional threats of a special nature from insurgencies in the North-east but these too are amenable to political and diplomatic resolution. If we are vulnerable anywhere from an unknown quarter it is to a modern air-sea attack of the kind launched against Iraq twice recently and being threatened upon Iran now. Indeed our new American friends had themselves “gamed” a scenario as early as 1990-1991 of such an air-sea assault taking place upon India. Assuming we come to resolve our difficulties with Pakistan over Jammu & Kashmir reasonably (cf. Solving Kashmir, The Statesman 1-3 Dec. 2005 republished here), what India comes to need from a military standpoint is a compact, first-rate airforce, a defensive naval capacity based on nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed submarines (the era of grandiose vulnerable aircraft carrier battle groups is over), and some short and intermediate-range missile capacity of the kind we have in fact been developing. Jungle warfare, counterinsurgency and counter-terrorism may be the new specialised areas required from ground troops, though of course traditional artillery and armoured corps will likely have to be developed and retained indefinitely until such a time as Pakistan becomes a peaceful and healthy nation-state, which may be a long time yet.

Most important of all though, we need a supply of young fighter pilots of the kind who defeated the Americans in the war-games, young submariners willing to go to sea for ever, young soldiers like Batra, Hanifuddin, Kalia and the other heroes of Kargil who are prepared to dedicate their minds, bodies and souls for their compatriots if the need ever arises. For that to happen, the Army, Navy and Air Force must not merely cut all the corruption, sycophancy, fat, waste and moral turpitude in the senior ranks of their organisational structures, but political statesmen must arise to lead and motivate the whole polity itself with an inspiring yet realistic vision of India’s future, and one which remains consistent with our national ethos of ahimsa. A paradox has come to be revealed in our young warriors being excellent and yet their morale and motivation being low. The fault lies not with them but with those who purport to lead them.

Posted in Air warfare, China, India's airforce, India's Foreign Policy, India's Military Defence, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Sri Lanka, USA, United States, World History. Leave a Comment »

Iran’s Nationalism (2006)

April 6, 2006 — drsubrotoroy

IRAN’S NATIONALISM

 

Is America close to breaking its pledged word?

  First published in The Statesman Editorial Page, 6 April 2006

 

by

 

Subroto Roy

 

 

Ayatollah Khomeini was the Ho Chi Minh of Iran. Ho was both a communist and a Vietnamese nationalist, but America’s Presidents from Eisenhower to Nixon failed to see the latter. Khomeini was both a devout Shia Muslim and an Iranian nationalist yet America’s Presidents from Carter to W. Bush refused to see his Revolution being as much about Iranian nationalism as about creating an Islamic Republic. As a general rule, Western countries allow for nationalism among other Western countries but not among non-Western countries. Immanuel Kant’s dictum of treating everyone as an end in himself/herself and not as a means towards one’s own ends, is applied in intra-Western international relations but often not when the West deals with others. But Indians did not have to be communists to sympathise with Vietnam’s struggle against first France and then America, and Indians do not have to be Shia Muslims to sympathise with Iran’s struggle against an impending Anglo-American aggression. The opaque Manmohan- Montek deal-making with America on behalf of India’s people may need to be set aside in such a context — while it might benefit several dozen businesses on both sides and several hundred bureaucrats may become even fatter with bribes, it may have next to nothing to do with any dimension of India’s national interests.

 

 

US pledge 1981, policy 2006

 

On January 19 1981, the Government of the United States signed what came to be called the Algiers Accord, the first point of which stated: “Non-Intervention in Iranian Affairs: The United States pledges that it is and from now on will be the policy of the United States not to intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in Iran’s internal affairs.” This was part of a comprehensive truce between Khomeini’s Iran and the USA in regard to the war-like conditions then prevailing between them. That pledge now seems about to be broken. British newspapers reported on April 2 2006 that the Blair Government is holding “secret talks” with its own Chief of Defence Staff, Chief of Defence Intelligence and others to discuss “an American-led attack, designed to destroy Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear bomb… if Tehran’s leaders fail to comply with United Nations demands to freeze their uranium enrichment programme.” This is despite the British foreign minister saying last month “that a military attack against Iran was ‘inconceivable’”. America’s “National Security Strategy” dated March 16 2006 states the policy clearly: “We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran. For almost 20 years, the Iranian regime hid many of its key nuclear efforts from the international community. Yet the regime continues to claim that it does not seek to develop nuclear weapons. The Iranian regime’s true intentions are clearly revealed by the regime’s refusal to negotiate in good faith; its refusal to come into compliance with its international obligations by providing the IAEA access to nuclear sites and resolving troubling questions; and the aggressive statements of its President calling for Israel to ‘be wiped off the face of the earth’. The United States has joined with our EU partners and Russia to pressure Iran to meet its international obligations and provide objective guarantees that its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes. This diplomatic effort must succeed if confrontation is to be avoided. As important as are these nuclear issues, the United States has broader concerns regarding Iran. The Iranian regime sponsors terrorism; threatens Israel; seeks to thwart Middle East peace; disrupts democracy in Iraq; and denies the aspirations of its people for freedom. The nuclear issue and our other concerns can ultimately be resolved only if the Iranian regime makes the strategic decision to change these policies, open up its political system, and afford freedom to its people. This is the ultimate goal of U.S. policy. In the interim, we will continue to take all necessary measures to protect our national and economic security against the adverse effects of their bad conduct. The problems lie with the illicit behavior and dangerous ambition of the Iranian regime, not the legitimate aspirations and interests of the Iranian people. Our strategy is to block the threats posed by the regime while expanding our engagement and outreach to the people the regime is oppressing.“

 

 

 

Attack scenario

 

In one scenario, America will make a surprise cruise-missile attack on Iranian buildings “suspected” of producing biological weapons. If the Iranians respond in any way other than total submission, it will be sufficient to launch a major bombing of Iran’s military facilities using B-2 bombers based in Diego Garcia, England and other American bases, possibly using nuclear “earth penetrating” weapons to attack underground facilities. Of course it is not impossible the British and Americans are merely setting up a bluff to scare the Iranians into complying without a fight, but the existence of aggressive war plans and preparations cannot be doubted.

 

Now it is possible the Americans will say they are not bound by the pledge made in the Algiers Accord in January 1981 to not intervene in Iran’s affairs. In breach of all diplomatic law, 66 Americans had been taken captive by Iranians seizing the American Embassy on November 4 1979. Six others escaped with the help of the Canadian and Swedish embassies. Of the 66, 13 women and black Americans were released two weeks later; one man was released due to ill-health in July 1980. The remaining 52 including two women and one black American were released on January 20 1981 by the terms of the Algiers Accord just before Ronald Reagan took over as President of the United States. Eight American military personnel were killed on April 25 1980 in a failed attempt to rescue them. The official designations of the 52 (who had been held captive for 444 days) included 10 military attachés; 6 “communications and electronics specialists”; 8 political and administrative officers, and 12 diplomatic/consular staff. In addition there were 12 guards and 4 others. Even if the US Embassy in Tehran was a den of spies as the Iranians claimed, the Revolutionary Government could have ordered them all to leave and to have ended diplomatic relations in accordance with international law. What explained Iranians’ anger for them to have violated international law so brazenly? That was the age before terrorism, and nor was Iran a player in the conflict between Israel and the Arabs.

 

Iran’s anger stemmed from having felt being used by Britain, America and Soviet Russia for half a century before the 1979 Khomeini Revolution – from having been merely means towards their ends in violation of the Kantian dictum. It was almost as if Britain and America had said to Iran and the entire Middle East, “We invented the internal combustion engine and the automobile which uses it, and we also discovered the petroleum that runs it; the mere fact you happen to sit on this petroleum does not make you own it; we own it too and we will take it by force whenever necessary.” During the Cold War, the USSR followed suit, and now after the Cold War has ended, the new Russia is a Western ally in the same kind of attempted domination over non-Western countries like Iran (or Pakistan and India, who get sold a lot of useless weapons to fight each other with).

 

 

 

Mossadeq the democrat

 

Specifically, if the January 1981 Algiers Accord was signed by the USA under duress, the Iranians could say that Iran had been cheated into signing the 25 year agreement of September 1954 with an international oil consortium led by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Iran would receive 50% profit on all Iranian oil exported, after paying the AIOC ₤25 million in compensation for having nationalised it in 1951 under the democratic government of Mohammad Mossadeq which had broken off diplomatic relations with Britain. Mossadeq was overthrown by an Anglo-American coup détat in August 1953, and replaced by the compliant General Fazlollah Zahedi and Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Arthur Millspaugh, an American invited by the Iranians to help their public finances, once wrote: “Persia cannot be left to herself, even if the Russians were to keep their hands off politically. …Persia has never yet proved its capacity for independent self-government.” Millspaugh’s 1925 book titled America’s Task in Persia seems to have remained the handbook of Western policy towards Iran. Khomeini’s Revolution was its antithesis.

Posted in Afghanistan, Air warfare, Asia and the West, Balochistan, Britain, Diplomacy, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Espionage, Ethics, Good and Evil, Immanuel Kant, India's Diplomacy, India's Foreign Policy, India's Military Defence, India-United States business, India-US Nuclear Deal, International diplomacy, International Law, International politics, Iran, Iran's politics, Iran's modern history, Islam, Israel, Manmohan Singh, Pakistan, Petroleum, Racism, Religion, UN/League of Nations, United States, US Foreign Policy, US-Iran relations, USA, Vietnam War, War, World History. Leave a Comment »

Atoms for Peace (or War)

March 5, 2006 — drsubrotoroy

Atoms for Peace (or War)

by Subroto Roy

First published in The Sunday Statesman, March 5 2006 Editorial Page Special Article,

“Atoms for Peace” was Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 1953 speech to the UN (presided over by Jawaharlal Nehru’s sister) from which arose the IAEA. Eisenhower was the warrior par excellence, having led the Allies to victory over Hitler a few years earlier.

Yet he was the first to see “no sane member of the human race” can discover victory in the “desolation, degradation and destruction” of nuclear war. “Occasional pages of history do record the faces of the ‘great destroyers’, but the whole book of history reveals mankind’s never-ending quest for peace and mankind’s God-given capacity to build.” Speaking of the atomic capacity of America’s communist adversary at the time, he said: “We never have, and never will, propose or suggest that the Soviet Union surrender what rightly belongs to it. We will never say that the peoples of the USSR are an enemy with whom we have no desire ever to deal or mingle in friendly and fruitful relationship.” Rather, “if the fearful trend of atomic military build-up can be reversed, this greatest of destructive forces can be developed into a great boon, for the benefit of all mankind…. if the entire body of the world’s scientists and engineers had adequate amounts of fissionable material… this capability would rapidly be transformed into universal, efficient and economic usage”. Eisenhower’s IAEA would receive contributions from national “stockpiles of normal uranium and fissionable materials”, and also impound, store and protect these and devise “methods whereby this fissionable material would be allocated to serve the peaceful pursuits of mankind.…to provide abundant electrical energy in the power-starved areas of the world… to serve the needs rather than the fears of mankind.” When Eisenhower visited India he was greeted as the “Prince of Peace” and a vast multitude threw rose petals as he drove by in an open limousine.

Now, half a century later, Dr Manmohan Singh read a speech in Parliament on February 27 relating to our nuclear discussions with America. But it seems unclear even his speech-writers or technical advisers knew how far it was rhetoric and how far grounded in factual realities. There is also tremendous naivete among India’s media anchors and political leaders as to what exactly has been agreed by the Americans on March 2.

Churchill once asked what might have happened if Lloyd George and Clemenceau told Woodrow Wilson: “Is it not true that nothing but your fixed and expiring tenure of office prevents you from being thrown out of power?” The same holds for George W. Bush today. Wilson made many promises to the world that came to be hit for a six by US legislators. In December 2005, Edward Markey (Democrat) and Fred Upton (Republican) promised to scuttle Bush’s agreements with India, and once the pleasant memories of his India visit fade, Bush may quite easily forget most things about us. All the Americans have actually agreed to do is to keep talking.

It needs to be understood that submarine-launched ballistic missiles are the only ultimate military deterrent. Land and air forces are all vulnerable to a massive first-strike. Only submarines lurking silently for long periods in waters near their target, to launch nuclear warheads upon learning their homeland had been hit by the enemy, act as a deterrent preventing that same enemy from making his attack at all. Indeed, the problem becomes how a submarine commander will receive such information and his instructions during such a war. (For India to acquire an ICBM capability beyond the MRBM Agni rockets is to possess an expensive backward technology — as retrograde as the idea India should spend scarce resources sending manned moon missions half a century after it has already been done. The secret is to do something new and beneficial for mankind, not repeat what others did long ago merely to show we can now do it too.) A nuclear-armed submarine needs to be submerged for long periods and also voyage long distances at sea, and hence needs to be nuclear-powered with a miniature version of a civilian nuclear reactor aboard in which, e.g. rods of enriched uranium are bombarded to release enough energy to run hydroelectric turbines to generate power. Patently, no complete separation of the use of atomic power for peace and war may be practically possible. If India creates e.g. its own thorium reactors for civilian power (and we have vast thorium reserves, the nuclear fuel of the future), and then miniaturised these somehow to manufacture reactors for submarines, the use would be both civilian and military. In 1988 the old USSR leased India a nuclear-powered submarine for “training” purposes, and the Americans did not like it at all. In January 2002, Russia’s Naval Chief announced India was paying to build and then lease from 2004 until 2009 two nuclear-powered Akula-class attack submarines, and Jaswant Singh reportedly said we were paying $1 thousand crore ($10 bn) for such a defence package. Whether the transaction has happened is not known. Once we have nuclear submarines permanently, that would be more than enough of the minimum deterrent sought.

Indeed, India’s public has been barely informed of civilian nuclear energy policy as well, and an opportunity now exists for a mature national debate to take place — both on what and why the military planning has been and what it costs (and whether any bribes have been paid), and also on the cost, efficiency and safety of the plans for greater civilian use of nuclear energy. Government behaviour after the Bhopal gas tragedy does not inspire confidence about Indian responses to a Three Mile Island/Chernobyl kind of catastrophic meltdown.

That being said, the central question remains why India or anyone else needs to be nuclear-armed at all. With Britain, France or Russia, there is no war though all three are always keen to sell India weapons. Indeed it has been a perennial question why France and Britain need their own deterrents. They have not fought one another for more than 100 years and play rugby instead. If Russia was an enemy, could they not count on America? Or could America itself conceivably become an enemy of Britain and France? America owes her origins to both, and though the Americans did fight the British until the early 1800s, they have never fought the French and love the City of Paris too much ever to do so.

Between China and India, regardless of what happened half a century ago, nuclear or any war other than border skirmishes in sparse barren lands is unlikely. Ever since Sun Yat-sen, China has been going through a complex process of self-discovery and self-definition. An ancient nation where Maoism despoiled the traditional culture and destroyed Tibet, China causes others to fear it because of its inscrutability. But it has not been aggressive in recent decades except with Taiwan. It has threatened nuclear war on America if the Americans stand up for Taiwan, but that is not a quarrel in which India has a cogent role. China (for seemingly commercial reasons) did join hands with Pakistan against India, but there is every indication the Chinese are quite bored with what Pakistan has become. With Pakistan, our situation is well-known, and there has been an implicit equilibrium since Pokhran II finally flushed out their capacity. Had India ever any ambition of using conventional war to knock out and occupy Pakistan as a country? Of course not. We are barely able to govern ourselves, let aside try to rule an ideologically hostile Muslim colony in the NorthWest. Pakistan’s purported reasons for acquiring nuclear bombs are spurious, and cruelly so in view of the abject failures of Pakistan’s domestic political economy. Could Pakistan’s Government use its bombs against India arising from its own self-delusions over J&K? Gohar Ayub Khan in 1998-1999 threatened to do so when he said the next war would be over in two hours with an Indian surrender. He thereby became the exception to Eisenhower’s rule requiring sanity. An India-Pakistan nuclear exchange is, unfortunately, not impossible, leaving J&K as Hell where Jahangir had once described it as Heaven on Earth.

America needs to end her recent jingoism and instead rediscover the legacy of Eisenhower. America can lead everyone in the world today including Russia, China, Israel, Iran and North Korea. But she can do so only by example. America can decommission many of her own nuclear weapons and then lead everyone else to the conference table to do at least some of the same. Like the UN, the IAEA (and its NPT) needs urgent reform itself. It is the right time for serious and new world parleys towards the safe use of atoms for peace and their abolition in war. But are there any Eisenhowers or Churchills to lead them?

Posted in 1962 War, China, China's expansionism, China's History, China's military, China's wars, China-India Relations, China-Pakistan relations, China-Taiwan problem, China-Tibet problem, Cold War, Communists, Dwight D. Eisenhower, IAEA, India's Energy, India's Foreign Policy, India's History, India's Military Defence, India-US Nuclear Deal, Israel, Jahangir, Jammu & Kashmir, Manmohan Singh, Nuclear conflict, Nuclear energy, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Russia, Submarine warfare, Tibet, UN/League of Nations, US Military Doctrine, USA, United States, War, Winston Churchill, World History, World War. Leave a Comment »

War or Peace (2006)

February 24, 2006 — drsubrotoroy

WAR OR PEACE

By SUBROTO ROY

First published in The Statesman

Editorial Page Special Article, February 23-24, 2006

An American Attack On Iran Will End The Post-1945 System Of Nation-States

The relevance of the Iran-USA conflict to India’s energy, nuclear and strategic future is obvious, yet it appears ill understood by New Delhi’s bureaucrats and politicians, whether neo-communist or neo-fascist. It is understood even less by Islamabad’s army generals, all of whose official brainpower has been perpetually consumed by one subject alone: how to obtain J&K for Pakistan by hook or by crook from India. Yet Iran’s potential nuclear weapons arose entirely thanks to sales by Pakistan’s AQ Khan and the ISI — friends or allies of the USA, just like Osama bin Laden, the Taliban and Saddam Hussein once had been. We may surmise that a possible war will be quite catastrophic for the world, and India’s and Pakistan’s region of it in particular.

Israel’s piecemeal strategy
The Americans and Israelis may be assumed to have developed over years contingency plans to attack Iran by air and/or sea, though Israel is unlikely to take any offensive role in view of the circumstances of the end of Ariel Sharon’s political career. For one hundred years, the security and prosperity of the Zionist migration to Palestine, which came to be transmuted into the Israeli Republic in the middle of the 20th Century, has been defined as a matter of vital national interest first by Britain and then by America. Badly outnumbered by hostile Muslim countries, Israel after the 1973 Yom Kippur war adopted a long-term piecemeal strategy of diplomacy with Egypt, Jordan and North Africa; co-existence with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf; battle with Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinians leading to co-existence; and indirect war, using the USA and UK as proxies, with Iraq and Iran leading in due course to co-existence.

Ayatollah Khomeini’s Revolution in 1978-1979 caused Iran’s Islamic Republic to start to pose a major ideological threat to Israel. But during the decade of the Iran-Iraq war that started immediately after the Iranian Revolution, neither could pose any possible military threat to Israel. Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait was a result of the Iran-Iraq war, and since then Saddam has been neutralised by the Americans as a military threat to Israel. A new Iran, torn between a modern future for itself and a return to its revolutionary origins, is the last Muslim nation-state that could possibly threaten Israel. Pakistan would never dare to do so, nor wish to do so in view of its single-minded obsession for almost sixty years with trying to obtain J&K from India, or to dominate India any which way it can. The Pakistanis — having been Indians previously (even A Q Khan was born in Bhopal) — want to rule or dominate Delhi, or at least display their self-styled superiority to Hindus. They are uninterested from a psychological perspective in what happens to European and American Jews in the Middle East because they are mostly of Indian origin themselves.

Pakistanis’ explicit hatred (or implicit love) of India is at least in part a hatred (or love) of themselves. The US State Department and Pentagon have realised that as long as they tilt towards Pakistan on J&K now and then, the Pakistani Government will stay obsessed with its relationship with India alone, and also remain an American ally.

Possible nuclear strike
The questions to be asked now are when the Americans will make an attack on Iran, what manner it will take, and what Iranian and Muslim and world reaction will be. Israel’s attack on Iraq’s nuclear facilities a quarter century ago taught the Iranians to go underground and disperse their facilities around the country. Conventional heavy B52, B2 or Stealth bombing or cruise-missile attacks using ships, submarines and carrier-based aircraft from American forward bases in Diego Garcia, the Gulf, Saudi Arabia, Britain, Germany, Turkey or former Soviet Republics will kill at least 10,000 Iranians even if there are American warnings to evacuate human populations. Much physical havoc will be caused to Iran’s two dozen main nuclear installations, delaying or crippling Iran’s ambitions by years. But it is unlikely such attacks will succeed in wiping out Iran’s capacity. America’s warplans may thus include exploding small nuclear warheads on Iran’s suspected installations. If that happens, it would be the first use of atomic weapons since Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  It is doubtful if the world as a whole will actually condemn American use of heavy bombing or even small nuclear weapons against Iran in anything but words. Permanent changes in the post-1945 system of international institutions will certainly result. Kofi Annan (or his successor) will resign, ending the UN staff’s effete pontificating. Indeed, all the inefficient, corrupt international bureaucracies in New York, Washington, Geneva and elsewhere may come to close down. The Japanese Left will weep and wring their hands while the Right will renew calls for Japan’s re-militarization.  North Korea’s Kim will issue warnings of how crazy he is. India’s PMO and MEA will express deepest concern, sorrow and tears; after the communists bluster about in Delhi and Kolkata, this will be enlarged to unequivocal condemnation. But India’s anti-Muslim brigades will remain silent and smiling and the VHP/Bajrang Dal will say it is revenge for Nadir Shah and assorted other Iranian plunderers in India’s past. JNU, AMU etc. historians and Bollywood and Tollywood showbiz personalities will hold seminars and processions and shake their fists at America. Pakistan’s Government will issue strong condemnations and call in the American Ambassador for a talking to, then explain to the Karachi street-mobs how important it is to continue the alliance with America so that J&K may be gained for Pakistan one day. The Hurriyat and other friends of Pakistan will agree with Pakistan and demonstrate in Srinagar against India and America. Russia will privately regret its impotence while Putin will refuse to turn up at a G-8 meeting in protest. The Chinese will shake their heads, warning Taiwan not to think itself as loved by America as Israel is. Muslim countries will rant and rave Death to America, and recruit thousands of new suicide bombers. France and Britain will look for new reconstruction or weapons contracts once the smoke clears. Germany, Holland, Scandinavia, Canada and New Zealand will hold candle-light peace vigils. South America’s leftists will decry Il Nord from high in the Andes or deep in the Amazon. Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Dalai Lama and the Pope will condemn the inhumanity of it all. Australia will agree with America. That may be just about all, except the oil price will reach $200 a barrel momentarily, then settle at $150 for ever, causing large macroeconomic problems for several years in the world economy.

The new ideology
Iran itself will be plunged into greater political and economic disarray than it is in already. It is unlikely to be intimidated into accepting Western conditions straightaway. Nor will it experience any kind of “regime-change” with Non-Resident Iranian-Americans coming back from Los Angeles to try their hand at a little government and money-making at home. Iran would launch conventional war against the 140,000 American infantry in Iraq as well as missiles against Israel, but is unlikely to make much successful war against American or Israeli interests. But Iraq’s Shia majority would join with them, and make America’s departure more prompt from an anarchic, chaotic and disintegrating Iraq, hanging Saddam Hussein before they go. Essentially, Iran’s ability to pose any conceivable military threat to Israel will have been militarily neutralized, just as has happened to Iraq recently, and to Egypt, Jordan etc. by diplomacy and foreign aid ever since Jimmy Carter’s Sadat-Begin summit in 1978. Syria and Lebanon’s Hezbollah will remain but Israel can on its own battle them defensively anytime.

The cost of having eliminated all possible military threats to Israel permanently will have been rendering chaos and immense destruction upon the erstwhile Republics of Iran and Iraq. But that is not a cost that America’s public cares very much about, and so will not appear much on American TV screens or America’s public memory for very long. Iraq and Iran will have been neutralised and destroyed as legal entities and modern nation-states, being left instead as large oil-fields and chaotic/anarchic polities and societies under sway of American and Western military forces. The return in the 21st Century to the pre-1945 world of imperialism would entail an end of the system of worldwide nation-states that was attempted with the United Nations experiment (the progeny of US President Woodrow Wilson’s “League of Nations”), and the imposition of a new ideology of the West vs. the Rest.

A Mature Israel Is The Key To Averting An American Attack On Iran

It would be better for everyone in the world, including Israel and America, if an American attack against Iran could somehow be averted. Muslim cultures have much long-term patience — a virtue modern American culture most conspicuously lacks. There are Iraqi mothers who have promised their unborn sons for vengeance against America and Iranian mothers may well join them. America’s TV-driven culture can barely remember who said or did what last week, whereas ideological Muslims rehearse and revisit endlessly every day what supposedly happened in Muslim history over 1200 years ago. Indeed ideological Muslims and their orthodox Jewish and Christian fundamentalist adversaries have all tended to be obsessed with the purported ancient histories of the three faiths that arose in the deserts of Palestine and Arabia — though none of these religious histories or any other may be able to withstand very much rigorous academic or scientific scrutiny.

Martin Buber
What has been forgotten too has been the early joint history of Zionists and Palestinians together. Founders of Zionism, including Theodor Herzl himself, who began his campaign in Vienna about 1897 in response to European anti-Jewish behaviour, envisioned “brotherhood” and “cooperation” with the Arab inhabitants of Palestine, where new Jewish immigrants were to find refuge from the decades of tyranny against them in Europe long before Hitler arose. Martin Buber, the profound Hasidic philosopher and Zionist, corresponded with Rabindranath Tagore about the need to build a strong “federative” structure among all the peoples of the East — because the peoples of the West seemed to Buber to have become lost and aimless. (It is not impossible America’s entry into the First World War in 1917, which thwarted a possible German victory, was part of a complicated trade-off in which the Balfour Declaration by Britain promising creation of an Israel, living peacefully with the Arabs in Palestine, was another part.) It was only later revisionist Zionists, led by Vladimir Jabotinsky, who proposed a complete separation of Jew from Arab in that small land — which is where we seem to have been headed now decades later. Israel and Pakistan were the only two countries created in the 20th Century, and about the same time, supposedly as “homelands” for people based on religious definitions alone. The Zionist Movement was ongoing by the early 1930s, and young Rahmat Ali, the lonely ideological inventor of the term “PAKSTAN” on the top floor of a London bus in 1934, might well have been influenced by what he heard of it.

The one way war may be preventable today is if Israel’s political centre and right-wing (i.e. the Kadima and Likud parties) came to obtain and declare a clear and justifiable view that (a) an American attack on Iran would be counter- productive; and/or (b) that an Iran, even a nuclear armed Iran, shall not be a tangible threat to Israel. If an American attack on Iran is ultimately premised on the defence of Israel, and if the Israelis themselves come to justifiably believe such an attack overall could be a very bad thing and told the Americans so publicly or privately, there would no longer be reason for the Americans to be preparing to make such an attack, and instead could keep their almost 600 warships and submarines in harbour or on normal patrol around the world.

Israeli security assessment

There may be enough reason on both these points for Israel’s toughest hawks to agree that superior alternatives to war need to be and can be found. On the first, Yuval Diskin, the head of Israel’s domestic security agency, Shin Bet, has recently said that Israel may yet come to regret the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. His confidential speech to students preparing for military service came to be secretly recorded and was then broadcast on Israeli TV. “When you dismantle a system in which there is a despot who controls his people by force, you have chaos… I’m not sure we won’t miss Saddam”, saying a strong dictatorship may have been better than the present “chaos” in Iraq. Israeli security assessments are likely to be far more astute than what gets to be produced in America’s East Coast think tanks. The near-chaos the Bush-Blair invasion of Iraq in 2003 has caused will be multiplied several fold if there was now a major attack on Iran, let aside use of atomic bombs against it. Such an attack may be in fact wholly counterproductive.

Secondly, Israel needs to abandon her feigned immaturity and coyness with respect to her erstwhile Anglo-American guardians, and instead demonstrate to the world and her neighbours in particular that she is a mature and responsible adult in international politics. Avner Cohen and Thomas Graham Jr. have said in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists May/June 2004 that Israel had promised the USA “it [would] not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East…A taboo was created… By September 1969, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir and President Richard Nixon had reached a new secret understanding of the issue. Meir pledged that Israel would not declare its nuclear status, would not test its weapons, and would not use its nuclear capability for diplomatic gains. Rather, the Israeli bomb would be kept in the basement, for use only as a last resort. Israel would not join the NPT, but it would not defy it either. What had begun as a taboo turned into a symbiotic policy. The United States stopped pressuring Israel and accepted a de facto policy of `don’t ask, don’t tell’. …Today … Israel’s policy of nuclear secrecy stands in profound tension with the basic values upon which the country’s democracy rests: the principles of accountability, oversight, and the public’s right to know. In the absence of public debate (and public debate requires some factual information) the taboo only reinforces and perpetuates itself….By becoming more transparent and by associating itself in some way with the nonproliferation regime — from which it indirectly benefits — Israel could gain an important element of legitimacy for its program and for its security posture…. The basic technology needed to create nuclear weapons is increasingly available. Capabilities once possessed only by a few governments can now be purchased in stores and marketplaces around the world. If nuclear weapon states are ever to achieve deep cuts in their nuclear stockpiles — an important part of the basic bargain of the NPT and essential to the long-term viability of the treaty — some account has to be taken of Israel, India, and Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. They must be integrated into the non- proliferation regime”.

The road to peace
Israel declaring itself a nuclear weapons power of long-standing with an independent deterrent the size of France or Britain (with perhaps 500 nuclear warheads, more than China, India and Pakistan combined), would be more than enough by way of military warning to its potential adversaries. Indeed even if Iran (having bought from Pakistan’s programme which itself had bought from North Korea and China) was allowed over the next dozen years to crawl towards half a dozen nuclear warheads of its own, recognition and normal diplomatic relations between Israel and Iran, and Israel and Pakistan, could be followed by a new protocol between Israel, India, Pakistan and Iran. Israel, India and Pakistan are not signatories to the existing NPT and Iran has now declared its intent, as a sovereign signatory, to exit the NPT as well. To get Iran and Israel to recognise one another and establish diplomatic relations would be of course a masterly feat of international diplomacy. But it is not impossible if adequate knowledge and determination can be mustered in good time before it becomes too late. Finally of course, as President Dwight D. Eisenhower had warned in his Farewell Address to the American people in 1961, an “alert and knowledgeable citizenry” must also rein in America’s “military industrial complex”.

see also https://independentindian.com/2006/04/06/irans-nationalism/

Posted in Air warfare, America's military-industrial complex, American politics, Arabs, Asia and the West, Diplomacy, Diplomatic recognition, Hasidic Jews, India's Foreign Policy, India's Military Defence, India-Pakistan peace process, India-USA interests, International Law, International politics, Iran, Iran's modern history, Iraq war, Israel, Israel's nuclear weapons and policy, Israel's security policy, Israel-Iran conflict-resolution, Israeli attack on Gaza, Jammu & Kashmir, Jews for and against Zionism, Martin Buber, Nuclear conflict, Pakistan's nuclear weapons, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, UN/League of Nations, US Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Espionage, US-Iran relations, USA, United States, War, World History, World War, Zionism. Leave a Comment »

Separation of Powers: India, the USA, Pakistan

February 13, 2006 — drsubrotoroy

SEPARATION OF POWERS (2006)

Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws outlined a doctrine that applies to India, the USA and all constitutional democracies: there is no monopoly of political wisdom.

By SUBROTO ROY
First published in The Sunday Statesman, The Statesman Editorial Page,

Special Article Feb 12-13 2006

The Speaker’s noble office is that of the single member of the House, traditionally chosen by unanimity, whose task it is to self-effacingly maintain order in Parliamentary debate and proceedings, so that the House’s work gets done. C’est tout. Once chosen Speaker, he ipso facto retires from partisan politics for life. The Speaker neither contributes to the substance of Parliamentary debate (except in the rare case of a tie) nor has to feel personally responsible for Parliament’s conduct.

Our Parliament has tended to become so dysfunctional since Indira Gandhi and her sycophants destroyed its traditions 30 years ago, that supervising its normal work is an onerous enough task for even the finest of Speakers to handle.

The Lok Sabha’s incumbent Speaker has tended to see himself as the champion of Parliament.  He need not.  He does not command a majority in the Lok Sabha; the Government Party does. We have had the oddest peculiarity unfolding in India at present where the person who does command the Lok Sabha’s majority, and therefore who would be normally defined as Prime Minister of India, has chosen to nominate someone who is not a member of the Lok Sabha to act as Prime Minister, i.e. to command the Lok Sabha’s majority. (The Rajya Sabha was and remains irrelevant to most things important to Indian democracy, regardless of its narcissism and vanity). Someone with access to 10 Janpath should have told Sonia Gandhi in May 2004 that if she did not wish to be PM and wanted to gift the job to someone else, she should do so to someone who, like herself, had been elected to the Lok Sabha, like Pranab Mukherjee (elected for the first time) or Kamal Nath or Priya Ranjan (both veterans).

Manmohan Singh, a former Lok Sabha candidate, may as Finance Minister have been able to progress much further with economic reforms. But sycophancy has ruled the roost in the Congress’s higher echelons, and nobody had the guts to tell her that. Indeed as early as December 2001, Congress leaders knew that in the unlikely event they won the polls, Manmohan Singh would likely be PM by Sonia Gandhi’s choice (though he was not expected to last long at the top), and yet he did not contest the Lok Sabha polls in 2004.

The Government of the day, not the Speaker, is Parliament’s champion in any discussion with the Supreme Court over constitutional rights and Separation of Powers. And the Government has in fact quietly and sensibly requested the Supreme Court to set up a Constitutional Bench for this purpose. Such a Constitutional Bench shall have cause to ask itself how far Kesavananda Bharati needs to be tweaked if at all to accommodate the contention that Parliament has a right to judge its own members. The Court may well likely say that of course Parliament has a right to judge its own members but even that right is not an absolute right, (nothing is). Even Parliament’s right to judge its own members must be in accordance with natural law, with principles of justice, with due and clearly defined processes. E.g. the established Privileges Committee and not the ad hoc Bansal Committee had to do the needful.

Imagine a hypothetical case of fantastic fiction where half a dozen independent MPs are elected to a future Lok Sabha, and then take it upon themselves to expose corruption and shenanigans of all major political parties. Our fantastic super-heroes become whistleblowers within Parliament itself while remaining totally incorruptible as individuals — like Eliot Ness’s team who jailed Al Capone and other gangsters, and came to be depicted in Hollywood’s The Untouchables. These Untouchables would come to be feared and despised by everyone from Communists on one side of the political spectrum to Fascists on the other. They would upset everybody precisely because they were so clean and were not purchasable. The Government and Opposition of the day might wellgang up to expel such troublemakers and even fabricate charges to do so. (Now there’s a script for a Bollywood movie!)

What our Supreme Court’s Constitutional Bench decides now in the matter at hand will determine the fate of our super-heroes in such a future fantasia. The present case is a polar opposite — where MPs have been caught on camera with their sordid fingers in the cookie-jar, and then made to walk the plank immediately by their peers. Yet natural law applies here as it will to our fantastic future fighters, and this is what the Bench would have to speak on.

Why the present situation continues to be disconcerting is because the whole country heard all the holier-than-thou protestations, yet everyone continues to take a very dim view of what they see of politicians’ behaviour. There remain strong suspicions that only a few very tiny tips of very large icebergs were or can be caught on camera. Large-scale deals and contracts involve payments into invisible bank accounts, not petty cash into pockets or even suitcases filled with cash sloshing around Delhi.

What we have desperately needed in the situation is modern prime ministerial leadership which could intelligently and boldly guide national debate in the right direction on the whole matter of probity in public life. Why a distinguished parliamentarian like the Speaker has found himself in the limelight is because neither the de jure nor de facto Prime Ministers of India are anywhere to be seen thinking on their feet on these central issues of constitutional procedure and practice. They tend to use prepared scripts and may be temperamentally disinclined to do what has been called for by these unscripted circumstances. (Indeed the much-maligned H. D. Deve Gowda could be alone among the bevy of recent PMs who has been able to think on his feet at all.)

Collapse Before Executive Power

In the meantime, the United States is going through its own Separation of Powers’ crisis. As explained in these columns previously, the American system is distinctly different from the British, and our own system is midway between them. Yet similar principles may be discerned to apply or fail to be applied in all.

Winston Churchill once perspicaciously observed:

“The rigid Constitution of the United States, the gigantic scale and strength of its party machinery, the fixed terms for which public officers and representatives are chosen, invest the President with a greater measure of autocratic power than was possessed before (the First World War) by the Head of any great State. The vast size of the country, the diverse types, interests and environments of its enormous population, the safety-valve function of the legislatures of fifty Sovereign States, make the focussing of national public opinion difficult, and confer upon the Federal Government exceptional independence of it except at fixed election times. Few modern Governments need to concern themselves so little with the opinion of the party they have beaten at the polls; none secures to its supreme executive officer, at once the Sovereign and the Party Leader, such direct personal authority.”

America’s Legislative Branch has, on paper, strong powers of advice and consent to control errors, excesses or abuse of power by the Executive President. But (with rare and courageous exceptions like Sen. Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia) the Legislature cravenly collapsed before the father-son Bush presidencies in regard to the Middle East wars of recent years. America’s once-revered federal judiciary has also tended to lose its independence of mind with overt politicisation of judicial appointments in recent decades.

Bush the First went to war against Saddam Hussein (a former American ally against Islamic Iran) at least partly with an eye to winning re-election in 1992 (which he would have done as a result but for a random shock known as Ross Perot; Bill Clinton became the beneficiary). Bush the Second obsessively wished to follow up on the same, to the point of misjudging the real threat to America from Bin Laden and fabricating a false threat from an emasculated Saddam.

America’s Legislature palpably failed to control her Presidents. Now, late in the day, after all the horses have bolted, the Senate Judiciary Committee began tepid hearings on February 5 2006 into whether the President authorized laws to be broken with impunity in regard to wire-tapping some 5,000 citizens (doubtless mostly non-white and Muslim) without judicial warrants. Republican Senator Arlen Specter, the Committee’s Chairman, has said he believes the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has been “flatly” violated, and “strained and unrealistic” justifications are now being offered. Bush’s men, from his Vice President and Attorney General to political intelligence operatives, have brazenly placed in the dustbin the traditional principle fiat justitia pereat mundus — let justice be done even if the world perishes — saying that the Sovereign can do just as he pleases to save the realm from external enemies as he might perceive and define them to be.

What this kind of collapse in current American practice reveals is a new aspect unknown at the time of Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws. In the modern world, Separation of Powers involves not merely constitutional institutions like Executive, Legislature and Judiciary but also the normal civil institutions of a free and open society, especially academic institutions and the press. In America, it has been not merely the Legislature and Judiciary which have tended to collapse before Executive Power in regard to the recent Middle East wars, but the media and academia as well.

“Embedded reporters” and Fox TV set the tone for America’s official thought processes about Iraq and the Muslim world — until it has become too late for America’s mainstream media or academics to recover their own credibility on the subject. On the other hand, unofficial public opinion has, in America’s best traditions, demonstrated using vast numbers of Internet websites and weblogs, a spirited Yankee Doodle individuality against the jingoism and war-mongering of the official polity.

Neither the press nor academia had collapsed the same way during America’s last major foreign wars in Vietnam and Cambodia forty years ago, and it may be fairly said that America’s self-knowledge was rather better then than it is now, except of course there were no Internet websites and weblogs.

Our Pakistani Cousins
Across the border from us, our Pakistani cousins are, from a political and constitutional point of view, cut from the same cloth as ourselves, namely the 1935 Government of India Act, and the Montague-Chelmsford and Morley-Minto reforms earlier. However, ever since Jinnah’s death, they have refused to admit this and instead embarked haplessly on what can only be called an injudicious path of trying to write a Constitution for a new Caliphate. The primary demand of the main scholars influencing this process was “That the sovereignty in Pakistan belongs to God Almighty alone and that the Government of Pakistan shall administer the country as His agent”. By such a view, in the words of Rashid Rida and Maulana Maududi, Islam becomes “the very antithesis of secular Western democracy. The philosophical foundation of Western democracy is the sovereignty of the people. Lawmaking is their prerogative and legislation must correspond to the mood and temper of their opinion… Islam… altogether repudiates the philosophy of popular sovereignty and rears its polity on the foundations of the sovereignty of God and the viceregency (Khilafat) of man.” (Rosenthal, Islam & the Modern National State, Cambridge 1965.) Pakistan’s few modern constitutionalists have been ever since battling impossibly to overcome the ontological error made here of assuming that any mundane government can be in communication with God Almighty. In the meantime, all normal branches of Pakistan’s polity, like the electorate, press, political parties, Legislature and Judiciary, have remained at best in ill-formed inchoate states of being — while the Pakistan Armed Forces stepped in with their own large economic and political interests and agendas to effectively take over the country and the society as a whole, on pretext of protecting Pakistan from India or of gaining J&K for it. Pakistan’s political problems have the ontological error at their root. Pakistan’s political parties, academics and press, have with rare exceptions remained timid in face of the militaristic State — directing their anger and frustration at an easier target instead, namely ourselves in India. The Pakistan Government’s way of silencing its few political, academic or press dissidents has been to send them into comfortable exile abroad.

Sheikh Abdullah Contrasted
Pakistan’s perpetual constitutional confusion deserves to be contrasted with the clarity of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah’s thinking, e.g. his 5 November 1951 speech to the Constituent Assembly of J&K: “You are the sovereign authority in this State of Jammu & Kashmir; what you decide has the irrevocable force of law. The basic democratic principle of sovereignty of the nation, embodied ably in the American and French Constitutions, is once again given shape in our midst. I shall quote the famous words of Article 3 of the French Constitution of 1791:- ‘The source of all sovereignty resides fundamentally in the nation. Sovereignty is one and indivisible, inalienable and imprescriptable. It belongs to the nation.’ We should be clear about the responsibilities that this power invests us with. In front of us lie decisions of the highest national importance which we shall be called upon to take. Upon the correctness of our decisions depends not only the happiness of our land and people now, but the fate as well of generations to come.”

Contrasting the Pakistani views of constitution-making with those of Sheikh Abdullah may help to explain a great deal about where we are today on the delicate and profound subject of J&K. (See “Solving Kashmir”, The Statesman, December 1—3, 2005)

India’s current debate about Separation of Powers needs to keep at a distance the clear negative examples of our American friends, who have brought upon themselves in recent times a craven collapse of Legislature, Judiciary, press and academia to the Executive President (as Churchill had seemed to predict), as well as of our Pakistani cousins who have continued with general political and civil collapse for half a century. Because our universities are all owned by the State, India’s academics, from Communist to Fascist, have tended to be servile towards it. In respect of the press, the power of independent newspapers has been dwindling, while the new TV anchors have created their own models of obsequiousness and chummery towards New Delhi’s ruling cliques of the day. It thus becomes India’s Supreme Court which remains the ultimate guardian of our Constitution and the safest haven of our very fragile freedoms — besides of course our own minds and hearts.

The Sunday Statesman 12 February 2006
The Statesman 13 February 2006

Posted in America's impatience, America's military-industrial complex, American academia, American democracy, American history, American politics, Asia and the West, Comparative Government, Constitutional law, Constitutional Politics, Democracy, Expertise and democracy, Fiat justitia pereat mundus, France, Governance, Government of India, Government of Pakistan, India's Cabinet Government, India's protocols, India's Constitution, India's constitutional politics, India's corruption, India's Democracy, India's independence, India's Jurisprudence, India's Lok Sabha, India's Parliament, India's political lobbyists, India's political parties, India's Politics, India's Polity, India's Reserve Bank, India's Supreme Court, Indira Gandhi, Iraq war, Islam, Jammu & Kashmir, Jurisprudence, Manmohan Singh, Pakistan's history, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Parliamentary Backbenches, Parliamentary Government, Parliamentary law, Parliamentary Procedure, Politics, Sheikh Abdullah, Sonia Gandhi, Television, US Constitution, US Federal Law & Jurisprudence, US Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Espionage, USA, United States, USA, United States polity, Winston Churchill, World History. Leave a Comment »

Of Graven Images

February 5, 2006 — drsubrotoroy

OF GRAVEN IMAGES

It is a fallacy of our narcissistic age to expect images of what supreme leaders of thought may have looked like; their teachings and deeds are unaffected by our erroneous expectations

By SUBROTO ROY

First published in The Statesman Editorial Page Special Article, Feb 5 2006

IT is hard for us in our narcissistic age of photography, cinema, TV and the Internet to imagine older worlds and cultures where men and women (especially named historical figures) lived and died without any images whatsoever being left behind of what they may have looked like. Few of us know what our own great great grandparents looked like, and they died only a century ago. In Indian religious and philosophical thought, we hardly even know any names.

Eliot in his monumental Hinduism and Buddhism said, “In reading the Brahamanas and older Upanishads we often wish we knew more of the writers and their lives. Rarely can so many representative men have bequeathed so much literature and yet left so dim a sketch of their times. Thought was their real life… we hear surprisingly little about contemporary events.”

In Jain tradition, the first saint, Risabha, son of a king of Ayodhya, was born 100 billion sagaras of years ago, where one sagara is 100 billion palyas, and a palya is the period in which a well a mile deep filled with fine hairs can be emptied if one hair is withdrawn every one hundred years. That is a long time. Risabha lived 8,400,000 years, exceeding all the enormous longevities mentioned in Judaeo-Christian scriptures.

Fortunately for the cause of logic and natural science, “the lives of his successors and the intervals which separated them became shorter”. In Asoka’s edicts, the Jains find their first definite objective mention outside fable, myth and legend. Mahavira, the 24th and greatest Jain saint, whose personal name was Vardhamana, was a contemporary of Buddha though somewhat older. His parents lived in a suburb of Vaisali. When he was 34, “they decided to die by voluntary starvation and after their deaths he renounced the world and started to wander naked in western Bengal, enduring some persecution as well as self-inflicted penances.” Thirteen years later, at age 47, Mahavira had attained enlightenment and appeared as the head of the Nigantha religious order, i.e. the “unfettered”, and it is by that name that the Jains are known to the Buddhists. No image of the historical Mahavira is available, which should not surprise us given the great length of time that separates us as well as the simple fact that the art of realistic portrait-painting is but a few centuries old — starting with, say, Rembrandt and the Dutch Masters — and of course the arts of photography etc are all wholly recent.

Of Gotama, the Buddha, the Sakyamuni of Mahayana tradition, there have been countless images made over the millennia though none may bear any recognisable likeness to the actual man. During his period of fruitless self-mortification, we have his own words “When I touched my belly, I felt my backbone through it and when I touched my back, I felt my belly”. After his enlightenment, wanderings and teachings, the “beauty of his appearance and the pleasant quality of his voice are often mentioned but in somewhat conventional terms which inspire no confidence that they are based on personal reminiscence, nor have the most ancient images which we possess any claim to represent his features, for the earliest of them are based on Greek models and it was not the custom to represent him by a figure until some centuries after his death.”

It is possible “the truest idea of his person is to be obtained not from the abundant effigies which show him as a somewhat sanctimonious ascetic, but from the statues of him as a young man such as that found at Sarnath, which may possibly preserve not indeed the physiognomy of Gotama but the general physique of a young Nepalese prince, with powerful limbs and features and a determined mouth. For there is truth at the bottom of the saying that Gotama was born to be either a Buddha or a universal monarch: he would have made a good general, if he had not become a monk” (Eliot).

In case of Yeshua ben Nazereth, the founder of Christianity, the controversy has become most intense in recent times. A trial has begun in an Italian courtroom on 27 January 2006 as to whether Jesus existed at all, whether the Roman Catholic Church has violated Italian law by teaching about him. An atheist plaintiff, Luigi Cascioli, has alleged “The Church constructed Christ upon the personality of John, the son of Judas of Gamala”, and claims it is up to the Church to prove in court that Jesus did exist. A priest, Enrico Righi, representing the Church in court, has been accused of breaking two laws: impersonation and abuse of public belief, for having published in a parish bulletin that Jesus was born of a couple named Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem and lived in Nazareth. Judge Gaetano Mautone initially refused to hear the case but was forced to do so after being over-ruled by the Court of Appeals.

As for what the historical Jesus may have looked like, The Bible gives no physical description other than in Isaiah 53:2b, “he hath no form nor comeliness, and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.”As a Palestinian Jew, Jesus was likely to have been dark, not the blue-eyed Nordic Jesus of modern American imagination with Presbyterian nose, long blonde hair and height of six feet (Fig. 1). For centuries, the Shroud of Turin was believed by many to have been the actual burial cloth of Jesus — until modern scientific techniques of carbon-dating have conclusively proved that the Shroud was probably of a medieval nobleman and had nothing to do with the historical Jesus. Out of respect as well as sheer ignorance of what he may have looked like, modern cinematic productions traditionally did not show Christ’s face. But based on the Shroud of Turin image (Fig 2), the actor Jim Caviezel recently acted the role of Jesus in “The Passion of the Christ” (Fig. 3). Jean Claude Gragard, in a 2001 BBC documentary “Son of God” chose a different way. “Using archaeological and anatomical science rather than artistic interpretation makes this (Fig 4) the most accurate likeness ever created. It isn’t the face of Jesus, because we’re not working with the skull of Jesus, but it is the departure point for considering what Jesus would have looked like.” They “started with an Israeli skull dating back to the 1st century. They then used computer programs, clay, simulated skin and their knowledge about the Jewish people of the time to determine the shape of the face, and colour of eyes and skin.” The result is “a broad peasant’s face, dark olive skin, short curly hair and a prominent nose, about 5’ 1” in height, 110 pounds in weight.” We do not and cannot in practice know what Jesus looked like but this might be closer to the truth than the work of great artists.

And of course, Jesus’ Divinity to Christian believers, and his teachings and deeds for all mankind, like those of Mahavira or Buddha or other supreme leaders of human thought like Aristotle, Zarathustra, Confucius, Muhammad and Nanak, are unaffected by whatever image people have erroneously made of them.

see also my Twitter Wall on the CharlieHebdo controversy; also https://independentindian.com/2001/12/22/the-case-for-and-against-the-satanic-verses/ and https://independentindian.com/science-religion-art-the-necessity-of-freedom-2004/

Posted in Aristotle, Buddhism, Charles Eliot, Christianity, Hinduism, India's Philosophy, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Science, Religion, Literature, Television, World History. Leave a Comment »

Diplomatic Wisdom (2006)

January 31, 2006 — drsubrotoroy

DIPLOMATIC WISDOM

by Subroto Roy

Editorial page, The Statesman, January 31 2006

 

Indian diplomacy has, almost accidentally, shown some wisdom. The King of Saudi Arabia should have been long ago invited to be Chief Guest on Republic Day. His Majesty immediately reciprocated with the most gracious words possible: “I consider myself to be in my second homeland. The relationship between India and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is an historic one, we have been old friends and, God willing, this visit will renew these historic ties”. Indeed the King should be invited to make a full State visit in the near future travelling all over India, including Srinagar Valley ; where Khruschev and Bulganin went in 1955!

 

India has the second largest population of Muslim believers in the world after Indonesia, and it is only right the Keeper of the Holy Places of Islam should see for himself that India is indeed dar-ul-aman, not the dar-ul-harb that the propaganda of the Pakistanis and their terroristic protégés have made it out to be in Saudi and Gulf power circles.

 

Kalam and the King

The Vajpayee Government deserves a little credit for the present success, because it was they who caused the fact that His Majesty Faisal Ibn Abdullah Ibn Muhammad Al-Saud was hosted by an Indian rocket scientist born in a Muslim family in an impecunious fishing village of Tamil Nadu. The King and his princes would not have failed to feel the poignancy in that. India is also the second largest country of Shiá Islam after Iran, and Ayatollah Khatami was Chief Guest a few years ago when he was President of Iran. It has been argued in these columns (“Solving Kashmir”, The Statesman, December 1-3, 2005) that the solution to J&K requires Indian diplomacy with Iran and Afghanistan as well ; which, incidentally, will make the hollowness of Pakistan’s claims in J&K most obvious.

 

Now the President of the United States is due to visit India shortly. George W Bush is the third Republican President to come to India after Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. His predecessor Bill Clinton came as a single man at the end of his second term, on holiday from a rocky marriage, to dance with Rajasthani women and indulge his love of Indian food. Before Clinton in 2000, the last American President to visit was Jimmy Carter in 1978, who gave a stirring speech to Parliament about democracy after Morarji Desai had defeated Indira Gandhi’s Emergency. George Bush, also in his second term, will come to India amid controversy.

 

“You’re a good man”, Bush condescendingly said to Manmohan Singh in Washington, half-remembering that morning’s intelligence briefing memo. Had our PM been more experienced of the world he could have replied equally loudly: “Thanks, you’re not so bad yourself. Let’s chop some wood next time”. It is almost definite there will be no agreement on the nuclear collaboration deal, and that the dispute erupting over Iran may have enlarged itself. Platitudes will be exchanged but the fact that the President has chosen to combine his visit to India with a visit to his buddies in the Pakistani Government will not go unnoticed in the MEA.

 

“Balance of power” has been the motif of Anglo-American foreign policy in Asia at least ever since the Arabs were induced to revolt against the Turks by Allenby and Lawrence, followed by pitting Iran and the Arabs against each other. The same goes for India and Pakistan. Also, our rather uncouth Communists have vowed to make their presence felt in street-protests and boycotts of Parliament when Bush comes.

 

FDR & Martin Luther King Jr

In this tense atmosphere, where the summit may actually falter rather badly on substance, Manmohan Singh will need to make some important symbolic gestures. Going to meet the Saudi King at the airport was an appropriate gesture. Clinton had expected the Indian PM to meet him too, and was visibly disappointed to land in the middle of the night only amidst the lights of the TV cameras. The Bushes should be met at the airport by our PM and his spouse. The President is our honoured guest and guests are to be treated like gods.

 

In the same vein, four boulevards across India’s largest cities deserve to be named after four American heroes: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr., Dwight D. Eisenhower and Abraham Lincoln. The first two were Democrats, the latter two Republicans.

 

Naming a boulevard in New Delhi after FDR would belatedly acknowledge his small, spontaneous yet critical and principled role in support of Indian independence that, shockingly, remains unrecognised in India. Britain could not expect American support against German and Japanese imperialism while expecting the Americans not to support Indian aspirations for national freedom. India’s own academic historians, mostly under influence of either Communist or RSS methodologies, have failed even to produce objective biographies of major national leaders, let aside candid accounts of British rule, the development of the Indian nation-state, the Transfer of Power or Partition.

 

The same intellectual sloppiness has extended to economics too, and underlies the gross misunderstanding of India’s monetary and fiscal histories as was outlined recently in these columns. It has required a young American scholar, Dinyar Patel, writing in an official American Government publication to outline Roosevelt’s role during India’s independence (Span, March 2005).

 

Where FDR helped India’s struggle for freedom, Martin Luther King Jr adopted India’s method to lead America’s blacks (“Negroes” and “coloureds” as they were then called) to freedom within their own country. MK Gandhi had corresponded with Tolstoy after beginning his campaign of passive resistance to unjust South African laws, and he read Henry Thoreau’s essay on civil disobedience when he was already in jail for that very same offence. Many years later, the young Alabama preacher put to use Gandhi’s example of courageous peaceful defiance of injustice in his own sweet land of liberty. On receiving the Nobel Peace Prize on 10 December 1964, King said: “Non-violence is the answer to the crucial political and moral question of our time – the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression. Civilisation and violence are antithetical concepts. Negroes of the United States, following the people of India, have demonstrated that non-violence is not sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force which makes for social transformation”. Of course, King like Gandhi would have been appalled by the religious, colour, caste and racial prejudices of contemporary Indians, Pakistanis etc today, and naming a boulevard in King’s name may do more for our own moral well-being than anything else.

 

Eisenhower and Lincoln

As for Dwight Eisenhower and Abraham Lincoln, the former may well be seen in later centuries as the greatest of 20th Century American Presidents as the latter was of the 19th. Though they had nothing to do with India, naming boulevards after them would remind Indians of the existence of great men in world history.

Jyoti Basu’s Communists once named streets in Kolkata after Lenin and Ho Chi Minh, and still pay annual obeisance at Lenin’s statue with clenched fists and garlands. Ho Chi Minh was a great nationalist and may have deserved an Indian street but it was a cheap and gratuitous insult by the Communists to name the very street on which the American Consulate stood after the Vietnamese leader who was then their enemy. The Americans were mature enough at the time to ignore it and not pull out their Consulate from Kolkata — the very same Consulate that is so highly in demand with Basu’s successor, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.

Under influence of the well-known academic apologists for Communist China, Bhattacharjee has been recently extolling the virtues of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai too – apparently ignorant of the 40 million Chinese that Mao killed and apparently forgiving Zhou’s hatred of and perfidy against India. Before any further such nonsense occurs, we should name roads after FDR, King, Eisenhower and Lincoln, and the time to do it would be when George W. Bush makes his visit.

Posted in Arabs, Asia and the West, Atal Behari Vajpayee, Britain, Communists, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Good and Evil, India's Caste/Ethnic Problems, India's Diplomacy, India's Foreign Policy, Manmohan Singh, Mao Zedong, Martin Luther King Jr, MK Gandhi, Racism, USA, United States, World History, Zhou Enlai. Leave a Comment »

Communists and Constitutions

January 22, 2006 — drsubrotoroy

COMMUNISTS & CONSTITUTIONS

By SUBROTO ROY
first published in The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page, Special Article,

January 22, 2006

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is img_20210710_171504.jpg

Constitutions and communists do not go together. The most glaring example comes from Russia — the Motherland not only of modern communism but also of great brave individual souls like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov, and the many other men and women who struggled to defeat communism there over seven decades. Before Russia managed to liberate herself from communism — i.e. before the Communist Party of the Soviet Union began under Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin to liberate itself from itself in the late 1980s — the only genuine elections that ever occurred in the country were to the Constituent Assembly of November 1917.

That Constituent Assembly was a multiparty legislative body and it happened to have a large anti-Bolshevik majority. It met only once in January 1918 and was destroyed under Lenin immediately because it quite naturally refused to adopt Bolshevik proposals. Under the Czar, the “Constitutional Democratic Party” (the “Cadets”), formed in 1905, “constituted the most dangerous ranks of revolution”. Under the government of the proletariat, the very same Cadet Party represented “the most dangerous ranks of reaction” (Solzhenitsyn). Constitutionalists inevitably end up battling both the Fascists of the Right and the Communists of the Left. As Hannah Arendt made clear, the organisation of totalitarian governments whether of Hitler’s Germany or Stalin’s USSR or Mao’s China were remarkably similar in nature. Upon seizing power in November 1917, Russia’s Bolsheviks attacked the constitutionalists first, outlawing the Cadet Party and arresting its members, and doing the same to students, workers and soldiers associated with the “Alliance for the Constituent Assembly”.

This is not a coincidence. Communists and fascists are powered by instincts of grabbing State political power for themselves any which way they can, in order to impose by brute force on everyone else the rather shoddy obsolete ideologies they subscribe to themselves. Karl Marx himself most famously said the words “I am not a Marxist”. Communists and fascists cannot stand the idea of the anonymous individual citizen standing up on his or her own; their instinct is one which cannot attribute credit to the individual person for any good that may be done, instead purloining it into a fake “collective” effort. Similarly, errors cannot be simply acknowledged, and instead responsibility is diffused all around until nobody remembers who said or did what or when, and all history becomes a jumble.

Every great scientific and artistic achievement has been an expression of individual genius, often against the reactionary collective will. And constitutions from Magna Carta onwards have been built on the idea of protecting the anonymous, powerless individual citizen against the violent arbitrary power of the established State and its comprador organisations. Britain and America may have contributed their share of evil to world history but they have made up for at least some of it by pioneering Anglo-Saxon constitutional jurisprudence. It may be no coincidence Britain and America have been home to the greatest outpourings of human creativity and invention in modern times, from the steam engine to the Internet.

In fact it has been a singularly American contribution to pioneer the very idea that parliamentary majorities themselves need to be restrained from their own baser proclivities. In 1767, before America had herself become free from British rule, the British Parliament once issued a declaration that a parliamentary majority could pass any law it saw fit. It was greeted with an outcry of horror in Britain’s American colonies. Patrick Henry of Virginia — later famous for his cry “Give me Liberty or give me Death” — led the battle for the anonymous free individual citizen against the arbitrary power that comes to be represented by the herd or mob instincts even of elected parliamentary majorities. Constitutions are written to protect parliaments and peoples from themselves.

The philosopher John Wisdom, who translated the subtle work of Wittgenstein and Freud into normal idioms, once said: “Sometimes a society acts as if all power lay in the hands of the most babyish and animal members, and sometimes as if all power lay in the hands of strict old men, and sometimes it acts more as a whole — mostly when there’s a war on. Sometimes a man is not himself and acts as if a babyish or cunning animal had gained control — that’s the id — sometimes as if an exacting parent, a sarcastic schoolmaster, or an implacable deity possessed him — that’s the super-ego. Sometimes a man is more himself and acts more as a whole, a new whole which is not a combination but a synthesis of the id and the super-ego. Some are constantly at the mercy of the id, some are slaves to the super-ego, and in some first one and then the other gains an unhappy victory in a continual struggle, and in some conflict and control have vanished into cooperation…”

Similarly, we may say that political processes in any country appear to often give play to the most “babyish” and “cunning animal” instincts of the society, while at other times the “strict old men” or “exacting parent” take over. The constant struggle of political reasonableness is to find the rational, normal national self that rests in between.

India at present has been set upon an unproductive and pointless course of inevitable Constitutional collision between Parliament and the Supreme Court. That course has been singly set by the present Speaker even though every attempt is being made now to diffuse his responsibility for the situation that has arisen, so that soon nobody will be able to remember exactly what happened or why. The incumbent Speaker, instead of being wholly self-effacing as called for by the job-requirements of the high and grave office he holds, has remained too much of a normal parliamentary advocate. Before grave irreparable damage comes to be done to India’s Parliamentary and Constitutional traditions, he needs to return at once to the Front Benches of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) as a distinguished senior Member of the House, and from there make whatever arguments he wishes about Parliament’s rights under the Constitution. The high self-effacing office of the Speaker is not from where such arguments as he has been making should be made — unless India’s Parliament and Constitution are soon to be thrown into the dustbin for ever (as has similarly happened for half a century across the border with our Pakistani cousins).

The incumbent Speaker is right that the Supreme Court does not oversee Parliament. The Supreme Court oversees something greater than Parliament, namely, India’s Constitution. Parliament, its Speaker, its Prime Minister, the President of India, and the Supreme Court itself are all creatures of the Constitution. However, the Constitution of India that was adopted on 26 January 1950 is not sui generis a creature of itself. It is the outcome of a clear and well-known constitutional history which has among its modern milestones the Government of India Act of 1935, and thence all the ancient milestones of Anglo-American constitutional jurisprudence going back to Magna Carta. And India’s Supreme Court — sitting not in any of its normal division benches but as a Constitutional Bench — does indeed have jurisdiction, indeed it has sole jurisdiction, over whether India’s Constitution is being made to suffer crimes or misdemeanours at the hands of India’s Government or Parliament of the day. For the Speaker to decline to receive a notice from the High Court is an irrelevancy; many people who are served notices ignore them; it does not reduce jurisdiction by an iota. An “All-Party” meeting of MPs can rail all it wants against the Supreme Court — even the whole of the present Parliament can pass as many unanimous resolutions as they want against the Supreme Court. They will only make themselves look silly and petulant in the eyes of history. As for the BJP Opposition in particular, the present situation may make it perfectly clear that there is not among them a single, principled, liberal constitutionalist hidden in their proto-fascistic ranks.

Posted in Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn, American democracy, Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov, BJP, Bolsheviks, Britain, China, Communists, Constitutional Politics, Fascists, Freedom, Germany, Good and Evil, Hannah Arendt, India's Constitution, India's Democracy, India's Jurisprudence, India's Parliament, India's Polity, John Wisdom, Jurisprudence, Liberalism/Libertarianism, Marx and Engels, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, Politics, Rule of Law, Russia, Sigmund Freud, Unconscious Mind, US Constitution, USA, United States, World History. Leave a Comment »

Solving Kashmir: On an Application of Reason (2005)

December 3, 2005 — drsubrotoroy

SOLVING KASHMIR: ON AN APPLICATION OF REASON

by

Subroto Roy

First published in three parts in The Statesman

Editorial Page Special Article 1, 2, 3 December 2005

This article has its origins in a paper “Towards an Economic Solution for Kashmir” which circulated in Washington DC in 1992-1995, including at the Indian and Pakistani embassies and the Carnegie Endowment, and was given as an invited lecture at the Heritage Foundation on June 23 1998. It should be read along with other articles also republished here, especially “History of J&K”, “Law, Justice and J&K” , “Understanding Pakistan”, “Pakistan’s Allies” and “What to Tell Musharraf”.  See https://independentindian.com/2011/10/13/my-seventy-one-notes-at-facebook-etc-on-kashmir-pakistan-and-of-course-india-listed-thanks-to-jd/  The Washington paper and lecture itself originated from my ideas in the Introduction to Foundations of Pakistan’s Political Economy, edited by WE James and myself in the University of Hawaii project on Pakistan 1986-1992.

Postscript 30 Dec 2015:  I have made clear at Twitter that I find the K.M. Kasuri book, promoted and publicized in India by Mani Shankar Aiyar, Sudheendra Kulkarni, Barkha Dutt and others in Delhi and Mumbai, to be mendacious where it is not merely self-serving.  Its clear intent is to get India to accept the (entirely false) ISI/Hurriyat narratives about 1947, Kashmir, Bangladesh, terrorism etc.  Its purported ideas of demilitarisation and a borderless Kashmir are essentially lifted without the decency of normal acknowledgement from my earlier 1980s work in America cited above — which I myself have rejected as naive since the 1999 Pakistani aggression in Kargil…

NB: https://independentindian.com/2006/07/03/law-justice-and-jk/

https://independentindian.com/2006/10/30/history-of-jk/

 

I. Give Indian `Green Cards’ to the Hurriyat et al

India, being a liberal democracy in its constitutional law, cannot do in Jammu & Kashmir what Czechoslovakia did to the “Sudeten Germans” after World War II.

On June 18 1945 the new Czechoslovakia announced those Germans and Magyars within their borders who could not prove they had been actively anti-fascist before or during the War would be expelled — the burden of proof was placed on the individual, not the State. Czechoslovakia “transferring” this population was approved by the Heads of the USA, UK and USSR Governments at Potsdam on August 2 1945. By the end of 1946, upto two million Sudeten Germans were forced to flee their homes; thousands may have died by massacre or otherwise; 165,000 remained who were absorbed as Czechoslovak citizens. Among those expelled were doubtless many who had supported Germany and many others who had not — the latter to this day seek justice or even an apology in vain. Czechoslovakia punished none of its nationals for atrocities, saying it had been revenge for Hitler’s evil (“badla” in Bollywood terms) and the post Cold War Czech Government too has declined to render an apology. Revenge is a wild kind of justice (while justice may be a civilised kind of revenge).

India cannot follow this savage precedent in international law. Yet we must recognise there are several hundred and up to several hundred thousand persons on our side of the boundary in the State of Jammu & Kashmir who do not wish to be Indian nationals. These people are presently our nationals ius soli, having been born in territory of the Indian Republic, and/or ius sanguinis, having been born of parents who are Indian nationals; or they may be “stateless” whom we must treat in accordance with the 1954 Convention on Stateless Persons. The fact is they may not wish to carry Indian passports or be Indian nationals.

In this respect their juridical persons resemble the few million “elite” Indians who have in the last few decades freely placed their hands on their hearts and solemnly renounced their Indian nationality, declaring instead their individual fidelity to other nation-states — becoming American, Canadian or Australian citizens, or British subjects or nationals of other countries. Such people include tens of thousands of the adult children of India’s metropolitan “elite”, who are annually visited abroad in the hot summer months by their Indian parents and relatives. They are daughters and sons of New Delhi’s Government and Opposition, of retired generals, air marshals, admirals, ambassadors, cabinet secretaries, public sector bureaucrats, private sector businessmen, university professors, journalists, doctors and many others. India’s most popular film-actress exemplified this “elite” capital-flight when, after a tireless search, she chose a foreign husband and moved to California.

The difference in Jammu & Kashmir would be that those wishing to renounce Indian nationality do not wish to move to any other place but to stay as and where they are, which is in Kashmir Valley or Jammu. Furthermore, they may wish, for whatever reason, to adopt, if they are eligible to do so, the nationality of e.g. the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan or the Islamic Republic of Iran or the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

They may believe themselves descended from Ahmad Shah Abdali whose Afghans ruled or misruled Kashmir Valley before being defeated by Ranjit Singh’s Sikhs in 1819. Or they may believe themselves of Iranian descent as, for example, are the Kashmiri cousins of the late Ayatollah Khomeini. Or they may simply have wished to be, or are descended from persons who had wished to be on October 26 1947, citizens of the then-new British Dominion of Pakistan — but who came to be prevented from properly expressing such a desire because of the war-like conditions that have prevailed ever since between India and Pakistan. There may be even a few persons in Ladakh who are today Indian nationals but who wish to be considered Tibetans instead; there is, however, no Tibetan Republic and it does not appear there is going to be one.

India, being a free and self-confident country, should allow, in a systematic lawful manner, all such persons to fulfil their desires, and furthermore, should ensure they are not penalised for having expressed such “anti-national” desires or for having acted upon them. Sir Mark Tully, the British journalist, is an example of someone who has been a foreign national who has chosen to reside permanently in the Republic of India — indeed he has been an exemplary permanent resident of our country. There are many others like him. There is no logical reason why all those persons in Jammu & Kashmir who do wish not to be Indians by nationality cannot receive the same legal status from the Indian Republic as has been granted to Sir Mark Tully. There are already thousands of Sri Lankan, Bangladeshi and Nepalese nationals who are lawful permanent residents in the Indian Republic, and who travel back and forth between India and their home countries. There is no logical reason why the same could not be extended to several hundred or numerous thousand people in Jammu & Kashmir who may wish to not accept or to renounce their Indian nationality (for whatever personal reason) and instead become nationals, if they are so eligible, of the Islamic Republics of Afghanistan, Iran or Pakistan, or, for that matter, to remain stateless. On the one hand, their renunciation of Indian nationality is logically equivalent to the renunciation of Indian nationality by the adult children of India’s “elite” settled in North America and Western Europe. On the other hand, their wish to adopt, if they are eligible, a foreign nationality, such as that of Afghanistan, Iran or Pakistan, and yet remain domiciled in Indian territory is logically equivalent to that of many foreign nationals domiciled in India already like Sir Mark Tully.

Now if you are a permanent resident of some country, you may legally have many, perhaps most, but certainly not all the rights and duties of nationals of that country. e.g., though you will have to pay all the same taxes, you may not be allowed to (or be required to) vote in national or provincial elections but you may in local municipal elections. At the same time, permanently residing foreign nationals are supposed to be equal under the law and have equal access to all processes of civil and criminal justice. (As may be expected though from human frailty, even the federal courts of the USA can be notorious in their injustice and racism towards “Green Card” holders relative to “full” American citizens.) Then again, as a permanently resident foreigner, while you will be free to work in any lawful trade or profession, you may not be allowed to work in some or perhaps any Government agencies, certainly not the armed forces or the police. Many Indians in the USA were engineering graduates, and because many engineering jobs or contracts in the USA are related to the US armed forces and require US citizens only, it is commonplace for Indian engineers to renounce their Indian nationality and become Americans because of this. Many Indian-American families have one member who is American, another Indian, a third maybe Canadian, a fourth Fijian or British etc.

The same can happen in the Indian State of Jammu & Kashmir if it evolves peacefully and correctly in the future. It is quite possible to imagine a productive family in a peaceful Kashmir Valley of the future where one brother is an officer in the Indian Armed Forces, another brother a civil servant and a sister a police officer of the J&K State Government, another sister being a Pakistani doctor, while cousins are Afghan or Iranian or “stateless” businessmen. Each family-member would have made his/her choice of nationality as an individual given the circumstances of his/her life, his/her personal comprehension of the facts of history, his/her personal political and/or religious persuasions, and similar deeply private considerations. All would have their children going to Indian schools and being Indian citizens ius soli and/or ius sanguinis. When the children grow up, they would be free to join, if they wished, the existing capital flight of other Indian adult children abroad and there renounce their Indian nationality as many have come to do.

II Revealing Choices Privately with Full Information

For India to implement such a proposal would be to provide an opportunity for all those domiciled in Kashmir Valley, Jammu and Laddakh to express freely and privately as individuals their deepest wishes about their own identities, in a confidential manner, citizen by citizen, case by case. This would thereby solve the fundamental democratic problem that has been faced ever since the Pakistani attack on the original State of Jammu & Kashmir commenced on October 22 1947, which came to be followed by the Rape of Baramulla — causing the formal accession of the State to the then-new Dominion of India on October 26 1947.

A period of, say, 30 months may be announced by the Government of India during which full information would be provided to all citizens affected by this change, i.e. all those presently governed by Article 370 of the Indian Constitution. The condition of full information may include, for example, easy access to Afghan, Iranian and Pakistani newspapers in addition to access to Indian media. Each such person wishing to either remain with Indian nationality (by explicitly requesting an Indian passport if he/she does not have one already — and such passports can be printed in Kashmiri and Urdu too), or to renounce Indian nationality and either remain stateless or adopt, if he/she is so eligible, the nationality of e.g. Afghanistan, Iran, or Pakistan, should be administratively assisted by the Government of India to make that choice.

In particular, he/she should be individually, confidentially, and without fear or favour assured and informed of his/her new rights and responsibilities. For example, a resident of Kashmir Valley who chooses to become a Pakistani citizen, such as Mr Geelani, would now enjoy the same rights and responsibilities in the Indian Republic that Mr Tully enjoys, and at the same time no longer require a visa to visit Pakistan just as Mr Tully needs no visa to enter Britain. In case individual participants in the Hurriyat choose to renounce Indian nationality and adopt some other, they would no longer be able to legally participate in Indian national elections or J&K’s State elections. That is something which they say they do not wish to do in any case. Those members of the Hurriyat who chose e.g. Pakistani nationality while still residing in Jammu & Kashmir, would be free to send postal ballots or cross the border and vote in Pakistan’s elections if and when these occur. There are many Canadians who live permanently in the USA who cross home to Canada in order to cast a ballot.

After the period of 30 months, every person presently under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution would have received a full and fair opportunity to privately and confidentially reveal his/her preference or choice under conditions of full information. “Partition”, “Plebiscite”, and “Military Decision” have been the three alternatives under discussion ever since the National Conference of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and his then-loyal Deputy, Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, helped the Indian Army and Air Force in 1947-1948 fight off the savage attack against Jammu & Kashmir State that had commenced from Pakistan on October 22 1947. When, during the Pakistani attack, the Sheikh and Bakshi agreed to the Muslim Conference’s demand for a plebiscite among the people, the Pakistanis balked — the Sheikh and Bakshi then withdrew their offer and decisively and irrevocably chose to accede to the Indian Union. The people of Jammu & Kashmir, like any other, are now bound by the sovereign political commitments made by their forebears. Even so, given the painful mortal facts of the several decades since, the solution here proposed if properly implemented would be an incomparably more thorough democratic exercise than any conceivable plebiscite could ever have been.

Furthermore, regardless of the outcome, it would not entail any further “Partition” or population “transfer” which inevitably would degenerate into a savage balkanization, and has been ruled out as an unacceptable “deal-breaker” by the Indian Republic. Instead, every individual person would have been required, in a private and confidential decision-making process, to have chosen a nationality or to remain stateless — resulting in a multitude of cosmopolitan families in Jammu & Kashmir. But that is something commonplace in the modern world. Properly understood and properly implemented, we shall have resolved the great mortal problem we have faced for more than half a century, and Jammu & Kashmir can finally settle into a period of peace and prosperity. The boundary between India and Pakistan would have been settled by the third alternative mentioned at the time, namely, “Military Decision”.

 

III. Of Flags and Consulates in Srinagar and Gilgit

Pakistan has demanded its flag fly in Srinagar. This too can happen though not in the way Pakistan has been wishing to see it happen. A Pakistan flag might fly in the Valley just as might an Afghan and Iranian flag as well. Pakistan has wished its flag to fly as the sovereign over Jammu & Kashmir. That is not possible. The best and most just outcome is for the Pakistani flag to fly over a recognised Pakistani consular or visa office in Srinagar, Jammu and Leh. In diplomatic exchange, the Indian tricolour would have to fly over a recognised Indian consular or visa office in Muzaffarabad, Gilgit and Skardu.

Pakistan also may have to act equivalently with respect to the original inhabitants of the territory of Jammu & Kashmir that it has been controlling — allowing those people to become Indian nationals if they so chose to do in free private decisions under conditions of full information. In other words, the “Military Decision” that defines the present boundary between sovereign states must be recognised by Pakistan sincerely and permanently in a Treaty relationship with India — and all of Pakistan’s official and unofficial protégés like the Hurriyat and the “United Jehad Council” would have to do the same. Without such a sovereign commitment from the Government of Pakistan, as shown by decisive actions of lack of aggressive intent (e.g. as came to be implemented between the USA and USSR), the Government of India has no need to involve the Government of Pakistan in implementing the solution of enhancing free individual choice of nationality with regard to all persons on our side of the boundary.

The “Military Decision” regarding the sovereign boundary in Jammu & Kashmir will be so recognised by all only if it is the universally just outcome in international law. And that in fact is what it is.

The original Jammu & Kashmir State began its existence as an entity in international law long before the present Republics of India and Pakistan ever did. Pakistan commences as an entity on August 14 1947; India commences as an entity of international law with its signing of the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919  20 1918. Jammu & Kashmir began as an entity on March 16 1846 — when the Treaty of Amritsar was signed between Gulab Singh Dogra and the British, one week after the Treaty of Lahore between the British and the defeated Sikh regency of the child Daleep Singh.

Liaquat Ali Khan and Zafrullah Khan both formally challenged on Pakistan’s behalf the legitimacy of Dogra rule in Jammu & Kashmir since the Treaty of Amritsar. The Pakistani Mission to the UN does so even today. The Pakistanis were following Sheikh Abdullah and Jawaharlal Nehru himself, who too had at one point challenged Dogra legitimacy in the past. But though the form of words of the Pakistan Government and the Nehru-Abdullah position were similar in their attacks on the Treaty of Amritsar, their underlying substantive reasons were as different as chalk from cheese. The Pakistanis attacked the Dogra dynasty for being Dogra — i.e. because they were Hindus and not Muslims governing a Muslim majority. Nehru and Abdullah denounced monarchic autocracy in favour of mass democracy, and so attacked the Dogra dynasty for being a dynasty. All were wrong to think the Treaty of Amritsar anything but a lawful treaty in international law.

Furthermore, in this sombre political game of great mortal consequence, there were also two other parties who were, or appeared to be, in favour of the dynasty: one because the dynasty was non-Muslim, the other, despite it being so. Non-Muslim minorities like many Hindus and Sikhs in the business and governmental classes, saw the Dogra dynasty as their protector against a feared communalist tyranny arising from the Sunni Muslim masses of Srinagar Valley, whom Abdullah’s rhetoric at Friday prayer-meetings had been inciting or at least awakening from slumber. At the same time, the communalists of the Muslim Conference who had broken away from Abdullah’s secular National Conference, sought political advantage over Abdullah by declaring themselves in favour of keeping the dynasty — even elevating it to become an international sovereign, thus flattering the already pretentious potentate that he would be called “His Majesty” instead of merely “His Highness”. The ancestry of today’s Hurriyat’s demands for an independent Jammu & Kashmir may be traced precisely to those May 21-22 1947 declarations of the Muslim Conference leader, Hamidullah Khan.

Into this game stumbled the British with all the mix of cunning, indifference, good will, impatience, arrogance and pomposity that marked their rule in India. At the behest of the so-called “Native Princes”, the 1929 Butler Commission had hinted that the relationship of “Indian India” to the British sovereign was conceptually different from that of “British India” to the British sovereign. This view was adopted in the Cabinet Mission’s 12 May 1946 Memorandum which in turn came to be applied by Attlee and Mountbatten in their unseemly rush to “Divide and Quit” India in the summer of 1947.

It created the pure legal illusion that there was such a thing as “Lapse of Paramountcy” at which Jammu & Kashmir or any other “Native State” of “Indian India” could conceivably, even for a moment, become a sovereign enjoying the comity of nations — contradicting Britain’s own position that only two Dominions, India and Pakistan, could ever be members of the British Commonwealth and hence members of the newly created UN. British pusillanimity towards Jammu & Kashmir’s Ruler had even extended to making him a nominal member of Churchill’s War Cabinet because he had sent troops to fight in Burma. But the legal illusion had come about because of a catastrophic misunderstanding on the part of the British of their own constitutional law.

The only legal scholar who saw this was B R Ambedkar in a lonely and brilliant technical analysis released to the press on June 17 1947. No “Lapse of Paramountcy” over the “Native Princes” of Indian India could occur in constitutional law. Paramountcy over Indian India would be automatically inherited by the successor state of British India at the Transfer of Power. That successor state was the new British Dominion of India as well as (when it came to be finalised by Partition from India) the new British Dominion of Pakistan (Postscript: the deleted words represent a mistake made in the original paper, corrected in “Law, Justice & J&K” in view of the fact the UN  in 1947 deemed  India alone the successor state of British India and Pakistan a new state in the world system). A former “Native Prince” could only choose to which Dominion he would go. No other alternative existed even for a single logical moment. Because the British had catastrophically failed to comprehend this aspect of their own constitutional law, they created a legal vacuum whereby between August 15 and October 22-26 1947, Jammu & Kashmir became a local and temporary sovereign recognised only by the Dominion of Pakistan (until October 22) and the Dominion of India (until October 26). But it was not a globally recognised sovereign and was never going to be such in international law. This was further proved by Attlee refusing to answer the J&K Prime Minister’s October 18 1947 telegram.

All ambiguity came to end with the Pakistani attack of October 22 1947, the Rape of Baramulla, the secession of an “Azad Kashmir”declared by Sardar Ibrahim, and the Pakistani coup détat in Gilgit on October 31 1947 followed by the massacre of Sikh soldiers of the J&K Army at Bunji. With those Pakistani actions, Gulab Singh’s Jammu & Kashmir State, founded on March 16 1846 by the Treaty of Amritsar, ceased to logically exist as an entity in international law and fell into a state of ownerless anarchy. The conflict between Ibrahim’s Muslim communalists backed by the new Dominion of Pakistan and Abdullah’s secularists backed by the new Dominion of India had become a civil war within a larger intra-Commonwealth war that itself was almost a civil war between forces of the same military.

Jammu & Kashmir territory had become ownerless. The Roman Law which is at the root of all municipal and international law in the world today would declare that in the ownership of such an ownerless entity, a “Military Decision” was indeed the just outcome. Sovereignty over the land, waters, forests and other actual and potential resources of the erstwhile State of Jammu & Kashmir has become divided by “Military Decision” between the modern Republics of India and Pakistan. By the proposal made herein, the people and their descendants shall have chosen their nationality and their domicile freely across the sovereign boundary that has come to result.

Posted in Asia and the West, BR Ambedkar, Britain, Democracy, Economic Theory, Freedom, Gilgit and Baltistan, Gulab Singh, India's Diplomacy, India's Foreign Policy, India's Jurisprudence, India's Land, India's Military Defence, India's Nationalism, India's Polity, India's Union-State relations, India-Pakistan peace process, International Law, Iran, Jammu & Kashmir, Jawaharlal Nehru, Laddakh, Liberalism/Libertarianism, Natural Justice, Non-Resident Indians, Pakistan's history, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Pashtuns, Pervez Musharraf, Political Economy, Public Choice/Public Finance, Roman Law, Secular governance, Sheikh Abdullah, Sikhs, Sudeten Germans, Tibet, UN/League of Nations, USA, United States, War, Winston Churchill, World History. Leave a Comment »

Assessing Vajpayee: Hindutva True and False (2005)

November 14, 2005 — drsubrotoroy

Assessing Vajpayee: Hindutva True and False

by

Subroto Roy

First published in The Sunday Statesman, Nov 13 2005 and The Statesman, Nov 14 2005, Editorial Page Special Article

Atal Behari Vajpayee, mentored by Shyama Prasad Mookerjee himself, became Prime Minister of India for less than a fortnight in 1996, then again in 1998 and again in 1999 and remained so until he was voted out in 2004.

He became PM holding the trust of India’s 120 million Muslims. He was supposed to be the genial, avuncular “good cop” who would keep at bay the harsh forces represented by the unpredictable “bad cop”, his Deputy PM and long-time colleague LK Advani. It was the first time RSS members had come to lead India’s government. How is the Vajpayee-Advani duumvirate to be candidly assessed? The question is important not only for the RSS and BJP engaged in their own introspection and petty politics but for the country as a whole. India needs both a competent Government and a competent Opposition in Parliament, and it is not clear we have ever had either.

Overall, Vajpayee-Advani, as the chief public symbols of the RSS-BJP, earned relatively high marks in office handling India’s strategic and security interests, including the nuclear issue and Pakistan. Equally, they failed badly in their treatment of India’s Muslims and religious minorities in general. This is a paradox that can be explained by the general failure of putative Hindutvadis to acquire an objective understanding of the processes that had led to Independence, Partition, and Pakistan’s creation.

Roughly, their comprehension of these processes has been one which sees all Muslims everywhere as cut from the same communal cloth, regardless of the beliefs or actions of individual Muslims. In such prejudiced eyes, there is no conceptual or ultimate difference between a Jinnah and an Azad, between a Salauddin who attacks India at Kargil and a Lt Hanifuddin who dies for India at Kargil. This is the product of a sloppy and erroneous philosophy of history, which in turn is an outcome of an attitude towards modern science and modes of rigorous reasoning that can only be called backward and retrograde.

It has been signalled most conspicuously by the extremely public adherence of many putative Hindutvadis (and millions of other Indians) to astrology — in apparent ignorance of the fact that all horoscopes assume the Sun rotates around Earth. Astrology, a European invention, came to decline in Europe after the discoveries of Copernicus and Galileo became widely understood there.

Like Indian Communists, Hindutvadi ideologues with rare exceptions played no role in the movement that led to Indian independence in 1947 and creation of the modern Indian Republic in 1950. They remained to their credit constantly suspicious of and hostile towards the foreign phenomena that were Bolshevism, Stalinism and Maoism. They remained to their discredit constantly suspicious of and hostile towards Indian Muslims, even at one point seeing virtuous lessons in Hitler’s attitude towards the Jews. They have in their own way subscribed to Ein Reich, Ein Volk but fortunately have always failed to find Ein Fuhrer (on a pattern e.g. of a modern “Netaji”).

Where Nazis saw communists and Jews in conspiracies everywhere, Hindutvadi ideologues have tended to see communists and Muslims, and also Christians and “Macaulayite” Hindus, in conspiracies everywhere. (An equal methodological admiration for Nazism occurred on the part of Muslims in the 1930s led by Rahmat Ali, the Pakistani ideologue — who saw “caste Hindus” as the root of all evil and in conspiracies everywhere.) The paradox of the RSS-BJP success in handling nuclear and security issues quite well and domestic issues of secular governance badly, is explained by this ideology of double hostility towards communism and Muslims.

On the positive side, Vajpayee-Advani advocated a tough clear-headed realpolitik on the issue of Indian’s security. “We should go nuclear and sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty as a nuclear weapons’ state. The whole world will recognise us by our power. We don’t want to be blackmailed and treated as oriental blackies. Nuclear weapons will give us prestige, power, standing. An Indian will talk straight and walk straight when we have the bomb”. That is what the BJP told the New York Times in 1993.

Three years later, the moment Vajpayee first entered office as PM in May 1996, the government’s scientists who had already secretly assembled the bomb for testing, were instructed to stand by for orders to go ahead. Vajpayee did not know if his Government would survive the vote of confidence required of them. When it was pointed out that if he tested the bomb and lost the vote, a successor Government would have to cope with the consequences, Vajpayee, to his credit and reflecting his political experience and maturity, cancelled the test. When he lost the vote, the public demonstration of Indian nuclear weapons capability was also postponed until May 1998, after he had returned as PM a second time. The bomb was a celebration of Hindu, or more generally, Indian independence in the world. India had nominally freed herself from the British but not from Western culture, according to the RSS. Where the Congress had been in the grip of world communism, the RSS-BJP led India to nuclear freedom – such was their propaganda.

In reality, a long line of prime ministers including Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, VP Singh and IK Gujral had authorised India’s bomb, and a long line of scientists starting with Homi Bhabha had developed it over several decades.

Vajpayee’s decision finally flushed out Pakistan’s clandestine nuclear weapons developed with North Korea and China. Pakistan is an overtly Islamist state where liberal democracy shows no signs of starting even 65 years after the Lahore Resolution. Its nuclear bombs remain a far greater threat to the world than anyone else’s. Moreover, while India has renounced first use of such weapons, Pakistan has not only not done so, its Foreign Minister Gohar Ayub Khan boasted in 1998-1999 that the next war would be over in two hours with an Indian surrender.

Such glib talk about nuclear war is beyond contempt in its irresponsibility. A study by medical doctors estimated that a Hiroshima-sized bombing of Mumbai would cause 9 million deaths from blast, firestorms, radiation and fallout. An Indian retaliation would end Pakistan’s existence (though the Pakistani super-elite has long ago fled with its assets to Britain and America). An India-Pakistan nuclear exchange would leave a vast wasteland, finally ending all intellectual controversies about Partition and Jinnah’s theory. In reality, each is hardly able to cope with natural calamities like earthquakes, cyclones and floods, and also has very grave macroeconomic crises brewing because of unending deficit-finance and unlimited printing of paper money. For either to imagine itself a major power is a vain boast regardless of the polite flattery from visiting foreign businessmen. Of course, while each remains the principal enemy of the other, neither is a serious military force in the world.

After the exchange of nuclear tests in 1998, Vajpayee took the bus across the Wagah border to meet Nawaz Sharif in February 1999. He claimed it was a diplomatic and psychological breakthrough as indeed it was for a moment. But it had not been his original idea. AM Khusro, who accompanied him on the bus, had worked with Rajiv Gandhi in 1990-1991 when Rajiv was advised to make such a Sadat-like move. Furthermore, Vajpayee failed to see the significance of the Pakistani military chiefs led by Pervez Musharraf refusing to meet him formally, which would have entailed saluting him when he was their enemy.

Vajpayee also may not have known the Pakistani monument he visited was later “purified” with rose water by orthodox Muslim believers. So much for Indian diplomatic triumphs or Pakistan’s diplomatic niceties towards their kaffir guest. BJP foreign ministers later ingratiated themselves with Ariel Sharon because he was an enemy of Muslims — though again the BJP seemed unaware that “a single hair” shorn from idol-worshipping Hindu women at Tirupathi was enough for orthodox rabbis to declare as “impure” the wigs worn by Jewish women made from such hair. The evil of “untouchability” has not been a “caste Hindu” monopoly.

 

Kargil war

According to the Sharif-Musharraf plan secretly brewing during Vajpayee’s Pakistan visit, the Kargil infiltration followed. India’s Army and Air Force gamely fought back in the initial weeks suffering relatively severe losses, but the country seemed mesmerised by World Cup cricket and there was no significant political leadership from Vajpayee’s Government until the second week of June 1999. It was only after Brajesh Mishra was provoked by an analysis of how Pakistan might actually succeed (with the possibility of hidden Pakistani plans of a blitzkrieg and missile attacks), that Vajpayee’s Government seemed to wake up from its stupor, mobilised forces rapidly and threatened Pakistan with direst consequences, a threat made credible because it was conveyed by Mishra via the Americans. The Pakistanis backed down, which led soon to Musharraf’s coup détat against Sharif, and the world has had to deal with a Pakistani state synonymous with Musharraf ever since. The Vajpayee-Advani military triumph at Kargil was short-lived, as it was followed within months by an abject surrender to the Taliban’s terrorists at Kandahar airport.

In the meantime, on 23 January 1999, the Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two young sons were murdered by a savage anti-Christian mob as they slept in their car in rural Orissa. Vajpayee, the agreeable face of the RSS-BJP with allegedly impeccable secular credentials, responded without the moral strength that was necessary from a leader of all of India’s people. It was a model of weakness of political will and comprehension that would be followed in the larger catastrophe to occur in Gujarat.

On 27 February 2002, a train approaching Godhra station had a bunch of travelling rowdies bullying ticketed passengers, ticket-collectors and local tea-vendors. The vendors belonged to a lowly Muslim caste whose members were entrenched around Godhra and the nearby Signal Falia. During an extended stop at Godhra station, the altercations grew fiercer — the rowdies forcing people to shout slogans and roughing them up when they did not. False rumours flew that the rowdies had molested a Muslim woman and her two daughters who had been waiting on the platform. As the train left Godhra, a gang of rioters led by one tea-shop owner and other tea-vendors gathered before Signal Falia, stopped the train and assaulted it with stones and petrol-bombs.

One whole compartment was completely burnt, scores of passengers, including 26 women and 12 children, were incinerated, many of whom remain unidentified. (Some of those supposed to be in the compartment according to Railway lists were later found alive and well, as they had moved due to the rowdyism.) Throughout the day, Godhra District Collector Jayanthi Ravi stated on television and radio that a riot had occurred and appealed for calm. But after 7 pm, the State’s political executive called it a “pre-planned violent act of terrorism”, and an organised pogrom began against Muslims across the State. Over several weeks, thousands were killed and raped and turned into refugees inside their own country.

 

Political patronage

Gujarat’s chief political executive, a Vajpayee-Advani protégé, should have been immediately held accountable; instead he continued to receive their political patronage. Vajpayee, en route to a planned business trip abroad, made a perfunctory visit to the scene of the civil horror, then proceeded to Singapore, where he was shown moving around on a golf-cart wearing designer goggles. He had clearly failed to grasp the dimensions or the gravity of the nature of the office he held. Vajpayee thus came to lose the trust of India’s Muslims and minorities in general which he had earned by his moderation and maturity over many decades in the Opposition. The RSS-BJP had lost, perhaps permanently, the last opportunity to make their actions tally with their sweet words about a united Indian people living in bliss in a common sacred Motherland.

Vajpayee’s finance and economic planning ministers were as ignorant of the reality of India’s macroeconomics as the Stalinist New Delhi bureaucrats pampered by Congress and its Communist friends. These bureaucrats continued in power under Vajpayee. Plus the RSS’s pseudo-economists were enough to scare away all except a minor econometrician and a shallow economic historian. The latter led the BJP up the garden path in 2003-2004 with talk about India’s economy being on the point of “take off” (based on defunct American theory from the 1960s), which misled them into the “India Shining” campaign and electoral defeat. The BJP finance minister, thus misled, revealed his own ignorance of his job-requirements when he happily spoke on TV of how much he sympathised with businessmen who had told him CBI, CVC and CAG were the initials holding India back from this (bogus) “take off”. Equally innocent of economics, the BJP’s planning chief went about promising vast government subsidies to already-rich Indians abroad to become “venture capitalists” in India! Instead of reversing the woeful Stalinism of the Congress decades overall, Vajpayee’s Government super-imposed a crony capitalism upon it. Budgetary discipline was not even begun to be sought — another BJP finance minister revelling publicly in his ignorance of Maynard Keynes.

The signal of monetary crisis that was the UTI fiasco was papered over with more paper money printing. Privatisation was briefly made a fetish — despite there being sound conservative reasons not to privatise in India until the fiscal and monetary haemorrhaging is stopped. Liquidating real assets prior to a likely massive inflation of paper assets caused by deficit-financing, is not a public good.

RSS members and protégés appointed to government posts and placed in charge of government moneys revealed themselves as corrupt and nepotistic as anyone else. The overall failure of the management of India’s public institutions and organs of State continued under Vajpayee-Advani just as it had done for decades earlier. Vajpayee-Advani evinced no vision of a modern political economy as reformers of other major countries have done, such as Thatcher, Reagan, Gorbachev-Yeltsin, Adenauer-Erhardt, De Gaulle, even Deng Tsiaoping.

Irrational obsession

The overall explanation of the ideological and practical failure of the putative Hindutvadis must have to do with their irrational obsession over two decades with the masjid-mandir issue. Ramayana and Mahabharata are magnificent mythological epics yet they are incidental aspects of the faith and culture deriving from the Vedas and Upanishads. The motive force of a true Hindutva is already contained in the simple Upanishadic motto of the Indian Republic, Satyameva jayathe (let truth prevail) which is almost all the religion that anyone may need. The search for all truth necessarily requires individual freedom, and taking its first steps would require the RSS-BJP denouncing all their backward pseudo-science and anti-science. Who among them will liberate them from the clutches of astrology, and bring instead the fresh air and light of modern science since Copernicus and Galileo? Without rigorous modern reasoning, the RSS and BJP are condemned to their misunderstanding of themselves and of India, just as surely as their supposed enemies — literalist Muslim believers — are committed to a flat earth and an implacably stern heaven placed above it. Pakistan’s finest academic has reported how his colleagues pass off as physics the measurement of earth receding from heaven if Einstein and The Qúran could be amalgamated. The RSS and BJP need to free themselves from similar irrational backwardness in all fields, including politics and economics. It is plain Vajpayee, Advani or any of their existing political progeny cannot lead themselves, or Indians in general, to that promised land.

Posted in Atal Behari Vajpayee, BJP, Communists, Congress Party, Fascists, Germany, Godhra and aftermath, Hinduism, India's Caste/Ethnic Problems, India's crimes, India's Economy, India's Foreign Policy, India's Military Defence, India's mob violence, India's Monetary & Fiscal Policy, India's Muslims, India's Nationalism, India's Parliament, India's Partition, India's political lobbyists, India's Politics, India's Polity, India's pork-barrel politics, India's Rule of Law, India's secularism, India-Pakistan peace process, Indira Gandhi, Jammu & Kashmir, Jawaharlal Nehru, LK Advani, Mumbai/Bombay, Muslim and Hindu communalism, Nuclear conflict, Pakistan's history, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Pervez Musharraf, Politics, Rajiv Gandhi, Ram Janambhoomi, Religion, Science, Science, Religion, Literature, Secular governance, Uttar Pradesh, World History. 2 Comments »

On Hindus and Muslims

November 6, 2005 — drsubrotoroy

On Hindus and Muslims

by

Subroto Roy

First published in The Statesman, Perspective Page, Nov 6 2005

The one practical contribution made to India’s polity by the Hindu Mahasabha was to thwart the Sarat Bose/Suhrawardy idea in 1946-1947 of a “United Bengal”, which inevitably would have led to Kolkata andWest Bengal becoming part of Pakistan. The one practical contribution made to India’s polity by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh was to help defend against the Pakistani attack upon Jammu & Kashmir which commenced on 22 October 1947 and included the Rape of Baramulla a few days later. The RSS contribution may have been more than what Sheikh Abdullah and the National Conference or Jawaharlal Nehru and the Government of India cared to admit because it had had an offensive aspect as well; RSS attacks on Muslim civilians in the Mirpur-Pooncharea later formed the basis of Pakistan’s justification for the October 1947 attack and the origins of the “Azad Kashmir” idea. Practical contributions were also made by individuals like Shyama Prosad Mookerjee, who, for example, as a member of Nehru’s Cabinet, responded immediately to information received from a young Government of India officer in Karachi in September 1947, sending ships and Navy frigates from Bombay to retrieve thousands of Hindu refugees in danger of being massacred. The one theoretical contribution made by the Hindutvadi organisations in India has been to establish that it is not a matter of shame and can be a matter of pride to be a Hindu, or, more generally, to be an Indian in the modern world. This is important, even though most RSS and BJP members today may have altogether failed themselves to understand its nature and significance. Indeed, the small handful of Muslims who have been part of their organisations may have understood it rather better.

To be Muslim, a person has only to believe that God is One and Muhammad is the last of the prophets, i.e. to pronounce the Kalma. Nothing else is either necessary or sufficient. Praying daily, facing Mecca (or Jerusalem before it), going on pilgrimage, fasting during Ramzan, giving to the poor, circumcising boys, polygamy, inducing the modesty of women though seclusion or the veil, have all been part of Muslim practice for ever because they were aspects of the Prophet’s life. But if a Muslim did not pronounce the Kalma, everything else he/she might do is rendered meaningless. The Kalma is necessary and sufficient for Islamic belief. All else is incidental and logically superfluous.

The first half of the Kalma is a commitment to an austere monotheistic ontology; the second half is an oath of fidelity to the Prophet because he was the original exponent of this ontology (in Arabic). Muhammad (572-632 AD) was without a doubt among the greatest of men, as may be measured by his vast impact on human history. His total self-effacement and abhorrence of adulation was signified when at his death it was famously said “If you are worshippers of Muhammad, know that he is dead. If you are worshippers of God, know that God is living and does not die”.

Abul Kalam Azad understood well that there was no contradiction between being Muslim by faith and Indian by nationality. “My ancestors came to India from Herat in Babar’s time…” is how he began his autobiography. No one could think Azad anything but a proud Indian nationalist. No one ~ certainly not MA Jinnah ~ could think of Azad as anything but a Muslim and a scholar of Islam. Yet Azad’s respect and admiration (like that of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan) knew no bounds for the only reformer since Vivekananda that Hinduism has seen in the 20th century: a Congress politician by the name of MK Gandhi,who came to be murdered by Hindu fanatics. By contrast, Jinnah, the political founder of Pakistan, could see Congress only as a Hindu party and Gandhi the Hindu leader using Hindu symbols against whom he was juxtaposed in a struggle for power after the British left: “Congress leaders may shout as much as they like that the Congress is a national body. But …(the) Congress is nothing but a Hindu body,” he declared in 1938. Jinnah’s ambition, and that of the separatist Muslim elite, demanded that they rule themselves in isolation in corners of India.

Throughout the period of Hindu Westernisation in response to the opening to the world presented by the British Raj, the Muslim elite were instead chafing under the idea that an India free of British rule could possibly have Muslims living under governments composed of people who were not “People of the Book” mentioned in the Muslim scriptures. Even if British rule had been almost intolerable in Muslim eyes ~ rendering India’s territory dar-ul-harb at worst or dar-ul-aman at best ~ the British were at least “People of the Book”. After a British departure, rule over Muslims by a Hindu majority, supported by the much-feared Sikhs (“kaffirs with beards” in Muslim popular perception), was felt to be psychologically intolerable. Not only were Hindus, in Muslim eyes, polytheistic believers in idol-worship and practitioners of a caste-system, but everyone knew that the vast majority of India’s Muslims had been themselves converts from the same Hindu social and cultural origins, and there would be constant danger of relapse of Muslims into Hindu beliefs and practices if the country was governed by a Hindu majority. The slogan “Islam in danger” has always had substance in the sense that the faithful have constantly had to mind the dangers of yielding to temptations around them, including scepticism, syncretism and pantheism. Hence, insularity and communalism ~ a psychological circling of the wagons in terms of the American Wild West ~ was a natural political response of Muslims to the Hindu (and Parsee and Christian) modernisation of India in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Such were the implicit unspoken premises driving the Pakistan Movement which Iqbal and Jinnah came to lead in the 20th century. The origins lay in the thoughts and deeds of Shah Wali Allah (1703-1762) and his Arab contemporary in Nejd, Mohammad Ibn Abdal Wahhab, the founder of Wahhabism. It continued with men like Sayyid Ahmed Barelvi(1786-1831), and Titu Mir (1782-1831), until we reach the Islamic “moderniser” Sayyid Ahmed Khan who, while being the founder of Muslim higher education at Aligarh, was also the fountainhead of the separatism that led to the Muslim League’s creation in 1906. “We are an Arab people whose fathers have fallen in exile in the country of Hindustan, and Arabic genealogy and Arabic language are our pride,” Wali Allah had said. Barelvi after him declared: “We must repudiate all those Indian, Persian and Roman customs which are contrary to the Prophet’s teaching.” “In the later 1820s, (Barelvi’s) movement became militant, regarding jihad as one of the basic tenets of faith. Possibly encouraged by the British, with whom the movement did not feel powerful enough to come to grips at the outset, it chose as the venue of jihad the NW frontier of the subcontinent, where it was directed against the Sikhs. Barelvi temporarily succeeded in carving out a small theocratic principality which collapsed owing to the friction between his Pathan and North Indian followers; and he was finally defeated and slain by the Sikhs (at the battle of Balakot) in 1831,” points out Aziz Ahmed, in AL Basham’s A Cultural History of India. Barelvi’s jihadi proto-Pakistan state near Peshawar was named Tariqa-yi Muhammadiya; it may have survived at Sittana until the First World War. Leaving to one side Rahmat Ali’s lonely scheming from England and invention on the top floor of a London bus of the name “PAKSTAN”, such was the genesis of Iqbal and Jinnah’s Muslim state.

Azad, on behalf of scores of millions of Muslim Indians including Sheikh Abdullah and Zakir Hussain and Ghaffar Khan among the most prominent, candidly raised objections to this entire exercise: “I must confess that the very term Pakistan goes against my grain. It suggests that some portions of the world are pure while others are impure. Such a division of territories into pure and impure is un-Islamic and is more in keeping with orthodox Brahmanism which divides men and countries into holy and unholy – a division which is a repudiation of the very spirit of Islam. Islam recognises no such division and the Prophet says `God made the whole world a mosque for me’.”

Azad had seen that India is or can be dar-ul-Islam or at least dar-ul-aman and not dar-ul-harb, because the Muslim in this land of ours –bounded by the mountains and the seas, with the rivers in between them, all of which the Hindu finds sacred and imagines to be the home of the Hindu pantheon – is in fact able to practise his/her faith freely despite the majority culture superficially being or seeming to be one which is polytheistic and pantheistic. The majority culture in India has had no theoretical or practical difficulty with the recitation of the Kalma anywhere or anytime in the country. The handful of Muslims in the RSS and BJP today may have understood something of the same. Visiting Pakistanis today are amazed by two things in India: the presence of women in public life and the fact that Muslims are free to practise Islam. Muslims may privately believe their Hindu compatriots or cousins to be hopelessly ignorant of the truth, and vice-versa, but nothing in public life needs to hinge on such mutual beliefs people have about one another. That is what was meant when the present author said in the Introduction to Foundations of Pakistan’s Political Economy that Jinnah’s address to Pakistan’s Constituent Assembly was as secular as any that may be found.

Posted in Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Babar, Bengal, BJP, Hindu political traditions, Hinduism, Hindus and Muslims, Imperialism, India's Caste/Ethnic Problems, India's culture, India's History, India's independence, India's Land, India's mob violence, India's Muslims, India's Nationalism, India's Partition, India's Philosophy, India's Polity, India's secularism, Indian subcontinent, Iqbal, Islam, Jammu & Kashmir, Jammu & Kashmir in international law, Jawaharlal Nehru, MA Jinnah, Maulana Azad, Muslim and Hindu communalism, Pakistan in international law, Pakistan's psychology, Pakistan's history, Pakistani expansionism, Religion, Sheikh Abdullah, Shyama Prosad Mukherjee, War, War crimes, World History. 1 Comment »

US Espionage Failures (2005)

October 26, 2005 — drsubrotoroy

US Espionage Failures

(There is a hippopotamus in the room)

First published in The Statesman Perspective Page under the title “Flunking inteligence” Oct 26 2005

by

Subroto Roy

There have been three or four enormous failures of American espionage (i.e. intelligence and counter-intelligence) in the last 20 years. The collapse of the Berlin Wall and the end of Soviet communism were salubrious events but they had not been foreseen by the United States which was caught unawares by the speed and nature of the developments that took place. Other failures have been catastrophic.

First, there was the failure to prevent the attack that took place on the American mainland on September 11 2001. It killed several thousand civilians and caused vast, perhaps irreparable, psychological and physical destruction to the United States.

The attack was without precedent. The December 7 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in Hawaii, though a surprise, was carried out by one military against another military and did not affect very many civilians (except that thousands of American civilians of Japanese ancestry came to be persecuted and placed in concentration camps for years by the US Government). And the last time the American mainland had been attacked before 2001 was in 1814 when British troops marched south from Canada and burnt down the Capitol and the US President’s house in Washington.

Secondly, there has been a failure to discover any reasonable justification for the American-led attack on Iraq and its invasion and occupation. Without any doubt, America has lost, at the very least, an incalculable amount of international goodwill as a result of this, let aside suffering two thousand young soldiers killed, fifteen thousand wounded, and an unending cost in terms of prestige and resources in return for the thinnest of tangible gains. India at great cost liberated East Pakistan from the brutal military tyranny of Yahya Khan and Tikka Khan in December 1971 but the average Bangladeshi today could hardly care less. Regardless of what form of government emerges in Iraq now, there is no doubt the mass of the Iraqi people will cheer the departure of the bulk of foreign troops and tanks from their country (even if a permanent set of a dozen hermetically sealed American bases remain there for ever, as appears to have been planned).

When things go wrong in any democracy, it is natural and healthy to set up a committee to investigate, and America has done that several times now. For such committees to have any use at all they must be as candid as possible and perhaps the most candid of the American committees has been the US Government’s 9/11 Commission. But it too has appeared no closer to finding out who was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks or who financed it and who, precisely, executed it. Osama Bin Laden may have been the ideological head of a movement allied to the perpetrators, and Bin Laden undoubtedly expressed his glee afterwards, but it beggars the imagination that Bin Laden could have been executive president in charge of this operation while crawling around Sudan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. If not him, then whom? Mossad the Israeli spy agency was supposed to have pointed to a super-secret invisible Lebanese terrorist but nobody really knows. The biggest modern mass murder remains unsolved.

As for solutions, the American 9/11 Commission went into the same politically correct formulae that came to be followed in 2005 by British PM Tony Blair’s New Labour Cabinet, namely, that “moderate” peace-loving Muslims must be encouraged and bribed not to turn to terrorism (indeed to expose those among them who do), while “extremist” Muslims must be stamped out with brute force. This rests on a mistaken premise that an economic carrot-and-stick policy can work in creating a set of external incentives and disincentives for Muslims, when in fact believing Muslims, like many other religious believers, are people who feel the power of their religion deep within themselves and so are unlikely to be significantly affected by external incentives or disincentives offered by non-believers.

Another committee has been the United States Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence which reported in July 2004, and from whose findings have stemmed as an offshoot the current matter about whether high government officials broke the law that is being investigated by Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald.

Bertrand Russell said in his obituary of Ludwig Wittgenstein that he had once gone about looking under all the tables and chairs to prove to Wittgenstein that there was not a hippopotamus present in the room. In the present case, however, there is in fact a very large hippopotamus present in the room yet the entire American foreign policy establishment has seemed to refuse to wish to see it. Saddam Hussain and OBL are undoubtedly certifiable members of the international gallery of rogues – but the central fact remains they were rogues who were in alliance with America’s defined strategic interests in the 1980s. Saddam Hussain’s Iraq invaded Iran in 1980 and gassed the Kurds in 1986; an Iraqi Mirage on May 17 1987 fired two Exocet missiles at the USS Stark killing 37 American sailors and injuring 21. The Americans did nothing. The reason was that Saddam was still in favour at the time and had not yet become a demon in the political mythology of the American state, and it was expedient for nothing to be done. Indeed Saddam’s Iraq was explicitly removed in 1982 from the US Government’s list of states sponsoring terrorism because, according to the State Department’s Patterns of Global Terrorism, it had “moved closer to the policies of its moderate Arab neighbours”.

The very large hippopotamus that is present in the room at the moment is April Glaspie, the highly regarded professional career diplomat and American Ambassador to Iraq at the time of the 1990 Gulf War. Saddam Hussein as President had a famous meeting with her on July 25 1990, eight days before he invaded Kuwait. The place was the Presidential Palace in Baghdad and the Iraqis videotaped the meeting:

U.S. Ambassador Glaspie – “I have direct instructions from President (George Herbert Walker) Bush to improve our relations with Iraq. We have considerable sympathy for your quest for higher oil prices, the immediate cause of your confrontation with Kuwait. (pause) As you know, I lived here for years and admire your extraordinary efforts to rebuild your country. We know you need funds. We understand that, and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country. (pause) We can see that you have deployed massive numbers of troops in the south. Normally that would be none of our business, but when this happens in the context of your threats against Kuwait, then it would be reasonable for us to be concerned. For this reason, I have received an instruction to ask you, in the spirit of friendship – not confrontation – regarding your intentions: Why are your troops massed so very close to Kuwait’s borders?

Saddam Hussein – As you know, for years now I have made every effort to reach a settlement on our dispute with Kuwait. There is to be a meeting in two days; I am prepared to give negotiations only this one more brief chance. (pause) When we (the Iraqis) meet (with the Kuwaitis) and we see there is hope, then nothing will happen. But if we are unable to find a solution, then it will be natural that Iraq will not accept death.

U. S. Ambassador Glaspie – What solutions would be acceptable?

Saddam Hussein – If we could keep the whole of the Shatt al Arab – our strategic goal in our war with Iran – we will make concessions (to the Kuwaitis). But, if we are forced to choose between keeping half of the Shatt and the whole of Iraq (i.e., in Saddam’ s view, including Kuwait ) then we will give up all of the Shatt to defend our claims on Kuwait to keep the whole of Iraq in the shape we wish it to be. (pause) What is the United States’ opinion on this?

U.S. Ambassador Glaspie – We have no opinion on your Arab – Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary (of State James) Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960’s, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America. (Saddam smiles)

Saddam had seen himself fighting Islamic Iran on behalf of the Kuwaitis, Saudis and other Arabs, and Islamic Iran was of course the sworn adversary of the USA at least since Khomeini had deposed America’s ally, the Shah. Therefore Saddam could not be all bad in the eyes of the State Department. On August 2 1990, the Iraqi troops seen by American satellites amassed on the border, invaded and occupied Kuwait.

On September 2 1990, the Iraqis released the videotape and transcript of the July 29 Saddam-Glaspie meeting and Glaspie was confronted by British journalists as she left the Embassy:

Journalist 1 – Are the transcripts (holding them up) correct, Madam Ambassador? (No answer from Glaspie)

Journalist 2 – You knew Saddam was going to invade (Kuwait ) but you didn’t warn him not to. You didn’t tell him America would defend Kuwait. You told him the opposite – that America was not associated with Kuwait.

Journalist 1 – You encouraged this aggression – his invasion. What were you thinking?

U.S. Ambassador Glaspie – Obviously, I didn’t think, and nobody else did, that the Iraqis were going to take all of Kuwait.

Journalist 1 – You thought he was just going to take some of it? But, how could you? Saddam told you that, if negotiations failed , he would give up his Iran(Shatt al Arab waterway) goal for the whole of Iraq, in the shape we wish it to be. You know that includes Kuwait, which the Iraqis have always viewed as a historic part of their country!

Journalist 1 – America green-lighted the invasion. At a minimum, you admit signalling Saddam that some aggression was okay – that the U.S. would not oppose a grab of the al-Rumeilah oil field, the disputed border strip and the Gulf Islands (including Bubiyan) – the territories claimed by Iraq?

Glaspie said nothing, the car door closed behind her, the car drove off. Nothing has been apparently heard from Glaspie ever since, and we may have to wait for her memoirs in 25 years when they are declassified to come to know what happened. It is astonishing, however, that the 521 page report of the US Senate’s Select Committee on espionage about Iraq before the 2003 war finds no cause whatsoever to mention Glaspie at all (at least in its public censored version). It is almost as if Glaspie has never existed and her conversation with Saddam never happened. Glaspie has disappeared down an Orwellian memory-hole. Yet her conversation with Saddam was the last official, recorded conversation between the Americans and Saddam while they were still on friendly terms.

There may be many causes explaining how such serious failures have come to occur in a country where billions of dollars have been annually spent on espionage. Among them must be that while America’s great strengths have included creation of the finest advanced scientific and technological base on earth, America’s great intellectual weaknesses in recent decades have included an impatience with historical and philosophical reflection of all sorts, and that includes reflection about her own as well as other cultures. This is exemplified too in the third palpable failure of intelligence of the last 20 years, which has been to have not foreseen or prevented atomic weapons from being developed by America and Britain’s Islamist ally and client-state, Pakistan, and thence to have failed to prevent the proliferation of such weapons in general. The consequences of that may yet turn out to be the most grave.

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The Mitrokhin Archives II from an Indian Perspective: A Review Article

October 11, 2005 — drsubrotoroy

The Mitrokhin Archives II from an Indian Perspective: A Review Article

by Subroto Roy

First published in The Statesman, Oct. 11 2005, Perspective Page

Vasili Mitrokhin’s defection from the former Soviet Union to Britain in 1992 caused a treasure-trove to reach MI-6 and the CIA and FBI, because he exposed many dozens of Soviet agents and their plots and intrigues around the world. But this fact that his material greatly helped Anglo-American counter-intelligence does not per se make it a source of accurate evidence with which a historian’s history book can be created. Rather, what this monumental and extremely informative volume amounts to being is a vast documentation, from an Anglo-American perspective, of what MI-6 and its allies have agreed to make public about what they now know of Soviet foreign policy and KGB practices, and of how Russian diplomacy and the KGB’s successors might function in the future.

That this is not a detached and disinterested history of intelligence is revealed by the three chapters on the subcontinent which have been causing a stir in India for the wrong reasons.

Everyone in the 1970s and through the 1980s knew of the tight grip around New Delhi’s policy-making circles of top bureaucrats, academics, journalists etc who were blatantly and incorrigibly pro-Soviet, some being active communists or fellow- travellers. Some of those complaining today know fully well that a cardinal implicit reason the CPI(M) broke from its parent party had to do precisely with Moscow’s control of the CPI. Moreover, while it might have been newsworthy when the KGB honey-trapped a senior diplomat or a junior cipher clerk in the Indian Embassy now and then, there were also hundreds of public sector bureaucrats, military personnel, journalists, technology professors, writers, artists, dancers et al who were treated most hospitably by the Soviet state – getting freebies flying to Soviet cities, being greeted by singing Young Pioneers, touring L’Hermitage with Intourist, receiving dollar honoraria and splendid gifts, sitting in on “technical training”, even receiving bogus Soviet doctoral degrees to allow themselves to be called “Dr” etc. Purchasing influence in New Delhi or any other capital city has never been merely a crude matter of cash-filled suitcases sloshing around in the middle of the night. Much of what Mitrokhin’s material says about the KGB’s penetration of India should, candidly speaking, generate but a desultory yawn from us –although even this book seems not to know that Narasimha Rao’s infamous, catastrophically damaging remarks in August 1991, in favour of the abortive KGB coup led by Kryuchkov against Gorbachev and Yeltsin, had been prompted by a staunchly pro-Soviet retired Indian diplomat at his side long-associated with the CPI.

Yes there are many titbits in this book that may be of interest from an Indian perspective — such as that Sanjay Gandhi’s entourage contained both a Soviet and an American mole in it (where are they now?). But what may be far more interesting to us today is what can be deduced from what Mitrokhin is silent about. For example, India and the Soviets were close allies in 1971 when Kissinger had teamed up with Yahya Khan and Bhutto to send Nixon to China. It is well known our Army Chief, General Maneckshaw, had demanded and received from Indira Gandhi and Jagjivan Ram enough time to prepare to go to war, and when Maneckshaw finally did move to liberate Bangladesh in December, it surprised Yahya and the Americans. Were the Soviets also quite surprised? If so, it would mean that although the Indian establishment was as porous as a sieve with respect to arms’ deals etc, on a matter of paramount national interest, namely, the just war on our own against Yahya Khan and Tikka Khan’s brutality in East Pakistan condoned by Nixon and Kissinger, India had kept her secrets secure. If, as seems likely, Indira Gandhi and her overtly communistic advisers had kept India’s war plans from not leaking to the KGB between March and December 1971, we may not have been in fact too badly compromised despite the widespread “shallow” penetration that occurred through corruption all around in the bureaucracy, academic institutions, media, political parties, etc.

Mitrokhin’s material describes this kind of shallow corrupt penetration that everyone knew was (and still remains) part of the lobbying process in Delhi. But there is no evidence in the book that the KGB knew of General Maneckshaw’s military preparations or plan of action until the lights went out in a blackout in Delhi on the night of December 2 1971 — that at least is something of which Indians may be slightly proud today. The same goes for the Pokhran nuclear tests. It is well known the CIA was caught by surprise by Pokhran-II in 1998; was the KGB caught by surprise by Pokhran-I in 1974? Probably so. Equally, the book says the KGB had at one point cracked Pakistani codes; did the Soviets share this information with India? Almost certainly not. Our Government’s chummery with the Soviets during the Cold War probably stopped well short of complete incest.

Unfortunately, many questions of interest to India or other countries have simply not been asked in the book. The Soviets (and Harold Wilson) had seemed to broker the India-Pakistan ceasefire in 1965, and Lal Bahadur Shastri died the day after he signed the Tashkent Declaration. What is the inside KGB information on that?

We do not know from this book. What do Soviet archives say about communist influence through the 1940s in Jammu & Kashmir (upon some of the very names who became Indira Gandhi’s inner circle later in Delhi)? Or about the uncritical adoption in the 1950s of Sovietesque economic models by the Planning Commission (and the suppression of Milton Friedman’s November 1955 memorandum to the Government of India, as well as the tarnishing of BR Shenoy as a CIA agent)? The answers are not present in this book because these and analogous questions of interest to India or many other countries simply have not been asked. Mitrokhin’s material has been mined only from an Anglo-American point of view, and until it is thrown open completely to everyone, a detached and disinterested history of permanent and universal interest on the important matters it touches upon is not available.

Several factual and methodological problems result as a consequence, and these need to be identified for purposes of future progress in understanding. For example, the book speaks many times of the KGB having forged or fabricated documents around the world as a technique of spreading disinformation.

Doubtless this was standard operating procedure for intelligence agencies but it is left completely impossible for the average reader to come to any assessment whether a given document mentioned was genuine or forged.

Consider a case in Iran. The book states that in February 1958, the KGB “forged a letter from the American Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, to his ambassador in Tehran belittling the Shah’s ability and implying that the United States was plotting his overthrow. The Teheran residency circulated copies of the letter to influential Iranian parliamentarians and editors in the confident expectation that one would come to the attention of the Shah – which it duly did. According to the KGB files on the operation, the Shah was completely taken in by the fabricated Dulles letter and personally instructed that a copy be sent to the US embassy with a demand for an explanation. Though the embassy dismissed it as a forgery, the Teheran residency reported that its denials were disbelieved. Dulles’s supposedly slighting references to the Shah were said to be a frequent topic of whispered conversation among the Iranian elite.” (p. 171)

It is impossible for anyone who has not seen this document or other supporting evidence to come to any assessment of what actually happened here. Matters are made worse by a note that says the KGB “claimed improbably that the Americans blamed the forgery not on the KGB but the British, who were said to be jealous of the strength of US influence in Iran”.

Was the document genuine or was it forged and if so by whom? If forged, must we believe the KGB was so astute in 1958 in its knowledge of American idiom that it could achieve the tremendous deception of mimicking the greatest of Cold Warriors writing to his own ambassador, enough to fool the Shah of Iran who had been placed in power by the very same Americans? No one can really tell unless the documents are opened up completely.

Another example is of more topical interest, and also reveals that this book must be seen as a contribution to a continuing (if friendly and academic) battle between rival intelligence agencies. Yevgeny Primakov, the former KGB chief and reformist Prime Minister (and Soviet Ambassador to India) is quoted as saying about the American help to the Pakistan-based guerrillas against the Soviets in Afghanistan: “the idea of deploying the Stingers (shoulder-held ground-to- air-missiles) was supplied by Osama bin Laden, who had been cooperating closely with the CIA at the time.” (Russian Crossroads, Yale University Press, 2004.)

Professor Andrew denies this flatly: “There is no support in the Mitrokhin material (or any other reliable source) for the claim that the CIA funded bin Laden or any of the other Arab volunteers who came to support the mujahideen. Most were funded through charities and mosques in the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, and were frequently viewed with suspicion by the Afghan mujahideen.” (p. 579)

It is obvious why this question is important: if Primakov is right and Andrew is wrong the Americans must be acutely embarrassed in having been allies or supporters or financiers not long ago of the very same Bin Laden who has now become their most bitter enemy. The United States Government’s “9/11 Commission” in 2004 made a much weaker statement than Professor Andrew: “Saudi Arabia and the United States supplied billions of dollars worth of secret assistance to rebel groups in Afghanistan fighting the Soviet occupation. This assistance was funnelled through Pakistan: the Pakistani military intelligence (ISID) helped train the rebels and distribute the arms. But Bin Laden and his associates had their own sources of support and training and they received little or no assistance from the United States…. In his memoirs, (Bin Laden’s deputy) Ayman al Zawahiri contemptuously rejects the claim that the Arab mujahideen were financed (even `one penny’) or trained by the United States… CIA officials involved in aiding the Afghan resistance regarded Bin Laden and his `Arab Afghans’ as having been militarily insignificant in the war and recall having little to do with him.”

Bin Laden was a callow youth when he got to Afghanistan shortly after the Soviet invasion in December 1979. Yet his contributions of funds, military effort and religious zealotry made him emerge age 33-34 as the “Emir” of Al Qaeda by the time the Soviets were compelled to withdraw in 1989, having suffered 14,500 dead. The Americans then began to lose interest in the region and in their Pakistani clients, and it was in that atmosphere that Pakistan decided to declare its independence in the world with its clandestine nuclear programme (never having felt part of the nationalist movement which led to Indian independence in 1947). It was in the same period that Bin Laden and Al Qaeda grew to become implacable and formidable enemies of the West, which culminated in the 9/11 mass murders in 2001. The claim that while the CIA certainly supported “Afghan” jihadists, it did not support Arab or African ones like Bin Laden and his friends is highly implausible. The New Yorker and Washington Post reported in 1986 the CIA supplying and training Hekmatyar’s “Hizbe-Islami” in the use of Stinger missiles to bring down Soviet aircraft. It is impossible to imagine the admittedly myopic American policy at the time included checking passports of these trainee- beneficiaries, saying “OK, you’re an Afghan resistance fighter you get a Stinger, you’re an Arab/African terrorist-of-the-future-who-may-attack-New York, you don’t”. Professor Andrew quotes positively the work on Bhutto of Raza Anwar, the Pakistani socialist, but he may have been unaware of Anwar’s The Tragedy of Afghanistan (Verso, 1988) where the precise nature of the American, Chinese and Arab support for the thousands of guerrillas in the dozens of camps in Zia’s Pakistan is quite fully and objectively documented. Foreign jihadists in Jammu & Kashmir came to be known as “Afghans” because they were veterans of the Afghan conflicts, not because they were Afghan nationals. Unlike Britain’s MI-6, the United States Government’s 9/11 Commission has made no bones about the connection between Bin Laden and the Pakistani ISI whose intent has been to attack India: “Pakistan’s rulers found these multitudes of ardent young `Afghans’ a source of potential trouble at home but potentially useful abroad. Those who joined the Taliban movement, espousing a ruthless version of Islamic law, perhaps could bring order in chaotic Afghanistan and make it a cooperative ally. They thus might give Pakistan greater security on one of the several borders where Pakistani military officers hoped for what they called `strategic depth’ (…. Pakistan’s need for a friendly, pliable neighbour on the west due to its hostile relationship with India on the east.)… It is unlikely that Bin Laden could have returned to Afghanistan (in 1996) had Pakistan disapproved. The Pakistani military intelligence service probably had advance knowledge of his coming, and its officers may have facilitated his travel. During his entire time in Sudan, he had maintained guesthouses and training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan. These were part of a larger network used by diverse organisations for recruiting and training fighters for Islamic insurgencies in such places as Tajikistan, Kashmir and Chechnya. Pakistani intelligence officers reportedly introduced Bin Laden to Taliban leaders in Kandahar, their main base of power, to aid his reassertion of control over camps near Khowst, out of an apparent hope that he would now expand the camps and make them available for training of Kashmiri militants.”

Regardless of the fondness of the very strong lobby of British apologists (led by a former British High Commissioner to Pakistan) for the ISI and Pakistani Army, no detached history of modern intelligence in our part of the world can be written which whitewashes the misdeeds of Pakistan’s generals over several decades. Aside from what The Mitrokihn Archive II signifies about our region, there is a great amount of invaluable material on other parts of the world too, from Chile and Peru to Cuba and Nicaragua, to South Africa and Egypt and Israel, to China and Korea and Japan.

Indeed the keenest pages have to do with the internecine tensions between communists, like Castro and Gorbachev, or Khrushchev and Mao Zedong, in which no Anglo-American interests were involved. We in India have had our share of academic apologists and fellow travellers for totalitarian communist China, but the roots of the Sino-Soviet split have never come to be aired in Indian discussion. Professor Andrew is a leading member of the vitally important Cold War International History Project at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC, whose website displays new and vitally important data from formerly communist countries (like Mongolia, Russia and East Germany) about how Chinese communists saw and felt about India, Pakistan, Tibet etc, which needs urgent attention from serious Indian observers. The Mitrokhin Archive II gives us a privileged glimpse of some of what happened: “The Sino-Soviet split in the early 1960s brought to an acrimonious end the deference from the PRC which Stalin had taken for granted. The first public attack on Moscow was made by Mao’s veteran security chief, Kang Sheng, whose ferocious purges during Mao’s Great Leap Forward were largely modelled on techniques he had learned in Moscow during the Great Terror. On the Soviet side, the ideological dispute with China was compounded by personal loathing for Mao – the `Great Helmsman’ – and a more general dislike of the Chinese population as a whole, Khrushchev `repeatedly’ told a Romanian delegation shortly before his overthrow in 1964 that `Mao Zedong is sick, crazy, that he should be taken to an asylum, etc.” An assessment of Chinese national character circulated to KGB residencies by the Centre twelve years later claimed that the Chinese were `noted for their spitefulness’. What most outraged both the Kremlin and the Centre was Beijing’s impudence in setting itself up as a rival capital of world Communism, attempting to seduce other Communist parties from their rightful allegiance to the Soviet Union. Moscow blamed the horrors of Pol Pot’s regime… on the takeover of the Cambodian Communist Party by `an anti-popular, pro-Beijing clique’.

If nothing else, The Mitrokhin Archives II provides an honest opportunity for India’s Left to come clean with their frank and non-ideological opinions about Soviet, Chinese and other communist histories, and hence to candidly gain self-knowledge. Will they take it? Are there any George Orwells out there?

Kolkata, October 5 2005

Posted in Air warfare, Arabs, Asia and the West, Bangladesh, BR Shenoy, Britain, China, Communists, Congress Party, Espionage, Freedom, George Orwell, India's Democracy, India's Diplomacy, India's Economy, India's Foreign Policy, India's Military Defence, India's Monetary & Fiscal Policy, India's Politics, India's Polity, Indira Gandhi, International Law, Iran, Iraq war, Jammu & Kashmir, Mao Zedong, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, Milton Friedman, Nuclear conflict, Osama bin Laden, Pakistan's history, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Politics, Ronald Reagan, Russia, September 11 attacks, Tibet, US Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Espionage, USA, United States, War, World History. 1 Comment »

Iqbal & Jinnah vs Rahmat Ali in Pakistan’s creation

September 3, 2005 — drsubrotoroy

Iqbal & Jinnah vs Rahmat Ali in Pakistan’s Creation

By Dr Subroto Roy

First published in Dawn (Karachi) Encounter September 3, 2005

MUHAMMAD IQBAL (1877-1938) was the poetic and spiritual genius who (at least in the 20th Century) inspired the notion of a Muslim homeland in northwestern India. His seminal 1930 presidential speech to the Muslim League in Allahabad laid the foundation stone of the new country that was yet to be. He said “I would like to see the Punjab, Northwest Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single state. Self-government within the British Empire or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated North West Indian Muslim state appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims at least of Northwest India…”.

Iqbal did not see such a Muslim state being theocratic and certainly not one filled with anti-Hindu bigotry:

“A community which is inspired by feelings of ill-will towards other communities is low and ignoble. I entertain the highest respect for the customs, laws, religious and social institutions of other communities… Yet I love the communal group which is the source of my life and my behaviour… Nor should the Hindus fear that the creation of autonomous Muslim states will mean the introduction of a kind of religious rule in such states… I therefore demand the formation of a consolidated Muslim state in the best interests of India and Islam. For India it means security and peace resulting from an internal balance of power, for Islam an opportunity to rid itself of the stamp that Arabian Imperialism was forced to give it, to mobilise its law, its education, its culture, and to bring them into closer contact with its own original spirit and the spirit of modern times”.

Now such a Muslim country as conceived by Muhammad lqbal — and which, as it happens, constitutes more or less the territory of present-day Pakistan other than East Punjab— did not necessarily have to receive the name it did come to receive. It might have been named “Dar-e-Islami-Hind” or the “Indus Islamic Republic” or “Indic Islamabad” or “The Republic of North-Western India” or some other such appropriate appellation — even “Iqbalistan” perhaps or some name deriving from Iqbal’s notion of “khudi” which he had developed from his admiration as a young man for the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche.

Nor did Mohammad Ali Jinnah (1876-1948) himself, the explicit and acknowledged political founder of the new country, use the appellation that it did come to have, not even when he introduced the Lahore Resolution in the 1940 meeting of the Muslim League which aimed to implement Iqbal’s idea. It was Iqbal who persuaded Jinnah to return to India from England, where Jinnah had settled in a law practice again after his first stint in Indian politics, and in 1934 Jinnah had done so when elected to the Central Legislative Assembly in a reserved seat for Bombay Muslims.

By 1938 Jinnah had declared his permanent opinion: “Congress leaders may shout as much as they like that the Congress is a national body. But … (the) Congress is nothing but a Hindu body”. Finally, at the Lahore session of the Muslim League in 1940, Jinnah introduced the idea: “That geographically contiguous units are demarcated into regions which should be so constituted, with such territorial readjustments as may be necessary, that the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in a majority, as in the North-Western and Eastern zones of India should be grouped to constitute Independent States in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign”.

Who had seconded Jinnah’s Lahore Resolution? It had been Sikander Hyat Khan, leader of the Punjab Muslims, and Fazlul Haq, leader of the Bengal Muslim peasantry. Jinnah as of 1940 had been most conspicuously a leader of Muslims only in the Muslim-minority provinces of British India, and clearly had felt it necessary to demonstrate that in proposing the Lahore Resolution he had the support of the two leaders of the two largest Muslim-majority provinces, Punjab and Bengal.

Sikander Hyat Khan had been due to become Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India in Bombay in 1936 when instead he returned to Punjab to lead the Unionist Party of Muslim, Sikh and Hindu landlords in 1937. “The Sikander-Jinnah pact stipulated that the Unionist Party of the Punjab, led by Sikander, would retain full autonomy of the affairs of the province.” Fazlul Haq would later conceive with Sarat Bose (elder brother of Subhash Bose) of a Muslim majority “United Bengal” in an attempt to keep Calcutta out of the new India, a notion which would have Jinnah’s backing but otherwise would not get anywhere. Support for the Lahore Resolution among the Muslims of the princely states like Jammu and Kashmir or Hyderabad was conspicuous by its absence. Neither were they mentioned in Iqbal’s seminal 1930 speech nor in Jinnah’s 1940 Lahore Resolution backed by Sikander Hyat Khan and Fazlul Haq. What has been called the “Paradox of Kashmir” is that prior to 1947 Jammu and Kashmir did not seem to appear in any discussion whatsoever, and yet it has consumed almost all discussion ever since.

To this must be added now another newly understood dimension having to do with the conceptualization and foundation of the new country not only by lqbal the poet and Jinnah the politician, but by the third and upstart founder of Pakistan: its young radical Islamist ideologue, Chowdhury Rahmat Ali (1895-1951).

Official Pakistan has venerated Iqbal and accorded Jinnah due honour and respect but has apparently treated Rahmat Ali as the lunatic uncle who has needed to be locked up secretly in the attic. Yet Rahmat Ali’s impact on the creation of Pakistan and events in the subcontinent equalled those of his two better educated, more respectable and eminent compatriots — and may yet come to exceed them (not necessarily salubriously).

Rahmat Ali was born in a village in Hoshiarpur district of Punjab in 1895, making him almost 20 years younger than Iqbal and Jinnah. He matriculated from Jullunder and graduated in 1919 from Islamia College, Lahore. About 1931, having “accumulated some money as a legal advisor to a Baluchi landlord”, he arrived in England and took admission in Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

By way of studies, Rahmat Ali may have passed a set of Part I exams but not perhaps the Part  II. There does not seem to be any record of him attending the Inns of Court or of being called to the Bar, though he styled himself “Barrister at Law” in his writings. According to the obituary he received in the Emmanuel College Magazine of 1950-51, “he made Cambridge his home, shifting a little unhappily from lodging to lodging, and using, perhaps rather more than was proper, the College as an accommodation address.”

Interviews with his landlady and housekeeper-secretary, conducted by Dr Taufiq Shelley in 1970-71, yielded that Rahmat Ali was a devout pious Muslim who along with a few compatriots had been secretly and secretively very active as a pamphleteer from England creating and spreading among India’s Muslims a radical Islamist ideology for Pakistan, even founding something called the “Pakistan National Liberation Movement”.

Rahmat Ali was inspired by Iqbal’s 1930 call for a Muslim state in northwest India but felt Iqbal had been too vague and was disappointed that Iqbal had not pressed the issue at the Third Round Table Conference. In 1933, apparently on the top floor of a London bus, Rahmat Ali invented for Iqbal’s imagined political entity the name “PAKSTAN”, the P standing for his native Punjab, the A for Afghania, K for Kashmir, S for Sind, and the STAN allegedly doubling up for Balochistan.

Rahmat Ali sought a meeting with Jinnah in London, met him and pressed the name ‘Pakstan’ upon him as a possible nomenclature. “Jinnah disliked Rahmat Ali’s ideas and avoided meeting him”. Jinnah pointed out to Rahmat Ali he had failed to consider the other Muslim majority province, Bengal, as well as Muslim minority regions.

At this, Rahmat Ali produced a general scheme of Muslim domination all over the subcontinent: there would be “Pakistan” in the northwest including Kashmir, Delhi and Agra; “Bangistan” in Bengal; “Osmanistan” in Hyderabad; “Siddiquistan” in Bundelhand and Malwa; “Faruqistan” in Bihar and Orissa; “Haideristan” in UP; “Muinistan” in Rajasthan; “Maplistan” in Kerala; and even “Safiistan” in “Western Ceylon” and “Nasaristan” in “Eastern Ceylon”, etc. The map deriving from such a crank view of history was published by Rahmat Ali in 1934 and came to be widely circulated in his pamphleteering among Indian Muslims at the time.

Rahmat Ali was vituperative in his bigotry against Hindus, referring to the Indian nationalist movement as a “British-Banya alliance” presumably in reference to MK Gandhi’s caste. He even declined to refer to an “India” as having ever existed at all and instead personally renamed the entire subcontinent as “Dinia”, and the oceans and the seas around India as the “Pakian Sea”, the “Osmanian Sea” etc. He urged Sikhs to rise up against the Hindus in a “Sikhistan” (and might have interacted with Master Tara Singh), and indeed urged all of India’s peoples who were not Hindus to rise up in war against Hindus. Given the obscurity of the facts of his life before his arrival at Emmanuel College, what experiences may have led him to such extreme bigotry towards Hindus are not known.

When in 1947 a new but “moth-eaten” country had come to be named with the word he had coined on a London bus more than a dozen years earlier, and was a country which had two “wings” after a partition — the more populous “East Pakistan” and the more arrogant “West Pakistan” — Rahmat Ali turned his wrath from England upon its new government. He condemned Jinnah as being treacherous, and then newly re-interpreted his letters P, A, K, I, S, T, A, N to now refer to Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir, Iran, Sindh, Tukharistan (sic), Afghanistan, and Balochistan.

The word “pak” coincidentally meant pure in Arabic, so Rahmat Ali began to speak of Muslim believers anywhere as being the “Pak” i.e. “the pure” people, and of how the national destiny of the new Pakistan should be to liberate “Pak” people everywhere, including the new India, and create a “Pak Commonwealth of Nations” stretching from Arabia to the Indies. The map he now drew placed the word “Punjab” over Jammu & Kashmir. Thus as of 1947 or so, Rahmat Ali’s crank view of history led to an Asia dominated by a “Pak” empire: However, when Rahmat Ali landed in the new country whose name had been invented by him, he was apparently placed under arrest and deported back to England immediately. In a previous visit to Sikander Hyat’s Punjab, he had been apparently assaulted. He had not been invited to the promulgation of the Lahore Resolution, which, even though it did not refer to his name Pakistan, came to be called the Pakistan Resolution.

Shunned by the officialdom of the new country which now carried the name he had invented, Rahmat Ali died in poverty and obscurity in England during an influenza epidemic in 1951; the Master of Emmanuel College paid for his funeral and was later reimbursed for this by the Government of Pakistan.

In recent years Rahmat Ali has been undergoing a restoration, and his grave at Cambridge has become a site of pilgrimage today for Pakistan’s Islamist ideologues, while his maps, writings and rantings have been reprinted in, e.g., The Nation newspaper in Pakistan as recently as February 2005.

At best, Rahmat Ali may be described as a pious and devout Muslim who was a sincere and ardent Islamist ideologue. At worst he was a deeply bigoted crank and a reactionary Muslim imperialist. His views on Hindus are not far in the level of their depravity from the views of the author of Mein Kampf on the Jews — and ironically the author of Mein Kampf had been a model for a few Hindu authors at the time who wrote with equal bigotry about the Muslims of India.

Indeed Rahmat Ali’s views against Hindus may be classified with those of other bigoted views at the time such as those against Jews or against Muslims, which may all well have been examples or models or counterfoils for one another in the crank fringes of rival ideological movements at the time.

The anti-Hindu bigotry of Rahmat Ali’s views would explain why they were anathema to Jinnah, the secular-minded constitutionalist. Like other Muslim nationalists of his time such as Attaturk, Nasser, Mossadeq or even Saud himself, Jinnah would have been embarrassed to be promoting a reactionary Islamic imperialism in that modernising era that was the middle of the 20th century.

Dr Roy along with WE James created the book Foundations of Pakistan’s Political Economy: Towards an Agenda for the 1990s (Sage, Delhi, OUP, Karachi 1992). His most recent book is one edited with John Clarke, Margaret Thatcher’s Revolution: How it Happend and What it Meant (Continuum, London & New York 2005, 2006).

Posted in Balochistan, Bengal, Britain, Cambridge University, Fascists, Iqbal, Islam, Jammu & Kashmir, MA Jinnah, Pakistan's history, Pakistan, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Racism, Religion, World History. 6 Comments »

Margaret Thatcher’s Revolution: How it Happened and What it Meant

April 27, 2005 — drsubrotoroy

Margaret Thatcher’s Revolution: How it Happened and What it Meant, edited by Subroto Roy & John Clarke, London & New York: Continuum, 2005, 2006.

Posted in Anglo-American relations, Britain, Britain's monarchy, British foreign policy, British history, British Universities, Cardiff Business School, Cold War, Conservative Party Britain, Constitutional monarchy, Economic Policy, Economics of Public Finance, Economics of Unemployment, European Community, European history, European politics, Family Values, Financial markets, Foreign exchange controls, Freedom, George P Shultz, International diplomacy, International economics, International politics, Keynesian economics, Margaret Thatcher, Margaret Thatcher's Revolution, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, Milton Friedman, Political Economy, Political Philosophy, Politics, University of Buckingham, War, World History. Leave a Comment »

Science, Religion, Art & the Necessity of Freedom (2004)

August 24, 2004 — drsubrotoroy

Science, Religion, Art & the Necessity of Freedom: Reason’s Response to Islamism

by
Subroto Roy

PhD (Cantab.), BScEcon (London)

(A public lecture delivered as the Wincott Visiting Professor of Economics at the University of Buckingham on August 24 2004, based on a keynote address to the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats, Manila, November 16 2001.)

I am most grateful to the University of Buckingham for allowing me to refresh and carry forward my research these last several months. For some 25 years I have been learning of and reflecting upon the work of two great modern British philosophers, John Wisdom (1904-1993) and Renford Bambrough (1926-1999). In the 1980s in America, I came to apply their thinking in Philosophy of Economics (Routledge 1989), a book which got me into a lot of trouble there. Returning to Britain in 2004, I am dismayed to find their work almost forgotten or unknown today, even at the Ancient University that had been their home. “Orientalists” from the West once used to comprehend and highlight the achievements of the East for the peoples of the East who were unaware of them; I am happy to return the favour by becoming an “Occidentalist” in highlighting a little of the work of two of Britain’s finest sons of which she has become unaware. Wisdom and Bambrough played a kind of modern-day Plato and Aristotle to the Socrates played by Wittgenstein (1889-1951); the knowledge they achieved in their lives and have left behind for us to use and apply to our own problems make them, in terms of Eastern philosophy, rather like the “Boddhisatvas” of Mahayana Buddhism. I do not expect anyone to share such an extravagant view, and will be more than satisfied if I am able to suggest that we can have a grasp of the nature and scope of human reasoning thanks to their work which may help resolve the most intractable and seemingly irreconcilable of all current international problems, namely the grave cultural conflicts made apparent since September 11 2001.

2. The September 11 attacks aimed to cripple one of the world’s largest and most important countries in a new kind of act of war. The perpetrators apparently saw themselves — subjectively in their own minds — acting in the name of one of the world’s largest and most important religions. Since the attacks, the world has become an unusually bewildering place, as if notions of freedom, tolerance and the rule of law have been proven a lie overnight, as if virtues like patience, common reasoning and good humour have all become irrelevant, deserving to be flushed away in face of a resurgence of ancient savageries. The attackers and their friends taunt the West saying their love of death is greater and more powerful than the West’s love of life; the taunts and the counter-taunts of their powerful adversaries have had the effect of spraying panic, mutual fear, hatred or destruction across the surface of everyday life everywhere, so we now have bizarre scenes of people taking off their shoes and clothes and putting them on again while travelling, and of the British public being advised on how to cope with nerve gas attacks when they might have much rather been watching “reality TV” instead. An Age of Unreason appears upon us.

The very simple proposition I put forward here is this: there are, indeed there cannot be, any conflicts that are necessarily irresoluble. To put it differently, the logical scope of common reasoning is indefinite and limitless. There is no question to which there is not a right answer. If I was asked to answer in one sentence what has been the combined contribution to human thought of Wittgenstein, Wisdom and Bambrough, indeed of modern British philosophy as a whole, I would say it has been the proof that there are no unanswerable questions, that there is no question to which there is not a right answer.
By “common reasoning” I shall mean merely to refer to the structure of any conversation well-enough described by F. R. Leavis’s operators in literary criticism:

“This is so, isn’t it?,

Yes, but….”.

My “yes” to your “This is so, isn’t it?” indicates agreement with what you have said while my “but…” tells you I believe there may be something more to the matter, some further logical relation to be found, some further fact to be investigated or experiment carried out, some further reflection necessary and possible upon already known and agreed upon facts. It amounts to a new “This is so, isn’t it?” to which you may respond with your own, “Yes, but…”; and our argument would continue. Another set of operators is:

“You might as well say…”;

“Exactly so”;

“But this is different…”

This was how Wisdom encapsulated the “case-by-case” method of argument that he pioneered and practised. It requires intimate description of particular cases and marking of similarities and differences between them, yielding a powerful indefinitely productive method of objective reasoning, distinct from and logically prior to the usual methods of deduction and induction that exhaust the range of positivism. We are able to see how common reasoning may proceed in practice in subtle fields like law, psychology, politics, ethics, aesthetics and theology, just as objectively as it does in natural science and mathematics. Wittgenstein had spoken of our “craving for generality” and our “contemptuous attitude towards the particular case”. Wisdom formalised the epistemological priority of particular over general saying: “Examples are the final food of thought. Principles and laws may serve us well. They can help us to bring to bear on what is now in question what is not now in question. They help us to connect one thing with another and another and another. But at the bar of reason, always the final appeal is to cases.” And “Argument must be heard”.

In all conflicts – whether within a given science, between different sciences, between sciences and religion, within a given religion, between different religions, between sciences and arts, within the arts, between religion and the arts, between quarrelling nations, quarrelling neighbours or quarrelling spouses, whether in real relationships of actual life or hypothetical relationships of literature and drama – an approach of this kind tells us there is something further that may be said, some improvement that can be carried out, some further scope for investigation or experiment allowing discovery of new facts, some further reflection necessary or possible upon known facts. There are no conflicts that are necessarily irresoluble. Where the suicide-bombers and their powerful adversaries invite us to share their hasty and erroneous assumption that religious, political or economic cultures are becoming irreconcilable and doomed to be fights unto death, we may give to them instead John Wisdom’s “Argument must be heard.”

Parties to this or any conflict may in fact fail to find in themselves enough patience, tolerance, good humour, courage to take an argument where it leads, or they may fail to find enough of these qualities in adequate time, as Quesnay and the Physiocrats failed to find solutions in adequate time and were swept away by the French Revolution. But the failures of our practical human powers and capabilities do not signal that the logical boundaries of the scope of reason have been reached or even approached or come to be sighted.

3. The current conflict is said to be rooted in differences between religious cultures. We may however wish to first address whether any religious belief or practice can survive the devastating onslaught of natural science, the common modern adversary of all religions. What constitutes a living organism? What is the difference between plants and animals? What is the structure of a benzene ring or carbon atom or subatomic particle? What is light? Sound? Gravity? What can be said about black holes or white dwarfs? When did life begin here and when is it likely to end? Are we alone in being the only form of self-conscious life? Such questions about the world and Universe and our place in it have been asked and answered in their own way by all peoples of the world, from primitive tribes in hidden forests to sophisticated rocket scientists in hidden laboratories. Our best common understanding of them constitutes the state of scientific knowledge at a given time. Once we have accounted for all that modern science has to say, can any reasonable explanation or justification remain to be given of any religious belief or practice from any time or place?

Bambrough constructed this example. Suppose we are walking on the shore of a stormy sea along with Homer, the ancient Greek poet, who has been restored to us thanks to a time machine. We are walking along when Homer looks at the rough sea and says, “Poseidon is angry today”. We look at the waves loudly hitting the rocks and nod in agreement saying, “Yes, Poseidon is angry today”. We may be using the same words as Homer but Homer’s understanding of and expectations about the words “Poseidon is angry today” and our understanding of and expectations about the same words would be utterly different, a difference moreover we are able to understand but he may not. To us with our modern meteorology and oceanography, and the results of the television cameras of Jacques Cousteau and David Attenborough, we know for a fact there is no god-like supernatural being called Poseidon living within the ocean whose moods affect the waves. But to Homer, Poseidon not only exists in the ocean but also leaves footprints and descendants on the land, when Poseidon is angry the sea is vicious, when Poseidon is calm the seas are peaceful. We use the words “Poseidon is angry today” as an accurate description of the mood of an angry sea; Homer uses the same words to mean there was a god-like supernatural being inside the ocean whose anger was being reflected in the anger of the waves.

My second story is from 7th century AD located here in Buckingham, from a spot a few hundred yards behind the Economics Department of the University where there is St Rumbwald’s Well. In 650 AD — just a short while after The Recital of the Prophet of Islam (570-632AD) had been written down as The Q’uran, and just a little while before the Chinese pilgrim I-Ching (635-713AD) would be travelling through India recording his observations about Buddhism – here 12 miles from Buckingham was born the babe known as Rumwold or Rumbwald. England was hardly Christian at the time and the first Archbishop of Canterbury had been recently sent by the Pope to convert the Anglo-Saxons. Rumbwald’s father was a pagan prince of Northumbria; his mother the Christian daughter of the King of Mercia. St Rumbwald of Buckingham or Brackley is today the patron saint of fishermen at Folkestone, and he has been historically revered at monasteries in Mercia, Wessex and distant Sweden. Churches have been dedicated to him in Kent,Essex, Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire, Dorset and North Yorkshire. Pilgrims have washed themselves at St Rumwald’s Well over centuries and it is said Buckingham’s inns originated in catering to them. What is the legend of St Rumbwald? It is that on the day he was born he declared three times in a loud voice the words “I am a Christian, I am a Christian, I am a Christian”. After he had been baptised, he, on the second day of his life, was able to preach a sermon on the Trinity and the need for virtuous living, and foretold his imminent death, saying where he wished to be buried. On the third day of his life he died and was buried accordingly.

When we hear this story today, we might smile, wishing newborn babes we have known waking up in the middle of the night might be more coherent too. Professor John Clarke has shown Catholic hagiography over the centuries has also registered deep doubts about the Rumbwald story. We might be tempted to say the whole thing is complete nonsense. If a modern person took it at face value, we would look on it sympathetically. We know for a fact it is impossible, untrue, there has to be some error.

At the bar of reason, all religions lose to science where they try to compete on science’s home grounds, which are the natural or physical world. If a religious belief requires that a material object can be in two places at the same time, that something can be made out of nothing, that the Sun and planets go around the Earth to make Night and Day, that the Earth is flat and the sky is a ceiling which may be made to fall down upon it by Heavenly Wrath, that the rains will be on time if you offer a prayer or a sacrifice, it is destined to be falsified by experience. Natural science has done a lot of its work in the last few centuries; all the major religions pre-date this expansion so their physical premises may have remained those of the science understood in their time. In all questions where religions try to take on scientific understanding head on, they do and must lose, and numerous factual claims made by all religions will disappear in the fierce and unforgiving heat of the crucible of scientific reasoning and evidence.Yet even a slight alteration of the St Rumbwald story can make it plausible to modern ears. Just the other day Radio 4 had a programme on child prodigies who were able to speak words and begin to master language at age of one or two. It is not impossible a child prodigy of the 7th Century AD in his first or second year of life spoke the words “I’m a Christian”, or that as a toddler with a devout Christian mother, he said something or other about the Holy Trinity or about virtue or that he wished to be buried in such and such place even if he had had no real understanding of what he was talking about. If such a prodigious infant of royal blood then died from illness, we can imagine the grief of those around him, and how word about him might spread through a countryside in an era 1200 years before the discovery of electricity and invention of telecommunications, and for that information to become garbled enough to form the basis of the legend of St Rumbwald through the centuries.

The Rumbwald story is a typical religious story that has its parallels in other times and places including our own. It is impossible for it to have been factually true in the way it has come down to us, but it is completely possible for us with our better knowledge of facts and science today to reasonably explain its power over the beliefs of many generations of people. And if we are able to reasonably explain why people of a given time and place may have believed or practised what they did, we have not reason to be disdainful or scornful of them. The mere fact such religious stories, beliefs, experiences and practices of human beings over several thousand years across the globe have been expressed in widely different and far from well-translated or well-understood languages – Egyptian, Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Pali, Tibetan, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Hawaiian, Samoan, Apache, Kwa Zulu, Hausa, Swahili – let aside English, Arabic, Yiddish or a thousand others, provides more than ample explanation of how miscomprehension and misapprehension can arise and continue, of how a vast amount of mutual contempt and scorn between peoples of different cultures is able to be irrationally sustained. The scope for the reasonable “demythologisation” of all these stories in all these languages from all these religions, in the way we have sought to “demythologise” the Rumbwald story here obviously remains immense and indefinite.

Next consider religious practice in the modern world, and the universal act of praying. (Economists have not seemed to look much at this before though a lot of mankind’s energy and resources are rationally spent towards it every day across the world.) Some weeks ago, on the 60th Anniversary of D-Day, Lady Soames, the daughter of Churchill, recalled the incredible fear and tension and uncertainty felt during the buildup to the invasion of Normandy; she said that when she finally heard the roar of the aeroplanes as they started across the English Channel: “I fell to my knees and prayed as I’d never prayed before or since” (BBC 1 June 6 2004, 8.40 am). A policeman’s wife in Costa Rica in Central America is shown making the sign of the cross upon her husband before he goes to work in the morning into a crime-ridden area from which he might not return safely at the end of the day. Footballers and boxers and opening batsmen around the world say a prayer before entering the field of contest. So do stockbrokers, foreign exchange dealers, businessmen, job-candidates and students taking examinations, and of course hospital-patients entering operating theatres. Before a penalty shootout between England and Portugal or Holland and Sweden, many thousands of logically contradictory prayers went up.

All this praying is done without a second thought about the ultimate ontological character of the destination of such prayers, or even whether such a destination happens or happens not to exist at all. The universal ubiquitous act of praying might be a rational human response to fear, uncertainty, hopelessness, and despair, as also to unexpected joy or excessive happiness.

Blake said: “Excess of joy, weeps, Excess of sorrow, laughs”. When there is excess of sorrow or excess of joy, praying may contribute mental resources like courage, tranquillity and equanimity and so tend to restore emotional equilibrium in face of sudden trauma or excitement. A provisional conclusion we may then register is that religious beliefs and practices of people around the world are open to be reasonably comprehended and explained in these sorts of straightforward ways, and at the same time there is a good sense in which progress in religious understanding is possible and necessary to be made following growth and improvement of our factual understanding of the world and Universe in which we live.

We still speak of the Sun “rising in the East” and “setting in the West” despite knowing since Copernicus and Galileo and the testimony of Yuri Gagarin, John Glenn and Neil Armstrong that the Sun has in fact never done any such thing. Our understanding of the same words has changed fundamentally. Tycho Brahe thought the Sun went around Earth; his disciple Kepler the opposite; when Tycho Brahe looked East at dawn he understood something different from (and inferior to) what Kepler understood when Kepler looked East at dawn. It is similar to Homer and us with respect to whether Poseidon’s moods affect the waves of the sea. Examples of traditional religious belief and understanding may get modified by our scientific knowledge and understanding such that the same words may mean something quite different as a result and have a new significance for our consciousness.

Indeed it extends well beyond natural science to our understanding of literature, art and psychology as well. With the knowledge we have gained of ourselves — of our conscious waking minds as well as of our unconscious dreaming minds — after we have read and tried to grasp Blake, Goethe, Dostoevsky or Freud, we may quite well realise and comprehend how the thoughts and feelings residing in the constitutions of actual beings, including ourselves, are more than enough to describe and explain good and evil, and without having to refer to any beings outside ourselves residing elsewhere other than Earth. It is like the kind of progress we make in our personal religious beliefs from what we had first learned in childhood. We do not expect a person after he or she has experienced the ups and downs of adult life to keep to exactly the same religious beliefs and practises he or she had as a child at mother’s knee, and we do not expect mankind to have the same religious beliefs today as it did in its early history.

Bambrough concluded: “There is no incompatibility between a refurbished demythologised Homeric polytheism, a refurbished demythologised Christianity, and a refurbished demythologised Islam…. The Creation and the Resurrection, the Ascension and the Virgin Birth…may be very differently conceived without being differently expressed….we can still learn from the plays and poems of the ancient Greeks, although we reject the basis of the mythological structure through which they express their insight and their understanding. The myths continue to teach us something because they are attached to, and grounded in, an experience that we share. It would therefore be astonishing if the Christian religion, whether when considered as a united and comprehensive body of doctrine it is true or false, did not contain much knowledge and truth, much understanding and insight, that remain valuable and accessible even to those who reject its doctrinal foundations. In and through Christianity the thinkers and writers and painters and moralists of two thousand years have struggled to make sense of life and the world and men…. What is more, the life that they wrestled with is our life; the world they have portrayed is the world that we live in; the men that they were striving to understand are ourselves.”

Bambrough was addressing Church of England clergy forty years ago but in his reference to a refurbished demythologised Islam he might as well have been addressing Muslim clergy today — indeed his findings are quite general and apply to other theists as well as to atheists, and provide an objective basis for the justification of tolerance.

Judaism, Christianity and Islam each starts with a “religious singularity”, a single alleged moment in the history of human beings when a transcendental encounter is believed to have occurred: the Exodus of God’s Chosen People led by Moses; the Birth, Life, Death and Resurrection of God’s Only Son, Jesus Christ; the Revelation of God’s Book to His Messenger, Muhammad, Peace Be Unto Him, the Seal of the Prophets. Each speaks of a transcendental Creator, of just rewards and punishments awaiting us in a transcendental eternal life after mortal earthly death.

A different fork in the road says, however, that the wind blowing in the trees may be merely the wind blowing in the trees, nothing more; it is the path taken by Buddhism and Jainism, which deny the existence of any Creator who is to be owed our belief or reverence. It is also the path taken by Sigmund Freud the ultra-scientific rationalist of modern times: “It seems not to be true that there is a power in the universe, which watches over the well-being of every individual with parental care and brings all his concerns to a happy ending…. it is by no means the rule that virtue is rewarded and wickedness punished, but it happens often enough that the violent, the crafty and the unprincipled seize the desirable goods of the earth, while the pious go empty away. Dark, unfeeling and unloving powers determine human destiny; the system of rewards and punishments, which, according to religion, governs the world, seems to have no existence.”

We then seem to have a choice between a Universe Created or Uncreated, Something and Nothing, One and Zero, God and No God. Pascal said we have to bet on the Something not on the Nothing, bet on the One not on the Zero, bet on God being there rather than not being there. Pascal’s reasoning was clear and forms the basis of “decision theory” today: if you bet on God’s existence and God does not exist, you lose nothing; if you bet on God’s lack of existence and God exists, you’ve had it. The philosophies of my own country, India, speak of Zero and One, Nothing or Something, and almost leave it at that. Perhaps we know, or perhaps we do not says the Rg Veda’s Hymn of Creation.. Does our self-knowledge end with our mortal death or perhaps begin with it? Or perhaps just as there is an infinite continuum of numbers between 0 and 1, there is also an infinite continuum of steps on a staircase between a belief in Nothing and a belief in Something, between the atheism of Freud and the Buddhists and the theism of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Generalising Bambrough’s findings, it would be surprising if we did not find each and every religion, whether theistic or atheistic, to contain some knowledge and truth, some understanding and insight, that remains valuable and accessible even to those who may otherwise reject the doctrinal foundations of any or all of them. In and through the religions, the thinkers, writers, painters, poets, sculptors and artists of thousands of years have struggled to make sense of our life and the world that we live in; the men and women they were striving to understand are ourselves.

4. Just after the September 11 attacks, I said in the Philippines that the perpetrators of the attacks would have been surprised to know of the respect with which the religious experience of the Prophet of Islam had been treated by the 19th Century British historian Thomas Carlyle: “The great Mystery of Existence… glared in upon (Mohammad), with its terrors, with its splendours; no hearsays could hide that unspeakable fact, ‘Here am I!’. Such sincerity… has in very truth something of divine. The word of such a man is a Voice direct from Nature’s own Heart. Men do and must listen to that as nothing else; all else is wind in comparison.” Carlyle told stories of Mohammad once not abiding by his own severe faith when he wept for an early disciple saying “You see a friend weeping over his friend”; and of how, when the young beautiful Ayesha tried to make him compare her favourably to his deceased wife and first disciple the widow Khadija, he had denied her: “She believed in me when none else would believe. In the whole world I had but one friend and she was that!” Carlyle’s choice of stories suggested the simple humanity and humility of Mohammad’s life and example, even an intersection between Islamic belief and modern science (”a Voice direct from Nature’s own Heart”). Carlyle quoted Goethe: “If this be Islam, do we not all live in Islam?”, suggesting there might be something of universal import in the message well beyond specifically Muslim ontological beliefs.

In general, the words and deeds of a spiritual leader of mankind like that of secular or scientific leaders like Darwin, Einstein, Aristotle, Adam Smith or Karl Marx, may be laid claim to by all of us whether we are explicit adherents, disciples or admirers or not. No private property rights attach upon their legacies, rather these remain open to be discussed freely and reasonably by everyone. Just as war is too important to be left to the generals, politics is too important to be left to the politicians, economics is definitely too important to be left to the economists; even science may be too important to be left to the scientists — certainly also, the religions are far too important to be left to the religious.

Yet Mr Osama Bin Laden and his friends, followers and potential followers, indeed any believing Muslims, are unlikely to be impressed with any amount of “external” praise heaped on Islam by a Carlyle or a Goethe, let aside by a President Bush or Prime Minister Blair. They may be wary of outsiders who bring so much praise of Islam, and will tell them instead “If you like Islam as much as you say you do, why not convert? It’s so easy. You have merely to say ‘God is One and Mohammad is the Seal of the Prophets’ – that’s all, you are Muslim, God is Great”.

Indeed Mr Bin Laden and friends are unlikely to be impressed with any kind of economic or carrot-and-stick policy of counter-terrorism, where incentives and disincentives are created by Western authorities like the US 9/11 Commission or the Blair Cabinet telling them: “If you are ‘moderate’ in your thoughts, words and deed you will earn this, this and this as rewards from the Government, but if you are ‘extremist’ in your thoughts, words and deeds then you shall receive that, that and that as penalties from the Government. These are your carrots and here is the stick.” It is Skinnerian behavioural psychology gone overboard. The incentives mean nothing, and the disincentives, well, they would merely have to be more careful not to end up in the modern Gulags.

We could turn from carrot-and-stick to a more sophisticated mode of negative rhetoric instead. If a doctrine C, declares itself to be resting upon prior doctrines B and A, then C’s reliability and soundness comes to depend on the reliability and soundness of B and A. If Islam declares itself to depend on references to a historical Moses or a historical Jesus, and if the last word has not been spoken by Jews, Christians, sceptics or others about the historical Moses or the historical Jesus, then the last word cannot have been spoken about something on which Islam declares itself to depend.

We can be more forceful too. Suicide-bombers combine the most sordid common crimes of theft and murder with the rare act of suicide as political protest. Suicide as political protest is a dignified and noble and awesome thing – many may remember the awful dignity in the sight of the Buddhist monks and nuns of South Vietnam immolating themselves in 1963 in protest against religious persecution by Diem’s Catholic regime, which led to the start of the American war in Vietnam. Six years and half a world away, Jan Palach, on January 19 1969, immolated himself in Wenceslas Square protesting the apathy of his countrymen to the Soviet invasion that had ended the Prague Spring. Socrates himself was forced to commit suicide for political reasons, abiding by his own injunction that it would be better to suffer wrong oneself than to come to wrong others — suicide as political protest is not something invented recently. And certainly not by Bin Laden and friends, whose greed makes their intentions and actions merely ghastly lacking all dignity: they are not satisfied like the Buddhist monks or like Jan Palach with political protest of their own suicides by self-immolation; they must add the sordid cruelty that goes with the very ordinary crimes of theft and mass murder as well.

Yet this kind of negative rhetorical attack too may not cut much ice with Mr Bin Laden and his friends. Just as they will dismiss our praise for Islam as being a suspicious trick, they will dismiss our criticism as the expected animus of an enemy.

To convict Mr Bin Laden of unreason, of contradicting himself, of holding contrary propositions x and ~x simultaneously and so talking meaninglessly and incoherently, we will have to bring out our heaviest artillery, namely, The Holy Q’uran itself, the Recital of Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon Him). We may have to show explicitly how Mr Bin Laden’s own words contradict what is in The Q’uran. He and his followers would then be guilty of maintaining x and its contrary ~x at the same time, of violating the most basic law of logical reasoning, the law of excluded middle, of contradicting themselves, and therefore of speaking meaninglessly, incoherently, nonsensically regardless of their language, culture, nationality or religion. The Q’uran is a grand document and anyone reading it must be prepared to either considering believing it or having powerful enough reasons not to do so. “The great Mystery of Existence”, Carlyle said, “glared in upon (Mohammad), with its terrors, with its splendours; no hearsays could hide that unspeakable fact, ‘Here am I!’. Such sincerity… has in very truth something of divine. The word of such a man is a Voice direct from Nature’s own Heart. Men do and must listen to that as nothing else; all else is wind in comparison.”

Certainly, as in many other religions, the believers and unbelievers are distinguished numerous times in the Prophet’s Recital; believers are promised a Paradise of wine and many luxuries, while unbelievers are promised hell-fire and many other deprivations. But who are these unbelievers? They are the immediate local adversaries of the Prophet, the pagans of Mecca, the hanifs, the local tribes and sceptics arrayed against the Prophet. It is crystal clear that these are the people being named as unbelievers in The Q’uran, and there is absolutely no explicit or implicit mention or reference in it to peoples of other places or other times. There is no mention whatsoever of Anglo-Saxons or Celts, Vikings, Goths, or Gauls, of Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, Confucians or Shintos, no mention of Aztecs, Incas, or Eskimos. There is no mention of any peoples of any other places or of any later times. Certainly there is no mention of the people of modern America or Israel or Palestine or Britain or India. Yet Mr Bin Laden evidently sent an email to the head of the Taliban on October 3 2001, in which he referred to “defending Islam and in standing up to the symbols of infidelity of this time” (Atlantic Monthly, Sep. 2004). We are then able to say to him or any of his friends: “Tell us, Sir, when you declare a war between believers and unbelievers in the name of Islam, whom do you mean to refer to as “unbelievers”? Do you mean to refer to every person in history who has not been a Muslim, even those who may have been ignorant of Islam and its Prophet? Or do you mean to refer to the opponents and enemies the Prophet actually happened to encounter in his struggles during his mission as a proselytiser, i.e., the Arabic idolaters of Mecca, the hanifs and Qureshis, this local Jewish tribe or that local Christian or pagan tribe against whom the early Muslim believers had to battle strenuously and heroically in order to survive? If it is these local enemies of the Prophet and his early disciples whom you mean to refer to as “unbelievers” destined for Hell’s fires, there is textual evidence in The Recital to support you. But if you mean by “unbelievers” an arbitrary assortment of people across all space and all time, you are challenged to show the verses that give you this authority because there are none. Certainly you may have military or political reasons for wishing to engage in conflict with A or B or C — because you feel affronted or violated by their actions — but these would be normal secular reasons open to normal discourse and resolution including the normal laws of war as known by all nations and all peoples. There may be normal moral arguments to be made by radical Muslims against the US Government or against the Israeli Government or the British or Indian or some other Government — but there are no generalised justifications possible from within The Q’uran itself against these modern political entities. We should expose Mr Bin Laden and his friends’ lack of reason in both maintaining that Prophet Muhammad is the Seal of the Prophets, and also maintaining that they can extrapolate from The Q’uran something that is not in The Q’uran. The Q’uran speaks of no unbelievers or enemies of the Prophet or the early Muslims who are not their local enemies in that time and place.

Pritchard, the distinguished Oxford philosopher, once wrote an article called “Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?” We today may have to ask a similar question “Does Islamist Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?”

5. If all this so far has seemed too clinical and aseptic in approaching the mystical matters of the spirit, I hasten to add finally that a decisive counterattack upon natural science may be made by both religion and art together. Our small planet is a satellite of an unexceptional star in an unexceptional galaxy yet we are still the centre of the Universe in that it is only here, as far as any of us knows, that such things as reason, intelligence and consciousness have come to exist. (Finding water or even primitive life elsewhere will not change this.) We alone have had an ability to understand ourselves and be conscious of our own existence — the great galaxies, black holes and white dwarfs are all very impressive but none of them can do the same. What responsibility arises for us (or devolves upon us) because of this? That is the perfectly good question asked by art and religion on which science remains silent. Life has existed for x million years and will be extinguished in y million more years, but we do not know why it arose at all, or what responsibility falls on those beings, ourselves, who have the consciousness to ask this. Religion and art cannot battle and win on science’s home ground but they can and do win where science has nothing left to say.

That is what DH Lawrence meant when he said the novel was a greater invention than Galileo’s telescope. Other artists would say the same. Art expresses life, and human cultures can be fresh and vigorous or decadent and redolent of death. The culture that evaluates its own art and encourages new shoots of creativity will be one with a vibrant life; the culture that cannot will be vulnerable to a merger or takeover. There is and has been only one human species, no matter how infinitely variegated its specimens across space and time. All have a capacity to reason as well as a capacity to feel a range of emotions in their experience of the world, something we share to an extent with other forms of life as well. And every human society, in trying to ascertain what is good for itself, finds need to reason together about how its members may be best able to survive, grow, reproduce and flourish, and this vitally demands freedom of inquiry and expression of different points of view. The lone voice in dissent needs to be heard or at least not suppressed just in case it is the right voice counselling against a course that might lead to catastrophe for all. To reason together implies a true or right answer exists to be found, and so the enterprise of truth seeking requires freedom as a logical necessity. It takes guts to be a lone dissenter, and all societies have typically praised and encouraged the virtues of courage and integrity, and poured shame on cowardice, treachery or sycophancy. Similarly, since society is a going concern, justice and fairplay in the working of its institutions is praised and sought after while corruption, fraud or other venality is condemned and punished. Leavis spoke of the need for an educated public if there was not to be a collapse of standards in the arts, since it was only individual candour that could expose shallow but dominant coteries.

Freedom is logically necessary to keep all potential avenues to the truth open, and freedom of belief and experience and the tolerance of dissent, becomes most obvious in religion, where the stupendous task facing everyone is to unravel to the extent we can the “Mystery of Existence”. The scope of the ontological questions is so vast it is only wise to allow the widest search for answers to take place, across all possible sources of faith, wherever the possibility of an insight into any of these subtle truths may arise, and this may explain too why a few always try to experience all the great religions in their own lifetimes. A flourishing culture advances in its science, its artistic creativity and its spiritual or philosophical consciousness. It would be self-confident enough to thrive in a world of global transmissions of ideas, practices, institutions and artefacts. Even if it was small in economic size or power relative to others, it would not be fearful of its own capacity to absorb what is valuable or to reject what is worthless from the rest of the world. To absorb what is valuable from outside is to supercede what may be less valuable at home; to reject what is worthless from outside is to appreciate what may be worthwhile at home. Both require faculties of critical and self-critical judgement, and the flourishing society will be one that possesses these qualities and exercises them with confidence. Words are also deeds, and deeds may also be language.

The crimes of September 11 2001 were ones of perverse terroristic political protest, akin on a global scale to the adolescent youth in angry frustration who kills his schoolmates and his teachers with an automatic weapon. But they were not something inexplicable or sui generis, but rather signalled a collapse of the old cosmopolitan conversation with Islam, and at the same time expressed an incoherent cry of stifled people trying to return to an austere faith of the desert. Information we have about one another and ourselves has increased exponentially in recent years yet our mutual comprehension of one another and ourselves may have grossly deteriorated in quality. Reversing such atrophy in our self-knowledge and mutual comprehension requires, in my opinion, the encouragement of all societies of all sizes to flourish in their scientific knowledge, their religious and philosophical consciousness and self-discovery, and their artistic expressiveness under conditions of freedom. Ultra-modern societies like some in North America or Europe may then perhaps become more reflective during their pursuit of material advancement and prosperity, while ancient societies like those of Asia and elsewhere may perhaps become less fearful of their capacity to engage in the transition between tradition and modernity, indeed, may even affect the direction or speed of change in a positive manner. To use a metaphor of Otto Neurath, we are as if sailors on a ship, who, even while sailing on the water, have to change the old planks of the ship with new planks one by one. In due course of time, all the planks get changed one at a time, but at no time has there not been a ship existing in the process — at no time need we have lost our history or our identity.


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Hannah Arendt’s “Truth and Politics”: Contemporary Relevance

March 23, 2003 — drsubrotoroy

Subroto Roy hears Mr Blair’s testimony to the Iraq War Inquiry and recalls Hannah Arendt’s profound distinction in “Truth and Politics” between the mere liar and the fully self-deceived — the liar tells the lie but at least knows the truth himself; the self-deceived tells the lie to himself as much as to others and believes it too and so the truth is hopelessly lost to him.

Posted in Britain's Chilcot Inquiry, British foreign policy, British history, British imperialism, Hannah Arendt, Imperialism, International Law, Iraq war, Mendacity, Saddam, US Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Espionage, US Military Doctrine, War, World History. Leave a Comment »

A General Theory of Globalization & Modern Terrorism (2001)

November 16, 2001 — drsubrotoroy

A General Theory of Globalization & Modern Terrorism with Special Reference to September 11

Subroto Roy

This was a keynote address to the Council of Asian Liberals & Democrats meeting on November 16 2001, Manila, Philippines, and was published in Singapore in 2002, Alan Smith, James Gomez & Uwe Johannen (Eds.) September 11 & Political Freedom: Asian Perspectives. It was republished in the West on January 26 2004 on the University of Buckingham website, when the author was Wincott Visiting Professor of Economics there. It came to be followed a few months later by a public lecture at the University, titled “Science, Religion, Art and the Necessity of Freedom: Reason’s Response to Islamism” which has also been published here.

1. Globalization Through a Wide-Angle Lens
2. Suicide, Terrorism & Political Protest
3. Science, Religion, Art, and the Necessity of Freedom
4. Asia’s Modern Dilemmas: Named Social Life or Anonymous Markets
5. September 11: the Collapse of the Global Conversation
6. Envoi

Synopsis: The world after September 11 2001 has seemed a very bewildering place — as if all liberal notions of universal reason, freedom, tolerance and the rule of law since the Enlightenment have been proven a lie overnight, deserving only to be flushed away in the face of a resurgence of ancient savageries. One aim of this essay is to show this would be too hasty an assessment; another is to provide a general theory of “globalization”, a notion which often has seemed lost for meaning.

1. Globalization Through a Wide-Angle Lens
The perpetrators of September 11 subjectively acted in the name of Islam. It would have surprised them to know of the great respect with which the religious experience of Prophet Muhammad (572-632 AD) had been treated in the English language by Carlyle in 1842:

“The great Mystery of Existence… glared in upon (Muhammad), with its terrors, with its splendours; no hearsays could hide that unspeakable fact, ‘Here am I!’. Such sincerity… has in very truth something of divine. The word of such a man is a Voice direct from Nature’s own Heart. Men do and must listen to that as nothing else; all else is wind in comparison.” 1

Carlyle told the story of Muhammad once not abiding by his own severe faith when he wept for an early disciple saying “You see a friend weeping over his friend”; and of how, when the young beautiful Ayesha tried to make him compare her favourably to his deceased wife and first disciple the widow Khadija, Muhammad had denied her:

“She believed in me when none else would believe. In the whole world I had but one friend and she was that!”

Carlyle suggested the simple humanity and humility of Muhammad’s life and example, and even an intersection between Islamic belief and modern science (“a Voice direct from Nature’s own Heart”). He quoted Goethe: “If this be Islam, do we not all live in Islam?”, suggesting there might be something of universal import in Muhammad’s message well beyond specifically Muslim ontological beliefs.
In general, the life or words of a spiritual leader of mankind like Muhammad, Christ, or Buddha, as indeed of discoverers of the physical world like Darwin or Einstein, or explorers of secular human nature like Aristotle, Adam Smith or Karl Marx, may be laid claim to by all of us whether we are explicit adherents, disciples or admirers or not. No private property rights may be attached upon their legacies, but rather these remain open to be discussed freely and reasonably by everyone.

A second example is more proximate. It is of M. K. Gandhi the Indian sitting in South Africa reflecting on the Christian ideas of Thoreau the American and Tolstoy the Russian, synthesizing these with Hindu-Jain notions of “ahimsa” or “non-hatred” into a technique of political action to be applied eventually to end British rule in India; then transferred a decade after Gandhi’s assassination to the U. S. Civil Rights Movement led by Martin Luther King Jr, and later, after King’s assassination, back to Nelson Mandela languishing in prison, who ends apartheid and brings in its place a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” in South Africa.2
Construing globalization to mean merely Westernization of the East has been a commonplace error, leading to a narrow cramped perspective and reflecting ignorance of both East and West. There are countless examples of the Easternization of the West including the exportation of Judaism and Christianity, and of Indian and Arab mathematics and astronomy in the Middle Ages. There have been and will be countless cross-fertilizations between East and West, let aside the subtle influences of Africa and other cultures and continents on art, music, dance, sports and beliefs around the world. In general, whenever an idea, practice, institution or artifact transmits itself from its origin elsewhere, we have a little piece of globalization taking place. The speed and volume of such transmissions may have vastly increased in recent decades thanks to the growth of modern transport and communications but that is not to say some of the most important transmissions have not already taken place or may not yet take place. Ours like every generation may be biased in favour of its own importance.

2. Suicide, Terrorism & Political Protest
Global transmissions can be as soft and salubrious as Americans learning to enjoy football which is not American football. But they can be grim and desperate too — like the transfer of “suicide bombing” techniques from Sri Lanka’s civil war to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict; or the idea of schoolboys firing automatic weapons germinating from A Clockwork Orange to actuality thirty years later in an American or a German school.

In fact the Thoreau-Tolstoy-Gandhi techniques of civil disobedience or a hunger-strike inflicting pain or sacrifice on oneself to show an adversary his folly, slide naturally to a limit of suicide as political protest — as when the Buddhist Superior Thich Quang Duc, protesting religious persecution by Diem’s regime in South Vietnam, immolated himself on June 2 1963, soon to be followed by other Buddhist monks and nuns, leading to the end of the Diem regime and start of the American war in Vietnam. Six years and half a world away, Jan Palach, on January 19 1969, immolated himself in Wenceslas Square protesting the apathy of his countrymen to the Soviet invasion that had ended the Prague Spring. Suicide as political protest still abides by the Socratic injunction that it would be better to suffer wrong than to wrong others.3

Terrorism by suicide killing crosses that line — over into a world of utilitarian calculation on the part of the perpetrator that his or her suicide as political protest would be inadequate, and must be accompanied by causing death among the perceived adversary as well.

Gandhi, King and Mandela each had conservative, accommodative currents on one side, as well as radical dissident or parallel terrorist offshoots on the other, and we will return to ask why no non-violent political movement seems identifiable of which September 11 was the violent terrorist offshoot.

Where political protest is absent from the motivation, and killing the adversary becomes the aim with suicide merely the means, as with Japan’s kamikaze pilots, we have passed into a realm of international war between organized authorities in contrast with mere terrorism against some organized authority. A suicide-killer may of course subjectively believe himself/herself to be making a political protest though his/her principals may see him/her as an instrument of war.

Also, if it is correct to distinguish between kamikaze pilots and the perpetrators of September 11 by absence and presence of political protest in their motivation, terrorism typically arises as rebellion against some organized authority, and is to be contrasted precisely with war between organized authorities. “State terrorism” can then only refer to an organized authority being repressive to the point of using its power to cause terror, physical or mental, upon a people or individuals under its control. “State-sponsored” terrorism would be something else again, where an organized authority assists a terroristic rebellion against some other organized authority, amounting effectively to an undeclared international war.4

3. Science, Religion, Art, and the Necessity of Freedom
The question arises whether anything in human nature or society may be identified to help analyse, explain or predict the myriad transmissions of globalization taking place, whether salubrious or not. If such a theory claims to be “general”, it will need to be wide enough to try to explain the motivation for modern terrorism and September 11 2001 in particular.

We could start with the observable fact there is and has been only one human species, no matter how infinitely variegated its specimens across space and time. All have a capacity to reason as well as a capacity to feel a range of emotions in their experience of the world, something we share to an extent with other forms of life as well. And every human society, in trying to ascertain what is good for itself, finds need to reason together about how its members may be best able to survive, grow, reproduce and flourish. This process of common reasoning and reflection vitally requires freedom of inquiry and expression of different points of view. The lone voice in dissent needs to be heard or at least not suppressed just in case it is the right voice counselling against a course which might lead to catastrophe for all. To reason together implies a true or right answer exists to be found, and the enterprise of truth-seeking thus requires freedom as a logical necessity. It takes guts to be a lone dissenter, and all societies have typically praised and encouraged the virtues of courage and integrity, and poured shame on cowardice, treachery or sycophancy. Similarly, since society is a going concern, justice and fairplay in the working of its institutions is praised and sought after while corruption, fraud or other venality is condemned and punished.

A flourishing society may be viewed as one advancing in its scientific knowledge, its artistic achievements, and its religious or philosophical consciousness. Each of these dimensions needs to be in appropriate balance in relation to the others during the process of social and economic growth, and each has a necessity for its own aspect of freedom.

Science is our public knowledge regardless of culture or nationality gained of ourselves as members of the world and the Universe, and has been the most important common adversary of all religions. Who or what is homo sapiens relative to other living species? What is the difference between plants and animals? What constitutes a living organism? What is the structure of a benzene ring or a carbon atom or any atom or subatomic particle? What is light, sound, gravity? What can we say about black holes or white dwarfs? When did life begin on Earth and when is it likely to end? Are we alone in the Universe in being the only form of self-conscious life? Such questions have been asked and attempted to be answered in their own way by all peoples of the world, whether they are primitive tribes in hidden forests or sophisticated rocket scientists in hidden laboratories. Our best common understanding of them constitutes the state of scientific knowledge at a given time.
At the bar of reason, all religions lose to science wherever they try to compete on science’s home grounds, namely, the natural or physical world. If a religious belief happens to imply a material object can be in two places at the same time, that something can be made out of nothing, that the Sun and planets go around the Earth, that if you offer a sacrifice the rains will be on time, then it is destined to be falsified by experience. Science has done a lot of its work in the last few centuries, while the religions pre-date this expansion so their physical premises may have remained those of the science understood in their time. In all questions where religions try to take on the laws of scientific understanding head on, they do and must lose, and numerous factual claims made by all religions will disappear in the fierce and unforgiving heat of the crucible of scientific reasoning and evidence.
With the enormous growth of science, some scientists have gone to the limit of declaring no religious belief can possibly survive — that we are after all made up of dust and atoms alone, that there is no real difference between a mechanical talking doll and a gurgling baby who has just discovered her hands and feet.

Yet reasonable religious belief, action and experience does exist and may need to make its presence felt. Religion may not battle science and expect to win on science’s home ground but can and does win where science has nothing and can have nothing to say. It has been reasonable everywhere for men or women faced with death or personal tragedy to turn to religion for strength, courage or comfort. Such would be a point where religion offers something to life on which science has nothing of interest to say. These include the ultimate questions of life or death or the “Mystery of Existence” itself, in Carlyle’s term.

In fact the ultra-scientific prejudice fails ultimately to be reasonable enough, and is open to a joint and decisive counter-attack by both the religious believer and the artist. Modern science has well established that our small planet orbits an unexceptional member of an unexceptional galaxy. Copernicus by this started the era of modern science and began the end of the grip on Western culture of astrology, which was based on a geocentric Ptolomaic worldview (many Asian cultures like India and perhaps China still remain in that grip).

Yet the pre-modern geocentrism contained a subtle truth which has formed the foundation of both art and religion: to the best of scientific knowledge to this day, Earth is the centre of the Universe inasmuch as it is only here that reason and intelligence and consciousness have come to exist, that there is such a thing as the power to think and the power to love.5

We are, as far as anyone knows, quite alone in having the ability to understand ourselves and to be conscious of our own existence. The great galaxies, black holes and white dwarfs are all very impressive, but none of them is aware of its own existence or capable of the thought or love of any human baby or for that matter the commonest street dog.

What responsibility arises for human beings because of the existence of this consciousness? That is the common and reasonable question addressed by both religion and art, on which science is and must remain silent. We may come to know through science that life has existed for x million years and is likely to be extinguished in y million more years, but we do not know why it arose at all, or what responsibility devolves on those beings, namely ourselves, who have consciousness and reason to comprehend their own existence in the Universe.
D. H. Lawrence meant to raise this when he said the novel was a greater invention than Galileo’s telescope. Great painters, composers, or other artists can be imagined saying something similar. Art is the expression of life, and human cultures, like plants, may be fresh and vigourous with life or decadent and doomed to death. The society which both recognizes and comprehends its own artistic traditions through reasonable evaluation while encouraging new shoots of artistic creativity, will be one with a vibrant cultural life; the society incapable of evaluating its own art self- critically enough will be likely also to kill new creativity from within itself, and become vulnerable to a merger or takeover.

Science, religion and art each vitally requires freedom in order to thrive. In art, the function of reason arises in critical evaluation of literature, paintings, cinema, drama, music, dance, architecture and other aspects of aesthetics. Swimming against a full tide of majority opinion here often may be the right thing to do. The critic F. R. Leavis spoke of the importance of there being an educated public to maintain serious cultural standards; he meant that the freedom to be vigourously critical, often against shallow entrenched coterie opinions, may be the only safeguard preventing artistic or cultural standards from collapse. In science, the activity of reasoning whether in public with one another or privately within oneself, dispels scientific illusions (like astrology) and so enlarges the area occupied by a common empirical understanding. Freedom is logically necessary here to keep potential avenues towards the truth open; it extends also to protecting through tolerance those factual beliefs which may be manifestly false — it may be a crime to steal or commit murder but it is not a crime to hold erroneous factual beliefs about the world as such (e.g. astrology is wrong because Copernicus is right, but it would be illiberal to jail people for believing in astrology.) Such a need for freedom of belief and experience, as well as the tolerance of dissent, becomes most obvious in religion, where the stupendous task facing all human beings is of attempting to unravel the “Mystery of Existence”. The scope of these ontological questions, unanswered and unanswerable by science, is so vast it would be only wise to allow the widest search for answers to take place, across all possible sources and religious faiths, wherever the possibility of an insight into any of these subtle truths may arise. Perhaps that is why some solitary thinkers have sought to experience all the great religions in their own lifetimes, sometimes by deliberate conversion from one faith to the next.

A flourishing society, then, would be one which grows along the three planes of science, religion and art under conditions of freedom. And such a notion may be measured at different scales of social life. It starts with the family as the author of Anna Karenina knew in its famous opening sentence: “All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”. It could then move to flourishing tribes, neighborhoods or local communities, to flourishing towns, provinces, or whole nations. At any of these levels, the flourishing society is one which inhales deeply the fresh air of natural science, and so sees its knowledge of the material world grow by leaps and bounds; it encourages religious and philosophical discussions and tolerance so does not fail to comprehend its own purpose of being; and it lives creatively and self-critically in trying to improve the expressiveness of its artistic achievements. Such a society would be self-confident enough to thrive in a world of global transmissions of ideas, practices, institutions and artifacts. Even if it was small in economic size or power relative to others, it would not be fearful of its own capacity to absorb what is valuable or to reject what is worthless from the rest of the world. To absorb what is valuable from outside is to supercede what may be less valuable at home; to reject what is worthless from outside is to appreciate what may be worthwhile at home. Both require faculties of critical and self-critical judgement, and the flourishing society will be one which possesses these qualities and exercises them with confidence.

4. Asia’s Modern Dilemmas: Named Social Life or Anonymous Markets
Actual societies, whether small like families or large like nations, in East or West, now or in the past, typically display these qualities in relative balance, excess, or shortage.6 Broadly speaking, throughout the vast span of Asia, there has been unstinting admiration over the last two hundred years for the contribution of the modern West to art, architecture and the growth of scientific knowledge. Where it has come to be known and applied, there has been admiration for liberal Western political thought; while ancient Asian nations which hastily imported ideologies like fascism and communism have lived to regret it. Western political morality at its finest derives from the philosophy of Immanuel Kant that rational beings recognise one another’s autonomy and treat one another as ends in themselves, not as means towards each other’s ends. 7 We see this in action today in for example the cordial relations between the USA and Canada, or between North America and Europe, or in recent attempts at European integration.

Asian nationalists in the 20th Century struggled to try to establish individual autonomous national identities, as the West had done in the 18th and 19th centuries. Asian nationalism represented an unwillingness to be treated as mere means towards the ends of Western nations, something we still see today when country B is used to counter A, then C used to counter B, then D used to counter C, etc in the old imperial manner of divide and rule This remains a serious problem of international relations but is something Asia can resolve independently by seeking to create for herself free societies which flourish in science, religion and the arts which would then be robust, self-confident and autonomous enough to decline to be used as means towards others’ ends. Furthermore, Asian societies in some respects all resemble one another and pre-modern Western societies more than they do the contemporary West. These pre-modern societies were ones in which a person was identified by rights and obligations flowing from the place he or she came to occupy through inheritance or brave achievement, and centred around the loyalty of friendship and kinship, as well as fidelity of the household. The relationships between the sexes, between generations, between friends, all these across Asia today may still perhaps resemble one another and the pre-modern West more than they do some trends in the contemporary West. History and identity continue to predominate our cultures in Asia: everyone is someone’s son or daughter, someone’s brother or sister or friend or relative, everyone is from some place and is of some age; and every deed has a history to it which everyone knows about or wants to talk about.

In contrast, the modern Western financial economics which the present author teaches his students, describes a world of anonymous “efficient markets” with no memory; where anyone can thrive as long as he or she brings something of value to trade; where all information needed to determine prices tomorrow is contained in today’s prices and events; where nothing from yesterday is necessary to determine anything in the future; where the actual direction of price-change is random and cannot be consistently foretold, so we cannot in general make any prediction which will lead to profit without risk. We are to imagine a large number of players in such a market, each with only a tiny bit of market-power itself, and none able to move the terms of trade on its own. Each of these players then, according to the textbooks, seizes every chance to improve his or her own position regardless of all else, he or she will “buy low” and “sell high” whatever and whenever possible, until price differences between identical assets vanish and no extra profit remains to be squeezed out from anything. Such briefly is the pure theory of the efficient market economy which one teaches as an economist. One tells one’s students it is a good thing, and it is to be found, if anywhere in the best international financial markets, and that what globalization refers to is the whole world becoming like one big efficient marketplace.8

Yet, privately, Asia may have watched with dismay the near-collapse of family and social life which has sometimes accompanied the modern prosperity and technological advancement. The war in Vietnam brought obvious physical destruction to parts of Asia but may also have had more subtle corrosive long-term effects on the social fabric of the West. If there has been something liberal and humane about Western politics while Asian politics have been cruel and oppressive, there may also be something stable and chaste about traditional Asian family life while modern Western societies have sometimes seemed vapid and dissolute. Specifically, if it is fair to say there has been too little autonomy experienced by women and children in many Asian societies, it may be fair as well to observe a surfeit of choices may have arisen in some Western societies, greater than many women and children there may privately wish for. How does a society find its right balance on the question of the autonomy, modesty and protection of family life and other social relationships? The divorce courts of the ultra-modern world are places of deep misery for everyone except the lawyers involved in the trade, and as some Asian leaders have observed, something the globalization of Asia could well seek to avoid. Thus the dilemma faced by many Asians today may be how to absorb the efficiency of markets and sound governance of liberal political institutions, without the kind of private social collapse that seems to have occurred in many ultramodern societies, nor the kind of loss of political sovereignty against which Asian nationalists had struggled during the age of imperialism. We may now see how far this brief but general theory of globalization may be applied in explaining the bewildering events of September 11 2001.

5. September 11 : the Collapse of the Global Conversation
Words are also deeds while deeds may also convey meaning.9 The words and deeds of the perpetrators of September 11 2001, and of the nation-states organized against them since that date, are both components of a complex and subtle global conversation taking place as to the direction of our common future.
In earlier times, Gandhi, King and Mandela each led successful non-violent political protests of “non-white” peoples against “white” organized authorities. Their protests assumed a level of tolerance arising out of mutual respect between rebel and authority. None was a totalitarian revolutionary out to destroy his adversary in toto but rather each intended to preserve and nurture many aspects of the existing order. Each had first become the master of the (Christian?) political idiom of his adversary and was willing and able to employ this idiom to demonstrate the selfcontradiction of his opponent, who was typically faced with a charge of hypocrisy, of maintaining both x and its contrary ~x and so becoming devoid of meaning. Such political conversations of words and deeds required time and patience, and the movements of Gandhi, King and Mandela each took decades to fructify during the 20th Century. They had more conservative accommodative currents on one side, and more impatient radical terroristic offshoots on the other.

All such aspects seem absent from September 11 and its aftermath, which seems at first sight sui generis. No patient non-violent political protest movement can be identified of which September 11 was a violent terroristic offshoot or parallel. Tolerance has not merely vanished but been replaced by panic, mutual fear and hatred. Violence appears as the first and not last recourse of political discussion. The high speed of the modern world almost demands a winner to be declared instantly in conflicts with subtle and unobvious roots, and the only way to seem to win at speed is by perpetrating the largest or most dramatic amount of violence or cruelty. The world after September 11 2001 has seemed a very bewildering place — as if all liberal notions of universal reason, freedom, tolerance and the rule of law since the Enlightenment have been proven a lie overnight, deserving only to be flushed away in face of a resurgence of ancient savageries.

But this would be too hasty an assessment. The global conversation clearly collapsed very badly from the time of e.g. Carlyle’s effort in 1842 to understand Islam’s legacy to the point of September 11 2001 being carried out against the United States or Western civilisation in general in Islam’s name. Even so, the universal liberal virtues of patience, tolerance and common reasoning can still find use here — in identifying possible deep, long-term historical factors which may have accumulated or congregated together to cause such a crime to take place.
One such historical factor has been technological and economic: the invention and immense use of the internal combustion engine throughout the 20th Century, coupled with discovery of petroleum beneath the sands of Arabia — all of which has made the material prosperity of the modern West depend, in the current state of technology, on this link not becoming ruptured. A second and independent factor has been the history of Christian Europe’s alternating persecution and emancipation of the Jewish people, which leads in due course to the Balfour declaration of 1919 and, following the Nazi Holocaust, to the creation of modern Israel among the Arabic- speaking peoples. The history between Christianity and Judaism is one in which the Arabic-speaking peoples were largely passive bystanders. Indeed, they may have been almost passive bystanders in creation of their own nation-states as well — for a third historical factor must be the lack of robust development of modern political and economic institutions among them, with mechanisms of political expression and accountability often having remained backward perhaps more so than in many other parts of Asia.

The end of World War I saw not only Balfour’s declaration but also Kitchener, Allenby and T. E. Lawrence literally designing or inventing new nationstates from areas on a desert-map:

“Our aim was an Arab Government, with foundations large and native enough to employ the enthusiasm and self-sacrifice of the rebellion, translated into terms of peace. We had to … carry that ninety percent of the population who had been too solid to rebel, and on whose solidity the new State must rest…. In ten words, (Allenby) gave his approval to my having impertinently imposed Arab Governments… upon the chaos of victory…”

“(The secret Arab societies) were pro-Arab only, willing to fight for nothing but Arab independence; and they could see no advantage in supporting the Allies rather than the Turks, since they did not believe our assurances that we would leave them free. Indeed, many of them preferred an Arabia united by Turkey in miserable subjection, to an Arabia divided up and slothful under the easier control of several European powers in spheres of influence.” 10

Beginning with the Allied-induced Arab revolt against the Turks, the classic imperial doctrine of “balance of powers” or “divide and rule” has seemed to continue to be applied in rather more subtle diplomatic form up until the present: with post-Mossadeq Iran against any incipient Arab nationalism, then with Iraq against post-Revolutionary Iran, then against Iraq in the Gulf War of 1991. It is only during and after the Gulf War that Osama Bin Laden, as a totalitarian revolutionary, arose as an adversary of the West.

Throughout these decades, little or no spontaneous cosmopolitan political conversation seems to have occurred from which a mature, sustained indigenous Arab or other Muslim nationalism may have arisen as the basis for nation-states, as had done e.g. with Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian or Vietnamese nationalism.11

From 1919 to 1945, the global conversation became preoccupied with other matters, and from 1945 to the end of the Cold War, with yet other matters again. While the three long-term factors unfolded themselves through these turbulent decades, the natural vibrant free conversation vitally necessary for the political life of any people continued for the Arabic-speaking peoples to remain mostly stifled, dormant, inchoate or abortive. Expectedly enough, whatever little current it had turned inward to the insular austere roots of a faith of the desert:

“The Beduin of the desert…found himself indubitably free…. In his life he had air and winds, sun and light, open spaces and a great emptiness. There was no human effort, no fecundity in Nature: just the heaven above and the unspotted earth beneath. There unconsciously he became near God…. The Beduin could not look for God within him: he was too sure that he was within God. He could not conceive anything which was or was not God, Who alone was great…. This creed of the desert seemed inexpressible in words, and indeed in thought. It was easily felt as an influence, and those who went into the desert long enough to forget its open spaces and its emptiness were inevitably thrust upon God as the only refuge and rhythm of being…. This faith of the desert was impossible in the towns…” 12

But this attempt to return inevitably became something reactionary in the late 20th Century. Finding the Beduin and the original deserts of Arabia transformed over the intervening decades, it could only try to recreate itself among the Pashtoon in the barrenness of Afghanistan, and led to the bizarre scenes of the Taliban attempting to destroy televisions and cassette-tapes in the name of Islam.

6. Envoi
The crimes of September 11 2001 were ones of perverse terroristic political protest, akin on a global scale to the adolescent youth in angry frustration who kills his schoolmates and his teachers with an automatic weapon. But they were not something inexplicable or sui generis. They represented a final collapse of the centuries-old cosmopolitan conversation with Islam, while at the same time it was an incoherent cry of a stifled people trying to return to the austere faith of the desert. Words are also deeds, and deeds may also be language. What September 11 has demonstrated is that even while the information we have about one another and ourselves has increased exponentially in recent years, our mutual comprehension of one another and ourselves may well have grossly deteriorated in quality.

Reversing such atrophy in our self-knowledge and mutual comprehension requires, in the opinion of the present author, the encouragement of all societies of all sizes to flourish in their scientific knowledge, their religious and philosophical consciousness and self-discovery, and their artistic expressiveness under conditions of freedom. Ultra-modern societies like some in North America or Europe may then perhaps become more reflective during their pursuit of material advancement and prosperity, while ancient societies like those in Asia or elsewhere may perhaps become less fearful of their capacity to engage in the transition between tradition and modernity, indeed, may even affect the direction or speed of change in a positive manner.

To use a metaphor of Otto Neurath, we are as if sailors on a ship, who, even while sailing on the water, have to change the old planks of the ship with new planks one by one. In due course of time, all the planks get changed one at a time, but at no time has there not been a ship existing in the process — at no time need we have lost our history or our identity.

© Subroto Roy, November 16 2001; January 26 2004

1 Thomas Carlyle, Heroes and Hero Worship, London 1842.
2 In fact, “Gandhi’s correspondence with Tolstoy… only started after passive resistance had begun, and he only read Thoreau’s essay on civil disobedience when he was in prison for that very offence”. Judith M. Brown, Gandhi’s Rise to Power,Indian Politics 1915-1922, Cambridge University Press 1972.
3 Cf. The Collected Dialogues of Plato, Princeton, 1961, Gorgias 474b, 483a, b.Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind, Thinking, pp. 181-182, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971
4 Applying this to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the precise question would be
how far the present Palestinian authority may be objectively considered the organized authority of a nation-state: if it is, then Palestinian suicide-killings are acts of war; if it is not, they are acts of terrorism. The rhetoric on each side
5 Finding water or even primitive life elsewhere will not change this.
6 For example, the relatively new nation-states created upon the ancient societies of the Indian subcontinent to which the present author belongs, apparently display a surfeit of religiosity combined with a shortage of rational scientific growth, including the sciences of governance and economics. Despite the examples of solitary thinkers from Kabir and Nanak to Gandhi, the political and economic benefits of social tolerance still seem badly understood in the subcontinent. Equally, the mechanism of holding those in power accountable for their actions or omissions in the public domain has often remained extremely backward. A mature grasp of the division between the private and public spheres may also have been absent in Asia; the distinction between private and public property is often fuzzy or opaque; the phenomena of corruption and pollution are then easily explained as mirror-images of one another: corruption is the transmutation of something valuable from the public domain into private property; pollution is the expulsion of private waste into the public domain. Each is likely to be found with the other.
7 Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, ed. H. J. Paton, Oxford
8 The contrast between “named” and “anonymous” societies occurred to the
author on the basis of the theoretical work of Professor Frank Hahn of Cambridge University, Cf. Equilibrium and Macroeconomics, MIT 1984.
9 This was emphasized by the late Cambridge philosopher Renford Bambrough, “Thought, word and deed”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supp. Vol.
LIV, 1980, pp. 105-117.
10 T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, A Triumph, 1926, Doubleday 1935, pp. 649, 659; pp. 46-47
11 The most may have been Attaturk’s Turkey, M. A. Jinnah’s creation of a Pakistan separate from India, and Algeria’s independence from France — all distant from the fulcrum of Arabia. In case of Pakistan, it was Hitler’s invasion of Poland that led the British, in something of a panic, to begin on September 3 1939 to treat Jinnah’s Muslim League on par with Gandhi ‘s Indian National Congress. The 1937 provincial election results had shown little support for Pakistan in the areas which today constitute that country. Cf. F. Robinson, “Origins” in Foundations of Pakistan’s Political Economy: Towards an Agenda for the 1990s, edited by William E. James & Subroto Roy, Hawaii MS 1989, Sage 1992, Karachi OUP 1993.
12 Seven Pillars of Wisdom, pp. 40-41

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Transparency and Economic Policy-Making

January 31, 1998 — drsubrotoroy

Transparency and Economic Policy-Making

An address by Professor Subroto Roy to the Asia-Pacific Public Relations Conference, (panel on Transparency chaired by C. R. Irani) January 30 1998.

This talk is dedicated to the memory of my sister Suchandra Bhattacharjee (14.02.1943-10.01.1998).
1. I would like to talk about transparency and economic policy-making in our country. For something to be transparent is, in plain language, for it to be able to be openly seen through, for it to not to be opaque, obscure or muddy, for it to be clear to the naked eye or to the reasonable mind. A clear glass of water is a transparent glass of water. Similarly, an open and easily comprehensible set of economic policies is a transparent set of economic policies.

The philosopher Karl Popper wrote a famous book after the Second World War titled The Open Society and its Enemies. It contained a passionate defence of liberal institutions and democratic freedoms and a bitter attack on totalitarian doctrines of all kinds. It generated a lot of controversy, especially over its likely misreading of the best known work of political philosophy since the 4th Century BC, namely, Plato’s Republic .[1] I shall borrow Popper’s terms ‘open society’ and ‘closed society’ and will first try to make this a useful distinction for modern times, and then apply it to the process of economic policy-making in India today.

2. An open society is one in which the ordinary citizen has reasonably easy access to any and all information relating to the public or social interest — whether the information is directly available to the citizen himself or herself, or is indirectly available to his or her elected representatives like MP’s and MLA’s. Different citizens will respond to the same factual information in different ways, and conflict and debate about the common good will result. But that would be part of the democratic process.

The assessment that any public makes about the government of the day depends on both good and bad news about the fate of the country at any given time. In an open society, both good news and bad news is out there in the pubic domain — open to be assessed, debated, rejoiced over, or wept about. If we win a cricket match or send a woman into space we rejoice. If we lose a child in a manhole or a busload of children in a river, we weep. If some tremendous fraud on the public exchequer comes to be exposed, we are appalled. And so on.

It is the hallmark of an open society that its citizens are mature enough to cope with both the good and the bad news about their country that comes to be daily placed before them. Or, perhaps more accurately, the experience of having to handle both good and bad news daily about their world causes the citizens in an open society to undergo a process of social maturation in formulating their understanding of the common good as well as their responses to problems or crises that the community may come to face. They might be thereby thought of as improving their civic capacities, as becoming better-informed and more discerning voters and decision-makers, and so becoming better citizens of the country in which they live.

The opposite of an open society is a closed society — one in which a ruling political party or a self-styled elite or nomenclatura keep publicly important information to themselves, and do not allow the ordinary citizen easy or reasonably free access to it. The reason may be merely that they are intent on accumulating assets for themselves as quickly as they can while in office, or that they are afraid of public anger and want to save their own skins from demands for accountability. Or it may be that they have the impression that the public is better off kept in the dark — that only the elite nomenclatura is in position to use the information to serve the national interest.

In a closed society it is inevitable that bad news comes to be censored or suppressed by the nomenclatura, and so the good news gets exaggerated in significance. News of economic disasters, military defeats or domestic uprisings gets suppressed. News of victories or achievements or heroics gets exaggerated. If there are no real victories, achievements or heroics, fake ones have to be invented by government hacks — although the suppressed bad news tends to silently whisper all the way through the public consciousness in any case.

Such is the way of government propaganda in almost every country, even those that pride themselves on being free and democratic societies. Dostoevsky’s cardinal advice in Brothers Karamasov was: “Above all, never lie to yourself”. Yet people in power tend to become so adept at propaganda that they start to deceive themselves and forget what is true and what is false, or worse still, cannot remember how to distinguish between true and false in the first place. In an essay thirty years ago titled Truth and Politics, the American scholar Hannah Arendt put it like this:

“Insofar as man carries within himself a partner from whom he can never win release, he will be better off not to live with a murderer or a liar; or: since thought is the silent dialogue carried out between me and myself, I must be careful to keep the integrity of this partner intact, for otherwise I shall surely lose the capacity for thought altogether.”[2]

3. Closed societies may have been the rule and open societies the exception for most of human history. The good news at the end of the 20th Century is surely that since November 7 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, the closed society has officially ceased to be a respectable form of human social organization. The age of mass access to television and telecommunications at the end of the 20th Century may be spelling the permanent end of totalitarianism and closed societies in general. The Berlin Wall was perhaps doomed to fall the first day East Germans were able to watch West German television programs.

Other than our large and powerful neighbour China, plus perhaps North Korea, Myanmar, and some Islamic countries, declared closed societies are becoming hard to find, and China remains in two minds whether to be open or closed. No longer is Russia or Romania or Albania or South Africa closed in the way each once was for many years. There may be all sorts of problems and confusions in these countries but they are or trying to become open societies.

Under the glare of TV cameras in the 21st Century, horrors like the Holocaust or the Gulag or even an atrocity like Jalianwalla Bag or the Mai Lai massacre will simply not be able to take place anywhere in the world. Such things are not going to happen, or if they do happen, it will be random terrorism and not systematic, large scale genocide of the sort the 20th Century has experienced. The good news is that somehow, through the growth of human ingenuity that we call technical progress, we may have made some moral progress as a species as well.

4. My hypothesis, then, is that while every country finds its place on a spectrum of openness and closedness with respect to its political institutions and availability of information, a broad and permanent drift has been taking place as the 20th Century comes to an end in the direction of openness.

With this greater openness we should expect bad news not to come to be suppressed or good news not to come to be exaggerated in the old ways of propaganda. Instead we should expect more objectively accurate information to come about in the public domain — i.e., better quality and more reliable information, in other words, more truthful information. This in turn commensurately requires more candour and maturity on the part of citizens in discussions about the national or social interest. Closed society totalitarianism permitted the general masses to remain docile and unthinking while the nomenclatura make the decisions. Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor said that is all that can be expected of the masses. Open society transparency and democracy defines the concept of an ordinary citizen and requires from that citizen individual rationality and individual responsibility. It is the requirement Pericles made of the Athenians:

“Here each individual is interested not only in his own affairs but in the affairs of the state as well; even those who are mostly occupied with their own business are extremely well-informed on general politics – this is a peculiarity of ours: we do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all.”[3]

5. All this being said, I am at last in a position to turn to economic policy in India today. I am sorry to have been so long-winded and pedantic but now I can state my main substantive point bluntly: in India today, there is almost zero transparency in the information needed for effective macroeconomic policy-making whether at the Union or State levels. To illustrate by some examples.

(A) Macroeconomic policy-making in any large country requires the presence of half a dozen or a dozen well-defined competing models produced by the government and private agencies, specifying plausible causal links between major economic variables, and made testable against time-series data of reasonably long duration. In India we seem to have almost none. The University Economics Departments are all owned by some government or other and can hardly speak out with any academic freedom. When the Ministry of Finance or RBI or Planning Commission, or the India teams of the World Bank or IMF, make their periodic statements they do not appear to be based on any such models or any such data-base. If any such models exist, these need to be published and placed in the public domain for thorough discussion as to their specification and their data. Otherwise, whatever is being predicted cannot be assessed as being very much more reliable than the predictions obtained from the Finance Minister’s astrologer or palmist. (NB: Horse-Manure is a polite word used in the American South for what elsewhere goes by the initials of B. S.). Furthermore, there is no follow-up or critical review to see whether what the Government said was going to happen a year ago has in fact happened, and if not, why not.

(B) The Constitution of India defines many States yet no one seems to be quite certain how many States really constitute the Union of India at any given time. We began with a dozen. Some 565 petty monarchs were successfully integrated into a unitary Republic of India, and for some years we had sixteen States. But today, do we really have 26 States? Is Delhi a State? UP with 150 million people would be the fifth or sixth largest country in the world on its own; is it really merely one State of India? Are 11 Small States de facto Union Territories in view of their heavy dependence on the Union? Suppose we agreed there are fifteen Major States of India based on sheer population size: namely, Andhra, Assam, Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala, MP, Maharashtra, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, UP and West Bengal. These States account for 93% of the population of India. The average population of these 15 Major States is 58 million people each. That is the size of a major country like France or Britain. In other words, the 870 million people in India’s Major States are numerically 15 Frances or 15 Britains put together.

Yet no reliable, uniformly collected GDP figures exist for these 15 States. The RBI has the best data, and these are at least two years old, and the RBI will tell you without further explanation that the data across States are not comparable. If that is the case at State-level, I do not see how the national-level Gross Domestic Product can possibly be estimated with any meaningfulness at all.

(C) Then we hear about the Government Budget deficit as a percentage of GDP. Now any national government is able to pay for its activities only by taxation or borrowing or by using its monopoly over the domestic medium of exchange to print new money. In India today, universal money-illusion seems to prevail. It would not be widely recognised by citizens, journalists or policy-makers that, say, 100,000 Rupees nominally taxed at 10% under 20% inflation leaves less real disposable income than the same taxed at 20% with 5% inflation. This is in part because inflation figures are unknown or suspect. There is no reliable all-India or State-level consumer price index. The wholesale price index on the basis of which the Government of India makes its inflation statements, may not accurately reflect the actual decline in the purchasing power of money, as measured, say, by rises in prices of alternative stores of value like land. The index includes artificially low administered or subsidized prices for petroleum, cereals, and electricity. To the extent these prices may be expected to move towards international equilibrium prices, the index contains a strong element of deferred inflation. One urgent task for all macroeconomic research in India is construction of reliable price-data indices at both Union and State levels, or at a minimum, the testing for reliability by international standards of series currently produced by Government agencies.

Without reliable macroeconomic information being spread widely through a reasonably well-informed electorate, the Government of India has been able to wash away fiscal budget constraints by monetization and inflation without significant response from voters. The routine method of meeting deficits has become “the use of the printing press to manufacture legal tender paper money”, either directly by paying Government creditors “with new paper money specially printed for the purpose” or indirectly by paying creditors “out of loans to itself from the Central Bank”, issuing paper money to that amount. Every Budget of the Government of India, including the most recent ones of 1996 and 1997, comes to be attended by detailed Press discussion with regard to the minutae of changes in tax rates or tax-collection — yet the enormous phenomena of the automatic monetization of the Government’s deficit is ill-understood and effectively ignored. Historically, a policy of monetization started with the British Government in India during the Second World War, with a more than five-fold increase in money supply occurring between 1939 and 1945. Inflation rates never seen in India before or since were the result (Charts 0000), attended by the Great Famine of 1942/43. Though these were brought down after succession of C. D. Deshmukh as Governor of the Reserve Bank, the policy of automatic monetization did not cease and continues until the present day. Inflation “sooner or later destroys the confidence, not only of businessmen, but of the whole community, in the future value of the currency. Then comes the stage known as “the flight from the currency.” Had the Rupee been convertible during the Bretton Woods period, depreciation would have signalled and helped to adjust for disequilibrium. But exchange-controls imposed during the War were enlarged by the new Governments of India and Pakistan after the British departure to exclude convertible Sterling Area currencies as well. With the Rupee no longer convertible, internal monetization of deficits could continue without commensurate exchange-rate depreciation.

The Reserve Bank was originally supposed to be a monetary authority independent of the Government’s fiscal compulsions. It has been prevented from developing into anything more than a department of the Ministry of Finance, and as such, has become the captive creditor of the Government. The RBI in turn has utilized its supervisory role over banking to hold captive creditors, especially nationalized banks whose liabilities account for 90% of commercial bank deposits in the country. Also captive are nationalized insurance companies and pension funds. Government debt instruments show on the asset side of these balance-sheets. To the extent these may not have been held had banks been allowed to act in the interests of proper management of depositors’ liabilities and share-capital according to normal principles, these are pseudo-assets worth small fractions of their nominal values. Chart 0000 shows that in the last five years the average term structure of Government debt has been shortening rapidly, suggesting the Government is finding it increasingly difficult to find creditors, and portending higher interest rates.

General recognition of these business facts, as may be expected to come about with increasing transparency, would be a recipe for a crisis of confidence in the banking and financial system if appropriate policies were not in place beforehand.

(D) As two last examples, I offer two charts. The first shows the domestic interest burden of the Government of India growing at an alarming rate, even after it has been deflated to real terms. The second tries to show India’s foreign assets and liabilities together – we always come to know what is happening to the RBI’s reserve levels, what is less known or less understood is the structure of foreign liabilities being accumulated by the country. Very roughly speaking, in terms that everyone can understand, every man, woman and child in India today owes something like 100 US dollars to the outside world. The Ministry of Finance will tell you that this is not to be worried about because it is long-term debt and not short-term debt. Even if we take them at their word, interest payments still have to be paid on long-term debt, say at 3% per annum. That means for the stock of debt merely to be financed, every man, woman and child in India must be earning $3 every year in foreign exchange via the sale of real goods and services abroad. I.e., something like $3 billion must be newly earned every year in foreign exchange merely to finance the existing stock of debt. Quite clearly, that is not happening and it would stretch the imagination to see how it can be made to happen.

In sum, then, India, blessed with democratic political traditions which we had to take from the British against their will — remember Tilak, “Freedom is my birthright, and I shall have it” — may still be stuck with a closed society mentality when it comes to the all-important issue of economic policy. There is simply an absence in Indian public discourse of vigourous discussion of economic models and facts, whether at Union or State levels. A friendly foreign ambassador pointedly observed an absence in India of political philosophy. It may be more accurate to say that without adequate experience of a normal agenda of government being seen to be practised, widespread ignorance regarding fiscal and monetary causalities and inexperience of the technology of governance remains in the Indian electorate, as well as among public decision-makers at all levels. Our politicians seem to spend an inordinate amount of their time either garlanding one another with flowers or garlanding statues and photographs of the glorious dead. It is high time they stopped to think about the living and the future.

[1] Renford Bambrough (ed.) Plato, Popper and Politics: Some Contributions to a Modern Controversy, 1967.

[2] Philosophy, Politics and Society, 2nd Series, Peter Laslett & W. G. Runciman (eds.), 1967.

[3] Thucydides, History of the Pelopennesian War, II.40.

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Rajiv Gandhi and the Origins of India’s 1991 Economic Reform

September 18, 1990 — drsubrotoroy

Rajiv Gandhi and the Origins of India’s 1991 Economic Reform

Subroto Roy

Author’s Note May 2008: The family of Rajiv Gandhi received a copy of this when it was first written in July 2005. An earlier abbreviated version “Encounter with Rajiv Gandhi: On the Origins of India’s 1991 Economic Reform” was published in October 2001 in Freedom First, Bombay, a journal founded by the late Minoo Masani and now edited by S V Raju. A copy of that article was received by all Congress MPs of the 13th Lok Sabha. In May 2002, the Congress Party passed an official resolution stating Rajiv Gandhi and not Narasimha Rao or Manmohan Singh was to be credited with having originated the 1991 economic reforms. This article has now been published in print in The Statesman Festival Volume, October 2007.  It may be profitably followed by “The Dream Team: A Critique”, “Solving Kashmir”, “Law, Justice & J&K”, “What to tell Musharraf”, “India’s Macroeconomics”, “Fiscal Instability”, “India’s Trade and Payments”, “Fallacious Finance”, “Against Quackery”, etc. My original advisory memoranda to Rajiv in 1990-1991 were published in The Statesman’s Editorial Pages July 31-August 2 1991, and now have been republished elsewhere here as well. See too https://independentindian.com/thoughts-words-deeds-my-work-1973-2010/rajiv-gandhi-and-the-origins-of-indias-1991-economic-reform/did-jagdish-bhagwati-originate-pioneer-intellectually-father-indias-1991-economic-reform-did-manmohan-singh-or-did-i-through-my-e/  https://independentindian.com/2014/08/07/haksar-manmohan-and-sonia/

I met Rajiv Gandhi for the first time on 18th September 1990 thanks to an introduction by S. S. Ray (see “I’m on my way out”: Siddhartha Shankar Ray (1920-2010)… | Independent Indian: Work & Life of Professor Subroto Roy) We met a half dozen or so times until his assassination in May 1991. Yet our encounter was intense and consequential, and resulted directly in the change of the Congress Party’s economic thinking prior to the 1991 elections. I had with me results of an interdisciplinary “perestroika-for-India” project I had led at the University of Hawaii since 1986. This manuscript (later published by Sage as Foundations of India’s Political Economy: Towards an Agenda for the 1990s edited by myself and W. E. James) was given by me to Rajiv, then Leader of the Opposition, and was instrumental in the change of thinking that took place. In interests of fairness, I tried to get the work to V. P. Singh too because he was Prime Minister, but a key aide of his showed no interest in receiving it.

The Hawaii project manuscript contained inter alia a memorandum by Milton Friedman done at the request of the Government of India in November 1955, which had been suppressed for 34 years until I published it in May 1989. Milton and Rose Friedman refer to this in their memoirs Two Lucky People (Chicago 1998). Peter Bauer had told me of the existence of Friedman’s document during my doctoral work at Cambridge under Frank Hahn in the late 1970s, as did N. Georgescu-Roegen in America. Those were years in which Brezhnev still ruled in the Kremlin, Gorbachev was yet to emerge, Indira Gandhi and her pro-Moscow advisers were ensconced in New Delhi, and not even the CIA had imagined the Berlin Wall would fall and the Cold War would be over within a decade. It was academic suicide at the time to argue in favour of classical liberal economics even in the West. As a 22-year-old Visiting Assistant Professor at the Delhi School of Economics in 1977, I was greeted with uproarious laughter of senior professors when I spoke of a possible free market in foreign exchange. Cambridge was a place where Indian economists went to study the exploitation of peasants in Indian agriculture before returning to their friends in the well-known bastions of such matters in Delhi and Calcutta. It was not a place where Indian (let alone Bengali) doctoral students in economics mentioned the unmentionable names of Hayek or Friedman or Buchanan, and insisted upon giving their works a hearing.

My original doctoral topic in 1976 “A monetary theory for India” had to be altered not only due to paucity of monetary data at the time but because the problems of India’s political economy and allocation of resources in the real economy were far more pressing. The thesis that emerged in 1982 “On liberty and economic growth: preface to a philosophy for India” was a full frontal assault from the point of view of microeconomic theory on the “development planning” to which everyone routinely declared their fidelity, from New Delhi’s bureaucrats and Oxford’s “development” school to McNamara’s World Bank with its Indian staffers.

Frank Hahn protected my inchoate liberal arguments for India; and when no internal examiner could be found, Cambridge showed its greatness by appointing two externals, Bliss at Oxford and Hutchison at Birmingham, both Cambridge men. “Economic Theory and Development Economics” was presented to the American Economic Association in December 1982 in company of Solow, Chenery and other eminences, and then Pricing, Planning and Politics: A Study of Economic Distortions in India published by London’s Institute of Economic Affairs, provoking the lead editorial of The Times on May 29 1984. The Indian High Commission sent the editorial to the Finance Ministry where it caused a stir as the first classical liberal attack on post-Mahalonobis Indian economic thought since B. R. Shenoy’s original criticism decades earlier. The “perestroika-for-India” project was to follow at Hawaii starting in 1986. New Delhi was represented at the project’s conference held between May 22-27 1989 by the accredited Ambassador of India to the USA, the accredited Consul General of India to San Francisco, and by the founder-director of ICRIER (see photo).

friedman-et-al-at-uh-india-conf-19891

All this I brought into that first meeting with Rajiv Gandhi on September 18 1990. That first day he came to the door to greet me. He was a handsome tall man with the most charming smile and manner, seemed pleased to see me and put me at ease at once. I gave him my books as well as the manuscript of the “perestroika for India” project. He gave me a celebratory volume that had just been published to mark his grandfather’s centenary. He began by talking about how important he felt panchayati raj was, and said he had been on the verge of passing major legislation on it but then lost the election. He asked me if I could spend some time thinking about it, and that he would get the papers sent to me. I said I would and remarked panchayati raj might be seen as decentralized provision of public goods, and gave the economist’s definition of public goods as those essential for the functioning of the market economy, like the Rule of Law, roads, fresh water, and sanitation, but which were unlikely to appear through competitive forces.

I distinguished between federal, state and local levels and said many of the most significant public goods were best provided locally. Rajiv had not heard the term “public goods” before, and he beamed a smile and his eyes lit up as he voiced the words slowly, seeming to like the concept immensely. It occurred to me he had been by choice a pilot of commercial aircraft. Now he seemed intrigued to find there could be systematic ways of thinking about navigating a country’s governance by common pursuit of reasonable judgement. I said the public sector’s wastefulness had drained scarce resources that should have gone instead to provide public goods. Since the public sector was owned by the public, it could be privatised by giving away its shares to the public, preferably to panchayats of the poorest villages. The shares would become tradable, drawing out black money, and inducing a historic redistribution of wealth while at the same time achieving greater efficiency by transferring the public sector to private hands. Rajiv seemed to like that idea too, and said he tried to follow a maxim of Indira Gandhi’s that every policy should be seen in terms of how it affected the common man. I wryly said the common man often spent away his money on alcohol, to which he said at once it might be better to think of the common woman instead. (This remark of Rajiv’s may have influenced the “aam admi” slogan of the 2004 election, as all Congress Lok Sabha MPs of the previous Parliament came to receive a previous version of the present narrative.)

Our project had identified the Congress’s lack of internal elections as a problem; when I raised it, Rajiv spoke of how he, as Congress President, had been trying to tackle the issue of bogus electoral rolls. I said the judiciary seemed to be in a mess due to the backlog of cases; many of which seemed related to land or rent control, and it may be risky to move towards a free economy without a properly functioning judicial system or at least a viable system of contractual enforcement. I said a lot of problems which should be handled by the law in the courts in India were instead getting politicised and decided on the streets. Rajiv had seen the problems of the judiciary and said he had good relations with the Chief Justice’s office, which could be put to use to improve the working of the judiciary.

The project had worked on Pakistan as well, and I went on to say we should solve the problem with Pakistan in a definitive manner. Rajiv spoke of how close his government had been in 1988 to a mutual withdrawal from Siachen. But Zia-ul-Haq was then killed and it became more difficult to implement the same thing with Benazir Bhutto, because, he said, as a democrat, she was playing to anti-Indian sentiments while he had found it somewhat easier to deal with the military. I pressed him on the long-term future relationship between the countries and he agreed a common market was the only real long-term solution. I wondered if he could find himself in a position to make a bold move like offering to go to Pakistan and addressing their Parliament to break the impasse. He did not say anything but seemed to think about the idea. Rajiv mentioned a recent Time magazine cover of Indian naval potential, which had caused an excessive stir in Delhi. He then talked about his visit to China, which seemed to him an important step towards normalization. He said he had not seen (or been shown) any absolute poverty in China of the sort we have in India. He talked about the Gulf situation, saying he did not disagree with the embargo of Iraq except he wished the ships enforcing the embargo had been under the U.N. flag. The meeting seemed to go on and on, and I was embarrassed at perhaps having taken too much time and that he was being too polite to get me to go. V. George had interrupted with news that Sheila Dixit (as I recall) had just been arrested by the U. P. Government, and there were evidently people waiting. Just before we finally stood up I expressed a hope that he was looking to the future of India with an eye to a modern political and economic agenda for the next election, rather than getting bogged down with domestic political events of the moment. That was the kind of hopefulness that had attracted many of my generation in 1985. I said I would happily work in any way to help define a long-term agenda. His eyes lit up and as we shook hands to say goodbye, he said he would be in touch with me again.

The next day I was called and asked to stay in Delhi for a few days, as Mr. Gandhi wanted me to meet some people. I was not told whom I was to meet but that there would be a meeting on Monday, 24th September. On Saturday, the Monday meeting was postponed to Tuesday because one of the persons had not been able to get a flight into Delhi. I pressed to know what was going on, and was told I was to meet former army chief K.V. Krishna Rao, former foreign secretary M. K. Rasgotra, V. Krishnamurty and Sam Pitroda.

The group met for the first time on September 25 in the afternoon. Rasgotra did not arrive. Krishna Rao, Pitroda, Krishnamurty and I gathered in the waiting room next to George’s office. The three of them knew each other but none knew me and I was happy enough to be ignored. It seemed mysterious while we were gathering, especially when the tall well-dressed General arrived, since none of us knew why we had been called by Rajiv, and the General remarked to the others he had responded at once to the call to his home but could not get a flight into Delhi for a day.

Rajiv’s residence as Leader of the Opposition had a vast splendid meeting room, lined with high bookshelves on one or two walls, a large handsome desk on one side, two spacious comfortable sofa sets arranged in squares, and a long conference table with leather chairs occupying most of the rest of the room. The entrance to it was via a small 10 ft by 10 ft air-conditioned anteroom, where George sat, with a fax machine, typewriters and a shredding machine, plus several telephones, and a used copy of parliamentary procedures on the shelf. Getting to George’s office was the final step before reaching Rajiv. There were several chairs facing George, and almost every prospective interviewee, no matter how senior or self-important, had to move from one chair to the next, while making small talk with George, as the appointment with Rajiv drew near. Opening into George’s office was a larger and shabbier waiting room, which is where we sat, which was not air-conditioned, and which opened to the outside of the building where a plainclothes policeman sometimes stood around with a walkie-talkie. There were large photographs of Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru and Indira Gandhi on the wall, and a modern print also hung incongruously. A dozen or more plastic chairs lined the walls. There were faded torn issues of a few old magazines on the plastic coffee-table, and on one occasion there was a television playing the new sporadic domestic cable news and weather information for the entertainment of the many visitors waiting. Via this waiting room went the vast majority of people who were to meet Rajiv in his office. To reach the waiting room, one had to walk a hundred yards along a path lined by splendid high hedges from the initial reception desk at the rear-gate, manned by Congress Seva Dal volunteers in khadi wearing Gandhi-caps. These persons were in touch with George’s office by telephone, and would check with George or his assistant Balasubramaniam before sending a visitor along. The visitor would then pass through a metal-detector manned by a couple of policemen. If someone’s face came to be known and had been cleared once, or if someone acted to the policemen like a sufficiently important political personage, such a person seemed to be waved through. Outside, the front-entrance of the premises were closed unless extremely important people were entering or exiting, while at the rear-entrance there were usually two or three jeeps and several plainclothes policemen, who might or might not challenge the prospective visitor with a kind of “Who goes there?” attitude before the visitor reached the Seva Dal reception desk. The whole arrangement struck me from the first as insecure and inefficient, open to penetration by professional assassins or a terrorist squad, let aside insiders in the way Indira Gandhi had been assassinated. I could not imagine counter-terrorist commandos would suddenly appear from the high hedges in the event of an emergency.

On that Tuesday when Rajiv finally called in our group, we entered hesitantly not knowing quite what the meeting was going to be about. Rajiv introduced me to the others and then spoke of why he had gathered us together. He wanted us to come up with proposals and recommendations for the direction the country should take on an assumption the Congress Party was returned to power in the near future. He said it would help him to have an outside view from specialists who were not party functionaries, though the others obviously had been closely involved with Congress governments before. Rajiv said we were being asked to write a draft of what may enter the manifesto for the next election, which we should assume to be forthcoming by April 1991. I asked what might have become of the “perestroika” manuscript I had given him at our previous meeting. He said he had gotten it copied and bound, and that along with my 1984 monograph, it had been circulated among a few of his party colleagues who included P. Chidambaram and Mani Shankar Aiyar.

The initial meeting left us breathless and excited. Yet within a few days, the others became extremely tied up for personal causes, and I found myself alone in getting on with doing what we had been explicitly asked to do. I felt I should get done what I could in the time I had while keeping the others informed. Rajiv had said to me at our first meeting that he felt the Congress was ready for elections. This did not seem to me to be really the case. He actually seemed very isolated in his office, with George seeming to be his conduit to the outside world. I decided to start by trying to write a definite set of general principles that could guide and inform thought about the direction of policy. I spent the evening of October 26 in the offices at Rajiv’s residence, preparing an economic policy memorandum on a portable Toshiba computer of his, the first laptop I ever used. After Rajiv’s assassination, this was part of what was published in The Statesmen’s center pages July 31-August 2, 1991.

Rajiv read the work and met me on October 30 or 31, even though he was down badly with a sore throat after his sadbhavana travels around the country; he looked odd clad in khadi with a muffler and gym shoes. He said he liked very much what I had written and had given it to be read by younger Congress leaders who would discuss it for the manifesto, for an election he again said, he expected early in 1991. I said I was grateful for his kind words and inquired whom he had shown the work to. This time he said Chidambaram and also mentioned another name that made me wince. In December 1990, I was back in Hawaii when I was called on the phone to ask whether I could come to Delhi. With the rise of Chandrashekhar as Prime Minister, Rajiv had called a meeting of the group. But I could not go.

In January 1991, the Gulf War brought an odd twist to my interaction with Rajiv. On January 15, the UN deadline for the withdrawal of Iraq from Kuwait passed without Iraqi compliance, and American-led forces started the heavy aerial bombardment of Iraq. The American media had built up the impending war as one of utter devastation and mass killing, especially when the American infantry became engaged. Estimated casualties on the American side alone were being wildly exaggerated by the number of “body-bags” being ordered by the Pentagon. An even larger conflagration was being imagined if Israel entered the fighting, while Saddam Hussein had vowed to set fire to Kuwait’s oil-fields before retreating. I like everyone else erroneously believed the media’s hyperbole about the impending regional catastrophe. On January 16, just after the bombing of Iraq had begun, I called an American family friend who had retired from a senior foreign policy role and who had known me from when I was an infant. In informal conversation, I mentioned to him that since other channels had by then become closed, an informal channel might be attempted via India, specifically via Rajiv who was still Leader of the Opposition but on whom the Chandrashekhar Government depended. The sole aim would be to compel an immediate Iraqi withdrawal without further loss of life. What transpired over the next few days was that a proposal to that effect was communicated at Rajiv’s decision to a high level of the Iraqis on the one hand, and evidently received their assent, while at the same time, it was mentioned to the authorities on the American side. But nothing came of it. Rajiv initiated a correspondence with Chandrashekhar beginning January 19, demanding a coherent formulation of Indian policy in the Gulf war, and faxed me copies of this. By February 8, the Times of India led by saying Rajiv’s stand “on the Gulf War demonstrates both his experience and perspicacity … in consonance with an enlightened vision of national interest”, and urged Rajiv to “give the nation some respite from [the] non-government” of Chandrashekhar. I taped my phone conversations with Rajiv during the Gulf War because notes could not be taken at the necessary speed; in late December 1991, I was to give his widow a copy of the tape for her personal record.

I returned to Delhi on Monday, March 18, 1991 as new elections had been announced. Rasgotra said I should be in touch with Krishna Rao, and the next day March 19 Krishna Rao met me for several hours. I told him what I thought were the roots and results of the Gulf war. He in turn generously told me what had happened while I had been away. He said the group had met Rajiv in December with the proposal that Rajiv better organize his time by having an “office manager” of larger political stature than George. The name of a UP Congressman of integrity had been put forward, but nothing had come of it. Rajiv had been advised to keep Chandrashekhar in power through the autumn of 1991, as Chandrashekhar was doing Rajiv’s work for him of sidelining V. P. Singh. The idea was to cooperate with Chandrashekhar until he could be pushed up to the Presidency when that fell vacant. Rajiv had been advised not to work in a Chandrashekhar cabinet, though in my opinion, had we been like the Scandinavians, it was not impossible for a former prime minister to enter another cabinet on the right terms in the national interest of providing stable government, which was imperative at the time. Things seem to have slipped out of control when Chandrashekhar resigned. At that point, Rajiv called the group together and instructed them to write a draft of the manifesto for the impending elections. I had advised readiness back in September but the lack of organization had prevented much tangible progress at the time. Our group was to now report to a political manifesto-committee of three senior party leaders who would report to Rajiv. They were Narasimha Rao, Pranab Mukherjee and Madhavsingh Solanki. Krishna Rao liased with Narasimha Rao, Krishnamurty with Mukherjee, Pitroda with Solanki. While Rajiv would obviously lead a new Congress Government, Mukherjee was the presumptive Finance Minister, while Narasimha Rao and Solanki would have major portfolios though Narasimha Rao was expected to retire before too long.

Krishna Rao said I should be in touch with Krishnamurty who was preparing the economic chapters of the draft of the manifesto. Krishnamurty told me he had brought in A. M. Khusro to the group, and there would be a 5 p.m. meeting at Khusro’s office at the Aga Khan Foundation. I arrived early and was delighted to meet Khusro, and he seemed pleased to meet me. Khusro seemed excited by my view that India and Pakistan were spending excessively on defence against each other, which resonated with his own ideas, and he remarked the fiscal disarray in India and Pakistan could start to be set right by mutually agreed cuts in military spending. (Khusro was eventually to accompany Prime Minister Vajpayee to Lahore in 1999).

Krishnamurty had prepared a draft dated March 18 of several pages of the economic aspects of the manifesto. After our discussions, Krishnamurty was hospitable enough to open the draft to improvement. That evening, the 19th, I worked through the night and the next morning to get by noon copies of a revised version with all the members of the group. At 4 p.m. on the 20th there was a meeting at Andhra Bhavan of the whole group except Pitroda, which went on until the night. The next day the 21st , Krishnamurty, Khusro and I met again at Andhra Bhavan for a few hours on the economic aspects of the draft. Then in mid-afternoon I went to Rasgotra’s home to work with him and Krishna Rao. They wanted me to produce the economic draft which they could then integrate as they wished into the material they were dictating to a typist. I offered instead to absorb their material directly on to my laptop computer where the economic draft was. Rasgotra was reluctant to let go control, and eventually I gave in and said I would get them a hard copy of the economic draft, which they then planned to re-draft via a stenographer on a typewriter. At this, Rasgotra gave in and agreed to my solution. So the work began and the three of us continued until late.

That night Krishna Rao 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. Krishna Rao 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 next day, Friday March 22, I worked from dawn to get the penultimate draft to Krishna Rao before noon as planned the night before. Rasgotra arrived shortly, and the three of us worked until evening to finish the job. I left for an hour to print out copies for a meeting of the entire group, where the draft we were going to submit would come to be decided. When I got back I found Rasgotra had launched an extended and quite unexpected attack on what had been written on economic policy. Would someone like Manmohan Singh, Rasgotra wanted to know, agree with all this talk we were putting in about liberalization and industrial efficiency? I replied I did not know what Manmohan Singh’s response would be but I knew he had been in Africa heading something called the South-South Commission for Julius Nyrere of Tanzania. I said what was needed was a clear forceful statement designed to restore India’s credit-worthiness, and the confidence of international markets. I said that the sort of thing we should aim for was to make clear, e.g. to the IMF’s man in Delhi when that person read the manifesto, that the Congress Party at least knew its economics and was planning to make bold new steps in the direction of progress. I had argued the night before with Rasgotra that on foreign policy we should “go bilateral” with good strong ties with individual countries, and drop all the multilateral hogwash. But I did not wish to enter into a fight on foreign policy which he was writing, so long as the economic policy was left the way we said. Krishnamurty, Khusro and Pitroda came to my defence saying the draft we had done greatly improved on the March 18 draft. For a bare half hour or so with all of us present, the draft was agreed upon. Later that night at Andhra Bhavan, I gave Krishna Rao the final copy of the draft manifesto which he was going to give Narasimha Rao the next day, and sent a copy to Krishnamurty who was liaising with Pranab Mukherjee. Pitroda got a copy on a floppy disc the next day for Solanki.

In its constructive aspects, the March 22 1991 draft of the Congress manifesto went as follows with regard to economic policy: “CHAPTER V AGENDA FOR ECONOMIC ACTION 1. Control of Inflation …. The Congress believes the inflation and price-rise of essential commodities… is a grave macroeconomic problem facing the country today. It has hit worst the poorest and weakest sections of our people and those with fixed incomes like pensioners. The Congress will give highest priority to maintaining the prices of essential commodities, increasing their production and supply using all appropriate economic instruments. 2. Macroeconomic Policy Framework To control inflation of the general price-level, the Congress will provide a predictable long-term policy framework. The average Indian household and business will not have their lives and plans disrupted by sudden changes in economic policy. Coherent monetary policy measures will be defined as called for by the Report of Experts of the Reserve Bank of India in 1985. The Long-Term Fiscal Policy introduced by the Congress Government of 1984-1989 will be revived. Medium and long-term export-import policies will be defined. The basis for a strong India must be a strong economy. The Congress believes a high rate of real growth is essential for securing a strong national defence, social justice and equity, and a civilized standard of living for all. As the party of self-reliance, Congress believes resources for growth must be generated from within our own economy. This means all wasteful and unproductive Government spending has to be cut, and resources transferred from areas of low priority to areas of high national priority. Subsidies have to be rationalized and reduced, and productivity of investments already made has to be improved. The widening gap between revenue receipts and revenue expenditure must be corrected through fiscal discipline, and the growing national debt brought under control as a matter of high priority. These policies in a consistent framework will create the environment for the freeing of the rupee in due course, making it a hard currency of the world of which our nation can be proud. Public resources are not unlimited. These have to be allocated to high priority areas like essential public services, poverty-reduction, strategic sectors, and protection of the interests of the weaker sections of society. Government has to leave to the initiative and enterprise of the people what can be best done by themselves. Government can now progressively vacate some areas of activity to the private, cooperative and non-government sectors. Black money in the parallel economy has become the plague of our economic and political system. This endangers the social and moral fabric of our nation. Artificial price controls, excessive licensing, capacity restrictions, outmoded laws on rent control and urban ceiling, and many other outdated rules and regulations have contributed to pushing many honest citizens into dishonest practices. The Congress will tackle the problem of black money at its roots by attacking all outmoded and retrograde controls, and simplifying procedures in all economic spheres. At the same time, the tax-base of the economy must be increased via simplification and rationalization of tax-rates and coverage, user-fees for public goods, and reduction of taxes wherever possible to improve incentives and stimulate growth. 3. Panchayati Raj India’s farmers and khet mazdoors are the backbone of our economy. Economic development is meaningless until their villages provide them a wholesome rural life. The Congress will revitalize Panchayat Raj institutions to decentralize decision-making, so development can truly benefit local people most effectively. 4. Rural Development Basic economic infrastructure like roads, communications, fresh drinking water, and primary health and education for our children must reach all our villages. The Congress believes such a policy will also relieve pressures from migration on our towns and cities…… Through the Green Revolution which the Congress pioneered over 25 years, our farmers have prospered. Now our larger farmers must volunteer to contribute more to the national endeavour, and hence to greater equity and overall economic development. Equity demands land revenue should be mildly graduated so that small farmers holding less than one acre pay less land revenue per acre…. 9. Education and Health The long-run prosperity of our nation depends on the general state of education, health and well-being of our people. Small families give themselves more choice and control over their own lives. Improving female literacy, promoting the welfare of nursing mothers and reducing infant mortality will have a direct bearing on reducing the birth-rate and improving the health and quality of all our people. Primary and secondary education has high social returns and is the best way in the long-run for achievement of real equality. Efforts will be made to reduce the cost of education for the needy through concessional supply of books and other study materials, scholarships and assistance for transportation and residential facilities. The Congress Party pledges to dedicate itself to promoting education, especially in rural areas and especially for girls and the weaker sections of society. The next Congress Government will prepare and launch a 10-year programme for introduction of free and compulsory primary education for all children of school age. It will continue to emphasize vocational bias in education, integrating it closely with employment opportunities…. 11. Industrial Efficiency Our industrial base in the private and public sectors are the core of our economy. What we have achieved until today has been creditable, and we are self-reliant in many areas. Now the time has come for industry to provide more efficiency and better service and product-quality for the Indian consumer. The public sector has helped the Indian economy since Independence and many national goals have been achieved. Now it has become imperative that the management of public sector units is made effective, and their productivity increased. Major steps must be taken for greater accountability and market-orientation. Failure to do this will make our country lose more and more in the international economy. Budgetary support will be given only for public sector units in the core and infrastructure sectors. Emphasis will be on improving performance and productivity of existing investments, not on creating added organizations or over manning. Units not in the core sector will be privatised gradually. Even in core sectors like Telecommunications, Power, Steel and Coal, incremental needs can be taken care of by the private sector. The Government-Enterprise interface must be properly defined in a White Paper. The Congress believes privatisation must distribute the profits equitably among the people of India. In order to make our public enterprises truly public, it is essential that the shares of many such enterprises are widely held by the members of the general public and workers. Congress pledges to allot a proportion of such shares to the rural Panchayats and Nagarpalikas. This will enhance their asset-base and yield income for their development activities, as well as improve income-distribution. 12. Investment and Trade Indian industry, Government and professional managers are now experienced enough to deal with foreign companies on an equal footing, and channel direct foreign investment in desired directions. Foreign companies often bring access to advanced technological know-how, without which the nation cannot advance. The Congress Government will formulate a pragmatic policy channelling foreign investment into areas important to the national interest. Every effort must be made also to encourage Indians who are outside India to invest in the industry, trade and real estate of their homeland. Because of the protected and inflationary domestic market, Indian industry has become complacent and the incentive for industrial exports has been weakened. When all production is comfortably absorbed at home, Indian industry makes the effort to venture into exports only as a last resort. This must change. A Congress Government will liberalize and deregulate industry to make it competitive and export-oriented, keeping in mind always the interests of the Indian consumer in commercial policy. Export-oriented and predictable commercial policies will be encouraged. Existing procedural constraints and bottlenecks will be removed. Quotas and tariffs will be rationalized. Thrust areas for export-development will be identified and monitored. Efforts will be made to develop a South Asian Community. Trade and economic cooperation among South Asian countries must be increased and simplified.”

This March 22 1991 draft of the Congress’s intended economic policies got circulated and discussed, and from it rumours and opinions appeared that Congress was planning to launch a major economic reform in India. Economic Times said the manifesto “is especially notable for its economic agenda” and Business Standard said “if party manifestos decide election battles” Congress must be “considered home and dry”. A senior IMF official told me three years later the manifesto had indeed seemed a radical and bold move in the direction of progress, which had been exactly our intended effect. When I met Manmohan Singh at the residence of S. S. Ray in September 1993 in Washington, Ray told him and his senior aides the Congress manifesto had been written on my computer. Manmohan Singh smiled and said that when Arjun Singh and other senior members of the Congress had challenged him in the cabinet, he had pointed to the manifesto. Yet, oddly enough, while the March 22 draft got discussed and circulated, and the Indian economic reform since July 1991 corresponded in fundamental ways to its contents as reproduced above, the actual published Congress manifesto in April 1991 was as tepid and rhetorical as usual, as if some party hack had before publication put in the usual nonsense about e.g. bringing down inflation via price-controls. Certainly the published manifesto was wholly undistinguished in its economic aspects, and had nothing in it to correspond to the bold change of attitude towards economic policy that actually came to be signalled by the 1991 Government.

On March 23, our group was to meet Rajiv at noon. There was to be an event in the inner lawns of Rajiv’s residence in the morning, where he would launch Krishna Rao’s book on India’s security. Krishna Rao had expressly asked me to come but I had to wait outside the building patiently, not knowing if it was a mistake or if it was deliberate. This was politics after all, and I had ruffled feathers during my short time there. While I waited, Rajiv was speaking to a farmers’ rally being held at grounds adjoining his residence, and there appeared to be thousands of country folk who had gathered to hear him. When it was over, Rajiv, smiling nervously and looking extremely uncomfortable, was hoisted atop people’s shoulders and carried back to the residence by his audience. As I watched, my spine ran cold at the thought that any killer could have assassinated him with ease in that boisterous crowd, right there in the middle of Delhi outside his own residence. It was as if plans for his security had been drawn up without any strategic thinking underlying them.

Krishna Rao arrived and graciously took me inside for his book launch. The event was attended by the Congress’s top brass, including Narasimha Rao whom I met for the first time, as well as foreign military attaches and officers of the Indian armed forces. The attaché of one great power went about shaking hands and handing out his business card to everyone. I stood aside and watched. Delhi felt to me that day like a sieve, as if little could be done without knowledge of the embassies. One side wanted to sell arms, aircraft or ships, while the other wanted trips abroad or jobs or green cards or whatever for their children. And I thought Islamabad would be worse — could India and Pakistan make peace in this fetid ether?

Proceedings began when Rajiv arrived. This elite audience mobbed him just as the farmers had mobbed him earlier. He saw me and beamed a smile in recognition, and I smiled back but made no attempt to draw near him in the crush. He gave a short very apt speech on the role the United Nations might have in the new post-Gulf War world. Then he launched the book, and left for an investiture at Rashtrapati Bhavan. We waited for our meeting with him, which finally happened in the afternoon. Rajiv was plainly at the point of exhaustion and still hard-pressed for time. He seemed pleased to see me and apologized for not talking in the morning. Regarding the March 22 draft, he said he had not read it but that he would be doing so. He said he expected the central focus of the manifesto to be on economic reform, and an economic point of view in foreign policy, and in addition an emphasis on justice and the law courts. I remembered our September 18 conversation and had tried to put in justice and the courts into our draft but had been over-ruled by others. I now said the social returns of investment in the judiciary were high but was drowned out again. Rajiv was clearly agitated that day by the BJP and blurted out he did not really feel he understood what on earth they were on about. He said about his own family, “We’re not religious or anything like that, we don’t pray every day.” I felt again what I had felt before, that here was a tragic hero of India who had not really wished to be more than a happy family man until he reluctantly was made into a national leader against his will. We were with him for an hour or so. As we were leaving, he said quickly at the end of the meeting he wished to see me on my own and would be arranging a meeting. One of our group was staying back to ask him a favour. Just before we left, I managed to say to him what I felt was imperative: “The Iraq situation isn’t as it seems, it’s a lot deeper than it’s been made out to be.” He looked at me with a serious look and said “Yes I know, I know.” It was decided Pitroda would be in touch with each of us in the next 24 hours. During this time Narasimha Rao’s manifesto committee would read the draft and any questions they had would be sent to us. We were supposed to be on call for 24 hours. The call never came. Given the near total lack of system and organization I had seen over the months, I was not surprised. Krishna Rao and I waited another 48 hours, and then each of us left Delhi. Before going I dropped by to see Krishnamurty, and we talked at length. He talked especially about the lack of the idea of teamwork in India. Krishnamurty said he had read everything I had written for the group and learned a lot. I said that managing the economic reform would be a critical job and the difference between success and failure was thin.

I got the afternoon train to Calcutta and before long left for America to bring my son home for his summer holidays with me. In Singapore, 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.

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A note on the welfare economics of regional cooperation (1988)

April 22, 1988 — drsubrotoroy

A note on the welfare economics of regional cooperation

Subroto Roy

April 22 1988

(Statement at a conference on regional cooperation in Asia and Latin America held at the East West Centre, Honolulu, April 1988)

How should we evaluate the success of efforts at regional cooperation? When we look at different attempts at cooperation around the world, what general principles and observations might we bring to bear from within the discipline of economics? I propose to try to answer this broad normative question, and at the same time to report on certain aspects of the interesting and informative papers given by Dr. Ffrench-Davis, Dr. Wong, and Dr. Bhuyan on Latin America, ASEAN, and South Asia respectively.

It may be helpful to remind ourselves at the outset of the textbook classification of forms of economic cooperation.  This usually traces a route from the least orderly and least integrated to the most orderly and most integrated — from the free-trade area to the customs union to the common market to the economic union.  The free-trade area has no intra-area tariffs and therefore has a free flow of goods, although each member can have what tariffs it pleases with the rest of the world.  The customs union maintains the free flow of goods of a free-trade area and in addition has a common tarriff barrier with the rest of the world.  The common market is a customs union and in addition has free flow of factors like labour and capital.  The economic union is a common market which in addition has a common currency and a uniform monetary and fiscal policy, and which probably must have a common federal government as well.

Now we learn about one thing through comparison and contrast with other things.  Thus efforts at cooperation in South Asia and Latin America and ASEAN are fittingly compared and contrasted both with one another as well as with efforts, say, in post-War Europe.  It has been generally believed too that more integration is a good thing.  So for instance, while the European Community still remains something between a customs union and a common market, the European experiment as a whole has been motivated by a desire (or perhaps by wishful thinking) to form an economic union like that of the United States.  And it is the U. S. — whose Constitution in 1789 started with the words: “We the people…, in order to form a more perfect union….” —  which surely remains the best example the world has yet seen of an effective economic and political union.  Yet even in the U. S. the process took a hundred years and a lot of bloodshed.  In many places in the south today, the Civil War between 1861 and 1865 is still referred to as the “War between the States”.  A lesson from the American experience may be that an important and yet intangible benefit of attempts at integration, regardless of how much integration it actually leads to, may be the prevention of unnecessary war.  No matter how far the European Community is from its explicit goal of an economic and political union, or how wishful such a goal might be, or how much is wasted in resources by the bureaucracy in Brussells, if European cooperation has helped to reduce to zero the probability of a third European war in the twentieth century, it may have contributed to the economic welfare of Europe.

Now the prospect of pointless war within the European Community has become ludicrous but this may not be so elsewhere.  Neither Dr. Ffrench-Davis nor Dr. Wong has found it necessary to say anything about military tensions, so it is possible that the prospect of needless wars within Latin America or within ASEAN has become as ludicrous as in Europe, and it is possible that regional institutions have helped towards that.  If so, that should be registered on the credit-side of the balance sheet when we are evaluating the success of LAFTA or ASEAN or the Andean Pact.  But certainly the same cannot be said in South Asia, where military tensions between India and Pakistan have seldom been far from the surface.

In fact the South Asian case is interestingly seen from another angle as well.  For consider the basic fact that the main economic point of regional cooperation is to improve mass welfare via increasing trade.  Yet Dr. Bhuyan reports that trade has yet to be put on the SAARC agenda in any serious way.  The leaders of the SAARC nations have been talking about meteorology and drug abuse and the rights of children and science policy and solar technology and all kinds of other worthy issues, but they have not been talking about abolishing quotas and reducing tariffs on one another’s goods.  In terms of the textbook classification, regional cooperation in South Asia in the late 1980s has not yet reached even the starting point of discussing a free-trade area.   Yet paradoxically just about forty years ago, the same nations which today find it so difficult even to talk about improving trade, were completely united and integrated from an economic point of view — not merely in a free-trade area or customs union or a common market but in a full-fledged economic union.  The departure of Britain from the subcontinent and the political partition between India and Pakistan did not logically entail that the economic union which South Asia had been for numerous centuries had to be completely destroyed.  Yet that is what happened. The welfare costs of the lack of foresight on all sides at the time have not yet been calculated.

Drawing these thoughts together then, my first general observation is quite an obvious one.  Efforts at regional cooperation can lead to more and better contacts, information, and channels of communication – between heads of governments, finance ministers, businessmen, private citizens, and so on.  There is, in short, an increase in trust.  Or to put it in economists’ language, there is a reduction in transactions costs or an increase in the stock of what may be called the “informational capital” available to traders and potential traders.   Regardless of whether tariffs do in fact come to be reduced and trade increased, the stock of trust or informational capital is valuable.  The maintenance of this stock may require expenditures on bureaucracies, conferences etc. (expenditures which Dr. Wong reports to be small in case of ASEAN).  But if these expenditures have quietly reduced or are reducing the probability of needless wars between the member-states of LAFTA or ASEAN or SAARC (and here we might recall just how many needless wars were fought in European history between countries at the same so-called “stage of development” as those now in Asia and Latin America) then the expected utility of the bureaucracies may be certainly positive and perhaps rising.

Military conflicts or civil wars destroy not only physical and human capital but this kind of informational capital as well.  It is this stock of informational capital which was destroyed with the breakup of the economic union in South Asia forty years ago, and which the South Asian nations are now finding so hard to rebuild.  The same can be said perhaps of China and Taiwan, North and South Korea, and so on.

Next, I would like to return to the basic rationale of regional cooperation being to increase welfare via increasing trade via lowering tariffs, probably reciprocally but perhaps even unilaterally.  It is to encourage as much improved efficiency in production and hence in consumption as possible; or in Jacob Viner’s terms to have as much “trade creation” and as little “trade diversion” as possible.  Such a purpose would or should take as axiomatic Adam Smith’s remark: “Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer.” (Wealth of Nations, IV.viii.49).   Yet, at the same time, the fact of the matter is that it is national governments, and not business firms let aside ordinary households and consumers, who are involved in attempts at regional cooperation.  Stated in terms of a principal-agent problem, it is governments who are the agents while the mass of individual taxpayer/consumers are the principals.

The situation is such that the agents can probably get away quite well without attending to the interests of their principals in matters of mutual tariff-reduction.  But if they do want to attend to the interests of their principals, what Smith’s remark does is give them a simple rule of thumb to apply: does such-and-such a policy proposal have a reasonable chance of helping the ordinary consumer?  That is to say, will it enlarge the budget-set of the average household?  Or in other words, will it reduce the average household’s expenditures and/or increase the average household’s income?

Improving trade necessarily implies exploiting comparative advantages better, and hence it implies increasing specialization.  So if the basic purpose of regional cooperation is indeed to improve economic welfare via more trade, and if this purpose is indeed to be seriously served, then the process of obtaining the greater specialization will necessarily imply the decline of some industries and the rise of other industries in each participating economy.

If country A and country B are both involved in import-substitution, and country A’s industry 1 is relatively less inefficient than country B’s industry 1, then the economic integration of A and B will imply that country A’s industry 1 will rise and country B’s industry 1 will decline, while country B’s industry 2 will rise and country A’s industry 2 will decline.

Again I am saying something which is obvious from an economist’s standpoint.  I do so for the following reason.  It is clear from Dr.Wong’s paper that the leaders of ASEAN seem to be relatively serious about tariff-reduction.  They may not have succeeded as much as they would have liked but they see and understand the fundamental purpose of regional cooperation.  The spirit is willing but the body is weak.  It would seem from Dr. Ffrench-Davis’s paper too that mutual tariff-reduction has also been a central part of the discussion surrounding Latin American cooperation, and Dr. Ffrench-Davis himself has decried the slowing down of reciprocal trade in the 1980s.  However Dr. Bhuyan’s report suggests that, with trade off the SAARC agenda and all kinds of other activities on it instead, SAARC is in danger of becoming merely another vehicle for the ever-expanding role of the State in South Asia.  If I might generalize on a remark Sven Arndt made yesterday: if the domestic policies of individual countries are an unsound basis for economic development, then no amount of regional cooperation will have any significant beneficial effect.  Indeed it might even worsen things by distracting attention from fundamental problems, increasing centralization and politicization of economic decisions, and so on.

A few small points to end with.
1.  Dr. Ffrench-Davis refers, I think in a neutral way but I am not sure, to “regional investment planning” in the Andean Pact.  Dr. Bhuyan refers, I think with approval, to “balanced regional industrialization through agreed specialization… the idea is to allot particular industries to particular countries in which they have special interest” (p. 17).  I have not been able to see how the increasingly centralised allocation of resources entailed by such a policy is conducive to the basic purposes of regional cooperation.   Greater specialization is indeed a natural corollary of economic integration.  But the forces of trade, and not the SAARC headquarters in Kathmandu, surely need to be allowed to determine its direction.

2.  Both Dr. Ffrench-Davis and Dr. Bhuyan refer to stronger and weaker, or bigger and smaller, members of a regional grouping.  And Dr. Bhuyan suggests “that a straightforward liberalization of trade by dismantling all trade barriers may benefit the larger countries more than the smaller ones” (p. 12).  I am not at all sure that this is right.  For example, in the Heckscher-Ohlin model the scale of an economy is not relevant to the gains from trade — one country may have absolutely greater amounts of every single factor than another, and yet trade may benefit both because they have relatively different amounts of the factors.  (Similarly in the Ricardian model, one country may have an absolute advantage in the production of both goods, and yet trade may still be beneficial because the countries differ in the relative advantage of the production of each good.)

Thus, in conclusion, all three reports we have been given of efforts at regional cooperation in Asia and Latin America are interesting and informative.  Once again it would seem ASEAN has been leading the way in getting the basic economics as right as possible given what is politically feasible.  And here again we have to think not of ASEAN’s absolute success, but its success relative to other attempts, including I would say the European Community).   Latin America does not seem to have been very far behind in the matter of getting the basic economics right.  While South Asia, which not long ago was in fact the most closely integrated economy of all, sadly seems to lag far behind both in thinking and in achievements.

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Pricing, Planning & Politics: A Study of Economic Distortions in India (1984)

May 29, 1984 — drsubrotoroy

Pricing, Planning & Politics: A Study of Economic Distortions in India Subroto Roy

First published on May 29 1984 as Occasional Paper No. 69 of the Institute of Economic Affairs, London

Preface March 2007

A quarter century has passed since my 1982 doctoral thesis at Cambridge University under Frank Hahn, examined by Christopher Bliss and Terence Hutchison, and titled “On liberty and economic growth: preface to a philosophy for India.” I wrote what follows shortly afterwards in Blacksburg, Virginia, and Ithaca, New York, and it was published on May 29 1984 in London by the Institute of Economic Affairs as Occasional Paper No. 69, ISBN: 0-255 36169-6. The day it was published it turned out to be the subject of the main editorial of The Times, then London’s leading newspaper. (I learnt later this had been due to Peter Bauer, and also that 700 copies sold in the first month, a record for the publisher.) The Times editorial though laudatory was misleading, and I had to clarify the contents of the monograph in a letter published on June 16 1984; both documents are available elsewhere at this site.

This work was the first explicit critique of post-Mahalanobis Indian economic thought from a classical liberal perspective since B. R. Shenoy’s initial criticism decades previously. I was 29 when it was published, I am 52 now. I do not agree with everything I wrote back then and find the tone a little puffed up as young men tend to be; it was five years before publication of my main “theoretical” work Philosophy of Economics: On the Scope of Reason in Economic Inquiry (Routledge: London & New York, 1989, also now republished here). My experience of life in the years since has also made me far less sanguine both about human nature and about America than I was then. But I am glad to find I am not embarrassed by what I said as a young man, indeed I am pleased I said what I did in favour of classical liberalism and against statism and totalitarianism well before it became popular to do so after the Berlin Wall fell. (In India as elsewhere, former communist apparatchiks and fellow-travellers became pseudo-liberals overnight.)

The famous November 1955 Milton Friedman memorandum is referred to herein for the first time as “unpublished” in note 1; I was to meet Milton and Rose Friedman at the Mont Pelerin Society meetings held at Cambridge later that year, where I gave them a copy of this monograph; when Milton returned to Stanford he sent to me in Blacksburg his original 1955-56 documents on Indian planning. I published the 1955 document for the first time in May 1989 during the University of Hawaii perestroika-for-India project that I was then leading, it appeared later in the 1992 volume Foundations of India’s Political Economy: Towards an Agenda for the 1990s, edited by myself and WE James. The results of the Hawaii project reached Rajiv Gandhi through my hand in September 1990, as told elsewhere in “Rajiv Gandhi and the Origins of India’s 1991 Economic Reform”. The 1956 document was published in November 2006 on the front page of The Statesman, on the same day my obituary of Milton appeared in the inside pages (both are republished here too).

It is apparent from this monograph that I knew almost nothing then about Pakistan or Islam; that has changed as may be seen especially from the other book I created with WE James at the University of Hawaii, Foundations of Pakistan’s Political Economy: Towards an Agenda for the 1990s, as well as my more recent work on Pakistan and Islam. It is of course impossible to understand India without understanding Pakistan and vice versa.

In general, this monograph had to do with India’s microeconomics and theory of value and resource allocation while my latest work – “India’s Macroeconomics”, “Fiscal Instability”, “India’s Trade and Payments”, “Our Policy Process”, “Fallacious Finance”, “The Dream Team: A Critique” . “Against Quackery”, “Growth & Government Delusion” etc – has to do with India’s macroeconomics and monetary and fiscal theory and policy. Part of the criticism of “distorted incentives” prevailing in Indira Gandhi’s India may still be relevant to India today, while the discussion of ethnic problems, agriculture, the “public choice” factors that stymie Indian progress, misgovernance etc will almost certainly be found so.

Pricing, Planning and Politics:

A Study of Economic Distortions in India

First published on May 29 1984 as Occasional Paper No. 69 of the Institute of Economic Affairs, London

“The economic laws which operate in India are the same as in other countries of the world; the causes which lead to wealth among other nations lead to prosperity in India; the causes which impoverish other nations impoverish the people of India. Therefore, the line of enquiry which the economist will pursue in respect of India is the same which he adopts in inquiring into the wealth or poverty of other nations.” Romesh Chunder Dutt, 1906, The Economic History of India

“Satyameva Jayathe” (“Let truth be victorious”), Motto of the Indian Republic

I. INTRODUCTION

IN THE last 15 years, considerable evidence has accumulated to suggest that the most important policies pursued by successive governments of independent India have not been conducive to economic development, and have indeed gone against some of the most basic lessons that political economy has to offer. Forewarnings of the present predicament of India had come from a few economists in the late 1950s and early 1960s, but their arguments were either ignored or maligned as dogmatic and motivated by`ideology’.[1] My thesis in this Occasional Paper will be that, if the basic and commonsensical lessons of political economy had been acknowledged early on in the history of the Indian Republic, we might have found today a much more prosperous economy and a much healthier body politic than is the case.

To argue this, it is first necessary to describe an economy where the pursuit of the individual good by rational agents is conducted within some set of orderly political institutions which is conducive to both civil peace and sustained mass prosperity. Accordingly, Part I of this short Paper begins by describing the broad and familiar features of what may be called a neo-classical or liberal model, and then proceeds briefly to contrast it with a model in which individual incentives and public institutions have been distorted from their efficient characterizations.

The practical question that arises is: Where in practice have independent India’s policies led most conspicuously to distorted incentives and institutions? This will be the subject of Part III. Part II places the discussion in context by briefly describing a few relevant aspects of the political history of the Indian Republic.

I have argued elsewhere that every normative proposal for action is, in principle, open to question and criticism on the logical and factual grounds upon which it is founded. Whenever two people disagree about what ought to be done, it will be found either that at least one of them has made a mistake of logic or that they are also in disagreement about the facts of the case.[2] In Part IV, a tentative manifesto for political and economic reform in India is proposed, and I hope these proposals too will be subjected to critical scrutiny on the positive grounds upon which I shall seek to establish them.

Part I: Theory

2. EFFICIENT INCENTIVES AND INSTITUTIONS

A `FACT’ may be understood as the opposite of that which could have been the case but is not. A basic fact of the study of men and society – one which was acknowledged first by Aristotle and then, very importantly, by Adam Smith, and which has been emphasized in modern times by Friedrich Hayek – is that, while we are able to study and speak of the nature of human decision and action in general terms, we do not and cannot have a knowledge of how particular actions are moved by particular causes and circumstances.[3]

We might certainly know, for instance, that every household in an economy views some horizons, wants to fulfill some aspirations, and faces some constraints. But if we were asked to specify what all these characteristics happened to be as a matter of fact at any one moment, we would certainly not be able to do so. Men are concerned almost wholly with (and are experts at) living their own lives as best they can – foraging for food, shelter and work, celebrating weddings and births, rearing children, and mourning deaths. For the most part, they are neither interested in, nor competent at judging, what others happen to be doing in their private lives. Neither benevolence nor envy extends much beyond a man’s immediate vicinity, and, certainly, neither can extend to people he does not know or come to know of in the course of a lifetime.

This fact is also acknowledged in modern microeconomics, when it is said that, for the individual agent to be able to make decisions and act upon them, it is sufficient for him to know (besides his own desires, abilities and constraints) only of the relative prices prevailing locally of the goods and skills he wishes to trade.`Efficient incentive’ defined We might then provisionally define an `efficient incentive’ as a set of relative prices and wages such that, when economic agents act upon them, three conditions are fulfilled:(i) the difference between the total demand for and the total supply of every good and skill is zero; (ii) every consumer succeeds in trading the amounts of different goods that he desires, and so obtains the highest utility he can within the constraint of his budget; (iii) every private enterprise maximizes the difference between its total revenues and total costs, that is, its profits. [4]

Rational action, however, occurs within a particular institutional context. Which action is rational and which is not will depend on what institutions there are and how well or poorly they function. As both classical liberals and Marxists argue, the neo-Walrasian tradition in modern economics – as exemplified by the Arrow-Debreu model – is practically devoid of any explicit institutional description, and so may best be regarded as a useful but grossly incomplete metaphor in the economist’s inquiry.

The institutions most relevant to economic activity are those of government. We might therefore add a fourth condition to characterize an efficient economy, namely, that government institutions work in such a way as to allocate tax revenues towards providing public goods in the amounts desired by citizens. This must be an institutional assumption implicit in the general equilibrium construction, without which it would be impossible to see the sense of that model.

The question that follows is how we are to ascertain the composition of the set of public goods to be provided. As is commonly known, this seems to confront the economist with numerous conceptual and practical problems. I propose here to circumvent all the typical difficulties of how to discover and combine individual preferences for public goods, or how to prevent free-riders, and to take a somewhat different route.

Functions of civil government: protection, public goods, education

To answer the question `What should be public goods first and foremost? I suggest we look for the kind of answer Adam Smith or Jeremy Bentham or J. S. Mill might have given to a related but different question : `What should be the functions of government in a large civil society, regardless of whether or not it is constituted democratically?’ This was the relevant question before the modern era of mass democracy. And it is still interesting because, first, it probably remains the appropriate question for the many countries today which either do not have democratic governments or do not have long histories of democracy, and, secondly, because the kinds of answer given by classical authors were very similar to those we might expect from individual citizens in modern democracies as well.

The most important practical functions of civil government include defence against external aggression, the dispensing of civil and criminal justice, the protection of life, property and trade – broadly, the Rule of Law – and the pursuit of a judicious foreign policy. All are different aspects of the same broad objective of ensuring the survival of the community and the security of individual life.

Yet no pretext has been more common than that an imminent danger to the security of the community requires the government to take despotic measures. The guarantee by a civil government of the freedom of inquiry, discourse, criticism, and historical research should take precedence, therefore, even over ensuring security and survival, for it is probably the only final check there can be on whether what a government says is or is not in fact the case. Where this freedom is forcibly denied, or where it exists but people are too apathetic, ignorant or busy with their daily lives to exercise it, public life soon becomes self deceptive and absurd, with propaganda taking the place of discourse, and pretensions and appearances diverging more and more from attainments and reality. Wherever the questions `What is true?’ or `What is the case?’ are not asked frequently enough, there will be fewer and fewer correct answers as to what the case happens to be.[5]
After collective and individual security, the functions of government include the building of dams, embankments, bridges and canals, the provision of roads and fresh water, and so on – activities which, as Adam Smith put it, “. . . though they may be in the highest degree advantageous to a great society, are, however, of such a nature that the profit could never repay the expence to any individual or small number of individuals, and which it, therefore, cannot be expected that any individual or small number of individuals should erect or maintain.” [6]

Each may be more or less a “pure” public good in the modern sense :“that each individual’s consumption of such a good leads to no subtraction from any other individual’s consumption of that good”.[7]

Such a list could be extended to include activities as diverse as: the prevention of soil erosion; the public finance of school education, and’ of measures of basic public health such as vaccinations against contagious diseases; the issuing of currency; sewage disposal; population censuses; the standardization of weights and measures; and so on. It is unnecessary to be more specific here since some people will find even this list controversial. Dogmatists will deny the need for free inquiry; pacifists will dispute that defence is a public good; communists will protest against the public protection of private property; `anarcho-capitalists’ will contest the public dispensation of justice; and so on. To these critics, I would offer merely the following short and incomplete reply.

First, a sound argument can be made that what functions civil government should have can be ascertained, without prejudice, by reasonable citizens, though which particular functions these are may well vary according to circumstances. Secondly, if we could spend time in thoughtful and leisured conversation with every citizen of a large community, it might be predicted – as a matter of cold, empirical fact – that practically everyone would agree with the suggestion that the first destinations of tax revenues should indeed be activities like defence, civil protection and the Rule of Law, the provision of roads, and so on. If such a prediction is correct, my thesis is plainly much more democratic than it might appear to modern economists, though I shall later claim that an objective defence of democratic institutions can be made on quite different grounds as well.

If there is a clear family resemblance between classical liberal authors – from Smith and Mill through to Hayek, Robbins, Friedman, Buchanan, Bauer and many others – it has to do, not so much with the denunciation of government activity in the market-place, as with the recognition of the existence of certain duties of government outside it, the fulfillment of which are indispensable to civil life, let alone the pursuit of economic prosperity. Their protest is at the high opportunity cost of the alternatives foregone.

This raises the question of how we might tell whether government is working well or badly in a particular country at a particular time, or, generally, how we might tell whether different public goods are provided in too small or large amounts. For present purposes it will again be sufficient to suggest a very rough and common sense way of proceeding: let us look first, and think second.

For example, the Iran-Iraq war has clearly been a perfect public bad as far as the ordinary citizenry in either country are concerned. Similarly, if there happen to be millions of cases queuing outside the courts waiting to be heard, or if crime is rampant and police protection ineffective, that may constitute prima facie evidence that too few public resources have been devoted to civil order and justice. Or, if heavy rainfall annually causes landslides in the hills and floods in the plains, devastating crops and leaving innumerable citizens destitute, that also might prompt us to ask whether sufficient public resources have gone towards precautions against such havoc. And so on.[8]

Which goods happen to be public goods depends on the circumstances and the level of government being discussed. For similar circumstances and levels, similar goods will most likely be public goods in different countries. The state ordinarily consists not only of the national government but also of several provincial governments and a myriad of local governments. In particular, a premise of the liberal state would be that public goods should in fact be provided by various levels of government, financed through taxes paid respectively at those levels. The citizen is a taxpayer at a variety of levels, and accordingly public goods are due to be provided at a variety of levels. Just as the national government may not usurp the power to tax for, or spend money on, a public good which is best provided by a provincial government to the citizens of a province, so a provincial government may not tax for, or spend on, a public good best provided by a local government to the citizens of a locality.

The broad principle involved has two aspects: first, a recognition that knowledge of particular circumstances – and hence the ability to act – is infinitesimally dispersed within a population; and, secondly, as direct and visible a matching as possible of the benefits a citizen receives from a particular public good with the taxes he pays towards it, thereby perhaps reducing his incentive to be a free rider on the contributions of others.8Uncertainty and ignoranceProvisionally, therefore, efficient incentives may be thought to consist of a set of market-clearing relative prices and wages, occurring within an institutional context in which the basic and indispensable functions of government have been adequately performed at a variety of appropriate levels.

Such a definition would still be seriously incomplete in one major respect. For we must now recognise: (i) that history is unique and irretrievable, that the present consists only of the fleeting moment, and that the future, by its very nature, cannot be fully known; (ii) that such a thing as human freedom exists; and (iii) that, as a consequence, uncertainty and ignorance are ubiquitous.

Some of the uncertainty derives from the unfolding of natural events (like the rains) over which man has little or no control. The rest derives from the fact that the individual is a free agent who is affected by the actions of others but who cannot predict those actions completely because they too are free agents like himself. Game theory would have had no appeal for the economist if the existence of human freedom had not been a fact. It is this which makes it impossible to read everything in another person’s mind and thus makes it impossible to predict everything he might do. The lasting contribution of Keynesian economics could be its emphasis that such uncertainty and ignorance are important to the economist’s inquiry.

Mathematical economists have been saying for several years that what is required if we are to be realistic are models which reflect the sequential character of actual decision-making and account for the past being immutable and the future uncertain.[9] However, they have proceeded to write even more complex mathematics than we already have – disregarding Aristotle’s advice not to seek more precision from the subject of an inquiry than it may be capable of yielding.[10] My question is the more mundane one of what becomes of the classical liberals’ concept of efficient incentives and institutions in a dynamic world. I shall answer it too in a pedestrian way.

The single overwhelming reason why uncertainty and ignorance are relevant to the economist’s descriptions is that they make real the possibility of mistakes by economic agents. To extend the previous discussion to a dynamic context, what we can do is to ask which institutions are most likely to reduce or mitigate the social consequences of mistaken decisions, whether made by private agents or by those in public office. And it is here that the classical liberals advocate two important institutional features: competition and the decentralisation of decision-making.

The major value of democratic institutions over authoritarian ones is that they encourage these two principles to be put into effect. Because, in a large economy, particular knowledge is infinitesimally dispersed, it may be better for adjustments to a multitude of variables to be made continuously in response to changing circumstances by a vast number of small economic agents, rather than for adjustments to a few variables to be made at political intervals by a small group of very powerful agents. The concentration of power to make major decisions among a few fallible men is a much more ominous prospect than the distribution of power in small amounts among a large number of fallible men. It is much more dangerous for a monopoly of ideas to be claimed about where the political good of a country lies than for there to be free and open competition among such ideas at the bar of reason.

D. H. Robertson put it well when he warned “that all the eggs should not be in the same basket – that in this highly uncertain world the fortunes of a whole trade, or a whole area, should not depend on the foresight and judgement of a single centre of decision”.[11] The presumption in favour of democratic institutions is that they reduce the potential damage from wrong political decisions damage which can be rationally expected in an uncertain world.[12] Elections, in the liberal understanding, are then not so much the means to promote the interests of one’s confederates as to remove from office without bloodshed rulers who fail to do what they are entrusted with, and to replace them by those from whom better is expected. Economic efficiency in an uncertain worldThe economic notion of efficient incentives is also modified by uncertainty and ignorance. In the theory, a set of prices is market clearing only relative to unchanging preferences, resources and technologies. In a dynamic world, however, demand and supply functions are themselves changing and the notion of efficient incentives must accordingly be adapted to one in which relative prices move in the direction of the excess demand: that is, if the parameters change so that the total demand for a good or skill comes to exceed the total supply, we should want to see its relative price rising (and, conversely, if total supply exceeds total demand, we should want to see its relative price falling). During such a process of adjustment, many people may suffer very considerable hardship – something which reasonable Keynesians do well to emphasise.

If changing preferences, resources or technologies cause the demand for a product to diminish, we should want to see the firms which manufacture it either entering different markets, or improving its quality by technological innovation, or lowering prices. Similarly, we should want to see workers in these firms whether blue- or white-collar – who have skills specific to a product whose price is falling either increasing their productivity or retraining themselves in different skills more specific to the manufacture of goods whose prices are rising. Numerous enterprises can go bankrupt, and numerous workers can find themselves unable to sell the skills they possess, if they fail to adapt quickly enough to changing market conditions. The more specialised the product and the more specific the skill, the more hardship there may be. There could well be orthodox Keynesian consequences whereby laid-off workers reduce their consumption expenditures and firms on the verge of bankruptcy reduce their investment expenditures, leading to lower incomes for others, and thus to lower expenditures by them too, and so on. An anti-Keynesian who denied the existence of such hardship would be closed to the facts. He might also not be doing his own theory justice: for it is not unreasonable to argue that, while adjustments are inevitable in an uncertain world, the classical response of prices moving in the direction of excess demand probably minimises the hardship in the transition from one equilibrium to the next.

In a dynamic world, therefore, in which supply and demand functions are shifting continually and unpredictably (though probably incrementally, and not drastically), efficient incentives are better thought of as relative prices which are not stagnant but which are moving – and moving quickly – in the direction of excess demand. It should, in general, be continually profitable at the margin for firms and workers to be innovating technologically and improving productivity. As everyone knows from experience, the principle goad to such activity is fair and free competition. If a job or contract is sought badly enough, and if better quality or lower price are known to be the only criteria of selection, the expected outcome is a differentiation and improvement by competitors of the individual quality or price of what is sold.

In broad summary, the liberal understanding of how material well-being can be improved rests on the assumption that the basic functions of civil government are performed satisfactorily. Government provides the backdrop of civil order and protection necessary for private citizens freely and fairly to conduct their own lives and their transactions with one another. It is a theory which acknowledges a fundamental fact in the study of society, namely, that the individual household : (a) most commonly defines its own horizons; (b) knows the particular opportunities available to it to produce, trade and consume; (c) recognises the particular constraints which prevent it from doing all that it may desire; and(d) perceives how these opportunities and constraints may be changing. Where, as in the liberal picture, there are large numbers of producers and consumers, sellers and buyers – each family acting more or less independently – the efforts of one family do not directly make for other than its own success, while at the same time the repercussions of its mistakes are felt by itself and do not reverberate throughout the whole community. Such has been, as I see it, the American secret to mass prosperity.

3. DISTORTED INCENTIVES AND INSTITUTIONS

DISTORTED INCENTIVES are the logical opposites of efficient ones. Relative prices and wages send distorted signals to individual economic agents when they do not move in the direction of excess demand, so that there is no general tendency for markets to clear. A long-run or endemic excess demand for a good reveals itself in rationing, queueing and black markets. The price at which trade nominally takes place is too low and shows no tendency to move upwards.

Conversely, in a product market, a long-run or endemic excess supply reveals itself in surpluses and spoilages. In a labour market, it reveals itself, on the one hand, in armies of tenured employees who have no incentive to improve productivity, and, on the other hand, in lines of involuntarily or disguised unemployed who cannot sell all the skill they possess and have to settle for selling their less-specialised ones. The price at which trade nominally takes place is too high and shows no tendency to move downwards. In practical terms, firms do not find it profitable to be continually entering new markets or improving quality or enhancing technology or reducing price in order to attract and retain customers. Farmers in particular may face output and input prices which make technological improvements unprofitable.

In politics, distorted incentives are ones which make it profitable for politicians and government officials to be corruptible and taxpayers to be evasive. Because corruption is not penalised and honesty not rewarded, the pursuit of private interest may make it rational to be corrupt and irrational to be honest.

Individualism and statism

A neo-classical economic model like the one outlined above presupposes among citizens a political attitude of individualism. This may be defined as a condition in which citizens have the idea (a) that it is the individual household itself which is principally responsible for improvements in its own well-being, and (b) that government merely “is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection and security of the people …”, and that government officials are merely the citizens’ “trustees and servants, and at all times amenable to them.” [13]

Its logical opposite may be called an attitude of statism – defined as prevailing when various classes of citizens have the idea that it is government which is and should be principally responsible for improvements in individual and public well-being. A good sense in which `power’ can be defined in political and economic contexts is as “the capacity to restrict the choices open to other men”.[14] An attitude of statism entails a willingness, or at least an acquiescence, on the part of citizens to relinquish to those in government, with little or no questioning, the power to make decisions which may affect their lives intimately. At the same time, responsibility for relapses or lack of progress in individual well-being is also thought to be the consequence of governmental and not private decision-making. Whereas individualism is a self-assertive attitude, statism is a self abnegating one. For those in government to have a statist mentality is the same as saying they are paternalistic, that is, making the presumption that the citizen is often incapable of judging for himself what is for his own good.

The suggestion that government should have the principal responsibility for improvements in individual and collective economic well-being – in the sense that the collectivity can and should satisfy the material aspirations of every individual – appears straightaway to be self contradictory. An individual can have enough difficulty trying to articulate his own horizons, aspirations and constraints, let alone trying to do the same for others. For a politician (or economist) to claim (or imply) not only that he knows(or can know) the relevant characteristics of everyone at once, but also that he knows how to ameliorate the condition of humanity at a stroke, as if by magic, would have been considered ridiculous in more candid times than ours. If we understand `collective effort’ to mean the sum of individual labours engaged in a common pursuit or endeavour, then for the collectivity to try materially to satisfy every individual would amount to imposing a duty on everyone to try materially to satisfy everyone else – an absurd state of affairs, flying in the face of the fact that most people most of the time do not wish to, or cannot, cope with much else except their private lives.

Exhorting government directly to improve the material wellbeing of `the people’ cannot mean what it seems to because it cannot refer to literally all the people but only to some of them perhaps only a majority, or only the well-organised. That the state is endogenous to the polity implies that no government has resources of its own out of which to disburse the amounts a politician may promise or an economist recommend. To fulfil new promises, given an initial condition of budgetary equilibrium, a government is only able either to print more fiat money or to tax the resources of individual citizens more heavily. Leaving aside the first alternative, fulfillment of the exhortation amounts to using public institutions to transfer resources from some people in order to keep promises made to others.

When the attitude spreads that, in politics, one man’s gain is another man’s loss, and where political control is to be had by winning majorities in elections, the citizen comes to face a perverse incentive to try to coalesce with more and more others in the hope of capturing the public revenues in his favour – instead of thinking critically about the nature of the political good as the institutions of democracy require him to. Political power becomes less dispersed, and the size of the polity diminishes in the sense that it comes to have fewer and fewer constituent agents, each of which is a larger and larger coalition of like-minded confederates intent on acquiring control for its own benefit.

Perhaps the worst consequence of a general attitude of statism, however, is that the basic, commonsensical functions of government are obscured, ignored, and neglected. Instead of requiring politicians and government officials to fulfill these functions, a citizenry allows its public agents to become brokers and entrepreneurs – trading not only in the products of government controlled industries but also in an array of positions of power and privilege, all in the name of directing a common endeavour to help the poor. The state places itself at every profitable opportunity between private citizens who might otherwise have conducted their transactions themselves perfectly well. The result is that governments do, or try to do, what either does not need to be done or ought not to be done by government, while they neglect that which only governments can do and which therefore they ought to be doing.

Part II: History

4. INDIVIDUALISM AND STATISM IN INDIA

AN ATTITUDE of statism has probably been present in India since Mughal times at least. If anything, it spread during the British period since the raison d’être of British rule in India would have vanished without paternalism (as in the course of time it did) and the existence of British rule was the raison d’être of the nationalist movement. Paternalism towards India was espoused even by those Englishmen known for their liberal views at home. Thomas Macaulay, for instance, declared to the House of Commons in 1833: “It may be that the public mind of India may expand under our system till it has outgrown that system; that by good government we may educate our subjects into a capacity for better government; that having become instructed in European knowledge, they may, in some future stage, demand European institutions. Whether such a day will ever come I know not. But never will I attempt to avert or retard it. Whenever it comes, it will be the proudest day in English history.”[15]

Less than a hundred years later, in 1930-31, the Indian National Congress – to the considerable chagrin of the British Government – resolved to bring about an independent India in which every citizen would have the right to free speech, to profess and practise his faith freely, and to move and practise his profession anywhere in the country. There would be universal adult suffrage and no-one would be unjustly deprived of his liberty or have his property entered, sequestered or confiscated. In particular, all citizens in the future republic would be `equal before the law, irrespective of religion, caste, creed or sex’, and no disability would attach`to any citizen by reason of his or her religion, caste, creed or sex, in regard to public employment, office of power or honour, and in the exercise of any trade or calling’.[16]

These resolutions were made in the thick of the battle for independence, and underscored the fundamental argument of the nationalists that, in spite of the infinitely diverse characteristics of the inhabitants of the sub-continent, a free and secular India was possible in which all would be ruled by a common law. That argument had been in contradistinction to the frequent taunt from British Conservatives that an
India without Britain would disintegrate in internecine bloodshed, and also to the later `two nations’ theory of the Muslim League which led eventually to the creation of
Pakistan. With the departure of the British and the Pakistanis, in 1950 the Constitution of the first Indian Republic was finally able to bring into force the idea of secularity which had inspired the nationalist cause. Thus, among the Fundamental Rights established by the Constitution, Article 14 provided that the state `shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of
India’. Articles 15.1, 15.2, 16.1, 16.2 and 29.2 went on to prohibit discrimination on the arbitrary grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth in matters of public employment or access to publicly-funded education.

The century between Macaulay and the resolutions for independence was by far the most important to the country’s intellectual history since earliest antiquity. While it took its turbulent course, long severed since the time of the early Greeks – came to be re-established. The common interest and the common contribution became one of admiring and learning from Europe and from India’s own past what there was to be admired and learnt, whilst forsaking and resisting what was self contradictory or base. The maxim for a century might have been : learn the good and let the evil be buried in history. As Tagore wrote :`The lamp of Europe is still burning; we must rekindle our old and extinguished lamp at that flame and start again on the road of time. We must fulfill the purpose of our connection with the English. This is the task we face in the building up of a great India.’[17]

The ideal aspired to was swaraj, or `self rule’. It literally meant not only a government of India by Indians accountable to Indians, but also the governance of the individual by himself. Not only was the country to be sovereign vis-à-vis other states; its individual citizens were to be free vis-à-vis each other and equal before its laws. Swaraj meant, in other words, a condition of political autonomy where the citizen constrained his own free actions so as not to harm others, and where the Rule of Law would protect him when he acted autonomously and resist him when he did not. Given a backdrop of civil order, the infinite number of ways to individual happiness and prosperity in an infinitely diverse sub-continent could then be pursued. Statism all pervading

An attitude of statism, however, has pervaded all public discourse in independent India, and has been reinforced by the social and economic policies pursued by successive governments.

In the first place, a ghost from earlier controversies with the British was to remain in the 1950 Constitution. Immediately after the provisions establishing equality before the law and equality of opportunity in public employment and publicly funded education, the following caveats appeared. Article 15.3 said that the state could make “any special provision for women and children”; and then, of more significance, Article 15.4 allowed the state to make “any special provisions for the advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes”.

Article 16.4 allowed it to make “any provision for the reservation of appointments or posts in favour of any backward class of citizens which, in the opinion of the State, is not adequately represented in the services under the State.” Lastly, Article 335 said that “the claims of the members of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes shall be taken into consideration, consistently with the maintenance of efficiency of administration, in the making of appointments to services and posts [under the State] . . .” Who was to decide who was `backward’ and who was not, or which group was to be `scheduled’ and which not? Article 341.1 said that `The President may . . . by public notification specify the castes, races or tribes which shall for the purposes of this Constitution be deemed to be Scheduled Castes’, and Article 341.2 added that `Parliament may by law include in or exclude from the list of Scheduled Castes specified under 341.1 any caste, race or tribe or part of or any group within any caste, race or tribe . . .’ Articles 342.1 and 342.2 said the same for the Scheduled Tribes.

Subsequently, two Presidential Orders named no fewer than 1,181 different groups in the country as `Scheduled Castes’ and more than 583 other groups as `Scheduled Tribes’. Roughly a sixth of the population thus came to be termed `backward’ by executive decree and were segregated by statute from the rest of the citizenry.

The direct precursor of these provisions was the `Communal Award’ by the British Government in 1932, who had taken it to be their duty “to safeguard what we believe to be the right of Depressed Classes to a fair proportion in Legislatures ”.[18] (`Depressed Classes’ was the official name for those misleadingly called `untouchables’ outside the Hindu fold.)

The complex customs of the Hindus call for endogamy and commensality among members of the same caste, thus making anyone outside a caste somewhat `untouchable’ for its members. In marriage and dining habits, many orthodox Hindus would hold foreigners, Muslims, and even Hindus of other castes at the same distance as those formally classified as `Depressed Classes’. Indeed, non-Hindus in India -including the British often maintained social protocols that were equally as strict.

No serious Indian historian would doubt that members of the `Depressed Classes’ had been oppressed and had suffered countless indignities throughout Indian history at the hands of so-called`caste Hindus’. At various times, persecution had led to mass conversions to the more secular faiths. But the ancient wrongs of the Hindu practices had to do not so much with the lack of physical contact in personal life which the word `untouchability’ connotes for Indian society has always consisted of a myriad of voluntarily segregated groups – but rather with open and obvious inequities such as the denial of equal access to temples, public wells, baths and schools.

Gandhi, who by his personal example probably did more for the cause of the `Depressed Classes’ than anyone else, protested against the Communal Award with one of his most famous fasts. Privately, he suspected that `…the communal question [was] being brought deliberately to the forefront and magnified by the government because they did not intend to part with power’.[19] Publicly, he argued that the pernicious consequence would be a further exacerbation of the apartheid under which the `Depressed Classes’ had suffered for so long, when the important thing was for their right to be within the Hindu fold to be acknowledged by `caste’ Hindus.[20]

The Fundamental Rights in the 1950 Constitution establishing the equality of all citizens before the law evidently had the 1930-31 resolutions as their precursors; while Article17 – which specifically declared `untouchability’ to be `abolished’ and its practice `forbidden’ – was part of Gandhi’s legacy, placing those who had for centuries been denigrated and persecuted on exactly the same footing in the eyes of the laws of the Republic as their denigrators and persecutors. The subsequent clauses authorizing the state to discriminate in favour of `Scheduled Castes’, and allowing it to define by executive decree who was to be so called, were evidently the remnants of the Communal Award of 1932. Discrimination by the state was initially to last for a period of 10 years only. It has, however, been extended three times -for another 10 years on each occasion – and so continues to the present day. We shall examine a few of the consequences in Part III.‘A socialistic pattern of society’As for economic policy, while the original 1950 Constitution had ambiguously stated certain ends – such as that government was `to strive to promote the welfare of the people’ – it made no mention at all of any specific economic institutions, statist or liberal, which the new Republic was to nurture as means towards those ends. In spite of this omission, successive governments have explicitly avowed their espousal of` socialism’ as the means to the good and prosperous society.

For instance, a “socialistic pattern of society where the principal means of production are under social ownership or control” was declared to be a national objective at the ruling Congress Party’s convention in 1955; and, in 1976, the notorious 42nd Amendment purported to change the very description of the country in the preamble to the original Constitution from the sober `Sovereign, Democratic Republic’ to the awkward `Sovereign, Secular, Socialist Democratic Republic’. It is an open and important issue of constitutional practice whether a temporary majoritarian government can change the legal description of a republic so fundamentally that it necessarily begs every question now and in the future about the efficacy of socialism as the route to mass prosperity.[21]

Even so, `socialism’ is a vague and equivocal word, meaning different things to different people. Briefly, what happened in the Indian context seems to have been that the Nationalist Government explicitly took upon itself the responsibility of becoming the prime mover of the economic growth of the country. This was in addition to its other fundamental and urgent political responsibilities at the time, namely, to establish peace and civil order in the aftermath of a bloody partition, re-settle several million destitute refugees, integrate into the Republic the numerous principalities and fiefdoms run by the princes and potentates, re-draw provincial boundaries on a sensible linguistic criterion, and generally educate people about their rights and responsibilities as individual citizens in a new and democratic republic.

In a poor country which had just ended a long period of alien rule, it was understandable, if in advisable, that a nationalist government led by cultured, educated men among unlettered masses should take upon itself the responsibility for economic growth. Part of the nationalists’ critique of British rule had been precisely that it had worked to the considerable detriment of the Indian economy. And, certainly, whatever the exact calculation of the benefits and costs of the British presence in India, while there had been obvious benefits, there had also been obvious costs such as iniquitous taxes and overt racial discrimination in employment. [22]Thus, when the nationalists practically swore themselves to provide better government for the economy, it was certainly a very praiseworthy aim; 1947 would indeed be the year of India’s `tryst with destiny’.

Better government not necessarily more government
What the Nehru Government came to believe, however, was that better government for the economy necessarily meant more government activity in the economy. A similar nationalist government led by cultured, educated men among an unlettered public had chosen differently in 1776 at Philadelphia, but the times and circumstances were very different. The Indian nationalists, and most especially Prime Minister Nehru, had just witnessed what they took to be, on the one hand, the collapse of the market economy in the Great Depression and, on the other, the rapid growth to greatness of Bolshevik Russia. In his presidential address to the Congress in 1936, for instance, Nehru spoke of the immediate past in these terms: `Everywhere conflicts grew, and a great depression overwhelmed the world and there was a progressive deterioration, everywhere except in the wide flung Soviet territories of the USSR, where, in marked contrast with the rest of the world, astonishing progress was made in every direction . . .’ Thus, it seemed to him, there was`. . . no way of ending the poverty, the vast unemployment, the degradation, and the subjection of the Indian people except through Socialism”. Socialism meant, inter alia, ` the ending of private property, except in a restricted sense, and ttte repla emenr of the ,private profit system by a higher ideal of co-operative service. It means ultimately a change in our instincts and habits and desires. In short, it means a new civilisation, radically different from the present capitalist order. Some glimpse we can have of this new civilisation in the territories of the USSR. Much has happened there which has pained me greatly and with which I disagree, but I look upon that great and fascinating unfolding of anew order and a new civilisation as the most promising feature of our dismal age. If the future is full of hope it is largely because of Soviet Russia and what it has done, and I am convinced that, if some world catastrophe does not intervene, this new civilisation will spread to other lands and put an end to the wars and conflicts on which capitalism feeds’.[23]
Equally as certain and deep as his admiration for the liberal values of the West was Nehru’s evident misunderstanding of the causes and consequences of Stalin’s Russia. The political and economic history of India in the past 30 years cannot be understood without regard to her most powerful leader’s ambivalence about the nature of the political and economic good.
By the mid-1950s, many of India’s other prominent statesmen had died or retired from public life, and there was hardly a public figure of’ stature left (with the exception of Rajagopalachari) to challenge Nehru’s socialist vision of the country’s future. Moreover, men who were ostensibly `expert economists’, but whose writings revealed no knowledge of prices or markets or the concept of feasibility, were encouraged to endorse and embellish this vision, which they did without hesitation in the secure knowledge that they were shielded from critics by the intellectual patronage of a charismatic and elected leader.[24]
The choice between alternative models of mass economic prosperity must have seemed quite clear at the time. The cold fact did not, however, vanish that one of the oldest objective lessons of political economy has been that more government is not necessarily better government. It is to the consequences of ignoring this lesson that we now turn.

Part III: Practice
ECONOMIC POLICIES IN INDEPENDENT INDIA

INDIA TODAY is a bizarre maze of distorted incentives, which I (and no doubt others) have found very difficult to untangle and understand. I shall, however, list and discuss the most significant of them as methodically as I can.

(i) Industry
The Indian Government has declared a large `public sector’ in commerce and industry to be a national objective. Towards this end, it has therefore progressively acquired numerous enterprises, large and small, so that it now has either a full monopoly in an industry or is one of a few oligopolists. These industries range from banking, insurance, railways, airlines, cement, steel, chemicals, fertilisers and ship-building to making beer, soft drinks, telephones and wrist-watches. There are no explicit penalties for indefinite loss-making; indeed, bankrupt private enterprises have often been nationalised to serve politicians’ ends. And, certainly, there has been no general rule of marginal-cost pricing. In public utilities, like electricity generation and distribution or city buses and trams, prices appear to be well below marginal cost, leading to severe rationing and queueing. Sudden stoppages of electricity for hours at a time and monumental congestion on buses and trams have become endemic facts of life for millions of urban Indians.
At the same time, private industry in India has been made to face labyrinthine controls. The government has continually exhorted private firms to work in the `national interest’ – which means accepting the constraints of centralised planning. It has left no doubt that, while there is a `role’ for the min the growth of the economy, they exist at the sufferance of government and had better realise it, otherwise the dark forces of revolution which have so far been kept at bay will inevitably sweep them away altogether, as happened in Russia and China.
The constraints imposed on the operation of a private business are legion, and would make a businessman from the West or Far East reach for a psychiatrist or a pistol. An entrepreneur may not enter numerous industries without government approval of the `technical’ viability of his project; once it is approved, he cannot find credit except from a government bank; and he cannot buy raw materials and machinery of the highest quality at the lowest price since, if they are produced in India, he will be denied a licence to import better and/or cheaper foreign substitutes. The onus is on him to satisfy the government that no production occurs within India of the input he requires; only then will an import licence conceivably be granted, subject to periodic review by the government. He may be compelled to export a specified proportion of his output as a condition for the renewal of his import licence, which therefore places him at a disadvantage with foreign buyers who, of course, are aware of this restraint. He may be unable to compete internationally because the rupee is priced above its likely equilibrium and some of the inputs he uses are high-cost, low-quality domestic substitutes. As a result, he may be compelled practically to dump his output abroad at whatever price it will fetch.

The entrepreneur’s factory may be subject to random cuts in electricity for hours at a time. He may require government approval before he can increase his fixed capacity, modernise his plant, change a product-line, or even change the number of labour shifts. He may face minimum-wage and stringent unfair dismissal laws on the one hand, and price controls on the other. If he fails to meet credit obligations to the nationalised banks, he may be penalised by the appointment of one or more government directors to his board – a form of `creeping’ nationalisation. Further, he may be subjected to a constant threat of full nationalisation as and when the government decides that his industry should be in the public sector in the interests of national planning.[25]

The consequence of all these controls has been a monumental distortion of incentives away from encouraging private firms to try to attract customers by improving technology and quality or reducing prices towards encouraging them to concentrate on `rent-seeking’, in the term made familiar by Professors Gordon Tullock and James Buchanan.[26]

As Anne Krueger says in her excellent study of the automobile ancillary industry, the very notion of entrepreneurial efficiency changes in such circumstances: `Under conditions in India, the most important problem confronting entrepreneurs is that of assuring that production will continue. The combined effects of import licensing and investment licensing give virtually every firm a monopoly or quasi-monopoly position. The entrepreneur who is most successful in getting licences of greater value and/or in getting licences more quickly than his fellow producers will have higher profits. `The producer who does not compete successfully for licences cannot produce at all, no matter how skilled he is in achieving engineering efficiency, unless he enters the “open market” and pays a premium to the successful licence applicant for some materials . . . Successful entrepreneurs are therefore those who are best at obtaining the greatest number of licences most expeditiously . . .’ [27]

Moreover, firms which are low-cost and efficient (in the free market sense) and which are successful at rent-seeking as high-cost, inefficient firms may still not be able to compete the latter out of business because government will not usually allow a particular firm to expand – regardless of its efficiency – if there is excess capacity in the industry of which it is a part. High-cost firms can thereby rationally count on staying in business simply by maintaining significant excess capacity.

(ii) Foreign trade
The Government of India has always claimed that foreign exchange is a `scarce’ resource which must be rationed by fiat in the national interest. The total foreign-exchange revenue (at an exchange rate which was fixed until 1971 and has since been on a managed `peg’) has been allocated in the following order of priorities: first, to meet foreign debt repayments and government expenditures in the conduct of foreign policy, such as the maintenance of embassies (G1); secondly, to pay for imports of defence equipment, food, fertilisers and petroleum (G2); thirdly, to meet ear-marked payments for the imported inputs of public sector industries so that they may achieve projected production targets (G3); fourthly, to pay for the imported inputs of private sector firms which are
successful in obtaining import licences (P1); and, lastly, to satisfy the demands of the public at large for purposes such as travel abroad (P2).
Foreign exchange is `scarce’ in India, or elsewhere, in precisely the same sense that rice or petrol or cloth is scarce. Just as there exists some positive price for rice, petrol or cloth which, at any moment, will match total supplies with total demands, so there exists some positive price for rupees relative to dollars which, at any moment, will match the transaction and asset demands of Indians for dollars with the transaction and asset demands of foreigners for rupees. Underlying that market-clearing price would be (a) the demands of Indians for foreign goods whose f.o.b. prices were lower than those of domestic substitutes, and, similarly, the demands of foreigners for goods in which India has had a comparative advantage; and (b) the expectations of Indians and foreigners about the future purchasing power of the rupee relative to the dollar, using as a proxy, say, the difference between interest rates in India and abroad.

A free market in foreign exchange would first have encouraged India’s traditional exports, like jute manufactures and textiles, and then (if the positive theory of international trade is broadly correct)progressively encouraged the export of other non traditional goods which used India’s relatively inexpensive labour relatively intensively and thereby enabled Indian entrepreneurs to compete successfully in foreign markets. At the same time, capital flows into and out of India would have given the monetary authorities an incentive to keep domestic interest rates in line with the real opportunity cost of forgoing consumption in favour of savings.

Thus, the case against a free market in foreign exchange has always been, to say the least, far from obvious.[28] But even if, for the sake of argument, we accept the presumed superiority of rationing, the elementary theory of optimisation which underlies the so-called theory of `planning’ dictates that the government should allocate dollars between alternative uses such that the marginal dollar yields the same increase in social utility in any use. The Indian Government, however, appears to have allocated foreign exchange simply on the basis of giving a higher priority to its own foreign expenditures (categories Gl, G2 and G3) than to private foreign expenditures (categories Pl and P2). That is to say, regardless of how much social utility might have been derived from a particular increase in private-sector imports, it would not be considered until after the government had met all its own expenditures abroad.[29]
Jagdish Bhagwati and T. N. Srinivasan put it as follows : `The allocation of foreign exchange among alternative claimants and users in a direct control system . . .would presumably be with reference to a well-defined set of principles and criteria based on a system of priorities. In point of fact, however, there seem to have been few such criteria, if any, followed in practice.’[30]
With respect to imported inputs for private- and public-sector industries, a rule of `essentiality’ (that is, the input must be technically `essential’ to the production process) and a rule of `indigenous availability’(that is, there must be absolutely no domestically-produced physical substitutes, regardless of cost and quality)seem to have been followed. But, as Bhagwati and Srinivasan report, `. . . the sheer weight of numbers made any meaningful listing of priorities extremely difficult. The problem was Orwellian: all industries had priority and how was each sponsoring authority to argue that some industries had more priority than others? It is not surprising, therefore, that the agencies involved in determining allocations by industry fell back on vague notions of “fairness”, implying pro rata allocations with reference to capacity installed or employment, or shares defined by past import allocations or similar rules of thumb’. [31]

Clearly, in abjuring the free market and claiming a monopoly over foreign-exchange transactions, government planners have accepted certain premises as unquestionable: (a) that government sponsored industrialisation is the best means to mass prosperity; (b) that a policy of indefinite import-substitution is the best means to industrialisation; and (c) that such a policy requires all foreign expenditures by government to take precedence over all private foreign expenditures. The trade and foreign-exchange policies pursued cannot be understood except by reference to domestic economic policies and, in particular, to the view held about the proper functions of government in and out of the market-place.

In addition to a plethora of controls, tariffs and outright bans on imports, there have been erratic policies, subsidising the export of `new’, non-traditional manufactures like engineering goods, and taxing- and even banning – the export of goods in which India has traditionally enjoyed a comparative advantage.[32]

Moreover, the rupee has been continuously over-valued. From 1949 to 1959, the official exchange rate of Rs. 4.76 to the US dollar was, on average, 12..3 percent above the black-market rate, a figure which rose to 61 per cent between 1960 and 1965. From 1966 to 1970, the devalued official rate of Rs. 7.50 to the dollar was above the black-market rate by an average of 47.6 per cent, while from 1971 onwards the managed-peg rate has been above the black-market rate by an average of 24.3 per cent.[33]

Simple economics suggests that a free-market equilibrium rate would be somewhere between the black-market and official rates. An official exchange rate for the rupee fixed above that warranted by underlying relative demands for Indian and foreign goods, as well as by relative degrees of confidence in the rupee and the dollar, subsidises imports at the expense of exports. By discriminating in favour of its own foreign expenditures and against those of the private sector, the government has been the principal beneficiary of an over-valued rupee. If capital-intensive goods are the main imports and labour-intensive ones the main exports, an over-valued rupee further distorts incentives so as to favour the use of capital-intensive production processes over labour intensive ones – in a country with a demonstrable abundance of relatively inexpensive labour!
With an eye to India, Krueger has argued the general issue in these terms:`Subsidies can make any industry an export industry, even one that would not produce at all in an efficient allocation. Similarly, taxes can be levied on an industry that has comparative advantage which will penalize it enough to render domestic production entirely unprofitable. When taxes and subsidies are used, therefore, it is possible not only to distort the structure of production, but to distort it so much that the “wrong” commodities are exported.”[34]

The Indian Government’s planners have had the idea of forcibly effecting a reversal in the comparative advantage of the country, as if by magic overnight. The hope might have been that a forced pace of industrialisation would somehow allow economies of scale to be reaped and thus soon make Indian industrial goods competitive enough in international markets to be the country’s principal source of foreign exchange, displacing traditional manufactures like jute and textiles. In practice, however, as the evidence given by Bela Balassa
and other economists demonstrates, such a policy has not succeeded to date and is most unlikely ever to do so.
India’s import bill has risen continuously, most drastically after the 1973-74 quadrupling of petroleum prices; non-traditional manufactures have hardly been able to compete successfully in foreign markets; and the traditional exports of jute and textiles have suffered very severe setbacks. Balassa contrasts the consequences of the freer, outward-looking trade policies of South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan with those of the inward-looking, controlled regime of India as part of a study of 11 countries(including Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Chile, Israel and Yugoslavia) which, along with Hong Kong, account for most of the manufactured exports of developing countries. India’s share of the total manufactured exports of these countries has fallen steadily from 65.4 per cent in 1953 to 50.7 per cent in1960, to 31.2 per
cent in 1966 and to a mere 10.3 per cent in 1973. The proportion exported of India’s total manufactured output fell from 9.7 per cent in 1960 to 9.4 per cent in 1966 and to 8.6 per cent in1973. In contrast, during the same two periods, the proportion of manufactured output exported rose from1 to 14 to 41 per cent in South Korea, from 11 to 20 to 43 per cent in Singapore, and from 9 to 19 to 50 per cent in Taiwan.[35]
Balassa cogently argues that the adverse effects of a sudden change in external factors, such as the quadrupling of petroleum prices in 1973-74 or the 1974-75 Western recession, were absorbed much more easily by developing countries with large foreign-trade sectors than by those like India with relatively small ones: `Outward orientation is associated with high export and import shares that permit reduction in non-essential imports without serious adverse effects on the functioning of the economy. By contrast, continued inward orientation involves limiting imports to an unavoidable minimum, so that any further reduction will impose a considerable cost in terms of growth. Furthermore, the greater flexibility of the national economies of countries pursuing an outward-oriented strategy, under which firms learn to live with foreign competition, makes it possible to change the product composition of exports in response to changes in world market conditions, whereas inward orientation entails establishing a more rigid economic structure.’[36]
In other words, if imports are both high in total value and diverse in composition, a rise in the relative price of a particular import for which home demand is relatively inelastic (like petroleum and its products) can be accommodated by a substitution of expenditure towards it and away from inessential imports for which demand is relatively elastic. A similar argument had typically been advanced by advocates of import-substitution when they maintained that the exports of a small country should be diverse and not concentrated on only a few goods since a decline in world prices would otherwise lead to serious falls in export revenues. This suggests that both critics and advocates of import substitution might agree that, for a country which is a price-taker in world markets, the encouragement of a large foreign-trade sector is a way of diversifying the risk of adverse effects from changes in world prices. The question remains as to whether the positive theory of trade is correct in saying that the encouragement of comparative advantage is superior to import-substitution as a means of achieving a large foreign sector. From the contrasting experiences of, say, South Korea on the one hand and India on the other, the answer seems overwhelmingly to be that it is.

(iii) Agriculture
The Indian Government has instituted a multiple-pricing system for the major food-grains, especially rice and wheat. Farmers are compelled to sell a specified fraction of their output to the government, at a price fixed by the government which is significantly lower than that warranted by underlying supply and demand conditions. Farmers may sell the remainder of their output freely. The quantities the government acquires in this way, plus any it imports (imports being subsidised by the over-valuation of the exchange rate), are sold by ration at lower than free-market prices in the so-called `fair-price’ shops – which happen to be mainly in urban areas. Urban consumers may purchase part of their requirements from such shops and the remainder on the open market at higher prices. Astute middle-class urban housewives know that rationed grain is often of poorer quality than that sold on the open market. Accordingly, the former often constitutes part of the wages of the domestic servants of the urban household, while the family consumes the latter. Insofar as this is true, it suggests that farmers distinguish quality much better than do government officials, and that they use this advantage somewhat to partition their output into low- and high-quality, selling the first under compulsion to the government and the second on the open market.
While such is the general food policy of India, the compulsory procurement of grains and their distribution to the ration-shops is implemented by individual State governments and not by the Union Government. There have usually been numerous restrictions on inter-State movements of grain, so the States do not form a full customs union; instead, the Union Government tries to be a central clearing-house, matching the desired imports of one State with the desired exports of another.[37]

Economic effects of ban on futures contracts
Furthermore, futures contracts in grains have been banned by law, in the belief that futures trading is conducive to speculation and that speculation is undesirable. A futures contract in grain consists simply of a promise by a seller to deliver an amount of grain to a buyer at some specified date in the future in return for payment at a price agreed today. The seller’s incentive to enter into the contract is the guarantee of a certain sale, and the availability of funds now; the buyer’s incentive is the guarantee of a certain price for future deliveries. The contract may be entered into because buyer and seller have different expectations about what the spot price will be in the future. The buyer minimises his expected costs and the seller maximises his expected revenues; both are able to balance their budgets inter-temporally. Even if they have the same expectations about future spot prices, buyer and seller may still find it mutually profitable to enter into a futures contract as a way of insuring against risk. Forbidding such contracts by decree thus forces more risk onto both buyer and seller than they would normally be prepared to carry, and also induces them to balance their accounts in each period rather than it inter-temporally. Alternative kinds of credit markets become it relatively more lucrative, with the potential seller and buyer of futures wheat respectively borrowing and lending more than they would otherwise have done.[38]
The government has also expressed its determination to keep prices in ration-shops low. It has accordingly stockpiled large inventories of grain, apparently regardless of the costs of storage and spoilage or the alternative of holding larger foreign-exchange reserves to permit increased imports when necessary.

The ostensible, declared objective of all such policies has been to ensure that the poor do not suffer severe adverse income effects from sudden rises in the price of food resulting (it has been thought) from the contingencies of rainfall and the actions of speculative traders. It is, however, an open secret that the policies have really been a means of (a) taxing farmers, who pay a smaller percentage of their income in direct and indirect taxes than do urban dwellers, and (b) subsidising urban consumers, who broadly comprise the industrial working class and the middle in classes.
At the same time, however, the government and its advisers — after the considerable hesitation recorded by David Hopper [39]- have also accepted that the best long-run prospects for increasing agricultural productivity lie in modernising traditional farming techniques. Given the outstanding results of the Green Revolution in wheat, they could hardly have arrived at any other conclusion. The problem from the government’s point of view has been, as a sympathetic economist puts it “…how to procure a sufficient quantity of food grains at reasonable prices without jeopardising the farmers’ incentives to produce more”.[40]

Thus, while taxing farmers de facto on their output, on the one hand, the government has tried, on the other, to promote the use of modern inputs by subsidizing them both directly and through low-interest loans from the banks for such investment.
Distortions of incentives in agriculture
The distortions of efficient incentives caused by such policies are not difficult to see. First, the low output prices of wheat and rice have, in effect, been discriminatory taxes on wheat. As Edward Schuh remarks, these discourage the production of `. . . the very crops that policy-makers believe the vulnerable groups should have greater access to . . .’[41]

Vasant Sukhatme and Theodore Schultz have argued that, even between wheat and rice, there has been severe discrimination in favour of the former. At the official over-valued exchange rate, the price of domestic wheat has been significantly higher than imported, while at open-market rates for the rupee, the domestic price approximated the import price. For rice, however, the domestic price has been consistently below the import price. Sukhatme estimated that the dead weight loss in welfare from the under pricing of rice amounted to 8.5 per cent of total agricultural income in 1967-68 and to 2.2 per cent in 1970-71. He also calculated effective rates of protection, which were strongly negative for rice whether at official or open-market exchange rates and positive for wheat at the official exchange rate. Both he and Schultz conclude that the discrimination against rice has been a major factor in explaining the absence of a Green Revolution in rice on the scale of that in wheat.[42]
Secondly, the main beneficiaries of government subsidies for modern inputs have evidently been not the many small farmers but the fewer relatively large ones. As Gilbert Brown reports :`Large-scale farmers buy most subsidised inputs. Poorer farmers usually lack the money to buy adequate amounts of fertiliser and pesticides, and are commonly unable to get credit except at near-prohibitive rates of often 60% to 100% per year. Even in countries with subsidised bank credit for agriculture, rich farmers get most of the credit because of legal or administrative restrictions and/ or through open or disguised bribery. Credit and subsidy programmes for tractors, tube wells and other fixed investments also go mostly to the largest and richest farmers . . .Water is also a subsidised input . . . The farmers who receive this subsidised water generally have substantially higher incomes (because of the water) than farmers without access to public irrigation. Thus, claims that water should be subsidised to help small farmers misses the point that most farmers with irrigation have higher incomes than those who do not.’[43]
Brown argues that subsidies for inputs have been made necessary only to offset the forced depression of output prices. Moreover, the social benefit from subsidising inputs is limited to when the input is first introduced: ‘Once the benefits and technique of using the input are widely known, however, the continuation of such subsidies serves largely to increase the benefit-cost ratio of using the input . . .’.
Whether it is better to continue with artificially low input and output prices or to adjust towards a free market in both must take into account that the subsidies have encouraged more capital-intensity in production, and also that the `. . . low prices of certain inputs, particularly water, are often associated with widespread waste and inefficient use of the resource’.[44]
Thirdly, the farmer who is too small to find investment in storage facilities profitable may also consider it not worth his while to hold any of his output for sale on the open market. He will then sell it all to the government – at a below-market price.
A general conclusion would seem to be that, if the combined effect of input subsidies and forced grain sales to government has been a net subsidy to agriculture, then it has been a progressive subsidy; whereas if the combined effect has been a net tax on agriculture, then it has been a regressive tax. The Marxists may be quite right to protest that what gains there have been in agriculture have accrued to the relatively larger farmers, while smaller peasants and farmers are becoming landless labourers in growing numbers as a result of bankruptcy (that is, there has been increasing `rural proletarianisation’, to use the Marxists’ picturesque phrase). But if this is true, the cause can be traced unambiguously to the Indian Government’s belief – vociferously shared by the Marxists – that the way towards the declared objective of helping the poor is by extensive interference in the price system. Besides, the industrial working class demonstrably benefits from low food prices, so the honest Marxist must face up to being torn by divided loyalties between the rural and the urban proletariats.

Srinivasan put it as follows in a 1974 survey article :`The public distribution system with respect to foodgrains . . . operated to the benefit of all those living in metropolitan cities and other large urban concentrations while all others, including rich and poor in relatively small urban and almost all rural areas, did not benefit at all. When one recalls that the rural population includes the most abject among the poor, namely landless workers, the inequity of the system becomes glaring. And in urban areas, the existence of the system and the fact that the ration is often inadequate provides incentives for a household to falsify the data on its size and age composition given to the rationing authorities, as well as to create bogus or ghost ration-cards, not to speak of the corruption of the personnel manning the rationing administration.’[45]

The history of the extensive control of agriculture – which has included a partial government monopsony, forcibly-depressed output prices, inter-State restrictions on grain movements, and urban ration-shops – can be traced to the last years of British rule, as an attempt to bolster the popularity of the imperial regime. [46] The continuation and reinforcement of statism in agriculture in independent India has evidently rested on certain premises, namely, that the private market would be grossly inefficient and would be dominated by a few traders continually reaping large speculative profits, with both the small farmer and the ordinary consumer suffering in consequence.

Uma Lele’s fine study of the private grain trade, however, shows the real picture to be quite different. She found that the trade was highly competitive, that individual traders were rational agents (given the constraints of technology and government policy), that location price differences closely reflected transport costs, and that temporal price differences closely reflected storage costs. She argued that, while there was considerable scope for government activity, it should be in the form, not of interfering in the competitive market, but rather of encouraging the market to work – by, for example, disseminating relevant information such as crop forecasts, standardising weights and measures, constructing or improving roads and encouraging efficiency in the market for the transport of grain, etc.[47]

The evident neglect of such findings as these, and the continued application of policies inimical to competition and the free market, suggest that successive governments of independent India have been hardly more concerned for the rural poor – whether as farmer or consumer – and hardly less concerned with bolstering their popularity in the urban areas than were the British.

(iv) Employment
An obvious consequence of the economic policies described above has been the distortion of the individual citizen’s calculation of the expected benefits and costs of living and working in urban areas compared with the rural countryside. The forced depression of output prices in agriculture and the plethora of foreign-trade policies which discriminate against agriculture certainly seem to have artificially depressed the expected incomes of farmers. At the same time, a large `public sector’ in industry, plus the array of foreign-trade policies which have protected private industry, plus the indirect subsidisation of food sold in urban ration-shops certainly seem to have artificially raised expected urban incomes. Predictably, the reaction has been a vast and continuing net migration from the villages to the towns and cities, even after adjusting for the seasonal nature of agriculture. This drift has been the subject of much inquiry and discussion by development economists.[48] I propose to set it aside and examine instead a different aspect of employment policy which has not received nearly as much attention, namely, the consequences of putting into effect the clauses in the 1950 Indian Constitution mentioned above which authorised discrimination in employment and public education in favour of the `Scheduled’ castes and tribes, as well as other policies which discriminate on grounds of ethnic origin.

The consequences have been similar in several respects to those in America of `affirmative action’ towards so-called `racial minorities’, and it will be useful to draw out the analogy a little. As Thomas Sowell has cogently argued in recent years, the racial composition of contemporary American society is a complex mosaic, and no-one can say with certainty how it has come to be what it is today. In such circumstances, for the government to try to isolate a single contingent characteristic like `race’, partition society on the basis of census data according to this characteristic, and then construct public policies accordingly, is to introduce an enormous arbitrariness into economic life. By merely defining a group by reference to a single contingent characteristic, which all its members seem to possess, the intrinsic complexity of the individual person is lost or overlooked. Two members of the same race may be very different from each other in every relevant characteristic (income, education, political preference, and so on), and indeed resemble members of other races more closely in them. A policy which introduces a citizen’s race as a relevant factor in the assignment of jobs or college places partitions the citizenry into vague groups : members of groups who are very different from members of other groups in characteristics other than race rarely competing with each other anyway, while the burden and beneficence of the state’s policies fall on members of groups who are not very different from members of other groups in characteristics other than race: `. . . costs are borne disproportionately by those members of the general population who meet those standards with the least margin and are therefore most likely to be the ones displaced to make room for minority applicants. Those who meet the standards by the widest margin are not directly affected – that is, pay no costs. They are hired, admitted or promoted as if blacks did not exist. People from families with the most general ability to pay also have the most ability to pay for the kind of education and training that makes such performance possible. The costs of special standards are paid by those who do not. Among the black population, those most likely to benefit from the lower standards are those closest to meeting the normal standards. It is essentially an implicit transfer of wealth among people least different in non-racial characteristics. For the white population it is a regressively graduated tax in kind, imposed on those who are rising but not on those already on top.’[49]
At the same time, there is, in effect, a progressively graduated subsidy for members of the `minority’ group in favour of those who are already closest to meeting the general standards. Those in the mainstream of each group are largely unaffected; it is at the margins of competition that the bitterness caused by such policies will be felt and will manifest itself. It would seem that the situation in India – where the racial mosaic is if anything more complex than in America – is somewhat analogous. In recent years there has been civil tension and violence in the streets as poor Muslims, `caste’ Hindus, Sikhs and others have protested at being edged out of jobs and promotions by equally poor, or wealthier, members of the `Scheduled Castes’. In March-April 1981, for instance, there was widespread civil tension and violence in Gujarat over the reservation of places in the State’s medical colleges. A quarter of these places were statutorily reserved for members of the `Scheduled Castes’, with any not taken up by qualified candidates from these groups accruing to them in the future, thereby rapidly excluding from general competition as many as half the total number of places.[50]

The cruel paradox is that, while the position of many members (perhaps the vast majority) of the `Scheduled Castes’ vis-à-vis `caste’ Hindus remains one of degradation and persecution – quite regardless of the constitutional guarantees of equality in the eyes of the law – the relatively few who have succeeded in taking advantage of the discriminatory statutes have aroused the indignation of those who have not -causing even more animosity towards the `Scheduled Castes’ in general. One commentator observes the emergence of a `new elite’ among the `Scheduled Castes’ which `ceases to identify with its caste brethren’; while, at the same time, the law on equality `is so widely flouted precisely because the Scheduled Castes have not the means or courage to seek its protection . . .’ He concludes :`Contrived gestures such as are now popular will either not benefit [the Scheduled Castes] . . . or will do so only by further lowering already deplorable academic and administrative standards’. [51]
Moreover, when all government posts are advertised with a caveat that 10 or 15 per cent of themare reserved for members of the `Scheduled Castes’ and `Scheduled Tribes’, there is a considerable incentive for people to persuade Parliament to declare them as being such. And that also has happened. Discrimination in employment on the ground of caste has not been the only kind of discrimination practised by the Indian state. In what may be the most thorough study currently available on the origins, consequences and legal history of official discrimination in India, Weiner, Katzenstein and Rao have described the plethora of policies pursued by the central and state governments which have used not caste but ethnic origin as a criterion for public employment (with the private sector also often being `encouraged’ to follow suit) :`Preferences are given to those who belong to the “local” community, with “local” understood as referring to the numerically dominant linguistic group in the locality.’ [52] The authors conclude that what is emerging in India is`. . . a government-regulated labour market in which various ethnic groups are given a reserved share of that market. Competition for employment is thus not among all Indians, but within specified linguistic, caste, and tribal groups.`. . . various ethnic groups, therefore, fight politically for a share of that labour market. The major political struggles are often over who should get reservations, how the boundaries of the ethnic groups should be defined, and how large their share should be. There are also political struggles over whether there should be reservations in both education and employment, in private as well as in public employment, and in promotions as well as hiring. The preferential policies themselves have thus stimulated various ethnic groups to assert their “rights” to reservations.’[53]

It is not difficult to understand the general economic argument against discrimination on grounds such as caste or ethnic origin. If a private employer indulges a personal preference to hire only people of an kind A when there are more able or better qualified candidates of other ethnic kinds B, C, D, . . . ,available, and if the product of his firm is subject to competition in the market from other enterprises which do not discriminate on criteria which are irrelevant to economic efficiency, we may confidently expect the discriminating employer’s product to become uncompetitive and his profits to fall. The best and most obvious example of this would be in the professional sports industry in the USA : a `whites-only’ basketball or football team would be immediately vanquished on the games-field into bankruptcy. If government pursues employment policies which discriminate according to economically irrational criteria such as caste or ethnic origin, or if it forces all private firms to do likewise, there will certainly be inefficiency resulting in a loss of real aggregate output in the economy. In the terms of modern economics, a vector of total outputs which would be feasible given the parameters of the economy, and which would leave everyone either better off or at least no worse off, would not be achieved. In sum, the consequence of direct and widespread government interference in the labour market in India appears to have been, not only a disregard for the principle of equality before the law for every citizen (in a nascent republic of immensely diverse peoples), but also a loss of real output and an enormous `politicisation’ of economic life whereby individual success becomes increasingly tied to political power and increasingly removed from personal merit, enterprise and effort. In addition, the composition of occupations in the economy has been indirectly distorted by the set of industrial, agricultural and foreign-trade policies pursued by successive governments.

6. THE MALFUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT

IT MIGHT be thought that a large and flabby `public sector’ in industry and commerce, labyrinthine controls on private industry, a government monopoly of foreign-exchange dealings, the overvaluation of the currency, indefinite import-substitution, forcibly depressed output and input prices in agriculture, enormous politicization of the labour market, disregard for equality before the law, and distortion of the composition of occupations would constitute a sufficient catalogue of symptoms of grave illness in the political economy of a nation. Sadly, however, there are in modern India other symptoms too which I can mention only briefly here.
An opinion frequently encountered among urban Indians (as well as among the majority of Western development economists) is that government control over the size of the population is a necessary condition for economic development, and indeed that it is the failure of government to do this that has dissipated the economic growth that would otherwise have resulted from the economic policies pursued. The urban Indian witnesses the hovels and shanty-towns inhabited by migrant families from the countryside attracted by the policies discussed previously, and he experiences the resulting congestion. So does the Western development economist when he ventures out of his hotel into the city streets. Very often, that is his only personal experience of the legendary `poor masses’ of India. It is understandable that such princely discomfiture should lead him to the opinion that the poor are mindless in their breeding habits and that they must be persuaded, bullied or compelled to change. If this opinion were true, it would seem to point to a neat and simple solution to many of the woes of poor countries, and India in particular. But if the opinion is false and yet widely believed, it would cause governments to be, as it were, barking up the wrong tree.
It is, however, far from established, and certainly not at all obvious, that demographic control is either necessary or desirable in India or elsewhere. In the first place, when the rate of infant mortality is known and experienced by rural people to be high, there will be mare births than there would have been otherwise. Secondly, it is perfectly clear that children are an investment good in traditional societies such as those of rural India. Even young children are a source of family income, either directly by working outside the home or indirectly by working at domestic chores and thereby releasing adult members of the family for outside work. For a child to be absent from primary school or to drop out within a few years is not necessarily truancy; it may be the outcome of a rational economic calculation about where his time may be better spent towards increasing the household’s income. Furthermore, in traditional societies adult children are the principal source of support for elderly and retired parents.
To know of the existence of artificial measures of contraception certainly enlarges the alternatives open to a couple. Assuming that such knowledge is not in itself a cause of unhappiness (as it can be if there are conflicting religious commitments), a couple may certainly be better off with that knowledge because of their ability to control the number and timing of their children. The couple might also have fewer children – though there is no necessary or causal connection between a knowledge of contraception and the number of children born to a couple. Rational calculation may produce the same number of children as the caprice of nature, the implication being that in general there is no causal connection between the availability of contraceptives and the rate of growth of the population. The value of a public policy which encourages the use of artificial contraception is not so much that it reduces the number of births as that it may allow couples more control over their own lives. Whether or not artificial contraception should be publicly subsidised is quite another question.
The Indian Government has expended considerable resources in propagating and subsidizing artificial birth control. The results appear to have been, at best, indifferent (coupled as birth control has been with indirect incentives for large families and, at worst, cruel – as when frenetic zeal spilled over into demands for, and the implementation of, compulsory sterilisation. For this author, however, the important consideration would seem to be not so much the exact costs and benefits of the demographic policies pursued as the critical acknowledgement that they have little or nothing to do with the fundamental causes of mass economic development.[54]
It remains a stark paradox that, with a general literacy rate of perhaps 30 per cent [NB: In 2007, this has grown to 73% for males and 48% for females] India still produces the third largest absolute number of science and engineering graduates in the world. This reflects the lopsidedness of the educational system, continued from British times, in which higher education is enormously subsidised relative to primary education. In addition, entry into the civil services requires a college or university education, which in turn requires a good private secondary school education, which in turn requires a good preparatory school education. Strenuously competing to enter prep. school, with the help of outside tutoring, is the unhappy fate of many a five- or six-year-old in the towns and cities, followed by strenuous competition in secondary school, college and university, and finally at the doorstep of government (or a foreign university).
A job in government – any job in government – has carried prestige since Mughal times. In addition to the prestige and the obvious benefits of tenure where ether `decent’ jobs are scarce, there has been in recent times the inner satisfaction from a belief that a person can truly do his best for his country only by being in government. Tens of thousands of youths spend significant personal resources (such as whole years in cramming schools) to compete for a few annual openings in government. It is only to be expected that the competent, ambitious, patriotic youth who succeeds will mature into a respected mandarin with an unshakeable conviction in the good his government has done for the masses, and in the further good yet in prospect.
Failure to anticipate monsoon damage and disarray of the judicial system
The most serious examples of the malfunctioning of civil government in India are probably the failure to take feasible public precautions against the monsoons and the disarray of the judicial system. Official estimates, for instance, of the damage caused by flooding to homes, crops and public utilities in a few weeks of July-August 1981 alone amounted to over Rs 1 billion, with 10.8 million people `affected’, 35,000 head of cattle lost, and 195,000 homes damaged. The full magnitude of the devastation which annually visits vast areas can be understood perhaps only by those in rural India, although the towns and cities also regularly suffer considerable chaos. [55] [NB 2007: Monsoon prediction appears far better today than it was when these words were written.]
As for the disarray of the judicial system, The Statesman lamented in July 1980:`The simplest matter takes an inordinate amount of time, remedies seldom being available to those without means or influence. Of the more than 16,000 cases pending in the Supreme Court, about 5,000 were introduced more than five years ago; while nearly 16,000 of the backlog of more than 600,000 cases in our high courts have been hanging fire for over a decade. Allahabad is the worst offender but there are about 75,000 uncleared cases in the Calcutta High Court in addition to well over a million in West Bengal’s lower courts.”[56] Such a state of affairs has been caused not only by lazy and corrupt policemen, court clerks and lawyers, but also by the paucity of judges and magistrates. In addition, however,`. . . a vast volume of laws provokes endless litigation as much because of poor drafting which leads to disputes over interpretation as because they appear to violate particular rights and privileges. Land legislation offers an example of radical zeal running away with legal good sense, giving rise to thousands of suits against the Government . . .’ [57] When governments determinedly do what they need not or should not do, it may be expected that they will fail to do what civil government positively should be doing. In a sentence, that has been the tragedy of modern India.

Part IV : Reform
A LIBERAL AGENDA

IT WILL by now have become evident to the reader from the descriptions and arguments given above that, in the judgement of the present author, only a set of radical changes in policy can put the Indian economy on a path to higher mass prosperity within a free and healthy body politic. I shall therefore put forward a tentative manifesto for reform, adding some predictions about which classes of citizens would be most likely to support or oppose a particular proposal. The scope and intention of such a manifesto should be made clear at the outset. As Aristotle taught, a set of actions which are the means towards certain ends may themselves be the ends towards which other prior means have to be taken.[58]
The ultimate ends of economic advice in India are to seek to bring about mass prosperity under conditions of individual freedom. The proposals I which follow are to be construed as means towards those ultimate ends. But they also constitute a set of intermediate ends, and their implementation would require further judgement about the best means towards achieving them. In economic policy, for instance, a firm but gradual phasing-in over a period of three or four years may be the best way to minimise the hardships entailed by the adjustment. For reasons which will become clear, however, I shall not here try to answer the question as to how the proposals might best be implemented.

(a) Effects of foreign policy on the domestic economy
It will be useful to begin with a short and very incomplete consideration of foreign policy insofar as it may bear upon domestic economic policies. It is a settled fact of international politics that, while there is no obvious connection between a nation’s economic and political institutions and the choice of strategic allies it faces, people’s subjective perceptions and opinions of the social arrangements in a foreign country can be deeply influenced by whether that country is seen as a potential ally or adversary. A related and equally settled fact is that war, or the fear of war, can make for the most incongruous of bed-fellows. In contemporary India, it is quite evident that the antipathy and pessimism towards market institutions found among the urban public, and the sympathy and optimism to be found for collectivist or statist ones, has been caused to a very significant extent by the perception that the United States is relatively hostile towards India while the Soviet Union is relatively friendly. This was not always so. The official affection between the United States and India in the early years of the Republic was grounded in sincerity and goodwill. The roots of its demise are probably to be found in the split between the Soviet Union and China in the late 1950s which, in a short period of time, made the latter a valuable strategically for the United States against the former. By the early 1970s, the spectre of a joint military threat to India from a totalitarian China and a militarist Pakistan – and especially a threat which it was perceived democratic America would do little or nothing to thwart – made it prudent for democratic India to become the virtual ally of totalitarian Russia.
Such a configuration on the international chess-board need not have been detrimental to India’s economic development. It is possible to imagine a liberal state allied to a totalitarian one for strategic reasons, yet maintaining liberal economic policies domestically and internationally. In practice[58], however, the extent of `economic collaboration’, bilateral trading arrangements, `joint ventures’, barter agreements, `cultural exchanges’, and the like into which the Indian Government has entered with the Soviet bloc, appears significantly to exceed what it has achieved with the Western powers. In particular, Soviet arms have in recent years been purchased more often and then manufactured under licence. This too need not have been economically detrimental if the Soviet products had in practice been competitive on international markets in terms of price and quality. As is common knowledge, however, this is often not so. It therefore appears that part of the price India has had to pay for the strategic support of the Soviet Union has been the foisting on her of low-quality, high-priced Soviet goods, whether arms or steel mills or technical know-how. At the same time, for reasons which are partly historical and partly related to these considerations, direct foreign investment by private Western firms has been treated with, at best, coolness and, at worst, open hostility.

A change in India’s foreign policy
If the economic liberalisation that will be proposed here for India is to be effective, a truly independent yet prudent foreign policy may be required to accompany it. A change in the present strategic configuration – in which the United States is perceived in India to be virtually the ally of both China and Pakistan, while India is perceived in the United States to be virtually the ally of the Soviet Union – is unlikely until and unless the United States finds it in her best interests in the region to distance herself from China and Pakistan, which is unlikely to happen without a rapprochement between the Soviet Union and China. A drastic alternative way for India to reduce her dependence upon the Soviet Union would be the kind of divorce Egypt effected some years ago, followed by an alliance with the Western powers. This might, however, undermine once more the independence of foreign policy and be perceived in India as a move from the devil to the deep sea. The prudent remaining alternative would appear to be an earnest and vigorous pursuit of serious no-war pacts with Pakistan and China, combined with an appropriately small independent nuclear deterrent. It seems to the author that the reasons which commend this course are closely analogous to those offered by the present American and British governments for pursuing serious no-war negotiations with the Soviet bloc whilst simultaneously improving the Western nuclear deterrent.
(b) Liberalisation of foreign trade
Not only would the truly independent foreign policy proposed in the preceding paragraph allow India to distance herself from the Soviet Union; it would probably also prompt the Western powers to end the intergovernmental transfers which go by the name of `foreign aid’. For reasons that Peter Bauer has emphasised over many years, an end to such transfers might be a boon in disguise for India.[59] In particular, it would require the government to seek to balance the foreign-exchange accounts without becoming obligated to the Western powers, and this in turn would require a major economic transformation from a closed and protectionist economy to an open one which harnessed India’s comparative advantages.
An initial liberalisation of foreign trade, involving a transition from quotas to tariffs, would probably be supported by private industry as a whole. It would, however, be opposed by incumbent politicians and government officials since it would dissipate the rents they receive under the closed regime. A subsequent reduction in tariffs, a withdrawal of export subsidies, and the free floating of the rupee would be opposed by those private firms (and their labour unions) which would be uncompetitive internationally – probably those in `non-traditional’ industries. The measures would, however, be supported by ordinary consumers, by private firms in traditional industries like jute manufactures and textiles, and particularly by farmers.
Once private industry became subject to the strict discipline of international competition again, there would be no reason whatsoever for government-imposed internal controls which were not conducive to free and fair competition among firms for the consumer’s rupee. The repeal of the plethora of licensing policies would dissipate the large rents attached to the controls under the present regime. Since these rents are paid by private industry and received, directly or indirectly, by incumbent politicians and government officials, the former could be expected to welcome repeal and the latter to oppose it vigorously.

(c) Privatisation of `public-sector’ industries
At the same time, for the so-called `public-sector’ industries to face international competition, when they are currently monopolists or oligopolists, would demand such an improvement in economic discipline as probably to require the shares of most of them to be sold on the open market, with marginal-cost pricing imposed on the remainder. There is no economic reason why the Government of India shouldbe engaged in commercial or merchant banking and insurance, or in industries from steel, machine-tools, ship-building and fertilisers to wrist-watches, hotels and beer. Nor is there any cogent reason why it should be a major producer, let alone a monopolist, in the road, rail, air and sea transport industries. Large-scale privatisation would be supported by private citizens in general, and would also draw out the reputedly vast private funds which circulate in the untaxable underground economy. But such measures would probably be opposed vigorously by the government officials who currently manage these industries, aswell as by the public-sector labour unions.

(d) Free-market pricing in agriculture
With the repudiation of the mistaken premise that government sponsored industrialisation is the best means to mass economic development, the free-market pricing of agricultural outputs and the removal of all controls that are not conducive to free competition among farmers should follow. This would be welcomed by all farmers and perhaps by the rural population in general. It could also be expected to provide much encouragement to the technological transformation of traditional agriculture. The abolition of ration-shops in urban areas would be opposed by the industrial working class, by the urban middle classes in general, and by government officials and employees engaged in the present regime of public distribution. Further, farmers, especially relatively large ones, might be expected to oppose the concomitant free-market pricing of agricultural inputs, including credit and fertilisers, as would those government employees presently charged with distributing these inputs.
The ending of the distortions in agricultural output and input prices would establish a conclusive case for uniform systems of taxation in the economy, and especially for income from agriculture to be treated on a par with income from other occupations. These systems could locally include direct subsidies to those (whether in rural or urban areas) who are unable to provide any income for themselves, such as the insane and the severely disabled – all of whom are currently cared for, if at all, by private charity, and none of whom, strangely enough, appears to enter the moral calculations of socialist and Marxist economists.

(e) Tax revenues for public goods
The first and most important destination of tax revenues, whether raised centrally, provincially or locally, must be the provision of public goods – central, provincial and local. In an earlier section, we have seen what kinds of goods these should be. Among the most urgent in India are more effective precautions against the monsoons and improvements in the efficiency of the systems of civil and criminal justice. The former might include measures to prevent soil erosion and the building of better dams, embankments, canals and roads. Such programmes would be likely to command practically unanimous support in the localities in which they were implemented.
Reforms of the judicial system might include raising the salaries of judges and policemen, as well as the penalties for their misconduct; improving the training and morale of the police, with the object of increasing public confidence in them (especially in the villages); and expanding the number of courts, at least temporarily until the monumental backlog of cases has been reduced and brought under control. A general reduction in the political and administrative direction of economic life would lead to fewer lawsuits being brought against the government itself, and thus provide further relief for the judiciary. Widespread prison reform may also be required if the reports are true that a large proportion of those held prisoner for a number of years have yet to be brought to trial, and that potential prosecution witnesses, if they are poor and uneducated, are themselves sometimes kept in jail until a case comes to court. Such reforms would command the support of everyone except criminals, capricious litigants and corrupt or incompetent members of the police and judiciary, none of which groups, it must be supposed, comprises apolitical constituency.

Together with improvements in the system of justice, the principle of equality before the law would have to be taken seriously. This would require the dispensation of justice by the state to be, as it were, a process blind to the infinitely diverse caste and ethnic characteristics of the citizenry, which in turn would imply the repeal of all laws – whether central, provincial or local – permitting governmental authorities to discriminate in favour of a particular politically-specified caste or ethnic group. Merely to have written `equality before the law’ into the Constitution without really believing it either possible or desirable is to allow the mutual caste and ethnic bigotry of private citizens to be exploited for political ends. That innumerable members of a caste, or religious or ethnic community have suffered at the hands of another, and that members of the `Scheduled Castes’ in particular have been victims of enormous cruelty, should not prevent acknowledgement of the sober fact that the past is irretrievable, or that it is similar cruelty in the present and future against any citizen at the hands of any other, or the state, that the declaration of Fundamental Rights was intended to prevent.

(f) Other reforms
Other proposals could also be suggested : the introduction of vouchers for primary and secondary education; a serious assessment of the benefits from and costs of subsidies to higher education; an end to the government monopoly of radio and television; a revision of government pay-scales to make them competitive with the private sector, together with equivalent reductions in non pecuniary benefits; a decentralisation of public spending decisions from New Delhi to the State capitals and from there to the districts; and so on. However, it is hardly necessary to go further, since even a limited liberal agenda would appear doomed to be still-born.
Incumbent politicians, government officials, and the public sector unions in general would vigorously oppose any reduction in government intervention in the economy for fear of losing the rents and sinecures of the status quo. Indeed, professional politicians in general could be expected to be averse to any lessening of the politicisation of economic life.
In other countries, a political party proposing such a reduction in government intervention would usually enjoy the backing of private industry. In India, however, private industry in general would probably see it in its own interest to support only the reduction of internal controls, whilst vigorously opposing reductions in the neo-mercantilist external controls. In July 1981, for example, I asked a prominent industrialist to imagine first a free-market regime at home : `That would be very welcome indeed’, he replied enthusiastically. I then asked him to imagine a policy of free trade : `That would wipe us out’, he replied gravely. His answers indicate very well what is perhaps the single most important feature of the equilibrium that has emerged in India: by accepting without significant protest the constraints and costs imposed upon it by the government and its `planners’, the private corporate sector has traded the freedom of enterprise for mercantilist monopoly profits in the home market.
When Indian Marxists rail about collusion between the `national bourgeoisie’ (that is, the governmental class) and the `comprador bourgeoisie’ (that is, the private sector), they make a cogent point as old as Adam Smith’s critique of mercantilism.[60] But, again, they fail to see that the fortunes of the industrial working-class have also risen with those of the private and public industries that have gained from the present regime. Moreover, a large proportion of industrial workers and blue-collar government employees are migrants with families left behind in rural areas; these rural families might also oppose reductions in the transfers currently received by their migrant relatives. Finally, while joining other farmers in welcoming a free market in grain, the politically influential larger farmers could be expected to oppose the direct taxation of agricultural incomes and the elimination of subsidies for inputs.

Who is left who would gain from the kinds of reforms proposed here? Only the ordinary citizen qua consumer, the rural poor and the residuum of severely disabled citizens unable to create any income for themselves. None of these has been or is likely to become an effective political force.

India’s `unhappy equilibrium’
The economy of the first Indian Republic has tended towards a broad and increasingly unhappy equilibrium. Distortions of efficient relative prices and wages lead to both substitution and income effects. Those who lose from one distortion rationally seek another from which they may gain; those who lose from the second seek a third; and so on ad infinitum until a maze of distorted incentives are in place and a60Adam Smith, host of income transfers are in progress – sometimes offsetting losses, sometimes not. Tullock has emphasised that the problem is not only that there are dead-weight losses in welfare, but also that people are led `. . . to employ resources in attempting to obtain or prevent such transfers.’[61] In modern India, the waste of productive resources put to the pursuit of such transfers has been incalculable. The reforms pro-posed here would cut through the maze of distorted incentives and institutions all at once – for which very reason it seems unlikely they can come to be implemented.

The economic significance of a political attitude of individualism is that it clearly recognises the relationship between individual effort and reward, and the relationship between cause and consequence generally. An attitude of statism obscures or obliterates this relationship. In republican India, statism has pervaded all public discourse and prompted most public policy. Successive groups of politicians and government officials seem never to have recognised the fundamental nature of those functions of government which are the indispensable prerequisites of civil peace and mass prosperity. Nor have they understood that it is no part of government’s agenda to be the driving force to mass prosperity, and that this can come (if it will) only from innumerable individual efforts in the pursuit of private rewards. This is not at all to say that those in government have been ill-intentioned. On the contrary, they may have sincerely sought the public good whilst introducing a Leviathan government into the market-place and neglecting the proper duties of government outside it. As Bauer has remarked in a related context :`Their financial benefits may appear to be fortuitous, as if Adam Smith’s invisible hand were to work in reverse, so that those who sought the public good achieve what was no part of their intention, namely personal prosperity.’[62] It is indeed possible that the basic fact of human nature that individual households every where ordinarily know most about, and are only concerned with, their own well-being has never been acknowledged in modern India. The simple secret of a stable and prosperous polity is to create institutions which harness the universal pursuit of individual self interest, and not ones which pretend that men are selfless saints. A polity where this fact is acknowledged would not have to depend for the viability of its institutions on mere exhortation, as the institutions of the Indian Republic seem perpetually fated to do, even while the competitive pursuit of self interest is everywhere manifest.

The logic of economic reasoning and the adducement of economic evidence have in the past had little effect in India because the distribution of gains and losses from the policies pursued has been closely matched by the distribution of effective political power. This distribution seems most likely to continue, and so the prospects of significant and sustained endogenous reform seem, to this author at least, very small. Changes in external constraints seem to be the only likely source of a major disturbance to the equilibrium, and there can be no guarantee that the results will be for the better. This is a sad and troubling conclusion to come to, for a citizen of India or anyone else who has loved the country. It places this author in the paradoxical position of believing his arguments to be broadly correct – while hoping they are not.

ENDNOTES (The original monograph in 1984 had footnotes, which have had to be transformed since pages, in this new HTML age, no longer have to be linear as in a book nor have to be turned in order to be read).

[1] The early studies notably include: B. R. Shenoy, `A note of dissent’, Papers relating to the formulation of the Second Five-Year Plan, Government of India Planning Commission, Delhi, 1955; Indian Planning and Economic Development, Asia Publishing, Bombay, 1963, especially pp. 17-53; P. T. Bauer, Indian Economic Policy and Development, George Allen & Unwin, London, 1961; M. Friedman, unpublished memorandum to the Government of India, November 1955 (referred to in Bauer, op. cit., p. 59 ff.); and, some years later, Sudha Shenoy, India : Progress or Poverty?, Research Monograph 27, Institute of Economic Affairs, London, 1971. Some of the most relevant contemporary studies are: B. Balassa, `Reforming the system of incentives in World Development, 3 (1975), pp. 365-82; `Export incentives and export performance in developing countries: a comparative analysis’, Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv, 114 (1978), pp. 24-61; The process of industrial development and alternative development strategies, Essays in International Finance No. 141, Princeton University, 1980; J. N. Bhagwati & P. Desai, India: Planning for Industrialisation, OECD, Paris : Oxford University Press, 1970; `Socialism and Indian Economic Policy’, World Development, 3 (1975), pp. 213-21; J. N. Bhagwati & T. N. Srinivasan, Foreign-trade Regimes and Economic Development: India, National Bureau of Economic Research, New York, 1975; Anne O. Krueger, `Indian planning experience’, in T. Morgan et al. (eds.), Readings in Economic Development, Wadsworth, California, 1963, pp. 403-20; `The political economy of the rent-American Economic Review, 64 (June 1974); The Benefits and Costs of Import-Substitution in India : a Microeconomic Study, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1975; Growth, distortions and patterns of trade among many countries, Studies in International Finance, Princeton University, 1977; Uma Lele, Food grain marketing in India : private performance and public policy, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1971; T. W. Schultz (ed.), Distortions in agricultural incentives, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1978; V. Sukhatme, “The utilization of high-yielding rice and wheat varieties in India: an economic assessment”, University of Chicago PhD thesis, 1977.

[2] S. Roy, “On liberty and economic growth: preface to a philosophy for India”, University of Cambridge PhD thesis, 1982a, Chapters I and II; “Knowledge and freedom in economic theory: Parts I and II”, Centre for Study of Public Choice, Virginia Tech, working papers, 1982b. My epistemological arguments have closely followed those of Renford Bambrough, Moral Scepticism and Moral Knowledge, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1979.

[3] Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea, in Richard McKeon (ed.), The Basic Works of Aristotle, Random House, New York, 1941. We read: `. . . the whole account of matters of conduct must be given in outline and not precisely, as we said at the very beginning that the accounts we demand must be in accordance with the subject matter; matters concerned with conduct and questions of what is good for us have no fixity, any more than matters of health. The general account being of this nature, this account of particular cases is yet more lacking in exactness; for they do not fall under any art or precept but the agents themselves must in each case consider what is appropriate to the occasion, as happens also in the art of medicine or of navigation.’ (1,104a2-a9.)`. . . we do not deliberate even about all human affairs; for instance, no Spartan deliberates about the best constitution for the Scythians. For none of these things can be brought about by our own efforts. We deliberate about things that are in our power and can be done.’ (1,112a28-30.) Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations(1776), eds. R. H. Campbell et al., Liberty Classics, Indianapolis, 1981. We read: `What is the species of domestick industry which his capital can employ, and of which the produce is likely to be of the greatest value, every individual, it is evident, can, in hislocal situation, judge much better than any statesman or lawgiver can do for him.’ (Book IV. ii. 10, p. 456.) In modern times, Friedrich Hayek has always kept this fact in the foreground of his thinking. In his Individualism and Economic Order, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1949, we read, for example, of `. . . the constitutional limitation of man’s knowledge and interests, the fact the he cannot know more than a tiny part of the whole of society and that therefore all that can enter into his motives are the immediate effects which his actions will have in the sphere he knows . . .’ (p. 14.) The individual agent has a `special knowledge of circumstances of the; thus `. . . practically every individual has some advantage over all others because he possesses unique information of which beneficial use might be made, but of which use can be made only if the decisions depending on it are left to him or are made with his active co-operation.’ (p. 80.)

[4] The mathematical economist will recognise these three conditions as the characteristics which define a multi-market general equilibrium in the Arrow-Debreu model: Gerard Debreu, Theory of Value, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1959; K. J. Arrow and F. H. Hahn, General Competitive Analysis, Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh, 1971.

[5] This argument is discussed further in Roy (1982a), pp. 96-107, pp. 133-43.

[6] Adam Smith, op. cit., Book V. i. c., p. 723.

[7] P. A. Samuelson, `A pure theory of public expenditures’, Review of Economics & Statistics, 36, 1954,reprinted in K. J. Arrow & T. Scitovsky (eds.), Readings in Welfare Economics, R. D. Irwin, Homewood, Ill., 1969.

[8] The idea I have in the background is of some implicit public goods function endorsed more or less unanimously by citizens – but not necessarily by those with political power – with commonsense dictating the elements it should contain. Thus Let U = U (π1, π2 , …, πn) be such a function with δU/δπi > 0, δ2U/δπi2 < 0 i=1,2,…,n, where πi = 1,2,…n, is a lateral index of a public good or service like defence, civil protection, roads, dams, or the finance of basic education. Each of these is “produced” by an expenditure of public resources: πi = πi (τi ), δπi/δτi > 0, δ2πi /δτi2 < 0 i=1,2,…,k, Σ i=1,2,…,n τi = τ* where τ* is the total level of public resources available (whether by taxation or borrowing). An efficient condition, i.e., one in which given public resources are efficiently allocated among alternative public goods or services, would be δU/δπi/ δπi/δτi = δU/δπj / δπj/δτj for every i,j = 1,2,. .,n. So, if the marginal tax-rupee was put towards the production of any public good, the increase in social utility should be the same; otherwise we would find an excess supply of some public goods (e.g. bureaucrats) and an excess demand for others (e.g. courts, dams, police protection, etc.).

[9] Two examples are F. H. Hahn, On the notion of equilibrium in economics : an inaugural lecture, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1973, and J. M. Grandmont, “Temporary general equilibrium theory : a survey”, Econometrica, vol. 46, 1977.

[10] Aristotle, op. cit., 1,094b12-1,094b27

[11] D. H. Robertson, `The Economic Outlook’, in his Utility and All That, Allen & Unwin, London, 1952, pp.51-52.

[12] Karl Popper made a similar point in The Open Society and its Enemies, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1950, when he suggested that Plato’s question `who should rule?’ should be discarded for the question:`How can we so organise political institutions that bad or incompetent rulers can be prevented from doing too muchdamage?’ (p. 120). There is relevant discussion by Renford Bambrough in `Plato’s modern friends and enemies’, Philosophy, 37, 1962, reprinted in R.Bambrough (ed.), Plato, Popper and Politics : some contributions to a modern controversy, Barnes and Noble, New York, 1967. I have discussed the relationship of expertise to democracy in Roy (1982a), pp 80-95.

[13] Virginia Bill of Rights, 1776, in The Constitution of the United States, ed. E. C. Smith, Barnes & Noble, New York, 1979, p. 21.

[14] P. T. Bauer, Dissent on Development, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1971, p. 72, n. 2. The term `statism’ suggested itself to the author after he read M. R. Masani, “Post-Sanjay outlook: where salvation does not lie” The Statesman, 9 July 1980.

[15]G. M. Young (ed.), Macaulay: Prose and Poetry, London: Macmillan, 1952, p. 718. Some 20 years later, in Considerations on Representative Government, ed. H. B. Acton (London: J. M. Dent), J. S. Mill claimed that rule by`a superior people . . . is often of the greatest advantage to a people, carrying them rapidly through several stages of progress’ (Ch. IV, p. 224). Ironically, a few years ago a distinguished retired member of the Indian civil service (who happens to be a recipient of the Lenin Peace Prize) used very similar words in a newspaper article – in defence of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan!

[16] Resolution of the Indian National Congress, August 1931, reprinted in B. N. Pandey (ed.), The IndianNationalist Movement : 1885-1947, Macmillan, London, 1979, p. 67.

[17] S. Radhakrishnan, The philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore, Macmillan, London, 1918, p. 232. For an excellent account of the intercourse between ancient India and ancient Greece, H. G. Rawlinson, `Early contacts between India and Europe’, in A. L. Basham (ed.), A Cultural History of India, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1975. For excellent accounts of the growth of liberalism in India in the l9th and carly 20th centuries : Anil Seal, The Emergence of Indian Nationalism : Competition and Collaboration in the later l9th Century, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1971, Chs. 1, 3-6; J. R. McLane, Indian Nationalism and the Early Congress, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1977; Gordon Johnson, Provincial Politicsand Indian Nationalism,Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1973, Ch. 1.

[18] Ramsay Macdonald’s letter to M. K. Gandhi, 8 September 1932, reprinted in Pandey (ed.), op. cit., p. 74.

[19] Devdas Gandhi’s letter to Jawaharlal Nehru, 2 October 1931, reprinted in Pandey (ed.), op. cit., p. 71

[20] Gandhi’s protest succeeded to the extent that the Award itself was superseded; and in unusual, euphoric displays of fraternity, `caste’ Hindus threw open temples to members of the `Depressed Classes’ and embraced them with
garlands. The compromise Pact which replaced the Communal Award removed separate electorates but still guaranteed special political representation for some years following the agreement. For an account of Gandhi’ s position on the Communal Award, Judith M. Brown, Gandhi and Civil Disobedience, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1977, pp. 313-21.

[21] For an eminent lawyer’s commentary, N. A. Palkhivala, The Light of the Constitution, Forum of Free Enterprise, Bombay, 1976.

[22] There is reason to think the Mughals before the British had done no better and had probably done much worse. T. Raychaudhuri, `The State and the Economy: the Mughal Empire’, in T. Raychaudhuri & I. Habib (eds.), The Cambridge Economic History of India, vol. I, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1982.

[23] V. B. Singh (ed.), Nehru on Socialism, Government of India, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Publications Division, Delhi, 1977, pp. 56-57, 67.

[24] `Draft recommendations for the formulation of the Second Five Year Mahalanobis;`The Second Five-Year Plan – A tentative framework’, drafted by the economic ministries; and a `Memorandum’ written by a panel of prominent Indian economists – all contained in Papers relating to the formulation of the SecondFive Year Plan, Government of India: Planning Commission, 1955 – were the principal influences on the actual Second Plan. No significant understanding of markets, prices or the concept of feasibility is evident on the part of any of the authors. Shenoy’s lonely dissent has already been noted (note 1).

[25] The best descriptions of Indian industrial policy are still to be found in Bhagwati and Desai (1970), op. cit. Also C. Wadhwa, `New Industrial Licensing Policy: An Appraisal’, in C. Wadhwa (ed.), Some problems of India’seconomic policy, Tata-McGraw Hill, Delhi, 1977, pp. 290-324.

[26] Gordon Tullock is generally credited with introducing the notion of rent-seeking in `The welfare costs of tariffs, monopolies and theft’, Western Economic, Journal, 5 (June 1967), while Krueger (1974), op. cit., introduced the term itself. The collection edited by J. M. Buchanan et al., Toward a theory of the rent-seeking society, Texas A&M Press, College Station, 1980, contains reprints of both papers as well as other studies.

[27] Krueger (1975), op. cit., p. 108 ff.

[28] The classic argument for a free market is in M. Friedman, `The case for flexible exchange rates’, in his Essays in Positive Economics, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1953, pp. 157-203. Also V. S. Vartikar,Commercial policy and economic development in India, Praeger, New York, 1969, based on his PhD at Wayne State University; and D. Lal, A liberal international economic order : the international monetary system and economic development, Essays in International Finance No. 139, Princeton University, October 1980.

[29] An additive sub-utility function might be defined within each set of categories UG= ∑ ai vi (Gi) a1 ≥ a2 ≥ a3, ∑ ai= 1UP= ∑ bj wj (Pj) b1 ≥ b2 ∑ bj= 1where the vi (.) and the wj (.) are further sub-utility functions defined on each category, etc. None of these has ever been spelt out by the Indian Government and certainly no amount of UP has seemed substitutable for an iota of UG.

[30] Bhagwati and Srinivasan, op. cit., p. 38.

[31] Ibid.,p. 38

[32] In 1980, for example, exports of pig-iron and of sheep- and goat-meat were banned; an export duty on jute manufactures was imposed on 18 February and lifted on 8 September. (Annual Report on Exchange Controls, International Monetary Fund, 1981, pp. 205-13.) The Import and Export Policy (April 1982, March 1983)announced by the Commerce Ministry reported the banning of exports of cane, paraffin wax, mustard and rape-seedoil, and `certain
wild-life items’, including lizards and robins. An embargo on the export of CTC (cut, tear and curl) tea was announced by the Ministry of Commerce on 24December 1983. CTC is high-quality tea which accounts for about three-quarters of India’s tea exports. The ban followed a doubling of domestic prices over the previous year, compulsory registration of tea dealers holding more than 1,000 kg. to prevent hoarding, and agreement by manufacturers to reduce their profit margins and cut prices ofpackaged tea by about 20 per cent (Financial Times, 14 December 1983). The Indian Government apparently feared that the supply of tea for the domestic market was going to run out (The Times, 5 January 1984). The effect of thesemeasures is artificially to depress prices in the domestic market whilst raising them overseas (The Economist, 14 January 1984).

[33] Pick’s Currency Year-book, various editions

[34] Krueger (1977), op. cit., pp. 27-28.

[35] Balassa (1978), op. cit., p. 39; Balassa (1980), op. cit., p. 16.

[36] Ibid.,p. 22.

[37] Short surveys of the relevant practices can be found in Lele, op. cit.,Appendix 1, pp. 225-37, and Sukhatme, op. cit., pp. 29-37. Also Gilbert Brown, `Agricultural pricing policies in developing countries’, and G. E.Schuh, `Approaches to “basic needs” and to “equity” that distort incentives in agriculture’, in Schultz (ed.), op. cit.,pp. 84-113 and pp. 307-27 respectively.

[38] Theoretical economists have long recognised that a fundamental flaw in, for example, the Arrow-Debreu model is its assumption that all conceivable futures contracts are practicable. The longest futures price actually quoted at
the Chicago Board of Trade, however, would be for silver, at about two years; for grains, the longest would be only about three months. Since the natural market outcome is a far-cry from the theory, the Indian Government’s fears about the effects of speculation appear to be much exaggerated. To see the risk-dispersing character of a futures contract, let us suppose that both buyer and seller place a probability of one-half on prices being either in 8 or 2; if they are risk-averse, they may prefer to trade at a certain futures price of 5 now, rather than wait for the future to unfold.

[39] David Hopper, `Distortions of agricultural development resulting from Government prohibitions,’ Schultz (ed.), op. cit., p. 69 ff.

[40] K. Prasad, `Foodgrains policy 1966-1976′, in Wadhwa (ed.), op. cit., p.479.

[41] Schultz (ed.), op. cit., p. 309.

[42] Sukhatme, op. cit., pp. 74-86; T. W. Schultz, `On the economics and politics of agriculture’, in Schultz(ed.), op. cit., p. 15 ff.

[43] Schultz (ed.), op. cit., pp. 92-93.

[44] Ibid.,p. 95.

[45] T. N. Srinivasan, `Income Distribution: A survey of policy-aspects’, in Wadhwa (ed.), op. cit., p. 265. That the small farmer may not find it profitable to invest in storage, and that (if it has been taxed) agriculture has been taxed regressively, are also remarked upon by Srinivasan.

[46] Lele, op. cit., p. 2, where reference is made to Sir Henry Knight, Food Administration in India, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1954.

[47] Lele, op. cit., pp. 214-24

[48] For example, M. Todaro, `A model of labor migration and urban unemployment in less developed countries’, American Economic Review, March 1969, 59, pp. 138-48; J. P. Harris & M. Todaro, `Migration,unemployment and development: a two-sector analysis’, American Economic Review, March 1970 60, pp. 126-42.The best paper known to the author is by Jerome Rothenberg, `On the economics of internal migration’, Working Paper No. 189, Dept. of Economics, MIT, July 1976.

[49] Thomas Sowell, Knowledge and Decisions, Basic Books, New York, 1980, pp. 268-69.

[50] `The logic of protection’, The Statesman, Editorial, 19 March 1981; also the Editorial, `Danger of caste ethnic

[51] S. K. Datta Ray, `Backlash to protection: fancy gifts ignore real reform’, The Statesman Weekly, 21 March 1981.

[52]M. Weiner, M. F. Katzenstein, K.V.N. Rao, India’s preferential policies : migrants, the middle classes and ethnic equality, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1981, pp. 16-17.

[53] Ibid. p. 5

[54] P. T. Bauer, `Population explosion: myths and realities’, in Equality, the Third World and Economic Delusion, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1981, pp. 42-65, contains some of the clearest arguments known to the author about this question; also M. Weiner, India at the Polls : the Parliamentary Election of 1977, American Enterprise Institute, Washington DC, 1978, pp. 35-39.

[55] 10 8 million people affected by floods’, The Statesman Weekly, 22 August 1981; also `Down the drain’, Editorial in The Statesman, 8 July 1981.

[56] Justice with speed’, Editorial in The Statesman, Calcutta and New Delhi, 21 July, 1980

[57] Aristotle, op. cit., 1,094a1-1, 094b11.

[58] There are few thorough studies known to the author that are relevant. One such is Asha L. Dattar, India’s Economic Relations with the USSR and Eastern Europe 1953-1969, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1972.

[59] Bauer (1981) op. cit. Chapters 5 & 6.

[60]. Adam Smith op cit Book IV; also B. Baysinger et al.,`Mercantilism as a rent-seeking society’, in Buchanan et al (eds) op. cit. pp. 235-68.

[61] G. Tullock in Buchanan et al. (eds.), op. cit., p. 48.

[62] Bauer (1981), op. cit., p. 144.

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Soviet-era maps of Ukraine war campaigns & territorial changes (from *Soviet Ukraine*, c. 1970, MK Roy Library)

March 2, 1970 — drsubrotoroy

 

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