(Note:
The unfortunate attack on Parliament by some Jihadis has brought
about further deterioration in Indo-Pak relations. But this article
is only a future vision and also one of the ways to create better
people-to-people relations in South Asia. The validity of the idea of
confederation as a future vision is not marred by the condemnable act
of attack on Indian Parliament by the extremists.)
Many people talk about confederation of South Asian
nations. The noted Indian politician Ram Manohar Lohia advocated it
and constantly propagated the idea. He was of the opinion that the
confederation can also help solve the communal problem. However, it
is true that this idea has been so far mooted by mainly Indians; no
known politician from other South Asian nations like Pakistan, Bangla
Desh, Sri Lanka or Nepal has propounded it. It is possible that these
nations are suspicious of India's big brother attitude.
In the World Assembly organised by The Alliance for a Responsible,
Plural and United World the idea was once again discussed by the
participants in the South Asia section. The delegates from India,
Pakistan, Bangla Desh, Nepal and Sri Lanka were present. Though one
delegate from Nepal referred to the `big brotherly attitude of India,
all others endorsed the idea of confederation of South Asia.
However, all the participants felt that there is no question of
working for confederation immediately. The participants are neither
representatives of these countries nor did they have any authority to
talk about it. They were just exploring the possibility. Also, the
idea of confederation was more of a future vision than immediate
possibility. One has to work for long and create confidence among all
South Asian nations to make this vision a possibility. In other words
confidence-building measures can play an important role. A task force
of some participants was also set up to work in this direction.
It is obvious that in present conditions such an idea appears to be
utopian. There are sharp contradictions, conflicts and mutual
suspicions. But at times utopia can also turn into reality if one
works with patience, perseverance and devotion. The example of Europe
is before us and was repeatedly cited by many participants. European
nations also had sharp mutual conflict and were at each other's
throat not so long ago. Millions of lives were lost in the two world
wars. Who ever thought until Second World War that European union
will materialise in five decades.
It is true India and Pakistan have fought three wars so
far and these two nations are always at logger heads with each other
and in present conditions looks near impossible that they can come
together in a confederal structure. Both the nations have even
developed highly destructive nuclear weapons and it appears that
South Asia is the flash point of the world today. India exploded
nuclear device first in 1999 to outsmart Pakistan and Pakistan lost
no time to explode its own nuclear device not to be outdone by India.
So far all efforts to bring the two nations including the Lahore and
Agra summits have not yielded results. Lahore summit was followed by
Kargil war and Agra summit resulted in no agreement between the two.
A cynic, therefore, can apparently maintain that a confederation is
not a distinct possibility.
However, even European Union did not come into being in
one go. It was preceded by several other measures including a
European common market. And though Saarc has no glorious record to be
proud of so far, it is an attempt in that direction. No doubt after
Kargil war between India and Pakistan Saarc was almost dead it is
being revived once again and Saarc meeting is going to take place in
Kathmandu in early January 2002. Saarc itself is an important step in
the direction of the confederation of south Asia, if one is
optimistic and strives to create a proper climate of opinion.
Thus it was also decided that the delegates present in
the conference should work to create proper climate of opinion in
their respective countries, set up committees and hold wider
consultations in their region. It is a complex democratic process,
which needs to be speeded up. Among confidence building measures it
is highly necessary to relax the present visa regime. Thousands of
families are divided across the two countries and they visit India or
Pakistan, not merely for tourism, or for political ends but to visit
their separated relatives.
It has no meaning to assume that they will spy for each
other. Such an assumption is even absurd. The spies do their work
anyway despite strict visa regime. It is also absurd that visitors
have to specify the cities to be visited and also report to the
police. In no other country such a requirement exists. The first step
for CBM will be to abolish such strict visa regime and relax it. To
begin with specification for number of cities should be abolished
right away and, if possible, visa should be issued on arrival, not
only at the border as announced by India but also at airports. Slowly
the visa regime should be completely abolished as between Nepal and
India. The Nepal-India model should be imitated by all south Asian
nations.
In fact there is more problem between India and Pakistan
than between other South Asian nations though even these nations are
not entirely free from mutual suspicion. However, relations between
other South Asian nations are not as grave as between India and
Pakistan. It is more on account of partition and two-nation theory on
one hand, and problem of Kashmir, on the other. In fact it is Kashmir
problem which is major obstacle rather than two-nation theory.
But it is closer ties and confidence building measures,
which will help solve the problem of Kashmir also. It is not proper
to maintain that without solving the Kashmir problem no other
problems between the two countries can ever be solved. In fact it is
otherwise. Closer we come through trade and other measures, easier it
will be to resolve Kashmir issue. What we need is sincerity,
commitment to solve problems and bold initiatives. It is not the
peoples of India and Pakistan who pose problem but powerful vested
interests, mainly political.
It must be remembered that basically India got divided
not on account of religion but because of mutual suspicions and
antagonism created by lack of confidence in each other. Partition
could have been averted if the leaders from both sides had shown
sagacity. Anyway it is history. History should not mar our future.
There is no doubt that future lies in greater mutual co-operation and
some kind of confederation, if possible.
As far as India and Pakistan are concerned it is not only
that nature of problem is formidable; there is also other human
perspective. There are divided families on both sides. One has to
bring to bear compassion to reunite these families. Muhajirs who were
mainly instrumental in creating Pakistan are facing the worst plight
today. They are on the receiving end from both sides of the border.
They long to meet their relatives in India and find it difficult to
visit them on account of strict visa regime, they are finding
themselves rootless culturally and socially in Pakistan. Muhajirs
have to fight for their very survival in Pakistan today.
They not only long to visit India repeatedly but also
want some measures which can undo estrangement between India and
Pakistan. Many friends from India hugged me warmly on my visit to
Pakistan and pleaded with me to launch a movement for a confederation
between the two countries. Thus human angle is as important as other
political and economic angles.
All south Asian nations are quite poor and are battling
with the problems of poverty, illiteracy, health and unemployment.
And, at the same time, they are spending astronomical sums on
maintaining large armies and are buying weapons worth billions of
dollars. Had these sums of money been spent on eradication of poverty
and illiteracy in last fifty years both nations would have immensely
benefited. It is quite possible there would have been no such levels
of poverty and illiteracy in South Asia.
Moreover it is not only the question between India and
Pakistan. The ethnic conflict between Tamils and Sinhalas in addition
to claiming more than 65 thousand lives in Sri Lanka has involved
huge expenditure on army. A country like Sri Lanka can ill affords
such avoidable expenditure. The Tamil civilians are also paying very
high price not only in terms of money but also in terms of human
life. Tamils are also divided between India and Sri Lanka as sub-
continental Muslims have been divided between three countries, India,
Pakistan and Bangla Desh.
We would like to clarify one thing here. Sub-continental
confederation, if at all it materialises in future (near or distant)
it would not mean giving up sovereignty of these nations and it would
have nothing to do with the Hindutva ideology of Akhand Bharat with
hegemony of any religion or culture. In fact such an ideology was the
root cause of trouble and was contributory in bringing about
partition of sub-continent. Respect for South Asian cultural,
religious and linguistic pluralism is the only way out without
allowing any religion, culture or language to hegemonise over others.
Series of measures like strengthening religious harmony,
promoting closer trade relationship, internal democracy, writing
proper text books (kind of text books being taught in India and
Pakistan are, to say the least, highly divisive and have been written
with political agenda in mind rather than teaching history as a
discipline) and establishing liberal visa regime with a long term
goal of abolishing it would go a long way to promote right atmosphere
for ultimate goal of confederation in South Asia or United Nations of
South Asia.
Yes, it is a vision but future of humanity is based on
such visions. Nations in 21st century should not establish rigid
boundaries but only togetherness of shared culture and history.
Widespread immigration to other countries for better living is
already delivering a blow to the old concept of nation. Nations in
cultural and linguistic sense are now dispersed in several countries
rather than confined to narrow geographical boundary. Let South Asia
lead the world in this respect.
NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police have established the suicide
squad that stormed Parliament on Thursday comprised two
Afghan nationals, two Kashmir residents and a Pakistan national.
Top police sources said the probe also indicated the five arrived in
Delhi early Thursday morning. A contact picked them in the same
Ambassador car used in the attack. The attackers had entered
Delhi in a fruit truck from Jammu, through the northwest Delhi
border.They were later driven to the Walled City area, where the car
was "prepared" for the attack and the weapons handed over to
them.
New Delhi, Dec. 14: India on Friday held Pak based terrorist group
Lashkar-e-Tayyaba responsible for the suicide attack on
Parliament House and demanded that Islamabad prove that it is
sincere in its pledge to fight international terrorism. After external
affairs minister Jaswant Singh met the visiting Afghan foreign
minister Dr Abdullah Abdullah he told reporters that India had
technical evidence which suggested that the attack was the
handiwork of a terrorist organization based in Pakistan that is the
Lashkar-e-Tayyaba.
NEW DELHI: In an audacious suicide attack, five armed terrorists
barged into the Parliament House premises and gunned down
seven persons before security personnel killed them on Thursday
morning. Seventeen others were injured in the strike. One of the
terrorists had explosives strapped to him and blew
himself up. No member of Parliament was injured in the attack. But
the Vice President Krishan Kant had a narrow escape. His security
men were killed by the terrorists. He himself was expected to step
out of the Parliament building at that time. Armed with automatic
rifles, pistols, grenades and explosives, the five terrorists engaged
security personnel in a fierce gunbattle which lasted for over half an
hour. They also lobbed grenades.
Karachi December 12:
The games the intelligence agencies play can be dangerous and tiresome.
Dangerous because they manipulate media by feeding distorted and partial
information for extraneous purposes of their own. It is tiresome for
careful readers and viewers to evaluate factual news by separating the
contaminated chaff from the grain of fact.
This thought arose from two stories on one and the same day in the
Pakistan press on Tuesday. One was lifted from New York Times in bulk
that threw a lurid light on ISI activities as a state within a state and
as a den of pro-Taliban operatives, the utter vulnerability of
Pakistan's nuclear weapons and the close links of Pakistani nuclear
scientists with Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaeda and Taliban in general. It
naturally extolled the American secret services efficiency and seemed
calculated to pave the way for the Americans to get the custody of an
unspecified number of Pakistani scientists or engineers who were
connected with their country's nuclear programme.
The other story was clearly inspired by Pakistan's own secret services
and it tried to show how it was Pakistan President himself who briefed
the CIA chief George Tenet on Dec. 2 in Islamabad about the Big Story of
Al Qaeda's nuclear ambitions and activities with all the particulars and
sources in Kabul, advising him to go in person to Kabul and see for
himself. Tenet is reported to have done just this. Apparently, the story
is correct. But that says nothing for the contacts between the original
two scientists and Taliban inside Afghanistan apparently for
humanitarian purposes of their NGOs --- supposedly long after their
retirement from government service.
Pakistan government had apparently been interrogating these two retired
scientists for about two months. They are Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmoud and
Ch. Abdul Majid. They have had contacts with Taliban and they are being
questioned ostensibly for breaching the service rules about not taking
official prior permission for visits outside the country. That is, if
the official explanations are correct.
But the CIA and other foreign agencies are apparently pushing for the
custody of not only these two impugned scientists but of at least six
others, two of whom or an additional two, are required to be
interrogated. Many here think that some of it is professional rivalry,
if not turf war, among a variety of intelligence agencies of different
countries including Israel, a close associate of American agencies.
There are also too many political prepossessions of each agency and
unavowed hidden agendas. Pakistani intelligence services, especially
ISI, are suspected of infiltration by pro-Taliban officers by all
western agencies as so many stories in the US media suggest.
Pakistani agencies appear to have their own suspicions of the
Anglo-American secret services of strong anti-Pakistan bias, as stories
that reek of inspiration from them suggest. The gravamen of Pakistani
spooks' suspicions is the American intent to somehow get at, or into,
Pakistan's hitherto secret nuclear programme; and their efforts to get
the custody of Pakistanis who have worked for the nuclear programme on
the suspicion that they may have helped Al-Qaeda acquire nuclear
know-how or materials may be only a smokescreen for that purpose.
While America and Pakistan are in fact cooperating closely with each
other in the war in Afghanistan, their old suspicions and wariness
appears to be still at work. The US-Pakistan relationship is obviously
ambivalent, with hostile attitudes almost seething below the surface.
This question of Pakistani scientists contacts with Al-Qaeda, whether
true or false or in between, hold the potential for much mischief both
for Pakistan-America relations and for domestics politics in the
country.
Remember the frenzied super-nationalism of the ruling regime those
days, when bodies of soldiers were coming back in the coffins? It was
India's first television war. The images arrived from the high
altitudes of Tololing and Drass bringing with them the intimacies,
the violence and angst of war.
Young soldiers writing letters, thinking of home and warmth, fighting
till the last, dying suddenly. Their eyes, fingers, memories, their
olive green uniforms, their volleyball games, their long trek uphill
into the frozen valley of death.
There were other stories also. That they did not have the special
shoes which could protect them in the freezing cold of Kargil, that
they lacked proper equipment, that they were victims of intelligence
failure. The entire country knew that Pakistani mercenaries and
jehadis had entrenched themselves in Indian territory for long, that
they had equipment of international standards, even televisions, and
that they were perched in strategically advantageous terrain.
We also knew that the Indian defence establishment had badly goofed
up, for which the nation had to pay a heavy price. More than 500 dead
soldiers and officers, most of them in their 20s.
But these questions were buried in the BJP's (and Sangh parivar's)
war campaign against their favourite enemy; because the line between
Pakistan-bashing and Muslim-bashing is often so very thin. If you
dared to question they would shout back: "You are anti-national,
anti-India, ISI agent." They would doubt the patriotism of those who
stood against the unfolding tragedy of our young soldiers dying for
other people's mistakes.
But such was the hysteria created by war-mongering fanatics that
every form of dissent was crushed. Even journalists were not able to
write critically. Patriotism meant praising the government. There was
this invisible censorship everywhere. And the threat: You are either
with the war, or against the nation. The nation was left with only
one option: to run with the rabble-rousers.
We all thought they will drag the war to the ballot box. After all,
war is the most heady trump-card for any ruling party. Especially
when thousands starving to death or jobless, or the 350 crore people
below the poverty line do not even have a straw to float across.
For a divided, cynical nation which is economically sinking,
emotionally drained and morally battered, war is packaged as the
supreme aphrodisiac, the opium of the masses.
Thank god for Bill Clinton, who supposedly told Nawaz Sharif to back
off. Otherwise, who knows - they would have dragged the war till the
elections. That would have also meant more imported aluminium coffins.
Then came the elections. Rally after rally, the memory of the martyrs
of Kargil was sold by the BJP top brass and its allies in the
marketplace of crude vote bank politics. Such insensitivity can only
be the forté of fanatics. Not a thought was spared for the feelings
of mothers, fathers, lovers, who still felt the presence and the
absence of their lost ones; the music he played, his jogging tracks
still hanging on the door, the poster on the wall.
It's difficult to reconcile with a young son's death. It's more
difficult when the bell rings and he is not there. He will never be
there.
How will the mother whose son died in Kargil feel now? Now that she
has seen Bangaru Laxman taking a wad of cash with her own eyes? Or
the use of the defence minister's house to clinch defence deals by
shady agents? Or the shameless return of George Fernandes? The
hounding of Tehelka?
What does she feel about patriotism - now that the coffin's lid has
once again been thrown open, so that the entire nation can see how
they have sold the nation for a briefcase of cash?
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