Crisis India-Pakistan:
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Newsweek International, January 14, 2002

A Face-Off With Nuclear Stakes

How India is using Bush's war on terror to force Pakistan's hand

By Joshua Hammer

Jan. 14 issue - Hassan Dil is getting ready to move into his backyard bunker. A retired, half-blind schoolteacher from the border village of Golkot in Indian-controlled Kashmir, Dil is in the direct line of fire of Pakistani soldiers perched in the Himalayan peaks just three kilometers to the south. During the last skirmish between Pakistan and India three years ago, a Pakistani artillery shell slammed into a nearby garden, blowing Dil's neighbor to pieces.
NOW, WITH THE THREAT of another conflict looming, the teacher is taking no chances. The only question is whether the backyard shelter Dil built with a $400 government grant will protect him and his family from radioactive fallout, should it come to that. Squinting across terraced rice fields toward a snowy massif that marks the border, Dil, 56, says: "We pray that both sides keep talking."
For now, both sides are. The danger is that in India today, as elsewhere, the hard-liners rule. Taking a cue from George W. Bush's uncompromising war on terror, New Delhi is demanding that the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, cease once and for all his nation's support for "cross-border terror" groups that have helped Pakistan wage a fight over the disputed province of Kashmir against its much larger neighbor. After a deadly Dec. 13 attack on the Indian Parliament, New Delhi threatened to invade Pakistan to root out the militants unless Musharraf quashed them himself. That has led to a tense military standoff between the two nuclear powers in the past two weeks, driving thousands of people from their homes. India has severed rail and air links to Pakistan and massed tens of thousands of troops on the 1,800-mile border-the heaviest military buildup since the 1971 Indo-Pakistani war. Pakistan, which denied any involvement in the attack, moved thousands of its soldiers eyeball to eyeball with its Indian enemy and announced that "it was prepared for war."
* From the origins of the India-Pakistan rivalry to its modern nuclear reality.
PERILS AND PROMISE
The confrontation has highlighted both the perils-and the promise-of the new global crusade against terror. Since the September 11 terrorist attacks and the U.S. military campaign against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, U.S. allies such as India and Israel are seizing the opportunity to step up their own wars against Islamic militancy. Last month Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon marshaled international pressure along with military action to force Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat to crack down on the radical Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements. Now Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee hopes a similar mix of threat and diplomacy will force his Pakistani counterparts to rein in the Islamic militants who have been assaulting Indian-ruled Kashmir-and other parts of India-with increasing frequency. "This is just like the Israelis upping the ante," says Shireen Mazari, director general of the Institute for Strategic Studies in Islamabad, "The [Indians] want to change the parameters of the Kashmir issue."
But the strategy could backfire-disastrously. And U.S. officials find themselves reluctantly cast as mediators-or at least conveyers of messages-between the two governments. The Bush administration fears India will overplay its hand by continuing to make public demands that it knows will be rejected. "We have to hope the Indians don't respond in a ham-handed manner. They can be ham-handed," says a senior U.S. official. India has said that it has solid evidence linking the bombers to their Pakistani backers but has refused to share any data with the United States-or, apparently, with Pakistan. Bush offered to help, and to send FBI agents to assist India's investigation. "They turned down the president's offer," says the U.S. official. India's ultimatum could destabilize or even bring down Musharraf, who faces still formidable opposition from radical Islamists. Or the war of words could escalate into an armed conflict between two bitter enemies whose arsenals are stocked with dozens of nukes. "Any mistake can ignite a fuse and start a war," says one military analyst in New Delhi.
India-Pakistan & Beyond
Bush administration officials are also worried for more selfish reasons. They are concerned that India's brinkmanship could force Pakistan to ship tens of thousands of troops away from the Afghanistan frontier. That would make it easier for fleeing members of Al Qaeda to vanish into the rugged mountains of Pakistan-and possibly into Kashmir (so far Pakistan has left those troops in place).
A STIFF HANDSHAKE
Last week the threat of war seemed to recede a bit. In the first indication that India's pressure tactics may be working, Musharraf rounded up hundreds of members of Islamic militant groups active in Kashmir and agreed to withdraw support from two "nonindigenous" groups, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad. And at a meeting of South Asian nations in Nepal on Saturday, the Pakistani leader shook hands with a stiff but receptive Vajpayee, pledging his "genuine and sincere friendship." Reportedly, Musharraf agreed as well to dismantle the units of Pakistan's military intelligence that provide support for Pakistan-based rebels. But when Vajpayee demanded that Pakistan hand over 20 alleged terrorists, Musharraf refused, insisting that they would be prosecuted in Pakistani courts. At the same time, Islamic guerrillas showed no signs of easing their deadly secessionist campaign. Rebels killed an Indian policeman in a grenade attack in the heart of Srinagar, the Kashmiri capital; India charged that Lashkar-e-Taiba threatened, in an e-mail to the country's interior minister, to blow up the Taj Mahal. A spokesman for the rebel group called the report "a lie."
India is gambling with an existential issue that goes back to the modern roots of both nations. After the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan, the maharajah of Kashmir, a Hindu, waffled on whether his predominantly Muslim state should join India or Pakistan. Pakistan dispatched troops to occupy Kashmir-triggering an Indian invasion and a U.N.-brokered ceasefire that established a so-called Line of Control dividing Pakistani rule from Indian rule. Each side has refused to relinquish its claim to the territory. In 1989 secular Kashmiri groups launched a violent independence struggle. Pakistan later backed them, hoping to exploit the movement to achieve its own goal of controlling Kashmir. Indeed, the anti-India "jihad" for Kashmir has been the greatest unifying force in Pakistani politics in recent years.
So Musharraf is risking his reputation, possibly even his life, in cracking down. But the Pakistani president is playing for bigger stakes now. He wants to abandon the semi-isolation his nation has endured since the cold war, turning it into an economic basket case. "He knows that if Pakistan is a home to all sorts of extremist groups, then it's going to remain without a future," said one Western diplomat in Islamabad. A Bush official adds that "if ever he is going to move, the time is now."
Musharraf has told U.S. officials he will make a major speech shortly in which he will discuss why extremists are dangerous to Pakistan, even while pledging Pakistan will not abandon Kashmir. "What we have to hope," says one worried U.S. official, "is that the Indians don't raise the bar."
With Scott Johnson in Islamabad and Roy Gutman in Washington, (c) 2002 Newsweek, Inc.

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The Praful Bidwai Column for the week beginning January 14

After The Kathmandu Handshake: Resume Indo-Pak dialogue

By Praful Bidwai

It is typical of the clumsy working of India's and Pakistan's foreign offices that there should be endless speculation over what transpired in Kathmandu between the two foreign ministers, and during Gen Musharraf's "informal interaction" with Prime Minister Vajpayee. Although the camera captured their interaction, New Delhi and Islamabad both ham-handedly deny it. But it is clear that Messrs Jaswant Singh, Brajesh Mishra and Abdul Sattar met three to four times for informal "conversations". They discussed a possible "road map" for de-escalating their on-going confrontation and resuming dialogue. Sri Lankan President Kumaratunga facilitated the interaction, with the US prodding from behind.
New Delhi has since hardened its stand, in line with Mr Advani's US visit. But one must hope it will respond positively to Islamabad's latest anti-terrorist moves, which Gen Musharraf is expected to announce any day. Regardless of his new measures, and their adequacy, the time has come for both states to radically re-orient their postures. India has so far pursued a strategy of nuclear brinkmanship, while Pakistan has reluctantly yielded to "anti-terrorist" demands.
India's brinkmanship involves an aggressive warlike posture, backed up by large-scale ground-level military mobilisation, calculated to get the US to exert pressure on Pakistan. Deliberate ratcheting up of hostility and harsh diplomatic sanctions are part of this strategy. India calculates this will deliver more than outright war (to which there will be significant domestic opposition). Pakistan can be bent to its will, through American mediation.
Although cynical, this strategy has admittedly had some success. Islamabad started acting against Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed within 48 hours of the US banning them. It has since rounded up 300 suspects. The freezing of terrorists' accounts might not have had much effect (thanks to the advance notice some got), but that can't be said about Hafiz Mohammed Saeed's arrest. And yet, the success is not such that the BJP can declare triumph.
India's brinkmanship is fraught with grave dangers. It is directed more at the US than at Pakistan, and depends on variables outside the India-Pakistan relationship. Military build-ups have their own logic. In the superheated subcontinental context, a skirmish can snowball into a battle which can precipitate war. India's objectives are somewhat diffuse and open to subjective interpretation (how effective is "effective" action?). It is hard to decide where to draw the line. In New Delhi, there is no clarity about how far Gen Musharraf can go in meeting India's demands. There is severe underestimation of the opposition to him from jehadi groups, who have staged bomb explosions and killed his home minister's brother. Above all, brinkmanship risks a nuclear conflagration. This itself is a strong argument for a change in New Delhi's strategy.
For its part, Islamabad must become firmer in its anti-terrorist action. The wide world knows how deeply implicated its Inter-Services Intelligence has been in shadowy operations--in India, Afghanistan, and Pakistan itself. After the Afghan war, "plausible deniability" of its role is becoming incredible. Gen Musharraf will make a signal contribution to Pakistan's stabilisation and normalisation if he cuts the umbilical cord between the ISI and Kashmiri militantsjust as he did with the Taliban.
Gen Musharraf is under enormous pressure from the US, which in turn faces pressure not just from India, but from its powerful pro-Israeli domestic lobby, which is seriously alarmed at the possibility of a clandestine transfer of Pakistan's nuclear technology to anti-Western, anti-Jewish militants. The US is deeply suspicious of the ideological, political, financial and military support Islamabad has extended over the years to extremist groups in South, Southwest and West Asia. It has offered special funding to Gen Musharraf to modernise and secularise Pakistan's madrassas.
However, Gen Musharraf cannot be pushed beyond certain limits without jeopardising his very survival. His decision to arrest LeT's Hafeez was an extremely tough call, preceded by consultations and preparations of a kind never before undertaken. A new US Congressional research report says that a crackdown on madrassas could cost him his job. It is one thing to act against the gangsters and Khalistanis who have taken refuge in Pakistan. But Kashmir is another matter--because it is linked to Pakistan's core identity and Partition's "unfinished agenda". No Pakistani ruler can be seen to be indifferent to Kashmir.
India's leaders probably lack an intelligent, informed assessment of how much Gen Musharraf can deliver. Pushing him to breaking point would be extremely counterproductive. What is needed is good, clean, straight diplomacy. The critical test lies in deciding just what to settle for in the prevailing conditions--so that what is achieved conforms to certain principles, and advances both the national and regional interest. If India were to ask, for instance, that all the 20 named men, including Masood Azhar, be handed over to it, it would be exceeding the limits of feasibility and legality.
There is no extradition treaty between India and Pakistan. International law does not compel states to hand over even known criminals without such a treaty. That too can be only done for specific offences, not some general category called "terrorist activity". Indian and Pakistani laws require that extradition requests be referred to a magistrate who must confirm that a prima facie case exists.
In the absence of a legal mandate, it should be enough for India if Islamabad hands over to Interpol or a third party one or more persons in the suspects list, who have international Red Corner Notices against them. Once this is done, the two governments should fully resume dialogue and negotiate other confidence-building measures, including joint patrolling of the LoC. That could inaugurate a new era in their relations, based on cooperation and good faith. It is of paramount importance that the Vajpayee government recognises a good deal when it is offered one. Or else, a precious window of opportunity could soon slam shut.
The central question is, will the BJP/NDA leadership muster the courage to open a new chapter in India-Pakistan relations? For decades, the Jana Sangh/BJP/RSS have thrived on hostility with Pakistan, which in turn is linked to their anti-Muslim prejudices. For Hindutva, Indian Muslims are Pakistan's "Fifth Column", just as Pakistan is the external expression of Islam's "internal threat" to Indian "nationhood". No wonder, Mr Vajpayee--who occasionally sounds "moderate" in New Delhi--becomes indistinguishable from rabid communalists in Lucknow, as on January 2. Besides ideological bias, the BJP faces a pressing political issue too--the coming Uttar Pradesh elections. If it loses them, the NDA could come tumbling down nationally. By all indications, the BJP is set to do extremely badly in UP. Its score could be as low as 70 to 100 seats in the 403-member Assembly, nowhere near what is needed for a halfway-viable coalition.
The BJP has tried every trick in the book to avert defeat in UP--from browbeating the Opposition to bribing potential supporters. Its last two trump-cards were, ironically, mandal and mandir. It created quotas within OBC quotas for the Most Backward Castes, promising 40,000 jobs. But there is no money to back that promise. And the MBCs aren't taken in by what they consider a "Brahmin-Bania" party. The March 12 temple "deadline" plank isn't turning out to be a vote-catcher. The "anti-terrorism" platform seems more productive. Mr Vajpayee has himself advised the VHP to play down the temple; he is roping in the Kanchi shankaracharya to further pressure the BJP.
"Anti-terrorism" allows the BJP to combine jingoistic nationalism with its anti-Pakistan, anti-Muslim agendas. It can claim to be talking "tough" to Islamabad--to the point of "courageously" risking war. It also hopes to communally polarise the situation and even put the secular parties on the mat. These parties, it hopes, will become less combative, making its own defeat less likely.
This may turn out to be a desperate, even futile, hope. Wars and macho anti-Pakistan postures are not as popular as might seem. The Kargil war, despite the politicisation of coffins and of death-as-a-spectacle, didn't prevent the loss of half the BJP's UP Lok Sabha tally in 1999. The BJP's opponents, especially the Samajwadi Party and Congress, are far more upbeat than two years ago. Eventually, there may not be much purchase in the terrorism plank, barring a vote gain of one or two percent.
Will the BJP stoop so low and recklessly pursue its brinkmanship for such a measly gain? Will it be so foolishly mindless as not to recognise that its best medium- and long-term bet lies in putting Pakistan firmly on the road to moderation through cooperation, not confrontation? Will it choose unstable, compromised power in UP over the abiding national interest in mending relations with Pakistan and seriously combating the scourge of militant-group terrorism?
Here is Mr Vajpayee's litmus test. If he has any real leadership qualities, he should seize the present moment to bring about a breakthrough with Pakistan. This is also his chance to think beyond provincial calculations. Can he rise to the occasion? Or will he plunge a billion people into war, and a vicious cycle of unending terror and yet more violence?
--end--

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Washington Post, Monday, January 14, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40823-2002Jan13.html

Pakistani Militants Forced Underground - Groups Reorganize in Wake of Crackdown

By Kamran Khan and Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service

KARACHI, Pakistan, Jan. 13 -- With their existence suddenly threatened by Pakistan's promised crackdown on terrorism, Islamic militants here are going into hiding, altering their identities and reorganizing their movements into underground cells, according to group leaders and government officials.
For years, militant organizations fighting to drive India from the divided Himalayan territory of Kashmir have operated in plain sight inside Pakistan. But as the Pakistani government has moved to rein them in over the past three weeks, several groups have relocated their bases to secret locations throughout Pakistan, where they plan to continue recruiting members and raising money, leaders said. They also have moved some public outreach offices to Pakistan's slice of Kashmir, where they expect the government to tolerate their existence as long as they keep a low profile.
"We will fight," Abdullah Sayyaf, a spokesman for the militant group Lashkar-i-Taiba, told reporters today. "If the Indians have the guts, let them stop us in Kashmir."
Pakistani police say they have detained an estimated 1,500 militants and religious radicals in the past two days, many of them in this port city. The roundup was planned in conjunction with a speech given Saturday by Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who declared that he was banning five extremist groups and would closely monitor other militants.
Musharraf's televised address received a cautious welcome today in India, where the government has demanded that Pakistan curb Islamic groups staging cross-border attacks. Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh said that India agreed with the principles laid out by Musharraf, but that "we have to see if there are any gaps between what is said and what is done." [Details, Page A14.]
The Pakistani crackdown amounts to a rapid reversal in the government's stance toward militant organizations. Until recently, they were allowed and even encouraged to operate in the open. They kept storefront offices, advertised in newspapers and aggressively raised money in mosques and on the streets.
Before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, there were no restrictions against Pakistani citizens joining such groups. Indeed, police officials in the southern province of Sindh said the government had instructed them to allow militant groups in Karachi to recruit soldiers for guerrilla training and to solicit contributions for holy wars in Kashmir and Afghanistan.
The new policy has been hard to enforce because the change was so abrupt, said a senior Karachi police official. "It is too difficult for us to adjust to the new guidelines," he said.
In his speech Saturday, Musharraf said the militants had done Pakistan's image and society irreparable harm and would no longer be tolerated. He announced that five groups would be forced to disband.
Three of them are religious militant organizations that the government blames for sectarian violence within Pakistan that led to 400 deaths last year.
The two others -- Lashkar-i-Taiba and Jaish-i-Muhammad -- are dedicated to disrupting Indian rule in Kashmir and were accused of plotting the Dec. 13 attack on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi that claimed 14 lives.
Another Kashmiri separatist group, Harkat ul-Ansar, was banned three years ago but resurfaced as Harkat ul-Mujaheddin, and remains active despite being banned in October. Two other Kashmiri rebel organizations, Al-Badr Mujaheddin and Hizb ul-Mujaheddin, have not been outlawed but are preparing to carry out their activities in secret from now on.
Senior police officials in the province of Punjab said commanders of the five Kashmiri rebel groups have ordered thousands of followers to go into hiding. Many have already changed their identities, police said.
"We have learned the lessons from the blunders made by al Qaeda and the Taliban. Those will never be repeated in Pakistan," said a 22-year-old former Karachi University student who gave his name as Abu Hafsa. "In the future, each one of our registered activists will use a cover name."
Hafsa said he belonged to Jaish-i-Muhammad and bragged that he had participated in five guerrilla raids against the Indian army in the Baramula and Aath Moqam districts of Indian-controlled Kashmir. "I have seen my Pakistani and Kashmiri friends giving their lives in Kashmir," he said. "Who is President Musharraf to stop me from waging holy war against India?"
Several militants said the groups were working to build a communication network that would enable them to continue their actions without tipping off authorities.
Abu Nisar, a follower of Lashkar-i-Taiba, said members would keep in touch via Web-based e-mail, Internet bulletin boards and electronic paging, as well as short-messaging services on their mobile phones. "In Afghanistan, it was not possible to do this, but here we use all means of communication," Nisar said.
Pakistani intelligence officials said they can tap fixed and cellular phones but lack the equipment and knowledge to intercept the other forms of communications.
Pakistani officials also have had little success tracking the financial assets of the militants. For instance, Pakistan announced last month that it would freeze the assets of Jaish-i-Muhammad and Lashkar-i-Taiba, but the Central Bank so far has found no money in the group's bank accounts, according to government officials.
Pakistan's Interior Ministry has estimated that the five Kashmiri rebel groups have about 5,000 followers, many of them trained in guerrilla warfare.
A senior Pakistani official said the government was worried about a backlash from the militants. "A new underground army of 5,000 armed and trained religious extremists [could] revolt against this about-face in the government's posture," he said. "They could pose the greatest threat to law and order in Pakistan for weeks and months to come."
Pakistani security officials said unemployed, semi-educated youths form the core of the groups, but they noted that the militants also attract doctors, engineers and people serving in sensitive government jobs.
Officials and analysts in India play down fears of the militants slipping underground, saying they are more concerned whether extremist groups will continue to be supported by Pakistan's military and its Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI). India contends that groups such as Lashkar-i-Taiba and Jaish-i-Muhammad have been funded, trained and equipped by Pakistan's military, a charge Islamabad denies.
If Musharraf is serious about putting the groups out of business -- and the military follows his orders -- then it is unlikely the militants will be able to retain much of their strength, even if they operate clandestinely, the Indian officials and analysts said.
"The real question is what will the military and the ISI do?" one Indian official said. "If they really crack down on these groups, then it doesn't really matter if they try to change their names or go underground. Where will they get their guns from? How will they get money?"
Indian officials also argued that it would be difficult for the groups to stay undetected in Pakistan, given the military's generally tight control over the country. Even if the groups did succeed in hiding their activities, Indian officials and analysts said, the movement of large numbers of militants across the Line of Control that divides Kashmir could not take place without the knowledge of the Pakistani army.
"The militants cannot cross the LOC in significant numbers without the knowledge and the support of the Pakistani military," said Krishnaswamy Subrahmanyan, a former adviser to India's national security council.
But a leader of a Pakistani religious party with close ties to Hizb ul-Mujaheddin said the new government restrictions against Kashmiri rebel groups would not prevent them from pursuing their cause.
"Musharraf can never stop the freedom movement in Kashmir. No one can," said Khurshid Ahmad, vice president of the Jamaat-e-Islami party. "The Kashmiri struggle will not cease. It may have its ups and downs, but it will not stop."
Whitlock reported from Islamabad. Correspondent Rajiv Chandrasekaran in New Delhi contributed to this report.
(c) 2002 The Washington Post Company

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Dawn, 14 January 2002

Why Vajpayee will always prefer Zia to Musharraf

By Jawed Naqvi

At the height of the post-Partition Hindu-Muslim riots, Asrarul Haq Majaz, a legendary poet of the freedom struggle but known today, if at all, as the maternal uncle of Javed Akhtar, was asked by the Communist Party of India to take shelter in a friendly Hindu dharmshala of Mumbai. He was advised to hide there with his other colleagues from the progressive writers group, including Sardar Jafri, Kaifi Azmi and perhaps Banney Bhai aka Sajjad Zahir, too. They were all supposed to pretend to be Saryupaari and Kannauji Brahmins and it seemed easy to do that since they all came from the Avadh region of what is now Uttar Pradesh, heartland of a remarkable variety of the erstwhile priestly class. They could all speak the Avadhi dialect of Tulsidas with facility, knew more about the legend of Lord Rama and even of the more involved Hindu traditions than many Hindus themselves would be familiar with.
But something was to go wrong anyway. And so, after the priest at the dharmshala welcomed the horde of masquerading Brahmins, and they had sat down for tea, the portly pundit turned to Majaz and asked: "So, sir, you are a Saryupaari Brahmin? So am I. And what may your gotra be, sir?" Majaz, usually a great wit, lost his speech, spat out the sip of tea in his mouth and wondered aloud to himself, in chaste Urdu mind you: "Ma'az Allah, Ismey gotra bhi hota hai?" (Goodness gracious, why didn't they warn me about this gotra business too?) The complex skein of Hindu social order, whose yet one more hidden strand was casually re-discovered by Majaz in 1947, is not any more complicated than what obtains among Muslims, Christians, Jews, even Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs in India today. If I have left out any religion, you may include that too in this argument and it wouldn't alter much. Therefore, in discussing the cut and thrust of Islam during the passing year, it would be prudent to keep an eye on what was happening that was different with other religions.
The fact is that there is a rightwing thrust across the world today, and that includes the world of Islam. If we take a cursory look at our own neighbourhood, and see the governments that are in charge of a billion plus people, it would not be difficult to come back to the issue at hand, wither Islam? Ranil Wickremasinghe, represents the Buddhist right, the new king of Nepal is by no means a dyed-in-the-wool centrist. Begum Khaleda Zia, leaning heavily on the Muslim clergy for support and our own Atal Behari Vajpayee, all have one thing in common - they represent strong rightward-leaning religious lobbies although in my humble but potentially unpopular opinion in India, President Pervez Musharraf seems to challenge the pattern. This was made amply clear by his landmark and globally watched address on Saturday.
So Gen Musharraf is a rare exception to this generally overarching pattern of religious metaphor intruding into the body politics of nations which no doubt adds to the chagrin of his many detractors, including the ones in India. (It must surely be rightwing opinion that gets worried at the thought of Gen Musharraf's unravelling of the religious obscurantist agenda of Gen Ziaul Haq.) Look beyond the region and you would perhaps notice that the ascendance of President George W. Bush and the decay of the British Labour Party into some kind of ideological rudderlessness are by no means signs of more tolerant and open societies ahead. Religious intolerance has seen war and persecution in Europe.
Anti-Semitism was one such reflection of predominantly Christian Europe not anywhere else. And be sure that it wasn't Adolf Hitler, but more genial people like William Shakespeare who popularized and sustained this hatred of Jews for centuries. It may sound banal, and I confess it may even be a crass analogy, but it remains a fact in more ways than one that the anti-Semitic Nazis were essentially Christian Germans, who were eventually defeated not by a determined Jewish resistance, but by the overwhelming force of a Christian Britain and a Christian United States.
In India today, the rightwing thrust of Hindu nationalists, including some very menacing self-pronounced zealots, is not being stalled so much by Muslims, Christians or other assorted minorities as by the majority Hindus themselves. In Sri Lanka, too, a complete and brazen domination of Hindu and Christian Tamils by the majority Buddhist Sinhalese could not have been thwarted without very influential saner voices within the predominantly Sinhalese formations.
And yet there is a rising tide of religious atavism right across the world. What could be giving rise to it? Or is there something peculiar about Islam that we should guard against in particular? Or is it possible that "fundamentalism" is actually the natural progression of orthodox believers, including Muslims? If not, could it be a calibrated, cynical and deliberately crafted new ideology that uses religion as a vehicle, regardless of which religion, as long as the objective to crush a more liberal and socially fair world order is achieved?
For all practical purposes the word fundamentalist originated in the energy shock of 1973 when the Arab countries discovered oil embargo against the West as a weapon to bring their quarry to their knees. It is here at this stage that we have to take note of the other linkages in the drama. For example, the Vietnam war was not going too well for the United States and in fact the 1973 oil crisis and the Arab-Israeli war that triggered it had a clear if understated hand in the ignominy for Washington in 1975 in Saigon.
In the Middle East, during this phase of Arab politics, the leading voices against Israel and its Western supporters had little or nothing to do with Islam. It was an Arab-Jewish or as the Arabs prefer to say Arab-Zionist standoff in which the leading lights were leftist groups of Palestinians and completely secular groups from other frontline states. Leila Khaled, for example, who became the world's first woman hijacker when she commandeered an Israeli plane, no less, in 1968 was the member of the communist PFLP group of Palestinians.
The secular imprint on the Palestinian movement was so strong in the early days that even Yasser Arafat, a product of the truly reactionary Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, could become acceptable as its leader only after taking a secular position, not an Islamic one, as even recently partly reflected in his quest to go to Bethlehem for Christmas.
The factors that forced a secular movement of the Palestinians to find itself inexorably overwhelmed by rightwing religious movements like the Hamas are not different from the ones that marginalized a secular, albeit leftist, uprising against the Shah of Iran, a feature that repeated itself in Afghanistan with minor variations and a longer time-table for creating right royal religious chaos. The finger of suspicion points to the role of the United States. Indeed there's no suspicion, it's an accepted fact. In 1998, former US national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski told Le Nouvel Observateur that he persuaded president Jimmy Carter to create the Mujahideen in 1979, with the goal of "drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap."
Asked how he could justify the subsequent collapse of any government in Kabul and the Taliban takeover, Brzezinski said: "What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?" History will judge. Is the Northern Alliance of non-Pakhtoons not crammed with former religious zealots of the Mujahideen days? And was it not the Pakhtoons who were fighting for a secular Pakhtoonistan not too long ago, with a little bit of help here and there from the Soviet Union and India?
What Brzezinski achieved so cynically at a global level, Indian politicians have been busy crafting for decades at a smaller but equally vicious scale at home. The kind of support that orthodox and often reactionary Muslim bodies get from the state, not just the governments of the day, in their political calculations does not require mention here.
For its short-term gains, the state of India has systematically eroded its secular foundations to make room for the more pliable and manoeuvrable social groups at the cost of the liberal silent majority. That's one of the many heavy costs we have to pay for the running of this behemoth called the world's largest democracy. Muslim vote, Christian vote, Hindu vote, Dalit vote, and then we have Jat vote, Gujar vote, Paasi vote, Shia vote, Sunni vote.
But look closely again, for example, at the Muslims of India and you would perhaps notice that not only are they varied in regional cultures, well beyond the grasp of ordinary parliamentarians, but are religiously rooted in sects with diverse agendas, that include Wahhabis, Ahle Hadis, Deobandis, Nadwat-ul-Ulema, Tablighi Jamaats, Jamiat Ulema-I-Hind, Jamaat-i-Islami, Barelwis, Shias, Ismailis and why not even Qadianis. All or anyone of them could have inspired Akbar Ilahabadi, himself an orthodox Muslim, to guffaw thus: "Wo miss boli ke main milwaa to deti apney father se; magar tume Alla Alla karta hai, paagal ka maafiq hai."
Why single out Osama bin Laden for madness? As Fidel Castro said: "The more the world moves to the right, the more leftist I look, without even budging an inch from my original stance." Gen Musharraf's crackdown on Muslim extremists in his country could be the trigger to check this global drift to the right.

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14th January 2002

Letter from Pakistan Peace Coalition to General Musharraf

14th January 2002
From Pakistan Peace Coalition (Karachi, Pakistan)

To:
General Pervaiz Musharraf
President of Pakistan and Chief Executive
Chief Executive's Secretariat,
Islamabad.

Fax: 051-9203694 / 82009528

(Chief of Staff to CE)
Dear Mr. President,

Pakistan Peace Coalition, Sindh Chapter, welcomes the package of measures announced by you in your address to the nation on 12th January 2002 to counter the rising tide of religious extremism, intolerance and violence in the country.
The truth, Mr. President, is that, had these measures been taken some years back, these dark forces of ignorance and terror would have been unable to endanger peace within the country and indulge in mindless killings of innocent citizens in the name of religion, or to cause a host of serious and unnecessary complications in Pakistan's relations with neighbouring countries.
The disastrous policy of creating and sustaining such forces by the state did reflect in the foreign relations pursued by past governments, especially in the last two decades.
It has been one of the founding principles of Pakistan Peace Coalition that peace within the country and society at all levels is a pre-requisite to the evolution of our foreign relations on the basis of seeking peace beyond our borders.
PPC hopes that your Government will resolutely ensure the strict implementation of the measures you have announced, given the collaborative role played in the past by state institutions.
How India or the international community looks at these measures may, of course, be important, but what is most of important of all for the people of Pakistan is the speedy transformation of the Pakistani society from a terror and violence ridden one into one of peace, tolerance, justice, progress and democracy.
PPC Sindh Chapter assures you of its support in the successful implementation of these measures.

Yours sincerely,

B.M.Kutty & Karamat Ali
On behalf of
Pakistan Peace Coalition (Sindh Chapter)

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Special to Inter Press Service, Jan 14, 02

India must de-escalate and match Musharraf

By Praful Bidwai

New Delhi, Jan 14:
India, which accorded a cautious, mixed, and ambivalent reception to President Pervez Musharraf's landmark 'anti-terrorist' speech, will probably have to change its position and reciprocate Pakistan's moves. It is certain to come under increasing pressure to appear more appreciative of Musharraf's actions against jehadi militants, and to de-escalate the massive military build-up along its western border.
The defusing of tension between the two South Asian arch-rivals, both nuclear powers, could herald a breakthrough in their deeply troubled relationship. The ball is now in India's court.
If New Delhi drops the US-style aggressive posture it adopted following a militant attack on its Parliament building on December 13, it could engage Islamabad in negotiations to ratchet down tensions, restore normality, and prepare the ground for a peaceful resolution of all problems, including Kashmir.
If India chooses, for short-term domestic political reasons, to remain adamant, and demands that Pakistan surrender all the 20 terrorists it has named, it could lose a unique chance for reconciliation.
Worse, it could contribute to precipitating a ruinous and prolonged military conflict, with possible escalation to the nuclear level, with horrific consequences.
India has said that while it 'welcomes' Musharraf's speech, it will watch if its promises get translated into 'effective action'. Some of the action is already evident--with arrests of over 900 jehadi militants in Pakistan's biggest-ever crackdown. Musharraf has categorically ruled out handing over Pakistani nationals to an external agency, but said he could consider acting against non-Pakistani suspects if they are found to be in his country.
The question India faces is how far it should push for the extradition of terrorist suspects. India and Pakistan do not have an extradition treaty. Neither can be compelled under international law to hand over suspects to the other.
A way out could be found if a 'neutral' agency like Interpol is given custody of suspects for interrogation. But if this is made a precondition for military de-escalation, India-Pakistan border tensions could persist for a dangerously long time. World opinion, especially the United States' view, would seem to be averse to that.
US secretary of state Colin Powell, scheduled to visit India and Pakistan later this week, can be expected to counsel a quick resolution of the issue. India will find it hard to resist US pressure. It has allowed America to become a key player in the post-December 13 confrontation with Pakistan.
Indeed, India's strategy has been brinkmanship--building enormous military pressure on Pakistan in revenge for December 13, and extracting concessions through coercive diplomacy.
This pressure has been exercised through a mediatory agency, the US, by frightening it with the prospect of a South Asian nuclear confrontation, and getting it to tell Pakistan to act against terrorists.
Thus, Pakistan froze the accounts of terrorist groups (Lashkar-e -Toiba and Umma Tameer-e-Nau) within hours of the US putting them on its 'foreign terrorist' suspect list on December 23/24. Similarly, it arrested LeT chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed soon after India announced halving the strength of diplomatic missions, and cancelling all travel-and-transportation links with Pakistan.
Although it has produced favourable results, this brinkmanship has a menacing nuclear dimension, which is inconsistent with New Delhi's professed position against 'nuclear blackmail' and threat-mongering.
But in the process, New Delhi has become more vulnerable to US arm-twisting. It will find it hard to resist the US as a mediator or facilitator, by whatever name, on Kashmir.
Officially, the Indian stand is that Kashmir is a strictly bilateral issue which must be resolved through peaceful negotiations. But in practice, India will have to make some concessions to 'the international community's' (read, the US's) opinion.
India has been courting the US as a 'strategic partner'. After September 11, it uncritically supported the new Bush Doctrine equating terrorists with their harbourers. It entered no reservations when the US launched the Afghanistan war bypassing the United Nations system. And it has not had a word of criticism of the construction of a US military base at Jacobabad in Pakistan.
New Delhi has tried to mimic Washington in numerous ways: by equating December 13 with September 11 as an attack on 'democracy' itself, by rejecting genuine multilateral diplomacy, and by targeting, in keeping with the Bush Doctrine, terrorism's 'supporters' (Pakistan).
India has been partially motivated by resentment at having been sidelined by the so-called global 'anti-terrorist' coalition, which favoured Pakistan.
However, an equally important motive has been domestic--related to the trademark politics of the Hindu-sectarian, right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party. For the BJP, the 'anti-terrorism' slogan has become a stick to beat Muslims with, and to mobilise Hindu-chauvinist votes.
These votes are crucial to the BJP's electoral gamble in Uttar Pradesh, India's largest state, where it faces a make-or-break contest next month. If it loses Uttar Pradesh, its national coalition would itself be in jeopardy.
In a desperate bid to avert a rout, the BJP has exploited the post-September 11 climate by promulgating a draconian 'anti-terrorist' law, and through malicious propaganda equating Islam with 'terrorism'.
Musharraf's decoupling of Kashmir from terrorism has thrown a spanner in the BJP's works. It cannot claim that Musharraf's 'concessions' represent its triumph. Nor can it acknowledge their significance without losing face.
The BJP would have been in a less unfortunate position had Musharraf confined himself to banning LeT and JeM. But, on January 12, he announced a paradigm shift by severing the connection between religion and politics, and putting Pakistan on to the road to secularisation and 'tolerance'.
The agenda is probably the most far-reaching programme of change that any Muslim-majority society has attempted since Kemal Ataturk.
The Indian government cannot claim this is the result of its coercive diplomacy or military preparations. It will eventually have to respond by reciprocating Islamabad's moves. The less hesitation it shows, and the fewer its nitpicking reservations, the better for it.
The main obstacles in India's way are its own right-wing hawks. One of them is reduced to pleading that India must not 'de-escalate the crisis' to 'let Pakistan off the hook'. This, he admits, 'will not only show that it had been bluffing, but also next time it will not be able to mount a credible threat of force.'
That brutally shows up the limits of brinkmanship. Like a game of poker, brinkmanship inevitably involves a degree of bluffing. But the good gambler should know that once one's bluff is called, there is no point attempting an even bigger bluff. It is time for mutual give-and-take and dialogue.
Dialogue could open doors that have remained shut in South Asia for half a century.

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The Hindu, 14.1.02

We have no plan to broker Indo-Pak. Peace, says Zhu

NEW DELHI,: With the war against terrorism drawing the U.S. military forces close to its South and Central Asian borders, the Chinese Prime Minister, Zhu Rongji, arrived here this evening to explore possibilities of expanding political cooperation with India. Mr. Zhu, who first landed in Agra, said soon after his arrival here that China had no intention of brokering peace between India and Pakistan. Earlier in the day, the External Affairs Minister, Jas-want Singh, said at a press conference that "China has neither any intention nor will it play any mediatory role between the two countries."

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Hindustan Times, 14.1.02

India welcomes General's speech, sets terms for talks

New Delhi, January 13: INDIA WELCOMED General Pervez Musharraf's stand against the export of terrorism as a major shift in Islamabad's policy. But before accepting the Pakistani President's offer of a dialogue, India will await evidence of ground-level implementation of his promises. External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh stated this after an informal meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security and consultations among leaders of all political parties. Musharraf s bid to hoist the third-party bogey by de-linking Kashmir from the terrorism issue predictably evoked an outright rejection from New Delhi. "Should Pakistan move purposefully towards eradicating cross-border terrorism, India will respond fully and be prepared to resume the Composite Dialogue Process that includes Kashmir," the Minister remarked.

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14 Jan 2002

Pakistani Fundos respond to the Musharaf Govt.

http://www.khilafah.com.pk/

To: The Religious Affairs Minister Dr. Mahmood Ahmed n,Ghazi

We address you as a minister in the Government of Pakistan. We do this, even though there is a contradiction between the function of a minister in this government and the Islamic concept of ruling. The Islamic ruling system does not permit the position of minister as it has been used in the West and as it is copied in Pakistan. In the Western system, the minister is a ruler and part of the collective ruling body whereas leadership in Islam is singular.

We also address you as the head of the religious affairs ministry. We do so even though the concept of a ministry of religious affairs is in direct opposition to the Islamic concept about the State. In Islam, the entire state is responsible for Islam, not just one ministry. The religious ministries are set up in Muslim countries only to preserve the separation of Islam from life's affairs.

We address you also as a member of the Musharraf Govt. And this is a govt that has embarked upon a lengthy program of deconstructing Islam in this country from the strategic and ideological aspects. This is also a government that espouses an openly secular agenda, and whose head, on assuming this position, publicly expressed his admiration for Mustafa Kamal, the destroyer of the Islamic Khilafah.

Finally, we address you as a student of Islam and a teacher of it. And it is in this role primarily that we demand that you fulfil your duty in front of Allah to challenge the policies of the Musharraf govt and explain their deviation from Islam. We call you to be like those noble scholars from our history who used their tongues to speak the truth in front of the rulers and not like the government scholars of today who use their tongues to justify the evil of the rulers. In this regard we would like to draw your attention to the speech of General Musharraf on 12 January 2002, which he is said to have written personally with the assistance of visiting US congressmen. We address some of the key points of this speech below:

Your Chief Executive alleged regarding the ulema, "majority of them are blessed with wisdom and vision and they do not mix religion with politics."

The separation of religion from politics is a kufr concept that has no basis in Islam. The Muslim must live his complete life according to Islam, including his political life. Not only the ulema but even the ordinary Muslims know that Islam encompasses all aspects of life, including government and politics. Allah's speech (Subhanahu Wa ta'ala) in this regard in the Qur'an can be rendered as,

"Do you then believe in a part of the Book and disbelieve in the other? What then is the reward of such among you as do this but disgrace in the life of this world, and on the day of resurrection they shall be sent back to the most grievous chastisement, and Allah is not at all heedless of what you do." [TMQ Al-Baqarah :85]

Your Chief Executive extensively attacked members of Islamic groups referring to them as 'extremists'. For example, he said, "These extremists were those who do not talk of 'Haqooq ul-Ibad'. They do not talk of these obligations because practising them demands self-sacrifice."

The word 'extremist' is a Western invention that is used as a label for anyone that is opposed to the norm. Those who carry Islam are opposed to the norm throughout the Muslim world because they are convinced that the rulers of Muslims are Western-backed agents that continue to implement Western kufr systems of government in order to impose Western kufr colonialism on the world. In such a situation it is correct to be opposed to the norm, whether or not the West and their puppet rulers then insist to call such people 'extremists'.

As regards 'haqooq al-ibad', we would like to ask how the Government of Pakistan understands that it fulfilled the haqooq of our Muslim brothers and sisters in Afghanistan. The Government of Pakistan opened its airbases, airspace, intelligence, logistics, military and resources to the kaafir Crusaders thereby exposing the Muslims of Afghanistan to B52 bombers, daisy cutters and cluster bombs. Meanwhile, it was the Islamic groups in this country that were foremost in calling for the haqooq of the Afghani Muslims and leading the opposition to the kaafir Crusade.

Your Chief Executive says about the Islamic State, "do we want Pakistan to emerge as a progressive and dynamic Islamic welfare state? The verdict of the masses is in favour of a progressive Islamic state"

The need to qualify the Islamic State with adjectives such as 'progressive', 'dynamic' and 'welfare' are only attempts to invoke a meaning that is different to what would be understood by simply using the words 'the Islamic State'. In truth, Pakistan should emerge as the Islamic State and the verdict of the masses is in favour of the Islamic State.

Your Chief Executive said about Jihad, "Have we ever thought of waging Jihad against illiteracy, poverty, backwardness and hunger? This is the larger Jihad."

Illiteracy, poverty, backwardness and hunger would be addressed by removing the oppressive western kufr systems that are currently implemented over Muslims and establishing in their place the Islamic ruling system, i.e. the Khilafah. The Khilafah will take it upon itself to solve deep, widespread problems such as illiteracy, poverty, backwardness and hunger and will not abandon such problems to welfare organisations, foreign NGOs and United Nations agencies.

Jihad is obligatory in the case where kuffar attack or occupy Muslim land. This obligation is foremost upon the state and the armed forces. Allah (Subhanahu Wa ta'ala) revealed over a hundred ayaat of the Qur'an on the subject of physically fighting the kuffar and the mushrikeen.

Muslim rulers today neither solve the problems of illiteracy, poverty, backwardness and hunger, and nor do they undertake jihad. Instead they leave all this to individual Muslims and Muslim groups to undertake.

Your Chief Executive said about intellectual discussion, "I request them to express their views on international matters in an intellectual spirit and in a civilised manner through force of argument. Views expressed with maturity and moderation have greater convincing power."

The experience of those who express the pure Islamic viewpoint is that they are hounded by intelligence agencies, locked up in prison, and entangled in lengthy legal processes. The rulers of Muslims today cannot tolerate the expression of the Islamic viewpoint so these rulers respond to intellectual discourse with force.

Your Chief Executive said about the affairs of Muslims in other parts of the world, "I would request that we should stop interfering in the affairs of others."

Islam does not permit that we ignore the problems of Muslims in other parts of the world. The statement of Allah (Subhanahu Wa ta'ala) in the Qur'an may be rendered as,

"This Ummah of yours is one Ummah, so worship me."[TMQ Al-Anbiyyah: 92]

And the hadeeth of the Prophet (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) may be rendered as,

"The believers, in their love, mutual kindness, and close ties, are like one body; when any part complains, the whole body responds to it with wakefulness and fever."

Finally, your Chief Executive said about Pakistan, "Don't forget that Pakistan is the citadel of Islam".

We would like to ask how it is possible for a state to be 'the citadel of Islam' if it is not the Islamic State? There was only one citadel of Islam, and that was the Khilafah, which remained in existence under various leaderships from the time that it was established by the Prophet (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) in Madinah until it was finally destroyed by the kaafir and western agent Mustafa Kamal in 1924.

The Muslims of Pakistan have the capability and the will to re-establish the Khilafah State and they will succeed in doing this irrespective of the plans of the kuffar or their agents amongst the present-day rulers of Muslims, insha'Allah.

Hizb ut-Tahrir
Wilayah Pakistan
14 January 2002



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