Its baking hot in Delhi, but there is a spring in the walk of its Pakistani diplomatic community. Some are savouring the prospects of a new posting, reward for helping their country weather the storm that came with the Mumbai terror attacks. Others are busy with next months visit to Islamabad by the Indian foreign minister.
Not the least, there are those possibly from the intelligence community who are beginning to turn their gaze from the turbulence of Kashmir to closely watching Indias military moves against its own people in the central heartland state of Chhattisgarh.
The unmistakable smile on the diplomats faces reflects a comfort level. A similar undertaking in its north-western region by Pakistans armed forces is proving to be costly and in many ways ruinous for the country without an end in sight.
Lets suppose the Pakistani diplomats are keen to divine how far India will wade into its own version of the crisis before shooting itself in the foot. The more the Indian military gets drawn into a domestic standoff, which unlike Kashmir and the campaign in the northeast is so far unblemished by links to any bordering state, the greater will be the unspoken ease among the more vicarious diplomats.
A string of recent Maoist ambushes targeting Indian paramilitary troopers has triggered cries for instant revenge by the television-driven middle classes, a reaction not dissimilar to that in the aftermath of the November 2008 attacks on Mumbai. While the government then desisted from leaning towards any overt militarism with Pakistan, its demeanour tempered partly by the world communitys ever-lingering fear of an India-Pakistan conflagration, New Delhis response to Maoist terror at home displays no such restraint.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who has sought talks with Islamabad to resolve Indias problems with terrorism emanating from Pakistani soil wants to fight to weed out the Maoist problem root and branch a description that may not remain metaphorical given that his main target are groups operating from within dense forests. He has so far resisted an easier, peaceful way of resolving the violence.
One way, observers say, is by disclosing the details of the MoUs that local governments have signed with the big corporations to exploit the minerals in the region, and inviting the guerrillas for talks. The Maoists say they are willing to talk to the government if it first stops the military campaign under way.
The military strategy has its critics within the ruling coalition. Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee, a maverick coalition partner, has refused to blame the Maoists for last weeks train accident in West Bengal, in which a passenger train was derailed by subversion only to collide with a goods train speeding on the parallel track. More than 80 passengers were killed. The state is ruled by a Marxist-led Left Front coalition. Banerjee has insinuated that the Marxists may have done it to pin the blame on Maoists who she is seen as sympathetic to. A federal inquiry has been ordered.
To complicate the strategy for the Marxists, who endorse Prime Minister Manmohan Singhs hard-line approach to the Maoists, Banerjees Trinamool Congress swept this weeks civic polls, trouncing the Left Front government and Prime Minister Singhs Congress emphatically. Her victory in West Bengal presages a worrying trend for the Marxists. Their sympathisers can see defeat in state assembly elections in November, a traumatic forecast for a party that holds the record for continuously ruling the state since 1977.
Banerjees victory has put an uncomfortable question before Dr Singh: does he want to defeat the Left Front in November by helping Banerjee, which is the logical thing to do for the Congress, particular after the Marxists nearly torpedoed his civil nuclear deal with the United States? Or, should he dump Banerjee for her soft policy towards the Maoists, and befriend the Left Front, which stands with him in the military campaign against the Maoist guerrillas? The decision may have to wait.
A cabinet committee on security is scheduled to be chaired by the prime minister; its agenda to consider a more direct role for the armed forces in the war against Maoist guerrillas.
To prepare for the grounds for it the defence minister met the three services chiefs on Tuesday. It is not clear if the military, which was previously cautious about getting involved in a domestic conflict, has indicated any enthusiasm for a new role. What could swing the decision on behalf of its greater involvement in the Indian heartland is the daily reminder the government gets from the corporate media to act decisively, euphemism for militarily.
This trend could be seen as the single largest peaceful victory for Pakistans military establishment over India. It has found a surprising constituency with a taste for military solutions, that too in the worlds largest democracy. In other words, as Pakistan recovers from its debilitating tryst with military rule, and takes measures against future adventurism, a greater trust in the militarys prowess in resolving domestic fights can be detected among Indias growing middle class.
The government claims the guerrillas plan to overthrow the Indian state by 2050, a fear founded in badly printed party leaflets that have been the hallmark of all rightwing and leftwing movements in the country. All such movements without exception have set out with the dream to overthrow the state or tear up the constitution with street power. Anyone who has read the Communist Manifesto would know the zeal.
The reality about the governments overstated worry with the Maoists lies elsewhere. According to private observers the guerrillas are leading an armed resistance in tandem with peaceful, even Gandhian, movements in the vicinity (in neighbouring Orissa, for example) against the states bid to farm out the mineral resources to powerful business houses.
What seems to puzzle the Pakistanis and other foreign diplomats in Delhi is the way Indian officials have allowed the standoff with the guerrillas to acquire a brazenly untenable nomenclature. In the language of the paramilitary forces tasked to hunt the Maoists, the Indrawati river running through Chhattisgarh Dantewada district divides India and Pakistan, Pakistan being the name given to the region controlled by the guerrillas. This is encouraged by the communal Bharatiya Janata Party, which rules the state.
No battle in an increasingly rightward-leaning India is complete without first invoking an enemy that can be targeted more readily than others. That the Maoists are assiduously called Pakistanis is part of the strategy to convert a secular battle of ideologies into a war fuelled by obscurantist emotions. While Pakistani diplomats will be smiling at the deepening crisis in the heartland of India, it would be foolish for Indians to see any humour in the tragedy that seems to be rapidly unfolding.
The writer is Dawnscorrespondent in Delhi.
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/columnists/21-jawed-naqvi-a-handy-name-for-an-enemy-360-sk-05
Not the least, there are those possibly from the intelligence community who are beginning to turn their gaze from the turbulence of Kashmir to closely watching Indias military moves against its own people in the central heartland state of Chhattisgarh.
The unmistakable smile on the diplomats faces reflects a comfort level. A similar undertaking in its north-western region by Pakistans armed forces is proving to be costly and in many ways ruinous for the country without an end in sight.
Lets suppose the Pakistani diplomats are keen to divine how far India will wade into its own version of the crisis before shooting itself in the foot. The more the Indian military gets drawn into a domestic standoff, which unlike Kashmir and the campaign in the northeast is so far unblemished by links to any bordering state, the greater will be the unspoken ease among the more vicarious diplomats.
A string of recent Maoist ambushes targeting Indian paramilitary troopers has triggered cries for instant revenge by the television-driven middle classes, a reaction not dissimilar to that in the aftermath of the November 2008 attacks on Mumbai. While the government then desisted from leaning towards any overt militarism with Pakistan, its demeanour tempered partly by the world communitys ever-lingering fear of an India-Pakistan conflagration, New Delhis response to Maoist terror at home displays no such restraint.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who has sought talks with Islamabad to resolve Indias problems with terrorism emanating from Pakistani soil wants to fight to weed out the Maoist problem root and branch a description that may not remain metaphorical given that his main target are groups operating from within dense forests. He has so far resisted an easier, peaceful way of resolving the violence.
One way, observers say, is by disclosing the details of the MoUs that local governments have signed with the big corporations to exploit the minerals in the region, and inviting the guerrillas for talks. The Maoists say they are willing to talk to the government if it first stops the military campaign under way.
The military strategy has its critics within the ruling coalition. Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee, a maverick coalition partner, has refused to blame the Maoists for last weeks train accident in West Bengal, in which a passenger train was derailed by subversion only to collide with a goods train speeding on the parallel track. More than 80 passengers were killed. The state is ruled by a Marxist-led Left Front coalition. Banerjee has insinuated that the Marxists may have done it to pin the blame on Maoists who she is seen as sympathetic to. A federal inquiry has been ordered.
To complicate the strategy for the Marxists, who endorse Prime Minister Manmohan Singhs hard-line approach to the Maoists, Banerjees Trinamool Congress swept this weeks civic polls, trouncing the Left Front government and Prime Minister Singhs Congress emphatically. Her victory in West Bengal presages a worrying trend for the Marxists. Their sympathisers can see defeat in state assembly elections in November, a traumatic forecast for a party that holds the record for continuously ruling the state since 1977.
Banerjees victory has put an uncomfortable question before Dr Singh: does he want to defeat the Left Front in November by helping Banerjee, which is the logical thing to do for the Congress, particular after the Marxists nearly torpedoed his civil nuclear deal with the United States? Or, should he dump Banerjee for her soft policy towards the Maoists, and befriend the Left Front, which stands with him in the military campaign against the Maoist guerrillas? The decision may have to wait.
A cabinet committee on security is scheduled to be chaired by the prime minister; its agenda to consider a more direct role for the armed forces in the war against Maoist guerrillas.
To prepare for the grounds for it the defence minister met the three services chiefs on Tuesday. It is not clear if the military, which was previously cautious about getting involved in a domestic conflict, has indicated any enthusiasm for a new role. What could swing the decision on behalf of its greater involvement in the Indian heartland is the daily reminder the government gets from the corporate media to act decisively, euphemism for militarily.
This trend could be seen as the single largest peaceful victory for Pakistans military establishment over India. It has found a surprising constituency with a taste for military solutions, that too in the worlds largest democracy. In other words, as Pakistan recovers from its debilitating tryst with military rule, and takes measures against future adventurism, a greater trust in the militarys prowess in resolving domestic fights can be detected among Indias growing middle class.
The government claims the guerrillas plan to overthrow the Indian state by 2050, a fear founded in badly printed party leaflets that have been the hallmark of all rightwing and leftwing movements in the country. All such movements without exception have set out with the dream to overthrow the state or tear up the constitution with street power. Anyone who has read the Communist Manifesto would know the zeal.
The reality about the governments overstated worry with the Maoists lies elsewhere. According to private observers the guerrillas are leading an armed resistance in tandem with peaceful, even Gandhian, movements in the vicinity (in neighbouring Orissa, for example) against the states bid to farm out the mineral resources to powerful business houses.
What seems to puzzle the Pakistanis and other foreign diplomats in Delhi is the way Indian officials have allowed the standoff with the guerrillas to acquire a brazenly untenable nomenclature. In the language of the paramilitary forces tasked to hunt the Maoists, the Indrawati river running through Chhattisgarh Dantewada district divides India and Pakistan, Pakistan being the name given to the region controlled by the guerrillas. This is encouraged by the communal Bharatiya Janata Party, which rules the state.
No battle in an increasingly rightward-leaning India is complete without first invoking an enemy that can be targeted more readily than others. That the Maoists are assiduously called Pakistanis is part of the strategy to convert a secular battle of ideologies into a war fuelled by obscurantist emotions. While Pakistani diplomats will be smiling at the deepening crisis in the heartland of India, it would be foolish for Indians to see any humour in the tragedy that seems to be rapidly unfolding.
The writer is Dawnscorrespondent in Delhi.
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/columnists/21-jawed-naqvi-a-handy-name-for-an-enemy-360-sk-05
the problem is that Indian govt and other circles think differently but at the same time confused while the Indian members on the forums are asking for full fledged war against Maoists.
