So, Congress wants to cut a deal with Taliban!

By Kanchan Gupta

The venerable Wall Street Journal, which still takes the business of journalism seriously, has carried an interesting news story in its Wednesday’s edition. Headlined “Indian Minister Urges Afghan Political Settlement”, it is based on an interview with Minister for External Affairs SM Krishna, who apparently spoke to the writer, Joe Lauria, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, which is now in session. The opening paragraph of the story is truly attention grabbing: “India, one of the biggest investors in Afghanistan, believes there is no military solution to the conflict in that country and that NATO combat operations should give way to a political settlement with the Taliban, according to Indian Foreign Minister SM Krishna.”

The newspaper quotes Mr Krishna as saying, “India doesn’t believe that war can solve any problem and that applies to Afghanistan also... I think there could be a political settlement. I think we should strive towards that.” According to the daily, Mr Krishna “dismissed suggestions that India’s growing involvement in Afghanistan is intended to encircle Pakistan, a fear prevalent in some circles in Pakistan. ‘I think that is a baseless allegation,’ he said.” Mr Krishna, in his interview, “charged that Pakistan’s disruptive role in the Taliban insurgency continued”, and said “the military situation in Afghanistan was complicated by the ongoing aid for the Afghan Taliban provided by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency”.

A full reading of the news story and the extensive quotes of the Minister published alongside would reveal that he has not suggested a “political settlement with the Taliban”, at least not in so many words. But it is only logical to deduce that this is what he meant when he talked of a “political settlement”. Given the political reality of Afghanistan where the Taliban are determined not to allow democracy and modernism to take root, and want the country to return to the joyless, dark days when a one-eyed monster called Mullah Omar ruled that benighted nation with ruthless force in the name of Islam, the only people you can strike a deal with and come to a “political settlement” are the Taliban.

“If India can work happily with Great Britain after they having ruled us for so long, it only shows that we can play the game,” Mr Krishna told The Wall Street Journal. That is an allusion which only the naïve would miss or misinterpret. In interpreting foreign policy, each word, especially when uttered by the Foreign Minister of a country, is dissected many times over. And the most casual reading of Mr Krishna’s comments would suggest that they indicate a major shift in the Government’s policy on Afghanistan and a break with the national consensus that has helped its evolution: The Congress-led UPA is now willing to “play the game” and cut a deal with the Taliban.

What Mr Krishna has also signalled is the UPA Government’s rethinking on American involvement in Afghanistan. Till now, although India has steered clear of the US-led military intervention in Afghanistan, it has been a beneficiary of everything that has followed the fall of the criminal Taliban regime and the installation of the Government headed by President Hamid Karzai. New Delhi would not have been able to reopen its mission in Kabul and set up consulates elsewhere had Mullah Omar still been in power. Nor would India have been able to re-establish its people-friendly profile among the Afghan masses through infrastructure development and healthcare projects.

It would be foolish to believe that the ‘Indian presence’ in Afghanistan will remain untouched and undiminished if the US and NATO troops were to abruptly pack up and leave that country. A “political settlement” — or, to put it more bluntly, a deal with the Taliban — may please those in the UPA Government who believe Islamism is a benign idea and Islamists are the natural allies of ‘secularists’, but it will be disastrous for India and its national interest.

Since Mr Krishna is the Minister for External Affairs, we must presume that whatever he has told The Wall Street Journal, as well as the implied meaning of his statement, reflect current thinking in South Block. More important, since Mr Manmohan Singh unilaterally frames foreign policy these days, Mr Krishna’s comments must be taken to reflect the Prime Minister’s views — unless they are refuted or denounced by the Government’s drum-beaters in the media. It may not be entirely coincidental that the Prime Minister’s prescription for redrafting India’s policy on Afghanistan bears close resemblance to the current thinking in Washington, DC.

As US President Barack Hussein Obama watches his much-touted AfPak policy unravel, his strategists work overtime to convert the 21st century’s Great Game into a Grand Bargain. Mr Obama spoke of a ‘surge’ in the deployment of US troops, but there are as yet no signs of 40,000 more Americans being sent to win the war against the Taliban. And while policy-makers in the Obama Administration dither, Gen Stanley McChrystal, the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, has submitted a ‘confidential’ report — whose contents have been leaked to The Washington Post! — to the American President, underscoring the problems posed by “inadequate resources” at his disposal. “Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) — while Afghan security capacity matures — risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible,” he has said.

While Gen McChrystal has made a case for the immediate deployment of additional soldiers to bolster the presence of 64,000 troops in Afghanistan, Pentagon appears to be divided on the issue. It would like Mr Obama to take a political call on whether to go ahead with the ‘surge’ or begin pulling out troops from Afghanistan, and then strategise on the next steps to be taken. Interestingly, Gen McChrystal is also believed to have said in his report that “while Indian activities largely benefit the Afghan people, increa-sing Indian influence in Afghanistan is likely to exacerbate regional tensions and encourage Pakistani countermeasures in Afghanistan or India”.

That’s an understatement, but it nonetheless accurately reflects the Afghan reality which is intimately enmeshed with the reality of Pakistan’s ‘strategic depth’ policy that visualises Islamabad’s control over Kabul with the Taliban’s help and the imposition of Islamist absolutism. In such a scenario, it is amusing to think of the UPA Government cutting a deal with the Taliban.

[This appeared as the main article on the edit page of The Pioneer on Wednesday, September 25, 2009. The same day, alarmed by the possible fallout of SM Krishna's comments, the MEA spokesperson issued a statement, saying, "The Minister has been misquoted in his interview with The Wall Street Journal." A classic example of the adage -- What did the politician have for lunch? What he said at breakfast! A related news story of interest in The Wall Street Journal which appeared a day later: Dubious Afghan Vote Drove U.S. to Revisit Strategy.]

Malaysia Hindus persecuted

Malaysia, not truly Asia
Kanchan Gupta

Water canons used to disperse protesting Malaysian Indians in Kuala Lumpur
The brutal crackdown on Malaysia’s ethnic Indian community for demanding equal rights and a better deal should have left India incandescent with rage and South Block fuming. Instead, we have heard nothing more than a timid squeak in the form of the UPA Government informing Parliament that it has “taken up the issue” with the Malaysian authorities. There has been no robust statement, nor has there been a gesture of solidarity with Malaysia’s Hindus under attack. Thirty-one of them have been picked up for joining a protest march and charged with “attempt to murder” and equally serious offences which, if ‘proved’ in Malaysia’s kangaroo courts (recall the Anwar Ibrahim trial), could fetch them heavy penalties. The Prime Minister, who spent sleepless nights after an Indian Muslim was detained in Australia for his connections with the two Glasgow Airport bombers (both Indian Muslims), is not known to have shown even the remotest interest in the persecution of Hindus in Malaysia, leave alone utter a single word to register the Government of India’s protest. A conspiracy of silence has been hatched by those who believe even the mildest rebuke would upset the ummah in both Malaysia and India and cast aspersions on the Prime Minister’s ‘Muslims Über Alles’ policy which, funnily though, is yet to swing Muslim votes for the Congress.
It would, therefore, be in order to place on record the salient points made by Mr P Waytha Moorthy, chairman of Malaysia’s Hindu Rights Action Force (HINDRAF), the organisation which has been leading the agitation for a more equitable and egalitarian deal for that country’s ethnic Indians. He was in Delhi recently and made an eloquent presentation about the plight of the “forgotten, marginalised and persecuted” Hindu community of Indian origin in his country. Mr Moorthy stressed on four points that outline the situation prevailing in Malaysia:

• The demolition of Hindu temples on the instructions of Malaysian authorities, who are pro-actively involved with the Islamisation drive, has gathered extraordinary speed. At least “10,000 Hindu temples have been demolished” in Malaysia since its independence 50 years ago. Many of the temples were as old as 150 years and integral to Malaysia’s multi-cultural, multi-religious society; more important, they were a part of Malaysia’s civilisational history. By razing them, Malaysia is not only disowning its past but also stripping Hindus of their dignity and self-respect.


• The Government sanctioned Islamisation drive has moved into top gear. While in office, former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, backed by his party, Umno, had launched a two-point programme to give Malaysia a distinctly Islamic character. The first part of the programme was aimed at promoting Islamic values, setting up Islamic institutions and embracing pan-Islamism by securing a place for Malaysia on Islamic fora. The other part of the programme focussed on reviving the ‘bhoomiputra’ policy of the 1970s by promoting the interests of ethnic Malays, who are Muslim and form just over 55 per cent of Malaysia’s population. As part of this campaign, Muslims got precedence over others in Government, bureaucracy and education. Simultaneously, shari’ah court rulings are being made increasingly binding on non-Muslims, “especially in matters of inter-faith marriages and religious identity of children”.

This point is illustrated by a story filed by PTI from Kuala Lumpur on September 17, which is reproduced verbatim below:
An ethnic Indian Hindu woman has urged Malaysia’s highest civil court to stop her Muslim husband, who had embraced Islam, from converting their sons to the religion against her wishes.
Subashini Rajasingam, an ethnic Indian Hindu married Saravanan Thangathoray five years ago and the couple has two sons — Dharvin and Sharvind. However, Saravanan told Subashini last November (2006) that he had converted to Islam.
Twenty-nine-year-old Subashini, a clerk, attempted suicide and was hospitalised. When she returned home, she found that her husband had left with their son Dharvin, who he claimed had also converted to Islam.
The woman turned to the courts to prevent her husband from converting Sharvind and from seeking a divorce in a Shari’ah Court instead of a civil court. However, the Court of Appeal ruled in March she should argue her case in the Shari’ah Court. She then approached the Federal Court against the verdict.

• More than two-thirds of the people of Indian origin in Malaysia, living in that country for 200 years and forming 10 per cent of the population, are economically deprived because of their ethnicity and religious identity. Seventy per cent of Malaysia’s ethnic Indians are manual labourers and daily wage earners. This vast underclass is oppressed and suppressed by ethnic Malays with more than a little help from their Government. There are no official welfare programmes for the Hindu minority.


• The number of Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam schools has dwindled drastically, even though the population has increased manifold. The Malaysian Government is deliberately callous about the educational needs of the ethnic Indians. This is because the authorities want to “cut off the cultural and spiritual heritage” of ethnic Indians.

Not surprisingly, our national media with its skewered ‘secular’ agenda has not bothered to publicise the details provided by Mr Moorthy. Horror stories emanating from Kuala Lumpur have been suitably downplayed while outrageous comments by those wielding the stick in Malaysia have been front-paged. The overwhelming view appears to be that India should remain aloof and not get tangled with “Malaysia’s internal issues”. As a principle, this is unexceptionable. But since when has the UPA Government begun to live by principles?
The Islamisation of Malaysia should worry India. In fact, the galloping progress of radical Islam in South-East Asia should scare the daylights out of us. Malaysia has officially embraced Islamisation; Indonesia is Islamised; Thailand is putting up a valiant, though some would say losing, fight; and the Philippines Army is locked in a fierce battle with radical Islamists. Both our western and eastern flanks are now inimical to us; to pretend otherwise would be, to use an old-fashioned cliché, tantamount to adopting an ostrich-like attitude. With the Government burying its head in the sand, India is a sitting duck for Islamists of all shades and ethnicities. We would be well-advised to start losing some sleep over this.
December 9, 2007

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