Suman Palit

Musharraf's speechwriters (or whoever feeds him his canned statements) need to be brought into the 21^stcentury.
In his latest interview he wants to launch a five year plan to fine-tune democracy in his country.



First, what's with the fascination for five-year plans among south asian leaders and policy wonks..? What makes five a magic number ? What is Musharraf going to do in five years that previous dictators have not already tried ? Lets be cruel, hardheaded realists here. Whenever I hear Indian or Pakistani leaders talk about five-year plans, the law of averages tell me that failure looms at the end. A five year plan just a sop to the left-toppling opinion-makers of the region, most of whom are never around to follow the failure of each five year plan to it's sad end..


Second, fine-tuned democracy..? Pakistan..? It far from a democracy. It *is*, however, a fine-tuned lightning rod for Islamic extremism. For anyone to even attempt to describe the democratic process as something that can be "fine-tuned" smacks of statism. It demonstrates that neither Mushy nor any of his generals have the foggiest idea what democracy really is. He cannot herd his people towards his pet incarnation of democracy. He has to let go of the strings, something which he appears to be very unwilling to do. The people of Pakistan have to decide what level of influence Islamic theology will have on their public as well as private lives. They have to decide their level of involvement in self-government.



The experience of India bears examination in this regard. Indian democracy is not Jeffersonian democracy, nor does it bear anything other than a superficial procedural resemblance to the various parliamentary democratic traditions around the globe. In similar fashion, democracy in Pakistan, if allowed to wind it's own way, will not be anything like the image of a "fine-tuned" unchanging perfect dream of clockwork dance locked in a tin-pot dictators head! Anything else will be a dangerous, unstable mockery, kind of like the "democracy" that was offered to Kashmir by Nehru and his successors..! Look where that got the Indians after 50 years of independance..!

World ambiguity after India test-fires an Agni ballistic missile.. the important news is that the Russians and the Chinese don't care because they know exactly what kind of message the Indians sent to the Pakistanis that they, of course, claim was not sent or intended or implied as a threat at all.. whee..!!
I thought that the official comment from China was a hilarious example of the famed Chinese inscrutability and sense of humor..


..We have received your question..



This leaves Europe and Australia in the awkward position of ineffectually batting at India and using up valuable leverage (or brownie points as my wife calls it).. and so the game is played, on and on, round and round.. the music never stops, first one to blink stumbles, first one to fall loses. This stand-off is rapidly turning into a test of staying power.

It looks like the militant sphere of operations have been successfully contained within the kashmir region. Many analysts and bloggers such as myself were expecting and fearing a rash of suicide attacks throughout major cities during a day when India symbolically flexes her military and political might. Hopefully, most fears will be put to rest over the weekend.

Reader Randall Parker noticed a Peter Beinhart op-ed in the New Republic arguing against
Kashmiri self-determination with remarkable clarity.
If only there were more US policymakers with the wisdom to not only think logically, but base their arguments on common sense axioms, such as when he refers to the sacred cow of self-determinism:



...The problem with this logic is that all of India is, to some degree, a historical accident. Britain's policy in the final days of empire--a policy once dubbed "divide and quit"--left all kinds of jagged edges and simmering resentments. Throughout India's Northeast, for instance, a region connected to the rest of the country by a strip of land no more than 20 miles wide in some places, roughly 40 violent secessionist movements want exactly what the Kashmiris want: independence. Why is their claim any less strong? ...




..Kashmiri independence wouldn't only dissolve India territorially; it would dissolve it ideologically as well. Indian secularism--Nehru and Gandhi's founding vision of a state that doesn't favor any religious group over another--is one of the great achievements of the twentieth century...



..to admit that Kashmir, as a Muslim-majority state, cannot remain within India would expose secularism as a lie and imperil the claim to equality of the more than 130 million Muslims living in the rest of the country--a Muslim population that today ranks among the freest in the world...




It is historically accurate that the treatment of Kashmir by the Indian government has been less than perfect. In fact, it has been a trail of broken promises, paternalistic wrath, a repeated refusals to restore legislative autonomy, and the complete lack of political will to steer a different course..! The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty always viewed Kashmir as their little playground, filled with toy people whose pride and independant spirit never mattered. This attitude, of course, permeated India's Kasmir policy. Even the fact that India should have a "Kashmir" policy, and not a "West Bengal" policy, or a "Kerala" policy is indicative of the distinctions they made between Kashmir and the rest of India. Successive Indian governments never found the political will or the maneuvering room to step outside the box!
Beinhart ends with a perfect summary of the challenge that lies ahead for India:



.. all India has to do is honor the principles upon which its nationhood rests. It must make itself worthy of Kashmir's loyalty. If it can do that, its war against terrorism will already be won. ..

It's official..! Curry is the favorite blogger food/smell, definitely better than smelly eurocrats..
Why do I say that..?

1. Glenn Reynolds
   would rather smell curry than the EU.. though I really don't think he's referring to a lack of hygiene.
   
2. Moira Breen over on Inappropriate Response says:
   .. FOOD OF THE GODS. If you, like me, believe that curries in all their magnificent variation are the summit of human cuisine, ....
   I thought that was nectar, but I'll take a nice chicken shah jahani thank you...
   
3. Richard Bennet even maintains a worldwide curry page
   

Enron In India - II:


Enrons assets in India get bitten off by competitors.
while the Indian government decides to play
Pontius Pilate.



Not surprising.. If the Indian government were to look too closely into Enron India, it might find itself staring at the shadow of its own collusion,
and furthur evidence of bribery and corruption within the ranks of civil servants who still run every aspect of the energy trade.



Lessons to take away from Enron India

1. What is probably just a financial scandal in the US could become a full-blown political scandal in India,
   given the deep fingers of governement agencies in
   corporations in India. When governments stick to a purely watchdog role,
   the ability to play the role of unbiased mediator is easier.
   
2. Foreign investments need to be governed by realistic expectations.
   Listen to your bean counters.. dot-comers cannot count, so be extra careful..!
   
3. When private corporations need to get paid by government agencies, don't hold your breath.
   
4. This sends such negative signals to every potential investor...
   "we are the state, we are not accountable, contracts are meaningless.."
   

I guess this would be the equivalent of waving the red flag in front of an angry bull..! But the possibility of a terrorist attack during the
Indian Republic Day celebrations
tomorrow should not prevent the event from happening.



I worry more about overreaction from over 60,000 troops massed to protect the parade route.
The logistics of deploying 60,000 troops and heavy arms and then being able to control in such close civilian proximity are staggering.
On the other hand, the gloomy scenario painted by some news orgs is probably just paranoia..
A terror attack during such a high-profile event would just give the BJP more cards to stack on the deck against Pakistan.

In an troubling development, the Anadabazar of kolkata reports
(link requires installing bengali fonts) on a trend in India's troubles north-eastern state of Tripura,
where young men are enlisting in Indian paramilitary and police forces, going through basic training,
then slipping away into forests and badlands with stolen weapons.
Presumably, their goal being to join up with militant groups or gangs of highway robbers.
More troubling are the intelligence reports coming out of that region that indicate the
presence of chinese operatives working with local militants. A possible second front in the Indian terror war ?

A deal
that has the potential to greatly improve Afghanistans access to the outside world, now in limbo because of the Indo-Pak sanctions.

Thank the Bamiyan Buddha for justices with enough common sense to know when to side with conservation groups.

Instapundit picks up on Bush mooning the media.. who said the commander-in-chief doesn't have a sense of humor. What impressed me the most was the sight of Bush bench-pressing 180 lbs. On a very emotional level, that is much more comforting and inspiring than what his intellectual grasp of issues might be. Now I want to see him get in the ring with Osama..

Enron In India - I:

Enron India is now under attack for deleting electronic documents pertaining to it's failed investment in the Dahbol power plant near Mumbai.



..These electronic communications were largely pertaining to bad deals of Enron and Dabhol Power Company (DPC), several favours made before and after commissioning of DPC, instances of its mismanagement as also certain sensitive data pertaining to the design of the plant. ..



What surprises me is this information apparently came from an "anonymous" source who might be a security guard at the site. To me, this is a sign of the changing corporate and political climate in India. Whistle-blowing does not come easily to most Indians. Fear of retribution, physical intimidation are just some of the reasons why corporate crimes go unreported. If there is to be a silver lining to this story, it must be this.

Barbara Lippett over on adweek.com has an interesting and quite level-headed critique of the recent anti-hunting ad that Jeep pulled after just a few days.



..The spot was "not anti-hunter" the way Enron is not anti-disclosure. I hate shooting anything, but the fact is that hunters hadn't been made to look quite this dumb since Elmer Fudd first pulled down his hat flaps in pursuit of that "wascally wabbit." ..



Of course, the expected response from PETA was to launch a counter campaign to ask Jeep to continue with the ad. My guess, this ad is never coming back..! Not enough people care about radical animal rights activism, but there are plenty who would like to see hunters and sportsmen get the same respect for their beliefs and lifestyle choices as the current crop of PC activists.

Once again, animal rights radicals resort to legislative shortcuts to advance a political agenda that would otherwise never gain popular support. I guess they think generating an image of angry rednecks chasing Winnie the Pooh through the 100 acre rain forest is a good way to pressure legislators to pass bills based on junk science.



Anyone who has ever hunted brown bears (commonly referred to as grizzlies) or even black bears will tell you that most hunts end up with the bear in your face and is an incredibly nerve-wracking and potentially lethal experience. Also, anyone who understands the real costs of conservation and environmental programs will tell you that North American wildlife would not be where it is today if it were not for the efforts of sportsmen and hunters putting their money and their time where the Animal Rights Activists only put their mouths and trial lawyers..

Today the Indian military test-fired yet another nuclear-capable missile, and then had this spin to put on it..



..We do not view missile tests as sending a political message..



In fact, the very act of denying that there is a political message can sometimes send an even more powerful message. This is obviously calculated to demonstrate to Pakistan, and therefore the US, that the Indian nuclear strike capability is well-oiled and ready to go! Otherwise why waste time testing the short range version of the missile, one that has been more thoroughly tested than the intermediate or long-range varieties?

When you want your tandoori, you gotta have it, British Rail be dammned..! As a sign of the times, English cuisine seems to be getting a much needed makeover. And what a great way for Indian cooking styles to evolve and mature into acceptable alternatives for the rest of the world.!!



On the dimmer side, imagine if you will, what this is going to do the paper-pushers in Brussells.. will they dictate the percentage of onions that separate a curry from a sauce, and when is lentil soup a "soup" and when is it the main course.. ? Will French chefs go out of work, and will trade wars erupt over the correct chromatographic composition of the color of tandoori chicken..?



These are such exciting times to live in....ta for tonight

It seems to me that tehelka.com is rapidly becoming a real alternative to the regular Indian media, in both print and electronic worlds. I'm impressed with their brand of investigative journalism, and their willingness to attack and question sacred cows like the Indian military and the scandal-ridden defence sector in general.



Traditional Indian media has a very strong editorial tradition and a robust news-telling past. They usually get the news right, op-eds span the entire conceivable spectrum. Where Indian journalists have been self-censored and sometimes intimidated, has been in the area of investigative journalism. With a foxnews.com kind of edge, and a willingness to step down from the staid journalistic podium and accept some political backlash, tehelka looks like the place for savvy Indophiles to be at..!

It's seems a little late for the Indians to be complaining about the secret airlifts that moved Taliban and other Pakistani irregulars out of Kunduz last year.



I am struck by both the odd timing and the formal nature of the complaint. Given that the official US position is still one of denial, I have to wonder how much good this will do India. Unless this particular chess move is designed to distract the US government and force it to back away from applying any more pressure on them. Under this scenario, it would make it easier for India to keep the military pressure on the border a lot longer, perhaps into spring/summer. It's a well known fact that Indian generals view the prospects of a spring conflict with Pakistan an almost near certainity.



Move, counter-move, check, Bush to Musharook - 2 squares to the left double-time.. but still, the options left to India are running out. The BJP coalition will not survive the political fallout of a checkmate driven by US interests in the region.

Now we know the real story behind the fall of the Taliban. It wasn't the tons of precision ordinance dropped on their rat-holes. It wasn't the Northern Alliance that ran over their defences. It wasn't the shadowy Special Forces from the US and unnamed allies wrecking havoc behind enemy lines. It wasn't the glare of international scrutiny. It wasn't the hectoring of the war-bloggers from the Blogsphere, or the psycho-kinetic grief of Americans reaching out to strangle them...

It was the Curse of the Bamiyan Buddha...



I just knew there was another angle to the Bamiyan Buddha story I had picked up on earlier... The whole Rasta-Buddhist voodoo spin must have just slipped my mind..! My apologies to readers who were misled by my brief and incomplete cultural lament.

It is so good to have lofty goals, and aspire to such great heights, even if they are all, er, moonshine..!

Civil servants oppose privatization of the Indian version of "social security". India's pension plans have never worked very well except for a narrow segment of well-paid government sector employees. So beware of powercrats bearing paternalistic messages. Soon, we will hear how the uneducated and uninformed masses should never be trusted with their own money, for fear of causing them harm. Better to bleed to death over a thousand years than to get knocked down, climb up, and try again... sound familiar ?

Maybe this plea, from within the ranks of Pakistani political dissidents, will highlight human rights issues in Pakistan, which has a long record of oppression within it's own borders. It does lay bare the hollow moral ground that Ol' Mushy and his minions occupy when they stridently whine about the Indian civil rights record in Kashmir.


Not to try and claim any kind of moral high ground on behalf of Indian Kashmir policies, but on a relative scale, it does dwarf the Pak position that Kashmiris would be better off as part of them. Lets do a little quick comparison of what the future could hold for Kashmiris..

	Full Merger with Pak	Full Merger with India	Automomous Indian territory	Free nation
Individual Freedoms	Virtually none, since a merger with Pakistan will probably lead to a resurgence of radical Islam, emboldened by such a strategic success. Islamic law will run counter to any nascent democratic movement within Pakistan, leaving minorities like women, Hindus and Christains judged inferior by reason of gender and faith	A much higher degree of freedom. Kashmiris, like other Indians, would be free to move about the country, begin to rebuild their shattered economy along free-market lines with greater ease. Little things like the freedom of press, freedom of blogging would come with the package. The biggest obstacle of course, is convincing kashmiris that merger with India is not like dissolving in a vast sea, and getting rid of their unreasoned fear of living in a "so-called" Hindu state.	On paper, it might look like individual Kashmiris will get greater control over their lives. Provisions that prohibit other Indians from settling in Kashmir will probably continue to fuel resentment in other parts of India, and lead to subtle forms of discrimination and a lack of sympathy from them if there are any real friction points with the Indian government that will inevitably crop up	Kashmiris immediately get run over by the Paks, the Indians and the Chinese. The borders get reshuffled, pundits have a field day, everybody else loses
Political Freedom	Virtually none, since a merger with Pakistan will probably lead to the continuation of the authoritarian, oppressive, military rule that passes for governance elsewhere in Pakistan	A much higher degree of freedom. Kashmiris would get their own State Legislature, and be allowed to proceed with their brand of democracy under a constitution that has withstood several challenges. I suspect though, that incidents of police brutality will linger, since a clean merger is unlikely.	Not much more freedom than full merger with India. In fact, all Kashmiris gain through autonomy is isolation and lack of access to the kind of free-wheeling social and economic interaction that full and equal statehood in India will bring.	A moot point if this scenario is that implausible. Theoritically, it would still be a challenge for this land-locked nation to generate a truly indepandant political climate, free from Indo-Pak pressures.

Perhaps the only long-term solution is to carve out, not just Kashmir, but other Nortwestern Province territories as semi-independant nations along the United Kingdom model. This way both India and Pakistan have to give up their claims to more than just Kashmir... unlikely, but doable if events dictate no other choice.

I think John Weidner just likes stories about people throwing things at each other.

John Weidner of Regular Jottings calls me ..just a regular guy.. That's the best compliment a blogger can get, just being a regular guy, is all.

The Kolkata Libertarian broke the 100-visit/day barrier today, thanks to a lot of cross-linking from Instapundit, Natalie Solent and our very own war-blogger..

Apparently, the US now believes that fewer terrorists are crossing over from Pakistan to India. You think..!

1. This is the middle of winter, and terrorists don't drive around on snowmobiles and 4X4s dressed in warm mittens, padded underwear, latte in hand. Historically, winter incursions have always been low.
   
2. If I were a terrorist, I would lay low for a while, wait for the heat to cool off.
   
3. Ol' Mushy has little real control over the militant groups operating in his country. To attribute the slowdown in incursions to his grand speech is disingenuous.
   

This is one time India needs to ignore the US and keep pressing with their demands. The primary short-term US goal in this region is to keep the heat off Pakistan, not to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with India. Anyone expecting otherwise is in for a rude disappointment. It's a fact of politics everywhere and there is no real moral judgement to be made here on US actions, which are perfectly understandable and expected.. the Indians just need to deal, and not knuckle under every US demand..!

Two whole days, and the media here in the US is yet to pick up (in any serious fashion) on the newest terrorist attack in Kolkata. There are two really good reasons why this story is of such interest:

1. Since 9/11, this has been the first successful terrorist attack on an American symbol. The symbolic value of this appears to be lost on the media and the US ingeneral. I suspect that this is a message, not so much directed at the US, but at militant groups elsewhere who may be losing hope after the war with the Taliban. For this reason alone, close attention needs to be paid to the how and why of this attack. Perhaps the fact that no Americans died in the attack keeps the story from moving from the bottom ticker on CNN to the news desk of Aaron Brown..! Yes, it was only Indian policemen who died and were injured. They died protecting US interests, and they and their families deserve better.
   
2. The investigation appears to be moving on a fast track and investigators now have numerous leads linking the suspects in this attack to 9/11. I agree that this allegation needs to wind its way through the intelligence apparatus and be verified. The CBI does appear to be convinced, and they do have good intelligence on the ground. This information warrants greater scrutiny by both intelligence agencies and the public.
   

Natalie Solent thinks I have been too harsh on Freund in my last post on this matter. I agree that he makes no overt statement praising the actions of the Taliban. He does, however, seem to equate the prior existence (and subsequent rebuilding effort) of the statues with the historical record of the Taliban's act of destruction. That, to me is entirely wrong..! There is no moral equivalency between the complex acts of creativity and toil required to build these statues with the simple and thoughtless act of their destruction.


This is at least one of the good reasons why we punish people who destroy public property or life. I am simply claiming that the same reasoning should apply to the Bamiyan Buddhas, even if their creators have long since left this world and no one is left to claim them.

The bellicose women's brigade has now added the Kolkata Libertarian to their list. Thanks..

Does Hamid Karzai have the nine lives of a cat? If so, he's already used up most of them.

Instapundit readers are right.. sex appeal does sell very well. You can tell (from the HTML source of the page) that Samizdata's hosting provider maintains a separate image server (like most providers), which is probably why you can get to the page but not to the images. Hmm, methinks there has been a download frenzy of late.. particularly if people are going to the site where the images are hosted.. as one of his readers claims.



A few conclusions:

1. We need to revive the idea of a Blogger calendar. Any contendors for the front page ??
   
2. Does Ms. Radic realize that by now, her face has been spliced on top of nude pictures, and some enterprising young man is probably starring her in the leading role of his new story on alt.sex.politics..! The price for fame on the Internet is to be immortalized through porn.
   
3. Blogging is, after all, a numbers game. Samizdata is to be congratulated on their effective use of, er, human capital.
   
4. Glenn Reynolds^* is probably just jealous that there are better looking bloggers out there than him ;-)
   

^*Thanks to reader Dan Rector for pointing out that I mis-worded Mr. Reynolds last name on my first post.. corrective action has been promptly taken

Tragically, the folly of yielding to terror-blackmail is all too apparent..!

I just got off the phone with my mother, who of course had to send out a flurry of emails and voicemails reassuring everyone that the family was safe and unharmed. I got an interesting viewpoint from her. She reads all the local papers (who don't have web presence) and the consensus appears to be that Kolkatans are paying the price for looking the other way as over the last decade, terrorist groups of every color have sought, and found refuge in her teeming streets.


Several events and things point to Kolkata being a breeding ground for terror, or at least a safe haven of sorts:

1. During the Sikh insurrection of the 1980s, there was relatively little activity in Kolkata, as opposed to frequent terror attacks in Delhi and Mumbai. This is surprising in of itself. Kolkata is the biggest and only industrial and economic hub of eastern India. Why would terror groups not attempt to sabotage life there..?
   
2. Ditto for the Kashmir conflict..
   
3. West Bengal in general, and Kolkata in particular has always been in intellectual and political ferment. Rabid anti-capitalist, and therefore by extension, anti-US groups are commonplace, and well-tolerated by the population.
   
4. Kolkata has a very large Muslim population, most of whom live below the poverty line and susceptible to some of the radical politics of Islam.
   
5. A large and indeterminate number of this population are refugees from Bangladesh, who are at risk of discrimination, oppression and abuse by political parties looking to get free votes..!
   
6. The growing feeling in the "Kolkata street" is that they have been sleeping with the tiger for too long, and now its time to pay the price.
   
   

Its nice to see the BBC set aside its PC straitjacket once in a while. It appears now that the reality show "Commando" based on Indian commandos in training will air at last. Of course, digital cable where I live at is rotten, no BBC World, no Outdoor Channel.. oh well.. there's bound to be a DVD for it out soon

Tehelka has some interesting analysis linking the transfer of forward commander Lt General Vij and the recent attack on Kolkata. It does border on paranoid conspiracy theory, but then again...



..According to a security analyst specialising in US foreign policy in South Asia, what will probably follow in the days to come is an US demand - most likely unpublicised - that since India has shown itself incapable of safeguarding American interests (indeed, a patch of the Stars-and-Stripes) in India, it might be more judicious, in terms of US security, to allow the stationing of some US marines on Indian soil. ..




The thing to take away is not whether this could be true or not. Of course it could.. what wouldn't the US give to have a permanent military presence in India? Besides, the biggest argument against this theory is that the US proved incapable of protecting her own people on 9/11.. so what moral high ground does the US then occupy in justifying a US military presence in its facilities ? However, what the US needs to realize is this: With a free and unencumbered press sniffing out potential scandals (and therefore newsworthy stories), and a fragile coalition government that has made Indian nationalism its central creed, could make the US the ironic catalyst for the destabilization of India. One very plausible scenario.. faced with rising criticism of becoming a satellite state of the US, the BJP backs away from its pro-American stance and proceeds to look for partners elsewhere.. Can anyone spell C-h-i-n-a..?



The losers in all this: the Indian people, who desperately need to apply the lessons from the American free-market to their own unique problems..

This attack is a little too close to the heart for comfort. Gunmen have now sprayed the US Information Services Center in Kolkata, killing at least four policeman. My father is a retired policeman with over 30 years in the Kolkata police force. I can only imagine how he must be feeling right now. This has got to be the worst target for terrorists to pick on. The USIS has one of the best libraries in the city, and in my time was the favorite haunt of college students and nerdy high schoolers looking to impress their math teacher. If the terrorists had succeded in killing any civilians, it would not have been Americans, but young Indians for whom the USIS is a very important institution.



Now of course, the blame game begins again. If it is true that an alleged Dubai based terrorist found the balls to take responsibility for the action, then this is yet another reason for India to not take Musharraf's grand proclamations at face value.

Ah the power of free speech when it is actually exercised in a concerted manner. Sportsmen all over the US have managed to get Jeep to pull its controversial anti-hunting ad by threatening to take their dollars elsewhere as part of an email/fax/phone campaign that took on a life of its own. Apparently, someone at Jeeps market research thought hunters and sportsmen spend their whole lives hiding under brush piles covered with deer urine, waiting to bludgeon unsuspecting deer and other warm fuzzy little creatures to death, therefore justly deserve to be pilloried on national tv.



One of my best memories of this hunting season were watching a muscled two year old buck glide through the forest fifty yards from my little brush pile. He then stopped to turn, eyes gleaming in the dusk as he looked right through me. A quiet snort, a flick of the white tail, he quietly vanished into the gloom. I never saw him again. This was the closest I came to a deer all season. Talk about low percentages and high odds.. maybe I should start small, like rabbits, come next fall.

More information coming out on the recent replacement of Lt-General Vij, a top Indian military commander in charge of a forward strike force. If this is true I may have to take back some of my last post on this matter.


..Last week US satellites picked up the movement of the Ambala-based 2 Corps of which Lt-General Vij was the General Officer Commanding. The satellite images apparently showed that some armour columns of 2 Corps had moved into strike areas from their concentration areas, which are generally at a safe distance from the border..


.. The US reportedly confronted India with the images. But the government apparently professed ignorance, and denied that it had instructed the strike formations to move to forward locations. ..





Welcome to the new world of global information sharing. This shows what little maneuvering room there is for both India and Pakistan when the world decides to train their eyes to the region. His replacement now appears to be little more than a reflexive finger-pointing exercise in Indian political circles, where the fall guy is almost always the low man on the totem pole. The problem is that the low man on the totem pole in this case is also the tip of the spear (argh, the folly of mixed metaphors). This could very well be a tactical blunder on the part of the Indian government, unaccustomed to managing an impending war.



Military commanders on the ground always require some flexibility and freedom when it comes to troop movements and placement. For someone poised to be the front man for any Indian offensive action, Lt-general Vij was probably just doing his job, positioning his troops for maximum effectiveness in the event of war. It would be a moral outrage if it comes out that this movement was authorized by the highest civilian or military leadership, who subsequently let their man take the fall for their incompetence. It strikes me as a severe overreaction, when all that India needed to do was to quietly pull the strike force back and chalk it up as a test of the American intelligence gathering network. All that has been accomplished now has been the possible demoralization of the strike force itself, and the perception that the Indian military is not as firmly under civilian control as its leaders would like us to believe.

Sun Tzu, meet Barqat Ali..! Even six year olds appear to be masters at the art of war. From the mouth of babes comes this amazing take on the Indo-Pak military tango:

We should be so powerful that we beat the enemy without war," ..

Or this gem of political insight:

We want to see India more powerful than America. Have you seen how countries fear them?"



Nothing succeeds like success, and I would add: nothing spurs imitation like success. Kids in India watch MTV while listening to their elders admire (some grudgingly) the repeated successes of the US and the power of capitalism and market economies. It takes no great feat of imagination to predict these kids will grow up wanting to claim some of that magic for themselves.

Charles Freund has decided that the Bamiyan Buddhas are better off being demolished. He even gets linked by Reason magazine today. Apparently, he thinks passing comments by western travellers such as Byron are enough to prop up his undisguised chauvinism, to quote...Neither has any artistic value. But one could bear that; it is their negation of sense, the lack of pride in their monstrous, flaccid bulk, that sickens. .. The fact that armies used the statues for target practice is, of course, perfectly understandable. After all, everything that the Persians and the Muslim armies did then, and some continue to do so now, is born out of a superior aesthetic sense, and nothing else...!




What rankles in my mind is that with a ponderous swish of his mouse, Freund has decided to pass judgement on works of art never meant to be judged by the standards of today. The Gandharan art is a reminder from history, about events and people that existed in that time long gone by. It existed, and by its very existence served to remind us of a grand civilization now failed and gone, like so many others. Would he agree to tearing down Gothic castles in Germany with as much ease, if cultural "experts" were to announce their disgust at the raw portrayal of gargoyles and naked men and women..? With his flippant dismissal of the Bamiyan Buddhas as being irrelevant except for the new meaning cast by their destruction, Freund finds himself in danger of becoming another Buchanan-like "west-is-the-best" ideagogue.



So there..!

Growing Hindu "fundamentalism" in India.. this is just the beginning.. .



My fear is that this relatively new movement has already been labeled as India's "right-wing"..! Since the average media pundit in the West appears disinclined to differentiate between the Taliban "right-wing" of Islam, and the Taliban "right-wing" of the GOP, the slippery slope of moral equivalency has already placed the burden of guilt on any Hindu political expression in India.



What the US and the rest of the world need to understand is that for almost all Hindus in India, to be Hindu is simply the most natural way to exist, and any political movement that is representative of people and how they view the world, is going to have a strong religous streak in it. The "hindusized" political movement is gaining ground everywhere, and is absolutely not going to go away anytime soon. It might not be a Jeffersonian democracy, but it is, and will continue to be a democracy. Marginalizing a large section of the population for a politically incorrect version of democracy by Western pundits is only going to ensure their irrelevance to the Indian "street".

Instapundit observes that one crucial difference between Europe and America is that Europe believes it knows everything it needs to know about America, while America is hungry to know more of Europe and the rest of the world.


Transpose Europe with pan-Arabia and most of South Asia and you can come up with pretty much the same conclusion. I would add Baywatch and daytime soaps (pick any) to the list as well. This would explain why conspiracy theories abound in that region of the world. People there are just not able or willing to distinguish between television fantasy and reality. It makes more sense now to make Hollywood the first front in the culture war. If the world is going to base its perception of the US based on television dramas and movies, lets give them a view of America that we want them to see. In any war, the side with the better information, as well as the better tools of disinformation, will win..!

Now that PoK militants are targeting Muslims in Kashmir as well, watch for the spin claiming this was really a secret Indian intelligence services plot to discredit their legitimate jehad. Kind of fits with the whole US-Israel-India conspiracy theory mania that seems to grip much of the pan-Arabic world these days.

If you can't join them, jehad against them:

Looks like Mushy is the latest target of disaffected PoK jehadis. What a friendly little bunch..! This is the beginning of the inevitable long dark slide at the end of which ideas like 'jihad' will lose all potency and meaning. Throwing out a 'jihad' at the slightest provocation is hardly the way to garner any respect for your cause from the rest of the world. These PoK militants are doing nothing whatsoever to advance the legitimate grievances of Kashmiris as their antics threaten to drown their message.

There are now reports that a top Indian military commander has been removed from his role as chief of a border area strike core. While the usual war-hawks might decry this as a tactically unsound move, it sends out a very clear signal that it is the duly elected, civilian leadership that is in charge of the armed forces, and will not tolerate cowboy tactics from elements within the army. This underscores the difference between the militaries of Pakistan and India. The first is deeply embroiled in national politics to the detriment of its primary mission. The second is a professional and accountable fighting force not afraid to confront its inadequacies and act on them.

India and the US sign the GSOMIA agreement after over a decade of self-defeating dithering on part of the Indians. In theory, this allows both the US and the Indians to inspect each others defense installations. The GSOMIA (or General Security of Military Information Agreement) obligates both parties to protect each others classified information. In practice, this gives the US a way to verify that arms sales and sensitive technology transfers to India stay inside India. I tend to view this as another example of the new BJP government's policy of opening up the practices of the Indian government to scrutiny, and shedding more of India's Cold war policies. All in all, a very good thing.

In fact, comics today are a great way for NGOs and other activist groups in India to spread social messages to a generally illiterate population. I tend to believe that the graphic novel and comic book medium has the potential to have a wider appeal to Indian and other South Asian audiences than in the West. The reason may have to do with the extensive story-telling history of the sub-continent, and the fact that the elitist snobbery that impedes its general acceptance in the West has not yet found its way here. For example, homegrown graphic novels were considered by my mother (a school vice-principal) to be an acceptable way for me and my sister to learn about Indian history, in spite of some controversy about their historical accuracy. They have even been co-opted by the growing reactionary Hindu movement as a tool to reach out to the kids.



In fact, there is a good chance that homegrown superheroes from India might have a better chance of getting through to kids in Afghanistan and Pakistan than the Supermans and the Batmans from American folklore. But their lives, their adventures and their stories are all cut from pretty much the same cloth. Putting a face on good and evil, drawing a firm line in the sand between the two, these are all tasks admirably suited to the medium of the graphic novelist. The unhappy kid in his madrassa now has an unlikely set of allies; his world of imaginings now perceptibly richer..!

Thought I would follow up on the Spiderman vs. Al-Qaida story I had picked up on earlier. Now this is such a great underrated psi-ops tool.. and I speak here from personal experience. In all fairness, I have to attribute a large part of my fascination with America as a boy growing up in Calcutta, to my frequent, uncensored, underground exposure to comics. We would bring comics to school under the constant threat of confistication. Packs of boys huddled over one dog-eared comic outside school grounds was a common sight. There was Superman, the Justice League, and of course, the sappy soap opera of Archie and the Gang. I learnt from the Riverdale punks it was ok for girls to go around in tight T-shirts and kiss boys on park benches. Batgirl and Wonderwoman convinced my 10-year old mind that large-breasted, muscular women in tights fighting shoulder to shoulder with men was a perfectly natural phenomenon.. Images of Superman constantly battling international super-villians, appearing to lose, then winning in a fierce burst of courage and then being thanked by the US president on behalf of the entire free world.. convinced me that the winners were living in America, and that somehow, I must belong there with them..



If this project takes off, and if people find ways to distribute comics to kids from Jalalabad to Karachi, we will have found a powerful tool to reach the minds of the little boys and free their imaginations, and perhaps turn a few from the wasted path of the jehadi.