Who says India is not a true democracy? Who says India doesn’t have fine politicians? Since 2002 I have repeatedly pointed out that Madhya Pardesh’s former Chief Minister Mr Digvijay Singh is the best example of the Indian democracy and is a person in total contrast with the man in charge of neighboring state of Gujarat, Narendra Modi. A decent politician and a wonderful man, Digiraja as he is well known, is now serving as the Congress Party’s General Secretary. Since I don’t believe in India bashing and always presented India at home as the shining example of a miracle among the developing world even during the days of Gujarat massacre which left 3000, mostly Muslims, dead, I was repeatedly pointing out that with leaders like Digvijay Singh Indian secularism does not need to lose hope. It is my belief that remarkable leaders should always be respected regardless of the caste, creed or nationality. But it seems that his objectivity and stature is unacceptable to the Indian Hindutva fundos and their surrogates in the media.
 But he is not the only one. Nor is he the first one. You have seen what was done to Mr Antulay. Not only expressing one’s opinion different from the well publicized theory about Mumbai is dubbed as  a ‘conspiracy theory’ the conscientious person expressing it is really taken to task. But let me tell you of the other person I adore and yet is being subjected to character assassination. The head of BSP, Mayawati Kumari, seems to be under fire from the same quarters for apparently different reasons. There is much talk of an officer’s murder. But before I move any further let me tell you what I think of her. When Obama won in the elections, Barkha Dutt hosted a program on NDTV asking who could be the Obama of India. Since I watched the program with interest I expressed my views on this very weblog.  I wrote: “If my views as a keen India observer were of any consequence I would have suggested that since India’s form and nature of democracy is much different from the United States we can only talk of the substance alone. And if someone was to fit that description it is none other than Mayawati Kumari. Why? You know about the caste and communal tensions in India and if someone’s profile can promise across the board hope to everyone it hers. I believe that since the Americans broke the shackles of a possible dynastic rule, consider Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton prospects, India too can break the Congress-BJP-Congress cycle by giving another chance to the Left leaning parties”. Now she is under criticism. It seems that the BJP supporting media wants all promising people to be nullified. Why else would Hemant Karkare’s murder would be swept under the carpet while magnifying an engineer’s death in custody? 
Coming back to Digvijay Singh, I believe that he too is being persecuted for expressing his perspective. He has claimed that terrorists had demanded the government to release some terrorists. In the previous post I had questioned whether under Sardesai CNN-IBN was serving the BJP’s agenda. Here is the proof of that. Why stifle a man when he is trying to express his opinion?  India after all is bound to gain from the freedom of expression as a democracy. Consider the IBNLive’s treatment of the story:

Congress leader shoots his mouth; target is BJP 
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/digvijays-conspiracy-theory-has-a-political-plot/81535-3.html

New Delhi: The Congress may be in for some rough weather again because of a senior’s leader’s conspiracy theory about the Mumbai terrorist attacks.
Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh has claimed that the militants who attacked Mumbai demanded the release “of certain terrorists” but the Government refused them.

“During the incident the terrorists had taken some people to hostage and demanded release of certain terrorists. But the Government bluntly denied such demands,” said Singh in Indore on Sunday
“We did not compromise, rather we went ahead and eliminated them (the Mumbai terrorists),” said Singh, who didn’t name the terrorists whose release was sought.
The former Madhya Pradesh chief minister made the claims just as his party was trying to douse the controversy created by Minority Affairs Minister A R Antulay’s statements.
Antulay created a storm in Parliament by demanding a probe into the death of Hemant Karkare, the Maharashtra police office officer who was gunned down by terrorists on November 26.
Antulay claimed Karkare was investigating the Malegaon blast case, in which radical Hindu groups are suspects, and there was “more” to his death.
The minister’s statements were embarrassing for the Congress, as he appeared to be shooting his mouth just when the country was speaking out against terrorists and India was demanding that Pakistan crack down on militant groups in its terrorists.
Antulay may have spoken mindlessly but Singh’s statements seem to be a clever political plot. His target is the BJP, which was in power at the Centre when the government had to release terrorists to assure the safety of passengers of an Indian Airlines flight hijacked and taken to Kandahar in December 1999.
Singh seems to convey to the public that the Congress didn’t give in to terrorists’ demands but the BJP did.

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I have witnessed some of the most irresponsible work of journalism on both sides of the border during the current Indo-Pak confrontation. While Indian side is ridiculing even the most credible and honest politicians like Antulay and even Diggi Raja just because they think that in a democracy everyone has a right to express, shoddy work is visible in Pakistan too. I was seriously disappointed yesterday when I saw a very very regrettable report yesterday from someone I have adored as a friend and journalist of integrity. Before I explain the consequences of that report and identify that friend I beg to give a bit of the background.
A day before yesterday a cryptic warning reached me that India could attack Pakistan during the next 60 hours. The same report forced the Pak Air Force to beef up security. Owing to the heightened security there was a lot of speculation among the masses of a possible war. Meanwhile the PAF issued a one liner to explain the situation which stated, “In view of current environment PAF has enhanced its vigilance. (Pakistan Air Force).”  As you can see even though the statement appears ambiguous, it leaves any speculation for war.
Yet a lot was made out of it owing to the fact that the US CJS Mike Mullen also arrived around the same time in Pakistan. The visit was prescheduled and was more focussed on the protection of supply route to the ISAF troops in Afghanistan but in the broader regional context it has assumed importance owing to the confrontation. But should his presence be construed as something nefarious? I think not. Rather we should be thankful. It was similar military diplomacy which had kept the two countries from fighting a nuclear war in 2002. Given the fact that he is to be present in Pakistan for 48 hours the shadows of war will have passed by then. We know that diplomatically such a presence helps to quell chances of aggression from both sides.
Yes I was really disappointed to see Absar Alam, my former colleague in the Nation and Geo, and now the Director News of Dunya TV reporting something totally misplaced and reckless. Just for the sake of record I must mention here that I usually don’t criticize my colleagues on my website not do I mention such folks by name usually. However the recklessness of this report compels me to point this one out. Banking on the ambiguous language of the PAF statement our dear friend reported quoting anonymous sources that Mullen was here to force Pakistan not to retaliate in case of an Indian attack. He further maintained that the request was rebuffed by the government. Simple report isn’t it? But consider the consequences. First by implying that a war is indeed coming you are sending the media into a war frenzy (indeed at least Dunya went into a war trance following this). Second by spreading such disinformation you are building a sentiment against the very peace building efforts in a country which is already heavily polarized. Third given the shaky nature of the Pakistani democracy, using warmongering rhetoric you are aiding and abetting the enemies of democracy in the country. And finally since the report was not substantiated afterwards you are damaging the credibility of the Pakistani media in the eyes of an average citizen. And finally consider the possibility of a situation where the officers corps of the armed forces inhales this propaganda and commits any circumstantial mistake hence paving way for a war. Since I have never been in support of censorship and even now I believe that responsibility should come from the media personnel himself/herself. May I point out that at the very least the better known journalists need to exercise caution in dealing such matters. While evidence from anonymous sources is most welcome, for the evidence can be ascertained on ones own, the reports from anonymous sources should be used at best with a pinch of salt. Please situation is really very tricky and peace is in Pakistan’s interest too. Let us not do anything reckless. I leave you now with a very good report on the issue from ABC News.

Double-Teaming Pakistan

ABC News’ Luis Martinez and Kirit Radia Report: In another sign of how importantly the US military is taking its relationship with Pakistan, the Pentagon announced that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen visited Pakistan earlier today for the seventh time since assuming the post more than a year ago and Pakistan’s National Security Adviser Mahmud Ali Durrani, formerly the Ambassador to Washington until last May, was back in town last week for meetings with top US officials.

A brief statement released by Mullen’s office says Mullen traveled to  Islamabad earlier today and met with Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, Pakistan’s Army Chief of Staff and Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, head of Pakistan’s controversial Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.  It was Mullen’s eighth meeting with Gen. Kayani.

According to the statement, “He thanked both men for their efforts — and the efforts of the Pakistani. government — to arrest members of Lashkar-e-Taiba and other extremist groups involved with the attacks in Mumbai.”   In his meetings Mullen “urged them to support judicial efforts to prosecute the cases fully and transparently.”

Mullen’s previous trip to Pakistan took place shortly after the deadly terror attacks in Mumbai, India that temporarily inflamed tension between India and Pakistan.  His message on that last-minute trip was to urge military restraint by both sides and to encourage Pakistan to focus attention on the terror threat posed by Lashkar-e-Taibe (LET) in the eastern Kashmir border region, a terror group suspected of having received support in the past from the ISI.

According to the statement, Mullen “encouraged the Pakistani leaders to use this tragic event as an opportunity to forge more productive ties with India and to seek ways in which both nations can combat the common threat of extremism together.”

Mullen visited Pakistan after having wrapped up his participation in a week-long USO Christmas tour of the United Kingdom, Germany, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, in this country, on Friday the Pakistani National Security Advisor met with top officials at the Pentagon and the State Department. Durrani met with  Secretary, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte and Rice’s top diplomat for the region Richard Boucher. At the Pentagon he met with Deputy Secretary Gordon England and Policy chief, Ambassador Eric Edelman.

According to a US official, Rice pressed Durrani for Pakistan to follow through on its rhetoric to fight terror in the wake of the Mumbai attacks. She told him that Pakistan needs to turn its words into actions. In other words, Durrani was told Pakistan needs to do more to crack down on terror networks inside the country.

The official disputed reports suggesting that Durrani was “summoned” to Washington.

Meanwhile, Centcom commander General. David Petraeus has presented a proposal that would create a $2.6 billion fund to help equip Pakistan’s military buy better weapons and train for a counterinsurgency.  The fund would be similar to those set up for Afghanistan and Iraq and allow Centcom the financial flexibility to provide arms and training on short notice to Pakistan’s military.  An initial payment of $400 million could be included in the war supplemental bill that will go to Congress early next year. The fund would be beyond the $6 billion in reimbursements the US has provided to Pakistan for military operations in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan since 9-11.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/12/double-teaming.html

Half of my life has been spent advocating change in this country. While Pakistan and India are still locked in a confrontation as a writer, as a journalist, columnist and tv anchor I feel that change is within reach. Pakistan is already a democracy, with an army chief who believes in the supremacy of the civilian institutions, and a free and boisterous media which jealously guards its freedom. Believing that humanity can in essence never be divided I also emphatically advocated change in the United States and this website endorsed Barack Obama as an agent of change. Now it is time to talk of a change that too is far too critical. The change in the United Kingdom and Europe. Before I explain the contours of the change, let me give you an interpretation of its background. 
It all started with the Bush presidency. When Dubya came he had a radical agenda. The transformation desired was aided and abetted by the change in the American mood post 9/11. First it was Afghanistan then Iraq. While there was consensus on Afghanistan none was found in Europe. Chirac and Shroeder refused to give in to the dictates of the Bush administration. Donald Rumsefeld then coined an interesting term. He called the countries opposing the Iraq War, ‘the old Europe’. Is it not astounding then that the socalled old Europe under Bush and Cheney’s watch has joined the New Europe with Sarkozy and Merkel. Bush’s change may finally be an impediment in the way of Obama’s change agenda. I don’t right now want to go into the details as to how but trust me I know what I mean.
Like in Pakistan and finally in the US, Britain also witnessed a blowback of the Bush’s policies resulting in the exist of Blair. But Gordon Brown is a man who has stood by Blair during its survitude towards Bush policies. Can he promise any change in the world affairs. Granted that as Chancellor of the Exchequer he has first hand experience of the economic policies and has taken a pro-active stand on the financial crisis. But have you forgotten that as the Chancellor he has enormously contributed to the current crisis too. At a time when Obama is expected to bring about a colossal change in the world America’s closest ally in Europe can prove a problem. It is my belief that Sarkozy and Merkel being relatively new can pick the thread from where their predecssors had left it, but for Brown this would mean total chaos.
Britain needs serious change today not tomorrow. Does anyone come in your mind? I have been observinng the statements of David Cameron and as a citizen of the world I consider his views really illuminating especially coming from a conservative. Yet his strength is his biggest weakness too. The only weakness is his belonging to a group called the Conservatives. How can you bring a change when you belong to a party well known for being Conservative? He after all is one man and his cabinet members will hardly be of his worldview. 
The actual promise comes from within the Labour Party. Who is the name then? Of the British Foreign Secretary David Miliband. From youth and a progressive worldview, effectual knack in foreign policy and freedom from religious rhetoric can match Britain’s change with that of the US. When I was aggressively advocating and endorsing Obama during early stage of his campaign for the presidency in my columns, TV talk and my blog posts, I came across a number of people who thought that I was off my rocker for thinking that a black could become the President of the US. Now I am making a prediction and an endorsement of the same scope by humbly pointing out that the future of Britain depends on David Miliband’s quick career advancement.

Major General (r) Amir Faisal Alavi, the former head of Special Services Group was murdered in broad daylight on November 19 this year. His murder would have passed unnoticed as just another odd feature of the Islamic had a curious report not emerged in British Sunday Times. I’ll reproduce the report in the latter part of this post but first I want to draw your attention to another strange death. Just for the record I have never been a huge fan of Late Lt Gen Jamshed Gulzar Kiyani yet let me also mention that I did not find his demise easy to swallow. Just months earlier, before Musharraf’s exit from the power corridor he had invited the former president’s wrath by appearing on television and criticizing him bitterly. It was quite unusual for a retired general to come on tv and articulate himself against the sitting president who also happened to be the former army chief. It is strange that that man so effectually evaporated so soon after Musharraf’s departure and on the eve of Obama’s election. It should be remembered that Obama had urged Pakistanis to help him find out where the US aid in lieu of fighting the war on terror was spent. It was clearly maintained that he had succumbed to natural death. I find this really curious for such a man if alive after January 20 could drag Musharraf and his cronies to the courts. But of course I will not question the possibility of his natural death too much. Gen Asif Nawaz Janjua’s doctor swore in front of me that he too died of natural causes after all. 
Now coming back to Maj Gen (r) Alavi’s case it must be noted that he was forced to retire prematurely and without as much as a charge sheet against him. In his purported letter carried in Sunday Times he claims that certain generals in Musharraf’s kitchen cabinet were instrumental in his sacking and that the same elements had played part in his daughter’s getting divorced. At the time of Alavi’s premature retirement it was rumored that he was either part of or witness to any financial bungling in the war on terror for he then was heading the operation in Waziristan. Could this murder have left a trail which could lead us to a coterie of Musharraf’s cronies still surviving in Army? I think yes. It seems that the writer of the article Carey Schofield had consciously censored the names of the officers pointed out by Alavi. The author’s bookInside the Pakistan Army is being published next year by Soap Box Books after all. Here read the letter yourself by clicking here. But before this book comes out, can we divine some future from the report I am about to reproduce below? Yes. First, with Benazir Bhutto and Alavi assassinated and Kiyani so conveniently dead more deaths can happen before Obama assumes power. It must also be noted here that exactly the same people who were supporting Musharraf and his policy of capitulation to the Bush administration are now the major source of war hysteria in Pakistan. Could it be a clever ruse to get rid of accountability? I don’t know. But I am a bit worried about the safety of the Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the president, and the new DG ISI Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha*. (Well with a gulp I realize that with these wild thoughts I could be found one of these days crushed like a cockroach, oh guys get a grip, I am just joking about myself). Nevertheless if such elements exist they are really dangerous for Pakistan itself. Folks I hate to say this but if you need answers the right man to be questioned is none other than Pervez Musharraf.

(*Note the name of the DG ISI was inadvertently mistyped Shuja Nawaz, a glaring mistake that occurred owing to oversight and unfortunate haste on my part. It has been corrected upon Mr. Shuja Nawaz’s pointing out. The mistake is profoundly regretted). 

And now the Sunday Times article:

UK may help find Pakistani general’s killers
By Carey Schofield

The brother-in-law of VS Naipaul, the British novelist and Nobel laureate, was murdered last month after threatening to expose Pakistani army generals who had made deals with Taliban militants.

Major-General Faisal Alavi, a former head of Pakistan’s special forces, whose sister Nadira is Lady Naipaul, named two generals in a letter to the head of the army. He warned that he would “furnish all relevant proof”.

Aware that he was risking his life, he gave a copy to me and asked me to publish it if he was killed. Soon afterwards he told me that he had received no reply.

“It hasn’t worked,” he said. “They’ll shoot me.”

Four days later, he was driving through Islamabad when his car was halted by another vehicle. At least two gunmen opened fire from either side, shooting him eight times. His driver was also killed.

This weekend, as demands grew for a full investigation into Alavi’s murder on November 18, Lady Naipaul described her brother as “a soldier to his toes”. She said: “He was an honourable man and the world was a better place when he was in it.”

It was in Talkingfish, his favourite Islamabad restaurant, that the general handed me his letter two months ago. “Read this,” he said.

Alavi had been his usual flamboyant self until that moment, smoking half a dozen cigarettes as he rattled off jokes and gossip and fielded calls on two mobile phones.

Three years earlier this feted general, who was highly regarded by the SAS, had been mysteriously sacked as head of its Pakistani equivalent, the Special Services Group, for “conduct unbecoming”. The letter, addressed to General Ashfaq Kayani, the chief of army staff, was a final attempt to have his honour restored.

Alavi believed he had been forced out because he was openly critical of deals that senior generals had done with the Taliban. He disparaged them for their failure to fight the war on terror wholeheartedly and for allowing Taliban forces based in Pakistan to operate with impunity against British and other Nato troops across the border in Afghanistan.

Alavi, who had dual British and Pakistani nationality, named the generals he accused. He told Kayani that the men had cooked up a “mischievous and deceitful plot” to have him sacked because they knew he would expose them.

“The entire purpose of this plot by these general officers was to hide their own involvement in a matter they knew I was privy to,” he wrote. He wanted an inquiry, at which “I will furnish all relevant proof/ information, which is readily available with me”.

I folded up the letter and handed it back to him. “Don’t send it,” I said. He replied that he had known I would talk him out of it so he had sent it already. “But”, he added, “I want you to keep this and publish it if anything happens to me.”

I told him he was a fool to have sent the letter: it would force his enemies into a corner. He said he had to act and could not leave it any longer: “I want justice. And I want my honour restored. And you know what? I [don’t] give a damn what they do to me now. They did their worst three years ago.”

We agreed soon afterwards that it would be prudent for him to avoid mountain roads and driving late at night. He knew the letter might prove to be his death warrant.

Four days after I last saw him, I was in South Waziristan, a region bordering Afghanistan, to see a unit from the Punjab Regiment. It was early evening when I returned to divisional headquarters and switched on the television. It took me a moment to absorb the horror of the breaking news running across the screen: “Retired Major General Faisal Alavi and driver shot dead on way to work.”

The reports blamed militants, although the gunmen used 9mm pistols, a standard army issue, and the killings were far more clinical than a normal militant attack.

The scene at the army graveyard in Rawalpindi a few days after that was grim. Soldiers had come from all over the country to bury the general with military honours. Their grief was palpable. Wreaths were laid on behalf of Kayani and most of the country’s military leadership.

Friends and family members were taken aback to be told by serving and retired officers alike that “this was not the militants; this was the army”. A great many people believed the general had been murdered to shut him up.

I first met Alavi in April 2005 at the Pakistan special forces’ mountain home at Cherat, in the North West Frontier Province, while working on a book about the Pakistani army.

He told me he had been born British in Kenya, and that his older brother had fought against the Mau Mau. His affection for Britain was touching and his patriotism striking.

In August 2005 he was visiting Hereford, the home of the SAS, keen to revive the SSG’s relationship with British special forces and deeply unhappy about the way some elements of Pakistan’s army were behaving.

He told me how one general had done an astonishing deal with Baitullah Mehsud, the 35-year-old Taliban leader, now seen by many analysts as an even greater terrorist threat than Osama Bin Laden.

Mehsud, the main suspect in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto late last year, is also believed to have been behind a plot to bomb transport networks in several European countries including Britain, which came to light earlier this year when 14 alleged conspirators were arrested in Barcelona.

Yet, according to Alavi, a senior Pakistani general came to an arrangement with Mehsud “whereby – in return for a large sum of money – Mehsud’s 3,000 armed fighters would not attack the army”.

The two senior generals named in Alavi’s letter to Kayani were in effect complicit in giving the militants free rein in return for refraining from attacks on the Pakistani army, he said. At Hereford, Alavi was brutally frank about the situation, said the commanding officer of the SAS at that time.

“Alavi was a straight-talking soldier and some pretty robust conversations took place in the mess,” he said. “He wanted kit, skills and training from the UK. But he was asked, pretty bluntly, why the Pakistani army should be given all this help if nothing came of it in terms of getting the Al-Qaeda leadership.”

Alavi’s response was typically candid, the SAS commander said: “He knew that Pakistan was not pulling its weight in the war on terror.”

It seemed to Alavi that, with the SAS on his side, he might win the battle, but he was about to lose everything. His enemies were weaving a Byzantine plot, using an affair with a divorced Pakistani woman to discredit him.

Challenged on the issue, Alavi made a remark considered disrespectful to General Pervez Musharraf, then the president. His enemies playeda recording of it to Musharraf and Alavi was instantly sacked.

His efforts to clear his name began with a request that he be awarded the Crescent of Excellence, a medal he would have been given had he not been dismissed. Only after this was denied did he write the letter that appears to many to have sealed his fate.

It was an action that the SAS chief understands: “Every soldier, in the moment before death, craves to be recognised. It seems reasonable to me that he staked everything on his honour. The idea that it is better to be dead than dishonoured does run deep in soldiers.”

Alavi’s loyalty to Musharraf never faltered. Until his dying day he wanted his old boss to understand that. He also trusted Kayani implicitly, believing him to be a straight and honourable officer.

If investigations eventually prove that Alavi was murdered at the behest of those he feared within the military, it may prove a fatal blow to the integrity of the army he loved.

Britain and the United States need to know where Pakistan stands. Will its army and intelligence agencies ever be dependable partners in the war against men such as Mehsud?

James Arbuthnot, chairman of the defence select committee, and Lord Guthrie, former chief of the defence staff, were among those who expressed support this weekend for British help to be offered in the murder investigation.
Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5337881.ece

—

Maj-Gen Amir Faisal Alavi’s daughter remembers him

Saturday, November 22, 2008

By News Desk

WASHINGTON: The daughter of late SSG commando, Maj-Gen (retd) Amir Faisal Alavi, who is in the US, has sent a letter on her memories of her father. She writes: “I vaguely remember asking my dad when I was five, how old was your dad when he passed away, papa? I remember my dad’s surprised look and laughingly, he said, 61, why?, Ooo, I said, You have a long way to go. I was wrong, so wrong.You went much earlier, papa.

“Born a British national in Kenya, Alavi came to study at Abbottabad Public School, but later his love and zeal for the military prompted him to renounce his British nationality. He wrote to Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, asking him to grant him Pakistani nationality so he could join the Army and that is exactly what happened, he got his wish. “My earliest memories are of my dad splendid in his uniform, no nonsense formidable soldier attitude and at the same time he was an easygoing person, very humble, compassionate, but very fearless. He just loved flirting with danger, it was almost as if he thrived on it. He had this amazing energy around him that’s hard to describe, just the word military would bring a sudden change in his behaviour, it would be hard to control his enthusiasm, the energy radiating from him, he drained life source from it.

“He had an amazing unending compassion for people and a heart so large I doubt it ever had walls. All you had to do was ask him and he would give it to you. He told me once, always look after the people below you because that is really what shows what kind of a person you are. He taught me not to judge people based on wealth, caste, their status, colour but judge them on their hearts. His magnanimity astounded me even at people who had hurt him badly. I never understood how he forgave people but he always said to me ‘Leave it to God’. “I still remember his enthusiasm while going on for a Wana operation and me as always complaining, ‘dad you are a general, honestly how many generals themselves go out in an operation?’ He said, ‘You fight from the top, the bottom will follow the top, and if I lead, my soldiers will follow.’

“I remember him putting a hand in his uniform and taking out a small medallion with Sura Yasin on it, saying what’s this?, while me and my sister continued to attach small medallions or Suras and prayers to his uniform. He would always say, ‘I am a soldier, I have no family. And that is what always scared me, my sister and mom to death.’ I remember whenever I was in distress or panic, he would gently admonish me, saying ‘Be brave, You are Faisal Alavi’s daughter, remember who you are,’ but I can be distressed now can’t I, papa, you are there no more, who do I turn to now? “I could write a whole book on my father but a part of me wants to keep those memories to myself because that’s all I have left of him. He is no more; all I have are his memories with me.

“I think it was unfair of fate to give me so little time with you, papa. You were my best friend, my saviour, my superman more than you were my dad and now you left me alone. Every time, I pick up my cell, my fingers automatically dial your number only to realise there is no papa anymore at the other end. “I think the way you went away was cruel, and the people who did it were cowards but knowing you, I can say that is certainly the way you would have wanted to go. I know your only regret is you did not have a weapon to shoot one or two, but papa, if you had one, those cowards would never have come near you. “I don’t think I ever told you this dad, even though it’s a bit late now, I just want you to know how very proud I am to be your daughter, papa. I was truly blessed to have a great soldier like you as a dad. I won’t cry I promise, because I am your daughter but how can I not be sad knowing I won’t hear you, meet you or hug you ever again. I will really miss you, papa, I did not only lose my father, I lost my best friend, my saviour, my superman.

“I promise you, papa I will fulfil every dream of yours. I will be strong, just don’t be mad at me for this moment of weakness, I lost you, let me have a moment of weakness, but I won’t go weak ever papa. I will take care of everything. I just want you to rest in peace papa, you worked a lot its time for you to rest. Amen.”

I LOVE YOU, PAPA

 MEHVISH ZAHRA ALAVI
Source:  

—-

Times of India while discussing the mostly unrealistic premises of some of Pakistani hawks, on December 2, quoted this site, albeit towards the end, in these words:
“It’s not only random voices railing against fingers pointing to Pakistan. Blogger and journalist Farrukh Khan Pitafi is miffed. “For years I have been advocating peace between India and Pakistan,” he wrote. But he, too, says that India was out of its mind in naming Pakistan as the source of violence without identification of the perpetrators. 
He wrote: “During such a long coverage of the mishap not a single outlet pointed out that Hemant Karkare… was the same man whose dismissal was Narendra Modi’s biggest demand. Or that he was the man on the verge of uncovering the home-grown terror franchise of the Hindu extremists. No channel mentioned Colonel Purohit once during the live telecast, no not even CNN, BBC or CBS. It is sad.”"

And here is the other quote from CNN-IBN. In order to reach the quotation from this site you’ll have to forward this video for exactly 2 minutes and thirty seconds.

(Note: For days I have desperately been waiting for voices of sanity emerge out of India. War hyesteria in the Indian media, however, was such that nothing of the sort seemed visible. But now it seems that the enlightened people from India can contain it no more. I am cross-posting Arundhati Roy’s article “9 is not 11″ from another of my favorite sites Huffington Post. However I first saw this article in Pakistan’s Daily Times. Arundhati you are the voice of hope. Thank you very much. Thanks Daily Times and Huffington for bringing her views to us.) 

We’ve forfeited the rights to our own tragedies. As the carnage in Mumbai raged on, day after horrible day, our 24-hour news channels informed us that we were watching “India’s 9/11.” And like actors in a Bollywood rip-off of an old Hollywood film, we’re expected to play our parts and say our lines, even though we know it’s all been said and done before.
As tension in the region builds, U.S. Senator John McCain has warned Pakistan that, if it didn’t act fast to arrest the “bad guys,” he had personal information that India would launch air strikes on “terrorist camps” in Pakistan and that Washington could do nothing because Mumbai was India’s 9/11.
But November isn’t September, 2008 isn’t 2001, Pakistan isn’t Afghanistan, and India isn’t America. So perhaps we should reclaim our tragedy and pick through the debris with our own brains and our own broken hearts so that we can arrive at our own conclusions.
It’s odd how, in the last week of November, thousands of people in Kashmir supervised by thousands of Indian troops lined up to cast their vote, while the richest quarters of India’s richest city ended up looking like war-torn Kupwara — one of Kashmir’s most ravaged districts.
The Mumbai attacks are only the most recent of a spate of terrorist attacks on Indian towns and cities this year. Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Delhi, Guwahati, Jaipur, and Malegaon have all seen serial bomb blasts in which hundreds of ordinary people have been killed and wounded. If the police are right about the people they have arrested as suspects, both Hindu and Muslim, all are Indian nationals, which obviously indicates that something’s going very badly wrong in this country.
If you were watching television you might not have heard that ordinary people, too, died in Mumbai. They were mowed down in a busy railway station and a public hospital. The terrorists did not distinguish between poor and rich. They killed both with equal cold-bloodedness.
The Indian media, however, was transfixed by the rising tide of horror that breached the glittering barricades of “India shining” and spread its stench in the marbled lobbies and crystal ballrooms of two incredibly luxurious hotels and a small Jewish center.
 We’re told that one of these hotels is an icon of the city of Mumbai. That’s absolutely true. It’s an icon of the easy, obscene injustice that ordinary Indians endure every day. On a day when the newspapers were full of moving obituaries by beautiful people about the hotel rooms they had stayed in, the gourmet restaurants they loved (ironically one was called Kandahar), and the staff who served them, a small box on the top left-hand corner in the inner pages of a national newspaper (sponsored by a pizza company, I think) said, “Hungry, kya?” (”Hungry eh?”). It, then, with the best of intentions I’m sure, informed its readers that, on the international hunger index, India ranked below Sudan and Somalia.
But of course this isn’t that war. That one’s still being fought in the Dalit bastis (settlements) of our villages; on the banks of the Narmada and the Koel Karo rivers; in the rubber estate in Chengara; in the villages of Nandigram, Singur, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, Lalgarh in West Bengal; and the slums and shantytowns of our gigantic cities.
That war isn’t on TV. Yet.
So maybe, like everyone else, we should deal with the one that is.
Terrorism and the Need for Context
There is a fierce, unforgiving fault line that runs through the contemporary discourse on terrorism. On one side (let’s call it Side A) are those who see terrorism, especially “Islamist” terrorism, as a hateful, insane scourge that spins on its own axis, in its own orbit, and has nothing to do with the world around it, nothing to do with history, geography, or economics. Therefore, Side A says, to try to place it in a political context, or even to try to understand it, amounts to justifying it and is a crime in itself.
Side B believes that, though nothing can ever excuse or justify it, terrorism exists in a particular time, place, and political context, and to refuse to see that will only aggravate the problem and put more and more people in harm’s way. Which is a crime in itself.
The sayings of Hafiz Saeed who founded the Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Pure) in 1990 and who belongs to the hard-line Salafi tradition of Islam, certainly bolsters the case of Side A. Hafiz Saeed approves of suicide bombing, hates Jews, Shias, and Democracy, and believes that jihad should be waged until Islam, his Islam, rules the world.
Among the things he said are:
“There cannot be any peace while India remains intact. Cut them, cut them so much that they kneel before you and ask for mercy.”
And: “India has shown us this path. We would like to give India a tit-for-tat response and reciprocate in the same way by killing the Hindus, just like it is killing the Muslims in Kashmir.”
But where would Side A accommodate the sayings of Babu Bajrangi of Ahmedabad, India, who sees himself as a democrat, not a terrorist? He was one of the major lynchpins of the 2002 Gujarat genocide and has said (on camera):
“We didn’t spare a single Muslim shop, we set everything on fire… we hacked, burned, set on fire… we believe in setting them on fire because these bastards don’t want to be cremated, they’re afraid of it… I have just one last wish… let me be sentenced to death… I don’t care if I’m hanged… just give me two days before my hanging and I will go and have a field day in Juhapura where seven or eight lakhs [seven or eight hundred thousand] of these people stay… I will finish them off… let a few more of them die… at least twenty-five thousand to fifty thousand should die.”
And where in Side A’s scheme of things would we place the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh bible, We, or, Our Nationhood Defined by M. S. Golwalkar , who became head of the RSS in 1944. (The RSS is the ideological heart, the holding company of the Hindu fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Party, BJP, and its militias. The RSS was founded in 1925. By the 1930s, its founder, Dr. K. B. Hedgewar, a fan of Benito Mussolini’s, had begun to model it overtly along the lines of Italian fascism.)
It says:
“Ever since that evil day, when Moslems first landed in Hindustan, right up to the present moment, the Hindu Nation has been gallantly fighting on to take on these despoilers. The Race Spirit has been awakening.”
Or:
“To keep up the purity of its race and culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic races — the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here… a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by.”
Of course Muslims are not the only people in the gun sights of the Hindu Right. Dalits have been consistently targeted. Recently, in Kandhamal in Orissa, Christians were the target of two and a half months of violence that left more than 40 dead. Forty thousand people have been driven from their homes, half of whom now live in refugee camps.
All these years Hafiz Saeed has lived the life of a respectable man in Lahore as the head of the Jamaat-ud Daawa, which many believe is a front organization for the Lashkar-e-Taiba. He continues to recruit young boys for his own bigoted jihad with his twisted, fiery sermons. On December 11, the United Nations imposed sanctions on the Jamaat-ud-Daawa. The Pakistani government succumbed to international pressure and put Hafiz Saeed under house arrest.
Babu Bajrangi, however, is out on bail and lives the life of a respectable man in Gujarat. A couple of years after the genocide, he left the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP, a militia of the RSS) to join the Shiv Sena (another rightwing nationalist party). Narendra Modi, Bajrangi’s former mentor, is still the Chief Minister of Gujarat.
So the man who presided over the Gujarat genocide was reelected twice, and is deeply respected by India’s biggest corporate houses, Reliance and Tata. Suhel Seth, a TV impresario and corporate spokesperson, recently said, “Modi is God.” The policemen who supervised and sometimes even assisted the rampaging Hindu mobs in Gujarat have been rewarded and promoted.
The RSS has 45,000 branches and seven million volunteers preaching its doctrine of hate across India. They include Narendra Modi, but also former Prime Minister A. B. Vajpayee, current leader of the opposition L. K. Advani, and a host of other senior politicians, bureaucrats, and police and intelligence officers.
And if that’s not enough to complicate our picture of secular democracy, we should place on record that there are plenty of Muslim organizations within India preaching their own narrow bigotry.

So, on balance, if I had to choose between Side A and Side B, I’d pick Side B. We need context. Always.

A Close Embrace of Hatred, Terrifying Familiarity, and Love

On this nuclear subcontinent, that context is Partition. The Radcliffe Line, which separated India and Pakistan and tore through states, districts, villages, fields, communities, water systems, homes, and families, was drawn virtually overnight. It was Britain’s final, parting kick to us.
Partition triggered the massacre of more than a million people and the largest migration of a human population in contemporary history. Eight million people, Hindus fleeing the new Pakistan, Muslims fleeing the new kind of India, left their homes with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
Each of those people carries, and passes down, a story of unimaginable pain, hate, horror, but yearning too. That wound, those torn but still unsevered muscles, that blood and those splintered bones still lock us together in a close embrace of hatred, terrifying familiarity, but also love. It has left Kashmir trapped in a nightmare from which it can’t seem to emerge, a nightmare that has claimed more than 60,000 lives.
Pakistan, the Land of the Pure, became an Islamic Republic, and then very quickly a corrupt, violent military state, openly intolerant of other faiths.
India on the other hand declared herself an inclusive, secular democracy. It was a magnificent undertaking, but Babu Bajrangi’s predecessors had been hard at work since the 1920s, dripping poison into India’s bloodstream, undermining that idea of India even before it was born.
By 1990, they were ready to make a bid for power. In 1992 Hindu mobs exhorted by L. K. Advani stormed the Babri Masjid and demolished it.
By 1998, the BJP was in power at the center. The U.S. War on Terror put the wind in their sails. It allowed them to do exactly as they pleased, even to commit genocide and then present their fascism as a legitimate form of chaotic democracy.
This happened at a time when India had opened its huge market to international finance and it was in the interests of international corporations and the media houses they owned to project it as a country that could do no wrong. That gave Hindu nationalists all the impetus and the impunity they needed.
This, then, is the larger historical context of terrorism on the subcontinent — and of the Mumbai attacks. It shouldn’t surprise us that Hafiz Saeed of the Lashkar-e-Taiba is from Shimla (India) and L. K. Advani of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is from Sindh (Pakistan).
In much the same way as it did after the 2001 Parliament attack, the 2002 burning of the Sabarmati Express, and the 2007 bombing of the Samjhauta Express, the government of India announced that it has “incontrovertible” evidence that the Lashkar-e-Taiba, backed by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), was behind the Mumbai strikes.
The Lashkar has denied involvement, but remains the prime accused. According to the police and intelligence agencies, the Lashkar operates in India through an organization called the “Indian Mujahideen.” Two Indian nationals, Sheikh Mukhtar Ahmed, a Special Police Officer working for the Jammu and Kashmir Police, and Tausif Rehman, a resident of Kolkata in West Bengal, have been arrested in connection with the Mumbai attacks.
So already the neat accusation against Pakistan is getting a little messy.
Almost always, when these stories unspool, they reveal a complicated global network of foot soldiers, trainers, recruiters, middlemen, and undercover intelligence and counter-intelligence operatives working not just on both sides of the India-Pakistan border, but in several countries simultaneously.
In today’s world, trying to pin down the provenance of a terrorist strike and isolate it within the borders of a single nation state, is very much like trying to pin down the provenance of corporate money. It’s almost impossible.
In circumstances like these, air strikes to “take out” terrorist camps may take out the camps, but certainly will not “take out” the terrorists. And neither will war.
Also, in our bid for the moral high ground, let’s try not to forget that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the LTTE of neighboring Sri Lanka, one of the world’s most deadly terrorist groups, were trained by the Indian Army.

Releasing Frankensteins
Thanks largely to the part it was forced to play as America’s ally, first in its war in support of the Afghan Islamists and then in its war against them, Pakistan, whose territory is reeling under these contradictions, is careening toward civil war.
As recruiting agents for America’s jihad against the Soviet Union, it was the job of the Pakistani Army and the ISI to nurture and channel funds to Islamic fundamentalist organizations. Having wired up these Frankensteins and released them into the world, the U.S. expected it could rein them in like pet mastiffs whenever it wanted to. Certainly it did not expect them to come calling in the heart of the homeland on September 11. So once again, Afghanistan had to be violently remade.
Now the debris of a re-ravaged Afghanistan has washed up on Pakistan’s borders.
Nobody, least of all the Pakistani government, denies that it is presiding over a country that is threatening to implode. The terrorist training camps, the fire-breathing mullahs, and the maniacs who believe that Islam will, or should, rule the world are mostly the detritus of two Afghan wars. Their ire rains down on the Pakistani government and Pakistani civilians as much, if not more, than it does on India.
If, at this point, India decides to go to war, perhaps the descent of the whole region into chaos will be complete. The debris of a bankrupt, destroyed Pakistan will wash up on India’s shores, endangering us as never before.
If Pakistan collapses, we can look forward to having millions of “non-state actors” with an arsenal of nuclear weapons at their disposal as neighbors.
It’s hard to understand why those who steer India’s ship are so keen to replicate Pakistan’s mistakes and call damnation upon this country by inviting the United States to further meddle clumsily and dangerously in our extremely complicated affairs. A superpower never has allies. It only has agents.
On the plus side, the advantage of going to war is that it’s the best way for India to avoid facing up to the serious trouble building on our home front.
The Mumbai attacks were broadcast live (and exclusive!) on all or most of our 67 24-hour news channels and god knows how many international ones. TV anchors in their studios and journalists at “ground zero” kept up an endless stream of excited commentary.
Over three days and three nights we watched in disbelief as a small group of very young men, armed with guns and gadgets, exposed the powerlessness of the police, the elite National Security Guard, and the marine commandos of this supposedly mighty, nuclear-powered nation.
While they did this, they indiscriminately massacred unarmed people, in railway stations, hospitals, and luxury hotels, unmindful of their class, caste, religion, or nationality.
(Part of the helplessness of the security forces had to do with having to worry about hostages. In other situations, in Kashmir for example, their tactics are not so sensitive. Whole buildings are blown up. Human shields are used. The U.S. and Israeli armies don’t hesitate to send cruise missiles into buildings and drop daisy cutters on wedding parties in Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan.)
But this was different. And it was on TV.
The boy-terrorists’ nonchalant willingness to kill — and be killed — mesmerized their international audience. They delivered something different from the usual diet of suicide bombings and missile attacks that people have grown inured to on the news.
Here was something new. Die Hard 25. The gruesome performance went on and on. TV ratings soared. Ask any television magnate or corporate advertiser who measures broadcast time in seconds, not minutes, what that’s worth.
Eventually the killers died and died hard, all but one. (Perhaps, in the chaos, some escaped. We may never know.)
Throughout the standoff the terrorists made no demands and expressed no desire to negotiate. Their purpose was to kill people, and inflict as much damage as they could, before they were killed themselves. They left us completely bewildered.

Collateral Damage
When we say, “Nothing can justify terrorism,” what most of us mean is that nothing can justify the taking of human life. We say this because we respect life, because we think it’s precious.
So what are we to make of those who care nothing for life, not even their own? The truth is that we have no idea what to make of them, because we can sense that even before they’ve died, they’ve journeyed to another world where we cannot reach them.
One TV channel (India TV) broadcast a phone conversation with one of the attackers, who called himself “Imran Babar.” I cannot vouch for the veracity of the conversation, but the things he talked about were the things contained in the “terror emails” that were sent out before several other bomb attacks in India. Things we don’t want to talk about any more: the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992, the genocidal slaughter of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002, the brutal repression in Kashmir.
“You’re surrounded,” the anchor told him. “You are definitely going to die. Why don’t you surrender?”
“We die every day,” he replied in a strange, mechanical way. “It’s better to live one day as a lion and then die this way.” He didn’t seem to want to change the world. He just seemed to want to take it down with him.
If the men were indeed members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, why didn’t it matter to them that a large number of their victims were Muslim, or that their action was likely to result in a severe backlash against the Muslim community in India whose rights they claim to be fighting for?
Terrorism is a heartless ideology, and like most ideologies that have their eye on the Big Picture, individuals don’t figure in their calculations except as collateral damage.
It has always been a part of, and often even the aim of, terrorist strategy to exacerbate a bad situation in order to expose hidden fault lines. The blood of “martyrs” irrigates terrorism. Hindu terrorists need dead Hindus, Communist terrorists need dead proletarians, Islamist terrorists need dead Muslims. The dead become the demonstration, the proof of victimhood, which is central to the project.
A single act of terrorism is not in itself meant to achieve military victory; at best it is meant to be a catalyst that triggers something else, something much larger than itself, a tectonic shift, a realignment. The act itself is theater, spectacle, and symbolism, and today the stage on which it pirouettes and performs its acts of bestiality is Live TV. Even as TV anchors were being condemned by other TV anchors, the effectiveness of the terror strikes was being magnified a thousand-fold by the TV broadcasts.
Through the endless hours of analysis and the endless op-ed essays, in India at least, there has been very little mention of the elephants in the room: Kashmir, Gujarat, and the demolition of the Babri Masjid.
Instead, we had retired diplomats and strategic experts debate the pros and cons of a war against Pakistan. We had the rich threatening not to pay their taxes unless their security was guaranteed. (Is it alright for the poor to remain unprotected?) We had people suggest that the government step down and each state in India be handed over to a separate corporation.
We had the death of former Prime Minster V. P. Singh, the hero of Dalits and lower castes, and the villain of upper caste Hindus pass without a mention.
We had Suketu Mehta, author of Maximum City and co-writer of the Bollywood film Mission Kashmir give us his version of George Bush’s famous “Why They Hate Us” speech. His analysis of why religious bigots, both Hindu and Muslim, hate Mumbai: “Perhaps because Mumbai stands for lucre, profane dreams and an indiscriminate openness.”
His prescription: “The best answer to the terrorists is to dream bigger, make even more money, and visit Mumbai more than ever.”
Didn’t George Bush ask Americans to go out and shop after 9/11? Ah yes. 9/11, the day we can’t seem to get away from.

A Shadowy History of Suspicious Terror Attacks

Though one chapter of horror in Mumbai has ended, another might have just begun. Day after day, a powerful, vociferous section of the Indian elite, goaded by marauding TV anchors who make Fox News look almost radical and left-wing, have taken to mindlessly attacking politicians, all politicians, glorifying the police and the army, and virtually asking for a police state.
It isn’t surprising that those who have grown plump on the pickings of democracy (such as it is) should now be calling for a police state. The era of “pickings” is long gone. We’re now in the era of Grabbing by Force, and democracy has a terrible habit of getting in the way.
Dangerous, stupid oversimplifications like the Police are Good/Politicians are Bad, Chief Executives are Good/Chief Ministers are Bad, Army is Good/Government is Bad, India is Good/Pakistan is Bad are being bandied about by TV channels that have already whipped their viewers into a state of almost uncontrollable hysteria.
Tragically this regression into intellectual infancy comes at a time when people in India were beginning to see that, in the business of terrorism, victims and perpetrators sometimes exchange roles.
It’s an understanding that the people of Kashmir, given their dreadful experiences of the last 20 years, have honed to an exquisite art. On the mainland we’re still learning. (If Kashmir won’t willingly integrate into India, it’s beginning to look as though India will integrate/disintegrate into Kashmir.)
It was after the 2001 Parliament attack that the first serious questions began to be raised. A campaign by a group of lawyers and activists exposed how innocent people had been framed by the police and the press, how evidence was fabricated, how witnesses lied, how due process had been criminally violated at every stage of the investigation.
Eventually, the courts acquitted two out of the four accused, including S. A. R. Geelani, the man whom the police claimed was the mastermind of the operation. A third, Showkat Guru, was acquitted of all the charges brought against him, but was then convicted for a fresh, comparatively minor offense.
The Supreme Court upheld the death sentence of another of the accused, Mohammad Afzal. In its judgment the court acknowledged that there was no proof that Mohammed Afzal belonged to any terrorist group, but went on to say, quite shockingly, “The collective conscience of the society will only be satisfied if capital punishment is awarded to the offender.”
Even today we don’t really know who the terrorists that attacked the Indian Parliament were and who they worked for.
More recently, on September 19th of this year, we had the controversial “encounter” at Batla House in Jamia Nagar, Delhi, where the Special Cell of the Delhi police gunned down two Muslim students in their rented flat under seriously questionable circumstances, claiming that they were responsible for serial bombings in Delhi, Jaipur, and Ahmedabad in 2008. An assistant commissioner of police, Mohan Chand Sharma, who played a key role in the Parliament attack investigation, lost his life as well. He was one of India’s many “encounter specialists,” known and rewarded for having summarily executed several “terrorists.”
There was an outcry against the Special Cell from a spectrum of people, ranging from eyewitnesses in the local community to senior Congress Party leaders, students, journalists, lawyers, academics, and activists, all of whom demanded a judicial inquiry into the incident.
In response, the BJP and L. K. Advani lauded Mohan Chand Sharma as a “Braveheart” and launched a concerted campaign in which they targeted those who had dared to question the integrity of the police, saying to do so was “suicidal” and calling them “anti-national.” Of course, there has been no enquiry.
Only days after the Batla House event, another story about “terrorists” surfaced in the news. In a report submitted to a Sessions Court, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said that a team from Delhi’s Special Cell (the same team that led the Batla House encounter, including Mohan Chand Sharma) had abducted two innocent men, Irshad Ali and Moarif Qamar, in December 2005, planted two kilograms of RDX (explosives) and two pistols on them, and then arrested them as “terrorists” who belonged to Al Badr (which operates out of Kashmir).
Ali and Qamar, who have spent years in jail, are only two examples out of hundreds of Muslims who have been similarly jailed, tortured, and even killed on false charges.
This pattern changed in October 2008 when Maharashtra’s Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), which was investigating the September 2008 Malegaon blasts, arrested a Hindu preacher Sadhvi Pragya, a self-styled God man, Swami Dayanand Pande, and Lt. Col. Purohit, a serving officer of the Indian Army. All the arrested belong to Hindu nationalist organizations, including a Hindu supremacist group called Abhinav Bharat.
The Shiv Sena, the BJP, and the RSS condemned the Maharashtra ATS, and vilified its chief, Hemant Karkare, claiming he was part of a political conspiracy and declaring that “Hindus could not be terrorists.” L. K. Advani changed his mind about his policy on the police and made rabble rousing speeches to huge gatherings in which he denounced the ATS for daring to cast aspersions on holy men and women.
On November 25th, newspapers reported that the ATS was investigating the high profile VHP chief Pravin Togadia’s possible role in the blasts in Malegaon (a predominantly Muslim town). The next day, in an extraordinary twist of fate, Hemant Karkare was killed in the Mumbai attacks. The chances are that the new chief, whoever he is, will find it hard to withstand the political pressure that is bound to be brought on him over the Malegaon investigation.
While the Sangh Parivar does not seem to have come to a final decision over whether or not it is anti-national and suicidal to question the police, Arnab Goswami, anchorperson of Times Now television, has stepped up to the plate. He has taken to naming, demonizing, and openly heckling people who have dared to question the integrity of the police and armed forces.
My name and the name of the well-known lawyer Prashant Bhushan have come up several times. At one point, while interviewing a former police officer, Arnab Goswami turned to the camera: “Arundhati Roy and Prashant Bhushan,” he said. “I hope you are watching this. We think you are disgusting.”
For a TV anchor to do this in an atmosphere as charged and as frenzied as the one that prevails today amounts to incitement, as well as threat, and would probably in different circumstances have cost a journalist his or her job.
So, according to a man aspiring to be the next prime minister of India, and another who is the public face of a mainstream TV channel, citizens have no right to raise questions about the police.
This in a country with a shadowy history of suspicious terror attacks, murky investigations, and fake “encounters.” This in a country that boasts of the highest number of custodial deaths in the world, and yet refuses to ratify the international covenant on torture. A country where the ones who make it to torture chambers are the lucky ones because at least they’ve escaped being “encountered” by our Encounter Specialists. A country where the line between the underworld and the Encounter Specialists virtually does not exist.

The Monster in the Mirror

How should those of us whose hearts have been sickened by the knowledge of all of this view the Mumbai attacks, and what are we to do about them?
There are those who point out that U.S. strategy has been successful inasmuch as the United States has not suffered a major attack on its home ground since 9/11. However, some would say that what America is suffering now is far worse.
If the idea behind the 9/11 terror attacks was to goad America into showing its true colors, what greater success could the terrorists have asked for? The U.S. military is bogged down in two unwinnable wars, which have made the United States the most hated country in the world. Those wars have contributed greatly to the unraveling of the American economy and who knows, perhaps eventually the American empire.
(Could it be that battered, bombed Afghanistan, the graveyard of the Soviet Union, will be the undoing of this one too?)
Hundreds of thousands of people, including thousands of American soldiers, have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. The frequency of terrorist strikes on U.S. allies/agents (including India) and U.S. interests in the rest of the world has increased dramatically since 9/11.
George W. Bush, the man who led the U.S. response to 9/11, is a despised figure not just internationally, but also by his own people.
Who can possibly claim that the United States is winning the War on Terror?
Homeland Security has cost the U.S. government billions of dollars. Few countries, certainly not India, can afford that sort of price tag. But even if we could, the fact is that this vast homeland of ours cannot be secured or policed in the way the United States has been. It’s not that kind of homeland.
We have a hostile nuclear-weapons state that is slowly spinning out of control as a neighbor; we have a military occupation in Kashmir and a shamefully persecuted, impoverished minority of more than 150 million Muslims who are being targeted as a community and pushed to the wall, whose young see no justice on the horizon, and who, were they to totally lose hope and radicalize, will end up as a threat not just to India, but to the whole world.
If 10 men can hold off the NSG commandos and the police for three days, and if it takes half a million soldiers to hold down the Kashmir valley, do the math. What kind of Homeland Security can secure India?
Nor for that matter will any other quick fix.
Anti-terrorism laws are not meant for terrorists; they’re for people that governments don’t like. That’s why they have a conviction rate of less than 2%. They’re just a means of putting inconvenient people away without bail for a long time and eventually letting them go.
Terrorists like those who attacked Mumbai are hardly likely to be deterred by the prospect of being refused bail or being sentenced to death. It’s what they want.
What we’re experiencing now is blowback, the cumulative result of decades of quick fixes and dirty deeds. The carpet’s squelching under our feet.
The only way to contain — it would be naïve to say end — terrorism is to look at the monster in the mirror. We’re standing at a fork in the road. One sign says “Justice,” the other “Civil War.” There’s no third sign and there’s no going back. Choose.

Copyright 2008 Arundhati Roy

Since the Mumbai tragedy and my comments on the events unfolding after that I have been inundated with comments, questions, propositions and quite often rants by my readers especially from India. Some of the dear readers were quite rational and tried their level best to change my views. Others were kind enough to appreciate the things that I have been trying to do since the day one. And then there were those who were actually screaming madly at me only because I happen to be a Pakistani and Muslim birth. To the last category I have to submit that I can understand your pain. The fact that you took the pains of coming to my site and submit your views proves that the power of the written word has not dimmed. Also that despite all your pent up anger that is naturally understandable you believe in the civilized codes of communication and hence have preferred pen over the sword. To the first category I may state that your efforts to change me are appreciated. I believe in changing for the sake of improvement and will never be blamed of refusing to see logic when it looks into my face. But it so happens that these matters which came under discussion have been the core of experience and thoughts since my very early age and before you gave me these logics I have already pondered over them a thousand times. Hence it is not easy to dissuade me from what I am thinking.
Then there is the class of kind people who actually really appreciated me. For instance read the note from a Mr Vikram Shete who made me feel that all my efforts have not gone waster. He writes and I quote:

“Hello Farrukh Sir (please accept me calling you Sir.. reasons unfolded below)
I was almost on the verge of believing that Pakistan media is worse than Indian media but thanks to efforts from media personnel like you and nikhil wagle, which i happened to see (fortunately) today, i have reasons to believe otherwise.
The Indian media which i respected before the Mumbai horror, disappointed me totally during and after the mayhem. On top of that some of the videos on youtube of Brass Tacks were even more disappointing as in either case TRP was at stake… There was no analysis and no pros and cons..

Anyways having read some of the points and specifically the last para of the article “Attack Pakistan Then!!! Happy?” i was glad to see that sanity prevails! Me and my roomates had several overnight discussions of a probable war.. Its so true that if the leaders do declare it, the common man will go for it till the last breath and within months the leaders will sign a treaty and thats it.. things would be back to as they were…!! need a more mature thought process and solution..
thank you Sir for helping me keep faith in media!

regards,
Vikram Shete”

Mr. Shete, thank you very much for helping me keep faith in the consciencious readers like you. If we have a few more people like you on both sides of the border this region definitely can be better place.
A reader has complained that I answer only hatemails. Far from it. The only problem was that I was too busy and hence could not answer your comments point by point. Now that I have found a few moments I’ll try my level best to answer you. But before we start will it not be prudent to tell you what I believe? First of all, I love my country. I am a Pakistani by birth and this country has made me what I am today. I couldn’t be more thankful. Regarding India I believe that it is a great country, a mighty civilization with a beautiful heritage and enormous moral power. Somehow the term moral power to me is more important than any superpower status. I am a firm believer in democracy and also Indian democracy. At a time when many hawks in support of Musharraf and opposition to democracy were trying to project Indian democracy as a sham I was regularly pointing out that if Indians can have such a wonderful system why cannot we Pakistanis, mostly of the same racial stock, have it too. Believe me nothing in Islam or Pakistani culture makes it impossible to be a democracy. During Musharraf’s second, albeit shortlived, martial law we were tortured and harassed we stood the ground and today we have a democratic government in place. American people despite the indoctrination of eight years stood up and refused to be subject of generalizations. They also have changed their destiny. As recognition of this courageous struggle you’ll see that my site’s one banner pays tribute to the American leadership. To some of you Pakistanis might be untouchables but remember you have no idea what we have been through for the last seven years. When on February 28 we all went to poll we all were worried for the lives of our families but we still went and made a difference. To many American people might be colonizers but no one will notice what a remarkable courageous change Obama’s election is. These things make nations proud not wars or their nuclear arsenals. While Pakistan has nothing comparable with the United States I see two remarkable nations struggling to bring out the best in humanity. Indian people then are even better example. The issue however is not of any nation’s superiority but the desire to root out a menace which has conquered us without even our noticing during the last ten to twelve years. I’ll explain all this in a moment but before that I need to tell you where do we go from here.
People don’t understand that the change in science fictions we and our elders have been reading is here. Could you imagine this degree of integration that internet, blackberries and heaven knows how many other things just twenty years ago? Twenty years ago we had only telephone sets. How difficult it was for an average Pakistani to call India without being bugged by the intelligence agencies and vice versa? Almost impossible. But the fact that we today we are casually chatting on the internet proves that without even understanding it we are part of one nation, the human nation. I know this concept is very difficult to digest but the decline of the nation states had started even in the early nineties. You like it or not what to talk of India-Pakistan or Afghanistan-Pakistan border but all international borders in a span of ten to fifteen years are going to be depleted. You don’t realize but the thirst for democracy around the world, the growth of English as an international language and why even the rise of Obama all prove that these borders will become progressively become irrelevant. And then the issues of population growth and global warming are also here to stay. Humanity is not simply growing but simply multiplying. In this situation for the sake of safe havens, more energy and better chances of survival we’ll have to colonize space. You believe that these views are bizzare and unrealistic? Just do me a favor, take a printout of this post and preserve it for fifteen years. Then after that much time you’ll see if I am right or not.
Do you think after such a change the issue of the structure on the Babri Mosque/ Ram janam bhoomi site or for that matter the site of the Dome of Rock will be of any consequence? The religious among us may say yes but honestly in that case except for our emotions and the nostalgia nothing will hold us back to such reductionist matters. You know why we are like this today? Because the world we live in is the world of anarchy, we live in the world of natural selection where resources are just limited and consumers unlimited. That is why we all fight among ourselves for your extinction may ensure my survival. Like the great industrial revolution we now have one great opportunity that may change this principle of anarchy. We are bickering and fighting because we are trapped in this small shell of limited resources. Time has come to open the shell of determinism and limited resources and feel the cosmic ocean we are in.
This notion however does not suit those who have built their economy upon the status quo. I mean the conservatives in each state and the religious fanatics. In the Muslim world the Al Qaeda and the clergy, in USA the neocons, in India the saffron brigade and together all states. These elements do not let us see that even the postmodern state is nothing more than an improved version of tribalism.
I believe that it all started with the demise of the Soviet Union that each state had to search for a new priah to exploit FOTA (the fear of the alternative or FOTCO - the fear of the cultural other). Why? What else could justify the existence of mighty standing armies and huge defense budgets? It was then that a courageous visionary by the name of the US Vice President Al Gore brought the internet technology out of the military labs. This technology initially perpetuated the western culture giving birth simultaneously to Francis Fukuyama’s somewhat incorrect notion of the End of History and also a characteristic xenophobia in the under represented cultures. On one side attempts were made to revitalize the pan Islamism and on the other Sangh Parivar staged a come back in India. I have already mentioned somewhere else that ground to project Islam as a potential threat and Muslims as new commies was sown as early as in 1982 when Man who saw tomorrow was released featuring Nostradamus’s predictions was released. He was only one of the countless medieval prophets but the choice of his works was particularly a political tool for he had warned of the coming of a Muslim king of terror. History is full of such weirdos and you can pick and use whoever you like. So we have finally ended up with a Muslim terror king holed up somewhere in Afghanistan then.
But look at the situation in India. India had remained a secular country firmly committed to the principles of great men like Nehru and Gandhi. Yet this xenophobia coupled by the assassination of Indira and Rajiv Gandhi with the help of the communal riots following the demise of Babri Mosque facilitated the rise of the BJP. Well this happens in democracy when people pick the wrong guys just to change taste. BJP had made no bones about its ambitions. We know what happened then in the name of Hindutva. But the greater problem occurred when the secular state structure of India which had always shunted the religious fanatics in civil military bureaucracy started losing cohesion against the strides of organized fanaticism. Fanatics got promoted and such elements have carved their niche in the Indian establishment. How else would you explain the existence of a Colonel Purohit and his likes? The country which had contented itself being part of the Non Alligned Movement hence started dreaming of becoming a super power itself. Believe me I have no objection to India becoming a great power. Since it is of almost the same racial stock as I am I believe it can contribute something constructive to the world affairs. My only problem is that I have always been averse to the concept of Bipolarity, Unipolarity and Multipolarity. When we all are human beings what poles are we talking of? I firmly believe that there should be no nuclear weapons and there should be no military power. Local police everywhere yes but no armies. Honestly it is not such an impossible thing to expect. When Airforces of the world can work together to colonize space not earth, when the army engineers can be employed to make better abodes in the space why waste their talents here.
Coming back to the point, Indian establishment then started dreaming ambitiously. After the rise of the neocons and the 9/11 and international mafia has developed which includes your neocons, our neocons, the American neocons and god knows how many others. In short the last ten years have witnessed the last desperate revolt of the conservative forces. You call the Mumbai attacks your 26/11. Have you noted that this expression itself represents the craving to be recognized a super power?

When Indian establishment was being gripped by the fanatics, Pakistani establishment after 9/11 played another game. It was clear that it could not use religion any longer as the pretext to rule so it started appealing to its people in the name of nationalism and it projected to the west simultaneously that the Pakistani people are dangerous. From Altaf Hussain to Fazlur Rehman those who have promoted extremism are the establishment’s own creations. Despite having their international ties they only serve as the agents of the very same establishment in terrorizing people. The frail democracy in Pakistan is their answer. If democracy continues to function in Pakistan these elements will automatically be defeated. Pakistan no doubt has an extremist problem but this problem is local not international. No matter what you say countless intelligence inputs that I am privy to prove that either Osama is dead or is not in Pakistan. Why doesn’t this news reach you? Simple because the constant existence of such a fear factor helps the conservative establishments. The fundos that we have are weak and while they can kill us they cannot mount an international attack. Trust me I know what I am saying.
Americans and the Israelis are already bringing the change for moderation. Oh yes Israel too had witnessed the rise of the extremists. Why else was Yitzhak Rabin assassinated? It is India in this picture which will one day have to bring that change too. I believe that as a law of nature the Congress led alliance was given a chance by democracy to root out such elements from the establishment. It has thus far failed. It is my belief that to end this tyranny the Indian democracy will finally have to turn finally to the Left and Mayawatti. Folks change has to come and will come. It is better to be prepared.
(The second episode answering your questions directly will appear under title Part two. Take good care of yourself.)