The Afghanistan muddle

MOST minds are now concentrated on the implications and consequences of the Afghanistan war. It is in its eighth year and no end seems to be in sight. American public opinion is now veering away from supporting the war, and a majority seems to prefer its coming to an end no matter how. Obama, whose popularity is at stake, is being assailed by the Republican right for being soft. The Pentagon is also pressing for extending the war's scope by augmenting American troops by 40,000 and keeping Nato there.

The American administration is in the process of devising a new strategy because the Af-Pak strategy of March last does not seem to have produced encouraging results. Indeed, the western generals in Afghanistan are signaling that a victory is no longer possible. The best thing to do is to augment the American force by another 40,000 and keep pressure on Nato to also stay the course. With better situation on the ground, it will be possible to end the war by finding an honourable exit strategy.

The new strategy that America may adopt might itself be a major factor in the war's continuance. Thus, it is too early to say anything about it. American public opinion is now a cognisable factor in addition to the Pentagon's recommendations. Britain has already ended its participation. Other Nato allies are also disheartened. This is the background against which, on the battlefields of Afghanistan, the awesome western military machine has not gained a decisive advantage in virtually eight years, and most thoughtful people are recommending an exit route. The Taliban are resurgent and they have fought the western military to a stalemate. (There is no question of Taliban defeating the western military machine as a whole.)

European and American forces have been unable to subdue Afghanistan as a whole even by imposing a government of their choice. The outside world is also keenly interested in the outcome of the Afghanistan war. China, for instance, has come out with a forthright statement: US should wind up its war in Afghanistan and get its forces out as quickly as possible. There is no talk of victory or any conditions. The Chinese saying something so clearly is a major development, and they may not be alone in demanding America's withdrawal.

This is also the time when Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is going to meet. It reflects the interests of many Asian powers, including that of Russia. No one wants the war to continue. The SCO meeting is almost certain to echo the Chinese view. No one seems to have the stomach for a continuing war like this any more. It is possible to conclude that SCO will also reflect the Chinese demand on the West to stop fighting and get itself out.

Their security is threatened by the designs of the proponents of a new Islam that is more militant, more extreme, more violence prone and is, on the whole, oriented to re-creating conditions that obtained in Saudi Arabia 1500 years ago. Women's and human rights are anathema to them. But is the fearsome version based on Islam's own principles? They are taking some of the Islamic teachings to an unnecessary extreme. No one had in the past gone so far to recast Islam like this. China's Xinjiang is threatened by this distorted Islam. Other Muslims states in Central Asia are also threatened by it, as is Russia.

Many may ask that if the west withdraws from an inconclusive war at this stage, what will happen in Afghanistan. That strategic piece of land cannot be left to its own civil wars. Isn't there any international effort to ensure that some order stays after a new government comes into being? Can that happen in the absence of foreign "occupation troops?"

The Chinese appear to think that there should be an international conference in which representatives of all the Afghan factions should attend. The world would recommend a consensus kind of government, which would include the Taliban, warlords, pro-Pakistanis and anti-Pakistanis and a smattering of Afghan intelligentsia. They have to agree on basic terms. The difficulty arises because of the claims of pro-Pakistan and anti-Pakistan Taliban.

They talk in terms of Islam demanding, that its Shariah should be enforced and a typical Islamic State should be formed. The typical Islamic State today would be an approximate copy of the Taliban rule in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001. This appeals to many Afghans, particularly Pushtoons. The Taliban also happen to subscribe to Pushtoonwali, which gives them legitimacy as Afghan nationalists who are fighting against an occupation army, and it becomes a national liberation struggle insofar as the Pushtoons are concerned.

But there are variants. Militant Islam is the only Islam they claim. Islam does not mean anything else, they hold. Those who differ fromthe Taliban are in grave error. It is this Militant Islam which is a threat to the stability and security of all the Central Asian states and China's Xinjiang province. Russia is threatened because of its numerous Muslim minorities, particularly in Chechnya. But all Muslim states are prone to be attracted to the appeal of the Taliban.

It is a piquant situation, no doubt. The UN has also called for an international conference on Afghanistan sometime this year. But the UN conference requires agreement among the Big Five, and there is some doubt that the Taliban and others in the Afghan imbroglio will listen to the demands for tolerant plurality that has obtained even among the Pushtoons. More specifically listen to Russia, China and other Central Asian states.

Afghanistan is the gateway to Central Asia. All Central Asian states are liable to be threatened by the Taliban Islam. There are other important neighbours of Afghanistan: Pakistan and Iran. India is nearby and looms fairly large in Afghanistan, especially after its vastly improved relations with the Americans. The Taliban need to listen to the outside world. But will they? This is not certain.

Pakistan has particular relevance to Afghanistan. First, because there is an overlap of Pushtoon population between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Pushtoons in Pakistan are concentrated along the uncertain Durand Line that never was enforced in the sense the international frontiers are. The Pushtoons were allowed throughout the last 250 years or so to go across and come back without any documentation. This is much too porous a frontier.

There also used to be a dispute between Afghanistan and Pakistan because Pakistan insisted that the Durand Line be recognised as the final border and the Afghans said that Pushtoon areas in Pakistan were basically part of Afghanistan and Pakistan should have nothing to do in the areas west of river Indus. Pakistanis, including many Pushtoons, laugh at the idea.

Pakistan has had influence in Afghanistan throughout the last 30 years or more. Pakistan played a part in all the wars that have taken place in Afghanistan in recent years: one known as jihad in the 1980s and the other were the many sided civil wars in the 1990s and now in the open-ended War against Terror by America. The question is, how are the competing interests of various warlords, Afghan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban and Pakistan and India going to be accommodated for a solution? The solution has to satisfy the minimal interests of the west but is nowhere on the horizon.

Without some kind of an end result in sight, the fighting forces cannot be separated. All three groups in Afghanistan -- warlords (district commanders), Taliban and so-called central authority -- have to agree to something. Afghanistan has to be reinvented. It will take much ingenuity and international networking by various governments before any formula can be evolved.

M.B. Naqvi is a leading Pakistani columnist.

A Regional Summit on the War in Afghanistan?

As President Obama and his advisors debate a strategic change in the war in Afghanistan, it has become increasingly clear that this war has become a regional conflict that stretches into Pakistan, and even India and beyond. While the original rationale for the war was the elimination of a sanctuary for Al Qaeda, the conflict has now broadened into threats presented by a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and, even more ominously, by a nuclear-armed and destabilized Pakistan.

While the recommendation by General Stanley McChrystal to bolster the counterinsurgency effort represents an advance in tactical military thinking, it ignores some of the fundamental political realities of the conflict. A lengthy and focused counterinsurgency effort might eventually produce results, but its chances of success are greatly diminished by the political climate in Afghanistan. Given the difficult choice between a Taliban that offers security and justice in countryside - albeit in the most harsh and backward forms - and a central government that is distant and corrupt, most Afghans outside of Kabul are forced to choose the Taliban. No foreign counterinsurgency effort can combat that kind of logic, especially when classic counterinsurgency tactics would call for more than 600,000 troops to do the job, a level that few Americans would support.

One of the early mistakes, among many, of the Bush administration in its invasion of Iraq was the failure to develop an international and regional consensus for action. The rationale was that most nations would not support the invasion, and it was a waste of time to focus on international cooperation. Thanks in large part to the insistence of Colin Powell, the Bush administration did take its case to the United Nations, where Powell presented trumped-up intelligence to sell the UN on the Bush plan. However, history has shown that no sincere effort was ever made to include our allies or the nations in the region in the decision to go to war.

As the years have gone by - Afghanistan is now the longest war in American history - it has become clear that the stakes are no longer the continued existence of Al Qaeda or even the stability of Afghanistan, but rather the dangers presented by a crumbling, nuclear-armed Pakistani state. To complicate matters further, the Pakistanis themselves have not - until very recently - perceived Afghanistan and the Taliban as a regional threat. In fact, elements of the Pakistani government, including the ISI intelligence service, have continued to provide strategic support to the Taliban insurgency.

Before the United States implements a unilateral change in military and political strategy in Afghanistan, wouldn't it be a good idea to seek regional cooperation for the strategy? This means not only Afghanistan and Pakistan, but also India, China and Russia. Certainly there are dangers in a regional summit, and it clearly should not be a public summit. But the idea that the United States can go it alone yet again without some kind of regional support is highly doubtful. Can't the Obama administration - with all its powerful persuasive tools - hold the feet of the regional players to the fire and mold a common strategy? Perhaps not, but without some consensus, the chances of failure in our longest war are even greater

Indian Hegemony?

Nobody can deny that today's India is a power. In recent years, Indians have become more narrow-minded and intolerable of outside criticism as nationalism sentiment rises, with some of them even turning to hegemony. It can be proved by India's recent provocation on border issues with China.

Given the country's history, hegemony is a hundred-percent result of British colonialism. Dating back to the era of British India, the country covered a vast territory including present-day India, Pakistan, Myanmar, Bangladesh as well as Nepal. India took it for granted that it could continue to rule the large area when Britain ended its colonialism in South Asia. A previous victim of colonialism and hegemony started to dream about developing its own hegemony. Obsessed with such mentality, India turned a blind eye to the concessions China had repeatedly made over the disputed border issues, and refused to drop the pretentious airs when dealing with neighbors like Pakistan.

Many Indians didn't know that Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, had once said that India could not play an inferior role in the world, and it should either be a superpower or disappear.

Although the pursuit of being a superpower is justifiable, the dream of being a superpower held by Indians appears impetuous. The dream of superpower is mingled with the thought of hegemony, which places the South Asian giant in an awkward situation and results in repeated failure.

Throughout the history, India has constantly been under foreign rule. The essence for the rise of India lies in how to be an independent country, to learn to solve the complicated ethnic and religious issues, to protect the country from terrorist attacks, to boost economic development as well as to put more efforts on poverty alleviation.

Additionally, the hegemony can also be harmful in terms of geopolitical environment. The expansion of India is restricted by its geographic locations. It has Himalaya Mountain to its north, a natural barrier for northward expansion; it has Pakistan to the west, a neighbor it is always at odds over the disputed border issues.

To everyone's disappointment, India pursued a foreign policy of "befriend the far and attack the near". It engaged in the war separately with China and Pakistan and the resentment still simmers. If India really wants to be a superpower, such a policy is shortsighted and immature.

India, which vows to be a superpower, needs to have its eyes on relations with neighbors and abandon the recklessness and arrogance as the world is undergoing earthshaking changes. For India, the ease of tension with China and Pakistan is the only way to become a superpower. At present, China is proactively engaging in negotiations with India for the early settlement of border dispute and India should give a positive response.

Who is gambling on Afghanistan?

Robert D. Kaplan, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a correspondent for The Atlantic magazine, published on Oct.7 a signed commentary entitled Beijing's Afghan Gamble in New York Times, in which he stated that "America is sacrificing its blood and treasure (in Afghanistan), the Chinese will reap the benefits."

He specifically singled out a Chinese state-owned company, which has been on the war-torn soil for years exploiting copper. And meanwhile, he said, China has been coveting Afghanistan's other yet-to-be tapped deposits like iron, uranium and precious gems and "is willing to take big risks in one of the most violent countries to secure them." He stressed all that China "has its eyes on" would draw upon the security provided by the U.S. troops.

Indeed, American combat troops are risking their lives fighting terrorist militant in a far-flung corner of the world and the Nobel Laureate for peace and the U.S. President Barack Obama, who now has two wars in his hands, is struggling to send a "surge" of 40,000 more troops in Afghanistan to fight the die-hard Taliban insurgents.

Be that as it may, the U.S. is by no means cast in the role of the Savior, saving the entire world from extinction. Think of one question: What if the America decided to leave, or to drastically reduce its military deployment on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border? Would the radical Muslims conquer the region or even the world as a whole simply due to the absence of the U.S. military might?

Counterterrorism is a global mission involving multilateral cooperation and coordination at varying levels and in various forms, and all the forces involved in the anti-terror crusade are interdependent with shared interests. Take China and the U.S.: In Afghanistan, Chinese and American interests converge----By exploiting Afghanistan's mineral reserves, China can provide thousands of poverty-stricken Afghans with jobs, thus generating tax revenues to help stabilize an already volatile Kabul government. This also echoed America's global strategy----creating a relatively stable Afghanistan which will cease to be a haven for extremists.

The U.S. is not fighting for others' geopolitical benefits, but for its own, for the enhancement of American footprint in the strategically critical region and for a "momentous moral victory" in its dire need at the time to boost the morale of its crestfallen soldiers. This is exactly why America chose to stay and act as a land-based meddler in such a far-off corner. It is highly dubious to think the U.S. is doing so only to help the "strategic ambitions" of the Chinese and others. Likewise, it is absurd for some U.S. Hawks to say China is hiding in the wings of the U.S., free-riding on the best the U.S. offers.

That the U.S. is exhausting its national energies in the 8-year war in an attempt to put a stable Afghanistan in place resonates with the bursting expectations of the new administration. Also, it is the burgeoning hope for triumphing over the radical Muslims and winning over the world that would prompt President Obama to add troops and continue to fight.

" We have no choice in Afghanistan," as put it in Mr. Kaplan's article, "one could make an excellent case that an ignominious withdrawal from Afghanistan is precisely what would lead to our decline, by demoralizing our military, signaling to our friends worldwide that we cannot be counted on and demonstrating that our enemies have greater resolve than we do."

In this view, the U.S. is also fighting to save its face, far from generously allowing others to take advantage of its war trophies.

In all farness, President Obama, as the recipient of the lofty honor for peace, is facing a tough test for his decision-making ability and leadership in terms of adding combat troops in Afghanistan. To the rookie American president barely 9 months on the job, what concerns him most is what he could do to impress the world.

Well-documented records have manifested that in the U.S. only war and peace, the eternal theme running through the human history, can work as the yardstick for the public assessment of a president. For instance, Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal salvaging the U.S. from being further bogged down in a sweeping economic crisis somehow cannot rival the glory he brought to the whole nation by his leadership in ending up the World War II with a complete victory.

Another case involves former President Lyndon B. Johnson, who signed the Civil Rights Bill in his term creating equal rights covering the general public regardless of race, color, religion and national origin. Despite the landmark progress in civil equality he had achieved, people would prefer to remember more of his decision dragging the country deep into the mire of Vietnam War.

History at times repeats itself, but the pitfall is conspicuous, as President Obama is mulling what to do next. But now that the Nobel Committee bet such a great deal on him, President Obama must turn out to be a good gambler in return.

Beijing’s Afghan Gamble

In Afghanistan’s Logar Province, just south of Kabul, the geopolitical future of Asia is becoming apparent: American troops are providing security for a Chinese state-owned company to exploit the Aynak copper reserves, which are worth tens of billions of dollars. While some of America’s NATO allies want to do as little as possible in the effort to stabilize Afghanistan, China has its eyes on some of world’s last untapped deposits of copper, iron, gold, uranium and precious gems, and is willing to take big risks in one of the most violent countries to secure them.

In Afghanistan, American and Chinese interests converge. By exploiting Afghanistan’s metal and mineral reserves, China can provide thousands of Afghans with jobs, thus generating tax revenues to help stabilize a tottering Kabul government. Just as America has a vision of a modestly stable Afghanistan that will no longer be a haven for extremists, China has a vision of Afghanistan as a secure conduit for roads and energy pipelines that will bring natural resources from the Indian Ocean and elsewhere. So if America defeats Al Qaeda and the irreconcilable elements of the Taliban, China’s geopolitical position will be enhanced.

This is not a paradox, since China need not be our future adversary. Indeed, combining forces with China in Afghanistan might even improve the relationship between Washington and Beijing. The problem is that while America is sacrificing its blood and treasure, the Chinese will reap the benefits. The whole direction of America’s military and diplomatic effort is toward an exit strategy, whereas the Chinese hope to stay and profit.

But what if America decides to leave, or to drastically reduce its footprint to a counterterrorism strategy focused mainly on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border? Then another scenario might play out. Kandahar and other areas will most likely fall to the Taliban, creating a truly lawless realm that wrecks China’s plans for an energy and commodities passageway through South Asia. It would also, of course, be a momentous moral victory achieved by radical Muslims who, having first defeated the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, will then have triumphed over another superpower.

And the calculations get more complicated still: a withdrawal of any kind from Afghanistan before a stable government is in place would also hurt India, a critical if undeclared American ally, and increasingly a rival of China. Were the Taliban to retake Afghanistan, India would face a radical Islamistan stretching from its border with Pakistan deep into Central Asia. With the Taliban triumphant on Pakistan’s western border, jihadists there could direct their energies to the eastern border with India.

India would defeat Pakistan in a war, conventional or nuclear. But having to do so, or simply needing to face down a significantly greater jihadist threat next door, would divert India’s national energies away from further developing its economy and its navy, a development China would quietly welcome.

Bottom line: China will find a way to benefit no matter what the United States does in Afghanistan. But it probably benefits more if we stay and add troops to the fight. The same goes for Russia. Because of continuing unrest in the Islamic southern tier of the former Soviet Union, Moscow has an interest in America stabilizing Afghanistan (though it would take a certain psychological pleasure from a humiliating American withdrawal).

In nuts-and-bolts terms, if we stay in Afghanistan and eventually succeed, other countries will benefit more than we will. China, India and Russia are all Asian powers, geographically proximate to Afghanistan and better able, therefore, to garner practical advantages from any stability our armed forces would make possible.

Everyone keeps saying that America is not an empire, but our military finds itself in the sort of situation that was mighty familiar to empires like that of ancient Rome and 19th-century Britain: struggling in a far-off corner of the world to exact revenge, to put down the fires of rebellion, and to restore civilized order. Meanwhile, other rising and resurgent powers wait patiently in the wings, free-riding on the public good we offer. This is exactly how an empire declines, by allowing others to take advantage of its own exertions.

Of course, one could make an excellent case that an ignominious withdrawal from Afghanistan is precisely what would lead to our decline, by demoralizing our military, signaling to our friends worldwide that we cannot be counted on and demonstrating that our enemies have greater resolve than we do. That is why we have no choice in Afghanistan but to add troops and continue to fight.

But as much as we hone our counterinsurgency skills and develop assets for the “long war,” history would suggest that over time we can more easily preserve our standing in the world by using naval and air power from a distance when intervening abroad. Afghanistan should be the very last place where we are a land-based meddler, caught up in internal Islamic conflict, helping the strategic ambitions of the Chinese and others.

* Robert D. Kaplan is a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a correspondent for The Atlantic.

On Cluttered Ballots of India, Families Proliferate

Democracy is built on the oft-tarnished ideal that any man or woman can get elected, but in India, home to the world’s biggest democracy, it helps to be part of a political family. The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, scions of the governing Congress Party, is India’s version of the Kennedys. But other political dynasties, large and small, have proliferated so rapidly that many analysts believe nepotism is corroding the political system.

India’s chaotic politics can sometimes seem democratic to a fault: the election cycle rarely pauses and the country has roughly 1,050 registered national and regional political parties. But most of the major parties, including the majority Congress Party, are internally undemocratic; there are no primaries and party leaders discourage public dissent. Party bosses select candidates and have shown an increasing tendency to select their own relatives.

Across India, political families are entrenched at every level of government and politics. At least nine of the 32 members of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s cabinet either descended from political families or have children seeking or holding office. Parliament is littered with political families; a recent study found that 31 of the 58 women elected had a husband, brother, father or father-in-law in politics.

The trend is even more glaring at the state level. In Maharashtra, analysts estimate that 30 or more party candidates running this month are from political families. The state’s chief minister, the top executive post, is the son of a former chief minister. This is also the case in two other states while the Congress Party is strongly considering replacing the late chief minister of Andhra Pradesh with his son.

“It has gotten into the DNA of the Indian political system,” said Jagdeep Chhokar, a founding member of the Association for Democratic Reform in New Delhi. “To control the workings of the party, the leader depends on trusted people. And one of the traditions of Indian culture is that you trust family members more than outsiders.”

Indian politics have a high turnover rate and voting blocs can be defined by region, religion, caste or community. Yet analysts say Indian voters favor a familiar family pedigree, partly because of a cultural reverence for the family and because of habits in some regions that trace back centuries. Several of the royal families who ruled over feudal states have today evolved into political families.

Modern India’s political marketplace is so crowded with parties and candidates that the “brand” of a familiar family name can bring an advantage, several analysts say. And the closed nature of political parties often perpetuates the dynastic problem; in several cases, rebels who broke from one party have formed their own and installed relatives around them.

Few political families are eager to step away from the power and lucre of office. In the state of Haryana, which has several local political dynasties, a recent study concluded that incumbents running for re-election had increased their personal wealth, on average, by 388 percent during their five years in office.

“Every political family these days is keen to keep someone in the field,” said Suhas Palshikar, who teaches politics at Pune University in Maharashtra. “Lots of resources are involved. Lots of networks are involved. And to put it crudely, a lot of money is involved.”

A Nobel prize for hope

President Obama's efforts to achieve a comprehensive peace agreement between Israel and the Arab states, including a Palestinian state, received a much appreciated, if surprising, boost with the awarding of the Nobel peace prize to the US president. It's fair to assume that the Nobel prize committee is hoping that the award will promote Obama's diplomatic efforts across a range of issues.

President Obama said he considered the award support for American leadership on behalf of international aspirations and "as a means to give momentum to a set of causes". He also made it clear that a top agenda item, along with nuclear non-proliferation and climate change, is achieving peace for Israelis and Palestinians. In fact, it was the only conflict he mentioned by name, noting: "We must all do our part to resolve those conflicts that have caused so much pain and hardship over so many years, and that effort must include an unwavering commitment that finally realises the rights of all Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and security in nations of their own."

As in his UN general assembly speech last month, where the president devoted 559 words out of 5000, more than on any other issue, to ending the occupation and achieving a comprehensive peace, Obama again made it clear that this conflict is central to his vision for a transformed Middle East.

The Israeli and Palestinian public will no doubt be skeptical, and understandably so. Events on the ground continue to move in the opposite direction and have even begun to spiral back towards violent confrontation, as evidenced by Friday's clashes in occupied East Jerusalem and outside Ramallah. Yet on both sides polling consistently shows the desire for a very different, more peaceful future. Obama's Nobel prize, and his highlighting of Israeli-Palestinian peace in responding, provides an injection of that most precious of commodities: hope.

The Israeli president and Hamas leaders both welcomed the announcement: Shimon Perez with a typically poetic flourish – "You gave us a licence to dream and act in a noble direction." Hamas senior official Ahmed Yousef with the more down-to-earth, "[w]e know he is somebody different from past leaders who supported Israel economically and militarily." The Gaza-based Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniyeh added for good measure, "We are in need of actions, not sayings…."

What is fascinating is that even hardened foes from both sides of the divide see in President Obama a potential positive game-changer. Given the realities today, it is not reasonable to expect the parties to generate a solution of their own volition. Israelis and Palestinians both have dysfunctional politics, and suffer too great an asymmetry in power to be able to successfully conclude bilateral negotiations. American leadership has become the essential ingredient to delivering a way out of this conflict. And that requires presidential will and determination.

Certainly a part of the Nobel award was an acknowledgement of what Barack Obama's election has already achieved in embracing a global agenda of engagement and partnership, in doing more to rekindle hope for a better world than any other event this past year, and yes – frankly – in not being George Bush. But this was also an anticipatory or aspirational peace prize – front and center of the anticipation is Israeli-Palestinian peace. From day one in office, President Obama has made achieving a two-state solution a priority, appointing a special envoy to the region and setting out expectations in his remarkable Cairo speech.

This nudge of encouragement from Oslo comes at an important moment, when a sense of lost momentum was beginning to set in. The Nobel committee is signalling that it too is placing its hopes in the new American president. Other supportive, international interventions will not doubt be needed along the way.

The world should enthusiastically and constructively line up behind President Obama's goal of ending this conflict.

Acknowledging the role Obama's leadership will need to play is a recognition not only of the two sides' inability to end this on their own. It also recognises that unlike in almost any other conflict, the US in a way supports and has significant leverage over both sides of this divide. And President Obama individually has the commensurate moral weight to complement America's sole superpower status.

Such expectations, embellished with Friday's Nobel announcement, can be daunting – but they can also help fortify and mobilise the presidential determination and will needed to get this done.

Obama and Human Rights

"Our concern is that the Obama administration is perceived to be softening on human rights."

If that comment came from a human rights lobbyist, you might not pay too much mind. But I heard it from Anwar Ibrahim, a Malaysian leader who is one of the world's foremost spokesmen for Islamic democracy -- and who is himself under threat from authorities at home. If Anwar says that people throughout Asia and the Middle East are wondering about President Obama's commitment to human rights, the administration ought to pay attention.

Obama has committed himself to the cause of democracy in every major foreign policy address of his young presidency. He has met with freedom fighters, in Moscow and elsewhere. In announcing Friday that he would accept the Nobel Peace Prize, he saluted, obliquely but unmistakably, the democracy marchers of Tehran and a former Nobel laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, who, for her courageous advocacy of democracy, languishes under house arrest in Burma.

But Obama's choice last week not to meet with the Dalai Lama, an advocate of freedom, broke with bipartisan tradition and -- following several other seemingly small decisions and ambiguous administration statements -- reverberated across the globe. In an odd way, it showed the flip side of the willingness that he expressed, especially during the campaign, to meet with the enemies of freedom.

Both positions in their way reflect the president's self-confidence, his impatience with show and pretense, and his disdain for aspects of his predecessor's policy. Both have a compelling logic. But both also carry dangers.

When Obama suggested early on that he would meet with an Ahmadinejad or a Kim Jong Il, he was rebuking what he saw as George W. Bush's diplomatic arrogance. But he was also rejecting protocol and hang-ups about status: If America is so powerful, why should we be afraid to meet with anyone? And why would anyone worry that meeting with Hugo Chávez, or accepting an anti-American book from him, could influence Obama for the worse?

But Obama discovered quickly that, whatever it meant to him, allowing Chávez to shake his hands and press him with gifts had significance throughout a continent. A meeting with Obama would be a coup for Kim, not to be given away for nothing. A debate, as proposed by Ahmadinejad, would benefit Iran's regime but not America. And so the administration, like that of Bush's second term, is trying to steer the bad guys of the world into discussions with the United States and its allies -- the six-party talks on Korea, the P-5 plus 1 on Iran -- and away from one-on-one diplomacy.

Some of the impulses behind the non-invitation to the Dalai Lama are similar. It's not that they've given up on the Tibetan cause, administration officials say, but that they want achievements, not gestures. Bush could feel good about himself for inviting dissidents into the White House, but what did he accomplish? By postponing a meeting that administration officials fear would inflame China's leaders, Obama will get a chance to raise the issue with them in quiet conversation. If he gets nowhere, officials say, there will be ample time to welcome the Dalai Lama to the White House.

That again may reflect Obama's self-confidence: He knows how he feels about human rights, so why should he have to thump his chest and prove it to the world? Why not try to get something done?

Yet as with Chávez's small public relations coup, such calculations on the Dalai Lama may underestimate the impact in the world. China unabashedly browbeats other governments that dare meet with the Dalai Lama or other dissidents. When Denmark once supported a U.N. resolution criticizing China's human rights record, a Chinese government spokesman likened Denmark to "the bird that pokes out its head" and said the resolution "will, I think, in the end become a rock that smashes on the Danish government's head."

Once they see Washington deferring, fewer governments elsewhere may dare poke up their heads. On such matters, many nations still look to America to lead.

Throughout the autocratic world, there are people fighting back -- priests and poets, honest reporters, incorruptible lawyers. Most of us will never know their names. But they watch what happens in the White House. When a dissident is turned away, they take note. When a dissident is welcomed, they take heart. To them, no gesture is empty.

"Of course, your government has to decide what is the best strategy," Anwar said during a visit to The Post last week. "But the perception also is important. Because once you give a perception that you are softening on human rights, then you are strengthening the hands of autocrats to punish dissidents throughout the world."

China's class ceiling

That the current ruler of the People's Republic of China, Hu Jintao, is a bore will no doubt be a relief to most people, including 1.3 billion Chinese. Hu's dullness is remarkable given the high drama of China's fairly recent transformation from a poor, blood-soaked totalitarian country to a rich (in patches) superpower aspiring to take over America's lead in the not-so-distant future. But perhaps his lack of charisma is part of the point. The first 27 years of the People's Republic, under Chairman Mao, when millions died in almost constant purges and upheavals, and tens of millions died of starvation in bizarre economic experiments, were so awful that most Chinese are quite sick of charismatic leadership.

China is the only ancient civilization in human history to have reemerged as a major force in the world. And Chinese are rightly proud of this. So why rock the boat? It is better to be ruled by boring technocrats like Hu who will keep things nice and steady.

This is not the story one might hear from unemployed workers in the rust belts of northeastern China, or from rioting farmers in Guangdong province who have been pushed off the land by greedy developers working in tandem with corrupt party officials. Nor is this view necessarily shared by the brave lawyers willing to take on some of those corrupt officials, or intellectual dissidents who still get arrested for arguing that Chinese should be entitled to basic democratic rights.

But it is the common line taken by people who benefit most from the current wave of fun, fashion and prosperity -- the new urban elite, some of whom are pampered children of Communist Party bosses. None are communist ideologues. All have taken the late leader Deng Xiaoping's "To Get Rich is Glorious" slogan seriously. And not a few of them, now in their 40s, were among the Tiananmen Square demonstrators in 1989 who demanded democratic freedoms and an end to corruption.

One pokes into this contradiction at one's peril, especially if one is a foreigner. A prominent figure in the new Beijing elite, a highly sophisticated woman who personifies the glories of getting rich in today's China, also happens to be a daughter of the Communist aristocracy. Hong Huang is a round-faced, expensively dressed media mogul who runs a string of trendy magazines. Her mother was Mao's English teacher. Her stepfather was Mao's minister of foreign affairs. Hong was partly educated in New York, and one of her husbands was the filmmaker Chen Kaige, another player in Beijing's gilded age.

A few years ago, I was taken to Hong's lovely country house in the mountains. I had been introduced by a mutual friend, the avant-garde poet Yang Lian, who lives in London with his wife, Yo Yo, a novelist. Neither Yang Lian nor Yo Yo are, strictly speaking, political dissidents. They don't write about politics much, but they are free-spirited authors who chose not to put up with the restrictions of an authoritarian society.

The evening started off amicably, with gossip about acquaintances on the Beijing scene. Then Hong started giving Yang advice. Why was he still living abroad? Why didn't he come back home? Things were great in China now. Lots of money to be made. Yang should get with the program. All that modernist poetry might fool foreigners, but life had moved on in Beijing. He should do some advertising, or maybe pop lyrics. There was no need to worry about censorship and all that, if you knew how to play the game.

A certain edginess crept into the bracing mountain air. Hong's advice began to sound more like bullying. Tiananmen had not been mentioned, but it was the elephant in the room. It was one of the reasons Yang and Yo Yo opted for residence abroad. Suddenly, Hong brought it up, turning to me as well. "Tiananmen, Tiananmen," she said, "foreign journalists are always going on about Tiananmen. I think it's time to forget about all that. We should move on and feel proud of our country. Foreigners just use it to bad-mouth China."

I felt I had to say something, but I didn't feel like picking a fight as Hong's guest. So I put it to her that the Chinese still insist on remembering the Nanking massacre of 1937, when Japanese troops went on an orgy of rape, looting and murder in what was then the Chinese capital. Indeed, this terrible event is a central part of what is now called "patriotic education." Japanese nationalists, on the other hand, want young Japanese to forget about it because they feel that it is time to move on and that the young should feel proud of their country.

Of course, I had picked a fight. And I will never forget the way Hong -- charming, cosmopolitan, New York-educated -- turned into a ranting Red Guard, screaming abuse at me, at foreigners in general and at Yang Lian and Yo Yo for defending me. Clearly a very raw nerve had been touched.

Yes, what Hong said was true. People, especially educated people with a certain cosmopolitan style, were doing all right in post-1989 China. There was money to be made, a lot of money. Fashion was booming. And so on. But at a price. And that price is what Hong called "playing the game" -- knowing what subjects to avoid, how to trim your views, how to stay out of politics. Let the dull technocrats rule China with a velvet glove -- and an iron fist for those who refuse to play the game.

To opt for this is entirely understandable. Exile is tough. And who wants to go to prison? Besides, life really is sweet for those who have made enough money and the necessary compromises. But they are compromises.

Because most foreign journalists, businessmen, diplomats and academics tend to meet educated, privileged Chinese like Hong, most reports from China reflect their views: that soft authoritarianism is good for China; that the Chinese masses are not ready for democracy; that to give them the right to vote would only create chaos. But the main argument for technocracy, heard not just from the Chinese elites but increasingly in Western countries too, is that it is more efficient. Once the rulers put their minds to something -- the Olympic Games, birth control, economic reform, perhaps even tackling pollution -- nothing and no one stands in the way of success.

People who like the idea of strong central government and top-down change are often attracted to the Chinese model. And so are businessmen who would much rather deal with authoritarian party officials than independent trade unions. China is often favorably compared with India, with its gross inefficiencies, dire poverty and huge problems with illiteracy, corruption and organized crime. Messy democracy, it might seem, is holding India back, while China is forging ahead with ever more impressive statistics.

There is some truth to this view. When I first saw Shenzhen in the 1970s, it was a tiny village across the border from Hong Kong. Since Deng Xiaoping declared, in 1982, that a new economic zone should arise there, his will soon became reality. It is now an industrial metropolis with a population of, give or take, 10 million people.

Technocracy, however, has great drawbacks too. Authoritarian technocrats are not very good in emergencies. When a devastating earthquake hit Sichuan province in 2008, killing about 70,000 people and leaving 10 million more without homes, China was much praised for its speedy and compassionate response. What has been mentioned less is that a disproportionate number of victims were children because schools collapsed. Developers had used shoddy materials and paid officials to look the other way.

Perhaps one cannot blame the technocrats in Beijing for this. But the central government should not be praised too highly either. Much of the early help came from ordinary Chinese who sped to the scene, and they were actually hindered by officials in the beginning. Later, when citizens, helped by lawyers, tried to investigate the corrupt practices that had led to the catastrophic number of children's deaths, they were blocked and, in some cases, sent to prison.

The other thing government-by-experts is singularly bad at doing goes to the heart of politics: solving conflicts of interest. Individual liberties have increased without the benefits of political liberties. The state will no longer decide whom a person can marry, where he can live, what kind of job he can seek. But any effort to further collective aims in an organized fashion independent from the state will be ruthlessly crushed. This leads to what old-fashioned Marxists called contradictions. What is good for the business elite of Shanghai may not be good for the peasants in Sichuan.

To justify its monopoly on power, the Chinese technocracy relies on the promise of order and constant economic growth, and the claim of patriotism. Supporting the government is patriotic, and criticism is unpatriotic or, if voiced by foreigners, "anti-Chinese."

But in the end, the greatest flaw in the system is that China's boring rulers are self-perpetuating. They cannot be punished by the ruled for their incompetence. Great blunders go unchecked. Conflicts of interest fester or erupt in violence. China's technocracy might well look stable and successful for a while to come, but it is unlikely to last without basic political reform. Some think the new wave of technocrats, the ones who went to Harvard or Yale, can bring this about themselves. One never knows. But as long as they haven't, I'd still put my money on messy democracy any day.

Ian Buruma is a professor of human rights at Bard College and the author of, most recently, "The China Lover."

BANGLADESH ELECTIONS

Will politics interrupted since January 11, 2007 by Emergency Rule be finally giving way to resumption of democratic politics, come parliament election day on December 29, 2008.

Intellectuals, constitutional experts and journalists will continue to argue with points and counterpoints about the sagacity of declaring emergency under pressure from the army. These two years, a caretaker government administered the country backed by the army. The performance of the government should certainly be audited by the public. It will be a lesson for all, including the armed forces, to learn from.

True, there were shortcomings. Corruption shifted from one interest group to another. Too many experiments were made with lofty ideas, including Army Chief General Moeen U. Ahmed’s vision of “Democracy with Bangladeshi Characteristics”. The idea did not hurt the nation. But nothing went to the purgatorial depth of the BNP-JEI rule of 2001-2006.

Those in Bangladesh now criticizing the “January 11” emergency may like to revisit the situation prevailing then. Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s most notorious and corrupt older son, Tareque Rehman Zia had tried to initiate a military coup through his army friend and a captive president. It was thanks to General Moeen and his colleagues that disaster was averted. For this one single act, the Bangladeshi people should thank them.

The political divide was also moving fast towards a major bloodletting which was unlikely to remain confined to Dhaka. The country is yet to come out of the trauma of the killing fields of 1971. While the Pakistani army is not there now, their old murderous squads like the AL Badr, the Al Shams and the Razakars have revived to great strength in the form of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami (BJEI), IOJ (Amini) and a host of others including terrorist organizations like the Jamatul Mujahidin Bangladesh (JMB) and the Harkat-ul-Jihal al-Islami (HUJI).

For a variety of reasons including international warnings especially from UN Secretary General, the armed forces desisted from instituting a martial law government. That would have been a disaster. Someday, perhaps, General Moeen, Lt. General (Retd.) Masududdin Choudhury and some other officers who made very critical decisions at that time, would come out on record on their thinking. It would go a long way to help the armed forces officers in the future to introspect about action such as military rule. One may, however, be assured that the military will never be too far away. In a democracy this is bad news. But then the politicians who sit in Jatiyo Sangshad (Parliament) must conduct themselves sensibly. They cannot rape and loot the country and expect others to look away.

Notwithstanding the fact that the military-backed caretaker government could not finally achieve what they had set out to do with the political class, the politicians as a whole should have come out greatly chastised from the events of the last two years. Some of them have been convicted on corruption and other crimes, some are being still tried in courts, some others are absconding, and a number of them are contesting the elections after a close shave with the law under emergency rule. There was wheeling and dealing, political adjustments and fall outs, threats of blackmail not to contest the elections unless the government agreed to certain demands from particular political parties. In the end a patchwork arrangement was arrived at to lift emergency to allow free and fair elections with observers from the European Union, the USA and the UK monitoring the polls.

A word about foreign observers. With all their noble intentions, they have never really been able to reach the real trouble spots and rural areas where the majority of the votes are cast. The 2001 elections were rigged with impunity by the BNP-JEI led 4-party alliance. Large sections of minorities were not allowed to participate in the polling. The army and most other security agencies did not give a damn about who was observing the elections. But the foreign observers certified the elections as free and fair. The foreign observers apparently had a political strategy to work with the BNP and the JEI for reasons not really a secret. The Americans were looking for moderate Islamic political parties across the world to support, to wash off the opprobrium they had earned of being anti-Islamic in the Islamic world. The 2001 political situation in Bangladesh does not obtain at the end of 2008.

Nevertheless, lessons of the past must not be forgotten. Gen. Moeen would recall the message sent from the Army GHQ Dhaka, to the GOC 24 Inf. Division, Chittagong, directing to provide all assistance to the JEI leader and candidate Shahjahan Choudhury. When all mobile telephones were shut down officially a few days before the 2001 elections, Choudhury, who is in jail now, was provided with a communication set from the army’s holding to help him to keep in touch with his murderous hoodlums.

The Chief Advisor and Advisors (Cabinet Ministers) of the caretaker government, as per the constitution, are supposed to be politically neutral persons or, rather, apolitical persons. Except for a few, most were anything but apolitical. Maj. Gen. (Retd.) M.A.Matin, Advisor to the Home (Interior) Ministry exposed himself as a hardcore Jamaati and of an ideological persuasion that could very well resonate with the ideology of the banned terrorist organizations like the JMB and the HUJI.

Looking from a traditional point of view, the parliamentary elections would be fought mainly between the right wing BNP and the left-of-center Awami League (AL) which still enjoys secular credentials among Bangladesh watchers. In the 1996 elections, however, the AL came to an understanding with the JEI. This was broken in 2001. But the AL President Sheikh Hasina Wajed again made an attempt to forge an alliance with an Islamic group which preaches everything that the AL is supposed to be against including women leadership.

It is a serious concern that regressive and obscurantist Islamic groups are becoming more important in electoral politics in Bangladesh. Nomination of the number of minority candidates by the political parties for the December 29 elections fell far short of their population ratio. A number of Bangladeshi newspapers pointed this out. There is no time to review this. From all indications, fielding as few minority candidates as possible even by the AL was a hard, conscious decision from the top of the party. About 10 percent to 12 percent population of Bangladesh are, therefore, becoming irrelevant. Will they also become dispensable, eventually?

A number of linked developments need mention in terms of Bangladesh’s politics. Self-styled Mufti, Amini, head of the faction of the Islamic Oikyo Jote (IOJ) aligned with the BNP-JEI combine could stop the construction of Baul sculptures near the Dhaka International airport because idols are “un-Islamic”. The government bowed to Mufti Amini’s threat. An effort was made a couple of months ago by a section within the Home Ministry to give the banned terrorist group HUJI a moderate political face.

It is still being talked that the BNP has 74 sure constituencies, and the AL about 33. This position is unlikely to hold any longer. Both the BNP and the AL have been weakened significantly, but the BNP more so. It has also suffered desertions. It, however, still holds the numbers and political profile to keep the JEI in alliance with it.

The JEI suffered the least in the anti-corruption drive by the caretaker government. To remain with the BNP is an astute, long-term, strategic decision. The BNP is losing, centrist heavy weights like Abdul Mannan Bhuyian and Col. (Retd) Oli Ahmed among others. This gives the JEI the space to grow within the BNP rightists and Islamists. From here on, one would expect to see the original BNP wither slowly and the JEI to grow within the BNP. In the next 10 years, the JEI should be expected to take control of the Khaleda Zia controlled JEI.

Finally, what has happened to the Freedom Fighters? They were given some hope by the Army and the AL. But as expected, they have been dumped. The Freedom Fighters (Mukti Joddhas) represent something that does not fit even into the paradigm of the AL top leadership. It is the Islamist rightists the AL wants to win over.

The December 29, 2008 Jatiyo Sangshad appears to have acquired a lot of issues that will come into play in Bangladesh’s politics soon after a new elected government comes into place. It is difficult to speculate anything definitely at the moment. But some issues not really visible have been raised in this commentary. They are of utmost importance.

Footnote: Bangladesh politics and elections are moving towards a situation where moderate and humanist Islam and secularism are being pushed aside to ameliorate intolerant Islam. As the JEI leaders had stated a few years ago their strength cannot be measured by the number of seats they have in Parliament. It can only be fathomed by the growth of their ideology among the people of Bangladesh. Time is on the side of the JEI and the opponents of liberation unless those who style themselves as secular political leaders wake up soon.

UN & INDIA'S WAR ON TERROR

In the past few days, the events that have been triggered by the UN sanctions within Pakistan can be considered as significant, as the global view of Pakistan and the terror outfits working from its soil seems to have altered. Four Pakistani militants were added to UN terrorism sanctions list. They were added to a pre-existing list called the 1267 committee of people and firms facing sanctions for ties to Al-Qaida and Taliban. Muhammad Saeed, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, Haji Muhammad Ashraf and Mahmoud Mohammad Ahmed Bahaziq, these names have become well known across the globe and so has the outfit Jamaat-ud-dawa. The UN’s action came through after evidence and pressure from America in concern to the 26/11 incident . The sanctions led to the house arrest of the listed terrorists. Reports claimed the sanction to be too late as the outfit was provided considerable time to accumulate and safeguard its assets.

The Questions that can be raised are-

Has the sanction been effective?

The answer is Yes and No both. Yes, as it has brought considerable global attention to India’s outcry in concern to terrorist organizations working from Pakistan. But the sanction hasn’t been as effective as it should be as the organization had considerable time to safeguard its funds and operations and clean its tracks. Most outfits in Pakistan also have the advantage of working under different pseudonyms with the support of the parent organization. This strategy aids them in closing and abandoning the parent organization and starting anew under a different name albeit with the same goals. Even though the UN sanction lists a number of alternative names and spellings, it still raises doubt of whether the whole ground has been covered. The sanction covers organizations with ties to Al-Qaeda and Taliban, but there may be many outfits that have little association with theses groups or may be acting independently.

What kind of action did the sanction trigger in Pakistan?

Actions undertaken by Pakistan have borne out of the fear of being tagged as Terrorist State. Pakistani Defence Minister has been quoted in a PTI report as stating that the crackdown on JUD was to make sure that the country isn’t labeled as a terrorist state which leads to an economic downslide for the nation.

What is the significance of the sanction and how UN’s role can aid India in this war on terror?

The UN’s action will open door for further actions by the International organization but it will also provide an avenue for India to approach and pressurise Pakistan. Under the UN charter if a country does not comply with the UN’s demands, the actions taken against Pakistan may include complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations under article 41 of the UN charter under Chapter VII, “Action with respect to threats to the peace, breaches of the peace, and acts of aggression”. The persistent use of this article can be demanded and a case can be built strongly for the use of it by India. Senior leaders of the US administration have already spoken on the UN Dias for stronger actions by Pakistan and severe actions against it for not complying with it. But most of these demands have been just vocal as Pakistan is defiant. The meeting of 120 Indian envoys in New Delhi this week to lay out the plans for vigorously gathering international support against Pakistan’s denial to eliminate terrorist groups within the country seems to be one of the few last diplomatic actions considered by India.

The Chapter VII provides every country the right to defend itself and retaliate in self-defence, that opens a entirely different option for any nation. Pakistan’s defiance can turn out be a critical point for UN to act. There has been a strong opposition against the ban on Jamaat ud Dawa within the country that can turn the tide in favour for India in the UN and garner support for its war on terror with other nations in the General Assembly. The present scenario in concern to Pakistan has led to both countries testing the war preparedness on the borders. There has not been any intervention from the UN or any key countries such as US or UK that may lead to a serious standoff on the borders by both the nations. The diplomatic pressures being exercised by India can be fruitful with the help of UN and the backing of US and UK, but the saturated responses from Pakistan and reactions from the US aren’t helping the situation. The UNSC’s complete backing is needed for bans or embargoes to be imposed on Pakistan and that may become difficult to obtain with China as a permanent member on the Security Council. These doubts also raise the pertinent question of how UN actions could be effective and the answer lies in the fact that in the present global circumstances, India seems to be on its own to fight its war on terror. US is on the crossroads as it considers Pakistan a strong ally in its fight against terrorism but in the recent past Pakistan has become less of an ally as its northern and western frontiers have become a safe haven for many terrorist groups. The US responses are measured and calculated leading to an unsatisfied India. The global war on terror has been in the Indian backyard for a very long time but the international support has arrived late for the nation and the country’s patience seems to be running out.

BANGLADESH ELECTIONS AHEAD

Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami leaders’ involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity have been recorded in many books, journals and periodicals since the liberation of Bangladesh. The present head of the Islamist party in 1971 as head of Jamaat’s student wing Islami Chatra Sangha vowed to protect "every inch of Pakistan’s land". Jamaat's present Secretary General was heading the Al-Badr Bahini, built to resist freedom fighters, allegedly led those who were involved in the killing of the intellectuals days before the victory of Bangladesh on 16th December 1971. Crimes committed by Jamaat-e-Islami aptly fits the Nuremberg Principles as violators of laws or customs of war which include but are not limited to murder, ill treatment or deportation of slave labor or for any other purpose of the civilian population of or in an occupied territory. They can also be accused of crime against humanity defined as murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation or other inhumane acts done against any civilian population or persecution on political, racist or religious grounds.

Rome statute of the International Criminal Court significantly broadened the definition of crimes against humanity. Jamaat-e-Islami’s crimes would fit those described by Leila Nadia Sadat of Washington University while interrogating the concept of extra-ordinary rendition as implicating in multiple human rights abuses including torture and death. Additionally Genocide Convention of 1948 and the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 regarding capture, detention, treatment and trial of prisoners of war and civilian internees provided rules the breach of which would be considered as war crimes.

International Human Rights Law and International Humanitarian Law forbid torture as illegal and extra ordinary rendition combined with aggressive interrogation technique are described war crime under the Geneva Conventions. Unfortunately for us the Genocide Convention had not then come into effect nor was the concept of responsibility to protect developed. Derek Chollet (In defense of values-Stanley Foundation) considers that responsibility to protect is a transformational concept in international relations. The concept was given global approval by the 2005 UN Summit of world leaders that held that with sovereign rights came sovereign responsibility to the people of ones own country and to ensure that they were not subjected to genocide or mass killing or ethnic cleansing. Should a country is unable or unwilling to do so then the international community is obligated to step in to correct the situation. The world does not want to see a repetition of the massacre of Rwanda or Srebrenica. The venality seen by the world after the holocaust of Nazi Germany further helped evolve international law in the form of transitional justice.

The concept of transitional justice refers to a field of activity and inquiry focused on how societies address legacies of past human rights abuses, mass atrocities or other forms of severe social trauma including genocide or civil war in order to build a more democratic and peaceful future. The creation of tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda enhanced transitional jurisprudence and visible accountability of the perpetrators. Today the greatest worry of the international community on both side of the digital divide is the terrorism spread in the name of a twisted interpretation of Islam that is refused by the Muslims throughout the world. Yet suspicion about Muslims lingers on among those not lettered in the verses and the spirit of Islam. Samuel Huntington believes that the contribution of Western culture is in the separation of the church and the state. It is thought that religious institutions should not have the power to tell the democratically elected people how the country should be run. Contemporary English philosopher John Rawls urged to take the truths of religion off the political agenda. Besides for democracy to flourish twin toleration --minimal boundaries of freedom of action that must be crafted for political institutions vis-a-vis religious authorities and for religious groups vis-a-vis political institutions has been ensured.

Though Jamaat-e-Islami was banned in the initial days after the liberation of Bangladesh the leaders of the party were rehabilitated after the assassination of the Father of Bangladesh Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Yet one wonders whether a political party that bases its loyalty to a particular religion and has alleged transnational links with terrorist organizations should not be banned. In 2002 the Spanish Parliament banned the Batasauna Party for being the political arm of the militant Basque nationalist. France dissolved Unite Radicale when a member of the party tried to kill President Chirac. A 1936 law empowers the government to dissolve any movement "that resembles in its form and military organization a combat group of private militia whose aim is to undermine the national integrity".

Way back in 1951 German Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) at the request of then Chancellor Conrad Adenauer declared the Socialist Reich Party as unconstitutional on the ground that German Basic Law( Constitution) held that "political parties shall participate in the formation of the political will of the people" and that political parties’ main internal structure "shall conform to democratic principles". FCC also banned the Communist Part of Germany (West Germany) on the ground that the party advocated the overthrow of constitutional order. FCC upheld administrative limitations put on National Democratic Party in the Holocaust Denial Case (German Law Journal-vol-1. November 2000) In the US where the First amendment ensured practice of all religions the Supreme Court had struck down as unconstitutional the nondenominational prayer in New York public schools. In 2004 Belgium’s highest court ruled the xenophobic Vlaams Volk was guilty of "permanent incitement and segregation". The ruling was based on based on 1981 Anti-Racism Act that had made punishable under the law an act of incitement to discrimination, segregation, hatred or violence against a person. In 1998 Dutch Court ruled in favor of banning Nationale Volkspartije for inciting hatred, racial discrimination and xenophobia.

In general Muslims were critical of Western attitude towards Hamas who had won the elections in Gaza. The Western argument rested upon the Oslo Accord that prohibited advocacy of "racism or pursue the implementation of their (political parties) aims by unlawful or non-democratic means". Hammas’ Charter, interalia, declares: "We must spread the spirit of jihad among the Ummah (Muslim nation), clash with the enemies and join ranks of the jihad fighters". Given Israeli occupation of territories since 1967 and untold miseries inflicted upon the Palestinians the Oslo Declaration may appear to be knit picking. Because this brings up the question of the right of self-determination, failing which armed conflict as had happened in the case of Bangladesh where international jurists resolved the fight for independence as the freely expressed desire of the people of then East Pakistan being the will of the "people" because only the people, and not ethnic communities, can express such will to be free. The people of Bangladesh shall have the opportunity to register their preference for secular or religion based political parties in the forthcoming elections to be held on 29th December termed by some as "transformational". One hopes that the international community, and particularly South Asia, assailed by Islamic extremism would get the signal from the people of Bangladesh that Muslim countries can be moderate denying political and territorial space to terrorists to create havoc to innocent lives.

FAILURE IN THREAT ASSESSMENT - INDO/PAK RELATIONS

As Pakistan’s civilian government took a dangerous step forward to reign in the militants its state helped to create, US continued its bombardment inside its territory, and India announced a complete overhaul of its system, ‘terrorists watch’ and warned its citizens that they may have to give up some of their 'freedom' if they want the terrorists defeated. The UN Ambassador for Pakistan explained it would have been declared a ‘terrorist state’ and the sanctions would have crippled its economy, if Pakistan didn’t agree to ban the organisations accused of the recent ‘barbaric attack’, as Dr. Manmohan Singh put it, on India. Unfortunately, Pakistan has been a cripple inside long before the Islamists started to vie for power than being just partners to military dictatorships or the occasional civilian governments, and the butchering started in earnest in Afghanistan. India’s Foreign Minister pledged for a resolute campaign for an international agreement on ‘terrorism’ and the Prime Minister gave it credence by promising, "India would not show double standard on the issue". These are of course serious statements of intent on top of the policy shift India has made in recent times about its region.

After the LeT lead raid on Mumbai, “the rape of India” described with his paintings MF.Husain one of India's greatest painters, who lives in exile for ‘artistic-transgression’, Indians unlike any other times have been discussing about Project-India with an earnest and critical eye. Questions hitherto too sensitive are asked openly, and people of all walks of life give their uncompromising responses without fear. In some cases they wore ugly masks; when equating the Muslims with Pakistan, and the Pakistanis with terrorism, whipped up by some sections of the media and political parties. Indians in general remained restrained and composed, and discussed about India, not Pakistan, analytical in their assessment of their long march, and their responsibilities as one of the leading Global players; “hatred and anger into productiveness” as Ho Chi Minh had suggested.

Their questions fall into two categories. One, immediate in nature and about the systematic approach to protect India and those who serve it, and the consequences of the steps they could take. Two, how India can avoid such events, organised within or externally, and are really about “how inclusive India is” not 'just for itself' but for the entire region. Inevitably they lead to the questions about the 'Nehru-Ambedker' political and 'Gandhi-Tagore' spiritual visions as reference axes, mapping the recent historical events as correlation points. One can understand the range of emotions and anxieties, and their extremities: they are angry at the lack of spontaneous outpouring of emotions when outrages are committed in less fashionable poorer neighbourhoods or Imphal or Guhawati compared to the noise made after Mumbai; they are confused and suspicious about their media, quick to extol the virtues of their braves, the soldiers, but only a few months ago cast them in less appealing light when they demanded some financial recompense in exchange; they were full of praise of the bravery of their guardians yet, were enraged to see them walking into the terrorist dens with five-inch pistols where well-kitted out 'modern-terrorist' waited; etc.

Indians seem are sincerely beginning to think about the Other-India, and seek a relationship with it. If this is true, then as outsiders with many expectations, and were to answer the questions India is asking itself, how would we fair? Where would our answers lead us?

Q: Does India have the right to defend itself?

A: Yes it does, without any preconditions.

Q: Does it have to worry about taking action because both India and Pakistan are nuclear powers?

A: This is a specious question.

The knowledge that India is a Nuclear power doesn’t deter Pakistan from taking actions like in Mumbai, Bangalore, etc. Why should it bother India?

The rules of engagements are different here; both don't want to use nuclear weapons even as a threat, but want to probe each other without any other conditions, or with conditions the other doesn't accept.

The whole point of Pakistan’s outward exercises are not about India, but about Pakistan itself. Just as it implodes, it explodes outwardly as a means of rightful expression of anger and injustice, but in reality searching for its own self, a sense of purpose.

It is about its survival as a state, its territorial integrity, its status as an aspiring middle ranking power with Iran challenging, and immediately, prevention of an economic meltdown.

As for India, it is about its position in the region as the superpower, not as a regional power in the region, and about its unity.

Q: Doesn’t India ripping itself apart in some of its regions?

A: Yes, true. However, the questions within India are towards unity, about inclusiveness, and empowerment.

But, the questions over its Western-border are about the nature of the state and the meaning of Pakistan itself.

We may add, it is also a process in Afghanistan, and on India's Southern flank, Sri Lanka; India is surrounded by failing or failed states. But, India cannot allow them to be completely unaccountable.

Q: Can India make much of the non-state actors, while it has swathe of territories conceded to non-state actors?

A: Yes it can. Firstly, it means many things, different type of actors. Secondly, some of the non-state actors in Pakistan and Afghanistan are involved in cross-border terrorism, and India cannot be accused of the same, the easy answer. Complicating any process towards a solution is the involvement of some elements of the Pakistani state apparatuses that either encouraged or lost control over these groups; no one is in a position to accept responsibility for such actions. In this respect, accountability may also mean several things.

Q: Aren't these superfluous arguments? Justifying India’s present positions and to mask its past involvement in the region? For example, didn’t Tamil militant groups receive India's help a while ago?

A: Yes, they did.

No, masking or justifying India’s present or past policies or involvements is not our job.

Our objective is to see whether there are any real shifts in the Indian foreign policy, particularly after the demise of the bi-polar world? And to search these changes are real and tangible or temporary and dishonest?

India has sharply changed its policy towards all its neighbours. Security and development seem to be the main planks of this drive. Which comes first depends on the quality of involvement and, more importantly, all these policies are implemented through the existing and recognised institutions. In this context, it is aggressively pursuing a friendly Statist policy towards every country in the region.

As for practical evidences of these changes, one can see that in the recent history of the civil war in Sri Lanka and the tilting of the military balance in favour of the state away from the LTTE. Indian policy changes are so fundamental and drastic the Sri Lankan military chief could not resist making derogative comments about Tamil politicians in India and taunt them to change the course directed by Delhi. Even after facing serious protests from Tamil Nadu at the provocations, and ignoring the ploy to test the unity of India, the Indian state's unflinching support for the Sri Lankan state clearly illustrates our point. Its refusal to get involved in the events to dislodge the military dictatorship in Myanmar, despite push from the West and pressure from inside shows consistency of its application. Even the Maoist takeover in Nepal didn't make its knees tremble and act as though was, "here, we may need to think differently".

Q: What has been achieved by these policy changes?

A: Evidently, nothing.

Pakistan continues its attack on India though non-state actors or directly, whenever it feels the need to. To deflect the tension it has on its Pashtuns borders, with tribal loyalties to its majority in Afghanistan, which has claim on the territory, and the pressure from the US and the West on terrorism, it would want to open its Eastern frontier time to time, a well documented ploy.

In Sri Lanka, the state now assured of itself, go on in its way to disregard what are decent and principled for India in exchange for what is needed by India; and Tamils and other minorities are at its mercy. Though much was expected from India’s Foreign Minister expected visit, now we learn that is also being cancelled, to the disappointment of Tamils.

Hardly anything worth mentioning has happened on India’s Eastern or North-eastern borders, except for the maintenance of status quo.

However, beneath this docile looking expression, India is stirring and marking a few reference points, which cannot be easily itemised, only in time will of their benefits of them. For example, what has been a thorny issue of ownership about its North Western territories has now reduced to an issue of security and terrorism.

Q: Can India be secure by investing the entire sovereignty of the people in a state?

A: No. India's sovereignty comes from its people and instituted in a very complex way. Firstly, as a country it derives its sovereignty through its regional 'nation' states, and directly though elected representatives to the centre. Secondly, at the centre these arrangements are reorganised according to the coalition put together as the government of the day. In theory and practice, whatever people think or however much it is corrupt, the present system is a guarantee that at least the nominal sovereignty of the individuals remains with the people locally.

It may be a case in point if India were going through a civil war such as that US endured, or an invasion such as Nippon devastation China encountered. However, the greatest trauma, the vast majority of the great Indian people experience, is the condition they are living in and watching their pain and sacrifice exchanged for the benefits of those already in power and economic control of their lives, other than the colonised era and the partition that followed in the North and East sixty years ago.

Policy makers, distracted by the turmoil on its western borders are increasingly becoming Statists in their arguments. Strangely, they have assigned the job of preserving the state, which they never invented or made into being, and turned their duty of 'maintaining' a state functions into an ownership and therefore, making the whole project into a state orientated regressive task. They have stopped realising their own private experiences that tells them, "when we loose sight of the pleasures the simple natures greatest assets freely give, we become attached to tasks and stop living, and everything thereafter become work".

India's assets are its multitude of people, their imagination and their perceptions of the world in all its aspects, their ability to absorb anything thrown at them and make something of it, crudely speaking in modern palaver, the human-resources. If Statism is to be the mere response to their real anxieties, and it is to be superimposed on all discussions to satisfy the urgency of today, then the danger is the true India sliding into an argument of a state rather than of its peoples.

Q: Isn't the state responsible for peoples' safety and security?

A: Yes, but it can't be everywhere.

Furthermore, it is the peoples' safety and security and not that of the state. This is semantics for the stakeholders, who have a sense of ownership and control over the state, and their lives. But, for those alienated from power, not really reaping the development dividends, those feel that they can have no effect in the society, it makes full sense.

No one is suggesting that the people themselves can run their affairs without a centrally organised regulatory body, except 'free marketers' and anarchists. Every country profess to have a democratic system are beginning to ask these same set of questions at some point; "How do we defeat the terrorists?"

What is never seems to be a question is, "What does winning or defeating means?"

When the poor, semi-illiterate and highly indoctrinated jihadi young men left Pakistan, they knew they would not return, as there is nothing worth returning to. Their lives meant nothing more than their handlers would have told them and that is in their deaths those values are found: a place in paradise, and financial compensation for their relatives. Their mission was to reduce their 'enemies' to the value of their lives, not by killing every person, which is impossible, but by making the rest broken inside and lose confidence in themselves, and perhaps making them as violent Nihilists as they were.

When a community feels it cannot function without protection, it is not a community at all. If a community feels it can trade its freedom for security or it cannot fully exercise its freedom collectively or as individuals then it has already begun to lose the sight of freedom. We are not talking about abstract or absolute freedom here, but those values any given community feel it has.

If terrorism by any means worth its salt, it would be to achieve precisely these objectives to make us loose what we hold valuable as principles and beliefs about humanity and ourselves as a first step. Perhaps if they had a second step, they may want to negotiate a political settlement, whatever that is.

Pakistan's rulers have been true Statists, and have been telling their 'citizens' why the repressive political and military conditions and why they have to sacrifice their freedom: for the safety and security it wanted for them from its enemies, especially India.

Have the Pakistanis got any form of security and safety promised for so long? How long before they are likely to enjoy the freedom Indian take for granted? Is Pakistan in a position to stop US bombing its ‘people’?

Many think India is a weak state, but how many would be prepared to live in China, which undoubtedly exhibits overt strength and resolve in order to have safety and security for its state, and very little of people or freedom?

The questions and arguments may be the same in the West, but the conditions are drastically different. Most in Europe are nation-states with homogenised population, except for 3-6% immigrants. They are economically advanced, and have some form of welfare system, that ensures dispossessed young don't end up in Madarassa equivalents. Their concepts of freedom evolved as small nation-states and are constructed through institutions during the last three centuries, largely influenced by the interactions between neighbours and therefore, administrated by the states. For the majority obedience to the centralised authority is as normal as speaking about freedom.

The people in US however, are vastly different. In their own convoluted way they are looking to be free as the Indians. Unfortunately, largely due to being European descendants they have no other knowledge, but to construct their way towards it.

Q: Then, where does India fit in, when it has so expansive an understanding on the subject of freedom?

A: India’s suffering from foreign orchestrated terror and destruction, which are fronted by non-state actors, naturally leads to the Statist logic. Its demand for institutional accountability of the non-state actors through states or other recognised forums, UN, regional bodies is reasonable and emotionally sound.

Yet there is no denying, that this all encompassing new terminologies and arguments give the state wider powers. It can now deal with any in the same manner, if they were terrorist fronts or liberation groups or other NGOs, or provide assistance to other states, which has civil conflicts. However, even this Statist perspective can offer some hope for ordinary people if as Dr. Manmohan Singh suggested, we can underpin real and practical values of human-rights, as a program of empowerment along with the issues of security. This thought, not a promises, alone give us confidence that India wouldn’t conclude that state alone can be the way with it all. We are sure India would insists human-rights as one of its basic principles to define the terminologies ‘security’ and ‘non-state actors’, as any state's dealings with its 'citizens', including its own.

Q: If the political classes in all the leading countries become Statists, what happen to the basic rights of people?

A: Disaster.

Everyone agrees, in the failing states the governments at the centre cannot and don't represent all the communities, and in fact, would be in conflict with many of them. Therefore, the non-state actors by choice or force become part of peoples’ daily live. While we accept all non-state actors must be accountable, our question is about how it should be done? How is it possible for a state to account for something, which it disregarded, campaigned against the people and causes it represented be the only institution to account for it without destroying?

What about the ‘Fund Mangers’ of the ‘money market’, who have brought the world economic system to a stand still? The world has suffered greater disaster from the terrorists than these grey, invisible men? These wo/men who manage other people’s money are more powerful non-state actors as any, but can they ever be accounted through a single state?

Q: What happens to the agreements the non-state actors may have had or precedents established with existing institutions?

A: In Sri Lanka, the Tamils are in conflict with the island’s Sinhala state for a long time, long before the rise and fall of many terminologies that describe them. Though, the present phase is presented, as a conflict between a group, the LTTE, and the state, one cannot undo all the history just by evoking a terminology. It is not just a history written in blood, sweat, and sacrifice, but murder mayhem and genocide.

Ignoring all this, for the purpose of argument, we recall it is also a history of peace talks and agreements, whether implemented or not, between a people and various groups and parties represented them over the past sixty years, thereby making the entire people as non-state actors during this period of time. Can this fact, the history, be also wiped out by this terminology and the people forced to return to the fold of the very state, which says, they do not have any demand as it belonged to the majority people, the Sinhalese?

Q: Do the non-state actors have a role to play in the future?

A: The role of the non-state actors is as vital as the centralised power India, for the people of India as much as for all other in the developing world. It is this element, as enterprisers, social-consciousness raisers, developers and empowering merchants who have brought the development India has witnessed. And it is these elements with the support of the centralised authority, which can take the development and empowerment deep inside the hinterlands, guaranteeing peace and security everyone wants.

In this sense, it is not the total loyalty what is required by any centralised authority from these non-state actors, but agreements towards peaceful co-existence and development and accountability to those effects.

The development India sees is largely induced by private enterprise and private capitalism, in which the state has a vested interest, and acts mainly as a regulator. It social policies fail to fully materialise as the politicians and the establishment ensure the allocations and provisions trickled nowhere below. The disparity and polarity in development is vast, and the predictions between the North and Southern parts of India are not promising. Even within the states, between the urban and rural developments, the disparity is growing wider in the North than in the South, where the politicians for all their corruptions and villainous behaviour seem socially more aware and accountable.

Yet, development has brought greater stability within India and considerable political unity, and has raised the quest for psychological unity, thereby more security. It can therefore argue and assert from its own experience, "What is true and worked for many of its people can also be true for others who haven't been touch by development whether they are in or outside its borders".

Q: Does it mean India helping Pakistan to become economically viable?

A: Yes, a healthy and developed Pakistan and Afghanistan is the best guarantee to prevent cross-border jihadi terrorism, not just in India, even in Europe. And a healthy caring India is absolutely vital as an immune system to prevent any infections from such interactions.

He same attitude and actions are also needed on its Southern region, where the long suffering masses in the island of Sri Lanka are waiting for their turn to develop and prosper. Having lost two or more generations to state-terrorism and counter-terrorism, and civil war, the communities are at a loss with third grade politicians and fifth grade bureaucrats managing the affairs, where the military leaders on both sides determines the real say. This is a matter that can be easily taken care of by India's Southern states, if so delegated, for the benefit of all the communities big or small, Sinhala or Tamil speaking.

Conclusion:

Project -India isn't limited within its colonial borders, and terrorism for one cannot be allowed to set the framework for Indian policies for itself or for its region.

India has seen off many devastative phases throughout is mythical existence, but this is the generation that feels it has "more to loose" than others in the past, which faced much harsher conditions than a failing state can throw at them. With this new mood, will India be prepared to be in connection with its past, and suffer more for the sake of humanity? Or could this be one of many foolish notions of India, from those looking in but not experiencing it? These questions may seem philosophical or idealistic, but we believe the answers India will arrive have serious implications for those sincerely concerned about the human-condition.

India's complexity and diversity as a people are gigantic compared to Africa, which has almost the same population. Africa has only two major religions, Christianity and Islam, and three main languages, English, Arabic and French, except for a few who spoke Spanish on its west coast. Because of these two-pronged successful cultural subversions, the African social-transformation has staggered, and is very much tribalistic than nationalistic. Imagine Africa as whole trying or forced or feel the need to live as 'one country'? It isn't strange that JBS Haldane described India “as the closest approximation to the Free world” and verified the meaning of his citizenship, “proud of being a citizen of India, which is a lot more diverse than Europe, let alone the USA, USSR, or China, and thus a better model for a possible world organization. It may of course break up, but it is a wonderful experiment. So I want to be labelled as a citizen of India (not as citizen of the world as suggested).” In these moments of fury, the tendency would be to dismiss a scientist or historian like Haldane and EP Thompson, as eccentrics incredulous to the rigours of the real world, mere idealists living in their own imagined space.

The grey clouds during Mrs. Gandhi’s emergency time, and India’s darkest hour in its modern history, the military assault on one its spiritual home, and the continuing endemic corruption in the socio-political system are all too much to account for all of us, and some started to have doubts about the ideals of the Indian-project altogether. Are we then reappraising something that is already dead? Are we simple peddlers of yesterday’s ideals when, death to all ideologies is the prediction? We wonder, can the past be so clinically cut off; to trace them and to make any deductions from them can be accused of being unscientific, unrealistic, bordering naivety?

Many historians and pundits have done India’s burial many times over. Only a few years ago we watched a documentary in which a well-spoken West Bengali Marxist expert welcomed its disintegration within a decade or two, with his own merry way to analysis. We now watch their followers violently fight their own peasants to bring in the ultimate Indian institution, the Tatas, to make economic progress to the state. Beyond all the venom of these contemporary punditry, India has survived the most turbulent of its period, the cataclysmic colonial era, and absorbed all its worth to reassess and, today reassert itself as a world economic power, a position it held prior to that time. Yet it was they, the colonialists, who had brought in the political union it never had, but its unity still to be achieved. Those of us who feel raped, helpless, and angry, can we imagine how our forefathers felt when they watched their resources being plundered, some times for no use than pure fun, animals the generations of Indian civilisation helped to preserve wiped in the name of 'sport', and beyond all these injuries, the men and women of one of the oldest civilisation treated like children, not citizens or slaves.

Today as One India demanded respect and dignity for its people from outsiders, without flexing the extra muzzles the modern India has acquired, while many in the Other-India and around its borders are left wanting, expecting India will also address them with the same favour.

Not single Indian or a government can claim to have created the Indian state. What the Northern or Southern-Tamil Emperors could not do, British achieved it; what was always there, the basic universality of an Indian, Gandhi among many others rekindled it, and the economy, the new sense of purpose for the middle India, happened not because of the state, but of globalisation. Any evolutionary process has its own course; one cannot make too much work out it. India that is imagined was there before the Brits arrived, it survived and continued its journey after they had left, and it will still be there on its way when we are also dead and gone. Even the Intelligence Report 2025 says so; they should know a thing or two better than some of us, the US for while was hell-bent on testing the Indian concept of unity and its peoples' resolve with a few test of its own.

We are convinced the ultimate destination of project-India, therefore, we don't worry about its survival or India’s unity as the self-doubts of some of those who have taken charge of its state. India is not an accident, but an evolution of a continent of people, far ahead in many aspects in perception of human condition, and their social relationships than economically advanced nations and continents. It is a people who know their beginning and end, but continually suffer as impediments are placed on their way to confuse and complicate their journey. If invasions and raids and barbaric attacks on its people are the impediments, some form of tests, then the reactions in the same vein would be an attack on India's universal-self, its soul; no outsider, but themselves can undermine that fundamental notion of Indianess.

It is logical and practical to propose its systemised security can only be implemented through regional hubs. It is a fact and an evolving historical perspective that Indian concept of democracy, freedom and empowerment are all intertwined are developed and instituted through its local and regional socio-economic structures. The so called external events that affect the Indians as a whole originate, felt more seriously and suffer the consequences more within its regions than those living on the other end. Isn’t it therefore, logical and practical that the so called external policies are done through its regional institutions under the centralised bodies?

It is with this confidence we ask India, what are its future decisions going to be? Not the immediate policy directives on cross-border terrorism, TADA, its proposals to ‘deter’ terrorism and the like, but about itself in connection to the region around it? Can modern India build high iron-fences around its shiny new citadels to keep its own 'unwanted' and the poor away? In the manner, can it build a security-wall around its seas and land borders to keep the people out, who are in every sense connected to it, in the name of terrorism?

We wait with confidence than mere hope.