Islam and Obama's USA

I saw the newspaper screaming headlines on Obama's 'reaching out to world Muslims' speech. So, didn't bother reading any further for couple of days. The sensationalism of our media these days compels you to not read further when headlines scream. The 'secular' ones have an obsession to overstate anyone 'reaching out to Islam'.  I have not bothered reading much about people's response as I am sure much of this will be based on what West is saying or in its response. I saw one of the younger friends, very enthused by this speech and wish he could talk like that!

Just now, I read the entire transcript as it has been forwarded by a friend I respect much. It is an important speech with several new messages to the world.

My first thoughts were, why deliver this lecture in Egypt? Reminds you of the drama of G.Bush delivering the victory speech atop a aircraft carrier. While Obama has spoken at length about, 'countries of Muslim majority', I wonder why he didn't chose to give his speech in one of the two countries of Muslim majority,  the largest population of Muslims in the world are Indonesia and India. Both relatively peaceful practitioners of Islam before the export of a globalized Islam. Why can't President of USA talk to the peaceful Islamic practitioners and strengthen them and make them assert their peace rather than talk in the midst of tension torn West Asia, where the chances that anyone knows how to transact peace, particularly with the Christian world, would require forgetting centuries of hatred and almost changing their disposition towards the world.  

But, America can only talk to people in conflict and engaged in violence, their language is same. Interestingly, Obama's examples of both Islamic innovation(Algebra, Vaccination,...) as well as personal experience of tolerance are from India and Indonesia respectively. Not from the West Asian world.

To me one of the points that came across was the first clear indication of the American divestment of  Democracy from the highest power centre. Days of promoting Democracy are over. Nations can take their own path to it. 

The other interesting point about tailoring the laws of the nation to suit the religions practices, including tax laws that control contribution to charity by American Muslims, indicate extending  statute liberties to religious edicts beyond Christianity, whenever it is politically convenient. Seen this way, it could also hurt many of our liberals and secular pundits. 

The other issue that was pointed out to me was the pre-occupation of the American President with the Abrahamic religions as key players in constructing future world and him not mentioning Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism. But, today, American government has acknowledged that the Islamic world is its nemesis, others are not. 

I am happily ignorant of any responses to this speech. We need to recognize that this is the Americans trying to resolve their own problems with the Islamic world and we will all be impacted by these changes. Certain scenarios I foresee:

(a) if Pakistan goes back to Musharraf or his successors, Americans may support him and forget Democracy as long as it suits its interests, it may even start a dialogue with Taliban in the coming years

(b) Global violence (and violence dependent commerce and industry) may look for softer targets to occupy themselves, we in India can be one, if Americans as large arms exporters and Terrorists from Islamic world can find a common soft target in India, we will see more attacks from the later and more sales of arms from the former, bleeding our economy both ways 

(c) the global Islamic agenda, particularly in financing social initiatives in Islamic countries may come to be dominated by American interests, this could mean more external funding for Islamic groups in India and elsewhere from American sources, promoting American idea of Islam

(d) a new global Islamic identity will be paraded across the world, the 'stereotyping of Islam' which we all suffered ever since Sept 11, will be corrected by American consent and collaboration and we will suffer a different 'stereotyping of Islam' now, perhaps with some sugar coating this time. With their global media domination, when America wants to change someone's image, the rest of the world has to suffer with it. 

(e) when the President of America says, 'countries of majority Muslims', he does not mean where majority of Muslims live as much as the countries who prescribe to and control the  Muslim identity of the world, largely from west Asia. This shows the American interests rest firmly with the globalized, centralized and controlled institutions, same for faith systems, same for economy, same for politics. 

The full text is available at:  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090604/ap_on_re_us/obama_text

A month after Mumbai, 4 years after Tsunami...differences in response

The news paper reports are today replete with people paying homage to Mumbai terror attack victims as well as  recollection and homage of those who died in the tsunami 2004.


One natural disaster that saw, in response, a resurgence of human compassion and voluntarism while the other disaster wrought by humans led astray is responded to with anger and animosity. As the year comes to an end, war on Pakistan is increasingly being spoken to as 'when' and not as 'if'. Pakistan itself seems to be under greater  belief that India will go on a war with them. 


The war is being already fought by the media.  The media in Pakistan seems to be working overtime now.  I am sure that makes better business sense, imagine Indians had terror attack and could get good TRP for a television for a week maybe, Pakistan is selling the response to terror and getting probably better TRP (or whatever is the equivalent there) for a month. 


Modern technology and economic organization that provided Kasav and his people with easy access to guns, grenades, global phones and positioning systems has also provided the media in both countries with information on weapon capabilities, about the N processes, about the preparedness for attack, minutes for response, about weapons and their uses...the amount of knowledge we possess on instruments of violence seems endless. 


Many Indians feel that we should show that we too, 'know' how to use these tools of violence, Pakistanis feel that they should show their superior 'knowledge' on the tools of violence, while fanatics on both sides tease each other about each others' ability to use such 'knowledge'.


If the sense of security of a nation comes out of its knowledge of violent tools and methods, it must be a extremely violent society to begin with. I don't think our knowledge (and possession)  of tools of violence provides us with the sense of security.  If the response to the Mumbai attack results in us getting increasingly aggressive in acquiring, possessing and exhibiting (using) tools of mass violence, then we only perpetuate the violence, not work against it. Response to human pain cannot be in causing more human pain, response to the sense of hurt in a nation's pride cannot be solved by hurting another nation's pride. We did not win our Independence by hurting the pride of the colonials. They did not become our 'enemies' despite causing greater damage to us and killing more people for longer duration. 


I don't think India is a violent nation, it does not come to us naturally to be violent. Violent people are not majority in this country, violence does not stay in power too long either. Our tendency is to gravitate towards peaceful existence, and what we tend to, is our true stable nature, our own character.  This is defined by the traditions we have built and the leaders we have come to revere. However, we don't seem to have created either pride in this character or suitable methods of applying it in all situations. Gandhi successfully applied it against the Colonials, and since then it has surfaced once in awhile in different policies almost inadvertently.



As the year draws to the end, the image of the Mumbai attack will overshadow all other images and moments for most of us. The response to this attack on the nation's pride could unite us as a nation. We could be united  as a mob, faceless, identity-less, lynching an unequal but protesting and fighting 'enemy' or we could be united with an understanding of our true character that bring in spontaneous bonding and could make us stronger. Such understanding was seen after the tsunami, in the way many Indians bonded and worked together with complete strangers, in an understanding of compassion and peaceful co-existence. Our responses then were highly innovative, they were spontaneous and made us stronger. Our response now? 

Being careful on the cry for war

The joint cry for 'war on terror' that India has to unleash on Pakistan has marched from the periodic rhetoric of political right to a sales pitch for mass media since 26/11. For more than a week now our media seem to precipitate the idea of war in our midst.


The westward looking among us have sucked up duly to this. We want our own version of American War on Terror. We want to be part of that global fight which would lead to  many of us do not know what. 'Cold Start, 'Surgical Strike' are the kind of terms suddenly crowding our media space, seeking to suddenly educate us on offense strategies and technology about which none of us have any clue, I don't.


If the American example has taught us one thing, that is this, you can't win a war on terror by terror alone. They have been made to bleed in Afghanistan and Iraq. They are caught in the quagmire which was set-up by the trumped up war potential with the same 'precision bombing' and other such terms on their television after 9/11. More importantly, hate for America has not decreased in any part of the world. If anything people hate America more. 


The Americans have not gone on 'war on terror' in their own land or that of their neighbours. This too holds an important lesson for us. Pakistan is an extension of India, we cannot root out the virus that is crippling the Pakistani society by destroying part of the society. The 'fundamentalist' virus will remain. India has for long stayed blind to the developments in its vicinity. 


While we have been aware of and engaging in the economies of the western nations, we don't know how many people die of hunger in Afghanistan or Pakistan. While we are proud of our corporates getting listed in NASDAQ or other western markets, we don't know the threats of  local markets in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Burma and other countries of this region (of course many of us don't know some of these facts about our own country, that is a different issue).  If India wages a war in its neighbourhood, the war will drain India forever. We have the Sri Lankan example. A nation waging a war on parts of its own people has been bleeding now for decades and its economy crippled.


Let the feeling of being 'hurt' and 'anger' not lead us to approve or indeed demand a war. We may not be able to afford the consequences. 


The other rhetoric that has emerged from the Mumbai 26/11 is more important. The need to cleanse our system of governance. I had earlier blogged on the need for an Indian character in our response to terror. Two interesting response for that post ensued, (1)  my pointing out the inherent inefficiency in our governance systems was refuted by Joe. He took it as implying inefficiency on the part of the IAS officers. I have nothing against them and do think some of them are amazing individuals. What I implied was that they are often imprisoned by an archaic system that they cannot press F5 on. They have to navigate within the system for their survival. Some perhaps are efficient navigators, but, it cannot be denied that our arms of governance, the legal system, the system of public participation and the method of governance need a far more systemic assessment for their limitations. They have failed to deliver and those of us whose lives are not linked with day to day engagement with this system are the ones feel the impact the least. Indeed most of us who are hurt and angered today are often the least inclined to engage with the system. 
(2) the second response was as a long phone call from Sathya, who said that India has no right to interfere in the affairs of Pakistan, after  all they have a democratically elected government now. I don't agree. Reports make it clear that Pakistani democracy hangs by a thin thread with multiple players holding it up. India cannot today ignore the weakness of Pakistani democracy and demand action out of its government or by the same token denounce the government for inaction and bomb and destroy some of the terrorist places. The Pakistani government can only do the former at its own peril and will have to respond to the later through violence to survive.  A mature approach is to help Pakistan build their democracy, we have ignored their weaknesses for too long only treating it as our strategic advantage. It could be a long haul, but, for too long we have ignored their societal problem through the infiltration of fundamentalism. 


Indian governments have to stand up for a character of this region and build in that in its response to terror.  Currently, there doesn't seem to be a great approach of our own, we are parroting (and indeed being encouraged to) 'our right to respond' because someone else has said it. This is what I had earlier written as lacking in character. If there was a 'Indian response to terror' that was built from fundamentals on the foundations of the Indian world view, then it would be different from that of others and rooted in our own strengths and understanding. I cannot accept that a civilizational entity that prides its record of not going to war for over 5000 years lacks the courage or vision to come up with its own response to terror.


Finally, any war in any part of the world today means more production and marketing of weapons of war. There are businesses that are dependent on production and servicing of war machines which rightfully look at any semblance of a new large scale war as a good opportunity. As part of their marketing strategy, one cannot find fault with them if they encourage the parties to move in the direction of the war. It is important to see how much of our public opinion on war is being influenced by such elements.  It is important to see how much of the Pakistani public opinion on war is influenced by such elements. Being victims of such influence is something we share now and that could be a good point to start a dialogue. 

response to crisis: what is our character?

Each person responds to crisis based on his character. When institutions respond, they do so based on the characters that has been built into by their founders as well as the nature of its current occupants. When the staff of Taj hotel responded the way they did in putting their life in front of that of their guests, they represented a culture of safe guarding their guests interests first, this could have come from the management, the promoters and the culture they created and which the staff internalized.


When the government responds the way it did, it represents the impotence of the governance machinery as well the incompetence of the people currently occupying it. Strategically the political blunders are unimaginable. 


1) What the purpose of summoning the ISI chief? Apart from the notional victory of having 'summoned' the chief of another country's intelligence agency, what does it provide the Indian Government? Did the PM actually believe that the ISI chief will come and provide RAW or whoever with all the information they need? To me it seems like asking for the impossible. We have forever blamed ISI for so many terror attacks in India, if that were true, then why ask them for help? If that were not true, then, what purpose will it serve?


2) Rushing the foreign secretary to brief Mr. Obama seems to be an equally unimaginative initiative. USA is not your larger governing structure. Why do it now? What purpose does it serve?  The USA is looking at the rest of the world to bail itself out currently. The days of the uni-polar world is over, the very attack is the proof of that. You don't need to report to the 'boss' every time. You are the boss now. Can't you act like one? 


We have not even called for a emergency meeting of the UN to pass a resolution against Pakistan, to declare it as a terror state. We have not even asked Pakistan to hand over LeT functionaries to us, instead wait and watch while the initiative has been wrested by them and their President makes a statement that, 'we will act based on the evidence'. If we believe that the current government in Pakistan is all 'goody- goody' then, we should have invited Zardari to Mumbai as a gesture and let him be grilled in public by the very articulate media. If we believe in retaliation, we should have said so straight away like Bush did after 9/11. 


Instead, the entire international strategic initiative has been wasted. Now it is down to the bureaucrats who will wrangle over the syntax of what to write for some 'joint statement' with US government to be and what were the exact words used by the President of Pakistan at the time of his conversation with the India PM.  


A moment when the entire international political focus was on India, by not making our statement, ANY statement on terrorism that reflects our own internal character, we have failed to stand for ourselves or stand up for ANYTHING. We have reduced a moment of significance to a wimpy, unimaginative, non-committal bureaucratic wishy-washy kind of nonsense thereby losing an opportunity to have our say in global fight on terror. This is unpardonable.


If this is the global scene, locally we are no better. Shivraj Patil has forever been criticized, and if you have to change him immediately after such an attack, it only gives a sense of success to the terrorists. When multiple-failures result in such a major crisis, it is not time to blame each other and call for peoples' heads to roll, it is time for a very serious review and corrective action. How is Chidambaram better than Shivraj Patil? And isin't the finance ministry equally important? Only a week ago, PC made a statement that he is watching the global financial crisis 24x7, now what happens? or does it mean that he is dispensable in the larger scheme of things in the finance ministry? 


Character is the what is lacking in the way this government has handled the crisis. Character requires conviction, conviction of some sort, any sort. That, we have found wanting in a major way.   


Systemically we need to look/ re-look at many of our safe guard institutions for us to understand why we fail every time:

1) When Intelligence agencies give a notice that there is a possibility of a terror strike, who delivers this note? to whom? what is the responsibility of that person? what is he supposed to do with it? how?

2) How are police men trained? how do they learn how to tackle emerging methods of crime and weapons?
3) Who is responsible for bringing down and escalating security to a person or institution based on whatever intelligence he/she possesses? Is there is a process in place which is governed by certain rules or does this person do that automatically? If there are such processes, how frequently are these reviewed and updated?
4) Who need to communicate to citizens of a city when the city faces crisis of any sort? From the government and bureaucracy? The problem is no one was talking to the citizen of the city of Mumbai except the news channel announcers and they were competing with each other all the time
5) There was absolute pandamonium the other day when media were finally permitted to question someone after one of the operations was supposedly over, not realizing that the operation was still on. What are the rules that govern the government's interaction with the visual media, particularly those that are broadcasting live during a time of crisis? Why was there not one centralized government source talking to the media, and, just about any one and everyone making statements (poor RR Patil lost his job for talking too much)
6) Who determines/governs the behaviour of the media in such times? While on news channel was supposed to have gone over board there was another self-congratulating itself all the time about how restrained it was. What are the rules that govern the telecast behaviour of the visual media?
7) What are the factors that determine who attends to a terror situation and how? Why did senior officers of the police walk in the front to take the bullets? Not to belittle the life of the junior officer or take credit from the senior ones, but, what are the governing principles under which a police officer decides that so and so has to attend to a certain issue or that he has to directly attend to it himself?
8) The CM of Maharashtra is supposed to have told the Home Minister from the Centre that he would require 200 commandoes, how did he arrive at this number? who does the estimation of the need of forces in any situation and based on what factors?
9) Many have questioned Modi's remarks made at time when the operations were still on in front of the hotel, the question is what are the reasons to let a politician to get a photo opportunity, is there any law that prescribes how far a politician can go near a place of terrorist operation even as the rescue work was on?
10) There have been far too many questions about NSG, its operational requirements and resources made available to it, etc. One does not have to go into it, but, if these are the only trained people to tackle terrorist attacks in the country, then, what is the level of preparedness in which they are maintained? Mr. Dutt, their chief in on of the many tele-interviews said, 'you don't expect this kind of thing to happen, so, it takes times to get ready' or words to that effect. If the chief of the only force trained to tackle terrorists in this country says that then there is something terribly wrong. 
11) Everyone is surprised about the terrorist coming in from the sea, how many scenarios do our anti-terrorist groups prepare themselves against? Particularly in terms of urban warfare? How frequently and does the role of other coordinating agencies well defined in this process? What role do political leaders have to play in all this?
12) When there are so many ex-servicemen and police officers so readily available for the visual media to share their experience and knowledge for that 2 minutes of highly interrupted and often irritating public space, how and where does the government system utilize this knowledge?


How much amount of detailing we do in our governance is based on how much we understand its design, its character. We have a borrowed design that is out dated and patched up to cover its inadequacies. Most bureaucrats think changing the system is not the rule, adhering to it is; thereby making any changes based on response to external changes as an almost impossible task. Obviously, what we have not created, we cannot change. The one character that represents our bureaucracy that is its inability to respond to situations, any situation, particularly crisis AS PART OF ITS DUTY, not because few exceptional individuals STEPPED ASIDE THEIR DUTY to respond to the situation. 

P.S.: I post this with much trepidation, the web and blog space is filled with too many people voicing their opinion on the terror attack. I am worried that all this energy should dissipate our anger as just words and not as actions. There are not many actions possible at the individual level at the time of a terror attack, but, much before and after and all the time. If some of the anger is directed towards that, it would be a productive energy rather than wasted in mere digital symbols that would be archived automatically in a month. 

Arundathi Roy and challenging the status quo in Kashmir

Politics of Kashmir is for India and Pakistan, what Isreal is for USA and many other western states, a sacred cow. Kashmir has always been there as part of the larger sub-continent identity and geography. Hindus and Muslims and Buddhists have long history in this beautiful part of the country. Security concerns, particularly with Pakistan has dominated the Kashmir politics for India, the access to the state and the Muslim majority has always made it an easy target for the Pakistani politicians.

Arundhati Roy has done yet again on the issue of Kashmir what she did for the Supreme Court, challenge the status quo, show the state machinery for its inherent weakness. Her courage is admirable though I suspect it would not politically mean much. I think it is time that someone took a serious look at Kashmir issue beyond the security concerns of India and strategic concerns of Pakistan, as though the people of Kashmir did matter and are not mere collateral damage.

When Arundhati Roy for contempt of court (in the Supreme Court) spent a day in Tihar jail a few years back, a prisoner is supposed to have given her a poem that reads as follows:
Raja bola raat hei, Mantri bola raat hei, court boli raat hei, yeh subhe subhe ki baat hei (the King claimed it is night, so did the minister and the court and all this was at dawn).

I suspect our understanding both in India and Pakistan about Kashmir is based on the propaganda of our respective governments and the apparent national issues enjoined to its future. If we see ourselves as world leader in various sphere, one of the weaknesses we need to overcome forever is the courage and conviction on the issue of Kashmir. It cannot be resolved completely for a couple of generations at least, as long as the memories of atrocities and terrorism and their effect in families remain, it cannot fade from the social discourse within the state itself. Warn torn states may need more time than children victimised by violence to regain a normal life.

But, any beginning for Kashmir resolution has to start not from earlier bureaucratic or military understanding, any peaceful beginning should start with stating the aspirations of the people and their issues. It should provide the people of this state to live through a social trauma of de-addiction to imposed violence. If we were to look at Roy's statement as one such beginning (only expressed with all the frills of international free thinker today) then this could be used to create a process of dialogue amongst the different players. Kashmir is reaching a stage where somewhere someone has to take the first step with courage.

Soul Searching about Pakistan

Among the crowd of writings that have emerged since the Pakistan emergency, the following one caught my eye. I think we need more sincere analysis of the situation and not be carried away by statements of Ms. Rice and others from the US Government. It has been repeatedly stated in the news reports that the current state of Emergency was declared with the blessings of the US Government and with the co-option of Benazir. I personally suspect that the noises being made about the 'Pak Nuclear Arms falling in wrong hands' is pressure sales man tactics being applied on the Indian Government for the Nuclear Deal. It has already surfaced in the media. Unless the Pakistan State is dis-engaged from the American War On Terrorism, it looks unlikely that the state will remain stable. We have had the world tell us repeatedly that Kashmir is the prime issue for normalizing Indo-Pak relations, I think now we need to state that the delinking of Pakistan state from sustaining the American Supremacist P(r)ogram(me) is essential for Peace in Pakistan and normal relations with any of its neighbours including India.

"It is easy to condemn the imposition of yet another martial law by Musharraf. But I have yet to see one iota of solution coming out from any brilliant, or dumb, analyst on how to deal with the situation that has developed in Pakistan over the last seven years. It is always easy for liberal democrats to abuse the men in uniform. That is easy, and highly popular among the English-speaking middle class in Pakistan. But, the crisis in Pakistan today is a direct result of the US' and NATO's ( the bastions of democratic world) insane policies in Afghanistan. To begin with, bombing of southern, central and eastern Afghan villages killing innocent civilians, who happen to be Pushtuns, has eradicated the distinction between the Taliban and Pushtruns. The so-called Taliban and the other bad guys have long moved over to Pakistan's FATA, Balochistan and northern territories waiting for the "foreign troops" to leave. In Afghanistan, of course, everytime a Pushtun get killed, the individual is labeled as a "Taliban" by the West. That sells well in West, but neither in Afghanistan nor in Pakistan.

The situation in adjoining Pushtun areas in Pakistan is no different. Americans and the Europeans -- the old colonial guys with white skin-- have arrived again to take control of Afghanistan. This time they are waving Bernard Lewis' books to justify their arrival. They are taking care of evil Islam, that is what the invaders say.

The mistake that Islamabad made, and now Benazir and the other liberal democrats have plunged right in, is to agree to the war on terror when it was known in 2001 that in order to succeed in this venture, the Pakistani army will be needed to wage a full-fledged war against its own people. That was a huge mistake, and the Americans, Europeans and all those Pakistanis who hate "bearded lunatics", joined in this false campaign. And, most disgustingly, even today they do not point out that Pakistan west of River Indus may well merge with Afghanistan in its fight against the US, NATO and Islamabad because these Pakistanis have been identified as enemies of Pakistan and the west..

The result is the threat of a breakdown of Pakistan's military-- the only institution that the Pakistanis reach out for when kleptocrats and fundie-appeasers move in and make mess things up royally.

In other words, the crisis that has been created by the United States and NATO, and because of Musharraf's willingness to go along with it, hoping he would be able to outsmart them, is huge. Hugging Benazir Bhutto, or democracy, will not do. It is time the Pakistani literates stop their knee-jerk reactions and address the source of this crisis for a constructive future.. - Ramatanu Maitra in the South Asia Discussion Group

Pakistan Emergency: Desperate attempt to sustain control by a losing General

I had earlier blogged that there is a change in the offing in Pakistan. Since then things have changed rather rapidly. The orchestrated returns of Nawaz and Benazir and its political implications and currently the declaration of emergency is certainly a cause for concern for us in India. That the General after making repeated promises of shedding his uniform after the Presidential elections dons it immediately only indicates his desperation to sustain his position. Indeed there is no further confirmation required on his situation than his statement yesterday to the nation. He is losing and well aware of it and this move is to sustain himself before he takes personal measures to negotiate his safe exile and political measures to ensure his safe exit from the country.

What India needs to worry about is what after Musharaf? Who will come to power? The army has been ruled by the General carefully enough to ensure there are no more of his own likes in their ranks. There are a few old ISI bosses who perhaps may be powerful, but, they may not be good enough to run the government. I suspect that the support of the Chief Justice may not run beyond the cities. The political parties may have some popular support, particularly the PPP if one goes by the crowds that welcomed Benazir home. But, who will become the most important political player after Musharaf in Pakistan?

My gut feel is we are seeing a micro clash of civilizations in Pakistan. The clash will be between the pursuit of American strategic interest by the government of USA (and increasingly maybe China) against the creation (or sustenance) and expansion of the militant Islamic power that the larger global terrorist outfits will like to see. Whomsoever will rule will have to balance both elements as the pressure from both sides may be significant. Perhaps not that insignificant will be to win the mandate from the people in the pursuit of either of the above agenda or for balancing both. Pakistan has been always ruled by strong individual egos or global political power priorities. I see fighting India as an expression of the ego and the supply of weapons to fight India as someone else's global necessity. The wounds of partition need not last beyond a generation and there is no need to carry it for so long.

The worry for India will be if Pakistan powers gets to continue with an appeasement of the militant Islam outfits and / or US interests. With the Nuclear deal bringing a new found thrust into missile development in India, in a matter of years similar privileges will be extended to Pakistan by the government of USA (or by China even earlier) and if there is no leadership that can assert itself as a people representative in Pakistan, then Pakistani people are in for even more tough times. Their acceptance of the situation is reflected in a recent news that caught my eye.

"A poll in August conducted for the Washington-based nonprofit group Terror Free Tomorrow found that 19 percent of Pakistanis held a favorable view of the United States, down from 26 percent the previous year. Osama bin Laden had a far higher approval rating, at 46 percent, than either Musharraf (38 percent) or President Bush (9 percent)."

Our MEA office has been strangely rather guarded in its response to the emergency. I think India should at this point in time look at Pakistan more than ever as a rogue state. While the General is negotiating his way out, India should play an active role in promoting democracy, if need be even appealing the new friends in the USA for democratic process be established there. This is not the time for 'this is their internal issue' kind of statements is my reading.

The Pakistan Question: Who after Musharraf?

Pak Army advises Mush to quit Friday, July 27, 2007 10:37 [IST]
Islamabad: Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has been advised by his top military commanders to quit in the wake of the restoration of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, a daily reported today. During his six-day long discussions with his top military aides in Rawalpindi after the reinstatement of the Chief Justice by the Supreme Court, Musharraf was advised to seek an "honourable exit".

The above news item caught my eye and concern. With its fight between progressive Muslim groups and fanatical Mullahs and terrorist groups who stay in Pakistan as their home, the lack of any visible and credible democratic leadership in Pakistan needs to worry many in India also.

Musharraf has to perhaps take the same exit as his military predecessors, that is the law of military rule, but, are we going to witness another medieval minded army man who will yet again succumb to the easy temptation of anti-Indian sloganeering to further his rule? The restoration of the Chief Justice was a message that the legal mechanism is certainly willing to flex its muscle even against a military ruler. But is this indicative of a larger political mood? If democracy is restored whom does Pakistan have to show case, the corrupt Nawaz Sherief and the equally corrupt Benazir both cooling their heels in exile.

Permitting the current development perhaps is a willing gamble on the part of Musharraf to exhibit his tolerant nature to the western powers on whose support the government of Pakistan largely relies upon. Primary to the changes in Pakistan will be to understand what are the designs on Pakistan for the existing and emerging super-powers, USA and China respectively. The US government is used to treating Pakistan as almost its own territory, they have reserved the right to strike any 'terrorist' location within Pakistan, at the same time also asking Pakistan government to ensure no support is given to the terrorist groups (“Al Qaeda remains a potent force inside Pakistan, as is the Taliban,” said Mr Burns, the State Department's point man for Pakistan and India. “And we want to see Pakistan use all tools at its disposal to choke the flow of funds to terrorist groups.”). If the US has decided to choke the fund flow, then that would be the biggest choke of all.

A stable government in Pakistan I believe is for the benefit of India. It is time that the stupid rate race of missile development, which is nothing more than crude jingoism, is stopped by both the countries and an environment is created where other issues can be resolved. The overthrow of Musharraf is only of academic interest, but, more important for us in India is who will be the new power, the military again, some conservative with a soft corner for the fanatical mullahs or someone who can set the democratic process in better condition. Keep your fingers crossed and watch the developments in Pakistan for the next few months, there is certainly a change in the offing.