DENIAL OF PAKISTANI VISA TO PRAVEEN SWAMI

 

B.RAMAN

 

There are no saints in matters relating to visas. And there are no heroes either.

2.We should avoid an immature and juvenile song and dance over the refusal of a visa by the Pakistani High Commission in New Delhi to Shri Praveen Swami, who heads the Delhi office of “The Hindu”, to enable him to accompany Shri S.M.Krishna, our Foreign Minister, during his just concluded visit to Pakistan.

3. Travel visa is not a fundamental or human right. Countries have a right to refuse visas to individuals and they don’t have to give reasons for their refusal. Visas are often refused by all countries of the world on unadmitted political or national security grounds.

4. After we carried out our nuclear tests in 1998, our retired nuclear scientists wanting to travel to the US found it impossible to get a US visa. A retired Chairman of our Atomic Energy Commission found that the US Embassy in New Delhi, without saying no, sat over his application for a visa to attend a non-governmental conference in the US. He took the hint and withdrew his application.

5. Another retired nuclear scientist could not get a visa from the US Embassy in New Delhi because he had once visited Iran after retirement.

6. We are not trail-blazers in this matter. We can be as over-restrictive as any other country in the consideration of visa applications from journalists and academics. We have not only refused visas to journalists and academics---even from the US, our strategic partner--- but even harassed one or two after issuing them visas and allowing them to work from New Delhi.

7. A typical example is that of Alex Perry, the New Delhi correspondent of the “Time” magazine, when Shri A.B.Vajpayee was the Prime Minister. We issued him a visa to report from New Delhi, but when one of his reports was perceived to be uncharitably critical of Shri Vajpayee, the NDA Government had him harassed and humiliated through the Foreigners’ Regional Registration Office on some ground or the other.

8.We have refused visas to journalists and academics from the ASEAN countries because of our adverse perception of their views relating to the Pakistani sponsorship of terrorism against India.

9. For a journalist, refusal of visa by a foreign country is an occupational hazard. Praveen and the rest of the country should take it in our stride instead of projecting it as one more instance of Pakistani cussedness towards India.

10. Praveen is one of our well-known reporters on Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. There are others too who report on this subject, but they were issued visas to go with our Foreign Minister. One has an impression that the Pakistanis are unhappy with his reporting and TV interviews on Pakistani sponsorship of terrorism because they feel he is vicious in his reporting and interviews. We may not agree with this, but it is their perception.

11. Some ill-informed analysts have criticised the journalists, who had accompanied our Foreign Minister, for not raising the refusal of the visa to Praveen. One of the analysts has pointed out that only Ms Sheela Bhatt, the Executive Editor, Rediff, had the courage to raise it during her interactions in Islamabad.

12. Kudos to Sheela for her professional  courage, but the fact that other journalists did not raise it does not make them professional cowards. If they feel the refusal of visa to Praveen is a matter between Pakistan and “The Hindu”, one cannot blame them. They had a job to do in reporting on the FM’s visit and their focus was on the larger dimension of their visit to Pakistan.

13.When the NDA Government harassed and humiliated Alex, other foreign journalists based in Delhi did not rush to his defence. There is now a slanging match between our PMO and the “Washington Post” on a negative report on Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh sent by its correspondent in New Delhi. Other foreign journalists in New Delhi are discreetly following the controversy without getting actively involved in it.

14.If at all foreign newspapers find it necessary to take a stand in such matters, their headquarters will do it and not individual journalists. ( 10-9-12)

(The  writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com  Twitter @SORBONNE75)

BENGALURU:A ‘TERRORIST’ MODULE WITH A DIFFERENCE

 

 

 

INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR: PAPER NO. 763

( Written at the request of the “Times of India”. Published by them on September 9,2012, at http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/sunday-toi/all-that-matters/Doctor-techie-scientist--terrors-new-recruits/articleshow/16318255.cms  )

 

B.RAMAN

The 18 Muslim suspects arrested since August 29 in  operations co-ordinated by the Bengaluru Police are presently under interrogation.

The indications till now are that the suspects, who have been picked up from Bengaluru and Hubli in Karnataka, Hyderabad and Maharashtra, had come together with the objective of assassinating certain individuals identified with the Hindutva ideology.

Though there seems to be some suspicion of their contacts with the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) of Pakistan and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) of Bangladesh, they constituted a new indigenous group with no suspected links with any of the indigenous terrorist/extremist organisations that have been active so far such as Al Umma of Tamil Nadu, the Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and the Indian Mujahideen (IM).

The Bengaluru Police seem to have succeeded in penetrating and dismantling them even before they could give themselves an organisational infrastructure and an ideological basis.

It was a group of individuals self-motivated by visiting jihadi sites in the Internet  such as that of Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and brought together by shared anger against Hindutva elements without attempts to form a central command and control.

The conspiracy seems to have been squashed by the Police at a very early stage. This is evident from the absence of any major recoveries of arms and ammunition and explosive material from them

Whereas other jihadi organisations that had operated in India in the past had made a dual use of hand-held weapons and improvised explosive devices (IEDs), this group was still in the stage of hand-held weapons and had not started thinking in terms of IEDs.

Commonly binding anger due to social and religious discrimination and communal grievances generally tend to motivate the educated, thinking  elements more than others.

It is, therefore, not surprising that all the suspects came from the educated segments of the Muslim community. It is also to be noted that the educated elements had studied or were studying subjects such as medicine, computer science, journalism etc and not humanities.

This trend towards the gravitation of such elements to leadership positions in the jihadi organisations had been noticed in the case of the IM too, which had some good IT experts, including one of Pune who had occupied an important position in the Indian branch of a well-known foreign  IT  company.

Examples of  enraged students belonging to such professions or aspiring to join them gravitating to extremism had been seen in the past not only in India, but also in Indonesia and Western countries.

A disquieting fact is a junior scientist of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) joining this group. It is not yet clear whether he joined it on his own or whether he was spotted, motivated and recruited and what was the purpose.

If he had joined on his own because of anger against some Hindutva elements, that is understandable. But, if he had been recruited to penetrate the DRDO, that would be ominous.

According to the police, they made a breakthrough after keeping some of the suspects under surveillance for four months. There has been no indication of any significant electronic intelligence through interception of their telephone conversations.

It has been reported that the suspects were communicating with each other through Skype. This could be the reason for the evidently meagre ELINT. This would indicate that our capability for the interception of communications through the Internet continues to be inadequate. This needs attention.

As regards external ramifications, there are suspicions of links with  elements in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia----with the training possibly coming from elements in  Pakistan and the co-ordination from individuals in Saudi Arabia. These suspicions need to be developed further.

The motivation of the group is still to be determined. Did they have a strategic motivation of sustained terrorism or had they merely come together due to common anger over the grievances of Muslims in order to carry out some assassinations, which one may not be able to characterise as terrorism.

The conspiracy has spread over three states. The forensic evidence available so far is not adequate to reconstruct the conspiracy in a manner that will carry conviction to the courts and the Muslim community.

Keeping all this in view, it might be better for the Government  of India to direct the National Investigation Agency to take over the investigation after reaching a consensus with the three State Governments.

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Research & Analysis Wing, Cabinet Secretariat, Govt of India.

 

HAQQANI NETWORK AS FTO: WHAT IMPACT?

 

 

 

INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR: PAPER NO. 762

B.RAMAN

In a report to the US Congress on September 7,2012, Mrs.Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State, intimated it of her decision to designate the Haqqani Network, an affiliate of the Afghan Taliban operating from the Kurram—North Waziristan areas of Pakistan, as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO) under the Immigration and Nationality Act.

2. She said in a separate statement:

“Today, I have sent a report to Congress saying that the Haqqani Network meets the statutory criteria of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) for designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). This action meets the requirements of the Haqqani Network Terrorist Designation Act of 2012 (P.L. 112-168). Based on that assessment, I notified Congress of my intent to designate the Haqqani Network as an FTO under the INA. I also intend to designate the organization as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity under Executive Order 13224.

“The consequences of these designations include a prohibition against knowingly providing material support or resources to, or engaging in other transactions with, the Haqqani Network, and the freezing of all property and interests in property of the organization that are in the United States, or come within the United States, or the control of U.S. persons. These actions follow a series of other steps that the U.S. government already has taken against the Haqqanis. The Department of State previously designated key Haqqani Network leaders under E.O. 13224, and the Department of the Treasury has designated other militants with ties to the Haqqanis under the same authority. We also continue our robust campaign of diplomatic, military, and intelligence pressure on the network, demonstrating the United States’ resolve to degrade the organization’s ability to execute violent attacks.

“I take this action in the context of our overall strategy in Afghanistan, the five lines of effort that President Obama laid out when he was in Afghanistan in May: increasing the capacity of Afghan security forces to fight insurgents; transitioning to Afghan security lead; building an enduring partnership with Afghanistan; pursuing Afghan-led reconciliation; and putting together an international consensus to support peace and stability in the region. We will continue to work with both Afghanistan and Pakistan to move these efforts forward and build a more peaceful and secure future.”

3. For some weeks now, the State Department had been under pressure from sections of the Congress to declare the Haqqani Network as an FTO because of its role in killing US and other NATO troops in Afghanistan. The State Department was resisting the pressure because US intelligence reportedly believed that Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl of the US Army, who disappeared from southern Afghanistan in June,2009, might be in the custody of the Network. They  were worried that the designation of the Network as an FTO could hamper efforts to rescue him. The decision now to designate the Network as an FTO would indicate that the US intelligence is pessimistic about its chances of being able to rescue him.

4. The Agence France Presse (AFP) reported as follows on September 8,2012:

“The network’s founder is Jalaluddin Haqqani, a disciplined Afghan guerrilla leader bankrolled by the US to fight Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s and now based with his family in Pakistan.

“In the 1980s, Jalaluddin was close to the CIA and Pakistani intelligence. He allied himself to the Taliban after they took power in Kabul in 1996, serving as a cabinet minister under the militia’s supreme leader, Mullah Omar.

“When American troops arrived after the 9/11 attacks, Haqqani looked up old friends and sought refuge in North Waziristan, becoming one of the first anti-US commanders based in Pakistan’s border areas.

“He has training bases in eastern Afghanistan, is close to al Qaeda and his fighters are active across east and southeastern Afghanistan and in Kabul.

“Militarily the most capable of the Taliban factions, the network operates independently but remains loyal to Omar and would probably fall behind any peace deal negotiated by the Taliban.

“Now in his late 70s and frail, Jalaluddin’s seat on the Afghan Taliban leadership council has passed to his son Sirajuddin, who effectively runs a fighting force of at least 2,000 men.

“The United States blames the network for some of the most spectacular attacks in Afghanistan, such as a 2011 siege on the US embassy and, in 2009, the deadliest attack on the CIA in 25 years.

“Washington has long since designated Jalaluddin and Sirajuddin “global terrorists” but in July Congress urged the State Department to blacklist the entire network.

“Supporters of the designation say the financial sanctions will help disrupt the Haqqani network’s fundraising activities in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

“But Pakistanis fear it could further worsen ties between Islamabad and Washington just as cooperation had resumed after a series of major crises in 2011, particularly the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.

“Any such decision will take the relationship back to square one, ruining the improvement seen in ties between the two countries during the last couple of months,” a senior Pakistani security official said.

“Last year, the outgoing top US military officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, called the Haqqanis the “veritable arm” of Pakistan’s ISI, although other American officials later distanced themselves from the remarks.”

5.The designation  of an organisation as an FTO impairs its ability to collect funds from the diaspora in the US. Where an organisation does not depend on flow of funds from the diaspora in the US, it has very little impact on its operational capabilities.

6. The US started the practice of declaring foreign terrorist set-ups as FTOs in 1997. Since then, there has not been a single instance of any terrorist organisation withering away due to drying-up of funds because of its being declared an FTO. All organisations declared by the US as FTO continued to maintain their terrorist activities without any problem.

7.The US declared the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as an FTO in 1997. It had no impact on the activities of the LTTE. The LTTE was crushed 12 years later in May 2009 not by the US designation, but by the counter-insurgency operations of the Sri Lankan Army.

8. Since 1997, the US has declared the Harkat-ul-Ansar also known as the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) of Bangladesh as FTOs. The declarations have had no impact on their activities. They continue to be as active as before

9. This is because the jihadi terrorist organisations based in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan get their funds not from the diaspora in the US, but from the diaspora in the Gulf, from so-called charitable organisations in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries and from the intelligence agencies sponsoring them such as those of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. They also get their funds from the narcotics trade in the Af-Pak region.

10. Unless these real sources of funding are tackled, just designating an organisation as an FTO and making it illegal for persons in the US to help it financially will not help.

11. The US war of attrition  based on precise intelligence, which has been effective against Al Qaeda in the tribal areas, has not been that effective against the Haqqani Network. Al Qaeda is perceived largely as an Arab organisation. Some Pashtuns have had no qualms over co-operating with the US against Al Qaeda as one saw in the case of the Pashtun doctor, now in Pakistani custody, who allegedly collaborated against Osama bin Laden. But the Haqqani Network is a Pashtun organisation. It has been more difficult to find Pashtun sources willing to collaborate against the leadership of the Network.

12. Only the Shias of Kurram, who have been suffering due to the atrocities committed by the Afghan Taliban and the Network, and the Tajik remnants of Ahmed Shah Masood’s  pre-2001 organisation might be in a position to help in neutralising the Haqqani Network through  ground and air operations. The suspicions between the US and the former followers of Masood have come in the way of such operations. The US has been reluctant to seek the co-operation of the Shias of Kurram because of their reported links with Iran.

13. New ideas, new operational methods and new allies are required to neutralise the Network without having to depend on Pakistan. The US has been bereft of such ideas, methods and allies.Designating the Haqqani Network an FTO alone will not help.

14.The US and other NATO forces have been facing problems in Afghanistan because of the mix of conventional and terrorist strikes adopted by the Afghan Taliban and the commando style complex terrorist strikes in which the Haqqani Network specialises. Unless an effective answer is found to the capabilities and techniques of the Afghan Taliban, there is unlikely to be an improvement in the ground situation in Afghanistan.

15. Only punitive pressure against Pakistan can help in neutralising the Haqqani Network. The Network operates from sanctuaries in North Waziristan and Kurram. It maintains close links with the ISI, which is well-informed regarding the location and movements of its leaders. The ISI is in a position to help the US in neutralising the Network, but is hesitant to do so as it looks upon the Network as its strategic ally for recovering its influence in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of the US and other NATO forces from there.

16. The US is not prepared to declare Pakistan a state-sponsor of terrorism for its collusion with the Network. Declaration of Pakistan as a State-sponsor of terrorism could entail follow-up steps such as a rupture of diplomatic relations with Pakistan, termination of all military-military and intelligence-intelligence co-operation and suspension of all economic and military assistance. No US Government would be prepared to take such actions. The US has to tolerate Pakistan and find ways of getting along with it whatever the difficulties and consequences of such a policy.

17. In the absence of a capability to mount an Abbottabad style unilateral strike against the Haqqani leadership, the only transit option left to the US is to have the Network designated as an FTO. That is what it has done without any illusions that it will lead to the neutralisation of the Network. ( 8-9-12)

(The  writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com  Twitter @SORBONNE75)

 

 

   

  

 

 

INDIA & PAKISTAN: DIMINISHING MALICE

 

B.RAMAN

Diminishing  malice is becoming the defining characteristic of Indo-Pakistan relations as our Foreign Minister, Shri S.M.Krishna, flies to Islamabad  on the morning of Septembr 7,2012, for another joint review with Ms Hina Rabbani Khar, his Pakistani counterpart, of the state of the continuing talks between officials of the two countries on  bilateral issues that have been the stumbling block of better relations.

2. The bilateral issues remain as they were defying a substantive movement forward in the efforts to find a solution. This is so whether in respect of Jammu and Kashmir or the Siachen and Sir Creek issues or Pakistani inaction against the terrorists of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), who masterminded the 26/11 terrorist strikes in Mumbai and are now supposed to be facing trial before an anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi.

3.What has been changing is not the contours and the complexities of the bilateral issues, but the lingo and the rhetoric. The lingo is increasingly marked less by malice and more by friendship. The rhetoric is less  mutually accusatory.

4. The periodic exchanges of allegations continue. India continues to level allegations of Pakistani insincerity in prosecuting the masterminds of the 26/11 terrorist strikes and of Islamabad not acting against the anti-India terrorist infrastructure in Pakistani territory. Pakistan continues to level allegations of foreign involvement in its internal security problems in Balochistan, without naming India

5. Despite this, there is a discernible attempt by the two countries not to level fresh allegations that could add new poison to the bilateral relations. One saw this in the aftermath of the recent violent incidents in Mumbai and Lucknow and the departure of a large number of people from India’s North-East living in South India and Pune for their home in the North-East due to nervousness caused by threats of retaliation against them for the recent anti-Muslim violence in Assam.

6.India continues to suspect that the psy-jihad propaganda backed by consciously exaggerated stories and morphed images, which led to the violence and the nervous exodus, originated from Pakistan, but the usual urge to blame the State of Pakistan for such anti-Indian impulses has been kept under control. There has been an admission that the initial allegations made against the State of Pakistan by officials of India’s Ministry of Home Affairs have not been corroborated by subsequent evidence. It was because of this that our Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Sigh did not raise this issue, as he was originally expected to, in his talks with President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan in the margins of the recent NAM summit in Tehran.

7. There have been fresh suspicions of possible Pakistani State involvement in the activities of 18 Indian Muslim suspects taken into custody since August 29 in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra on charges of planning to assassinate some Hindu personalities in Bengaluru and Hyderabad. But, these suspicions are being articulated in a muted form and not from the roof-top so that they do not come in the way of the improving bilateral vibrations.

8. The vibrations are becoming better and better----whether between the political leaders or civilian officials of the two countries. One could see a growing conviction among the political leaders and civilian officials of Pakistan that their anti-India reflexes have started becoming counter-productive. There is as yet no evidence to show that this conviction is shared by the Pakistan Army, which continues to dominate decision-making in matters relating to India.

9. There is continuing suspicion in Pakistan’s Army and Inter-services Intelligence about the intentions of India towards Pakistan. The diminution of anti-Indian malice is yet to be felt in the Armed Forces and the military intelligence agencies. Unless they realise the importance and benefits of relations marked less by malice and more by friendship, the increasing hopes of a better tomorrow in Indo-Pakistan relations may still be belied.

10. But even in the Army and the ISI there has been no attempt to create complications in the efforts to find solutions to bilateral issues. The Army and the ISI have kept the terrorist weapon intact, but have not used it in Indian territory after 26/11.They have been creating for themselves fresh capabilities for violence and instability in Jammu and Kashmir as evidenced by the recent discovery of their attempts to construct tunnels for infiltration of terrorists into J&K, but they have refrained from creating fresh pockets of violence in the State.

11. The improvement in the ambiance marked by the greater focus on opportunities for bilateral trade and easier visa procedures shows a welcome shift away by the political and civilian leadership in both  the countries from the past policy of not letting new areas of convergence emerge till the areas of  divergence have been satisfactorily tackled.

12. The divergence on traditional issues remains, but there is a search for new areas of convergence. The talks of Shri Krishna in Islamabad should keep the focus on this search for new areas of convergence.

13. The Pakistanis continue to be keen for an early visit by Dr.Manmohan Singh to their country. Since the visit of Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee to Islamabad in January 2004 to attend the SAARC summit, no Indian Prime Minister has gone there. The hopes that were there that he might now consider going despite the lack of progress on substantive issues and Pakistani inaction against terrorism have somewhat dimmed because of the uncertain political situation in India. One had the impression of seeing in Tehran an extra-cautious Dr.Manmohan Singh. His usually warm vibrations towards Pakistan were kept under check.

14. If political developments in India make an early poll inevitable, the handling of relations with Pakistan could acquire a different dimension and different priority.

15. Despite this, one could hope for a continuance of the trend towards less malice in the bilateral relations  as a result of the visit of our Foreign Minister. ( 7-9-12)

(The  writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com  Twitter @SORBONNE75)

PM AND THE MEDIA

 

B.RAMAN

 

I can’t claim to know Mr.Simon Denyer, the New Delhi correspondent of  the “Washington Post”. I had met him and his headquarters-based News Editor during a long off-the-record discussion at New Delhi in April.

2. His News Editor had come to India for doing a story and he and  Simon went around meeting people in important positions for a discussion on the state of India.

3. I found them to be pleasant and friendly. They were both very well-informed on India. They came well-prepared for the discussions. On the whole, I had an impression that they were professionals to their finger-tips, well disposed towards India.

4.A despatch of Simon on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh carried by his paper on September 5,2012, has received mixed comments in New Delhi. It has been very critical of the Prime Minister’s style of leadership. Official circles in the entourage of the Prime Minister are reported to have been unhappy about the way the despatch has projected the Prime Minister in negative colours.

5. There is ill-concealed glee among the Prime Minister’s critics and political adversaries over the despatch. Their attitude seems to be: “:It serves the Prime minister right.”

6. For over a year now, the Prime Minister has come under severe criticism even from non-political persons in India over what is seen as his ineffective leadership style, marked by an inability to formulate and articulate policies and to interact with confidence with the people and the media.

7. In recent weeks, this criticism is being increasingly reflected in foreign media. As a result, the halo that he had acquired in his first term as one of the economic wizards of the world whose views are sought even by the developed countries of the world is slowly disappearing.

8. In all international summits on the state of the global economy during his first term, he had the pride of place in the head table as the Prime Minister of India taking the country forward with wisdom and determination. He  still has a place in the head table, but minus the aura. There is an  anxiety  in official circles in Delhi that the “Washington Post” despatch could add to the attrition of the aura.

9.From a perusal of some tweets sent to his followers by Simon, one could see that his despatch was based on his assessment and insights. He did not have the benefit of a discussion with the Prime Minister or any of the senior officials in the Prime Minister’s Office. According to his tweets, he did seek a meeting  with them before sending his despatch, but there was no response. He had no other option but to send his despatch without the views of the Prime Minister or his entourage.

10. The case brings out in bold relief the defective media strategy of the PMO in his second term as the Prime Minister. During his first term, he had in Dr.Sanjaya Baru, an activist and always-on-the-go media advisor, who compensated for the Prime Minister’s reticence to interact with the media.

11. Dr. Baru did manage to organise two Press conferences during which the Prime Minister gave a charming assessment of his own performance since he assumed charge. He hardly gave any one-to-one interview, either on or off the record, but Dr. Baru sought to make up for this by actively interacting off-the-record with senior journalists to explain the Prime Minister’s thinking and policies. The senior journalists were not able to get the Prime Minister’s version from the horse’s mouth, but got it indirectly through Dr.Baru.

12. In 2008, Dr. Baru joined a Singapore think tank. The media advisors, who succeeded him in the PMO, were not proactive as Dr. Baru was. They were unduly defensive and protective and did not realise the importance of perception projection and correction through regular interactions with the media. Instead of encouraging the Prime Minister to give up his propensity for silence and reticence, they tended to strengthen it by failing to adopt a proactive media interaction policy.

13. The only occasion journalists had for interacting with him was on board his aircraft during his foreign travels, Since foreign correspondents did not accompany him on his foreign travels, they had no opportunity of interacting with the Prime Minister and picking his brains.

14. During the last one year, there has been an increasingly negative projection of the Prime Minister partly due to his bad style of leadership at a time of cascading crises and partly due to the lack of interactions between the media and the Prime Minister or senior officials of his office.

15.The Prime Minister and his officials do not seem to realise the importance of such interactions in order to let the media and the people in India and abroad have a clear perception of the state of the nation and what the Prime Minister intends doing to deal with the various issues confronting the Government.

16. The lack of a corrective due to the unwillingness of the Prime Minister or his senior officials to meet Simon has resulted in a one-sided despatch, which reflects the views of people outside the PMO without projecting the views of the PMO.

17. Many of us have been repeatedly stressing the importance of a new and more open media strategy to prevent wrong perceptions of the state of the nation and the Prime Minister’s ability to overcome the crises confronting the nation.

18. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister and his officials have been continuing in their old ways, hoping that somehow these negative perceptions will dissipate on their own. It is hoped that the discomfiture caused by Simon’s despatch will lead to the adoption of a proactive media strategy.

19. This may please be read in continuation of my article of January 27,2012, suggesting the appointment of a Task Force on a new media strategy available at  http://ramanstrategicanalysis.blogspot.in/2012/01/need-for-task-force-on-pms-media.html ( 5-9-12)

(The  writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com  Twitter @SORBONNE75)

CAN HISTORY REPEAT ITSELF IN TIBET?

 

 

B.RAMAN

The rumblings from the Tibetan areas of China continue. The more the Chinese suppress, the more the Tibetans protest. The more the Chinese demonise His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the more the Tibetans respect him. The more the Chinese flaunt the economic progress made by the Tibetan areas under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the more the Tibetans long for His Holiness.

2. The Chinese recently took the CPC appointed Panchen Lama, who normally lives in Beijing under heavy security, on his annual one month, CPC-sponsored exposure to the Tibetan people. He camped in Lhasa under the protection of the PLA and was taken round the various monasteries where the influence of His Holiness the Dalai Lama continues to be strong.

3. The Chinese hopes that the Tibetan people would start venerating the CPC-sponsored Panchen Lama were belied. His presence in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and his visits to the monasteries were tom-tomed by the Party and Government-controlled media. There was hardly any excitement in the Tibetan areas.

4. News of the sermons and travels of His Holiness the Dalai Lama outside Tibet in his political and religious exile evoke greater interest and greater excitement among the Tibetans in the TAR, Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan than the sermons and activities of the Panchen Lama.

5. In desperation, the Chinese have been trying to prevent news of the sermons and activities of His Holiness from reaching the Tibetans in China. They have stopped allowing the re-entry of Tibetans who go to Nepal and India to attend the religious meetings of His Holiness. They are trying to find out how news about the happenings in the Tibetan areas travel to the outside world almost the same day and is broadcast by Radio Free Asia, the radio station funded by the US State Department.

6.The Internet has been censored and blocked. Mobile telephone services have been vigorously controlled. The Tibetans have been denied access to social media networks. Despite this, news continues to trickle out and trickle in. There is a two-way trickle which the Chinese intelligence agencies have not been able to identify and stop.

7. The chain of self-immolations continues---mostly in the Tibetan areas of Sichuan, but increasingly in Qinghai and Gansu too. The total number of fatal self-immolations since March of last year crossed 50 last week.The Chinese do not know how to stop it. Their intelligence agencies have not been able to profile Tibetans who are likely to commit self-immolation.

8. There has been no flow of intelligence from the Tibetan community about plans for self-immolation. Arrests and severe punishments to Tibetan bystanders who do not stop the self-immolation attempts have not worked.

9. There have been more raids and more arrests. The Kirti monastery of Sichuan, where the self-immolations started last year, was raided once again last week and the monk inmates subjected to intimidatory  questioning. The Zilkar monastery in the Qinghai province was raided on September 1 and four of the monks there were taken away for custodial interrogation.

10. Reliable sources report that one question the Chinese security officials have been posing to every Tibetan interrogated by them is: How does the news travel to the Dalai Lama? How does the news travel from the Dalai Lama?

11. The Chinese are confused. Despite their denying the Tibetans easy access to modern means of communication, news continues to travel and travel fast. There have been reports of large-scale preventive arrests in the Lhasa region. The trouble has till now been confined to the Tibetan areas of Sichuan, Qinghai and Gansu. The Tibetan areas of Sichuan continue to be the epicentre of the wave of self-immolations.

12. Though the TAR has not yet been affected in a big way by the self-immolation movement, it is becoming the epi-centre of the Gandhian type satyagraha practised by the Lakhar movement, which is a Tibetan self-identity movement which tells the people: Be Tibetan, Eat Tibetan, Dress Tibetan, Speak Tibetan, Live Tibetan, venerate His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

13. The recent arrests in the Lhasa region were meant to stifle the Lhakar movement. The Chinese have not succeeded.

14. There is a protest chakra going on in the Tibetan areas of China. The more the protests, the more the suppression. The more the suppression, the more the protests.

15. It is a new type of protest movement, the like of which Tibet has not seen before. Self-motivated, self-induced, self-driven with no identifiable leaders and organisational structure behind it. It is kept sustained not by anger but by the pride of the Tibetans in themselves, their culture, their religion, their traditions, their heritage, their guru.

16. Despite their most brutal suppression, the Chinese have not been able to destroy the pride and hopes that continue to drive the movement. Today, the odds seem heavily against the Tibetans.

17. So they did against Mahatma Gandhi in the 1920s and against Nelson Mandela in the 1970s and the early 1980s. And then the odds turned in their favour. Brutal suppression failed to prevail.

18. Can history repeat itself in the Tibetan areas of China? ( 5-9-12)

(The  writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com  Twitter @SORBONNE75)

SRI LANKA AND TAMIL NADU: A MESSY SITUATION

 

B.RAMAN

If the political parties in Tamil Nadu do not conduct themselves with a sense of balance and responsibility and indulge in competitive exploitation of the discontent in certain sections of the population over Sri Lanka-related issues, they may end up by creating passions beyond control in both countries.

2. All right-thinking Tamils should be concerned over the acts of anger directed against two football teams of Sri Lankan students in Chennai and against Sri Lankan Christian pilgrims in southern Tamil Nadu in recent days. This resulted in the football teams having to go back to Sri Lanka and in anxieties over physical security among the pilgrims. There is a reason to suspect that some of these incidents were more politically-orchestrated than spontaneous expression of anger by the local people against the Sri Lankans.

3. There is a genuine anger among sections of the people of Tamil Nadu against the Sri Lankan Government over the following aspects of its policies towards the Sri Lankan Tamils:

( a ).The lack of progress in finding a political solution to the aspirations of the Tamils.

( b ).The   lack of a sincere enquiry into the death of a disproportionate number of Tamils during the last hours of the Sri Lankan Army’s assault to kill Prabhakaran, the leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), and capture  the LTTE headquarters thereby defeating the LTTE’s insurgency.

( c ). The perceived use of disproportionate force by the Sri Lankan Navy against Indian Tamil fishermen who mistakenly fish in Sri Lankan waters, leading to frequent deaths of our fishermen.

4. This anger has been turned by the local political parties against the Government of India also for the following reasons:

( a ). The perceived reluctance of New Delhi to exercise adequate pressure on President Mahinda Rajapaksa to make him fulfil his commitments to the Tamils and the Government of India on their political future and  protect our fishermen.

( b ). The unwillingness of the Government of India to take any punitive action against the Sri Lankan Government by way of suspending the military-military relationship between the Armed Forces of the two countries. Under this relationship, officers of the Sri Lankan Armed forces are permitted to join training courses in different training institutions of our Armed Forces.

5.In view of the forthcoming elections to the Lok Sabha in 2014, there has been a competitive exploitation of all these  issues by  many of the political parties including the ruling AIDMK and the opposition DMK in the hope of winning poll dividends.

6. The anger, which was initially against the Sri Lankan Government, has been turned into anger against the Sri Lankan people, mainly Sinhalese, coming to Tamil Nadu for private reasons such as pilgrimage, tourism, sports etc. Fortunately, till now, the exploited anger has not led to any untoward  incident of violence against the Sinhalese. If the temptation to politically exploit this anger by different parties is not resisted, there is a danger of a backlash by the Sinhalese against the Indian nationals ( not necessarily only against the Sri Lankan Tamils) working in Sri Lanka.

7. In recent years, India’s economic relations with Sri Lanka have considerably improved and a number of Indian companies have established their branches in Sri Lanka. There has also been an increase in the number of Indian Tamil tourists visiting Sri Lanka. If there is a backlash against  them, we might be faced with a vicious circle of ethnic violence in the two countries.

8. There never was much popular support for the LTTE in Tamil Nadu. Nor were there strong feelings of solidarity between the people of Tamil Nadu and the Sri Lankan Tamils living in refugee camps in Tamil Nadu. When the LTTE was defeated by the Sri Lankan Army and Prabhakaran killed in May,2009, the reactions among the people of Tamil Nadu were fortunately low.

9. If a politically-motivated attempt is made now to rouse the feelings of the people of Tamil Nadu over the attitude of the Sri Lankan Government towards the Sri Lankan Tamils, the resulting passions may take unpredictable shape.

10. The Government of India finds itself in a dilemma. The protection of the people of Sri Lanka visiting Tamil Nadu is the responsibility of the Government of Tamil Nadu. The Government of India cannot act unilaterally in the matter. In view of the 2014 elections, no party is prepared to adopt a reasonable attitude. Even the DMK, which supports the Dr.Manmohan Singh Government in the Centre, has joined the anti-Sri Lanka campaign in Tamil Nadu unmindful of the difficulties of New Delhi.

11. The Government of India is not in a position to exercise adequate pressure on the Rajapaksa Government either on the issue of the political future of the Sri Lankan Tamils or for the protection of our fishermen. Nor is it in a position to force the Government of Sri Lanka to hold an enquiry into the violation of the human rights of the Sri Lankan Tamils.

12. In view of the strong political and economic support for Sri Lanka from China and Sri Lanka’s developing relations with Pakistan, we do not have much of a card for coercive diplomacy against Colombo. The Government of India has to do  the best of a bad bargain.

13. The dilemma  faced by the Government of India  is partly the result of its failure to foresee and pre-empt the politically caused emotions with an eye on the 2014 elections. Unless it persuades the ruling ADMK to tone down any politicisation of the problem, the DMK, its ally, is unlikely to co-operate with it. It would not like to be projected by the ADMK as not being supportive enough of the Sri Lankan Tamils and our fishermen.

14. The only way of dealing with this issue is through a possible  quid  pro quo by conceding the demands of the Tamil Nadu Government in other matters not having an impact on our foreign policy in return for its giving up its present policies relating to Sri Lankans.

15. To address the sensitivities of the Tamil Nadu Government, the Government of India could also modify its policy in relation to the training of Sri Lankan Armed Forces officers in our training Institutions. In future, training slots could be offered to the Sri Lankan Armed Forces only in respect of those courses where the training is imparted in institutions outside Tamil Nadu.

16. This is a tricky political matter to which a solution based on an all-party consensus with the political parties of Tamil Nadu has to be found by our Prime Minister asserting his authority and taking the necessary initiative. His  reluctance or inability to exercise authority could make the situation messier. ( 4-9-12)

(The  writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com  Twitter @SORBONNE75)