The New York Times carried a piece today on rising attacks on the Roma in Hungary in the wake of the ongoing economic crisis. Hungary isn't the only place where the Roma continue to be marginalized, even despised:
In the Czech Republic, where radical right-wing demonstrators have clashed with the police as they tried to march through Roma neighborhoods, a small child and her parents were severely burned after assailants firebombed their home in the town of Vitkov this month. The police in Slovakia were caught on video recently tormenting six Roma boys they had arrested, forcing them to undress, hit and kiss one another.
In the past five years, attitudes toward Roma in many parts of Eastern Europe have hardened, and new extremists have started to use the Roma issue in a way that either they didn’t dare to or didn’t get an airing before,” said Michael Stewart, coordinator of the Europe-wide Roma Research Network.
All in all, the article serves as a reminder that Isabel Fonseca's superb book on the ultimate "outsiders" (to Europe, to the very concept of political modernity as refracted through the concept of the nation-state) remains of abiding relevance...
Monday, April 27, 2009
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Red Star Rising
The Naxalite hijacking earlier today of a train en route to one of India's busiest stations (Mughal Sarai in eastern Uttar Pradesh, near Varanasi) highlights the truth of Manmohan Singh's claim, a few years ago, that the Naxalites constituted the single greatest security threat to India. Alarms about the Naxals might seem odd (the spate of attacks during the Indian elections notwithstanding), given the sort of 2008 the country has had, with multiple serial blasts in cities across India attributed to Muslim extremists, a handful of lesser bomb attacks in Western India attributed to Hindu extremists, all culminating in the hair-raising 1970s-style Mumbai attacks last November, carried out by Pakistan-based terrorists. Compared to the spectacular nature of these sorts of terrorist attacks, the slow drip of Naxalite violence -- a handful of dead people here, a bomb explosion there -- and often in some of India's dustiest and most faraway corners, might not seem like a very big deal at all. And certainly, the violence barely registers in the country's major metros, and, consequently, in the major Indian media outlets.
This is a mistake, for the Naxalite movement threatens the Indian state at a structural level, in a way that terrorist blasts do not. The latter might well account for more deaths (certainly in 2008, although even this is likely untrue in other years), and presumably threaten foreign investment and tourism; but the Naxalite movement represents a potent challenge to the Indian state's claims of sovereignty in large tracts of land across multiple states. It is a challenge that has withstood the test of time, and it would be no exaggeration to say that in multiple districts, the Maoist insurgency has, if not supplanted the Indian state, reduced it to the level of co-sovereign. In this it has much in common with the creeping Taliban insurgency in Pakistan: like the Taliban, the Naxalites insist upon an alternate legal and social regime in areas they control, complete with tax and judicial mechanisms. Like the Taliban, the Naxalites feed off the very real grievances of an oppressed peasantry, and it is no coincidence that the insurgency has deepest roots in those parts of India where post-1947 land reform has either not been meaningful, or where aboriginal ("tribal" or "adivasi") peoples have been excluded from both the political and economic fruits of the last sixty years (and this, even as they are disproportionately likely to be dispossessed by the sorts of large scale mining and other industrial projects that help fuel the industrial development the benefits of which are reaped by others). And like the Taliban, the Naxalites sap the state's prestige, by demonstrating that it lacks both efficacy and legitimacy. Typically, this is done by scores of attacks on policemen, soldiers, and indeed anyone wearing a government-issued uniform, but nothing makes the symbolic aim clearer than the train hijacking this post started out with: the insurgents took over a train (variously reported as having 700, or 75, passengers aboard), for over four hours, ultimately releasing the passengers unharmed. This operation, coming on the eve of the election's second phase of polling, and in the wake of a series of daring attacks during the first phase earlier this month, conveyed the message that the Indian state cannot foreclose large-scale Naxal attacks despite its intensive deployment of security forces to ensure a peaceful election. That's the kind of political ad worth a million posters, and the urban Indian public ignores it at its peril.
The solution cannot be a military one alone: as the example of states -- such as Andhra Pradesh, to an extent -- makes clear, tackling the Naxalite movement requires more than paying lip service to social justice. It requires, at a minimum, land re-distribution, judicious amnesties, and even cooptation of some Naxalite leaders by the Indian political process. But it will also require what no government, state or central, has so far shown the imagination to consider: a devolution of power in favor of Indian aboriginal communities, to an extent far greater than currently exists. "Federalism" need not be defined purely in terms of sub-national territorial units; it can be supplemented by a new kind of political arrangement better adapted to the needs of many of India's aboriginal/"forest"-communities. At present, these communities are almost as likely to be alienated from the state capital and its power structures, as they are from the national capital and its halls of power. The creation of ever-smaller states is not likely to address this problem, so long as so much power continues to be vested in a bureaucratic/urban class that simply does not include enough adivasis. By contrast, greater local/communitarian control over natural resources has worked rather well in the context of the Himalayan Chipko movement, and something similar, and more comprehensive, deserves to be tried in the context of Naxalite-hit Central India as well. It certainly would do no worse than the sort of "initiatives" used by the Chattisgarh government.
This is a mistake, for the Naxalite movement threatens the Indian state at a structural level, in a way that terrorist blasts do not. The latter might well account for more deaths (certainly in 2008, although even this is likely untrue in other years), and presumably threaten foreign investment and tourism; but the Naxalite movement represents a potent challenge to the Indian state's claims of sovereignty in large tracts of land across multiple states. It is a challenge that has withstood the test of time, and it would be no exaggeration to say that in multiple districts, the Maoist insurgency has, if not supplanted the Indian state, reduced it to the level of co-sovereign. In this it has much in common with the creeping Taliban insurgency in Pakistan: like the Taliban, the Naxalites insist upon an alternate legal and social regime in areas they control, complete with tax and judicial mechanisms. Like the Taliban, the Naxalites feed off the very real grievances of an oppressed peasantry, and it is no coincidence that the insurgency has deepest roots in those parts of India where post-1947 land reform has either not been meaningful, or where aboriginal ("tribal" or "adivasi") peoples have been excluded from both the political and economic fruits of the last sixty years (and this, even as they are disproportionately likely to be dispossessed by the sorts of large scale mining and other industrial projects that help fuel the industrial development the benefits of which are reaped by others). And like the Taliban, the Naxalites sap the state's prestige, by demonstrating that it lacks both efficacy and legitimacy. Typically, this is done by scores of attacks on policemen, soldiers, and indeed anyone wearing a government-issued uniform, but nothing makes the symbolic aim clearer than the train hijacking this post started out with: the insurgents took over a train (variously reported as having 700, or 75, passengers aboard), for over four hours, ultimately releasing the passengers unharmed. This operation, coming on the eve of the election's second phase of polling, and in the wake of a series of daring attacks during the first phase earlier this month, conveyed the message that the Indian state cannot foreclose large-scale Naxal attacks despite its intensive deployment of security forces to ensure a peaceful election. That's the kind of political ad worth a million posters, and the urban Indian public ignores it at its peril.
The solution cannot be a military one alone: as the example of states -- such as Andhra Pradesh, to an extent -- makes clear, tackling the Naxalite movement requires more than paying lip service to social justice. It requires, at a minimum, land re-distribution, judicious amnesties, and even cooptation of some Naxalite leaders by the Indian political process. But it will also require what no government, state or central, has so far shown the imagination to consider: a devolution of power in favor of Indian aboriginal communities, to an extent far greater than currently exists. "Federalism" need not be defined purely in terms of sub-national territorial units; it can be supplemented by a new kind of political arrangement better adapted to the needs of many of India's aboriginal/"forest"-communities. At present, these communities are almost as likely to be alienated from the state capital and its power structures, as they are from the national capital and its halls of power. The creation of ever-smaller states is not likely to address this problem, so long as so much power continues to be vested in a bureaucratic/urban class that simply does not include enough adivasis. By contrast, greater local/communitarian control over natural resources has worked rather well in the context of the Himalayan Chipko movement, and something similar, and more comprehensive, deserves to be tried in the context of Naxalite-hit Central India as well. It certainly would do no worse than the sort of "initiatives" used by the Chattisgarh government.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Pakistan Vacuum, Taliban March
Abdur-Rahman Abid's recent piece in DAWN (one of Pakistan's most respected English-language newspapers) bears the headline "Buner Falls to Swat Taliban". If anything, the actual article is even more worrying, referring as it does to Taliban gains in towns as "settled" (i.e., not part of the frontier agencies, and administered as "ordinary" parts of the North West Frontier Province ("NWFP")) as Mardan; and more than one media report confirms that the district of Buner -- approximately 60 kilometers from Islamabad -- is indeed in Taliban hands. While it is important not to ring the alarm bells too soon -- for instance, I do not believe the Punjab is on the verge of a Taliban take-over as a recent article in the New York Times suggested, and, more broadly, do not believe that Pakistan is in any way close to a Somalia-style implosion -- it seems plain as daylight that the so-called peace deals with the Taliban are not working.
Away from the unhelpful rhetoric that perennially raises the specter of "appeasement" and Munich 1938, it is clear that the peace deals do not represent a durable or stable solution to the political crisis in large parts of Pakistan's Pashtun areas, not solely (or perhaps even principally) because the Taliban are using the peace deals to extend their sway, but because these sorts of pacts cannot rescue the legitimacy of the Pakistani state in those Pashtun areas. That is, the peace deals cannot be said to have caused increasing Taliban sway, because these deals are a consequence, and not a cause, of the bankruptcy of the state in its Pashtun areas (the latter qualification is important: as yet there is no evidence that the state's legitimacy has dissipated in Punjab, or Sind; and, consequently, that the Pakistani state faces an existential crisis in those provinces, which together constitute nearly nine-tenths of the country's population). Taliban influence in the Pashtun areas has been on the rise in recent years, with or without peace deals. Conversely, however, it would be a mistake to conclude (as the Pakistani state increasingly appears to have done, based on its lack of success) that military force ought not to play any role at all in countering the Taliban's rise -- the rather autonomous militias grouped under that umbrella term are unlikely to allow the sort of political or cultural space that one might ordinarily count on peace to open up, and, ultimately, to undermine the Taliban's ethos. Some force is going to be necessary to dislodge them. But the problem is that the central government has as yet offered no idea to accompany either military force, or its opposite strategy of pursuing peace deals with the Taliban. By now, it is patently clear that the Indo-centrism of the two nation theory upon which Pakistan is founded, has very little relevance in the context of the contemporary geo-political situation of the Pashtuns.
The question need not have been raised at all, had the state "delivered" in places like Swat; but the confluence of multiple factors, such as the alienation of areas like Swat from the national mainstream; the reality of the state and its military as guardians of a status quo that has not proven willing to take even elementary steps towards economic re-distribution; and the stresses of the war in Afghanistan; has quite overwhelmed the idea of Pakistan in these areas -- increasingly, that foundational idea seems irrelevant to the people of the region, and until this ideological and political vacuum is addressed, it will make little difference whether the central government makes peace with, or wages war on, the Taliban: either way, the militants appear to be the only ones on the ground with a governing ideology, the only ones who can lay claim to legitimacy -- their politics claim Islam as the source, and since the central government can itself not disavow the notion of a politics premised on Islam, it is left to argue simply that the Taliban's Islam is wrong-headed. This is not adequate -- not least because the government (and indeed, most of the country's urban well-heeled classes), implicitly maintain the fiction that there can be a single, authoritative view of what is or is not Islam, a view that ought to be accepted by all as "correct," essentially concedes the field to the likes of the Taliban. If it boils down to that, the government and the urban elites simply lack the cultural authenticity, and are simply too wedded to the status quo, to ever get the better of the argument -- and aren't clear on what the argument even is. But absolutist Islam needs to be jettisoned before the Taliban can be challenged -- it won't do to say that "good" absolutist Islam should replace the vision offered by the Taliban -- and the state needs to be recast into a more pluralistic, democratic polity. The latter cannot happen without the former; achieving a more relativistic, more just polity, is not only the right end to strive toward, it is the practical thing to do as well: it is the only way "Pakistan" can ever mean something concrete for the people of Buner and Swat. Faced with a meaningful choice, who would put money on them choosing the Taliban? Not I.
Away from the unhelpful rhetoric that perennially raises the specter of "appeasement" and Munich 1938, it is clear that the peace deals do not represent a durable or stable solution to the political crisis in large parts of Pakistan's Pashtun areas, not solely (or perhaps even principally) because the Taliban are using the peace deals to extend their sway, but because these sorts of pacts cannot rescue the legitimacy of the Pakistani state in those Pashtun areas. That is, the peace deals cannot be said to have caused increasing Taliban sway, because these deals are a consequence, and not a cause, of the bankruptcy of the state in its Pashtun areas (the latter qualification is important: as yet there is no evidence that the state's legitimacy has dissipated in Punjab, or Sind; and, consequently, that the Pakistani state faces an existential crisis in those provinces, which together constitute nearly nine-tenths of the country's population). Taliban influence in the Pashtun areas has been on the rise in recent years, with or without peace deals. Conversely, however, it would be a mistake to conclude (as the Pakistani state increasingly appears to have done, based on its lack of success) that military force ought not to play any role at all in countering the Taliban's rise -- the rather autonomous militias grouped under that umbrella term are unlikely to allow the sort of political or cultural space that one might ordinarily count on peace to open up, and, ultimately, to undermine the Taliban's ethos. Some force is going to be necessary to dislodge them. But the problem is that the central government has as yet offered no idea to accompany either military force, or its opposite strategy of pursuing peace deals with the Taliban. By now, it is patently clear that the Indo-centrism of the two nation theory upon which Pakistan is founded, has very little relevance in the context of the contemporary geo-political situation of the Pashtuns.
The question need not have been raised at all, had the state "delivered" in places like Swat; but the confluence of multiple factors, such as the alienation of areas like Swat from the national mainstream; the reality of the state and its military as guardians of a status quo that has not proven willing to take even elementary steps towards economic re-distribution; and the stresses of the war in Afghanistan; has quite overwhelmed the idea of Pakistan in these areas -- increasingly, that foundational idea seems irrelevant to the people of the region, and until this ideological and political vacuum is addressed, it will make little difference whether the central government makes peace with, or wages war on, the Taliban: either way, the militants appear to be the only ones on the ground with a governing ideology, the only ones who can lay claim to legitimacy -- their politics claim Islam as the source, and since the central government can itself not disavow the notion of a politics premised on Islam, it is left to argue simply that the Taliban's Islam is wrong-headed. This is not adequate -- not least because the government (and indeed, most of the country's urban well-heeled classes), implicitly maintain the fiction that there can be a single, authoritative view of what is or is not Islam, a view that ought to be accepted by all as "correct," essentially concedes the field to the likes of the Taliban. If it boils down to that, the government and the urban elites simply lack the cultural authenticity, and are simply too wedded to the status quo, to ever get the better of the argument -- and aren't clear on what the argument even is. But absolutist Islam needs to be jettisoned before the Taliban can be challenged -- it won't do to say that "good" absolutist Islam should replace the vision offered by the Taliban -- and the state needs to be recast into a more pluralistic, democratic polity. The latter cannot happen without the former; achieving a more relativistic, more just polity, is not only the right end to strive toward, it is the practical thing to do as well: it is the only way "Pakistan" can ever mean something concrete for the people of Buner and Swat. Faced with a meaningful choice, who would put money on them choosing the Taliban? Not I.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Will Pakistan Become a Theocracy? (CHAPATI MYSTERY Discussion)
I recently posted a number of comments on two threads on Chapati Mystery occasioned by the plethora of recent articles in the American media on Pakistan, often of an alarmist nature. As always, I do not think that the current situation in Pakistan (or the Indian sub-continent as a whole) can assessed without an adequate engagement with the founding ideologies of the area's post-colonial nation-states, and it seemed to me that most of the articles in question were guilty of precisely such an omission. Check out ONE, and TWO.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Musings on Rahul Gandhi...
In deferring -- yet again -- his coronation as the Congress' Prime Ministerial candidate, Rahul Gandhi shows a curious lack of confidence: after trumpeting, in every election over a number of years, that its fortunes in U.P. and Bihar would revive because Priyanka and Rahul Gandhi would campaign for it (anything close to even 220 seats in India's 545-seat Parliament seems impossible absent a marked reversal in the party's pathetic showing in those states over the last decade or two, given the number of seats they account for), the Congress' dismal streak has only continued in the "Hindi heartland." It was only when the Congress stopped living in its dream world -- one in which the Congress is India's "natural" party of governance -- and woke up to the new reality of necessary and inevitable coalition governments (a recognition no doubt aided by the NDA's ability to serve out a complete term despite the fact that the party at its center, the BJP, won barely a third of the seats in Parliament), that the Congress was able to return to power in Delhi, and emulate the NDA (with even fewer seats for the Congress in 2004 than the BJP had managed in 1999).
But the party's cult of the family (that would surely have horrified its first and greatest Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru), shows that the lesson has not been learned too well. Priyanka and Rahul Gandhi, the latest dynasty kids, perennially draw huge crowds -- because they are the ultimate celebrities (and let's face it, are far more telegenic than the usual septa- or octogenarian stumbling over his lines on-stage). And then there is the undeniable fact that many urban, youthful voters fawn over Rahul Gandhi because of social class — he just seems so “refined”, thereby presenting a way for the young voter (who often insists on his/her own freedom from any kind of communal prejudice) to both exercise class prejudice, while holding on to a liberal self-image.
But as recent elections should have demonstrated to the Congress, this celebrity status is not likely to translate into votes for the party on a pan-India scale, and certainly not in the sorts of numbers needed for the party to garner more than the 140-150 seats (out of 545 in the Lok Sabha) that it currently has, and seems likely to get in this year's elections. Indeed, the states where the Congress is robust are states where the party has relatively healthy grassroots-level party structures, leaders who have come to prominence away from the dynasty's shadow -- leaders such as Sheila Dixit in Delhi, Rajshekhara Reddy in Andhra Pradesh, and even Digvijay Singh in Madhya Pradesh. And, at the national level, Manmohan Singh (i.e. the man in his own right, as opposed to as a "stand-in" for the family, keeping the seat warm for Rahul Gandhi's eventual ascension), or Chidambaram. A strategy based on these sorts of political figures (irrespective of what one makes of any of them) would, in short, be one that eschews cheap glamor in favor of the messy, difficult, yet far more healthy and sustainable, work of building and nurturing party structures. There are no signs that the Congress is going to go down this road: on the contrary, non-dynasty figures who become too big are cut down to size (a lost election in Madhya Pradesh was the excuse where Digvijay Singh is concerned, though the same has never cost sycophants for the dynasty anything; corruption was the excuse where Narsimha Rao was concerned, but it is hard to mollify the suspicion that it was precisely his ability to serve a full term as Prime Minister without any backing from the family (still understandably shell-shocked by Rajiv Gandhi's assassination, but increasingly sidelined by Rao), that cost him. Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi goes around the country mouthing banalities about the need for getting "the young generation" involved in politics. I do not question his sincerity, or even what appears to be his decency -- but I do question the party structure that makes him possible.
But perhaps the Congress secretly realizes that Rahul Gandhi cannot get them to the finish line; if it genuinely believed that Rahul could, does anyone believe he wouldn't be the PM candidate? Of course not: it seems absurd to argue that Omar Abdullah is ready to be Chief Minister of Kashmir, but that Rahul Gandhi needs to bide his time. [The other, more disquieting, possibility is that after Sonia Gandhi's 2004 post-election stroke of genius in denying herself the Prime Ministerial seat (and the BJP a permanent issue against the Italian-born Sonia Gandhi), the family is showing an increasing taste for political power that is unelected and unaccountable.]
Ramachandra Guha has a relevant piece on the Congress, using the 1967 elections as a harbinger of things to come, in the latest Outlook (if you try and access this more than a week later, you'll need to be registered on the site).
But the party's cult of the family (that would surely have horrified its first and greatest Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru), shows that the lesson has not been learned too well. Priyanka and Rahul Gandhi, the latest dynasty kids, perennially draw huge crowds -- because they are the ultimate celebrities (and let's face it, are far more telegenic than the usual septa- or octogenarian stumbling over his lines on-stage). And then there is the undeniable fact that many urban, youthful voters fawn over Rahul Gandhi because of social class — he just seems so “refined”, thereby presenting a way for the young voter (who often insists on his/her own freedom from any kind of communal prejudice) to both exercise class prejudice, while holding on to a liberal self-image.
But as recent elections should have demonstrated to the Congress, this celebrity status is not likely to translate into votes for the party on a pan-India scale, and certainly not in the sorts of numbers needed for the party to garner more than the 140-150 seats (out of 545 in the Lok Sabha) that it currently has, and seems likely to get in this year's elections. Indeed, the states where the Congress is robust are states where the party has relatively healthy grassroots-level party structures, leaders who have come to prominence away from the dynasty's shadow -- leaders such as Sheila Dixit in Delhi, Rajshekhara Reddy in Andhra Pradesh, and even Digvijay Singh in Madhya Pradesh. And, at the national level, Manmohan Singh (i.e. the man in his own right, as opposed to as a "stand-in" for the family, keeping the seat warm for Rahul Gandhi's eventual ascension), or Chidambaram. A strategy based on these sorts of political figures (irrespective of what one makes of any of them) would, in short, be one that eschews cheap glamor in favor of the messy, difficult, yet far more healthy and sustainable, work of building and nurturing party structures. There are no signs that the Congress is going to go down this road: on the contrary, non-dynasty figures who become too big are cut down to size (a lost election in Madhya Pradesh was the excuse where Digvijay Singh is concerned, though the same has never cost sycophants for the dynasty anything; corruption was the excuse where Narsimha Rao was concerned, but it is hard to mollify the suspicion that it was precisely his ability to serve a full term as Prime Minister without any backing from the family (still understandably shell-shocked by Rajiv Gandhi's assassination, but increasingly sidelined by Rao), that cost him. Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi goes around the country mouthing banalities about the need for getting "the young generation" involved in politics. I do not question his sincerity, or even what appears to be his decency -- but I do question the party structure that makes him possible.
But perhaps the Congress secretly realizes that Rahul Gandhi cannot get them to the finish line; if it genuinely believed that Rahul could, does anyone believe he wouldn't be the PM candidate? Of course not: it seems absurd to argue that Omar Abdullah is ready to be Chief Minister of Kashmir, but that Rahul Gandhi needs to bide his time. [The other, more disquieting, possibility is that after Sonia Gandhi's 2004 post-election stroke of genius in denying herself the Prime Ministerial seat (and the BJP a permanent issue against the Italian-born Sonia Gandhi), the family is showing an increasing taste for political power that is unelected and unaccountable.]
Ramachandra Guha has a relevant piece on the Congress, using the 1967 elections as a harbinger of things to come, in the latest Outlook (if you try and access this more than a week later, you'll need to be registered on the site).
VARANASI: Evening Aarti at the Dasashvamedha Ghat
More brief video clips from my trip to Varanasi; these are of the sunset "aarti" (an "offering" of lamps in praise of a deity) at the Dasashvamedha ghat:
Early Morning on the Ganges
From my trip to Varanasi last month, courtesy the meagre video function on my camera:
Friday, April 10, 2009
On Balochistan
It has been apparent for quite some time now that Balochistan might well end up as Pakistan's biggest challenge, not in terms of security but in terms of the challenge it poses to the idea of Pakistan, and to democracy. Most Pakistanis are too young to remember -- or too remote from -- the mass killings and rapes of Bengalis (by the Pakistani army, though also by other Bengalis, most notably the Jamaat-e-Islami) in 1970-71, and have hitherto approached these issues primarily through the prism of Kashmir, and the challenge that state's secessionist movement poses to Indian democracy and the claims of its national ideology. Balochistan underscores many of the same issues (although I personally find it to be more analogous to some of India's North-Eastern insurgencies, given the movement's animating concerns with resource exploitation by "outsiders", cultural alienation from the mainstream, etc.), but has not gotten the attention it deserves, domestically, because of the tendency of the urban Pakistani middle classes to lump together all the tribals "out there" as intrinsically violent sorts, as "tribals" who may only be engaged anthropologically as it were (whether extolled as natural warriors or dismissed as people incapable of being anything other than what the stereotype of the hot headed, "backward" subject of a traditional tribal code condemns them to be), as savages who only understand the language of force; and internationally, because of the tendency to ignore Balochistan in favor of its neighboring Pashtun-lands, of the inclination to see it, in short, as little more than the borderland between Afganistan, Iran, and Pakistan -- a view that acknowledges the province's strategic importance, but does not engage with the political aspirations of those for whom it is home.
Indeed (and although it is perhaps too early to tell), the U.S. government's new "AfPak" policy risks continuing this trend: Balochistan only seems to figure in that policy inasmuch as parts of it have become a staging ground for Taliban factions, and are the likely targets of U.S. drone attacks. That's a perfectly consistent position to take: after all, from the Obama Administration's perspective it makes little sense for American strategy to turn on Pakistan's internal administrative divisions. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to view Balochistan only through the prism of the Taliban and Afganistan: the province is Pakistan's largest in terms of area, is the source of most of the country's natural gas, and has been progressively de-stabilized by the influx of Pashtuns over the last thirty years (since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan), as the "native" Baloch have increasingly started getting concerned about the changing demographics of the province in favor of Pashtuns -- if the likes of Mullah Omar and the Taliban are indeed in Balochistan, their presence there must be seen in the context of a wider shift in the province's demographics. Even apart from any Baloch-Pashtun tension, the province is no stranger to secessionist tendencies: it was the scene of a protracted insurgency against the central government in the 1970s, a rebellion that was crushed with brutality (including the use of air strikes and (if rumor is to be believed) napalm bombs). Since the rebellion was associated with "the left" (Najam Sethi, now the editor of one of Pakistan's most prominent liberal English-language publications, The Friday Times, is known to have been a youthful sympathizer), the Pakistani government's Western backers were only too happy to see it dealt with. But the underlying causes of Balochistan's disaffection have not been addressed over the ensuing decades. This is entirely consistent with the wider problem of federalism -- or the lack thereof -- in the country; political parties in each of Pakistan's smaller provinces (that is to say, every province other than Punjab, which accounts for three-fifths of the population) have called for a more robust federalism over the years, to little effect. Indeed, while Pakistan's repeated military coups are all too often analyzed only in terms of a democracy deficit, they are also symptomatic of the centralizing drive of the South Asian nation-state (on this view, the secession of Bangladesh and its own bouts of military rule and Chakma tribal secessionist movement, Indira Gandhi's 1975"Emergency" in India and the rise and vitality of secessionist movements in that country, could be seen as symptomatic of the wider trend). Certainly the issue of democracy is important (arguably, nothing de-fanged the Dravidian potential secessionist movements in South India in the 1950s and 1960s more than electoral success for the relevant parties; and the many failings of Indian federalism have accidentally found some provisional relief over the last two decades, because the decline of national political parties has led to a de facto federalism premised on the ability of regional parties to serve as kingmakers as far as the formation of a ruling national coalition is concerned), but democracy cannot be equated with mere majoritarianism in the context of a multi-ethnic polity. The absence of meaningful federalism, whether de jure or de facto, has meant that the "problem" of Balochistan continued to fester over the 1980s and 1990s, albeit out of sight and out of mind.
No longer: during the Pakistani state's most recent bout of highly centralized rule -- the dictatorship of Pervez Musharraf -- another armed insurgency broke out in Balochistan, and appears to be gathering steam. Earlier this week, the province saw riots after three Baloch nationalist figures were found dead (it is widely believed that they were killed by security forces), which certainly won't help matters. The Obama Administration would be well advised to pay attention to developments in Balochistan, which cannot be reduced to the "war against terror." In the long run, the solution is obvious: a looser federal structure than exists today is needed, and one that allows Balochistan greater control over its own natural resources (not to mention that "Balochistan" cannot become synonymous with the interests of the handful of tribal luminaries who serve at the forefront of Baloch nationalist sentiment), but the rub, of course, lies in getting there. The U.S.' influence over any such process is (and ought to be) limited, but to the extent "outsiders" can play any constructive role, it would be in encouraging an accommodating stance by the Pakistani state toward Baloch nationalists. This is not simply a question of fairness, but of realpolitik: cooptation has tended to work far better than brutal confrontation as far as the post-1947 history of the sub-continent is concerned, and as yet there is little reason to believe that Baloch nationalism is irredeemably rejectionist as far as the idea of Pakistan is concerned. Pakistan might not be so lucky if another three decades are wasted. Not to mention that a single-minded focus on the Taliban-in-Balochistan, and the attendant greater Pakistani military presence in Balochistan that approach is sure to entail, can only contribute to the anti-military resentment of the Baloch, and hence undermine stability in the province, serving to provide an even better haven for the likes of the Taliban. The "AfPak" strategy takes a regional approach to the problem of the Taliban and Al-Qaida, but it must also account for the sub-regional aspects, few of which are more significant than those concerning Baloch nationalism. The latter is not going to play second fiddle to the Taliban simply because the U.S. and Pakistani governments aren't inclined to accord it the same attention.
For a very useful post with background information on (and analysis of) Balochistan, check this out.
Indeed (and although it is perhaps too early to tell), the U.S. government's new "AfPak" policy risks continuing this trend: Balochistan only seems to figure in that policy inasmuch as parts of it have become a staging ground for Taliban factions, and are the likely targets of U.S. drone attacks. That's a perfectly consistent position to take: after all, from the Obama Administration's perspective it makes little sense for American strategy to turn on Pakistan's internal administrative divisions. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to view Balochistan only through the prism of the Taliban and Afganistan: the province is Pakistan's largest in terms of area, is the source of most of the country's natural gas, and has been progressively de-stabilized by the influx of Pashtuns over the last thirty years (since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan), as the "native" Baloch have increasingly started getting concerned about the changing demographics of the province in favor of Pashtuns -- if the likes of Mullah Omar and the Taliban are indeed in Balochistan, their presence there must be seen in the context of a wider shift in the province's demographics. Even apart from any Baloch-Pashtun tension, the province is no stranger to secessionist tendencies: it was the scene of a protracted insurgency against the central government in the 1970s, a rebellion that was crushed with brutality (including the use of air strikes and (if rumor is to be believed) napalm bombs). Since the rebellion was associated with "the left" (Najam Sethi, now the editor of one of Pakistan's most prominent liberal English-language publications, The Friday Times, is known to have been a youthful sympathizer), the Pakistani government's Western backers were only too happy to see it dealt with. But the underlying causes of Balochistan's disaffection have not been addressed over the ensuing decades. This is entirely consistent with the wider problem of federalism -- or the lack thereof -- in the country; political parties in each of Pakistan's smaller provinces (that is to say, every province other than Punjab, which accounts for three-fifths of the population) have called for a more robust federalism over the years, to little effect. Indeed, while Pakistan's repeated military coups are all too often analyzed only in terms of a democracy deficit, they are also symptomatic of the centralizing drive of the South Asian nation-state (on this view, the secession of Bangladesh and its own bouts of military rule and Chakma tribal secessionist movement, Indira Gandhi's 1975"Emergency" in India and the rise and vitality of secessionist movements in that country, could be seen as symptomatic of the wider trend). Certainly the issue of democracy is important (arguably, nothing de-fanged the Dravidian potential secessionist movements in South India in the 1950s and 1960s more than electoral success for the relevant parties; and the many failings of Indian federalism have accidentally found some provisional relief over the last two decades, because the decline of national political parties has led to a de facto federalism premised on the ability of regional parties to serve as kingmakers as far as the formation of a ruling national coalition is concerned), but democracy cannot be equated with mere majoritarianism in the context of a multi-ethnic polity. The absence of meaningful federalism, whether de jure or de facto, has meant that the "problem" of Balochistan continued to fester over the 1980s and 1990s, albeit out of sight and out of mind.
No longer: during the Pakistani state's most recent bout of highly centralized rule -- the dictatorship of Pervez Musharraf -- another armed insurgency broke out in Balochistan, and appears to be gathering steam. Earlier this week, the province saw riots after three Baloch nationalist figures were found dead (it is widely believed that they were killed by security forces), which certainly won't help matters. The Obama Administration would be well advised to pay attention to developments in Balochistan, which cannot be reduced to the "war against terror." In the long run, the solution is obvious: a looser federal structure than exists today is needed, and one that allows Balochistan greater control over its own natural resources (not to mention that "Balochistan" cannot become synonymous with the interests of the handful of tribal luminaries who serve at the forefront of Baloch nationalist sentiment), but the rub, of course, lies in getting there. The U.S.' influence over any such process is (and ought to be) limited, but to the extent "outsiders" can play any constructive role, it would be in encouraging an accommodating stance by the Pakistani state toward Baloch nationalists. This is not simply a question of fairness, but of realpolitik: cooptation has tended to work far better than brutal confrontation as far as the post-1947 history of the sub-continent is concerned, and as yet there is little reason to believe that Baloch nationalism is irredeemably rejectionist as far as the idea of Pakistan is concerned. Pakistan might not be so lucky if another three decades are wasted. Not to mention that a single-minded focus on the Taliban-in-Balochistan, and the attendant greater Pakistani military presence in Balochistan that approach is sure to entail, can only contribute to the anti-military resentment of the Baloch, and hence undermine stability in the province, serving to provide an even better haven for the likes of the Taliban. The "AfPak" strategy takes a regional approach to the problem of the Taliban and Al-Qaida, but it must also account for the sub-regional aspects, few of which are more significant than those concerning Baloch nationalism. The latter is not going to play second fiddle to the Taliban simply because the U.S. and Pakistani governments aren't inclined to accord it the same attention.
For a very useful post with background information on (and analysis of) Balochistan, check this out.
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
1947: Some Images
Sunil Khilnani memorably called the Partition the "unspoken sadness at the heart of the idea of India" in his book of the same name. Indeed, it is a measure of its abiding importance (and relevance, in terms of understanding so many of the sub-continent's issues today) that most Indians and Pakistanis I know of typically refer to the transfer of power from the British Raj to the two successor states not as "azaadi", "freedom", "independence", but simply as "Partition". That last word testifies not just to an ideological issue, but a human catastrophe, and mass migration (lubricated by ethnic cleansing, forced transfers, and mass rape) on a scale hardly ever seen, whether before or since.
One is reminded of Hannah Arendt's observations on the all too depressing, and familiar, modern phenomenon of refugees, displacement, and statelessness:
After the war it turned out that the Jewish question, which was considered the only insoluble one, was indeed solved — namely, by means of a colonized and then conquered territory — but this solved neither the problem of the minorities nor the stateless. On the contrary, like virtually all other events of our century, the solution of the Jewish question merely produced a new category of refugees, the Arabs, thereby increasing the number of the stateless and rightless by another 700,000 to 800,000 people. And what happened in Palestine within the smallest territory and in terms of hundreds of thousands was then repeated in India on a large scale involving many millions of people. Since the Peace Treaties of 1919 and1920 the refugees and the stateless have attached themselves like a curse to all the newly established states on earth which were created in the image of the nation-state.
The Origins of Totalitarianism, pg. 289.
[Many thanks to sepoy, of Chapati Mystery fame, and to vikschshkhr, for pointing me to the pictures in this post, all by Margaret Bourke-White (and published in LIFE.)]
Friday, April 03, 2009
"Thank You"
The Times of India should be no stranger to embarrassment...
...but this takes the cake. Hilarious, and depressing.
...but this takes the cake. Hilarious, and depressing.
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