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These are matters pondered over years, and written about over the same years.
So again with the recent peace initiative, for the 100th time, my mind focused on the matter over the past few days, and I made some rough notes as they came to me this Sunday past, as I idly passed my time.
We have another round of peace negotiations between India, the wannabe super-power egged on by the USA, and Pakistan, the perennially failed state from its very inception.
Can International agreements, and especially peace agreements be made with failed States such as Pakistan? Surely a dodgy slippery proposition? Who has real authority in such a failed state? Zardari, and his kleptocracy.....here today, gone tomorrow? The Pakistan military? or Begum Memsahib Anne Paterson, and the USA?
Perhaps for the sake of India's prestige there is no point undertaking peace negotiations yet again, if you are not sure who has final authority in Pakistan. If you are not sure who has the final authority to sign such agreements of peace. Otherwise such events become mere theater for public consumption, and image making. I for one wouldn't want the corrupt Zardari regime getting unwarranted legitimacy from such meetings with India, especially if such negotiations involved more time wasting on Pakistan's part.
On the other hand India can't manage the Maoist ascendancy in Nepal; events in Sri Lanka, which tragically ate up one of India's PM's; Bangladesh which purportedly has a very secure pro-Indian government. What about the near far countries of Afghanistan, Tajikistan or Myanmar? But India is successful in the Maldives and Bhutan, so we can sigh with some relief and be content with this small consolation.
So how can India with such weak foreign policy strategies and regional track record hope to gain lasting "peace" with ever belligerent failed state Pakistan; perhaps this is yet another case of the triumph of hope over actual experience.
Perhaps in this light the real problem in the region is India, not Pakistan? India is the real problem, and the ultimate source of the solution.
India is big in many senses, population wise, geographically, militarily, economically with an economy measured by PPP at around $3,500 billion, the fourth largest after the USA, China and Japan. It thus has plenty of resources to play with in its geo-strategic sphere, in furthering its interest. The question is does India know how to further these interests; the record indicates it does not. The Maldives and Bhutan don't amount to a hill of beans. Though logically such a state should be able to exert meaningful, comprehensive influence in its neighborhood, which have a favorable outcome for all in the immediate vicinity. Indeed as a matter of course around the world, small and medium sized countries are striving for regional cooperation and coexistence very successfully, and without any problems. If they can, why can't India. India is not being asked to achieve impossible insurmountable objectives in its natural regional sphere, South Asia, as the biggest and most influential nation in that region.
Why hasn't India succeeded with Pakistan?
I mean what is the big deal about Pakistan, which is blocking India from achieving peace with that country?
- Its a failed state; OK so how can India manage that failure within Pakistan.
- Pakistan's economy is about 1/8 of India's.
- India exports 10 times more than Pakistan and the gap is/will be widening. Actual Indian exports are also grossly under reported for tax avoidance reasons.
- Militarily India is about 4/5 times more powerful, and if India can sustain a one year war with Pakistan....and mobilize her resources that ratio will widen to 1/10 in India's favor, as long as foreign arms is not poured into Pakistan during that time.
- Pakistan's political leadership is weak and fluid; they come and go, with short periods of rule, being destabilized by the Pakistan military in the background, so no actual state policy and governance takes place, as the politicians at least briefly focus on survival and consolidation rather than implementing comprehensive programs of government and governance.
The problem lies with India as stated before. The Indian ruling elite is a post-colonial rotten figment left behind by the parting British, to rule India as the British ruled in many respects, in terms of actual administration and the organization of the country. It is thus no surprise to discover that this Indian elite patriotically have stashed away $1,500 billion of the poor countries assets in the various tax havens around the world..........indeed this is more than any other country, more than the USA, China or Japan.
Thus the Indian military, a product of the general Indian society is very much the same military the British ran up to the point of independence. If he could see it now Kipling would be proud of it, as would General Dyer, General Roberts, and even Clive, and Hastings......the Indian military is not a true Indian military serving India, but made up of second hand Gunga Dins in the top brass (General Deepak Kapoor down) who queue up for their slice of the cake from arms procurements from foreign countries, and thus compromise India's security.....and not just one source, oh no, but multiple foreign sources. So you can imagine the nightmare of India fighting an actual real war against a real foe, over a few years, and the inherent inconsistency in this "complex" nature of its foreign based arms and ordnance, the sources of which are often highly unreliable (Russia).
The Indian police, amongst the worst in the world, again very much substantially a legacy of the colonial era, as is India's legal/judicial system, and criminal justice system, ramshackle education system (previously talked about) and political administrative system. There is nothing Indian in any of these state organizations. There is nothing good in any of them, that India could boast about to the rest of the Third World.....and though Congress is full of rhetoric to do this and that, substantively over the last 63 years, they have done basically nothing to reform the Indian state.
With such obvious flaws how can India manage the neighborhood if it can barely manage itself? Running a minimal state where the budget accounts for only 15% of the official GDP, widespread corruption, massive food insecurity, widespread poverty and great income inequality, and of course 55 billionaires.
One does not have to be a Professor Amartya Sen (married to a member of the Rothschilds banking family) to see what all the "Development" is really about: the abject poverty, dirt, filth, starvation and inequalities that impact the vast majority of ordinary Indians, and the oblivious indifference of the ruling elite to this problem after 63 years of "Independence", beyond muttering the empty blurry platitudes to do something about it in the near future.
And so India is now steered and run by an illiterate firingi, Senora Sonia, from the back seat, whilst nice smiley weak Dr. Singh fronts her actual policies. This surely is unacceptable, and unconstitutional. Would such a political elite actually want to achieve peace with Pakistan anyway?
- Pakistan is a failed state from the beginning, and will remain a failed state into infinity; India has to accept and manage this fact.
- Pakistan was created by the UK, to clip India's wings, and has dutifully attacked India in 1948, 1965, 1971, 1990 almost, 1999, and almost again in 2002. This apparent mad dog bravado by little Pakistan against big India is intriguing, and can only be explained in terms of outside encouragement. The UK created Pakistan's ISI in 1948. Since the 1960's the USA has been the main foreign power influencing Pakistan's politics, through the Pakistan military/ISI primarily......the USA military running and funding the ISI. Senior Generals trained and indoctrinated in the USA.
In a dimly lit street, in a cold winter month. "Excuse me Sir can you tell me the way to the Kashmiri railway station please?"
"The drunk slowly fixes a blank vacant gaze at the other party.......burps loudly.....kuch naihee bhai shahib!..........muttering to himself........madar chaud....coexistence....negotiations....friendship...teek hai, Sumje.......you take the left, no the right.....or is it the first left, then straight on...........any Johnny Walker.......sala, no Johnny Walker!..........ok.. ok.....wait, wait let me ask and phone Begum Paterson....she knows...she knows everything....bloody women...wait...........Amerikka Firingi woman runs our country, and Italian illiterate firingi woman runs your country, sumje sala.....sumje?....so we're on equal negotiation terms."
There is something undignifying for India undertaking yet another round of peace negotiations with such a country. It tends to elevate Pakistan's position diplomatically, and the ego of negotiating on equal terms with big India, whilst simultaneously devaluing India's position.
The Pakistanis political and military elite are abject liars, who do not hesitate to lie to their own people. A form of hardened pathology of cynicism has set in, to the point where it becomes an automatic art form, to see who can lie and fool the Pakistani people and others the most.......the military or the politicians. This is also considered as being somehow skillful, and clever. Normal people, with simple logic would not be able to comprehend such perverse warped pathology, and therefore would fail to identify this duplicitous game. Unfortunately still, the poor illiterate majority take at face value the utterances of the military/political elite.
"The Swat Taliban have been effectively defeated" (The Pakistan military set up the SWAT Taliban in the first place to destabilize Zardaris government ......the Pakistan military miss being out of power and are looking to get back in). The hope by the Pakistani military was that the Swat Taliban would get really close to Islamabad, and then the military would step in to "save" Pakistan.
"We have been completely successful in South Waziristan" (The Pakistan military for a couple of months conducted a shadow war, for the benefit of the Americans and the Pakistan people; a bogus war with their own puppets, who had long disappeared from the scene.)............the lie of the numerous terrorist ops in Pakistan blamed on the TTP, the Pakistan militaries puppets, especially those in the NWFP.
The maintaining of the "al-Qaeda" myth. The Pakistan military more than any other military should know the true origins of "al-Qaeda". The Pakistan military mentored and guided OBL until his last days in December 2001, for America. It is a false fictitious organization which explains Israel's false flag ops in the Greater Middle East and Europe. Pakistan provides this valuable service. In the pursuit of this fake narrative, Pakistan's military have handed over 650 wholly innocent Afghans/Pakistanis to the Americans since 2001 as "al-Qaeda"................nearly ALL such people have been subsequently released by the Americans.
These cynical warped chaudis can sell their own grandmothers.
The politicians lie informing concerned Pakistanis that there is no Blackwater in Pakistan.......even though they are visible in Pakistan.....and the American defense secretary confirmed their presence in Pakistan. The Pakistani politicians tell everybody that American military and civilians aren't swamping Pakistan, even though most people know of their presence.
Now failed state Pakistan is sending troops to failed state Yemen to fight "al-Qaeda", whilst simultaneously still experiencing major security problems inside Pakistan........on America's orders. The Yemen problem is not "al-Qaeda".......Its an on-going civil war between the majority Sunni government and the Shia Houthis, and the incompetence of yet another military man trying to retain power well past the sell by date. The sheer irony and stupidity of one failed state sending troops to another failed state fighting an unnecessary war, against none existent threats, just so that America with Israel can image and highlight the waning "al-Qaeda" scarecrow.
What is the utility of negotiating peace with such a slippery state? Offering the hand of friendship and peaceful coexistence. Doesn't all this make India look rather naive and clumsy?
I think despite the unpromising bleak scenario, India does have definite interests in somehow finally dealing with and accommodating Pakistan, in a future where India becomes only more stronger whilst Pakistan simultaneously spirals out of control, as a result of the actions of its own politicians and military. A small wound on the side should not be ignored, because one is a little irritated by its periodic nuisance.....India should treat it decisively and finally, or it could get worse. India must accommodate Pakistan finally.
What India needs is a bold grand gesture with Pakistan to move out of the rut of negotiations with that country; moving forward involving courage, foresight and imagination coupled with determination. Under SAARC, FTA's will eventually be instituted within South Asia, to greater integrate South Asia...all well and good. Given the critical situation in Pakistan, and the reappearance of the East India Company in the neighborhood once again, doing exactly what they were doing 250 years ago.....(Opium/ and messy wars with high civilian casualties).......then it may be prudent to "rescue" Pakistan with Indian rupees......India is not a poor country.......there is after all $1,500 billion stashed away, lying idly in Jewish banks in Zurich and else where.
So why not offer Pakistan an immediate FTA in 2010 with India, backed by financial inducements of $5 billion, over 5 years, as an unconditional loan from India to Pakistan? We're not talking about revolutionary initiatives here, FTA's are on the pipeline in South Asia, but in Pakistan's case why not bring that forward immediately and urgently, and further integrate the Pakistani people with India, bypassing the corrupt ruling elite in Pakistan, in light of the situation in Pakistan?
Now if Zardari wants to use that loan money to buy another mansion in Surrey, that's fine...and if the Pakistani military want to buy some artillery pieces with that money that's fine too......they cannot and will not change their ways and their corrupt bankrupt mindset.........but for India the benefits are clear, as the FTA develops, and the sheer absurdity of trading between the two countries via the UAE, worth more than $5 billion is resolved for good. It is a further process of decisively linking in Pakistan to India, and an important first step towards eventually negotiating peace in Kashmir.
Magnanimity, coupled with strategic thinking, out of the box.
The USA.......since the 1950's the USA has provided about $30 billion in military aid to Pakistan, and about $30 billion in economic aid......a significant generous amount. The Americans probably invented the concept of foreign aid starting with lend lease to the UK in the 1940's.......and then the reconstruction of Europe after the war, including significant help for Germany and Japan, arch foes where 300,000 Americans died fighting these countries.....in real, mass, mobilized, mechanized wars. .................not the two week mild slap and tickle sessions between India and Pakistan. We can be cynical about this enormous aid, and say there were obviously strategic interests/considerations why American planners were so keen to help..........but the generosity was unmistakable, and the world reciprocated in recognizing, in kind, through this mode of soft power and significant help.
China.....is emulating the USA from the 1940's, exactly the same. Huge investments in South America coupled with soft loans; in Africa, especially in infrastructure, coupled with soft loans......and the rest of the world. Just forgave 80% of Iraqs debts to China, and the Iraqis have signed oil deals with Chinese companies. In Pakistan since the late 1960's they have invested between $20--30 billion in the country, especially strategic projects such as the Gwadar Port, power stations, armaments/ordinance factories, heavy engineering factories in Taxila; assistance with Pakistan's missile program; nuclear program; joint production of a 5th generation jet fighter; tanks; artillery....soft loans and so forth.
The UK.....as the former colonial power still retains after 63 years considerable influence in Pakistan through the Pakistani elite mainly, and the 800,000 Pakistanis who live in the UK; and generous visa's to Pakistani students. The 500 Zamindar class families of Pakistan, still essentially look to the UK for the education of their children, and holidays, and stashing of the State loot in London Banks, with exclusive Nightsbridge penthouses......the same with the so called 30 commercial families based in Karachi.....the Pakistani military were influenced by the UK into the 1960's, but all that changed with the flow of American military aid, and training for the senior personnel in the Pakistan military. The UK created Pakistan.........but incidentally hasn't undertaken any major strategic projects in Pakistan, or provided any significant arms to Pakistan (Pakistan's arms inventory is Chinese/American)......or significant aid to Pakistan, beyond the levels that are fashionable for developed countries to give to poor beggar countries.
At other levels the UK has been quite hostile to Pakistan.....an illegitimate love child birthed by the UK, which is unloved and loathed by the UK.......the British media have done a wonderful job of making Pakistanis the most loathed minority in the UK, last time I checked....the abnormal animosity when the Pakistani cricket team comes to play in the UK, especially in the 1980's and 1990's.....the lone spearheading of the crusade by the British media against Pakistan's nuclear bomb program......the hosting of terrorist Altaf Hussein in London prominently.......whilst he murdered 600 policemen in Karachi and countless civilians. MI-5 directed riots against Pakistanis, using unemployed poor English slobs; MI-5 directed false flag ops in London, using young Pakistanis....and so forth and so forth.
Despite all this Pakistanis of significant public standing always make their way to London, to undertake important work which have significant bearing on Pakistani politics and national life.......Mossad Busharaf is exiled there, as was Benazir at one time..........usually the first port of call for prominent exiles. Pakistan will be sending a team to represent the country in the Commonwealth Games to be held in Delhi in the summer of 2010, this year, without a hint of irony. "Zee Sahib, Acha Sahib".
And so on to India......What "contribution" has India made to Pakistan which we could compare with the above three powers, in holistically understanding and grasping who and why certain nations have such influence over Pakistan, above that of India.
India helped Pakistan break up in the Pakistan civil war of 1971. I do not state this as a criticism of India, but as a statement in support of an overall argument. After the 1965 war which Pakistan initiated, India quite correctly was looking to get even with Pakistan, and East Pakistan looked too good.......guarded by one weak division, and a general dislike of West Pakistani domination by the majority East Pakistanis, along with poor government and governance. 96,000 Pakistani POW at wars end, and psychologically a major blow for the Pakistani elite especially the military quite obviously......the horror of the East Pakistan syndrome, and the desire to get even hasn't left the Pakistan military yet.
India is no saint in South Asia. Covert ops in Sri Lanka to help the Hindu Tamils against the Sinhalese with the creation of the terrorist Tamil Tigers by RAW, and their pioneering suicide bomb attacks, using indoctrinated children sometimes......inviting the Israelis over to join the fray.....is covert ops the only solution for solving problems with India's neighbors?...Couldn't India have solved this tragedy through diplomacy, negotiations, conflict management, imagination and direct investment using the power of the Rupee. Against Bangladesh....destabilization programs since 1975.....this sad country will cause economic and social problems in the future for India...and India was not very constructive in partly contributing to this problem. And of course Pakistan, covert ops especially in Karachi with its multiple cosmopolitanism ethnic texture all huddled together in a big Third World city, desperately striving to survive within a failed state. Indian covert ops in Sindh....and more lately Baluchistan.
This covert culture was introduced by Mrs Indira Gandhi on the Indian side, after the initial success in East Pakistan/Bangladesh. It was used vigorously in Sri Lanka, where 100,000 people died due to India's actions.....and across the whole region. Covert ops were also used within India in the Punjab, Kashmir and Assam, usually always with disasterous results. Mrs Gandhi to use modern parlance was a very insecure lady operating in a man's world, and she was a control freak who always, especially at the end of her career, wanted everything her way.
Covert ops eventually swallowed up Mrs Gandhi and her son Rajiv Gandhi......and in the last 40 years I don't think the Indian bureaucratic machine have undertaken a major review of this failed policy. Many prime ministers from all political shades continued to use covert ops as a means of exerting Indian state policies in the neighborhood.
State machineries once set on a certain policy often find it challenging to shift and make basic reviews of their fundamental policies, which to the rest of us out of government seem glaringly fruitless failures......but however if you are within the state structure that failure is harder to see, primarily due to psychological factors. Therefore as a government officer it would be more natural to look for and make praises of such failed policies, rather than critically re-evaluate it...........this is true of First World Governments, and of course poorly managed Third World governments also.
Many terrorist incidents take place in India (leaving aside the activities of the Maoists, and NE separatists).....invariably many of these acts are blamed as the work of the ISI....especially in the 1990's and into this century. Indian Public figures relish blaming Pakistan for such acts........but it is more likely a lot of these acts within India are the work of the RSS, and their sympathizers in the IB and RAW either independently, or in conjunction with Israeli elements.
The BJP comes into the political scene in the 1990's, demolishes the Babri Mosque, and lo in conjunction "Islamist" terrorism also increases in parallel with the BJP ascendancy in India.....mere coincidence, or the basic pattern of fascist governments the world over when they take power, in creating fake enemies...........and a burgeoning relationship with Israeli security since the 1990's. 26/11 was the work of Indian security and Israeli security....gun toting Westerners were sighted in Mumbai, and the latest one in the RSS Capital Pune is the work of these two groups also, to bolster their political agenda's, in advance of the peace talks.
The Pakistan military is described by some security analysts as the worst in the world...and I would strongly concur. Such a military, incompetent and clumsy, would have limitations on what it could do against India, even with India's open society.
I like lecturing. Lecturing about other peoples weaknesses, foibles, apparent shortcomings, inconsistencies is easy, even satisfying at times, and cheap. For private individuals not active in politics or government this is OK.
But when Indian government officials do this, its different matter. When Indian government officials do it publicly its a serious matter for consideration.....what did they say? what did they really mean? When Indian government officials do it in the international arena its a very serious matter, time and again. It is sad that mighty India should go around telling all how bad Pakistan is, year in year out, in many international forums, and what a good little boy India is.
Have all Indians signed on to the principles of Mahatma Gandhiji....from Maharastra to Assam? I don't think so.
Then in this light how can one have constructive dialogue....words from government officials wound. India must move beyond lecturing holier than thou with Pakistan. And its absolutely pointless asking the Pakistanis to close all terrorist camps........because terrorist organizations based in Pakistan can change their name any time, and if one such camp closes, along the Kashmir border, another can appear in another part of Pakistan. The Pakistani civilian governments have very little power in closing these camps.
What is the utility of making accusations year in year out against Pakistan? Who gains? Who wins from these tiring verbal tirades?
If you are a big power, you have to think big like the USA, and more recently China. But when one looks at the Indian political leadership one only sees parochial provincial village sardars who never left their village panchiyats in body and soul, remarkably unremarkable, drifting through the corridors of power.
Other powers have bought influence in Pakistan, and its time India did so too, seriously, now.
An FTA with Pakistan in 2010 won't solve all Pakistan's problems which ultimately impact India, but its a movement in the right direction. And this right direction can ONLY be initiated by India the better of the two states, not failed state Pakistan, foreign dominated Pakistan. $5 billion is about 0.14% of India's $3,500 billion economy measured by PPP, or 0.33 % of the alleged $1,500 billion of Indian assets stashed away in tax havens abroad. This is a very small price to pay to integrate and tie in Pakistan to India, and a positive backdrop in ultimately achieving peace with Pakistan over Kashmir.
Alternatively India should not think big, into becoming a superpower, but satisfy herself with reasonably good relations with Bhutan and the Maldives.....thats all.
