:: Saturday, July 12, 2003 ::

India’s Iraq Policy: Colonial Déjà Vu?:

I agree with Vikash that Colonial comparisons need to be handled carefully as overuse leads to sloppy categorisation and devaluation of the term as a critique. However, it is something that crops up with some frequency by Indian commentators in particular when looking at the latest proposals for an Indian force to be sent to Iraq, let me look at some of these typical pieces and then consider whether such allusions are warranted or are another example of journalistic overreach. Randeep Ramesh writing in the Guardian, sees it as a clear repetition of history, arguing that the US is following old British responses to the challenges thrown up by policing newly conquered areas that need to be ‘pacified’ and the requirement of military manpower:

The answer for Washington in the first years of the 21st century is the same as London's at the beginning of the 20th: call for reinforcements from those content to fulfil the role of loyal provider of brave soldiers for a war not of their making. Seventy countries have been asked to supply troops - from as far afield as Mongolia, whose forces were last seen in the Middle East more than seven centuries ago when they sacked Baghdad. So far, President Bush's request has been answered by 5,000 troops, mostly from new Europe and the new world.

This is not enough. What Washington needs is a "reserve of military strength [capable of] ... supplying an army always in a high state of efficiency and capable of being hurled at a moment's notice upon any point". These words are not those of an American neo-conservative in 2003, but were articulated by the British viceroy of India, Lord Curzon, in 1909. A century later, the subcontinent's role as a source of auxiliary cohorts for the expansion of empire is being reprised by President Bush. New Delhi and Islamabad are considering American requests for a total of 30,000 soldiers to be sent to Iraq.

While I don’t think the inhabitants of Baghdad need to worry about Mongol soldiers performing a re-run of 1256 anytime in the near future (not that the trauma of the recent ‘Shock and Awe’ tactics would lessen by comparison as well as the disorder accompanying the ‘liberation’ of the city) what is interesting to note is the discrepancy in numbers being bandied about. Europe and other NATO and developed country allies are being asked for only 5,000-7,000 troops; Britain’s contingent currently in Iraq contains less than the 17,000 combat troops India has been requested for. One does need to wonder why countries such as India and Pakistan, who are not permanent allies of the US or have treaty obligations to it, are being asked to contribute more troops than formally constituted allied. The answer no doubt will be that numbers on the ground are needed and that Washington’s European allies, simply do not maintain military forces large enough to meet this demand – a case of ‘willing but not able. Yet, this too has some colonialist overtones; military establishments are maintained in South Asia and many other LDC countries at great cost and represent valuable investment in men, capital and resources that could otherwise have been spent in social development expenditure – the late Mahbub-ul-Haq oft berated South Asian governments for spending more on their military than on their health and education infrastructures, consequently reducing the quality of life for their populations. We are repeatedly told that such large and expensive forces are required for self-defence purposes and to forgo them would be a great lapse in national security, military adventurism overseas did not enter into the equation here. I can’t help wondering why poor countries who can ill-afford such large militaries, should be asked to contribute more than developed countries who can afford such establishments but choose to direct expenditure (sensibly) on other social ends. This comes close to being an indirect subsidy allowing a higher quality of life for one group at the expense of another. Given that control of oil is a main pillar of US policy and that Europe is completely reliant on imported oil; one can see where the benefits are geared. Yes, India too imports and needs oil, but this in itself cannot be a justification for such a venture; as most Asian countries, including China, are dependent on imports for their energy requirements but few have shown such an interest in joining in any Iraq venture directly.

Ramesh continues with his impromptu recount of Indian colonial history:

During the days of the British Raj, Indian soldiers were used to put down nationalist rebellions, at home and abroad. Blood was spilt all across the empire - much of it in Iraq. During the first world war, what was then the Ottoman province of Mesopotamia became a battleground between Turkish and British empires. The low point of Britain's Middle East campaign came when 12,000 soldiers - more than half composed of Indian divisions - surrendered the garrison to Turkish forces in May 1916 after a siege which lasted 147 days. Of the troops who left Kut with their captors, more than 4,000 died either on their way to captivity or in prisoner-of-war camps. In four years of fighting, 31,000 British and Indian lives were lost, pockmarking the country with graves and pyres.

The birth of what would become modern-day Iraq was a painful one. Mesopotamia was Britain's prize after the first world war - and like today, its peoples struggled against the occupying forces. Indian troops were used to suppress the country's nationalist uprising in the summer of 1920. Like today's American forces, the 60,000 British and Indian troops securing Mesopotamia were never engaged in battle, facing instead hit-and-run raids from the desert. More than 1,000 Indian soldiers and 8,000 Arab fighters were either killed or captured in a few weeks. Despite Britain's military prowess, Iraq slowly slipped from its grasp.

I will examine the details of British India’s Mesopotamian campaign during WWI later but it was a costly and in many cases an ill-planned and wasteful episode in history which was a major military disaster for the British at the time. Having said that, Ramesh overlooks to mention that one of the reasons that Indian troops were used to maintain stability in Iraq, was the perennial frugality of the treasury in London, which wanted colonialism but colonialism on the cheap and Indian soldiers were invariably cheaper than their British counterparts. In the end the deployment of even Indian soldiers was deemed not cost effective and the bulk of the internal policing operations carried out in Iraq, was done by a few strategically located RAF squadrons which were relatively cheap to maintain and were highly mobile as well as effective in suppressing revolts by the various discontented tribes in the region. Ramesh, also ignores the fact that it was the waning of British military power after WWI and its economic eclipse as the USA replaced it as the premier economic global power that heralded the decline of imperial ambitions in the region, rather than any direct confrontation of its armed presence in the region per se. Challenges posed by a resurgent Germany in Europe, rising nationalism within India itself and the economic collapse at home in the early 1920s and the Great Depression sapped imperial will as did increasing reliance on American aid to underwrite such ventures. In this sense the comparison with the US today is a little misguided, given the relative predominance and lack of any potential rivals for the latter.

Ramesh closes his analysis with an evaluation of the nature of American neo-colonialism and the need for replacements for US troops to be released from Iraq:

The subtle shift from hegemony to empire could again see troops from the subcontinent becoming the tools of a great power's foreign policy. America refuses to believe in the empirical evidence of its own empire. Its people are suspicious of foreign entanglements - witness the declining support for the Iraqi occupation. Sizeable numbers of Pakistani and Indian troops would enable thousands of American soldiers to return home.

Left to face the growing anger engendered by the chaos that has replaced the power vacuum brought about by the fall of Saddam, troops from India and Pakistan - countries that opposed the war - will be left to secure the peace in the face of guerrilla attacks and organised resistance. If it looks, sounds and feels like empire redux, that is because it is.

This is incorrect on several counts: the nature of contemporary neo-colonialism is that it does not rely for the most part on the actual physical occupation of territory but operates through indirect strategic and economic factors. In this sense, the actual need to occupy Iraq, is a failure of this policy of manipulation and indirect control; under neo-colonialism it is possible to maintain that there is no coercion involved or anything that smacks of imperialism – hence US involvement in Latin America has inevitably been through middle-men and intermediaries. When this screen that obscures the gaze is removed, the illusion rapidly shatters as happened in Vietnam, when insistence on acting in the name of liberty and freedom soon began to sound incredibly hollow. The problem for policymakers of an imperial power that happens to be a democracy, is that is not possible to argue that a ‘people need to be forced to be free’ as few in the home country will accept such an argument unless it is sugar-coated with other justifications – hence the flap about WMD in the current case. Yet the case is complicated in the aftermath of the WTC attacks and as in the past example of Vietnam – which the US media toed the official line until the Tet Offensive, it can take some time for domestic opposition of any foreign entanglement to achieve a critical mass, the costs of it regardless. One cannot be as sanguine as Ramesh seems to be in this matter. Moreover, it is highly unlikely that any US troops released by potential Indian/Pakistani forces would be immediately shipped home – more likely they would be redirected towards the centres of resistance in the south and against the troubled urban flashpoints, leaving the relatively pacified areas under the incoming troops control. The US cannot simply rely on Indian or Pakistani or any other national force for that matter, to remain in the region and dumbly carry out US instructions remote control from Washington, a considerable US presence on the ground will need to be maintained – not the least because much of the fighting cannot be seen to be done by non-American troops who are not part of the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ apart from anything else there can be little guarantee that any non-American troops would not pack up and go home if things deteriorated rapidly enough.

Even in the Colonial period, native troops were stiffened by British regiments and officered mostly by the backbone of aristocratic and upper middle-class Sandhurst graduates that were the mainstay of the army. Relying on the natives was all well and good but there were limits; few could be trusted to specialised arms such as the airforce, artillery or communications and Indianisation of the officer corps proceeded apace only during WWII when plans for decolonisation were accepted in Whitehall. There is little reason to believe that any Indo-Pak troops will be left to shoulder on alone while the US companies set sail back home. The more likely alternative scenarios of being bogged down and slowly drawn into a low-intensity but savage guerrilla war alongside jowl-by-jowl with US forces though is hardly any more alluring. A closer comparison would be with the auxiliary troops used by the Roman Army which were almost always mad up of non-Roman and non-Latin allies hoping for citizenship as their reward for loyal service; these auxiliaries were light troops and cavalry but the mainstay of the Roman army consisted of its heavy infantry, made up of Roman citizens which did the bulk of the fighting (and a fair amount of the dying as well) the auxiliaries took the tasks that were less desirable and were however considered more expendable. Not a particularly attractive role.

A more serious, if more passionate and partisan, analysis comes from the award-winning journalist P. Sainath, in what he describes as ‘Chowkidar for Empire?’. Sainath immediately sees the current situation in Iraq as a ‘messy’ one and that seeks to displace the burden of causalities on non-American forces, which he puts rather dramatically:

It’s in this mess that India is being called up to act as chowkidar to the empire. The lives of Indian soldiers are more expendable -- in American eyes. But should the eyes of an Indian government see it the same way? That’s frightening. We are being hired to patrol the empire’s latest outpost. To be the fall guys for its folly.

Sainath, makes his feelings very clear, slipping into the occasional hyperbole:

We’d be magnets for popular anger in one of the world’s most volatile spots -- at a time when the Americans are contemplating a war on neighbouring Iran. What happens if Indian troops are stuck in Iraq when the US moves for “regime change” in Iran? The possible consequences are mind-blowing. Indian jawans would then be at extreme risk. As always, we’ll re-learn that it is far easier to get into such holes than out of them. Until next time.

Luckily, even the current US administration would probably be wary of embarking on another military invasion while the after-effects of the previous one are so unresolved; so I think we can rest easy that until the political situation in Iraq stabilises there will be little activity elsewhere. Though the point about a clear exit strategy is an important one, which needs to be worked out before and not after such commitments are made. However, as he notes, such a move would require a bit of a u-turn in Indian official policy towards the Iraq issue:

And, as always, the decisions will be taken by those whose children will never fight on any front. That too, on a war Indians hated in the first place. One that our parliament, alone in the world, condemned in a resolution. It’s odd that Vajpayee and Advani should seek a “national consensus” on sending troops to Iraq. The rest of us thought we had one. Parliament’s resolution is the clearest consensus that exists in this nation on that issue.

This is a minor but very obvious problem; the BJP itself quite clearly was disposed to regard the US action benevolently if passively but felt constrained by the popular antipathy to the invasion, the presence of dissenting coalition allies and the intransigence of the opposition; its real intentions become clear in the different wording of the resolution in English and Hindi, with the former merely expressing regret that a peaceful solution could not be sought and falling well short of apportioning any responsibility or any condemnation; the Hindi version by contrast used stronger language and contained a moderate censure for the side that instigated aggression in this case. Of course to the outside world only the English version mattered while the Hindi version was more than enough to salve the irritated sentiments of home-grown nationalists. Advani, in particular was almost apologetic when relaying the stance of the Indian government to US officials, downplaying its significance; yet even the Hindi version was not strong enough to be described as a ‘condemnation’ and neither was the Indian Parliament only one to do so as even the Pakistani assembly (admittedly not on par as a representative democratic institution) felt constrained to pass a similar resolution – despite Musharraf’s well known cosy relationship with the White House and the role of Pakistan as a key US ally in the WoT. There is a consensus against any Indian involvement but some sections, particularly the more jingoistic and aggressive elements within the middle-classes, trading groups and ensconced upper castes have a vicarious view of a new found Indian assertiveness of the global stage after decades of perceived passivity and marginalisation and favour this as a move towards a greater role for India internationally. Given that this component of the elite and socially mobile middle class has been the most vocal in it support for the ‘modernisation’ programme of Saffronism and the policy changes in social and economic spheres, there may be less consensus than Sainath thinks.

Sainath sees a clear trade-off in the dispatch of Indian troops to Iraq:

Plus, by sending our troops, we get to earn a quick buck on the side. So Indian companies will gain what lusting newspapers call “lucrative contracts.” And we can sacrifice a few hundred jawans, maybe many more, so that our CEOs can do even better in the next Forbes and Fortune lists. Never mind that these lucrative contracts could place us morally in the ranks of contract killers. No wonder the Americans are seeking our help. They are body shopping in a literal sense. This is one outsourcing of jobs their unions won’t protest. The job of dying for US imperialism.

This is unrealistic, as Vikash points out the history of US policy towards South Asia is such that deferred rewards for loyalty, assistance etc. to the US are never really delivered in the end and there is no reason to think that things this time round will be different. The linkage between corporate interests and foreign policy is also a little too blunt; political and electoral realities in India mean that the issues on which power is won and lost can’t be reduced to corporate lobbying influence to the same degree as in for example the US. The best corporate interests can manage is tinkering in the formal industrial economic policy and insulation from taxation demands and the burden of adhering to environmental and labour regulation codes set by the state. Beyond these narrow areas, its influence in India dissipates and the payoff as Sainath himself observes would be no more than crumbs from the table; this is not to say however than substantial sections of the corporate class do think along these lines, they in many cases do, but simply lack the power to put it into practise, the receptiveness of the BJP notwithstanding.

He also delivers some well-aimed blows at the much-trumpeted Indian peacekeeping record abroad:

What did was that the team “...highlighted New Delhi’s impeccable record in peacekeeping abroad.”

Well, we withdrew battered from Sri Lanka. And scrambled out of Somalia in chaos. That’s an impeccable record

The rather impressive resistance to the war across various countries is noted, as well as the fig-leaf legitimacy retrospective UN resolutions have bestowed:

At the base, are crude motives of electoral and financial gain for a few. Pointing to post-facto UN resolutions okaying US actions just makes it worse. Do the people of the nations voting for these resolutions see it that way? The Spanish government supported a war 85 per cent of its public opposed. Far more importantly, will the people of Iraq view it that way? Do our own people see it that way?

And finally the nod to the last major campaign in the region involving Indian troops is given ominously:

Historically, the British used Indian soldiers as cannon fodder for their conquests across the globe. Close to 90, 000 Indian troops died for the Raj in just World War I. That’s more soldiers than India has lost in all our wars and insurgencies since independence. In 1915-16 alone, thousands of Indian troops died in Iraq, the then Mesopotamia. Then too, a western power was attempting a “regime change.” Our men were sacrificed by the British in their war against Turkey. The year had been disastrous for the Brits. The debacle at Gallipoli meant the war ministry in London needed a propaganda success.

Then they died for the British empire. Now, they’re being asked to die for the American empire. Then, it could be argued, we were a colony -- and had no choice. Today, in the era of globalised markets, we’ll be doing it for “lucrative contracts.” An independent nation driven by the greed and delusions of a few to seek what might well be a quisling’s reward.

There is no doubt that the Indian Expeditionary Force (ironically like its European counterpart the BEF) experience in the Middle East theatre was a disaster and a very costly one; there is also little doubt that it was a colonial war fought to serve colonial interests. In fact one of India’s main attractions as a colony was the ability of its colonial army to play the role of gendarme for British imperial projects elsewhere; most of the British colonies in the Far East would not have been viable economic ventures nor strategically tenable ones unless their conquest and defence could be underwritten by the use of Indian sepoys – of course the emergence of another major Asian military power in Japan quickly showed the limits of this policy. But this is of historical interest and is something that can be explored later; there are two sides to this question for us in the present. Firstly, the criticism of Ramesh, Sainath et al. that Indian troops should not be sent to fight and die in a war that is mainly in the interests of another power or at the most would only benefit a few narrow elites within India itself. To a great degree this is a basic debate and to my mind a fairly clear one: Indian troops in Iraq, in whatever role they assume (with the possible exception of going as a part of a real UN sponsored and led peacekeeping force) would be benefiting other ‘national interests’ more than that of their own country and at a stretch benefiting narrow and restricted sections of their own polity and society. Lenin once spoke of ‘semi-colonies’ such as China on the eve of WWI where colonial troops occupied enclaves of territory and used force to impose their will on national governments. In such places national autonomy was an illusion, concealing the continued subordination to political control by forces in partial occupation of the country. Certain regions of West and Central Africa also seemed this way after formal direct control was ended in the 1950s and 1960s by France; as in many cases colonial administrators were able to ensure that their place was taken by their own creatures. The new rulers were people who had collaborated with colonial rule in return for a class privileges or a small share of the spoils, and there was enormous continuity in the personnel of the state, especially when it came to the control of the armed forces. Many such rulers continued to work with French companies, use French currency and periodically invite French forces into the national capitals, to restore ‘order’. Unsurprisingly this was perceived as neo-colonialism in another guise. Some uncomfortable parallels can easily be drawn with modern Iraq and in any case, as Vikash points out any prospective country asked to join in the ‘stabilisation’ of Iraq needs to ask itself whether it is really a judicious use of force and whether any overriding national security aim is fulfilled by doing so.

The other and rather more complex debate, is whether troops should be sent, even if there was some putative national interest at stake. This is of course, to admit that the concept of ‘national interest’ itself is a contested concept; too often neo-realists and Leftists (both neo-Marxists and Post-modernists) frequently either accept this as a given or adopt a rather reductionist approach whereby foreign policy articulations of the national interest just mimic the interests of relevant the dominant elites (or some coalition thereof) or in more sophisticated versions represent some form of structural social representation of power based on the socio-economic nature of the polity in question. In a sense what we shy away from is an attempt to define what exactly the ‘national interest’ is. It is maybe time that an element of democratic, secular and egalitarian values is injected into such a conception; past arguments about how the ‘national interest’ has to be above any political affiliation or crypto-neo-realist arguments that ‘every state only acts in its own interest’ and the old classic ‘ there are no permanent allies or enemies, only permanent interests’ blah, blah blah… just hide behind shibboleths. What exactly are these interests and how are they defined? Why can’t they be re-engineered? Using a strictly territorially-bounded nationalism is just another dodge dressed up as a moderate solution – such thinking would not have helped us much in 1962 as China did not go to war with us because it wanted the territory so badly but to send a message to Moscow and to show who was the dominant Asian power. Waffling about economic diplomacy is hardly any better as it can either be a front man for cheap oil and dollar hegemony that props up US military power or shows the naked incompetence of our own bureaucracy which can’t even negotiate a regional South Asian free trade agreement without sabotaging it after being handed it on a platter. As for deployment of the army, a cursory look at the last fifty years shows that its use internally has hardly ever been a wise decision and their conduct in the field, to speak euphemistically, leaves much to be desired. Dreaming of a UNSC permanent seat or a more prominent role in international politics again seems to be the hobbyhorse of our pampered and indulgent middle classes; those in the periphery of the urban informal economy or labouring in the countryside have other pressing concerns. Meanwhile the numerous localised conflicts in the northeast , pockets of Maoist insurgencies in southern and central belts as well as the volatile Tamil conflict in Sri Lanka not to speak of the stand-off with Pakistan in Kashmir all lead one to question the political abilities of successive Indian governments in managing these conflicts and the effectiveness of its military in bringing them to an end.

We are left with many questions but few answers. At one level the failure is theoretic and one of political science: the link between internal reform and progressive politics and external policy is a weakly outlined one despite the forays of many illustrious theorists from Hobbes to Hobson. In particular for a modern democratic nation, to avoid taking the imperial route seems to be an increasingly important problem and one, which as Indian power grows it will have to face up to. Orthodox Socialist and Marxist answers are either jaded or discredited with the collapse of Social Democratic parties and their move to the right and the crumbling of State-Marxist regimes over the last decade. The most promising legacy of this school of politics are the more dynamic civil society organisations and the new social movements, which have taken up the causes abandoned by, organised political parties. Post-Modernist and post-structuralist thinking on the subject also seems to me to be less than promising whether one looks as Foucauldian strategies of micro-politics and resistance or the nebulous and disembodied concepts of themultitude which Negri and Hardt feel can challenge the ‘Empire’. What is needed is obviously a re-thinking of the basis of state and political order and a need to move beyond the current impasse. Specifically, for India this means a need to fill the vacuum created by the collapse of the Nehruvian consensus of Non-Alignment, which has distorted the view of the past and our options in the present. Many Indians are apt to romanticise the benevolent nature of Indian foreign policy in past conveniently overlooking the willingness of the state to use force against weaker or smaller adversaries as in dealing with internal insurgencies in Hyderabad state in 1948, the Naga movement in the 1950s and Goa in 1961. The damaging consequence is a disconnected view of the Indian state, which many are loath to admit even today – as for example the self-perception of many Indians that India is a tolerant and benevolent power in the region. A perception that is at odds with the way the smaller nations within SAARC see her. Distasteful ventures such as the IPKF fiasco in Sri Lanka are dismissed as aberration (carefully overlooking India’s past support to guerrilla and terrorist groups preceding the Sri Lankan civil war) while the heavy-handed treatment meted out to Nepal and Bangladesh has led to considerable resentment as has short-sighted policy regarded management of riverine systems, trade and border security. Those that are too small to complain such as Bhutan accept Indian hegemony, especially after observing Chinese policy in Tibet and seeing it as the lesser of two evils; others strive to link up with other smaller South Asian states to resist perceived Indian aggressiveness. A basic foreign policy goal would be to first reach a situation where at least other SAARC states accept Indian relative hegemony and her role as regional peacekeeper that can be trusted and that can act as a source of political stability and engine of economic growth. There is no reason why all states, with the exception of Pakistan, if dealt with wisely, cannot accept such a stance. Regional predominance and stability, is the first stepping stone towards achieving supra-regional prominence; something that South Block enthusiasts in their eagerness seem willing to ignore. At the very least, enlightened self-interest dictates that such a course be followed and aims achieved before engagement on a substantial scale can be thought of seriously outside the region. It is also I think the best chance of nipping any neo-imperial pretensions and tendencies in the bud; as by choosing a path of accommodation and mutual incorporation is the first step towards harmonising the region and encouraging the potential for a different definition of the ‘national interest’ that is less dependent on ensuring extraction of income from external sources or military aggrandisement but one which seeks expansion through other means.

The ramifications for India’s domestic nation-building project would also be serious; as such a policy would almost certainly sound the death knell for any variant of Saffronism and would also make a return to the day of Congress ‘relational control’ very difficult. Rather it would mark an extension of consosocational coalition-building not too dissimilar from the EU project underway in Europe. While this path too has its dangers, it is an improvement over the narrow and shallow hyper-nationalism of unilateral approaches; it is also a path that is more amenable to the re-engineering of the basic social, economic and political relationships that underpin the state and the putatative national interests and an overcoming of the limitations of the Nation-state itself.


:: Conrad Barwa 11:48 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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Lahore-Delhi Bus Service Resumes

A family from Pakistan shares a light moment after securing clearance from the Indian customs and immigration officers, as they stand before the Lahore-Delhi bus at Wagah, India, Friday, July 11, 2003. The bus service between the India and Pakistan resumed Friday after it was disrupted 18 months ago by threats of war between the hostile, nuclear-armed neighbors. (AP Photo/Aman Sharma)

:: Vikash Yadav 11:02 AM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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A Problem of Storage not Shortage: Indian Farmers Speak out on GM Foods

When you say you are trying to feed the poor, it can be embarrassing to have poor farmers turning up on your doorstep saying you are doing no such thing. In the summer of 1999, 30 farmers from Gujarat and the Punjab turned up at the Nuffield Foundation’s office in Bloomsbury in London and demanded to see the director. They wanted to challenge a report claiming that the development of genetically modified crops was a “moral imperative”. They were infuriated that Nuffield had consulted no farmers from the developing world. Eventually Anthony Tomei, the director, agreed to speak to them, though not before calling the police. A New Statesmen correspondent accompanied him to listen to the farmers.

Around the table, she recounted the meeting; the farmers were from the five largest Farmer’s Unions in India and as 25% of the world’s farmers were Indian their opinion was of no small account. “We understand that you have issued a report insisting that there is a moral imperative to develop genetically modified foods to feed the world.” said one of the farmer’s representatives Manjit Kadran. “Perhaps you believe that Indian needs genetically engineered seeds or there will be a famine? I am from north-west India. India has a surplus of food, and we have a problem of storage not shortage. What we need are facilities and political will for distribution of this food. Even without genetically engineered seeds, we have surplus. So you can imagine our astonishment to hear from your report that we need genetically engineered food to feed ourselves.”

The director said he hadn’t written the report himself, and that they couldn’t engage in a debate there and then…..

“This very bio-engineering” interrupted Hashmukh Patel, “ what about our ecological and cultural bio-diversity? When you limit seed varieties to one or two? Now we have hundreds of varieties. If one fails, we have many others we can use. If we have only one and it fails, it fails.” He added, “ Seventy per cent of Indians rely on agriculture…our past experience, for example with hybrid seeds, show they are useless after one or two or three crops, and require huge amounts of pesticides and fertilisers. Your report gets heard but we don’t have a voice that gets heard. This is why we came in a crowd. It is the only way to show our agony. No one hears us. We are frustrated. Kindly tell our agonies to your scientists.”

As the police arrived, Patel added with a smile, “ You paid a lot of expensive consultants and researchers a lot of money for that report, but we have given you our good advice for free.”



:: Conrad Barwa 7:34 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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The Colonial Legacy:

There are many reasons to oppose Indian involvement in the occupation and pacification of Iraq. However, the claim that such a policy should be avoided because of its "colonial" semblance does not seem well reasoned. In order for Indian troops to be "instruments" or "tools" of the US, one would need to know the details of the command structure. Would Indian troops be commanded by US officers? Would the Indian government lose the ability to withdraw its troops, once it deployed them? It is not sufficient to throw out the pejorative label of colonialism without showing the linkage between today's situation and those of the past.

I do agree with Conrad that much of the spin in the media used to convince the population to support troop deployment is "fanciful." Conrad is correct to state that whatever goodwill now exists between the Indians and the Iraqis would be lost as soon as the first troops landed on Iraqi soil.

The main reasons to deny sending Indian troops to Iraq is that it is not a judicious use of force. In other words, a troop deployment will not advance India's national interest. There is absolutely no reason in the history of US foreign policy toward South Asia to believe that India will be sufficiently rewarded by the US for loyalty to its policies.

I must also object to Ghosh's claim that Indian foreign policy must take into account the way diasporic Indians will be treated as result of its policies. States must be guided by the interest of the state as an institution in deciding their policies. Certainly, the state has vested interest in protecting hard currency remittances by overseas workers, but the state also needs to retain autonomy in its foreign policy. India's foreign policy cannot be held hostage to its diasporic population. Unless India claims some sort of protection over its diasporic population, it's only obligation is to warn its citizens to leave a potentially hostile country and provide assistance toward that regard if the situation merits. As Conrad correctly points out, India has not assserted or exercised such an extra-territorial claim in the past and so it is odd to cite this as a reason to guide India's policy in the present.




:: Vikash Yadav 2:58 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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India’s Iraq Policy: Part One: Writers, Policymakers, Academics Weigh In:

Amitav Ghosh in the The Hindu , sums up the case against sending Indian troops to Iraq quite well, locating the historical context in which Indian troops had been sent overseas to fight in the past:

Today, in the 56th year of independence, India is faced with the prospect of re-enacting one of the ugliest and most repugnant aspects of its colonial history. During the Raj, Indian soldiers were used both for the expansion of the empire and for the suppression of anti-colonial rebellions, at home and abroad. For more than a century, they battled insurgents in East Africa, Burma, China, Malaya and of course, Mesopotamia (the present-day Iraq). Independent India has yet to live down this shameful legacy: in many parts of the world Indians are still remembered as Imperial mercenaries, as slaves who allowed themselves to be used without reflection or self-awareness.

The aspect of this that would be most repellent, if it were not so pathetically poignant, is that many of these soldiers genuinely believed that their exertions on behalf of the Raj would put them on an equal footing with their rulers. The discovery that they were no more and no less than what they appeared to be — tools, instruments — often came as an almost unsustainable shock, eventually prompting some to turn against their masters.

A similar dynamic appears to be at work again today: some policy-makers appear to believe that the rendering of certain services can gain India entry into the innermost circles of global power. Our history has truly been suffered in vain if it has failed to teach us that this is not how the world works.

Some parts of this can be questioned as slightly simplistic, after all in South East Asia Indians were as likely to have descended from traders who had arrived centuries earlier and as plantation workers; both of which still could arouse bitter conflicts with the indigenous communities as events in Fiji and tensions in East Africa have shown in the postcolonial period. It is also unlikely that the discovery that they were no more than “tools” or “instruments” would come as that great of a shock as the conquest of India was accomplished by the East India Company using mainly companies of sepoys raised within India. The Colonial Indian Army had always been the last line of defence of British rule in India and it is difficult to believe that any were under the real illusions as to how it was regarded as an instrument of force behind the Victorian pomp and ceremony; if anything the use of this army within British India should have aroused such self-consciousness on behalf of the sepoys more than their participation of campaigns abroad –it is after all easier to close your eyes to the nationalism of others rather than to one’s own.

However Ghosh, entertains no illusions as to what the role of any Indian soldiers dispatched to Iraq will be:

Let us make no mistake about the role that Indian troops will serve if they are deployed in Iraq: they will not be `policing' the country; they will be fighting a war. No matter what the spin, it is clear that the war in Iraq is far from over; in a sense it has only just begun. The small group of American and British neo-conservatives who initiated this war did so in the belief that the situation in the Middle East could best be resolved through the use of overwhelming violence. They have succeeded only in transforming great multitudes of people into instruments of collective resistance. The Anglophone countries that took the lead in this war — the United States, Britain, and Australia — prevailed easily in the conventional phase of the war. But they are now faced with the prospect of a protracted low-intensity conflict. This is exactly the sort of struggle that is most to their disadvantage, not least because of the four-and five-year election cycles to which the rhythms of their wars are typically tuned.

As the Israeli military historian, Martin van Creveld has observed, it is impossible to indefinitely sustain a war of the mighty against the weak. With the passage of time, this conflict will become less and less defensible, politically, morally, and militarily, even within the core constituencies of the belligerents.

This is important to note, after more than a decade of insurgency in Kashmir, protracted on-off struggles in the Northeast and a wasteful, unnecessary bloodletting in the wake of the Khalistani movement, Indian policy-makers and above all Indian citizens should be wary of getting involved in these types of conflict; particularly when the strategic aims are so confused, when no clear national interest is presented and when there is a worrying lack of an exit strategy. If the decision to send troops to Iraq is entered into, there should be no illusions peddled to the public by the current administration about the conditions under which they will be deployed; fanciful nonsense about how India is highly regarded by Iraqis and by the Arab world in general will not be a good guide as to the reception of any Indian jawans in the deserts of southern Iraq: such goodwill in the past rested on old alignments within NAM and Third World Republicanism; in a unipolar world of US ascendancy, the collapse of Pan-Arab Nationalism and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism combined with internal political changes in India associated with the rise of the BJP, saffronisation of political discourse, worsening communal relations, closer moves towards the US and Zionism and the running sore of Kashmir all militate against relying too much on this rosy historic relationship –it may not have disappeared completely but it is a weak foundation to base any current policy action on. Moreover, cries of Third World brotherhood can dissipate quite quickly when conditions on the ground cast one side in the role of the occupying power; as Pakistani peacekeepers found out to their cost in Somalia notions of Muslim fraternality did not help when they were perceived as being part of a wider US-sponsored heavy-handed occupation force. There is little reason to believe given the current reactions and responses to the US-led coalition forces in Iraq, that the reception of Indian troops would be in anyway substantially different. Good to see the woolly-headed pontificating about how any intervention in Iraq will just be some sort of UN-style policing action is laid to rest here; it should be called for what it is: a low-intensity warfare situation which shows every sign of escalating rather than the reverse.



Ghosh, however picks up on something not so far mentioned widely in all the ink spilled within the wider Indian media:

There is a sense in which the Indian Government's responsibilities do not end at the borders of India. The historic circumstances under which Indians came to be dispersed around the world, has given it an obligation to consider also the well-being of the Indian diaspora. The Indians of the Middle East have long played a vital part in shoring up India's foreign exchange reserves: it is imperative that the Indian Government take their interests into account in deciding on the deployment of its troops.

Suppose there were a circumstance in which Indian troops had to open fire on an Iraqi crowd, killing a number of civilians. It is quite likely that every Indian in the Arab world would feel the repercussions. This is surely one of the most elementary lessons of our sad history of military deployments abroad. There is the example of the uprising of 1930 in Burma. Led by Saya San, this movement was, in its origins, directed against British rule. The British suppressed it with great brutality, using Indian troops, and the rumours generated by the campaign led to savage reprisals against Indian civilians, of whom there were then more than a million in Burma. This in turn, resulted in a situation that allowed the British to present the uprising as being directed against Indians, rather than against the Empire itself. This was one of the more remarkable achievements of the accomplished tradition of spin-doctoring to which Tony Blair is heir.

It is in the light of experiences such as this (there are many others) that we should consider what may result from the presence of Indian troops in Iraq. Were these soldiers to find themselves in a situation where they had to use lethal force there would be no lack of spin-doctors to cast their actions in the worst possible light. Given the context of communal violence in India, there is no story that would not be believed. And to take the scenario further: what if the violence were to occur in An-Najaf or Karbala, places that are revered by great numbers of Indians? The potential for harm is almost beyond computation.

This is a very valid concern that seems to be overlooked by most members of the current administration; the costs of any intervention in Iraq, will affect not only Indians within India but also those outside; given the large and potentially vulnerable Indian population within the Gulf region and the Middle East in general this is a cause of some concern; though the Indian state’s past track record regarding those of Indian origin abroad is less than reassuring.

The former foreign Secretary JN Dixit opines that any such decision should be taken cautiously, if at all, though his softness for the Congress shines through in some underserved praise for that party’s decision on the matter:

In the meanwhile, in a letter to the government on June 5, Congress President Sonia Gandhi objected to Indian troops being deployed in Iraq without the UN umbrella. This was before Advani’s departure to the US and before the Pentagon team came to Delhi. She met Prime Minister Vajpayee on June 15 to re-examine the Congress’s policy orientations in the light of these developments and indicated that the party would take a final view after consulting other political parties and receiving clarifications from the US team. She also suggested that India should finalise its decision on the issue in consultation with other Asian countries and Iraq’s neighbours.

Past experience has shown the Congress to be ambivalent if not downright incoherent on most foreign policy issues since its ejection from office; the flip-flop reaction to the BJP’s decision to go nuclear is a clear sign of this and while much lip-service is paid to the old Nehruvian consensus on external policy, there is little doubt that the Congress is eager to regain its old base in the urban middle classes, who have a weakness for an aggressive stance on such matters.

Dixit’s solution is quite an ingenious one, which seeks to maintain the new found tilt towards improving Indo-US relations without compromising on such a sensitive issue of national sovereignty and bears the imprimatur of the classic South Block bureaucrat:

India’s decision on this issue has to be taken with caution. India should not find itself in a position where its credibility with the people of Iraq stands diminished. While we should not send our military and paramilitary forces for maintenance of political stability in Iraq, it would be appropriate for India to send medical teams (from the army or paramilitary forces, if necessary). India can also offer training for the new Iraqi police force and armed forces, which are in the process of being created.

India can provide assistance to Iraq’s educational institutions. And wherever possible or feasible, India can contribute in reviving the infrastructure spheres of Iraq’s social and economic development programmes. The guiding principle for India’s involvement in the reconstruction and rehabilitation of Iraq should be participation in those spheres which would directly benefit the people of Iraq, taking into account their sensitivities and aspirations given the trauma of the recent war.

While this is a typical example of trying to keep all sides in the debate happy; it is arguably a much more nuanced approach that either an outright rejection or acceptance. It allows India to maintain a consistent stand in line with it earlier parliamentary resolution on Iraq and avoid getting bogged down in a quagmire with no obvious benefit, while at the same time placing a small stake in the Iraq imbroglio for future expansion as well as making a gesture towards the US of qualified support. Well, Dixit should know as he was High Commissioner in Colombo in the mid-1980s and played a seminal role in convincing Rajiv Gandhi to sign the Indo-Sri Lankan accord of 1988 which led to the ill-fated IPKF intervention in the island. It seems that even old bureaucrats can learn new tricks and we would do well to remember just how quickly any force dispatched to a region as a “peace-keeping” one can quickly become embroiled in very sectarian and volatile conflicts, there is no reason to believe that Indian troops for some, hazy and ill-defined reason, would be able to resist being drawn into what could very quickly become a nationalist insurgency against an occupying coalition, given that it is almost certain that Indian troops would be under US command and part of the Anglo-American ‘Coalition of the Willing’ the chances of avoiding this are virtually nil.

Meanwhile a statement signed by prominent academics have strongly criticised the proposal to send troops to the region saying:

"We cannot be identified as an occupying imperialist force. It will be a mission for war-making, not peacekeeping. We will be sending a terribly wrong message to the people not only in the Arab countries, but also our friends around the world including Europe and the U.S.,".

The signatories to the statement included: G.K. Chadha, Vice-Chancellor of the Jawaharlal Nehru University, V.P. Dutt, former MP and former Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Delhi University, Bipin Chandra, Professor Emeritus, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Mushirul Hasan, Directory, Academy of Third World Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia, T.K. Ooman, Professor of Sociology, JNU, T.K.V. Subramanian, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Delhi University, G.S. Bhalla, former head of Agricultural Prices Commission and Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Shiela Bhalla, Professor in Economics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Rajiv Bhargava, Head of the Department of Political Science, Delhi University, Mridula Mukherji and Aditya Mukherji, both Professors of History, Jawaharlal Nehru University.



:: Conrad Barwa 2:11 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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Missing In Kashmir: The Story of Kashmir's 'Disappeared' Victims: Some Questions raised by Zahr-ud-Din

It is hardly surprising that the disappearance of large number of persons in Kashmir evokes little sympathy in our country, least of all from the ones who loudly proclaim that Kashmir is an integral part of India. Even from some professional civil libertarians nothing more has been forthcoming than occasional expressions of lip sympathy. The cause does not fetch as much publicity as lighting candles on the Wagah border – only thereafter to plug the hard line on relations with Pakistan.

But those disappearances should evoke national concern. The state chief minister has a difficult task. His coalition partner the Congress is not bothered; least of all its Kashmiri ‘leader’ Ghulam Nabi Azad who has never contested a single election from his own state in the last two decades. The PDP came to power on the plank of providing the ‘healing touch’. On disappearances, Mufti’s performance has been utterly disappointing even allowing for his concerns about the BJP regime at the centre and its rival the Congress which is his coalition partner. Before long he will be faced with the same dilemma that faced his predecessors – how to retain his people’s confidence as well as that of the centre. He has a tight rope to walk on. Especially since the union home minister L K Advani has no love for Kashmiris or rather more accurately Muslim Kashmiris who do not accept Delhi’s hegemony unconditionally. His interest centres on the Indians and the classical Indian line on Kashmir since 1947 with all that implies. None shared the grief of mourners of Goukadal and Bijbehara. Muzamil Jaleel pointed out courageously Advani’s discrimination even in offering condolences to the bereaved. He and G N Azad offered condolences to the families of the Pundits who lost their dear ones in the Nadimarg massacre. The villagers of Panihad mourned alone

The civil liberties situation is a disgrace. The most recent example of this in March saw the police foil two attempts by the Anjuman-e-Shari Shian to move in the traditional procession of mourners during the month of Moharram. The chief minister promises repeatedly to release all innocent persons languishing in jails. Yet again not much progress has been made.

This is the backdrop to the situation in regard to disappearances as covered by the eminent constitutional expert and lawyer AG Noorani: Shoukat A Motta and Hilal Ahmed’s report in Greater Kashmir, a respected Srinagar daily, in the issue of April 18, 2003 is alarming. One wonders why similar exposes do not appear in the national press. They report that “going by unofficial figures, more than 6,000 cases of enforced or involuntary disappearances (EID) have taken place in Kashmir since the eruption of armed insurgency in 1989”. Even the former National Conference government put the figure at 3,184 on July 18, 2002. Adding insult to injury it added that the men had gone over across the LoC for training. Mufti Mohammed Sayeed’s figures are even more disturbing. He told the state assembly that 3,741 persons had gone missing since 2000, Asian Age reported (April 18, 2003). But its New Delhi correspondent added that he remains impervious to the pleas of parents and wives who have been pleading for an independent Commission of Inquiry.

The Associaton of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) was formed in 1994. Its moving spirit and patron is a senior lawyer and activist Parvez Imroz. Its chairperson is Praveena Ahangeer. Her 16-year old son Javed Ahmed disappeared in August 1991. The state high court ordered the prosecution of three army officers. They were transferred out of the state. The correspondent remarked that “Mr Mufti Sayeed has not proved particularly sensitive to their [disappeared persons’] plight and is unwilling to put the onus on the security forces lest it bring him into direct conflict with the centre. He has admitted, however, that 1,553 persons disappeared in 2000, 1,586 went missing in 2001 and 602 in 2002”. The APDP estimates that 8,000 disappearances have taken place since 1989.

Asian Age of April 24, 2003 reported from Srinagar that the Mufti’s statement that not more than 60 persons have actually gone missing following their arrest by security forces in the last 13 years came as a rude shock to the people. It contradicted his own statement less than a week earlier. He said it at a press conference in the company of prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on April 18 in Srinagar. During the visit activists of the APDP staged a hunger strike in the city. Zahir-ud-Din said in Greater Kashmir May 25 ,that even in the high court 500 cases had been proved

It is all right for the PDP’s president Mehbooba Mufti to say as she did on May 10, “I fight with my father almost every day on this issue [excesses by the security forces] and have been impressing upon the government to put an end to excesses while combating militancy” . Her father owes at leat some of the credit for his recent electoral victory in to her. It is her credibility which is at stake now. Lament is no substitute for action.

On May 14 at long last the National Human Rights Commission, headed by a former chief justice of India, A S Anand, who belongs to that unfortunate state, sought within six weeks information from the state government on the steps taken so far and the system it has established to address the problem. It also drew pointed attention to the contradictory figures of disappeared persons. It has sought clarification from the APDP also. All this three long years after the NHRC took cognisance of the matter

However, Showkat A Molla reported in Greater Kashmir of May 25 that the state’s Human Rights Commission has received complaints of 55 cases in this year alone, judging by its annual report for 2001-02. It records the fear of authority which deters the lodging of complaints against people “who commit atrocities”. On May 25 was published a report by seven activists, headed by K Balagopal, belonging to three NGOs. On June 11 came a U-turn by Mufti Mohammed Sayeed: “thousands have gone missing” in the last 14 years he now admitted in the assembly. He added that his government was “in the process of collecting evidence for future course of action”.

Against this background the scholarZahir-ud-Din’s has just released a book examining several aspects of the situation in Kashmir with regard to the disappearance. His estimate is 4,000 disappearances ranging from age group eight to 70 years. His book documents in authentic detail 139 cases districtwise, citing the high court’s intervention in some cases. This is spread from pages 24 to 199 with a photograph in each case.

Preceding this is an analysis of the law. The text of the UN Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances (1992) is set out. Articles 1, 2 and 3 are relevant. They read thus:

Article 1

1. Any act of enforced disappearance is an offence to human dignity. It is condemned as a denial of the purposes of the charter of the United Nations and as a grave and flagrant violation of the human rights and fundamental freedoms in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and reaffirmed and developed in international instruments in this field.
2. Such act of enforced disappearance places the person subjected thereto outside the protection of the law and inflicts severe suffering on them and their families. It constitutes a violation of the rules of international law guaranteeing inter alia, the right to recognition as a person before the law, the right to liberty and security of the person and the right not to be subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. It also violates or constitutes a grave threat to the right to life.

Article 2

1. No state shall practice, permit or tolerate enforced disappearances.
2. States shall act at the national and regional levels and in cooperation with the United Nations to contribute by all means to the prevention and eradication of enforced disappearances.

Article 3

Each state shall take effective, legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent and terminate acts of enforced disappearance in any territory under its jurisdiction.

In his Foreword, Parvez Imroz recalls that Zahir-ud-Din took up this cause before the APDP was formed and puts the crime in its international context:

The phenomenon of enforced disappearance which was a barbaric global phenomenon has ceased now in many parts of the world particularly in Latin American countries, i e, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, and south-east Asian countries like Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines where governments are holding commissions and probing the enforced disappearances and are punishing the perpetrators and indemnifying them. Even in Sri Lanka four Presidential Commissions have been appointed to probe into the disappearances there. AFAD (Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances) recently in Indonesia, during a lawyers’ conference, have called for establishing an Asian Regional Tribunal that will have jurisdiction over all state parties to eliminate the violation.

In India disappearances still continue in the Northeastern states reeling under armed conflict and de facto counter-insurgency policy of the Army combined with the isolated geographical nature of the region and ethnic ‘otherness’ of the inhabitants have allowed it a much freer rein in dealing with local recalcitrant populations that has been afforded in Kashmir. Yet the callousness and occasional brutality of the state can be seen even in regions which are near the political heartland and affect highly visible sections of the population as the operations by Central paramilitary and Police forces in Punjab shows, where disappearances continued from 1984 to 1994 and the clandestine cremation of hundreds of youth by the security forces raised some disturbing questions to say the least, the issue still remains a sore point with furore being raised as some highly decorated police officers were stripped of the medals when they had been implicated in such activities.

As Noorani and several other activists have pointed out it fall within the power of the state and Central governments to constitute and raise a Commission of Inquiry modelled on the Sri Lanka Commission. Part of the much needed ‘healing touch’ and repair of the damge that more than a decade of violence by irredentist forces and security agencies alike means that such a step would go a long way in closing such old wounds.


:: Conrad Barwa 8:39 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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