Future Strategic Scenario for the Indian Subcontinent -II

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 04 Feb 2010 01:02

Bsir ji,
GCC India FTA and Naval facility in Oman can be the harbinger of good news on this front. Not the whole Gulf ( Saudi wont like it) but part of it will be under Indian influence. Nothing new as it will just small regain from the past loss.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 04 Feb 2010 01:04

brihaspati wrote:
Acharya wrote
This news is very important.
US wants to drive the outcome of the AfpAk but will not take the entire security of the region within its ownership.

How the power equation in IOR will result is not going to be questioned by US but they want their outcome in the AfpAk area.

It is Indian political leadership, military leadership to figure out ways to make sure India's desired outcome in AfPak area is accepted by the US establishment.
Or it is a way of syaing that India should aspire only to control the IOR, but not look at what is happening in TSP, AFG, CAR, Tibet. Even in the supposed "mansabdari of IOR jagir", the really fertile corners like the Persian Gulf/Iran/ KSA/Iraq - where the oil-juice lies - is out of bounds for India. India should spend its resources and its blood to set right the life-style of areas like Myanmar or SL - where however the Anglo-Saxon has played and perhaps will continue to play ball. India will police IOR and regulate politics and military situation in the IOR rim, without any penetration allowed into the Persian Gulf, no penetration allowed into the island and coastal bases like Diego Garcia and others.

Yes India can play the game and take up the role of "peacekeeper" and "regulator of wealth flow" over the IOR - but that means India should not be obstructed in controlling the Persian Gulf, and at the minimum a share and presence in all the military and naval bases currently occupied in the IOR by USA or UK.

Moreobver a key to controlling western IOR is the neutralization of hostilities from regimes that control the three crucial points of Persian Gulf, TSP and SL. Which means serious political a nd military rearrangement of forces in all three in favour of India.

^^^

Mansabdari of IOR is a cost centre net-net and a influence centre at the best.

On the other hand Mansabdari of ME or CAR or Sub-Continent (Afganistan to Vietnam) is a profit centre net-net

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 04 Feb 2010 02:06

The petro dollar will flow toward India with this Mansabdari and it will also be a good balancer to Iranian shenanigans. Indiskas just have to learn to play the game. OTOH, maybe this is why AS has squeezed most of the benefits and bankrupted Dubai before leaving.

Atri · Post by **Atri** » 04 Feb 2010 02:47

Prem wrote:The petro dollar will flow toward India with this Mansabdari and it will also be a good balancer to Iranian shenanigans. Indiskas just have to learn to play the game. OTOH, maybe this is why AS has squeezed most of the benefits and bankrupted Dubai before leaving.

It is just a statement, that means the policy is slowly shifting towards this pole. But, the necessary question is, do we have navy strong enough to control entire IOR? Forget control, do we have a navy capable of venturing and patrolling every nook and corner of IOR? No..

When we will have a navy strong enough of patrolling entire IOR efficiently? not in coming decade (assuming 3 fleets of nuclear aircraft carriers) and quite a few SSBNs and SSNs. Only after 2025, will India have the actual capability of taking over the "mansabdari" from USA.

Will ME oil be still that much relevant after 2025? I think not. The central asian and Russian oil will gain in importance progressively in long run. by 2025-2030, most of the resources in ME will be sucked out. The CAR will become new ME.

OTOH, India has great chance of tapping the energy resources in IOR. The most promising resource is Wind and few others which I will elaborate later. Bay of Bengal has tremendous wind-energy potential. If invested properly with strong navy to control IOR, electricity can virtually become free after 25 years of investment in Wind energy infrastructure. Furthermore, I don't think IOR has been scanned thoroughly enough for potential oil and gas reserves, especially near Antarctica.

India will gain from trade-routes. Not from ME oil. And if we expand our search parameters, we will understand that we are blessed with something no other country has been.

Of course, that shouldn't stop India from expanding towards CAR. But, I am remembering of Maratha expansion after death of Aurangzeb. It was similar when mughals went on retreating progressively, giving mansabdari to Marathas, eventually ending up as their pensioners.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 04 Feb 2010 03:00

My observation is that

By having the mansabdari over IOR, India will be expected to do the dirty work in keeping the trade-lines safe and secure. India might not get much income from these trade routes. In case of hostilities, whom can India hurt, PRC/US/EU?

Like the post above, it would require significant investments in maintaining a capable Navy. It is completely a different story IN gaining that capability so it can influence potential compitetors in this region. This is my personal view.

My recommendation is that India accepts IOR mansabdari, if and only if, its claims are supported w.r.t POK and its influence is accepted in BD/Myanmar and Af-Pak regions.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 04 Feb 2010 03:43

Nobody will give those things. One has to take it.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 04 Feb 2010 17:27

NDTV reports about possible Inidan offer for talks with a "open and positive" mind - with TSP. There is of course going to be some pussyfooting and hedging about nomenclature - after the furore over the SeS exposure. So it may not be called "composite dialogue". But insisting on "open and positive" and not being restricted by "single issues" is a pointer to how the political reaction is sought to be bypassed by the GOI and it is really a reincarnation of the "composite dialogue".

Why is Pakistan so insistent on resumption of dialogue? Because if the "dialogue" process starts, Pakistan has everything to gain and India everything to lose. For Pakistan has nothing left to concede - and the only party in this dialogue who has anything to give is India.

What are the advantages and motivations for Pakistan in resumption of the dialogue?

(a) The issue of terror strikes inside India and maintaining and fostering anti-India terror networks with help from Pakistani security forces within Pakistan gets submerged and a non-issue of other issues can be raised to equal importance.

(b) They manage to convince the international community that even India does not acknowledge the terror issue to be that "important", and therefore most of the noises made by India about this in the past were at best "political" scores. By extension, if India as a neighbour does not associate TSP with terror - the world should also not do so.

(c) They manage to reduce the TSP based terror issue from a global to a "bilateral concern" only between India and Pakistan.

(d) Pakistan has nothing to give since it is a "victim" of "terror". Therefore for "progress" and the sake of "peace and stability", it will be India who can be milked at will. These will contain a whole lot of concessions as demanded (not necessarily conceded but if India doesn't concede - Pakistan still wins diplomatically and politically) and perhaps includes greater access and control over J&K by Pakistan directly or indirectly through separatists (and autonomists).

(e) By bringing forward the "dialogue" TSP also can possibly cover up an accelerating preparation or plan for expanding jihad in AFPAK and into India.

Its increasing intensity of demand for dialogue could very well point to an internal pressure to stick to timelines for attacks. They have more or less secured the "western front" now, with well disguised and staged withdrawal from the AFPAK theatre by USA, and possible secret negotiations and agreements by the current Afghan regime to share power with Pakistan controlled Taleban. This completes an important step in their neo-caliphate plans, Now they need to deceive their "enemies" in the east. In core Islamic doctrine - "war is deception and deception is war". Pakistanis have gone almost the copybook way in which early Islamic wars under the founders were mounted as described in their "shahi" accounts. And they consistently employed prior gestures of apparent "peace treaties" and "non-aggression pacts" to divide up tribes within ethnic groups so that they could take out the smaller groups one after another. From the Islamic doctrinal viewpoint - their revelations support the betrayal of such "pacts" by Muslims as and when convenient and with the maximum possible lement of surprise.

GOI is heading for a trap here. The tragedy is that its leaders will never have to pay the price -just as in India;s past - rulers who welcomed/protected/made pacts and treaties of friendship with/allowed Islamics to penetrate/flourish even in their neighbourhood. The price is almost always paid by subsequent generations.

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 05 Feb 2010 06:46

Bill Sweetman :: India Boost For T-50

Specifically, ( (ret) Air Cmdr. Jasjit) Singh noted, "decisive military victory is a thing of the past between nuclear armed states - such as India and its neighbors, China and Pakistan. "Land war is limited to localized forces, below the nuclear threshold." Air power, he said, is the only instrument that can supply "the calibrated application of coercive force for political effect."

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 05 Feb 2010 23:41

What were the statements and gestures that emanated from the Talebs in power in AFG, that points to their neutrality towards or lack of interest in worsening conditions further for India? Iam not sure, but was not Taleb occupied AFG one more safe haven to divert hijacked Indian plane? Well, well, assume that they did only "act" against India on the orders of their Pakistani masters! But then that is perhaps not fear-mongering and an obsessive blind anxiety that paranoidly assigns each and every action against India to Pakistan!

But keeping that all-source-in-Pakistan hypothesis alive, a Taleb controlled Pakistan will then provide a non-state state which will follow and execute all TSP orders against India ans there will be nothing that India can do to pin it down on TSP.

It is time we understand the complex process by which characters of aggressive, imperialistic ideology driven regimes change. The TSP gov used US Cold war interests to expand into AFG for its overall imeprialistic and Islamist agenda on the subcontinent. THis expansion was not for any obvious resource useful for modern technological development - but for an important tactical political weapon - the incorporation of perpetually starved, subsistence economy, trade-smuggling-looting-marauding dependent society also firmly held in the grasp of Islamism. Such a population provides ready recruits for Ghazwas and Jihad. Holding on to such a resource, TSP can blackmail world powers and extract virtual Jizyia.

In trying to use such forces as mercenaries to further imperialistic ambitions - always have led in history to an eventual reverse coup. The converted of such rootless, vicious, and hungry hordes always come to a point where they take over the regime that initially recruited them. The more radical and ruthless among the older regime usually come to arrangement with the equally ruthless neo-converts to imperialism to finish off the more moderate of the older regime. No empire in the world has been an exception - including the latest one.

The TSP regime will simply change - more and more - with the more radical elements acting in tandem with the Talebs. They influence each other - towards increasing ruthlessness.

One of the greatest blunders we indulge in when trying to interpret systems way different from what we are used to - is to model such systems by what we expect ourselves to behave as in given situations. This has led some of us to claim that Pakistan would implode "shortly", or "subnationalism" will soon split TSP into many parts, or that "terrorism"somehow will "level" off, no additional hazard in formal re-entry of Talebs in AFG, etc. None of these will take place - and that can only be understood, if we drop our "models" based on ideas of "rationality" we attribute to Talebs/Afghans/TSP-rulers - that we think we see in "ourselves".

The first major problem in understanding ideology driven violent imperialism, is the probably the "vulgar Marxist" dogma that all human actions are driven by "economic interests". I don't know why and how such an interpretation has come to sway - as Marx's own works never claim such absurdities. The culprit probably is Engels, and then a whole string of acolytes who simply substituted the "Pope" with Marx+Engels. And probably, tactically such a overwhelming "economization" of "human motives" helps in covering real motivations in leaders for personal power.

Economics is just one factor in the complex spectrum of cultural continuity, ideology, history, collective and individual self-image, and biology. The refusal to consider non-economic factors have led academic sociologists and politicians to completely fail to understand Islamism. In fact Marxian analysis of religion has always been a dead end because of this approach. This is why people steeped in the pseudo-Marxian view of religion think all of Jihad and Ghazwa is simply economy driven. Shower them with resourcea nd consumption and Islamism will vanish - and every time that theory has fatally shown its weakness. In the ME - KSA, Iraq, Iran, Malaysia, even in Turkey. It holds true for AFPAK too.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 06 Feb 2010 00:19

brihaspati wrote:
The first major problem in understanding ideology driven violent imperialism, is the probably the "vulgar Marxist" dogma that all human actions are driven by "economic interests".

Economics is just one factor in the complex spectrum of cultural continuity, ideology, history, collective and individual self-image, and biology. The refusal to consider non-economic factors have led academic sociologists and politicians to completely fail to understand Islamism. In fact Marxian analysis of religion has always been a dead end because of this approach. This is why people steeped in the pseudo-Marxian view of religion think all of Jihad and Ghazwa is simply economy driven. Shower them with resourcea nd consumption and Islamism will vanish - and every time that theory has fatally shown its weakness. In the ME - KSA, Iraq, Iran, Malaysia, even in Turkey. It holds true for AFPAK too.

Marxist analysis of the jihad and ideology based religion is to mask the true imperialist vision of the islamist ideology. If this is not understood then the true motive of the people who use marxism and marxist ideology will be hidden.

People who use marxism and marxist ideology are the proxy for the same colonial powers hundred years ago. The same powers which drove the world before WWI and WWII are still there but their tools are different now.
Indian marxist are some the most dumb who believe everything what is told.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 06 Feb 2010 22:32

Extending from a post on Taleb-India thread :

We can no longer be sure that the Talebs are purely an expression of Pashtuniat. That they will not lend themselves to be used as part of global jihad. They allowed Laden to operate and were prepared to be bombed out of power simply because of staying loyal to Laden. People can find n-number of supposed economic/real-politic excuses behind the support - as say, for example, Laden provided the money etc. But giving away the crown of Kabul when it would be real-politic to denounce Laden and pretend simple Pashtuniat "nationalism" onlee!!!

We have to understand that a section of the Afghans realize that after a long time they can glorify themselves as part of a super-Afghan identity. An identity that can give them motivation and justification to expand into neighbouring regions and extract resources from them - just as they did in historical times. If they stop only at Pakhtunistan, they are restricted to a marginal-subsistence region eternally at the mercy of trade routes and drugs. If they can take over leadership of global jihad or share in the venture - they can potentially takeover much juicer pieces of real-estate.

Not all common Afghan will think this way. But their mobilization is still possible in the name of Islamic duty and hope of loot by their elite. The nature of "intra-Muslim" conflicts is changing. The Islamic countries are all seeing a tendency towards populist Islamism under the leadership of a section of theocracy who are not averse to challenging the existing elite Muslim regimes. It is the natural outcome of desire for empowerment in the common Islamic, channelized into following theocracy led populist revolutions because of Islamic preconditioning against western style democracy.

When the Talebs come to power again in AFG, a predictable sequence of events will take place. First will be the call for reimposition of the more stricter form of the Sharia - specifically targeting educational reforms and women's rights, as well as media. Second will come increased militarization, and enhanced drug exports (a doubly satisfying weapon - it helps in making the hated "west" more decadent, while at the same time generating profits to carry out jihad). Third, a tussle with remnant tribal leadership seen as western "stooges". This time around the tribal loyalties will prove weaker than the appeal of Islamist unity - mainly because of intense corruption seen at the top fueled by "external monetary aid".

Fourth, once meddlesome tribal leaders are neutralized, AFG will host again the world jihad. This time around USA will be licking its war weary legs, and potentially financially hamstrung to mount another massive campaign in AFG.
Among the other powers only Russia will have any interest in militarily facing up - China and Iran have their own reasons to stay away and play a more manipulative game.

Fifth, Talebs enegage in tussle with TSP elite and the elite splits into two. One side goes with Taleb, the other either moves base to the west or goes into safe custody in KSA. From there, the intentions and moves of the TalebPak regimes should be obvious.

The Taleb-Pak extended regime will still control only a non-productive zone and economy. So they will need to accelerate drugs exports and militarize rapidly. In this context a lot of questions come in. They need to expand into one or both of two directions to gain resources for the next stage of Jihad - Iran in the west and India in the east.

Out of this Iran is a no-go area right now - tactically, as it has the potential of splitting up the Ummah. On the other hand, this could be a good ploy to gain recognition and resources from KSA and USA. So we should not rule out the possibility of some minor troublemaking from a newly refurbished Taleb toward Iran initially all the while the real target of India is being prepared for.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 06 Feb 2010 22:41

What impact and fallout will the proposed bilateral talks between India-TSP have? This does not seem to have been gamed here so far.

What do forumites think?

I for one, would think of several areas:
(1) The assumption that the proposal is Chankyan, has no sincerity behind it and is meant to defelect external pressure and put TSP on a backfoot diplomatically. This has consequences on impact and fallout.

(2) the assumption that the proposal is not Chankyan, and comes out of personal delusions of dominant individuals in GOI. Such individuals are either motivated by historical ambitions, or have incentives to push for dialogue. This will depend of course as to what "image" benefits does the mere act of "dialogue" bring to such individuals.

(3) the assumption that the proposal is a combination of both (1) and (2) where the pro-dialogue party won over the anti-dialogue. This also then has ramifications.

(4) likely demands and compromises by both sides.

(5) how much do the formal demands and compromises represent future reality and commitments on the ground? (So many pacts are made to buy time and gain strength to finish off the pact partner by surprise break-ups and attacks).

(6) how much will India be able to safeguard its future interests from these dialogues (not just the current apparent solution of supposed "outstanding" problems?

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 06 Feb 2010 23:31

The Af-Pak problem is immediate and India cannot expect positive outcomes for itself without getting involved in the solution.

The MMS/UPA strategy of economic prosperity till 2020 will not work as it is naive to expect our enemies to give us that time.

If India were to make concessions to US/Nato in Afpak region, GOI should militarily contribute to Afghan stabilization program than agreeing to peace-talks with TSP. These are my reasons:

- It is always preferable to expose our armed forces to the enemy than exposing our soft-belly of economy and secular society. IA is better equipped, trained and prepared to take the likes of TSPA, Taliban and other Jihadee forces than Indian Police, civil infrastructure, and secular society.
- Always conduct war in enemy territory. If TSP views Afghanistan as its strategic depth, then conduct your war there.
- Never negotiate with someone weaker to you. Always negotiate with their masters.
- If India loses in Afghanistan, it would amount to US/NATO loss too. If India loses in JK or Mumbai, it is India’s loss only.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 07 Feb 2010 21:07

It is possible for India to declare that what happens in India's neighbourhood is of India's interests if it threatens India's internal security and economic interests. This doctrine will include AFG, and India should declare that Indian presence and participation in all international decision making in AFG is one of the preconditions for any talks that India is required to participate in regarding AFPAK.

If Pak is raising impossible stakes - India should play a matching game with even higher demands.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 09 Feb 2010 03:14

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/201 ... 265409566/

Maj. Gen. Nick Carter told London's Daily Telegraph the start of the operation begins with about 15,000 troops deployed in the resistive Helmand province to take on Taliban and other insurgent elements.
"This operation is bigger than anything that has gone before and yes there will have to be a fight," he said from his base in Kandahar.
A corresponding air campaign will be the largest since the U.S. Air Force pounded Iraq during the first Gulf War in 1991, the Telegraph said.
The success of the campaign will be a testament to the counterinsurgency campaign endorsed by U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who sees Afghan forces taking a leadership role once stability takes hold in the graveyard of empires.

Interestingly, British television showed UK military opinion to be for the Talebs to "melt away" into the countryside and become part of civilian life again, or face supposed annihilation.

The massive campaign is a good tactical move. Prior warnings to the Talebs lets them move away from the cities, and reduces the risk of British casualties. The main target obviosuly is to show that the urban centres are "free" of Talebs, and that seats of governmental authority can be restored back to "Afghan hands". This fits in with the overall picture of preparation for eventual withdrawal from the AFG theatre while preserving good military and political face.

The Afghan territory is not such that a state authority can be maintained by simply holding on to urban centres. The urban centres do not produce food, and they cannot generate profits and sustain themselves from trade unless such trade can pass without molestation through the countryside. Airlift based trade will be too expensive to make the cities sustainable as a huge porous border with several problematic neighbour countries facilitate cheaper smuggling.

AFG is controlled by those who control the ridges, and ranges and badlands. They can sustain their "freedom struggle" by controlling and profiting from the smuggling activities through the extensive borderlands. The power centres in the cities if they do not represent the "country cousin freedom fighters" - can only be maintained by huge injections of resources from outside - now who will pay for that?

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 09 Feb 2010 23:54

Why I think AFG is more at risk of becoming a perpetual non-state than TSP, and why TSP is more likely to remain a pseudo-state rather than splinter.

There has been a lot of claims of Pashtunwali determining a new surge of Pakhtun "nationalism" and "hunger for economic development" that is behind the mask of the Taleban. There are many blunders rolled into one to give rise to such false impressions. The first problem of course starts in trying to model a society in European "national" terms, second the vulgar Marxist fallacy of "everything stems form economics", third the failure to understand the nature of Islam and particular societies which reinforce each other towards a certain orthodoxy.

The fact of the matter is that historically, the Pakhtun tribes share a language (with dialect variations) but they have almost never fought a common enemy together with the same intensity. Indeed their greatest show of unity turns up when an external aggressor comes into their land. This is the time when they greatly reduce their infighting and tribal distinctinctions - but still does not go away entirely. For example, when Khushal Khan Khattak was fighting the Mughals, the Khattak, and the Afridi tribe was fighting the Mughals, but the Yusufzai tribe, which is mainly located in the Swat area, was not fighting.

Lack of centralized authority binding all tribes for a long time, helped create regional warlords who to surivive in their fiefs and niches would desperately prevent any attempt at formal unification and centralization and pre-empt any centralized authority.

How can the warlord elite in leadership or dominance over individual tribes maintain their independent positions while at the same time retaining some degree of "commonality" that they can appeal to when facing annhilation at the hands of a stronger enemy? This is to emphasize extra-political, extra-state ideological binding that still has pragamtic elements to call upon each other in crisis. This is why Islam, which evolved exactly in similar situations - in the deserts of Northern Arabia where tribes wanted to retain their independence but still have a framework of banding together to loot or defend - was probably so quickly and strongly entrenched in AFG.

So Islamism is embedded internally and strongly among the Pashtuns. This was observed by the British when they studied the ease with which Ottoman and Indian Muslim leadership could recruit them in the name of the "Khilafat". Many here often express the sentiments of the "common Afghan" being "oh-so-friendly" towards India. But this is similar to attitudes in children of a certain educational conditioning looking for "poo-bear" as the "oh-so-cuddly" safe animal to take to bed. In real history, the Afghans did not spare Indians the trauma allowed to be inflicted in Islamic literature on non-Muslims - in India.

Many "liberal" Afghan commentators try to separate out the distinctions between "Pakhtun" culture (shrine vs mosque/akhan-dance vs sharia etc) and Wahabi Islam propoiunded by the Talebs. The fact is that, because of the embedded Islamism - which is also convenient as the survival strategy of tribal elite - there is no violent/militant conflict between such distinctions. Yes there are distinctions, but they never gain such a huge intensity as to become issue for a bloody civil war. This is also the reason that a very large number of the currently dominant male sections of the AFG population were so easy recruits into the Pak madrassahs, and so eager volunteers for the Taleban.

Thus overall the tribal elite greed for personal independence and power, their steady sabotage of "hard boundaries" (anywhere the "Pakhtun roams" is "Pashtunistan"), their embedded Islamism that helps maintain such independence and hedge against external incursions, will tend to keep AFG from forming any real European style (or even Asian style) "nation". It will for a very long long time be a non-state.

The Wahabized Pashtun Taleban is in effect a bridge between the traditional Pashtun and Islamic badlands of Pakistan. There is no real conflict between the three.The bridge cannot survive without the "supporting end pillars", and the pillars have no utility without the bridge.

Pakistan, KSA and the USA - created conditions for Pashtuns attacking the Afghan communists so that the USSR was drawn in and hopefully met its "Vietnam" and collapsed - and out of this collaboartion was born the Taleban. However by the usual dialectical process, the Taleban once formed changed the prior setup forever. They in turn changed the Pashtuns and Pakistan. So Pakistan began to resemble more and more the traditional "badlands" of AFG, and part of the Pashtuns began to resemble Pakis. Usually in such circumstances - it is the "bridge" which increasingly rules both the "exits" and "approach roads".

By Pakistan becoming or increasingly taking on traditional Pashtun military-political frameworks - it came to increasingly rely on Islamism as the fail-safe for the survival of the various distinct, fiercely independent components. Only now, the role of the Pashtun tribal elite leadership is taken over by entities like the ISI, TSPA, individual madrassah and "Dawa" networks, terror outfits etc.

It is this framework that will help the Paistanis survive as a politically and militarily coherent entity and prevent it from total "implosion". But this can only indicate increasing Islamism as the fails-safe and binder - spreading across AFPAK.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 13 Feb 2010 01:27

One pattern that has always interested me about the countries in Asia where currently Islamist violence has taken over - is a common history of a strong Marxist/Leftist movement. There are three important aspects to any such pattern.

(a) Is there something in common in the respective societies that generates attraction for both "Marxist" and "Islamist" ideologies? Both are in a sense absolutist, and follow the classic "us and them/have and have-not/violent revolutionary transition/faith in the party/submission to the leader/terror as a weapon" as tactical approach. However they have important and serious contradictions. Islamism replaces one form of feudalism by another -even Islamic democracy is a form of feudalism by theologians. Marxists of all shades are strongly anti-feudal. Similarly, Islamism is not interested in land-reforms and womens-rights, whereas Marxists almost inevitably are. So how are both trends accommodated in Islamist societies?

(b) Did the West commit a long term strategic blunder in destroying the Left in the Aarba world and ME for short term tactical victory against USSR?

(c) Combining (a)+(b) - should we toy with the idea of using the "Left" in Islmism dominated countries as a counter to Islamism - so that these two aspects of such societies wear themselves out?

The idea comes from looking at the modern history of Yemen. Similar histories are observable in Iran or Iraq or the Arab world, in BD and Indonesia. The current President of Yemen is actually a leader of the tribal and Islamist, previously separate nation of northern Yemen Arab Republic (YAR). Its nemesis was the “Marxist” southern People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY). The PDRY was formed by the Marxist faction of the anti-imperialist movement based in Aden against the British. In the late 60's, as was common in other ex-colonies - the leftists decided that the middle and upper sections of their societies were not interested in modernization and social and economic reforms. The Islamist society obviously forced the Marxists into opposition against the orthodox Islamists. Soviet support appeared to strengthen the predominantly leftist south to hold out against the northern tribal Islamist and feudal society in spite of support to the north from KSA and USA. This split Yemen into two independent nations.

Naturally, proxy wars continued, and with the collapse of the USSR - the Jihadists saw their opportunity. In 1993, the civil war intensified between the north and the south, with a mediated settlement of "unification" in 1994. The current president of Yemen, Saleh - actually comes from old diehard orthodox stock from the north. The more populous, strongly Islamist, and tribal feudal leadership of the north dominates the electoral outcomes, and have apparently succeeded in reversing land-reforms and an other modernization or social reform programmes of the "Marxist" south. The civil war was won by the North using the absence of Soviet help to the south, backing by KSA and USA, and the returnees of the Afghan war.

Why did the west become so short-sighted as to not see the future of bolstering Jihad? Even if from a racial point of view, the Yemenis are expendable to the dominant racist world view of the Anglo-Saxon, the very fact that Jihadists gain a new population and crucial strategic location in IOR escapes them as significant future danger to their own interests!

However Jihadists have now proven their real mettle - as the northerners now dominating Yemen from Sanaa - the capital of the old North - are faced with "purer" Jihadis. In a sense they are suffereing the same retribution as the west is - as the dogs of war they unleashed on ithers have returned to bay for ex-masters blood.

The older "Leftist" South is looking for a way to fight back - and they should legitimately have expectations of support. They have 90% of the country's oil resources - although estimated stocks may not last long, and may finish as early as 2017 by some estimates. Apparently a general strike paralyzed the southern provinces of Dhale, Lahaj, Shabwa and Abyan in Yemen recently. The strike was called by the Southern Movement (an umbrella group of anti-gov forces dominated by the ex-Marxists) as a protest against oppression from the central government in Sana’a. There are also reports of air-raids being carried out on populations in the South East under cover of fighting "terror". Elections due for 2009 have been postponed for two years.

This reminds me of the situation in AFG by which ultimately Jihad has strengthened itself using the utter shorsightedness of western paranoia about the "left".

There is an opportunity to think of a tactical use of remnant leftist sentiments or elements. In the absence of an ideological superpower willing to invest in Marxist adventures (like the USSR) the risks are less compared to a Cold War scenario. Why not let the Islamists and the Reds wear each other out?

Opening a front for the Islamists in Yemen to shower their attention on could be a good strategy for India to encourage. Let it become another AFG that leads tos shortage of Jihadists to unleash on India!

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 13 Feb 2010 02:04

Very good post and good questions.
It may need a separate thread but we need discussion on all the points in your post.

Bharath.Subramanyam · Post by **Bharath.Subramanyam** » 15 Feb 2010 06:58

Posting this to show the interconnections between History, Academic Institutions and Well Being of a Nation:

Recently in a history group there was a mail on the book written by well known Indian Marxist in a US university.

One Hindu Scholar has written a very good review on that book showing the amount of mistakes in that book and what kind of trash it is. Then a historian from India said we don’t have to take these kinds of anti-Hindu scholars seriously and rebut them. He felt that by reacting to this “nut case (XXX)”, we are providing legitimacy to them which we must resist at all cost.

Then three prominent scholars objected to this “ignoring” and said why Hindus must take put these issues:

Scholar 1:
1) TRAINING: we have too little rather too much competent criticism of the others. This competence takes many years to develop; it needs encouragement and not a flippant dismissal. the skills developed as a solid critic are highly portable and can be deployed later on other targets. If one observes how the Indian youth are being brainwashed on campuses by Marxists-Islamists-crypto Christians, one would learn the merit in such approaches that start with simpler, less prominent targets first. So my first reason to encourage this is that it is a training vehicle both for the scholar doing it as well as for the readers who tend to be rather naive and ignorant most of the time.

2) POWER STRUCTURE/HIERARCHY OF THEIR ARMY: To locate XXX in the big picture, one must understand the whole establishment of institutions that dominate knowledge production, distribution and retailing about civilizations, religions, nations, etc. XXX is a middle ranking officer along with other middle ranking officers like Angana Chatterji, Vijay Prashad and many more I could list. The senior officials like Romila Thapar, Irfan Habib, etc. based in India and several whites and Indians based overseas have many decades of expertise in maturing their collaborations, and networks of influence. They skillfully tap into funding sources, media to promote their books and spread their ideas, school education textbook writers, government policymakers, human rights activists in NGOs, etc. But they rely upon the middle rank to continue the work of producing more brainwashed young scholars. After all, Thapar types are not always active as teachers and even if they are, they know they have limited time ahead. So they groom others like these middle ranks to take over the teaching burden to ensure that the next gen will follow in their ideologies.

XXX has to be studied as it is such folks who will occupy prestigious chairs one day. Already they occupy various committees that make selections: from hiring, to papers selected, to conference attendees invited. When a US University was selecting the replacement of the Chair of Indian History, it was XXX on the selection committee who was championing the hiring of the most radical Marxist Indian historians possible. (This is duty for their version of sangha.) This time around (but probably not in the future) the benefactor was able to intervene and convince the authorities to bend their academic "isolation" and get a person who would be less anti-India. They got such a person - who I am told is somewhat less virulent but still very much into the theory of "foreigners brought everything useful to India". There are more young students today per annum being influenced by these middle rank folks than by the top tier generals of their army. Some of these middle rankers are vying to advance their careers, and for this they need to be seen in a certain light, and they also need to constantly kiss the right asses. It is a career club of sorts. This is not different than the behavior of the diehard religious activists I have observed. The difference is that the club XXX belongs to has control over the institutional mechanisms that are critical to assert power in society - school education, higher education, media, policymaking think tanks, human rights NGOs, and funding mechanisms. Unfortunately, most Hindus I come across are living in some lofty space in the clouds, dismissive of the importance of these institutional mechanisms. They trivialize what they truly don’t even know about.

3) MULTIPLE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS: Too many Indian scholars fail to understand the fine distinctions among various kinds of ideologies, and simplistically lump them as "west" or "Christian". The fact is that XXX is very anti-western and anti-white. He champions Ward Churchill, a part Native American, who led the angry anti-white rhetoric, which exaggerated some facts and got denounced. So when it comes to Indian vs. British, XXX will support Indians and hence Hindu. But when it comes to Hindu vs. Muslim issues, he is clearly on the Muslim side. This genre of postcolonialism consists of attacking colonialism, but not replacing it with an indigenous Indian civilization as their foundation, and instead valorizing the Mughal period. You will find this in the work of Sugata Bose even when he is not coauthoring with his Pakistani girlfriend, Ayesha Jalal. XXX is a mild Nehruvian and calls himself a Gandhian although his "Gandhianism" is naive - things like not owning a cell phone as a rejection of modernity but ok to use email. These mixed up folks use symbols, name dropping, who/what they show anger against, what events they attend - all this as a "profile portfolio" to project their intellectual identity within their system. The relationship with postmodernism is paradoxical and contradictory just like postmodernism itself. Western liberals invented postmodernism as a way to reject their past (both the Biblical era and the Enlightenment era that had replaced it). This was supposed to end all power structures of every kind in every discipline and domain. But recently the trend in western academics of theorizing is to reject postmodernism, seeing it as a sort of silly idealism and potentially a dangerous kind. It failed in its goal to deconstruct power (because it got co-opted by the very same power nexuses) and served as a cover for new kinds of power structures. But meanwhile, it is the fashion probe bandwagon of Indians who have downloaded the postmodern thought and turned it into their career ideology. XXX is one of these along with his mentor, Ashis Nandy. So while fighting western hegemony and whiteness (by equating it to modernity, hence the Gandhian symbolism in his portfolio), these Indians enter whiteness through a different and trendier door, namely postmodernism. I call it Postmodernism Whiteness.

So XXX's internal contradictions stem from wanting to believe that postmodernism is truly beyond civilizational grand narratives just because it says so and also because a few Indians have been admitted in as "theorists" such as Gaytri Spivak and Homi Bhabha (Harvard Humanities Dept and not the great Physicist). My point here is that folks who critique these kinds of books should be encouraged to go even deeper into their examination of people like XXX, because once you open the door to enter into their minds; there is no reason to stop after a simple analysis. Once you go deeper, their whole system of thinking and its history and relationships with power gets revealed. (People are also working on a book on this history of whiteness and its morphing into postmodern theories, which locates the "White Indians.")

4) BLINDNESS: A frequent topic of my arguments has been on assertions that "Indology is dead" and that "we won," which sends the implicit message that now "we can go home and relax". I have pointed out that the term Indology got replaced by South Asian studies; the empire that studied India most intensely has transferred from London to Washington; the CONCLUSIONS of what was once Indology have spread like a metastasized cancer into many other fields like religion, anthropology, history, political science, human rights, etc. This stealth Indology is far more dangerous because its mechanisms for spreading are hidden under various disciplines. See any textbook or even a modern western Sanskrit thesis and you see the signature of Aryan invasion/migration theories all over. The same ideological postures exist far more dangerously today. So it’s wrong to discourage whatever little energy we have in terms of mounting a counter discourse. Let them not finish us off so easily due to our own foolishness.

What goes unchallenged turns cancerous. If already cancerous it metastasizes and starts to spread. If its already metastasized it spreads faster unchallenged. So no matter what stage a given tumor might be in, it needs to be confronted and challenged. Even when the challenge seems feeble, it will give fodder to other challengers. In places like amazon.com such negative (but intelligent) remarks do dissuade usage of the books by the vast segment of undecided, the vacillators, the folks who want to be fair, etc. but who are simply uninformed. It’s like a parliament that consists of members who are 100% from one party, but suddenly a dissenting voice appears. This voice cannot overrule the power structure, but its ability to make the system self conscious does have an effect. There are bound to be those who start to be less blatant in their bias just because someone is watching.

Scholar 2:
Not just the book of XXX, even in Wendy Doniger's new book, one can see how the power structures discussed by Scholar 1 below play out. If you see the bibliography of her chapters, she has largely referred to people of 'her school'; Marxist historians; and other partners in 'the good fight' (to use her phrase). It is all about creating and leveraging alliances. She is no fool, or else she would not be today where she is right now.

A quick look at the Worldcat shows that already more than 300 libraries in the US and Europe have purchased her book. If that books goes unchallenged, you can be assured that it will be used as an 'introductory text on Hinduism' very soon. There is an Indian reprint for a mere Rs 500 available already. The urban Hindus who know nothing about our heritage will lap all that she drools. We all know what will happen then.

If nothing, our opposition to such books raises the stakes and discourages at least some potential Hindu baiters from writing such nonsense in future. And the controversy generated is a great way to enlighten our own people about the true foundations of our Dharma.

A very important point that is made below is that all these Hindu and India baiters train ARMIES of students every year. I personally met a lady whose son attended a class by Vinay Lal (a Marxist in UCLA). Initially, he was taken aback but soon, he started agreeing to what Lal said. Lals and Donigers lead their students through a tunneling of vision phenomenon and unless we break this spell, they will not see the truth. One only needs to go to ANY Indian gathering comprising of the normal crowd (not just the Sangh followers) and you will be shocked how much the average Indian has been brainwashed. So we cannot live in this fantasy world and say that people like XXX do not matter. Yes, they do. And unfortunately, they probably matter more than us right now. So we have a good task cut out for us for our lifetimes.

As the Shringeri Shankaracharya once said to me - If Lord Vishnu Himself leaves his state of eternal Kaivalya and incarnates to fight evil, is it not our duty too to fight what is wrong tooth and nail?

Scholar 3:
I understand and sympathize with your interpretation of XXX political motivations, but I do believe there is somewhat more to this story. It is important to recognize that he and his ilk have come to regard Islam as being in the forefront of anti-imperialism, particularly Israeli-American, in which they regard 'Hindu India' complicit. Of course the notion of Hindu India is an absurdity unless one is willing to accept the most visceral Pakistani-Bangladeshi commentary on the nature of India, itself rooted in 19th century sub continental Islamic sectarianism. Interestingly, XXX and his academic kin are unwilling to make direct criticism of 'Islamic regimes' (because they rarely criticize anything Islamic) that the Jihadis, with who they are in sympathy, oppose. But most glaringly, they absolutely refuse to recognize the brutal imperialist agenda of Islamic Jihadis themselves. And even more shockingly, XXX and most Leftist supporters of supposed Islamic resistance to Western imperialism ignore any atrocities Muslim Jihadis commit against innocent non Muslims or indeed Muslims (e.g. the callous killings of Shias in Pakistan by Saudi-inspired Sunnis). Thus Taslima's banishment from Kolkata/India elicited no protest (though one major Leftist writer, Mahasweta-devi, denounced the communists for it) nor the routine kidnapping, rape and the forced marriage of Hindu girls in Bangladesh and various parts of Pakistan.

It is pertinent to note that the Anglo-American war against militant Islamic groups is of very recent origin, indeed less than a decade old. Earlier these murderous Islamist Islamists were very much part of the Western arsenal against Arab nationalism, the USSR (until the early 1990s and later in Chechnya because of its near monopoly of oil pipelines to the West) and other assorted regimes, like India disliked by the West. Indian Leftists have always been part of this political dispensation though its implications were not rendered explicit and barely recognized by protagonists of Hindutva, who have never had the intellectual equipment to see beyond their noses. It is important to recall that this political dispensation was also pro-Chinese and therefore willing partners of their Western ally, the USA, which, incidentally, renewed the integrity of China's nuclear defenses in the mid-1970s (to avert a possible preemptive Soviet nuclear strike) and then helped Pakistan emerge as a nuclear power and exporter of weapons technology (all the evidence now public). These three parties, Indian Leftists, China and the US, also came together to support the genocide in Bangladesh in 1971.

Indian Leftist access to academic positions in US and British universities has been significantly predicated on the intercession of foreign policy and intelligence agencies (and their academic levies within universities) determined to undermine Indian political legitimacy (they cursed Nehru and Indira Gandhi much more venomously than any Hindutva target) through a non stop critique of all its 'devilish works', thereby validating Pakistani claims of victimhood. The likes of Sugata Bose (with and without Ayesha Jalal) his brother at the LSE (persistent critic of Indian policy in Kashmir) and cousin Sharmila at Oxford (denies the Pakistani army committed mass rape in East Pakistan in 1971) issue a constant patter of delegitimizing against India. I have just read a piece by Professor Dipesh Chakravarty, colleague of the two Chicago University harridans, Doniger and Nussbaum, cynically denouncing Indian nationalist historical writing by insinuating a Hindutva pedigree for it. Nowhere does he cite the implied specifics of distortion by them except to name Romila Thapar and Sumit Sarkar (a genuine low life himself) as some sort of irrefutable evidential iconography to supposedly clinch the argument; he only emerges as a low life as well as a result, which a Chicago chair in the heart of the imperialist monster cannot obviate!

The CPM and its Muslim vote bank are very important explanatory variables too because the communists understood that without Muslims votes they were nothing in West Bengal and Kerala, the only bases of their political power in India. They ensured through myriad party institutions that the Leftist intelligentsia understood this stark reality. As a result, the pro-communist 'intelligentsia' eschewed all questioning of Islam and provided the cultural and intellectual rationale for the victimhood of Muslims and the portrayal of an alleged converse fascism of Brahminnical Hinduism. From Romila Thapar and the two JNU Patnaiks to Amiya Bagchi and Joya Chatterji and countless other acolytes, never has a word of criticism been uttered against Islam. And the non CPM Leftist Indian intelligentsia was intellectually overawed and also depended on the party mandarins, holding crucial academic and bureaucratic offices, for their own careers. And a whole climate of anti-Hindu propaganda took root in which a Leftist identity by became the norm for a large number of university students. And evangelical Christians also supported this insidious campaign (just look at the newer Christian evangelical websites) because doing down Hindus was their first port of call.

But bear in mind that Hindus across the board (including of late Baba Ramdev and Sir Sri) confronted by an implacable Islam have sought to accommodate. Gandhi was only an extreme version of the phenomenon, which is shared even by the RSS, judging by its forlorn efforts to reach some sort of reconciliation with it. R.K. Ohri judges this cowardly Hindu impulse as a product of fear due to prolonged subjugation and constant brutal punishment, floggings, torture and painful deaths.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 15 Feb 2010 10:37

From Rajiv Malhotra

Here are some titles for those who want to do review and critique Hinduphobia. Left unopposed, they turn into classics and spread the poison further:

1. "Post-Hindu India", by Kancha Ilaiah. 2009. Sage Publications, Delhi. Filled with hatred towards Hinduism; blatantly and explicitly calling for the eradication of Hinduism in order to liberate the true Indians. In its 3rd print run already. Was launched by prominent mainstream politicians. The author was appointed to a top post in National Book Trust, the Indian government publishing arm from where he determines what books get published across India using government funding. He is being quoted by many liberal education institutions popping up across India that supply curriculums and books to private schools where most middle class parents like to send their children.

2. "The God Market: How Globalization is making India More Hindu," by Meera Nanda. Random House, Delhi. 2009. Another heavily promoted book. This is the trend among most large Indian publishers with links to the west, and also many totally Indian ones. This book deals with various prominent hindu gurus and leaders depicting them as fascists, violators of human rights, etc. Author a well-known rabid communist, now heavily funded by Templeton Foundation a Protestant billionaire's largesse to try and make biblical thought seem "scientific".

3. "The No Nonsense Guide to Minority Rights in South Asia," by Rita Manchanda. See details at: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/817829 ... 700_snp_dp

This is a tiny portion of the massive output by this army of scholars, intellectuals, media folks, educators, etc. who now increasingly control the minds of the next generation of Indians. A large network of foreign foundations and funding mechanisms, Indian groups and NGOs, (NOT JUST CHURCH RELATED BUT SECULAR ONES) has been doing this for 25 years. This is a new form of colonialism, now being brought by a class of Indians trained for this specific purpose.

So where have all the netas been, besides putting malas on each other, introducing each others with kudos, attending the same kinds of events over and over again?
--

RayC · Post by **RayC** » 15 Feb 2010 11:14

Kancha Illya or whatever his name is, is a bit of an odd fish.

I don't remember which panel discussion it was and it had nothing to do with religion and he brought out how the SC was being discriminated etc.

A really odd fish indeed!

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 15 Feb 2010 11:19

RayC wrote:Kancha Illya or whatever his name is, is a bit of an odd fish.

I don't remember which panel discussion it was and it had nothing to do with religion and he brought out how the SC was being discriminated etc.

A really odd fish indeed!

This is the modern form of social engineering. Brilliantly executed.
Neo colonization has never really stopped.

RayC · Post by **RayC** » 15 Feb 2010 11:25

I had a chat with Mr RS Gawai of the Republican Party, who I met perchance when I was visiting the Sankaracharya temple in Srinagar.

Since he is a Mahar and I was from a Mahar Battalion, we got talking and I asked him as a neo Buddhist why was he praying at this temple?

He said no matter what, the roots cannot be forgotten or totally discarded.

That is why you have the clamour for SC Christians (Mother Teresa also wanted the same and raised the issue later) and SC Muslims!!

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 16 Feb 2010 03:32

The Pune blasts revive an interesting conundrum of subcontinental politics, and quite iconic of future trends.

Who are the possible parties whose names can be put up by various quarters as having carried out the blast?What would be the motivations attributed? What can we learn from such possible motivations? How is it all going to pan out?

Hypothetical guilty parties:
(1) non-TSP-state Jihadis [NSJ(TSP)
(2) TSP-state Jihadis [SJ(TSP)]
(3) non-Indian-state Jihadis [NSJ(IND)]
(4) Indian-state Jihadis [SJ(IND)]
(5) Hindu-Fascist-Fundamentalist [HFF]
(6) Indian Centre-Left Secularists
(7) "West"
(8) PRC
(9) Israel
(10) Maoists

In the absence of any concrete evidence being available in public, any projected identification, made even at the government level, remains CT. So why not extend the usual culprits list with a few more who cannot be ruled out in terms of motivation, proximity and capability.

Potentially attributable motivations and how far are they feasible?

Why will NSJ(TSP)'s carry out terror inside India? They have good opportunity to show their prowess in AFG, where terrain, security scenario, penetration and capability of the state is far weaker than in India. If India is terrorized - how does it benefit them? The cause of Jihad is best served and excused if it can be portrayed that the regime or society against which terror is being carried out are - anti-Muslim, or has resisted conversion into Islam, have actively defended themselves against demands of Islamists, or have taken steps to reduce the activity of Islamic preachers and theologians. None of these have taken place in India, where Islamic theologians freely issue fatwas with no retribution from the self acclaimed secular state, and they more or less also determine how intellectual freedom is going to be interpreted where "real or imaginary" insults to Islam can be claimed - books banned, legal reforms quashed, and authors like Tasleema Nasreen virtually expelled because she had exposed Islamist atrocities on Hindus in BD. India is one place on the subcontinent, where minority faiths are fully protected and their righst to proselytize or hold the state to ransom on "faith grounds" are fully acknowledged. Destroying this safe haven by weakening the hand of ruling elites where protection of Islamism is concerned - is a massive self-goal.

Why will SJ(TSP) carry out terror inside India? They know that their best protection of long term goals on the subcontinent is the strengthening of the hand of so-called "secularists". The secularists will divide opposition to Jihad and Islamism, aggressively campaign against competing non-Islamic and non-Christian faiths like "Hinduism", whitewash the Islamist theology all the while deconstructing non-Islamic ones so that cultural resistance does not develop. Ultimately, this is the best possible long term strategy to Islamize the entire subcontinent. By carrying out terror this long term protection is jeopardized as it exposes the real elements of the theology that is the inspiration for terror.

Among the SJ(TSP), the state instruments of TSPA or ISI also knows that pressurizing the ruling arrangement of India too much will lead to power being transferred within India to forces not so sympathetic to Islamist hopes. Moreover, in the extreme case, too much Islamist destabilization can lead to an AFG like situation where the 'west" can get involved more effectively. The plains of India will not offer the shelter of rugged terrain found in AFG, and where western military technology would be difficult for the Jihadis to match. The best bet to carry out such destabilization is once the "west" has retreated from AFPAK militarily completely, and is too bogged down in economic troubles.

For both SJ's and NSJ's talks are actually helpful. A talk actually exposes the impossibilities of any progress at formal negotiations between the GOI and the IOGWI (Islamist Occupation Gov of Western India - aka Pakistan). Progress will only come if GOI concedes "Kashmir" - which the GOI is perhaps quite shaky about. Exposure of the impossibility of progres sthrough talks helps the long-term goal of Jihadis much more than action that aborts talks. For there will then always be the claim that "if only the talks had been held - the whole thing would have been solved".

A similar and parallel logic will work from the HFF viewpoint, that the more the talks go forward - the more they expose the impossibility of resolution of the range of problems between India and TSP through "dialogue". What TSP wants - India cannot give rationally. If GOI concedes such TSP demands, then the ruling regime will be unable to hold on to internal power. Either way, talks are something to look forward to for HFF. They cannot take action that can translate into pressure to abort talks.

Indian Centre-Left Secularists : Since we have indulged in hypothesizing about HFF involvement, there is no reason to exclude this category. They can have a fundamental motivation in carrying out terror acts inside India. By loudly presenting themselves as anti-terror, they know that no one will imagine them to have been involved. This gives excellent protection. A terror outrage can be used to keep the pressure on the popular imagination that "peace" needs to be bought at any cost - and that the longer India delays conceding to TSP, such attacks can be repeated. They are in the best position among all groups mentioned above - as their long posturings ensure that they will never be suspected.

"West" can of course also indulge. By targeting their own citizens they can create the right mood in the public to withdraw from the 'fight against terror" in "God-forsaken lands" and bring back home the boys and not "body bags".

PRC stands to benefit from terror inside India. This makes India less attractive as an economic destination.

Israel : Given the GOI tendency not to retaliate militarily to terror, Israeli sponsorship of such terror activity inside India serves no tactical advantage for them.

Maoists :they lose nothing in facilitating such terror activity as long as they are targeted against the supposedly hated represnetatives of the "imperialists". In fact they gain from anything that destabilizes the Indian state or makes it look weak and vulnerable.

Pranav · Post by **Pranav** » 16 Feb 2010 14:45

There are some intriguing developments in the past few days:

- Intense US pressure on MMS & Co to talk to the Pakis, and warnings that India will face terror strikes otherwise.
- Increase in US aid to the Pakis (latest Hafta was some $3.2 billion)
- No protest from the US regarding the recent Lashkar / Jamaat hate conventions.
- Pakis agreeing to back-stab some elements of the Quetta Shura - see Top Taleban commander Mullah Baradar captured in Pakistan (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w ... 028598.ece)

Can these dots be connected?

Where does this leave India, Karzai, and the Afghan Talibs? What about the Chinese? What carrots and sticks does India have with respect to the Chinese?

The immediate priority for a nationalistic government in Delhi would be to make very clear to the US that all defense and nuclear deals will very much depend on their policies with respect to Pakistan.

Pranav · Post by **Pranav** » 16 Feb 2010 15:49

^^^ Here is an analysis of the scenario:

It appears safe to assume that the Pakis have agreed to make half-hearted efforts to help the US stabilize Afghanistan. In return, the US has agreed to lean on India as regards Kashmir, and has also agreed to allow the Pakis to unleash their rabid dogs against India.

So what does it mean for India?

Stabilization of Afghanistan under a non-Taliban dispensation can only be a positive thing, if the US is actually sincere about this. [In case the US proves less than sincere, India will have to fall back again upon Russia, the CARs and Iran.]

But India can expect to face more terrorism / orchestrated media campaigns / western pressure on the Kashmir issue.

What India should do is assemble a set of carrots and sticks to modulate both US and Chinese support to the Pakis. The US is in dire straits financially, and Indian defense and nuclear contracts can be a significant incentive. The Chinese need Indian raw materials, as well as access to the Indian market. Furthermore, the Chinese would not want to push India fully into the American camp.

So India does have a certain amount leverage. However, this leverage can at best buy some breathing space, nothing more. Ultimately, India will have to face Pakistani terrorism on its own. India needs to establish close working relations with all ethnic, political and religious groups in Pakistan. India needs to operate from inside Pakistan to convince the Punjabi Sunni elite that they have no hope of getting Kashmir, and that waging a war of terror against India will be very costly to their own well-being.

So, the coming months are going to be a delicate time, IMHO.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 17 Feb 2010 01:00

"Stabilization" of AFG is the sales pitch by US admin. In reality it is the temporary appearance of stablity that can justify US retreat from AFG with good face. The recent Brit offensive openly indicated that they wanted the "Talebs' to melt away from the cities. This is also a clear indication tha they want to present an appearance of cleaned "seat of government". But as I have tried to point out here previously, in AFG, holding on to cities can no longer guarantee holding the countryside. In historical times, AFG cities controlled the standard traderoutes to extract profits and maintain themselves as seats of power. Now, trade has diversified and smuggling continues all around. Any regime that does not have the support of the countryside is dependent on external resources. Moreover, airlifting to keep a precarious regime in power in small urban centres where the whole countryside is out of control - is going to be immensely costly for outsiders.

So they have initiated negotiations to bring back the Talebs in a power sharing arrangement. Any net product of stabilization in AFG will be the eventual reinstatement of the Talebs.

If TSP is getting excited, it is because it sees, that the western piece of its chess-board is falling into place as it wanted. So that its Taleb boys are back in power in AFG means they can now reach out in a continuous stretch from Iran and CAR right into India. Nowadays there is quite a bit of talk about "hard national interests" not being affected by past misgivings. So we cannot rule out covert Iranian support to those Talebs who seek a degree of independence from their ISI or Pakjabi masters. It helps Iran to plan for a future role in AFPAK, reach up to southern shores of TSP and secure its vulnerable Gulf access at least from the south-west. A weak TSP eternally penetrable by US is not good for Iran strategically.

Now why would not such a concern by Iran be synced with Indian interests in securing "occupied western India" OWI (aka TSP) back into Indian hands itself? That is because, India shows no indication of even going for a Molotov-Ribbentrop type division of OWI with AFG. If Iran wants tod o anything here, it has to go alone, with possible Russian and PRC help.

Indian leadership cannot do much within the current bindings it has cornered itself into. It is forever tied up in its unfounded fears of acting against Jihadis harshly to trigger sympathies for Jihad within India. It is probably at this point also a victim of its own propaganda that (a) Pakistanis as people are good - only a few bad apples create all the trouble - which is also related to the propaganda (b) that the theology does not prepare the mind of everyone through that brainwashing regime to activate the Jihadi/ghazwa switch when opportunities arise. Therefore Indian leadership cannot explain, or fit the real data being continuously generated from OWI, by its own propaganda and neither can it formulate appropriate response.

While everyone here perhaps sees disaster in temporary defeats and retreats before a possible Jihadi aggression, we have to consider that (a) such an aggression exposes the real problems of leadership and false propaganda and (b) helps a new breed of leaders with a different and ruthless mindset towards the source problem to come forward. As long as the confused, and bound-up older mindset is not erased through facing such confrontations, the newere needed component will not be allowed to come to decision-making.

India needs to invest in a future leadership that is not so keen to avoid pain at all costs. Only when India shows that it will not avoid pain when dealing with external rabid dogs, and will not hesitate to crush in the head of the animal even if there is a risk of a painful bite in the process - will "rabis" appear to have vanished magically.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 17 Feb 2010 02:18

Is it possible that GOI is using talks for its own purposes? Everyone including US knows all links to terrorism in India point to TSP. If India takes action on TSP, it conflicts with US interests in TSP. Hence US will move all it has to stop such actions from India.

Now the US wants the TSP to act on its own creations on the western border. However TSP claims the threat from Indian retaliation on its eastern borders precludes it from sparing forces to the west to do the needful. Its another matter that it is mock action with lot of smoke and mirrors to hoodwink the US into forking over more money to TSP.

So the figment of talks is floated to show that things are normal with India and hence TSP should do the needful in the west. TSP doesnt want to do that and launches yet another attack on India with all indicators showing its origins from TSP: explosives used, claims, cell phone calls etc. Till now India used to be outraged and point to the state as the sponsor of terrorism against India. Now as long as its the TSP state, the US steps in and protects its minions no matter what they do to India. The new arguement of non-state actors plays right into the picture now. By pointing to non-state actors, India can continue the talks and thus force the US to make TSP act on its creations. Even though the dregs who will be at risk are those used against Afghan, it all counts for something. Most likely they will take the war into the TSP core areas. And its the TSP that has to handle the turmoil once it starts.

As for why Pune despite warnings, am still looking at access to Headley angle.

With the fact that Pune target was on headley list and the attack is from TSP non-state actors, it becomes difficult and down right unfriendly for US to refuse access to Headely now implicated in Nov 26/11 and 13/2 Pune attacks. Right now Headley is being charged with potential crime in Denmark while he already has links to two actual attacks in India. Headley interrogation will have its own dynamics.

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 17 Feb 2010 02:24

Ramana; India should do what it needs to do, if it hurts US intrests, the onus is on US to turn off the funds and put the pressure on.

Too long has US played the double game, now would be a good time to force them to make a choice, but that would actually require a leader at the helm of GoI right?

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 17 Feb 2010 02:27

On the contrary they are being asked to choose right now. It might not look like that those who know, know. Watch for US reactions.

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 17 Feb 2010 02:53

ramana wrote:On the contrary they are being asked to choose right now. It might not look like that those who know, know. Watch for US reactions.

Fascinating, I will remember to discuss this again, what time frames do you think it should be visible to aam junta like us?

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 17 Feb 2010 03:00

When there is a stumble.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 17 Feb 2010 18:48

X-posting from TSP thread :
I have started referring to TSP as Occupied Western India (OWI) which can be extended to Terrorist Occupied Western India (TOWI). If we have come to the general consensus that it is an entity on life-support from external powers, is a breeding ground and controlled by or dominated by terrorists, whose army and government work to protect or further terrorist interests, that it is on permanent terror alert with no virtual sign of governance - it is basically an "araajaka" "badland" occupied by bands of terrorists. Why not cease to use "state" in connection with it and consider as "occupied lands of India"?

We should also think of drawing new maps which shows how those lands are going to be freed of occupation in a timed sequence - 2020, 2040 etc. The cartographers here on the forum, can you fire up your imagination?

kulhari · Post by **kulhari** » 17 Feb 2010 21:40

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2010/20100217/edit.htm#2

Apologies if the link is improper but after reading the above mentioned editorial I am a little disheartened.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 18 Feb 2010 02:46

Kulhari ji, do you mean the news item about the "army"?

On the other side, I see positive long term outcomes from intensifying Paki attacks on India. X-posting from TSP thread :

I think destiny is clearing the way for India. That does not make it any less painful, automatic or without price to be paid.

This is how the sequence goes:

(1) USA+UK withdraws from AFG. The main withdrawal takes place in 2010-2011. Symbolic presence and undercover units remain well into 2012-2015. The AFG government is modified to accommodate a section of the Talebs. The USA+UK is increasingly pressurized to maintain Karazai's position within the government of national consensus. But the supply lines come increasingly under disruption. The central and southern countryside reverts to ruthless Taleb control gradually. The Talebs gradually squeeze Karazai out. AFG splits up into a large south-central area controlled by the Talebs, a northern strip controlled by the remnants of Mujahideen, as well as individual warlords. Popular support swings towards Talebs. Remnant undercover units of USA+UK are forced to move out.

(2) The POGWI - Paki Occupation Government of Western India, begins to implement the core Jihadi, TSPA, ISI agenda. It uses the "strategic depth" offered by Taleb controlled territory and deniability of non-state/third-party actors to try and destabilize with intensified and accelerating rate of terror attacks inside India. Pressure rises to concede "Kashmir" to TSP - directly or indirectly. USA is still forced to go on providing support to POGWI, since it has been made clear that unless such support is forthcoming - the POGWI will turn to PRC or Iran, and will no longer holdback terror attacks on US interests. Difficult financial situation and potential costs of such behaviour compel USA to maintain POGWI in power in return for the promise that POGWI will concentrate on India and not on USA. This starts intensifying from 2010. The projected timeline from POGWI side is 2010-2020, and they hope to gain J&K as well as large parts pf northern India during this period.

(3) Initial Indian reaction is split between two camps. A dominant and vocal majority in the decision making and opinion forming circles about the needs to compromise. This force gets stronger in the timeline 2010-2015. Some degree of compromise is actually made and peace and prosperity promised. The compromises are used as signs of weakness on the part of India, and the connected schools of opinion fully exploited by POGWI. US influence is weak enough by this time to be unable to control course of AFPAK destiny. This is the turning point.

(4) Since the West can no longer intervene so strongly as before, POGWI and Taleb/Jihadis feel no restraint or obstacle in expanding on India. Indian ruling regimes desperately try to keep the reality of the situation suppressed from the public until the very last moment, so that large-scale violence or military adventures by POGWI and allies come as public surprises. Previous calculations and propaganda about how populations or subgroups will resist such aggressions turn out to be false or over-optimistic. A section of the ruling elite switches allegiance under the excuse of compromising to save whatever can be saved. But the previous line of policy w.r.t POGWI stands delegitimized and leadership associated with such policy stands discredited. Timeline 2015-2025.

(5) Indians partially retreat and consolidate under a newer leadership -2020-2025. Clearing of POGWI from occupied territories begin in a reverse destabilization strategy. The goal of completely eliminating, the core leadership, ideological and educational foundations and structure behind POGWI, is set. Indians take back all occupied territories from 2025-2040.

Pranav · Post by **Pranav** » 18 Feb 2010 06:11

I don't always agree with Bhadrakumar, but this seems to be a good article:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LB17Ak03.html

Finally, if Moscow assumed that the so-called Northern Corridor would act as transit route for NATO supplies for Afghanistan and become a chip in the resetting of US-Russia ties, it now transpires that the US uses the route sparingly and prefers to depend on going through Pakistan.

Obviously, Washington wants to keep Russia out of the Hindu Kush and continues to spurn the Russian request for cooperative ties between NATO and the Collective Security Treaty Organization.

It seems that western elites still regard Russia (and India?) as bigger adversaries than Islamists.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 18 Feb 2010 06:13

Pranav wrote:
It seems that western elites still regard Russia (and India?) as bigger adversaries than Islamists.

It is mostly geography and geopolitical. THey need the geography.

JwalaMukhi · Post by **JwalaMukhi** » 18 Feb 2010 06:40

Pranav wrote: It seems that western elites still regard Russia (and India?) as bigger adversaries than Islamists.

Islamists are not a real threat to western interests, because they can be pummelled back to stone age at will. And the ideology of islamists is not a serious threat to western ideology. It can be contained easily by western interests. The main struggle for western elites is to use the islamists as tools for their purposes. For some time now, the tool is being little uncooperative, and hence western elites are bothered about it, but not threatened.

Pranav · Post by **Pranav** » 18 Feb 2010 07:45

JwalaMukhi wrote:
Pranav wrote: It seems that western elites still regard Russia (and India?) as bigger adversaries than Islamists.
Islamists are not a real threat to western interests, because they can be pummelled back to stone age at will. And the ideology of islamists is not a serious threat to western ideology. It can be contained easily by western interests. The main struggle for western elites is to use the islamists as tools for their purposes. For some time now, the tool is being little uncooperative, and hence western elites are bothered about it, but not threatened.

Let's see how this plays out.

For a while I was convinced that the Mullah Biradar arrest was the result of an unprincipled deal in which the Pakis back-stab the Quetta Shura, with the quid-pro-quo being American pressure on India on Kashmir.

But now it appears that the Pakis stabbed him because he was about to reconcile with the democratic Afghan government.

The creation of Pakistan was a manifestation of the western policy of using Jihadists as tools. The time has come for western elites to make the choice about whether they want to continue on this unholy path.

Atri · Post by **Atri** » 18 Feb 2010 19:48

brihaspati wrote:Kulhari ji, do you mean the news item about the "army"?

On the other side, I see positive long term outcomes from intensifying Paki attacks on India. X-posting from TSP thread :

I think destiny is clearing the way for India. That does not make it any less painful, automatic or without price to be paid.

This is how the sequence goes:

(1) USA+UK withdraws from AFG. The main withdrawal takes place in 2010-2011. Symbolic presence and undercover units remain well into 2012-2015. The AFG government is modified to accommodate a section of the Talebs. The USA+UK is increasingly pressurized to maintain Karazai's position within the government of national consensus. But the supply lines come increasingly under disruption. The central and southern countryside reverts to ruthless Taleb control gradually. The Talebs gradually squeeze Karazai out. AFG splits up into a large south-central area controlled by the Talebs, a northern strip controlled by the remnants of Mujahideen, as well as individual warlords. Popular support swings towards Talebs. Remnant undercover units of USA+UK are forced to move out.

(2) The POGWI - Paki Occupation Government of Western India, begins to implement the core Jihadi, TSPA, ISI agenda. It uses the "strategic depth" offered by Taleb controlled territory and deniability of non-state/third-party actors to try and destabilize with intensified and accelerating rate of terror attacks inside India. Pressure rises to concede "Kashmir" to TSP - directly or indirectly. USA is still forced to go on providing support to POGWI, since it has been made clear that unless such support is forthcoming - the POGWI will turn to PRC or Iran, and will no longer holdback terror attacks on US interests. Difficult financial situation and potential costs of such behaviour compel USA to maintain POGWI in power in return for the promise that POGWI will concentrate on India and not on USA. This starts intensifying from 2010. The projected timeline from POGWI side is 2010-2020, and they hope to gain J&K as well as large parts pf northern India during this period.

(3) Initial Indian reaction is split between two camps. A dominant and vocal majority in the decision making and opinion forming circles about the needs to compromise. This force gets stronger in the timeline 2010-2015. Some degree of compromise is actually made and peace and prosperity promised. The compromises are used as signs of weakness on the part of India, and the connected schools of opinion fully exploited by POGWI. US influence is weak enough by this time to be unable to control course of AFPAK destiny. This is the turning point.

(4) Since the West can no longer intervene so strongly as before, POGWI and Taleb/Jihadis feel no restraint or obstacle in expanding on India. Indian ruling regimes desperately try to keep the reality of the situation suppressed from the public until the very last moment, so that large-scale violence or military adventures by POGWI and allies come as public surprises. Previous calculations and propaganda about how populations or subgroups will resist such aggressions turn out to be false or over-optimistic. A section of the ruling elite switches allegiance under the excuse of compromising to save whatever can be saved. But the previous line of policy w.r.t POGWI stands delegitimized and leadership associated with such policy stands discredited. Timeline 2015-2025.

(5) Indians partially retreat and consolidate under a newer leadership -2020-2025. Clearing of POGWI from occupied territories begin in a reverse destabilization strategy. The goal of completely eliminating, the core leadership, ideological and educational foundations and structure behind POGWI, is set. Indians take back all occupied territories from 2025-2040.

Brihaspati ji,

This is oversimplified two-particle system.. You have ignored the vested interests of Iran and Russia (which Ruling elite of India are backing on) in Af-Pak... To large extent, this assessment of Iranian and Russian interests is true.. Furthermore, even PRC has a burning east-Turkestan issue... most probably, they won't be that myopic to let this happen in such a short term...