The idea of Pakistan as seen by Stephen Cohen

USA has a disproportionate influence on Pakistan. For good or for bad, be that as it may, but for most of the poor country's history over the past 60 odd years, USA has used, abused, loved and hated Pakistan. Sometimes it was clear about its aims, sometimes very cynical and sometimes it was good-hearted. Needless to say, the relationship can be characterised as a weird (part abusive, part loving, and part neglect) father and teenage son relationship. In this decade, the level of attention has dramatically gone up, due to the American War on Terror. Drawing long term Pakistani policy options for Americans is useless, as the American span of attention is a maximum of 4 years or just solving an immediate problem, which ever is shorter. Consequently, for people in the UK and India who want to understand American policy towards Pakistan it is short term in nature. That said, Pakistan watchers in the UK and India rely on three distinct strands (ranked by the amount of information), the first are the reported actions by the USA, Pakistan and other assorted parties, second are the think tank and analyst (such as the RAND Corp, CIA, Foreign Policy, and independent scholar etc ruminations and the third are the rare insights by senior military and diplomatic personnel.

2004 has been an interesting year for Pakistan as we all know and I don’t need to re-hash it all. But looking at the above three strands, there has been quite a lot of movement, insofar as the publication of Stephen Cohen's book, ‘The Idea of Pakistan’, Strobe Talbott's book ‘Engaging India: Diplomacy, Democracy, and the Bomb’, the Rand Corporations report on contributions by India and Pakistan on the war on terror and so on and so forth. In particular, I strongly recommend Stephen Cohen's book as an excellent primer on Pakistan. In particular, the good analysis of the history of Pakistan, the Pakistani Army, Islamic groups, its socio-economic-political structure, international relations and its potential medium term future are excellent. As he describes Pakistan, it’s a country which negotiates by pointing a gun (more like a nuclear missile) at its own head. Help us otherwise we will take the world down with it. I do not plan to reiterate or go over Cohen's book in detail. For readers interested in more information on this book, Professor Pervez Hoodbhoy has written a excellent book review which was published by the prestigious Foreign Affairs magazine and can be accessed here:
(http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20041101fareviewessay83611/pervez-hoodbhoy/can-pakistan-work-a-country-in-search-of-itself.html).

Once I finished reading the book, I was interested to see how the 3 above mentioned strands line up. If Strobe Talbott is an example of how the state department works in this day and age and if Stephen Cohen and the Rand Corporation's publications show the strategic thinking in USA which feeds into the USA military – politico complex, what lessons can the policy makers in United Kingdom and India draw from the information which we have gathered in 2004? If we take Cohen's book as a benchmark (well, we have to start somewhere), there are several points in there which need to be explored in detail from the perspectives of the UK and India. This is what we will do in some of the succeeding columns.

One may well ask, what gives the USA, UK and India the right to do anything about Pakistan? A very good question and something which needs to be answered before we start off. As someone said in the Pakistani Press recently, Pakistan is considered to be the sick man of Asia, echoing what was said a century ago for Turkey. Combine that with Islamic fundamentalism, nuclear power, no civil institutions to speak of, in a sensitive geopolitical situation and run by the military, the powers need to be careful about it. USA is, for obvious reasons, very concerned as it is the target of the full might of Islamic Fundamentalism. India because it has a running sore in Kashmir which is picked at by Pakistan and has to live with this sick man next door (contagious?) and finally UK because of its colonial history and the significant number of Pakistani and Indian extraction minorities in the UK. Not to mention that the level of British human and military intelligence is of a far higher level and expertise than the Americans, so they can actually provide better information. The UK is also very closely tied with the USA and for better or for worse, is closely associated with American policies and will have to bear the brunt of any blow-backs.

The main points which we will be discussing anon will be around the following:
• There is a small chance that Pakistan may break apart. What will be the repercussions for the UK and India and what, if anything, can these two countries do about it (or indeed, should they?)

• The difficulty that Pakistan has in defining its "national interest" although this term is thrown around with gay abandon. Why is this important and what really could be the national interest of Pakistan?

• Closely tied to the above is why Pakistan was created and the repercussions at this current state?

• Why does Pakistan find it so difficult to reconcile the concept of Pakistan with democracy? In particular, a constitution and regular elections are key (bearing in mind that they are not the only ones) requirements for a liberal democratic country

• As they say, Pakistan is ruled by the Army and the officers of the Army are all graduates from the Pakistan Military Academy while France is ruled by the ‘élite Ecole’ graduates. These 2 sets of institutions, for good or for bad, by and large, define what their countries will be. What are the implications of this?

• The Pakistani army has been inculcated with an idea that there is something called as an Islamic Strategy of warfare. In particular, the concept of "terror" is considered to be a cornerstone of this way of warfare. What are the implications of this angle?

• The Pakistani Army and indeed many militant and terrorist groups use Jihad as a leitmotif and ideology. The western equivalent of Jihad is the Just War concept. What are the similarities and dissimilarities between the two?

• Pakistan has had many successful and unsuccessful coups in its short but torrid history. What were the reasons behind these coups? Will these reasons continue, thereby requiring more coups in the future? Will the National Security Council help in removing the need for coups?

• The British Indian Army had a history of 200 years and more before the partition in 1947 and was divided into the Indian Army and Pakistani Army after. Why did the Indian army not take the same steps and actions as the Pakistani Army, while the cultures, history, religions, nationhood, languages, food, etc. were, to a very large degree, common?

• Why does Stephen Cohen say that many officers in the Pakistani Army have strategic tunnel vision? What can be done to widen this tunnel?

• Maulana Mawdudi was one of the most influential of Pakistan's Islamists. His influence has been wide-spread besides in Pakistan, from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood to the Afghan Taliban to the Indian Muslim Organisation to the organisations in South East Asia. It is said that the influence of a teacher stops at eternity. What did he teach and how did he influence and what is the impact?

• Certain sections of the Pakistani Islamists definitely believe in violence to achieve their goals, witness their actions in Pakistan, Kashmir and Afghanistan. As long as their goals are congruent with the Pakistan Army's objectives and desires (such as achieving strategic depth in Afghanistan, bleeding India, etc. etc), these violent groups can always shelter under the Army's umbrella. What can be done to address this? Divorce the shared congruency?

• When President Bush, in his seminal address, labelled North Korea, Iraq and Iran as the Axis of Evil, many were surprised that Pakistan wasn’t included. What are the requirements to be on this axis? Why was Pakistan not included? What would have happened if it had been included? • Pakistan has been often compared to Israel, of all places. There is prima facie evidence that there are significant similarities between the two countries. In Israel, the soldier can become a politician and the army is firmly under civilian political control. Can this model be applied in Pakistan? How?

• Cohen also compares Pakistan with Egypt in the way that the state has spectacularly failed to satisfy the needs of its citizens but it can be propped up almost indefinitely by others. Shades of negotiating with a gun pointed at one's own head, but for how long?

• In 2003, President Bush laid out 3 goals of American policy towards Pakistan. (1) partnering on the war of terror, (2) nuclear non-proliferation and (3) democratisation. Are these goals achievable by 2008 when President Bush retires?

• Education has been rightly noted as the key to nip terror in the bud. Ideals and objectives are the easy bit, but what about the implementation? We take a clear hard look at the challenges and potential solutions for calibrating educational systems which are the breeding grounds.

• Can the USA and/or the UK help in bringing about India Pakistan peace? If USA offers a security umbrella to both countries, would that help?

In particular, I would like to draw some conclusions for UK and India along the lines of what Stephen Cohen has drawn for the USA. As we have already mentioned, the United Kingdom as a medium power has no direct issue with Pakistan but has many an indirect connections. The colonial history aside, there are a very large number of Pakistani and Bangladeshi extraction nationals, plus there is the Islam factor. In addition, UK has to live up to its responsibility as a permanent member of the Security Council, a leading light in Europe and a source/destination of terrorism. A failed or failing or troubled Pakistan will definitely have a major impact in the UK and on British Politics.

On the other hand, India has a far more and direct stake in Pakistan becoming a prosperous and stable liberal democracy, albeit it has a far greater limitations around territorial integrity, Hindu-Muslim issues, the history of partition, etc. etc. A failed or failing Pakistan will cause severe damage, far more and above what it has ever done. It is in India's interest to calibrate its foreign, economic and military policy and make sure Pakistan does not or can not harm at the minimum and ideally becomes a full partner. For those who say, let it rot, I can only point out that India has far more to lose than Pakistan. We simply cannot raise a fence and wall Pakistan off, not in this day and age. Fences don’t work, I am afraid.

All this to be taken with a grain of salt!

Asian Faces of the Future: Finance

Just like Chicago O'Hare has the busiest airport in the world, in terms of passenger numbers and flights in/out, London Heathrow is the busiest in terms of "international" flights. While the USA has the biggest domestic financial market in the world, London is firmly the international financial centre. Don't take my word for it, here's a comment from a former Governor of the Bank of England. "It (London) accounts for a fifth of all international cross-border lending, for example; for a third of global turnover in foreign exchange and OTC derivatives, and as much as two-thirds of issuance and secondary trading in Eurobonds, or of global turnover in international equities, with more foreign firms listed on the LSE than on any other exchange. And London has a near-monopoly in exchange-traded short-term euro interest rate derivatives."

Consequently, anybody who aspires to being a leader of an international financial institution, has to be either based in London or should have a serious stint in London. Indians or British Indians have a serious and excellent reputation in the City of London.

Amongst many others, we concentrate on two personalities of Indian extraction, who have been in the news in the Investment Banking Arena in the City of London and are my picks as faces of the future in the world of finance.

.

Anshu Jain

Head, Global Markets

member of Deutsche Bank's group executive committee

Born in 1963 in India, he obtained an Economics degree from Delhi University, an MBA from University of Massachusetts and then joined Merrill Lynch, another international top tier investment bank in 1988, where he turned their global hedge fund group to a success, before he was 30.

Deutsche Bank wanted somebody who was vibrant and innovative Anshu caught their eyes and they never looked back. From a German oriented bank, Anshu helped Deutsche Bank become a global institution, earning more than 80 per cent of its revenues outside Germany and leading or rather placed at the top of various rankings in the investment banking world. 42 years of age, a world already conquered, Anshu Jain is not resting on his laurels. Deutsche Bank is facing rapid business and organisational challenges in 2005 and Anshu is the man in the hot seat. Many a buck stops at his desk, but from what I have read of him, he won't part with much change out of the buck or pass any of the change upstairs.

While he has won many international awards, his Indian roots are not far away. Anshu Jain signed Deutsche Bank up to be the first MCC Lord's Partner in 2004 and by all accounts, he is delighted with this. You can take an Indian out of India, but you can't take cricket out of him.

Definitely a man to look out for in 2005.

JP Rangaswami

Global Chief Information Officer,

Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein (DrKW),a global investment bank

An economics graduate of St Xavier's College, University of Calcutta, he moved on to become a financial journalist, editing Indian Finance, a weekly journal, published from Calcutta. Before joining DrKW, he has had stints at Burroughs Corporation (now Unisys), Data General (now EMC) and Cap Gemini. He has shown entrepreneurial skills by managing DrKW spin-off's, managed firm-wide transformation IT projects, and has given much back to society (and to India) through being a charter member of TiE, the early-stage networking and mentoring group.

A person holding strong opinions about Information Technology and its application within Investment Banking, Rangaswami is a highly visible figure in the financial IT arena. Frequently speaking at conferences and industry forums, he bangs the drum for innovative technologies, something which has fallen out of favour in the past few years. Open Source, Blogging, Web Services - they all ripple out from him. Not that he is simply a visionary, he brilliantly managed the downturn of the past few years, making DrKW a lean mean machine, well positioned to handle the vagaries of 2005.

For anybody wanting to know how Financial Information Technology will evolve and be implemented in 2005, JP Rangaswami is the man to watch.

While one generally thinks of banks as financial institutions, mostly handling monies, few people outside the banking sector (and many inside the sector as well) fail to realise how banks are no longer just banks, but huge technology shops as well. It will not be amiss to say that the success of large international banks is heavily dependent on their technology deployment and the Chief Information Officer is, quite frequently, very close to the senior management of the firm.

The core issue? Really? For whom? And why?

Why do all my strange mental patterns emerge while I am in the sky? I suspect it’s to do with the impact of cosmic rays and the paucity of air which cause my neural pathways to start switching madly. Well, here I am, en route to Stockholm, on the disgustingly early morning flight, trying not to glower at the smiling stewards, hiding my grumpy visage behind the Financial Times. It could be my grumpiness which made me snort when I read about the recent meeting between the G8 foreign ministers and Arab/Muslim leaders in Rabat, Morocco. Needless to say, the two parties were talking past each other. One was talking about economic and political reform, the other about the Israeli-Palestinian issue. I was reminded of another case, namely that of the Pakistani President Musharraf claiming Kashmir was the core issue, while the Indians were talking about a broad based effort including economic, cultural and political concerns. Double snort indeed. But then, I dug out my laptop and started banging away to expand on this pattern.

A bit more detail would help in both cases. USA (and the G8) figured that the authoritarian regimes and pathetic economic conditions in the Arab/Muslim region are major factors in the war against terror. There is a vast lump of unemployed people, with legitimate political grievances which are not addressed by their current economic and political systems. In their frustration they turn to political and militant Islam, which in turn feeds terrorist groups and sympathisers. So the thought was to pump money and ideas into these countries to trigger or enable economic and political reform. If this does happen, the frustrated youth can (1) have legitimate and democratic ways of bringing issues to the table instead of bombing the hotels, embassies and cafes and (2) having more economic opportunities means that the astoundingly high youth unemployment is removed and these idle youngsters become economically active instead of becoming terrorist fodder. It goes without saying that with these reforms, the power of militant Islam as an ideology will be deflected into productive channels of democracy and economically industrious activities. As a way to address the deep seated issues of political and economic reform, USA and the G8 is engaging the political leadership of these countries in an attempt to get them to implement these reforms.

Anybody see the issue? The political leadership of almost all these nations is in power simply because of their rotten political systems. This ranges from totalitarianism, authoritarianism, military dictatorship, rigged democratic systems, one party systems, monarchies, shaky coalitions and so on and so forth. And the USA seriously expects that if it went nicely to these bunch of jokers, they will say, "Very nice, Mr. Colin Powell, we fully understand and appreciate the need for liberal, multi party democracy and yes, sir, tomorrow, we will start the process to do that. We know fully well that as soon as the electorate is given a genuinely clear choice, we – the current leaders, will be at best turfed out of our offices or at worst be found hanging from some lamp-post. Still, in the greater interests of our long suffering populations, we will immediately implement political reforms". Now you see why I snorted cynically.

Secondly, it should be noted that economic reforms will hit most of these leaders in the same way. Almost all of these guys have gobbled up their country's natural and economic resources. Rampant state sectors have starved the private sector of investment. Legal systems are clear as mud. Corruption, misdirected subsidies, cronyism and state patronage has kept a tiny minority in wealth and power for years. And the USA expects these goons to say, "Absolutely, Mr. Powell, we understand. Let me setup clean and transparent courts of justice, let me prosecute the big corrupt bureaucrats and politicians, let me lend monies to clear and deserving economic cases instead of the state sector, let me try to raise productivity, let me teach vocational and useful topics to my young men, let my universities be temples of learning and openness, let me make my banks efficient and effective, let me redirect the bad subsidies, let me get rid of internal and external debt, let me not spend monies on the moth-eaten military toys, etc." Here's the other snort.

But these guys are very canny and smart. In order to maintain their position of political and economic power, what better way to do that than to point at somebody else for their people's misfortunes? And guess what? The Israeli-Palestinian crisis is a God given excuse for these guys. It has to be admitted that USA is about the only country in the world who can do anything about this crisis and if you ask me, it hasn’t pushed the road map hard enough. Not surprisingly – USA has tons of bigger issues right now, but this is a big issue as well. Be that as it may, this excuse that USA supports Israel, gives it money and arms. Israel uses this support, money and arms to oppress Palestinians. Palestinians get oppressed and live in wretched conditions and do not have the right to self determination. And then a huge leap of logic happens. Because of the Palestinian condition, a Moroccan, Egyptian, Iranian or Sudanese shouldn’t get political and economic rights. Or, as it turned out in the meeting, first the Palestinians should get their rights and then and only then would these other poor citizens get their political and economic rights. In other words, USA should spend its energies on Palestine first and once that is sorted, should go speak to Morocco or Syria about reforms.

The tragedy is that the poor in these countries couldn’t give a busted rats rear end for the Palestinians. Speak to a common Egyptian or Jordanian or Saudi and you would hear the vituperation against them. These common men and women aren’t stupid, they can well understand how their leaders have kept them in bondage and tey are fully aware that the core issue is food, clothing and shelter, economic opportunities and education which will help them get jobs in the 21st century. It’s the same with Pakistan, banging on and on about Kashmir and how it is part of the blood stream for the past 50 odd years. Pakistan has fought wars, hocked its honour and self respect to the Americans, a drug and gun culture, no institutions to speak off, no democracy, the military running rampant, corruption galore, a strange education system, nuclear smuggling and all because Kashmir is the key issue. When will these guys understand that India will never give up Kashmir? I don’t think they will ever do so. Why would they? Their entire system of patronage, power, control and wealth is based upon them banging on about Kashmir and devil take the common man.

What do we need to do about this? Or what can we suggest to the policy makers? The mistake that both USA and India are making is that they are engaging with the political masters and not with the masses. There are considerably simpler ways to go about this rather than spending time on talking shop with these blowhards in innumerable boring conferences where discussions about reform are overshadowed by bellows and whines about Israeli or American brutality. Simple things such as asking American banks to start micro lending, funding NGO's to setup schools and pushing for a free media, keeping the educational channel in the UK and USA open (get them over and give them the benefit of a liberal education) and so on and so forth. Reduce import duties for small scale enterprise imports, fund the chambers of commerce, increase the common man links by offering the Peace Corps as a channel to help in irrigation, agriculture and small scale enterprise improvement. This will take the wind out of the sails of the leaders and will definitely get things moving. Core issue indeed.

All this to be taken with a grain of salt!

The French Baron Munchhausen

I’m sitting on the tarmac, waiting for the KLM flight to take off, delayed because of thunderstorms in Amsterdam, reading an op-ed in the Financial Times by Dominique de Villepin, the Prime Minister of France, where he lays out his vision of the future of Europe. After reading this op-ed, all I can think of is the quote “When somebody you know personally has been elected to high office, you are torn between two feelings, local pride and fear for your country.” Mind you, the image of Baron Munchhausen also popped into my mind. Frankly, given a choice, I would have just snorted, shaken my head, moved on to reading about Maria Sharapova’s skills and admiring her legs. Unfortunately, life isn’t that neat and admirable though Ms. Shaparova’s legs are, I believe that it’s more important to write what I think about PM de Villepin’s grandiose plans.

I am not a happy bunny right now, 6:35 am flight, a cramped window seat, because all aisle seats were taken, a bad taxi-driver who was a cross between Bugs Bunny and Michael Schumacher, too few hours of sleep, a hail and thunderstorm which ruined my shed painting efforts the night before. All in all, I am in an evil mood, and what better way to alleviate that than to take the mickey out of these over-bred, elitist, out-of-touch, grandiose, arrogant, brain-damaged, odd toed ungulates?

It is important to me, what the French PM says and thinks. I wish it wasn’t, but the European elite is unfortunately stuffed to the gills by sclerotic silly thinking, that the French PM personifies, much like Karl Friedrich Hieronymus, Baron von Münchhausen with his outrageous and fantastic tales about his adventures.. With my British based personal, social, cultural, professional and economic life ever increasingly impacted by what’s happening in Europe, I have to be concerned. I, as a British taxpayer, am paying for these dinosaurian dreams and do believe I should raise my voice.

So what did Prime Minister de Villepin say, that made my hair hurt and fingers itch? Well, he laid out his vision for Europe in five easy steps. It’s like that joke: “A banana republic president says: “One year ago we were at the edge of a giant deep chasm, but after putting our greatest minds at work, we have taken a great step forward.” Shades of Mao’s “Great Leap forward.” This first step is to allow European leaders to have a say in the European Central Bank’s (ECB) economic policy. Right!!! Of course, let’s have the ECB be guided by a bunch of politicians, whose economic instincts belong to the Jurassic era and whose idea of economic policy is to raise taxes, raise debt, raise benefits, raise barriers. The ECB has been crying itself hoarse about the fact that the European countries have to undertake structural reforms. Why haven’t the European politicians listened? Just what makes PM de Villepin’s economic advice worthwhile to be listened to? Based on past experience? Not a lot I am afraid. No, Prime Minister, you stick to your knitting and let the ECB go on its own independent path.

His second, rather sadly predictable and bizarre, proposal is to keep on going with the common agricultural policy. He is proudly claiming that Europe is self-sufficient in food which gives it economic power and gives better health. Yes Sir, I am going to be in Greenland, grow everything from bananas to rice there, pay my farmers three times the world price, and give them free hothouses, water, and fertilizer. After spending more on each cow than on per capita aid or more per banana than on per student, (just kidding!!) I will proudly claim to have food security and economic power. It’s like that in Europe. I mean, which world does he live in?

Although I have personally stopped taking sugar my daughter has a sweet tooth and I have to buy sugar, why am I forced to pay three times world sugar prices? Why are we spending 40% of our European budget on 7% of our population within the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)? That’s very fair, fraternal, libertarian, social egalitarian and proletarian eh? By the way Monsieur de Villepin, Malthus is dead and so is his theory. Contrary to your assertion, there is no food problem worldwide and in the places where there is, your CAP has a big contributor by dumping food at below production price, stopping food trade and subsidizing food exports. On what basis does he have the gall to say that there is no food problem when he is himself responsible for propagating poverty amongst so many farmers in the world? Munchhausen comes to mind again here, escaping a swamp by pulling himself up by his own hair.

His third grand project was to set up a couple of grand research institutes (no prizes for guessing where he wants these institutes to be based), open to European researchers in physics, chemistry and mathematics. Spoken like a true socialist. After all, socialist countries and a state controlled directed research program is really going to make Europe competitive. How about letting the private sector take up the slack? Fund thousands of research and entrepreneurship grants? How about funding seed capital? How about putting money into real R&D, rather than on cows and butter/sugar mountains? He particularly referred to the ten billion dollar nuclear fusion reactor business. Classical example! Europe will pony up six billion Dollars to fund an experiment that has never been proven and whose first realistic application (if any) could be in twenty years time!! A bit like Munchhausen riding a cannonball I say.

I wasn’t sure about his fourth grand project about European security etc. All he is saying is we should have greater cooperation. D’OH! Ok, noted! Yawn. Next? AH! The big one and the most bizarre disconnected point. He wants to create a European identity, or rather strengthen this, over and above what is provided by Erasmus (an European student exchange program). How to do that, Mr. PM? By creating a student version of a volunteer corps. And he is supposed to be a visionary or statesman? What happened to the European ideals of liberalism, individual liberty, secularism, fighting against fascism and oppression, property rights, human rights, live and let live? There are gazillions of European thinkers who he could have referred to. If I had gone to the USA or the UK and asked, lets rely on the US peace Corps or the Voluntary Overseas Association/Oxfoam to generate a common American/British identity, people will look at me as if I had my ears surgically attached to my nose. I tell you, my flabber is utterly gasted. It’s as if the PM is living in the past, the huge nuclear-like explosion, namely the rejection of the constitution never happened for him. Europe is telling you something, dear PM, why aren’t you listening? Why are you so blind so as not to see the train hurtling down the track at you? This train has passengers entitled China, India, fiscal problems, pension problems, problems with minorities, huge unemployment, illegal immigration, underperforming schools, creaking health services, an unsustainable public sector, an elite sadly out of touch with reality and the public, rise of neo-nazis and far right wing etc etc. Instead of watching and preparing for this train, you are busy fondling daffodils on the trackside.

It’s worth quoting how he starts and ends. He starts “Europe is in crisis” then the five grand projects. He ends with “Our people want a new political Europe, with a capacity for action, a conscience and a moral code. Europe has become the testing ground for new political, economic and social ideas. Let Europe speak out!” I know politicians are naturally obfuscators, but PM de Villepin really takes the cake. Europe is asking for surgery while the PM offers some table lamps instead. Europe is in desperate need for strong visionary men and what we get are limp noodles of dinosaurs. Shoving the same old pap isn’t going to help. More importantly, if this keeps going on, then please UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, please, please pretty please saw off the UK and tow it across to anchor it off the coast of Florida or Dubai or Australia. We want no truck with any of these ideas!

As for France, a country led by a President, who has lost almost all the political battles he fought and has the whiff of corruption around him, an elitist prime minister, who is completely out of touch with reality, a deputy Prime Minister and Interior,who hates the Prime Minister and president alike, a Foreign Minister who has no experience of foreign policy except for having long experience of being a cardiac surgeon. I think France desperately needs cardiac surgery wrapped in strong vision, but looking at the current gang, I have major doubts. Vive La France!

All this to be taken with a grain of salt!

“United way to a new political Europe”, French Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin. Financial Times, June 29, 2005 Edition, page 17.

The Kerfuffle Over Rights

In the rarefied and august land of law, three judgements were recently passed, relating to anti terrorism laws which knocked a key foundation of the anti-terrorism fight astray. The first was in the USA, about Guantanamo Bay prisoners, the second was in the UK about alien prisoners and finally, the last one, in India where the entire Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) was revoked. The core issue was the right of the state to hold suspects - usually foreigners - indefinitely, without subjecting them to due process of the law. Not just any state, we are talking here about the country which claims the Magna Carta as a birthright, another country which claims to be the most powerful democracy and last but not least, the country which claims to be the world's largest democracy

In the UK, nine law lords ruled that the UK government's detention of terror suspects without trial breaches human rights laws. In India, the POTA was repealed in the latter half of 2004 by the new Congress government. In the USA, the US Supreme Court has recently ruled that the Guantanamo Bay captives can challenge their detention in the civilian courts. The main challenge to these laws can be looked at from the perspective of human rights. How can one incarcerate a fellow human being without charging or prosecuting them? Habeas Corpus, strictly translated into “having a body” on a less strict basis “hand over the body”, is one of the fundamental cornerstones of any civilised nation's justice system. In fact, I would go as far as to call it the foundation of a liberal democracy framework. The right against wilful imprisonment, the right to freedom, is what it is all about. All other rights are subsumed under this, with perhaps the exception of the right to life. If a state starts chucking people into jail willy nilly, without charging them with a crime or allowing them to defend themselves, then the state is no longer a state as we know it.

Needless to say and by and large, this right has been maintained for years, decades and centuries. But as usual, the devil is in the exceptions and their details. As we have seen before in history, this fundamental right has come under threat during war time or times when the state is threatened by terrorism. In a way, I can see why this happens. The bargain between the state and the citizens is simple, in return for the citizens obeying the state's laws, the state promises that it will treat the citizens in a fair, equitable and legal manner. This includes the promise that the state wont suddenly decide to chuck people into a dungeon without legal representation or without even charging them with a clear offence or crime. In most cases of terrorism particularly, the terrorists are not the people who have agreed to this bargain. As a matter of fact, these guys (and gals in some cases) actually want to overthrow the state. So from a conceptual perspective, the state essentially says, "ok, you guys (and gals), you don’t like us, well, we don’t like you either and if we get our hands on you, you have no rights at all and will be tossed into jail".

Liberal democratic states such as India, the UK and the USA remove or rescind this right very reluctantly. As the name goes, they are “liberal” in their core philosophy. Secondly, the general citizen body is very careful and vociferous about removal of fundamental rights. Thirdly, an independent judiciary is quite clear and forceful in making sure that this entire body of law is protected. It’s a different matter that the legislature may think about over-riding it, but it has always to keep a beady eye out for the next elections, because if any law is passed, which doesn’t satisfy the majority of voters, the legislating party is out on its ear. And finally is that these states have usually signed up to international treaties such as the UN Human Rights conventions, or the Geneva Conventions, which clearly state the rights and responsibilities of the states. But then again no terrorist group has ever been a party to the Geneva Conventions, none have signed it, ratified it, adhered to it (now that would be a funny thing to imagine, OBL marching up to the Swiss and asking to be made a signatory to the Geneva convention).

Hence, there is a balance to be made by the state. The first factor to be considered is the prime directive for a state to protect its citizens by all means. The second factor is the rule of law without which the state is simply a jungle and the final factor is the impossibility of applying state based legal frameworks to people who simply do not work within that framework such as the terrorists.

When does the right to protect the society get included under the right of individual freedom? What people do not understand is that we give up a certain bit of individual freedom to guarantee safety and protection. Even Benjamin Franklin connected them both and said decades ago that: "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” But he didn’t have to deal with terror and terrorists. So what do we do?

Think of it as a school. A school has rules regarding behaviour, conduct, discipline etc in return for creating a safe and secure environment to learn and be educated. People may not like this and many don’t and home school their kids, but you have a different set of rules at home. Be that as it may, you are not allowed to come to an English school and demand to be taught only by bearded green eared men from Mars or to attend classes wearing a lighted halogen searchlight on your head. Your right of individual freedom is circumscribed by the collective right of the school rules, which hopefully forbid wearing blinding searchlights on your head. Taking the analogy further, if some pupils were disruptive, they are placed in detention or in severe cases expelled from school. Now imagine if a Godzilla comes in and demands the school change to a forest based school and if this is not done, then Godzilla will destroy the school and stampede it to the ground with everyone who is in it. Say you managed somehow to capture this Godzilla. What do you do? Return him to the wild and set him free? Keep him and try very hard to tame him? Incarcerate him and give up on changing him and just lock him up? It is by all means not a perfect analogy, but it should suffice to show the existential challenges facing these democracies.

Let us also not forget that bringing charges against these terrorists is extremely difficult. Say I am a terrorist who has hatched a plan to blow up the houses of parliament while being based in erstwhile Afghanistan, then I land in Heathrow where the police grab hold of me and chuck me into jail. Well, there is no incriminating evidence in the UK, none what so ever, all the witnesses and co-plotters are in Afghanistan and the day the UK lets me loose, I can very easily still go and commit the crime I was programmed to commit. The police will have an almost impossible task to produce enough witnesses with evidence in court to convict me, but they know (beyond a shadow of a doubt) that I am going to commit a terrorist act. What does the government do? See the problem?

Well, in this particular case, the United Kingdom's security services could keep a foreigner in jail almost indefinitely but with a way out. These foreigners could go back to their original countries. Needless to say, most of the prisoners did not take up this offer. The prisoners are from all those lovely caring countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Algeria, Yemen, Egypt etc. If they did go back to these countries, the first thing that their governments (if you can even call them as such) will do is to hurl them into a dungeon, throw away the keys and beat the life out of them. There is another problem, take the case of the Guantanamo Bay detainees. Those who were released from Guantanamo Bay, some of whom were innocent, but some were locked right up again in France or went right back to kidnapping, terrorism and murder as in Pakistan.

That said, I have to be clear. I personally think that detaining suspects without trial or charging them causes two major issues. The first is that it implicitly weakens our civilisation, gives far too much power to the state and can store up trouble (Remember the incarcerations in the various democracies during WW2? The Japanese and Germans in the USA, Germans and Italians in the UK, Jews and Gypsies in Germany?). This blot on any country's history can come up long afterwards and bite people in the backside. For example, the British are still taunted by the incarcerations in South Africa 100 years ago and the incarcerations during WW2, while the Americans are still for the incarcerations of the Japanese Americans in WW2.

The second issue is that these proud nations would find it very difficult to influence other rabid nations if they set a bad example. Imagine USA, UK, India and other proud democracies going to grotty nations and saying: “you guys should have democracy and rule of law, respect liberties and individual freedom and dignity”, when they can turn around, stick their tongues out and say, "Oh! Yeah? Like yours?". That definitely dilutes the argument. Perhaps the words of Gerald Ford should be remembered again these days, not only in the USA. He said: “Can a free people restrain crime without sacrificing fundamental liberties and a heritage of compassion?... Let us show that we can temper together those opposite elements of liberty and restraint into one consistent whole. Let us set an example for the world of a law-abiding America glorying in its freedom as well as its respect for law.”

All this to be taken with a grain of salt!

The Fights Over Broken Bowls Of Rice

Jan Egeland, UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator really stepped into it this week. He suggested that the United States and other Western nations were being "stingy" with relief funds, saying there would be more available if taxes there were raised. Jan seems to be the archetypical UN and NGO bureaucrat for most of his career and this latest comment was really not diplomatic or helpful. In fact, I would say that it was spectacularly stupid and he was hauled over the coals by almost everybody. (By the way, Jan did explain that he was misquoted and retracted his statement - but the damage was already done) Why? Simply because aid, while being a very laudable goal, is wracked by political, economic, religious and cultural differences. Jan Egeland belongs to one camp, and there are many other camps. Lets take a look at these camps and understand the motivations of Jan and his detractors.

Aid is a terribly wide and nebulous concept. It can be looked at from the perspective of its objective. Aid can be humanitarian, educational, economic or political aid so on and so forth. Humanitarian aid is when disasters strike as happened in the littoral states around the Indian Ocean after Christmas. Educational aid is like giving text books, helping in curriculum design, training teachers, aid for constructing schools and colleges, etc. Economic aid is for helping economies with financial help to address the balance of payments and other economic problems while political aid can relate to things like helping newly independent countries with drafting its constitution or helping run elections, etc.

Aid can also be looked at in terms of the delivery channel. Aid can be delivered through individuals, charities (religious or secular or single issue ones), non governmental organisations of all stripes; governments, international organisations of various shapes and sizes. The next way of looking at aid is to look at it from the perspective of the source of aid such as individual contributions, corporate contributions or government contributions. The final way of distinguishing aid is to see what type of aid it is. Is it pure money, training, equipment, materials, lowering or changing economic factors such as tariffs and customs duties, man-hours, etc.

Everybody accepts that aid is good. Every religion, every civilisation, every society and every age has looked upon the poor, dispossessed, distressed, weak and vulnerable with sympathy and has tried to help them in various ways. But that is the irony of humankind, when such a noble and good purpose is contaminated with rather base reactions. Take a look at the reactions which we have seen with the current tragedy. These reactions are like the following and I have garnered them over the past 3 days from newspapers, websites, chat groups and mailing lists.

• This tragedy was divine retribution. God or gods bought this on because Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, were bad.

• Western nations are too stingy with aid.

• Arab nations didn’t lift a finger to help out, even the people in Somalia who are suffering.

• The Iraqi insurgents don’t care about the tragedy which happened, they are too busy murdering fellow Iraqi's.

• Americans saying, why should we care about this tragedy or even discuss it because when 9/11 happened, the world said that we deserved it.

• Don’t give to the Christian charities, they will use it for polysethisation

• Don’t give to the Hindu charities, they will use it for pogroms

• Don’t give to the Muslim charities, they will use it to fund terror

• We don’t want those horrible Zionist Israeli's helping us, sod off

• We Israeli's are doing so much for the affected and nobody sees or recognises our contribution

The sad thing is, I am not exaggerating this either, my editors will most probably refuse to publish most of the verbatim comments which I read, so I am not going to list them. When one looks at the ultimate tragedy, in the midst of everybody trying to do what they think is right, this kind of sniping just shows how humans show their worst side while acting on their best instincts.

Ideological differences arise. For example, it’s an article of faith in Europe that the governments are mainly responsible for aid. In other words, the common philanthropic and charitable contributions that we see in America and the UK are discounted or ignored or looked down upon. According to one criterion by the OECD, each nation should provide at least 1% of its GDP or GNP in aid. Well, needless to say nobody has achieved it right now and in any case, the USA disagrees with this measure. The USA prefers to measure its contribution by the total dollar amount of aid disbursed. With due reason, if we measure by % of GDP, then Norway is usually the highest (incidentally the country to which Jan Egeland belongs to). If we measure by absolute $ amounts, then the USA wins handsomely. Then the Yale Group has another way of measuring aid ranking. If you Google for “aid; ranking; countries”, you get almost ¾ million hits. Quite a roaring business, this but we will return to this later on.

Looking through this list of Google hits, we will also see how there is the most stupid discussion about how much is enough and who is paying what and who is stingy and who is generous. Personally speaking, I find people who moan about how much one gives thoroughly obnoxious and undignified. Furthermore, people who measure how much somebody is giving are charlatans and misers at heart. Aid is given because its morally right or because it appeals to the goodness of one's heart. Turning it into a target to be met changes the very nature of aid into a tax. And who loves paying taxes? The Europeans, I guess! I most certainly do not love paying taxes. I can understand the reason for paying taxes and I am more than happy to pay a reasonable amount of them and I do make charitable contributions in the UK and India. But for somebody to come to me and say: “you are stingy, you have to pay more taxes” really makes me go nice, warm and fuzzy. These guys are nuts, the more I think of it, it sounds more and more like aggressive begging or panhandling or even almost twisting arms.

Another issue is how NGO's work for aid. It has turned into a right royal business. Just a small indicator. I googled for humanitarian aid and conference and I got 1 million hits. Pretty good business, eh? And if I was cynical or the usual woolly git, I would ask, if one adds up all the expenditure on these conferences, it can raise Mozambique's GDP by 2% points (I just made this up, ok, so don’t beat me up about it). There is a role for conferences for coordination and other essential issues, but somehow I have a very sceptical eye towards all this. While being jaundiced and all that, I have to admit that NGO's are usually pretty good at what they do. Governments and international organisations have this horrible tendency to overstaff and bureaucratise and there is a need for smaller nimbler organisations which can move faster and have their own sources of funding (government, corporate or individual).

The downside is that NGO's come with their own ideology which may not suit everybody. For example, educational NGO's would be hated by fundamentalists of all stripes who detest the idea of secular education, etc. Same with charities which can be religious, secular or single issue ones although I have to admit that the difference between NGO's and charities is blurred. Catholic Aid, Save the Dolphins, Habitat for Humanity, Women for Women, United Way, Doctors without Frontiers etc. are some examples. These charities are more controversial, specially the religious ones for obvious reasons.

Another issue is how to coordinate humanitarian aid. In cases of natural or manmade disasters of this scale, society breaks down, communications are dead and normal state functions cease. Which means, coordinating what is needed by whom and when becomes a nightmare. Furthermore, since many of these incidents happen in emerging countries where governance is anyway poor, infrastructure weak, then it’s doubly troublesome. For example, India has said to the donors, "thanks folks, but no thanks right now, we are happy to handle our problems ourselves and if we need you, we will ask for your help". Others would love to get help knowing fully well their own limitations. One may quibble about it, but too many donors on the ground, falling over themselves and getting in each other’s way make it very difficult and less efficient to give aid to the needy recepients. There are choke points like at the airport. Suddenly, there are 20 planes full of medical supplies, water purification plants and temporary housing units. Who tells them what goes where and when? Who manages the entire process?

It's usually done through some coordinating agency, which thankfully, looks like it is the United Nations. It does make sense to have an agency whose whole purpose in life is to coordinate the distribution of humanitarian aid, with experts in water purification, sanitation, emergency repair, communications, sewage, food distribution, agriculture, etc. who are ready and able to be deployed according to an immediate emergency plan of action. But one thing which is important for the UN to know (and are you listening, Jan?) is that they are the service agency who are in charge of distribution and channelling aid. It’s not in their remit to question how much one contributes to the aid effort. It is very dangerous for UN officials to overstep their line. The UN is supposed to be (and remain) neutral and that is vital for the free flow of information and funds.

Not that the various nations back the UN up. Given the strange sense of manhood that some countries have about the amount of aid that they give, plus how aid has been bastardised to such an extent in terms of giving aid in return for expecting favours or tying aid to the purchases of donor country equipment or services, etc.., it’s surprising that aid actually works and helps the poor and benighted. Just take the current tragedy. Five days after the event, the UN admits that very little has actually reached the real suffering folks. I understand there is plenty of logistical problems. Even Oscar Wilde said : “Charity creates a multitude of sins”, so for the love of God, let us concentrate on the end rather than the means and stop using aid for any purpose there may be, be it political, arrogance, guilt, power or what have you.

All this to be taken with a grain of salt!

Garlands and Insults 2004

Another year has passed with another 50 odd columns and just like last year my editors asked me to write a review for the year. This year it was a bit easier to write than last year, because now I no longer consider myself a “greenhorn” and after more than 100 columns it feels more comfortable to sit down and pour something out on paper.

This year too I learned quite a bit, not just during my research about the various topics I touched upon, but also about myself. I could manage a deadline, and that on a weekly basis, no matter how swamped at work I was or how many chores I had to do elsewhere or where in the world I was travelling. I also realised that this column took up a large part of my thoughts as if it suddenly had a life of its own. Every time I picked up a newspaper or heard a remark, as trite as it seemed, in my mind it was immediately checked on whether or not it could possibly lead to a column (no, I am not obsessed, just very interested). And most of those did. I put up the columns on a blog on the web and many a comment was left on that blog, evidence of how a grain of salt affected the readers. Many a discussion resulted in emails, travelling in cyberspace from different countries to decorate me with garlands or heave heavy insults on me. Surprisingly enough one of my columns even got me an invite to speak on a radio show. So all in all I am not obsessed with the column, but I tend to see it more like a child of mine, learning to walk with more confident steps now, almost two years into its existence.

As this is a review of the past year I have to look back at the fifty odd columns that I have written and again some broad themes seem to jump out. India and Pakistan remained a popular theme, even if the topics discussed changed. The Iran-Pakistan-India Gas Pipeline, Abdel Qader Khan, Veerappan were just some of the columns in this theme. A few other ideas were about Bhopal, which was mainly due to a personal experience and being reminded thereof when I had to travel to India to be with my father during his heart surgery and ended up not only remembering the disaster, but also being very impressed with the doctors at the Bhopal Medical Hospital and Research Centre. This in turn led to another column about doctors in general and whether the Hippocratic Oath still stands in this day and age or has turned into a hypocritical one.

The Middle East also got its fair share of my ink. How the “Arab Street” reacts, how the leaders go about ignoring their people, etc. The Iraq War remained god sent, as far asgetting topics to write about. There were several columns dealing with Iraq, the hostage situation, Iraq being America’s new Vietnam (which was one of the main columns in the insult generating department), how Iraqi women have and would fare and this in turn led to many other column themes. One new theme which emerged was about women (which was the garland generating department). I wrote about women being no less than men, about honour killings and equality and about mothers and fathers and their role in society. (Don’t worry, I haven’t turned into a feminist banner bearer yet, though perhaps my male chauvinist attitude has mellowed a bit). Minorities also got a fair share of my columns this year, those in Europe as well as in South East Asia and of course in China. And while researching the Chinese Uighurs that lead to another few columns about freedom or separatist movements.

Afghanistan also got a few columns of its own. Not only because of the political situation there, but also because it lent itself so perfectly to a comparison with Switzerland and then reminded me of my childhood, reading Kabuliwalla. The refugees returning home made me write about other refugees elsewhere.

Politicians have again gotten some of my attention. I wrote about bribery, incompetence and corruption. But I also wrote about diplomacy and great men. The jehadi’s remained one of my popular topics, discussing the power of belief (I was warned by my editors not to delve too deep into the religion department, as this was always a cause of contention). But then again contention is what generates discussion amongst the readers.

A few light and humorous topics were also written to generate some smiles for my readers and give them a break from the heavy rants and give me a break from the tedious research (after all I don’t want to be accused of shallow writing). I wrote about traffic and Valentine’s Day, about men with great vision and greater buildings that outlasted time.

Turkey (not the one that is cooked and leads to drooling!) also generated a few columns with its inclusion in the EU. It was interesting to look at the past to arrive at some prediction with regard to the future. And being the armchair general I am I couldn’t resist a few trips into the military archives and wrote about chemical warfare, urban warfare, torture and warfare in extremely cold places (which is easy when one sits in one’s warm heated living room).

The UN also got it’s share of criticism from me, and no, it wasn’t about the ‘oil for food’ which was written about ad nauseum elsewhere, but it was about the sheer impotence of the resolutions and a desperate need for reform, specially in connection with Darfour, which was also another theme, generating a few columns about Sudan.

This year there weren’t many columns about Israel or Zionism (no, I didn’t get scared away, but there were many more urgent and timely topics calling me to write about them) so it just got one column about non-violence and whether this would work in this particular conflict or not.

Terrorism though a frequent topic last year, didn’t get that much attention from me this year (so many topics, so little time!). I did a comparison between 9/11 and the bombings in Madrid (which annoyed a friend of mine to no end and gave me one of the most amusing, endearing insulting compliment I got this year calling me a : “Kantian foreign policy advocate!”)

Last year at the end of my review I wrote that in the New Year I would write more about books, but this didn’t happen, not because I didn’t read any from my seemingly endless to-read-pile, but because so many topics just ‘begged’ to be written about and just pushed the book reviews back on their shelves. (as I said nobody can accuse me of not having an opinion on absolutely anything and everything irrespective of the amount of knowledge which I may have on it or not.)

Though the professor’s discussion group seems to have disintegrated or may have gone slightly dormant, many of the professors who were on that list still remain loyal readers and do not hesitate to tell me off when they think I have made a faux pas on one of my columns. I would like to thank them for their non-diminishing support.

This brings me to the final part of my review, the closing paragraph. I would like to close with thanking my family and friends for their understanding, when I take time away from them to write the columns and for their continuous support. I would also like to thank my editors for their patience and putting up with my erratic schedule. And most importantly, I would like to thank my readers for their continuing faith in me and their loyalty. I would like to thank them for giving me encouragement and constructive criticism too. I would like to ask them to keep their responses coming.

And finally here is wishing all of you a wonderful new year, God bless you with happiness and lots of laughter in the new year and most of all with hope. In the immortal words of Emily Dickinson :

“Hope” is the thing with feathers—

That perches in the soul—

And sings the tunes without the words—

And never stops—at all.”

Here’s hoping for hope that nothing stops – at all.

All this to be taken with a grain of salt!