Thursday, September 20, 2007
Monday, August 20, 2007
REJOINDER by Ghulam Muhammed,
TO:
LEADER ARTICLE: Let's Believe In Ourselves
[http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Lets_Believe_In_Ourselves/articleshow/2292828.cms]
Others talked of India having moved closes to the Soviet Union and having become largely dependent on Soviet arms supplies. They were worried about India joining Brezhnev’s Asian security plan against China. Nothing of that sort happened. India defied the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) and conducted the first Pokhran test in 1974. It was prepared to accept the penalties imposed on it following that test. Again, India did not join the US and China and the majority of the non-aligned in supporting Pol Pot’s representation in the UN General Assembly. Nor did India join the western powers and majority of non-aligned community in the anti-Soviet campaign on Afghanistan. It disapproved of the Soviet action and conveyed that in private. Thereby India saved itself from the Al-Qaida contamination. India conducted the Shakti tests defying the non-proliferation community of whom over 100 were non-aligned members. The US and the international community in their own interests have now moved to lift the technology apartheid against India without requiring India to join the NPT or give up its nuclear weapons. The international framework is being modified to bring in India — and India alone — as a member of the bigger non-proliferation regime. There is no evidence of India having compromised on its independent foreign policy as a quid pro quo. New Delhi’s vote against Tehran in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board was perfectly justified as Iran has developed a clandestine nuclear weapons programme with the help of A Q Khan and hid it from IAEA for 16 years. India only voted against Iran on violation of IAEA regulations. But China and Russia have voted for sanctions to be imposed against Iran by the UN Security Council. Are we to assume they did so under pressure from US or was it because they were convinced about Iran’s unacceptable nuclear enrichment activity?
(GM: China and Russia voted for sanctions against Iran, mainly because they are the full members of the nuclear club and had to protect their exclusive interests. India had not found a place nor will probably ever find a place in future in that nuclear club.
India, when it came to its own defense compulsions, against a super-power proxy like Pakistan, defied the so-called international law and survived sanctions. It is a paradigm shift for it to now side with the hunters and leave the group of the hunted for opportunistic reasons, opening a Pandora’s box of jangled neighborhood equations that will take great time and effort to come to terms with, and that too not necessarily in a peaceful manner, if at all.)
To recall former US President Franklin D Roosevelt’s saying: What we have to fear is fear itself. India has no need to fear the dominance of any other power.
(The writer is a security affairs analyst)
#5412
REJOINDER by Ghulam Muhammed,
TO:
LEADER ARTICLE: Let's Believe In Ourselves
[http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Lets_Believe_In_Ourselves/articleshow/2292828.cms]
20 Aug 2007, 0020 hrs IST , K Subrahmanyam
The Left Front leaders and a few others have expressed their concerns about India concluding the nuclear agreement and moving closer to the US. India has had 60 years of experience in conducting its foreign policy and that is a long enough period to assess the formulation of its policy.
(GM: India’s 60 year experience was gained through the medium of stalwarts like Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who had nursed India, first to come out of a colonial stranglehold and second to keep it free from the global politics of cold-war raging, after the 2nd WW, between the West and the Soviet Block. Even though Nehru could be easily branded as autocratic as current Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would like to be, he was not imposed on the nation, by outside powers --- the West or Soviet block as is the clear case of Manmohan Singh. Those who cannot figure out how Manmohan Singh came to occupy the most important post in the nation, are either naïve or very short-sighted.
Nehru, even though he leaned towards the Soviet Block for ideological an/ord pragmatic reasons, he was shrewd and brave enough to keep the Soviets at a distant and even was very businesslike with the local India’s own communist party.
In contrast, Manmohan Singh’s 15 year record is too fresh in front of us, not to make out that he has been carrying out n open US agenda, in economic, political and defence fields. Even in foreign policy field, he was clearly forced by the US, publicly, under open threat, in a crude blackmailing fashion, to have to vote against Iran in that infamous AIEA, against all conventional wisdom and against huge public outcry. He bowed down to the wishes of US administration in sacking Natwar Singh and shifting his oil minister Mani Shankar Aiyer, from his crucial post, as Aiyer was boldly pursuing oil policies and interacting independently with other countries to expand India’s choices of alternatives in securing oil though bilateral arrangements with friendly countries (friendly with India and not necessarily with the US), cutting out the US and its oil interests and threatening their planned ‘monopoly’ over India’s future needs . Prime Minister has handed over very crucial military and naval intelligence task to US and Israeli ‘experts’ without any public notification or discussion, brashly exploiting the legal loopholes where any public accountability is missing --- thanks of the one party rule of Congress, that completely distorted the healthy functioning of a full-blooded democracy, where each and every executive act should have been subject to public scrutiny.
All these moves have and should have shaken the confidence of discerning Indian public in their Prime Minister and his ability to safeguard the sovereignty and integrity of India as an independent nation. The 60-year experience that Mr. Subrahmanyam has summarily awarded to the Prime Minister, is and has been shattered by the new team, as is clearly evidenced by their various acts of commission or/and omission.)
The Left Front leaders and a few others have expressed their concerns about India concluding the nuclear agreement and moving closer to the US. India has had 60 years of experience in conducting its foreign policy and that is a long enough period to assess the formulation of its policy.
(GM: India’s 60 year experience was gained through the medium of stalwarts like Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who had nursed India, first to come out of a colonial stranglehold and second to keep it free from the global politics of cold-war raging, after the 2nd WW, between the West and the Soviet Block. Even though Nehru could be easily branded as autocratic as current Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would like to be, he was not imposed on the nation, by outside powers --- the West or Soviet block as is the clear case of Manmohan Singh. Those who cannot figure out how Manmohan Singh came to occupy the most important post in the nation, are either naïve or very short-sighted.
Nehru, even though he leaned towards the Soviet Block for ideological an/ord pragmatic reasons, he was shrewd and brave enough to keep the Soviets at a distant and even was very businesslike with the local India’s own communist party.
In contrast, Manmohan Singh’s 15 year record is too fresh in front of us, not to make out that he has been carrying out n open US agenda, in economic, political and defence fields. Even in foreign policy field, he was clearly forced by the US, publicly, under open threat, in a crude blackmailing fashion, to have to vote against Iran in that infamous AIEA, against all conventional wisdom and against huge public outcry. He bowed down to the wishes of US administration in sacking Natwar Singh and shifting his oil minister Mani Shankar Aiyer, from his crucial post, as Aiyer was boldly pursuing oil policies and interacting independently with other countries to expand India’s choices of alternatives in securing oil though bilateral arrangements with friendly countries (friendly with India and not necessarily with the US), cutting out the US and its oil interests and threatening their planned ‘monopoly’ over India’s future needs . Prime Minister has handed over very crucial military and naval intelligence task to US and Israeli ‘experts’ without any public notification or discussion, brashly exploiting the legal loopholes where any public accountability is missing --- thanks of the one party rule of Congress, that completely distorted the healthy functioning of a full-blooded democracy, where each and every executive act should have been subject to public scrutiny.
All these moves have and should have shaken the confidence of discerning Indian public in their Prime Minister and his ability to safeguard the sovereignty and integrity of India as an independent nation. The 60-year experience that Mr. Subrahmanyam has summarily awarded to the Prime Minister, is and has been shattered by the new team, as is clearly evidenced by their various acts of commission or/and omission.)
During these 60 years, India has risen from a poor developing colony to become the fourth largest economy of the world. It is now a nuclear weapon state and a space and an information technology powerhouse with a $200 billion foreign exchange reserve.
(GM: There cannot be any doubt over the changes that have certainly benefited the nation, which under liberalization and globalization has risen from a doddering poor nation to a resurgent economic power. Nobody disputes that. However, it seems, while embarking on this progress, we have not figured out what will be attendant cost of this progress. The way 123is being surreptitiously smuggled into our statute books, citing constitutional and executive privileges, sends alarms around the nation, if this beginning of an innocent looking agreement that promises to opens door to unlimited hubris, will not forever bind us to a superpower, that has plans of a New World Order, about which the nation had never had the opportunity nor time to decide if India should be part and parcel of any such imperialist agenda to entangle its people in any world war situations.
While Kapil Sibal makes a legal point about Prime Minister’s constitutionally correct move, he should have taken note that never in sixty years of Indian History, India has signed any such far reaching and strategic agreement with any super power, be that the US or Soviet Union, that virtually robs India of its freedom to decide some very crucial international relationships. It is now time, that the constitution should be suitably amended to take in the future eventuality of our nation entering such crucial agreement with full consensus from the people and elected parliament. Any such treaty should not be allowed to be deemed to be signed by a ‘sovereign’ nation, till it is ratified by an overwhelming majority of its people, in whichever way that consensus is to be judged. In the event, PM and Congress has been taking the people of India on a ride, taking advantage of the loopholes and flaws in our laws, that have left out the scrutiny, sanction and consensus of the people to be the starting point of any such ‘sovereign’ commitment.)
So why the constant carping about India’s foreign policy and the days when it was dependent on PL-480 imports, US aid and British military equipment and training? In fact, India has charted an independent course since independence. New Delhi stood up to the UN Security Council pressure when the western powers tilted the UN resolution on Kashmir in Pakistan’s favour. At that time, India was alone. In 1971, India defied the UN resolution passed by 110 nations (most of them were our non-aligned friends), backed by the US and China, and went ahead and liberated Bangladesh. Many in those days talked of India becoming a Soviet satellite because of the Indo-Soviet peace and friendship treaty and of secret clauses in the treaty which compromised our non-alignment. When the same people came to power following the 1977 election, they could not find any secret clauses.
(GM: There cannot be any doubt over the changes that have certainly benefited the nation, which under liberalization and globalization has risen from a doddering poor nation to a resurgent economic power. Nobody disputes that. However, it seems, while embarking on this progress, we have not figured out what will be attendant cost of this progress. The way 123is being surreptitiously smuggled into our statute books, citing constitutional and executive privileges, sends alarms around the nation, if this beginning of an innocent looking agreement that promises to opens door to unlimited hubris, will not forever bind us to a superpower, that has plans of a New World Order, about which the nation had never had the opportunity nor time to decide if India should be part and parcel of any such imperialist agenda to entangle its people in any world war situations.
While Kapil Sibal makes a legal point about Prime Minister’s constitutionally correct move, he should have taken note that never in sixty years of Indian History, India has signed any such far reaching and strategic agreement with any super power, be that the US or Soviet Union, that virtually robs India of its freedom to decide some very crucial international relationships. It is now time, that the constitution should be suitably amended to take in the future eventuality of our nation entering such crucial agreement with full consensus from the people and elected parliament. Any such treaty should not be allowed to be deemed to be signed by a ‘sovereign’ nation, till it is ratified by an overwhelming majority of its people, in whichever way that consensus is to be judged. In the event, PM and Congress has been taking the people of India on a ride, taking advantage of the loopholes and flaws in our laws, that have left out the scrutiny, sanction and consensus of the people to be the starting point of any such ‘sovereign’ commitment.)
So why the constant carping about India’s foreign policy and the days when it was dependent on PL-480 imports, US aid and British military equipment and training? In fact, India has charted an independent course since independence. New Delhi stood up to the UN Security Council pressure when the western powers tilted the UN resolution on Kashmir in Pakistan’s favour. At that time, India was alone. In 1971, India defied the UN resolution passed by 110 nations (most of them were our non-aligned friends), backed by the US and China, and went ahead and liberated Bangladesh. Many in those days talked of India becoming a Soviet satellite because of the Indo-Soviet peace and friendship treaty and of secret clauses in the treaty which compromised our non-alignment. When the same people came to power following the 1977 election, they could not find any secret clauses.
Others talked of India having moved closes to the Soviet Union and having become largely dependent on Soviet arms supplies. They were worried about India joining Brezhnev’s Asian security plan against China. Nothing of that sort happened. India defied the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) and conducted the first Pokhran test in 1974. It was prepared to accept the penalties imposed on it following that test. Again, India did not join the US and China and the majority of the non-aligned in supporting Pol Pot’s representation in the UN General Assembly. Nor did India join the western powers and majority of non-aligned community in the anti-Soviet campaign on Afghanistan. It disapproved of the Soviet action and conveyed that in private. Thereby India saved itself from the Al-Qaida contamination. India conducted the Shakti tests defying the non-proliferation community of whom over 100 were non-aligned members. The US and the international community in their own interests have now moved to lift the technology apartheid against India without requiring India to join the NPT or give up its nuclear weapons. The international framework is being modified to bring in India — and India alone — as a member of the bigger non-proliferation regime. There is no evidence of India having compromised on its independent foreign policy as a quid pro quo. New Delhi’s vote against Tehran in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board was perfectly justified as Iran has developed a clandestine nuclear weapons programme with the help of A Q Khan and hid it from IAEA for 16 years. India only voted against Iran on violation of IAEA regulations. But China and Russia have voted for sanctions to be imposed against Iran by the UN Security Council. Are we to assume they did so under pressure from US or was it because they were convinced about Iran’s unacceptable nuclear enrichment activity?
(GM: China and Russia voted for sanctions against Iran, mainly because they are the full members of the nuclear club and had to protect their exclusive interests. India had not found a place nor will probably ever find a place in future in that nuclear club.
India, when it came to its own defense compulsions, against a super-power proxy like Pakistan, defied the so-called international law and survived sanctions. It is a paradigm shift for it to now side with the hunters and leave the group of the hunted for opportunistic reasons, opening a Pandora’s box of jangled neighborhood equations that will take great time and effort to come to terms with, and that too not necessarily in a peaceful manner, if at all.)
There have always been sections in India who have lacked self-confidence and expected us to cave in to the demands of external powers. However, Indian foreign policy has proved that even when the country was much weaker than it is today, it withstood such pressures. The tough negotiations that preceded the nuclear deal are enough proof of India’s ability to bargain hard. The US is not used to dealing with strategic partners but only with allies who accepted its leadership. India will not be an ally of the US though former Prime Minister A B Vajpayee used the term, ‘natural ally’. India has no experience in dealing with either an ally or a strategic partner. Therefore, sustaining a strategic partnership is going to be a new experience for both countries. The US is looking for a strategic partner, which would help it to sustain its economic and technological pre-eminence and to maintain the balance of power in Asia and the world.
(GM: Subrahmanyam is right, when he clarifies that neither the US nor India has any experience of dealing with a strategic partner. The US has always acted as a bully with even its allies. The case of Bush-Blair interaction is a clear proof. India as a proud and independent nation is not used to the kind of threats and orders that is coming out constantly from every level of the US polity. The way US Ambassador meddles in India’s internal affairs, it is not only humiliating but not always conducive to the achievement of national goals, which is not some kind of private domain of the oligarchs.)
(GM: Subrahmanyam is right, when he clarifies that neither the US nor India has any experience of dealing with a strategic partner. The US has always acted as a bully with even its allies. The case of Bush-Blair interaction is a clear proof. India as a proud and independent nation is not used to the kind of threats and orders that is coming out constantly from every level of the US polity. The way US Ambassador meddles in India’s internal affairs, it is not only humiliating but not always conducive to the achievement of national goals, which is not some kind of private domain of the oligarchs.)
Washington is of the view that a rising, democratic India with a youthful population and a reservoir of talent will help in its objectives. There are people who object to the US benefiting out of its partnership with India. But the question is whether the partnership would help India, how much and if there are better alternatives. Those who talk about the costs of this partnership have not taken into account India’s history, its current place in the international system, and the opportunity cost of letting China increase its trade relations with the US by leaps and bounds.
(GM: Analysts like Subrahmanyam, while speaking about mutual benefits in any such strategic partnership, should be clear as to what benefit will accrue to each side. India and Indian people have a right to be openly and categorically warn the US and its another strategic ally, the Israelis, not to expect India and Indian people to fight a war on the basis of any short term or long tern conspiracies that the US and Israelis are famous for.
Let us declare Asia a no war zone so that no innocent blood is shed on our soil or of our people. If Indian progress takes us to become a part of the US hegemonical war designs, India’s peace-loving people, in the best Gandhian traditions, should be able to rule out all such possibility, from the very outset.)
(GM: Analysts like Subrahmanyam, while speaking about mutual benefits in any such strategic partnership, should be clear as to what benefit will accrue to each side. India and Indian people have a right to be openly and categorically warn the US and its another strategic ally, the Israelis, not to expect India and Indian people to fight a war on the basis of any short term or long tern conspiracies that the US and Israelis are famous for.
Let us declare Asia a no war zone so that no innocent blood is shed on our soil or of our people. If Indian progress takes us to become a part of the US hegemonical war designs, India’s peace-loving people, in the best Gandhian traditions, should be able to rule out all such possibility, from the very outset.)
Once India realizes that its partnership is of value to the US then it is a question of hard mutual bargain.
New Delhi must remember that the US is no longer the leader of the majority alliance in a bipolar world.
(GM: Subrahmanyam’s caveat is most important. Till now there is no indication from the Prime Minister or his advisors or his party, to stress that points that India can and will chart its own course in world affairs.
Besides, as things are developing, there is a danger that India will be presented with a fait accompli for which it has never prepared for or received any clearance from its own people.
India is not lead at his point of time, by leaders like Gandhi, Nehru and Patel who can successfully withstand foreign pressures of damaging kind. In fact, there is reason to believe that even they had been presented with fait accompli by the British colonialists and they had to sign on dotted line. )
New Delhi must remember that the US is no longer the leader of the majority alliance in a bipolar world.
(GM: Subrahmanyam’s caveat is most important. Till now there is no indication from the Prime Minister or his advisors or his party, to stress that points that India can and will chart its own course in world affairs.
Besides, as things are developing, there is a danger that India will be presented with a fait accompli for which it has never prepared for or received any clearance from its own people.
India is not lead at his point of time, by leaders like Gandhi, Nehru and Patel who can successfully withstand foreign pressures of damaging kind. In fact, there is reason to believe that even they had been presented with fait accompli by the British colonialists and they had to sign on dotted line. )
To recall former US President Franklin D Roosevelt’s saying: What we have to fear is fear itself. India has no need to fear the dominance of any other power.
(The writer is a security affairs analyst)
#5412
Saturday, September 01, 2007
INDIAN LEADERS SHOULD BEWARE: THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH
The Times of India has splashed the news in top headlines, on the front-page: “US wanted India to carry out N-test before China”.
India’s prime newspaper seems to suggest that the US has been India’s benefactor and well-wisher even in 1960’s, when one US State Department official George McGhee wrote a Memo dated September 31, 1961 to the then US Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, recommending help to India acquire nuclear bombs.
Times of India’s attempt to picture the US as India’s unabiding friend is deeply flawed for the following reasons:
1. For every such memo, there might be other similar memos, by other officials in the same US State Department, warning against arming India for reasons fairly known to the world at the time. So merely digging out a memo and splashing the news on front page is not going to fool Indian people, about any ‘natural’ bonds between India and the US, as Vajpayee had openly declared. This is all a routine think tank exercise, by vested interest groups and it should not hoodwink our evaluation of how the US will play out its future option with India’s nuclear capabilities.
The reason cited by the McGhee Memo, is directly related to the US geopolitical need to counter China, which the US had decided to be in the very vanguard of communist take over of the world. There was nothing special about India’s defence needs that would have made a difference to the US policies on Non-proliferation. It was strictly a US need-based policy option.
2. By collaborating with the US, India would have gone under US protection racket, from as early as 60’s, which Pandit Nehru, as a freedom fighter, could hardly have acquiesced in, even in the face of India/China confrontation. It would seem, that Nehru was more vary of the neo-imperialists, from whose stranglehold India had only recently achieved hard-earned freedom, to be forced into the building of any ‘strategic partnership’ with the same tormentors.
3. If the US, for whatever reason of its own, was keeping an option for India to go nuclear, why it later went ahead and imposed sanctions against India for so long. India paid the price for its freedom, nuclear option, being just one part of it.
The problem with the people like Manmohan Singh and even Sonia Gandhi as well as Vajpayee and Advani, is that they do not have the same kind of commitment to India’s freedom, as the earlier generation, which shed blood and sweat and mounted a historic struggle to get India free from the yoke of western colonization. Perks of high office have come easy to these ‘leaders’ and their hunger for power and pelf prevents them from taking a far-sighted view of where US-Israeli subversion of Indian nation will lead to.
In the new globalized world, with US-Israel sitting on our head, we will lose the freedom to choose our friends in the wider world community. We will have to abide by the US-Israeli list of enemies/friends ---- (Remember Bush doctrine: you are with us or against us). India’s freedom to choose who and when and to what degree its friendship or distancing with other sovereign nations is of uppermost deciding factor in evaluating Indo-US ‘strategic partnership’.
This is a singular test of India’s freedom and sovereignty.
The US is notorious in hiring media, both international and local, besides other lobbies, to instigate and influence public opinion to suit its own vested interest. All options are floated as life or death options.
It is in this context, that The Times of India, Indian Express, and other mainstream Newspapers’ are bending backwards to back US agenda and to demonise the communists, who in fact, are offering the kind of constructive opposition today in India that is not always expected of them.
Even though the Brahmin equation at the top of all 3 major political groupings is working overtime to thresh out a common consensus on US-Israeli moves on India, if Indian communism surmounts the Brahmanism, which is openly making common cause with the Zionist New world order, India still has a chance to emerge as a free nation.
Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com
#5418
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
US/ISRAEL OUT TO SUBVERT INDIA’S DEMOCRACY BY HEAVILY INVESTING IN OUR ARMED FORCES
The news about the arrest of Bangladesh’s 3 time Prime Minister, Khaleda Zia and the refusal of the courts to grant her bail, should open the eyes of all democrats in India, as to why it is par for the course, that military dictators in their neighborhood, be that Pakistan or Bangladesh, feel no qualms in hauling up and roughing prominent political leaders of both countries, with a definite game plan to humiliate and degrade democratically elected leadership, so that they should not forget, who is the final arbitrator of peoples destiny in the subcontinent.
India, with Nehru at the helm and with a vast country of diverse ethnicities, religions, languages, had never been an easy morsel for the US imperialists to subvert, even though they have never relented trying to push out their cold war rivals as global strategic partners, and muscle in, to take over India, back into their western fold.
In comparison, both Pakistan and Bangladesh, had fallen in the hands of military dictators, as their democratic institutions were not as strong, as their military, who sat on the pile of corruption money in the name of security of the nation.
The demise of Soviet Union back in 1990s gave the victor of the cold war, a new vigor and confidence to once again try to bring India into its stranglehold, by its well-known techniques of ‘regime change’, either through assassinations and/or maneuvering its own proxies at the highest posts of political influences.
Since Nehru/Gandhi family had remained suspicious of the US embrace, and had always preferred to deal with the Americans with a distance, for the US, the liquidation of Nehru/Gandhi family was the only solution to ease the way to take over India. Out went Rajiv Gandhi and in came P.V. Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh, with the grand fanfare of heralding the new age of liberalization of Indian economy. For reasons of long term strategic planning, unlike the case in Iraq, where Bremer uprooted the whole Saddam regime, lock stock and barrel, in India, US and Israel have been most cautious in not trying to rock the boat in a hurry. They have been plotting step by step subversion of India by some of the most circuitous designs on its politics, economy and armed forces.
By the time they finish, if sagacious elements do not rise up to challenge them, India would be duplicate copy of its two neighbours, Pakistan and Bangladesh, where people will be denied any real rights to live as full citizens of democratic republic and would be turned into vassals under the thumbs of their masters sitting in Washington and Tel Aviv.
Their most blatant and daring move is to subvert India’s armed forces who will be flooded with goodies of all kinds, that they could only dream in their past of starvation and deprivation. The armed forces will be promised paradise on earth. They would hardly have the motivations to reflect that they are eventually getting sucked into the US/Israeli led campaigns of war and destructions, where millions of their countrymen will die, over causes that should have no relevance to their national aspirations.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s S. K. Lambah was reportedly part of the high-level Indian delegation responsible for drafting a report: ‘United States, Japan and India: Towards a new trilateral’, whose current focus is no China, but Iran. As per Sunday Times report, Pentagon has plans to bomb Iran and put out its entire military might for long time to come.
The stark question that all our political leaders should be addressing at this moment in time is: will India, directly or indirectly join US/Israeli plans to attack Iran. What will be Manmohan Singh’s priorities at such a juncture? Will he keep India out, or will he be obliged by his commitments, overt or covert, to join forces with the US/Israel and burn all India’s boats from ever calling on Muslim world.
The communists by taking a strong stand against 123, are in fact out to save Manmohan Singh from committing a big blunder, in dragging India to a world of constant wars of conquests and subjugation of peoples, who had always looked to India as a role model fighting for freedom and independence from the imperialist forces.
Manmohan Singh should better realize, that once the power behind the throne is passed out to conquering armies, India will be turned into a Banana republic and the same US/Israeli duo that are showering Manmohan Singh with capitalist goodies, can and will organise his trips to jail, just like Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif, Hasina Wajed and Khaleda Zia, if ever he tried to act as patriotic Indian.
It is still time for him to pull back from the brink.
Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
#5419
US/ISRAEL OUT TO SUBVERT INDIA’S DEMOCRACY BY HEAVILY INVESTING IN OUR ARMED FORCES
The news about the arrest of Bangladesh’s 3 time Prime Minister, Khaleda Zia and the refusal of the courts to grant her bail, should open the eyes of all democrats in India, as to why it is par for the course, that military dictators in their neighborhood, be that Pakistan or Bangladesh, feel no qualms in hauling up and roughing prominent political leaders of both countries, with a definite game plan to humiliate and degrade democratically elected leadership, so that they should not forget, who is the final arbitrator of peoples destiny in the subcontinent.
India, with Nehru at the helm and with a vast country of diverse ethnicities, religions, languages, had never been an easy morsel for the US imperialists to subvert, even though they have never relented trying to push out their cold war rivals as global strategic partners, and muscle in, to take over India, back into their western fold.
In comparison, both Pakistan and Bangladesh, had fallen in the hands of military dictators, as their democratic institutions were not as strong, as their military, who sat on the pile of corruption money in the name of security of the nation.
The demise of Soviet Union back in 1990s gave the victor of the cold war, a new vigor and confidence to once again try to bring India into its stranglehold, by its well-known techniques of ‘regime change’, either through assassinations and/or maneuvering its own proxies at the highest posts of political influences.
Since Nehru/Gandhi family had remained suspicious of the US embrace, and had always preferred to deal with the Americans with a distance, for the US, the liquidation of Nehru/Gandhi family was the only solution to ease the way to take over India. Out went Rajiv Gandhi and in came P.V. Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh, with the grand fanfare of heralding the new age of liberalization of Indian economy. For reasons of long term strategic planning, unlike the case in Iraq, where Bremer uprooted the whole Saddam regime, lock stock and barrel, in India, US and Israel have been most cautious in not trying to rock the boat in a hurry. They have been plotting step by step subversion of India by some of the most circuitous designs on its politics, economy and armed forces.
By the time they finish, if sagacious elements do not rise up to challenge them, India would be duplicate copy of its two neighbours, Pakistan and Bangladesh, where people will be denied any real rights to live as full citizens of democratic republic and would be turned into vassals under the thumbs of their masters sitting in Washington and Tel Aviv.
Their most blatant and daring move is to subvert India’s armed forces who will be flooded with goodies of all kinds, that they could only dream in their past of starvation and deprivation. The armed forces will be promised paradise on earth. They would hardly have the motivations to reflect that they are eventually getting sucked into the US/Israeli led campaigns of war and destructions, where millions of their countrymen will die, over causes that should have no relevance to their national aspirations.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s S. K. Lambah was reportedly part of the high-level Indian delegation responsible for drafting a report: ‘United States, Japan and India: Towards a new trilateral’, whose current focus is no China, but Iran. As per Sunday Times report, Pentagon has plans to bomb Iran and put out its entire military might for long time to come.
The stark question that all our political leaders should be addressing at this moment in time is: will India, directly or indirectly join US/Israeli plans to attack Iran. What will be Manmohan Singh’s priorities at such a juncture? Will he keep India out, or will he be obliged by his commitments, overt or covert, to join forces with the US/Israel and burn all India’s boats from ever calling on Muslim world.
The communists by taking a strong stand against 123, are in fact out to save Manmohan Singh from committing a big blunder, in dragging India to a world of constant wars of conquests and subjugation of peoples, who had always looked to India as a role model fighting for freedom and independence from the imperialist forces.
Manmohan Singh should better realize, that once the power behind the throne is passed out to conquering armies, India will be turned into a Banana republic and the same US/Israeli duo that are showering Manmohan Singh with capitalist goodies, can and will organise his trips to jail, just like Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif, Hasina Wajed and Khaleda Zia, if ever he tried to act as patriotic Indian.
It is still time for him to pull back from the brink.
Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
#5419
Thursday, September 13, 2007
COMMUNAL THACKERAY RAISES ALARM OVER SACHAR REPORT’S CALL FOR PROPOTIONAL REPRESENTATION FOR MUSLIMS
Bal Thackeray is one political operator that always goes for the jugular. In his Maharashtra Assembly election eve speech, he openly called on ‘Hindus’ ( not Indians) to unite as only united Hindus can bring Islam to its knees. The virulent election speech was enough for Shiv Sena to have been declared unfit to fight elections on communal grounds. However, no Muslim organisation was courageous enough to risk antagonizing Shiv Sena supremo, and file complaints over Shiv Sena’s recognizance over Bal Thackeray’s religious war on Islam and Muslim voters, while fighting a democratic election in secular India. A tame reference was filed by a NCP member in a magistrate’s court that was more of a diversionary or symbolic strategic move by friends in Sharad Pawar’s so-called secular party, to help out Thackeray. All these ‘secular’ political parties have no qualms joining arch-communalist Shiv Sena, be they Sonia Congress or Sharad Pawar National Congress Party, when it is absolutely a no go situation. They are always prepared to co-opt all disgruntled Shiv Sainiks that junk Thackeray and give them prominent positions in their party, probably to exploit their Hindutva networking that could boost their own pseudo-secular vote bank.
In a move reminiscent of Shivaji’s trip to New Delhi, Bal Thackeray’s son Uddhav Thackeray made his maiden journey to New Delhi, to meet Congress Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, warning him against implementing Sachar Commission report on plight of Muslims, as according to him, this will bring a second partition of the country and country will be deeply divided.
Following up on his son’s clarion call against Indian Muslims, Shiv Sena supremo, who does not hold any formal office in his communal political party, Bal Thackeray very correctly warned that if Sachar Commission’s recommendation over proportional representation for political empowerment of Muslims are in any way implemented, it will ensure 150 seats in the Parliament for the Muslims and that will be a disaster for the nation. According to Mumbai Mirror, Bal Thackeray in an open letter to Prime Minister, published in his party mouth-piece Saamna, wrote: “There are 80 districts across the country, which will are predominantly Muslim. There will be 150 Muslim MPs in the Lok Sabha if Sachar’s yardstick is applied and this could further divide the country on religious lines. He added, “the country is already unstable ….. there is political as well as social instability and by going ahead with the Sachar Committee report, the UPA government is pouring oil in the fire.”
One can only marvel at the audacity of this man, who forgets that he himself has been in forefront of dividing the nation on religious lines, when he calls on Hindus to unite to bring Islam to its knees in this country.
Bal Thackeray strongly objects to Justice Sachar’s felicitation by Muslims in United States. “In which government policy does the felicitation fit into?” he asked according to Mumbai Mirror news story, adding, the government should demand explanation from Sachar for his conduct.
Even though any number of political figures from Hindutva Parivar had been felicitated in the United States by Hindu Indians, Bal Thackeray is more concerned by American Indian Muslims participating in a political act. He is mortally afraid; the Americans might take note of the fault line in Indian polity and could be easily persuaded to exploit it for their own agenda on India. After all US policy makers did not hesitate to bring in Iraqi Shias in power in the name of democracy. After all even Thackeray clearly realizes that India’s ultimate bosses are in the US and they are not enamored of exclusivist fascist ideologies of the Hindutva kind. The newly awaken American Muslims are fast making inroads in US politics, with their numbers now becoming as crucial in coming Presidential elections as they are in India.
For sixty years, the communal Brahminical planning in ostracizing Muslims from the levers of powers has done immense damage to the psyche of Indian Muslims. They have remained isolated and ghettoized. Now with geopolitical focus on Muslims everywhere all around the world, for their potential for radicalization, it will be in the fitness of things, that justice should better be done to their numbers in any democratic set-up. The clever management of the political maneuverings, that had successfully kept Muslim MP numbers to around only 30, when they should be around 150, duly elected from their own majority districts, is now fully exposed, especially after presentation of Sachar report. A mass movement, though at the moment sponsored by the same wily political parties, around Sachar Commission report, is picking up some pace and Muslims are getting organised all around the country to demand action on Sachar Commission recommendation. Congress party is past master at playing games with Muslims and there is serious skepticism among the community leaders if Muslims will ever get anything out of this election-eve exercise. All Indian Muslim Mushawarat President, and former MP, Syed Shahabuddin, who had earlier joined Congress, has issued a press release openly downplaying any Congress move to do justice to Muslims.
It is clear, unless Muslims can raise huge sums through public mobilization and invest in their own political empowerment strategies, it is difficult to see any improvement in their lot; not withstanding all the grandstanding by Bal Thackeray.
Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
#5423
COMMUNAL THACKERAY RAISES ALARM OVER SACHAR REPORT’S CALL FOR PROPOTIONAL REPRESENTATION FOR MUSLIMS
Bal Thackeray is one political operator that always goes for the jugular. In his Maharashtra Assembly election eve speech, he openly called on ‘Hindus’ ( not Indians) to unite as only united Hindus can bring Islam to its knees. The virulent election speech was enough for Shiv Sena to have been declared unfit to fight elections on communal grounds. However, no Muslim organisation was courageous enough to risk antagonizing Shiv Sena supremo, and file complaints over Shiv Sena’s recognizance over Bal Thackeray’s religious war on Islam and Muslim voters, while fighting a democratic election in secular India. A tame reference was filed by a NCP member in a magistrate’s court that was more of a diversionary or symbolic strategic move by friends in Sharad Pawar’s so-called secular party, to help out Thackeray. All these ‘secular’ political parties have no qualms joining arch-communalist Shiv Sena, be they Sonia Congress or Sharad Pawar National Congress Party, when it is absolutely a no go situation. They are always prepared to co-opt all disgruntled Shiv Sainiks that junk Thackeray and give them prominent positions in their party, probably to exploit their Hindutva networking that could boost their own pseudo-secular vote bank.
In a move reminiscent of Shivaji’s trip to New Delhi, Bal Thackeray’s son Uddhav Thackeray made his maiden journey to New Delhi, to meet Congress Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, warning him against implementing Sachar Commission report on plight of Muslims, as according to him, this will bring a second partition of the country and country will be deeply divided.
Following up on his son’s clarion call against Indian Muslims, Shiv Sena supremo, who does not hold any formal office in his communal political party, Bal Thackeray very correctly warned that if Sachar Commission’s recommendation over proportional representation for political empowerment of Muslims are in any way implemented, it will ensure 150 seats in the Parliament for the Muslims and that will be a disaster for the nation. According to Mumbai Mirror, Bal Thackeray in an open letter to Prime Minister, published in his party mouth-piece Saamna, wrote: “There are 80 districts across the country, which will are predominantly Muslim. There will be 150 Muslim MPs in the Lok Sabha if Sachar’s yardstick is applied and this could further divide the country on religious lines. He added, “the country is already unstable ….. there is political as well as social instability and by going ahead with the Sachar Committee report, the UPA government is pouring oil in the fire.”
One can only marvel at the audacity of this man, who forgets that he himself has been in forefront of dividing the nation on religious lines, when he calls on Hindus to unite to bring Islam to its knees in this country.
Bal Thackeray strongly objects to Justice Sachar’s felicitation by Muslims in United States. “In which government policy does the felicitation fit into?” he asked according to Mumbai Mirror news story, adding, the government should demand explanation from Sachar for his conduct.
Even though any number of political figures from Hindutva Parivar had been felicitated in the United States by Hindu Indians, Bal Thackeray is more concerned by American Indian Muslims participating in a political act. He is mortally afraid; the Americans might take note of the fault line in Indian polity and could be easily persuaded to exploit it for their own agenda on India. After all US policy makers did not hesitate to bring in Iraqi Shias in power in the name of democracy. After all even Thackeray clearly realizes that India’s ultimate bosses are in the US and they are not enamored of exclusivist fascist ideologies of the Hindutva kind. The newly awaken American Muslims are fast making inroads in US politics, with their numbers now becoming as crucial in coming Presidential elections as they are in India.
For sixty years, the communal Brahminical planning in ostracizing Muslims from the levers of powers has done immense damage to the psyche of Indian Muslims. They have remained isolated and ghettoized. Now with geopolitical focus on Muslims everywhere all around the world, for their potential for radicalization, it will be in the fitness of things, that justice should better be done to their numbers in any democratic set-up. The clever management of the political maneuverings, that had successfully kept Muslim MP numbers to around only 30, when they should be around 150, duly elected from their own majority districts, is now fully exposed, especially after presentation of Sachar report. A mass movement, though at the moment sponsored by the same wily political parties, around Sachar Commission report, is picking up some pace and Muslims are getting organised all around the country to demand action on Sachar Commission recommendation. Congress party is past master at playing games with Muslims and there is serious skepticism among the community leaders if Muslims will ever get anything out of this election-eve exercise. All Indian Muslim Mushawarat President, and former MP, Syed Shahabuddin, who had earlier joined Congress, has issued a press release openly downplaying any Congress move to do justice to Muslims.
It is clear, unless Muslims can raise huge sums through public mobilization and invest in their own political empowerment strategies, it is difficult to see any improvement in their lot; not withstanding all the grandstanding by Bal Thackeray.
Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
#5423
Friday, September 14, 2007
THE NEW PATHANS
Folklore in northern India goes something like this. A Brahmin, with his sacred threat ceremoniously held over his ear, was standing on the side of the road and answering the call of nature. He got a big thump on his back. Flabbergasted, on turning to see what had hit him, he found a Pathan with all his colorful native plume decorating his head as his regalia, was fuming over his act of sacrilege. The Pathan said: Pandit, how dare you pee while facing the west, where is our Ka’aba. Don’t you know we pray our Namaz facing west towards our Holy Ka’aba? You are insulting our Holy Masjid.
The Brahmin, a noble soul, fully conversed in matter of sacred and profane, immediately realized that he has ‘sinned’.. He profusely apologized to the rightly enraged Pathan and said, Khan Saheb, pardon me. It was my mistake due to ignorance. It will never happen again.
Days passed. One day the Brahmin saw the same Pathan sitting on his haunches, at the edge of the street, facing the West, while answering the call of nature. The Brahmin was amazed. He stopped and waited for the Pathan to finish his business. When the Khan turned, the Brahmin most politely asked: Khan Saheb, how come you are now facing the Ka’aba and doing your thing. The Pathan flared up: Stupid man, don’t you know, it is our Ka’aba and not yours.
A new Pathan is now ruling this country. Whenever bombs go out, he is quick to arrest and imprison any Muslim, around whoever he gets his hands on. The general excuse is that only a Muslim can be a terrorist. So the Muslim is a fair game. Whatever may be the glaring evidence be. In city after city in Maharashtra, Bajrang Dal, VHP, RSS people are caught red handed, but released scot-free with minimum of fuss. The argument for the police seems to have been borrowed from the old Pathan: It is our country, not yours.
However, this argument is unraveling the very security and integrity of the nation. Both Sangh Parivar and Naxalites are drunk with the heady wine of mutilated sense of nationalism, that they can get hold of the country by bombing its people, left and right. Unless the New Pathan realizes, that he is indulging in the same sacrilege on his own Ka’aba that he falsely blames the Muslims for, his indulgences will destroy this country.
It is now left to the Muslims, the new Brahmins, to fold their hands in humility and let the New Pathan know, that this land belongs to all of us and he is as much moved and pained to see its gradual sliding into anarchy, as it should, being the son of the same soil himself.
Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
#5424
THE NEW PATHANS
Folklore in northern India goes something like this. A Brahmin, with his sacred threat ceremoniously held over his ear, was standing on the side of the road and answering the call of nature. He got a big thump on his back. Flabbergasted, on turning to see what had hit him, he found a Pathan with all his colorful native plume decorating his head as his regalia, was fuming over his act of sacrilege. The Pathan said: Pandit, how dare you pee while facing the west, where is our Ka’aba. Don’t you know we pray our Namaz facing west towards our Holy Ka’aba? You are insulting our Holy Masjid.
The Brahmin, a noble soul, fully conversed in matter of sacred and profane, immediately realized that he has ‘sinned’.. He profusely apologized to the rightly enraged Pathan and said, Khan Saheb, pardon me. It was my mistake due to ignorance. It will never happen again.
Days passed. One day the Brahmin saw the same Pathan sitting on his haunches, at the edge of the street, facing the West, while answering the call of nature. The Brahmin was amazed. He stopped and waited for the Pathan to finish his business. When the Khan turned, the Brahmin most politely asked: Khan Saheb, how come you are now facing the Ka’aba and doing your thing. The Pathan flared up: Stupid man, don’t you know, it is our Ka’aba and not yours.
A new Pathan is now ruling this country. Whenever bombs go out, he is quick to arrest and imprison any Muslim, around whoever he gets his hands on. The general excuse is that only a Muslim can be a terrorist. So the Muslim is a fair game. Whatever may be the glaring evidence be. In city after city in Maharashtra, Bajrang Dal, VHP, RSS people are caught red handed, but released scot-free with minimum of fuss. The argument for the police seems to have been borrowed from the old Pathan: It is our country, not yours.
However, this argument is unraveling the very security and integrity of the nation. Both Sangh Parivar and Naxalites are drunk with the heady wine of mutilated sense of nationalism, that they can get hold of the country by bombing its people, left and right. Unless the New Pathan realizes, that he is indulging in the same sacrilege on his own Ka’aba that he falsely blames the Muslims for, his indulgences will destroy this country.
It is now left to the Muslims, the new Brahmins, to fold their hands in humility and let the New Pathan know, that this land belongs to all of us and he is as much moved and pained to see its gradual sliding into anarchy, as it should, being the son of the same soil himself.
Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
#5424
INDO-US N-DEAL AND INDIAN MUSLIMS
INDO-US N-DEAL AND INDIAN MUSLIMS
LETTER TO THE EDITOR:
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
The Editor, The Times of India, Mumbai
This refers to Saeed Naqvi's article: N-deal not about Muslims (TOI, September 19, 2007).
Mr. Naqvi seems to have been completely out of touch with the Muslim sentiments in India that reflected its horror at the way; the US has invaded Iraq and caused hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties in blind pursuit of its own colonizing agenda, by illegal invasion, occupation and spurious legal entrenchment in to all future institutions of the occupied nation. Indian Muslims were part of the most vocal opposition which howled when Advani returned from a 'chance' unscheduled meeting with President Bush in White House and had sheepishly committed India to send troops to topple Saddam. It was the Muslim opposition in the forefront that saved the day for India and India has remained unblemished for any possible collaboration with the now universally condemned US invasion of Iraq. It was the Muslim protest over Bush visit to India that got lakhs of Muslims to gather in a surprising protest meeting in Azad Maidan that shocked the local authorities over their intelligence failure to prejudge the intensity of Muslim feelings against Bush and the US. The third major blunder that US had committed is to assume that India would and should participate in America and Israeli designs to wage another war on a Muslim country. By finalizing a strategic partnership agreement with the US, which clearly binds India to side with the US, in case of any invasion of Iran, Congress government is directly putting its Muslim vote bank or the remains of it, on the line.
Saeed Naqvi cites the example of many Arab countries signing peace treaties with Israel, supposedly according to him, leaving no excuse for Indian Muslims to oppose India opening relations with Israel. Indian Muslims are well aware that all those Arab/Muslim countries that had signed peace treaties with Israel have done it under duress. The anti-Israeli feelings are still very strong in Arab/Muslim masses. It is therefore understandable why Indian Muslims, not under any compulsion to bow down to Israeli dictates over the occupied land of Palestine, should feel no reason to abandon their abhorrence for Israel's Bantustan policies in occupied prison called Palestine Authority. Indian Muslims are not blind to the kind of atrocities and economic hardship Israel is inflicting on Palestinians without any regards for human rights or world opinion.
Saeed Naqvi seems to make a mockery of Congress apprehension of opening Israeli Embassy, over Muslim protests. He very proudly says: Not a squeak! As if that is some kind of victory for Congress or for Saeed Naqvi. If he is really politically experienced analyst, he would not have so categorically ruled out Muslim role in the political fortunes of either Congress or other parties. He should have made an allowance for the fact, there is always a time for everything and since Muslims are not full time political operatives, they may not react at certain point of time. But that should not preclude the danger that any political party may wager against any such explosion in the future. As the proverb goes, when it rains, it pours. As a writer, Naqvi may take a chance. As a political party, Congress cannot take a risk over one of its most sensitive constituency.
Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
<ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com>
#5425
Mr. Naqvi seems to have been completely out of touch with the Muslim sentiments in India that reflected its horror at the way; the US has invaded Iraq and caused hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties in blind pursuit of its own colonizing agenda, by illegal invasion, occupation and spurious legal entrenchment in to all future institutions of the occupied nation. Indian Muslims were part of the most vocal opposition which howled when Advani returned from a 'chance' unscheduled meeting with President Bush in White House and had sheepishly committed India to send troops to topple Saddam. It was the Muslim opposition in the forefront that saved the day for India and India has remained unblemished for any possible collaboration with the now universally condemned US invasion of Iraq. It was the Muslim protest over Bush visit to India that got lakhs of Muslims to gather in a surprising protest meeting in Azad Maidan that shocked the local authorities over their intelligence failure to prejudge the intensity of Muslim feelings against Bush and the US. The third major blunder that US had committed is to assume that India would and should participate in America and Israeli designs to wage another war on a Muslim country. By finalizing a strategic partnership agreement with the US, which clearly binds India to side with the US, in case of any invasion of Iran, Congress government is directly putting its Muslim vote bank or the remains of it, on the line.
Saeed Naqvi cites the example of many Arab countries signing peace treaties with Israel, supposedly according to him, leaving no excuse for Indian Muslims to oppose India opening relations with Israel. Indian Muslims are well aware that all those Arab/Muslim countries that had signed peace treaties with Israel have done it under duress. The anti-Israeli feelings are still very strong in Arab/Muslim masses. It is therefore understandable why Indian Muslims, not under any compulsion to bow down to Israeli dictates over the occupied land of Palestine, should feel no reason to abandon their abhorrence for Israel's Bantustan policies in occupied prison called Palestine Authority. Indian Muslims are not blind to the kind of atrocities and economic hardship Israel is inflicting on Palestinians without any regards for human rights or world opinion.
Saeed Naqvi seems to make a mockery of Congress apprehension of opening Israeli Embassy, over Muslim protests. He very proudly says: Not a squeak! As if that is some kind of victory for Congress or for Saeed Naqvi. If he is really politically experienced analyst, he would not have so categorically ruled out Muslim role in the political fortunes of either Congress or other parties. He should have made an allowance for the fact, there is always a time for everything and since Muslims are not full time political operatives, they may not react at certain point of time. But that should not preclude the danger that any political party may wager against any such explosion in the future. As the proverb goes, when it rains, it pours. As a writer, Naqvi may take a chance. As a political party, Congress cannot take a risk over one of its most sensitive constituency.
Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
<ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com>
#5425
