THE STORM SWEEPING SOUTH ASIA            

                 Niloufer Bhagwat

       “Afghanistan has been known over the years as the graveyard of empires” stated  General  David H. Patraeus, head of the US Central Command, in an attempt to explain away  continuous  and serious military  setbacks  to US-UK led NATO colonial  forces , emphasizing  “we cannot take that history lightly”. What is  overlooked, is that South Asia as a whole has been  the graveyard of Empires, which  collaborators of  a decaying financial empire, would  do well to remember, even as they  forge close political, military  and Intelligence alliances ,against their own people .

            The  anti-imperialist revolt in the undivided Indian sub-continent, one of the largest mass movements in world history, was undoubtedly  led  by  Mahatma Gandhi, however this freedom  struggle, had several other streams and inspirations , including   the  Naval uprising   with  centres at Mumbai and Karachi  and the  formation of   the “Azad Hind Fauj”, the Indian National Army  by Subhash Chandra Bose . Even before  the war of Indian  Independence of 1857, memories of which still reverberate in regions politically important  to South Asia, ( Even as Iraq was being destroyed ,memories of the millions killed in India , hung from village to village on trees in the plains of north India by British troops were being recalled ) the Indian subcontinent was consumed by one passion alone , freedom from British  Imperial rule which had ravaged the economy  and society of  the then   Indian subcontinent  , with several early revolutionaries fleeing from India  to  Afghanistan and beyond.

       It  would be useful to remember , that the contribution of  the united Indian Subcontinent  to world GDP was in the region of 22 % ,  while China ‘s was approximately  24% , when the British East India Company arrived in India , with both countries completely  above  trade rivalries, pursuing their  own commercial , political  and cultural interests ,without  mutual  suspicions  of the kind  seen in recent decades on both sides, to the delight of Washington and London ,  now  financial  supplicants of Beijing.

      Significantly the  new   Secretary of State Hillary Clinton  by passed in her first diplomatic mission,  both India and Pakistan  ,conveying the   message  in full view of the diplomatic chanceries of the world  , that proxies  do not deserve  such  overt  courtesies. The corporate and  financial oligarchies of both countries are  nevertheless undeterred in their devotion to the US administration and to London City , reflected  in the  obsequious  homage paid in 2008  by  the Indian Prime Minister  of the UPA government   to the former President of the United States,  with  the words  -  “ India loves you ” , even as millions  were being killed and displaced from their homes by the Bush administration. Of an identical nature is the disclosure by Senator Diane Feinstein , that  citizens of  Pakistan, including  in the tribal regions such as  Waziristan and  the  North West Frontier Province, were  bombed by US military forces not only from Afghanistan but  from  bases in Pakistan itself , with a complicit government.

        Military  rule in Pakistan has been replaced by an  even more pliable government ,with both major parties and their alliances looking to  Washington, with the military  waiting in the wings , determining intra party  disputes  along with the US Secretary of State ,  with leaders of the two main parties in alliance, representing rival  corrupt commercial and business interests, both  indicted by the judiciary. All sections  of the ruling elite in Pakistan are   closely  allied to the triumvirate of  Washington ,London and Saudi Arabia , with a Prime Minister in the earlier political dispensation of General  Musharaf  an IMF / World Bank representative, like in India  .

      It is therefore not surprising that the  region  is  threatened with balkanization , with US-UK  led NATO forces positioned in Pakistan . It is now conveniently forgotten , that Chief Justice Iftikhar Chowdhary was dismissed following  a  judgment against privatization  and  orders in habeaus corpus petitions, relating to scores of people missing in Pakistan, the direct consequence of decades of authoritarian  comprador  rule,  misuse of  religion and  training of  armed militias for intervention  against neighbouring countries under the direct influence of  Washington and London and its Intelligence Agencies closely interacting with the ISI ; with the  Pakistani military and bureaucracy  alternatively safeguarding the interests of  the   local  feudal , trading and  commercial oligarchy , whenever disillusionment set in with one set of rulers . The  ‘Long March’ has now  been suitably shortened to contain expectations, even as much harassed citizens  explode against foreign troops in the region ,   the economic crisis and all kinds of authoritarianism.

       The daily carnage by drones and manned aircraft  into  Afghanistan and Pakistan ,along with the  manner in which the  “ War On Terror”  has been waged in the entire  region , with the civilian population of South Asia the main target, conclusively establishes  that the governments of South Asia, including Sri Lanka, are not above manufacturing  enemies and attacking  their own people , using the religious, sectarian, ethnic or  minority card, despite the financial  collapse of their international backers and the serious erosion of  corporate balance sheets,  even as  profits plummet and bailouts are  being sought , with the exception of the governments of Nepal  and Bangladesh , recently elected , therefore still on probation. In Bangladesh  despite the election and massive mandate ,suspicious and serious incidents have taken place namely  the  killings of army officers by rogue elements of the Bangladesh Rifles, hired for the purpose by businessmen and  fascist Islamist  organizations with external linkages , to destabilize the government once again,  by  provoking  a  military  reaction .

       It is no secret that governments in South Asia have permitted Intelligence Agencies such as the CIA, MI6, MOSSAD, the FBI and others, free run of their countries and the use/hire of their Intelligence agencies for external and internal surveillance, with  consequent impact on the loyalty of these agencies to their own societies. Recently the Times of India ( far from hostile  to  British and  US interests ) reported, that government agencies in the United States desired to recruit Indian citizens, with proficiency in  several Indian languages, including  those not listed in the Schedule to the Constitution as official languages. This recalls  in a different way the  search for Arabic  interpreters  to restructure a “ New Middle East”.

          It is in  this  very  war torn  region of South Asia , the North West Frontier Region and in  its vicinity , presently  the eye of the storm sweeping South Asia , that   Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan( Badshah Khan) ,  known in India as the ‘ Frontier Gandhi’, opposed  the ‘ Firangi’ , that is  the rule of the ‘ Foreigner’ ,leading  one of the most committed flanks of  Mahatma Gandhi’s freedom struggle based on  non–violent civil disobedience, on which even troops of the British Indian Army  hesitated to fire. Khan Wali Khan , son of Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan after  studying  documents in the British archives   has written   : “ I had never really believed in the allegations of my elders when they accused the  British of using the most underhand tactics to promote their policies …..………. But never could I imagine  that their allegations were a pale reflection of the truth ; the truth was much uglier…………………they did not mince words in describing all the underhand tactics they  assigned to their native lackeys ……..The Indian public would be aghast if they realized that these pious leaders and ‘ patriots’ were trafficking  in the integrity of their own country . And were the country’s  enemy number one ,besides being traitors and agents of the British Government .”*1 The same could be said to-day of  some of  the leaders of political parties  and  key officials  in various institutions and agencies  in  South Asia,  including in India and Pakistan .

      The Afghan Church at Mumbai and  India Gate at New Delhi,  commemorate the  defeat  of the British Indian Army in  three Anglo-Afghan wars waged  in the 19^th and 20^th Century. Few  British  soldiers survived  to narrate  the ignominy of overwhelming rout . The   repeated  abortive Afghan expeditions of the British , led to Shah Amanullah , then ruler of Afghanistan, being the first government to  recognize the Soviet Government  after  the 1917  revolution,  dispatching an emissary to negotiate a friendship treaty , declaring  support for  the Soviet  demand for the publication of all secret treaties by European and American governments including the Tsarist,  for the carving out of  regions for   squeezing surpluses  by military means. A colonial  strategy, being pursued even to –day  in South Asia  .

     The  corporate and political classes in  major political parties  in  India , as in some other countries of South Asia  ,with close  linkages to  the imploding  financial citadels in the United States and London are willing partners  to  the plans for occupation and further balkanization  of  the region,  having made investments by much publicized takeovers in the UK and investments in the  US , oblivious and indifferent  to  the fact that  India’s turn will come later, after  her  neighbourhood is systematically destroyed ,if it has not already happened , with   engineered  bomb blasts and  pogroms targeting  innocent citizens , intended to create a serious  divide, along with  encounter deaths and  clandestine  arrests of thousands of innocent citizens, leading to  torture and  induced confessions  and now  even  elimination of police  and other  officials  exposing covert  criminal conspiracies against the country .

      A state of siege  has been imposed on the people of India , in a grim political period, with complete reversal of the constitutional mandate prohibiting  free run for  monopoly houses Indian or foreign ,constitutionally   as incompatible with democracy as absolute monarchies . Thousands  of acres of prime agricultural  land have been taken over   for Special Economic Zones by government  land acquisitions for  companies , where general statutory laws are exempt from operation ; less for manufacture and more for profiteering, in what is the “ New Zamindari” of companies Indian and foreign , similar to the political and economic operations of the East India Company, with unrestricted operations permitted in many  states of the Indian Union , where the rule of law  is fragile and often dispensed with  .

       The  so called ‘Vision ‘plan for  the Chhattisgarh  state in India ,  with a large tribal population of indigenous people, has been drawn up by  Price Waterhouse Cooper,  the  USA  Transnational giant , under scrutiny even in the USA , for creative  auditing . In Eastern and Central India  thousands of tribals , agricultural labour and poor farmers  are under arrest,  for alleged extremist political activity  and for opposing  the ‘Salwa Judum’, an armed vigilante organization unleashed  by the State, for and on behalf of vested  economic interests , against the tribal  and rural population, opposing the depredations of several Indian and foreign Companies, seizing land , water and  resources of the tribal and rural people, who are  without alternative livelihood .The  financial unraveling of the Satyam Company in Hyderabad , revealed that thousands of acres of agricultural  land ,  among other real estate were acquired by the former CEO  and his family,  in the state of Andhra Pradesh, for financial and personal aggrandizement , at the cost of the financial viability of the Company  whose accounts were audited  by the now  famous Price Waterhouse Cooper .

       This is the backdrop to the  appointment of Richard Holbrooke as special envoy to the region ,the diplomatic front for the break up of former Yugoslavia by US led NATO forces  , where gangs of every ethnic group were hired to attack every other group(not only in Bosnia as  selectively propagated ), with several regional leaders of Yugoslavia hired as mercenaries , to successfully  fragment  and  devour  the economic and political  space  of the  former  Republic of Yugoslavia . The  ominous nature of the Holbrooke mission  has not yet had a sobering effect on the oligarchies of South Asia, blind and deaf to the consequence  of their own  machinations against their countries , with short term financial obsessions for personal  aggrandizement .

       There is a historical continuity in the   present march of   events in  the region , dating back to  the success of  the  US-UK led  conspiracy, in  collusion with the governments of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, in overthrowing the Saur Revolution and the Peoples Democratic Party government in Afghanistan( PDP) , for which purpose among others,  the ‘Mujahideen’ or ‘holy warriors’ were  created, for unholy acts  by  the   Intelligence Agencies intermeddling in the region .

      It is with a view to controlling the political trajectory of the entire  region of Central Asia , South Asia and West Asia , to draw in Soviet military presence into Afghanistan, with which the former USSR had close historical and political relations , that  the CIA along with a  network of  intelligence agencies , in close collaboration with  the ISI  of Pakistan, created  the ‘Mujahideen’ factions and the phantom organization, the  al Qaeda, with the late Saudi billionaire Osama Bin Laden as its formal head , the protégé of the world ‘s most powerful  Intelligence Agencies. Several  offshoots of the al Qaeda , using  Islamist names and phrases have been imaginatively created, from country to country , as agent provocateurs,  to suit  local political requirements, or  for immediate use in press conferences, to explain away bomb blasts the result of covert conspiracies against the people.

      Parallel  to these developments and almost simultaneously , different organisations and covert  fascist groups of the majority communities were established in South Asia, with linkages to earlier  fascist  organizations  representing  ‘Hindutva´, created  during British  colonial rule , to divide and rule  and finally fracture the Indian subcontinent , along with its minority counterparts  the  Muslim League , the  Jamiat –e- Islami  and the  Tabligi Jamat  among others .The fact that ‘Hindutva’ ideologues were as much responsible for the partition of the Indian  sub-continent ,the British objectives for continued manipulation of   the region, as   organizations on both sides  propagated the two nation theory  , is never referred to in India.

       The use of religion to create a political divide  is not new. The  British historically were the first government  to establish their own Church , the Church of England , for political use  against  the Papacy which supported England’s rivals ,with religious inquisitions  always a political strategy  of the monarchs and governments of Europe , even against their own people  .It  is therefore  not  surprising that  religion and ethnicity  have been important elements in the  imperial tactics of  companies , boiling the political cauldron in South Asia .

       The  same networking Intelligence agencies  who  trained the “ Mujahideen” for attacks into Afghanistan, during General Zia-ul –Haq’s dictatorship ,  trained similar  organizations for attacks into  the Kashmir valley, as part of the destabilization operation  against the government of India, then led by  Indira Gandhi . The  civilian population in Kashmir were   the main target , caught between the cross fire , to strengthen  separatist forces. Subsequently when US-UK influence over Indian Intelligence Agencies increased,  some Indian officials from more than one instrumentality  of the state  ,were used to widen the rift  in the valley ,  by    provocative acts.

                       The contemporary historical record conclusively establishes that the government of almost every country  with common boundaries with Afghanistan, with the exception of   India, with  Indira Gandhi as  Prime Minister and the former USSR, attempted to overthrow the government formed in  Afghanistan in 1978, which  had as its objective the transformation of a  feudal society by decrees outlawing usury , which though prohibited by Islam was considered a birth right by  feudal landlords and money-lenders  , the sale of women through forced marriages  and  the implementation of land reforms, as   thousands of acres of land  were concentrated in feudal family ownerships. Though the right of religious worship was ensured, these decrees were termed   as “ un-Islamic”, relayed  to the world from Peshawar   by  General Zia –ul - Haq’s government , closely allied to  the US , UK and Saudi Arabia. Earlier as Major General , Zia –ul-Haq  had shot at Palestinians leading an uprising, while leading a Pakistani military contingent in Jordan.       

      These developments in Afghanistan after the Saur revolution saw unlikely alliances. The Organization of Islamic Countries supported the ‘Mujahideen’ in view of Soviet military presence provided on the request of the PDP government , even as the country was faced with three hostile frontiers. Trained   fighters  from Afghanistan ‘s Wakhan  border with China,  then  supporting  US strategic objectives in the region  , launched  attacks on  a  PDP government, considered a communist government allied to the former USSR. Ironically  some of the   same insurgents were later  used ,  to create discontent against the Central government in China, among China’s minorities in the North West .Similarly ,during this very period  the government of  Iran was  ideologically hostile to the PDP .

       There   are  parallels in the fate of many leaders of South Asia , including the members of the PDP government , following the  decision of the US President to reverse the dollar linkage  to  the gold standard  and the consequent  structural adjustments imposed by the IMF on developing countries, which gave an undue financial advantage to the  G7 , even as  the  growth rates of countries in North America and  Europe declined.

        After the  final declaration adopted by 85 countries at  the Colombo Non-aligned  meeting on August 20 1976 for  “ A Fair and Just Economic Development” ,  accepted  later as  a UN declaration , with the  initiative taken by  Mrs Bandaranaike  and Mrs Indira Gandhi, assisted by  Frederick Wills , Foreign Minister of Guyana, in the aftermath of an oil price  shock  imposed on the developing countries, with the objective of  recycling  petrodollars to  the  US economy in distress  and  to open up the offshore oil fields of the UK,  till then not profitable for exploitation ,with oil prices low ;“ the key strategists of the bold Colombo non-aligned declaration were each forced out of office…. ……  case by case , to use Henry Kissinger ‘s phrase”,* 2 even as conditions were created  for their removal , through political forces in their own countries. A worse fate awaited   those who could not be permanently  defeated  in elections.

        Prime Minister Bhutto of Pakistan  was deposed, jailed  and executed by  General Zia-ul-Haq who  manipulated a  judicial decree,  after Henry Kissinger  threatened to make an example out of him on the nuclear among other issues. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated under different circumstances, after   militants on BBC called for her elimination. Rajiv Gandhi , one of the few leaders in the world to oppose  the  first Gulf War,  the  beginning of the occupation of the region , was killed  with  the LTTE suicide squad  the instrument of  attack, when he was no longer Prime Minister and the Indian Army had already  withdrawn from Sri Lanka  .A similar fate  awaited  Sheikh Mujibur Rehman in Bangladesh, with party leaders  killed inside the prison  , even while arbitrarily jailed. Chandrika Bandaranaike of  Sri Lanka  sought asylum after her husband was assassinated for forming a political party for unity between the Sinhalese and the Tamils. A  former agent of Mossad  has in a book published after he left Israel, given an account of an embarrassing moment when cadres of the LTTE and the Sinhalese army almost met, while both groups were training in Israel. It is now reported,  even as the civilian Tamil population is at the receiving end from both sides, the Sri Lankan Army  and the LTTE, that a so called humanitarian US military mission is being proposed, to establish a bridgehead. What lies behind US-UK  led NATO humanitarian missions are  well known .

        Against this  backdrop , the fate of President Najibullah of the PDP government  in Afghanistan was inevitable , after President Gorbachev and  President Reagan reached an agreement, to  cut off  the only  logistic supply route available to the PDP government from the North, in a situation when  Afghanistan already faced a blockade  on all its other frontiers, leading  to the  voluntary resignation of President Najibullah in 1992 , under a UN plan . The  withdrawal of Soviet forces in 1989 did not adversely affect this government nor did it face any military defeat. President Najibullah  was  hung from a lamp post  while  under UN protection , by  covert elements, even as  the Taliban  entered Kabul .

         Ironically  Mr . Richard Holbrooke , the US envoy to the region, the representative of the very government responsible  for  creating  a fascist religious Frankenstein, from one country to another, in collaboration with  powerful oligarchies  in these countries, now states  that the US, Pakistan and India have a common enemy in  ‘Terrorism’ and  the ‘ Taliban’ .

       The real issue to-day in the whole of South Asia, is  the end of foreign interference and withdrawal of  occupation troops, including covert intelligence operations from the region.The  withdrawal of the occupation  is being supported   by a cross section of the Afghan and the  people of Pakistan, including those sections  being loosely termed as  insurgents  or the Taliban  by the US led Nato forces. The   earlier  Taliban  militia,  was once  the  sole creature of   the government of Pakistan and  the ISI  supported by the  CIA , MI6 and  Saudi Arabian Intelligence agencies, replacing  the fractious  ‘Mujahideen’ groups, the creature of the same  Intelligence Agencies, who having no common program other than take over of power in Afghanistan from the PDP government, consequently  turned their guns on one another,  seeking different patrons  in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Iran, besides the CIA, MI6 and ISI, to  strengthen their positions as war lords and in some cases as  drug lords.

      When Afghanistan was reduced to absolute  political anarchy,  which made negotiations by UNOCAL ,a  US based consortium of Oil Companies  for an oil pipeline through Afghanistan to Pakistan impossible, with the truck lobby of Pakistan restive, as their trade routes to Central Asia were being obstructed  by war lords ;the ‘Mujahideen’ were replaced in their own turn by the erstwhile  Taliban militia trained by Pakistan special forces, supervised by the ISI in close co-operation with  US-UK  intelligence agencies, even as  the late Benazir Bhutto was the Prime Minister of Pakistan .

 The Taliban were  recruited from the Pashtun people who constitute approximately  50 % of the people of Afghanistan and spill over into Pakistan. It was the failure of the Taliban government  to wrap up negotiations on oil pipelines with the UNOCAL  consortium and their policies on a war footing to eradicate the cultivation of poppy for heroin manufacture , for the drug trade, required to be laundered by Intelligence Agencies into Western Banks and Financial Institutions , facing a desperate financial  situation ; their failure to control the Northern regions and the  serious financial crisis of the US ,UK and European Banks ,requiring strategic repositioning  to overlook oil producing regions and  the emerging economies and resources of  Russia , China and India ( despite the corporate and financial alliance forged with dominant Indian Corporate CEOs )  seeing  the possibility of  a shift of the balance of economic forces hitherto dominated by the West to Asia ,that finally led to the invasion of Afghanistan and the  dispersal of the Taliban in their own turn , by an even more pliable government formed in Afghanistan after the US-UK led invasion  , though even as per official US reports there was no connection between 9/11 and any citizen of Afghanistan .

      The  former Taliban  is  to-day   a useful bogey , in Afghanistan , Pakistan and India . The strategy is  to project  one extremist  Islamist organization after another as a threat , to enable  the  US-UK led  economic and political  control  of  Afghanistan, Pakistan and India , through political proxies to continue  ;even as  fraudulent groups as agent provocateurs , are established from  time to time , with different names , with covert networking of  friendly Intelligence agencies  of the region ,creating fictitious organizations such the Indian Mujahideen  or a provocateur organization such as  SIMI  and collaborating in operations against the people .

      In  September 2001 it was reported by sources from Indian Intelligence, that Osama bin Laden was on dialysis for kidney failure and seriously ill . This was confirmed from French sources ,that in the same period Osama  was in Dubai for medical treatment . Some months  later it was known that Osama bin Laden was no more. That political personalities at the highest level and the corporate media ,can put out from time to time videos and statements on this  late Saudi Arabian billionaire ,with extensive properties and investments  in London and the USA  in his lifetime ,conclusively establishes that we are in an era of fascist propaganda no better than in the period of Hitler’s  Third Reich , who believed that the Anglo-American propaganda system was superior to his own .

      The recent  hysteria over Swat , has to be seen  as an excuse to continue the occupation and control of the region and  as  a  strategy for  political diversion , as no government,  certainly not the USA , UK , NATO alliance or India  have  opposed Sharia law as implemented in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, among other countries . Ironically in  India, in region after region  fascist parties and vigilante squads  have been operating  on the same lines as the  erstwhile Taliban ,  with impunity ,  using ‘Hindutva ‘ as a cloak , liberally funded by financiers  , given free run of  the political space , even in Metropolitan centres such as Mumbai , Bangalore , Ahmedabad and in the hinterland of these cities and in the region of  Gujarat , Maharashtra , Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka among other regions;  attacking religious and linguistic minorities, economically weaker sections of society and  women; prohibiting  intercommunity marriages , vandalizing  churches and educational institutions of the Christians , desecrating  public and private property , despite the constitutional mandate of freedom of religious worship , with hardly any arrests and few convictions , with most  of the fascist  leaders given high profile security at the cost of the national exchequer , whereas the citizens of every religious group are left without protection from criminal elements.

      In certain daily newspapers, attacks on minorities in unprintable  language, which would not be tolerated by any genuinely  democratic society are  almost a daily feature, with no reaction whatsoever from law enforcement agencies in India .  Conclusive  evidence of  the break down of the rule of law  and  what is now being referred to in one section of the media as ‘Talibanisation’ of Indian political space,  which is the other side of the mirror of the Indian Subcontinent ,aggravated in the period of neo-liberal reform post 1991 ,when pogroms and  riots and killings in encounters  of minority sections have taken place with regularity .

         Even as the  Pakistan oligarchy, the  earliest   close collaborator of  imperialism in  South Asia,  co-operated in the destruction of a whole country in Afghanistan, they  have successfully  destroyed their own ,not by any policies of the government of India ,which is to-day closely  allied with the same forces which destroyed Afghanistan, is destroying Pakistan and in turn has  begun the steady  destruction of   the fabric of the Indian State and society, if not halted.

       As of to-day  the corporate and financial groups in South Asia, representatives of the existing dominant economic system  and the   fanatical fascist  movements  they have spawned ,  have  no answers to the serious  economic, political  and social crisis  in South Asia  .The  organized  bombings of civilians  , the  bomb blasts in Afghanistan , Pakistan ,India , Sri Lanka  and Bangladesh , the sectarian and religious violence, are evidence not of  strength , but of  panic and  fear, by those who have collaborated against the people of their own country  .

      What has emboldened the  imperial policy for South Asia, implemented through the use of proxy leaders in political formations in South Asia , which has now reached a critical stage , with the appointment of Richard Holbrooke, is not only the  availability of proxies in governments, political parties , movements and NGOs in South Asia and the  dual citizenship holders in companies  and financial institutions  based in London and  the United States , who have benefited from the Imperial connection, as against the  immediate and long term economic and political  interests of South Asian society as a whole; a far more serious aspect of this collaboration is the penetration of the instruments of state power in Afghanistan , Pakistan , Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and in India, in  the intelligence and security Agencies , the bureaucracy , the police , the para military and military formations , on which some light was cast by the investigations of Mr. Hemant Karkare head of the Anti-Terrorist Squad in Mumbai, investigating  bomb blasts  , for which he paid with his life , along with two colleagues and 13 policemen ,  with scores of innocent people killed.

      The  elections in the region reflect  all  the trappings and procedure  of democracy, but not its substance, as most policy decisions on vital issues are  backdoor decisions, adopted thereafter as a matter of form  by  pliant parliaments , with acquiescence  from  most, if not all political formations, barring on the issue of  financial reforms opposed by the Parliamentary Left Front ,  while supporting the UPA alliance in India,  prior to  withdrawal  of support just  before  the last stage of  the Indo-US nuclear deal , an offshoot of the earlier signed Indo –US Defense Co-operation  Agreement of 2005, which significantly was not opposed even by the  Left Front  ,despite provisions for joint military operations in the region ,in violation of the Non-Aligned policy which had earned India  esteem in the region and beyond. It is now reported  in the newspapers , that the shortage of fuel for civilian nuclear reactors , declared to be the sole motivating factor for the urgency of the  Indo-US nuclear accord , appears to have been  deliberately deceptive , as revealed in a recent report  by the Comptroller  and  Auditor General of India  , a constitutional authority.* 3 The political parties remain strangely  silent on the issue .

         The shock of the Mumbai attack has been  related to the  unexplained   attacks on  innocent citizens  and to the surfacing  of  little known facts revealed  before the killings,  relating to an  investigation about  organizations linked politically to the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, receiving funds through covert sources , to destabilize the entire  country by bomb blasts through  mercenaries , and thereafter to  blame every blast  on to the  minorities, to give the blasts a religious complexion,  to create a serious political divide  . It is reported that those  at the higher levels of the conspiracy  received substantial  financial largesse.

 The nature of the threats, the then  head of the Anti-Terrorist Squad  Mr. Hemant Karkare  received,  as Jt. Commissioner of Police, Mumbai, and the pressure he was subjected to, even by front rank  leaders of some political parties, was unprecedented in India‘s post independence history, considering the importance of the investigation, and  bore a distinct  resemblance to the attempts to defame Mahatma Gandhi  prior to his political assassination. In the context of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination, Winston Churchill  referring to the  Mahatma as the “ Naked Fakir”( Gandhi out of  conviction wore only what the poorest of the poor could afford in India) was to inquire  from General Smuts, even as India seethed with political revolt, as to why Mahatma Gandhi had not been finished off in South Africa. The answer of General Smuts was  : “How could I do this to a man who made slippers for me in jail  with his own hands, when I imprisoned him”.

       The events in Mumbai  have  unexpectedly  raised a storm of protest against the  political class in  India and their financiers, seen as failing to perform the most basic functions of a political system, namely the protection of the lives  of its citizens and  the  victimization of  those officials  performing their duties, without fear or favour . The toll of over 180 killed in the Mumbai attack were overwhelmingly citizens of India of every religious faith , though it was announced within the first 24 hours by all media channels  that   ten terrorists  had landed  by sea at Mumbai ,on the evening  of the 26^th November 2008, on a fishing boat ,the ‘Kuber’ registered in  Gujarat at Porbander, which was  allegedly forcibly  seized and were carrying arms and  provisions among other items of Pakistani manufacture , with the intention of taking Israeli and United States citizens  hostages  in the two hotels  Taj and Oberoi –Trident and at Chabad House ( a Jewish centre for visitors to Mumbai  from Israel )  and  at  the   Madame Cama Women and Children’s Public Hospital  and  Chatrapati Shivaji Railway Terminus also known as V.T., the alleged targets. With all  sites  situated in different directions except the latter two, namely  Madame  Cama hospital and V.T. station being  in close proximity ,where the head of the Anti-terrorist squad  was gunned down  along with two officers and several policemen.

      The subsequent disclosure, that the final toll  included scores of  poor  daily wage earners  including  approximately 25 members of the Muslim minority at  Chhatrapati Shivaji Station (V.T. Station) , has added to the mystery of the entire incident, as against the statements being made on media channels and by  the spokesmen/spokeswomen  of the governments of Pakistan and India which are often conflicting and contradictory, yet  some from both sides are  remarkably  synchronized .With the government of Pakistan initially resisting acknowledging guilt and thereafter caving in under US pressure, as per the interviews of Indian  Defense Analysts and former Indian Foreign Service officials and Ministers of the Government of India. Incidentally  Navaz Sharif  under whose Prime Ministership the Kargil war was fought, was one of the first to confirm that the killer squad came from Pakistan .

       The resemblance of  26/11  to 9/11 is uncanny .Whereas the dire state of the finances of Pakistan are known ,  the precarious  financial state of  some  leading Indian  corporations and business houses gradually emerged after 26/11, with  auto companies among others working  only for a few days a week due to piling up inventories, Airlines facing losses and  the  disclosures relating to software company  Satyam, with its balance sheets and financial statements rigged. That  several  leading Companies ,including Indian Transnational Companies or Indian headed Transnational Companies based in London,  face  financial difficulties  with billions lost  and seek  a bailout both in  the UK and from  the  government in India , is  no longer a  secret . A situation similar  to the disclosures on Enron and other US Companies  immediately after 9/11.Though India’s Bank’s and Public financial institutions remain sound , due to the nationalization of Banks by Indira Gandhi  called  a “ communist” and generally abused along with her father, India’ first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who laid the foundations of India’s scientific , technology and industrial institutions and  India’s foreign policy of Non-Alignment ,by  media touts of  financiers and companies, who fund more than one party . The  Congress party is now transformed like  Tony Blair’s “ New Labour”  and several other  parties also have corporate sponsors .

     What is being adopted as the pattern for South Asia , is a strategy of tension and violence . Those who formulated these covert  strategies  have  however miscalculated. This strategy may have worked, when  the patrons and the  models advanced, were representatives of  the leading financial and political centres of  the world . Even  Richard Holbrooke , no longer projects the financial and military power which  led to the vivisection of Yugoslavia and the take over of its State enterprises , Banks and political space. Alliance with declining powers  or even in  close relationship with Israel, in severe financial distress ,with so many Investment Banks with Zionist connections  having caved in , with Israel  internationally condemned for a criminilised war on Gaza, will lead to increasing isolation , if not pariah status for ruling elites in South Asia  .

       In India, cost cutting  has led to  closure of factories , with decline in industrial growth rates and  the export oriented sector though much smaller than China, seriously affected by the economic downturn. Lakhs of workers  are unemployed, with  jobs at the high end and low end disappearing, presently estimated to be in the region of 10 lakhs ( one million ) unemployed, not including the huge  back log . The Export Council of India  and FICCI have projected job losses from the export sector  alone  to be in the region of 10 million . The growth rate in India  continues, as the possibilities for capitalist development are not exhausted, however the growth rate will be far  lower in 2009-2010  than the announced expectation of  7 %, which  was a wholly exaggerated projection, with a growth rate of around  5 % and even less,  now being projected even officially,  as  a more realistic figure .

      Even as we in South Asia and globally  search for an alternative framework,  with the financial implosion of the dominant economic system impacting most societies,  it is worth recalling some of the political truths which Mahatma Gandhi, an objective  witness to the historical process of the 20^th Century  propagated , even as he  de-classed  himself  from  his commercial class  origins, as some  of these truths  are still  relevant to human society at the cross roads.

  Gandhi  after  keenly  observing political societies  in England , in Europe and  the political system of South Africa , declined to advance the  model of   Western liberal democracy  and its  constitutional and political organization  as a  model for India; observing  that this democracy  was seriously  flawed ,with unacceptable  exploitation  within  these  societies, apart from the  brutal exploitation in  the colonies, concluding that  this system  was  little better than an  incipient fascist society .

      Gandhi went even further in pronouncing judgment on  industrial capitalism, with its excessive over consumption on the one hand  and rampant  unemployment on the other. Though not opposed to industrialization per se  as is commonly misinterpreted, Gandhi highlighted that increasing  unemployment even as a fall out effect of advanced technology and  industrialization was  unacceptable  for any civilized society, that  peace within a society or between nations  was not possible without social and economic justice, posing  the political strategy of mobilization through  mass movements and civil disobedience  against  exploiting interests , as a possible bulwark against  general anarchy and  violence .

     The  most important issue  facing South Asia is not religion . Even philosophically, any  discourse  which divides or is sectarian, is no religion at all. To  what effect is religion or religiosity in a  region once the  “ the Jewel in the Crown” of the British Empire, for the squeezing of surpluses, which made the first industrial revolution possible, now  the most affected region in the index of world hunger, where the largest population of malnourished children reside. The  WHO official figures record  that  in India  42 % of children under five are malnourished and 220 million  people suffer from severe hunger. Not referred to are those on the periphery. These    are not statistics compiled by any extreme left wing organization .

     For the Diaspora of South Asia,  these are   difficult times . In  the final analysis, dignity and well being  even for  a Non –Resident South Asian   cannot   be  built by  destroying or   disowning  the country or region   in which  they were once  rooted  and to which  at some stage they or their descendants may wish to return to. The time for escaping the task of  building  our  own societies  and leaving for  greener pastures is over for many in South Asia, as everywhere societies are crumbling and will have to be reconstructed on different values, based on real, not on  virtual economies .

       It is time that   South Asia, once a  prosperous civilization, a region  richly endowed with human and natural resources, moves forward. For  centuries  we  traded  with regions in our vicinity and beyond, with the Arab world, Central Asia,  South East Asia, Africa, the Far East and Europe. Historically we neither despised these societies nor were we  in awe of them, secure in our philosophy that  other  civilizations  and economies  complement our own, that the world is one  whole, of which we are only one  part .

      References :

1.Akhilesh Mittal , “ The Darkest Area of British Rule” –COVERT Issue of 1 March -12 March 2009.

2. William Engdahl , “ A Century of War – Anglo –American Oil Politics And The New World Order” – Pluto Press , 2004 edition .

3. Seema  Mustafa ,  “Subterfuge Was Used To Sell A Nuclear Lie” – COVERT Issue of 1 March -12 March 2009.

          ( This article is a  tribute to   the late  Hemant Karkare, Jt. Commissioner of Police, head of the Anti-Terrorist  Squad of the Mumbai Police force  and those  of his colleagues and policemen for their  devotion to duty, for his  integrity  in the investigation into the covert fascist  conspiracy of   bomb blasts  aimed at the very heart of his society  ,which he investigated undeterred by threats to his life , who did his duty  by his country   till the very end, the 26^th November 2008  and  to those with similar courage ).